We have decided to start a blog to share our recipes and to also keep them in a place we can easily access them. We hope you enjoy them and the little tid bits of our lives that we throw in. Most recipes will be based on primal principles although a few non-primal baked goods may slip in :)

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Primal Chocolate Chip Cookies!



YUM!!! That is pretty much all I have to say about these cookies. They are fluffier than my regular chocolate chippers but delicious!

This recipe came from our cookbook The Food Lovers - Make it Paleo

Ingredients:
3 cups of almond flour
1 tsp baking soda
1tsp salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup of unrefined coconut oil
1 1/2 cups dark chocolate chips (72% cacao)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a medium mixing bowl mix dry ingredients. In a small bowl beat eggs, vanilla and maple syrup.

Pour wet into dry ingredients. Mix well with mixer.

Melt coconut oil and pour into batter and continue to beat until combined.

Stir in chocolate chips.

On parchment paper or silicon baking sheets drop about tablespoon size balls.

Bake for 15 minutes.

ENJOY, we did with a glass of Snowville Creamery Whole Milk.

Steak and Turnip Risotto


Another successful recipe from Quick and Easy Primal cookbook!  We've been experimenting with lots of new dishes lately and they have all been great.  We've been holding off on this one until now because we finally have chicken stock!

Ingredients:

2 cups chicken stock
4 large turnips - peeled and grated in a food processor
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 pound steak - recipe called for skirt steak.  I forget what we bought.
1 shallot - sliced
1/4 cup oil
salt and pepper

In a small pot bring the chicken stock to a boil.  In a large pot on medium high heat, melt the butter then add turnips.  Add the chicken stock and continue to boil for 10-12 minutes until it's mostly boiled off.

Meanwhile, slice the steak, season with salt and pepper and cook in a skillet with oil. The shallot is browned in yet another small skillet with oil to add to the finished dish as a garnish.

We ended up with plenty of dirty pots and pans, but it was worth it! The turnip risotto is definitely going to make it into the rotation!

Scallops with almonds and bacon



Angela is always asking for scallops.  And for good reason, they are delicious!  We've tried them a few times with pretty good success but I think this has been our best result.

Ingredients:

4 slices of bacon (my favorite ingredient)
1/2 cup almonds - we started with sliced almonds
1 large handful of parsley
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
Scallops

Directions:

Cook the bacon and save the skillet and grease.  Crumble or cut bacon into food processor and pulse with almond and parsley.

On medium high heat, add scallops to skillet and cook 2 minutes on each side until nice and brown. Add 1-2 minutes each side for firmer texture.

Plate the finished scallops and sprinkle with bacon and almond mixture.  We found this recipe in the appetizer section of Quick and Easy Primal cookbook.  We added a small salad to make it a meal...yum!

Berry Pancake



Another great mix up for breakfast. I messed it up a little bit but it was just me making it while Adam hit the gym. This is something that you want 2 people to help.

This came from the Primal Blueprint Quick and Easy Meals.

Ingredients:
3 tbsp of butter
1 cup of sliced berries (we used strawberries and blackberries)
4 large eggs separated into whites and yolks
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Heat butter in an oven proof skillet over medium heat. add berries and simmer for 3-5 minutes so the liquid thickens, stirring.

While someone is manning that, the other person will whisk the egg yolks for 1-2 minutes by hand with vanilla and cinnamon.

In a separate bowl use an electric hand mixer to beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

Then fold the yolks into the egg whites.

With the skillet still over medium heat, spread the egg batter over the berries. Cook for 2 minutes on the stove and then move to the oven and bake for 10-12 minutes.

Remove from the oven and place a plate over the pan and flip.

Cut into slices and enjoy!

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Homemade Chicken Broth


Quite a few recipes we've skipped over have called for homemade chicken broth. We haven't made them because the store bought broth is full of a lot of stuff we don't want. After looking up directions, it seemed making our own chicken broth from scratch was pretty easy. All you need is a chicken carcass, some spices and a few veggies (optional). Since we regularly cook a whole chicken each week, it wasn't hard coming up with the ingrediants.

For no particular reason, I picked this recipe to make our broth. Mostly because it didn't call for any veggies other than an onion, which is all I had on hand. Pretty easy and forgiving...throw it all in and simmer for a few hours. We will have a post soon with a recipe calling for our newly made broth!

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Banana and almond topped pancakes


On this super cold and icy morning Adam and I needed something different from our usual bacon and eggs. In my new cookbook (Make it Paleo) there is a yummy recipe for coconut flour waffles or pancakes. I am not a big fan of pancakes but the picture in the book was too yummy looking to pass up.

Pancake/Waffle Ingredients:
1/4 cup of coconut flour
4 eggs
1 tbsp of milk (recipe calls for coconut milk but we used Snowville Creamery Whole Milk)
1 tbsp of cinnamon (if making the pancakes use just 1/4 tsp.)
1/4 tsp of nutmeg
1/4 tsp of baking soda

FOR PANCAKES:
In a medium bowl mix all ingredient together with a hand mixer. Bring a skillet up to medium heat and add coconut oil. Pour 1/8 of the mixture into the middle of the skillet. Cook for 2 minutes on each side.

