Dramatic Dessert is Cheap to Make and Satisfying for Silver Clouders

Silver Cloud Standby Dessert

If you’re like me,  you do have a sweet tooth.  If you’re like me,  you do need to save money.  I like to make this showstopper dessert to serve at parties, but more importantly to put aside in the refrigerator and eat for desserts, for snacks, for whenever.  It’s delicious.  It’s completely legal on the diet.  And it’s glamorous to look at.

Seven Layer Jello Dessert

• 4 (3 ounce) packages sugar-free Jello (each a DIFFERENT color, I usually use red, green, orange and yellow) .
• 4 cups boiling water
• 2 1/4 cups cold water
• 1 pint sour cream
• 2 (1/4 ounce) envelopes plain Knox’s gelatin
• 2 cups cream
• 3-4 packets sugar substitute (to taste)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla

Directions

Dissolve 1 package Jello in 1 cup boiling water; add 1/2 cup cold water. Pour into a 9×12x2 inch pan and put into the refrigerator to set until firm.

Bring 2 cups of cream to a boil, mix in sugar substitute. Dissolve 2 envelopes of Knox gelatin in 1/4 cup of cold water and add to mixture; add 2 cups sour cream, 2 teaspoons vanilla until blended.

When mixture is fairly cool, pour 1-1/2 cups on top of first Jello layer; return pan to refrigerator until white layer is firm and completely set.

Mix next package of Jello as indicated in step 1; pour onto completely set white layer; return to refrigerator and allow to set completely.

Again add 1-1/2 cups white mixture and return to refrigerator and allow to set completely.

Mix third package of Jello as indicated in step 1; pour onto completely set white layer; return to refrigerator and allow to set completely.

Add remaining white mixture; return to refrigerator and allow to set completely.

Mix the last package of Jello as indicated in step 1 and pour onto completely set white layer; return to refrigerator and allow to set until firm.  Preferably, overnight.

Cut into domino sized pieces and fan out on a serving plate.

Chili Recipe for Cash and Time Strapped Silver Cloud Dieters

Chili Recipe For Silver Cloud Dieters Who Also Have a Busy Life and Little Money

One of our dedicated Silver Cloud Dieters wrote to say that she was particularly cashed and time-strapped and did we have any suggestions for what to feed herself and her daughter.

Chili comes to mind immediately.  It is nutrient dense, it is satisfying, and after one big cooking time, you can subdivide it into 2 cup segments, put it up in zip locks and freeze. I started making this recipe when my kids were little.  We had access to game meat at that time, and I would make it with half beef and half venison.  You can also mix beef and pork, or veal  Any of these mixes make great chili. The original recipe was made with road kill, but there you go.  Not so likely today.

Serve the chili with grated cheese and some sour cream on top and you’ve got yourself one satisfying meal.  And another, and another, and another.

Fuzzy’s Fantastic South Texas Road Meat Chili

Adapted from The Only Texas Cookbook by Linda West Eckhardt

Makes 20 servings

3 green bell peppers, chopped
3 yellow onions,  chopped
2 fresh jalapenos, seeded and minced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 stalk celery, chopped
¼ cup lard or bacon fat
4 pounds beef,  coarsely ground
5 pounds pork, veal, venison, possum, coon, or other road kill
3 ounces Gebhardt’s chile powder (or another full flavored brand)
1-1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
6 dashes Tabasco
1 7-ounce can green chlies, diced (or fresh green chiles, seeded and minced)
2 14-ounce cans chopped stewed tomatoes and juice
1 15-ounce can tomato sauce
1 can of beer OR cup of cold coffee
Water
Salt and pepper

Chop vegetables into a large pot with fat and sizzle until soft, then toss in the meats and brown.  Stir in the remaining ingredients, cover with about 1-inch water and season to taste with salt and pepper.  Let it bubble slow for 3-4 hours.  Cool and subdivide into zip lock bags to freeze what you don’t eat today.

What Ever Happened to the Venerable Hamburger?

What’s The Matter with Hamburger Meat?

By Linda West Eckhardt

Most of us, in the U.S. of A., who grew up within the last fifty years, were fed vast quantities of hamburger meat as children. Hamburgers, meat balls, meat loaves, et al were so much a part of the American diet that entire cookbooks were written about this ingredient. I remember writing one of these books myself in the early eighties. In fact, it is fair to say that the Hamburger is America’s contribution to the world culinary scene.

