PaleoLab

To go with my so-very-Italian entree, I wanted a so-very-Italian dessert.  And what’s more Italian—and more suitable for summer in an un-air-conditioned apartment—than gelato? This particular gelato was dense, creamy, rich, and delicious.  Read on.

Ingredients:

For hazelnut paste:

3/4 c. hazelnuts, toasted and skinned (plus extra, coarsely chopped, for garnish, if desired)

1 T. coconut oil

1 T. sugar

pinch of salt

Prepare: To make the hazelnut paste, simply pulse nuts, oil, sugar and salt in food processor until combined into a paste—about 2 minutes.  This yields about 1/3 cup.

For the gelato:

3 c. coconut milk

4 egg yolks

1/2 c. coconut cream

3/4 c. sugar

pinch of salt

4-5 oz. of dark chocolate, chopped

To prepare:

Combine milk and hazelnut paste in medium saucepan over medium heat until bubbles begin to form around the edges—about 5 minutes.  Do not allow to boil.

Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, combine egg yolks, sugar, coconut cream, and salt.  Whisk until smooth and sugar begins to dissolve.

Remove milk from heat and gradually whisk about 1/2 cup into egg mixture to temper the eggs.  Next, pour the tempered egg mixture into saucepan with milk mixture, and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon.  Keep the custard at a low simmer until it thickens enough so that you can draw a line in it on the back of your spoon—around 5 minutes.  Do not allow it to boil.

Next, in a heatproof bowl, pour custard over chopped chocolate and whisk until the chocolate is melted.

Cover custard with plastic wrap, pressing it directly onto the surface to prevent a skin from forming.  Refrigerate 4-24 hours before freezing in an ice cream maker, according to the maker’s instructions (about 20-25 minutes for mine).  Makes about 1 delicious quart.

My gentleman friend’s family is Italian.  Quite.  His maternal, Neapolitan grandmother used to make genovese sauce which, as some internet research informed me, is the traditional pasta sauce of Naples.  Not tomato-based, not cream-based, not basil-based, genovese is… wait for it… onion-based.  And oh-so-delicious.

How a Genovese dish became the customary dish of Naples appears to be a bit of a mystery, but there are internet murmurings about the private chefs of Genovese merchants…  but really, who knows.

All of the recipes I found called for beef, but Vinnie doesn’t remember his grandmother ever cooking it that way; he remembers it as primarily onions.  I did find an internet article that said meat was a more recent addition in the long history of the Neapolitan sauce, that onions, less expensive, were the primary ingredient with just a little beef, or scraps of salami or whatever was on hand thrown in as flavoring.

I imagine that, just as American mothers will make a casserole out of whatever leftovers are in the fridge, and Chinese mothers might throw whatever is on hand in the stir-fry, there are probably as many little variations of genovese sauce as there are Neapolitan mothers.  At any rate, I consulted several recipes and combined what seemed to be their best elements for a truly delicious dinner.

Ingredients:

2 lbs. grass-fed top round, tied with twine at intervals to form a log

7 yellow onions, thinly sliced

1-2 oz, each: salami, pancetta, proscuitto

2 cloves of garlic

2 carrots

2 ribs celery

1 c. white wine

1 T. tomato paste (or just the juice from 1 can of tomatoes—I had no tomato paste on hand)—but the addition of any tomato paste/juice is entirely optional!

1/4 c. + 2 T. olive oil

salt & pepper

Preparation:

Heat 1/4 c. olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed pot over low heat.  Add the onions.  

Mince the salami, pancetta, and proscuitto together with the garlic to form a paste.  (I used my food processor for this.)  Heat 2 T. olive oil in cast iron skillet over medium high heat and add pork paste to soften.  Add beef log and brown on all sides.  

Add the beef to the onion pot and cover with onions.  Add a bit of the wine to the skillet to deglaze the pan and pour the contents, along with the browned pork bits, into the pot with the beef and onions.  

