Honey is a great alternative to sugar. I love it and have been using it for years. Whenever possible I buy local honey. Local food always tastes fresher to me plus it’s a simple way to give the environment a little extra TLC. Other than local or not-local, I admit that I never really gave honey much thought.

Until now.

Recently my youngest sister introduced to me to raw honey. I had no idea it could be so different from the honey I was buying at the grocery store.

For starters – raw honey is creamy, smooth and spreadable. It’s not runny at all. The highest quality is unheated and unfiltered. A fresh unopened jar usually has a layer of beeswax, pollen and propolis (made by bees to glue the materials of their hives together and for centuries has been used to treat ailments ranging from acne to osteoporosis and cancer) on the top. The honey is underneath and since it has never been heated or filtered, it’s full of enzymes that can aid in digestion, plus amino acids, vitamins and minerals. Yes, it’s definitely pricier than runny honey, but in my opinion, worth every penny.

Check out how thick raw honey is in this picture. Amazing. Rich sweetness. Yum!

Many consider raw honey to be a superfood. And for good reason. Here is just a brief list of some of the benefits that raw honey can bring.

* increase calcium absorption

* help arthritic joints

* natural and gentle laxative

* constipation and allergy relief

* when applied topically, can speed healing of tissues damaged by infection and trauma

* facial deep cleanser for acne and unwanted blemishes– mix with an equal amount of oatmeal, apply to the face and let it sit for 30 minutes before washing off

Delicious, health promoting and a facial cleanser? Sorry, runny honey, but you just can’t compete with your raw sister.

My fiancé’s birthday was yesterday. I’ve heard of people celebrating their birthday for the entire week or month of their actual day of birth. While I honestly can admit that this is not a concept I can relate to personally, I do think it is important to celebrate life whenever possible, and that definitely includes birthdays.

That doesn’t mean the celebration has to be big or expensive. For me, it’s important to celebrate by doing something that I wouldn’t necessarily do on just any day. I know some people that always take the day off from work. Others go to a fancy restaurant for dinner. For Ryan, he celebrated by leaving work “early”, which meant getting home around 6pm. I finished my workday around the same time and prepared Ryan’s favorite dinner to celebrate – flank steak – local, grass-fed, antibiotic and hormone-free. We ate in the dining room, which we never do unless we are entertaining.

To go with the steak, I made a spicy plum salsa sauce, southern-style greens and simply steamed broccoli. For dessert I made chewy chocolate chip cookies so that Ryan and I could enjoy them together. To make dessert a little different for Ryan I took a few spoon-fulls of his favorite ice cream from the freezer, smashed it between two cookies and popped it back in the freezer for a somewhat homemade ice cream cookie sandwich. Sure, it’s not your typical birthday cake or cupcake, but then again, I guess I’m not very typical either.

How do you celebrate birthdays? Do you have a special birthday meal or dessert?

Flank Steak Marinade

Ingredients:

16 ounces flank steak

1/4 cup gluten free soy sauce

1/4 cup gluten free Worcestershire sauce

1 small onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1/4 teaspoon ginger

1 teaspoon paprika

1 tablespoon ketchup

Juice from 1 lemon

Directions:

Mix all ingredients except flank steak in large baking dish or Pyrex container

Add flank steak. Use spoon to cover meat with marinade.

Cover and put in refrigerator for two to five hours.

Heat grill and cook meat evenly on both sides.

Slice and serve.

Plum Salsa – Adapted from Better Homes & Gardens – it goes well as a “sauce” or a salsa dip.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon gluten free soy sauce

1 tablespoon honey

2 plums, chopped

1 small onion, chopped

1 jalapeno, chopped

Grapeseed oil

Directions:

Dribble a little grape seed oil in a medium skillet and apply medium heat.

Add onions and jalapeno and cook for about 5 minutes.

Add plums, soy sauce and honey.

Cook until plums are tender and onions are transparent – about 10 minutes.

