Slow Cooker Pulled Pork

I've been thinking about doing pulled pork for, oh, like a year now.  Finally decided it was about time:

Slice a large onion.

Place half of the onions on the bottom of the slow cooker.

Place the pork on top of the onions.

According to the package, I bought a "Pork shoulder butt roast", which seems redundant, as I understand shoulder and butt to be the same cut on a pig.  Maybe I'm wrong.  It was about 5.5 lbs, which was just about perfectly sized for my crock pot.

Sprinkle spices on top - I used a pre-mixed "BBQ" spice cause I was feeling lazy.

Add a can of fire-roasted diced tomatoes.  (This one also had chiles in it.)

Add a head of garlic cloves, smashed.

The plan is to cook it on high for 4 hours, then on low for another 4, see if it shreds easily by then.

Scoot

Chicken Soup Slow Cooker - Tortilla style

This recipe was inspired by a tacos day potluck here at work.  I decided i wanted to do a soup.  Then I bought too much chicken.

The night before:
Add to the crockpot:
A large chopped onion
A large chopped sweet potato
A bunch of chicken thighs (boneless).  I think it was like 3.5 lbs. worth.
Chipotle paste.  (The paste from the cans of chipotles.  Or tomato paste + spices).
A head of garlic, minced
Couple shakes of whatever spices you want.  I went with cumin, chili powder, adobo seasoning, and ....?
2 cups of chicken broth
2 cans (fire-roasted) diced tomatoes.

Realize that the slow cooker is tapped out, and won't fit any more vegetables or broth.  Hmmm.  It's looking more like a really thick stew than soup.

Let cook on low overnight.

In the morning- take out the chicken and shred it.  Clear some space in the crockpot by putting some of the chicken and veggies in a container so that the folks at work don't get everything.

Add more broth and a bag of frozen veggies.  (My mix container carrots, bell peppers, squash, and green beans.)

Take to work, let simmer on low until lunch!  Top with avocado.

Scooter.

And it needs salt somewhere along the way.

Oven Pot Roast

Put oven on 325.  Plan on 3.5-4.5 hours total.  If going for longer, turn down to 300 when you add the veggies.

Add roast in a covered pan.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

1.5-2 hours before it will be done, add carrots, potatoes, onions, and sweet potatoes.  Add more liquid if needed.

Easy!  and Delicious!

Scoot

Chile Verde

Super delicious -
Based out of Sarah Fragoso's Everyday Paleo Family Cookbook.

Ingredients:
2 lbs pork roast (most recipes I looked at called for shoulder roast, I got a sirloin roast b/c that is what was available), cubed into like 1" pieces.
1 large onions, chopped
Couple cloves garlic, chopped.
Jar of verde tomatillo salsa (or make your own.)
1 cup broth

Spices:
Paprika
Cumin
Black Pepper

Oil:
Coconut

Method:
Brown the cubes of pork in a couple tablespoons of coconut oil for 8 minutes or so.  Remove to a plate.  Add onions and garlic, saute for 5-10 minutes, add spices.  (I'm guessing I put in a 2 teasoons or so each).  Add broth and use a stiff spatula to scrape all the browned bits off the bottom of the pan.

2 options: simmer on the stove for 2-2.5 hours.

What I did: Put it all in the crockpot on high for 4.5 hours.

It was still pretty liquidy - I think simmering on the stove (uncovered) would have thickened the sauce up somewhat.  It's really good, though.

I am going to try poaching some eggs in the liquid tomorrow for breakfast - super excited.

Scoot

Bacon-Wrapped Pineapple; "Potstickers"

Made some finger foods for a work potluck:

Basically from Diane Sanfilippo's Balanced Bites:

Soak some toothpicks in water for a while.  (I did overnight).
Buy a package of bacon, cut the strips in half, width-wise.
Chop up a pineapple into ~3/4" chunks.
Wrap a piece of bacon around the pineapple, secure with a toothpick.
Cover a cookie sheet or large roasting pan with aluminum foil.
Put a metal baking rack on the pan.
Place all the bacon bites on the rack.  (So that the fat will drain below the rack.)

Bake at 350 for ~25 minutes.  I put it on broil for about 5 minutes at the end.

Awesome.

Gluten-free potstickers.

This was based off a amalgam of a bunch of different websites.

Ingredients, sauteed separately in sesame oil:
1.5 lbs. ground pork, until done
1 head napa cabbage, with some shredded ginger, until wilted
1 large onion, 1 leek, 1 green pepper, and 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped.
Combine this all and let sit.  (Overnight, in my case.)

