We love liver -- and you can, too! Cashew-crusted chicken liver recipe

Here is my special recipe for Cashew-Crusted Chicken Livers with Red Wine Reduction:

(makes 2 4-oz. servings)

Thaw 1/2 lb. of pastured chicken livers; remove all connective and fatty tissue and discard. Slice livers crosswise in 1/2” slices or in nugget-sized pieces. If the pieces seem really wet set them on a paper towel.

In a food processor, grind the following into a fine meal (watch this process carefully so you do not end up with cashew butter!):

• 1/2 tsp. unrefined sea salt
• 1 tbsp. dried oregano leaves
•  1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
• 1 cup of organic raw cashews (unroasted/unsalted), preferably soaked and dehydrated (you can do this yourself by following the recipe for crispy nuts in Nourishing Traditions, or buy already soaked/dehydrated cashews at www.WildernessFamilyNaturals.com)

Pour the meal into a shallow bowl for dredging.

In a large skillet, heat 1/4 cup pastured pork lard or other healthy fat of your choice until it shimmers (such as ghee or chicken fat--though lard gives the absolute best results). Dredge liver pieces in cashew meal and fry in hot lard over medium-low heat just until the outside of each piece turns from liver-colored to brown; since the pieces are small this only takes a few minutes -- it is very important not to overcook them as the characteristic liver flavor will become much more pronounced.

Remove the liver pieces from the pan and pour in 1 cup of dry red wine. Over high heat, bring the wine to a vigorous boil as you scrape the meat drippings and cashew crust from the pan. Allow the liquid to reduce until it is thickened, then pour over the livers. Add fresh-ground black pepper and unrefined sea salt to taste, and chopped parsley as a garnish if desired.

A cooking client recently described these as being "like candy" because they are so delicious! Oliver declares them "tasty and delectable" and will happily eat them every day for a post-nap snack.

*A few notes: use the same cashew meal blend for chicken nuggets (first roll in beaten egg, dredge in cashew meal, and fry in lard) -- your kids won't know they're eating something healthy! I like to make 2 cups-worth of cashew meal at a time and store it in a glass jar in the refrigerator so I have it ready any time I need it. While I'm at it I also make cashew butter which I use for the most incredible grain-free pancakes ever (recipe forthcoming).

With this recipe, you can make your New Year's resolution to eat more liver a pleasant and easy-to-achieve reality. Enjoy!

More on the benefits of liver:

Quite simply, liver contains more nutrients, gram for gram, than any other food. Liver should be sourced from grass-fed or pastured animals. All creatures store nutrients in high amounts in the liver, which makes it an incredibly nutrient-dense food. In summary, liver provides: 

• An excellent source of high-quality protein
• Nature’s most concentrated source of vitamin A--important for fertility & growing babies
• All the B vitamins in abundance, particularly vitamin B12
• One of our best sources of folate
• A highly usable form of iron (highest in pork and chicken liver)
• Trace elements such as copper, zinc, and chromium (liver is our best source of copper)
• An unidentified anti-fatigue factor (liver really is uniquely energizing!)
• CoQ10, a nutrient that is especially important for cardiovascular function
• A good source of purines – nitrogen-containing compounds that serve as precursors for DNA and RNA

Crustless breakfast quiche

I have finally (by chance) hit upon a recipe for a breakfast quiche that Oliver likes to eat! It's not terribly quick, but it's easy to make and doesn't have a crust. This makes enough for Oliver and me to share for 3 breakfasts.

Before you get started --> heat your oven to 375 degrees and butter a 9" pie pan.

1. First, chop a medium/large onion coarsely and saute until nice and soft and turning brown in plenty of ghee or butter (I like ghee because it won't burn or turn brown the way butter will in a hot skillet). Ghee is easy to make by melting butter at a very low temperature for several hours, and then pouring off and saving the clear golden liquid to leave the milk solids at the bottom -- of course we use raw butter in our house, but you can use any kind.

2. Mix 5 eggs with 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp. cream. Blend well. Add one pinch of salt for each egg, plus 1-2 extra pinches (so 6-7 pinches in all). Be sure to use an unrefined natural sea salt, like Celtic, Eden, and Redmond brands, available in health food stores and some grocery stores. (I use pastured organically-raised eggs with raw grass-fed cream. Read my blog post comparing pastured with free-range eggs.)