I lived in Asheville, NC, for 2.5 years, but can honestly say that it never felt like home. I always knew I’d be leaving and never really let myself get too attached. My fiancé and I expected to be in Asheville for 12 to 18 months, but when the economy collapsed our “short” stay turned into a long 29 months. Asheville is beautiful and a great place to visit, but this New Yorker at heart needs a bigger city for real peace of mind. I learned a lot from living in Asheville, but am grateful to have closed that chapter last March. I never expected to live in the Midwest again after college, but here I am. And very happy, I have to admit.

My fiancé and I bought our first house together. It’s a cozy old brick house in a perfectly central location to everything we need and like to be close to – grocery stores, restaurants, our offices and our social life.

When we both moved to Asheville and consolidated all of our stuff, there wasn’t too much to get rid of. It was a little hodgepodge and shall we say, an eclectic combination of tastes, but we knew we would be moving again in the near future and didn’t want to invest in anything new until we were living somewhere more permanent.

Well folks, that time has officially arrived!

Furnishing a home is so much fun – and this is coming from a girl that doesn’t like to shop. I want my home to be comfortable, but also functional. It’s where I need to be able to relax after a long day, break bread with my friends and family and build memories.

It’s been 6 months and we are nowhere close to being finished, but the “essential” stuff, like painting over the neon green kitchen walls (true story) and purchasing a dining room table and chairs have been taken care of. We even have pictures and art on the walls – sounds simple, but something we really didn’t do much of in Asheville. The rest will come together eventually.

I am patient and always looking for good deals and exploring ideas I see on my favorite home-related blogs and magazines. I’ve never really been able to relate to the concept of instant gratification, which you probably already know if you read this blog. I think it is much more rewarding to put in the time and effort, whether it’s regularly getting on the elliptical machine, or putting away a little bit of each paycheck and then jumping with delight when you fit back into your pre-pregnancy jeans or the new couch is delivered. Oh how I will jump in delight when we finally replace our current couch in the family room. One day…

So the whole point of this post – our backyard patio has been completely empty since Moving Day. Over Labor Day weekend we went shopping for a good sale and purchased a grill. Still no patio furniture, but now we can grill, which after being without one for the entire summer, I am loving and taking full advantage of as often as possible. As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing wrong with eating outside on folding chairs or inviting friends over to grill and eating at our brand-spanking-new dining room table indoors. And because we waited so long to purchase the grill we really appreciate it. We don’t take it for granted.

Grilling is generally pretty easy and simple to do. We’ve been grilling lots of vegetables and meat that we get at the Farmer’s Market. I saw a recipe for grilling salt & vinegar potatoes on 101cookbooks.com that I had to try. They were pretty awesome and more natural than any salt & vinegar potato chips you can buy prepackaged at the grocery store. I will definitely be making these again.

Apologies, but there really aren’t any real measurements or quantities for this recipe. It’s more about the technique and you can make however much or little you want!

Ingredients:

Potatoes – preferably a white variation (versus sweet potatoes)

White wine vinegar

A little extra virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Any other spices you like to add to vinegar

Directions:

Slice potatoes into 1/4’’ slices

Place in large skillet, try to overlap as little as possible and pour in white wine vinegar – just enough to cover the potato slices

Bring vinegar to a boil

Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes – the potatoes should still be firm and not falling apart

Allow to cool in the vinegar for about 20 or 30 minutes

Drain, spray lightly with extra virgin olive oil, add salt and other preferred spices

Place potatoes on heated grill – flip when one side browns – about 3 to 5 minutes. Remove from grill.

Retouch with spices if necessary

Serve.

I never heard of okra before moving to the south. It’s popular there, where it grows easily because there is little frost. The first time I brought it home I thought that my okra was spoiled because it was very slimy and sticky when I cut it open. Turns out, that’s just how okra is. Not exactly appetizing, to say the least, but you get used to it.