Some spring roll wrappers.  Mine were made with tapioca flour.

Double up the wrappers, soak 2 at a time in a little bit of water.  (They are flimsy and fragile).
Roll up the filling inside them.
Fry in sesame oil.

Made about 30 or so.  Pretty labor intensive.  Pretty good, but kind of oily.  Filling was delicious.

Scooter

Balsamic Crockpot Short Ribs

This was based off Diane Sanfilippo's Practical Paleo recipe.

Rub the (bone-in) short ribs with spices: fresh rosemary, salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and paprika

Sear the ribs in a large skillet in coconut oil.

Put the ribs in a crockpot with:
1-2 sliced onions
1 cup balsamic vinegar (I used a blackberry-ginger flavored one).
A bunch of smashed cloves of garlic
1 can tomato sauce (15 oz.)
Drizzle of honey

Cook on low for 8 hours.

Awesome!

Dehydrated Beef Jerky and Blueberries

Boring self post:
A full bag of Costco blueberries takes 6 trays in the big dehydrator.

About 2 lbs. of beef take about 4 trays in the big dehydrator.

Espresso Balsamic Vinegar Steak

Marinade (top sirloin in this case) steaks in:

Couple tablespoons espresso balsamic vinegar from Mountain Town Olive Oil  (alternatively, some espresso mixed with some balsamic vinegar)
Couple tablespoons olive oil (specifically the California Garlic Olive Oil from the same source.)
Couple shakes of dried garlic
Several turns each of salt and ground pepper.

Let sit in the marinade for 2-many hours.  (I went for 8).

Hand to someone else who is skilled with the grill, and feast when they magically come back perfectly grilled.  Let's say it was 5 minutes per side.

Seriously delish.

Scoot

Dry-Brined Tukey

Yup.  Doing this again for sure.

This was based off a recipe in Paleo Comfort Foods.  I'll let you read about the supposed benefits of dry-brining a turkey here.

3-4 days before cooking the turkey: rub down with 4 Tablespoons Kosher Salt.  (Kosher has a nice weight and "feel" to it.  I suspect sea salt would also be just great.  Table salt might be too fine to be effective.  Or it might work brilliantly.)

Put it in a plastic bag in the fridge.  Turn it over a couple times in the next few days.

A couple hours before cooking, take it out of the fridge so it can come to room temperature.  Put it in a roasting pan.  Sprinkle cracked black pepper into the cavity, then stuff the cavity with apples and onions.
(I had a fairly small bird, about 7-8 lbs, and it took 1.5 each of medium-sized apples and onion.)  I pierced the skin and meat a little bit, then proceeded to rub down the turkey with several Tablespoons (Kerrygold Irish) butter.  Then crack more black pepper on top, and sprinkle fresh chopped rosemary over everything.  Put a few pats of butter under the skin and also in the cavity with the onions and apples.  Put about a cup of liquid in the bottom of the pan - I used chicken broth, but water or white wine were also options.

Cook the turkey uncovered at 450 for 30 minutes, then turn the oven down to 350, cover the bird (with a lid or with foil) and cook for 2-3 hours.  (~15 minutes per pound).

I still need to learn how to carve meat, but it was delicious!

Scoot

Rosemary, Garlic, and Lemon Roasted Chicken

This was based out of a recipe in Make It Paleo.

Take one whole chicken, deprive it of the giblets, etc. if necessary.

Combine, in a bowl:
1.5 Tablespoon Grandma Sandino's Garlic Sauce.  Or Olive Oil and Garlic
1 T fresh minced rosemary
1 T Lemon juice
Several-to-many turns of the pepper and salt grinders.

In a roasting pan, rub the sauce into the chicken.  I tried to get some under the skin as well.  Put a few cloves of garlic and 1-2 slices of lemon in the body cavity.

Cook (with lid on), for about 20-30 minutes per pound, so in my case I went for about 2 hours.  Delicious!

Scooter

BBQ Chicken in a Crockpot

Tried this one from http://www.alphamalefts.com/sweet-bbq-chicken/

In a crockpot:
put a few slices of bacon
1-2 red onions
bunch of chicken (I'm pretty sure mine were boneless thighs)
BBQ sauce - I basically made my own of a can of tomato sauce and BBQ spice from Penzey's.

Cook on low for 8 hours.  Made a ton, so I froze some in individual portions for lunch.  I liked it a lot.