FOR WAFFLES:
Heat waffle iron to waffle setting (medium heat). Drop batter into center, this batter does not expand like usual waffle batter. Usually takes about 3-5 minutes.

Banana Nut Topping:
2 bananas sliced
1 tsp of coconut oil
1/4 cup of pecans (we used almond slices because that is what we had)

Heat the coconut oil in a skillet on medium heat. Add banana. Sear slices until brown and crispy. Flip and add nuts. Once that side is crispy just give it all a good toss.

Top the pancakes/waffles with the banana nut topping and maple syrup.

YUMMMMM!

Pizza night!




Every now and then Adam and I cheat with pizza. I mean who can resist a cold beer and pizza on a Friday night??? We were very excited to come across a recipe for cauliflower pizza crust. I was a little skeptical at first and our first go around produced a mushy dough (we tried to double it, I would recommend NOT doing that!). On our second attempt we stuck to the recipe and it was AMAZING!

You can find the recipe here.

We topped ours with organic pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese, prosciutto and quartered artichoke hearts.

ENJOY!

Venison and red pepper breakfast


One morning we had a left over grilled venison stuffed pepper (followed same recipe from an earlier post but used some of Adam's fresh ground venison). Adam had a great idea to make a egg hash with the left over stuffed pepper. He just chopped up the pepper and tossed it in while he was scrambling the egg.

YUM!

Primal lasagna


For Christmas I got a new primal/paleo (actually paleo but it works) cookbook! It is The Food Lovers Make it Paleo book. You can also find recipes on their blog.

This is a great dish when you want something hearty and warm on a winter day. You can also make it vegetarian by just adding more veggies to the sauce instead of beef.

Zucchini Lasagna

1 lb of ground beef (or any type of ground meat you would like)
3 gloves of garlic minced
1 small yellow onion chopped
1 small green pepper chopped
6 oz can of tomato sauce (be sure to get a can that has no salt added)
15 oz of tomato sauce (again no salt added)
1 tbsp of parsley (we didn't have any so we skipped this)
1 tbsp of basil
1 tbsp of oregano
salt and pepper to taste
1 zucchini (we actually used 3 small ones)
1 1/4 cups of sliced mushrooms

Brown the ground beef in a large skillet.
Add garlic, onion and green pepper and saute for 5 minutes.
Stir in tomato past and sauce.
Add in the spices and bring to a light boil, then remove from the heat.

Grease a 9x13 pan.

Place a thin layer of the sauce mixture. Then a layer of zucchini, then mushrooms and then sauce. Repeat until it is all gone.

Bake at 325 degrees for 15 minutes covered with foil. The bake for another 15 at 35o degrees without the foil.

ENJOY!

Venison crockpot chili!


So this was my first attempt ever making chili. Tons of recipes out there. I choose one out of our new book The Everyday Low-carb Slow Cooker Cookbook by Bitter and Mayone. This is their "typical chili" recipe, although I changed and subbed a few things. I prepared everything the night before and stored it in the fridge, then threw it all in the next morning and let it cook while we were at work. What a great dinner to come home to!

2 pounds ground beef - I used 1# ground venison and 1# ground pork
1 onion chopped
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp kosher salt
1 green bell pepper, chopped - I used red
Did not use any beans - not primal
1 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes
Made 2 cups of beef broth from bouillon cubes
2 Tbs of chili powder
1 Tbs minced garlic
2 tsp's oregano
1 tsp cumin
Grated cheese for topping

I browned the meat, then threw everything in the crockpot. 8 hours on low. It turned out great! Despite the weird red picture, sorry about that. I was too excited to eat a delicious bowl of chili than mess with the camera settings. One thing to change next time; only use 1 tablespoon of chili powder. It was a little over powering and we prefer to let the other flavors come through.

Fish taco salad


This is a pretty simple fish taco recipe that only takes about 30 minutes. This is yet another great recipe from the Primal Blueprint Quick and Easy Meals.

We put the fish and toppings over some sauteed cabbage. To saute the cabbage just chop it up and put in a large skillet with about 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and salt and pepper to your liking. Put lid on the skillet and mix it around every few minutes. This does not take long, about 10-15 minutes so start it when you start your fish.

The recipe calls for lettuce leaves to wrap the fish in so if you would rather do that then go for it!

Fish "Tacos" with Citrus Dressing
2 lbs of fish (we used grouper, but it suggests cod, Mahi-Mahi or halibut)
2 tablespoons of lemon pepper seasoning
olive oil for drizzling
1 white or red onion thinly sliced (our mandolin was great for this!)
sliced avocado for garnish

Season the fish with the lemon pepper and drizzle with olive oil. You can pan fry it or bake it. We backed it for 20 minutes. While that is cooking make the citrus dressing.

Dressing:
1 cup of mayo
3 large or 4 small limes (for zest and juice)
2 cloves of garlic minced

Zest the limes into a small bowl and then cut them open and squeeze out the juice into a different bowl. Stir mayo, garlic and zest while slowly adding the juice.

Just drizzle that over the fish and ENJOY!