So why would we say you shouldn’t eat hamburger, chopped meat, ground beef, or the other iterations this product is sold under. Without sounding too much like an old fogey, which I readily acknowledge that I am, hamburger is just not what it used to be.

Ordinary supermarket ground beef comes from only one of a few major sources, huge factories that process animals from across the country as well as foreign sources. The hamburger you buy at a fast food joint, or in frozen meatballs at the supermarket, or even fresh ground beef in the meat counter has many strikes against it.

First of all, the pound of meat you buy can have come from as many as 200 animals. Did anyone say accountability? What if a certain growing area, or packing plant was found to have an outbreak of mad cow disease? Could you be sure the hamburger you bought at the drive in window last night didn’t come from that same source? You could not.

Secondly, the brilliant marketers in the meat business, wanting to use everything but the MOO, have scraped up every single thing off the cutting room floor, sprayed it with a sort of Clorox stuff to kill the potential pathogens, including e-coli and other nasty microbes, then whizzed it up into a faintly pink substance that they then reincorporate in with the actual meat.

So what you’re getting is a meat-like substance, which is of questionable safety, and marginal value as far as its food value. And did I even mention that 100% of commercial grade cattle in this country were fed GMO corn in a feed lot to fatten them quicker. And most of those poor miserable beasts, standing knee deep in their own excrement, are also fed antibiotics to prevent them from getting sick, and hormones to hasten their trip to the killing floor.

So what can you do if you’d like a good hamburger now and again?  There are several sensible answers.  If you have a food processor, you can easily chop your own meat. It’s no big deal. Buy a chuck roast and whack it up. Choose organic meat, or grass fed beef and you’ll be glad you learned to make your own chopped meat, because while the flavor is flawless, this meat can be tough.

American Chicken Banned in Russia

American Chicken Banned in Russia

Vladimir Putin, in a move much revered by the citizens of his country, as issued a ban on American imported chicken.

“Too fatty,  too little taste, Americans raise their chickens on chemicals,” reported one Russian grocer.

So, OK, folks, haven’t I been telling you not to buy factory farmed meats?  Chickens raised in those dark, dank 100,000 bird coops where the poor things never see light, can suffocate from being packed in so tightly, and are fed mostly GMO corn which not even a starving chicken should eat.

The European Union has banned the use of birds raised using standard American practices and as a result, the chicken they sell in Europe is more flavorful, more healthy, and more expensive.

What does Cheap Chicken Really Cost?

I can tell you this, from my own personal experience.  Many of you know that I cook for my dogs every day – because commercial dog food is made from meats considered unfit for human consumption – now there’s a scary thought – and I can tell you that my dogs will not even eat cheap chicken.  They turn up their refined noses and leave it in the bowl.

What is in that chicken?  Well, when they pack the birds into those coops so tightly the conditions invite disease, so the birds are fed antibiotics in the water.  The poultry growers want them to get to market FAST, so they pump them full of hormones to encourage fast growth. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the birds are fed cheap genetically modified corn to keep the cost of chicken feed down.

If you are buying chicken from any fast food place and many ordinary chain restaurants as well as many supermarkets,  you are stuffing your face with this cheap chicken.  The results can be dire for your health.

You Are What You Eat

Cheap chicken is part of the American smorgasbord of foods that cause overweight,  diabetes, heart and kidney disease.

Where Should You Buy Chicken

Ideally, find a source for locally farm-raised poultry.  I know this is not easy. Second to that pick out organic birds from the market.  Whole Foods has great chicken.  You will like the flavor.  It has not been laced with hormones and antibiotics, nor has it been fed GMO corn. Murray’s is a good brand sold in the East.  Out West, there’s also locally grown brands of organic chicken.  It’s worth the extra trouble and the cost. Look up “organic chicken” on the internet for sources close to home.

Once you get it to your kitchen, here’s a great recipe from www.thesilverclouddiet.com to enhance the taste of that bird and help you keep to your weight loss plan.

Easy Roast Chicken Thighs and Asparagus

Simple and satisfying, this one dish dinner goes together in a hurry. And check out the carb count, fewer than 8.  Whoo hoo.

Makes 4 servings

2 garlic cloves
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, divided
8 organic chicken thighs with skin (about 1 3/4 pounds)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
1/2 cup organic chicken broth
1 teaspoon fresh or dried oregano
12 spears asparagus

Accompaniment: lemon wedges and parsley

Preheat oven to 450°. Mince garlic with a pinch of salt, then whisk together with 2 tablespoons oil, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Pat chicken dry and coat with lemon-garlic mixture.

