Naturally Jami: Some great info about FAT, and Guilt-Free Friday: Biscuits & Gravy

Oh my goodness. I’m so excited about this. Like, way more excited than one person should be about breakfast. I mean I am just giddy about how well this worked!!

For two reasons: 1) I LOVE biscuits and gravy and didn’t like the idea of giving it up because of the flour in the gravy and in, well, the biscuits, and 2) I made it up all by myself! The gravy part, anyway. I’m getting better at the whole creativity in the kitchen thing…

Biscuits and gravy have been a weekend go-to breakfast for Justin and I. We used to have it like every other weekend. And then we’d lounge around feeling bloated and disgusting the rest of the day. Since we started avoiding bad carbs at home, we’ve been missing biscuits and gravy a lot. Then I discovered a delicious biscuit recipe made with almond flour (horray!), so we decided to try making the gravy by thickening it with coconut flour. It was okay… Alright, I lied, it was gross. It was not the same AT. ALL. I was very happy with the biscuits, but very let down about the gravy. And about the fact that there didn’t seem to be any hope in sight for us to go back to enjoying our favorite breakfast comfort food.

Until I stumbled upon a “cauli-fredo” sauce recipe. Yes, alfredo sauce made out of cauliflower. Man, that cauliflower sure is a versatile veggie! I already shared with you my pizza recipe, which has become my go-to for pizza at home now. But anyway. I read the recipe for the cauli-fredo sauce and it was just steamed cauliflower sent through the blender with some herbs and spices and liquid of choice (milk or cream or coconut milk for those who avoid dairy). And I read the reviews for the recipe – and people LOVED it! Seriously? This can still taste good but it’s cauliflower rather than cream? Hmmm… what else is the cauliflower capable of?

If it can be blended like that into the consistency of alfredo sauce, certainly it can act as a gravy for breakfast? Right? Well, I got a few arched eyebrows from Justin. He didn’t trust this at all. I held out hope though. I searched the internet too just to see if anyone else had tried this and had any recommendations. I didn’t find anything. So now I’m under the impression that this is really my very own creation! Kind of exciting!

Well, I steamed the cauliflower and worked my hand-held blender through it, added a little bit of cream, dashed in some seasoning, Justin cooked up the breakfast sausage and we combined the two, and voila. Holy moley. We were impressed, to say the least. I’m not sure how many spoonfuls of sausage gravy we ate out of the pan before it ever made it to the biscuits… And, even better, we didn’t lie around feeling bloated and disgusting afterwards!

This might be a good post to talk about fat, since a few of you might be feeling a bit nervous about the heavy cream and the fact that we didn’t drain all the grease off of the sausage before adding it to the cauliflower gravy. For a few years I’ve had this funny feeling about these low-fat diet claims… does not eating fat really prevent you from getting fat? I can see avoiding trans-fats makes sense, since those are found in unnatural man-made junk food (like margarine, eck), but real fat? The kind you get from nuts or animal fats?

Our bodies need fat. We need it for energy, we need it to process fat soluble vitamins like A, D, E, and K (you’ll be learning about that in the next few weeks!), we need it for hormone and enzyme production, and we need it for protection. So avoiding it doesn’t exactly seem very wise.

There’s been this big scare about saturated fats and dietary cholesterol raising your risk for cardiovascular disease. More and more, though, I’ve been reading about how this information is very outdated and basically, well, wrong. The recent article I read is from the Better Nutrition magazine, which explains cholesterol and fat a little clearer, making it easier to understand (and feel a little less nervous about). You probably have heard of good cholesterol (HDL) and bad cholesterol (LDL) – but did you know there are five different kinds of each of those? According to the article, most HDL is good, but HDL-3 is actually pro-inflammatory. And while LDL has been labeled bad, LDL-A actually does no damage to you at all, while LDL-B is what gives cholesterol its bad rep by clogging your arteries. So knowing your total LDL is useless, since you’re not seeing what KINDS of LDL you’re high or low in. There are more modern tests available now, so be sure to ask your doctor about a cholesterol particle test next time you have labs done. They should be covered by insurance but are otherwise fairly inexpensive.

