Spiced Apples with Turkey

It is apple season and I wanted to expand my apple cooking techniques beyond the pie and crumble. I can bake apples, eat apples and make apple sauce but can I cook with apples? I did a little digging around and testing out cook times and came up with a fabulous fall main dish. I love a good pork chop and learned recently that you can do just about anything with turkey that you can with pork. Turns out turkey is kind of a chameleon in the kitchen. Not as dry as the Thanksgiving bird once it is sliced into manageable pieces for cooking. 

I find that the variety of apple that you eat or cook with matters.  For cooking and baking I enjoy the Golden Delicious variety. For eating, the Granny Smith or Crisps. This past week our farmer's market started selling apples. We bought a ton of them. This next week I will be buying bushels of them. Why so many? Well, my son's allergy to corn makes his apple picking preferences pretty particular. The grocery store apples can be up to a year old. (Ewww gross. No, I am not even kidding, look it up.) Worse than that, apples, along with other fruits and veggies are sprayed with a corn based wax. We learned this the hard way. I am sure that is the only way I ever learn things.  Peeling apples certainly helps but I would rather have apples that are fresh, grown THIS year and support my community. 

Ingredients: 

• 3 Golden Delicious apples- peeled, chopped
• 4 Turkey breast slices or pork chops
• 1 tbl olive oil
• 1/2 tbl garlic powder
• 1/2 tbl ginger powder
• 1/2 tbl cumin
• 1/4 tsp coriander 
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• pinch salt
• pinch pepper

Cook:

In a saute pan heat the olive oil. Peel, core and slice the apples and cook for 2 minutes in the pan over medium heat. In a small bowl prep all of the dry spices together. Add the turkey or chops into the pan and let sit for 2-3 minutes so they form a nice crust. Add the spices to the apples and mix around to ensure even coating. Flip the turkey and cook another 3-4 minutes on the other side. Once the pink is gone you are all done. 

With Thanksgiving coming up I am really working on making a list of recipes that feel like the holidays. Last year was our major elimination diet year and we had not yet found the Paleo and Primal community. We ended up making enchiladas thinking it was safe for our son. That was about when we figured out that his issue was corn. Oops. Corn tortillas were a really bad idea. (Corn allergy) This year we will be enjoying a primal feast. I have mastered the art of cooking real food. Okay, so maybe not mastered but I am certainly on my way. 

Prosciutto Wrapped Asparagus

Prosciutto wrapped asparagus make the most wonderful presentation item and serve equally well as a snack or side dish. I saw an episode on Food Network with Trisha Yearwood where she took what could have been a really nice and simple meat wrapped veg recipe and transformed it into a processed food nightmare. It seems today that making food that is simple and clean is a lost art. Even so called "Pioneer" women can't make something from scratch. There is a mass produced box package product in every single dish. I might have buried my history lessons way out past Terlingua but I am pretty sure that our pioneering ancestors did not use a box of Bisquick around the campfire. Can you imagine these "chefs" trying to actually survive as chefs 100 years ago? That would be hilarious.

Primal side effect: excellent compost.

I would be willing to get my cable back if they had a Primal or Paleo food show. The best part would be trying to find commercials to fill in between segments. I can just see people rolling theirs eyes as the announcer comes on to say that this show was brought to you buy Kraft Singles. That would be a facepalm moment for sure. In my fantasy land, I would be competing against Nom Nom Paleo in an Iron Chef competition with Alton Brown explaining the science of sous vide. This is also the same fantasy land where I can properly do a sous vide preparation. My kitchen skills have improved in the past year but I don't know if I am up to that standard just yet. 

Make a little oily garlic bath and let the asparagus get friendly. 

Speaking of cooking skills.....if someone would have told me that I would need to know how to cook this well in order to eat I would have laughed at them. I thought I knew how to cook before our massive diet overhaul. Turns out I cooked like an American. That is to say, I bought a box of chemically altered, mass produced garbage and plopped it into a pan/microwave/pot and heated it. That is not cooking. That is reheating. Thanks to our primal lifestyle, I can really cook. I spend so much time in my kitchen now and I love it. I truly wouldn't have it any other way. I wish my husband had a bit more time to cook but he is super busy with work so I am just grateful that I get to stay at home and make him awesome meals. I pretty much get to mess around in the kitchen all day and use my family as (willing) test subjects. That is pretty sweet. 

