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One Dish, A Thousand Ways: The Breakfast Skillet

A Sourdough Cinnamon-Walnut Pinwheel Log
A Sourdough Cinnamon-Walnut Pinwheel Log I made.

At the beginning of my real food journey, I was really into sourdough. I mean, really into sourdough. I made everything sourdough. I made so much sourdough that I made things with sourdough that no one ever thinks to make with sourdough. Once I learned some tricks and gateway recipes from the Sourdough A to Z ebook at GNOWFGLINS (she has an eCourse on the subject as well!), I took off. Then it was all sourdough waffles, sourdough pancakes, sourdough english muffins, breakfast burritos made with my sourdough flour tortillas every. single. day. Yes, we were loving our sourdough.

It’s true that grains are more easily digested when they’ve been fermented (sourdough) or sprouted. These two ways of processing whole wheat, rye, emmer, kamut, einkorn, and other grains greatly reduce phytic acid which is bound up in the grains in order to protect them. Phytic acid steals important minerals like iron from your system in order to digest, thus robbing your body of vital nutrients. So if you’re going to eat real whole food and you’re going to eat grains, please ferment or sprout them. However, there are days in everyone’s busy life when you gotta say, “Ain’t nobody got time for that.” (couldn’t resist *chuckle*)

Some days it just doesn’t happen. Even though I may have a menu plan, even though my kids know how to take care of a starter, something goes awry and I am unable to prepare the night before, or something comes up and I don’t have time to wait for proofing before we run out of the door. On days like this, I turn to my loyal, unfailing friend the breakfast skillet.

Asparagus Bacon, Onion Breakfast Skillet
Asparagus, Bacon, Onion Breakfast Skillet cooking

Now there are countless renditions of such a magnificent dish. So many, in fact, that I don’t have time to go through them all here. But I will say this: All breakfast skillets should (not must, but should) begin with a base of seasonal veggies and pastured eggs. Yes, you could make one without eggs if you have an allergy. Where you go from there is only limited by your imagination. Try add ins such as bacon, sausage, salmon, leftovers from previous night’s dinner, cooked beans, cooked rice, seasonings, sauerkraut, fresh herbs, cheeses, sauces, need I say more? The egg can change as well. You can have scrambled eggs, poached eggs, fried eggs or steamed (coddled) eggs in your skillet.

Lately, this is how my breakfast

skillet creations go:

1. Check produce on hand and select whatever veggies sound good that morning. Don’t be afraid to try ones you’ve never had for breakfast before! One of my favorite variations was made with brussel sprouts!

2. Chop said veggies and begin heating a medium cast iron skillet on low heat. Add in a tablespoon of fat of choice (lard, tallow, coconut oil, ghee). We typically use virgin coconut oil for this, but not everyone likes the taste. You could always use expeller pressed coconut oil if you don’t.

3. Add any meat to the skillet (if using) and saute a minute. You could also add in other solid mix-ins like beans or leftovers at this point. Also, this is a good time to add spices if using.

4. Add in vegetables. Saute veggies for a few minutes. This part is tricky. You have to be careful not to overcook the veggies here as they will continue to cook after you add the eggs, so keep that in mind.

5. Crack in enough eggs for the family. Put a lid on the skillet and let the eggs cook until desired doneness. This is my favorite way to do it, steamed (also called coddled). You can choose to scramble first if you want, but this way is easier, which is kinda what we’re going for in this recipe. I coddle the eggs for about 3-4 minutes to keep the yolks runny, but cook the whites.

6. Meanwhile, while eggs cook look for herbs to add and other toppings. Lacto-ferments are great here. Also cheese, tamari, crispy nuts/seeds, yogurt, sour cream, and avocado.

7. Scoop portions out and serve with your toppings.

My favorite skillet combo last month was shredded brussel sprouts, caramelized onions, garlic, coddled pastured eggs, cayenne pepper and butter.

What would be your favorite breakfast skillet combo?

 

 

This is About to Get Personal: How Far Are You Willing to Go to Feed Your Family Real Food?

