By Wendy Diddy

Preheat oven 350 degrees.

Combine all ingredients and mix well, adding mushrooms last.

Press firmly into your favorite baking dish and leave one inch of top space to prevent juices from spilling into your clean oven.

Bake about 1 hour.

Let stand 10 minutes before slicing/serving.

Enjoy!

By Wendy Diddy

By Wendy Diddy

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a muffin pan with baking cups.

In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients carefully breaking up any clumps.

In a medium sized bowl, whisk the wet ingredients together, and then slowly combine the dry into the wet ingredients, blending well. Fold in the blueberries.

Fill each muffin cup ¾ full and sprinkle a few pumpkin seeds on top. Bake 25-30 minutes, or until tops are nicely browned. 

By Wendy Diddy

In a large, heavy saucepan over medium, heat add the sausage. After a couple minutes add the onion, celery and red pepper and sauté/cook until meat is not pink and veggies are tender, 7-10 minutes. Add the garlic, chili powder, cumin and thyme, then cook for an additional 2 minutes.

Increase the heat to medium high, then add the wine and stir to deglaze the pan. Stir until wine bubbles and mostly evaporates, about one minute. Add the broth, tomato sauce and kidney beans, bring to a simmer over low heat, cover and simmer for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile in a saucepan over medium high, bring water or broth to a simmer. Add rice and a pinch of good sea salt, then cover and reduce heat to maintain a simmer for 15 -20 minutes, or until the water is absorbed and the rice is fluffy.

Once bean mixture is done, stir in vinegar. Taste and season with salt, pepper and additional vinegar, if desired. Spoon rice into serving bowls and then top with the bean mixture and fresh cilantro or parsley.

By Yanni (a Greek friend)

• 6 organic beets with leafy stems
  
• 10 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
• 4 Tbsp. high quality red wine vinegar
  
• 3 Tbsp. organic extra virgin olive oil
  

Cut stems off and set aside. Wash the beets and simmer in the least amount of water until they are tender, about 1-½ hours.

Remove from fire and run under cold water. Remove skin and slice the beets.

Meanwhile wash the leafy stems thoroughly and cut in half. Place in a pot with just enough water to cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes until tender then drain.

Put the sliced beets and stems into a bowl and add the sliced garlic. Add red wine vinegar and olive oil and toss everything together.

Season to taste. 

By Juli Bauer – PaleOMG

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 33 minutes
Total time: 43 minutes
Serves: 3-4

Ingredients

• 2 pounds skin-on chicken thighs, deboned (about 6 chicken thighs)
• Fine sea salt, to taste
• Garlic powder, to taste
• Onion powder, to taste
• Paprika, to taste
• For the mustard sauce
• 2 tablespoons ghee, butter or coconut oil
• 1 cup pineapple chunks
• ¼ cup Dijon mustard
• 2 tablespoons whole grain mustard
• 2-3 heaping tablespoons raw honey (depending how sweet you want it)

Instructions
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

Place a large cast iron skillet over medium-high heat. Once pan is very hot, place deboned chicken thighs skin side down on the skillet. Feel free to crowd the pan because they will shrink up a good amount. Sprinkle each chicken thigh with salt, garlic powder, onion powder, and paprika. Once the skin has browned and become crispy, about 7-8 minutes, flip and cook for 5 more minutes. Then place in the oven to cook for 15-20 minutes, until no pink remains.

While chicken is in the oven, place a medium sauté pan over medium heat and add ghee and pineapple chunks and cook until pineapple has caramelized on all sides, about 5 minutes.

Place pineapple, mustards, and honey to a food processor and puree until smooth.

Top each chicken thigh with pineapple honey mustard. Boom. Done.

Knowing your way around food labels can be challenging and often require an interpreter to determine the real food value of a product. From calories, total fat, cholesterol, sodium, dietary fiber, etc–it can all be quite challenging.

Too often we base our choices on convenience and our well-worn pathways. "I shop on Fridays when I'm tired and usually go to the same places. I get exhausted reading labels and can't make good choices. etc." It often can be equally as challenging to find the best resources in our community for your best-value foods, both quality and economically.

As part of my practice, I offer a 1-hour local guided shopping trip to some of our Thurston County grocers specializing in locally-raised food, and humanely and pasture-raised meats.

Take a moment and checkout my service and send a note if you're interested in scheduling a trip!

Send a note if you'd like to chat about scheduling a local guided shopping tour. I'd love to hear from you.