Breakfast-Dinner-Cookies

I felt like an update was in order so here we go. Some good recent eats and things:

The garden I was inspired to grow after having access to one of epic proportions in NZL now kicks ass. This is the progress from around 4-5 weeks.  From left to right: Rosemary (cutoff), Carrots/Thyme, Kale, Cabbage, Cucumber (and lots of Mint in pots and behind). I ate the carrots already and planted Basil, Summer Squash, and Tomatoes!

Lemon Pepper Kale Omelette

A breakfast with little carbs, but incredible tasty. Cook 3 egg whites in a pan with some Kale and mini sweet red peppers on top, fold after a while and cook some more with some lemon. Plate and top with the yolks, avocado on the side, and Sea Salt and Cayenne Pepper over everything. More lemon if desired. Yolks are healthier and tastier raw. Whites are healthier and tastier cooked. Nuff said.

A winner. Cayenne Pepper is a lot better for you than black.

Not as pretty, but almost as good. The left is the Brassica Special (class of veggies) and the right is GF Low Carb Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Some baked chicken breast w/ random herbs/spices sliced on top of the key players: mashed cauliflower, asparagus, and bok choy. All steamed and topped with a little butter and balsamic. 

For the mashed cauliflower: Cauliflower steamed w/ 3-5 Garlic Cloves, then Food processor-ed for a while with Rosemary, Oregano, Butter, Raw Milk, Sea Salt, Cayenne Pepper. Watch the pepper and garlic amounts, they are strong!

For the cookies (3): 1 egg, 2T butter, 1/8c Milk, 1/8t Baking soda, 3/4c Almond Flour, 1/4c Coconut Flour, 1 small packet Xylitol (maybe 1t), Handful Dark Chocolate Chips 73%, pinch Sea Salt, 1t Vanilla

Add more milk or more almond flour if you need to achieve better dough consistency. Bake until browned (for me toaster oven 350º ~15 minutes).

I realized that the key players in the dough for the cookies are simply almond flour and coconut flour in your desired ratio (more almond=more chewy/dense more coconut=more light airy),  milk (raw of course), vanilla, sea salt and sweetener. So if you just feel like making some dough to eat mix up w/ some Xylitol or Honey and go at it, adding chocolate chips, crystalized ginger, nuts, dried fruit etc for a splurging snack/dessert.

I liked this.

Proper Fueling with Many Feasts

My family friend wanted to cook a feast together.

My Plate Clockwise from Bottom Left: Chicken Tagine, Leeks from Tagine, Sweet Potato Turnip Bake, Persimmon Salad, Kale Salad

I mainly made this Persimmon Salad and my chicken tagine, but using the actual recipe with 1.5 chickens!  The salad wasn't really my style, heavy on the fruit, but fairly tasty nonetheless. The leek mixture from the chicken was probably my favorite, along with the Sweet Potato-Turnip combo from the same recipe as the chicken. Could of eaten it for days!

 Owen cutting Shallots for the Sweet Potatoes

 Tagine Check

The Crew

Then I prepared another feast for my friends.

The buffet line up (close to far): Baked Turnips, Baked Sweet Potatoes/Yam, Roasted Bacon Brussels, Sous Vide Grass Fed Steak

I baked the potatoes and turnips the same as for the first feast because they are too good. A tad spicy a tad herby and a tad sweet.

My Plate

 I also made a Balsamic Reduction with simple Balsamic Vinegar and Ghee (2 cups and 1.5T ea.) which I am stoked to have leftovers on. It's sweet and delicious on everything and easy to make, just boil down to reduce by half, mix and serve.

 First time making Bacon Brussel Sprouts (of course I've tasted and loved them many times), and was very pleased (along with everyone else).  I used Bacon Trimmings which were cheaper from El Salchichero (coming from Devil's Gulch where I ride road to in Nicasio), and just sliced/cooked some up in a pan, poured the grease into a baking tray, put the prepared Sprouts on, and then scattered the bacon pieces throughout and baked with the other dishes at 400º F for 30 minutes or so until soft all the way through.

