Healthy Homemade Mayonnaise

Recipe adapted from our friend Mollie Vacco.

This DIY Mayonaise is healthy and delicious too!  It's one of the easiest condiments to make from home!

It will help you eliminate one more item in your diet that may be full of yuk and help you on your clean eating journey.

I love it when I know what I'm eating, and when you make your own you know that all the ingredients are safe.

We are big on no corn and no soy in our animal feeds and soybean oil is used in SO MANY condiments.  Soy is a hormone disrupter, not good for the endocrine system, so kick it out of your life! 

Ingredients:

• 4 Nourished With Nature Pastured Egg Yolks

• 1/2 cup Organic Olive Oil

• 1 Tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar

• 1 tsp Dijon Mustard (optional)

• Pinch of Natural Trace Mineral Salt (Redmond Sea Salt)

Instructions:

1. Combine egg yolks, vinegar and dijon mustard with an immersion blender or whisk and pulse once.

2. Slowly add in olive oil. VERY slowly, start with a drop or two, then a light stream while blending until it is all incorporated.

3. Taste and salt a pinch at a time.

4. Store in a mason jar in the fridge. With our farm fresh eggs this mayo can last up to 2 weeks.

5. Enjoy!

Are you going to give it a try?

Tell what Nourished With Nature meats you're pairing it with in the comments below.

3 Pastured Egg Recipes You Need

Breakfast, lunch, and dessert with pastured eggs!

Eggs are the perfect protein, a powerhouse of nutrition.  Eggs from chickens who live on pasture are loaded with Vitamin A, D, K2 and E, folate, biotin, iron, zinc, and selenium.  Egg yolks are also a wonderful source of good cholesterol and choline.  

Choline is especially important for developing the nervous system in fetuses and through early childhood.  It contributes to being able to focus on more than one thing at a time, which EVERY MOM NEEDS!

Bottom line...they are a superfood!

In fact, our pastured egg yolks are one of my kids' first solid foods, that's how highly I value them!  I boil them for a couple minutes until the yolk is warm but still runny and dash some Natural Trace Mineral Salt on them and voila!

One fun fact...did you know that the yolk is everything a baby chick needs nutritionally to develop while in the shell?  I used to think that the yolk WAS the chick, but it's not.  It's the amazing source of nutrition and building blocks needed to create a tiny chicken, hence it's an amazing food for us too!

So here are a few of my FAVORITE ways to cook our Non-GMO Pastured Eggs:

FLUFFY SCRAMBLED EGGS

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs per person you're cooking for
• 1/4 cup of plain yogurt or sour cream
• salt and pepper
• 3-4 Tbsp Kerrygold butter
• 1/4 cup shredded cheese of your choice (I love sharp cheddar)

Instructions:

1. Melt butter in a shallow frying pan
2. In a bowl whisk together your eggs, yogurt or sour cream, salt and pepper
3. Pour into the pan with the melted butter and using a rubber spatula mix the eggs together with the butter, fluffing them as they cook.
4. When cooked to your liking (I like mine firm but not dry) sprinkle with shredded cheese
5. Done!
6. Serve alongside of sourdough bread and Nourished With Nature's Ham!

You can also get creative and add sauteed veggies, ham or breakfast sausage from our farm store to your scramble! 

SUMMERTIME DEVILED EGGS
 

Any BBQ or family gathering isn't complete until somebody shows up with the Deviled Eggs!

In our family it was a tradition my grandmother started, then my mother taught me to love them and now I'm sharing our family recipe with you!

One tip to seemlessly peeling beautiful hard-boiled eggs is to ask your farmer for eggs that are two or more weeks old.  This gives the bloom time to shrink away from the shell a tiny bit and separate without taking chunks of white with it as you peel.

You don't even want to know how old grocery store eggs are.  Two weeks is still VERY fresh compared to what you find there.

So here you go!