Sacrifices for NutritionIf you’ve been hanging around EN for any amount of time you may recall that the site was originally started as a way to support our family while my husband was in seminary and only able to work part-time.  A lot has changed since then.

The site took off like wild-fire and began to get so big that I needed to either do it full-time (which was really out of the question, since I homeschool the kids and do a myriad of other things), or I had to scale it back. We ended up choosing the latter and preserved our sanity and our family. At the time, it seemed wise, but we didn’t foresee what was down the road for us.Frozen Dinner

Unfortunately, our decision also resulted in a loss of income from the site, which we assumed would happen. But that, along with the dwindling (previously abundant) side jobs my husband could now barely get to make up for the lack of full-time work caused us to prayerfully consider something that others would outright call crazy. In fact, they did. But I won’t get into all of that craziness right now.

Health and life are pretty up there on our priority list for our family. Even with awesome suggestions for cutting a real food budget down to size, like those I got from the Everything Beans ebook and countless blog posts from my blogger friends, it still just wouldn’t cut it. When we checked the budget numbers (and checked them again!), staying in our home meant eating Top Ramen and other nutritionally void, yet cheaper food like those Swanson dinners….eew. I was sick to think of it. Sure we could eat beans and peanut butter for every meal, but how healthy is that?

Instead, we made a careful and calculated decision to live within our means, however small they were, and still preserve our family’s health through nutrition. What did we do? Inspired by the Tiny House Movement, we bought a bus! Yes, we bought a school bus on eBay and converted it into a home to live it without going into debt. For real. It’s actually quite cozy and we are loving it! I’m not just saying that. We really love it. We haven’t even been able to travel in it yet for lack of funds (though she runs like a champ!), but we will be taking several trips in the coming months. This accounts for our absence around the site for the last few months.

Skoolie
Our Skoolie home. Bus sweet bus.

You can read about our conversion and see photos of the process on our Skoolie blog. Here’s my Pinterest board with some ideas for a skoolie home. Also, Wardeh at GNOWFGLINS did a podcast interview with my husband and I when we were mid-conversion where she asked us all sorts of questions about how we would do real food in a small kitchen (especially since our family cooks together), how would we homeschool, organization, and more! Listen to it here (just click play in the player below to stream the podcast):

Watch for a follow-up podcast interview with us coming soon where Wardeh gets the scoop on what it’s like for a real food family of 5 to live in just under 300 sq. ft.

You can support our efforts here on Eat Nourishing  to provide free Real Food recipes by using any of the affiliate links throughout the site. We get a small commission and it doesn’t cost you any more. Also, please visit our sponsors and affiliates in the sidebar!

Got any questions for me?

Tell us, how far would you be willing to go to feed your family REAL food? Would you ever consider living in a bus?

31 Healthy Living Books for the Price of 3!

Two years ago I wrote, developed, and photographed recipes for Simple Food for spring and winter. I was recently asked to contribute those books to a larger Healthy Living book bundle in which 31 books on a variety of natural living topics come together at a huge discount.

[Jami] Please welcome Shannon from Nourishing Days. She is writing today to share about some wonderful and well-known Natural Living ebooks. Don’t miss out!

Every once in awhile an opportunity comes across the Nourishing Days desk that is too good to pass up. Today I’d like to share one such opportunity with you.

Two years ago I wrote, developed, and photographed recipes for Simple Food for spring and winter. I was recently asked to contribute those books to a larger Healthy Living book bundle in which 31 books on a variety of natural living topics come together at a huge discount.

This book bundle has grown to include a variety of topics from natural health to real food recipes to natural birthing to gardening and homesteading. I’ve even reviewed a couple of these books and loved them like Sourdough A to Z and Herbal Nurturing.

In bundle form these books are available for 11% of the total costs of the individual books (or a $224 savings!). To see the whole list of books and learn more click here now.

You will probably never see this collection of books for this price ever again. So whether you buy this for gifts or for your own collection, don’t miss out. The sale only lasts for 5 days, from Monday, October 29th to Friday, November 2nd.

