The Cook & The Coach Blog

Deconstructed Egg Roll

7/30/2017

One food that I have yet to find since going gluten free is a fried egg roll...they just don't exist out in restaurants and we didn't opt for the RV with the deep fat fryer. We've had a number of our challengers post in our accountability groups about creating different versions of this dish. I finally got around to make some myself and have to say it hit the spot.

We were a little spoiled too, since the two days before this my aunt picked most of the veggies that went in this dish straight out of her garden. Fresh cabbage, fresh carrots, and fresh onions!!! The only thing we added to the dish was some red pepper, garlic and the pork. Oh and a few spices and some asian sauces!

Ingredients

1 pound pork sausage
1 small onion, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
3 large carrots, sliced
3 tbsp minced garlic, roughly 3 cloves
4 green onions, sliced
1 small head of cabbage, grated or sliced, roughly 5 cups
1 inch of ginger, minced or 2 drops of ginger essential oil
1 tbsp toasted sesame oil
1/4 cup tamari, coconut aminos or low sodium soy sauce
2 tbsp coconut nectar or brown sugar (optional)
1 tbsp siracha (optional)

Directions

In a large skillet or dutch oven add the sausage and cook over medium heat until cooked through.
Remove sausage from the pan leaving the drippings behind. Add the carrot, bell pepper, ginger, and onion and cook for 8 minutes until carrots begin to soften and onion is translucent.
Add garlic, cook for 2 more minutes.
Add the cabbage along with all the other ingredients, cook over medium heat for 5 minutes stirring frequently.
Cover, and reduce heat to medium low and simmer for 15 minutes stirring once or twice.
Serve and eat as is if you are wanting a low carb meal or you can serve over the top of some prepared rice. Garnish with a little cilantro and enjoy!

Gluten Free Turkey Meatloaf with Savory Mushroom Sauce

1/13/2017

Meatloaf... it was a staple in our house growing up! My mom would always make it with beef and slather on the ketchup sauce on top. It was actually quite tasty, except for the onions. I despised onions when I was a kid. Not the flavor as much as the crunch that you would occasionally get from one that wasn't cooked enough.

Times have changed quite a bit! The breadcrumbs that you would normally add to meatloaf would now make me breakout in a rash. The high fructose corn syrup in the ketchup, yeah... we are just going to avoid that if we can. That's the backstory on how this recipe got created.

I suppose with mushroom sauce this maybe is closer to the salsibury steak that we would occasionally have in our tv dinners. No matter what you call it, I hope you call it delicious! We certainly enjoyed it!

Ingredients

Meatloaf

2 1/2 lbs of ground turkey
1 large yellow onion, diced
1 tbsp grassfed butter
1 cup of mashed sweet potato
3 eggs
2 tbsp smoked paprika
1 tbsp dried thyme
1 tbsp garlic powder
1 tbsp dried oregano
Salt and pepper to taste

Savory Mushroom Sauce

3 cups sliced bella mushrooms
2 tbsp grassfed butter
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp tapioca starch
2 tbsp sherry wine
2 tbsp worcestershire sauce
1/2 -1 cup water or broth
1 tsp galic powder
2 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp red chili flakes (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Meatloaf

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
In a skillet saute the onions in butter and season with salt and pepper. Cook until it they become slightly caramelized.
In a large bowl combine the other ingredients along with the cooked onion. Make sure to not throw your hot onions on top of raw eggs otherwise you end up with scrambled eggs. Either mix the eggs or onion into the meat first.
Once everything is thoroughly mixed transfer to a large baking dish or loaf pan. We used a 6" x 9" baking dish and it fit right up to the top!
Bake for one hour or until the inner temp gets to 170 in the center of the meatloaf. The ends cook faster.
Remove from the oven and let rest for 10 minutes.

Savory Mushroom Sauce

In the same skillet you cooked the onions, add butter, oil and mushrooms and cook over medium heat until the mushrooms have reduced in size and started giving off some liquid.
Add the sherry wine and cook for 2 minutes.
Add the tapioca starch and stir until the starch dissolves into the liquid in the pan. Add 1/2 cup of water or broth and stir until well incorporated. You should have a gravy-like texture at this point.
Add in the remaining seasonings and stir occasionally.
The sauce will take 15 minutes or so to make. You can start cooking it when your meatloaf has a few minutes left to cook. Feel free to add more water to the sauce if the texture starts getting too thick. The longer you cook it the thicker it will get.
Once your meatloaf has rested, cut and serve with a spoonful of the sauce over the top. We enjoyed it with some grilled asparagus and side salad! Hope you enjoy and let us know if you try it.

