slow roasted pork shoulder

I keep meaning to get back to regular posting, but 4-month old babies keep you surprisingly busy. ;) There's not much time for cooking, much less writing blog posts! Luckily this pork shoulder has minimal hands-on time and will feed a small army. You prep it the night before you want to eat and just stick it in the oven the next morning.

SLOW ROASTED PORK SHOULDER

serves: lots

ingredients:
8-10 lb pork shoulder
3 small onions or 1 large onion, sliced
2 oranges, peel left on, sliced
6 cloves of garlic, minced
1 T fennel seeds
salt and pepper

method:
Place the onions and oranges on the bottom of a roasting pan. Score the fat side of the pork in a diamond pattern and place it on top of the onions/oranges. Rub the garlic and fennel into the pork and season with salt and pepper. Cover and marinate overnight in the fridge. The next day, uncover and roast at 275 degrees for 7-8 hours.

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The pork will be almost meltingly tender and the fat nice and crispy. You can serve it right away with the juices from the pan. Leftovers firm up in the fridge and are great browned in a skillet with a little lard. Put it in lettuce wraps with pickled hot peppers and olives. Or you can add some cumin when reheating and use the meat for taco salad along with your favorite toppings. Leftovers are also great in hash. It's very versatile!

before:


after:


*recipe from Wegman's*

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!

Apple glazed turkey breast

I've been loving the fall food lately, if you can't tell. :) I think fall definitely has my favorite foods and favorite flavors! The glaze, or sauce, in this recipe really makes otherwise dry turkey breast very moist and delicious.



serves 2

2 turkey breast cutlets, 4-6 oz each
1/4 cup apple juice (or the juice of 1 medium/large apple)
1/4 cup chicken stock
1 clove of garlic, minced
2 T fresh tarragon, minced
1/2 tsp fresh ginger, grated
salt and pepper
extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp of arrowroot powder, optional

Make the sauce by whisking the apple juice, chicken stock, garlic, tarragon and ginger together in a small bowl.

Heat a heavy bottomed skillet over medium high heat until good and hot. Add enough olive oil that your meat won't stick (I used about 1T in my cast iron). Salt and pepper the turkey cutlets and sear 2 minutes on each side, then remove to a plate.

Reduce the heat to medium and add the sauce to the pan. Stir to loosen any bits from the bottom, and when the sauce comes to a boil add the turkey cutlets back to the pan. Cook for a few more minutes until the turkey is done through and the sauce has boiled down. If the sauce has boiled down too far, add a little more chicken stock. To tighten up a loose sauce, dissolve the arrowroot powder in 1T cold water, whisk into the sauce and simmer until thickened.

recipe inspired by Low Carb High Flavor Recipes Made Easy by Fiona Carns

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Along with the turkey, we had some steamed broccoli that I just lightly salted and then drizzled with a little cold pressed macadamia nut oil. We also had pumpkin mashed potatoes, which I made by mashing together a mixture of 1/2 white potato and 1/2 pumpkin and then adding salt, chicken stock, a little fresh grated ginger and a little extra virgin olive oil (woulda been better with butter, but it was still good!). If potatoes aren't for you, you could use cauliflower instead.

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

Primal Challenge Day 3 plus steak fajita and tomatillo salsa recipes

weight: 135 lbs (no change)

breakfast: none


lunch:
*leftover beer-marinated steak
*salad - escarole, radicchio, endive, carrot, celery, cucumber, balsamic vinegar, extra virgin olive oil and ground cherries - I've never had ground cherries before but I got them in my CSA and had no idea what to do with them so I threw them in the salad. They were good! Kinda tomatillo-y.
*roasted unsalted almonds
*mug of black tea

snack: none


dinner:
*beef fajita strips
*avocado tossed with sea salt and lime juice
*spicy tomatillo salsa
*sliced tomato with sea salt, black pepper, and exra virgin olive oil

dessert: none

For the fajitas I mostly used this recipe for the marinade: http://www.texascooking.com/recipes/fajitamar1.htm, but I added a jalapeno and a handful of cilantro and a splash of triple sec. I marinated 1.5 lbs skirt steak in it all afternoon, then patted it dry and seared it in a cast iron skillet for 5 minutes on each side. While the meat rested, I poured the leftover marinade back into the pan and let it bubble down a little as I scraped the bottom. Then I sliced the steak and tossed it back in the pan and heated it in the reduced marinade for about 2 minutes. It was great!

