Stuffed Giant Zucchini - Allergy Friendly

Our friendly neighbors recently unloaded a basket of giant zucchini and squash upon us. Free food is such a blessing but this kind takes work to process one way or another.

Among other things that I've been doing with the squash, my recent attempt at stuffing and baking the largest of the green baseball bats was probably the most successful and tasty. Because of food sensitivities, I wasn't able to follow any of the recipes I found online or in my cookbooks and had to tweak them quite a lot. The final result of all the tweaking was quite tasty - and a great option for those who can't eat the gluten, dairy, or tomato products found in most stuffed zucchini recipes.

- 1 large 3-5 lb zucchini, halved lengthwise and seeds scraped out with a spoon. Continue to scrape insides until an even 1/4-1/2 inch of flesh is left all around. Reserve the edible scrapings to add to the stuffing. Rub zucchini halves all over with olive oil and place in large baking pan.

In a large pan coated with olive oil, brown over medium high heat

- 1 lb. ground chicken or other ground meat
with
- 1 clove of minced garlic, or 1/2 tsp of dry minced garlic
- 1/4 tsp. marjoram
-1/4 tsp. black pepper
- Salt to taste

Add
- Zucchini scrapings, and cook till translucent
Add
- 1 /1/2 cups of cooked rice (handy if you have leftover)
- Handful of chopped fresh parsley
- 1 egg

Stuff filling into zucchini cavity, mounding evenly. Top with chopped walnuts and drizzle with olive oil. Pour 1 cup of water into bottom of baking dish. Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes or till zucchini begins to be tender, but not mushy. Let sit 10 minutes before serving.

Batch-Cooked Chicken Breast Meals

Bone-in chicken breasts are not only an economical form in which to purchase breast meat, but they are also more moist and flavorful than the more commonly used boneless skinless chicken breasts. Here are instructions for preparing a pack with about two large split breasts (4 breast pieces) into three paleo, AIP-friendly meals for 2-4 people (depending on appetites!). A key ingredient is the salt - I nearly always use himalayan pink salt. When your flavor options are limited, a quality salt makes a big difference. It's healthier too!

Cook the chicken:
Place chicken pieces in a large pot and cover with 4-6 cups water. Add 1 tsp. salt, cover and bring to simmer on stove over medium heat. Check for doneness by pricking to see if juices run clear. When just done, remove from heat immediately. Let sit, covered for 10 minutes, then remove chicken to platter, reserving broth. When just cool enough to handle, but still warm, remove skin and bones. Place skin back into broth on stove. Discard bones (or add to your bag of bones for stock in the freezer).

Now you have 4 large, peeled chicken breasts. Using a sharp, serrated knife, cut each breast into 1/2 inch slices and sprinkle the cut surface with sea salt immediately. Put salted pieces into a covered dish. Spoon over a little broth, to moisten.

Meal #1: Creamy Broccoli Chicken Soup
Remove 2 cups of broth from the pot, and reserve for other use.
Return remaining broth with skins in it to medium-high heat.
Add 1 bag of frozen broccoli, 1 cup frozen peas (optional), 1-2 peeled and chopped turnips, and 1 Tbsp minced dry onion.
Cook until vegetables are tender.
Add a handful of fresh parsley or other herbs of choice.
Puree - an immersion blender is your best friend here, but adding to a regular blender by batches if you don't have one - until smooth. The fatty chicken skin is key to creating creaminess.
Take a third of the reserved chicken, chop into smaller pieces and add into pureed soup. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve topped with butter, chopped walnuts, and fresh chopped parsley if desired.

Meal #2: Chicken Salad
While soup is cooking, take another third of the chicken, chop it finely and add in red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder, dijon mustard and chopped fresh herbs. (Or your own home made vinaigrette recipe - enough to thoroughly moisten all the meat). Pack into a covered glass container tightly and refrigerate overnight. Serve on top of salad greens with tomatoes, grated carrot, olives or other favorite salad toppings and additional vinaigrette.