To purchase you can go to Nourishing Days for the link starting Monday the 29th . Feel free to tell your friends, spread around our YouTube video, and then come on over to Nourishing Days when the sale goes live!

Top Eat Nourishing Searches for the Last 30 Days

Hi Everyone! In case you need any more inspiration for recipes, here is a word cloud I threw together of the top Eat Nourishing searches from the last 30 days.

Hi Everyone! In case you need any more inspiration for recipes, here is a word cloud I threw together of the top Eat Nourishing searches from the last 30 days. *

* These are just the search terms from the Eat Nourishing toolbar. Many of your recipes receive countless hits from search engines on other popular terms, so please don’t limit yourself to these types of recipes.

Sweetening the Deal

The Holiday Recipe Drive is well under way. We are excited about all the new recipes we will be able to share with the Eat Nourishing community. Eat Nourishing is sweetening the deal. In addition to receiving a per recipe as a bonus…

The Holiday Recipe Drive is well under way. We are excited about all the new recipes we will be able to share with the Eat Nourishing community.

You have been doing a great job of submitting recipes in preparation for the holiday season, but we figured a little friendly competition couldn’t hurt. So Eat Nourishing is sweetening the deal. In addition to receiving $0.50 per recipe as a bonus at the end of the month, the person that submits the most recipes (approved) will receive a $25 Amazon gift card as well.

Watch the blog for updates to keep up on the recipe drive and keep up the great work!

The Recipe Drive Begins!

Today is the second day of the Holiday Recipe Drive. Good luck submitting recipes. Here is a little guide to help you get some quality Real Food recipe ideas. Your recipes do not have to fit this convention; just some suggestions.

Today is the second day of the Holiday Recipe Drive. Good luck submitting recipes. Here is a little guide to help you get some quality Real Food recipe ideas. Your recipes do not have to fit this convention; just some suggestions.

Title

Specificity:

‘Soaked Flour Biscuit Recipe’ not ‘Biscuit Recipe’

Convention:

With thousands of recipes on the internet, it helps the user understand what they are really getting when you put the unique terms up front. Like this:

  • Homemade…Recipe
  • Fermented…Recipe
  • Soaked…Recipe
  • GAPS…Recipe
  • Gluten Free…Recipe
  • Paleo…Recipe

Examples:

  • Soaked Flour Cupcake Recipe
  • Soaked Cornbread Stuffing Recipe
  • Homemade Pumpkin Pie Recipe
  • Homemade Green Bean Casserole Recipe
  • Fermented Beat Juice Recipe
  • Fermented Barley Water Recipe
  • GAPS Blueberry Pie Recipe
  • GAPS Turkey Enchilada Recipe
  • Gluten Free Pie Crust Recipe
  • Gluten Free Sugar Cookie Recipe
  • Paleo Zucchini Bread Recipe
  • Paleo Bread Pudding Recipe

Description

What makes your pumpkin pie special? Why should I use your recipe and not the others? Don’t just tell us how much your husband loves it. This data gets sent to the search engines and social media outlets when your recipe is shared. The description should attract the attention of the audience.

Photo

Pictures can show up in search engines, on Facebook and obviously on Pinterest. Try to have a picture whenever possible. The better your photo, the more likely people will look at your recipe—and more importantly, the more likely they will make your recipe in their own kitchen.

Holiday Recipe Drive (And Bonus!)

Eat Nourishing is hosting a Real Food Recipe drive! For the month of October, the authors of all qualifying Real Food recipes will receive a per recipe bonus on top of their regular earnings!

What: Eat Nourishing is hosting a Real Food Recipe drive! For the month of October, the authors of all qualifying Real Food recipes will receive a $0.50 bonus per recipe (Bonus is limited to 300 recipes site wide total; must be registered for SIP; recipes must meet Eat Nourishing’s standards for Real Food to qualify). This means you will earn a $0.50 bonus per new qualified recipe in addition to whatever earnings your recipe will continue to generate in the future.

