As the seasons change and the days grow colder I tend to spend more time in the kitchen than the warmer months. The warmth of the oven provides a kind of comfort that somehow previously seemed stifling in the August heat. It’s officially soup season! 

I adore soup season, it is the most comforting nourishing time of year, and while I am a summer girl through and through, I cannot deny that there are few things more satisfying that a good pot roast, or creamy soup. It’s the perfect blend of food for the soul, and fuel for the body. 

So with a season of heavy cooking upon us, soups stews, thanksgiving dinner and more, I’ve decided to break down my kitchen essentials, ingredients and tools that I can’t live without that help define my dishes in their signature way. It’s less extensive than you might think, I’m a simple person at heart. While there are some things that make my kitchen feel like home, such as my pasta maker and my ravioli stamp, they’re things I can live without. However, there are things that I try to incorporate into the kitchens of my loved ones wherever I go so I can recreate the magic. 

Some of these things have to do with my cooking techniques but even more, most of these items are designed so I can recreate the food I usually make with the same health benefits I implement at home. 

Kitchen gadgets

A decent chef’s knife: 

A good chef is nothing without a good knife, right? I don’t think there’s actually a saying like that but I feel someone somewhere has said it before. I don’t bring my knife with me everywhere I go (although I do bring it to Airbnbs when traveling). If someone has a decent chef knife, I can work some magic at a rather efficient pace. A good chef’s knife makes chopping much easier.

A wooden cutting board: 

This is also one that I bring with me when I travel to an airbnb. This may seem a bit much but I’m not a fan of microplastics, and all four of the kitchens I cook in regularly have a stock of wooden cutting boards that I reach for before I ever grab plastic. Generally speaking, a wood cutting board is better for your knife than plastic, and the wood cutting boards have antimicrobial properties. Cutting on a plastic cutting board produces microplastics that are scraped up while cutting food. I prefer my food without the side of microplastics! A good wooden cutting board can be easily sanded and refinished, and will last for years to come.

Cast iron pan: 

If I was a cartoon character and I had an accessory that I carried around with me everyday, it would be a cast iron pan. Very rarely do I cook in anything but a cast iron pan because I can rarely think of a time when it is prudent. Boiling water for pasta perhaps, and on some occasions I will use a stainless steel pan for sauteing but other than that it’s cast iron.

I will not be caught dead cooking on a non-stick teflon pan. If you’ve been living under a rock and don’t know the health consequences of cooking on a teflon pan, the information is readily available on the internet. The chemicals in forever teflon pans cause cancer, and disrupt your hormones amongst other health problems and can flake off and make their way into your food. 

A well seasoned cast iron pan is a thing of beauty, and I use it to my advantage. I’ve gifted some, and made sure that there is a cast iron pan in each house that I cook in regularly. Cast iron pans are so versatile. A cast iron pan can be passed down and well loved for decades to come. 

Instant pot:

An instant pot is not necessary for success, but it is always nice to have when I’m cooking rice or beans or a stew. Instant pots cook much faster, and are more consistent for rice, and can cook a stew in a third of the time. I will bring my instant pot with me on vacation for ease of cooking certain things. It also has a stainless steel pot so it’s one less teflon pan I have to worry about. 

Metal spatula: 

I always prefer metal to plastic or silicone, it’s sturdier and typically lasts longer. With a cast iron or stainless steel pan you never have to worry about a metal spatula damaging your pan. 

Spices and seasonings

The herbs and spices in your food make or break the dish. Really, to make a good dish you don’t need much. You can make an amazing dish with a high quality sea salt, pepper, and garlic if you have high quality food. While a large variety of spices is something everyone should come to aquire, we’ll stick the basics for now.

Black pepper:

High quality, organic pepper corns in a pepper grinder. Need I say more?

Red pepper:

Red pepper is a simple easy seasoning to keep on hand. It can elevate the flavor of any dish beyond your basic black pepper, and add a mild kick. The flavor of red pepper is fairly neutral making it a good option to add spice to a variety of different cuisines. 

Himalayan pink sea salt:

I do my best to only cook with Redmons real pink himalayan sea salt. Other pink himalayan sea salt works. Redmons is generally the highest quality 

Garlic:

Fresh NOT POWDERED garlic is essential for elevating most dishes beyond your basic salt and pepper, and it’s so good for you. Rather sliced, minced, or grated, it can add flavor to the most basic of dishes like eggs and rice. 

