Liver with Onions, Bacon and Apple (recipe)

My special order of cow bones didn't come in. Maybe next week? I have doubts.

I bought another slab of liver. I know...it was such a waste to throw the last slab in the garbage. I'm pretty sure those chicken livers were the reason for my last migraine and that leads me to believe they were anything but "natural". So back to regular, very gross, but incredibly clean cow liver.

I cooked it the same way as last time and it tasted just as bad. With every bite I would tell myself, That's enough. Throw the rest away. But I kept eating. It was just a tiny amount, but with much willpower I got it all down. Just looking at it raw in the bowl floating in blood is enough to make me puke.

Then I found a recipe online for gluten-free liver. Most recipes instruct to coat the liver in flour before frying and that's how I remember it from my childhood. This might make it taste better or milder by sealing in the juices, but being gluten-free does not make this an option.

 

I found this recipe on The Gluten-Free Homemaker Hopeful, but still wary, I adjusted it to make a very small portion so although you can follow her recipe for exact measurements, this is what I did:

Soak a small amount of liver in coconut milk. It seems our grandmothers soaked liver in milk and which tenderizes it and decreases the nasty taste. The blogger is also staying away from dairy so she suggested coconut milk.

Cut liver into small, thin slices.

Fry one strip of bacon. Remove from pan and break into smaller pieces. Remove some of the leftover grease, but save it for the liver.

Fry a few slices of yellow onion. Remove from pan.

Fry a few slices of apple. Remove from pan.

On medium high heat, add bacon grease and quickly fry liver with salt and pepper. (This is "old-style" cooking - everything is fry. LOL.)

Return bacon, onions, and apples to the pan when liver is almost done. Mix. Serve.

Did it make the liver taste better? NO. But the bacon and apples were good and by alternating bites balanced out the nasty with a sweet-tangy flavor which made that liver easier to swallow.

I'm trying. This is my third day forcing liver down my throat. I am determined to do this diet right and everything I've read said without the organ meats and the bone broth (which most people aren't excited about), it won't work. One needs those extra nutrients. Instructions are fairly clear: organs and other parts need to be organic, steroid-free, grass-fed which are difficult to find since so many health-minded people are doing this diet. The only way to get organic chicken livers is to special order them with a minimum amount of 12 lbs. I've ordered the cow bones. We'll see if they ever arrive.

I have been tempted to quit the diet, but I've already gone through four weeks of sacrifice. I don't see the point of giving up after so much work.

It's All About the Bacon

I found the more bacon I add, the better these chicken livers taste!

 

I started out with only three pieces of bacon, a handful of onions, and a container of supposedly-natural, no hormone- or steroid-filled chicken livers. No mention of antibiotics or chemicals so I don't really know how safe they are, but this will have to do until my cow bone order comes in next week.

Compared to the cow liver, they have a better texture and once cooked, they are NOT dripping with blood. I can do this. The taste is pretty much the same, but I can eat these in small amounts with no problem.

It even looks better with more bacon!

 

Next day I took the leftovers added four more slices of bacon to the grill, warmed up the livers right on top of the greasy bacon. I'm thinking tomorrow I'll add a pound of bacon to the two remaining chicken liver pieces and be really satisfied with a scrumptious meal!

I'll probably have a heart attack by the end of this diet.

My New Motto

Am I just gullible? Ignorantly courageous? Irrationally hopeful? The other day people had me convinced mixing liver in meatballs was a rational idea. So today I took a tiny sliver of liver, chopped it into microscopic bits, mixed it with some incredibly expensive hamburger, seasoned it with every herb in my cupboard, and added three different types of onions in an attempt to camouflage it into a tasty yet health new meal. WRONG. I'm pretty sure those people who suggested such an idiotic idea were laughing hysterically at my gullibility. Damn psychopaths. Just the smell alone made me want to vomit, but the horrible taste made me want to throw it all in the garbage. Which I did. What a waste. My new motto:

 

LIFE IS TO SHORT TO EAT LIVER.

 

 

I'm getting really bored with this diet....and I'm HUNGRY!

Breakfast of Champions: Liver

I am the proud owner of a slab of cow's liver. Eeewww. Now don't get me wrong, as a child I grew up on beef having been raised on a small farm (you can read about that HERE) and actually liked liver as long as it was smothered in ketchup.

