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Bacon Apple Butter

4/30/2018

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One of the big things that separates a good meal from a great meal is a sauce!  If you like to eat out at nice restaurants like we do, that is something that they all have in common, a fantastic sauce pairing that goes along with the main course.  

It can provide a balance of flavors, it can tie a dish together, and it can provide a needed level of moisture/fat with a leaner cut of meat.  After years of watching cooking shows and a little experimentation myself I've learned some basics in sauce making and how to combine flavors.  If you are novice learning some basic skills in this world will certainly help.  
Here is a link to an article talking about the 5 French Mother Sauces.  Might sound a little fancy but most sauces that exist in the world are a spinoff of these base sauces.  From this you can play with flavors that pair with your main dish.  Another thing I would recommend is a book that I pull out on occasion, The Flavor Bible.  

This book is fantastic in that it allows you to look up a food, say pork, then it gives you a list of other foods, veggies, and spices that pair well with it.  So combine that with the basics of how to make a sauce and you are pretty much set!  
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The cool thing about The Flavor Bible is that it highlights the ingredients that work best.  For this Bacon Apple Butter, I knew we were making pork so take a look at pairings above...
  • Apples; in ALL CAPS means it is great
  • Bacon; highligthed
  • ​Butter; also highlighted
  • Cinnamon; also highlighted
  • Lemon; ALL CAPS
  • Onions; can't see it here but ALL CAPS
You could call me a good cook/chef but I'm just a rule follower!  Pick things that pair well together and it is a lot harder to screw up flavors.  

Ingredients

  • 4 strips thick cut bacon, chopped
  • 1/2 yellow onion, diced
  • 1 apple, skinned and diced
  • 1 cup applesauce
  • 2 tbsp butter
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • Juice of 1 lemon
  • ​1/4 cup water
  • Salt and pepper

Directions

  1. Add the bacon to a medium saucepan, and render out the fat.  
  2. Remove bacon bits and most of the bacon grease, leaving behind about 1 tbsp.  
  3. Add onion and apple and cook for 6-8 minutes until onion is softened.  Add the remaining ingredients, including 1/2 the bacon bits, cover and simmer on low for 15 minutes or up to 45 minutes.  
  4. Use the remaining bacon bits as a garnish on top of your finished dish.
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Roasted Brussel Sprouts

1/16/2018

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I know some people that begin to drive heave if they are threatened to eat a brussel sprout.  A couple are in my immediate family.  Growing up my mom on occasion would make them but they were usually either steam or boiled with some butter on them.  Although I could probably stomach that now, at the time it was one of the most disgusting flavors.  The smell was similar to what a Band-Aid smells like and I could only imagine what they taste like.  

Had my mom prepared sprouts this way, I'm guessing there would have been a 50/50 chance that I would have actually eaten them.  I mean they are still green and green food in our house was immediately met with rejection, unless it was Jello.  That stuff was delicious!  Just don't ruin it by putting fruit in it!  

The process of roasting brussels is pretty straightforward.  One key is making sure you start with fresh brussels not the frozen version.  If you get the frozen ones, they will be more apt to just steam and bring you and I back to that Band-Aid flavor and smell.  So start fresh!  Then all you need to do is trim a little bit of the chewy stem off of them if there is some.  We like to half or quarter ours from there depending on the size.  You could roast them whole but they would take a LONG time so that's not advised.  Once you halve them, spread them out evenly on a baking sheet.  Drizzle with roughly 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil per pound of brussels.  Season generously with salt and I like a little pepper also but not always.  

Once seasoned, put them the oven that was preheated to 425.  Depending on the size they should take anywhere from 20-30 minutes and I like to stir them half way through.  What you are looking for is for them to start turning slightly brown if not black.  In the cooking world that's called carmelization!  Do it!  They aren't burnt, they are perfect that way.  It will bring out some of the natural sugars that are in a plant that is inherently bitter and if prepared poorly can taste like Band-Aids! 

Try it this, I bet you will like brussels for the first time!  Or at worst you won't hate them.  
Want to take this next week off from planning your own Healthy Meals?  Let us do the work for you!  Follow the link below and we will give you are 5 Day Meal Guide for free!
YES, PLEASE!!!
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Pumpkin Spice Protein Pancakes

11/1/2017

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It wouldn't be fall if we didn't throw a pumpkin recipe at you.  Since we love pancakes here you go!  We've been making a variation of these pancakes for the longest time.  However the texture on those other ones just wasn't quite where I would like it when it comes to a pancake.  So just a couple little tweaks and we have this new one which I think will be our go to pancake recipe for a quite some time.  

