Meat & Vegetable jerky

The original idea for jerky that has vegetables in it as well came from www.pantrypractitioner.com.au/news.php (look down the newsfeed and click the link to download a pdf). We've just started making it regularly again and have made a few minor adjustments, so here they are.

Firstly, she uses an Excalibur dehydrator, which comes with nice flat square trays which are easy to line with baking paper. We have a different type of dehydrator, an Ezi Dry, which is round with a central hole. You can buy solid inserts that you can line the trays with. If you need to use baking paper, it will be trickier to cut for this style of dehydrator. (The reason we bought this one instead of an Excalibur is that it isn't as big, and doesn't take up as much bench space.)

Because of the different shape, we shape the mix into small, individual, flattened patties, instead of one piece rolled out and marked into squares.

Lastly, based on a recipe from Heidi Jean on the GFCFNN discussion forum I used to frequent, I'm suggesting milk kefir as an alternative to ACV for the marinade.

This makes a large amount of jerky, so feel free to reduce the quantity.

• About 2kg minced meat (we usually use premium beef, but higher fat mince is fine, or try lamb, pork or whatever you like)
• About 1 cup apple cider vinegar or milk kefir
• 1 Tbs celtic sea or himalayan salt (or more to your taste)
• Herbs, spices or garlic of your choice
• Up to 600gm of minced or grated vegetables, such as onion, carrots, pumpkin, beetroot, zucchini, broccoli - I find 300-400gm enough, and usually use 100gm onion and 200gm or so mixed other veges.

Mix together everything except the veges in  a large bowl. Get your hands in there and squeeze everything together really well so that the acid from the ACV or kefir will "cook" the meat as it marinates and destroy any pathogens. Then add your veges and mix well again. Cover with a large plate and marinate overnight in the fridge.

Next day, set your dehydrator to HIGH or about 68C. Form little patties and flatten them to no more than 1 com thick.

You can see in the picture that they are on a solid insert at this stage.

Dehydrate for about 3-4 hours. By that stage, they should be firm enough to take them off the solid insert and place them (the other way up) on the mesh tray, to allow better air flow and drying.

After a total of 6-8 hours, they will be dry on the outside, but still moist on the inside. If you will be keeping them in the fridge and eating them within a few days, you can stop there. 

But if you want to keep them longer, you need to keep them going until they are crisp and dry all the way through, up to 24 hours.

These make a perfect Paleo, GAPS or low carb snack that is a bit better balanced than pure meat. 

If you want some extra fat, use them as crackers and spread some butter on top! A slice of tomato or cucumber on top of that would be good too.

Easter Spicy Buns

These gluten-free, starch-free buns don't have the texture of hot cross buns, but they're still a tasty treat for Easter. They can also be made casein-free.

·         1 cup ground almonds

·         ½ cup coconut flour

·         ½ tsp baking soda

·         1 heaped tsp mixed spice

·         ½ cup sultanas, raisins or currants

·         2-3 tsp grated orange rind

·         3 eggs

·         75gm melted butter or coconut oil

·         2-3 Tbs honey

·         ½ tsp sea salt

·         ½ cup yoghurt OR mashed, cooked pumpkin (prepared earlier) OR finely diced feijoa (I haven't tested these, but mashed banana or grated apple should work fine too)

Preheat the oven to 175C. Set butter or oil melting over a low heat, and if your honey is solid, add that to the pan as well. Mix together the flours, baking soda and spice in a large bowl. Stir in the dried fruit and rind. Beat together the eggs, melted butter, honey and sea salt in a small food processor.

If you’re using feijoa, chop the ends off, peel them and dice them. If you’re using pumpkin, it needs to be pre-cooked, mashed and cooled.

Add the yoghurt, feijoa or pumpkin to the wet mix and beat. The pumpkin needs to be well mixed in, but the feijoa can be still in tiny pieces.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix well. If the mix is too wet, add a little extra flour. Leave to sit while you grease the muffin tins. Spoon in the mix and cook for 15-20 mins. Serve hot, with butter or ghee if you tolerate it. Makes 8-10 std muffins or about 24 mini ones (which need less cooking time).

