Paleo Sweet Potatoes at Thanksgiving

So here is the dish no one ate. Fine, it was good though, I'm eating the leftovers and they are awesome.

Bake four large-ass sweet potatoes as prescribed previously. Scoop out the inners into a big bowl. Blend smooth with an electric mixer. Add cinnamon, about 1t, and a few ounces of coconut milk. Re-blend. Spread into pan, cover with sprinkles of ground cinnamon and cloves (this is the real key with no sugar: cloves). If I was making this for my house, I would throw down a ton of chili oil or cayenne while adding the coconut milk.

Paleo Green Bean Caserole

This was a good one. Take four pieces of bacon, with garlic and onion and saute in chili oil. Saute until cooked through. Add cut up pieces of green beans (these were French green beans) with a half bunch of cut asparagus. Season to taste. Cook until the green beans are tender. Place in caserole and cover with large wedges of tomatoes. I covered this and put it in the fridge for a couple hours. Bake uncovered for 20 minutes at 350F to reheat.

Reflections on a Skipped Cycle

Lame, I just lost about a three page post on this subject and I don't think I can re-create it. Fuck.

Anyway. The rest did me no good. I'm out with my lame tinkering. I'm going back to fundementals and starting over again. I can't believe I lost that effing post. It took me seriously three hours to write. Fuck the internet.

Grapefruit Chicken

So, I'm begining to think that some of this stuff must seem like it is way out there to some of you, but try to make one of these and you'll see its not really too hard. And, Jordan and I have a ton of grapefruits for some reason.

Peel one grapefruit and mince. Add 3/2T of minced rinds to mortar and pestle. Add 1t salt, 1t ground ginger, 1/2t ground lemongrass, 1t cayenne pepper, and enough olive oil to turn into paste. Add 1/2t sesame oil. Take a whole chicken and cut off excess fat, and detatch skin while leaving it on the bird. Cover bird with tons of pre-ground pepper and then cover with paste inside the skin and out. Rub supplemental grapefruit rind all over bird too. Roastisserie for 85 minutes.

The name says it all for this one: it is truly grapefruit flavored chicken. I thought it was good, not a life changing, come to Jesus moment, but a worthwhile experiment. If I had better side dishes that I could use grapefruit in, this could be some Iron Chef style shit. I'm stuck with what I have in my kitchen: sweet potatoes and asparagus. Maybe I could have tried harder.

Spicy Garlic Asparagus

Saute thin asparagus in chipotle oil with lots of minced garlic, salt, black pepper, red onion slices, and crushed red peppers. Easy enough?

New York Loin Roast

This was an excellent choice, its like buying a 9-inch thick steak, and! I got it for like $32 off becuase its the Holidays! This truly was the perfect time to buy the roastisserie.

Cover, in a very thick coat, the roast in unfreshly ground pepper. Then in a mortar and pestle grind together oregano, salt and crushed red pepper. Once ground smooth, cover roast liberally with it. Roastisserrie for 72 minutes or 16m/p.

Baked Sweet Potato

This one is for Colin. Have I posted this before?

Take sweet potato, clean, and pat dry. Bake for 45 minutes at 450F. Fork open (lengthwise and then squeeze with oven mitts to pop it out) and cover with olive oil, cinnamon, paprika and I like mine with fresh crushed garlic. This is really easy and delicious.

Turkey

TGIF: Thank Celestial Cycles Its AutumnTurkey is cheap, super cheap right now. If you have a Paleo Pantry/Freezer you have room to spare. This bird was $0.33/p. Or $5 total. I have two more in my freezer.

Take less than a 15p turkey, rub/ flavor up with fresh thyme, crushed red pepper, salt, pepper, and cram half of a huge onion inside. Binde tight, or cut off wings and legs, then roastisserrie for 12 min/p. Endulge.

Roastisserrie Chicken V1.0

When I was buying the rotisserie, the woman at the check out called it a roastisserrie. I wanted to talk to her manager...

This recipe was inspired from the lining notes of the roastisserrie package itself.

Lemon Herb Chicken
Peel rind off of lemon, mince finely. In a mortar and pestle, combine lemon rind, 1t dried thyme, 1/2t of ground sage, and dried rosemary. Add 1t crushed red pepper. For the chickens, cut off visible excess fat, and, this is a new technique thingy, pull skin up off breasts while remaining in tact; with a paring knife, cut all the stringy/ membrane things in-between the skin and carcase. Work your hands all the way into the chicken to loosen skin all through out the bird. Kinda graffic, right?

