I usually do my menu planning on Saturday or Sunday but I’m a little late this week. We just got back from our trip on Friday night, and the weekend was spent unpacking, doing laundry, cleaning, picking up raw milk in the valley, and grocery shopping.

I’m focused on a new goal for the new year: cutting my grocery budget in half. Without compromising nutrition, taste, or variety.

I know, sounds challenging, but it won’t be that hard because last year we spent a lot since we were doing GAPS and not eating any grains or potatoes (and hardly any legumes).

We are now eating potatoes, oatmeal, rice, beans, rice pasta, and sprouted bread. I’m finding that I love making rice and beans because it’s so easy to use bone broth — which makes them so nutritious. And Seth LOVES my risotto.

This month I’m focused on spending as little as possible and cleaning out the fridge and freezer. I’m also going to be taking (and posting) detailed notes on what I spend, what it costs, and from that I’ll be finding ways to cut costs and save money.

From this data, I’ll be making a plan for the rest of the year. Part of the plan will involve buying a second freezer, I’m going to be ordering my beef and pork in bulk from local farmers. Not until next month though — we have to eat what we have this month.

Seth’s going out of town this week which means I get to try a new organ meat recipe (I never subject him to organ meats unless I have tested them first on my own). I have some kidneys in the freezer so I figured I’d try making steak and kidney pie. I’ve never tried making anything with kidneys before. We’ll see how it turns out.

I’m already planning something for the next time Seth goes out of town. I really want to make haggis. I had it when I was in Edinburgh and I LOVED it! I know US Wellness Meats sells lamb liver kidneys and hearts — I wonder if they would sell me a lamb stomach for my haggis?

I’m also going to try making some oven-fried potato chips. I’ll probably use butter and/or beef tallow because I have some in the fridge, but eventually I want to try using palm oil.

Sunday:
B: Coconut flour pancakes with butter and real maple syrup
L: Grilled cheese sandwich (organic grass-fed cheese & flourless sprouted bread with butter), apple
D: Leftover pasta with grass-fed meat sauce

To do: Grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s

Monday:
B: Scrambled eggs with banana fried in bacon fat
L: Grilled cheese sandwich, apple
D: Shredded beef tacos, black beans (cooked in chicken stock), brown rice (cooked in chicken stock), guacamole, lacto-fermented salsa

To do:
Pack Kate’s lunch & snack
Make whey & cream cheese
Make egg, bacon & cheese biscuits
Make chicken stock
Make mayonnaise
Make kefir
Feed sourdough starter
Make baby formula

Tuesday:
B: Coconut flour egg, bacon & cheese biscuits
L: Leftover beans, rice, avocado
D: (Shellfish Night) Risotto with bacon & leftover shrimp, green salad

To do:
Pack Kate’s lunch & snack
Make sauerkraut
Make kombucha
Soak oatmeal overnight
Make kefir

Wedesday:
B: Oatmeal with butter, cream, raisins, & honey
L: Leftover risotto
D: Mushroom quiche, green salad

To do:
Pack Kate’s lunch & snack
Make pie crust
Make kefir

Thursday:
B: Egg & sausage scramble
L: Leftover quiche
D: Tuna melt, oven-fried potato chips

To do:
Pack Kate’s lunch & snack
Make baby formula
Make kefir
Defrost kidneys
Soak kidneys overnight in Guinness or milk

Friday:
B: Cheese omelette
L: Leftover quiche
D: (Organ Meat Night) Steak & kidney pie, green salad

To do:
Pack Kate’s lunch & snack
Let cream sit out (for sour cream)
Make kefir

Saturday:
B: Scrambled eggs
L: Leftover kidney pie
D: Leftover butternut squash soup, baked potatoes with butter, cheese, sour cream & bacon

For more menu planning ideas, visit Organizing Junkie.

Of all the wonderful gifts I received this Christmas (and there were many), this was my favorite. And it wasn’t even a gift for me. In fact, I helped pay for it.

We bought the Learning Tower for Kate this Christmas. It’s a glorified step-stool we keep in the kitchen.

She can crawl up into it all by herself.

She can play in the sink or at the counter with no fear of falling.

And I can cook for a long time, without having to run and look for her, or worry about where she might be or what she might be doing.

She loves it, but I love it even more.

Thanks, Santa.

I’m finally getting around to posting about the fantastic meal we had the other night at a 14-acre dairy farm on Vashon Island, Washington.

These dinners are held every Sunday night and most everything on the table is grown or produced on the farm (with the exception of coffee and sugar and flour and salt and a few other things). This meal was like living Michael Pollan’s book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma.

