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