Wrap up the deliciousness with a layer of pork. 

Ingredients:

• 1 bunch of asparagus, cleaned and trimmed
• 1 package of prosciutto or bacon
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 tbl olive oil
• salt and pepper

Prep:

Preheat oven to 400F. Trim the ends of the asparagus. This could mean a little or a lot depending on how woody the stalks are. I like to snap the ends off but you can make a clean cut for presentation or speed.

Take a baking sheet out and cover in foil. Lay the cleaned stalks out and place the garlic, salt and pepper over them with a touch of olive oil. Not too much since the prosciutto will make a bit of grease. Once mixed, wrap groups of 3 or 4 stalks with a piece of the meat and set back on the tray. If you use bacon, turn the asparagus over once in the middle of cooking. 

Pop into the oven for 15 minutes. You don't want soggy, limp asparagus so if they are thin, cook a little less time. 

Curried Carrot Coconut Soup

A soup is a great way to change up your weekly meal plans, make a simple meal that is great as a side or main and a great way to get your kids to eat plenty of vegetables. I love the simply delicious flavors in curries but I tended to stay away thinking that they would be spicy. It took this soup to convince me that curries are a very good thing. I usually make this with a whole roasted chicken so my husband can pull it apart and drop the chicken in his soup. I like mine with cauliflower tortillas to dip in it. My son loves it any way he can get it. He is a soup connoisseur. This recipe is dairy free and quick to make so it is a regular on our menu. This serves 4 and can be expanded by adding more stock and carrots. 

Since my son was recently diagnosed with corn and milk allergies, we are really careful to scrutinize the labels on his products. When shopping for a coconut milk, make sure that your product only lists a few key ingredients. Ours had coconut, water, guar gum. As far as we have found, only one company makes a coconut milk with no stabilizer thickener (guar gum) and that is Trader Joes. Since I don't have one near me, the Taste of Thai milk is our best bet. The guar gum is 8x more powerful than cornstarch as a thickener yet isn't made of that nasty allergen. 

Ingredients:

• 6 carrots
• 1/2 white or yellow onion
• 2 cups chicken or vegetable stock
• 1 tbl curry seasoning
• 1 pinch sea salt
• 1 can of coconut milk

Cook:

Cut up your onion and carrots into chunks. They don't need to be too fine since you will be boiling and blending later.

In a dutch oven saute the onion in a little oil or grease while you cut up your carrots. Add the salt and carrots and cook for 5 minutes on medium/low. Let them get a little soft and golden. Add the curry powder, stir. Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Boil about 8-10 minutes. You will stop cooking it once the carrots can be smashed against the side of the pot easily. At this point. Take it off the heat and use either an immersion blender or pour into a blender. Blend until smooth and add the coconut milk. That is it. 

Could it be any easier? Didn't think so. I recently tried adding a green bell pepper into the mix and was pleased with the results. 

Traveling On A Paleo or Primal Diet

I feel as though becoming a primal parent has heightened some traits I didn't even know I had and reshaped the way we approach many things in our life. I was reflecting on this recently and I came up with a short list of things that really stick out. I made an earlier post about how going paleo had made me feel like a better member of my community. This is following in that vein and includes my latest primal vacation success. Eating clean on vacation is as simple as a little planning and some culinary adventure. When we made our reservations we had the luxury of staying with family so a kitchen was available. (Thanks Mom and Dad!) When we aren't with family, I plan on finding a hotel with either a mini-kitchen or at the very least an in-room refrigerator. We also look up the local farmer's markets and write down (or bookmark) the times and locations. Plan around them. I made good use of our cooler bag on the flight and packed it full of all the food we needed for the trip, some contingency food for flight delays and a big for when we landed. Nothing worse than trying to find food fast when you have a special diet. 

Eating off the menu plus a
bit of packed food.

I also keep a small bag of healthy jerky, fruits and bottled water around. I feel like we don't always know where our next meal will be on vacation so we go prepared. For people that eat on the primal and paleo diet because they are health conscious I get a little jealous. They have the option of forgoing their chosen lifestyle and eating out once in a while. We don't have the option. It has caused some really stressful days but overall it has brought us to a better place. I have a set of really adorable metal lunch boxes that we travel with. I love to eat my way across a town and find that instead of buying a t-shirt I will spend my money at the market buying local dates or trying the creamed cocoa honey.

Stroller parking. 