About a year ago after reading about the health benefits of liver, I attempted to cook a portion. It's definitely a cheap cut of meat, high in micronutrients, especially minerals. I didn't remember exactly how we cooked it during my childhood so I just threw it in the pan. It tasted like...well, let's just say it all ended up in the garbage along with the one bite I tasted.

There was a humorous anecdote in Reader's Digest about a little girl who was served liver and she asked, "Mommy, why are we eating diarrhea for dinner?" LOL! My thoughts exactly. Determined to eat like a Paleo cavewoman on the advice of many currently popular Paleo authors, I ventured forth.

As I stared at the meat case I asked anyone within hearing, "How does one make liver so it is edible?"

One woman told me she didn't think anyone should eat liver because it's the organ that filters and stores all the toxins. I told her I thought so, too, but according to The Paleo Mom (Sarah Ballantyne) book, The Paleo Approach, the liver does filter toxins, but it doesn't store them. Instead it "binds them, thereby rendering them inert, and then typically shuttles them to the kidneys for excretion in the urine but also to the gallbladder for secretion into the gastrointestinal tract and excretion in the stool." 

The Paleo Mom also explains, "While there may be some toxins present in liver from grain-fed, nonorganic, antibiotic-treated animals raised in CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations, or factory farms), those toxins are also present in the fat and muscle from those animals to a very similar degree as in the organs. (Some reports suggest that even more heavy metals sequester in muscle than in organs.)" So there you have it!

That is reassuring, sort of. Who does one believe? There are so many theories amongst the hundreds of authors, doctors, or diet gurus and they often conflict. For instance some say goitrogens suppress the thyroid, others say there is no evidence for that. Well, someone thought there was evidence at one time. Was it lost? Or is the misery due to detoxification cause for celebration or worry?  Or we should eat small, more frequent meals rather than fewer, larger meals? If the liver is so efficient at it's job, why are there so many people who have high heavy metals stored in their fat? In the end we must decide based on our common sense, personal experience, and our individual bodies. I have doubts so I'll start slowly and eat just a small amount.

The newly-enlightened woman then leaned closer and graciously imparted her liver-cooking knowledge upon me as if it were a cherished secret: Fry it on medium-high heat, each side for two minutes. Don't cook it all the way through or the texture will make it difficult to eat. It should be a little pink on the inside.

 

Eeeww...I don't eat pink meat. I visualize mad cow disease running rampant through my system. Or parasites burrowing into my brain. Both would render me a vegetable after a period of unthinkable torture and then kill me. Not the way I want to die.

We got to talking about chicken livers which were sold out (along with the elusive cow bones*), and she said fry those livers with onions and bacon. Oh! I could use the bacon grease for the liver oil and make it taste better? She said that would make it really fattening and I countered with that's the diet! Paleo people love their fat and bacon grease is gold. She laughed and said it must be wonderful to have a reason to eat bacon. Exactly!

Anticipating a bloody mess with mad cows running free, I ventured bravely ahead anyway. I was told by another shopper if you can't eat liver plain then chop it all up and add it to meatballs or another food. OR chop the raw liver into tiny pieces and swallowing them like vitamins. Eeeeww...is that safe? I've heard of people putting it in their smoothies raw, too. No way.

Anticipating failure, I cut off just a tiny piece in order to save the rest for meatballs or vitamins. I fried up bacon from grass-fed, non-steroidal pigs first as that would serve as my breakfast protein even if the liver didn't work out. The bloody liver sizzled. I counted aloud exactly two minutes on each side. It was still bloody. Gross. I kept thinking of all the rare steaks I've seen in my life and tried not to think about mad cow. I cut the cooked, slightly red liver in tiny bite-sized pieces and ate.

It was OK! The center, or blood parts, actually tasted like I remembered from childhood. The outer, overdone parts were tough and difficult. I wonder what raw liver tastes like?

Eeeewww! I don't remember it looking as bloody as this picture!
Maybe I was closing my eyes?

I washed it all down with a large salad.


It's only been two weeks, but I haven't cheated once on this AIP diet. I am amazed! However, I am desiring unsweetened carob chips - my formerly 20% Paleo cheats. It's been a long time since I've indulged and they are calling to me. It doesn't help that I'm feeling tired all the time and that just makes me want to cheat in hopes of some energy.


*I thought my co-op was just having a hard time getting cow bones as one of their employees once told me. Come to find out, the bones arrive every Tuesday and are sold out immediately due to the popularity of bone broth! And one must special order organic chicken livers and they only come in the 12 lb. size. They are not making this diet easy.