3. Grate a sizeable chunk of cheese, enough to make about 2 cups grated (a chunk approximately 3"x3"x1"). I like to use raw milk grass-fed cheese with medium sharpness; it's fine to use a cheese that isn't the most delicious for snacking -- it will be great in the quiche.

4. Mix the caramelized onions and most of the cheese into the egg & cream mixture, reserving a bit to spread on top.

5. Pour the egg mixture into the pan and sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top. Bake until slightly puffed and golden brown, approximately 45 minutes (begin checking at 35 minutes as some ovens can vary dramatically). Cook the quiche in the center of the oven.

I like to have this quiche with bacon and homemade sausage (from pastured pork), homemade yogurt with berries or homemade apple butter, homemade chicken bone broth, homemade beet kvass, and either fresh veggies or my homemade lactofermented veggie medley. Oliver alternates bites of quiche and bacon, has a spoonful of fermented veggie juice, 1/2 tsp. fermented cod liver oil, sips of beet kvass, and yogurt with apple butter for dessert. After breakfast he has the lukewarm broth in his sippy cup. This breakfast/brunch is so nourishing and filling that there's no need for lunch!

Store the leftover quiche in the fridge and reheat wedges in a 300-350 degree toaster oven for about 10 minutes.

Two-egg custard

This is one of my favorite breakfast standbys -- so simple that ANYONE can do it, yet impressive enough for company.

First, you will need a few small (4 oz. for a child, 6-7 oz. for an adult) ramekins. These are small ceramic dishes for cooking custards.

All you have to do is blend together (for a child's 4 oz. custard):
1 egg
1.5 T cream, sour cream, or yogurt
pinch of sea salt

Pour into the buttered ramekin. Sprinkle the top with grated raw milk cheese, and bake at 300 degrees in a double boiler (this is a fancy way of saying you should place the ramekin in an oven-proof dish partially filled with water). In my oven it takes about one hour, and after that time is very smooth and creamy. Be sure to check it starting at around 45 minutes. You want to get it out when it has just set -- insert a sharp knife in the center so you can see. It should still be very soft in the middle, though not liquid. You want to avoid it getting overdone because the egg will become spongy (with holes) and will not taste as good. Oliver definitely prefers a creamier custard that will hold its shape when removed from the dish.

For myself, I double this recipe and also put some fresh thyme leaves on top. (Not for Ollie since they pass right through his digestive system.) You may also place some crumbled bacon or sausage in the bottom of the ramekins before filling with custard.

We usually eat this with sausage or bacon, yogurt with apple butter, beet kvass, and fermented veggies. And yes, everything on this list, with the exception of the bacon, is homemade. :) Considering all the time I spend cooking and making all these healthy delicious foods I should really get to brag a little now and then!

It goes without saying that these should be pastured eggs, and ideally the cream should be raw and from a grass-fed cow. Bon appetit!

Quick winter soup

I've recently become a big fan of broth. Well, okay, so I've been a fan of broth for a long time, but now I want to eat it every day, pretty much just straight up. Bone broth is so warming, sustaining, and delicious in these cold, snowy months -- there is really nothing like it! And of course, in addition to being tasty and comforting, it's also an excellent source of gelatin which serves to attract digestive juices to the food in our stomachs, which makes it the perfect thing to serve before a winter meal. (Winter meals generally contain mainly cooked foods which repel digestive juices, but including gelatin in the form of broth remedies this problem.)

These days I am still making stock about once a week, and for a while now I've been alternating between chicken, beef, shrimp, and fish, generally keeping a Mason jar or two in the fridge all the time for a quick meal. I like to chop onions, garlic, scallions, shallots, or leeks and throw them in the pot while I heat the broth. Ginger is also a good addition, though you have to use it sparingly. In January I made my first oxtail soup (pho style) and it has quickly become my favorite thing, served with extra fish sauce, chili sauce, and hoisin sauce (though I leave these out when serving to Oliver).

So that's my tip: make stock weekly, freeze most of it but keep some always thawed in your fridge, pour a few cups in your smallest pot, add some freshly-chopped aromatics (or shrimp butter if making a fish or shrimp broth), and boil briefly. Technically this could hardly be called soup, I suppose...but still, it's a great meal starter, and if you wanted something heartier you could add some beans, brown rice, greens, or winter vegetables as well -- even frozen meatballs or sliced sausage.

We will be covering most of the dishes I've mentioned in my upcoming cooking series.

Just for the heck of it, here's a picture of Oliver post-oatmeal yesterday morning (note the great lighting of our brand new kitchen! we moved last Sunday).

