GAPS Day 12: Three cheers for GAPS!

WTF woke up an hour before my alarm! Yesterday I slept right through my alarm, today I wake up an hour early??? Maybe something had to get fixed yesterday or something. Or maybe it was under eating? Calorie restriction is supposed to ratchet up repair mechanisms in the body, so... maybe that's it? Also OMG! OMGOMGOMGOMG my shoulder felt better this morning! I had surgery on my right rotator cuff over a year ago and it's never stopped hurting. Well, this morning it felt better! Like, noticeable better!! Not perfect but much stronger - it feels more "sore" than "damaged". Holy shit! I don't know if it's the massive amount of gelatin I've been taking in with all those bone broths or the fact that my gut is better able to absorb nutrients (including co-factors like vitamins and minerals) that are necessary for healing or the calorie restriction or all of the above but it's a goddam miracle!!!

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I made liverwurst/braunschweiger last night. I can't stand liver, even though it's one of the most nutrient dense foods on the planet. I love liverwurst though and would often eat that but all the stuff in the supermarket is filled with off plan ingredients so it's time to try my hand at making it. I used this recipe as a base. I didn't have any allspice or marjoram so I used nutmeg, which I've seen in other recipes. It tasted disgusting when I tried it hot, straight from the food processor, but after it had chilled a bit it was pretty tasty. Still a bit too gritty for my liking but that's probably not going to change unless I get some sort of specialized kitchen equipment. This is basically what I did. Measurements are vague because I tend to do everything by feel... also my herbs and spices are dead so I put way more than I normally would. I ended up adjusting it a bit to taste after it's initial run through the food processor.

About a pound of chicken livers
About a half a pound of beef
1/3 cup of bacon fat
1/4 cup sautéed onions
1/3 cup mushroom mirepoix (sautéed and pureed onions, carrots, and mushrooms)
Sage
Nutmeg
About 2 teaspoons of salt

I had the mushroom mirepoix sitting in the fridge because I'd defrosted it for a planned meatloaf that I never ended up making. It's delicious and super useful stuff, though, so it's easy to incorporate into other stuff... like liver pate! I thought it would be a nice addition since many vegan pate's use mushrooms as a base, and they add some nice umami to the dish. The way I did it was to sautee the liver in the bacon fat. Most recipes call for bacon, but the bacon from my CSA is off limits because it has sugar but I figured the fat wouldn't, but it would add some delicious flavor. And it's from the meat CSA so it should be healthy. After it was sautéed I added the other ingredients and heated them through, then threw everything in my food processor and processed the crap out of it. When I tried it cold it was actually pretty tasty. It certainly smelled like the liverwurst I was used to yay! Here it is, with a bit of sauerkraut on the side; I love eating the two together as the sour, crunchy sauerkraut balanced the rich liverwurst very nicely. Once I'm including raw veggies in my diet I'll be able to eat the liverwurst on some celery, cucumber chips, or carrot sticks. This was my snack today.

But first was "breakfast" or lunch, or high tea or something. I always eat my first meal at 10:30 or 11:00 because that's when I start feeling hungry. Creamy mushroom soup with beef with calabasa pumpkin on the side. I tried it as a change from butternut - it's really common in my local supermarket because I live in a West Indian neighborhood. I didn't really like it at first, probably because it was new and different from the butternut that I've been eating since starting GAPS, but it grew on me. I still prefer the butternut's texture (the calabasa is really soft, verging on slimy, and slimy is a food texture that I cannot stand). The soup is something I tossed together: pureed broccoli with mushrooms, spinach, and ground beef. I also threw an egg yolk in there, along with a little lemon juice, to give it a "cheesy" flavor (I discovered while doing dairy free that a bit of acid mimics the tartness of cheeses like cheddar.) It was fine.

I don't know if I'm going to keep posting pictures of all of my meals because many of them look kind of gross. Doesn't it look a bit gross? Plus, it's often exactly the same (soup and squash). Maybe I'll wait to until I start eating something different lol.