If you are wondering what the hell the broccoli is doing in the picture, I thought this was a pancake recipe, you aren't the first one to think that is a weird combo.  This combo is a great a solution for a number of people that we work with on a regular basis.  Two staples that people usually fall short of on a daily basis is protein and veggies.  Why not start your day with a healthy dose of both?  

Why are protein and veggies important?  Particularly for people trying to lose weight these two things will likely be your biggest help in seeing measurable progress in a short period of time.  By getting adequate protein, 20-40 grams, per meal you will fill yourself with bulk but with lower calories.  Same goes for the veggies, due the high fiber in veggies you are adding bulk without adding calories.  It's because of this that you are able to eat to the point of being full all while staying in a calorie deficit.  

If you are curious how much protein and fiber you should specifically be eating head over to our Calorie Calculator page and submit some information and I will get you a customized plan to let you how much of each you should be eating.  This will be based on your size, activity level, and your goals. 

Otherwise enjoy the heck out of these pancakes, we sure did!

Macronutrient Information

Calories: 95
Protein: 10.9 g
Fat: 4.4 g
Carbs: 3.5 g
Sugars: 0.9 g
Fiber: 1.6 g

Ingredients

  • 1/2 can of pumpkin pie filling, roughly 3/4 of a cup plus a little bit
  • 3 eggs
  • 3/4 cup of unflavored whey isolate protein powder
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract (omit if using a vanilla protein powder)
  • 3/4 cup of unsweetened almond milk
  • 1/4 cup ground flax seed
  • 1/4 cup almond flour
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp ground ginger
  • 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
  • Dash of ground clove
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • ​1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp of salt

Directions

  1. Add the wet ingredients, pumpkin, eggs, almond milk, vanilla to a bowl or blender and mix to combine.  We like to use our Vitamix to mix these in.  
  2. Add the dry ingredients and mix until combined.  I've found different flax and almond meals tend to absorb liquid at different rates.  You may need to a little more water or almond milk to an appropriate consistency.  What you are looking for is something that easily pours and spreads out on a griddle.  
  3. Heat a griddle to medium heat or 300 degrees if you have an electric one like us.  Spray with a nonstick spary, we use a coconut oil variety.
  4. Pour batter onto griddle making about 4" pancakes.  With this recipe you should get about 10 pancakes out of 1 batch.  
  5. Enjoy!
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Deconstructed Egg Roll

7/30/2017

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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

  1. In a large skillet or dutch oven add the sausage and cook over medium heat until cooked through.
  2. 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.  
  3. Add garlic, cook for 2 more minutes.
  4. Add the cabbage along with all the other ingredients, cook over medium heat for 5 minutes stirring frequently.  
  5. Cover, and reduce heat to medium low and simmer for 15 minutes stirring once or twice. 
  6. 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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Gluten Free Turkey Meatloaf with Savory Mushroom Sauce

1/13/2017

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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
  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
  2. In a skillet saute the onions in butter and season with salt and pepper.  Cook until it they become slightly caramelized.  
  3. 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.  
  4. 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!
  5. Bake for one hour or until the inner temp gets to 170 in the center of the meatloaf.  The ends cook faster.  
  6. Remove from the oven and let rest for 10 minutes.
Savory Mushroom Sauce
  1. 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. 
  2. Add the sherry wine and cook for 2 minutes.  
  3. 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.  
  4. Add in the remaining seasonings and stir occasionally.
  5. 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.  
  6. 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.  
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Bacon Roasted Brussel Sprouts with Orange and Pecan

12/20/2016

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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

  1. Clean and prep your brussels
  2. In a large skillet, add the bacon grease over a medium high heat.
  3. 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.  
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. Season with salt and peper and serve!  
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Flax Pancakes with Orange, Pecan Sryup

12/4/2016

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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
  1. Combine all ingredients in a blender or mixer and mix! 
  2. 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.  
  3. Cook on a 325 degree griddle for 5 minutes then flip and cook for another 3-4 minutes until fully cooked.  
Syrup
  1. 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.  
  2. 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.  
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Crispy Baked Sweet Potatoes

10/19/2016

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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.  
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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

  1. Get a pot of water boiling and preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
  2. Peel and cut your sweet potatoes into wedges.
  3. Add potatoes to salted, boiling water for 6 minutes.
  4. While potatoes are in water add tapioca starch and water to a large bowl and whisk until fairly smooth.
  5. 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.  
  6. Place potatoes onto a parchment lined baking sheet.  
  7. Bake for 40 minutes, or until some brown spots start to show.  Rotate halfway through the baking.
  8. Once they are finished baking, season with salt and pepper or whatever seasoning you wish.
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Chicken Tortilla Soup

10/10/2016

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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
  • 1/2 pound chicken feet (optional but not really but this is where you get all that amazing gelatenous goodness!)
  • 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