Meal #3: Spaghetti Squash Alfredo
Place 1/4 cup of raw cashews into a blender jar. Cover with 1 1/4 cup of boiling water and let sit 20-30 minutes. Add 1/4 tsp salt, dash of pepper and 2 Tbsp. butter. Puree until smooth. This can be done ahead of time and refrigerated for a day or so.
Cook a spaghetti squash according to typical directions. Remove 'noodles' and toss with butter and salt and dried basil. Set aside.
Place leftover chopped chicken in pan coated with olive oil. Cook on medium heat til warm and sizzling. Add cashew cream sauce and cook til bubbly. Serve over spaghetti squash.
A side dish of spinach salad with vinaigrette or cooked green beans or asparagus rounds out the meal nicely.

Jicama Peppermint Patties

The other day I was munching on some fresh jicama sticks. I tried dipping them in coconut oil and chilling them. It made a nice candy-bar texture over the cool, crunchy inside and my imagination started spinning with the possibilities. What about peppermint patties?

I peeled a chilled jicama and cut it into quarters and thin slices. Then, with a fork, I dipped each slice in a dish of liquid coconut oil infused with a few drops of peppermint oil and laid them all out on a wax paper lined cookie sheet which went in the fridge to chill.

Then when they were chilled, I gave them a second dipping in melted chocolate (Mine was a mixture of unsweetened baking chocolate melted with a small amount of organic coconut sugar and coconut oil. You could use any favorite dark chocolate.) and returned them to the wax paper sheet and chilled again.

The result was convincingly scrumptious.

Things I want to do differently next time. 

1.) Use less coconut oil in the chocolate mixture - it melts too quickly out of the fridge. So you have to eat them really fast - which isn't difficult - but I want something a little sturdier.

2.) Let the chocolate dip be not too warm when coating the slices for the second round because the coconut oil melts off and dilutes the chocolate mixture.

3.) Make more to share - they are too good to keep to yourself. My husband ,who'd rather have a sugary fully-loaded dessert or none at all, and declines most of my healthy creations, declared these to be really good.

Come over and have one before I eat them all.

Hearty Spice and Flax Cookies - grain and milk free

I've found the trick to getting coconut flour products to be fluffy and light - flax meal, baking soda and vinegar. Having just pulled some of these gorgeous plump, brown cookies, steaming with spicy aroma out of the oven, here's an attempt at remembering what I put into them:

In a blender, grind: 

1/4 cup flax seed

Add to blending flax seed and continue to process until creamy-looking:

1/2 cup water

Add and continue to process after each addition:

1 large yellow plantain, peeled and cut into chunks

1/3 cup oil or butter, soft or melted

2 eggs

1-2 Tbsp grated fresh ginger root

1-2 tsp grated fresh turmeric root (optional)

1 Tbsp blackstrap molasses

1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

Sift into a small mixing bowl:

2/3 cup coconut flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350 and grease a large baking sheet. 

Add wet ingredients from blender to flour mixture in bowl. Add an additional 1/2 cup of water to blender jar and whirl briefly to rinse out and collect remaining batter before adding to mixing bowl. Stir with a spoon or heavy whisk until mixture becomes a stiff batter or soft dough. Drop by heaping tablespoonfuls onto baking sheet, about 3/4 inch apart. Bake at 350 for 15ish minutes or till puffy and golden brown. Remove immediately to plate or rack and enjoy warm or cold.

Peaches and Cream - Pure Fruit

Starting the day with a fresh fruit smoothie is worth the effort, especially when it's as delicious and healthy as this 99% fruit-based bowl of creamy goodness. Peaches are delicious with cream, but cream, or even non-dairy alternatives like coconut or almond milk, tends, in my opinion to cut the pure, clean freshness of raw fruit on the morning belly. So I decided to try this banana alternative. It's almost 100% fruit, but with just a splash of vanilla to make it extra yummy. And it's super simple.

Pure Fruit Peaches and Cream

1 frozen banana, sliced into 1" chunks
1 fresh peach, halved and sliced
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup cold water

Place frozen banana, half of the sliced peach, vanilla, and water into blender jar and puree till smooth. Dump mixture into a small (cereal) bowl. Top with remaining half of  fresh peach cut into bite size chunks. Eat with a spoon. (And don't try being fancy and adding berries or cinnamon or that kind of stuff - it won't be right.)

It's peach ice cream for breakfast. Enjoy!

Turkey Sweet Potato Chili - Turkey Burger 7 Ways

This chili is easy, healthy, inexpensive and filling. Best of all, for those with allergies, it is tomato-free. It keeps well as leftovers. I like to make a big pot of it early in the afternoon and just let it sit on the stove till dinner time. Would probably be good in a slow-cooker too.

