Crock Pot Heaven

I love crock pots!

I have a girlfriend who insists that crock pots are for old ladies. Yes, she does have one but feels incredibly self-conscious about it.

Well, if that's true, then hand me a cane and colour my hair blue... because I have TWO!

I love them so much that I almost always have both of them going, all seasons of the year, never clean and empty, and never put away... and if I could, I'd have three.

Sadly though, I have run out of crock pot counter space...

I use my pots so much that you can see that they're well-loved! The fact is, that crockpots don't have to be pretty to make your life more fabulous! Sure it's nice if they are pretty... but nice is not a prerequisite for a crock pot. In fact, one of mine has completely lost all of it's knobs but has still been going strong for the about the last four years!

I suppose if I have one complaint about them, it would be that the plastic handles installed on the newer versions, by the manufacturing companies, are not heat resistant. As a matter of fact, after having 3 new lids sent to me by one manufacturing company, only to have the lid handle crumble again, I had HAD-IT!!

I finally just went to a second-hand store, picked up one of those old aluminum pot lids (you know, the ones that everyone had in the 70s and 80s), unscrewed the big black knob and screwed it onto my existing crock pot lid. It's been good for three years now. Now, if I could only figure out how to replace the temperature select knob that fell apart... sigh... thankfully a gluten free diet means that my fingers are no where near as stiff as they used to be...

*****

One pot, I use for at least one dinner per week and then the rest of the week it holds soup broth or even full fledged soup: Basic Soup Broth Recipes

The other pot, is where we throw all of our leftovers... and I mean EVERYTHING!!

This is the easiest way I have found to keep up with homemade pet food. Pretty much everything gets thrown into this pot full of water, much like a compost bin. A couple of exceptions would be too much raisins, chocolate, onion or broccoli, mostly because the majority of this pot becomes dog food... and too much of these items are toxic to dogs.

Dinner cleanup is a cinch! The crock pots are right next to the dishwasher, so everyone just scrapes their plates off into the animal crock pot and plunks the dish into the dishwasher. Easy peasy!

Even the stuff that I strain out of my bone broth crock gets thrown into the animal crock.

Nothing is wasted and the animals are in fabulous condition since we have not had a single visit to the vet in almost 5 years (with our German Shepherd who is almost 14 years old and our Rottweiler who is about 8 years old). Since we went gluten free, the animals did too... and their health has been entirely reflective of the fact that this diet is not only better for us, but better for them too!

Before they went gluten free, we had continual smelly gas issues (okay, occasionally we still do since the rottie seems to have beef and grain issues), ear infections, and the German Shepherd's pannus had almost completely blinded him. Yes, surprisingly, on a largely grain-free diet, his pannus cleared up almost completely. What an unexpected yet wonderful side-effect to a gluten free (largely grain free) diet!

Of course never forgetting to give much of the credit to living in Crock Pot Heaven!

In the photo below, you can see where the pannus (dark brown blob) has receded to the edge of the pupil. It also became less lumpy, which meant less aggravation and therefore, not more gunky tear streaks.

The pupil in this eye, (when we got him from the humane society, at approx. 6 years old at the

Once the pupil cleared, he not only stopped tripping on the children's toys but to our surprise, could run like the wind!

Apparently a veterinarian I ran into, completely by mistake, has had similar results with a younger shepherd also: please google DogtorJ (no - the "g' is not a typo) for more info. He attributes pannus to corn but in some discussion I had with him, his dog appeared to be gluten free also. This concurs with my dog's diet,which we purposefully ensured was gluten free, but inadvertently, was also corn free.
time) was almost completely covered by the pannus and he could not see toys on the living room floor.

And if I feel we don't have enough leftovers to make up a dinner for the dogs, I just add the cheapest meat I can find in the grocery store. This means that even if I have to buy some cheap meat/fish, my homemade, environmentally friendly, additive free dog food, is not only healthier but is actually more budget friendly (by a long shot!) than the big $80 brand name stuff that we used to get from our vet!

But I digress...

Every once in a while, I dump the pot contents into the bird compost pot (where we put scraps that are going out to the chickens and ducks), clean out the pot, fill it with clean water and continue on.

Honestly, though, even without having a crock pot for animals, I would still keep two pots just for us. One for completed soup that's always at the ready and one for soup broth in progress.

