Thursday, April 19, 2012

Liver Cake

  
Finished product! Doesn't look great but it tastes good!
Hi everyone. I've been nervous to post this for a while because it sounds and looks gross, but I love to make LIVER CAKE-- essentially, when you microwave chicken livers following blending, you get a really nice "loaf" of liver "cake" that you can eat topped with eggs, butter, whatever you desire (I like head cheese on mine).
Chicken livers in the freezer

WHAT YOU NEED
1 lb of chicken livers, frozen
optional: spices if you want a flavored one
a blender
a microwave
a tupperware shaped like a loaf

1 lb frozen chicken livers after minimal defrost

WHAT YOU DO
first, defrost the livers enough to be seperable from one another-- this takes about 3 minutes on lo

then, remove the liver from the container and put in the blender. blend until completely liquified

chicken livers in the blender

Chicken livers in the tupperware
then, pour the livers in the loaf shaped tuperware

microwave for 3 minutes on high with the top on but not sealed. open the lid and allow to breathe for a minute. repeat process 2-3 times depending on your microwave strength.


split into portions appropriate for your diet. it makes 2 meals for me (these meals also contain other stuff).

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Smoked catfish

Smoked catfish filet in a baggie to take to work
Smoked catfish in a box, also to take to work

Catfish is a cheap and versatile fish! At the local Save n Shop, I can get 1.3 lbs for 3.00... and eat all of it. Smoking catfish is easy.

YOU NEED:
-catfish
-smoker
-wood plank

YOU DO:
get that catfish out of the package, either cheap catfish from the local shop or you can go WF it up and pay a little more. Put it on your plank and put the plank on the smoker. shut the lid. wait for about 3 hours. remove from the smoker.
/end!

Monday, April 16, 2012

Steaks on the smoker

Well, I had some top sirloin steak and some shank steak in the freezer. And I had some ground beef (yummy!) and some catfish as well. Moving into low palatability mode means I'd like to reduce the amount of very high taste foods, which includes to some extent steaks for me, in my diet. I can certainly cook a good steak, but it would be nice to associate steak with "treat" and get a REALLY GOOD EXPENSIVE NICE CUT OF MEAT steak from a restaurant rather than get a moderate cut of meat that can only impart moderately good flavor and cook it myself. I find that fish, chicken, and ground beef taste just about as good at home on the grill as anywhere, particularly catfish, so my future diet will probably be a combo of catfish, ground beef, and chicken. That being said, these were pretty damn appetizing.


Prior to cooking the rear side

After cooking the rear side (L to R: ground sirloin, shank, top sirloin, sausages at top, catfish on the maple plank beneath)


Smoked sirloin and sausages, panoramic view.

WHAT YOU NEED:
- any type of beef you like
- a smoker

WHAT YOU DO:
get all the beef out and defrost it. Mine was not frozen but chilly-- it had been frozen and sat in the fridge for a day or so prior to this. It was cold enough to be resilient but not cold enough that I couldn't manipulate it.
put the beef on the smoker. i put mine on the top rack with the maple plank on the rack below it and coals and a piece of maple wood i found in the forest on the bottom. wait about 1.5 hours. chill with the smoker and marvel that it was 25 degrees this morning and now it's 75, what the hell? google ancient germanic people. find out that your ancestors diet was estimated to be 80 percent smoked meat from small game and most of the rest fish. ROCK ON. flip the meat.
wait another 1.5 hours. make fun of the husband for working on sunday. watch some BET even though you aren't of the right ethnic group. smile big.
remove meat from smoker. either eat immediately or portion to the fridge. smile some more.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Butter Coffee!!

This has been well popularized already by Dave Asprey. I've also talked about it a good bit on the ZC forums on facebook.

So, butter coffee-- I use it when I wake up really early but don't plan to run for a few hours. Especially if I'm really hungry when I wake up, and it's like pulling teeth trying not to eat a pound of raw beef  (yum!)

WHAT YOU NEED:
- grass fed butter from a ruminant of your choice (cow? goat? sheep?)
- coffee (dave would say "mycotoxin free"-- I say, whatever you like)
- OPTIONAL: blender or emersion blender
- non-carnivore additions: coconut, stevia

WHAT YOU DO:
many people prefer their butter coffee very buttery. I don't. I like just enough to taste it, which is about a tsp. so take a tsp of butter and put it in a cup. Now make really hot coffee. Pour it over the butter and stir with a fork. if it gets cold from the stirring, nuke it for 15-20 seconds-- it will heat up fast because of the butter.

if you want extra fun, instead of using the fork, use an emersion or regular blender to make it all frothy. it's downright insanely good this way.  you will have to nuke after the frothing, though, because it gets cold.

if you have a non-carnivore around, add more butter, perhaps some coconut oil, and stevia. this makes the delightfulness increase (i have heard) plus you can play "starbucks barista" with the stevia flavors. I suppose you could use toranis or something, too, but i think those taste like eating cellulose... oh wait, that's what they are.

It's not really important the picture because it just looks like coffee.




Monday, April 9, 2012

Cornish

It's a personal chicken. Not much more to be said.


YOU NEED:
-one cornish game hen
-smoker

YOU DO:
put the game hen on the lowest rack in the smoker
fill the water pan
cook for about an hour, flip over
cook for another hour, flip over
cook for a third hour, flip over
cook for a final hour, flip over
EAT!

/end!

Thymus

Thymus is a great organ. I can't find it very often in stores. I ordered this one from City Mart back in Portland and went to pick it up. It is a veal thymus.

Thymus is otherwise known as "Sweetbreads". It has a very interesting texture, the exterior is rather membraneous but the interior is soft, like very well cooked scrambled eggs that you'd get at a restaurant, or like cottage cheese. I think it tastes a little like cottage cheese, too.

Here's my cooking thymus, along with a chicken liver.


YOU NEED
- veal thymus (pictured is about 0.5 lb raw)
- chicken liver (optional)
- a nonstick pan
- butter (optional)

YOU DO:
- remove thymus from package, defrost if necessary
- start cooking the liver or butter real slow. you want the liver to "ooze" a little juice for the purpose of preventing stick, or the butter to get spreadable.
- put the now defrosted thymus in the pan. if it is fatter than about an inch, splice it in half "hotdog style" so you get more surface area. cover it with something (I often use a potholder to keep the moisture in but not burn my lids)
- wait until your house smells like the fire department should come. seriously, if you think "oh, I'll burn it", wait a minute or two more. trust me the carbon on the outside is GREAT.
- flip that baby over. cook it on the other side for about half as much time.

enjoy eating the thymus.
google what the thymus does while eating. have lols.

Spiral Sausage!

I went to the King Kullen (also known as "they have a lot of Kosher stuff there market") to find some cheap eats for my husband. Lo, there was this sausage for $2.50. It is a pesto and chicken sausage, homemade by someone on long island. The ingredients did not include sodium I-don't-know-what-that-word-means anything, so I counted it as a win. I brought it home to the smoker!


Here's my baby sitting on the smoker!

And a few hours later, I moved Mr. Spiral Deliciousness to the plate


How to make a smoked spiral sausage:

YOU NEED:
a spiral sausage
a smoker

YOU DO:
take sausage out of package.
plug in smoker. (or set up your coals if your apartment lets you)
place the sausage on the highest smoker rack (you don't want it to burn and it's pretty fatty).
cover it. DON'T OPEN IT.
leave it for 3 hours.
removed carefully with tongs so the sausage doesn't break.

I served it to the husband with beans and broccoli, since he got carbs in this meal. I don't eat beans myself but if you're going to have carbs, I feel like beans aren't really all that troublesome compared to other choices you might make!


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