I also made some spicy tomatillo salsa because I needed to use up some tomatillos that we got in our CSA. I used this recipe from Rick Bayless: http://topchefs.chef2chef.net/recipes/rbayless/roasted-tomatillo-salsa.htm It is really killer! Super spicy and a great flavor. I think I followed it exactly, for once.

I've been having tomatoes as side dishes a lot because we get them in our CSA and cooked tomatoes give me heartburn.

exercise:
Went to the county parks and recreation website and found a public pool. Paid $8 and swam a few laps then soaked up some sun. Yay vitamin D! Also, I suck at swimming and found it unreasonably exhausting. I could only do 1 full lap without stopping. After that I had to stop halfway across the pool each time. Even so I only managed 4.5 laps. Well you gotta start somewhere, right?

Also I walked 1.5 miles. My butt is sore today from all the walking I did yesterday. Shrink butt, shrink!

Primal Challenge Day 2

I think I'm going to do most measurements weekly rather than daily, but I will track my weight daily.

weight: 135 lbs (-1.4)

breakfast: none


lunch:
salad - escarole, radicchio, endive, carrots, celery, cucumbers, bacon, balsamic vinegar, extra virgin olive oil
topped with leftover steak from last night's dinner
roasted unsalted almonds
primal limeade - water, lime juice, stevia


snack:
chai - coconut chai teabag, heavy cream, stevia
homemade beef jerky
1 oz cheddar cheese


dinner:
barbecue skillet - onions and cabbage browned in ghee, kielbasa, chicken, pinch of bbq rub, 2T of bbq sauce, topped with shredded cheddar


dessert:
baked raspberries and peaches topped with grated dark chocolate and mint leaves; I used a 6oz container of raspberries and 1 peach for 2 people

exercise:
4.3 miles of strenuous walking, part of it uphill. Really got my heart rate up and the sweat was pouring off me!

Primal Challenge Day 1

Age: 26
Height: 5 feet 7 inches
Weight: 136.4 lbs
Waist at narrowest point: 27 in
Waist at navel: 30.5 in
Hips: 36 in

Breakfast:
none


Lunch:
Large salad - butter lettuce, radicchio, carrot, celery, squid, bacon, balsamic vinegar, extra virgin olive oil
cherries
roasted unsalted almonds
primal lemonade - water, lemon juice, stevia


Snack:
Homemade beef jerky (this batch didn't turn out very well or I'd give you the recipe)


Dinner:
Beer marinated flap steak
Cucumber salad with parsley, mint, extra virgin olive oil and rice vinegar
Sliced tomato with salt, pepper and extra virgin olive oil


Dessert:
87% dark chocolate
peppermint/lemongrass/ginger tea

Exercise:
bodyweight workout that I modified from Son of Grok that I did for 7 minutes - 5 pushups, wall sit for 10 seconds, 20 jumping jacks, 5 stand ups, rest 30 seconds
walked about 1.5 miles

So, you may have noticed that sneaky little word in my big lunch salad...squid?! Well I was at Whole Foods yesterday and as usual I walked by the seafood counter on my way to the butcher case. I usually give it a desultory glance and move on. Yesterday, I noticed a pretty little pile of meat and tentacles at a shockingly low price and I felt a kind of madness steal over me. Before I knew what was happening I found myself telling the fish guy to give me half a pound of squid. I've never bought or cooked squid before in my life. I ended up broiling it, but I think I must have cooked it too long because it got a little rubbery. It was fine tossed in my salad though since I drowned it out with bacon and balsamic vinegar. :)

The steak recipe I used for dinner is reallllllly good. The marinade does include beer though, so if wheat=death for you it might not be your cup of tea.

Overall, I think day 1 has been a success. :)

Spicy burgers with basil mayonnaise

Made these spicy pork and beef burgers today from N1Kitchen.

They were yum! For the mayonnaise I took the idea and used my own mayo recipe (the one from The Garden of Eating), using half extra virgin olive oil and half cold pressed macadamia oil. I find 100% EVOO mayos much too strong and the macadamia cuts down on that nicely while still remaining a mostly monounsaturated oil. Too bad macadamia oil is so $$$ or I'd use it more often.