Bacon Roasted Brussel Sprouts with Orange and Pecan

12/20/2016

We are creatures of habit. When we find something we like we don't change. Brussel sprouts and the way we prepare them is a prime example. Our normal preparation is clean, cut, drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and roast in the oven. If we are feeling crazy we might add a little bacon, balsamic or galic. I've learned to not mess with Laura's brussels!

This past weekend we did a Chrismtas dinner with my side of the family and my mom had found some beautiful brussel sprouts. I've tried exposing to my family to brussels before and other than my mom and sister in laws haven't had much luck. So I figured what the heck let's try something different in the hopes they will try it. It got a couple more to try but I don't know if I turned them to be brussel fans.

This recipe was simply inspired by what was in the kitchen. We had brought some fresh pecans home from Texas. We had an orange that we didn't eat on our flight up to Minnesota and I had saved some bacon grease from our breakfast that morning!

The orange definitely livened the dish up quite a bit and pecans added a nice texture contrast, so I would say this is a win and we would love to hear what you think if you make it yourself.

One variation you could certainly try would be to add bacon to the dish. We didn't since we had it for breakfast that morning. But if you wanted to, just chop and cook the bacon in your skillet until the fat is rendered out, remove the bacon and start the brussel sprout process listed below. Then just re-add the bacon pieces the same time as the pecans.

Ingredients

1 lb brussel sprouts, cleaned and halved
2 tbsp of bacon grease
1 orange, zested and juiced
3/4 cup chopped pecans
1 tbsp of vinegar of your choice, we used red wine because that is what we had but balsamic probably would have paired better
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Clean and prep your brussels
In a large skillet, add the bacon grease over a medium high heat.
Add brussel sprouts and cook for 10-15 minutes until they begin to carmelize. You will need to toss them frequently to keep from sticking.
After brussels are carmelized add the zest, juice of the orange, and vinegar, cover and cook for 5 minutes. Stir once or twice during this time.
Add the chopped pecans and toss with brussels over medium heat for 2-3 minutes or until the brussels are cooked the whole way through.
Season with salt and peper and serve!

Flax Pancakes with Orange, Pecan Sryup

12/4/2016

We are currently parked in a campground in central Texas between Houston and San Antonio. There isn't anything super fancy about this park or its location. One upside though is that there are pecan trees everywhere and it's pecan season! If I had the patience I could easily fill up a 5 gallon bucket in less than hour. We've been snacking on them a bit but decided to try to use them the other morning in combination with a new pancake recipe.

If you follow us you know that we love our pancakes and they are a weekend tradition. You also know we need gluten free options since I can no longer eat anything glutenous! I wouln't consider these pancakes health food but they are close. The flax in them provide a ton of Omega 3 fats which are super good for you. You also get a decent dose of protein and fiber too!
The sauce/sryup that I made is the thing that turns a fairly healthy pancake into a bit of a treat! Enjoy it though because it's delicious and a much better way to enjoy pancakes then use a boxed premix.

Ingredients

Pancakes

3/4 cup ground flax seeds
3/4 cup coconut flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp coconut sugar
2 1/2 cups almond milk
Pinch of salt

Syrup

1/3 cup toasted pecans
2 tbsp grassfed butter
Juice of 1 orange
Zest of 1 orange
1/2 cup real maple syrup

Directions

Pancakes

Combine all ingredients in a blender or mixer and mix!
I would recommend adding the liquid last and 1/2 cup at a time until you get a good pancake batter consistency. It took me right around 2 1/2 cups.
Cook on a 325 degree griddle for 5 minutes then flip and cook for another 3-4 minutes until fully cooked.

Syrup

Since we had raw pecans I add them to a small saucepan and cooked over a medium heat for 5 minutes until you could start to smell the toasted nut flavor. Make sure to stir often, if you are toasting your own.
Add the orange juice and zest next, followed by the butter and syrup. Simmer for 5 minutes. The skin on my orange was a little nasty so I opted for using some 1 drop of orange essential oil to up the organge flavor instead.

Crispy Baked Sweet Potatoes

10/19/2016

I've tried a couple dozen different ways to make baked sweet potato fries and most of them haven't turned out until now! The two things that have typically happened are either horribly burnt fries or soft squishy fries. Been there?

I wish I could remember where I saw this trick but it made all the difference. I know I saw it on some Facebook cooking school type page. They talked about the differences in sweet potatoes vs regular white potatoes. The thing that separates the two is the starch to sugar ratios. White potatoes are higher starch less sugar and sweet potatoes are just the opposite. If you are somewhat experienced cook you know that sugar burns. It's because of this and this balance that makes sweet potato fries harder to get that nice crispy texture without burning.

