Posts tagged garlic

I had some wild boar cutlets from the Broken Arrow Ranch, so I decided to make them into schnitzel!  Never tried it before, and it showed, because I screwed it up a little.  Not sure what I did wrong though.  Maybe I should have pounded the meat thinner, or cooked it less, or maybe wild boar cutlets are just a lot tougher than domestic pork, but it’s a little tough, and VERY dry.  Always remember when cooking wild game, pasture raised poultry, and grass fed beef, that these animals have less fat than what you’re used to, and therefore, cook quicker, and sometimes require some added fat for flavor and moisture.  I thought I took care of the extra fat by frying them in coconut oil, but they were still dry.  Still, they looked great!  Check it out:

I seasoned the cutlets with a TON of dry spices (pretty much if it went well with pork, I used it), and then I drenched in a mixture of 3 parts coconut flour, 2 parts arrowroot powder.  Then I dipped it into a pasture-raised egg wash, and then once more back into the flour.  Fried for a few minutes on each side in the cast iron skillet, and set aside to rest.

Then, in the same pan with the same coconut oil, I then added some red onion, garlic, and green chard, along with another bevy of spices.  Everything tasted great, but like I said, the meat was way too dry.  Not sure I would buy this cut of meat again, but I’m glad I got to say I made schnitzel once in my life.  Served it with a squeeze of lemon, but I’m defrosting some of my Plum Loco Sauce for the leftovers.

I could add a fourth “P” to that alliterative title; Parsnip!  I’m pretty sure of all the foods I’ve substituted pasta with, parsnip is my favorite.  It’s doesn’t get as soggy as zucchini, and it looks more like pasta than carrots.  But I bet this dish would go great with spaghetti squash too!

Simple to make (all ingredients, all organic, all the time):

parsnip (peeled into strips)
garlic
olive oil
roma tomatoes
fresh basil
fresh parsley (optional)

Just sauté the parsnip strips in olive oil until soft like pasta, then add some chopped garlic, some chopped roma tomatoes until warm, and finish with the fresh herbs.  It was Ugga-Bugga delicious!  It didn’t need any more seasoning, but feel free to add what you like.  

If you missed my post yesterday, I started experimenting with one of my favorite Thai dishes, Pad See Ew (pronounced, “Pod, Say, Oooh”).  Usually made with a broad flat rice noodle, Chinese broccoli, scrambled egg, and some type of meat (I like pork the best) in a black bean/soy sauce.

I paleo-ized it, by using parsnip for the noodle (I’m in an obsessive parsnip pasta phase right now), wild boar cutlet for the meat (I pounded it so thin though it broke apart and became more ground than cutlet), and a sauce made from black tea.  It was good, but it was definitely missing something.

I ran out to Whole Foods to buy my first bottle of organic coconut aminos.  I’ve heard so much about what a great paleo replacement it makes for soy sauce.  Well, it DOES taste a LOT like soy sauce.  The brand I bought claims it has 65% less sodium than regular soy sauce, which I like, but it still has salt, which you know I don’t add to my food (“please Cave-hole, not another rant about how salt is bad for you”).  But at least this brand uses organic sea salt, and not a lot of it, so as a mini-cheat, it’s not that bad.  I was also concerned about it being fermented, but it’s not fermented with a yeast starter, so it’s gluten-free.  I’m not against food fermented naturally like this is, so as a mini-cheat goes, I approve coconut aminos.  The fact is, I add zero salt to my diet, so 5-10 dashes of organic coconut aminos once in a blue moon is not going to adversely effect my health that much!  This is the definition of eating salt in moderation.  Bacon for breakfast every day is not salt in moderation.  Sorry.  Believe me, I’d love to have bacon every day too.  But my blood pressure will not be happy with me.

So does this mean I’ll be using coconut aminos in my Asian dishes from now on?  Um… yeah, I think so!  The paleo substitute I’ve been using has been a combo I dreamed up of dark brewed black tea, lime juice, celery or chard (for the natural salt content), and a touch of honey.  The coconut aminos gives it just that much more soy sauce flavor than my frankensauce, so I think my experimenting with that is over.  However, if you’re still concerned with the amount of sodium in coconut aminos, then my 100% paleo recipe for soy sauce works too without the mini-cheat (just not as authentic a flavor).

