Ham Hock and Cabbage Soup

With the weather cooling down, it's nice to warm your innards with some delicious fall soup.



6-8 small servings or 3-4 large servings

ingredients:
* 4 tablespoons bacon grease
* 1 nitrate-free ham hock (about 1 pound)
* 1/2 a large onion, chopped
* 3 celery stalks, chopped
* 1/2 a small-to-medium head of green cabbage, chopped
* 3 cloves garlic, minced
* 2 bay leaves
* 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
* 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
* 1/4 teaspoon cayenne
* 3-4 cups Chicken Broth
* 3-4 cups peeled and cubed pumpkin (or other winter squash)

Heat the bacon grease over medium-high heat. Add the celery and onions and cook til they start to wilt. Add the ham hock.

Add the cabbage, garlic, bay leaves, black pepper, salt, and cayenne. Stir and cook until cabbage is slightly wilted, 3-4 minutes.

Pour the broth in, bring to a boil, and simmer uncovered for 30 minutes.

Add the pumpkin, cover, and simmer 1 hour.

Remove the ham hock from the pot and remove the meat from the bone. Shred the meat and stir it back into the soup. Remove and discard the bay leaves.

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This makes great leftovers and I think the taste even improves with age.

Goes well with a side salad for dinner.

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I adapted this recipe from Emeril Lagasse's Ham Hock and Cabbage Soup: http://www.emerils.com/recipe/2775/Ham-Hock-and-Cabbage-Soup

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!

Plans for November at Caveman Food

I just wanted to say hi to anybody that made it over here from Cindy's blog! Thanks for the shout-out, Cindy. :) I have some plans for this month to post about yummy paleo food that you can make for the holidays that is good enough that everyone will eat. I'll also try to post about those muffins everyone seems to want to know about. The problem with the muffins is that if I want to take pictures of them for you guys I have to make them! And then I have to eat them! Such a hard life.

Anyway, stay tuned!

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.

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.

Almond Crusted Chicken Fingers

Sometimes you just want some nasty old fried chicken fingers, but as a rule they are flour-coated transfat-laden monstrosities. How to enjoy the crunch without all the badness? Almond flour!

serves 2

ingredients:
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, sliced into fingers
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup almond flour
1/2 tsp sea salt
1.5 tsp poultry seasoning
1 tsp dry mustard powder
1/4 - 1/3 cup oil for frying (I used palm oil shortening, but I wouldn't hesitate to use olive oil or coconut oil either - or lard if I had it!)

Heat the oil a large pan over medium-high heat (but closer to medium than to high - you don't want the almond flour to burn).

Put the beaten egg in one bowl and the almond flour plus seasonings into another bowl. Dip each chicken finger in egg, then in the almond flour mixture.

Cook the chicken in two batches until it is golden on each side.

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Notes:

I've only ever made this fresh for dinner so I don't know if it would keep well for lunches or not. I suspect it might get a little gummy.

Crushed pork rinds also make a decent bread crumb substitute but they get soggy very quickly after cooking so you must eat them immediately. Also, some people are kind of squicked by pork rinds.

These chicken fingers are great for dipping too. Good options are ketchup or flavored mayonnaise. If you want to get super fancy, you can make something like date mustard, but I don't make this all the time because, even though it is amazingly delicious, it's also quite carb heavy. I might do a proper post on date mustard sometime, but here is the quick and dirty version:

happy shiny bonus date mustard recipe!
1/2 cup dates with pits removed, 2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil, 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar, 1/2 cup water, 1 tsp salt, and 2 T prepared mustard; put all the ingredients in a blender and let it rip until it's smooth; pour into a small saucepan and simmer gently for 10 minutes; serve warm or cold. I got this fantastic condiment from a cookbook called The Philosopher's Kitchen.

"Sam I Am" Eggs

Ok, so I can't take credit for these amazing scrambled eggs at all! I found the recipe here at the lowcarb friends messageboard.

They are an amazing bright green color and taste great. Use the proportions of 1/2 cup raw spinach and 1 T coconut milk to 1 egg. Put all the ingredients in a blender or magic bullet and puree. Then just scramble like normal in whatever your preferred cooking fat is.