We had the burgers with shredded cabbage that I parboiled and then tossed with some of the basil mayo and some steamed broccoli.

We devoured it before I remembered to take a picture, but I thought the recipe was so good I wanted to share it anyway! We were licking the plates clean.

One Local Summer Week 6 - Pork Chili Verde

I got busy with holiday stuff last weekend and missed out on making a One Local Summer meal, so I'm getting back into the swing of it this week. We have lots of good local food in the house right now - picked up a freezer full of meat from my Polyface Farm dropoff this weekend, bought some nice fruit at the Columbia Pike Farmer's Market today, and I still have a few things leftover from my CSA dropoff last Monday.



This week it seemed like the farmer's market was full of peppers, squash and tomatoes. I already had squash and garlic at home from my CSA, so I went with the peppers today and decided to make some chili verde. I got peppers and onions from Westmoreland Vegetables (couldn't find a website for them) and tomatillos from another farmer's market stand that didn't have a sign and I don't know what the name of the farm was. The lard, pork and chicken stock are all Polyface.


(the squash isn't in the picture, I forgot it in the fridge! it was green and just about the size of my forearm)

PORK CHILI VERDE

ingredients:
2 T lard
1 onion, chopped
2 poblano peppers, chopped
2 cubanelle peppers, chopped
2 Anaheim peppers, chopped
1 jalapeno pepper, minced
6 tomatillos, chopped finely
1 green summer squash, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 lb ground pork
2-4 cups chicken stock (depending on how thick you like it)
1 tsp cumin
2 tsp dried oregano or 2 T fresh oregano
1 tsp sea salt

Heat the lard in a Dutch oven and brown all the vegetables except the squash and garlic until they start to get soft. Add the garlic and cook for a minute until fragrant. Add the pork and cook until no longer pink. Add the chicken stock and seasonings, bring to a boil, lower heat, and simmer for 1 hour.

Some good non local toppings: fresh cilantro, diced avocado, lime juice



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For dessert I cracked open that big ole watermelon you see up top and cubed it up and we went to town. Seeds everywhere. Ugly, but good. :)

a bunch of old meal pics

I was going through some of my old pictures today and I found some that I took before I started my blog. I don't intend to really write any of them up as individual posts, but I thought people might be interested in seeing them to get ideas. If you want to see them in a bigger size just click on the picture.


Steak, mustardy mushrooms, salad with almonds and I think tahini dressing.


Blended salad soup. It was, um, an experiment. An experiment gone horribly awry.


Shopping haul.


Fried eggs, blackberries and strawberries with mint, sauerkraut, cucumbers with a drizzle of olive oil.


Ribeye steak, raw fennel salad, roasted green beans and potatoes.


Salmon on a bed of collards cooked with onions and cranberries, garnished with grated carrots and pea shoots. I remember trying to make this picture look fancy but I don't remember why!


Tuna salad and pea shoots wrapped in nori seaweed and a salad with walnuts and tahini dressing.


Pork tenderloin with cinnamon applesauce, sauteed red cabbage, parsley soup. I remember my applesauce recipe for this was awesome (maybe I'll dig it out and post it), but the parsley soup was kind of gross.


Scrambled eggs topped with bacon and a side salad topped with Trader Joe's balsamic frozen veggie mix.


Fried egg with parsley on top of braised swiss chard.


Fried egg on top of sauteed mixed veggies, walnuts and a pear.

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.

One Local Summer - Week Four

One of the nice things about blogging on my own schedule is that I can wait until I have something good to show you before posting about it. Since I'm not posting on my on schedule with this One Local Summer thing, this week you get to see some of my blah food.



I guess it doesn't look too bad, but it was just meh. We had green onion burgers made with ground beef from Smith Meadows Farms, lots of green onions from our CSA and held together with an egg from our CSA. On the side was a little slaw made with kohlrabi and basil from our CSA and a touch of extra virgin olive oil and vinegar. We also had some lovely golden zucchini from Red Rake Farm with some more CSA basil, sauteed up with a little lard that I rendered from Polyface pork fat. Nothing was bad exactly, but there is nothing here I would make again.

The golden zucchini I got from Red Rake Farm were so pretty. The guy told me that the day before they had been about an inch or two long and they literally quadrupled in size overnight!



