Tag: Recipes

Hey guys! It’s been a busy time here in the Jones household, but I really wanted to share this recipe. I found this one while looking up some “paleo meal plans”. Yes, even I get bored eating Paleo and go digging for new inspirations. The original recipe calls for spaghetti squash. If you have the time, it’s a great “pasta” substitute, however, I was short on time. For those of you not Paleo, feel free to use regular or gluten free pasta. This was on a sample menu from eMeals.

Basil Chicken Alfredo

3 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup chopped white onion (or half a large onion)
2 tablespoons minced garlic
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
14 oz can coconut milk
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 rotisserie chicken, shredded

Either 1 roasted spaghetti squash or 3-4 zucchini, peeled and grated/peeled/spiralized into noodles.

Heat oil in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic; cook 4 minutes or until softened. Stir in basil and coconut milk. Bring to a boil; simmer 5 minutes or until slightly thickened. Stir in salt, pepper and chicken. Cook until thoroughly heated. Turn the heat to low and add the noodles. If using zucchini, let cook for a minute or two to soften the “zoodles” to al dente.

Serve with a side of steamed veggies or a salad.

Made an insanely easy version of Pad Thai today. I’d really been wanting some but many of the recipes I found just weren’t what I was looking for. For example – I don’t like anything that smacks of a satay sauce (read nut butters) in my pad thai. Um, no. I understand the sprinkling on at the end, but not adding nut butter to the pad thai sauce. Lots of others just seemed horribly complicated or unbalanced in some way.  I kept thinking to myself, this can’t be that hard. Street vendors can churn and burn this stuff! I finally found a great reference <http://chezpim.com/cook/pad_thai_for_beginners> for “authentic” pad thai.  What he said about the sauce made total sense. You need that balance of sweet, salty, hot, sour, and umami. Sadly, my tamarind paste was way out of date, so I couldn’t use it, but limes made a reasonable substitution. I didn’t feel like gaffing with cayenne pepper, so the sriracha came out of hiding.  So here’s what I came up with. This has been modified for my own tastes/allergies, however, feel free to add in a couple eggs and bean sprouts. I also strayed from the path and added more veggies in there by way of finely minced spinach and veggie “noodles”.

Pad Thai – Beth style

Sauce:

• 1/4 cup lime juice (or tamarind pulp/concentrate if you have it on hand)
• 1/4 cup coconut amines (or GF soy sauce, or even regular soy sauce for those not needing GF)
• 1/4 cup (scant) fish sauce (start with 2 Tbsp and add from there, to taste – it’s easier to add than take out)
• 2-3 Tbsp sriracha (less if you don’t want it so spicy)
• 2-3 Tbsp Palm sugar or honey (a bit less if you use white sugar or brown sugar)

Pad Thai base:

• 2-3 Tbsp coconut oil (or oil of choice)
• 1 lbs ground turkey or chicken
• 1 onion, finely diced
• 1/2 cup green onion, sliced thin
• 6 cloves of garlic (more or less to taste – I love garlic)
• 4 cups spinach, minced in a food processor or blender
• sweet basil (or thai holy basil if you can get it), julienned
• 1-2 zucchini, cut with spiralizer or wide flat noodles made with a peeler (feel free to use spaghetti squash, or regular rice or kelp noodles for GF)
• 1/2 cup or more shredded carrots
• cilantro (optional)

Bang out the sauce first. Add all the sauce ingredients to a small saucepan and heat up until sugar/honey is dissolved. Remove from heat. Taste and adjust accordingly. The idea is to balance all the elements, but play with it to suit your own tastes. Set aside.

Add oil to a large pan or wok.  Heat the oil and add the finely minced onion. Cook for 30 seconds or so, then add the ground chicken and garlic. Cook the chicken until there is no pink. Towards the end of the cooking of the chicken, add in the green onions and spinach. Heat through. Then add 1/2 cup-1 cup sauce. Add in the noodles. Heat through. Then add the basil in the last minute of cooking. Serve warm.