Here’s the finished product:

All Ingredients, All Organic, All the Time:

Parsnip
Chinese Broccoli
Wild Boar (pork, chicken, shrimp, or meatless works well too)
Egg
Scallions
Red Jalapeños (optional)
Basil
Cilantro
Garlic
Ginger
Celery or Chard Stems
Coconut Aminos OR a combo of: Black Tea, Lime Juice, Honey

Using a peeler, I sliced the parsnip into short flat noodles, and then simmered them in black tea until they became VERY SOFT.

While the noodles cooked, I browned my meat in a cast iron skillet, and once done, set it aside.  Using the same pan, I sautéed everything else (except the egg, and a handful of cilantro, basil, and scallions to use as a garnish later) until the Chinese broccoli was tender, but not mushy.  Then I sliced the meat, added it into the mixture, cracked an egg (or two) into the mixture, and scrambled it up with everything. Then I added the noodles, and black tea mixture (or use coconut aminos), and tossed everything together until fully coated.  Serve topped with some fresh cilantro, fresh basil, and raw scallions.

Started off with a bowl of Ramen Soup (see previous recipes HERE and HERE).  This was made with the leftover bone broth and zucchini noodles from the new video I made (seen HERE).  I added a Serrano pepper, cilantro, grated ginger, and some cauliflower that was leftover from THIS VIDEO.  You can find some other of my ramen recipes HERE and HERE.

Then the main course was some roasted veggies in olive oil, dry thyme, dry rosemary, garlic powder, onion powder, and black pepper.  My favorite organic farmer, Island Farms, had these MONSTER carrots at the farmers market on Sunday, so I decided to make it a main course instead of a side dish.  When a carrot is all gnarled and funky looking, it’s a good sign it’s organic!  That’s how they’re SUPPOSED to look.  Also in the roast medley were more leftover cauliflower (tastes great roasted), garlic cloves, and green onions.  The long ends of the scallions got all crispy, and in the future I’m going to start making these as snack, much as I would kale chips.

Then for dessert I had creamsicle flavored paleo “ice cream,” using frozen banana as a base.  So glad I froze a bunch of oranges when they were in season!  So delicious and refreshing ice cream flavor in the summer!  Ugga-Bugga!

Last Day of August and I ended well with 100% pure paleo.  In fact dinner last night was as paleo as it gets as you will soon see!  It was all organic, and I had tea and water throughout the day.

10am: cup of bone broth soup.  It had been cooking all night and the smell got to me folks, I HAD to have some!  I put it in the crock pot around 8pm last night, because the recipe I had called for it to cook for a minimum of 8 hours, and a maximum of 24 hours!  Well, 14 hours was all I could stand from this incredible smell!

This is my first attempt at Bone Broth Soup after reading so many articles about it in recent months.  It’s a superfood that provides you with minerals like magnesium, phosphorous, and especially calcium!  But mostly it’s a superfood for the healing powers of natural gelatin and collagen!  I’ll let you read all about it yourself HERE.  Thanks to one of my favorite paleo bloggers, killfatme, for sending me this article and recipe.

I just added some grass-fed beef knuckle bones, carrots, celery, onions, and garlic, and that’s it!  So simple, and didn’t need any seasoning (besides, Chef Jessica Baker told me not to add any seasoning when making stock).  For breakfast, I just had a coffee cup size of the broth, with some of the veggies.  So thick and rich!  Like bone marrow soup!  I happen to love bone marrow, so this was a delicious luxurious broth!  I downed my cup, wiped the thick collagen from my lips (although I guess I could have injected it for the Angelina Jolie look) and continued to let the soup cook for another 7 hours!

5pm: Large bowl of Bone Broth Soup!  First I took out all the knuckle bones to let them cool.  This is what it looked like:

Can you say Primitive?  Once cool, I practically sucked all the bits of grass-fed beef off the bone like a starving hyena!  And where the butcher sawed the bones, it was quite porous, so I sucked all the soup right out of the bones as well!  This is the AFTER picture.

Can you say Jurassic Park?!  I felt like I was on an archeological dig for dinosaur bones!, Not a scrap of meat or collagen left!  After the bones I had a big bowl of the broth and veggies.

For dessert I had one and a half frozen bananas whipped into paleo ice cream, threw in a handful of frozen champagne grapes, and swirled in some almond butter.  Unbelievable!

Around 8:30pm I was hungry again and I realized that the majority of my big meal of the day consisted of water from the broth, so I made a little something, just to curb my hunger, but I wanted it to be substantial as well, so my hunger would be curbed all night and well into tomorrow.  So I made 1 pasture raised sunny side egg, and I grilled an avocado to throw on top.  Then I had a tiny Asian pear to complete my eating for the day.