  1. 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.  
  2. 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.  
  3. 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.  
  4. Set your meat aside for later and discard the skin and gristle.  
  5. 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.  
  6. 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.  
  7. 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

  1. 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.  
  2. Add tomatoes and stock to the pot along with spices and bring to a boil.
  3. Reduce to a low, add the chicken and simmer for minimum of 15 minutes or up to an hour.  
  4. Your done, add with some of your favorite toppings and enjoy!
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Classic Lemon Vinaigrette

8/25/2016

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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;
  1. 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!  
  2. 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.  
  3. 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

  1. Combine all ingredients other than the oil in a blender and mix until well combined.
  2. Drizzle the olive oil in slowly over the course of 30 seconds while the blender is running.  
  3. 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.  
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Fish and Veggie Red Curry

8/17/2016

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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.  
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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

  1. In a large saucepan or dutch oven add the coconut oil and melt over a medium high heat.  
  2. Add the carrots, peppers, and onions and cook for 8 minutes.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.  
  5. 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. 
  6. 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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Gluten Free Blueberry Chia Pancakes

6/16/2016

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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!  
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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 ;)
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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

  1. 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)
  2. 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.
  3. Fold in the blueberries.
  4. 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.  
  5. Eat them plain or serve with a little grassfed butter and real maple syrup and enjoy!
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Enchilada Stuffed Sweet Potato

5/30/2016

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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

  1. Bake sweet potatoes in a 425 degree oven for roughly 45 minutes.  I usually wrap in aluminum foil to make clean up easier.  
  2. 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.  
  3. Add the tapioca starch and stir for a minute to let the starch soak up all that good fat in the pan.  
  4. 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.  
  5. Top with cubed avocado and cilantro and enjoy!
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Paleo Cream of Asparagus Soup

5/18/2016

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This dish was totally inspired by leftovers.  To be honest a lot of the meals we make are throw together at the last minute.  We try our best to just keep healthy ingredients in our fridge, freezer and pantry.  Then I (Dan) find inspiration either from Pinterest, Google, a random cooking show or something I've made before to dictate what we eat.  I'm not the most creative person when it comes to other things, but food, that's my jam - pun intended!  

Seriously this soup was so easy to make and you could easily scale it up if you wanted to make it for a larger group.  Like most soups the key to flavor is using a flavorful broth/stock and letting it simmer for a long time.  I recently made up a batch of chicken stock in our pressure cooker.    Homemade stock makes a huge difference in my opinion both in flavor and quality of ingredients.  I probably need to write up a post about our stock recipe.  Very simply we just add water, old chicken bones, carrot, celery, onion, garlic, bay leaf, thyme, apple cider vinegar, peppercorns and a little salt into our pressure cooker.  We pressure cook it for about 3 hours and it turns out great!  

We hope you enjoy this soup!  We always love to hear if you try out our recipes, so if you give it a try, drop us a comment on the post or shoot us a message.   

Ingredients

  • 1 cup of asparagus, we used leftover grilled asparagus.  You could use raw
  • 1 can of coconut milk
  • 2-3 cups of broth depending on how thick you like your soup, we used chicken but if you wanted it to be a vegan dish you could use veggie broth
  • 1 tbsp onion powder, or you could use 1 small onion diced - we were out
  • 2 tsp garlic garlic powder, you could use 2-3 cloves of garlic, I was on a powder kick since I didn't have onion
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 tsp of olive oil

Directions

  1. If you are using whole onion and garlic, saute that first in a saucepan with a little olive oil for a few minutes to soften.  
  2. If you are powdered onion and garlic, add everything to a saucepan and simmer for 30 minutes.  
  3. Add all the ingredients to a blender, be careful if you have a blender that isn't vented that you remove the top circle piece and cover with a towel.  The steam needs to come out somewhere otherwise you have a huge mess and potential burns.  
  4. Return the blended soup to the saucepan and simmer as long as you would like.  We simmered for about 22 minutes.  I know that because I did my 22 Minute Hard Corps workout.  
  5. At this point season if needed.  We needed a little more salt and I added some more broth because it had reduced a little too much.  
  6. Drizzle with a little olive oil and enjoy!
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Lemon Ginger Shrimp and Zoodles

5/5/2016

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Citrus and summer go hand in hand in my book.  I know it isn't technically summer yet but the weather in South Alabama has felt like it is the middle of August.  I'm sure if you were to talk to locals they would tell you how great the weather has been.  For this Minnesota boy it's a different story.  Temps were in the 80's everyday and the humidity was above 90% everyday.  That's hot!  