I hope he has some more next week so that I can find something yummier to do with them. :) In the mean time, check out what other Southern folks are getting up to this summer at last week's roundup.

One Local Summer - Week Three

This week for One Local Summer I had a near miss that turned into a delicious hit! I love making great tasting food that's from local producers and also healthy and paleo - gluten and dairy free.



The star of dinner tonight was a roasted chicken from Polyface Farms. I rinsed and dried the chicken and then generously salted and peppered it inside and out. The outside I wrapped in bacon from EcoFriendly Foods and the inside I stuffed with two of the season's first peaches from Westmoreland Berry Farm. Into the oven at 425 for 30 minutes, then I reduced the heat to 350 and roasted it for an additional hour.

The plan was to end up with delicious bacon-wrapped chicken and some roasty peach chunks. My oven had other plans!

Now, I've made bacon wrapped chicken before and it's always turned out, but this time for some reason the bacon shriveled to itty bitty bacon cinders and became inedible. So not only did I have burned bacon, but I had flabby chicken skin. Erg. I removed the peaches from the chicken and noticed they were not roasty at all either. My plans had been foiled, but I thought there had to be some way to salvage this food. After a moment's pondering I set the bacon cinders aside and carved the chicken into two leg quarters, two breasts, and two wings. I put the chicken pieces on a foil lined baking sheet and put them back in the oven to turn the flabby skin crispy. What to do with the peaches...aha! Gravy!

To make the gravy, I took the peaches from the chicken cavity and heated them in a small saucepan with a good spoonful of drippings from the roasting pan and 1/4 cup sweet white wine from Rose Bank Winery along with a pinch of salt and about 1 inch of cinnamon stick. I put the heat to low, covered it, and let it simmer while I went to work on the veggie sides. I don't know if Rose Bank Winery can be considered local to northern Virginia, but we used to live about 3 minutes away from this winery and we bought a whole case of the wine that we're still working on! So it was local to us at one point. :)

To get our leafy greens in for the day I made some braised kale from Pleasant Fields Farm. First I sauteed some baby onions from our CSA in the chicken/bacon drippings, then added the kale and a little water, covered, and let it braise for about 15 minutes.

To add some freshness to the meal, I made a quick cucumber salad using crispy little Persian cucumbers from Toigo Orchards. They are so snappy and delicious! I tossed them with some chopped orange mint from Red Rake Farm, a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, and a splash of rice vinegar. Red Rake Farm is one of my favorite stands at the Arlington Farmer's Market. It's all organic and their produce looks more "real" to me than some of the other places for some reason. And the owner, Peter, is always ready with a smile and story. Much nicer than shopping at a grocery store!



Once the veggies were ready, the chicken skin was crispy and the peaches were nice and broken down for the gravy, and dinner was served! I think everything tied together very nicely - the crispy chicken skin with the sweet warm peach gravy, the tender kale, and the cool fresh cucumbers. My husband even ate the bacon cinders and said they kind of tasted like pork rinds. Success!

One Local Summer - Week Two

I kind of slacked on One Local Summer this week. I was expecting an abundance of veggies from my CSA, which just started this past Monday, but instead all I got was a handful of salad greens, some garlic scapes, and a head of Chinese cabbage. It's been a rough, wet spring here in Virginia. So I headed to the farmer's market on Saturday (yesterday) morning to get some goodies for this week's local meal.



My planned meal included spicy chipotle chorizo made from free range buffalo and pork from Cibola Farms. I also picked up some red potatoes and curly kale from Pleasant Fields Farm. I was going to cut the potatoes and sausage into chunks and roast them together and serve them on a bed of braised kale. Alas, my meal was not to be. My husband and I decided to go to The National Zoo today and ogle the cute animals, which delayed lunch until 3:30 p.m. - a time falling squarely into what we refer to as "the black hole of eating." Neither of us was hungry for dinner in the slightest, so our local feast will just have to wait until tomorrow. Too bad the post can't wait for tomorrow, but OLS has a deadline. ;)

To see what other people in my region (Southern) have been up to, check out last week's roundup!

Salsa Pulled Pork

This is probably the easiest recipe I'll ever share with you, and also one of the most delicious and rewarding!