Artichoke - Olive Salad

Made this for some get togethers:

2 cans green beans
3/4 Jar of marinated artichoke hearts from Costco
1/2 large jar of roasted red bell peppers
1 cup or so of kalamata olives

Mix it all together, add some balsamic vinegar and salt and pepper to taste.

Yum!

Chocolate Mug Cake or Brownie (Microwave)

This came from The Humble Foodie:

Ingredients:
1 banana
1 egg
2 t honey
1.5 T almond butter
2 T cocoa powder
Some chocolate chips

Mush everything together, makes enough for 2 mugs of cake.  To say that I measured any of the ingredients would be a gross overstatement.  Microwave for 2-4 minutes until the center is done.

I've also doubled the recipe, and put it in a pyrex 8x8 glass dish for brownies.  Microwaved for more like 8-9 minutes.

Scooter

Cinnamon Muffins

This came from Elana's Pantry via Stir it up blog.

Topping - Combine:
2 T honey
1 T cinnamon
1 T coconut oil

Muffins:
1 cup almond flour
2 T coconut flour
1/2 t baking soda
1/4 t sea salt
1/4 cup coconut oil (melted)
1/4 cup honey
3 eggs
1 T vanilla extract

Combine dry ingredients.  Combine the wet ingredients separately.  Combine the combinations.

Put not quite 1/4 cup into muffind tins, top the muffins with the topping.
Bake for 8-12 minutes at 350 F.

Scooter

Sweet Potato - Banana Muffins

I've used these at a few tournaments with good success.  Got this recipe at http://foreverfit.tv/banana-kumara-muffins/ by going through http://www.dessertstalker.com/

2 Large sweet potato
3 bananas
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup crushed almonds
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon honey
1 table spoon coconut oil
1 cup of coconut flour/almond flour
2 eggs

Cook the sweet potatoes however you want (I did microwave), mush them up with all the other ingredients.  Fill muffin tins, cook in the oven at 400 degrees F for about 20 minutes.  The first time I made this, it made something like 24+.  I think I overdid the sweet potatoes, so I cut everything in half the next time: perfect!

Scooter

Red Cabbage Balsamic Vinegar Salad

Got this recipe idea from: Slate

Put in a bowl:
1 head red cabbage, shredded
small container of gorgonzola cheese
some amount of chopped hazelnuts  (couple tablespoons)
half a small bag of craisins

In another little container, mix together 2 T olive oil and 1 T balsamic vinegar, add this to the main bowl.  Toss, as one does with salad.

Add salt and black pepper to taste.

Yummy!
Scooter

8 minute easy meal

Use a mandoline slicer to make zucchini noodles.  I know this sounds finicky and not fast, but is super easy and goes surprisingly fast.
Add to a pan with a dollop of coconut oil.  Sprinkle with garlic powder, salt, and pepper.
Saute 5 minutes.  Add a can of salmon.  Heat until warmed through.

If you have pesto, add a dollop of pesto at the same time as the salmon.

Super delish.

Another version of Chicken Chile for Backpacking

So, this time around, I mostly followed this recipe.

But, I used turkey breast that I sauteed with the onions instead of canned chicken.

Added parsnips and sweet potatoes.  Didn't add celery.  (For no particular reason).  Which I now realize wasn't in the original recipe anyway.  Whatever.

Pureed it with the immersion blender, slammed it into the dehydrator, will test dehydrate soon!

Scoot

Blunt Dinner

I'm calling this the "blunt dinner."  Got home late and hungry, needed to use tenderized cubed steak (or something) that I had defrosted.

Put 2 cans diced tomatoes over heat, add meat.  Simmer until the meat is done.  Eat with some jarred artichokes.  It was acceptably OK for being a quick and easy blunt meal.

Backpacking Tuna Salad Idea

So, here's an idea for a lunch while backpacking.

A)  I bought some freeze-dried sweet potatoes.  When I test re-hydrated these by just adding hot water, they took a loooong time to re-hydrate.  Hours.  Decided that would not be ideal for dinner, b/c it would either take too long, or take too much fuel.

The madness:
Dried some celery and a can of tuna (as well as a can of salmon, to see how they compare and re-hydrate).  It only took like 7 hours to dry.  Cool.

The method:
I am going to combine some celery, sweet potatoes, and tuna in a container in the morning, add hot water, and let it re-hydrate until lunchtime.  I'm thinking I will eat it on a coconut wrap.

Depending on how this goes, I will also try it but with adding some dried coconut milk powder.  (Not paleo - it does have casein in it.)

Update tomorrow-ish!

