Chipotle White Sauce (Part 2 of 4 Salsas for Ceviche)

To the right this time, not really white

Chipotle White Sauce (Jury's Out)

You know that funky sauce they have at some fish taco stands? This is like that.

3.5oz canned chipotle peppers in adobo sauce

Juice of 2 limes pressed

Salt and pepper to taste

16oz Sour Cream

Blend the peppers and everything except sour cream first. Then slowly blend sour cream in. Use a squeeze bottle with a large hole since the skins have trouble when blended at slower speeds.

I thought it was too creamy, but chicks were digging it for some reason. My jury was out, but the verdict is in: Guilty of being delicious. Success.

The Breakfast Lasagne

This one effs with your senses since you can't tell what you are tasting, its cool

Every 15-16 weeks I am asked to bring bagels to the office on a Friday morning for about 15-16 people.  Now, as far as I know, I am the only one in the group to create and maintain a highly unsuccessful food blog (read as, I spend tons of time to make it, and make no money from it = unsuccessful), so there is always a huge amount of pressure to step up to the plate.  I like to think that I do, and this was very well received.  Lots going on here.

The idea behind this dish, is that, well, I effing love lasagne, but because of the pasta and cheese, its hard to call it even close to paleo.  So what to do?  Ditch the pasta, keep an amount of dairy, and make it for breakfast.  The challenges?  Eggs, taste, texture, look, plating, planning, cooking, creating.  The reward? Eating.

Come with me on a journey...

The Prep
I'll try to walk you through the fundamentals of this dish too, when I can. Basically, what we need to understand is what traditional lasagne tastes like: delicious sauce, mixed with delicious meat, mixed with delicious cheese, mixed with baked texture goodness.  Now the challenge: what makes those things delicious?

Spinach: blanch a head or two of it, depending on how much you are making: boiling water, two minutes in, rinse in cold water.  Save. 

Grass fed ground beef: saute 3 pounds in spicy olive oil, sage, thyme, basil, oregano, minced garlic cloves, salt and pepper to taste on every single ingredient.  Cool to room temperature. 

The Sauce: blend for 6 minutes (until piping hot) two organic orange carrots (these are kinda small), half of one stalk of celery, like 6-8 tomatoes, two cloves garlic, a pinch of salt, lots of ground pepper, and a pinch of crushed red pepper, a little water too, and a pinch of thyme and sage.  It will be piping hot when done, so cool and then re-blend.  This tastes nasty by itself, so do not use it for any other application.  Read the caption of the photo, this is part of the mind fuck that the blender can do. 

Potatoes: slice about 5 russet potatoes thinly (using a lame electric slicer), parboil for 10 minutes, drain and cool.

Cheeses: buy a pound each of full fat ricotta, Parmesan, and mozzarella, shredded to save time, high quality to save your life.

Eggs: Beat 18 eggs until smooth, and then add 2 cups of full fat milk, and re-beat.

Tomatoes: Slice 6 tomatoes ATAP (as thinly as possible, buy hand so they have some thickness)

You have to time these steps appropriately.  You want your potatoes done before your beef, long enough so that the potatoes are warm and you can handle them, and the beef is hot enough so the fat is still rolling around.

The Assembly
Okay, so here is where the step by step instructions might break down for a lot of people. First things first: we have multiple stages of assembly to make this dish fantastic, and not just 'fine'.  Second: there are timed stages of cooling that we must pay attention too.  Third, do not second guess your instincts, unless your instincts contradict this recipe.

Step 1: Place a layer of potatoes on the pans (mine were a 3" deep 12" x 12", and a 3" x 10" x 18").  My potatoes were falling apart to a great extent, so they turned into like a firm mash.

Step 2: Evenly spread still super runny ground beef and equally distribute the fat over the potatoes.

Step 3:  Let all that shit cool down to room temperature.

Step 4:  Now, spread your ricotta over the beef, cover in  half of the Parmesan cheese, pour about half the sauce over pans.  Spread spinach over the bed of deliciousness.  Add another layers of potatoes.  Cover with half the mozzarella. 

Step 5: Pour the eggs and milk mixture over that evenly. Cover with the rest of the sauce, evenly.

Step 6: Cover in the other half of the mozzarella, and then top with sliced tomatoes, garnish with fresh cracked pepper.