Feeding a toddler is a contact sport

No one told me it would be like this. As soon as they start to feed themselves, the peace, sanity, and relative cleanliness of mealtime disappears. Suddenly it's all about preempting their every move, scooting implements and bowls of liquid out of the way, keeping glasses on the other side of the table, having several wet washcloths ready to mop up spills and wipe hands and faces, and always always keeping one hand at the ready to refasten the clothes pin on the dish towel Oliver wears as a bib (and I'm using "wears" in the figurative sense -- it's more of an on-again, off-again part of his mealtime attire. Bibs were given up long ago as they 1) cover only a small fraction of the toddler body, and 2) are far-too-easily ripped off immediately.) Oliver now wears a large apron tied around the waist, and the aforementioned dish towel, fastened at the back of his neck with a clothespin. I have learned to place the first course before him just as a I fasten this, or else the clothespin and dish towel are on the floor in no time. And yes, we often go through 2 dish towels and several washings of dish cloths throughout this process.


At lunch yesterday I had a very nice spread for Oliver to enjoy. Here it is, clockwise from lower left: chicken broth with garlic and carrots, veal tongue, raw milk cheddar, salmon bites with homemade lacto-fermented coconut oil mayonnaise, homemade lacto-fermented ginger ale, and lacto-fermented dilly beans (saved for the end as they are a favorite). For dessert we had pumpkin custard.


Feeding Oliver went something like this:

Oliver tries a salmon bite and promptly spits it out (sometimes he likes it, sometimes he doesn't). He uses his small spoon to scoop up the mayonnaise and eats it with relish. He wants more, so I give him another serving. Then another. And another. At last he is done, the plate is pushed away vigorously, and he reaches for the broth. Tries some broth, then a carrot, spits it out, pulls the bowl, then pushes it away -- back and forth. I am of course trying to make him stop, and between the two of us tugging, naturally it spills. I swoop in and mop up the mess. Now he is asking for water, but it isn't water he wants, it's ginger ale, just like I have. And no, he doesn't want to drink it out of his little cup, he wants to use a spoon. For some reason I really don't feel like entertaining this for more than 10 seconds, so I take the spoon away and encourage him to drink from the little cup. NO! He starts screaming and gets red in the face. This is the toddler side of Oliver that I am discovering lately and one I REALLY don't like. I promptly turn his chair to face away from the table. He settles a little, and I turn him back around. Next he tries the veal tongue (which he usually likes b/c it is the one meat tender enough for a mostly toothless person to chew) but the bite is too large; he spits it out. I break the piece into tinier shreds. He doesn't want it from my hand, he wants it from a fork. I spear each tiny shredded piece of veal tongue with his toddler fork for each bite that he takes; he eats probably one piece of sliced tongue, which is very good. Suddenly he is reaching for my bowl (I am eating, or rather not eating, my leftover chicken fricassee). I have placed a piece of chewy chicken skin on the side of my bowl, and this is what Oliver wants. He chews on it and sucks the gravy off, then hands it back to me and makes urgent signs for more. He wants more disgusting flabby chicken skin! I fish out another piece for him. Then he tries some chicken meat. Okay, enough of that. He is ready for something else. He has some more mayonnaise, then spies the dilly beans. For him, "eating" dilly beans consists of waving the beans about in the air, biting off pieces, spitting out each barely-chewed piece into my hand, and pretending to gag when a small piece remains on his tongue too long. At least he gets some of the dilly bean juice which is the important part for him at this point (he can't properly chew or digest extremely fibrous vegetables yet).

By the end of the meal he has had:
1) one piece of carrot
2) a tiny bit of broth
3) one slice of veal tongue
4) 4 tsp. of coconut oil mayonnaise
5) chicken fricassee gravy & an iota of chicken (plus whatever he got from the skin)
6) dilly bean juice
7) a very tiny bite of raw milk cheese
8) several sips of homemade ginger ale
9) a few bites of pumpkin custard (the most peaceful part of the meal)

My own meal seems barely enough to replace the calories I expended in feeding Oliver, and I'm a bit exhausted -- but these crazy fast-paced mealtimes are something I will probably look back on fondly, and I'm happy that he is eating such good food. Fortunately there are days when lunch time is peaceful and gratifying, like the day when he discovered how fun it is to eat both fish broth (with shrimp butter) and whole wheat sourdough toast with butter, chicken liver pate, and bone marrow at the same time. That sight truly warmed my nutrient-dense-foods-obsessed little heart!