When working on a limited pantry I spend a little time making a shopping list that is economical. I stick to one kind of cooking oil, typically coconut oil. It can hold a decently high heat, bakes well and doubles as a nice moisturizer in case yours was taken by airport security. I like to buy a few kinds of chicken sausage and cut them up into eggs, vegetable medley and stir fry. The AlFresco brand has a nice breakfast apple and maple chicken sausage that works for us. They are sweet without bordering on too sweet. The Aidells brand and a few others are gluten free with no hormones or antibiotics used. That type of knowledge comes in handy when eating out as well. On our trip we stopped in Calistoga for a nice lunch and I managed to find a restaurant that served one of the brands of chicken sausage that we could eat. It was a comfort to know that I had pre-screened the company and felt safe eating out. What a nice change. 

A nice winery tour at the Beringer Winery.

One of the smaller markets in the city. 

This is the short list of some of the things I love about being a primal mother and adventurer. 

• I loved to cook before. Now I love to try anything I can in the kitchen. I even spatchcocked a chicken a few months back. I find that since I am cooking 3-4 meals a day from scratch I get in a grove in the kitchen and don't even have to think about it anymore. Kind of like driving. When you first make a turn in an intersection you get nervous. Checking and double checking where you will head. After a while, I am pretty sure I could drive with beer goggles on. Okay, that was a really bad analogy. Moving on.

Look at all the squash varieties. I am not sure how but I think I have cooked
 about 30 pounds  of squash this year and still have yet to get bored with it.  

• Food tastes better now. I hated everything that wasn't boxed before. Now I approach food with a sense of adventure and a "what the heck, why not?" attitude. I don't consider any food to be off my palate even if I once hated it. A funny thing happens when you cut out the processed grains, chemical sweeteners and lab-created flavors. Suddenly your body recognizes natural sweeteners and saltiness. You taste nature's unami and can fully appreciate all of the seasonal bounties. Added bonus: no degree necessary to read your food labels.

• Agriturismo. I visited my family in California recently and took advantage of the farmer's markets. I had never done this before. Why not? California produces 80% of America's produce yet I had not been to the farmer's markets the whole time I was growing up. I learned so much about the local region as well by going to the markets. There were beautiful crawfish crawling in containers that had been harvested in the rice paddies. I never knew they lived there before. I love crawfish. How did I miss that growing up? Another delightful agriturismo highlight: conversations with the goat farmers about how raw milk licenses work. I was able to learn the ins and outs of the raw milk legal system and health benefits thanks to my morning walk through the market. I found a nice contrast to the local NC peaches in California. They grow the most peaches in the US yet I only saw a few varieties. In the south they market each variety by name and celebrate the diversity. California just labeled them all peaches. 

• I travel smarter and plan my vacation around what local food I can find. We are headed on a trip to a new city soon and I am already planning where to find great food. I am even planning our hotel near a good market location. Instead of a traditional hotel we are booking a bed and breakfast that has a kitchen we can utilize. That is going to allow us to take some of the stress of searching for food in the city off of our minds. 

These mushrooms were delicious. A nice stir fry
with chicken, cashews, broccoli and mushrooms made for a
 lovely afternoon delight. 

Great goat cheese and a fresh stock of raw milk. 

The largest brussel sprouts I have ever seen.
The big ones were baseball sized. 

• Learning about natural remedies stems from a desire not to pump chemicals into your system. I didn't intend on becoming an anti-big pharmacy hippy. It just sort of happened. It seems inevitable. After all of the food education I have gained in the past year, why mess my body up with something that I would avoid were it not in a pill? I find that information is a wonderful thing but it can be a curse. I used to be satisfied with buying a children's tylenol. Maybe I would spring for a dye-free bottle. Today I went to my 4th pharmacy looking for a bottle of tylenol that had no dyes, gluten, soy or corn products. It took me 4 pharmacies and I eventually had to give up and pick the lesser of the evils out there. I have become such a hippy that I now seek out local honey when I travel so I don't have to get a sore throat from the regional allergy irritants. -For those who don't know, taking a bit of the local honey is a great way to get the local immunities. I swear by it now. No more Claritin or Zyrtec for us. While in California I stopped by and had a bit of the Penrod Farms raw, unfiltered honey and didn't have any allergy problems. What a nice change from my usual sore throat and itchy eyes. Even my son didn't have to have his face sucked out by the Nosefrida snot sucker. It is a win-win for us. 