Who: You must be a registered user on Eat Nourishing and part of the SIP program to participate. Don’t worry! If you are not registered, you can do so now.

Why: Our goal is to increase our database of over 1000 Real Food recipes by 300. This will allow us to publish fresh content through the months of October, November and December. Search engine traffic to recipes spikes during the holiday season. This recipe drive is a strategic effort to introduce Real Food to kitchens of millions of people around the world in hopes that they will benefit as we have.

When: The Real Food recipe drive will begin October 1st. All recipes must be submitted before midnight on the 31st to qualify. Since we are only awarding the bonus to the first 300 recipes, however, it behooves you to submit them earlier to make sure you get your bonus.

How: Submit as many recipes as you are able throughout the month of October. Submit them as early as possible. Submit recipes that are appropriate for the holiday season. Use traditional names for your dishes. Submit photos whenever possible (this is a requirement to be featured on the front page of Eat Nourishing).

Real Food Camping: Grain-free Pizza Pockets

Yesterday, we spent all day at the beach playing in the sand and pretending the water wasn’t cold. By the time we got back to camp, it was late and everyone was ravenous. I needed to make something fairly quickly, but it was still going to take a little time, so everyone ate a Lara Bar while my my husband started the coals.

On the menu today was Pizza pockets. I’ll admit, this was a bit of an experiment. I had it in my mind that I would make pizza of some sort while we were camping as a sort of treat for the kids. I didn’t quite know how to do it until I went way back in my memory to my days of being a Girl Scout. Really, that’s where I learned all of my outdoor cooking skills. If I can build an oven out of cardboard and aluminum foil, then surely I could make pizza while camping.

The only slight issue was that we dot make traditional roll-out pizza dough anymore. Our favorite gluten-free, grain-free recipe is more of a thick batter. Plus, I wanted to keep it finger food and he less dishes the better. What I came up with was so super easy and the results were scrumptious. They ended up looking like little Hot-Pockets, but actually had nutrition.

Grain-free Pizza Pockets Serves 8
2 cups blanched almond flour
1 cup arrowroot flour
1/2 cup milk, milk kefir or coconut milk plus 1 teaspoon vinegar
3 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons grain-free baking powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
1 teaspoon unrefined sea salt
3 cups of diced “toppings” (cheese, peppers, onions, sausage, mushrooms, whatever you like)
3 cups marinara sauce

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Beat eggs and add milk. In a separate bowl combine herbs, salt, flours and baking powder.

Add dry ingredients to wet and mix until a thick batter forms.

Add your diced toppings to the batter and mix until combined.

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Divide the batter between 8 sheets of parchment paper. Put the parchment paper on top of a sheet of aluminum foil.

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Wrap the paper and foil together “butcher style” leaving a little room for expansion around the batter.

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Place over very hot coals and put some hot coals on top. Bake for about 25-30 minutes. Open a pack and poke it with a toothpick. If it comes out clean, it’s done.

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Enjoy it dipped in warm marinara.

Real Food Camping: Grain-free Sausage Pancake and Ultimate Bacon-Avo Grass-fed Burgers

Yesterday we had good ole scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast. Lunch was the usual foraging. Dinner was amazing. I am sorry to say I didn’t get a pic because my phone was dead. In any case, I will put the recipe up anyway.

Ultimate Bacon Avocado Burgers Serves 6

2 lbs grassfed ground beef
2 pastured eggs
1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped
2 green onions, chopped
1 jalepeno, minced
Unrefined sea salt
Pepper
Garlic powder
6 slices bacon
3 small sweet onions, sliced
2 avocados, sliced
3 tomatoes, sliced

Heat a cast iron skillet over a barbecue. Cook bacon slices until desired. Remove from pan. Add sliced onions to bacon fat. Sprinkle with salt and move skillet to upper rack. Cook onions until caramelized, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat.

Add chopped cilantro, chopped green onion an jalepeno to ground beef. Beat the two eggs and add them to the beef. Mix until combined. Form into 6 patties and sprinkle the surface of the parties with salt, pepper and garlic powder.