Heat 1 tablespoon butter and remaining tablespoon oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over medium-high heat  and brown chicken in 2 batches, skin side down, until golden and crisp, then remove to a baking dish, skin side up.  Arrange asparagus alongside chicken.

Pour off fat from skillet. Add broth and remaining tablespoon lemon juice and boil until reduced by half, about 2 minutes. Whisk in remaining tablespoon butter and oregano, and then pour over chicken and asparagus.

Roast chicken in oven until cooked through, about 20 minutes. Add a grating of freshly milled black pepper and serve, garnished with parsley and lemon wedges.

Nutritional Readout:  467 calories, FAT 33.3 g., PROTEIN 35.6 g., CARB 7.8 g., FIBER 1.3 g.

Gravy 101

Gravy 101

Cutting wayyyyy back on carbohydrates means giving up some foods we know and love, like sauces and gravies which are often thickened with wheat flour, or corn starch. 

But mustard comes to the rescue.  If you are cooking meat in a pan with olive or coconut oil,  you will have some nice pan drippings in the bottom.  Add a tablespoon of Dijon mustard, swish it around, then deglaze the pan, finish with cream and voila.  A very nice sauce. And I don’t know about you, but I like to see that sauce pooled on a warm plate, with the glistening sautéed chop laid on top. Yum.

We try to eat organ meats weekly for their nutrient dense properties – lots of iron and trace minerals and by adding a lovely sauce they’re all the better.

I buy organic chicken livers at Whole Foods, bring them home, rinse and drain them in a colander.  Now in the pre-diet days, I’d have dusted them with flour, but now I toss them with a tablespoon of Dijon mustard, salt and pepper, then quickly sauté in a pan filmed with olive oil and butter.

You don’t really need a recipe to do this.  Just get out a big heavy skillet and preheat it dry, then add a bit of olive oil and butter.  (No I’m not going to tell you how much.  I expect you to eyeball it and figure this out.)

After the chicken livers have been tossed with mustard, a bit of salt and cracked pepper, transfer them using tongs to the hot fat and cook on the first side until you begin to see blood pooling on the top, turn and continue on the second side until brown.  Transfer to paper towel coated plate to drain.

Now make the sauce.

You’ll see browned bits in the bottom of the pan.  Add another tablespoon or so of mustard and stir it around, scraping up bits from the bottom of the pan.  Now deglaze the pan with a couple teaspoons of bourbon, or balsamic, or water, stirring vigorously.  Pour in about 1 cup heavy cream and cook and stir until you have a nice, thick sauce.  Taste and adjust seasonings with salt and cracked black pepper as needed.

Pool the sauce on a warmed dinner plate,  top with cooked meat.  Yum.

Restart Your Diet After the Holidays with a Jacques Pepin Recipe

O.K.  Christmas is over.  I will not even tell you how many parties I went to,  how much pecan pie and pots de crème I tasted.  Nor will I even begin to tell you how much belly fat came back.

Well,  O.K.  I will tell you that.  In a period of about 3 weeks,  3 inches around the waist.

Now this number is even more relevant than the number on the scale,  which I will not even get into.

But,  as Jimmy Moore says,  I forgive myself.  I just get back up on that horse and ride.

For breakfast this morning,  I fried a couple eggs in butter, put a dab of grated cheese on top and once I had the eggs out the pan and onto the plate,  I wilted a small handful of spinach and put it on top.  Salt and cracked pepper.  Cup of tea.  I feel great.

Which brings me to the point.  Dr. Salerno always tells me how forgiving the body is.  No matter what kind of excesses we throw at it,  it will recover,  if we just work with it a bit.

So,  just to review,  5 small meals a day, plenty of saturated fats and proteins.  NO processed carbs.  Period.  64 ounces of water, tea, or coffee.

And to that end,  I’m making my grocery list.  Care to follow along?

Brie, pate, sausage, bacon, some little steaks and chops,  some tuna, bunch of nuts of various kinds. Butter.  Earl Gray.

Gonna try and ease off the veggies and fruits for two weeks.  Stay with me.  We’ll see how this goes.  el

Here’s a full fat recipe I just adore, and I’ll bet you will too. Jacques Pepin’s mother taught him how to make it.  Can’t top the French for understanding the Full Fat Fast.

