First, if you’ve never tried organ meats before, I’d recommend starting with kidney or heart. The flavor is fairly mild and the texture is firm and reasonably familiar. You can simply chop it up small and fry it up along with some muscle meat. If you’re feeling adventurous, you can also fry up some liver in bacon fat with onions, as per tradition, and you might even like it – Ryn did the first time he tried it, though I can’t say I care for it one bit. But not liking it is not a good reason to avoid it, so if you’re fairly certain the flavor will be a turnoff, here’s the trick that’ll fool even the pickiest palate:

Ask your butcher to grind it up.

And that’s all there is to it! Ask to have roughly equal parts liver, kidney, and heart ground and packed in one pound packages. The mix will end up a bit pastey, but that’s fine, because the next step is to hide it in recipes like chili and keema. I’ve found that a two-to-one ratio – two parts ground beef (or lamb, if you’re making keema) to one part ground organs – is perfect for complete undetectability. So now you’ve got three pounds of meat, and everything else you do just like you always did. Follow your favorite chili, keema, or even curry recipe. As long as you don’t skimp on the seasoning, you’ll never know there’s organs in there, and neither will your kids!

To get you started, here are my recipes for chili and keema:

Chili
2 lbs ground grassfed beef or buffalo
1 pound ground liver/kidney/heart
1 or 2 chopped onions
1 small jar Bionaturae tomato paste (because it’s in glass!)
1 jar Green Mountain Gringo salsa (medium or hot)
several fresh chili peppers – I like red serrano, but whatever you like is good
one bunch of fresh parsley (cause it’s good for you, and you won’t taste it anyway)
one or two chopped red or orange bell peppers
three or four dried red chili peppers, crushed
a lot of fresh garlic
cumin, coriander, chili powder to taste
salt, and pepper to taste

fresh cilantro and scallions to put on top

Some folks like to toss in corn, or beans, but I’m from Texas originally, so I’m a bit of a purist. If you like them, though, feel free!

The best thing about chili is that you just take all that and throw it in a big pot, and let it simmer for a good while. In the beginning you have to stir often, while the meat is cooking, but then you just turn it down to low and let it do its thing. Taste it once in a while, and adjust flavors as needed. Don’t be afraid of seasonings, though if you don’t like spicy, then use more cumin, coriander, and garlic than you do peppers.

This is best served with a whole lot of fresh guacamole – which is nothing more than avocado mashed up and mixed with a bit of lime juice (or kimchi juice), chopped cilantro, chopped tomato, salt, and pepper. If you like, you can also put in some garlic, cumin, and coriander, but it’s not required. And if you got your chili mix a bit too hot, just have some guacamole with each bite!

Keema

I don’t claim to know much of anything about traditional Indian cooking, but this is one recipe we like quite a bit.

2 pounds ground beef or lamb
1 pound ground liver/kidney/heart
1 small jar Bionaturae tomato paste (in a glass jar!)
1 or 2 onions
a bunch of garlic
1 jar Eden diced tomatoes (now in glass jars too!)
roughly equal parts coriander, cumin, turmeric, ginger, and garam masala
a spoonful or two red curry paste
several dried red chili peppers, crushed

fresh scallions and chopped tomato to put on top

Again – just toss everything in a big skillet or pot, and cook it all up together. After the meat is mostly cooked through, turn the heat down low and let it simmer so the flavors get nice and friendly. Once that’s simmered for a good while, we usually add a half a bag or so of frozen peas. A lot of folks like lentils or diced potatoes too, so toss some in if you’re into that kind of thing!

So there you have it! Head out to your local butcher today, ask him to grind up some organ meat, and make yourself a great big pot of delicious!

What are some of your favorite foods?

I like ham, broccoli, homemade whipped coconut cream with strawberries (or, any berries!), salami, steak, raw ground beef with lacto-fermented kimchi, carrots, chili with organ meat (especially heart), apples, kombucha, fermented sauerkraut, avocados, tuna with homemade mayo on lettuce, sushi…

How do you feel when other kids are eating things that you can’t eat?

Well, as long as I have something that I like, I don’t really care if other kids are eating something different.

Have you ever felt embarrassed or left out because other kids had some food you didn’t?

No. There’s always something good to eat!

