Gourmet Garden Treat

Hello, tender friends!

I have experienced culinary luxury. Luxury fit for royalty. And it’s keto and can be paleo if you leave out the aminos!

(Why Queen Elizabeth as my royalty example? I’ll explain).

I always favor nutrient density over trying to be fancy in the kitchen. Most of my creations are incredibly humble. I’m perfectly happy drinking meat stock or bone broth every morning for weeks at a time. I currently have a simple tomato sauce simmering away on the stove top while my Cub sleeps.

I’m happy with simplicity.

But every once in awhile, I marvel at how high- end the food that we grow tastes. And the first time that Anthony made shishito peppers, I actually said to him, “This tastes expensive.”

He said, “It should. Those shishito peppers cost between $15 and $20 a pound if you buy them.”

So here we are, eating about $40 worth of peppers in one meal when we make this. And yes, I know that okra is a very humble food that was typically consumed by peasant farmers, but when you flavor it with salt, pepper, and minced garlic and lightly add avocado oil before roasting it in the oven, it is delicious and flavorful. And one of the fascinating things about okra is that it binds mycotoxins.

We prepare the shishito peppers by lightly coating them in avocado oil, salt, pepper, minced garlic and organic soy aminos. (We use only a dash of aminos from a clean, reputable source that we trust. We avoid soy sauce completely because of all the additives). The peppers have a natural sweetness to them that contrasts well with the salt and soy sauce. This is also delicious, and paleo-friendly, without the aminos. (The aminos don’t cause us any problems, so we’re ok with using a dash of them, even if that makes it technically not paleo).

The okra also has a natural sweetness to it. We grow three different varieties, but we don’t really notice much of a difference in the flavor after roasting them. Again, the salt and garlic against the natural sweetness of the okra is a winner.

I rarely feel satisfied when consuming a meal that doesn’t include meat. But we’re in the dog days of summer here in SW Virginia. It’s supposed to be 95° this weekend, so this combination of garden vegetables is hitting all the right notes, as I find I crave meat less when it’s hot out.

While I won’t be giving up meat anytime soon, this flavor combination is fit for a king. This thought got me thinking about Elizabeth I and this well-known line from her speech at Tilbury (which you should totally Google and read if you have never read it, because she was so brave and bad*** and literary):

“I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king.”

That’s how I feel some days. And after meals like this, my heart and stomach are full (Psalms 4:7).

(Also, if you have been reading this post and wondering why I haven’t addressed the oxalates in okra or the debate about what is truly healthy/truly a superfood, it’s too much to address in one post. And while the food debate, it seems, will never end, one thing that proponents of all different diets typically agree on is that eating seasonally and locally has tremendous health benefits. I can expand on the exhaustive research I’ve done if there’s interest).

Ok, that’s it for today, tender friends! I’ll be sharing a motherhood post on Monday. My little Cub is signed up for his first “independent” activity this weekend, and yes, I feel both excited and like someone is gouging my heart out. I’ll be sharing another food post on Thursday!

Thank you to the new friends, and thanks for stopping by today!

Thank you for sharing!

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