Being in South Alabama we had the benefit of getting some really good shrimp and it was cheap.  This has definitely been one of the things that I've enjoyed about traveling so far, local food!  Getting to eat food that was picked, farmed or fished recently is so fun and adds so much more flavor.  We've tried to take in local markets wherever we are and get some fresh veggies and proteins, then fill in the gaps with some food from the big box stores.  

I made this while in Gulf Shores, Alabama and it was super light and perfect for a warm day.  We hope you enjoy it!!  If you have a shellfish allergy you could easily leave out the shrimp and do a piece of baked whitefish.  

Ingredients

  • 3/4 lb of raw shrimp
  • 1 large carrot cut into matchsticks
  • 1 red bell pepper cut into matchsticks
  • 1 medium onion cut into matchsticks
  • 3 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1" piece of ginger, peeled and minced
  • 1 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
  • 1/4 cup broth of your choice or water
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • 3 small zucchini cut into zoodles using  spiralizer
  • 1 tbsp dried parsley or 1/4 cup of fresh parsley, chopped
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

  1. Prep all of your veggies ahead of time.  Once you start cooking it goes pretty quick.  
  2. In a wok or large skillet add the oil then carrot, onion, pepper, ginger and cook for 5 minutes or until the onion starts getting a little translucent.  
  3. Add the garlic, parsley and shrimp and cook for an additional 3 minutes.  Stir regularly.  
  4. Add broth, lemon juice, zoodles and toss for 2 minutes until everything is coated and the zoodles start to soften.  
  5. Season and serve!  There will likely be some liquid in the bottom of the pan, feel free to drizzle your food with this or let it be.  
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Paleo Pumpkin Muffins

12/17/2015

 
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I've never considered myself a baker.  There is just too much measuring and too many dishes to clean up afterwards.  On top of that most baked goods don't exactly line up with healthy eating.  What are the cornerstones of baking; usually a combo of white sugar, flour, and poor quality fats.  Basically the worst combo when it comes to health and maintaining a healthy weight.  

Now that I've poo pooed bake goods let me tell you about the super tasty muffins I made, lol.   This recipe by no means qualifies these muffins as health food but I did remove those poor quality ingredients that cause inflammation and hormonal havoc in your body and replaced them with friendlier ingredients.   The recipe that I based my recipe off of is one that my mom passed down to me.  She would always make it as a bread loaf instead of muffins and I remember just loving it.  Probably because of the amount of sugar that was in it!  

So here were my "healthy" swaps.  Instead of white sugar I used dates that I pureed with a little almond milk.  Instead of regular wheat flour I used a combination of coconut and arrowroot.  Instead of vegetable oil I used coconut oil.  As you will see in the nutrition facts below I reduced the sugar by 18 grams per serving, which is huge and when it comes to weight loss and the insulin response that you would get from eating it.  Swapping out the flours will help with GI issues that people have from gluten, along with the high Glycemic Index that comes along with regular wheat flour.  Coconut oil versus vegetable oil is a no brainer unless you are still living in the 1980's and think saturated fat will kill you.  

This are super simple to make and fairly guilt free as long as you don't eat 6 of them.  They are a great kick snack for our 16 month old son too, which is super convenient.  Hope you enjoy them! 

Paleo Pumpkin Muffins

​Ingredients
  • 4 eggs
  • 8 dates blended with 1/2 C of almond milk, could use honey instead, maybe 1/2 C
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp cloves
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/2 c coconut oil melted
  • 2/3 c coconut flour
  • 2/3 c arrowroot or tapioca starch​
  • 1 can pumpkin

Directions
  1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl.
  2. Spoon into small muffin tin or silicone muffin pan which we love.
  3. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
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Mom's Pumpkin Bread

  • 4 eggs
  • 3 cups of sugar
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp cloves
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp nutmeg
  • 1 c oil 
  • 3 1/2 cups flour
  • 1 can pumpkin

Directions
  1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl.
  2. Transfer to two large bread loaf pans or 3 medium pans
  3. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour
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Last Call for The Master's Hammer & Chisel Test Group

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Paleo Carrot Cake Muffins and Orange, Maple Keto Coffee

10/7/2015

 
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Carrot cake is straight up my jam!  Hands down, best cake!  I love the sweet and spice!  I would eat it all the time if it was available.  

Given my  new gluten free life, I have had to make some sacrifices and cake is one of them.  Just this past weekend at my nephews birthday party I was forced to pass on the delicious Mickey Mouse cake.  As hard as that was I was just glad I didn't have to say no to carrot cake.  That would have just been tough.  Avoidance has been my main course of action.  Recently though I just had a craving for carrot cake.  Maybe it was the fall weather but something made me think of it and that led to a google search... "Gluten free carrot cake recipe"

Low and behold I found a really good one and we had all the ingredients so I decided to do some baking.  I usually don't bake, that is more Laura's area of expertise!  Measuring is tough!  I did it though and this muffins turned out awesome!  The recipe that I found and tweaked was on a website, Primarily Inspired.  Hats off to Kelly for the inspiration for this recipe!  We just did the muffin/cupcake recipe but she has an icing that goes along with these too if you want it to be even more desserty, that's a word right???  