For the steak I used some Herbs mainly Rosemary with the Sous Vide, cooked to perfect medium rare and then seared the outside afterwards in a tiny bit of the Balsamic Sauce. So tender!

Now onto some more elementary feasting...Post long ride base training! I've been putting in a lot of 4-5 hour rides and it's hard to eat enough carbs afterwards. I need to hit 500 per day which means if there's no lunch involved because of my ride i've got a small window afterwards to cram. It's kind of fun.

 I've been having something along the lines of 2 servings of Gu Recovery Brew Strawberry Watermelon (50g ea.), a sweet potato or yam, a persimmon or plantain or blueberries, and for yesterday a few dates/dried cranberries as well. And an extra scoop of whey protein. Then an hour later I'll eat my meal which has another sweet potato/kabocha squash/chestnuts and some nice meat. Massive.

 These 'ice cream' bowls have been awesome.

• 2 out of the 6 scoops of Gu Recovery Mix
• 150g Blueberries (frozen)
• 12g Whey Protein (1 scoop)
• Vanilla Extract and Cinnamon
• Dates/Cranberries/Yam Optional

I hit 4 out of the 6 scoops of Gu Recovery first to get the speedy fiberless absorption before the even more delicious fruit/vegetable concoction (I should take the skin off for even less fiber but it's too delicious).

While on the topic of eating lots of carbs I tried using fit day and it's pretty cool. Here's how it came out:

I was trying to eat less fiber because without grains it's easy to get too much.

Increasing my carb intake at the right times (pre-post-during) has really helped my training and haven't gained an ounce of weight!

Health Potion: Turkey Stock

This may not be a post about No Bake Christmas Treats, but I'm into it and people still eat whole chickens and turkeys on Xmas so this is what you get! Plus, I've decided everyone should be buying bone in meat/whole chickens all the time anyways. It's cheaper, more resourceful, and you get to make the following nectar of life!

These photos are from Thanksgiving (I know it's been a while, but I've been down under in Aus and a bit off the grid from the intrawebs).  I did this twice during November (two feasts) and it seriously yields so much more meat. This is me scavenging all the extra meat halfway through making the stock. You just simply can't get it all by conventional carving. Think a couple extra pounds of turkey. Win #1.

In my pot was just the carcass, water, apple cider vinegar, and various herbs (bay leaf, thyme, rosemary, garlic).

All the meat taken off to the best of my ability, then it's back in for the bones! 

I got 3 delicious jars of Turkey stock out of one massive heritage bird carcass. I'm known to slurp a whole  jar after it 'gels' in the fridge (minimal calories, just a little protein/water/nutrients) and becomes delicious turkey jelly! It's also good for cooking veggies, or for soup and other things. Win #2 and #3.

I took some of it and made a grain free gravy simply by boiling (reducing) it down until it was as thick as gravy and it was delicious.

That's a lot of extra turkey! And it's oozing with way more flavor and delicious dark meat. (Don't be afraid of the fat if it's free range, then it's got vitamins not chemicals!)

Now onto the health benefits and the process:

Health: Bones in animals are considered organs believe it or not, putting them in the same category as the REAL superfoods (no not kale/goji berries which we can't even digest and absorb that well) like free range super nutrient dense animal organs like liver, heart, and nutrient dense free range fat (lard/tallow).  Kale may go right through you, but the fat soluble vitamins in animal fat get absorbed quite easily.

Inedible bones and connective tissue contain lots of goodies like collagen, glucosamine chondroitin (yes you don't need to pay $30 a month for the supplement to fix your achy joints), and other minerals.  Win #4 You just have to cook the crap out of them to extract them. Thus, we have soup stock.

The bone marrow (my favorite) is also fatty and delicious and nutrient dense along with the stock, which is actually very low calorie since after chilling all the fat floats to the top.  If your animal was free range, slurp it up or spread it on some sweet potatoes and roast veggies, but if not I'd throw it away because that's where the animals most likely store all those gross antibiotics and chemicals.  

