What would a typical Summer Break lunch look like?

I've had several people ask me what we typically eat over summer break since I don't tend to make Bento unless we're going out of the house or the kids are in Kindergarten.


Especially in this heat, I try to keep things really simple. For the kids, I'd made some macaroni and cheese from scratch (recipe coming soon!), boiled some corn on the cob and baked some sweet potatoes. Yep, they're still not 100% Paleo or GAPS.

Macaroni and cheese, corn, sweet potato

For myself, I'd taken some cabbage and steamed it in a pan with a little oil, salt and sugar - and then I threw some ground chicken into the pan and spiced it just a tad. That went on top of my cabbage, and I'd made a salad with tomatoes and mozzarella.

Salad, cabbage and ground chicken

Honestly, there isn't anything much more filling or quick to make in the kitchen in this sort of heat.
Gluten free does not have to be complicated. Gluten free food is totally what you make it.

Stay healthy out there!!

Monday Morning and afternoon "Bento"

Good morning everyone, here I am just about two hours out from packing these lovely Bento and I am here to share them with you.  I noticed after snapping the photos that I missed one critical item of the children's lunch - their yogurt. I did not forget to pack it, I simply forgot to photograph it! Whoops!

Since the children have a hot lunch, I have wrapped it up in a warm towel, and it will stay hot until right at lunch time. I've been pleasantly surprised how hot it will stay in a lunch box when covered this way. I'm hoping that we can afford a couple LunchBots Thermals Isolierbehälter or Zojirushi Classic Bento Vacuum Lunch Jars, as that would help us out a bit more packing these and not making as much of a mess with our laundry. I've not seen the Zojirushi containers here in Germany, but I have seen them on Ebay with the same prices as Amazon.com - though shipping straight out of Japan. Ahhh Bento Containers, how I love you.


Today's breakfast Bento are packed in plastic containers I purchased that originally held sprouted vegetable seeds for salad. They're such lovely food-grade containers, that I couldn't see recycling them right away.  I've packed some gherkins, apple-banana sauce, Babybel and a peanut butter sandwich for each child. The nice thing about these packages is that they are not only study and see-through; but that they snap shut and will not leak.

Re-purposed Salad container Bento Breakfast:
Gherkins, Babybel,
Peanut Butter sandwich and Applesauce

Today's lunch is noodles with a brown ground meat sauce, salad and yogurt. I figured that the kids might do with a change, and since I make everything from scratch, it was easier to simply make them meatballs today. I did cheat a little on the sauce by using GEFRO's Dunklesoße with about half a liter of water. If I were more awake and not distracted, I would have used the bone broth I have in the fridge.  The noodles are from Schär, and are corn based.  I've made this before with rice noodles from our local Asian store and with buckwheat noodles from our local health food store. Really, when you're limited to a Kindergarten menu, you just do what you can to get by, especially when limited by your diet and finances.

Salad with sprouts, Yogurt Dressing,
Noodles with Meatballs and Brown Sauce.

Obviously, the children's meal isn't Paleo or GAPS, but it is all gluten free and rather packed with vitamins and minerals.  Usually I like to hide things in their meatballs or sauces, but I was rushed for time today and when the kids started running around in and out of my kitchen, I was too distracted to think about that.

Both of these packed nicely into two thermal bags.  A lot of people think you need to spend a lot of money on these, but truth be told, I purchased two really cheap thermal lunch bags at our local KIK Textilien Markt for about 50c each two summers ago. I did however spend a little bit more on my thermal lunch "purse" that I got at our local TK Maxx. I haven't seen anything else like it and I've been trying to find another so I will have my own bag once I start back to German Class.

I'm in the middle of birthday party and going away party planning, so this week should be post-packed if I can stay on top of things.  I look forward to bringing new items each week so that everyone can see that Bento doesn't always have to be beautiful or decorative. Even people who "ain't got time for that" actually do. To be perfectly honest, I overslept and got this all together + the children dressed in 40 minutes. It can be done, even with the crazy making, voice-raising and clapping everyone step by step out the door. So, don't panic!  As Richard Dreyfuss said in "What about Bob?" - Baby steps. And you, like Bill Murray's character "Bob", can cheer yourself along - "I'm Baby stepping!" (I've done this more times than I can count!)