The following morning Laura was scrolling her IG feed and stumbled across a pic from a local coffee shop and how they do a Orange, Maple Latte.  She tried hard to convince me to drive 30 minutes to go get a coffee.  I fought hard and told her I would just make her one instead.  Since we don't really do dairy either we opted for a "keto coffee."  Although given the maple syrup in it, we probably can't call it a "keto" coffee but oh well you get the idea, it has butter in it and other delicious things.  This was super simple and super tasty.  I have no idea how it compares the the coffee shop latte but we will do this again.  It paired perfectly with the carrot muffins too.  Pure breakfast bliss!  

Paleo Carrot Cake Muffins

Ingredients
  • 2 1/2 cups grated carrots (about 3-4 large carrots) - I used a little less than the original recipe and this was still a lot of carrot - Eat your veggies!!!
  • 8-10 pitted medjool dates finely chopped by hand or in a food processor
  • 4 eggs
  • ¼ cup melted coconut oil
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • ½ cup coconut flour 
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 2 teaspoons cinnamon
  • ½ teaspoon ground cloves
  • pinch of salt
Directions
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. Grate the carrots using a food processor or box grater and set aside.  
  3. Chop the dates. If using food processor to "chop" the dates pulse 3-4 times, enough to chop but not too much that it turns into a giant date ball.  
  4. In a separate bowl combine the dry ingredients (coconut flour, spices, baking powder, salt) and whisk to evenly incorporate the spices.  
  5. In a mixing separate bowl, add in your chopped dates, eggs, coconut oil and vanilla. Beat mixture well.
  6. Add dry ingredients and stir until combined.
  7. Fold in the grated carrots.
  8. Fill muffin batter to the top of each muffin pan and bake for 25-28 minutes or until inserted toothpick comes out clean. 

Orange, Maple Keto Coffee

Ingredients
  • 1 large cup of coffee
  • 1 tbsp grass fed butter
  • 1 drop of orange essential oil
  • 2 tsp real maple syrup
Directions
  1. Add all of your ingredients to high powered blender.   Blend on high for 15 seconds, making sure that the seal on the blender top is not super tight and you allow the steam to release.  If you don't do this bad things happen.  You've been warned.  

Drunken Zoodles 

9/2/2015

 
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Who else loves Thai food???  Yeah I could pretty much eat it everyday.  I love the flavor profiles of sweet, salty, sour, and spicy...it's just so good!  The noodle dishes are probably my favorite when we go out to Thai restaurants.  My go to's are Pad Thai, Pad See Ew, or Pad Kee Mao (Drunken Noodles).  Given my new intolerance of gluten, I am a lot more cautious when it comes to ordering food at restaurants.  I know most asian noodles are made from rice flour, but I guess I just have trust issues, especially when you add the sauce in on top of that.  For example I had no idea soy sauce had wheat flour in it, prior to becoming allergic to it...and most Asian kitchens use soy in everything...so it just makes me a little nervous! 

With all of that, I decided to try to recreate a Drunken Noodle dish to ensure that it is 100% gluten free.  It's not a perfect representation of the authentic dish but it was pretty tasty.  

Ingredients

  • 1 pound of chicken breast cut into 1/4" thick slices
  • 2 cups chopped broccoli
  • 1 red bell pepper, cut into strips
  • 1 tbsp minced garlic
  • 1 tbsp coconut oil
  • 1 tsp chili oil (This isn't 100% necessary)
  • 1 tbsp tapioca starch (corn starch works too)
  • 2 medium zucchini cut into 1/2" wide strips 
  • 1 cup rough chopped thai basil, if you can't find thai basil regular will work

The Sauce
  • 1/4 cup Fish Sauce
  • 1/4 cup Coconut Aminos
  • 2 tbsp honey
  • 2 tsp sriracha sauce, can add more or less depending on your spice tolerance

Directions

  1. In a hot wok or large fry pan add the coconut and chili oil until it is moving around the pan freely.  Add the chicken, broccoli, and bell pepper.  Cook for 4-5 minutes over medium high heat.  Add garlic and cook for another minute.  
  2. Add the tapioca or corn starch and toss to coat the chicken and veggies evenly.  
  3. Add the sauce to the wok and cook for 3-4 minutes until it heats up and begins to thicken.  
  4. Add the zoodles to the wok and toss.  Cook for 1-2 minutes until they are heated through.  If you let them cook too long they will begin to give up their water and you will have a soupy, watery mess of a sauce.  
  5. Add your basil, toss and serve!  
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Download Recipe Card for Drunken Zoodles

