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

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. :)

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.

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.

Turkey or Pork Breakfast Sausage

My husband likes sausage for breakfast, but it's hard to find pre-made breakfast sausage that isn't full of questionable additives, fillers, and/or nitrates. This breakfast sausage recipe is really easy to make and contains none of those iffy ingredients. I make up 1 or 2 pounds at a time and keep them in the fridge for up to about a week. If you want to make up even more at a time, you can freeze the patties in an airtight container separated by layers of parchment paper.



Turkey or Pork Breakfast Sausage

ingredients:
1 lb ground turkey or pork
1 tsp onion powder or 1 T onion flakes
1/4 tsp each cumin, black pepper, nutmeg, oregano, red pepper flakes, and ground ginger
1-1/2 tsp poultry seasoning (or 1/2 tsp each dried basil, thyme, and sage)
1-1/2 tsp sea salt
1 egg, lightly beaten

Mix all ingredients together and chill for at least an hour to let the flavors meld. Form it into patties and saute until nicely browned on both sides. If you use turkey you might need to grease the pan a little, but if you use pork it should produce enough of its own fat.

Recipe is adapted from Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon.

Adventures in leftovers - Paleo Chicken Croquettes

I roasted a whole chicken and the hubby and I ate the breasts and wings with all the yummy crispy skin, which left us the leg quarters as leftovers. Now, I'm always stymied when it comes to leftover dark meat. I like chicken legs when they're still hot, but when you use them for leftovers in the old standards (chicken salad, fajitas, soup) they have a texture I find unappealing. I was flipping through some old cookbooks and I found a recipe for cooked chicken called chicken croquettes, which are basically meatballs made with cooked chicken meat. Perfect for my texture problems! The only problem is that traditional croquettes are held together with bechemal sauce (flour, butter, and milk/cream) and bread crumbs, and the outsides are usually breaded as well. I was undeterred and decided to come up with a paleo version. Now, I've never had a real croquette so I don't know how my version compares to the "real" one, but I thought these were pretty darn tasty. I spiced mine up with some Southwestern seasonings, but these are unnecessary to the overall dish.



Paleo Chicken Croquettes

Start these a few hours or the day before you want to eat as the mixture needs to chill in the fridge. Makes approximately 12 croquettes.

ingredients:
2 leftover chicken leg quarters, skinned and meat torn off the bones (save the bones for soup stock!)
1/2 a small onion
1/2 - 1 cup of mushrooms
2 T mayonnaise (I think really thick coconut milk would probably work as well...you know, the solid stuff that sits on top of the liquid in the can)
1 chipotle pepper canned in adobo, minced
1/2 - 1 tsp adobo seasoning (basically a mixture of salt, garlic powder, and cumin)
1 egg
olive oil

Pulse the onion and mushroom in a food processor until very finely chopped. These are standing in for your bread crumbs. Heat up a little olive oil in a skillet and gently saute the mushroom/onion mixture until it is cooked through and starting to brown.

Meanwhile, put the cooked chicken meat in the food processor and pulse until it starts to kind of look like bread crumbs. Add the mayonnaise, chipotle pepper, adobo seasoning, and egg and pulse to combine. Add the cooked onion/mushroom mixture and pulse to combine again. Scoop the chicken mixture into a container with a lid and refrigerate for 2 hours or overnight.

When the time comes for cooking, heat some olive oil up in a skillet. Using two spoons, scoop up the chicken mixture and shape it into quenelles. Don't know what I'm talking about? Here's a link that explains how to make a quenelle: http://www.chefspencil.com/recipes/NDUy/QuenellesHowTo.aspx Why do I do it this way? Well, three reasons. The first one is that I don't have to get my hands dirty. The second is that it looks really nice. And the third is that it makes it very easy to brown the meatballs evenly on three sides. Anyway, just brown your croquettes/quenelles on all three sides and set on a paper towel lined plate to drain. Enjoy!