Ingredients:

• 1 dozen Nourished With Nature Pastured Eggs
• 1/2 cup Healthy Homemade Mayo
• 4 tsp dijon mustard
• 1/4 cup sweet zucchini pickle relish (also a homemade family recipe)
• fresh chives (to garnish)

Instructions:

1. Using a colander, steam eggs over boiling water for 15 minutes.
2. Submerge the eggs into an ice bath for 3-5 minutes.
3. Peel (watch this happen seamlessly).
4. slice your eggs in half and remove the yolk into a bowl.
5. Combine yolks, mayo, mustard, relish, salt, and pepper.
6. Mix it all together and taste test.
7. Using a frosting piping bag or just a ziplock baggie with the end cut off pipe the yolk mixture into your egg halves.
8. Garnish with chopped chives (you could also use paprika).
9. Enjoy!

Grab a couple for your own plate before you set it out at the potluck because after all that work you wouldn't want to miss out on enjoying them!  I assure you, they'll go FAST!

Visit our farm store to pick up fresh pastured eggs.

HEALTHY MAPLE ORANGE Creme Brulee

Ingredients:

• 1 cup whole raw milk
• 1 cup heavy raw cream
• 1/4 cup maple syrup (can substitute for honey or rapadura)
• 6 egg yolks
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 5 drops Orange Vitality Essential Oil from Young Living

Instructions:

1. Warm milk and cream gently over a low flame.
2. Meanwhile, beat maple syrup (or honey/rapadura) with egg yolks.
3. Slowly add milk and cream mixture to eggs, beating constantly.
4. Blend in Vanilla and Orange Essential Oil
5. Pour through a fine sieve to remove any bigger pieces of egg yolk.
6. Pour into individually buttered ramekins or custard cups.
7. Place in a 9 x 13 pan of hot water and bake at 325 degrees for about 1 hour or until a knife inserted into the custard comes out clean.
8. Chill well and enjoy as a dessert or for breakfast!

Vanilla, Maple Syrup, Milk and Orange Essential Oil

Buttered ramekins

Pour custard mix into buttered ramekins

Custards ready to bake in dish of hot water

Visit our farm store on Saturdays to stock up on Pastured GMO Free Eggs, we would love to know your favorite way to cook with them!

Cutting Up A Whole Chicken in 5 Easy Steps

When we first started raising meat birds I found myself stuck in the mindset of needing to cook the whole bird and IF I had a recipe that needed only breast meat...I would go buy it!  

Crazy!

We sell our broiler chickens whole, and I realized that sometimes you don't know how to use it any other way.  But you can!  Here is our how to cut up a whole chicken guide because education is power after all! 

Usually, the best chicken breast I can find in SOME stores is Organic.  It's not corn and soy free, it's not pastured so you're missing out on all the vitamins and minerals that the chicken gets from grass, and it's not necessarily local.

When you have perfectly good breast meat right here, WHY go buy it?

For me, it was a lack of know how!  I didn't feel confident, and I decided I'm probably not the only one...hence this little tutorial.

Now I do several birds in one day so that I can stockpile breast meat, wings or thighs and save time when I'm ready to cook dinner.

Confident.  Capable.  Knowledgeable.

Important skills when you are the woman of the house!

I don't know if it's just the homesteader woman in me or what, but I like knowing how to do it ALL!

I really appreciate my husband and the duties he covers on a daily basis.  I also like knowing how to shoot a gun, run the skid steer, manage the chores and cut up a chicken.

Benefits of Knowing How To Cut Up a Whole Chicken

•  Your meals can be more customizable
• One less trip to the grocery store 
• You don't have to compromise on quality
• You have the carcass and bones to make nutritious healing bone broth.
• You feel like SUPERWOMAN! (or a manly man)

5 Easy Steps To Cutting Up A Whole Chicken

1.     Thaw the bird at room temp for up to 24 hours before.  If it thaws quickly, put it in the fridge until you are ready to do the cutting.

2.     Find yourself a sharp SHARP knife.  I like Cutco knives and like using a nonserrated knife for this job.  A sharp knife will make this job a breeze.

3.     Remove the wing by cutting at the joint.  You shouldn't have to slice through bone if you find the joint and slip your knife right in between the ball and socket.  Start where the wing joins the body of the bird, make your cut.  Next cut the drumstick from the wing.  Finally cut the wing tip off.  Separate these into 3 different piles: wings, drumsticks, wing tips.