The Perfect Over Easy Egg

6/2/2015

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We love eggs!!!  We eat them daily, which means we cook them daily.  We like our eggs over easy to over medium, there is just something about that runny yolk that just makes eggs so good.  I'm not sure where I picked up this trick on cooking the perfect over easy egg but it is so awesome and easy to do.  You don't have to worry about breaking the yolk open when you flip it or try to get them out of the pan.  Once you master it, which won't take long, you will have a super simple way to cook your eggs perfectly every time.  
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Sweet Potato and Cauliflower Crust Pizza

4/13/2015

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So this week was an experiment for me on our quest to make a new meal for a Monday post.  We've tried cauliflower crust pizzas in the past and really haven't had any luck with flavor or texture.  We love the idea of pizza that we can eat without any guilt so we wanted to give it another try.  

So this time I thought it would be fun and tasty to add sweet potato to the cauliflower.  This would give it a bit of that sweet flavor that you get from regular dough when you add honey or sugar.  I was also hoping it would help crisp up the crust a bit more.  

If you can't tell by words like "experiment" and "hoping" this didn't quite turn out the way I had hoped.  Although tasty it didn't quite have the texture that I was hoping.  The outside got crispy but the interior stayed a little on the soft side.  It was definitely a fork kind of pizza.  

Feel free to make some suggestions if there are any bakers out there that know a way to add more of crunch and firmer texture.   I'm thinking maybe a little more tapioca starch and a higher heat when I bake it next time.  
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Ingredients

Crust Ingredients
  • 1 head of cauliflower, chopped and processed in a food processor
  • 1 medium sweet potato, baked and mashed
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 cup tapioca starch
  • 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 tsp dried basil
  • 1 tsp dried oregano
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp cracked black pepper

Toppings
  • 1/2 cup prepared pesto
  • 1/2 lb shrimp
  • 1 tbsp garlic, finely chopped
  • Tomato, diced or sliced
  • 1 cup cheese of your choice, we used a gouda goat cheese

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees (I originally started baking at 350 and it was taking forever, so I upped it to 400 mid-bake).
  2. Chop the cauliflower into smaller pieces and place in a food processor.  You will likely need to do this in 2-3 batches to get smaller grind on the cauliflower.  
  3. Place processed cauliflower on a kitchen towel and ring out as much liquid as possible.  
  4. You will need to mix all the ingredients together, I used a stand mixer, you could re-add them to the food processor, or do it by hand in a mixing bowl, your choice.  
  5. Transfer your ingredients to parchment lined baking sheet and spread into whatever shape pizza you want.  The recipe will likely give you two medium pizzas worth of crust.  
  6. Bake at 400 degrees for roughly 30 minutes until the edges start to turn golden brown. 
  7. In a skillet cook your shrimp and garlic prior to putting on top of the pizza.  
  8. Remove from the oven, add your toppings, and continue to bake for another 10-15 minutes.
Once I master this crust I will post the recipe cards that you guys can download.  Until then I would appreciate any feedback on how I could improve this recipe and process.  

Make it a Great Monday!
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Chicken Roasted in Coconut Milk

3/30/2015

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I found this on Pinterest and made this when Dan was out of town a few years ago but haven't made it since. I've told him about it...and raved about it...but he thought it sounded weird so we never tried it again! UNTIL last night :)

We buy whole chickens at Costco because they're so cost effective and delicious. We then stick them in the freezer to use at a later date. Earlier this week Dan took one out of the freezer and was going to throw it in the crockpot, but then forgot about it...which gave me the perfect opportunity to cook something for him for a change! Plus, it gave me a chance to prove him wrong and show him that this is actually a delicious way to cook chicken. Win-win!

Here's the original recipe:  Jamie Oliver's Chicken in Milk

It's pretty simple...but here's what I did:

1.  Preheat the oven to 375

2.  Season the chicken with salt/pepper. Brown the entire chicken in 3 tbsp of butter & 2 tbsp of coconut oil. Brown one side and then use a tongs to flip it and brown every side

3.  Put all these ingredients into the dutch oven with the chicken.
  • 1 can of coconut milk (do 2 cans if you can, I didn't have a second one so I used an additional 1/2 c of almond milk) 
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice (didn't have any fresh lemons for the zest)
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • 2 tbsp of minced garlic
  • 2 sprigs of fresh thyme
  • 1 tbsp of dried sage

4.  Bake for 90 minutes

Wa-lah!!
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I also figured I'd throw in this sweet picture...just because.