I’d post the name of it but the owner asked me not to. He’d rather stay under the radar; I respect that.

Here is the proprietor:

Here is the chef, Tyler Palagi and his delicious gougères:

Gougères are savory choux pastries made with cheese — in other words, French cheese puffs. They are SOOO good. Especially with a nice glass of white wine (sorry, I forget what it was).

Chef Tyler Palagi is from Seattle’s Spring Hill.

I really want to go there, after reading their dinner menu. Can you say Veal Sweetbreads, Duck Egg Yolk Ravioli, Pork Liver Paté, and Lardo? Oh, and Spruce Needle Cured Moose?

I ask, does that not make you want to run as fast as your legs will carry you to Spring Hill?

Here’s my sister, readying herself for the onslaught of courses (there were many):

So many courses that I was not able to capture them all — but I will try to enumerate most of them…

We started with a Winter Squash Soup with Sauteed Currants:

Then we had this fantastic raw milk cheese (similar to a Camembert) made right there on the farm:

Then this amazing carpaccio (thinly sliced raw beef):

Along with that, we had “Tongue & Cheek” — a plate of pork tongue and cheeks. Fabulous!

There was also some delicious tomato jam, something I had never tasted before but was so very good.

And some homemade pickled lemon cucumbers.

And some kind of cabbage salad.

And a plate of carrots and peas in butter.

And then some scrambled eggs — made from pastured eggs, of course.

Um, yeah, we’re missing some photos here. I guess I was too busy eating to take pictures or take notes. Can you blame me?!

After that we had this pasta — made with butter and garlic and shell beans:

Then we had Beef Bourguignon. And Yukon Gold potatoes mashed with butter and cream.

And finally, for dessert: strawberry milkshakes made from raw milk from the Jersey cows on the farm. And some dessert wine (sorry, I didn’t catch the name).

And lastly, coffee that was roasted for us on the spot:

Don’t these people look happy?

We were blissful. Good food does that to you.

It was a stunning, perfect meal and I would go back every week if I could.

If you want to attend one of these dinners, held every Sunday on a dairy farm on Vashon Island in Washington State, email me or comment below and I’ll mail you the info.

On Saturday we had the most delicious grass-fed burgers and chocolate milkshakes at Lunchbox Laboratory in Seattle.

If you’re ever in Seattle, don’t miss this place. They make some seriously good food. Everything was delicious.

With your burger, you can opt for skinny fries, mac and cheese, tater tots or sweet potato fries. Yeah, they’re not fried in beef tallow unfortunately (at least I don’t think so; I didn’t ask but nobody fries in beef tallow anymore).

That was my only complaint. But you can always order the mac and cheese instead if you want to avoid bad fats.

Next time I go, I’m going to try the Dork Burger (a mixture of duck and pork).

All their soda pop is free of high-fructose corn syrup. They even have Mexican Coca Cola. But I say, why drink soda pop when you can have a milkshake?

If you read my blog regularly, you know we eat a lot of shellfish. Particularly mollusks, such as oysters, clams, and mussels. I try to feed my family mollusks (usually oysters) once a week.

It was after I read Nina Planck’s wonderful book, Real Food, that I decided that we needed to eat more shellfish. Shellfish is a highly nutritious food, right up there with organ meats. Mollusks in particular are loaded with B12.

You can also get a lot of B12 from liver. I don’t know about your family but mine isn’t so keen on eating liver once a week. They like liver paté, but I can only get away with that maybe once or twice a month.

On the other hand, they will gladly eat oysters or mussels every week.

It’s true that oysters and mussels are expensive, but $10 for a dozen oysters is money well spent when you consider the nutrition content.

There’s a great article on the Weston A. Price website about B12, why we need it, what the symptoms of vitamin B12 deficiency are, and which foods provide the most B12. I’ve excerpted some of the article below.

This chart blows me away. Just look at mollusks and liver compared to everything else. This illustrates clearly the nutrient density of these foods. Nothing else even comes close!

SOURCES OF VITAMIN B12
Mollusks (clams, oysters, mussels, etc.) 3 ounces	84.1 micrograms
Liver, beef, 1 slice	47.9 micrograms
Trout, wild, 3 ounces	5.4 micrograms
Salmon, 3 ounces	4.9 micrograms
Trout, farm-raised, 3 ounces	4.2 micrograms
Beef sirloin, 3 ounces	2.4 micrograms
Yogurt	1.4 micrograms
Milk, 1 cup	0.9 micrograms
Pork, cured ham, canned, 3 ounces	0.6 micrograms
Egg, hardboiled	0.6 micrograms
Chicken breast, 1/2 breast	0.3 micrograms

Why Do We Need B12?

