Freezing Tomatoes (SCD, GFCF)

There's nothing like the taste of homegrown tomatoes. The cruel irony is that just when you want that flavor the most, in your nice warm bowl of tomato soup when the weather is cold, there are no good tomatoes to be found. Several years ago a neighbor had a bumper crop of tomatoes. He told me to blanch them and freeze them. I took the tomatoes and the advice. I was amazed at how well the frozen tomatoes had retained their wonderful flavor. I was determined to have a good batch put away this summer. Eddie started some tomato plants this spring but the 100 plus degree weather dampened my plan. Luckily the farmers market here has some decent batches. This year, instead of boiling the tomatoes and peeling them, I got an even easier idea from a post on Apron Strings for Roasted Tomato Sauce for the Freezer.  I love the flavor of roasted tomatoes. So I followed the instruction for roasting. I sliced an X on the bottom of each tomato and placed them X side up in a roasting pan. I roasted them at 400 degrees for about 45 minutes, then let them cool. Then the skins just slipped off. It was so easy... and the house smelled like roasted tomatoes. I didn't make the sauce. Kalyn's Kitchen also has a recipe that caught my eye for "Just Tomatoes" Sauce for the Freezer. I'll be trying that one next week.

Liebster Award

 My blog has received the Liebster Blog award. Lisa of  Allergy-Free Vintage Cookery tagged me for it."Liebster is a German word meaning dear, sweet, kind, nice, good, beloved, lovely, kindly, pleasant, valued, cute, endearing and welcome". The Liebster Award goes to blogs with less than 200 followers. Since I was tagged for this award, I now get to tag five other blogs. I'm going to cheat and pick six. I love so many blogs (if you haven't noticed my links list and my list of blogs I follow). So I am going to pick six that have are very unique.

A Cake Bakes in Brooklyn. This is not a gluten-free blog but a great source of inspiration. Susan has a fascinating hobby. She collects vintage cake and dessert recipes and blogs about the results. As she puts it: "These "lost" recipes, with their stains and annotations like "good, from mother's book," provide a window into the past, and one that I'm trying to pry open, one stick of butter at a time!"

Healthy Diets and Science. The media and mainstream medicine like to give us a single sided look at dietary research. David likes to give us a peek at the other side. If you are an armchair researcher like myself, this blog is an absolute gem.

Feed Me Like You Mean It. I think the name of this blog alone is worth an award. I wish I would have thought of it. Alex Lewin is serious about real food. Very Serious. His blog follows happenings in the real food movement.

Sonoma Bento This is another non-gf blog, but she has great ideas for incorporating fruits and veggies into the lunchbox. Full of lovely ideas.

My Cranky Gut. This is one of the newest blogs for the Specific Carbohydrate Diet. Damion covers many topics: research, recipes, food journals and personal experiences.

Grain-Free Groupie A grain-free/gluten-free blog with lots of flavor.  It's nice to see more gluten-free blogs going a step further and ousting the refined sugar and refined gf grains as well. Many of us are learning there's more to being gluten-free than just being gluten-free, there's a lot of other junk that needs to go out with the gluten.

If you were tagged and would like to participate, here's what you do:

1. Mention who tagged you.

2. Reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.

3. Copy and paste the award on your blog.

4. Have faith that your followers will spread the love to others.

Dan Rather on Colony Collapse

Bee keepers around the world are losing an average of 34 percent of their bee population each year. In this facinating, thought provoking and somewhat creepy report, Dan Rather looks into the role of neonicotinoid pesticides, a systemic pesticide whose release coincides with the bee epidemic. This report can be viewed here at PAN North America

Hearty Vegetable Beef Soup (SCD, GFCF)

Soup season is coming! I love soup. This one is almost a stew, but not quite. I used "beef" in the title but almost any ground meat will do. This batch was made with deer meat. I prefer to use a leaner ground meat so there's little fat to drain off. Ingredients are approximate.

Hearty Vegetable Beef Soup

1 lb Lean Ground Meat such as Beef, Turkey, Deer, or Bison
Small amount of Olive Oil if needed
1 Onion, diced fine
1 Tomato, seeded and diced fine
3 cups Tomato Juice
2 cups Water
1 teas. Dried Basil
1 teas. Dried Oregano
Dash of Celery Seed (optional, early SCD'ers omit)
1 cup Carrots, diced fine
2 small Zucchini, diced fine
1 cup Frozen Cut Green Beans
Salt to taste

Brown meat in a large pot. Drain off excess fat if needed. Add onions and tomatoes and cook, stirring occasionally until onions are tender. (If meat is very lean you may need a little olive oil). Add tomato juice, water, and herbs. Bring to a simmering boil. Add the other vegetables and simmer to desired tenderness. Season with salt to taste. Serves 6.

This post is linked to Fightback Friday.

Recipe Review - Lemon Ricotta Pancakes From Simply Gluten-Free (modified for SCD)

Carol Kicinski of Simply Gluten-Free has a flourless pancake recipe using ricotta cheese called "Gluten Free Ricotta Lemon Pancakes". Ricotta cheese is not legal on the SCD, so I substituted with dry curd cottage cheese, also called farmers cheese. They were very good. They reminded me of french toast without the toast. Thanks Carol!

 Here is a link for pancake syrups. I also have a recipe for Raspberry Syrup.