A boy and his dog. They're so sweet!!
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Homemade Corned Beef with Nitrates, OH MY!!!

3/11/2015

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We are one week away from everyone's favorite holiday, St. Patrick's Day!!  Ok, that might be a stretch. After green beer the thing that screams, "Let's Celebrate!" is corned beef...am I right?? It's funny that corned beef and more specifically corned beef and cabbage is synonymous with St. Patrick's Day even though in Ireland it really isn't a staple dish. They actually serve bacon and cabbage, which is definitely not a bad alternative. Corned beef was substituted by Irish immigrants when they came to the United States.  You can thank me for your food history lesson later. .  

Last year was the first year where I decided to make corned beef from scratch. I thought we would have people over for St. Patrick's Day, eat some beef and drink some beer.  I hadn't done a lot of research into how to actually make it, so a couple days prior to wanting to serve it, I went out and bought some brisket, thinking you just need to add some pickling spices to it as you cook it.  I was a little shocked when I found out that the curing process actually takes 7-10 days depending on the size of your brisket.  Oops...

Well that didn't stop me from making it. I just had to procure (no pun intended) some unique ingredients that I wasn't able to just walk into a regular grocery store and pick up. The two ingredients that I had to order online were juniper berries and saltpeter.  Saltpeter is another name for potassium nitrate. Yeah, I added potassium nitrate knowingly to food that I was going to eat.  

Before you go and call the nitrate police, I would suggest you read this article from Chris Kresser, The Nitrate and Nitrite Myth: Another Reason Not To Fear Bacon. The following stat is from his article which he gives reference to and I thought it was a pretty big eye opener.  
It may shock you to learn that one serving of arugula, two servings of butter lettuce, and four servings of celery or beets all have more nitrite than 467 hot dogs. (2) And your own saliva has more nitrites than all of them!
Assuming you are eating fairly healthy, there is a chance you are consuming a decent amount of nitrate rich vegetables.  Numerous brands, like Applegate, have cashed in on the fear of nitrates by providing meat products that are branded "No Added Nitrates."  I wonder if we should start demanding nitrate free celery.  Sounds kind of silly right?  The funny thing about companies that claim to have "nitrate free" or "uncured" products is that a majority of them use celery powder to "naturally cure" their products.  If you look at Applegate's bacon there are asterics after the saying "No Added Nitrites or Nitrates."   Those asterics direct you to a statement that says "Except for those naturally occurring in sea salt and celery powder."  It doesn't say how much of those ingredients are added but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that they are adding those things to essentially give you the same product as the rest of the bacon on the shelf.  I will give Applegate credit for using pork that hasn't been treated with hormones or antibiotics.    

There is one problem that has been linked to nitrates is if they turn into nitrosamines.  I learned about this by reading an article at Authority Nutrition, which links to some research study abstracts.  If you want to read it, click here.  If nitrates are exposed to high heat (350 degrees and up) during the cook process than some of those nitrates will turn into nitrosamines.  This goes for all nitrates but when was the last time you grilled some celery??  The way to safeguard your bacon, ham, and hot dogs is to cook them at lower temperatures.  If you are grilling hot dogs in the summer time don't cook them until they are charred. With your bacon, cook it at a medium to low heat.  With your corned beef, cook it slow in a slow cooker or dutch oven.  

I hope this has made you think twice about the fear of nitrates in your food.  If you want to make your own corned beef, I say go for it.  You might be a little late for St Patrick's Day this year, but in my opinion any day of the year is a good day for corned beef.  The recipe I used comes from Alton Brown and the Food Network website.  The only thing that I changed was that I followed the curing instructions that were on the saltpeter container that I got rather than using the 2 tablespoons that he recommends.  
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Paleo "Pumpkin" Chocolate Chip Bars

10/8/2014

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Does anyone else use the app Timehop? Yep...I do and it's so much fun. I love to see what I was posting about 1 year ago, 2 years ago or even 6 years ago on Facebook or Instagram. 

I think I saw this recipe from Elana's Pantry on Pinterest last year so I made them and LOVED them...and then forgot about them. Thank goodness for Timehop...it reminded me about making these last year so I was able to go and try them again.

Paleo Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bars

1/3 cup Coconut Flour
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
4 large eggs
1 cup fresh roasted pumpkin or squash (I used kabocha squash)
1/3 cup honey
1/4 cupcoconut oil
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

In a food processor, combine coconut flour, salt, baking soda and cinnamon. Pulse in eggs, squash or pumpkin, honey and oil until well combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Transfer batter to an 8x8 inch baking dish.
Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
Cool and serve!
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Southwest Chicken Casserole

9/23/2014

0 Comments

 
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I have to apologize for the photo, I know it isn't the prettiest dish we have ever made but it was pretty darn tasty!  Our sister-in-law asked us to HEALTHIFY a chicken and rice casserole...and she gave me a pretty blank slate, so I hope she likes this version! For those of you not from Minnesota or from a Scandavian descent, a casserole is usually made from noodles or rice, some sort of meat, cheese and usually cream of "something" soup.  The veggies are typically hard to find and the processed food is usually a staple.  