Make sure the heat is on very low and your patience quotient is very high.  Now it is time to simmer for 3-5 hours.  Dice the celery and carrots.

After about an hour, add the carrots, celery, and a bit more wine.  Flip the meat, stir things around, re-cover the beef with onions, go watch some TV, or better, get in a workout.

Come back, stir things around, add tomato paste/juice if using, salt and pepper, and some more wine.  Let it cook some more.  Slowly.  Be careful not to burn your sauce!

About an hour before you’re ready to eat, prepare the spaghetti squash.  (You can do this any number of ways.  I prefer to halve and [olive] oil the squash and roast, cut side down, in a 350 degree oven for about 45 minutes before scooping out with a fork.)

About 20 minutes before you’re ready to eat, remove the beef and let it rest.  

Remove the twine and cut the beef into bite-sized chunks before returning it to the sauce.

Final step: savor the delectable deliciousness.  This was really wonderful, definitely repeatable and infinitely experiment-worthy.  I’d love to try it with just/mostly onions—they are so sweet after cooking so long and slow!

And one wonderful thing about Paleo?  Spaghetti squash tastes SO much better cold than pasta does!  This is all so delicious cold, I haven’t even tried the leftovers warm yet!

It’s still deliciously sweltering in Chicago and I’m still making delicious swelter-alleviating treats with my ice cream maker.  (Best gift ever?  Sure seems that way this week!)

When culinary inspiration hits, I often have a hard time resisting it.  Maple-bacon ice cream?  Now THAT is inspired.  Pretty simple, too.

Ingredients:

3/4 c. maple-candied bacon (instructions to follow—about 3/4 lb. bacon + 1/3 c. maple syrup)

1/3+ c. MORE maple syrup (grade B is better for you and just as tasty)

1 15oz. can of coconut cream

Method:

For the bacon:  Spread bacon slices on a cookie sheet and brush with maple syrup.  Cook in a 400 degree oven for about 25 minutes, turning and basting halfway through.  Keep an eye on it toward the end; it will burn quickly once it reaches a certain point.

For the base:  Whisk coconut cream with a generous 1/3 c. of maple syrup.  Refrigerate while bacon is cooking.

Once bacon has reached desired crispness, remove it from the oven, chop or crumble it, and stick it in the freezer for a few minutes to bring it back down to room temperature or cooler—otherwise your ice cream won’t freeze as it should.

Combine the bacon with the base and follow the instructions on your ice cream maker.  This took about 20 minutes in the maker for me.

One of the dinnertime staples of my childhood was Thai fried rice.  We had it often, and I never grew tired of it.  Instead, I eventually mastered it and it remained one of my go-to dishes for a long time—I even have former roommates who’ve said how much they missed that about living with me.  (To be fair, I also have former roommates who couldn’t abide the strong smell of fish sauce, which is absolutely crucial to Thai fried rice.  Unlike Chinese fried rice, the Thai variety does NOT use ginger, and fish sauce is a non-negotiable.  I also make mine with Thai spicy basil.)  

I moved to a new apartment recently, and now live quite near the Vietnamese neighborhood and thus have several GREAT East Asian grocery stores nearby.  So many of my favorite ingredients, formerly hard for me to come by, are suddenly available, and on the cheap!  Hooray!

I’ve made riced cauliflower dishes since going Paleo just over a year ago, but I believe this is the first time I’ve tried my fried rice with it, and oh, how I’ve missed it.  What follows is my basic Thai fried rice recipe, made paleo by using riced cauliflower rather than basmati rice, and tamari rather than soy sauce.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get many pictures.  But now that I know how successful this is, I’m sure I’ll make it again—and take pictures next time!

