The man of the house and I are not very compatible when it comes to our appetite for meat. I grew up only eating meat occasionally (and indeed flirted with vegetarianism for a few years in my teens). Now I enjoy meat, but if left to my own devices I’d probably only eat it a few times a week. He, on the other hand, would eat it all the time. The boys seem to take after their Dad, so I try and keep my vegetarian urges to myself these days (let’s just say my meatless Monday attempt a while ago was not popular).

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m trying to incorporate some of the principles of ‘Nourishing Traditions’ in our diet. Sally Fallon (the author) seems to be a big meat lover herself. A significant principle of Nourishing Traditions is eating animal fat (rather than the lean cuts which are my natural choice) and organ meats. It doesn’t sound that appealing does it?

Animal fat is one of the areas of the ancestral diet that I’ve been a little reluctant to embrace. I get the bone broth bit and am a true convert, the fermented vegetables are OK too, and I’m doing my best to see gluten free as a positive learning curve… but meat fat and organ meats? I just don’t want to go there. It may be the best thing since sliced bread but I just don’t feel good after eating fatty meat and aside from chicken liver pate I don’t enjoy the taste of organs (unless I pay someone a lot of money to do something fancy with them, and consume them in dim lighting with a rather lovely glass of wine..not that there’s a lot of that kind of thing in my life these days!)

So up to now we’ve been compromising. I’ve been buying moderately lean cuts with bones in. But we’ve run into a problem. The man of the house is a big guy and since he gut back on grains is struggling to keep the weight on. He clearly needs more something in his diet.

So this super slow cooked stew was just for him. A lunch special. Made with a deeply marbled (really pretty fatty actually) beef shins (bone in), garlic, onion, sweet potato, fresh ginger, turmeric, bay leaf, salt and a little cider vinegar. Covered the lot in water and cooked for 14 hours overnight in the crock-pot.