JACQUES PÉPIN’S SKIRT STEAK GRANDMA
4 skirt steaks, about 6 ounces each and about 3/4 inch thick
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice, plus more to sprinkle over cooked steaks
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon good-quality olive oil
1 (2-ounce) can filleted anchovies in oil (reserve oil)
2 teaspoons chopped fresh garlic
2 tablespoons minced scallion
¼ cup water

Rub steaks with 1 tablespoon lime juice and sprinkle with salt and pepper 10 minutes before cooking. Heat olive oil and oil from canned anchovies in large, heavy skillet over high heat. When hot, add steaks and cook about 1 ½ minutes on each side for medium rare, or to preferred doneness.

Crush anchovy fillets with chopped garlic. When steaks are cooked, transfer to a warmed plate to rest a few minutes.

Meanwhile, add anchovy-garlic paste and scallions to pan drippings and cook about 30 seconds. Add water and boil 30 seconds. Pour over steaks, sprinkle with more lime juice, and serve. Makes 4 servings.

SOURCE: More Fast Food My Way, by Jacques Pépin (Houghton Mifflin, $32).

Let the Feast of the Seven Fishes Begin with This Eezy Peezy Salmon Salad

Dec 23 2009  The Feast of the Seven Fishes

The Feast of the Seven Fishes

It’s crunch time for the holidays and we all know we’ve been naughty and nice, but since Santa Claus is coming, and we’d better be good,  we wanted to say Merry Christmas to all our friends and wish you the happiest holiday ever.

Here’s a quick and easy fish dish to begin your own feast.  Happy Holidays from those of us here at Dr. Salerno’s Silver Cloud Diet.

Warm Salmon Salad with Caper Dressing

Quick as a wink and only 5 g. carb.

Makes 4 servings

1 head butter lettuce
1 1-lb. salmon fillet (about 1-1/4 inches thick)
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 thick slices yellow onion
1/2 teaspoon dried or fresh dill weed
1 rib celery with leaves, minced

Caper Dressing:
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 tablespoons lemon juice + zest from 1/2 lemon
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon capers, drained

Line the bottom of the steamer rack  with one lettuce leaf, then place the salmon, skin side down on the lettuce.  Season with pepper. Arrange onions around the fish.    Sprinkle with dill.  Cover and steam over boiling water 10-18 minutes, or until the fish is cooked through and opaque*. Don’t overcook the fish. Once it loses its translucent look in the center, remove it to a plate.

While the fish and vegetables are cooking, use a fork to whisk the dressing ingredients together.

Jacking Up the Day With Coffee – Steak That Is

Jacking Up the Day With Coffee – Steak That is

OK.  The presents are wrapped,  the parties are coming and going, and I don’t know about you, but I am ready to take a little private R & R, and think about what I can do for myself.

The answer is easy and it is hard.  I know I need to knock off twenty pounds.  Yes,  I’ve lost 35 pounds but my weight loss has stalled out in the hub bub of the holidays.  I don’t blame myself.  I know the answer to this question.  It’s too much holiday party food,  too much cheer,  too much stress.

But I also know my health is up to me and if I want to feel better, look better, and have a better shot at a healthy life,  I’ve got to lose that weight.

So starting today,  I’m laying off the carbs,  sticking with the unprocessed proteins and natural fats, because I’d like to begin the new year with the scale trending downward.

Anybody care to join me?

Linda West Eckhardt

James Beard award winning author

Co-author  Dr. Salerno’s Silver Cloud Diet

www.thesilverclouddiet.com

Here’s a great recipe you can serve any time of the day.  Jump start your breakfast, create a flavorful lunch,  or make a satisfying dinner.

Espresso Flank Steak

Makes 4 servings

1 lb. flank steak
Salt and cracked black pepper to taste
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon espresso fine ground coffee beans
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
¼ cup water
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

Rub steak with salt, pepper, chili powder and coffee.  Let it sit for about 10 minutes.  Heat a heav skillet over medium heat, then coat with oil.   Cook steak about 2 minutes, then turn and cook it another minute.  Remove to a cutting board.

Add water, vinegar and additional salt and pepper to the skillet and boil until its reduced to about 2 tablespoons remove from the heat.

Slice the meat thinly and fan out onto warmed plates.  Top with a bit of sauce and serve.

Albuquerque’s Harmonic Convergence

Organic beans and chiles grown for El Pinto in Albuquerque, New Mexico

Albuquerque’s Harmonic Convergence

Who knew there was anything to do in Albuquerque but to pass through on the way to Taos or Santa Fe? So when I was invited to spend four days exploring the food scene in Ab’que, I was doubtful.

It’s not like I don’t know anything about the area. I grew up in the panhandle of Texas and New Mexico was our closest vacation get away. But Albuquerque?   Never considered it.