(I would have asked her, what did you do about it? But she couldn’t think of a single time she felt this way. I can remember one time that I felt this way on her behalf, at a garden party we’d dropped in on unprepared. There was lots of cake and ice cream and people kept offering it to her, and she kept saying no. She really didn’t much care actually, but I promised her that when we got home, I’d make her something great, because I felt bad about it.
In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have felt so upset! Anyway, all kids feel that way sometimes, regardless of what they eat.)

Have kids ever made fun of you because of what you eat, or don’t eat?
No.
But if somebody did, I’d say, “just because we’re different doesn’t mean that you have to make fun of me”.

Is there anything you wish you could eat, or that you would like to try but can’t?

Well, I always get over that by asking other people how it tastes. Though, sometimes I do want to try it. Bread in particular, maybe milk. Maybe some of those fancy cakes at WholeFoods. Definitely NOT cheese, though. Gross.

You’ve almost never accidentally eaten gluten or casein, but what happens when you slip and eat a bunch of sugar? How does it feel and what do you do to recover and get back on track?

I get a bellyache. It’s kind of good to get the bellyache, because then I know that I really can’t eat that way. I drink some peppermint tea and try to be calm.
We get back on track as a family, and help keep each other honest.

Are there any treats you like that are also good for you, or that fit in with your paleo eating habits?

Yes! Berries with home-made coconut whipped cream, which doesn’t have any sugar at all! Caveman Pumpkin Muffins, which are just pumpkin, almonds, and lots of eggs, with raisins. Caveman Cake! And apples with almond butter, or good pepperoni with almond butter. Bacon dates!

Are there any special treats that are not paleo, but that you like to have for special occasions?

Oh yes! Coconut milk ice cream, dark chocolate, Udi’s bagles with jam…

What do you think when you see kids eating a lot of candy or goldfish crackers or whatever?

I think they’re not going to be healthy. If they’re my friends, I try to talk to them about eating healthier.

Why do you think grown-ups think that kids won’t be able to eat healthy?

Well, most of those parents have children who are addicted to sugar. I was once addicted to sugar, but it wasn’t actually too hard to shrug it off. We just got rid of all of it and didn’t buy anymore, and then there wasn’t any to eat.

What advice would you give to parents who want their kids to eat better, but think that they won’t do it?

I think they should try it. You can try it out today, and see how it goes. I think it could go well!
If your kid complains, tell them not to be a wimp. But I think your kids probably won’t complain as much as you think. You should eat the same foods you want your kids to eat. And you should definitely explain to your kids why it’s so important!

What advice would you give to kids who want to change their eating habits in order to get healthier?

Stop eating sugar, wheat, dairy, and go paleo.
If they think it’s hard, just keep on doing it and don’t be a brat or a wimp or lazy! It’s important to be healthy so that you don’t end up sick all the time, so don’t complain, just do it! The junk that you gave up isn’t really food anyway, so be happy about the delicious things you do get to eat and don’t think about what you can’t eat.

Well, there you have it!
Some of her answers surprised me, especially all the “don’t be a wimp”! But actually, I think that’s her way of talking about self-discipline, and really, we all need more of that! Lessons from our children…

Bone broth may be the easiest to start with, because it is most familiar. If you feel nervous about the flavors of seaweed or liver, chicken broth is at least familiar, with an agreeable flavor most people like – or can at least manage! Not only that, but it’s made with stuff you would usually throw away – bonus for your budget!

Ingredients:

Chicken bones, from a good quality chicken. It doesn’t matter what you use for bones – if you roasted a whole chicken, use the entire leftover carcass once you’ve picked all the meat off. Any bits of leftover fat, meat, connective tissue, etc, is just a bonus for your soup! If you don’t have a whole carcass, you can still make broth: save whatever bones you have – legs, thighs, wings: they’ll all work! (For that matter, any bones, especially marrow bones, from any animal will work, so feel free to use those pork chop bones, rib bones, roast bones, whatever you’ve got! You can toss them all in together, or separate them according to the animal they came from, whichever you prefer. I like to just toss whatever I’ve got all in together.)

Water – ideally filtered water. Since this is food, it’s better not to use tap water, unless you’re blessed with a good quality well.