Here are just a few other things I've used my extra pot for in the past:

1) Reduce broth to the point that it's almost pudding-thick and added some balsamic vinegar to create meat rub or to further mix it with a bit of honey and pureed raspberries for a fabulously original salad dressing.

2) Taken frozen fruit out of the freezer, tossed it in the crock pot and let it stew down to make a fabulous topping for bread, waffles, dessert (ice cream, custard, etc.) or cake (in lieu of sugar-filled icing).

3) Keeping french fries warm (covered with a towel though so they don't go soggy).

4) Cooking rice in that can be tossed in at the beginning of the day (with soup broth, of course) that is deliciously ready by dinner time.

5) ... and so many more things!

Life is good, and warm, and healthy in Crock Pot Heaven (even with blue hair)!



For basic soup broth recipes, please see here: Soup Broth

Dogs and Chickens and Ducks... Oh My!

Our house is a bit of a menagerie these days. And if you come for a visit, you are more likely to be greeted by a dog, chicken or duck, than a person.

We've just recently added ducks to our repertoire in hopes of having gluten free duck eggs, after a few years of successful gluten free egg growing via chickens.

The chickens came before our gluten free days because my preoccupation with studying food and living off-grid began long before that.

Seven years ago, we moved into the country with dreams of living a completely independent lifestyle.

I would make all homemade, wholewheat bread and was beginning to talk about plowing up a patch in the back to grow my own wheat when we realized our diet would no longer be including any form of wheat.

I began to research what I might possibly be able to try and grow on my own for bread. Spelt and Kamut, though considered low gluten were out as we were all reacting to even the tiny amount of barley malt found in Kellogg's Rice Krispies cereal and the Lindt golden chocolate Easter bunnies.

This left buckwheat (technically not wheat but a relation of rhubarb), quinoa and rice. But then my project took a severe turn as I realized that as we felt better, we were eating a lot more meat-type protein and seemed to have better energy with less grain.

So, once again, I switched gears and began to look at raising our own gluten free meat. After all, we had been keeping our few chickens for several years.

When we first went gluten free, we had switched all the animal food to be gluten free also after the children had become ill just handling the gluten chick feed. We noticed enormous behaviour changes to the positive in the animals.

Our old German Shepherd who was half blind began to see better. (I've since spoken with a vet who has also cleared a pannus affliction in a young German Shepherd Dog by eliminating gluten and corn from its diet too.) Our rottweiller no longer had the horrible gas that we endured for reasons of love alone. And our 16 year old cat who was a recluse for most of her life, began coming down from the bedroom. People would say, "Oh, you got a cat!" And we would reply, "No, we've had her for 16 years, she's just getting more sociable on her new diet." I'm sure they thought we were joking but we really weren't.

Nevertheless, changing the chicken feed to be more 'natural' for the chickens (they are omnivores like humans) had an interesting impact on the eggs we collected from them. The shells were harder, the yolks were a bright orange (as opposed to a light yellow) and tasted 'fuller', somehow. And the chickens were drinking shockingly less water. But then again, we drank less on days that we didn't eat grain too.

This brought, yet another, question to light... Even though we are so healthy now... Could we be healthier if we ate gluten free meat? I mean, if gluten affected us so adversely, could the animals that we eat be affected adversely also?

I began to look up research abstracts and found that, indeed, the meat from gluten fed animals are lower in omega 6's than it should be and higher in acid levels (which have cancer implications for humans).

Even cows that are fed grass but then "grain finished" (the last six weeks before slaughter) have much higher acidity than those who are grassfed completely.

This supported our egg differences that we have experienced first hand. Also, though the typical chicken has a laying capacity for two years at best, our chickens have been laying for five years and show no sign of slowing down. In fact, one of our girls consistently lays eggs almost as large as duck eggs.

So, back to the idea of raising our own meat, chickens seem to be the most obvious choice. It didn't hurt that we were all set up for them already either. After a few years of having a tiny flock that includes innumerable trials and errors, we've finally taken the plunge and now have a fair sized, free-ranged, gluten free organic flock and a new empty freezer waiting to be filled.

The question is, will I be able to do 'the deed' when it needs to be done? We'll have to wait and see. But in the meantime, we sure are having fun with it!