Natural Cooking Blog

Ok, I though this would be a nice mix of recipes for you to try out over the weekend. Let me know how they work out for you! Now this is something which nearly everyone likes and is easy to do too!

Chicken liver pate

Ingredients

butter, one finely sliced onion, two cloves of garlic finely sliced, two sprigs of thyme, quarter kg organic chicken livers and salt and pepper to taste, cooking sherry and bread slices.

Preparation

1. Soften the onion and garlic using about a teaspoon of butter. Then add the thyme and livers till the livers are cooked through and have turned a nice dark woodsy brown.

2. Season with salt and pepper and transfer to a food processor after removing the thyme twig. Use only the leaves of the thyme for a richer taste and about two teaspoons of butter to smoothen out the pate.

3. Melt some more butter and brown some thyme leaves in it and then spoon over the pate which you have stored in an appropriate container.  Serve  with toast points and pickles.

I love using fresh herbs to garnish my food. Growing organic herbs is the best way to have fresh herbs for your kitchen pot. If you want to have a good herb garden find out which herbs you would like to have to use commonly.

• Almost all herbs like a well watered mildly sunny place to grow.You can try companion growing or combining different patches of herbs to confuse insects and preserve your garden.
• Grow your herbs by the season they flourish in and then lay in a sufficient store for the rainy season. For the delicate herbs like lavender and dill select areas where you can control weather conditions well.
  
• Get good quality soil as well fertilized soil will get you a healthier plant with a better immune system and better yield. Add organic fertilizers like compost tea or diluted fish emulsion to help your herbs to grow.
  
• Don’t pinch off herbs till you have a good growth on your herbs. When you do need herbs harvest them early on a summer morning when the the essential oils in them are full.
• Don’t cut off more than one third of the plant for your kitchen use. And hang sticky bars to keep pests at bay.
  

The debate is always there regarding the worth of vegan food. For consumers who were not willing to eat food which was prepared using pesticides and fertilizers or genetically altered produce and irradiated meats, organic food was the best option. But the cost faction was always there!

For example, the definition of organic was according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture standards, 2002, National Organic Program, that all organic produce is grown with completely natural methods using no pesticides or fertilizers or synthetic ingredients or even sewage sludge. All most all organic produce like , meat, poultry, eggs and dairy products are not supposed to be provided antibiotics or growth hormones and are not in pens for grazing. As a result you can just imagine the manual labor required to get you healthy and pest free food.

This reflects in the food with a pound of conventional potatoes costing 69 cents when normally produced and $1.49 when its grown organically and 99 cents when its sold as health food!But scientists are not satisfied with the claim that organic food is really more  healthy and are claiming that the extra prices are really a ploy to hood wink customers to pay more for a simple tag!

Natural cooking is pretty simple! All you have to do is cook fresh minimally processed foods for the best taste and health you could ever get. Lets star by stocking up on your pantry of all natural and fresh ingredients.Natural ingredient mean ingredients which under go the least amount of processing containing the least amount of flavorings, colorings and any other chemical in the market.

1. One very good idea for everyone would be to skip out all types of processed wheat flour and sugar.Try organic milk , wheat, fresh fruits and even pasta.It just tastes so much better than the other conventional variety. Also opt for barley flour, oat flour or even soy flour which is so much more tastier than wheat flour.
2. Avoid Genetically modified as well as chemically fertilizes foods.We don’t know the longterm effects of these food on the human body and its best to avoid them completely.
3. The best advantage is that you get food which has not been interfered with like no more  hydrogenated fats, preservatives,artificial colors,  sweeteners and flavors, dangerous additives, lingering antibiotics, or artificial hormones in food .
4. Highly refined oils are another no- no.These undergo terrific processing to give the taste and fluidity you get with commercial oils but they contain no nutrition.Switch to unrefined and expeller pressed oils for the best advantage. A few good choices will be flax seed oil, hemp oil and even pistachio oil which is really expensive though.
5. Avoid refined sweeteners like white sugar and switch to home based alternatives like honey, blackstrap molasses, brown rice syrup.