Putting up with a little slime is worth it, if you ask me. Okra packs in the health benefits – it’s a great tool to stabilize blood sugar, maintain a healthy gastro-intestinal tract and prevent constipation, gas and bloating.

It’s common to pair okra with acidic vegetables, like tomatoes, to reduce some of the slime. Or you can use the slime to thicken soups. So clearly a little slime goes a long way – drama-free digestion, lots of nutrients and thick soups – not too shabby.

At the Farmer’s Market this weekend, I picked up some okra at the request of my fiancé. I figured I would roast it with some tomatoes and call it a day. Easy. Simple. Real Food. Why over-think it, right?

I spent most of the day studying so I was grateful when Ryan took a break from football to help me get our meals ready for the week. He came up with an okra red lentil combination that was both creative and tasty. Yes, I know I’m a very lucky girl.

He modified the recipe found on this website.

Ingredients:

Okra with onions

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 small onion, chopped

1 garlic clove, sliced

4 dried red hot chilis, sliced with seeds

1 cup okra, sliced into 1/4′’ slices

dash of salt

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground ginger

Red Lentils

1 pound dried red lentils

1 medium onion, chopped

1/4 teaspoon turmeric

1 garlic clove, sliced

1 dried red chili, chopped with seeds

pinch of salt

water to just cover lentils

Directions:

Heat olive oil in large pan. Add onion, garlic and chili. Cook for 5 minutes.

Add okra and spices. Cook until is soft and dries out. Set aside.

Pour olive oil into large pan on medium heat. Add onions and spices for lentils. Cook for 5 minutes.

Pour water and lentils into pan with onions. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until lentils are cooked – about 30 minutes.

Add okra mixture to lentils and mix with spoon.

Serve warm. It pairs well with brown rice or pita.

Brisk fall air might have made its way to Cincinnati this week, but there are still loads of the versatile summer staple – cucumbers – at the Farmer’s Market to remind me that the seasons haven’t turned just yet. But we’re getting close. I can almost smell fall in the air. I can’t wait for apples, pumpkins and all the sweet goodness that comes with fall.

But back to summer -

I added cucumber to the blender this week while making hummus and was very pleasantly surprised by the cool refreshing flavor it added. Just a hint of cucumber – not too overpowering at all.

Here’s a fun-filled fact I just learned about cucumbers – they are part of the same botanical family as watermelon, cantaloupe and all squashes. I guess I sort of see the resemblance with watermelon, but the other members of the family were a bit… unexpected.

Anyway, adding cucumber to hummus is an easy way to kick the nutrient-density of this dip up a few notches, cram in extra phytonutrients and maximize antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits, which is always a good thing. This comes in handy, especially if you’re dipping chips into the hummus, which don’t really big a lot of nutrient-punch. Ok, they don’t bring any.

This is a great dip that I will definitely make for company, or just to have at home, again and again.

Ingredients:

1/2 large cucumber, peeled

2 cloves garlic

15 ounces cooked chickpeas

3 tablespoons tahini

juice from 1 lemon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 – 2 tablespoons of water

Directions:

Put everything into blender or food processor and blend until thoroughly combined and smooth.

Use spatula to pour hummus into bowl.

Place bowl in refrigerator for at least 2 hours to chill. Hummus will thicken slightly.

Serve with fresh vegetables, crackers, chips or add a scoop to your salad or whatever else you’re eating!

In case it wasn’t obvious, I thought you should know that I do not have a culinary background. I occasionally helped my mom in the kitchen growing up, but before my diagnosis, scrambled eggs and mashed potatoes were the extent of my skills in the kitchen.

I’ve learned a great deal about food these last few years and I can honestly say that the best recipes and tastiest meals are the ones that are also the simplest – use the fewest ingredients. Using real ingredients takes the work out of trying to make something taste good.

Some people go to culinary school. Others grow up in the kitchen learning generations of family secret recipes. I surf the web and browse magazines. I get inspiration for my meals from several sources, including what I already have at home in my cabinets and refrigerator, Mother Nature, and what I read on some of my favorite websites. What can I say? I guess it helps get the creative juices flowing.

