A very shrimpy new year

Hello little blog, how have you been? I've been busy moving and visiting family over the holidays, but now I'm ready to get back to updating you. In fact, my only resolution this year is actually to blog more often! So let's get to it.

I found a nice looking bag of frozen, unpeeled shrimp at my new grocery store (since moving I've swapped a Whole Foods for a Wegman's) and decided what the heck - I don't do a lot of seafood, but I always feel like I should, and shrimp seem a rather unthreatening place to start. I know shrimp overcook pretty easily, so I wanted to make something where I could just drop them in in the last few minutes. My standby curry seemed a good place to start, both for the ease of cooking and for the fact that the strong curryness would hide the seafoody shrimpyness. Yes I'm a wimp.

Curry is one of my favorite go-to meals when I don't really feel like cooking. All it requires you to have on hand are a can of coconut milk, a jar of curry paste, whatever random assortment of veggies you have languishing about, and some kind of meat. The basic instruction is: brown onions in coconut oil, add in all the other ingredients, simmer 20 minutes.



GO-TO CURRY shrimpy style
serves 3 maybe

The culprits today:
copious amounts of coconut oil
half a large onion
2 tiny sweet potatoes
1 stalk of celery
a can of coconut milk
a small jar of green curry paste
1/2 cup frozen peas
huge handful of baby spinach
1 lb shrimp

I heated the coconut oil in a big skillet and set the onions, sweet potatoes and celery to browning. Then I added the curry paste and let it fry for a minute until it got fragrant, followed by the can of coconut milk, and let it simmer for 15 minutes. Then I stirred in the peas and spinach until the spinach started to wilt, followed by the shrimp. Watched it like a hawk and removed it from the heat just when the shrimp turned pink. Done! Served it with lemon wedges to spruce it up a little bit.



To be very strictly paleo you wouldn't want to use the peas or possibly the sweet potatoes, but like I said - just add whatever veggies you have in the house and it'll be fine. My curry is different every single time I make it! If I'm using a different, longer-cooking meat such as chicken, I usually add in at the same time I add the coconut milk.

Since the shrimp I bought needed to be peeled, I was left with a big pile of shrimp shells. I decided to try making some shrimp stock. I have no idea how this tastes yet, and frankly I'm a little leery of it (eww seafood!), but I'm determined to find some way to eat it this week.



I read a few recipes online and amalgamated them to this:

SHRIMP STOCK

shells and tails from 1 lb of shrimp
1/4 of an onion, chopped
1 stalk of celery, chopped
1/2 a big carrot, chopped
a few sprigs of parsley
1 small lemon, sliced
1 bay leaf
5 whole peppercorns
1/2 tsp sea salt
water to cover

I combined everything in a smallish pot and brought it to a boil. Skimmed the foam, reduced the heat, and let it simmer for an hour.

Now I have this:



And no idea what to do with it! Please don't say seafood soup, I can't think of anything more horrifying.

In the meantime, maybe I'll start cooking some stuff out of my shiny new cookbooks.



The Whole Beast - Nose to Tail Eating by Fergus Henderson and The River Cottage Meat Book by Hugh Fearlessly-Eatsitall. I can't wait! Happy New Year everyone!

Ginger Crusted Baked Apples with Date Glaze

GINGER CRUSTED BAKED APPLES WITH DATE GLAZE
serves 2

ingredients:
2 medium apples (use eating apples rather than baking apples, otherwise they'll turn to mush - I used gala)
2 T almond flour
2 T unsweetened shredded coconut
1 tsp grated fresh ginger (or less if you aren't a ginger freak like I am)
1 egg white
coconut oil
2 T date glaze (recipe follows)

Preheat the oven to 425 Fahrenheit and line a baking sheet with foil and parchment paper.

Lightly whisk the egg white. Mix the almond flour, shredded coconut, and grated ginger together on a plate. Cut each apple in half and remove the core.

