We made two different paleo pizzas the other night.
One was a meatza, with a hamburger crust. Essentially, you make a flat meatloaf (just hamburger, egg, and spices please, no breadcrumbs) and cook that for a while, then drain before adding your sauce, cheese, and toppings and cooking again. It came out absolutely delicious. We didn't have any sauce on hand, and didn't feel like making any, so we went for simple and layered on slices of heirloom tomatoes topped with cheese, bacon, and hot peppers. It came out better this time than last time; we used Girl Gone Primal's suggestion of a stick blender to mix the crust, and it certainly helps the texture.
For the other pizza we tried a cauliflower crust. It mostly failed, unfortunately. Tasted fine - not too much cauliflower flavor - but I think I over-steamed the cauliflower, underestimated the amount of cheese and egg needed, and then undercooked the crust before adding the toppings. It just came out soggy. We'll have to try it again, though; I think we can do better.
And then, yesterday, we made tuna salad for dinner, and chicken salad to have for lunch today. Those are good ways to eat a head of lettuce, since they make pretty awesome sandwich wraps; plus, we just had a lot of random veggies to eat still. The salads were made with our homemade olive-oil mayo/mustard sauce, and we added diced hot peppers, jingle bell peppers (tiny sweet bell-pepperish things), tomatillos, and steamed eggplant. I really like tomatillos by the way. Never really had them before, but they have a nice citrus flavor.
Now all we have left to cook from last week's CSA pickup is green beans! Well, and fennel, of course. What do you do with fennel? We actually didn't get cucumbers last week; it'd be nice to have another week free of them. We'll find out tomorrow. Eggplant might be my new nemesis, though. There was too much to add to our two salads, and we have a tupperware full of diced, steamed eggplant. Not sure what to do with it yet. Ideas?
Showing posts with label chicken. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chicken. Show all posts
Friday, September 3, 2010
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Chicken-beef curry and salmon
Two awesome paleo dinners the past few nights. One was significantly easier to make, but both were tasty.
Salmon:
Put salmon fillets on top of a light bed of chopped leaf fennel on parchment paper
Mix more chopped fennel and cream cheese, slather on top of fillets
Spread a little cream cheese on the parchment paper around the salmon
Fold the parchment paper to form a pocket around the fish
Push the air out, and use the cream cheese on the paper to seal up the packet
Bake packet (on a pan!) at 375 for 10 minutes per inch of fish thickness
Curry:
Large dice whatever veggies you have on hand (we had summer squash and green beans)
Cut chicken and beef into bite-size cubes
Put the cream from a can of coconut milk into a hot pan, reserving the coconut water
Put the beef in the pan to start cooking. Turn down the heat to medium-low
Start sauteing the veggies in another pan with coconut oil
Add curry paste/powder to both pans
Once the beef is browned on all sides, add the chicken
Remember to stir both pans occasionally!
If you also have bell peppers on hand, roast them and then dice them. Since they're already cooked from roasting they can wait until the end to be added.
When the chicken is browned on all sides, add the beef, chicken, and sauce to the veggies (or vice versa, depending on which of your pans is bigger.)
Use the coconut water you reserved to deglaze the pan you emptied. Scrape up any tasty bits of browned meats/veggies. Add more curry and some heavy cream. Let it simmer for a while to thicken; meanwhile, any liquid in the other pan will continue to thicken, too.
When thickened to taste, add in the sauce and roasted peppers. Done!
Tonight we're going to attempt eggplant parmesan. We'll see how it goes. We may need to add chicken.
By the way, what shoes will you be wearing this winter? I like my flip-flops and Vibrams for the flexibility they allow, but my feet get cold pretty easily. I may see about a pair of vivo barefoots or runamoks, and I was wondering what others intend to wear.
