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Nourishing Practices

How to Make Carrot Juice With a Blender

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How to make carrot juice without a blender - easier than you think, and so helpful for those of us without juicers! -- The Nourishing GourmetBy Chloe, from How We Flourish

Here’s the thing: I have a very small kitchen. I’m also on a tight budget. I don’t have the option of having a kitchen filled with small appliances. However, I had heard a lot about the benefits of juicing. A morning carrot juice is also an important about of the GAPS Intro Diet, so I learned how to make carrot juice with a blender.

If you ask most people, they will tell you that you need a real juicer for juicing. To truly receive the benefits of juicing, commercial juice is not an option as it is pasteurized. Juices must be freshly pressed to preserve the enzymes and nutrients that makes vegetable juices so good for us. But not everyone can afford a big fancy masticating juicer! I’d love to have one, of course, as it is certainly less work than making juice with a blender. But when that is not an option, you do not need to worry. You can still get the benefits of juicing for a lot less money.

Why Juicing

I was never a fan of juice before GAPS. But I learned that juicing can help support detoxification, and the vitamins and minerals from the juiced vegetables can be quickly absorbed. It can be a great remedy for constipation! This might be TMI, but that is why I have taken such a liking to juicing. It helped for me very much, so it’s a tool I like to keep in my back pocket.

Interested? If you would like to test the benefits of juicing without the investment, read on to learn how to juice without a juicer.

How to Juice without a Juicer

The following tutorial is for 100% fresh carrot juice, which is the starting point for juicing on GAPS Intro. How many carrots you need will depend on how much juice you want – 2-3 carrots usually makes a decent sized glass for me. This method of making juice in a blender will also work for all types of juices!

  1. Wash and chop the carrots.
  2. Add them to the blender. Any type of blender should work fine.
  3. Add a small amount of filtered water. With more watery vegetables, you may not need any. If you like your juices more dilute, add more. For carrot juice, add enough water to come slightly less that halfway up the carrots. It just needs to be enough to help get things moving.
  4. Blend on medium until the ingredients are well pulverized.
  5. Place a nut milk bag in your desired cup/container and pour in the blended ingredients.
  6. Squeeze as much liquid out of the nut milk bag as possible. Save the leftover pulp in the freezer to be used in other recipes.
  7. Enjoy your juice! It is best to drink on an empty stomach, such as first thing in the morning before breakfast.

Tip: If you enjoy the benefits of juicing, but find that it spikes your blood sugar, try adding fat and protein to your juice. One of my favorite ways to do this with with the so-called “GAPS Milkshake.”

Want to make a large batch? It is recommended to always drink juice fresh. However, I believe that if you are experiencing benefits with juicing, less-than-optimal juice may be better than no juice at all. Try freezing the juice immediately and thawing it in a water bath when you want it.

Are you interested in learning more about healing your gut with GAPS Intro? Learn more about how I did just that (without going crazy!) in my book Healing Patiently.

How to Make Carrot Juice With a Blender
 
Author:
Recipe type: Beverage
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Carrot juice is a delicious and nourishing drink. Learn how to make it fresh, even if you do not have a juicer!
Ingredients
  • 2-3 carrots
Instructions
  1. Wash and chop the carrots.
  2. Add them to the blender. Any type of blender should work fine.
  3. Add a small amount of filtered water. With more watery vegetables, you may not need any. If you like your juices more dilute, add more. For carrot juice, add enough water to come slightly less that halfway up the carrots. It just needs to be enough to help get things moving.
  4. Blend on medium until the ingredients are well pulverized.
  5. Place a nut milk bag in your desired cup/container and pour in the blended ingredients.
  6. Squeeze as much liquid out of the nut milk bag as possible. Save the leftover pulp in the freezer to be used in other recipes.
  7. Enjoy your juice! It is best to drink on an empty stomach, such as first thing in the morning before breakfast.

 Do you juice? What is your favorite type of juice to make?

