Coffee Needs Coffee

I do apologize for not keeping better records, last week.  The truth is, we didn't do a lot of cooking; what we did cook, was something we'd purchased preassembled or preseasoned, so there wasn't anything mine to throw in.

But, I have been making smoothies and trying out different recipes.  I got a new blender.  It's a very nice blender, for my purposes.  I also got an attachment that allows me to make single-serve smoothies.  I've been digging smoothie-making.  I haven't made anything, yet, that has wowed my taste buds, though.  In fact, I did quite the opposite.

Today's one of those days.

I can tell because I didn't sleep well last night, I was running the air conditioner in the bedroom and not cooling down, and my coffee needed coffee.

My husband and I put together a bunch of baggies of, essentially, salads for me to blend together.  On the baggies, I would write what was in them and what liquid to add, as well as if I needed to add a protein to it (like bacon).  Today, I grabbed a baggie that said "+liquid," meaning, add any liquid you like.

So, I decided to add my cup of coffee.  Because yesterday morning, during a management meeting for a hobby radio station, I thought, wouldn't it just be easier to make a smoothie with coffee?!  I know it's possible...

Just because something is possible, does not mean it is a good idea.

Back to the smoothie.  The baggie indicated that there was 1 bunch of spinach, 1 bunch of kale, a handful of walnuts, and + bacon, + liquid.  I filled my smoothi container to the appropriate line for liquid, stuffed my veggies and walnuts in, then added my one strip of bacon.  Blend!

I don't think I've ever tasted anything quite like this.  It was like drinking coffee (Don Francisco's Vanilla Nut coffee, specifically) with a very bland salad.  On top of that, it didn't mix well.  It's very...separated.  So, I thought maybe I could tone down the bitter taste by adding coconut cream (since that is, apparently, what I have in my fridge).  That really didn't go my way, either.

Not everything is going to be perfect, and that's okay.  Life is a series of adventures, strung together to help us get the most experience for our time.  We'll see what dinner brings!  Maybe something tasty.  I'll have to re-visit the coffee smoothie thing, sometime.  It seems a good idea...

Fish 'n' Chips

Okay, so I'm sorry I've not posted for a couple days.  It's not that I haven't eaten anything; it's more that I have discovered a new allergy in a rather...explosive...way.

White fish.

This makes me very sad since I really do enjoy fish 'n' chips!  But, no more!  I think my husbeast said I had about 45 minutes of power vomiting on Monday night, after dinner.  So, there's that mental image.  You're welcome.

I'm still going to give you our recipe for the fish, though.  It's very tasty and it works well for chicken tenders, too.  We had traditional chips with dinner; if you want to keep it paleo/primal, then go for sweet potato fries, instead.

I don't have pictures of this meal.  I don't think I want to be reminded of this meal, either.  So, you'll have to imagine it.  I've been drinking liquid salads for the past couple days, trying to regain energy and keep my stomach from doing more backflips.  I apologize for the lack of good recipes.

So, here's a great recipe that you can use with chicken, too!

Fish 'n' Chips (GF)

1lbs white fish (we used sole) or chicken pieces

2T coconut oil

2c. almond flour or gluten free panko bread crumbs

2c. grated Parmesan cheese

1/4c. ground black pepper

salt to taste

1.  Heat a large skillet over medium heat with about 2T of coconut oil.

2.  Mix about half the amount of your dry ingredients together and dredge as much of your fish or chicken as you can. 

3.  Fry up your fish or chicken to your desired doneness.  If you still have more to fry and you're low on mix, get the rest of it together and repeat.

NOTE:  You can take the chicken piece and put them on skewers and bake them.  I think you'd pre-heat the oven to 350*F then bake them for 30minutes.  I'll double check with the husbeast on that one.  Either way, these are very tasty!

Before anyone points out there is cheese in this recipe and, therefore, what I could be reacting to, this is a recipe we use all the time for chicken.  I had a reaction back in January to some tilapia, as well, that didn't have any cheese or even grain-based spices on it.  So, I'm pretty sure it was the fish and not the other ingredients.

Regardless, do enjoy this one!  It's quick, simple, and quite tasty...at least the first time. 

Turkey Scotch Eggs

I absolutely love Scotch Eggs.  The first time I made them, I used Melissa Joulwan's (author of Well Fed) recipe.  I had just started on the Paleo path and her site was such an inspiration and help to me.  That was when I was lifting 3 days a week and running 3 days a week.  I was pretty badass!

I remember a recipe that I thought was on her site for homemade turkey sausage links.  When I searched, however, I came up empty.  Perhaps it was there, but is now in her book.  I'm not sure.  I should see if there are Kindle versions of her book; I just like supporting the actual author, when possible (NOTE: I don't get anything for sending you to her site or store.  I just genuinely believe in her stuff).  Anyway, I couldn't find the recipe I was looking for.