Take your rub, and work it all over the outside of the bird, and then rub in-between the skin and the flesh. Rub in the interior of the bird too. Season with salt and pepper, inside and out. Take remnants of lemon, cut in half, squeeze over birds, and place one half inside of each bird. Roastisserize for about 10-12 minutes per pound.

That lemon rind really makes this a stand out above and beyond typical lemon pepper seasoning (even without MSG).

Salmon Pancetta Soup

Ahh, seafood. This is super simple, fringe paleo (because of the canned products, not the ingredients), delicious start to any amazing seafood soup. I took the flavors from Aldo's on State in Santa Barbara, where they use swordfish and potatoes in their version. There was a time when this was the best soup I had ever had, so I figured out what to do to make it (and now over again to make it Paleo). This is faster to prepare than most dishes I post, and I made it when I thought I was fighting off a cold (one of my co-workers was sick, it was nothing; I must be a hypochondriac) two days ago.

Salmon Pancetta Soup

In a generous portion of olive oil, saute 7 minced garlic cloves. Add 1/4-1/3p of diced pancetta (in America we call this unsmoked, plain old bacon), and a finely diced small onion. Cook until pancetta is done, but not yet crispy. Add three whole, dried, red chilies. Add 1T dried basil. Add 1/2T dried thyme. Season to taste. Add to this a can of salmon, oil and all. Add 15oz cans of petite diced tomatoes and tomato sauce. Add 3 cups of "Paleo Broth" (3c water, 3 bay leaves, 1t celery salt). Simmer until bubbling then serve hot.

Variations: The single biggest variation would be to swap out a cup of broth for white wine. Also, this is good with any white fish (talapia, cod, etc.), halibut, swordfish, and more pungant fish like salmon and cat fish. This takes well to shell fish too, so dont shy away from mussles, shrimp, crab, etc. Vegetables that can be added are potatoes, carrots, celery, larger pieces of onion, zucchini, summer squash, and on and on. This is just about the most basic seafood soup base with unlimited varieties that can be made, so use this as your launching point and be creative. Also, a more traditional approach to this dish does not use pancetta, but rather butter, FYI.

Pumpkin Basil Ham Curry Soup

This is not one for the faint of heart, or the person who has just simply stumbled upon this Paleo blog. This is extremely unique, delicious, and complicated.

You have to already have some Pineapple Clove Ham or equivalent on hand.
You have to already know how to make my Paleo Broth.
You should have an idea of what is going on with curries.
You need a very well stocked Paleo pantry.

Lets start! You have to get two things going simultenaeously: first, begin the Sweet Paleo Braised Pumpkin recipe I just posted. When you start braising the pumpkin, add a large, coarsely cut onion. Second, get a 5qt pan going with:

• 2T Canola oil
• 1t Ginger powder
• 2 Cloves of finely minced garlic
• 1/2t ground Lemongrass
• 1 small very finely minced onion

Saute until the minced onion is translucent, but not carmelized. Add 1/2-1T ground paprika. Saute until a small portion of the onion carmelizes. Add 6 whole, dried red Thai chilies. Add about 1.2 pounds of diced ham: use about half from the skin portion with as much fat removed as possible, and the other half from the leaner leg section. Saute until most of the remaining fat is off of the meat. Add 3/4-1p of diced brown mushrooms. Saute on low until pumpkin in other pan is semi-firm.

Combine two pans into the 5qt pot (do not drain) remove bay leaf and stir. Add 3T of fish sauce. Add 1 can of coconut milk (13-14oz). Stir until combined. Add 2T almond flour and stir till desolved. Add 3-4 cups Paleo Broth. Bring to a boil, then simmer. Simmer till done, up to an hour.

Prior to serving, add bunch of sliced basil leaves to soup, and stir. Season to taste.

I must have eaten 5 bowls of this in a row. This dish has a lot going on in it, very complex flavors. I was super stoked at the "pumpkin" orange color it ended up being too!

Sweet Braised Paleo Pumpkin

I made this to be used straight away in the next post, but this is, in fact its own recipe and can be used as a side dish.