Stuffed Butternut Squash with Bacon, Brown Rice, and Mushrooms

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Stuffed Butternut Squash with Bacon, Brown Rice, and Mushrooms -- The Nourishing Gourmet

By April, from AprilSwiger.com

Savory bacon with hearty mushrooms and smooth butternut squash present a nourishing and filling meal for any night of the week. This seasonal delicacy could be a lovely side dish for any fall gathering as well. With about two minutes of preparation the night before, the soaked brown rice becomes an easier-to-digest element of this recipe, although white rice could be used in its place.

I love simple meals, especially when they are nourishing and easy on the budget. This stuffed butternut squash with bacon has a few different elements to it, but is truly a cinch to put together. When the weather begins to turn, butternut squash is a go-to for me. I love the color, sweetness, and heartiness it brings to our cool weather menu. I also think it’s a wonderfully filling addition to any gluten or dairy free lifestyle.

With a little bit of planning, this meal is very easy to put together any night of the week. I know that anything “stuffed” is usually intimidating for me, but don’t let this one scare you off! It’s simplicity at its finest, and the vibrant mixture of flavors will wow most palettes.

Stuffed Butternut Squash with Bacon, Brown Rice, and Mushrooms

Ingredients:

  • 1 large butternut squash
  • 2 cups short grain brown rice
  • 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 7 slices of bacon, chopped
  • 1/2 an onion, chopped
  • 2 cups chopped mushrooms
  • 1 teaspoon dried thyme
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. The night before, place your rice in a bowl with 2 cups of warm water, and the ACV. Allow it to soak overnight, or up to 24 hours.

2. Preheat your oven to 400. Cut your butternut squash in half lengthwise, and scoop out the seeds. Drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper, and place cut-side-down on a baking sheet. Cover with foil and bake for approximately 45-60 minutes, or until it’s cooked.

3. While the squash is cooking drain and rinse the rice. Add it to a pot with 4 cups of water, and 1 tsp of salt. Bring it to a boil, cover, and allow to simmer 45-50 minutes until cooked. The rice and squash should be done about the same time.

4. Place the chopped bacon in a skillet and cook on medium-high until almost crisp. Remove the bacon from the pan when done and leave about two tablespoons of bacon grease remaining. Saute the onions until translucent, then add the mushrooms, thyme, and salt and pepper to taste. Cook until the mushrooms are soft, about 10 minutes.

5. Stir the bacon pieces, and the mushroom mixture, into the rice. When the squash is cooked place the two pieces on a plate, cut-side up, and fill them with the rice mixture. You will have extra rice to serve on the side.

Stuffed Butternut Squash with Bacon, Brown Rice, and Mushrooms
 
Author:
Recipe type: Main
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Savory bacon with hearty mushrooms and smooth butternut squash present a nourishing and filling meal for any night of the week. This seasonal delicacy could be a lovely side dish for any fall gathering as well.
Ingredients
  • 1 large butternut squash
  • 2 cups short grain brown rice
  • 2 Tbls apple cider vinegar
  • 1 Tsp salt
  • 7 slices of bacon, chopped
  • ½ chopped onion
  • 2 cups chopped mushrooms
  • 1 tsp dried thyme
  • Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
  1. The night before, place your rice in a bowl with 2 cups of warm water, and the ACV. Allow it to soak overnight, or up to 24 hours.
  2. Preheat your oven to 400. Cut your butternut squash in half lengthwise, and scoop out the seeds. Drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper, and place cut-side-down on a baking sheet. Cover with foil and bake for approximately 45-60 minutes, or until it’s cooked.
  3. While the squash is cooking drain and rinse the rice. Add it to a pot with 4 cups of water, and 1 tsp of salt. Bring it to a boil, cover, and allow to simmer 45-50 minutes until cooked. The rice and squash should be done about the same time.
  4. Place the chopped bacon in a skillet and cook on medium-high until almost crisp. Remove the bacon from the pan when done and leave about two tablespoons of bacon grease remaining. Saute the onions until translucent, then add the mushrooms, thyme, and salt and pepper to taste. Cook until the mushrooms are soft, about 10 minutes.
  5. Stir the bacon pieces, and the mushroom mixture, into the rice. When the squash is cooked place the two pieces on a plate, cut-side up, and fill them with the rice mixture. You will have extra rice to serve on the side.