If you've never seen "What about Bob?" - here's a clip from it:

I hope you have a Happy Monday!

Jennifer

This weekend

Unsure of the source of this. If it is yours, please let me know!

I wanted to give an update on this weekend. On Friday, I had to go back to the doctor. I've been sick since December 30 with back to back viral and bacterial infections. No surprise given my current gut health and all the other issues I've faced in the last three years.

One thing I was asked was if I drank enough water in the day. Well, I have no idea. I drink at least 1 liter of water a day, and then I supplement with other drinks. Orange juice, Tea, Milk, etc.  Instead of more medication,  I was given oral sublingual Vitamin D to take, as my body is doing what it needs to do, though it is very uncomfortable.

I found this image this weekend while looking into recipes to make to eat. And it's true. Water is SO important for our daily lives.

On Saturday, I slept until after noon. We decided  after I spent an hour making more Fruit Salad to make another Food Wishes recipe: Garlic Parm Hot Wings. I decided to add the side of Spiced Roasted Broccoli. I have never had either before, and I must say both are triple star for me, and definitely will want to do them again. For Chef John's recipe, we substituted Hazelnut Flour in equal amounts called for breadcrumbs, and we used drumsticks instead of wings. Honestly? I could not tell a difference. Were we to do it again for anyone nut allergic, we would simply leave that off of the recipe.  Both of these would work well for GAPS Stages 5 through the Full GAPS Diet, depending on whatever changes you want to make.

The children tried the chicken, and one child ate two drumsticks. One ate half of that, but ate a rather sizable bowl of broccoli. Both had some fruit salad as dessert and one insisted that my snack (Fruit salad) was his... how dare I eat his bowl. (how funny of him!)

In the mean time, I was really good at following my doctor's orders of every hour sublingual vitamin D. . . even during my Google+ Hangouts.

 For dinner, we had Chinese. I had my usual salad and some spring rolls. I know - not GAPS, but I'd been good all day long and I really needed some kind of comfort food. Our local Chinese Restaurant has rice wrappers and will alter their recipe for our needs (no onions, leeks or peppers) and use a dedicated wok and oil for only their spring rolls.  MOST restaurants do not do this, but will make theirs with a wheat based dough or fry it in recycled oil.




On Sunday, we had a repeat of fruit salad for breakfast. I decided that lunch should be rather easy, so we'd make some ground beef/lamb with gravy and mushrooms with a side of German Cucumber Salad and some carrots and peas boiled in beef bone broth.

German Cucumber Salad, J. Stahl's Recipe

• 4 Peeled Cucumbers, preferably organic
  (or two foot long EU Cucumbers)
• dill
• salt and pepper to taste
• mustard (we are still finishing our pantry stock of mustard)
• Apple Cider Vinegar
• Milk Kefir

1. Peel your cucumbers and slice them thinly on a mandolin or either using your food processor's Mandolin Slicing attachment.
2.  Add your cucumbers to a glass dish, splash with a couple tablespoons of apple cider vinegar. 
3. Mix well.
4. Add about a teaspoon of mustard  and mix well
5. Add about a cup of kefir and your dill, salt and pepper generously.
6. Mix well and taste the salad. If it is not balanced enough, add a little more mustard or kefir to taste. It should be a slightly thin yoghurt type sauce with a tangy punch. 
7. Place in the fridge for about an hour before serving. Enjoy!

 I used some of our older canned peas and carrots, which simply have salted water in them. I drained those and used about 4 cups of bone broth to boil them in for about 20 minutes, before I took them off the hob and added about 4TBS of milk kefir to the broth and stirred. This is of course not acceptable if you are keeping Kosher, as meat and dairy are not to be mixed.  You could however make a vegetable broth instead and use the kefir in that - or you could simply skip that step if you are having this side dish with a Fleischig meal.  Our guts sorely need the probiotics AND the healthy bone broth.

The gravy recipe that I used was bone broth mixed with leftover duck fat from our duck recipe last week. It says "5 Minute Gravy" - THEY LIED. I was reminded of my new favorite movie, Julie & Julia.


