Salmon Baked in Parchment - and Flourless Ginger Snap(ish)s!

I like baking in parchment - it's a super easy cleanup and if you are baking for multiple folks you can cutomize what spices/flavors go into each packet.

So, TG and I julienned carrots, zucchini, bell pepper, and peeled some thin slices of parsnip.

Heat up oven to 400.

On a sheet of parchment paper, place a piece of salmon, sprinkle with salt and pepper, add some lemon juice or olive oil, pile on the veggies, top with spices (fresh if you have them) like basil or dill.

Veggie dog-piled salmon.

Fold up the parchment like you're making a foil packet dinner.  I tuck the ends under the fish packet itself to hold it closed.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, until fish flakes easily.  Take care opening the packets - there is a lot of steam and you might get a fish facial.

Dessert:
Flourless (non-snappy) Ginger Snaps from Purely Primal
1.5 cups almond flour
1 cup almond butter
1 egg
grated ginger (We a bigger-than-thumb-sized piece.  Should have used more.)
pinch of salt
pinch of baking soda
1/4 cupish honey

Combine all the ingredients, drop onto a cookie sheet and mash down, cook on 350 for 8 minutes.  We put some raw almonds in the top center of one of the sheets and they turned out nicely.

Review:  Delicious, and a good base.  They're not snappy, they're soft.  I'm a huge ginger fan, so it could have used more ginger, maybe more fresh as well as some ground.

Ginger Broccoli Beef (Paleo)

Had some broccoli and sad looking asparagus, so I decided to throw them in a stir-fry.  I used a steam-then-saute method I read about on this blog.

Cut up the rinsed-and-still-wet broccoli florets, and chop the rinsed-and-still-wet asparagus into ~1 in. pieces.  Throw these into a heated saute pan and cover, letting them steam in their still-wetness.  I used the low end of medium-hot.  I threw in several handfuls of water as needed over the next few minutes.  That's right, I said handfuls of water.  While these are steaming, slice an onion, chop some ginger.  Throw these in the pan after about 4-5 minutes, along with some sesame or mongolian fire oil.  Slice a red pepper.  When the onions are a little soft, add 1 lb. ground beef.  Slice a zucchini, and I also used some parsnip.  I used a vegetable peeler, and just kept peeling away, so that the parsnip would be super thin and would cook fast.  When the beef is no longer pink, throw in the rest of the veggies you just sliced.  Saute for a few minutes, until the newly added veggies are tender-crisp.  I then threw in several handfuls of torn kale leaves.  Stir them in, saute until wilted.  I turned off the heat (electric stove, don't do this with gas stoves, you'll lose too much heat.), and then covered it for a few minutes, thinking it might help the kale wilt faster.  Did it?  Sure, why not.  Garnish the whole thing with some black sesame seeds.
Prep->Eat time: 30 min.

I would point out the parsnip, but they seem to have disappeared into the onions.

I also only threw in about 3/4 of the onion, zucchini, and pepper, so now I've got veggies prepped for a egg-veggie scramble tomorrow morning.  Yum.  And I have enough leftovers for probably 3 more meals.  Triple Yum.

Scooter

Garlic-Lemon Crockpot Whole Chicken

Back again, with more crockpot whole chicken.  This time I was making it for a little work luncheon.  You may be wondering why I seem to be awash in whole chickens.  The answer - I've bought several local, pastured chickens from: This local SLC farm.  I also bought 1/4 a grass-fed cow from them last November, and it's all delicious.  I also get a fresh chicken every other week through the winter from Heritage Valley Organics. 

This time:
Take a rinsed, dried, giblet free whole chicken.  Put a little olive oil on it, squeeze 1 lemon over the thing, sprinkle with garlic powder, salt, and pepper.  Put in the crockpot, surround with onions and garlic cloves.  Take another lemon, cut into thick slices.  Place several slices on top of the bird, put another couple slices (along with some onions and garlic) in the cavity.  Cook on low for 7-8 hours.

