Eggplant Rolls

Okay, this vegan dish might actually be the best of the Paleo Party bunch. As you can see I am having leftovers for dinner tonight!

Slice 5 eggplants into 20+ slices each. Grill on each side for 3 minutes. Roll up with mix up of:

• 3 drained cans of petit diced tomatoes (lame, right?) 28 oz
• 2 cans of medium black olive, minced
• 6 T minced garlic
• 2 oz freshly cut basil
• Salt and Pepper To Taste
• 6 T of balsamic vinegar

Bake at 350F for about 12 minutes.

Cover in arrabiata sauce (posted previously).

Spicy Shrimp and Asparagus

Wrap shrimp around pieces of asparagus, skewer with toothpicks as shown above. Bake at 400F for 10 minutes. Dab spicy sauce on, and serve. This is Paleo's answer to my favorite sushi roll: the spicy tempura shrimp and asparagus roll.

Spicy Sauce

• Paleo mayo
• Garlic Chili paste (mash up garlic, salt, red pepper, and olive oil into paste)

Mushrooms Stuffed with Lamb

This is my favorite from the Paleo Party.

Take about 100 mushrooms (Cremini) and rip the stems out of them, DO NOT THROW AWAY STEMS. Saute together:

• 1 c minced onion
• All 100 stems chopped up
• A little garlic
• About 1 T crushed dried rosemary
• 2 T olive oil
• Any supplemental Egg Plant remnants (half a cup)

Add 3 pounds of ground lamb, and cook through. Remove excess fat as needed. Add 1/2 cup of Chardonay at end and let evaporate. I cooled the meat mix first, and then crammed the mushroom caps full of it. Once stuffed, bake at 350F for 20 minutes.

Pork Satay (or Chicken)

Cut pork into long strips (about 6 inches if you are lucky). Prepare marinade of:

• 2 cups of olive oil
• 2 t dried lemongrass
• 8 T minced garlic
• 2.5 T red pepper flakes
• 8 T curry powder
• 8 T fish sauce

Soak strips of meat over night in this concoction (I made 16 pounds of meat with it, so scale as needed). Take skewers (they too need to be marinated, but in water and only for an hour or so), and skewer meat so that the look like they do in the picture above, one six inch piece of meat, or any combination of meat to make about 6 inches. Grill for about 5 minutes per side. Serve with Thai Almond Suace (recipe already posted), and a less watery Coconut Red Curry Sauce (also posted previously)

What can I say, I'm a big pork, big Thai guy.

Thai Almond Sauce

This was a huge hit, and an effective Paleo alternative to the Thai peanut sauce we all used to love.

Saute for 5 minutes:

• 1 t freshly minced garlic
• 3/4 c finely minced onion
• 1 t red pepper flakes
• 2 t curry poweder
• 2 T canola oil

Then add, and saute for 30 minutes:

• 1 c coconut milk
• 2 cinamon sticks
• 4 bay leaves
• Juice of half a lime
• 1/2 c rice vinegar
• 10 oz Paleo Broth
• 10 oz Almond butter (I used creamy salted AB)

Remove cinamon sticks and bay leaves. This made close to a quart of sauce, so I guess I better get used to Thai Almond Eggs!.

Serve heated with Pork and Chicken Satay. Again, this was an amazing hit at the Paleo Party.

Farmer Fresh to You!

Here is this week's box:

• 2 baskets of rasberries
• 9 roma tomatoes
• A butternut squash
• Rainbow Swiss chard
• Leeks
• Onion
• Garlic
• Lemon
• 3 pears
• 2 red bell peppers
• Parsnips
• White grapes
• Cilantro
• Bag of mixed greens

www.farmerfreshtoyou.org

Rosemary Thyme Chicken

Rub chicken with rosemary, thyme, salt and pepper. Cover with olive oil and re-rub. Squeeze half a lemon prior to, and after, grilling. This isn't remarkable, but it tastes fine and is passable for novice cooks.

Beef Ribs, Straight Up

Eating these makes you feel like a caveman. Salt, pepper, olive oil. Grill for about 30 minutes.

Eat Your Mixed Veggies

Here is a lunch time vegetable dish I just made with the remnants of my fridge: 2 zucchini, three tomatoes, one bunch of green onions, 8-10 cups of greens, 3 cloves of garlic, 1/2 bunch basil, and 2 T olive oil. Salt, pepper, and red pepper to taste. This is, by my estimate, roughly 10 servings of vegetables (3 from the tomatoes, 4 zucchini, 2 greens, 1 onion).

Its so good that even Colin would like it.

