Liver and Onions Sublime

Have I learned to love liver,  or have I just learned to cook it?  

Delish!! 

Years (and years) ago, newly married to a liver loving husband I dove in and tackled one of his favorite dishes.  My personal history with liver was not good, I have memories of fleeing the house when it was being cooked.  So how did I turn my taste buds around?  Slowly,  with more than a few failed experiments. But here's the best of the best,  and the recipe I seldom deviate from now. 

Liver and Onions Sublime
2 pounds calves liver from reliable source  
2 -3 large onions, sliced into narrow ribbons
1/2 - 1 cup Beef Bone Broth
1/2 cup almond flour
salt and pepper to taste
avocado or olive oil

Place the sliced onions in a skillet with oil and saute slowly over low heat until wilted and beginning to be translucent.

Add the salt and pepper to the almond flour and place in a plastic bag. Add liver slices and shake to coat.  

Push onions to the side or remove and turn up the heat. Liver should cook quickly and not too long. I use a setting of 6 on my electric stove for almost everything. When I cook liver, I turn it up to 8. Top setting is 12 and if I was searing a steak I'd use 10. So higher, but far from the highest.

Add liver to pan and cook 3-5 minutes for the first side and slightly less for the second. The almond flour will brown nicely. Add a bit more oil if needed.  Remove from pan to make room for additional pieces as needed.

Once you've cooked all the liver, return it to the pan with the onions, add the Beef Bone Broth, lower the heat slightly and cover. Within a few minutes the broth will be reduced and thickened, and the flavors will finish their meld resulting in a very savoury and appealing meal.  Serve and enjoy.

If you notice the slice in the photo above, the liver is still pink after saute and simmer. This is ideal and a big part of what makes it taste so lovely. The almond flour with it's nutty richness is a wonderful addition and pecan flour would be a great substitute. This recipe is legal for the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, Paleo and the Wahls Protocol.  Yet another example of how low carb cooking does not mean no taste. 

Cold Soup Converts My Carrot-Hating Husband

My husband is not a picky eater. He tries new things and appreciates a wide range of foods. But he does have two things that he has asked that I never serve him.  One is popcorn, with a long story which we won't go into and the other is carrots. I am not sure why carrots made the list but he claims that growing up, whenever he was served carrots they were under cooked, hard to chew and tasted bad. So I don't serve him carrots although I do cook a fair amount of carrots. As I love them, and they have really shone the last few years as I followed the Specific Carbohydrate Diet.

Recently I've been doing some farmer's markets and shared samples at local markets who are stocking Brainy Belly Bone Broth. Summer weather in Washington DC is best described as swampy, so when I have hot broth to sample I try to take something cold as well. Which led me to make this wonderful Carrot Cardamom Soup recipe by Michelle Tam, better known as the wonder behind the Nom Nom Paleo blog. My son was finishing up the leftover soup, eagerly I might add, to the point that my husband requested a small taste of mine. I offered him a spoonful and he didn't gag so I pressed my cup into his hands and encouraged him to have as much as he wanted. "Very refreshing" was his comment. 

But a few days later, out of the blue he asked when I was going to make that cold soup again. "You know, the carrot-y stuff." I hustled some up the next day, never one to miss a truly golden opportunity and even caught a quick snap of him as he polished off a large mug. It is a refreshing soup, with the smooth carrot and coconut milk balanced by the rather solid presence of chicken bone broth, and the mellow flavor of cardamom. Follow the links above to the recipe which Michelle contributed from her cookbook, (Nom Nom Paleo: Food for Humans) as a guest blogger on Michael Ruhlman's website. It is fast and easy to put together and keeps well in the fridge. I like it for breakfast but it also makes a great start to an evening meal on a hot day.  If bone broth is part of your healing diet, it is a lovely variation: vegetable, bone broth and healthy fat in one cool cup. Enjoy!

Former carrot-hater converted by cold soup.