Process: DON'T follow the conventional stock recipes/process! They do not recommend cooking times long enough for excellent nutrient extraction, just enough for good enough flavor.

Simply take your bones or carcass (best flavor after being roasted normally for the meat, but either works) and cover with enough water in a pot/dutch oven/slow cooker (maybe some wine if you have some, I always use mine once it's been open for a few days). Bring to a boil and then simmer for the appropriate time (fish bones 30min+, poultry 3-4 hours+, ruminants like beef 8 hours+). You can go almost as long as you want, just not long enough to make the bones soggy/break up and hard to deal with. These resources are the best.  Strain when finished and store in glass jars.  The fat layer on top will prevent bacterial growth and eating is optional.

Mark's Daily Apple

Balanced Bites

You can use this same idea to braise meat, I.E. with lamb shanks or short ribs that require long slow cooking. Just cook long enough for the meat, remove and put the bones back in for the time required to make stock, and then optionally boil it down to a sauce for the meat, adding in veggies/herbs/tomato sauce/lime juice at the end for even more flavor. Works especially well with Ham Hocks.

And yes this is different from what you buy in the store, with little to no sodium, and you can freeze it for later use as well!

Also worth mentioning, I came across the Four Pillar of Healthy World Cuisine, one of which is simply eating meat cooked with the bone in! So stop paying a premium for less healthy boneless skinless breasts that lack the nutrients the bone provides and the skin contains!

An Epic Thanksgiving Feast

Man I should have started making all this food the day before!  This year easily beats last year. More skillz and better ingredients thanks to the superior Paleo way of eating (sorry Vegans, I believe these recipes are healthier than last years dairy and almost meat free ones!).

I won't bore you with my description of all the recipes so this will be more of Thanksgiving Food Porn. Enjoy.

I was excited weeks before for this Heritage Turkey, thanks to El Salchichero. Yes that means eat all the delicious fat possible for those desirable Omega 3's and fat soluble vitamins.  A Torchon cooked Sous-Vide so all I had to do was brown the outside (in Ghee, which I am obsessed with all of a sudden) and then heat in the oven for 2 hours.  And make stock! But that deserves a whole separate post coming soon for various good reasons.

The Lemon, Sage and Spices wrapped in the inside were absolutely insane!

The 'Gravy' I made by simply reducing some of the stock I made was amazing on everything.  No cream or flour included! (I got 3 delicious containers of stock...going to be slurping turkey jelly all day!-stay tuned)

Now onto my plate before dissecting each component:

In the bottom middle is my stuffing. Pictured below steaming in the light! I omitted the sausage/mushrooms and used coconut oil. It was a hit (only dish at the table to compete with a standard 'normal' stuffing). I didn't miss the bread at all.

This had no recipe, just a bit of guidance from SnackingSquirrel and my own experience of eating baked sweet potatoes and squash a couple times a day.

A mix mash of Parsnips, Colored Carrots, Delicata Squash, Acorn Squash, and Kabocha Squash. With a bit of Ghee. Nothing like delicious buttery (better yet-Toffee like thanks to Ghee) squash, especially the mushy Acorn.

A salad dressing thanks to Oh She Glows, followed exactly for once.

I liked the dressing (above) even better than our cranberry sauce, the perfect blend of tart, sweet, and sour and tasty on everything.

Cranberry sauce. Enough said.

Mashed Yams/Sweet Potatoes like last year. This was über popular once again. Simply steam, mash, and mix in 1/2c Coconut Milk and 1 generous Tbsp of Coconut Oil. Creamy, sweet, and delicious, nice with a touch of cranberry sauce/dressing.

 Onto making pies. Above are the Pecan Pie filling ingredients about to be processed, it called for 3 eggs but 1 had a double yolk so I got a bonus yolk! I was stoked since that's never happened to me before. Thank you Farm-Fresh Eggs.

 Close and personal, this pie ended up quite delicious but a little bit nut buttery/energy bar like.  I love it like Almond paste/Marzipan, especially with Coconut Vanilla Ice Cream but am more of a liquidy pecan filling kind of guy.