Red Curried Thai Chicken: The Improved

Way way better than last time. I normally don't do lots of repeated dishes, but if that last one was good, this one was great. (Dismembering chicken for time: 92 seconds, PR by 5 seconds)
Differences: grill instead of fry the chicken pieces, cover chicken with copious amounts of yellow curry prior to grilling, parboil fingerling potatoes add to saute, add huge chuncks of fresh carrots and saute, add teaspoon of cinnamon, and lots of red pepper flakes.

Grilled Thai Chicken

Holy smokes, I got a grill. Watch out for tons of grilling recipes, along with continued Paleo Thai.

Take dismembered chickens (1:45, 2:19 not PRs but these chickens were only $0.59/lb so I had some extra time) and season. Grill until done, about 40 minutes. Toss in large bowl (buffalo wing style) with several Tablespoons of Pad Thai sauce (recipe below), thinly sliced Thai chilies, and freshly cut cilantro.

Chicken Broth Substitute: Paleo Broth

Most chicken broth you buy in the store is laden with MSG. Therefore, we need to come up with a Paleo alternative. When I made the Red Curried Chicken, the recipe calls for chicken broth, but here is the substitute I made.

2 1/4 cups water
1 t celery salt
2 bay leaves
Fresh cracked pepper to taste

Simmer and remove bay leaves. If you can fry chicken skins/fat in oil and then remove to start this dish it will make it even richer. This recipe is simple, but the celery and the bay leaves are what you really taste in chicken broth, so it works as a Paleo Broth.

On the Organ Trail

Eating the entire animal is the gold standard of a Paleo diet, it gives us complete nutrition from animals, just like our caveman anscetors got. I take the organs from our chicken's and saute the organs up with some salt, pepper, garlic and Thai chilies. Once cooked, I add them as a protien/ Omega-3 source to my eggs in the morning. It does take a little getting used to, but it works great!

Farmer Fresh to You!

This weeks supply:

• Head of leaf lettuce
• 4 peaches
• 2 pomegranates
• Lemon
• Garlic
• Italian Parsley
• 2 Baskets of Strawberries
• Broccoli
• Fingerling Potatoes
• 2 Bunches of Asparagus
• Carrots
• Tomatoes
• 2 bunches of green onions

Remember: local, organic, fresh and delivered to your office!

Lisette and Carol

Farmer Fresh To You

805.469.7604

http://www.farmerfreshtoyou.net/

Pad Thai Sauce

Take 1/2 cup of fish sauce, 1/2 cup of tamarind, a T of paprika, and a t of cayenne pepper, combine in saute pan and simmer for 10 minutes.

Red Curried Thai Chicken

Take cut up chicken (2:10, I think I was slower becuase these were older birds than my 97 second PR) and cook to golden in a large stainless steel wok with lots of garlic. Meanwhile, saute large cut up sections of onions and poblano peppers in another extremely large pan. Add can of coconut cream, 55 ml of red curry paste (recipe to follow), 1/4 cup of fish sauce, garlic, and 2 1/4 cups of Brandon's "Paleo Broth." Add chicken and excess oil from wok. Simmer for 15 minutes.

I was just about drinking this liquid though.

Also, since curries are normally served over rice (and Paleo doesn't call for grains) there was a ton of extra sauce, so I reheated the sauce and added it to about 5 large zucchini and three more onions. It was awesome.

Orange Fennel Salad

Grate a T of orange peel into a wok, add 2 bulbs of fennel, shaved extra thin, and add an eighth of head of green cabage, shredded. Add four sliced Thai chilies. Stir fry. Meanwhile, combine the juice of half an orange, 3/2T white/rice vinegar, 3T of canola oil, and 1/2t each of salt and pepper and mix well. Move fennel to serving bowl and cover with dressing. Serve with Japanese Mackerel.

Japanese Style Mackerel

Cut fillets off of two large mackerel. Combine 2T of minced garlic, 2T minced ginger, 2T lime juice, 1T canola oil, 3/2t of salt, 3/2t of paprika, 1t tumeric and mix into paste. Rub paste all over mackerel fillets, and let sit for 10 minutes to absorb. Crack pepper over fish and broil for 7 minutes 5-6 inches away from heating element. Garnish with fresh cilantro.

Paleo Pad Thai: Beef

I have to have some culinary secrets, right?

Paleo Pork Pad Thai, Medium Hot with Thai Chilies and spicy tray coming soon...

Tamarind

This is to Thai food what tomatoes are to Italian food. It took weeks to find, and then I found it nearly 10 minutes later again at Food-4-Less, argh!
Tamarind is a seed, it is tart and is used in all type of Thai dishes, especially Pad Thai. The problem is, if you only have one asian market in town, they will sell you packaged seeds, but then you have to turn it into a paste/slurry. What a bitch this is. Anyway, here is the Paleo photo play-by-play:

This is what it looks like when you buy it.

Place it into 4 cups of pretty hot water. Not boiling but almost, about 180F.