Handy kitchen staples

Avocado oil:

I use avocado oil for almost everything. If I had to pick only one oil to use it would be avocado oil. It’s better than olive oil for cooking things at a high heat, and has a neutral enough flavor that it can be used in sauces and salad dressings in a pinch. For this reason it’s the oil that I bring with me when I travel and I use it for everything from frying eggs, to sauteing vegetables, to making roasts. 

Eggs:

I eat eggs every day. Eggs can elevate a simple dish with ease. A well seasoned brown rice with sauteed vegetables is made much better (and more filling) with a fried egg on top. A couple of scrambled eggs and some good vegetables can make a great breakfast or lunch as well. Not to mention they’re frequently used for baking. I say any good cook should do their best to find good local sourced eggs. You’ll never be sorry. 

Tapioca flour:

I use tapioca flour for dredging before frying, thickening sauces, baking, and even dry shampoo when I’ve been without (irrelevant to cooking but it comes in handy on vacation!) For health purposes I generally try to keep my meals gluten free, and having tapioca flour on hand can be the difference between keeping a meal gluten free and resorting to using regular flour to thicken a sauce. I made southern-approved fried green tomatoes, and fried okra with a cornmeal and tapioca flour mixture, and fried chicken that was eaten by even the pickiest of eaters, all gluten free.

Acids: 

Acids have saved my life in many recipes. Oftentimes you may think a dish needs salt, when really what you need is an acid. I’ve learned this through much trial and error, but generally speaking, when you taste your food, the salt will be at the forefront of your taste, and the acid flavor will be in the after taste. If you need acid in the dish, you may feel the dish is lacking depth in the after taste. This is easily fixed by adding Lemon juice, lime juice, balsamic vinegar white vinegar, or apple cider vinegar. You can also use vinegars to deglaze your pan. While any one of these acids will work in a pinch, typically the type of acid that you use will depend on the type of dish but most commonly I use lemon juice or balsamic vinegar. 

This is only a short list of the things I keep on hand regularly to impress dinner guests, or even just make a comfort meal for myself, but these are some of my best kept tips to success when it comes to how I cook my food. Of course there are many more spices, herbs, and staples I keep on hand, the actual ingredients I use commonly could be a whole separate list. However, if you don’t have these basics on hand, they are good ones to start with. 

Sourdough bread has become all the rage in recent years amongst the homesteading community, and beyond and while I myself just jumped on the trend about 5 years ago, the practice of making bread with a sourdough starter has been around for thousands of years. 

If you’re not familiar, sourdough bread is bread that is proofed with a fermented starter culture that consists of bread and water. The natural bacterias and yeasts in the starter allow the bread to rise without the use of commercial yeast. 

Many people procure sourdough starters from a friend, or even order them online. Some people have starters that have been passed down for generations and are many years old. Sourdough starters are living thing, so they do require some care to survive but it’s not as hard as it may seem. 

If you don’t want to order a sourdough starter online, or you don’t know someone who has a starter to share, you can make your own, although this can be a little tricky. 

If you are interested in making your own sourdough starter, start by mixing together equal parts of flour and water by weight, 100 grams is good to start with, then mix until a paste forms. Cover your starter loosely with a towel or a lid (not screwed on) and leave it out at room temperature. If it’s cold out, you may want to leave your starter in the oven (without turning it on) to help encourage faster rising.

The next day feed your sourdough starter again, equal parts water and flour by weight, this time 50 grams instead of a 100. Leave it covered for another day.

On day three you’ll feed your starter the same amount, 50 grams of water, and 50 grams of flour but this time you’ll discard half of your starter prior to feeding, so you don’t end up with too much starter.

Repeat this process of discarding and feeding everyday for a week at least, or until your starter begins to form bubbles and doubles in size in between feedings. In certain climates this can take more than two weeks.

I did not have much luck trying to make my own sourdough starter recently but it was the dead of winter in Michigan and I think it may have been too cold for my starter to survive, and grow. So, on the quest to find an active sourdough starter I set out on Facebook market place to find someone local in the area who had an active sourdough starter they were willing to share. 

I found one, and we’ve been going strong ever since. I’ve had several sourdough starters in the past, some stronger than others but I’ve always unfortunately killed them for some reason or another. 

