About 5 years ago, I discovered I and the wheat family (wheat, barley, rye, etc) could no longer coexist together. Those first couple years were really difficult as I realized how many of my old favorite foods were no longer an option. And I'm low income, so the Gluten-free substitutes were generally above my price range, at least if I wanted to eat regularly (although I'd splurge occasionally to save my sanity). But as I've gotten used to it, not only is my body healing from excluding wheat, but my having to stick to the very basics means I'm eating way healthier by necessity. I lived on eggs, goat milk and bacon for a couple years (and my body did very well on that!), and have finally started using the crockpot more extensively.
To date, in the crock pot, I've made a couple different stews and a chili (the chili was excellent!). I even tried my hand at making menudo, with tripe from a sheep I harvested myself from my flock. Other than the mental block this culinarily "recovering" American had about eating the lining of the sheep's 2nd stomach (called honeycomb tripe), it was actually quite good. Although I heartily recommend doing the initial cooking of the tripe outdoors as it was quite strong smelling!
Bottle fed ram lambs are cute until they reach about 8 months old, and then they usually get aggressive with their people. The only "cure" is what we call "freezer camp" in the livestock world. Either I harvest him at the point he starts showing a bad attitude or he will eventually try to kill me. This guy is a Katahdin, and male Katahdins can get up to 300 lbs as adults.
One thing I have learned very well, is the flavor and substance of soups and stews is dramatically better with the use of bone-in meats (or adding a bone if your meat has none). Cook that bone for a couple days until the sinew and cartilage melts into the soup... heavenly!
This week, I made bison pho on suggestion of a friend. Someone nearby had a bunch of frozen bison bones to get rid of as they had just bought a fresh supply of local meat. I was happy to take those off their hands. I cooked the noodles too long so they were mush, the meat was in meatballs as the clearance bison meat I had was ground, not stew meat to slice thin (I thought I still had some stew meat in the freezer) and I should have strained the broth, but the flavor was spot on!