Sweet Braised Paleo Pumpkin

Take a pie pumpkin (a small pumpkin that you would never use for carving, it is what you are supposed to use for pies), remove stem and cut in half. Using your hands, pull out all seeds and retain in a colander to dry over night (I'll show you guys how to use these to make pumpkin seeds soon too). Then, with the two halves, take a spoon and scrape out all of the stringy things. Slice the halves into cresent shapes pieces. Then, cut those into little spoon sized pieces.

Meanwhile, in a shallow pan, bring a stick of cinnamon, 4T of unsweetened apple sauce, 1c of water, a bay leaf, some cracked black pepper, and 1/2t of celery salt to a simmer. Add pumpkin and simmer until soft (this will be a matter of taste, and whether or not you cover the pumpkin. I recommend simmering until the skin is easy to chew through). Season to taste.

You can add onions, garlic, or virtually anything else you think will go with this dish while simmering. With out explicitly trying it, I bet if you added cranberries and some ground clove this would be an awsome Paloe stand alone for your upcoming Paleo Thanksgiving.

Mixed Green Salad w/ Ham and Avocado

This is a "Fun with What We Have Learned" meal. Look up these two recipes:

• Pineapple Clove Ham
• Sesame Dressing

Now, take a bag of mixed greens, a good portion of ham (include some of the semi fatty burnt edges but remove all cloves), add diced avocado, and toss with sesame dressing (I remade the dressing with garlic instead of shallots and it was a good call for this recipe).

I had to stop after every bite to exclaim, outloud (to myself, no one else was around) at how much I was enjoying this salad. It was super fun to have that experience with something so effing simple.

Pineapple Clove Ham

Ro is for Rotisserie. I got the Ronco Showtime Rotisserie and I am super geeked up. Its turkey season, hooray!

Pineapple Clove Ham
Take a 10 lb ham and cover with pineapple chunks attached by tooth picks. Plunge cloves into ham. Sprinkle with salt (not too much, these bad boys are already fairly salty), crushed red pepper and black pepper. Put on spit and let spin for two hours. The pineapple burns and falls off, but it give it the sweetness non-paleo eater enjoy from brown sugar.

Farmer Fresh to You! 2009-11-11

Here is what was in this week's box:

• 5 triple kiwis (see supplemental picture, these are freakish kiwi)
• 2 baskets of strawberries (one pictured, one previously ate)
• Green beans
• Mushrooms
• 7 Tomatoes
• Bag of mixed greens
• Large spaghetti squash
• 3 sweet potatoes (yams)
• Onion
• Garlic
• Lemon
• Huge bunch of basil
• 6 cucumbers (given away, cukes are worthless in my opinion)

Check out these freak kiwis! Kiwi is a super food, get geeked up about freak fruit! <>!

There are super anti-inflammatory foods here too: sweet potatoes, green beans, garlic, kiwi, tomatoes... well virtually everything. Hooray!

Lisette and Carol
Farmer Fresh To You
805.469.7604
www.farmerfreshtoyou.net

Mustard Garlic Chicken, w or w/o Coconut

This was a "Which way to go?" dish. I went both ways and I personally think the anti-coconut way was better. Maybe I'm biased from the month long Thai food kick I went on.

Take two chickens and dismember (1.17+1.20 PR for two chickens in one dismembering session, back to back, sub or at 1.20s is ridiculous especially when they were $0.59/lb from Ralphs). Season with salt and pepper. Coat in 3/2T curry powder + 2T dijion mustard. Rub with 17+ completely minced garlic cloves. Seperate chickens. Keep one chicken this way, sprinkle with crushed red pepper and bake.


Take other chickens and add two T coconut shavings (unsweetened). Bake along with other chicken for 40+ minutes at 400F.

For my $3.70, the one without coconut was much better. FYI.

Garlic Mincing 101

People love garlic. I don't know why this is such a huge flavor, becuase surely there are other flavors out there that are equal/ superior to this singled out go-to flavor. Regardless, here is how you mince your way to more effective garlic flavoring. I personally think that dried garlic, and things like garlic salt and dehydrated garlic have led to this revolution, but it is unncessecary. Here is how you make useful garlic from fresh garlic.

Take your garlic and smash, in skin, with large knife. Mince to the best of your ability, it should look like this:

Add about a T of super coarse sea salt to your garlic.