SALSA PULLED PORK

ingredients:
1 jar of your favorite salsa
1 pork tenderloin

Quantities are not exact and don't matter anyway. Put the pork into a crockpot, dump the salsa on top, and cook it on LOW for 6-8 hours. When you're ready to eat, just shred the meat with two forks.

The meat is tender and delicious and people will think you put some serious effort into cooking, but it just couldn't be any easier.

Meal idea: broiled pesto shrimp

This post is more of a meal idea than an actual recipe. It's really quick to put together and have a dinner in minutes! The basic premise is to thaw out some frozen raw shrimp, toss them in pesto, and broil them for 3 minutes (or until they turn pink). That's it! You're done! For pesto, I usually just throw whatever herb we have that looks good into a food processor along with whatever nuts I have. Tonight I had a big bunch of parsley, so I threw that in there with a handful of walnuts and a few green onions for bite, lemon zest and juice and a pinch of red pepper flakes for kick, and extra virgin olive oil to thin it to the right consistency. If you really like pesto, you can make a lot at once and freeze it in an ice cube tray, then pop the cubes out and store in a baggie - this way you can grab both the shrimp and the pesto from the freezer at the same time and make this even more of a convenience meal.

I had some extra pesto tonight so I chopped up some zucchini and yellow summer squash, tossed them in the extra pesto, and broiled them too. We also had a fennel salad on the side. Just thinly slice a fennel bulb and dress with extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice. You can add some minced parsley, fennel fronds, or lemon zest if you want to get a little bit fancy.

Jamaican Ribs

I really like ribs, but I hardly ever eat them since they're almost always covered in some kind of sweet sugary sauce. They intimidated me for some reason, so I never considered cooking some myself - they just seemed like they required a lot of equipment I don't have, like a grill or a smoker. Well I finally got over my fear of cooking healthy sugarless ribs at home with the following recipe. It uses a Jamaican inspired marinade followed by slow oven cooking to produce some nice tender ribs with a pleasing herby crust. I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I did!



serves 2

ingredients:
1.5 lbs pork baby back ribs
1 T dried thyme
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground or crushed coriander
1/2 cup water
2 T extra virgin olive oil

Combine all the ingredients in a plastic bag and marinate for at least 1 hour, but 3 hours is better. Preheat the oven to 290 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a baking sheet with foil and lightly oil it with some extra olive oil. Lay the ribs on the baking sheet and cover tightly with foil. Bake for 2 hours. Remove from the oven and drain any liquid. Heat up the broiler. Broil ribs meaty side up for 5 minutes to crisp up.

You can double this easily and make some tasty leftovers. I had some leftovers for lunch the next day and they were great.

Recipe is adapted from Eating Stella Style by George Stella.

This recipe is part of the Natural Cures Healthy Recipe Blog Carnival over at Hartke is Online!

Chicken and Kale Sofrito (aka kale con pollo)

Ok, I know it's not much of an excuse, but I haven't been posting because I lost my camera. Again. I visited my family and left my camera in the back of my mom's car. I just don't like doing blog posts without pictures! They're the best part!

I've also been experimenting with a very high fat/very moderate protein diet (The Optimal Diet by Dr. Jan Kwasniewski, aka "Polish Atkins") and I've been eating dairy for the past two weeks, so you probably didn't want to hear about what I was eating anyway. ;) I think my experiment with that is over...I did lose a pound or two, but I forgot how oogy dairy makes me feel.

Anyway, here is a nice dinner you can make. The recipe is just a loose guideline; this is really a dish you just want to feel out.



CHICKEN AND KALE SOFRITO (aka kale con pollo)

I love watching Daisy Martinez's cooking show on PBS, and I kind of made this up based on general principles from her style of Puerto Rican cooking.

First of all, you have to make Daisy's sofrito and her achiote oil, which you can find here http://www.daisycooks.com/pages/recipes_detail.cfm?ID=1 and here http://www.daisycooks.com/pages/recipes_detail.cfm?ID=2 Sofrito is a wonderful fresh sauce/condiment made out of onions, peppers, tomatoes, garlic, cilantro, etc. The recipe makes a ton, but it freezes well. Achiote oil is just extra virgin olive oil gently warmed with annatto seeds until it becomes a deep amber color and picks up the flavor of the seeds.