Ingredients:

1 head of cauliflower, raw and riced in the food processor

3 chicken breasts, diced into bite-size pieces

2 small-medium onions, diced

1.5 bell peppers, diced

2 jalapenos, seeded and diced

2 carrots, peeled and grated

2 eggs, beaten

4 cloves of garlic, minced

1/3 c. fish sauce (or to taste—I added a bit more)

1 T. tamari

2 T. oyster sauce

2 T. sugar (gasp!  but it’s just a little considering how much rice this makes.)

2 t. white pepper

2-3 green onions, sliced 

1 c. spicy Thai basil, roughly chopped

1 lime, sliced for garnish

Olive oil, for cooking (about 2-3 T.)

(You can obviously sub in your favorite veggies and/or protein, but this is my basic combination.)

Method:

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Add chicken, cooking until no longer pink.  Add onions, garlic, peppers, and carrot, cooking to soften.  Make a well in the center of the skillet and pour in beaten eggs, stirring to scramble.  Give everything a good stir to combine before adding cauliflower, fish sauce, tamari, oyster sauce, sugar and pepper.  Stir to mix and heat through and until cauliflower softens.  Note that the cauliflower gives off a lot of water, unlike rice, so you may want to turn up the heat to cook some of the moisture off.  Or just use a slotted spoon.  Your call.  Next, add green onions and basil and combine.  Serve with a slice of lime.

The flavor combination of this is delicious and unique—very different from chinese-style fried rice.  It’s also delicious cold as leftovers!  Enjoy.

Also touted by some (okay, one) as “the best thing [I’ve] ever cooked.”  I made this Ginger Lemongrass Infused Coconut Sorbet last night.  I don’t have a picture of it, but it closely resembles the last coconut sorbet I made.  That is, it is white, frozen, creamy, refreshing, and delicious.  Since I didn’t deviate from Emeril’s recipe, I won’t post it here.  But I do have modifications that I think will make it even better for the next time I make it—and there WILL be a next time—so I’ll post with the recipe when I’ve modified it.

For now, I’ll just sit here quietly … thinking about it.

Sometimes, when it is 95 degrees outside and damn near that inside your apartment, you make concessions.  Concessions in your regular dietary/lifestyle choices.  Concessions to the need for something cold and sweet to beat the heat.  Delicious, refreshing, oh-so-delectable concessions.

Although this IS dairy-free, it isn’t exactly Paleo because of the sugar.  It is, however, ridiculously, amazingly delightful.

Coconut-Lime Sorbet.

1 15 oz. can of coconut cream

1/2 c. fresh-squeezed (or bottled) lime juice

1/2 c. sugar

Mix.  Freeze in ice cream freezer.  Devour.  Feel refreshed.  Try to save the rest for tomorrow, when it will again be 95 degrees.

More vegetables to use before they went bad—it was the mushrooms this time.  I also had spinach, leftover coconut milk from the truffles, and an onion on its last legs.  Add garlic, salt, and pepper, and you have a delicious side dish!

Ingredients:

1 bag of spinach

1 large container of white mushrooms, sliced

1 small onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

3/4 c. coconut milk, full fat

2 T. grassfed butter

Salt and pepper, to taste

Preparation:

Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat.  Add onions and garlic, cooking to soften, until translucent.  Add mushrooms.

When mushrooms have softened, add spinach, to wilt.  Add coconut milk, salt, and pepper, and simmer for 30 minutes, until thickened.

Finally: enjoy!

I had to use up a rutuabaga before it went bad.  Added carrots, onion, garlic, celery, and a seeded jalapeno.  Sauteed in ghee with salt, pepper, and a za’atar spice blend from the Spice House.  (Thanks, Vinnie!)

We Paleo types are all about raw, fermented foods.  And I, personally, am all about spicy food, and kimchi, especially.  I consulted several recipes, but more or less followed this one.  Pictures below.  It is currently fermenting in a big ol’ pot covered with a roasting pan weighted down by my cast iron skillet—I don’t have a jar big enough to accommodate it!  Do I hear Korean BBQ night in my future…?  :)

The ingredients.  Minus the ginger.

BIGGEST DAIKON RADISH EVER:

Napa cabbage in a salt bath.  