Smash that salt into your garlic. Take your knife and pound that into your garlic so that the granuals are intermingled into your garlic.

Mince again. This is where you see the garlic not stick to your knife. It is also when you see your previous 'mince' turn into 'chopped' becasue the fine cut is reduced substantially.
You can add oil, or salt, and refine, refine, refine. It just gets that much finer and more towards food proscessor level.

Get sick with it.

Beef Stew

Beef stew is generally Paleo, but thickening the gravy normally takes wheat flour, here we sub almond flour. Enjoy.

Take 4.5p of lean beef roast. Trim of all visible fat and reserve. Cut beef into 1" cubes and season with salt and pepper. In a 5+q pan, brown beef cubes (if there are too many, which there will be if you have a pan like mine, do not overwhelm the pan, cook them in stages. It took me three stages). Add finely diced large onion and minced garlic clove. Saute until wilted. Add 3T (45g) almond flour to make roux. Simmer to thicken.

Meanwhile, take reserved beef fat and render in seperate 3q pan. Once completely rendered, remove excess beef/fat. Saute 2+p fingerling potatoes, 5 thickly sliced carrots, 3 sliced celery stocks, and another large onion, cut into large pieces. Cook low and slow for as long as needed.

To the beef concoction: add 1c of red wine, 1/2c of juice from 28 oz can of whole peeled tomatoes. Take 1t of celery salt, 1/2t dried thyme, and grind smooth in a mortar and pestle. Add to beef mixture with 1q water with 2 bay leaves. Simmer for 3/2 hours. Add vegetables from other pan. Add drained whole stewed tomatoes. Remove bay leaves. Simmer for another 1/2 hour.

Chocolate Chipotle Ribs

Think I like chipotle?

Chocolate Chipotle Ribs

Take two dried chipotle peppers, and a teaspoon of salt. Grind smooth in coffee grinder (I was using the M&P but the peppers aren't 100% dry, it would have taken me all night). Add back into mortar and pestle (M&P) and mix with ground black pepper, and crushed red pepper. Mix heaping T of cocoa powder. Rub liberally over 3 racks of Santa Barbara style ribs. Drizzle with chipotle oil, dust with cocoa powder. Roast at 300F for hours and hours.

I just threw this in post-nap, pre-sleep, so I am yet to give an appraisle. I ate all the beef ribs while napping (somehow), and we need cooked meat. ASAP. I have to have a stock of meat for breakfast tomorrow. This is it for me, I have to make them now. I woke up at 2:50am today, and I have to run the 1/2 marathon tomorrow morning. Ribs? Pre-WOD fat and protien filled nutrition (i.e 3+ hours prior). I bought a grip of clementines for real pre-WOD nutrition, and Craig hooked up the "Organic Gummy Bear Substitutes" for the race, its not a pizza or a double double, but chocolate ribs are funny enough, right?

Farmer Fresh to You! 2009-11-04

Here is this weeks box:

• 2 Head of Broccoli
• Bunch of Carrots
• Lemon
• Asparagus
• Sunchokes (aka Jerusalem Artichokes) (What are they and what am I going to do with these beauties?)
• 4 Tangerines (Here comes the citrus season! Hooray!) (I know I live in southern California where citrus is king)
• Garlic
• Cilantro
• 4 Apples
• 4 Tomatoes
• Fingerling Potatoes
• 2 Baskets of Raspberries
• Onion

I love this service as you all know by now: best produce available, organic, local, delivered to your door, but most importantly, delicious. If any of you readers choose to get this service, take note of a few things:

• Tomatoes must always be bought from these women. I never knew what a tomato tasted like. I never knew what it was like to eat tomatoes raw, or cooked, or... anything. They find the most delicious tomatoes that I could not even find in Italy. That is super huge props.
• Apples. If I thought I had eaten apples from all over the earth, their apples must be from another planet. Never, ever, have I found better apples. Fuck, haven't we all been eating apples since we were three? Nothing close to these gems.
• Carrots. I bet a lot of you would have thought I would have refused carrots, but truth be told, I eat 2 pounds per week of carrots, and when I can get them from FFTY, I always buy them. I almost always eat them raw when I get them from FFTY, they are that good.
• Cruciferous Vegetables, fennel, potatoes, fresh basil, oregano, thyme, bizarre herbs like lemon verbana, and on and on. Seriously, they always deliver the best imaginable food.