Salmon:
Put salmon fillets on top of a light bed of chopped leaf fennel on parchment paper
Mix more chopped fennel and cream cheese, slather on top of fillets
Spread a little cream cheese on the parchment paper around the salmon
Fold the parchment paper to form a pocket around the fish
Push the air out, and use the cream cheese on the paper to seal up the packet
Bake packet (on a pan!) at 375 for 10 minutes per inch of fish thickness
Curry:
Large dice whatever veggies you have on hand (we had summer squash and green beans)
Cut chicken and beef into bite-size cubes
Put the cream from a can of coconut milk into a hot pan, reserving the coconut water
Put the beef in the pan to start cooking. Turn down the heat to medium-low
Start sauteing the veggies in another pan with coconut oil
Add curry paste/powder to both pans
Once the beef is browned on all sides, add the chicken
Remember to stir both pans occasionally!
If you also have bell peppers on hand, roast them and then dice them. Since they're already cooked from roasting they can wait until the end to be added.
When the chicken is browned on all sides, add the beef, chicken, and sauce to the veggies (or vice versa, depending on which of your pans is bigger.)
Use the coconut water you reserved to deglaze the pan you emptied. Scrape up any tasty bits of browned meats/veggies. Add more curry and some heavy cream. Let it simmer for a while to thicken; meanwhile, any liquid in the other pan will continue to thicken, too.
When thickened to taste, add in the sauce and roasted peppers. Done!
Tonight we're going to attempt eggplant parmesan. We'll see how it goes. We may need to add chicken.
By the way, what shoes will you be wearing this winter? I like my flip-flops and Vibrams for the flexibility they allow, but my feet get cold pretty easily. I may see about a pair of vivo barefoots or runamoks, and I was wondering what others intend to wear.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Vibrams at the theme park
We went to Six Flags today with a couple friends. Following a suggestion from one of them, we wore our VFFs to the park. All day. Including the water park.
My feet are tired.
But other than that, they're happy. No pain from my bunions. One small blister, but it's not a painful one. The cobblestones were fun to walk on. And we had four different people ask us about our shoes. Would I wear them to the park again? Definitely. However, they didn't dry as quickly as I would have liked, and I would not want to wear them for very long when wet. My toes turned into raisins. Still, it was better than no shoes, in that kind of place... And they don't let you wear sneakers on the water park rides.
We packed lunch and ate on the grass next to the car rather than eat the overpriced, overgreased park food. Chicken salad and tuna salad, with various mustards and spices and bbq sauces and such, on bok choy leaf wraps. Recipe!
First, mayo.
Beat two egg yolks with 1 tsp lemon juice and 1 tsp prepared mustard. (Or 2 tsp lemon and 1/2 tsp. dry mustard.) Beat until the mixture forms a ribbon when you pull out your whisk, rather than droplets. (You can freeze the leftover whites to use in a soufflé.)
Get a cup of olive oil (or other oil. I happen to like the flavor from olive oil; many people like to use high-oleic sunflower oil for half of it to soften the flavor.) One drop at a time, beat oil into egg yolks. Once you've added a third of the oil you can add it faster - a tablespoon at time - until it's all beaten in. If it's not thickening while you add it, you've broken your mayo, and you'll need to start over with a clean bowl, with a new egg yolk and some lemon juice beaten to ribbon-texture, and slowly beat in your broken mayo. But do it slower this time. Once all your oil is in, taste, and add more lemon juice if wanted. Add water to thin it until you like the texture.
Now that you have your mayo, either grill a few chicken breasts or drain a few cans of tuna. If chicken, shred with forks. Mix protein with mayo. Dice and mix in a tomato and half an onion. Dice the stems of your bok choy and add that in too (or celery, if you're not using bok choy.)
Place spoonfuls into bok choy leaves (or other cabbage or lettuce leaf.) Add any mustards or spices you like. Add-in suggestions: lemon pepper, cumin, cayenne, Italian spice blend, Dijon mustard, wasabi. Sunflower seeds are a nice addition too. Wrap and eat!
All of the above fits into a cooler really well, and thus makes an awesome theme-park paleo picnic lunch.
My feet are tired.