After moving to Cincinnati, I became a subscriber of Better Homes & Gardens (BHG). I love playing around / daydreaming with ideas for our home almost as much as I love “playing” with food. And sometimes BHG even has some pretty interesting recipes. Their August 2011 issue had an interesting recipe with green beans and peaches – a combination I never considered before.

So that’s where I started – with the green beans and the peaches. Thank you BHG, but I got it from here.

Ingredients:

a very generous 1/2 pound green beans, tips trimmed

1 tablespoon grapeseed oil

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 medium onion, sliced in semicircles

1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom seed

1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

1 peach, cut into 1/2’’ slices

Directions:

Pour grapeseed oil onto large skillet and use medium heat

Mix garlic in oil and sauté for 2 minutes

Add onions and cardamom, mix again. Sauté for another 3 minutes.

Add grean beans and balsamic vinegar, mix well and cook until green beans are al dente – about 8 to 12 minutes
Remove and pour into glass or heat safe dish

Pour peach slices onto pan – gently mix with any leftover marinade in pan – sauté for about 2 minutes

Remove and add to green bean mixture

Where does your inspiration come from for meals for you and your family?

One of my very first posts when I first launched my blog in 2009 was about spaghetti squash. It’s been a family favorite ever since we all started cleaning up our diet and focusing on local and real ingredients.

For whatever reason, I always thought spaghetti squash was an early to mid fall vegetable, but when I was strolling through the farmer’s market yesterday there it sat, pretty as ever, among the peppers, garlic, onions, tomatoes and other end-of summer vegetables. I’m not sure if this is special to the Tristate area, if Mother Nature is getting a little ahead of herself, or I was just plain wrong before, but I happily added a spaghetti squash to my already stuffed bag before heading home.

Now I gotta be honest here – this recipe takes a little longer than what I usually make. Not because it’s complicated – just because the ingredients all spend a lot of time in the oven. It’s a good meal to make on a Sunday afternoon when you’re hanging out watching football (that started, right?), or something.

So here you have it – dinner brought to you by your, or rather my, farmer’s market! We had some leftover raw kale salad that I made the day before, which compliments the spaghetti squash very nicely (or so I’m told, since I need my greens cooked).

Ingredients: (feeds 2-3)

1 medium spaghetti squash

1 large tomato

1 large onion

1/2 cup cooked chickpeas (canned, strained and rinsed is fine too)

1/2 teaspoon lemon thyme, chopped or dried

salt and pepper to taste

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Juice from 1/2 a lemon

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Slice squash in half lengthwise, remove seeds

Spray with a dash of extra virgin olive oil and place flesh down onto baking dish

Put squash in oven

Grease 8×8 baking dish

Chop tomatoes into large chunks and place into baking dish – skin should be on the bottom

Coarsely chop onion and place in medium mixing bowl

Chop garlic and add to bowl

Add chickpeas, salt, pepper, and lemon thyme

Add 1 teaspoon oil

Mix well

Add onion mixture to baking dish – getting in between the tomatoes, but try to keep the tomato skins touching the baking dish

Remove squash once it is tender enough to easily punch fork through each half

Place into oven and roast until tomatoes begin to shrivel – about 1.5 to 2 hours

Once you remove the squash, use forks to remove “spaghetti” from squash. Place into bowl.

Remove tomatoes. Add squash to baking dish and mix.

Add lemon juice

Serve warm or cold.

While I personally choose to refrain from eating animal protein on a regular basis, I realize that we are all different and that for some, eating meat makes them feel better compared to how they feel if they don’t eat meat. I am the opposite. I feel best when I don’t eat animal protein.

Just to make sure we are all on the same page – “animal protein” means any food that comes from an animal – eggs, cheese, milk, chicken, turkey, veal, lamb, you get the idea.