Delicious, juicy, and tender!

Scooter

The Chicken Broth

No new recipes lately, since I'm munching through the weekend leftovers.  But, here's the complete story on the broth.

After throwing all the bones, skin, cartilage, onions, whatever back in the crockpot and adding a bunch of water, I let it simmer overnight. In the morning, I strained out all the solid bits and put the liquid in a container to settle.  You need to let the container sit undisturbed for like a day or so, which allows the fat to consolidate in a layer on top.

Full of anticipation, I skimmed off the fat layer, expecting to find liquid broth underneath. Much to my surprise, I had a lot of brown gelatinous stuff. Huh. In, quite possibly, the most un-appetizing picture ever on a food blog, here it is:

Looks especially unappealing in the yellow bowl.

I decided to re-refrigerate the gel, and deal with it later.  At work, I asked cook-extraordinaire Oh-Hanna, if that was what it was supposed to look like.  Luckily, the answer was yes.  Apparently depending on how much cartilage (or something) you use will depend on if it turns out gel-ish, or liquid-ish.  OH said that it could be reduced even more, but I decided to freeze it as is.

I put some in pint containers, and I put some in an ice-cube tray, for those times that you only need a little broth.  (What times would that be?  I picked up the hint somewhere on the web, and although it seemed brilliant and useful at the time, now I don't think I can actually name a recipe I've ever made that called for only 1 Tbl of broth.  Oh, well.)

It ending up making 3+ pints of (I'm assuming fairly concentrated) broth.  Or maybe it's technically stock.  Whatever.  Paprika surprise chicken soup, sometime in the future.

Have a good one!
Scooter

Crockpot Whole Chicken

This time, in lieu of making a mess of the oven again, I decided to go with cooking a whole chicken in the crockpot.  Cooking the bird in the CP seems to result in a very moist, meat-fall-off-the-bone effect, but definitely without the delicious, crispy skin of the roasting bird.  I can't find the exact recipe now, but I think I got the basic idea somewhere off of http://everydaypaleo.com/.

The method:
Rinse and pat dry (with paper towels) a whole chicken.  Remove giblets, tail, etc.  Cut up a few onions, and place in the crockpot.  Put the chicken on top.  Realize that the rather large chicken you have is too big for the CP with all those onions and the lid doesn't fit on. Take the chicken and enough onions out of the CP, until you can fit the bird in, and re-distribute the onions around it.  I shook the following over the bird, in unmeasured quantities:
Salt
Pepper
Tuscan seasoning (some random combo of italian-ish spices)
Garlic
Parsley
Paprika SURPRISE!  (This was actually chipotle pepper.  I didn't read the label, and it was pretty much the same color.  Rather a shock.  Much spicier.)

Cook on low for 7ish hours.  You don't need to add liquid, the chicken will make its own. The meat will basically fall off the bone when you try to cut it or pull it off.

Review: Good, very tender, but not the best spice blend with the random italian-chipotle combo.  It would need cumin or something as well.  Or just salt and pepper.  Next time I think I'll try a garlic-lemon-salt-pepper chicken.

After pulling all the meat of the bones and carcass, I put all the leftover bones, tendons, skin, gristle, onions, whatever back in the crockpot and filled it up about 3/4 with water.  I will let this simmer on low overnight, strain out the bones and solid bits, and make my own broth!

Scooter

Switcheroo Goulash

So, I'd gotten some meat out of the freezer, thinking I'd be broiling some steaks for tonight.  Turns out, I'd grabbed sirloin tip vs. grabbing top sirloin steaks.  Sirloin tip is a meat that lends itself better to braising vs. broiling.  Recipe switcheroo time!