This is probably the longest I’ve kept one alive, and she is thriving! I’ve even been fortunate enough to share some of my starter with some of my friends and family- the inspiration for this article. 

So you’ve acquired a sourdough starter, how do you keep your sourdough alive? 

Your sourdough needs to be fed regularly to stay alive and active. Your frequency of feedings depends on how often you bake, and where you keep your starter. If you bake every day or every other day, you will probably want to keep your start out at room temperature. If you only bake once a week or even less, you can keep your sourdough starter in the fridge. This will allow you to go more time between feedings. You can keep your starter in the fridge for several weeks without feeding and it will still survive. Your starter will be its most active bubbly self at room temperature, so when you are planning to bake, plan ahead by pulling your starter out of the fridge and feeding it 12 hours before you bake (times may vary depending on the season and how hot is. You may only need 6 hours in the summer, and maybe more in the winter) 

Typically when you feed your sourdough you’ll want to discard any excess starer prior to feeding. You can compost this extra starter or you can save it in a separate jar and use it to make sourdough “discard” recipes. Sourdough discard is inactive sourdough starer so it doesn’t provide the same kind of rise as a regular sourdough starter, because it’s inactive it also doesn’t break down the gluten the same way your regular starter will, but you can still make some great stuff with it. However, if you don’t want to waste, or you worry about not being able to use up a whole jar of discard you can eliminate this step with a little strategic planning in your feeding. 

You can save just enough sourdough starter in-between baking to be able to refeed your starter so that it grows enough to bake just what you need. I tend to save between 1/4-1/2 cup of sourdough starter after baking each week, and then it goes back in the fridge. When I pull it out to feed it the next week I feed it equal parts water and flour and the quantity of starter that this produces for me is just enough to bake what I need while still saving enough leftover to be fed the next week. This way I use just what I need and I don’t have an excess sourdough starter that has to be thrown out each week, and my jar isn’t overflowing with starter either. 

It may take time to figure out the perfect baking formula for you, but it’s worth the experimentation. 

When it’s time to feed your sourdough starter, you’ll need unbleached, unenriched flour, and tepid or slightly warm filtered water (I like to use warm water in the winter) 

I like to use a kitchen scale, and a kitchen scale is the most tried and true method by most bakers, but it you don’t have a kitchen scale you can use measuring cups. I have done both. 

Weigh or measure out your sourdough starter, if you are discarding some do that first and then weigh out and add it to a jar, bowl, cup, whatever container you like to store your starter in, (I use mason jars) 

Then weigh out equal parts water, and equal parts flour. Mix until combined. You should have a thick paste like texture, like thick pancake batter. If you are measuring rather than weighing, you can use equal parts but you may find your sourdough starter is runny. If this is this case just add more flour. Leave your jar loosely covered (don’t seal it) for 12 hours, or into roughly doubled in size, with large bubbles. Then your starter is ready to bake with! 

How do I know when my sourdough starter is ready to be fed? 

Your sourdough starter should be at its peak after feeding before you bake with it. Large air bubbles, doubled in size. It will be thick in texture with lots of air bubbles, and when you tilt your jar from one side to another it may appear stringy. This is a very active starter.

A starter that is past its peak after feeding will be deflated, and look thin like pancake batter. This doesn’t mean your starter is necessarily hungry, it just means it’s not at its peak for baking. 

When your sourdough starter is hungry you will develop a darkish layer of liquid on the top of your starter. This is called hooch, and it’s produced by the wild yeast in the starter. If this has happened don’t worry! Your sourdough starter is going to be fine. In the fridge your starter can last quite awhile after this point before a feeding, however if your starter is at room temperature, it needs to be fed soon to prevent mold from growing on top. Once mold grows on top it is nearly impossible to get it to stop, and your starter needs to be tossed out. 

If you have a layer of hooch on your starter you can either pour it off, or mix it into your starter before feeding. It can make your sourdough starter even more sour and add a more complex flavor to your bread. 

What kind of flour should I feed my starter? 

There are a ton of different flour brands out there and different options for feeding your starter. The most basic things I look for in a flour are unenriched and unbleached. Enriched and bleached flour is so devoid of natural bacteria and microbes that there really isn’t much of anything for your starter to feed off of. 

Organic flour is better if you can afford it, but not necessary. My favorite brands for regular flour (both organic and non organic) are King Arthur and Bob’s Mills.