You could approach this problem a few ways. Cook them incredibly fast so they don't have time to burn, aka fry them. Not the worst thing in the world if you are using a quality oil like coconut oil, but that becomes a pretty expensive batch of fries if you are using a whole jar of coconut oil to make them. The next option is to reduce the sugar content, that's not really an option as far as I know. The last one would be to up the starch content. That can be done!

The process of adding starch is pretty simple. You could use a number of different starches to do this but I would recommend tapioca, arrowroot or corn starch/flour, I used tapioca. You create a slurry of the starch plus a little water and toss the potatoes in the slurry while they are warm and slightly softened from boiling. That way the starch mixture gets absorbed into the potato.

I'm going to continue to experiment with this process and hopefully fine tune it a bit more. For now, we hope you enjoy this little tip. I would also love to find the perfect fry seasoning to add to these. If you have any suggestions drop them in the comments.

Boiled potatoes covered in tapioca starch slurry

Ingredients

2 medium sweet potatoes cut into wedges
2 tbsp tapioca starch
1/4 cup warm water
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Get a pot of water boiling and preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
Peel and cut your sweet potatoes into wedges.
Add potatoes to salted, boiling water for 6 minutes.
While potatoes are in water add tapioca starch and water to a large bowl and whisk until fairly smooth.
After potatoes cook for 6 minutes add them directly to the bowl with starch slurry in it. Toss in the slurry until all wedges are fairly well coated. Try to be fairly gentle during this process in order to not create mashed potatoes.
Place potatoes onto a parchment lined baking sheet.
Bake for 40 minutes, or until some brown spots start to show. Rotate halfway through the baking.
Once they are finished baking, season with salt and pepper or whatever seasoning you wish.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

10/10/2016

I don't know why I don't always have a batch of this soup in our fridge. So good!!! Five years ago I would have laughed at you if you would tell me that soup can be an entire meal. I guess I was used to terrible canned soups or the tiny cup of soup that you get at restaurants. Oh how the times of changed.

Now my view of soup is basically it is liquid salad! Seriously though if you make a good soup it should resemble a salad. So if you don't like to eat salad, I suggest you try soup instead. This version of chicken tortilla soup is loaded up with veggies, quality protein, and of course some amazing chicken stock.

When I make soup I love to make a huge batch because it tastes better the next day! Feel free to scale this recipe up or down but it makes about 6 large bowls of soup. Also as a little bonus here is a how I like to make my chicken stock at home which is super simple.

Homemade Chicken Stock

Ingredients

5-6 pound whole chicken
2 large carrots, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
3 celery stalks, chopped
4-5 garlic cloves, smashed
2 bay leaves
2 tsp dry thyme
2 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
Water

Directions

We use our pressure cooker if you don't have one you could do this in a stock pot or even in a slow cooker. It will just take longer.
Put your chicken and all your vegetables in your cooking vessel along with 2 cups of water. If you using a pressure cooker you will need to cook for approximately 45-60 minutes depending on how big your chicken is. Similar on a stove top and multiple hours in a slow cooker.
After the chicken is cooked, remove it from your pot. You can let it cool or if you are tough feel free to dig right in and start removing the meat from all the bones. Add the bones back into the pot that still has the vegetables in it.
Set your meat aside for later and discard the skin and gristle.
Add the remaining seasonings and ingredients and fill up your pot with water. We have a 6 quart stockpot and this amount of vegetables and spices works well with that amount of liquid.
Pressure cook for 2-3 hours depending on how much time you have. If you are using a stovetop or slow cooker you are looking at more like 24-48 hours.
After cooking, strain it so you are just left with the liquid, store in the fridge for up to a week.

Chicken Tortilla Soup Recipe

Ingredients

1 lb of shredded cooked chicken meat
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 medium onion
1 green bell pepper
1 yellow bell pepper
0-3 jalepenos, seeds removed
2 tbsp of minced garlic
4 cups of pureed tomatoes
4 cups chicken stock
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tbsp chili powder
2 tsp smoked paprika
Cayenne pepper to taste
Salt and pepper to taste

Garnishes/Toppings

Green Onion
Cilantro
Corn Tortilla Chips
Shredded Cheese
Sour Cream or Greek Yogurt
Hot sauce

Directions

In a large pot add the oil, then add the onion, peppers and garlic and cook over medium heat for 8 minutes or until softened.
Add tomatoes and stock to the pot along with spices and bring to a boil.
Reduce to a low, add the chicken and simmer for minimum of 15 minutes or up to an hour.
Your done, add with some of your favorite toppings and enjoy!