Goulash (not strictly paleo, due to tamari sauce, but pretty close):
This recipe is based on what my mom makes based on the recipe in her (not kidding) 1970's Betty Crocker cookbook.  One of the changes: we don't use shortening.
Ingredients:
Sirloin tip.  I'm guessing it was around 1-1.5 lbs.
7 onions sliced (these appear to fill up the pan quite a bit, but don't worry, they cook down A LOT.)
1 clove garlic
Can of tomato paste and maybe 1 Tbl of tamari (wheat-free soy sauce)  [The recipe actually calls for 3/4 cup catsup and 2 Tbl Wor....shire sauce, this was my substitution to have less sugar and not have high fructose corn syrup.]
Squeeze honey (or 1 Tbl brown sugar)
2 t salt
2 t paprika
1/2 t ground mustard (dry)
dash of cayenne or chipotle
water to cover (couple cups)

Add beef, onion, and garlic in a large pan, with a splash of olive oil.  Cook until onions cook down and meat is brown.  Add the rest of the ingredients, cover, and simmer for 2-2.5 hours.

I served this over cauliflower instead of egg noodles.

Scooter

Curry with Chicken

I love curry, and it's been at least a week and a half since I've had some.  Tsk tsk.

In mongolian fire oil or other oil, saute chopped onion, garlic, and a good sized hunk of ginger.
Add some curry paste (I used the green curry paste from Thai Kitchen).  Add some spices - curry, coriander, cumin, turmeric, and chipotle. Add some cut up chicken pieces.  Cook until the chicken is done.
Add some vegetables like chopped bell pepper, zucchini, and bok choy.  Cook for a few minutes.  Add a can of coconut milk.  I also added another canful of water to cover.  Simmer for around 10 minutes.  Add a large bunch of torn up spinach.  Simmer until wilted.  Serve over steamed cauliflower:

Pre-spinach simmer phase

This took a while to cook, probably around 35-40 minutes.  It was, however, delicious.  I think adding the chipotle spice helped with the flavor, as I've never added it before.  I also used a type of coconut milk I had gotten at an asian store, but had never tried before.  Good price, good flavor:

Yeah, that brand.

Happy munching!
Scooter

Egg Bites

So, this is something I've been making for a while.  They are like Egg muffins or mini-crustless quiches, or whatever.  I originally got the idea from Kalyns Kitchen Blog, but there are a bunch of similar-ish type recipes out there.

Cooled down, apres smush egg muffins

What I do:
The filling: saute up some vegetables.  I always try to put in onions and peppers, but also will throw in whatever I have: spinach, asparagus, zucchini, broccoli, left over bok choy in this version, green onions, cabbage (warning: red cabbage will turn the things blue-ish), etc.  Bacon or something would also be delicious.

The egg mixture:  It will probably take somewhere between 6-12 eggs.  Depending on what I want as far as the protein content, I might use some whole eggs and some just whites, all whole eggs, or if I'm feeling especially lazy, those egg white beater carton things you can buy (these work just fine, but will be a bit moister at the end.  Moister could also be read as mushier, or more-easily-fall-apart-er).  Crack into a bowl and beat, you can add spices like cumin, salt, and pepper, or curry and cardamom, or cayenne, or nothing.

I have a silicon muffin tin (flexible and easy to pop out) that I use, but it still needs some non-stick spray.  Metal would also work, but definitely be liberal with some non-stick spray.  I don't know how well those muffin paper cups would do, I've never tried it.

Fill up the tins 1/2-3/4 full of the veggie mix.  Fill with egg mixture, to cover the veggies, or also around 3/4 full.  Give them a little stir to make sure everything is mixed together.  Bake in a 375 degree oven for around 35 minutes.  They will puff up while cooking, then smush down after they are cool.  Let them cool all the way before putting them into any tupperware type thing, else you'll get some condensation and more mushiness.

How to eat: warm, cold, for breakfast, on the go, after workouts, quick snack, etc.  You can smother them in salsa and avocado.  Or bruschetta is also good, I learned tonight.  Apparently they are supposed to freeze well.  I can attest that they do, in fact, freeze, but I don't know how well they taste when they un-freeze yet.

