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.