4.     Remove the thigh and drumstick.  Start with the breast of the bird facing up.  Cut through the skin closest to the bird's body so that you can fold the leg out exposing the hip joint.  Look for the ball and socket again and cut the thigh off.  Next, find the joint between the drumstick and thigh and make a cut there too.  Repeat on the other side. The drumstick and thigh are considered the dark meat.

5.     Remove breast meat.  Find the breastbone and cut on one side or the other.  When you come to wishbone you can point your knife straight down and press, chopping through this tiny little Y shaped bone.  Remove it from your breast meat.  You can also choose to remove the cutlet, which is the thin mini breast on the backside of the main breast, or leave it on.  Repeat on the other side.  This is your white meat.

Voila! That's it!  This super easy process will give you every cut of chicken you need!

How to get pastured chickens

If you're looking for healthy and delicious chickens we would love to have you out to our farm!  We have chickens in stock now but we may run out soon.  We raise them only once a year when grass conditions are premium and June will be the next time they are available.

Click here for our farm store hours

Sexy Pork Chops

Valentine's Day is coming up!

While I do feel like Valentine's Day is a fairly insignificant holiday I will say I don't mind being treated special on February 14th!  I don't feel like Valentine's Day is the only day to show loved ones they matter, it also doesn't hurt to have the day set aside and make a little extra effort, right?

Early on in my marriage (and mind you it's only been 7 years), I expected flowers and chocolates, a card and a dinner out on the town.  I think our culture built that expectation up for me.  As the years have gone by I put less and less importance on the predictable chocolates, flowers, dinners out and truly enjoy just feeling special!

This brings up a great point-LOVE LANGUAGES.

We all show love and receive love in different unique ways.  It can be different for everyone, and so I think it's a fun and valid topic to bring up.

Real quickly, the 5 LOVE LANGUAGES are:

• Words of Affirmation
• Quality Time
• Physical Touch
• Acts of Service
• Receiving Gifts

You can take your own quiz to find out your primary love language here

At our house, going out for dinner on Valentines Day isn’t very practical.  Pretty busy night for babysitters. Not too excited about the wait times and hustle at a fancy restaurant.  Also, not too excited about dropping lots of cash for a dinner where I’m paying for the experience and atmosphere versus the quality of the food.

Most restaurants aren’t going to be serving organically fed, non-GMO, pastured Pork Chops finished on acorns!

So this year we are having a special Valentines Dinner at HOME with this tasty Pork Chop Recipe!

It’s so delicious and simple!

You won’t have a gut ache afterward and you don’t have to compromise your clean eating!

If you do choose to hit the town on Feb 14th, you can cook these chops up easily on another day too!

No hard feelings if you LOVE to go out on Valentines Day, go for it!

Just the name makes them special for the month of February!

SEXY PORK CHOPS

Ingredients:

•  4 Nourished With Nature Acorn Finished Pork Chops
• Redmond salt and fresh ground pepper, to taste
• 1 Tbsp organic extra virgin olive oil, divided
• 3 Cloves garlic, minced
• 1/3 cup white wine
• ½ cup chicken broth
• zest of one lemon (Can substitute Lemon Essential Oil by Young Living)
• 1 Tbsp lemon juice
• 1 Tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
• 1 tsp fresh rosemary, chopped

Directions:

1.     Pull the pork chops out of the freezer about 12 hours before you plan to cook and let thaw at room temperature.  In a pinch, you can submerge them in hot water but NEVER microwave them.

2.     Sprinkle pork chops with salt and pepper to taste, on both sides

3.     Heat 1 Tbsp of the oil in a large cast iron skillet over medium/high heat.  Cook chops for 3-5 minutes each side until nicely browned and cooked through.

4.     Transfer to serving platter and cover to keep warm

5.     Add garlic to the fat left over from cooking the chops and cook stirring constantly until garlic is fragrant about 30 seconds.