Scooter

Update 1/20/11:  I made another batch of these, and with some of them I put a slice of deli ham in the muffin tin first, then put veggies inside the ham slice, filled with egg.  DELICIOUS!

Review of Paleo Pizza

So, we got this recipe from: http://cfscceat.blogspot.com/2010/09/paleo-pizza.html.

I like the idea of the crust b/c it is cauliflower-based, not some sort of paleo "flour" based.  (Although there is some almond flour in it.)

Triangle Girl and I made this together, planning a lazy-ish evening cooking and watching Inception.  (My two-word movie review: Wait.....what?)

We doubled the crust, cooked it longer than called for, and made the sauce as is.  The ingredients we did were: spinach, chicken sausage, roasted red peppers, and marinated artichoke hearts.  It made 4 big servings.  I didn't keep track of the Prep-start-to-food-in-mouth time b/c it involved a lot of interruptions, going to the store for missing ingredients, pouring drinks, etc.

Reivew: It's really good.  The sauce is especially good.  It's not something I'll make on a regular basis (just the amount of prep time, different steps, mess made, etc.), but it is definitely worth trying.  It's eat-with-your-fork pizza, not pick-up-a-slice-pizza.

Have a good one!
Scooter

Fast Chicken Soup

Usually soups for me are somewhat protracted affairs.....a bunch of ingredients and chopping, simmering for many minutes, etc.  Didn't have the time or patience for that today.  Super fast soup:

Heat olive oil in a pot on med.  Chop an onion and a few cloves of garlic.  Saute in the olive oil for like 5-7 minutes.  Add a can of diced tomatoes, a can of chicken (Costco-sized), broth or water to cover, and some italian spices (like basil, oregano, marjoram, sage, or any blend you like).  I also added some dried garlic.  Stir everything together, turn up the heat, and start to bring it to a boil.  Grab some greens (like kale or spinach), tear 'em up, and throw them in.   

There's some sort of adage that says "A soup boiled is a soup spoiled."  Not in this case!  If the soup comes to a rolling boil, you can turn it down some, but I just let roll away until the greens were wilted and all the ingredients were definitely hot.  

Prep-start-time to blowing-on-food-trying-to-get-it-in-mouth time: 20 min.

Review:  I'd probably add two cans of chicken next time to up the protein content.  This is definitely not high gourmet, but it was good and easy.

Easy Lunch

I'm finally out of leftovers for lunch, so something simple, good, easy, and available:

Deli turkey, some spinach, red pepper, cucumber, and avocado.  I like to roll the other ingredients into the turkey.  Sometimes I'll roll it all up in lettuce or nori sheets (the stuff used for sushi).  Another thing to purchase at an asian grocery store.  It adds an interesting depth to all the flavors.

Other somewhat common easy lunch things I do:
Pouched salmon or tuna, lettuce, and tomatoes.
Hard boiled eggs, already cooked sausages, and sweet potatoes*.
Previously frozen, then thawed single serving of soup.

*How I cook sweet potatoes at work:  I have a "potato bag" (it's kind of a fleecey-lined fabric sack).  It works really well for sweet potatoes, yams, and pieces of winter squash.  Take a few paper towels, get them a little damp, wrap the sweet potato, put in the bag.  Hit the potato button on the microwave.  You might have to run it through two cycles.  Yummm.

Scooter

Bok Choy Recipe-Off Competition. It's ON!!!!

Triangle Girl and I are going to have a recipe-off with bok choy.  We'll both submit a recipe, and Flash (the requester) gets to judge.

Bok Choy:  It looks like a combo of cabbage and chard.  The stalks are edible without cooking, with a celery-like aspect (crunchy and refreshing), sans the stringiness.  I heard it's good with almond butter (or pb), but I haven't tried that yet.  It comes in the baby version (1/3 the size, 4x the price), but I went with the big boy version.  If you're buying it, make sure to shake out all the water before it gets weighed - these things can store some water in them.

I'm calling this thing: Bok FIRE.

Aesthetic note: I like to slice or julienne (cut into longer, thinner strips) veggies for stir frys.