Vitamin B12 works with folic acid in many body processes including synthesis of DNA, red blood cells and the insulation sheath (the myelin sheath) that surrounds nerve cells and facilitates the conduction of signals in the nervous system.

What Are the Symptoms of B12 Deficiency?

Severe depletion manifests as pernicious anemia, which was invariably fatal until the discovery of B12 in liver. But long before anemia sets in, other conditions may manifest, most often neurological problems (numbness, pins and needles sensations, a burning feeling in the feet, shaking, muscle fatigue, sleep disorders, memory loss, irrational anger, impaired mental function and Alzheimer’s) or psychological conditions (dementia, depression, psychosis and obsessive-compulsive behavior).

How to Avoid B12 Deficiency:

Get a plentiful amount in your food. Liver or shellfish eaten at least once a week is the the best way to ensure that you are taking in adequate amounts.

Avoid overconsumption of foods that block vitamin B12 intake or increase the body’s need for the vitamin, such as soy foods and spirulina.

Avoid antacids and drugs that lower stomach acid levels: acid-suppressing drugs such as Tagamet, Zantac and Losec can lead to serious B12 deficiency (Koop H. Aliment Pharmacol Ther 1992;6:399-406 [review]; Marcaurd SP and others. Ann Intern Med 1994;120:211-215).

Avoid diabetes drugs such as Glucophage which also interfere with B12 absorption (Archives Int Med 2002 Feb 25;162:484-85.

Consume plenty of calcium. Calcium is involved in the absorption of B12 from the lower small intestine. Best sources are raw dairy products and bone broths. (Bone broths also help heal intestinal inflammation that could cause absorption problems.) Dolomite powder can also be used as a calcium source.

Take coconut oil and consume lacto-fermented foods: these help fight against pathogens such as helicobacter pylori, which is associated with B12 deficiency. Eradication of the organism often clears up B12 deficiency. (Archives of Internal Medicine, May 8, 2000 160:1349-53)

Avoid foods fortified with folic acid. (vitamin supplements, bread & cereal) Taking folic acid without B12 can mask signs of B12 deficiency in red blood cells but will not protect against deficiencies in the nervous system. Folic acid and B12 work together and any supplementation program should include both of these nutrients (Institute of Medicine. Food and Nutrition Board. Dietary Reference Intakes: Thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B6, folate, vitamin B12, pantothenic acid, biotin, and choline. National Academy Press. Washington, DC 1998).

Avoid taking excess vitamin C, especially for long periods. The ability of vitamin C to destroy B12 has been observed by several researchers–although this is disputed by others. Small amounts of natural vitamin C are a better choice than large amounts of synthetic vitamin C. (Herbert V and Das KC. Folic acid and vitamin B12. In: Shils ME, Olson JA, Shike M, eds. Modern Nutrition in Health and Disease. 8th ed. PhiladelphiaL Lea & Febiger, 1994:404.)

Don’t smoke. Cigarette and cigar-smoking deplete vitamin B12 (New Eng J Med 1995 Nov 2;333(18):1176-82).

Avoid vaccinations containing thimerosol and other mercury-containing compounds. Vitamin B12 is depleted by mercury (J Molecular Psychiatry Apr 2004).

Avoid molds in the environment and your food. Mycotoxins produced by molds disrupt or interfere with the normal functions of vitamin B12 (Anyanwi EC and others. Scientific World Journal 2004 Aug;4:736-45).

Do not take oral contraceptives (the pill), which can deplete vitamin B12. (Henley S. Body Forum 1977 Jan 30;2(7):20; Sutterlin MW and others. Eur J Obstet Gynecol Reprod Biol 2003 Mar 26;107(1):57-61; Lussana F and others. Thromb Res 2003;112(1-2):37-41).

Take B12 supplements if you have any conditions that might interfere with B12, such as celiac disease, Crohn’s disease and similar intestinal disorders, especially if you are elderly or exhibit any of the symptoms of B12 deficiency.

If your family won’t eat raw oysters, try serving fried oysters. You can bread them and fry them in lard, or sautee them in butter.

You could also try making Moules a la Mariniere, which are mussels simmered in white wine, butter and cream. Here’s the recipe. My family absolutely loves this, especially when I make Moules Frites, which is the same thing served with French fries (which I fry in beef tallow).

Source: Vitamin B12: Vital Nutrient for Good Health