What I've been eating: Feb 19, 2009

Once again I've been remiss in my blogging! My mom and little brother came down for a visit over President's Day weekend and they threw me completely out of my groove. That's ok, family wins out over groove any day! Anyway, the cooking has not stopped completely in the past week or so, so I'll dish out another bullet list of stuff we've been eating around here. Maybe I'll make this a regular thing!

Scotch eggs - Well, it's just me eating these. My husband wouldn't eat an egg if you paid him $20. Basically you hardboil some eggs and then encase them in raw sausage meat. Then you bake them in the oven until the sausage is cooked through. I grab two for a quick breakfast or lunch.

Shepherd's pie - Traditional shepherd's pie has a mashed potato crust. I made my crust with rutabaga and turnip and also added in some roasted garlic cloves. Yum yum. Sautee your veggies in a pan (onions, celery, carrots are good choices) and then deglaze with beef stock or red wine. Add in some ground meat and brown. Add some herbs for flavor (sage is good) arrowroot if you want a thick gravy. Top with your mashed root veggies and bake until bubbly!

Fruit crumble - As previously blogged here. This week's had blueberries, apples, and frozen strawberries. Topping was pecans, almonds, prunes, and a splash of pomegranate juice.

Pomegranate juice - As good as my eating is in other areas, I have yet to completely kick the diet soda habit. This week I finally found a drink that keeps the diet soda craving severely at bay. I fill a big glass up with water and then add maybe 1 oz of pomegranate juice. It's just enough to flavor the water but not enough to be too sugary. This drink helped me cut down from my usual one soda per day to maybe three sodas this week. Maybe soon it will be no sodas at all. :)

Pork chops and mashed celeriac - This is my favorite dinner we had recently. I coated some pork chops with grill seasoning and seared them in bacon fat. Then I made a gravy from the pan drippings with mustard, white wine, and some arrowroot to thicken. On the side we had mashed celeriac (celery root). I cubed a celeriac, boiled it until tender, and pureed it in the food processor with some roasted garlic cloves (I also used a little bit of butter, but if I wasn't going to use dairy at all I would have used more bacon grease or some olive oil). It was deeeeee-licious. The celeriac had a great texture, almost exactly like mashed potatoes but with a hint of celery flavor. We also had a side salad, but it was just filler for this meal. :)

Paleo Spaghetti

This is my favorite recipe for spaghetti. I usually serve the sauce over spaghetti squash, but I think it's also really good on top of steamed broccoli. Leftover sauce is yummy on or in eggs.

For a nutritional boost, lately I've been adding in 1/4 lb ground heart to any recipe that calls for 1 lb ground beef. Heart is just muscle meat, so it doesn't change the taste or texture at all. It's a great way to sneak in some organ meats.



ingredients for sauce:
1 lb ground beef
1/4 lb ground heart (optional)
1 small onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1 T extra virgin olive oil
1 14 oz can diced or crushed fire roasted tomatoes
1 8 oz can tomato sauce
2 tsp dried oregano
pinch of dried rosemary, optional
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper or red pepper flakes
1 tsp sea salt

Heat the olive oil and brown the ground beef, onions, and garlic over medium heat. Add all the remaining ingredients. Bring to a bubble, partially cover and simmer on low heat for 35 minutes.

ingredients for "noodles":
1 medium spaghetti squash

Cut the spaghetti squash in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds. Put in a microwave safe container, cover, and cook on high for 10 minutes in the microwave. Leave covered for 10 minutes. Remove squash and string with a fork.

If you don't want to use the microwave (this is one of the few things I actually microwave because it's so much easier than the alternative), I would recommend steaming over roasting for this particular dish.

