Preparing for GAPS

Stock!  Lots of stock!

Last weekend was quite a weekend!  The last several weekends have been so busy.  In the midst of the holiday prepping and planning, I'm also trying to prepare for our upcoming foray into the GAPS diet to help me overcome my recently-developed intolerance to all dairy great and small.  Part of prepping has been to try my hand at making bone broth.  It's quite easy--just takes time.  It seems like everything takes time...but I'm believing more and more that good things truly are worth the wait.  I'm gaining more appreciation for making things like this!  I've always liked to make things from scratch, but I don't always have time to do so.  However, I know that much of the diet relies on homemade broth, and I imagine that it will go quickly, so the more I can make, the better!  I now have accumulated 14 quarts of chicken broth and 8 quarts of beef broth, which should get us going.  One things I'm having trouble with is getting the gel consistency in my broth, but it has a good flavor.  I'm thinking that I need to boil it down more to get the gel.

I was able to buy some grass-fed beef bones from a local farm,
along with some grass-fed chicken feet (never thought I'd say that!) to add to the chicken broth.  I have to admit, I felt like I was buying my first voodoo kit when I ordered two pounds of chicken feet over the phone.  I'm told they add a lot of gelatin to the broth, which is great for the intestinal lining.  The look a little ghoulish floating around in the pan, though!


As well as preparing for the diet, we've also been trying to eat all of the food in the house not allowed on the diet, so I took the opportunity to create a chicken soup using a quart of homemade broth (not a GAPS-friendly recipe, but pretty tasty):

• Two potatoes, cubed and boiled to fork-tender and drained
• Two cups frozen peas
• Two cups cubed cooked chicken, dark and white meat
• One quart (4 C) chicken broth
• Two tablespoons corn starch dissolved in two tablespoons cold water
• Oregano, basil, salt, pepper, garlic powder, chicken base, and other seasonings, to taste

Add all ingredients except corn starch slurry into a 5 quart pot and heat to simmering.  Add corn starch slurry to pot and allow to simmer until desired thickness is reached.

While I was at it, I also decided to try a bag of einkorn flour that I purchased online from Jovial Foods.  It's made from unaltered, non-GMO, non-hybridized wheat that is easy to digest and does not seem to affect people with gluten intolerance (not to be confused with Celiac).  I used it to make some dinner rolls to go with my soup, and they turned out very nice--they browned well, had a good texture, and had a really nice, light flavor.  Hubby liked it, too!  Once we're done with GAPS, I'll be purchasing a larger quantity of this flour and using it as a regular flour staple in my pantry.  It seems to corroborate the suggestion that the altered wheats available today to make our flour really is harder for our bodies to digest.  I thought it was interesting.  (P.S.--this isn't a sales pitch, and I wasn't compensated for mentioning this flour.  I was just pleasantly surprised with the product!)

While I was at it, I came up with this fun Christmas decoration:

I found a gallon Ball jar at Wal-Mart for $14, found the glittery balls at Hobby Lobby, three bags at half price for $10, and I had purchased the fun Christmas twigs on clearance last Christmas.  The silver picks have battery-powered lights wrapped on them.  I tried to make each color of the balls in the jar as individual layers, but as you can see, when I was arranging the picks, some of the different colors mixed layers.  I still think it looks good!  I might just shake it all up and mix them together.

I'm not sure if I'll be back on here before the New Year.  It's just so busy this time of year.  So I'll wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, and hopefully be back at it at the beginning of 2015!

Image from Little Birdie Blessings