All Day Cooking-palooza!

Because I was a teenager in the 90s and went to Lollapalooza more than once myself...

Yeah, I was there...what?

Anyway, usually this extravaganza of cooking/food prep happens on Sundays, but because of President's Day, I had an extra day this week and last night was our splurge meal at Max Burger in West Hartford, which I normally love, but made me pretty ill last night.  Which I'm taking as a good sign.

What I made:

1.  Primavera Bolognese

2.  Tuna Noodle Casserole

3.  Sloppy Joe Stuffed Peppers

4.  Asian chicken with cauliflower fried rice

5.  Paleo blueberry muffins

What I  did:

First of all, I'm not going to lie...this little project did take me close to six hours.  But I also made three recipes for the first time, which always adds to the time.  You could also break it down into smaller steps, too.  I could have, for example, processed more of the veggies when I got home from the store yesterday.

1.  Prepped and roasted veggies for bolognese.  This is one of those awesome "hide the veggies" recipes.  It doesn't have to be, but for my little babe, it works best to hide the veggies, so they get roasted, then pureed, before I make the actual sauce.

2.  Made the unbelievably yum smelling marinade for the chicken thighs.  Put those in the refrigerator to let them marinate until I cook them tomorrow.

3.  Made the cauliflower fried rice...mostly out of curiosity.  Plus, I was letting my roasted veggies for the sauce cool a bit before I started working with them.
     It was pretty good; albeit a bit mushy.  I think I may have over-processed my cauliflower a bit.

4.  Made the tuna noodle casserole.

5.  Made the stuffed peppers.

6.  Made paleo blueberry muffins.

How I Did It:

• Karen Lenahan's Primavera Bolognese with spaghetti squash

     Aside from making a massive amount (think double batch; plenty to freeze), its also delicious and  everyone in the house loves it.

                                                    Primavera Bolognese Recipe

     You can also find out more about Karen and her amazing catering/take out/bakery business here:


                                               

   

    Small Kitchen Big Taste

• Asian marinated chicken thighs and cauliflower fried rice  

Nom Nom Paleo Asian Chicken Thighs

       The "rice" I'm improvising from a few different recipes I've seen on-line

Cauliflower Fried Rice:

Ingredients:

1 small head cauliflower "riced" in a food processor
    This a pretty simple process -- cut off the florets and then process in food processor until the              cauliflower becomes a rice-like consistency.

3 strips of nitrite-free thick-cut bacon, cut into small strips

handful of asparagus, trimmed and cut into small pieces

1/2 medium sized eggplant, cubed

handful of mushrooms

small onion, diced

scallions

fresh ginger, grated on a microplane, about a tbsp. total

1 tbsp coocnut aminos

1 tbsp fish sauce

Directions:

1.  Fry up the bacon, removing the bacon from the pan when crisp.

2.  At this point, if you were going for a more authentic fried rice, you'd do a quick, very thin omlette in the pan, but I was making this to have a tomorrow, so I skipped this part.

3.  Start adding in veggies.  You could use a mix of any of the above veggies and there are many others that would probably be pretty good, too.

4.  Once veggies have softened up a bit, then add in the cauliflower and the remaining ingredients.  Cover and cook for about four to five minutes.

This tasted pretty yummy as I took it off the stove, albeit the consistency of the cauliflower wasn't much like rice.  I also don't really love rice, so this doesn't bother me.  If texture is your thing, this might bother you.  I've now used cauliflower as a stand-in for mashed potatoes and found pureed cauliflower to be just as good.  I've also used it to make breadsticks and those were pretty Ok, too.

Tuna Noodle Casserole

Yum...noodles...crunchy topping...so not OK.

I had such a craving for real tuna noodle casserole; you know...with lots of cheese, egg noodles, tuna creamy with canned soup, crushed up potato chips on top...and yes, a nutritional nightmare and not exactly the stuff truly splurge-worthy meals are made of, so I figured tuna was too rich a protein source for someone not to have messed around with this recipe.  I was right...  I found a couple different recipes and sorta combined both to come up with this:

Ingredients

1.  1 large head cabbage (I used purple; its prettty...standard green would work just great, too)

2.  Olive oil, coconut oil, or bacon grease for brushing on the cabagge

3.  Salt and pepper

4.  1 onion

5.  8 oz button mushrooms

6.  handful of the inner stems from a celery heart, diced

7.  4 cloves garlic

8.  ½ can anchovies

9.  2 Tbsp butter

10.  1 ½ Tbsp arrowroot powder

11.  1 can coconut milk or 1 1/2 cups milkl

12.  3 (7-oz) cans tuna

13.  ½ lb frozen spinach

14.  ½ cup Wallaby organic sour cream  (seriously...you'll thank me)

15.  1/2 cup almond "bread crumbs" on top

Directions

• Preheat oven to 400˚ F
• Slice cabbage into disks, brush with cooking fat (I used bacon grease), salt and pepper

