Sunday 28 April 2013

Meat Market

Since I've decided to go all meat and some egg and dairy, went to my favorite meat market yesterday. Since we don't have grass fed year round due to our long and cold winters, this meat market sells the next best thing and closest to organic. It's run by a family who owns a farm in northern Alberta and sells their products along with other products such as eggs from the Hutterite farms which are free run (no free range here due to winters). They also make their own bacon and ham sausage.

So I bought pork chops, chicken, ham sausage, a kilo of bacon, eggs. I'm eastern european and seem to tolerate eggs, chickens and pork well and beef not so well. I will have a good beef steak whenever I crave one at a good restaurant but don't prepare it at home. I've also got some leftover home-made chicken veggie soup and buckwheat and pork sausage. I'm going to finish off whatever's in the fridge that isn't all meat/eggs slowly.

As it turns out I had a cup of cream and my pork and buckwheat sausage yesterday along with an 8 oz steak, caesar salad, greek yogurt and berries and still dropped over a lb. I don't usually eat this much but when I'm getting back on track, whenever I get cravings or feel hungry I reach for fat.

Made bacon and eggs this morning and was surprised that the bacon didn't stick to my frying pan. It was wonderful and it tasted more like pork belly than bacon (I presume because it doesn't contain a lot of sugar and additives). I then fried my eggs in the bacon fat and they didn't stick either. Wow, I'm buying bacon from them from now on.

Also, the pork and buckwheat sausage I had yesterday didn't seem to hurt my weight loss. The problem with all the ethnic foods I eat is that it's hard to figure out on Fit-day what all I'm eating.

So yesterday I ate: chicken soup with veggies (cauliflower, parsnips, brussel sprouts, onions, garlic), coffee, cream, steak, caesar salad, full fat greek yogurt, berries = 1858 cals, 111 gms fat, 60 gms carbs, 144 grams protein. Dropped only 1 lb. However, today I don't have any cravings and will be sticking more to just meat and eggs.

Oh, forgot that I also bought a kilo and a half of beef bones. So now I'm off to make bone broth. I seem to be able to tolerate that.

18 comments:

  1. Hi Horf
    We have some excellent Farmers Markets close to us and the meat and vegetables they sell are great. Sometimes it can be a little more expensive than the supermarket but it is well worth buying as the taste seems so much better. As a great start to the day the sausages they make are really meaty and less carbs which is good, add a slice of bacon and eggs with a few mushrooms you just can't beat it to start the day right.
    Take Care
    All the best Jan

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    1. Yes Jan I try and do the Farmer's Markets thing as well but they are available only seasonally and are a veritable zoo to get to and use.

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  2. I used to live in Edmonton, Alberta, before moving to Florida 12 years ago. Nice, clean place. I guess you are Ukrainian because I saw a blog about Yulia Timoshenko on your blog-roll.
    So far I take an advantage of the situation that organ meats are being priced reasonably even when grass-fed. Do you make a jellied meat broth from pig legs?

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  3. Yes Galina I am Ukrainian and live in Edmonton although I'll probably move to BC once I retire. Too cold here. I tried making pigs feet and hock jelly but it just didn't taste like my Mom's and it's a lot of work. Now I just make beef bone or chicken broth. Way easier. Pig's feet and hocks are easy to come by fresh at the Chinese Superstore but it's just too much work. I can get ready made headcheese that is pretty good at the Polish Deli's.

    I had to laugh when I went to Ukraine in 1988 and there was this HUGE wild boar running around in the capital. Scary. But that's what my hunter gatherer ancestors lived on and that's why I can eat pork with no problems.

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  4. We came to Edmonton from Vancouver, I wish to return some day, but it is not very likely. The best city I can imagine, but the real estate prices too high. It is too hot and humid in the North Florida for me. Could you imagine it is too hot for walnuts, peaches and even tomatoes? We could grow peaches and nectarines which require smaller amount of days below zero and specially bread for a hot climate, and tomatoes suppose to be pull out after June 15.
    I still make the meat jello, we don't have an adequate substitute in our Eastern European stores. I guess the main trick is to use some meat in the addition to pig feet and to cook the feet long enough till they fell apart (I use a pressure cooker) . I think it is the last step - adding crashed garlic when the broth is not hot any longer, provides the taste I remember from a childhood.

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    1. I lived in Vancouver for 6 years and loved it because I love the rain and it didn't get too hot in the summer. However, I could never afford to live there after I retire due to the cost of living and wouldn't want to live there due to the population density. And from your description I don't think I would thrive in Florida due to the heat. Once it gets 70 degrees or higher, I can't take it. I will try the meat jello again once I have some time off and try and incorporate your tips to see if I have more success next time, however it's the jelly I love not so much the meat.