In an attempt to healthify the recipe, the swaps that we made was "riced" cauliflower and instead of creamy soup we used coconut milk.  Then we loaded it up with some chicken breast and tomatoes.  Although the cauliflower rice on it's own doesn't have the same taste as rice, when combined in a dish like this it takes on almost the exact same texture. Plus there is a enough flavor in a dish like this that you really do lose that cauliflower taste.

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Ingredients

  • 1 head of cauliflower, riced
  • 2 chicken breasts, chopped
  • 1 medium onion, diced
  • 3 garlic cloves, diced
  • 1/4 tsp of red chili flakes
  • 1 15 oz can of diced tomatoes
  • 1 14 oz can of coconut milk
  • 2 tbsp Taco Seasoning
  • 2 medium tomatoes, sliced
  • Cilantro

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
  2. Remove the leaves and most of the stems from the head of your cauliflower and chop the florets into small pieces.  Add a 1/3-1/2 the pieces to a food processor and pulse into broken down into rice size pieces.  There may be some bigger chunks still just add those to the next batch.  Repeat until the entire cauliflower has been processed.  Set aside.
  3. In a medium saucepan a a little olive oil, then add the chicken, onion, garlic, and red chili flakes.  Cook until chicken is cooked most of the way through.  Roughly 8 minutes.
  4. Add coconut milk, diced tomatoes, and taco seasoning.  Simmer over medium low heat until sauce reduces a bit, roughly 10 minutes.
  5. Stir in coconut "rice" until well incorporated.  Then transfer to a baking dish, top with sliced tomatoes, and bake for 20 minutes.
  6. Garnish with cilantro and ENJOY!!!
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Paleo Scotcharoos

9/9/2014

4 Comments

 
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The original version of this bar is one of my all time favorites.  How can you go wrong with chocolate, peanut butter, crispy Special K cereal, and tons of sugar?  Given our new found healthy living lifestyle eating bars like that isn't a frequent occurrence.  That doesn't necessarily mean I will never eat the original version again, but try to make it a very infrequent indulgence.  Not to say the Paleo version is necessarily healthy, but there isn't the guilt of eating a bunch of processed food and sugar.  

So ever since the 4th of July where a friend of ours made the original version, I had the idea of wanting to try to find a healthier option.  I will be the first one to admit that I'm not a baker and have never been one to make desserts.  With cooking I don't mind experimenting and just throwing things together.  With stuff like this though I have no idea how to balance flavors so I had to do a little research, so this recipe was found on The Paleo Mom's website.  The ingredients listed below is a slight modification from hers, due to the bars being a little bit on the gooey side and a little bit on the sweet side.  I think that could have been because we used a Justin's Maple Almond Butter, it was all we had in the house.  So if you can try to find a plain almond butter to cut a little bit of that sweet, unless you really like sweet desserts. 

Ingredients

  • 1 cup Shredded Unsweetened Coconut
  • 2 cups whole Raw Almonds
  • 1/2 cup Almond Butter
  • 1/2 cup extra virgin coconut oil, melted
  • 1 Tbsp Coconut Flour
  • 1/2 tsp Salt
  • 1 1/2 Tbsp Molasses
  • 1 Tbsp Vanilla Extract
  • 3 oz 80% Dark Chocolate

Directions

  1. In a food processor, pulverize the almonds until they are broken down into small pieces but not to the point of becoming almond flour.
  2. Add remaining ingredients EXCEPT for the chocolate to the food processor and pulse until you are left with a well incorporated goo ball.
  3. Line an 8" x 8" baking dish with wax paper.
  4. Transfer contents of the food processor to the baking dish and spread evenly.  
  5. Place the dish in the fridge or freezer depending on how impatient you are to eat them.  You will want them to cool and be set before adding the chocolate.  
  6. Meanwhile melt your chocolate in either a double boiler or carefully in the microwave.  I usually just do the microwave and go in 10-15 second waves, stirring between each one.  
  7. After bars are set, pour the melted chocolate onto the bars and spread evenly.  Return to the fridge for 5 minutes or until the chocolate hardens.  
  8. Remove the bars from the dish by lifting the wax paper.  Cut into bars and enjoy.  Store any remaining bars in the fridge.  
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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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