Cook burger patties on the grill over medium heat for 3-4 minutes in each side. Do not over cook or they will be dry.

Top each patty with one bacon slice, a spoonful on caramelized onions, avocado slices and sliced tomatoes. Enjoy!

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For breakfast this morning, we enjoyed a Sausage Pancake cooked in the Dutch Oven along with soft “boiled” eggs cooked in the coals without a pan.

Grain-free Sausage Pancake

6 large pastured sausage links
3 eggs
1/2 cup grassfed milk or coconut milk plus 1 tsp vinegar
1/4 cup melted butter or coconut oil
2 tablespoons honey
2 cups blanched almond flour
1/2 cup arrowroot flour
1 tsp grain-free baking powder
1/2 tsp unrefined sea salt
2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Place hot coals under your Dutch oven and in the lid to preheat it.

Brown your sausage links in the bottom of the hot Dutch oven for about 5 minutes. Remove.

Carefully, place a parchment paper liner in the bottom of your Dutch oven and put the sausages back in. Our oven was a little too hot and started to scorch our paper. Next time less coals underneath. Maybe 10 or so.

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Combine wet ingredients. In a separate bowl combine dry ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix until a thick batter forms. Pour the batter over the sausages.

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Return the lid (should have about 10 coals or so on top). Bake for about 15 minutes or until slightly golden and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

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Campfire No-pan “Boiled” Eggs
6 eggs
Newspaper or paper towels
Aluminum Foil

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Wet the newspaper or paper towels. Wrap around individual eggs. Then, wrap aluminum foil over each paper wrapped egg. Put eggs onto hot coals and cook for 6-10 minutes depending on how you like them. turn them around every couple of minutes.

Also included in our breakfast time was making new batches of milk kefir and water kefir and chopping some produce so it will be easier to use tonight. We are off to the beach for the day so it will probably be a late dinner. I want to make it as quickly a possible. Everyone is amazed at the real food we are making!

Real Food Camping: Grain-free Berry Grunt Breakfast

We got here a little late last night and ended up eating a light dinner. This morning’s prep work included getting our water kefir, milk kefir and sour cream fermenting, as well as soaking rice.

Breakfast was a delicious (albeit a little sweet) mixed berry grunt. What is a grunt, you ask? It’s similar to a cobbler, but a biscuit like crust which steams onto of the fruit mixture. The dough soaks up to fruit juice as it cooks. Easy to make in a Dutch oven. I’ll post the recipe here (from my phone) and I’ll repost it to the main recipe database when we get home so you can save/print it easier.

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Grain-free Berry Grunt

2.5 cups blanched almond flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp grain-free baking powder
2 pastured eggs
1/3 cup melted butter or coconut oil
2 tablespoons honey
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Zest from one organic lemon (optional)
2 lbs mixed berries

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Get coals going about 30-45 minutes before you start.

Line a 12 inch Dutch oven with parchment paper (makes for easy clean up). Once your coals are done spread half under the oven and put the rest on the lid to preheat it for ten minutes.

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Pour berries into hot oven and allow to cook about ten minutes with the lid on or until bubbly.

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Beat together wet ingredients. In a separate bowl combine dry ingredients. Add dry ingredients to wet and mix until well combined.

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Remove lid and plop batter in by tablespoon full.

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Return lid with coals still on top and cook for about 25 minutes or until top is golden.

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Eat and enjoy! Serves about 8.

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(Almost) One Week Real Food Camping: The Planning

Excited. Tired. Pressed for time. That’s how I feel right now as I am trying to plan for our one week camping trip at the lake. Our family has been eating real food for some time now and we’ve been camping many times doing it. This time will be a little different. My husband and son have both recently found out that they cannot tolerate gluten. So our family has been gluten-free for a while now. Previous camping menus relied heavily on sourdough products for sandwiches and breakfast items.