Sure, some of the stuff is run of the mill, but there is home run after home run in each box.

Lisette and Carol
Farmer Fresh To You
805.469.7604
http://www.farmerfreshtoyou.net/

Paleo Mocha Cofffee

This is pretty easy, but I'm posting it since I will begin cooking with cocoa soon, this is the first step in a journey that may last a month. Also, I don't think I have posted another drink recipe since the Paleo Peach Tea months ago.

Anyway, I generally hate flavored coffee, but this was mild and not over powering.

Paleo Mocha Coffee
Fill standard drip coffee with as much plain coffee as desired (I like mine strong so I go for 5 scoops for 10 'cups' of coffee). Add a heaping tablespoon of pure, unsweetened cocoa to the grounds. Brew. Serve black, or iced.

The French press maybe the best all around cup of coffee, but I like to make a lot at a time with my drip system (don't get me wrong, it takes all kinds. I have a cafeteria (Italian stove top espresso maker), French press, and even some instant stuff). A rule of thumb on drip systems though: use a metal, reusable filter instead of paper filters. This ensures that you dont get a bunch of paper fibers and extra chemicals from the paper bleaching process in your brew, ensuring the best tasting coffee possible. Also, it just reduces waste, and you never run out of them.

Italian Vegetables with Lemon

Okay, so there is a huge cooking combination in this dish:

• Basil (lots, dried)
• Cauliflower (majority of a head, cut up)
• Zucchini (2 large, sliced)
• Garlic (2 cloves, minced)
• Onion (2, diced)
• Snap Peas (12oz)
• Olive Oil (1/4-1/2c)
• Lemon (juice of one)

Write that down. That combo can form the base of so many dishes its ridiculous: seafood is especially good, butter and cheeses, pasta. Hhhm, not Paleo enough you say? Fine, here is a Paleo version that is awesome too:

Eat the Food Challenge: Meal 4
Italian Vegetables with Lemon (or Paleo Turkey Helper)

Take the above ingredient list, add 1.5p ground turkey to sauteing onions and garlic with black pepper, red pepper, and salt. Add zucchini, peas, and cauliflower, cook. Add head of spinach leaves. Cover in lemon juice. (See? Easy as hamburger helper with paleo veggies).

Hobo Paleo Chili

There has been some talk about chili recently. What, may I ask, makes chili 'chili'? Me and my conteperaries tried to answer this, but all we came up with was some lame fundemental: chili powder with stuff makes chili. Think about it, true historical chili is meat sauce and it has no beans, yet there is vegetarian chili. There can be corn, white beans, pinto beans, rice, turkey, tomatoes, and on and on in whatever we try to define as chili. The only thing that all of them have in common is chili peppers. So here is what can be called chili since it does technically conform to the "powdered chili peppers with stuff" fundemental.

Eat the Food Challenge: Meal 3
Ingredients:

• 3p pork shoulder
• 2 huge onions
• 1p mushroom
• 1 can chipotle peppers
• 2T apple cider vinager
• 3/2T tomato paste
• 2c water
• Lots of cayenne chili powder
• Lots of cumin
• Salt and Pepper TT
• Head of Cauliflower

Cover the huge, uncut, pork shoulder in cayenne pepper, cumin, salt and pepper. Blacken in cast iron pan. Place into crock pot. Add sliced onions, peppers, vinager, tomato paste, water. Cook on high for 4 hours. Add mushrooms. Cook for another hour. Rip meat apart. Saute head of cauliflower. Serve chili over cauliflower.

Addendum: This dish blew Pamela, my good friend Aiste (eye-sta), and her bf Johny-poo away. I actually consider this a failure as a dish. This turned into a stew, I intended it as a semi-dry dish that I wanted to serve over spinach or lettuce as a taco salad. Nevertheless, Aiste texted me the day after thanking me for the delicious stew (she actually couldn't get it out of her mind and went in search of stew the next day) and Pam is horrified by the prospect of me never making this again (after all, I considered it mediocre, and a failure). I think the reason why they love it is because of the tremendous amount of pork fat in it, but who knows. Well, I know. Someone do the "Pepsi challenge": make this with pork loin and again with pork shoulder and tell me which one wins.