Slice an onion, chop up a bunch of garlic and ginger, to taste.  My taste runs to a LOT of garlic and ginger.

Get some sesame oil down from the cupboard.  Realize that the measly couple teaspoons-ish left in the container will hardly suffice.  Ponder the other oils you have that could go in combination with the sesame.  Olive oil, definitely not.  Almond Oil, hmmmm.  Mongolian Fire Oil, winner winner bok fire dinner!

Heat up oils in a large frying pan (wish I had a wok)!   I used the high side of medium.  Toss in the onion, garlic, and ginger when the oil is hot.  I then pondered the order to add the rest of the ingredients using some sort of logic about the relative cooking times of the vegetables, and as I sliced everything, I just added it in.

Slice a handful of baby carrots.  Add.  De-leaf the bok choy (save the greens!) and slice the white stalks.  Add.  Since the bunch of bok choy I had picked up was pretty substantial, I used about half of it.

Add 1 lb. ground beef.  Strips of beef would also work swimmingly.  Let the meat and veggies cook for a little bit (5ish minutes), stirring occasionally.

Slice a red pepper.  Add when the ground beef is no longer pinkish.  Realize that once again, you're putting in way too much food for the pan size.  Oh, well.  Slice up 0.5 of a zucchini.  Add.  Saute everything until the newest vegetable entrants are tender-crisp.  Then add the bok choy greens, cook until they are wilted.  Broccoli was on deck, but I left it riding the pine due to lack of field space.  It looked like:

Action shot of the crowded pan.

Garnish the whole thing with some sesame seeds for serving.  If you're going to get sesame seeds, go to one of the Asian markets to get them - it's an unbelievably better deal there.

I considered sprinkling some red pepper flakes on top, but decided that the mongolian fire oil had probably spiced it enough for me.  I was right.

Prep-start to food-in-mouth time: 25 minutes.  This has definitely made enough to share with Flash and TG at lunch tomorrow, plus some extra for leftovers for me alone!

Random note: Favorite knife for chopping things like garlic and ginger:

Well, favorite knife all around.  A gift from TG.

You just semi-rotate your wrist back and forth quickly, and chop-chop-chop.  V. fun.  If chopping things can be considered fun.

Although I dislike it when the news does this, I'll go ahead and do it on the blog.  Coming-up-soon recipes: Paleo Pizza; soup involving cranberries and the leftovers from the chicken; and something-kale-something.

Scooter

Breakfast - Eggs and Leftovers

Common themes:

What I eat in general: Leftovers, incorporated however I can.

What I eat for breakfast: Eggs + veggies (usually sauteed onion and pepper) scrambled together. 

This can definitely make my meals look random.  Today, I went for something of a combo.  I have leftover chicken that I shredded from the whole chicken yesterday, and leftover broccoli slaw from the fish tacos Saturday.

I poached up two eggs and served them on a bed of chicken, slaw, and some spinach, and cracked some pepper on top.

How my awesome dad taught me to quick-and-easy poach two eggs:

In a small frying pan (with a fitting lid), spray some non-stick, crack two eggs in, then pour enough water in to cover the egg white.  I don't completely submerge the yolks, for no real reason.  I think in my case, this was only about 6 oz of water, an un-measured wild guess.  Cover, and cook on the high range of med-high for a few minutes, until your yolks reach your desired state of done-ness.

Who keeps the metric system down.  We do.  We do.

My review: Surprisingly good.  I liked the crunchy texture-egg combo more than I thought I would.

Lunch yesterday and today was/will be fish tacos.  And, what do you know, we have a request:  "Some sort of recipe with that bok something vegetable."  Bok something, look for it in a few days.