Scooter

Update 4/17/12:  Worked beautifully.  I added about 1.5 cups hot water to 1/4 cup dried sweet potatoes, 1/8 cup dried celery, and 1 can dried tuna.  Let it re-hydrate for about 3.5-4 hours.   I didn't add any spices, but sprinkled a little salt on, it could use more.  I think this will work really well on the trail.

Next try I will also add a little bit of dried coconut milk for a curry-ish taste.

Nummy Zucchini Noodles

Made these, based on Melissa Joulwan's "Well Fed" book.

Took 2 small-medium zucchinis and my mandoline slicer with the julienne attachment.  Julienned the zucchinis until I thought I'd start shredding my fingers, so it was really like 1.75 small-medium zucchinis.

Sprinkle generously with salt, put in a colander, make some threats, and watch the zucchini sweat.
After a while (20 minutes ish), I patted them somewhat dry with paper towels.  Roughly chop some garlic.

In a saute pan, heat up a spoonful of coconut oil, add zucchini, garlic, and a few shakes of red pepper.  Cook until desired doneness.  Really, really good.

Scooter

Backpacking Chili Attempt

So, this post will be in a work in progress.

Chili:
Chop one large onion, saute in some chipotle olive oil.  Add 2 lbs. ground beef.  Do your best to break it up into small pieces.  Add chili spices as desired - I added smoked paprika, chili powder, and cumin.  After that is all done, add another onion and 2 bell peppers.  Let that all saute for a while. (5 minutes.)

Pulled out a little bit of the food and put in a different container for eating tonight.

Add 1 large can (28 ish oz.) and 1 small can (14 oz ish) diced tomatoes of desired flavors.

Bring to a simmer for 15 minute or so.

Puree with an immersion blender (to make the pieces smaller and more uniform for both dehydrating and re-hydrating purposes.)  Make good looking chili look like dog barf.

Peel and shred 2 smallish sweet potatoes.  Add to the mixture.  Makes it look even more unappetizing with the orange intrusions.

I'm letting it simmer for a while, then will cool and dehydrate.  We'll see!

Scooter

Update 3/28/12: Actually measured and dried these - dried one cup per sheet.  After drying, I put 2 sheets in ziploc bags, and smushed them around to make the pieces smaller again.

Rehydrating test:  Added one bag to 2 cups warm water, brought to a boil, turned the stove off and put the lid over the pot, let sit for 5 minutes.  It rehydrated really well, was still delicious, and was easy.  We'll call this one a win.

Backpacking Frittata

Continuing with some backpacking meals experiments.  Got this recipe (mostly) from my sister:

Peeled and grated about 4 medium sweet potatoes.  Heated these with water in a bowl in the microwave for a while.  (I'll say 5 minutes, although I don't remember at all.)

In a cast iron skillet, heat up some coconut oil, finely chopped onions, garlic, and bell peppers.  Add as much of the sweet potatoes as you think will fit.  Add 1 lb. of un-frozen spinach.  Add 10 eggs.  Realize that the ridiculous amount of veggies you put in is overwhelming the eggs.  Add more eggs.  Probably up to 16.  Cook on the stove for a while, then cook at 350 until the eggs are set.

Break it up into small bits, spread on dehydrator trays.  Took 24 hours on the small spinny one.

Review on re-hydrating:
Added too much liquid to the freezer ziploc bag.  Very edible.  Needed more spices.

The experiment continues.

Pork Roast in the Crockpot

So, I wanted to try this from PaleOMG.

2 heads cauliflower, riced.  (My food processor doesn't have a shredder attachment, so these were much smaller than I would have liked.  More like 1/4 sized riced.  This does come into play.)

Around a 4 lb. "Fresh Pork Ham Roast."  I don't really know cuts of meat all that well, but it had the word roast in it, so I went for it.

Put is all in the crockpot for 8 hours, along with some cumin, 1 cup broth, salt, and pepper.

Review:
The meat was great!  The over-watered cauliflower garlic mush, not so great, nor quite as visually appealing.  (I still ate it, of course.  I think this is where bigger sized cauliflower pieces would have been better.)  Mine looked basically nothing like the picture, I think due to the different cut and tiny cauliflower bits.   My roast had a bone in it, and we carved the meat off, vs. shredding.  All in all, I'd make the meat again like this, might try some different things with the surrounding vegetables.

Scooter

Turkey Cranberry Sweet Potato Stew

As promised in January (of last year), here is a recipe involving cranberries.  Basic idea taken from here.