Classic Lemon Vinaigrette

8/25/2016

One thing we really encourage a lot of our clients to work on is to be more veggies, especially greens. One of the easiest ways to get more greens in is to eat more salads. We love our salads, and try to it one 5 days a week. We aren't just talking about a little side salad with dinner. We are talking full on, stuff my face and stomach salad that is loaded with greens and veggies. We see a lot of people that grasp that concept which is awesome, but then they douse all those quality veggies with some low quality salad dressing.

A couple of tips if you do buy store bought dressings;

Avoid "Low Fat" dressings! Low fat usually just means high sugar or as one of my favorite memes out there states, Low Fat = Chemical Shit Storm!
Try to find dressing with fewer ingredients. Most salad dressings should contain a vinegar and an oil and maybe some seasonings. Avoid artificial colors, sweeteners, and flavors.
Avoid veggie oils, canola and soyben are the big ones used in cheap dressings. These easily oxidize and will likely cause inflammation in your body. Not to mention most canola is genetically modified.

Sound like a lot of work to follow those rules? Well the easy solution is to buy some of those base ingredients and keep them on hand so you can make your own dressings. Here is a simple one to get you started.

Ingredients

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 tbsp raw apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp dijon mustard
1 tbsp raw honey
Season with salt and pepper

Directions

Combine all ingredients other than the oil in a blender and mix until well combined.
Drizzle the olive oil in slowly over the course of 30 seconds while the blender is running.
Serve over your salad, and store the extra in the fridge. This should be enough dressing to last an entire week at least.

If the idea of eating more veggies and cleaning up your eating sounds like something you would be interested in, we will be hosting a special group on Facebook in a little over a week. The group will revolve around having a salad a day for week. We will provide recipes like the one above and some more tips on how to put together an amazingly healthy salad. If you are interested click on the image below and RSVP.

Fish and Veggie Red Curry

8/17/2016

Laura loves curry!!! So what do you do when your wife loves curry, you make curry for her. Sometimes I'm all about doing things from absolute scratch. In the case of curry, it would be fantastic to toast my own spices then grind them fresh and use my mortal and pestle to make a paste. But let's be honest that takes time and energy.

Instead we found a pre-made curry paste, added in some fresh veggies and fish and a couple other ingredients and we had a delicious dish in under 30 minutes. This was my first time ever using fish in a curry and it turned out pretty great. If you are completely scared of fish or don't like the flavor, too bad, try it anyways. I think you will be surprised that the curry is the dominate flavor and not the fish, so it is a good way to give fish a try.

Feel free to add your favorite veggies to this dish. You don't have to use what we used, we just had these on hand and that is why we love curry dishes so much, because they are so versatile. You could also sub out the quinoa for rice or even zoodles or sweet potato noodles if you want to go grain free. The possibilities are endless. We hope you enjoy this one as much as we did.

Ingredients

1 lb of your favorite white fish, we used flounder but you could easily use cod, haddock, pollock, even walleye
1 tbsp coconut oil
2 large carrots, chopped into bite size pieces
1 large onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
2 cups fresh or frozen green beans
3 tbsp Red Curry paste from Thai Kitchen
1 tbsp coconut sugar, palm sugar, or brown sugar
1 15 oz can of coconut milk
1 1/2 cups of water
1/4 cup fish sauce
2 cups dried quinoa
1/4 cup fresh cilantro

Directions

In a large saucepan or dutch oven add the coconut oil and melt over a medium high heat.
Add the carrots, peppers, and onions and cook for 8 minutes.
Add red curry paste and cook and stir for 1 minute, then add the coconut milk, fish sauce, sugar, and water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low.
This is where timing things out comes in handy. Depending on the type of grain; quinoa or rice, you should possibly start that before you start cooking any of the veg and curry sauce. For me I started the quinoa in our pressure cooker when I was cooking the veg. If you are doing it on the stovetop you might need to start sooner. When your grains have approximately 8 minutes left add your fish cut up into 1-2" pieces and your green beans or any other frozen veg.
Simmer the sauce with the fish and all the veg for that final 8 minutes with your pan covered. Try not to cook the fish for much longer than 8 minutes otherwise it will just start to fall apart.
Once your quinoa or rice is done, serve a couple large spoonfuls in the bottom of your bowl and top with the curry sauce. Finish with some freshly chopped cilantro and enjoy.

Gluten Free Blueberry Chia Pancakes

6/16/2016

Laura almost didn't let me make these for her. Apparently she has a thing about eating chia seeds because they get stuck in her teeth. I get it... kind of. I was able to twist her arm and get her to try them and I'm pretty sure she was glad she did. We all loved these pancakes, even Eli. Another bonus: zero chia seeds stuck in her teeth too. Talk about having your (pan)cake and eating it too!