Sure, it has that charming Old Town looking like something out of a Western movie with its low shops and tourists haunts. The candle shops, the turquoise sales, the Indian wares from the Pueblo and Navahos and Hopis. But food?   What’s up with that?

Turns out Albuquerque has one of the most vibrant food scenes around and is most aware of healthy eating, locavore opportunities, and great choices for both tourists and natives alike.

In four days, I plowed through endless enchiladas and tacos. Went to a thousand seat place called El Pinto which not only grows its own organic produce, but grinds up the kitchen leavings every night for its own on-site worm farm.  These people get it.   Plus the food is fantastic.

The brothers who run this place look and act like the Smothers Brothers but they are aware of the wisdom of their Mexican grandmother as well as the technical expertise of their Long Island father. Their jarred salsas sold as El Pinto are available in fine grocery stores coast to coast.   Check out their website, punch in your zip code and you can see where to order these healthy, organic products.

We went to visit one of New Mexico’s great food ambassadors, Jane Butel, who has been teaching people the ancient wisdom of chiles and corn for more than 40 years.   She showed us her entire line of products which are fresh, redolent of flavor and nutrition

But perhaps the most interesting thing for the Silver Cloud dieter is the ancient wisdom of the cuisine which is a blend of American Indian, Mexican, and cowboy cooking.   While the folks who invented these recipes couldn’t have told you why they ate chiles, which have 9 times the vitamin C of citrus, or why they favor large servings of beef and pork, full of nutrient dense protein and fat, but they can tell you the result. The food is delicious, healthy and robust.

We were there during the fall harvest when every grocery store has an impromptu stand in front of it where people are roasting the endless Anaheim and Poblano peppers in cylindrical cages over an open propane flame.

Once you buy the just roasted peppers, black and steaming, you put them into bags to steam, then peel off the blackened skins, discard the seeds and membranes, and chop the peppers into whatever dish you are making.

In New Mexico, these peppers are frozen and used all year long. What a natural nod to health.

Here is the traditional Green Chile Stew recipe served in every joint from Clovis to Window Rock, and all points in between.    It’s delicious, it’s good for you, and you will love it.

Green Chile Stew

Makes 8 servings

This is a maintenance recipe to keep you through the long winter’s night. It is nutrient dense, it is yummy.  What more could you ask?

3 tablespoons olive oil
2 pounds pork loin, cut into 1-inch pieces
1-1/2 cups finely chopped yellow onion
1 tablespoon minced garlic
6 cups chicken or beef broth
1 pound small potatoes, cut into ¾-inch pieces
2 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
3 cups roasted, peeled and chopped green chile (Anaheim, poblano or a mix)
3 tablespoons diced red bell pepper
Handful chopped cilantro

Heat the oil in a 6 quart pot over high heat, then brown the meat in batches, placing cooked meat on a plate so you don’t overcrowd the pan.   Sauté onions in the remaining fat until golden.    Throw in the garlic and cook about 30 seconds.    Add meat to the pan with the juices then add broth, potatoes, and salt. Raise to a boil.   Reduce heat and simmer until tender, about 1 hour.   Add green chile and red bell and cook 20 minutes. Throw in cilantro, and serve in wide rimmed soup bowls.

• To roast chiles at home, simply place them over an open flame or in a very hot oven and cook until the skins blister and turn black, turning from time to time.  Transfer the hot peppers to a paper bag and close it to let the peppers sweat.   Peel away skin, discard seeds and membrane and chop.   Yum.

Nutritional information: 257 calories, 96.8 g. fat, 23.3 sat fat, 21.9 g, protein, 18.7 g. carb, and 2.4 g. fiber

Organic beans and chiles grown for El Pinto in Albuquerque, New Mexico

Top Three Things to do to Improve Your Health – According to Weston A Price Foundation

Top Three Things to do to improve your health,  according to Weston A Price Foundation

I just came back from the Weston A Price 10^th annual convention, held this year in Chicago.  Weston Price was a dentist who made it his life’s work to travel to the far flung corners of the world, studying people and their natural diet.

He was, as you might imagine, interested in teeth.  But perhaps, more importantly, what teeth tell you about a person’s health, their life, and their mother.

Price was motivated to conduct this extensive study by his dismay at the teeth he saw chattering through the door of his dentist’s office in Cleveland during the early part of the twentieth century.  Cavities, malocclusions,  all manner of ill-formed mouths and teeth.