Apple Cider Vinegar, to help the minerals out of the bones. You don’t need much, a tablespoon or so is sufficient. You just want to raise the acidity of the water somewhat, because it will pull more minerals from the bones.

That’s all you really need! If you want to get fancy, you can put in mushrooms (we like shiitake or maitake), vegetable ends (the tops of carrots, etc), and seaweed – this is a great way to ease yourself into eating seaweed! You can add garlic, seasoning, etc. Generally, my pot has bones, water, vinegar, seaweed, and occasionally dried maitake – anything fancier than that I add in at the end.

There’s no special preparation required – just dump everything into the pot. Use enough water to cover the bones well – some of the water will boil off over time, but that’s ok, you can just add more. All that’s left to do now is boil!

To make a good bone broth, you’ve got to boil it for a long time. A really long time. A day or two is ideal. But it doesn’t have to be all at once! I turn mine on whenever I’m in the kitchen. I get it up to a good rolling boil a few times a day, and turn it off again when I leave. Sometimes if I’m in and out of the kitchen, I’ll leave it on simmering for a few hours. Just don’t leave it on when you leave the house! My pot stays on the stove 24/7. Here in New England, we don’t have to worry too much about leaving food out – our climate isn’t such that it really encourages quick spoilage. If you live in the south, you might not get away with that: just put the whole pot, bones and all, into the fridge whenever you aren’t cooking it.

Once it’s boiled for several hours, you can already start eating it. We always have a pot on the stove, and try to drink a cup of broth with each meal, letting it come to a rolling boil each time before serving. Every so often I’ll put some more water in, and occasionally I might toss in extra bones too. Ideally, you want the chicken bones to get crumbly – soft enough that you can snap them with one hand. (If you’re souping beef bones, you might not get that far.) A pot of soup usually lasts us four or five days, once it’s ready: I’ll add extra water a time or two. Once I feel like we’ve gotten everything out of the bones there is to get, I put them in the compost and start over.

In our house, we like the broth just plain, with a bit of organic long-fermented miso paste and a handful of seaweed. You can also use this broth as the base for other soups or stews – whatever you like! No matter how you get it in you, it’s chock-full of minerals your body can easily assimilate!

A typical recipe for me is to take a white fish, sautee it in ghee with maitake and peas, top with scallions, and presto. But tonight we tried something different:

2 pounds fresh cod
1 bunch watercress
1/2 bunch parsley
1 small onion
5 cloves garlic
6 shiitake mushrooms
3 kumquats
lemon
salt, pepper

Chop the mushrooms and sautee in ghee. Add the small onion, diced, and the garlic, sliced. Once the mushrooms are starting to soften, put the fish in the pan. Add the juice of a lemon, salt, and pepper. Cover and allow to cook for a while on medium-low heat. Flip the fish after 10 minutes or so.

Once you can start to break up the cod (it will sort of come apart in thick “flakes”), add the watercress and parsley, chopped. Let it mix up together, and continue to cook until the greens are soft.

Serve with sliced kumquats on top!

The greens are mild and pleasant tasting, and any recipe with kumquats is automatic fun: so if fish is a challenge for you, give this a try!

(Leftover greens? Put them in the eggs in the morning, with onion and a mushroom. Delicious!)

In this class, we’ll discuss simple herbal preparations and rituals that can aid even veterans of the infomercial purgatory in their search for restorative slumber. Herbs offer natural, non-addictive support for the release of stress and tension at the end of the day, and gentle sedation to help us ease into peaceful sleep, allowing us to return to our instinctive sleep cycles. No sheep-counting required! If time allows, we’ll also look at the use of herbs in enhancing recall and lucidity in dreaming.

Wednesday, April 25th, 2012
7:00pm – 9:00pm
25 St. Mary’s Court, Brookline

Evening Lectures are taught at our office at 25 St. Mary’s Court, Brookline – near BU; the fee is $25.

Please register for the class in advance: just send an email to info@commonwealthherbs.com, fill out our contact form, or call us at 617-750-5274.

Evening Lectures take place once a month on Wednesdays, from 7:00 – 9:00pm, and are a great way to learn about the use of herbs for a particular condition, or just to get your herbal feet wet! Come learn how to care for yourself, your family, and friends!

This class took place in the past. Interested in a rerun? Let us know!