Anyway. Inflammation is the most damaging to your heart health, and that’s not caused by cholesterol. What DOES contribute to inflammation is sugar, and foods that convert quickly to sugar like breads, cereals, pastas, rice, potatoes, etc. All these foods rev up your insulin and that basically directs your body to raise your blood pressure and… drum roll… store up fat!

Which is where I was going with this. The whole fat thing. Don’t freak out about the word “fat” – fat doesn’t MAKE you fat. Unless it’s man-made. But anything man-made pretty much isn’t good for you, in my opinion. Like I said before, you need fat. You need it for energy, nutrition, protection, etc. There was a low-fat craze in the 1980s, probably propelled by an article in Time magazine (“Hold the Eggs and Butter”) which led to a 33% decrease in fat consumption… and an 11% INCREASE in obesity. Hmmm…

What if eating fat could actually help you LOSE fat? According to an article on Livestrong.com, eating the right kinds of fats in the right proportions can do wonderful things for your body. Saturated fats are not as bad as they’ve been made out to be over the past few decades – they’re the ones you find in nuts, dairy, eggs, fish, and animal fats. Makes sense, since these fats come from REAL food – you know, the kind of stuff your body knows how to digest? Unlike artificial man-made chemical-laden “food”? The Omega-3 fatty acids (mostly found in fish) are the best, as they can decrease blood pressure, inflammation (we just talked about that!), helps bone health, and, (another drum roll…) helps you lose weight! Trans-fats, or man-made fats, also known as partially-hydrogenated vegetable oil, are pretty much just going to make you fat. Avoid that crap.

I can attest to this – Justin and I have been enjoying bacon and eggs for a lot of our breakfasts this year after we finished the lemonade detox, and we’ve kept the weight off that we lost that first week of January. In fact, we’ve been continuing to lose weight! I am so excited to say that I am 10lbs less than I was when we got married, and that is such a good feeling! It’s an even better feeling to know that I can still enjoy things like bacon and eggs for breakfast :).

But I really missed biscuits and gravy… so let me repeat, I’m SO EXCITED that this recipe worked so well! And now that I’ve filled your mind with some good information, let’s fill your stomach with some good food!

I found these biscuits on The Nourishing Home, and I’ll definitely be making them any time we want biscuits – they’re really really good!

Almond Flour Biscuits

2 1/2 cups almond flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp sea salt

1/8 tsp baking powder

3 tbsp butter, melted (or melted coconut oil)

1 tbsp honey (can be omitted for a more savory biscuit)

3 tbsp buttermilk (or almond milk)

2 eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium bowl, combine almond flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder.

In a small bowl, whisk together melted butter and honey, until smooth. Add the buttermilk and eggs, whisking together until well combined. Stir the wet mixture into the dry mixture until thoroughly combined.

To make classic biscuits, take a golf ball sized amount of dough and form into a ball in your hands. Place on parchment paper on a baking sheet and flatten with your palm. You can also scoop dough out and drop directly onto the parchment paper for drop biscuits.

Bake for about 15 minutes until they’re golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

I intend to experiment with these – I’m thinking some cheddar and garlic might need to be added for a nice dinner biscuit! Now, for that sausage gravy…

Cauliflower Sausage Gravy

Half head of cauliflower

8 oz ground breakfast sausage (or more or less if you like your gravy meaty or not)

1 (ish) cup of cream or half and half (depending on whether you like your gravy thick or runny)

¼ tsp salt, or to taste

¼ tsp black pepper, or to taste

¼ tsp paprika

Break the half head of cauliflower into smaller florets and place in a pot with about an inch and a half of water. Bring to a boil and cover. Steam for 5-8 minutes or until cauliflower is tender and easily pierced with a fork.

Meanwhile, cook the sausage in a pan until cooked through.

Back to the cauliflower – drain the water and place the cauliflower in a blender with the cream, salt, pepper, and paprika, or use a hand-held blender and blend until smooth.

When the sausage is done, combine with the cauliflower blend (grease and all for best flavor - you can drain some of it if you want, but now you know you don’t have to freak out so much about it!).