Scooter

Roasted Whole Chicken and Brussel Sprouts

With racks on bottom two levels of oven, preheat oven to 450:
Put a rinsed, dried (with paper towels), and devoid of giblets whole chicken in a roasting pan, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle generously with freshly ground salt, pepper, and I threw on some thyme.  Place on the upper rack.  Turn oven down to 400 after 15-20 minutes.  Take dog on a walk and enjoy the actual sunshine happening.  I'm going to let it roast for like 1.5+ hours, since it's a big chicken (6 lbs).  I think smaller chickens would take about an hour.

The kitchen now smells delicious, this might make it smell decidedly less so, but will taste delicious:
Triangle Girl taught me this one: put whole brussel sprouts on a cookie sheet.  (Take off yellow or brown-ish leaves, a few of the really large ones I cut a slit into.)  Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle generously with salt and pepper.  Put on the bottom rack of the oven for like 35-45 minutes, until they seem done.  Stir them around occasionally. Some leaves will fall off and get caramelized and rather crispy.  These ones are especially delicious.   I'm trying to time it such that the brussel sprouts and chicken will be ready at the same time.

The whole chicken will give me plenty for several meals/snacks this week, maybe some to freeze.  I haven't tried it yet, and I'm not going to today, but my next chicken, I will take the carcass and make some chicken broth with it.

Scooter

Update 1/16/11:  I should warn you, this can make a MESS of your oven.  Maybe put a cookie sheet on the rack below to try to catch spatters?  You could also cover it, but the skin won't come out as crispy and delicious.  Weigh the options....

Fish Tacos on Lettuce Leaves

Been thinking about Fish Tacos for a solid week.  Or two.  This recipe is based on Mark Bittman's Fish Tacos in his Kitchen Express book.

On stove:
Heat some olive oil, add a red onion and a few cloves of garlic, finely chopped.
Realize that the pan you've chosen is waaaay too small.  Change everything to a larger pan mid-saute.
Chop a bell pepper (my favorite is red) and add it to the pan.  Add some spices, I added a few shakes of: cumin; coriander; chili powder; salt; and ground pepper.  When the vegetables are closer to being done, add the fish.  I used three tilapia fillets that were thawed from an package of individually-wrapped frozen pieces.  Stir and break up fish until it turns white (where it is not covered in spices), looks done, and flakes easily.  Then cook a little longer if you're like me and irrationally squeamish about making certain something is cooked all the way through.

On (romaine) lettuce leaves:
Spoon up the some fish mixture, add broccoli slaw (from a bag), cut-in-half grape tomatoes (will quarter them next time), and a lot of cilantro.  Squeeze lime juice over the whole thing.  Realize that just like regular tortillas, it is indeed very possible to over-fill a lettuce leaf.

This should have included avocado, but the avocados need a little more time in the paper bag with their apple friend to get ripe enough to use.  I'd also recommend using either more spices (and some cayenne) during the cooking portion, or actual salsa on top for more of an added kick.

Prep-start-time to food-in-mouth time: 30 min.  This would have been 25 min. had I not felt it necessary to put A LOT of cilantro on each taco, and spent a few minutes plucking leaves.

Looks like this made enough for 2+ more meals.  (For a single person.)
Scooter

Mark Bittman's Kitchen Express book on Amazon.

Leftover sirloin + leftover curried cauliflower + eggs = Breakfast!

Welcome!  We are two friends who, among many other things, enjoy food and recipes.  Many of Scooter's recipes will be paleo friendly or paleo-ish, many of Triangle Girl's recipes will not.  But there will likely never be any tofu.

Breakfast today:
Leftover sirloin strips (pan-seared in own juices a few days ago)
Leftover curried cauliflower (will revisit this recipe soon, with some tweaks)
2 eggs (backyard fresh from TG's family)

Skillet, med-high, cook until eggs are done.

Much to my surprise, my point-and-shoot camera has a "cuisine" mode.  I'm not sure it made any difference.  It is also drop and waterproof, in case I get too involved taking a picture of soup.  Or send it through the washer and dryer.  Again.

The "before" picture.  The "after" picture basically looked identical to the curried cauliflower, but with some brown intrusions.

We welcome your thoughts and comments!
Scooter