The remaining ingredients:

Starting to look like kimchi!

Aaaaaand time to ferment for a couple days.

Finished product pictures soon!

6/20/2012 UPDATE:  Kimchi is done and ready to go into the fridge.  It looks a lot like it did before, predictably.  All the same, it’s quite hot and quite delicious!

Ohhhh, happy indulgence.  Dark chocolate!  Coconut!  Curry!  Three of my favorite things, all rolled together into one delectable—and Paleo(!)—treat.

One very thoughtful Mr. V. Lacey, who knows me so well, surprised me with, among other things, Vadouvan Curry from The Spice House.  (How spoiled am I?)  Vadouvan is a French-inspired blend of Indian Masala curry.  I can’t wait to try it in all sorts of things (I bet it’s lovely in mashed carrots), but my first inspiration was aimed at satisfying my sweet tooth.

Truffles!  Truffles, while involving several steps, are exceedingly easy to make as compared with HOW INDESCRIBABLY DELICIOUS they are.  These were no exception, and using dark chocolate and no extra sugar, they are also perfectly Paleo.  

Read on:

Ingredients:

8 oz. dark chocolate, chopped small

3/4 c. coconut milk

2 T. (grassfed) butter, softened and cubed

2/3 c. cocoa powder

2 T. vadouvan curry poweder

1 t. vanilla extract

1/2 c. unsweetened, fine-shredded coconut, toasted

Method:

Combine chopped chocolate and cubed butter in a medium mixing bowl.  Heat coconut milk in small saucepan until hot, but not boiling.  

Pour coconut milk over chocolate and butter and whisk until smooth.  Add cocoa powder and curry powder to combine.  Refrigerate until no longer soft, about 30 minutes.

Spoon onto wax paper-cookie sheet.  Refrigerate again for 30 minutes longer.

Roll into balls between your palms and roll immediately in coconut.  Your hands will be sticky, but it will be worth it!  These can be stored in the fridge or freezer for several weeks, and should be served at room temperature.  Oh, holy YUM!

I’m back!  I’m back!  It’s been a while, but I’ve been eager to get back to cooking and posting—now from my new kitchen in my new apartment!  (Hooray!)

Last night I made up a recipe from several things I had on hand.  We’ll call it Stuffed Chicken with Cilantro Chimichurri.  Or:  Chicken.  Yummy Chicken.  Call it whatever you want.  I called it DINNER.  Read on:

For the chicken:

5 (thick) chicken breasts

1 avocado, thinly sliced

½ ripe tomato, thinly sliced

½ c. white mushrooms, thinly sliced

Extra virgin olive oil, for drizzling

Slice each chicken breast MOST of the way through, to form an envelope.  Stuff with avocado, tomato and mushrooms.  (Easy so far, yes?)

For the chimichurri sauce:

1 bunch of cilantro, with only the very ends of the stems removed (there’s a lot of flavor in the stems!)

4 cloves of garlic, peeled

1 shallot or ¼ of an onion

Juice of 1 lime

1 t. red wine vinegar

½ c. olive oil

Salt

Pepper

Cumin

In food processor (or blender) combine cilantro, garlic, shallot/onion, lime juice and vinegar.  When combined, slowly add olive oil (while continuing to mix).  Add salt, pepper, and cumin to taste.

Drizzle chimichurri over chicken breasts, reserving some for use to taste later.  (Or to go with your eggs for breakfast—to-die-for yumminess!)  Drizzle with olive oil.  (I hate it when my chicken dries out when baked!)  Cover with foil and bake in a 350 degree oven for 35-55 minutes.  (That’s a large window—it’s really going to depend on the size and thickness of your chicken breasts.  Just keep an eye on them after the half hour mark; you don’t want them pink, but you do want them moist.)  Remove from oven.  Savor.

And that’s a wrap, folks!  Easy.  Also delicious.

Expect great things soon.  Promise.