 

How to Render Tallow from Your Beef Broth

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After you make homemade beef stock/broth, there is always a lovely layer of tallow on the top of the broth. Learn here how you can render and save it for lots of cooking projects! Don't waste it! It's an excellent cooking fat. --- The Nourishing Gourmet

So, you’ve made a delicious, nutritious, homemade beef broth, and it now has a glorious layer of beef fat on the top. Now what? Don’t waste it! With just a few short steps, you can render it for a delicious cooking fat! This lovely cooking fat is stable at high temperatures, making it lovely for sautéing or roasting vegetables and meats, and many other uses!

As long-time readers know, I try to balance using quality, good ingredients, with a realistic budget. A practical way to make that happen is by not wasting anything. Certainly, saving and using this quality fat is a great way to eat well AND save money! Because we try to only buy top quality oils and fats, this helps tremendously in how much we spend on our oils/fats.

And don’t worry. It’s simple to make!

How to Render Tallow from Beef Broth

After you make homemade beef stock/broth, there is always a lovely layer of tallow on the top of the broth. Learn here how you can render and save it for lots of cooking projects! Don't waste it! It's an excellent cooking fat. --- The Nourishing Gourmet

1. After you have cooled your homemade beef broth in the refrigerator, there should be a layer of fat on the top. How much fat there is depends on what type of bones you use. Because we try to use at least some marrow bones in each batch, we typically have quite a bit. Scoop this fat off and place into a pot. (I use a small pot for one batch of fat.)

After you make homemade beef stock/broth, there is always a lovely layer of tallow on the top of the broth. Learn here how you can render and save it for lots of cooking projects! Don't waste it! It's an excellent cooking fat. --- The Nourishing Gourmet

2. Gently heat the fat over low heat until it is completely liquid.

After you make homemade beef stock/broth, there is always a lovely layer of tallow on the top of the broth. Learn here how you can render and save it for lots of cooking projects! Don't waste it! It's an excellent cooking fat. --- The Nourishing Gourmet

3. Pour over cheesecloth placed over a fine sieve over a heat safe bowl (or 4 cup measuring cup) to strain out any bits.

After you make homemade beef stock/broth, there is always a lovely layer of tallow on the top of the broth. Learn here how you can render and save it for lots of cooking projects! Don't waste it! It's an excellent cooking fat. --- The Nourishing Gourmet

4. At this point, you can do the lazy method of simply pouring the fat into a mason jar and re-hardening it in the refrigerator. Any leftover bits or small drops of broth will go to the bottom of the jar, and because fat is a type of preservative, the fat won’t go bad and I just don’t use the very last bit of fat at the bottom of the jar. This is what is pictured above.

5. Or, to make it completely free of any broth or bits, pour into a wide container such as an 8 by 8-inch pan. Let re-harden in the refrigerator, and then remove from the pan and turn upside down. You can then scrape off any bits or broth from the bottom of the fat. Reheat to liquefy, and pour into desired container of choice.

Keep refrigerated. Will keep for at least several months when refrigerated (freeze for longer storage).