Surprisingly, I am not finding it all too difficult to put together a gluten-free real food camping menu for our one week trip. We tent camp, so that means no stove and no oven. Yes, I suppose we could purchase the propane Coleman versions of those items, but we like to rough it. We will be bringing our water kefir and milk kefir to maintain and enjoy on the trip since we are in the habit of doing them.

I’ll share the recipes for some of these as we make them during the week and link back here. When we get home I’ll upload them to the recipe database as well.

Note: Menu subject to change with my exhaustion level, meeting and sharing with friends and catching or gathering game, fish or wild veg or if I come up with something better.

Equipment:

2 cast Iron skillets
12″ Dutch Oven
sharp knives
cutting board
hand-cranked egg beaters
Gigantic Ice Chest plus Normal Ice Chest
Funnel, Sieve, Quart Sized Mason Jars (for soaking grains and doing ferments)
Wooden Spoons
2 bowls
Spatula
Foil
Parchment Paper
Measuring spoons and cups

Things to Prep before packing:
Grate Cheeses, chop veggies, make lara bars, soak and dehydrate nuts, make dips and salsa.

Sunday:

Dinner: Grass-fed Beefy Taco Bake
PM Prep: Milk Kefir, Soak Rice, Make Kefir Sour Cream

Monday:

Breakfast: Grain-Free Blueberry Grunt
Dinner: (Plan A) Steamed Trout with Lemon and Dill Creme Fraiche (Plan B if we don’t catch anything) Easy Sticky Glazed Chicken, Grilled Veggies
PM Prep: Milk Kefir

Tuesday:

AM Prep: Water Kefir,
Breakfast: French Onion Green Bean Scramble
Dinner: Awesome Bacon-Avocado Burgers
PM Prep: Milk Kefir

Wednesday:

Breakfast: Asian Fritatta
Dinner: Grain-Free Pizza Pockets
PM Prep: Milk Kefir

Thursday:

AM Prep: Water Kefir
Breakfast: Sausage Pancake Casserole
Dinner: Ultimate Baked Sweet Potatoes
PM Prep: Milk Kefir

Friday:

Breakfast: Baked Eggs and Sausage Veggie Hash

Lunches will consist of leftovers, boiled eggs, meat sticks, veggies sticks in various dips (like probiotic ranch dressing or lactofermented hummus, cheese sticks, salads, homemade lara bars, crispy nuts, fresh or dried fruit, etc. Perhaps an occasional smoothie.

Snacks will be the same as above. I will probably make a dessert or two (or three….don’t judge me!) since we are camping and it’s a special occasion. I am dying to try to make ice cream while we are camping and probably a brownie and some cookies in the Dutch oven other nights. Mmmm. Can’t wait!

Photo Credit: porah

 

Win $50 Amazon Gift Card for Sharing and Pinning Recipes!

Do you love getting a constant fresh supply of traditional recipes? Our contributors work hard to keep the recipes flowing so you always have plenty of inspiration for your kitchen. Let’s encourage them by sharing and pinning their recipes!

We are going to give away a $50 Amazon gift card to a random entry. All you have to do is simply pin your favorite Eat Nourishing recipes on Pinterest (max 1 per day) and/or share them on Facebook (max 1 per day). It only takes seconds!

You can use your $50 Amazon Gift Card to stock up with some of your favorite real food ingredients like coconut oil, blanched almond flour, cacao powder, arrowroot, sprouted wheat flour, ghee and more! OR use it to purchase some new cast iron pans or put it towards a heafty new appliance like an amazing Vita-Mix or this handy stainless steel rice cooker. It’s your choice!

Browse though our database of nearly 1000 REAL food recipes and find one you love. Use the convenient buttons next to the recipe to share or pin. Be sure to tag @EatNourishing (must be a fan to tag) in your comment when sharing on Facebook so we can verify your entry. For Pinterest, after pinning to your board, copy the pin web address and paste it into the “extra info” section in the widget for verification. (NOTE: For some reason Pinterest will not find our image if you try and create the pin from the Pinterest site, so use our button provided.)

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