Paleo Meat Loaf

So this isn't really a recipe post. It's more of an idea of how to take some of your old comfort foods and paleo-fy them. :) For the meatloaf, the two bad ingredients that are in there are usually bread crumbs and ketchup. It's not great to just leave the breadcrumbs out because it really changes the texture of meatloaf for the worse. So what I do is substitute minced mushrooms, onions, and garlic for the breadcrumbs. Sautee them a little first to lose the raw onion taste. To get a nice sweet tomato topping without using ketchup, what I do is to take one can of fire roasted crushed tomatoes, add 2 tablespoons of tomato paste, and simmer it on the stove until it thickens up. Then I smear that all over the top and sides just the way you would normally do with ketchup. All of the yum and none of the bad. :)

The mashed potatoes are actually half potato and half turnip. Rutabaga also works well. This way you get the potato taste, but with fewer empty carbohydrates and more nutrition. Instead of butter and cream, try some olive oil and a splash of chicken stock. Even better is if the chicken stock is homemade since the gelatin will make it especially smooth and delicious.

We had greens on the side as well, as you can see. Almost any green is great if you braise it with olive oil, garlic, and chicken stock.

Lamb Meatballs with Tahini Dipping Sauce and Cucumber Salad

serves 2

lamb meatballs:
1 lb ground lamb
1 small eggplant
1 egg
1.5 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp sea salt

Cover a small baking pan with foil and roast the eggplant for 1-1.5 hours at 375 degrees, or until the eggplant is soft. Remove from the oven, peel, and mash with a fork. Set the flesh in a strainer and let the liquid drain off.

Combine the mashed eggplant, lamb, egg, oregano, and sea salt in a large bowl. It will be pretty goopy. Form mixture into meatballs. I like to use a tablespoon measure - if made with heaping tablespoons you should get about 26 meatballs.

Heat a skillet over medium heat. If you use a nonstick skillet, no fat is necessary as the lamb will render out enough. If your skillet is not nonstick, you might want to grease it. Fry the meatballs on three sides until they are nicely browned.

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tahini dipping sauce:
1/2 cup tahini
1/3 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup water
1 clove garlic
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp ground cumin
handful of fresh cilantro or parsley or both

Toss everything in a food processor and let it rip til it's smooth. It's better to make this at least an hour in advance to let the flavors meld (I make the sauce after I stick the eggplant in the oven and then pull it out of the fridge at serving time).

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cucumber salad:
1/2 a large English hothouse cucumber
sea salt
red wine vinegar
extra virgin olive oil

Score the cucumber with a fork and then slice it into thin rounds.

Put the cucumber slices into a strainer or colander and sprinkle with sea salt. Put something heavy on top and let it drain while everything else cooks.

Right before serving, squeeze out all the remaining water and drizzle on some red wine vinegar and extra virgin olive oil.

Stuffed Zucchini

serves 2

2 large zucchinis
1 lb ground bison/buffalo (ground beef will work too, but you want a very lean meat...otherwise it will give off too much liquid and your zucchinis will be swimming)
1/2 a large onion, minced
salt and pepper to taste
dash of cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp of oregano
1 8oz can tomato sauce
1 T tomato paste (optional)
1/2 cup chopped olives or olive tapenade (I used tapenade from Trader Joe's)
1 egg
coconut oil

Cut the zucchinis in half longways. Scoop out the insides to form a large trough in each zucchini.

Heat coconut oil in a skillet and saute the onion and the scraped out zucchini insides. Caramelize it and make sure all the water cooks out. Remove the zucchini/onion mixture to a large bowl.

Add the meat to the skillet and brown, along with some salt and pepper to taste, the cayenne, and the oregano. Drain it if there's a lot of liquid after the meat is done cooking. Add the tomato sauce and paste and stir to combine.

Add the meat/tomato mixture to the bowl with the onion/zucchini mixture, along with the olives. Mix well and make sure it's slightly cool. Beat the egg and mix it in.

Mound each zucchini half with the mixture and put in a large baking dish with a little water on the bottom. Bake at 400 for 40 min. You can make the filling and stuff the zucchinis in advance and hold them covered in the fridge until it's time to bake them.