Turkey Sweet Potato Chili

Brown in large pan or medium soup pot over medium high heat:
2 slices nitrate-free bacon

Remove bacon when crispy and set aside. Then add to bacon grease in pot:
1 Tbsp coconut oil
1 small onion, chopped
Saute for several minutes, then add:
1 lb. frozen turkey burger, thawed
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp black pepper

When meat is cooked, add:
1 cup/can cooked kidney beans
1 cup/can cooked white or pinto beans
the cooked bacon, snipped into small bits
1 large (or 2 small) sweet potato, peeled and cut to 1" cubes
1 cup chicken stock
1 cup coconut milk (or 1/4 c coconut cream concentrate in 1 cup water - don't bother to dissolve separately since it will do that in the pot)
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp dry basil
1/2 tsp. cumin
1/4 tsp cayenne powder, chili powder or dash or tabasco sauce
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ginger

Turn to very low and cook for 1 hour. Before serving, stir in:
Handful of chopped fresh parsley

Savory Chicken Gravy - GF, DF

I experimented with a grain- and dairy-free 'biscuits and gravy' dinner this evening using homemade cashew milk for the chicken gravy, and it turned out beautifully. It was my first try with making cashew milk from raw cashews, and I'm sure this won't be the last. If you're tired of coconut products, and want something creamy but dairy-free that doesn't taste like coconut milk for once, cashew milk is a great alternative as it has very little flavor, but lots of creamy texture.

Chicken Gravy with Cashew Milk

Cook and stir over medium-heat in large saucepan, till meat is either cooked through or re-heated. (I used leftover chopped, cooked chicken breast.)

1 Tbsp fat/oil/bacon grease

2 cups chopped chicken, turkey, or sausage

1 tsp. onion powder

1/4 tsp. black pepper

1/4 tsp. white pepper or powdered dry sage

Add (optional)

1 c. chopped kale leaves, stems removed

Cook till wilted and tender over lowered heat.

For the gravy

Combine in blender and whirl till fine-textured and milky:

1/2 cup "raw" (blanched) cashews 

3/4 c boiling water

1 clove fresh garlic

1 tsp. salt (more or less, depending on if your meat is salted)

Add cashew puree/milk to saucepan along with

1/2 cup chicken broth

1 Tbsp. arrowroot powder dissolved in 1/3 c water or reserved cashew milk - I used water that I put in the blender to rinse out the cashew milk residue.

After adding all liquids to the meat mixture, raise heat back to medium. Stir well until mixture is heated through and thickening and bubbling and then turn heat to low and simmer for 10-20 minutes. Serve over biscuits, waffles or pancakes. I hope to post my grain-free pancake or waffle recipe another time!

Macobella

To eat Nutella with a spoon is one of the special pleasures of women in the free West - unless one happens to be allergic to chocolate and sugar, in which case she only imagines that it must be scrumptious to do so. Eating almond butter with a spoon is a pleasure less exquisite and can even tend to make one morose and non-conversant.

Enter maca-laced carob-infused almond butter, aka "Macobella". This buttery dark brown treat is not only free of sugar (and chocolate and peanuts and other troublesome things) but it is tremendously satisfying and energizing, full of protein and healthy fat. I would encourage anyone who does not usually like carob to give this a try, because the rich, buttery texture brings out the best of the carob flavor (more than many recipes in which carob is substituted for cocoa and ends up tasting like mildly sweetened dirt). The carob is used mostly for the natural sweetness it contributes.

This recipe is for one or two servings, because for some reason it seems more appetizing freshly made than if it were made in a big batch and dipped from a jar. It's a great healthy snack for those cravey times of the month, and an out-of-this-world dessert topped with frozen berries and coconut milk. I would post a picture, but that I just ate the photo subject again and am composing this post in the energy of it. 

Macobella

1 tablespoon almond butter

1 tablespoon sesame butter (or another of almond butter if you don't have sesame butter)

1 tablespoon coconut oil

1 heaping teaspoon carob powder

1 heaping teaspoon maca powder 

Optional additions:

1 heaping teaspoon flaked coconut

1 teaspoon flax meal

Dash of coconut milk if your mixture is too dry.

Mix everything in a small glass dish until smooth and dough-like. Eat now or later. A handful of frozen blackberries or raspberries and coconut cream poured over top are a recommended indulgence.