Dip the cut side of the apple into the egg white, then press firmly into the almond/coconut mixture. Make sure the whole cut surface of the apple is coated, including the cavity where the core was. Place the apple on the baking sheet. There should be just enough almond/coconut mixture to coat all the apples with none to spare. Drizzle with a tiny bit of coconut oil (or olive oil or macadamia nut oil - whatever you have).

Bake at 425 for 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and place 1/2 T of date glaze in each cavity. Bake for 3 minutes more. Serve!

Apples (minus date glaze) inspired by "Low Carb High Flavor Recipes Made Easy" by Fiona Carns.


DATE GLAZE (makes a lot)

ingredients:
3/4 cup chopped dates
1/2 cup water
1/8 tsp ground cardamom
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Put the dates, water, and cardamom in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Simmer for 10 minutes until thick and mostly smooth, adding a tablespoon or two more water if necessary. Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla.

Date glaze inspired by Moosewood Restaurant New Classics by Moosewood Collective.

Pumpkin Sausage Soup

PUMPKIN SAUSAGE SOUP
serves 6

ingredients:
1-1.25 lbs bulk breakfast sausage (if you want to make some yourself, I have a recipe here: http://cavemanfood.blogspot.com/2009/03/turkey-or-pork-breakfast-sausage.html)
1/2 a large onion, minced
1/2 cup mushrooms, sliced
1 small cooking pumpkin, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks (or one 15-oz can of pumpkin)
4 cups chicken stock
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried thyme
pinch of dried rosemary
1 tsp paprika
pinch of red pepper flakes
1 tsp sea salt or to taste
2 T butter or some other more paleo cooking fat
1/2 cup coconut milk

Heat the butter in a heavy deep pot and saute the mushrooms over medium-high heat until golden. Remove from the pot to a small bowl, leaving the butter. Add the onions to the pot and saute them until golden, then remove them to a separate bowl. Add the sausage to the pot and brown it until it is cooked through and looks tasty. Remove the sausage from the pot and set aside.

Add the pumpkin to the pot and deglaze with the chicken stock. Add the onions back in and simmer until the pumpkin is soft, about 10 minutes. Puree the soup (a hand blender is easiest, but a regular blender will do). Add in all the remaining ingredients except the coconut milk (don't forget to add in the cooked mushrooms and sausage!), and simmer for 20 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the coconut milk.

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That's the hard way to make the soup. :) The easy way is to cook the onions, mushrooms and sausage all together at once and use canned pumpkin, saving some steps and a dirty blender. The easy way makes perfectly fine soup, but it won't have the same layers of texture and flavor that the harder version does.

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recipe adapted from: http://www.recipezaar.com/Low-Carb-Pumpkin-Sausage-Soup-106467

Coconut chicken fingers with spicy fruit chutney

One of the foods my husband and I really miss on the paleo or primal diet is breaded chicken. It's just soul satisfying comfort food for both of us. I do make a gluten free, grain free version of chicken fingers with almond flour sometimes, but tonight I thought I'd try something different. Keeping with the coconut theme I've had lately, I decided to dredge the chicken in unsweetened dried shredded coconut. I didn't want them to be naked, so I wanted to make a sauce, but pan sauce or gravy didn't seem right - so I decided to make a spicy fruit chutney. The result is a tropical dish that's just right for these hot summer evenings!



COCONUT CHICKEN FINGERS
serves 2

ingredients:
1-1.5 lbs boneless skinless chicken breast cut into large strips (4-5 per breast depending on if they have the tenders attached or not)
2-3 T coconut flour
1-2 eggs, beaten (start with 1 and use the second if you start to run out)
1 cup unsweetened dried shredded coconut
1 tsp sea salt
coconut oil for cooking

Set up a dredging station with 3 bowls, one for coconut flour, one for egg, one for shredded coconut. Season the coconut flour with the salt.

Dredge each chicken finger first in coconut flour, then egg, then shredded coconut.

Heat a bunch of coconut oil in a large heavy bottomed skillet over medium/medium-high heat. Cook the chicken fingers until golden brown on each side. Do it in more than one batch if necessary and keep cooked chicken fingers warm on a foil lined baking sheet in an oven set to the lowest setting.