Mash the shit out of it until it is room temperature and looks like brown ketchup.

Push it through a sieve or if I had to do this again, get a cheese cloth and squeeze the shit out of it.

Can and refrigerate.

Holy shit this was an effort.

Fennel Covered Steak

Take whole fennel bulb, remove stalks and retain. Shave bulb into super thin slices. Slice half of an onion in the same manner. Saute with one finely minced garlic clove in Olio Piccante, add 1 t of dried basil. Add diced tomato. Meanwhile, in a cast iron skillet, cook seasoned eye of round steak until (I like em really rare). Serve steak with vegetables heeped on top and garnish with minced fennel leaves.

Buon' appetito!

Chipotle Beef

In a slow cooker. place a diced onion, oregano, cayenne pepper, chipoltle peppers (8), apple cider vinegar, salt and pepper, and tons of ground cumin. Sear a couple pounds of beef and add to crock pot. Pour in water and cook on low for as long as possible, adding water as needed.

This was great with the thai veggies.

Farmer Fresh To You!

This weeks' box:

• 3 Nectarines,
• Garlic
• Lemon
• Onion
• Cilantro Bunch
• 1 Beefsteak tomato
• 4 tomatoes
• 2 pasailla chilies
• butternut squash
• 2 avocados
• green beans
• grapes
• spinach
• 4 fennel bulbs
• 3 Asian pears?

Good box, not great, but worth while. I also got 2 dozen cage free, hormone free eggs.

Support your community's agriculture:

Lisette and Carol

Farmer Fresh To You

805.469.7604

http://www.farmerfreshtoyou.net/

Paleo Thai Dish 1, but Uniquely Thai Three?

Paleo Thai-Veggies

One of my favorite things to do is go out with my buddy Dave to Uniquely Thai 2 in the Johnson Drive food court every Friday: we call it Thai-Day Friday. Cute, right? We alwyas get pork pad-thai noodles and then spice the shit out of them with Thai Chilies: it is my favorite food right now. Then there was the Paleo Challenge and I have now been 5 or 6 weeks with no rice noodles and am going crazy for some effing Thai food. I needed to do something about it: learn to cook Paleo Thai.

You might just have to trust me on what I say in this post, not your normal combinations of flavors here.

Take copious amounts of canola oil and add a super liberal amount of crushed red pepper, (I'm a pretty heavy handed red pepper guy, so go heavy on the pepper) with a T of fresh minced ginger. Bring to heat. Stir fry one bunch (4-5 heads) of baby bok-choy cut into bite size pieces, and 1/2 of a diced onion. Add chopped basil, about 15 leaves. Shake on (I did six shakes back and forth with a new bottle) anchovy fish sauce. Add one coarsely cut beef steak tomato. Season to taste. Garnish with full leaves of cilantro.

I was skeptical, but it was awesome. I was amazed. I don't eat a lot of different Thai dishes, but this would have passed for Thai to anyone I gave it to. It was awesome. Learn new skills, what an idea!

Olio Piccannte alla Peperoncini Freschi

I use this hot oil on everything. It is a staple in restaurants in Italy, and I'm personally shocked its not over here in America. I always used to put it all over my pizza and pasta too, now its eggs and steak. Take about a cup of olive oil, ad coarsely cut chilies and bring to about 180F (do not boil). Take off heat, and let steep for as long as possible. Add extra olive oil. Simple as heck, and all kinds of good.

Do we eat much meat on Paleo?

Yeah. Here is how we buy meat at the Manatee Suites "Paleo" Bar and Grill.

Before: Almost 11 pounds in one piece.


After: A weeks worth of beef: three huge sirloins, a roast, and like 8 supplemental steaks.

Why buy meat this way? I can have steak all the time for about $3 per day for lots of people, that giant piece is like $22 bucks.

Chipolte Chicken

This is easy. Saute 8 chipotle jalapeno peppers wtih adobo sauce, olive oil, two garlic cloves, salt, pepper, and onion, until smooth. Blend until completelly smooth. Dip bone-in skin-lesss chicken thighs in mixutre. Bake for 40 minutes at 400F.

Cooking Fundamentals: Season to Taste (Salt and Pepper)

There is a reason why salt and pepper is on every table, of every low quality restaurant in America: cooks generally do not understand how to season properly. Salt and pepper are the most fundamental seasoning ingredients in our diet.

When I say "Season to Taste" in any of my blog posts I only mean this: put enough salt and pepper on the dish to make it great, no more, no less. It seems simple, but it is like anything else, it has to be practiced and mastered. CrossFit has nine fundamental movements, cooking has one: seasoning.