Which then reminded me of my new favorite book by Rachel Held Evans, A Year of Biblical Womanhood.

... I’d grown overconfident, so the fact that I’d never in my life  used a pastry blender or a rolling pin didn’t stop me from going right  ahead and whisking together some flour, sugar, and salt, cutting in  two sticks of butter, adding some water, and then kneading it all  together to form two disks that looked exactly like the picture on page  438, thank you very much. Then I wrapped my pâte brisée in plastic  and put it in the refrigerator while I combined my (slightly browning) apples with sugar, flour, lemon juice, cinnamon, ginger, and salt.  A taste test proved I was on the right track.
“Assemble the pie,” commanded the directions.
No problem.
I dusted the counter with flour, placed the first pâte brisée on the  surface, took out my rolling pin, and began my slow break from sanity...
Rachel Held Evans: My “Biblical” Thanksgiving…


"It was only Gravy", I proceeded to tell myself, while it boiled away for over 30 minutes getting only slightly thicker than it was before. By the time the two cups of broth had boiled down and additional duck fat was added (YUM by the way!), I had been standing at the stove for an agonizing 40 minutes waiting on my broth to become "thick" like the recipe said it would. Again, they must not have taken into account what happens when you're the type of person who does not use gelatin (a pork by-product here) and can't find her agar-agar.  Oh well. Lesson learned. Next time I will be sure to include apple peels and boil my bone stock longer, and I'll have a more gel-like consistency when it comes time to repeat the recipe, no gelatin needed.



I have to admit I wanted to take photos of the kitchen to show the level of destruction we had in there, but I'm afraid it's a little too soon for the blog... what do you think? Leave a comment if you've not yet made the foray into GAPS and wonder what happens when you are baking and cooking your way through three meals daily in a small kitchen. I'll be more than happy to show you, as you've already seen how clean our kitchen can be. (hehe)


I wish you all a very happy and healthy Monday. xoxox

Some ideas for GAPS compliant Breakfast and Lunch

I've been thinking long and hard about posting, and this was meant to go up yesterday, but time got away from me. I ended up being almost late to Yoga while preparing another post, and then was too tired to try and get it together yesterday afternoon.  So, here we are today, after a long day of appointments and shopping - and I'm posting about yesterday's breakfast and lunch.

 

For breakfast, yesterday and today,  I had some fruit salad. It is complaint for the Full Gaps Diet only if you leave out the Maraschino Cherries.  I wasn't about to do that in the middle of making it yesterday, but I will in future. For now, My fruit salad has the  sugar-soaked cherries.

The salad consists of 2 red apples, 1 green apple, 4 kiwi, a few grapes and 2 bananas. When it is in season, I will typically add strawberries and pears. There were no fresh organic pears the last time I went shopping for fruit.

The kids had their bento boxes made up, and the only thing NOT compliant was their buttered bread.  Otherwise, they had a GAPS compliant cream cheese cake (I fermented the cream that goes in it and used honey instead of sugar), meat, fruit salad and a rainbow colored egg (bought like that from the store).

I got the recipe here, and did not make the biscuit bottom, and used honey instead of sugar. When you substitute honey, use half the amount called for. 

 I just love that when you purchase boiled eggs here in Germany, that they are dyed so you can tell them apart from your other store-bought eggs. Could you imagine if you couldn't what a headache that would be??

For lunch, I had a Thai Curry Salad. It has roasted duck on top, and nuts - so only complaint for the FULL GAPS diet.  The only thing you have to change in the recipe is to use honey instead of sugar when making the sauce. Also, ours has lettuce and bamboo shoots. I do not put onions and  peppers in, as my gut does not handle either of those raw.

 This is an absolutely lovely dish, and usually I will eat two or three of these a week if I have one in the fridge.



I wish there was more to update, but our dinner was not very GAPS Compliant (baby steps!!) and I've not been home (or eating much!) today.  When I did eat, I had breakfast - and here it is after 4pm and I had some frozen GF Pizza, because that was just way easier than spending two hours doing prep with a dirty kitchen while putting away purchases etc.