This recipe comes courtesy of NE Spahten Eryn Souza Schlosser. who found it on Paleo Periodical. Take it away Eryn…
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Hi Everyone! I was asked to post this recipe on another page so I figured I would post here as well 🙂
Here is one of my favorite recipes for a pre-workout meal or breakfast before a busy day. This recipe makes quite a bit. A little goes a long way portion wise. I can get between 3 and 4 meals out of this depending on the size of the sweet potatoes. Side note- if you are not familiar with the spices try them. They are delicious! If you would rather not I find “All Spice” worked very well. Also, I prefer to use regular coconut milk for this recipe. I find the “cream from the top of the can” this calls for doesn’t thin it out quite enough for my personal preference. Any questions let me know. Enjoy! 🙂

Moroccan Breakfast Mash
– 1 red-fleshed sweet potato, peeled and diced
– 1 plantain (or banana, but it will be sweeter), diced
– 1/4 cup coconut cream, skimmed from top of can
– 2 Tbsp. coconut butter (or 1 Tbsp. coconut oil or pastured butter)
– 1/2 tsp. each cinnamon and ground turmeric
– 1/4 tsp. each ground ginger and ground cardamom
– pinch of salt (unless you happen to be using salted pastured butter)
Topping Options: chopped pistachios or walnuts, diced dried apricots and/or dates

1) Put sweet potato and plantain pieces in a steamer basket over water and steam until soft (stab with a fork to test), about 8 minutes. This can also be done in the microwave—add a little water and zap for about 8 minutes.
2) Pour sweet potato and plantain pieces into a heatproof bowl. Mash with a fork until desired consistency is reached. If you prefer a smoother texture, you can also whirl it up in the food processor. Then add the rest of the ingredients and stir together until combined.
3) Serve with whatever toppings you please. Enjoy!

The base of this recipe came from Practical Paleo, by Diane Sanfilippo. It was her buffalo chicken lettuce wraps recipe. In and of itself it’s a great recipe, but I felt the need to pump it up a little. I researched various BBQ sauces and honey BBQ sauces and put with her spices and garnishes. The results were fantastic! This is also a QUICK one to whip up. Perfect for a warm day when you don’t want to heat up your kitchen. I like the suggestion of using chicken thighs, but feel free to sub in chicken breasts, turkey or whatever protein you have on hand. You can also use something like Tabasco or Frank’s Hot Sauce for this, but I didn’t have any on hand. 🙂

Buffalo Chicken lettuce wraps
(This is double her recipe – I had 2 lbs of chicken on hand. So everything here is doubled up)

– 2 lbs chicken thighs
– 4 tsp Chipolte pepper
– 1 Tbsp garlic powder (original calls for 1tsp – not nearly enough for this house)
– 1 tsp onion powder
– salt and pepper, to taste
(My adaptations)
– 2-3 Tbsp honey (more or less. Free poured this)
– 2 Tbsp cider vinegar (free pour so this is a guess)
– 1 Tbsp maple syrup
– 1 tsp smoked paprika
– 2 Tbsp olive oil + 2 Tbsp olive oil or coconut oil, divided
Garnishes
– Romaine lettuce or Boston Lettuce (really any lettuce that can hold stuff)
– grape tomatoes
– avocado, diced
– green onions diced
– (non paleo folks break out the blue cheese dressing)

Slice the chicken into 1/4 inch strips. Toss into a bowl or a ziplock bag. Add the spices, and if using, the honey, vinegar, syrup paprika and olive oil (this oil is purely to help the spices spread and stick).

Heat up remaining oil in a skillet over medium heat. Put the chicken into the skillet. Cook for roughly 5-10 minutes (stirring occasionally) or until chicken is cooked through.

While chicken is cooking, prep your garnish and lettuce leaves. Serve the chicken in the lettuce cups, garnish as desired.