Puerto Rican cooking would traditionally use rice as the base for this dish (arroz con pollo), but since this is paleo we're talking about here, I used a base of shredded kale instead. I just used one bunch of dino kale cut very finely.

So here are the ingredients for two people:
4 T achiote oil, divided
1 lb chicken drumsticks
salt and pepper
1/2 cup sofrito
jarred olive salad (mixed olives with roasted peppers, seasonings, etc)
jarred capers
one bunch of kale, shredded

Heat 2 T achiote oil, salt and pepper the chicken, and brown well on all sides. Remove the chicken from the pan.

Reduce the heat to medium and add the sofrito to the pan, deglazing with the juices. Add the remaining 2 T achiote oil and let the liquid cook off until the sofrito starts to sizzle. Add in some olive salad and capers to taste and a little of the olive salad liquid. Add the kale to the pan and stir to coat.

Nestle the chicken on top of the kale, put a lid on the pan, lower the heat, and cook for 10 minutes. In the last 5 minutes of cooking, heat the broiler up. Once the chicken and kale has steamed for 10 minutes, put the whole pan under the broiler for 4-5 minutes to crisp the skin up.

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My husband declared this the best chicken I've ever made. Hopefully it has inspired you to make something delicious with sofrito as well!

Taco Salad and Homemade Taco Seasoning

Taco night is one of my favorite nights. :) I love setting out all the different fixins in their little bowls and letting everyone go down the line and construct their own. Since I have yet to find a paleo version of a tortilla, I usually just do taco salad now. Big bed of lettuce, big scoop of taco meat, and then pile on the condiments. Cheese, sour cream and refried beans are out, so instead I set out things like guacamole, chopped tomatoes, chopped scallions, salsa, hot sauce, lime wedges, chopped cilantro, olives, even crumbled bacon (is there anything that doesn't go with bacon?).

The most problematic element in this equation is the taco meat. Those little premade packets of taco seasoning that you can get at the store are full of fillers and salt. Luckily, it's dead easy to make your own.



TACO SEASONING

ingredients:
2 T chili powder
1-1/2 T cumin
1-1/2 T paprika
1 T onion powder
1 T garlic powder
2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

Just put everything in a container and shake to combine! To make taco meat, mix 3 T of the mixture with 1 lb of ground meat and salt to taste. Just brown the meat, add the seasonings and 1/4 cup of water, and simmer for 5 minutes.

Recipe is adapted from 500 Low Carb Recipes by Dana Carpender.

Lamb Kabobs with Paleo Mint Pesto

Lamb and mint are a natural pairing and they go together perfectly in this dish. This was one of those dinners where you're sad when it's over because you're not still eating it!



LAMB KABOBS WITH PALEO MINT PESTO
serves 2 people for dinner with 1 portion leftover for lunch :)

ingredients:
~1.5 lbs lamb stew meat or boneless leg of lamb cut into chunks
any mix of your favorite kabob vegetables - I used chunks of zucchini and yellow squash, but tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, etc would all be good too

1 bunch of fresh mint (about 1.5 cups)
1 big handful of fresh parsley (about 1 cup)
juice of half a lemon
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic, peeled
1/2 tsp salt
pinch of red pepper flakes

In a food processor or blender, combine mint, parsley, lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, salt, and red pepper flakes and turn into a coarse puree

Combine the pesto with the lamb and vegetables and leave to marinate 2 hours or overnight.

Preheat your broiler. Line a large baking sheet with foil. Drain the lamb and vegetables (reserving the marinade), place on the baking sheet, and broil 7-10 minutes or until desired doneness.

Recipe is heavily adapted from "5 Square Low Carb Meals" by Monica Lynn.

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In the old days I would have eaten this with rice, so instead I made up some cauliflower rice to act as a bed for all the delicious juices.

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CAULIFLOWER RICE
serves 2

ingredients:
1/2 head of cauliflower, grated
reserved pesto marinade
1/4 cup chicken stock
extra virgin olive oil

Heat 1-2 T of olive oil in a large pan and start to saute the grated cauliflower over medium heat. After the pan has gotten nice and hot, add the reserved pesto and the chicken stock. Continue sauteing, stirring, until the cauliflower is al dente. Don't cook it too long or it will turn to mush. I estimate this takes 5-7 minutes, but just taste it as you go and pull it off the heat when it's done.