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!

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Fish and Veggie Red Curry

8/17/2016

1 Comment

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.

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Hearty Miso Soup

1/28/2016

We have started making an effort to clean out our cupboards and freezer as we prepare to move out of our house and into a 300 sq ft motorhome. That means we will likely be making a lot more soups. I had a coworker/chef once tell me about the concept of "Mustgo Soup." When he was making soup for the day he would look in the cooler and see what was about to go bad and that must go in the soup. I love that about soups in that they can be so versatile and there really aren't that many rules. Just throw it all together with a delicious broth and there you go.

This miso soup was super tasty and a ton of flavor. I will say that I scaled back the amount of miso from what we used, it was a little much in my version. In case you've never used miso it is a fermented soybean paste that you can find at most grocery stores in the refrigerator section. I like to shop at our local Asian grocery store, so they have an entire section of it, super easy to find! This is the kind we bought, Miso Paste. I definitely recommend splurging for organic when it come miso since it comes from soy. It ensures you aren't consuming GMO soy which is what you find in any non-organic soy products for the most part. Another miso trick is because it is a fermented food, meaning it contains live probiotics which are super healthy for your gut, you don't want to add miso to boiling soup otherwise it will kill those probiotics. I've also found it easier to separate out some of your broth and add to the miso paste to make a slurry before adding it back to the soup. It will mix in that much better.

Hope you enjoy this soup.

Ingredients

3 medium carrots, cut into bite size pieces
1 onion, diced
1 1/2 lbs of chicken breast cut into bite size pieces (could sub tofu if you want to be vegetarian)
4 cloves of garlic, diced
1 tbsp coconut oil
1 tsp sesame oil
1 15 oz can of chickpeas, liquid drained and rinsed
1 15 oz can of full fat coconut milk
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp coconut aminos or soy sauce
1/2 of a 1.76 oz package of Wakame seaweed, roughly 1/4 cup when dry
6-8 cups of chicken stock or veggie stock
1/4 cup white miso
Juice of 1 lime

Directions

Add your coconut and sesame oil to large pot or dutch oven over medium heat.
Add in your carrots, onion, and chicken and cook for 5 minutes, then add garlic and cook until chicken is cooked through.
While all of that is cooking soak the Wakame seaweed in 2 cups of water. You'll want to soak this for 5 minutes roughly, you'll be surprised at how much it expands.
Add all the remaining ingredients except the miso and simmer for 15 minutes.
In a small bowl add your miso paste and ladle in about 1-2 cups of liquid from your pot to make a miso slurry. Kill the heat of your burner at this point and add the miso back into the pot. Also add in the lime juice at this point too.
ENJOY!!!

Deconstructed Egg Roll

Ingredients

Directions

Fish and Veggie Red Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Hearty Miso Soup

Ingredients

Directions