How to Render Tallow from Your Beef Broth
 
Serves: 1 cup
Print
 
You will need a fine sieve and cheesecloth for this recipe.
Ingredients
  • Fat skimmed from the top of homemade beef stock
Instructions
  1. After you have cooled your homemade beef broth in the refrigerator, there should be a layer of fat on the top. How much fat there is depends on what type of bones you use. Because we try to use at least some marrow bones in each batch, we typically have quite a bit. Scoop this fat off and place into a pot. (I use a small pot for one batch of fat.)
  2. Gently heat the fat over low heat until it is completely liquid.
  3. Pour over cheesecloth placed over a fine sieve over a heat safe bowl to strain out any bits.
  4. At this point, you can do the lazy method of simply pouring the fat into a mason jar and re-hardening it in the refrigerator. Any leftover bits or small drops of broth will go to the bottom of the jar, and because fat is a type of preservative, the fat won’t go bad and I just don’t use the very last bit of fat at the bottom of the jar. This is what is pictured above.
  5. Or, to make it completely free of any broth or bits, pour into a wide container such as an 8 by 8-inch pan. Let re-harden in the refrigerator, and then remove from the pan and turn upside down. You can then scrape off any bits or broth from the bottom of the fat. Reheat to liquefy, and pour into desired container of choice.
  6. Keep refrigerated. Will keep for at least several months when refrigerated (freeze for longer storage).

Related Posts:

Healthy Pregnancies: Looking at Epigenetics and the Difference a Healthy Lifestyle Makes

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Healthy Pregnancies: Looking at Epigenetics and a Healthy Lifestyle

Friends, fellow blogger Lee from the website, Well Fed Family, is sharing an important message with us today about how the study of epigenetics is showing that our lifestyle choices can indeed make a difference in the health of our pregnancies and the future of our children. This is great news!  As someone who has lost a baby to a birth defect, I think it’s also important to say that this information is not shared to create parental guilt, but rather to give hope that our choices matter. If you have dealt with childhood illness, or the death of a child, you may want to read my post, When a Healthy Diet Doesn’t Translate into a Healthy Baby.

I hope that this post from Lee encourages us that while we can’t control everything and every outcome, that our choices and lifestyle decisions do play a crucial role in the health of the next generations.- Kimi 

By Lee, From TheWellFedFamily

What if it were possible to press a genetic reset button? To wipe away something that has been plaguing generations of your family. To give your children and grandchildren a fresh new future. The key to finding this genetic reset button lies within the science of epigenetics, and then the application of some timeless wisdom.

This article is possibly one of the most exciting for me to write because this topic melds two fields about which I am passionate; these fields intrigue me and make me want to learn more and more and more. The first is the cutting edge field of science called epigenetics, and the second is the historically significant field of ancestral diets. “Cutting edge science combined with dusty old diet studies from 100 years ago or more? How can this possibly excite?” you ask. Well because when you link the new information with the old you have the ability to radically change families, to help parents give their children AND grandchildren the best health possible, in some cases to even save lives.

From two words – “epi” meaning above or on top of, and “genetics” or the study of our genes – epigenetics studies the many layers of chemical signals and switches able to activate, silence or crank up our genes. What many people don’t realize is that just because you have inherited the genes for something doesn’t necessarily mean it will happen. Many genes stay dormant or asleep until something in their environment flips the switch that turns them on. As British writer David Derbyshire explains, “[Epigenetics] is where nature bumps into nurture.”

Dr. Bruce Lipton, considered by many to be the founding father of epigenetics, verifies we now have research showing it is absolutely possible for lifestyle choices and our environment to profoundly affect our genes without actually changing their basic blueprint. Meaning we can control and modify our genes by what we do, eat, breathe, where we live and even what we think. Amazingly these “above genetic” influences can actually be passed from generation to generation.

Although the field of epigenetics is still relatively new there are already real life applications to be made. One thing we know for certain is that there are definite periods during growth and development that are particularly sensitive to these outside influences on our genes. Furthermore the things that happen during these sensitive times are powerful enough to continue influencing our cells throughout their lifespan and beyond as they multiply, grow and make more cells. Nowhere is this more true than with the creation of a new life.

The first sensitive period is during the development of germ cells. If you recall your high school biology, germ cells are types of cells involved in reproduction, the two most well-known being the sperm and the egg. The second extremely sensitive period is during the first five to seven weeks following conception when everything about this tiny life is brand new and full of promise and potential.