The Bake
I did 350F for 1h 15min, 15min at 375F.  Remove, cover, and sit for 15 minutes.  It was still bubbling.

The Reward
Shit tasted like a fucking proper lasagne.  Cheesy, saucy, meaty, pasta-ee, delicious. Cut like a fucking lasagne too.  I even heard things like: "The pasta is perfect.", "It tastes exactly like lasagne, but there is no sauce."  "This is like the Italian breakfast burrito." "This is really good." "He had three pieces..."

Hobo Paleo Hot Wings

I was at the grocery today after Globo and realized that I haven't made spicy wings since I started this blog, and that is actually quite odd, since that was a signature dish of mine.  I was literally famous (depends on the definition of 'famous') on two continents and well over four counties for my "Red Chicken."  BBQ?  Brandon, make the red chicken.  Wedding?  Brandon, make the red chicken.  Graduation?  Shut up Brandon and make the red chicken.  Seriously, it is easily the dish that I am known best for, and I don't think it has even crossed my mind since I started this paleo nonsense.  I'll give you the original and the knock off paleo first attempt (way off base, btw).

The Red Chicken
Take about 6-10p of cut up chicken (wings, or otherwise), and cover it with something called Pappy's Choice Seasoning (http://www.pappyschoice.com/), the Santa Maria style.  [Aside: Jesus, I just checked their website and they are selling that shit for $17/ 32oz.  I was paying $3.35 for that same thing at Costco, FYI.]  It is out of control good on seriously anything.  We did a Thanksgiving Turkey with it.  It is super forgiving and everyone has success with it, and if my memory serves me, is pretty natural (its like seasoned salt).  Cook chicken on a grill till crispy.  Toss with about 5:1 cayenne pepper sauce (Louisiana hot sauce: cayenne pepper, distilled vinegar, salt only) to soy sauce, or worcestershire sauce. 

I never understood what made it work, but it always worked.  Tailgates, bachelor parties (two), super bowls, fourth of julys, and seriously once a week for years and years.  I can't believe I haven't tried to make this yet.

Hobo Paleo Hot Wings
Coat the wings with salt and very coarsely ground pepper, lots of it.  Grill the wings crispy.  Toss with red pepper sauce, dehydrated onions (take it easy on these, or grind them into a powder), granulated garlic, pepper, dijion mustard, and apple cider vinegar mixed together.  The first word that came to mind when I tasted it was 'cute.'  They are good enough to impress novice wing eaters, like the BW3 crowd, but my dehydrated onions sucked the life out of my sauce.  I could eat 3/2 - 2 dozen in about two rounds.  I used to eat 5 dozen of the red ones in one sitting.

Soup a la Denmark

Umm, this isn't Danish. Rather, the friends I made from Denmark always told me that when they made soup they always used whatever leftovers they had in their fridge ('Just throw it all in a pot.' my friend Sissin would say). This act of "Grab and Toss" is what I have done, and, unfortunately, I misdiagnosed my peas in my Farmer Fresh box (the peas were shelling peas), and hence, not Paleo. So, although I designed this Danish Soup with Paleo intentions, it wasn't meant to be, first time ever for me, fuck, what happened to me?

This is excellent and I can't believe the peas cost me a paleo title, there was less than a handful in this entire recipe.

Take 4 minced cloves, a huge pinch of red pepper, and lots of olive oil and saute. Add 1/2T celery salt. Add have of fresh oregano bunch from FFTY box. Add finely diced onion. Cut up bunch of white carrots into rounds, add. Cut up a pound of fingerling potatoes, add. Saute for ten minutes. Add four cups water and 4 bay leaves, bring to boil. Reduce to simmer. Cut each of 6 Roma tomatoes into sixteen pieces and add. Continue to simmer. Cut about 1.5p turkey into bite sized pieces, add, boil and simmer. Add two cups water. Add shelled peas and bring to boil. Simmer for 15 minutes. Remove bay leaves and serve.

One Dish to Rule Them All

Precious

I was moved up a few weeks in the old "Bring a bag full of shitty bagels and cakes to work Friday" earlier this week as a sort of "End of the year, its all on you and your alleged awesome food, so don't fuck up the most relaxed time you will have all year with some crappy Cheese Biscuits & Syrup breakfast."