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SPICY FRUIT CHUTNEY
serves 4

2 cups of diced and peeled plums or nectarines or a mixture of the two
1/4 cup lemon juice
juice of 1/2 a lime
1/4 cup chopped dried apricots
2 inches of ginger root, peeled and minced
2 small dried red chili peppers (or 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper)
1 cinnamon stick
1/4 cup sweet white wine
pinch of sea salt
pinch of stevia, optional depending on if your fruit is really sour (taste before you add!)

Mix everything together in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, lower heat, and simmer uncovered for 30 minutes until thick. Discard dried chilis and cinnamon stick. Can be eaten warm or cold.

Recipe adapted from The Garden of Eating.

Coconutty Fruit Salad

I've been enjoying coconut lately (as you can see from my coconut milk ice cream!), and I came up with this yummy application the other day. I hardly eat fruit at all in the winter since everything is out of season but apples and pears, so when summer comes around I like to have a little fun. I've used a specialty ingredient in this fruit salad, which is coconut butter. It's just like any other nut butter in that it's the whole nut ground up into a paste. The kind I get is Artisana raw coconut butter, which is ground at low temperatures and supposedly retains all the coconutness of the coconut (you know, enzymes, vitamins, fiber, etc). I don't even know if any other companies make coconut butter. Anyway, if you can't find this stuff, I would substitute some unsweetened shredded coconut and maybe a few tablespoons of coconut milk (or even better, if you get the kind of coconut milk that separates in the can into a thick cream and a runny liquid, use only the thick cream).



COCONUTTY FRUIT SALAD

ingredients:
2 heaping cups mixed fruit (pictured is a heaping 1/2 cup each of blueberries, strawberries, red grapes and pineapple)
2 T raw coconut butter
1/4 cup toasted almonds

Cut your fruit any way you want it. Roughly chop the almonds. Gently warm the coconut butter until it becomes runny, then immediately toss with the fruit and nuts. The coldness of the fruit will make the coconut butter harden back up and stick to it like a shell. Dig in and enjoy! I've had this as breakfast, snack, and dinner side dish in the past few weeks. :)

Coconut Milk Ice Cream

I don't really find most sweet dessert type things appealing anymore (especially pastry - blech), but I still have a soft spot for ice cream. I just love the stuff. There is a brand of ice cream I can find at Whole Foods that's made with coconut milk instead of dairy or soy, but the sweetener is agave syrup, which I won't eat due to the extremely high fructose content and heavy processing it undergoes. So now that the weather has been hot I have been making little ice cream treats at home. Last week I made some strawberry ice cream using this recipe from Elana's Pantry but subbing raw honey for agave. It was very nice. This week though, I got some lavender from my CSA and I decided to make a honey lavender ice cream. Forget "very nice," this stuff is AWESOME. And it's completely dairy and agave free! I've used a custard base for it, so it's a little more complicated to make than Elana's recipe, but the result is decadent. The base of this paleo ice cream would be very nice even without the lavender and could serve as a jumping off point for other mix-ins/flavorings.



COCONUT MILK ICE CREAM
honey/lavender/vanilla version :)

1 14-oz can full fat coconut milk
2 eggs
1 vanilla bean, cut in half lengthwise
1 T chopped fresh lavender flowers, optional (1 tsp dried)
3 T raw honey (adjust up or down to taste, but less honey will make it freeze much harder in the freezer)
ice cream maker

Set up a double boiler by placing a heat proof bowl over a pot of simmering water (be sure it's simmering and not a full rolling boil, as this will give you better control later). Add the coconut milk and lavender to the bowl. Scrape the insides of the vanilla bean into the coconut milk, then throw in the whole bean pod as well. Stirring fairly frequently, heat until the coconut milk is hot but not boiling.