 The epic crust for the Pumpkin Pie. I followed this for both crusts but got way more pecans into the pumpkin one, which made it way better. I could just make it as a cookie if I added a hint of ginger!
 Boom. 

Pre-Oven Pumpkin Pie. 

Pre Oven Pecan.

Donezo! I should of cooked it longer but couldn't because of the crust getting overdone, next time I'll do the crust less the first time around.

 I enjoyed with a bit of Fage Greek Yogurt as well as Coconut Bliss Vanilla Bean (which was so good, the bean part so strong it was almost like coffee ice cream).  The Pumpkin filling was a bit like Pumpkin pudding, not super firm and very creamy.

They go together quite well. In fact I had a slice of each for breakfast today and again after training.

 The whole table, this year only my dishes were present! Except for one imposter stuffing...

Ok I can't take credit for the gourmet turkey, El Salchichero I don't know what I'd do without you.

Cooking from 7 to 5 was well worth it for the 30 minutes of eating (plus several leftover meals).

Now leftovers for days if they last and the wonders of stock coming soon.

As part of the Foodbuzz Featured Publisher program, I have been entered for the chance to win a trip to Greece courtesy of FAGE. You too can enter to win one of three trips to Greece by entering the FAGE Plain Extraordinary Greek Getaway here: http://www.fageusa.com/community/fage-greek-getaway.

Thai Lime Coconut Chicken Curry

It's a great thing when farmer's markets lead you to good deals and fresh healthy whole foods. It's even better when they are new and way more delicious than your basic go to items. Thank you to the Santa Cruz Farmer's Markets (I've been frequenting many of the different daily ones)

(photo from Serious Eats) A new squash experience: More Sweet and Nutty than others!

This tasted ridiculously delicious. Way better than anything I should be able to create from random. It gets its own dedicated post!

It started with Delicata Squash and Kaffir Lime Leaves (also labeled as makroot leaves). They are both epic. So much flavor in just one whole food each. Thank you to the staff at the UCSC Campus Farmer's Market for the suggestions (not the combo, just the individual ingredients).

Then combine with lots of other good spices, herbs, and ingredients and I don't know how I do it. No need for grains/bread/legumes/dairy when you have super extra delicious whole foods that are even excellent on their own, and provide way more nutrition.

Sometimes I'm stoked on the food I make. Other times I like it so much it's almost less enjoyable because I'm bummed that everyone I know can't enjoy it as well! This is by far one of those times. Creamy, sweet, a little spicy but not really, a little tangy but not fruity. Excellent textures for days.

First time in a while I've done some real cooking/put a bit of extra time in and it was so incredibly worth it. Ahhhhh satisfaction. Ok onto the ingredients:

• Chicken Breast (from earlier) baked with Basil, Thyme, Coconut Oil, splash of Temari
• 1/2-2/3 Can Lite Coconut Milk with several Kaffir Lime Leaves, 1/4 bunch Cilantro, 2T Lemon Juice, 2 shakes Dried Basil, 1T Green Thai Curry Paste, 1 Chopped Shallot 
• 1 Baked Delicata Squash sliced/in coconut oil 
• Grilled Brussel Sprouts with Mustard Powder, S&P, Coconut Oil

I baked the chicken in the oven at 375º for 20 minutes and then sliced it up. The squash was 400º for 45min-hour (until super soft and browning).  I browned the Sprouts on medium high heat at first and then reduced the heat to low to cook for a pretty long time, covered, until starting to get soft, and then added the curry mix (mix all ingredients in bowl w/ hand blender or food processor/blender), squash, and chicken.

This was the perfect meal for me to refuel and prepare to rebuild for another day. The proper protein from a free range boneless skinless chicken breast, just enough healthy fat from almost a full can of coconut milk (I could do a full can if extra hungry), and 1 whole winter squash that's not too big or too small. And a hearty flavorful meal at that!

 I must make this over and over again. Hopefully in XL quantities to share and store for later. Definitely the best chicken curry sauce i've made!

I'd also like to use a red purple onion (never know which to call them) because they taste so good in curry's! Sweet yet with a bite.