My fiancé prefers meat – not for every meal, but at least a few times a week. I get that. However, he has significantly reduced his intake these last few months – he’s lost weight, feels good and our monthly food budget is looking better than ever. I like it.

When we first moved to Asheville together I started cooking meat for the first time in a few years. I had completely forgotten what raw meat felt and looked like. I didn’t like it at all. In fact, at the very beginning I had to buy meat already seasoned and marinated from our grocery store (don’t worry, still high quality meat and ingredients because that’s just how Asheville rolls), plop it onto the pan without touching it and walk away. But I did it. Man, that’s love.

Well it got easier over time. Much easier. Sort of how most doctors will tell you how nauseous or ill they got the first time they ever saw a live surgery and within no time how they completely became immune to the idea of what they were actually looking at, cutting into, etc. Yea – it was definitely like that – minus the whole saving lives thing.

So anyways, now I don’t mind cooking meat at home. Anything and everything. As long as it’s good quality stuff, of course. I’ve always been curious by pulled meat and decided to give chicken a try. I didn’t taste it (I did however, dip my pinkie in a few times once the chicken was cooked to see how the sauce tasted), but my fiancé gave it excellent reviews – which is good, because there’s a few meals worth of pulled chicken in our refrigerator!

I paired it with a raw kale salad (recipe below) that was inspired by a segment I saw on TV earlier that day.

Ingredients:

Round 1 in the Slow Cooker:

1 small onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 teaspoon hot sauce

1 tablespoon raw apple cider vinegar

3 tomatoes, diced (keep seeds and juice)

1 – 1.25 pounds boneless chicken breast

1 cup broth of your choice (check out my homemade bone beef broth)

Round 2 in the Slow Cooker:

1/3 cup soy sauce

1 cup Dijon mustard

1/3 cup honey

1/3 cup ketchup

2 teaspoons cumin

2 teaspoons chili powder

2 teaspoons paprika

Directions:

If the chicken is thick, cut into thinner pieces – about 1’’ thick or less.

Place all ingredients from Round 1 in the slow cooker. Use a spoon to mix in the vegetables and seasonings evenly around the chicken.

Cook for about 3 hours or until chicken is white and cooked.

Strain.

Remove chicken and use 2 forks to pull it apart into strings.

Place ingredients from Round 2 in slow cooker. Mix evenly.

Pour pulled chicken into slow cooker.

Add tomatoes and any other ingredients still in your strainer back into the slow cooker. Most of it should still be there except the broth.

Use a spoon to mix everything together.

Cook for another hour.

Serve warm or chilled.

The pulled chicken can be eaten on top of a salad, as a sandwich or with this raw kale salad featured below. Whatever sounds good to you!

Ryan takes a huge salad to work everyday with whatever veggies we pick up at the Farmer’s Market. Today I topped it with pulled chicken.

Raw Kale Salad

Ingredients:

1 head of kale (I used the curly kale)

1 lemon

2 teaspoons raw apple cider vinegar

1 avocado

Salt and pepper to taste.

Directions:

Wash kale and use hands to remove leaves. Tear leaves into bite size pieces. Pat dry with towel before placing in large mixing bowl.

Add lemon juice and raw apple cider vinegar.

Add avocado. It helps if you cut the avocado into cubes first.

Use your (freshly washed) hands to mix all ingredients together. Feel free to mash the avocado.

Season if necessary.

Place in refrigerator and let the acidity do its thing for at least 1 or 2 hours.

Serve chilled.

Ulcerative Colitis comes with a lot baggage. Some things matter more when I’m flaring and others are just an everyday reality. One of my greatest concerns that I always have to take into consideration when deciding what to eat is how easily my body can breakdown, digest and absorb said food. My other big concern – nutrient-density of said food.

Nutrient-dense foods are just as important for the average person, whether or not you have a diagnosed digestive disease. Our bodies need the right tools to replenish and repair the cells and keep all systems running smoothly. Those tools are the nutrients that we feed it. My body will make sure I know it’s not getting what it needs pretty darn fast. Yours will too, if you listen.