Defrost:
A bag of cranberries.
A thing of cooked turkey.

In a stock pot:
Saute up some onion, garlic, and celery.  Add salt, pepper, and ginger.  Add chopped sweet potatoes and a splash of honey vinegar.  Add a bunch of chicken stock.  Bring to a boil, let it simmer for 15 minutes.  Add the cranberries and turkey, bring to a boil, let it simmer for another 15 minutes.

Pretty good - interesting combination of the sweet potatoes and the tart cranberries.

Scooter

Oh yeah - I also put in a couple crumbled strips of bacon.

Backpacking Dehydrated Curry - at 100 posts!

Decided it was time to get serious about testing some potential backpacking dried meals.  Found one for Thai Curry at Brett on Stuff and decided to follow it a little bit.  Sort of.

So, instead of getting coconut cream, I thought I'd take coconut milk, and try to get the cream from it.  You can do this by opening the can, and letting the cream solidify on top.  I tried to do it fast by putting the entire can in the fridge, which basically makes solidified coconut milk, not coconut cream.  Ah, well.

Put about 1/2 cup in a dish over medium high heat and let it bubble away for a while.  Added some green curry paste and similarly let it bubble away for a while, stirring occasionally.

Delicious Curry Paste!

Bubbling milk.

Meanwhile, open and drain two cans of chicken.  (Costco-sized cans).

Peel and shred a sweet potato.  Put it in a microwave safe bowl with some water, cook for about 3 minutes.  Drain as best you can, press some of the water out.

Open a bag of frozen veggies.  I did the "spring mix" from Smiths.

Pull out your dehydrator and make additional "screens" for it with parchment paper.  Spread all ingredients out on screens, parchment paper, or trays.

2 trays of chicken, 1.5 of veggies, 1 of sweet potato, and .5 of curry paste.  This still left over some chicken, some sweet potato, and about half the bag of veggies.  Huh.

And you might be thinking that the veggies seem giant.  You are correct, but I was too lazy to try to chop them down more.  And everything in general might be a little crowded.  Whatever.

The idea for this recipe is to add some dried minced garlic and onions, some spices like turmeric and ginger, and see where it goes when I re-hydrate it.  We'll see.  Stay tuned for updates.

Scooter

24 hours later: The sweet potatoes seem to be dry, the chicken is getting there, I'm not sure the paste will ever actually be dry, and I was right about the veggies being giant.  They are close.  I will let it spin overnight just to make sure on everything.

Trays after drying.

Rehydrated spicy goodness!

The bag o' dried stuff.

36 hours later:  I put everything (dried stuff, some dried garlic, dried minced onions, turmeric, ginger, and salt) in a gallon ziplock bag, and tried to smush it all together to break down some of the bigger pieces.  Will taste test tomorrow.

Taste Test: Added the dried mixture (which came to 9.4 oz in the bag) to 6 cups boiling water.  Covered, let simmer for 10 minutes.  At 10 minutes the chicken was still a little chewy.  At 20 minutes it was a still a little chewy, but we called it good.  And called the whole thing good overall.  Super spicy.  Like, really, nose-blow-inducing-make-you-fan-your-mouth-spicy.  Next time, less curry paste.  And that's a long simmer time for backpacking.  Might try chopping the chicken into much smaller pieces to see if that helps the re-hydrating process.  Made about 3 servings.

Pesto Meatballs!

I'm pretty sure the pesto I defrosted was from here.  About 1/2 cup.

Mix it up with 1 lb. deforested* ground beef

Form into spheres about 1" in diameter.

Bake in the oven at around 375 for 25ish minutes.

I'd placed parchment paper on the sheet, but should have done aluminum foil to really catch all the drips.

Still as garlicky as ever!  They held their shape, but they're not the most sturdy and bound together of meatballs ever.
scooter


* Somehow I typed deforested instead of defrosted.  And since I think it's funny, it's staying.

Superbowl game changer appetizers

So not paleo:
Cherry tomato + cheese (either fresh mozz or smoked gruyere in this case) + leaf of basil + salame = heaven on a toothpick.

So paleo:
Chicken wings maybe 2 lb package: put in salt, pepper, 1/4 cup chipotle olive oil, 1/4 cup garlic olive oil.  Put oven on broil. Broil on middle rack for about 50-60 minutes total on a cookie sheet covered in foil, turning half way through, or when house-mate says "is something getting scorched?".  Thoroughly neglected to make a sauce for these, but they were crispy and delicious.  Way easier than expected.

