Cabbage Stuff

Music share: Groove is in the Heart by Deee-Lite


Happy Sunday, y'all! Tomorrow is Monday, and I hope you're ready for a new week! I know I'm food ready. I still have ONE more recipe that I need to put together, but that will have to wait until tomorrow night. I'm a little worn out. I had a busy weekend full of cooking, lessons for a little, a 5K and two meals out! I'm a little worn out!


Anyway! I'm rambling! Time to share a new recipe! I'm calling it Cabbage Stuff, and I got it from one of the members of the AIP for You and Me Facebook group. Again, an amazing support group for those embarking on your own AIP journey.


Ingredients:

• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 medium to large sweet onion
• 1-1.5 cups of baby carrots
• 1 small to medium head of cabbage (shredded or chopped)
• Chicken or vegetable broth (I like to use homemade)
• 2 cloves garlic
• Garlic powder
• Onion powder
• Basil
• Sea salt
• Olive oil

Directions:

• Garlic press the garlic and food process the carrots and onions.
• Add olive oil to a large stock pot and sauté garlic, carrots and onions until soft.
• In a skillet, brown the ground beef with a little olive oil and sea salt until brown.
• When the carrots, onions and garlic are soft, add the head of cabbage that has been shredded or chopped.
• Once the beef is done, add it to the stock pot with the garlic, carrots and onion. Also add a little organic (or homemade) broth and lower the heat to simmer. Add seasonings listed above to taste.

cabbage stuff

Sweet Potato Flatbread

Music share: Closer by Goapele

In trying to stick to AIP, one of the food items I truly miss is bread. I'm constantly trying to find bread-like recipes so that my bread cravings will be satisfied.

One of my favorite recipes is AIP Plantain Sandwich Rounds as found on the Delicious Obsessions website, guest authored by The Primitive Homemaker. However, I tried modifying this recipe tonight. In fact, it's still in the oven, so I don't know how it turned out yet. Let me tell you how this experiment came about.

I belong to a fabulous AIP support group on Facebook. It's called AIP for You and Me. I shared the recipe for the plantain sandwich rounds, and a member of the group commented on my post. She was sensitive to plantains and could not use them in her recipes. She indicated that sweet potatoes could be used in the recipe in place of plantains, so that's what I decided to try tonight.

The original recipe calls for 2 yellow plantains. With plantains, you can put them directly into the food processor "raw." With sweet potatoes, it doesn't make sense to do that. So, I peeled and chunked the amount of sweet potatoes that seemed equal to 2 large plantains. I used one regular sweet potato and 3 Korean white sweet potatoes. It's what I had in the house! 

 *Don't forget to wash your potatoes thoroughly so you can add the skin and ends to your baggie of veggie scraps in the freezer!*

So, after chunking the sweet potatoes, I boiled them in water until they were fork tender. I drained the water and put them in the food processor along with some sea salt. After they were all processed, I moved the sweet potatoes to a bowl and started adding arrowroot flour/starch. The plantain recipe calls for 1 cup of arrowroot flour/starch. I ended up having to add 2 cups. I guess I overestimated the amount of sweet potatoes I had. You can kind of eye the mixture to see if it's ready for baking.

before mixing

after mixing

After the sweet potatoes and arrowroot flour/starch were well blended, I put a very thin coat of olive oil on a pizza stone and spread the potato mixture onto the stone. In hindsight, I should have used 2 stones, but it still turned out ok. If I had used 2 stones, I'm guessing the "flatbread" would have been thinner and more cracker like. I kind of knew it was too thick by the way the mixture created a "bubble" while in the oven. Weird.

pre oven

"bubbles" during cooking

Cooking time definitely increased with the modifications. I had to cut the flatbread into quarters and turn over a couple times. I cooked for 20 minutes at a time.

cutting into quarters for turning over during cooking

All in all, this modified recipe was not a failure. I ate it with AIP Chicken Liver Pate and by itself. I even let a coworker try it, a fellow lover of cooking, and he liked it! So, YES, I will keep making the sweet potato version of the AIP Plantain Sandwich Rounds and keep tweaking it so it turns out the way I want. I need my bread!

finished flatbread and pate



Homemade Vegetable Broth

Music share: Wanna Be Startin' Something by Michael Jackson


So, when I first started AIP back in 2015, I realized that I was going to have to be creative with my cooking. Even more creative than I had ever been. I've learned to do so many things from scratch and recreate comfort foods. Cooking from scratch, from whole foods, learning to use everything has been a challenge. I must say that I have risen to the occasion.

 

With that said, I saw video on Facebook that showed me how to make my own vegetable stock by saving vegetable scraps! Say WHAT?!? I watched said video a number of times, and knew I could do this. Vegetable scraps you said? I generate PLENTY of those!

 

1. Get a gallon sized freezer bag and mark "veggie scraps" and the date.
2. Put any veggie scraps in the bag. Onion skins, ends of zucchini, potato skins, leftover garlic from your garlic press...ANY veggie scraps!
3. Store the bag in the freezer for up to 6 months until it's full.
4. Once you have a full bag of veggie scraps, place frozen scraps in a large stock pot, cover with water and boil for 30-45 minutes
5. Strain the liquid and place in storage containers (I prefer glass containers).

 

I like to pour the liquid into ice trays so that I can have veggie broth cubes. This makes me happier than anyone realizes. I can just throw a cube of broth in any recipe that requires a little liquid flavor!


Making your own vegetable stock from vegetable scraps is so easy and allows you to use every part of your vegetables. NO WASTE! Plus, it's a healthy form of liquid flavor that you can use in place of water. AND you know exactly what's in it. No preservatives. I will never have to buy broth again! (I also make chicken broth, but that will be a part of another post, another time!)

veggie broth in glass containers and while cooking

veggie cubes

 

Hello. Good morning.

Hello and welcome to Eats By Erika! This is my first official post, and I figured I would take this opportunity to tell you about myself, this blog and why I'm doing this blog!


My name is Erika (surprise), and I love to cook (another surprise)! In addition to loving cooking, I also love to see people enjoy my cooking. I've often been told that I should cater or create a food blog and Instagram. Instagram is up and running - @eatsbyerika. Check it out! I won't be catering anytime soon, but a food blog I can do.


I'm generally creative in the kitchen, but back in March 2015, I began the Autoimmune Protocol (AIP). I have an autoimmune disease called Hashimoto's, and I was at my wits end on how to feel better. During my research, I happened upon AIP and decided to give it a go. I had to step up my creativity and learn to enjoy food with restrictions and/or limitations. I did it, and I'm still doing it!


With the blog, I plan to share recipes, pictures, successes and the not so good. Some recipes will be my own, and some I will have gotten from others. I will always give credit where credit is due. I'll not only share food but where I like to shop for ingredients, my favorite brands or must haves for my kitchen.


Right now, this blog is a work in progress. I'm still deciding on layout and pages and such, so bear with me through the construction!