Seriously if chia seeds aren't part of your diet you need to consider adding them. Even if a few stray seeds end up in your teeth the benefits far outweigh any social anxiety from being caught with something in your teeth. Even if you do get caught it also gives you an excuse to share this amazing seed story with someone new!

Let's talk about just a few of the benefits. Gram for gram it contains more Omega 3 fats than salmon. That means lowered LDL and VLDL cholesterol, reduced inflammation throughout the body, improved brain health, lowers cancer risk, and reduces your risk of heart disease. Sounds pretty good, right? It doesn't stop there. In one serving (1 oz or 2 tbsp) you also get 11 grams of fiber. Compare that to a whole wheat pasta(4 grams of fiber) that is often touted to be high fiber and it doesn't even compare. How about micronutrients... these seeds are loaded with vitamins and minerals. I love that they have 30% of your daily recommended amount of magnesium. Magnesium is a mineral that is often referred to as the the mineral the people are deficient in the most yet is responsible for over 300 different chemical reactions in your body. It's important in getting quality sleep, energy production and even your mood.
When you pair up all of these awesome benefits plus the antioxidant power of blueberries, these pancakes will actually make you healthier! How awesome is that, to get to eat pancakes and improve your health. Just don't drown them in maple syrup made from high fructose corn syrup ;)

Ingredients (Makes 12 medium pancakes)

2 Bananas
4 Eggs
2 Tbsp Chia Seeds
1/2 cup, Coconut Flour
3/4 cup Almond Milk

1 cup Blueberries
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Baking Powder
Pinch of salt

Directions

In a small dish or cup add a 1/2 cup of the almond milk and the chia seeds. Let this sit for 15 minutes and stir them occasionally. (This is the trick to not getting them stuck in your teeth)
Meanwhile add the remaining ingredients, EXCEPT the blueberries, to a blender or mixer and mix to combine. Add the chia seed mixture after the 15 minutes.
Fold in the blueberries.
Cook on a skillet at 300 degrees. It will take roughly 4-5 minutes on the first side and 2-3 minutes on the second.
Eat them plain or serve with a little grassfed butter and real maple syrup and enjoy!

Enchilada Stuffed Sweet Potato

5/30/2016

I think I first heard of Danielle Walker on one the podcasts I listen to on a regular basis. She has a pretty incredible story of beating an auto immune disease, ulcerative colitis, through dietary changes she made. It's a great story that really shows the power of food. I would encourage to check out her blog or book Against All Grain.

Danielle has a recipe for this same dish that was my inspiration for making this. It was super simple and even Eli ate it. You can pretty easily scale the spice up or down depending on if you are feeding kids or you just don't like spicy food. Eating healthy food doesn't have to be flavorless which I think a lot of people fear. You just need a well equipped spice cabinet. You could easily sub out the ground beef in this recipe for ground turkey, shredded chicken or beef if you happen to have those on hand instead.

Ingredients

4 medium sweet potatoes
1 1/4 lbs of ground beef, we use the organic beef from Costco, if you buy by the pound, just scale the spices up or down.
1 medium onion, diced
3 tbsp of diced garlic
Peppers, choose any that you like, we used bell peppers because we had them, but you could use poblano, jalepeno, serrano. A combination of some of sweeter pepper and savory pepper would be my recommendation, You'll want about 1-2 cups diced total
2 tbsp of grassfed butter
3 tbsp of tapioca starch
Approximately 1 cup of chicken stock, add 1/2 cup at a time until you get the consistency that you desire
6 oz can of tomato paste
1 tbsp of dried oregano
2 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp of cumin
1 tsp of coriander
Pinch of cayenne pepper (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste
1 avocado, cubed
Cilantro

Bake sweet potatoes in a 425 degree oven for roughly 45 minutes. I usually wrap in aluminum foil to make clean up easier.
In a large saucepan or skillet add your butter, then add your beef, onions, peppers and garlic. Cook for 10 minutes or until the beef is browned.
Add the tapioca starch and stir for a minute to let the starch soak up all that good fat in the pan.
Add in the remaining ingredients and let it simmer for 15 minutes or longer. Feel free to add more or less liquid to make the sauce thinner or thicker.
Top with cubed avocado and cilantro and enjoy!

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Dan and Laura Suedbeck have embraced an entrepreneurial lifestyle. They are constantly challenging the status quo and challenge others to do so too. They believe that you don't always have to change your situation, sometimes you just need to change the lens you view the world through. Their focus is helping people find purpose and passion with their lives all while getting healthy. Click here to find out more about them.

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