And he was thorough, if he was anything.  He went to the South Seas.  He went to Africa.  He went to the North Pole.  All in all he studied ten or so native groups.  And, the fascinating thing is that no matter whether they lived in the tropics or at the cold North pole,  they all had great teeth.  Wide dental arches,  calm dispositions, cheerful demeanors.  And they had great smiles.

What conclusions could one draw from populations as different as these?  What could so-called Eskimos have in common with Trobriand Islanders.  None of these peoples had yet been exposed to the so-called Western diet with its basis in sugar, white flour,highly processed vegetable oils,  and assorted processed foods. The results were startling.

From one end of the globe to the other, he found healthy people.  This is not to say they weren’t carried off by infectious diseases that came along.  But their basic health was amazing.

And within one generation of being exposed to the Western Diet, their children began to show the ravages of the new way of eating.  Narrow dental arches.  Crooked teeth,  cavities, small, ill-formed mouths.  And the worst part of it was that indicated underlying weakness.

He wrote extensively about this topic, beginning with the seminal book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration,  still in print and available at Amazon.

A group of scientists got behind Dr. Price and eventually a University of Maryland graduate student, named Mary Enig, threw sand in the face of conventional medicine with her work, relying on Dr. Price’s work and her own proofs in the lab, and she wrote books that rocked the nutritional world including one called Know Your Fats, The Complete Primer for Understanding the Nutrition of Fats, Oils and Cholesterol.

The powers that be were no happier with Dr. Enig than they had been with Dr. Price.  Because she too concluded that a healthy diet needed generous servings of saturated fat, by way of butter, lard, bacon, and steaks with thick rims of fat that one would eat.  They also believed in eating organ meats,  and drinking raw milk.

This flew in the face of everything being published and taught at the time.  Cholesterol?  Bring it, they said, its good for you.  Improves brain function, improves your sex life, protects against heart disease.

Say what?  Wasn’t cholesterol supposed to be the worst thing in the world?  And didn’t organ meats contain not only cholesterol but weren’t they the repository for all things evil in the diet, like residual heavy metals and toxins?

Not so.  Then the argument evolved into a partnership between Mary Enig and Sally Fallon who wrote an incredible book for the lay public called Nourishing Traditions. May I tell you they could not find a publisher, and so published it themselves.  The first edition had typos and all manner of glitches,  but a movement had begun.

And now,  for 10 years, the Weston A Price Foundation has been issuing papers, and books, and treatises on the value of a traditional diet.  Check out their website.  It’s a wealth of information.

In the weeks to come,  I am going to report on what I learned at the Wise Traditions Meeting in Chicago.  But for openers,  I recommend you make this excellent pate.  After all, you should eat organ meats at least twice a week for health,  and unless you plan to keep your diet to The Three Little Pigs Pates (not a bad plan), liver and onions, or fried chicken livers.  Remember Angels on Horseback?  Chicken liver, bacon and water chestnut, all bound together and baked?  Anyway, any or all of these choices are good,  but today,  I recommend you try, this fabulous pate, they served at the conference.

And by the way those three things the Price Foundation recommends for good health:

1.     Drink raw milk.

2.    Eat plenty of natural saturated fats.

3.    Take cod liver every day.

Sounds like a cousin to the Silver Cloud Diet if you ask me.

Yours in good health,

Linda Eckhardt

Chicken Liver Paté Served With Endive, topped with Diced Red Bell Peppers and Capers
(Serves 12-18)

• 3 tablespoons lard or bacon fat (Wallace Farms, Meadowbreeze Farm)
• 1 pound chicken livers (Pike Valley Farm)
• 1/2 pound mushrooms, washed, dried and coarsely chopped
• 1 bunch green onions, chopped
• 2/3 cup dry white wine or vermouth
• 1 clove garlic, mashed
• 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard (Starwest Botanicals)
• 1/4 teaspoon dried dill (Starwest Botanicals)
• 1/4 teaspoon dried rosemary (Starwest Botanicals)
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 4 oz lard or bacon fat, softened (Wallace Farms)
• sea salt (Selina Naturally)

Garnish:

• 1 red bell pepper small diced
• 2 tablespoons capers

Melt lard or bacon fat in a heavy skillet. Add livers, onions and mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes until livers are browned. Add wine, garlic, mustard, lemon juice and herbs. Bring to a boil and cook, uncovered, until the liquid is gone. Allow to cool. Process in a food processor with additional softened lard or bacon fat. Season to taste.  Place in a crock or mold and chill well. Serve with a dollop on top of endive. Top with small diced red bell peppers and capers.