Now, if you really want to get into the nitty gritty you may know that our white flour that we bake with is not what flour used to be. The modern wheat crop has been so modified throughout the last several decades that it no longer resembles ancient wheat. So if you’re truly looking for the healthiest bread one can eat, with the best beneficial bacteria and the easiest digestibility, you may want to consider ancient grain flours. 

Spelt and einkorn flour are two of the most popular flours for this purpose. Ancient grain flour is more expensive than regular flour and it does not bake quite the same way. The gluten content in these ancient flours is lower than your modern flour. This produces a less stretchy and elastic dough, as well as a less airy crumb and texture in the bread itself. It’s quite hearty and can be an acquired taste to some, but it actually has a very nutty flavor and a nice depth to it.

This is not for everyone, it’s not the most affordable option, and if you’re new to baking these flours take some time to get use to. They’re not your grandmas flours (they’re your great, great grandmas flours) but if health is of the highest priority, ancient grain flours are the way to go. 

What kind of tools do I need to get started with my bread baking? 

It’s very easy to get caught up in not thinking that you have the right equipment to do the job when in reality, you don’t need all the equipment instagram sourdough influences have. In fact, I’ve even brought my sourdough starter on vacation with me and baked bread in an airbnb without any of my regular equipment. So what do you really need to bake a loaf of bread? 

Measuring cups, mixing bowls, an oven safe pan and potentially an oven safe casserole dish (if your oven safe pan is not a dutch oven) 

The easiest thing to bake your sourdough bread in is a dutch oven. Dutch ovens are deep and trap the steam in the with lid on them which creates air bubbles, and a soft chewy inside during the initial baking process. However, if you don’t have a dutch oven, you can achieve this in other ways. My favorite way to do this at home is to bake my bread in a regular cast iron pan (or oven safe pan) and add a stainless steel mixing bowl on top to act as a lid, and trap in steam. This works great for me and is even easier than a dutch oven in some ways because it’s easier to drop my bread in my shallow cast iron pan, than in the dutch oven. If you’re going to use this method, make sure you’re using stainless steel bowls, or something that is oven safe. 

The other way to bake bread is to add a tray of water on the oven shelf below your bread. This will also create steam for the bread. After 30 minutes of baking, remove the tray of water, just as you would your dutch oven lid, so the crust has a chance to become crispy. 

Dehydrating your sourdough starer

If you’ve been gifted a sourdough starter from someone, or acquired it through some other way and you’re worried about killing it, this is how to preserve a little bit of your stater in case of an emergency. 

Take your active starter and spread a thin layer over parchment paper or silicone baking mats, or a dehydrator tray. If you’re Using your oven, set it to the lowest temp you can and leave your starter in there until it’s completely dry. Alternatively, if you have a dehydrator, you can use that. I set mine to around 145 degrees. 

Make SURE your starter is completely dry before storing. You can break it up into little pieces or even blend into a powder in a blender or food processor. Your starter will keep indefinitely and should something happen to your active starter, you can rehydrate this and have another active starter. It takes between 3-5 days of regular feedings before your starter is back to normal. 

Making your sourdough bread

So your starter is active and bubbly, it’s doubled in size and you’re finally ready to bake your fist loaf of bread. 

Honestly, in my opinion, this is the easy part. There are hundreds of different recipes on the internet for how to make a loaf of sourdough. Bakers more skilled than myself have experimented to find the perfect amount of salt, flour and water for their particular kitchen setting. You could pick any one of them and probably have success if you follow the instructions, and have an active starter. 

This is the recipe I’ve been following over the last few months: Homemade Sourdough bread

If I’m using all ancient grain flour, sometimes I adjust it depending on how the dough is behaving but the reason there are so many different recipes is because everyone’s sourdough starter, and kitchen climate are going to be different. A very old sourdough starter in a very warm climate may not need nearly as much time to rise and develop as a newer starter in a colder climate. For this reason you may even have to adjust your recipes based on season. 

I’ve been baking sourdough bread for five years and really only got consistent (and consistently good) within the last year. It’s not necessarily hard, but it does take time to learn what methods work best for you. 

Making homemade bread that is free of all the preservatives, fillers, and nonsense in conventional grocery store bread, and not having to pay and arm and a leg for it, like you would at the farmers market, is a great way to begin taking steps towards a healthier lifestyle for your family. 