Meanwhile, whisk the eggs well in a separate bowl. Once the coconut milk is hot, add a ladleful to the eggs while you're whisking - you want to bring the eggs up to the temperature of the coconut milk without scrambling them. Add in another ladleful of hot coconut milk to the egg mixture while whisking. Take the now hot egg mixture and whisk it into the bowl of coconut milk on the double boiler.

Now, whisk constantly until the mixture thickens to a custard. This may take several minutes. If it's getting too hot and starting to scramble, remove from the heat immediately but keep whisking, then return it to the double boiler. Once it has thickened to a custard, remove the bowl from the heat and let it cool.

Remove the vanilla bean pods. Once the custard is cool enough for you to stick your finger in it and hold it there without burning, whisk in the raw honey. Put the custard base in the refrigerator or freezer until it gets cold. Freeze in your ice cream machine per the manufacturer's instructions.

Straight out of the machine this ice cream has a creamy soft serve texture. If you store it in the freezer for later, just let it sit at room temperature for about 10 minutes before eating to let it soften up a little bit.

Son of Grok's Carrot Cake Caveman Cookies

I made these Carrot Cake Caveman Cookies from SoG's blog today:



Go check out the recipe! I think these are more like muffin tops than cookies. No matter what you call them they're pretty yummy.

My tweaks:
I used regular carrots instead of baby carrots
I used 1T pumpkin pie spice instead of nutmeg
I added 1/4 tsp stevia extract

Primal Peach Patties

I was cruising around yesterday trying to find more paleo blogs when I came upon Son of Grok. I can't believe I had never seen it before! Anyway, this recipe for Primal Peach Patties caught my eye so I decided to make them today.



Man are they good! The recipe says it makes 10 patties, but I got 13. Only 12 would fit on my baking sheet though, so I just ate the last one uncooked and it was absolutely delicious. I did add a smidge of salt to mine because I'm a salt junky.

I'm hoping to pack some of these for my husband to eat for breakfast. They seem like they would make a very nice dessert as well.

Mostly Paleo Muffins

I say these are only mostly paleo because they do use baking powder/soda and flavoring extracts, which I doubt our cavemen buddies had access to. They are very tasty however, and and make a nice breakfast alternative to eggs or leftovers. I don't make them all the time, because let's face it, a muffin is a muffin! So eat these with care. I was procrastinating on writing this post because I have not felt the urge to eat pans of muffins myself, but I decided to just go ahead and write it anyway and try to find some old pictures to show you.

Note: I use maple syrup or raw honey as my sweeteners of choice. I do not use agave nectar because it can be up to 90% fructose; fructose is processed in the liver instead of the bloodstream and has many deleterious effects.



recipe makes 6 muffins

PUMPKIN CRANBERRY MUFFINS:
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1 1/2 cups almond flour
3/4 cup pureed pumpkin (you can used canned, but make sure to get just plain pumpkin and not pumpkin pie filling)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
3 eggs
1/4-1/3 cup maple syrup or honey depending on your sweet tooth
1 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped cranberries

Preheat oven to 350.

Mix together all the ingredients except for the cranberries until smooth. Fold in the cranberries.

Spoon batter into 6 greased muffin cups (I use coconut oil) and bake for 20-25 minutes.

These are very soft and cakey muffins. I think that cutting them in half and toasting them is very nice since it gives it little crisp edges.

Variations:
Banana nut muffins - use pureed bananas in place of the pumpkin, chopped walnuts in place of cranberries, and omit the pie spice.
Flax muffins - replace up to 1/2 cup of the almond flour with ground flax seeds

Recipe adapted from Eating Stella Style by George Stella.

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recipe makes 6 muffins

COCONUT MUFFINS:
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1 1/2 cups almond flour
1/2 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
1 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1/4-1/3 cup maple syrup or honey depending on your sweet tooth
1 1/2 tsp coconut extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp salt
2 T coconut oil

Preheat oven to 350.

Mix together all ingredients until smooth.

Pour into 6 muffin cups greased with coconut oil and bake for 15-20 minutes.

Recipe adapted from Eating Stella Style by George Stella.