Conception and following

Let’s examine the second period first. From the moment of conception the two parent cells fuse and combine into a tiny ball of life and energy growing at amazing speed. It is during this time that old epigenetic information, including baggage epigenetic information inherited from mom and dad, can be removed. Here is that window of opportunity – that reset button! But at the same time this microscopic person is extremely vulnerable to environmental damage. Looking at it optimistically, however, this means this little person is extremely open to positive and protective influences as well.

Parents who take time prior to conception to become as healthy as possible, optimizing their gut flora, cleaning up their diet and eliminating unhealthy habits are setting the stage for positive epigenetic support. Lifestyle changes which reduce or eliminate exposure to both dietary and environmental toxins as well as stress are also particularly powerful.

Germ cells

Depending on whether the baby is a boy or a girl determines when the germ cells, the reproductive cells, begin to develop.

With boys the sperm lie in wait until puberty when they are then able to mature, and from puberty onward new sperm cells continue to be made giving males the gift of being able to make constructive lifestyle choices (including diet) that positively affect each new generation of cells.

With girls, however, these germ cells begin forming even while the baby girl is still within her own mother’s womb. This places mothers of baby girls in the unique situation of having three generations – herself, her daughter and her grandchildren – under the influence of her personal environment and lifestyle choices. How many of us realize this when we are pregnant?

So now that we know all of this, what does this mean? What can we do?

Every choice we make is important – from the time we reach an age of fertility through to the conception, birth and the entire upbringing of our children. Our choices determine not only our children’s health but that of our grandchildren and great-grandchildren. We hold impressive power for health or disease. If you, or someone in your care, is of childbearing age then begin right now to nourish their bodies and nurture a healthy lifestyle.

Someone once said that the seeds of adult disease are sown in the womb and the first two years of life. I would amend that epigenetics shows us the seeds of disease are sown in the lifestyle choices of our parents as well. You see, a baby is not nourished simply from whatever momma eats once she learns she is pregnant. There are many crucial nutrients needed by baby that come from reserves momma has built up in her body in the years before conception. And not only mothers, but epigenetic studies prove that the lifestyle choices (such as smoking) by the fathers, even before they reached adolescence, can affect their children’s life chances.

This is where respecting the wisdom of traditional cultures, and learning from their lessons becomes a valuable part of this puzzle. Studies of healthy traditional cultures done by Dr. Weston Price  show that these cultures knew to give special care to those of childbearing age to insure continued generations of healthy children. Just as the seeds of adult disease are sown in the womb, so are the seeds for lifelong good health. Giving purposeful, thoughtful preparation for parenthood should be more important than the kind of detailed planning frequently given to the wedding day. The wedding may be expensive, but it only lasts a day. Children are yours for a lifetime.

(I am not a doctor or health care provider, and the above and below are offered for educational purposes only.)

What we can do:

Sources:
Coursera – epigenetic control of gene expression by Dr. Marnie Blewitt, University of Melbourne https://www.coursera.org/course/epigenetics
(Lipton, Bruce, PhD. The Biology of Belief. p 67-68. CA:Mountain of Love/Elite Books, 2005.)
http://www.germlineexposures.org/germline-development.html

Lee headshot2Lee holds a Masters in Music Education from Florida State and was a band director in her past life. Married to her college sweetheart for over 27 years, she has been homeschooling their two children for the last 9 years. A lifelong foodie, her real food journey got a kickstart when her sister took her to hear Sally Fallon speak on Nourishing Traditional Foods in 2007. Together with her sister, she produced a DVD on making nourishing traditional breads using the soaked flour method. Today Lee is co-leader of her local WAPF chapter, and teaches about real food and alternative health topics to her local community. She is busy pulling out the shrubs from her home in the suburbs of Orlando and replacing them with edible landscaping. She also blogs at Well Fed Family, shares videos on the Well Fed Family YouTube channel, and interacts on all the usual social media networks: Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.