This market was under the freeway overpass. It was massive. The market is
 about 2 blocks  long and 4 rows wide. 

Sweet Clementine Duck

Roasting a whole duck can be a bit of a scary process but why? It is just another type of bird.

450F for 1 hour with a tin foil top. Breast side down. Then flip the bird, make slashes in the flesh and flip over. 350 for 1 hour without a hat. 

Sweet Fried Plantains

Plantains are another food that I grew up seeing in the store but never eating. I have an appreciation for them now and am trying to make more than just desserts with them. They are the perfect blend of banana and sweet potato. Strange combo, I know. 

This is really a simple dish that is also a little naughty. Paleo diets don't eat sugar and some don't do honey either. I feel fine about honey and limit my sugar to the occasional grain free baked good. Since it is in such a small part of my diet, little splurges like this leave me with no guilt. This recipe is super quick to whip up and tastes great. 

Ingredients:

• 1-2 plantains (2 people per plantain)
• 2 tbl sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp powdered ginger
• coconut oil to fry
• Honey for the top

Directions:

Slice the plantain into long sections. I like to make diagonal cuts but you could do length wise sections. Roll these into a mixture of the dry ingredients while the oil melts and gets to a medium heat. You don't want it too high or you will scorch the sugar. Once hot, place a plantain in the oil and let it cook for about a minute on one side then flip. If it is nice and golden without going black, the heat is right and throw the rest in. I cook about 1 minute per side. Take from the heat and drizzle a little honey on top. Enjoy. 

The ups and downs of raising a paleo child

For every benefit to raising a child with a healthy diet, there are drawbacks. 

Benefits

Lifetime health

no vitamins necessary

adventerous eaters

they will grab a mango off the shelf and not know what to do with M&Ms

Challenges

Pacification is much harder

The "I want thats"

Food sharing

Accidental glutening

New Blog Name

I have been thinking about what to call my blog for awhile now and I came up with a new name. Primal Child Eats. I had originally loved the idea of calling my blog The Tasty Life but it was taken by someone. I added NC to the end but realized that I won't always live in North Carolina. I am more Primal than Paleo and believe in the primal way of life so I wanted something to reflect that. My child is the reason for all of my culinary experimentation and our new, wonderful way of life so I wanted to honor him in the title. My primal child surely does eat well and so do we thanks to him.

Enjoy your primal eats.

Slow Cooker Lamb Shanks

Lamb shanks, if you are not familiar with them, are the most tender, fall off the bone, cuts of meat you can imagine. Lamb goes particularly well with rosemary so I made a very simple dish that is a fix it and forget it masterpiece. I was literally poolside while this was cooking. I came home to a delightful meal that looked as if I had been working for hours. In its most basic form, this recipe can be quite successful with just garlic, rosemary and onion. I added a few more flavors to make a full meal out of one plate. 

Ingredients:

• 2-4 Lamb shanks
• 4-6 carrots
• 1 onion, cut into wedges
• 1 tbl garlic, minced
• 2 twigs rosemary 
• 1/2 cup red wine
• salt and pepper
• 5-10 small tomatoes quartered or 2 large tomatoes chopped

Recipe:

Cut the onion into 8ths like an orange. Place in the bottom of the pot. Wash and peel the outside of the carrots and place with the onions. Quarter the tomatoes and drop in with the rosemary, garlic and wine. Add the lamb shanks to the top and season with salt and pepper. 
Cover and cook on low for 7-9 hours. I put mine in at 8:30 AM and served it around 6pm. 

I served the shanks up with garlic smashed potatoes. Potatoes aren't Paleo but I don't care. I love potatoes and don't react to them like some people do. Perhaps it is my Indian genes. Perhaps my Irish. Either way, I love all nightshades. 

 

Playing by the tobacco while our food was cooking away.

Gluten Free Peach Blueberry Cobbler

Making peach ice cream.

North Carolina grows peaches. Lots of peaches. I always figured Georgia had the peach thing covered but North Carolina really takes the cake in my opinion. As a kid I used to hate peaches. Truth be told, I hated a lot of foods that I love now. Most of those foods I have only come to appreciate in the last year thanks to my new lifestyle. A funny thing happens when you get rid of processed foods. Once your sugars normalize you realize how sweet natural foods can be. You find that salt is not really necessary and that a little black peppercorn ground on a steak can be the most perfect seasoning ever. I hated onions, peppers, squishy fruit like peaches and plums. I hated "gritty" fruit like pears and just about anything that wasn't orange macaroni and cheese. My dad used to joke that I would serve mac n cheese at my wedding. I tried as a joke to include it but they didn't offer it on the venue's menu. Thank goodness.  