Chicken, zucchini, tomatoes, spinach, eggs, steak, and everything else tastes remarkably good with nothing else save for salt and pepper. Do your self a favor and figure out how much salt and pepper goes with everything and anything you eat. I don't have good rules of thumb for this one (except for a pinch here and there), because intuition hasn't led to easily discernible patterns for me yet. You must learn the way I did, by trial and hopefully limited error.

The best bet is to try to get a feel for this is on eggs (since you will end up eating a ton of these on Paleo diets). Do your self the dis-service of grossly over seasoning you eggs, observe what happens. Then go the opposite way and go bare: no salt, no pepper. Compare and contrast for time. Add different ingredients to your egg scramble and observe how they change the level of perceived salt and pepper needed in your diet. It will be noticeable and remarkable. You will understand food and cooking, all for the better, if you can understand seasoning.

Salt, pepper? Yeah, its super super important when you learn to cook. Its fundamental.

Sesame Salad Dressing

Combine:

8 Tbsp of canola oil
2 Tbsp of rice vineager
1 minced green onion
Salt and Pepper to taste
1 tsp sesame oil

Blend. Serve with mixed greens, spinach, or any other leafy greens. I just made a salad with spinach, tomatoes, and shrimp and it was out of this world. I got the basic recipe from the super star chef at the Lakefront in Mammoth. That guy made his salad with mixed greens and scallops; it was inspirational.

Coconut Currie Ribs

Take 2 Tbsp of yellow currie powder, cayenne pepper, salt, 2 Tbsp of dried unsweetend coconut, a Tbsp of finely minced ginger and 1/2 tsp of seaseme oil. Mix with as much olive oil as needed to turn into a paste. Take two racks of Santa Barbara style ribs and coat liberally with paste. Roast uncovered at 375F for 20 minutes and then drop temperature to 275F for two hours. Fifteen minutes before finishing cooking, sprinkle more coconut on ribs.

Green Eggs and Lamb

Reviews: "5 Stars", "6 out of 5 stars", "This one goes to 11 [out of 10]," "Nothing can beat this breakfast. We should all stop trying."

Green Eggs

In a very large saute pan, combine copious amounts of olive oil, 7 minced garlic cloves, half of an onion (finely minced as well), a tablespoon of crushed red pepper, freshly cracked pepper, and salt. Saute until garlic just begins to become crisp. Add about a half pound of chopped (or finely sliced) spinach. Saute till wilted. Meanwhile, beat 22 eggs and season in the mixing bowl with salt and pepper. Add five sliced scallions (aka green onions) to uncooked eggs and combine. Pour egg mixture over spinach and cook until done, about 10 minutes.

And Lamb
With a mortar and pestle, create rub with 4 teaspoons of dried dill, lots of coarse sea salt, black pepper, and crushed red peppers. Add two teaspoons of olive oil and about four super super finely minced garlic cloves. Take lamb leg, season with salt and pepper. Rub completely with dill mixture. Place in bag or pan, add cup of white wine and juice of half a lemon. Marinate over night, flipping to ensure proper diffusion of oil/salt/wine/lemon. Roast at 425F for 20 minutes on wire rack, reduce to 300 and roast for 11 minutes per pound.

Service
Serve with sliced tomatoes and sauteed onions. For "Almost Paleo" version, serve with whole wheat pita and cucumber sauce (I would recommend to eat the cucumber sauce even if you are on a paleo challenge or lactose intolerant, it is that effing good).

Cucumber Sauce

Take one large cucumber, peel and remove seeds. Mince very finely and dry by placing on multiple paper towels. Move to bowl, add 5 super finely minced garlic cloves, salt, pepper, 4 teaspoons of dried dill weed, and the juice of half of a lemon. Slowly stir in 8 oz of plain, full fat yogurt. Chill over night.

Wild Salmon Tails

Cut salmon from spine, as shown above. Cut down belly and then slice off of rib cage as dictated by fish. I did this with a paring knife.

Cut into fillets or otherwise consumable portions. Season with salt, pepper, and dill with lemon. The actual rub you see in this picture comes from surplus rub for the Paleo Recipe post "Green Eggs and Lamb.

Soup: Fresh Pepper and Butternut Squash

Cut squash in half lengthwise. Scoop out seeds and cover exposed flesh with olive oil and salt. Roast for 40 minutes at 400F face down in some sort of sheet or pan. Remove and allow to cool somewhat. Meanwhile saute thinly sliced leeks until soft with cayenne pepper (I tend to go heavy on this here), garlic, salt and pepper. (If you make this the anti-paleo way, you would use a copious amount of butter to saute the leeks). Scoop out squash from skin and saute with leeks. Add just enough chicken stock to cover the squash and let simmer. Blend smooth, adding water as needed, and season to taste. (Anti-paleo version would then finish with heavy cream). Serve hot, garnish with sliced leek greens, with fresh cracked pepper all over it.