• Bake for 230-45 minutes, keeping an eye on it.  This will depend on the thickness of the slices you cut.
• Add the cooking fat to a large pot. Dice the onion and saute the onion in the oil over medium-low heat.
• While the onion is cooking, thinly slice the mushrooms. Add them to the pot and continue to saute. Mince the garlic, add it to the pot, and continue to saute until the mushrooms and onions have released all of their water and become limp. There should be no water pooled on the bottom of the pot.
• Add in anchovies if desired and try to break them up a bit with your cooking spoon
• Add the butter to the pot and allow it to melt. When it is completely melted, add the arrowroot powder. Stir the arrowroot powder and butter together with the onions, mushrooms, and garlic. The mixture will form a thick paste. Continue to stir and cook this mixture for 1-2 minutes, or until it begins to coat the bottom of the pot and turn slightly golden brown. 
• Add in the milk
• Stir to incorporate and bring up to a simmer, stirring additionally occasionally.
  • The sauce will not take too long to thicken.
• Season with pepper and salt (not too much, though, those anchovies will bring a lot of salt)
• Once thick enough to coat a spoon, turn off the heat and set aside
• Add in tuna and sour cream
• You can either thaw your frozen spinach and drain it of water, or just throw it in with the sauce and let it melt in there...I just threw mine in and stirred.
• I then separated the cabbage slices into "noodles" and mixed them up with the tuna sauce 
• Top casserole with almond breadcrumbs

• Preheat oven to 350˚  and bake for 20 minutes

The pre-baked mixture was delicious; just the tuna noodle casserole goodness I had been craving, minus the garbage I didn't want to eat.  Day of, I will heat this up in the oven and viola!  Dinner will be served.

Sloppy Joe Stuffed Peppers

This is a modification of Rachael Ray's sloppy joe recipe, which is a dead-on copy of the types of sloppy joes you remember if you grew up in the 70s and 80s and your mom used a spice packet or some sort of canned sauce.  This just takes out a little sugar and replaces the rolls with peppers and adds some more veggies to the meat mixture.  I took out the brown sugar, subbed in a teensy bit of maple syrup, and added carrots and chopped zucchini.

My First Real Food Post..BREAKFAST!

You might wonder what "diet" I follow...that's kinda the point...I don't.  I eat real, whole, clean food and I try and stick to low carb as I journey toward a more lean physique (I want all/most/some of my amazing muscles to be more visible).  I also haven't quite gotten into actual recipe writing yet, so mostly I will be providing you with links to recipes I've used and the notes about the modifications I've made, as well their success and/or failure.

Let me begin with my breakfast for today.  Upon reviewing my goals, I decided it would make sense to try and limit my total carb intake.  Again, I am not doing Atkins, if anything its sorta Paleo/Primal-ish (god I hate both of those terms, but more on that later...).  I also think that carbs are my biggest downfall, food-wise.  I will happily consume a bag of potato chips, or a half a pound of pasta, or a huge plate of fries (preferably topped with cheese) and when I started eating clean again, I realized that I was still relying heavily on carbs for the bedrock of my diet, albeit in healthier forms.  Think sweet potatoes, farro, quinoa, Ezekiel bread, whole wheat pasta, brown rice, steel cut oats.  And I realized that perhaps that was part of the problem for me, maybe I needed to let that all go.  At least for awhile.  And when some people mentioned how satiating protein and fat (mixed in with lots of veggies) can be, I was intrigued and have since realized there is something to all of that.  I also have always loved dairy and tolerate it with no issues.  So, more full fat plain Greek yogurt for me!  Wee!

Back to my breakfast...  I love something warm and carb-y in the morning.  I mean, there was a reason I chose to start the day with steel cut oats, right?  I've always loved hot cereal (Farina and grits with tons of butter and brown sugar were always personal faves), but to maximize my goals, I needed to cut it out.  So I have.  I mostly eat eggs for breakfast.  But I was home this morning with lots of time, so I decided to try out a Paleo recipe for a hot cereal.

Again, not pretty...  my photography skills need work

Paleo Breakfast Cereal

Courtesy of Paleospirit...recipe here!

Ingredients

• 2 ripe bananas (or one large, very ripe, plantain), mashed
• 2 cups coconut milk (I used milk, again...no problems with the final product)
• 3/4 cup almond meal
• 1/4 cup flax meal (I used whole flax seed with no ill effects)
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ginger
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/8 teaspoon celtic sea salt (My sea salt of choice right now is Pink Himalyan)
• maple syrup or raw honey (optional)
• toppings like berries, unsweetened coconut flakes, nuts, seeds, etc… (I added some chopped pecans I had on hand)

I also added in a scoop of Jay Robb protein powder to make sure I was going to get plenty of protein.

Instructions

Combine all ingredients in a medium saucepan and heat to a slow simmer, stirring, until thick and bubbly.

The consistency will vary depending on the type of coconut milk you use. (I usually use “light” coconut milk) The mixture will seem thin at first but thicken up quickly. It will continue to thicken after it is served so you may need to add extra water or coconut milk.

The Result

Well, you can see mine up there a bit.  This was delicious:  excellent porridge-y texture, just enough sweetness (mind you I didn't add in any sweetners beyond the banana) and so warm on such a winter's day.  I had blueberries, which I should have added, but I forgot.

Wasn't particularly labor intensive, mostly because the ingredient list was comprised of things I already have on hand.  

I will definitely make this again and will store the leftovers and keep you posted about how well they handle re-heating.