Healthy Cooking Methods

How healthy are the various cooking methods? The answer depends on what you cook and how you cook it. If your idea of a healthy main course is blackened fish, crispy fried chicken, or caramelized ribs, you’ve probably never heard of advanced Glycated End Products (also known as advanced glycated end products).

Advanced glycated end products, which were discovered by Louis Maillard in 1912, are a class of chemical byproducts that result from the combination of protein and sugar (usually glucose) when food is cooked by excessive heat.1

Advanced glycated end products can also be formed by the body when too much refined sugar is eaten and elevated blood sugar levels are maintained for too long a time. And food manufacturers intentionally increase the number of advanced glycated end products in food, either by adding sugar or by browning food elements.

Advanced glycated end products aren’t to be confused with glycoproteins, even though they share the same building blocks. A glycoprotein forms when glucose and proteins bind using the normal digestive enzymes with which we all come equipped. This process presupposes gently cooked food and moderate sugar intake from whole fruits and vegetables and very little or no refined sugar. Glycoproteins are part of how the body feeds itself. Advanced glycated end products are something else entirely.

Humans evolved eating raw food and food cooked slowly over a small open flame. Today we cook food quickly and at high heat by flash heating, microwaving, deep-frying, and barbecuing. All of these methods form advanced glycated end products, which are difficult to metabolize and nearly indestructible.

Our immune system reacts to advanced glycated end products as foreign bodies. When our diet is inundated with advanced glycated end products, the immune system is overworked and becomes exhausted, which may lead to allergies or disease. advanced glycated end products spur the release of cytokines, which are part of the inflammatory process. Cytokines collect in the joints of people with arthritis. Another interesting fact about advanced glycated end products and inflammation is that free radical production is nearly five times greater with glycated protein compared to regular protein.4

Not all cooking methods are created equal. Studies have shown that boiling, steaming, or any method involving water tends to greatly limit the number of advanced glycated end products that form. Turning down the heat and extending the cooking time can also create fewer advanced glycated end products than other methods.

There are two different temperature ranges to be aware of: the heat labile point around 245° F and the much lower advanced glycated end products threshold between 120° F and 180° F. The heat labile point applies to fats and proteins that change chemically without the presence of sugar and has similar health risk as the advanced glycated end products discussed here.

How to Avoid Advanced Glycated End Products

• Turn down the heat and extend the cooking time
• Stop eating sugar (The average American eats 140 pounds of sugar per year.3)
• Cook with water (boil, steam and poach)
• Avoid processed foods which are likely to have sugar or browned food elements
• Drink green tea (Recent studies have shown that green tea help remove advanced glycated end products from your body.4)

The following is a small sample of diseases and conditions that can be helped by limiting advanced glycated end products either by changing how we cook or cutting out the sugar:

• Inflammation
• Aging
• Diabetes
• Alzheimer’s disease
• Macular Degeneration
• Hypertension
• Arthritis
• Kidney Disease

This list is not inclusive, but is just enough for all of us to be mindful that how we cook our food is at least as important as what foods we eat.

Eating raw can help a person be healthier, but it can be a hard choice. In some cases, cooking is necessary for economic reasons like extending the shelf life of food. For example, cooking turns stale bread into toast, which tastes the same regardless of how fresh the bread was. Striking the balance between killing off pathogens in poorly stored raw food and overcooking has always been delicate. And for many people the practice of cooking is so ingrained in their culture that eating raw food is unthinkable.  So if you must cook, cook gently.

1.  “Effects of High Temperatures on Meats.” Food and Chemical Toxicology Apr 1985:23(12).
2. Mullarkey, CJ., et al. “Free Radical Generation by Early Gycation Products: A Mechanism for Acceleration of Arthogenesis in Diabetes.”

Recommended Reading:

• Detox Cheap and Easy Without Fasting – Recipes Included
• How to Detoxify and Heal the Lymphatic System
• Holistic Guide to Healing the Endocrine System and Balancing Our Hormones
• Candida, Gut Flora, Allergies, and Disease
• Gluten, Candida, Leaky Gut Syndrome, and Autoimmune Diseases
• Hypothyroidism – Natural Remedies, Causes, and How To Heal the Thyroid
• How to Cure Lyme Disease and Virtually Any Other Bacterial Infection, Naturally