Everyone loves Italian Food, myself included. I can still remember years ago, when my husband and I began eating “clean”. We cut out all processed food, bad fats, grains, preservatives, additives, etc. My first thought was that I would starve. My second thought was, “this food is going to taste AWEFUL!!!! ” What am I going to eat?
I don’t know about you but I grew up in a Polish -Italian family. I am pretty sure before the age of 23 I had never eaten a meal that didn’t have bread, breadcrumbs, noodles or white potatoes in it!!!
After throwing an amazing toddler – like tantrum about having to give up my favorite foods, I changed my attitude, committed to being healthier and set out on a mission. Armed with one tiny book on grain free, processed food free, pesticide free, preservative free eating, I made it my daily duty to eat healthy, tasty food! Before long I was taking old family recipes and turning them into healthy alternatives.
This is the easiest, I think, of any recipe to convert. All you do is change the regular ground beef to 100% grass fed beef, use almond meal in place of breadcrumbs and use pastured eggs in place of store bought eggs.
Original recipe:
Ingredients
1/2 lb ground beef
2 eggs
1 small onion
2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
parsely
3 slices bread, broken into pieces
Sauce
The new recipe:
1/2 lb grass fed ground beef
2 pastured eggs
1/2 small onion
2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
parsely
1/2 – 1 cup almond meal
Sauce
I made 4 small changes. The onion I changed due to personal preference – I don’t like onions, the less the better. The Almond meal takes a little getting used too. 1/2 to 1 cup – you decide how moist or dry you would like them.
If you live in the Charlotte area you can buy the ingredients at these locations:
1. Grass fed beef – www.Baucomsbest.com has 100% grass fed, never grain fed beef. They deliver to the Matthews Farmer’s Market and the Yorkmount Farmer’s Market every Saturday.
2. Trader Joe’s sells Almond Meal $3.99 for a 16 oz bag. You can also make your own if you have a Vitamix or a powerful food processor and Raw Almonds, not dry roasted.
3. Pastured eggs are from chickens that have been raised in a pasture, free to graze on insects, grubs, grass, etc. Chickens aren’t vegetarians! They shouldn’t be fed organic vegetarian feed. You can buy pastured eggs at any farmers market. (Baucom’s also sells pastured eggs)
If you do not live in the Charlotte Area, you can buy Almond flour on line at www.amazon.com . Google grass fed beef sources and pastured chickens. Call the farmer and ask these questions:
1. Do you ever grain finish?*
2. Do you vaccinate?
3. Do you treat with Antibiotics?
4. Do you treat with hormones?
If they answer yes to any of those, find another farm!
Unfortunately, you will probably not find a chicken that isn’t supplemented with feed. Make sure they aren’t vaccinated, treated with drugs and hormones.