Tomorrow I’ll have the soup again for dinner, and will probably spirooli a zucchini into it for a ramen noodle type of soup!  YUM!  And then I’ll use some of the broth as stock for my wild game chili on Sunday!  UGGA-BUGGA!

Caveman is sicky-poo.  Finally, after more than 2 years and 7 months of being on the paleo diet, I have my first full blown cold.  I’ve FELT sick before, but my immune system was so strong that it lasted an hour, a half day, something like that.  But this time, for the first time, I have congestion, coughing, a real old-fashioned cold.

Now, in paleo’s defense, I haven’t been as strict as your friendly anal Cavey likes to be.  I like to keep a ratio of 90/10.  Doesn’t always work out that way, so sometimes I’m at 80/20 when unavoidable, like business meals, friends and family in town, etc.  But if I really take a hard look at myself, 2012 has been a very stressful time, and being the stress eater that I am, there have been weeks where I’m more like 70/30, and even 50/50 some weeks.  Anyway, that’s still WAY better than any of my friends eat, but it was just bad enough to lower my resistance to the point of catching a cold.

Well I’ll tell ya, I’d rather be broke than sick (and I’m both right now, so I know what I’m talking about), so I am going to commit myself to 100% paleo until I feel strong enough for a pizza or Umami burger cheat meal again (for however long that takes).  I felt sick on Friday night, and the weekend was miserable, so along with some home remedies (raw garlic, ginger, green tea, vitamin C rich bell peppers, spicy hot peppers, colloidal silver), I actually took some medicine.  Just some decongestant, and some nasal spray, but it’s the first real chemicals I’ve ingested in a long ass time.  And although sometimes I feel like the medicine makes me feel as bad as the cold, I do feel like I’m on the mend this morning, and back on the paleo bandwagon!  I have a big press tour planned for SamePlate.com soon, and I can’t afford to be sick anymore!  Time to start a new streak!

Here are some 100% organic meals I made to make me feel better.

Southern Style Greens:

Kale
Swiss Chard
Jalapeños & Lemon juice (to replace the traditional hot pepper vinegar)
Olive Oil
Garlic 
Black pepper

Just sauté until tender.

Spicy Meatballs & Fauxghetti:

Same RECIPE as the original, only lots more garlic and a ton of crushed red pepper flakes to make it spicy (natural decongestant)!  Also, I made the marinara sauce with green bell peppers (twice the amount of vitamin C as an orange {red bell peppers have 3 times as much!})

Saute some broccoli, garlic, olive oil, black pepper, and lemon juice.  Nice little summer side dish or appetizer when served cold.  All organic, and of course 100% paleo.

100% organic, 100% paleo, and salt-free!  3 pasture raised eggs, Swiss chard, mushrooms, scallions, garlic, black pepper.  I was gonna start adding herbs and spices, but it didn’t need it.  When you use fresh organic ingredients, you don’t need to do much to get incredible flavor!  Swiss chard is naturally salty, so I didn’t miss the salt at all!  I like to leave the center a little runny, which replaces the texture of the missing melted cheese.  Without a doubt, the best omelette I ever had!  Ugga-Bugga!

Shrimp in lemon, garlic and olive oil over fauxghetti (that’s zucchini noodles to some of you newer bastards).  These are the frozen red wild caught shrimp from Trader Joe’s that I got on sale a long time ago (I stock up when I see a sale), and I’m glad this stash is finally gone.  TJ’s red wild caught shrimp aren’t nearly as good as the blue ones, and I realize now why they were on sale.  They don’t get firm when you cook them like the blues, it’s a mealy feel in your mouth instead of that plump firm bite from a good shrimp.  They’re also a lot smaller, whereas the blues are huge!  Luckily though, the blues were on sale yesterday and I picked up several bags!  Gonna make shrimp cocktail again very soon!

And I’ll make the cocktail sauce with the ketchup I made today for my Ugga-Bugga burger!  (New and Improved) Ketchup came out great again.  I think another big change has been cutting back on the clove, and the addition of celery seed.  And of course, the fresh herbs, giving it a fragrance and freshness it never had before.  Next time I make my plum sauce, the improved ketchup I use in the recipe will put it over the top!

The ketchup was the star of this grass-fed burger, which also has cucumber, fresh dill, and topped with guacamole (sans jalapeno, not yet in season), all on a almond bread roll, which is left over from a botched Irish Soda Bread experiment (they can’t all be gems, folks).

 By the way, in case you were wondering, all ingredients, all organic, all the time.  Ugga-Bugga!