But other than that, they're happy. No pain from my bunions. One small blister, but it's not a painful one. The cobblestones were fun to walk on. And we had four different people ask us about our shoes. Would I wear them to the park again? Definitely. However, they didn't dry as quickly as I would have liked, and I would not want to wear them for very long when wet. My toes turned into raisins. Still, it was better than no shoes, in that kind of place... And they don't let you wear sneakers on the water park rides.
We packed lunch and ate on the grass next to the car rather than eat the overpriced, overgreased park food. Chicken salad and tuna salad, with various mustards and spices and bbq sauces and such, on bok choy leaf wraps. Recipe!
First, mayo.
Beat two egg yolks with 1 tsp lemon juice and 1 tsp prepared mustard. (Or 2 tsp lemon and 1/2 tsp. dry mustard.) Beat until the mixture forms a ribbon when you pull out your whisk, rather than droplets. (You can freeze the leftover whites to use in a soufflé.)
Get a cup of olive oil (or other oil. I happen to like the flavor from olive oil; many people like to use high-oleic sunflower oil for half of it to soften the flavor.) One drop at a time, beat oil into egg yolks. Once you've added a third of the oil you can add it faster - a tablespoon at time - until it's all beaten in. If it's not thickening while you add it, you've broken your mayo, and you'll need to start over with a clean bowl, with a new egg yolk and some lemon juice beaten to ribbon-texture, and slowly beat in your broken mayo. But do it slower this time. Once all your oil is in, taste, and add more lemon juice if wanted. Add water to thin it until you like the texture.
Now that you have your mayo, either grill a few chicken breasts or drain a few cans of tuna. If chicken, shred with forks. Mix protein with mayo. Dice and mix in a tomato and half an onion. Dice the stems of your bok choy and add that in too (or celery, if you're not using bok choy.)
Place spoonfuls into bok choy leaves (or other cabbage or lettuce leaf.) Add any mustards or spices you like. Add-in suggestions: lemon pepper, cumin, cayenne, Italian spice blend, Dijon mustard, wasabi. Sunflower seeds are a nice addition too. Wrap and eat!
All of the above fits into a cooler really well, and thus makes an awesome theme-park paleo picnic lunch.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Dinner last night and lunch today
Salad!
Ingredients:
1 lb crispy, yummy bacon (unfortunately, not grass-fed.)
2 grilled chicken breasts (also not pastured :( We'll get there.)
2.5 tomatoes, left over from a previous salad
Half a head of iceberg lettuce, also left over
4 hard-boiled eggs (yay! the last of the store-bought! Farm-raised coming tomorrow.)
Dressing:
Unknown amount of cider vinegar (Too much, will have to reduce this next time)
About the same amount of extra-virgin olive oil
Some of the bacon grease
Some crushed garlic from a jar
Some diced red jalapenos, also from a jar
Dried basil, thyme, oregano, lots of these because I like my spices
Dash ground sea salt, black pepper
Progress! For once I didn't burn the bacon while dicing the veggies. Got everything timed well. Eggs finished boiling first, started them cooling; finished dicing tomatoes and slicing lettuce in between flipping over bacon; bacon and chicken started cooling down while I diced the eggs; cut up the chicken and then crumbled the bacon. Threw together a quick dressing in less than two minutes; never buying Italian salad dressing again.
Also I managed to not eat anything until 4, giving me an 18 hour fast (except for the cream in my coffee. Really close though!) The 12-8pm work shift does strange things to one's eating habits: wake up at 11 to go to work, eat lunch somewhere between 3 and 6, get home at 8:30 and start cooking dinner if hungry, eat at 9 or 10, go to bed at 3am. Good thing I'm a night person. Good thing Rich and I share this madness! We'll probably want more normal schedules at some point, but I really don't know when.