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recipe makes 12 muffins

LEMON POUND CAKE MUFFINS:
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I don't have a picture for these. This is an experimental recipe. The original recipe is from a low-carb book and uses butter and Splenda. I am 99% certain that you can subsitute paleo ingredients and end up with a tasty product, but I have only tried the original version and haven't made the paleo version yet. If anyone wants to try making these, let us know how they turn out!

2 cups almond flour
stevia to equal the sweetness of 1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
scant 1/2 tsp salt
1 cup coconut oil (original recipe is 1 cup butter)
1/3 cup maple syrup or honey (original recipe is 2/3 cup Splenda)
2 T lemon zest, or about 2 medium lemons' worth
1 tsp lemon juice
5 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350.

Whisk together almond flour, stevia, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Meanwhile, melt the coconut oil.

In a food processor, process maple syrup or honey with the lemon zest until combined. Add lemon juice, eggs, and vanilla. Process until combined.

With the food processor running, add the melted coconut oil in a steady stream. This should take at least 20 seconds.

Transfer mixture to a large bowl and gradually stir almond flour mixture into the wet mixture.

Grease 12 muffin cups with coconut oil and distribute batter equally among the cups.

Bake 10 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 325 and continue baking til done, keeping an eye on it, about 20-25 minutes. The time can vary a lot so be sure to keep an eye on it and don't let it burn.

Recipe adapted from 500 More Low-Carb Recipes by Dana Carpender.

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Happy eating!

Butternut Souffle

Sorry I've been a little MIA! My husband and I went on a mini vacation to the mountains in Asheville, NC to get away from work for a little while and enjoy fall in the mountains. Asheville was a real treat, too. They are very big into local organic food there and almost every restaurant we went to proudly touted the menu items made from local ingredients. My kind of city!

Anyway I'm back in the kitchen now. I gotta say it was nice not having to cook and do dishes for a week. :) Here is something I made today from leftovers that turned out exceedingly well.



BUTTERNUT SOUFFLE
serves 2-3 as a side dish

approx 1 cup of butternut squash puree (canned is fine)
2 eggs
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp mustard powder
1 tsp paprika
2 T coconut milk
handful of chopped pecans

Beat together all the ingredients except for the pecans. Spread into a small greased baking dish or ramekin. Sprinkle the nuts on top. Bake at 350 for 35 minutes.

This would work great as a side dish for dinner, but I was a little piggy and ate the whole thing for lunch today.

Coconut Chicken Curry

serves 2

Coconut chicken curry over zucchini noodles. I used to do something similar using a prepackaged curry paste, but I tried making my own and it turned out even better and had no iffy ingredients. :)

curry:
3 T coconut oil
1 small onion, thinly sliced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 inch of ginger root, minced
2 T salt free curry powder
1 cinnamon stick
5 small dried red chilis
1 heaping T tomato paste
sea salt and pepper to taste
1 large carrot, thickly sliced
1/4 small head of green cabbage, chopped
1 can coconut milk
1 cup chicken broth
2 chicken breasts, cut into chunks
1 cup frozen okra*
juice of 1 lime

Heat the oil in a deep skillet and fry the onions, garlic, and ginger until soft. Add the curry, cinnamon, chilis, tomato paste, salt/pepper and saute until fragrant. Add the coconut milk, broth, carrot, and cabbage and simmer uncovered for 20 minutes to thicken. Add the chicken, okra, and 1/2 the lime juice and simmer uncovered for 10-15 minutes. Taste and adjust seasonings with salt/lime juice.

*Okra seems like an acquired taste, but it's one that both my husband and I love. Okra has a unique thickening property though, so if you want to make this without the okra it might turn out a little runnier.

noodles:
2 small zucchinis

Put the zucchinis through a spiralizer (or julienne them with a knife or mandoline). Put in a microwave safe container with a lid and microwave for 2 minutes. If you don't use a microwave, you can steam them for a few minutes or saute them in another skillet. You just want to soften them a little.

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I based my recipe off of this one from the Food Network: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/spicy-chicken-coconut-curry-recipe/index.html