So, I made my own.

I will need to update this post when I make a larger-than-4 batch of eggs.  I measured absolutely nothing.  Yep, I'm one of those people.  I just shake a spice shaker over the food til I get tired of the colour and go from there.  I'm very bad at this.  Hence why I'm doing a blog.  Maybe I'll get better at photos, too...

The initial batch turned out okay.  I should have used a bit more salt and probably should have sauteed the fennel bulb before throwing it in.  And added garlic.  I'll very likely look up some other sausage recipes to see how people spice their sausage to come up with something a little more flavourful, but, for now, this is what I have.

Turkey Scotch Eggs

Mine sorta didn't stick together.  Next batch will be better!

Ingredients

4 eggs, hard boiled, mollet, or baked (I used baked)

1lb ground turkey

1/4 fennel bulb & stem

1tsp salt

1T. "Italian Seasoning"

1tsp Tumeric (This was for me.  I'm supposed to take tumeric twice a day to supplement my immune system.  You may leave it out, if you wish)

1tsp Black Pepper

Instructions

1. If you're going to bake your eggs, pre-heat your oven to 320* F, place your eggs in mini muffin tins, then put them in the oven for 30 minutes.  Make sure your oven is completely pre-heated.

2. Sit down and rest.

3. Once your eggs are finished, set the temperature to 375* F.

4. Dice the fennel.  Use both parts of it for maximum flavour!

5. Heat a skillet over medium and add about 1 T of coconut oil to saute the bulb part of the fennel (I didn't do that this time, but I plan to in the future).

6. Mix the turkey with all the spices and the fennel.

7. Divide the turkey mixture into four even balls or lumps or patties.  Turkey isn't known for holding together too well, so you're going to put it in the fridge for about 15-20 minutes.  If you're not pre-heating your oven to 375* F yet, now is a good time to start!  

8. Sit down and rest.  Cool off, if you need to.

9. Line a baking sheet with tin foil or parchment paper (I have a gas oven; parchment paper makes me nervous).

10. Peel your eggs and form a relatively even ball of meat around it, making sure to seal any cracks and place them on a baking sheet.

11. Bake for 25 minutes.

If you're looking for something quick, this is not it.  If you're looking for something healthy, this is a good option.  This is something that can also be batched and keep in the fridge for two weeks (I think; we've never had them go longer than a day or two).  I probably would not make more than 12 at a time, which would yield 6 servings (unless you don't eat a lot; then 12 servings).  These are good for a high-protein breakfast, lunch, or snack.  Have them with a side salad or by themselves.  They're quite tasty and not extremely heavy.  

Crock Pot BBQ Chicken Thighs

We love going to Disneyland.

We always stay later than we planned and we end up getting fast food and I, at least, feel guilty and ill for a few days.  I really don't like fast food, but it has a key word: fast.

So, yesterday, I had a bad day for both energy and pain.  Still, I wanted to do something.  That is one thing I really like about having this blog: It forces me to make something every day so I can share it with you.  If it works, if it doesn't work, if it's tasty, etc.  I took an hour nap after our bout of breakfast and errands (my breakfast was an omelette with bacon, avocado, and a light amount of cheese with cottage cheese on the side.  And it was delicious.  I love Omelette & Waffle Shop).

Anyway.  I convinced the husbeast to set up a crock pot of chicken thighs, since that was one of the items we'd gone out to purchase, and let me make BBQ Chicken.  He agreed and I began searching for my favorite BBQ recipe (which I can never remember where to find).  I went for my tomato paste and realized I had none.  What to do, what to do!  I searched for an Auto-Immune Protocol recipe, to see if one existed.  I was not let down!

Kaiku Lifestyle offered a wonderful recipe for a pumpkin-based BBQ Sauce.  I keep pumpkin puree on hand because I really like Pumpkin Chili (I do mine in a crock pot); so, I grabbed that can and went to town.

In Kaiku's recipe, she requires a cup of puree and things like maple syrup (which should be Grade B), and molasses.  I like neither of those things very well.  So, I made some substitutions.  I'm terrible at taking pictures while I'm cooking and I'm quite chaotic in my cooking; plus, yesterday, I needed a set of functioning hands.  Mine were not.  So, with the help of my husbeast, here's what we did!