Roadside peach stand. 

This spring with our new dietary restrictions in place my husband and I made a sort of unofficial challenge to only shop at the farmer's markets. That challenge has changed our lives. I have a greater appreciation for each piece of produce now. I can taste the region as the seasons have changed and I now know that eating squash more than once a month won't kill me. In fact, it has become another challenge to add variety to my repertoire of recipes. 

Tree ripened Sandhills peaches are something to relish while the sun is beating down. The sweet juicy peaches that grow here are massive. Growing up I swore I hatted peaches for two reasons. 

1. I wasn't familiar with how to eat them and didn't know much about them.

2. Peaches in a can was pretty much it. If you grew up under the California sun that made every tinned fruit a gooey warm mess, you would hate peaches too. 

27 minutes in 94F heat. Add 4 minutes to help a hurt racer.
 This was our 2nd 5k race.

I, like most people, assumed that peaches were a Georgia thing. Turns out that they are 3rd on the list of peach producing states. NC, even with its over 100 cultivars, is not in the top three. California and South Carolina taking the lead. 

To celebrate peach season (June-August) we ran the 3rd annual Peachy Feet 5K and listened to bluegrass at the Peach Festival. Gotta love small towns. Enough of that. Let's eat!

Peach Blueberry Cobbler 

Insides: 

• 4-5 Fresh peaches
• 1/2 -3/4 cup of fresh blueberries or thawed from frozen
• Optional 1/3 cup sugar to coat the fruit. I don't like to use much sugar so I omit this typically. 

The cobbler part:

• 1 cup almond flour
• pinch sea salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves (optional)
• 1/4 cup melted coconut oil
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Peel the peaches with a peeler or by cutting an X in the bottom and boiling them for 30 seconds then plunging them in an ice bath. After the bath the peels should come off smoothly. Slice and discard the pit. Slice the slices into smaller pieces. Mix with the blueberries and sugar and place in the bottom of a 9x9 pan.

In a bowl mix the dry ingredients then add the oil and extract. This should form a loose crumble. Apply over the top of the peaches and place in the oven for 20 minutes at 350F. 

Enjoy. 

Clove and honey bbq ribs

BBQ season has always been a bit daunting since I always had my dad around to make the food and never learned how to do it myself. This summer my husband and I set out to master our grilling techniques. We have also been experimenting with new cuts of meat since switching from the grocery store to the farmer's markets. As of right now we are down to 1 grocery store trip a month for things that aren't local. Baking supplies simply don't come in season in our local market. When they do, we will be totally big box store free. These ribs were from Riley's Ranch in North Carolina. They raise heritage Large Black hogs, Tamworth hogs and heritage chickens. As a nice bonus, the owners are two of the sweetest people you could meet. 

This recipe is a bit sweet, slightly tangy and adaptable. It also works great with a bit of orange juice or peach juice mixed in. We served our ribs up with a side of skewered veggies. 

Ingredients: 

• 2 tbl coconut oil or other high heat oil
• 1/2 onion or a small onion, chopped small
• 1 cup honey
• 1 cup of Dijon mustard
• 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
• pinch salt, ground pepper
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves (more if you really like cloves)

Directions: In a saucepan  heat the oil and cook down the onions until translucent. In a bowl add the vinegar, honey and mustard and mix. Season with the cloves, salt, pepper and cooked onions. Pour into a sauce pan and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes while stirring. Take off the heat and split into two batches. One will be for placing on the raw meat, the other for dipping later. 

Heat your grill for indirect heat. Salt and pepper the rack of ribs and place on the vented grill for 35-40 minutes. Brush the sauce on at this point. Before that it will just stick to the grill and make a mess instead of clinging to the meat. After 10 minutes, flip and sauce the other side. Cook another 10 minutes. Total cook time is about 1 hour.

Remove from heat, cut up and enjoy. We made ours with the grilled peaches since we were already working with the indirect heat and cloves. Our son devoured 3 ribs all by himself. Not bad for a 12 month old. I didn't worry about the honey because it was cooked and no longer ran the risk of botulism. 

Baby eating ribs-is there anything cuter?