The bomb:
Cook a bunch of bacon.  Pit and smush (chunkily) a bunch of avocados with a little bit of salt, pepper, and lime juice.  Halve and core out a bunch of tomatoes on the vine.  Crumble bacon into avocado, steadily increasing bacon-to-avocado ratio as the day goes on.  Fill tomatoes with bacon/avocado mixture, and revel in deliciousness.  The avocado did start to turn brown by the end of the game, maybe more lime juice is in order.

Very pleased with these appetizer selections, although once again it took me twice as long to make anything as I had planned.

Scooter

Some Tournament food

Made some sweet potato and almond flour "bites".....pretty much the same recipe as the sweet potato waffles, but they were burning in the waffle maker, so I divvied them into the bottoms of muffin tins (maybe 1/4 full) and baked them for a while.  It worked pretty well.

Also, I baked a sweet potato in the microwave, froze it, transported it to AZ, and then peeled and ate it a day later.  Also worked pretty well.

Crockpot Curry - Way Better than the other one

Got ideas for this from: Paleo Pot blog and a local restaurant called My Thai that uses a lot of bamboo shoots in their curries.

So:
Bought some green curry paste of a brand called Mae Ploy.  (Awesome ingredient list.)

In the crockpot, put in two cans of coconut milk, and about 3 T of the curry paste.  Whisk it all together so the curry paste is mixed in.

Add:
A can of bamboo shoots
2 onions, chopped
2 bell peppers, chopped
2 medium zucchini, chopped
The meat off a rotisserie chicken
A couple cups of water.

Cook on low for 5-6 hours.

Delicious!

Scooter

Update 2/27/12:  I did another version with fresh onions, chopped and peeled sweet potatoes, and a bag of frozen generic "stir-fry" vegetables.  Let it go all day on low, then added about 3 cans of salmon.  Took it to a potluck expecting to take home plenty of leftovers, left with nothing.  V. good.

Pizza flavours in a Pizza shape

So why not call it Pizza?  See mini-rant at the end of the post.  And why the British English spelling?  I felt like it.

Got this idea off Melissa Joulwan's blog, then book.

Took 1 lb ground beef, added various spices that I neither measured nor paid attention to, but likely contained:
garlic powder
salt
pepper
Random Italian blend
Basil
Marjoram

Divided it between two pie tins - baked 15 minutes at 400 F.  I let these cool, then actually froze them for later.

Sauce (basically from CFSCC Presents: Eat this):
Can of tomato sauce
A splash of apple cider vinegar
garlic powder
basil
Italian spices

So, the assembly:
Defrosted the meat disc.  Pulled a package of random stir-fry vegetables out of the freezer.
Used the toaster oven at work to re-heat everything:
Spread sauce on meat disc, Pile veggie son top, toaster oven it at 400 F for 15 minutes.

Review:  Tastes great.  Fun.  But, ultimately you could just mix all the same flavors together as a stir-fry.  And I also wanted more veggies in my meat-to-veggies ratio - there becomes a point where you really can't pile anymore onto the meat disc.

Scooter

And, a Turmeric Tea Recipe

So, I got this idea off of Marks Daily Apple.  And now my co-workers think I'm even more weird than they already thought I was.

I didn't have (or particularly ever have almond milk) on hand.  Drinking straight coconut milk might be a little too rich for me.

So, after some experimentation, here's what I have been doing:

At the beginning of the work week, open a small can of coconut milk (those 6 oz. cans).

I put about 1/4 to 1/5 of the coconut milk into a mug.  Cover what is left in the can with some aluminum foil, put into the fridge to save for the next couple days.

Put the mug into the microwave for 30 seconds.  Add some amount of dried turmeric, dried roasted ginger, roasted saigon cinnamon, and few twists of black pepper.  Thought I don't measure these, we'll pretend the first three are about 1/2 teaspoon.  (I'm going to start adding cardamom to these as well.)

Fill mug with hot water.  Add plain black tea bag.  Enjoy.

And then enjoy again every day in the week!  A small can will cover 4-5 days.

Scooter

BBQ Sauce

I defrosted some pre-cooked pulled pork, and needed some BBQ to slather onto it.  This is based on a bunch of different recipes:

Combine in a saucepan:

1 Can tomato sauce

1 6oz. can tomato paste

However much you want of:

garlic powder

onion powder

salt

pepper

apple cider vinegar

coconut aminos

mustard

Stir it all together, let it simmer on low for 20 or so minutes, and I'm going to let it marinate overnight.

Scooter