Labor of Love

I always love Labor Day weekend. It always feels like the transition mark from the summer to the fall, and I love the fall! Despite the very Seattle-like weather this weekend, I still sprinkled a little cinnamon and cloves into my coffee this morning to make it feel more like autumn. 

This weekend was spent doing a lot of boring grown-up type stuff like washer/dryer shopping and doing some much-needed laundry at my parents house. Today, though, I was in my element. Today being Labor Day, I took it literally and rolled up my sleeves for an afternoon in the kitchen with John Mayer's new album playing on repeat in the background!

 I work longer hours in the fall and spring semesters, and it makes it tricky to get dinner together at a reasonable time. I took a couple of hours this afternoon to do a bunch of pre-cooking to make my weeknights less hectic! 

Here's a little bit of what I made: 

Bone broth! Just a few pounds of beef bones (I got them for about $0.50 per pound at the local farmers market) tossed in the slow-cooker with a chopped onion, celery, carrots, garlic, a few bay leaves and covered with water. I let the whole pot cook on low for about 8 hours, then poured the broth through a fine-mesh sieve until it was clear. It'll be a nice addition to my breakfast meal - it's great for Whole30 as it contains good fats and plenty of protein! Here's a link to the recipe I used.

Ghee anyone? It's just a fancy word for clarified butter. I buy the good stuff (Kerrygold butter - it's from grass fed cows!) and let a pound of butter simmer in a pot until the milk fats separate and sink to the bottom. I finish up by pouring the liquid through some cheesecloth into a large glass measuring cup (the cheesecloth catches all the milk fats). I love to use this in the pan I cook my eggs in in the morning - it makes the eggs taste downright velvety! Here's the recipe. I like to have some of this around at all times, but today I made it especially for the next recipe I made...

These Chinese five-spice powdered cashews were SO easy. Want the recipe? You can check it out on the Nom Nom Paleo app. I just tossed some raw cashews in a heavy pan with a couple of tablespoons of ghee, sprinkled a little salt and pepper on top, and added about a teaspoon of Chinese five-spice powder. I love that I can enjoy nuts (in moderation), and these are so packed with flavor that you can get a huge amount of enjoyment out of a closed palmful (the Whole30-approved amount!).

This is how you know you're doing Whole30! I keep these five things close at hand: Himalayan salt, black peppercorns, Raw Coconut Aminos, Red Boat Fish Sauce, and the Trader Joe's 21 Seasoning Salute. While part of the point of Whole30 is appreciating the flavors of naturally delicious food, there's nothing to stop you from spicing things up a bit! 

Here's the result of my afternoon in the kitchen! I roasted up 5 big sweet potatoes, and mashed them with a few tablespoons of melted ghee, a sprinkle of cinnamon, and some salt and pepper (to taste). I chopped up some cauliflower, boiled it, pureed it with my stick-blender, and added some garlic, parsley, salt, pepper, and ghee. Both of these things will be easy to add to lunches and dinners for the rest of the week! The cashews will add a nice spicy kick to a few meals as well. The bone broth (middle right) will be a great soup base, and it will be even better on its own warmed up! Lastly I made up a quick egg frittata with mushrooms, spices, grape tomatoes, and topped the whole thing with thin slices of prosciutto. It'll be easy to grab a square or two on the way out the door in the morning.  

Lastly, dinner. A couple of nice (big) steaks seasoned with Montreal steak seasoning, a couple scoops of mashed cauliflower, and a handful of snap peas sauteed in ghee with some salt and pepper. 

It was a lot of work, and I feel like I used just about every pot, pan, and bowl in our kitchen, but I think the result will make for quicker dinners in the evening, and even quicker lunches for the week!

Hope everybody had an awesome Labor Day weekend!