Homemade bone broth is an excellent way for my body (and yours) to get a lot of nutrients without having to work too hard to absorb them.

Broths made from bones have been made and used by most of the traditional societies around the globe for centuries. And for good reason – it’s inexpensive, super easy to make and loaded with nutrients.

A little raw apple cider draws out nutrients and minerals including calcium, magnesium phosphorus, silicon and sulphur from the bones into the water. These nutrients are in a form that is very easy for the body to assimilate. It’s no wonder that broth is known for healing colds, sore throats and other health ailments! Broth also contains broken down material from cartilage and tendons – chondroitin sulphates and glucosamine – essential ingredients found in the expensive supplements for arthritis and joint pain.

Homemade bone broth is a great source of gelatin. Research suggests that gelatin is not only great for our joints, but it also supports the growth of our hair and nails.

I like to use it as a base for soups, sauces and a flavorful cooking medium for vegetables.

So why is the homemade version preferred to the store bought stuff? Well for one thing, if you’re using bones and meat from a healthy animal that was fed well and wasn’t given antibiotics then you’re quality of broth is going to be off-the-charts awesome. Also, store bought broths can be watered down, minimizing your nutrient intake. They may also be highly processed and your wallet will definitely notice the difference in cost. I definitely use low-sodium organic store-bought broths from time to time, but I prefer homemade when possible.

For more information about homemade bone broth I highly recommend Sally Fallon’s Broth is Beautiful.

Ingredients:

1 pound high-quality beef soup bones

1 large potato, diced

1 large onion, diced

2 large carrots, diced

3 celery stalks, diced

2 tablespoons raw apple cider

1 teaspoon oregano

1 teaspoon thyme

4 cloves garlic, chopped

6 cups water

Directions:

Add all ingredients to slow cooker

Cook on low heat until meat falls off of bones and simmers – about 9 hours

Remove meat and bones

Strain well

Cool

Freeze or place in refrigerator (Make sure broth is completely cooled before placing in ice trays. I put mine in a big glass Pyrex overnight before freezing.)

Freezing some of your batch in ice cube trays makes it easy to use small amounts without defrosting everything at once

* No need to discard all of the veggies – you can either leave them in the broth or eat them separately. I like to put them on a bed of cooked greens with some hummus. Delicious!

To switch things up this weekend I decided to purchase my weekly supply of local goodies at the Findlay Market yesterday instead of the usual Hyde Park Farmer’s Market. I love the HP market, but Ryan and I were in the neighborhood on Saturday morning and wanted to see what all the hype was about.

Although the market had several local vendors with delicious sustainable-grown produce, the extra 15 minutes in the car, difficulty parking and large crowds are not my ideal shopping experience. I found it stressful, even though I came home with some great stuff. I was also happy to recognize many of the vendors from my Sunday mornings at the Hyde Park Farmer’s Market.

So while I think it is absolutely wonderful that there is a growing support of local businesses here in Cincinnati, I prefer the smaller and more relaxing experience in Hyde Park on Sundays. But that’s just me. I don’t need 10 different vendors selling tomatoes at Findlay if all 3 at Hyde Park are equally priced and the same quality.

I guess part of moving to a new city is keeping an open mind and trying new things. Now I have an even stronger appreciation for the market in Hyde Park.

I have to admit that there were some great deals. Like these blueberries from Michigan – not super local, but more local than what Whole Foods sells from California. And you can’t beat the price – 1 pound for 6 bucks! I loaded up and will keep a stash in the freezer.

I also picked up a seedless watermelon – it was huge and was also 6 bucks. Without a doubt, it is the best one of the season so far.

I also had to stop and admire all of the beautiful flowers being sold at the market. Absolutely exquisite.

What do you like or dislike about your local Farmer’s Market? Anyone go to Findlay? May be I just caught it on a super crowded day and should give it another try? I’m still the “new girl” here so any recommendations are appreciated!