Food for Travelling

We're going to Whiritoa Beach on the Coromandel Peninsula for a few days. The only shop is a dairy, so we'll be on taking all our food with us. We can top up with a few things from Waihi or Whangamata, but most of the foods we eat regularly won't be available. For many years, we had to carry gluten free food with us. Now that's quite commonly available, we've moved on to starch free!

I'm still finalising the food packing list, but it will probably look something like this (in no particular order).

• Raw milk (fresh and frozen)
• Caspian sea yoghurt (that we can use to make a fresh batch every day)
• Stock (frozen in small containers. If it was winter, they'd be pre-made vege soup, but in summer that feels too heavy)
• Filler free sausages (Stoneycreek Farm or Harmony)
• Meat (fresh & frozen)
• Maybe a couple of tins of salmon or sardines, or maybe just get some fresh fish there
• Sauerkraut
• Carrots, baby beetroot, tangelos and blueberries that will be coming in our order from the CSA the day before. From Commonsense Organics, I'll get a couple of small pumpkins, and see what else will travel well, maybe some avocado. Other than that, we'll probably take pot luck with what produce is available.
• Green Pastures fermented cod liver oil (we're currently "enjoying" Salty) and a probiotic
• A jar of each of Reilly's nut butters
• "Crispy" cashews and macadamias
• Some dried fruit or maybe some homemade fruit cake
• Coconut almond muffins or bread
• Organic butter or ghee
• Cheese
• Eggs - we'll take whatever's here, but buy extra free range eggs as needed
• A jar of Zenian Phillipine coconut oil or maybe just some refrigerated "slice" made from coconut oil and nut butter or cocoa butter
• EV Olive oil and some lemons
• Sea or Himalayan salt
• Bottles of kombucha
• Maybe some bottled water, but we'll mostly buy that once we're there

Anything I've forgotten?

PS. If you're a Nature Foods customer, don't worry, we're leaving my mum and sister in charge of sending out the orders.

Cheese muffins (no starch)

We're going away on holiday for a few days, and my mind has been mulling over what food to take with us - especially for the 9 hour drive north. We usually travel with a chilly bin full of chilled food, another full of frozens (depending on how long we're away for), and a cooler bag with food for the trip.

For snacks, we'll probably have nuts, fruit (fresh blueberries would travel well), maybe a coconut oil or cocoa butter based "slice". For lunch, I'll roast or bake some duck or chicken legs which we can eat cold with some carrot sticks and maybe some pre-cooked baby beetroot. I've also decided on cheese muffins. With pesto, ghee or another spread, carried in another container, these are filling and tasty.

I've used the standard coconut flour cheese muffin recipe before, which is nice. And I've also got an almond flour cheese scone recipe which I used to use a lot. But I usually prefer the two flours mixed. So here's my first attempt at a hybrid recipe. This amount made 6 standard sized muffins and about 10 mini muffins, so I think would make 9 std.

Please note, this isn't suitable for early stages of the GAPS Intro, only once you're back on full dairy.

Mix together:

• 1 cup ground almonds
• 4 tablespoons coconut flour
• a sprinkling of herbs of your choice (optional)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda (leave this out if you're full GAPS, they'll just be a little heavier)

Beat together:

• 3 eggs
• 50gm (2 oz) melted butter or ghee
• 1/2 cup yoghurt or kefir
• 1/2 teaspoon sea or Himalayan salt

Grate:

• 1 1/2 cups tasty cheddar cheese (or substitute up to half with diced feta)

Mix all 3 together, and leave to thicken slightly while you prepare your muffin trays. I use a combination of coconut oil and lecithin for this, as recommended by Bruce Fife in his book on coconut flour cooking. Three quarter fill the muffin pans. Bake at about 175C for about 20 mins (a bit less for bite sized).

You can add other savoury goodies like bacon, salami, mushrooms, etc, depending on what your particular diet restrictions are. 

These came put a pretty good consistency, and I haven't even got any notes for how to improve them next time!