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    2. I think some piece of beef with a bone adds a beneficial meaty flavor to the jello (it is called studen' or kholodets) because pig feet contain mostly collagen. I forgot to add that at the end of cooking it is a good idea to add couple bay leaves.
      I love cool weather, gray mild days and the rain, especially in Vancouver style, when it is a gentle drizzle keeping everything clean and fresh. However, I am afraid I've stuck in Florida. At least it is the very north of, we have some seasonal changes and a lot of pine tries. We payed here for a new house 2000 sq f with a natural preserve on the backyard 12 years ago only $152 000. Affordability matters.

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    3. You can't even buy a 1 bedroom condo nowadays for at least $260k here in Edmonton. Vancouver is like $750k for a 1 bedroom condo. It's ridiculous. That's why I found a place that is about 150 km from Vancouver where I can afford to rent on my pension and the weather is pleasant. We'll still be getting all four season but at least they won't be outrageous.

      Yes, Kholodets or Studenetz. My mother always called it studenetz. She was from western Ukraine, halfway from Lviv to the polish border. I miss her. She died 3 years ago. My cousin (Mom's sister's daughter still lives in Lviv and we SKYPE every Saturday). Her mother (my aunt) has since died as well so we reminisce.

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  5. Did you make the buckwheat/pork sausage yourself? I remember helping to make and to eat a blood sausage with a buckwheat when our landlord in a Dragobitch butchered his pig(I was 15 yo then, 37 years ago). I visited West Ukraine several times in my childhood (Tchernovitci, Dragobitch, Truscavets, briefly Lviv), I am Russian myself (I am well aware that some Ukrainians have mixed feelings about Russians, but I hope we see each other like fellow Eastern Europeans with a similar need in a LCarbing). In Edmonton I had a Ukrainian friend who came there from Tchernovitci.

    Thank you for chatting with me about common places. I feel some nostalgia about all places I used to stay in but left.

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    1. Anytime you feel like chatting just comment on my blog.

      I have relatives in Drohobych, Truscavtsi, Mostyska, Lviv, Kyiv lol (I swear I'm related to half of western Ukraine). My cousins sons are in the folk group Korolyvski Zaytsi. Anyway, nevermind the history and feuding of the past. All countries seem to have feuds with their neighbours. There's not much we can do about it now.

      The buckwheat blood sausage and the buckwheat white sausage I can get at the meat market that I mentioned in this article. They make it themselves. Sometimes when I get there on Saturday morning, I can get it hot and fresh. Yummm. I love the stuff. They make their own bacon and garlic and ham sausage. They have wonderful pastured pork, but enough I'm getting hungry lol.

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  6. Thank you. Our my mom's family used to live in Odessa and Kiev (my mom still speaks very good Ukrainian when she has a chance) before they moved to Moscow, so our family culinary tradition contains many recipes from that region, even Jewish ones.

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  7. :-) it's fun "eavesdropping" on you two, talking about the "old countries." ... so many places in the world to see, so little time!

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    1. Yeah it's amazing. Who knew that someone in Northern Florida who used to live in the city I'm now living in and who has relatives overseas in the same places. PLUS we have these great foods that most other people don't like or who have never heard of them. It's great.

      My son had a girlfriend once who hailed from Texas. She put sugar in her spagetti sauce which registered high up there on my ewww factor. I didn't know people put sugar in chili and meat sauce and in most other stuff. Culture shock.

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  8. You are welcome, Tess. I suspected for a while that H.lives in Edmonton, but didn't have guts to ask. It is very nice when LC blog-life gets cross-sected with real life.

    Kholodets- Studenets is unique in the regard that I have yet to meet anyone originally from US or Canada who could appreciate it, while it is beloved and famous festive dish in all Eastern Europe and in many places in Western Europe. In expensive restaurants it used to be a norm to see quality fish covered with jellied fish broth with inserted star-shaped carrots and fresh chopped parsley, sliced tong in a jello, jellied chicken. Beef tong in Russia costs the same as a beef tenderloin. I like to use a muffin pan for individual portions + beautiful horseradish souse with beets.

    My son hooked his girlfriend and most of his friends on a buckwheat, and I make for him fermented buckwheat crepes(Kriss Kessler recipe) with prosciutto or Russian stile Bolognia .

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    1. Now you're making me hungry again, lol. Luckily I can eat blood sausage with buckwheat and still lose weight but I only eat it maybe twice a week. I can't live without it.

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  9. I am sorry, I keep turning diet blogs into cooking nuts forums. I got so used to cooking what I don't eat, that I am not getting hungry from such discussions, but I keep forgetting other people do.

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  10. We've seen bacon at our local market that we keep meaning to get ... so much better that the big supermarket brands. All the care in the world goes into it. Looking forward to stocking up soon to make a bulk lot of pumpkin bacon soup for the freezer!!

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    1. Give it a try. I'm kicking myself now that I've finally bought theirs last Saturday for the first time.

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