This recipe came from that fabulous Corrine Giordano of the NE Spahtens. She said she found this one from PaleOMG, which is a fantastic site. I peruse her recipes often for inspiration myself. Corrine has taste tested this one and said it has become a favorite in her house.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Butterfly your chicken. I’m not totally sure how to butterfly a chicken breast but I cut mine in half, then placed plastic wrap on top of the chicken and pounded it until it was flat. Do that, it works.
3. Then place a large skillet over medium-high heat.
4. Add the five strips of bacon and cook on both sides until crispy, then place bacon on a paper towel to soak up the excess fat. When cooled, dice up the bacon.
5. Pour out the excess fat from the bacon, leaving behind about 3 tablespoons in the pan.
6. While the pan is still over medium-high, toss in the garlic cloves then add diced mushrooms.
7. Sprinkle in a bit of salt and pepper on the mushrooms.
8. Once mushrooms have begun to soften, add the spinach and a bit more salt and pepper.
9. Cover and let steam until spinach has begun to wilt. When the spinach has wilted, remove the pan from heat and add in diced bacon. Mix with mushrooms and spinach until well combined.
10. Place mixture into the middle of your butterflied chicken, fold chicken over to make a little “pocket” and use a two toothpicks to keep it closed while cooking.
11. Place stuffed chicken breasts on a parchment lined baking sheet and put in oven to bake for 18-20 minutes or until there is no longer pink in the chicken. The time will range depending on how thin you pound the chicken. It may take a bit longer.
12. Love moist chicken. Don’t overcook it, don’t you do it!
13. Don’t eat the toothpick. Duh.

I’ll admit I was never a huge fan of fish cakes til I tried this fish cake recipe from Mark Sisson. Even Paul and the mini-man will eat these. Mine are slightly more crumbly as I don’t use egg (flaxseed and water are the go to there) but overall they are still quite good.

For those looking for a crab cake recipe, Sarah Fragoso has the best one here:

http://everydaypaleo.com/everyday-paleo-crab-cakes/

Everyday Paleo Crab Cakes
1 pound crab meat (I used Chicken of the Sea “fresh” canned crab from Trader Joe’s. Yes fresh is best but when made into crab cakes, this worked just fine!)
2 tablespoons finely diced red onion
2 tablespoons paleo mayo (not the red pepper mayo but just the plain mayo)
1 teaspoon crushed garlic
salt and pepper to taste
1/8 teaspoon of chipotle powder
1 egg
2 tablespoons coconut flour (or enough to make the mixture stick together)
2-4 tablespoons coconut oil
Shredded green cabbage for garnish
Lemon wedges for garnish

Now I own I’ve not tried the crab cakes personally. It’s tough trying to find decent crab meat that is not outrageously expensive. So here’s where the fish cakes come into play.

Fish Cakes
(from Primal Blueprint Cookbook by Mark Sisson)

2 cans 14 to 15 oz  wild caught salmon or tuna (drained and flaked. If you can’t find the big cans, 4 small 5 to 6 oz cans work well)
2 eggs, beaten (if egg free, 2 Tbsp ground flax seed and 6 Tbsp hot water)
¼ cup finely minced onion or scallions (I usually use scallions or shallots)
1 tsp garlic powder
2 Tbsp chopped parsley or dill (I use parsley)
1 tsp mustard (this can be regular mustard or dijon mustard)
½ tsp sea salt
fresh ground black pepper
roughly ¼ cup of coconut flour. You may need more or less to get these to bind together. If you are using the egg-free option, you will certainly need the ¼ cup up to a ⅓ to bind together.
coconut oil for frying

Place the drained fish in a bowl and flake with a fork. Add eggs (or flax), onions, herbs, mustard, salt and pepper. Mix well, using a spoon or hands. Form into 4 to 5 patties. about 3 inches in diameter.

Heat the oil in a heavy skillet.  Place patties in the skillet  Cook until browned on one side, about 5 to 7 minutes, then *carefully* flip to cook the other side.  If making multiple batches, keep cakes warm in a 225 degree oven on an oven safe plate or pan.