6.     Add wine and broth. Increase heat to high.  Cook scraping the browned bits from the bottom until the liquid is reduced by two-thirds, about 5 minutes.

7.     Remove the pan from heat, stir in the lemon zest or oil, lemon juice, and herbs.  Test the sauce, add a little more salt and pepper if needed.

8.     I put my sauce in a gravy boat and poured over the chops while everything was hot!

I served my sexy pork chops alongside steamed green beans and sweet potato fries but you could do mashed potatoes or wild rice too!

Stop by our farm store before Valentine’s Day to get your Pastured Pork Chops!

Make sure to serve this delightful dinner at home with a twist of your spouse’s preferred LOVE LANGUAGE!

Yours Naturally,

Julia

PS-Comment below and tell me what is your primary love language?  Is it the same as your spouse’s?

FOOD IS LOVE

December 7, 2017

Thank you so much for being part of our farm community!

I want to share a personal story with you that motivates me to keep farming and feeding my family nutrient dense, grass fed meats.

I was shopping at Costco right before Thanksgiving a few weeks ago and you know how it just happens...I try really hard not to do it... but it just happens that you glance into other people's shopping carts as they pass you, and you notice what they are buying?

I passed this one cart that was full of pies!  Four huge pecans and four huge pumpkins pies!  Right before the holidays life can be a little hectic and for a moment I thought, "I should just buy pies too instead of make them from scratch".

I have three little boys under the age of 5 that keep me on my toes from sun up to sun down EVERY SINGLE DAY.

It’s crazy sometimes!

You know how it is too, or maybe you can remember back to the days as a mom with toddlers.  It might look something like this-

Swim lessons, story time at the library, naps, meals, baths, bedtime stories, several rounds of kisses then as you lay down next to their sweet heads to persuade them to fall asleep you nod off first.

An hour later you drag yourself to your own bed only to be awoken couple times through the night to nurse the baby.

You can see why I so desperately wanted to just buy pies!

Then I caught myself!  Crisco-gross.  High fructose corn syrup-no way!  Additives, thickeners, GMOs, white refined sugar-I don't think so!

So I headed home to use my pastured pork lard for the crust and homegrown pumpkin puree.    

As a disclaimer I just want to say that I am not above buying a frozen lasagna from time to time for those evenings when it's just not going to happen to make a homemade meal from scratch before your children turn into monsters and you pull your hair out.  But when I have my wits about me, I plan ahead like you, and use ingredients I can trust.

I had this ah-ha! moment where I realized I have a PERSONAL CONNECTION to my food.  

Like you, I know my farmer (he sleeps by me at night though).  I feel responsible to not overeat and not throw anything away when I know where my food comes from.

I also feel like I'm giving my family a gift each time I make a nutritious dinner, therefore…

FOOD IS LOVE!

Homemade meals take some time, lets face it, cooking from scratch can be time consuming.   But this is the time you can gather your kids and let them help, tell them stories about how their grandmother made homemade biscuits and pork gravy.  It’s time you can spend growing closer together as a family.

GOOD FOOD TAKES TIME!

Our animals are raised SLOW, without growth hormones or steroids, and that takes time, but that to me means LOVE.  Most meat you buy in the grocery store is raised in concentrated fed lots or hoop houses with their heads stuck in a feed bunker and very little room to move about.

Our animals live a wonderfully natural life, on pasture, in the open space and fresh air.

The chickens and turkeys scratch for grubs and peck at fresh grass.

The pigs free range in a 5 acre oak forest and root for bugs or acorns.

The cows and sheep graze on fresh green grass their whole lives.

They live a delightful life, then give us the opportunity to show LOVE by the time we spend preparing meals.  They bring our families together around the dinner table creating lasting relationships, NOURISHING our bodies and souls.

I love being a farmer and sharing our pastured meats and eggs with you.

Since we are still getting to know you I wanted to make sure you know what Farm Products we have available.

This way you can plan your year to buy in bulk and save some money or buy a few individual cuts to sample.

I'd love to hear from you, leave a comment below and tell me your take on why Food is Love.

Yours Naturally,
Julia

PS- Click HERE to see our Farm Products raised with love.