I had a ham in my fridge, so I agreed to take up the challenge now and not pass the buck until the 8th of January. It may have been the best professional decision I have ever made: this dish made waves in the Sloan space/time continuum. I truly have never seen such a reaction to anything I have ever done. I had wealthy, world-travelling people in their late 60s telling me it was the best dish they had ever had. And they are supposedly extremely picky people.

This is an "Almost Paleo" only because it has dairy (albeit an absolute ton of it).

The One Dish

This is an egg casserole, not a quiche or frittata. The process is a three stage progression of prep-and-cool, combine-and-chill, and then heat-and eat.

Prep-and-Cool
Each item here takes its own special method of preparation because you want the flavors to not combine before baking into the eggs.

Chorizo Spiced Bacon
My recipe calls for two pounds of this, so I had to make them in two stages of one pound at a time. Take bacon and cut into 1" squares, cook slowly adding chorizo seasoning (I just got it from a Tienda Mexicana, but you can make you own) and freshly ground black pepper. Once crisp, drain off fat on paper towels and let cool to room temperature.

Wilted Spinach
Boil about 2-3q of water. Take two heads of spinach and cut off stems and rinse very thoroughly of all dirt. Once the water is boiling, remove from heat and place spinach in water and cover with lid for two minutes exactly. Drain and rinse with cold water to stop cooking. Let cool to room temperature and chop coarsely and reserve.

Sauteed Baby Bellas
Take about 20 oz of baby bella mushrooms and quarter them, this will leave you with big enough, obvious enough, pieces for those insane co-workers to pick out should they choose. Anyway, saute in olive oil until tender, drain and cool.

Combine and Chill
Make sure you get a huge bowl for this, these quantities are huge. Take 24 eggs and beat until very well combined. I have actually been considering posting on how important beating eggs truly is, I see what is happening out there in Omletland and it makes me sad that people don't take the time to beat the shit out of their eggs. Anyway, beat the shit out of them. Then add 4 cups of full fat milk. Mix.

Add a combination of 2 cups of almond meal and 4t baking powder slowly to the eggs (not ridiculously slow though, they combine pretty easily). Take 2 pounds of Monterrey Jack and 1 pound of mild cheddar and chop into pieces as close to shredded size as possible (I don't have a cheese grater, but this is probably what I would do even if I had one). Mix slowly into eggs. Add 24 oz of full fat cottage cheese, combine.

Now, take one bunch of leeks and slice in half, and then very very finely slice the white parts. I used my Farmer Fresh leeks and they were smaller than what you get at GloboStores (aka super markets), there were three in my bunch, but 2 standard ones would be equivalent. Add to mix. Very finely slice five Thai chilies and combine. Add mushrooms, combine, spinach, combine, and then finally, the bacon, in that order. Season with three huge pinches of salt and lots of black pepper.

Butter some pans (I needed three, a 13x9, a 12x12, and a 7x5) and fill with mixture. Chill in fridge for 3+ hours/ over night.

Heat and Eat
Bring to room temperature. Cover in paprika. Bake on 350F, uncovered, until done. I did mine all at the same time, I was expecting it to take 45m-1h, but it ended up taking 1.5h with the little dish finishing first.

Drive it to work and sit back and wait for a promotion. But seriously, I was so far behind with the additional cooking time needed that I couldn't even finish this dish.

The Return of the One Dish
Had I more time, once the dish had "set" I would have topped the casserole with slices of goat's cheese, and blistered grape tomatoes and then broiled it briefly.

It took me more than 1.25h to just think about how to do this dish, and yes mom, this was inspired by that silly casserole we make on Christmas with the Del Norte canned chilies.

The Paleo Goes Gourmet

First Course: Romaine salad with Farmer Fresh yellow and orange tomatoes, served with my favorite sesame dressing. Paired with cheap champange.


Main Course: New York steak, cooked to order (by the birthday house guest who likes them ruined,... I mean, well done), blanched and sauted Farmer Fresh carrots and green beans, mashed potatoes and onions. Paired with cheap red wine (Charles Shaw!!).

Dessert: Almost Paleo dessert with Breyer's Brand ice cream, both chocolate and vanilla, topped with fresh raspberries and almonds.

Except for the dessert, this was high level paleo service.

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.