Bought some lavender essential oil today. Tonight's experiment will be making my own deodorant. I threw out the remainder of my old travel-size Lady Speed Stick this morning, so I have an empty container to fill, and all the ingredients needed to fill it: 2 tbsp coconut oil, 1/4 cup baking soda, 1/4 cup cornstarch, and as of today, two or three drops lavender oil. Whoohoo! No more aluminum! No more parabens! (Assuming it works, of course.)
I did, however, have a moment of weakness. My loving fiance received a cannoli as a thank-you, and of course only ate half of it due to his silly two-donut binge this morning (Dunkin's was giving a free donut per drink.) I like cannoli, so I kindly finished it for him. At some point I think I'll have to try making a cannoli shell with coconut and almond flour, with a nice whipped cream cheese filling, so I won't fall to that particular temptation again. Oh! with chocolate bits! As Hanners says, "baking is science for hungry people", and I've been having fun finding recipes to bake treats using paleo ingredients. Besides, if I can find a good bread recipe, maybe Rich can stop buying loaves of potato bread.
100-day challenge progress: 4 days down. 1 special occasion meal (overly sweetened butternut squash, a beer, and mashed potato. Restaurant stuff.) Half a cannoli today, so that's a second 'special occasion' I guess. 1 hour at the gym Wednesday. On track!
Ingredients:
1 lb crispy, yummy bacon (unfortunately, not grass-fed.)
2 grilled chicken breasts (also not pastured :( We'll get there.)
2.5 tomatoes, left over from a previous salad
Half a head of iceberg lettuce, also left over
4 hard-boiled eggs (yay! the last of the store-bought! Farm-raised coming tomorrow.)
Dressing:
Unknown amount of cider vinegar (Too much, will have to reduce this next time)
About the same amount of extra-virgin olive oil
Some of the bacon grease
Some crushed garlic from a jar
Some diced red jalapenos, also from a jar
Dried basil, thyme, oregano, lots of these because I like my spices
Dash ground sea salt, black pepper
Progress! For once I didn't burn the bacon while dicing the veggies. Got everything timed well. Eggs finished boiling first, started them cooling; finished dicing tomatoes and slicing lettuce in between flipping over bacon; bacon and chicken started cooling down while I diced the eggs; cut up the chicken and then crumbled the bacon. Threw together a quick dressing in less than two minutes; never buying Italian salad dressing again.
Also I managed to not eat anything until 4, giving me an 18 hour fast (except for the cream in my coffee. Really close though!) The 12-8pm work shift does strange things to one's eating habits: wake up at 11 to go to work, eat lunch somewhere between 3 and 6, get home at 8:30 and start cooking dinner if hungry, eat at 9 or 10, go to bed at 3am. Good thing I'm a night person. Good thing Rich and I share this madness! We'll probably want more normal schedules at some point, but I really don't know when.
Bought some lavender essential oil today. Tonight's experiment will be making my own deodorant. I threw out the remainder of my old travel-size Lady Speed Stick this morning, so I have an empty container to fill, and all the ingredients needed to fill it: 2 tbsp coconut oil, 1/4 cup baking soda, 1/4 cup cornstarch, and as of today, two or three drops lavender oil. Whoohoo! No more aluminum! No more parabens! (Assuming it works, of course.)
I did, however, have a moment of weakness. My loving fiance received a cannoli as a thank-you, and of course only ate half of it due to his silly two-donut binge this morning (Dunkin's was giving a free donut per drink.) I like cannoli, so I kindly finished it for him. At some point I think I'll have to try making a cannoli shell with coconut and almond flour, with a nice whipped cream cheese filling, so I won't fall to that particular temptation again. Oh! with chocolate bits! As Hanners says, "baking is science for hungry people", and I've been having fun finding recipes to bake treats using paleo ingredients. Besides, if I can find a good bread recipe, maybe Rich can stop buying loaves of potato bread.
100-day challenge progress: 4 days down. 1 special occasion meal (overly sweetened butternut squash, a beer, and mashed potato. Restaurant stuff.) Half a cannoli today, so that's a second 'special occasion' I guess. 1 hour at the gym Wednesday. On track!
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