Crock Pot Paleo BBQ Chicken (AIP friendly)

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Makes about 2 cups

Paleo BBQ Chicken, Collards, and
Peas & Carrots

Ingredients

1-2T coconut oil

3-ish T minced garlic (I love garlic, so I just eye-ball my garlic)

6T apple cider vinegar

2T basalmic vinegar

1/3c  blue agave nectar (dark)

2T coconut aminos

2tsp salt

2c (1 15.3oz can) pure pumpkin puree

2T ginger powder (or 2tsp grated ginger)

1.5lbs chicken thighs

Instructions

1.  Heat your coconut oil over medium heat in a saucepan.

2.  Saute your garlic, taking care not to burn it.  If you're using fresh ginger, add it with the garlic.

3.  Add your liquids.  This will help keep the garlic from burning.  

4.  Add your pumpkin puree, salt, and ginger powder and combine til everything is a lovely dark orange color (and all the ingredients are combined).

5.  Remove from heat and blend with an immersion blender or a regular blender to smooth it a bit.

6.  Put it into the crock pot and add your chicken.  Set crock to low and go have fun for a few hours.  Ours cooked for 6 hours.

We removed as much of the chicken as we could and bottled up the rest of the sauce to use on some pork chops.

Also, canned and frozen veggies are your friends.  We served the chicken up with peas & carrots with added pepper, and canned collard greens with added sea salt, butter, and garlic.  Everything was delicious!  If you do use canned veggies, make sure they either have no added salt or are low in salt.

Have a tasty day!

Mean Green Smoothie

I am not lazy.

I just don't always have the energy to stand in front of my stove and cook myself real food.  It's a frustrating thing.  Batch cooking does not work well for me, either, as I either forget I have food pre-made or I am simply not hungry and, therefore, don't eat.

That last one is usually the case.

This is also a very bad thing.  When I was power lifting, I would eat when I was hungry, until I felt satisfied.  That is, in fact, how Paleo nutrition works.  It helps if you have a large expenditure of energy to burn off calories.

I no longer have that energy to burn.  But, I still want to be healthy!  In fact, I know the key to a flat stomach starts in the kitchen.  So, what to do when you want something healthy, but can't expend the energy to create something healthy?

I'm a huge fan of Dr. Sarah Ballantyne, aka The Paleo Mom.  I use her blog frequently and it is my go-to blog for recipe ideas.  I cannot, however, spend as much time as some of the recipes require me to spend.  Yes, prepping in advance would be an excellent solution--however, I'm on a budget and I have neither a deep freeze, or a place to put one, currently.  So, I'm on a day-to-day basis with food.

In trying to figure out what I could do to accommodate a diet that makes me feel healthy while not actually being healthy enough to prepare it, one of my friends suggested blending smoothies.

What a great idea!  My husband suggested portioning out baggies of ingredients and putting them in the freezer, then blending them when I was ready to have one.  So, my first attempt at this was using a pre-existing recipe, the Green Piña Colada Smoothie.

Original Green Piña Colada Smoothie

This is what my first attempt looked like.  I used an immersion blender and poured the results into a glass.

Dr. Alejandra Carrasco created this recipe to serve 3-4 people.  Meaning, there's a lot of it.  So, I did what my husbeast suggested, and portioned 4 baggies with the ingredients (all but the coconut milk).

This first attempt was good, but it seemed to be missing something.  It had healthy fats from the coconut milk, power nutrients from the collard greens, and antioxidants and sweetness from the pineapple and banana.  But, to me, it was a bit sweet.  Maybe I grabbed too much pineapple?  I don't know.  It felt like it needed something crunchy in it...something salty.

So.  I added bacon.

Because, why not?
My neurologist was concerned about my hormone levels and cortisol levels being very low.  My cholesterol has always been a rock solid 1:4 ratio.  However!  My neurologist suspects my cholesterol is actually too low, so I've been instructed to eat more fat.  Yay for prescription bacon!

Here's what I ended up doing for today's Green Piña Colada

Kryssie's Mean Green Piña Colada

2 Collard Green leaves, torn (minus the main stem)
1/4 cup of frozen pineapple chunks
1/4 banana

Super thick Mean Green Piña Colada Smoothie

80ml of coconut milk (to start; I probably put in about a 1/4 cup)
1 strip (overly) crispy bacon

Step 1 - Cook bacon on stove top (or in oven) til desired done-ness
Step 2 - Blend all ingredients til combined.
Step 3 - Enjoy



If you find that it's still a bit thick, add more coconut milk.  I don't have a good blender, yet, for making these, so I used an immersion blender, which doesn't work as well as one might hope. :\

I like the thick cut bacon from the meat counter at our local Albertson's.  I do the best I can with the money I have, so if you're looking for a "Paleo Purist," I am not your girl.  I consider my diet more "Primal" than "Paleo," anyway, since dairy does not cause me issues.  Still, I don't feel right saying this is my recipe, since I used someone else's as a base.  So, please make sure Dr. Carrasco gets the credit for the main recipe.  I just added the bacon!