The Cooking Tip that Saved My (Fingers) Life

Ever tried to shred chicken with forks? Don’t, it sucks. Invariably, when I decide to attempt shredding by hand, I wind up sitting at my kitchen table with burned fingers, a half-torn pile of bird, and a deep sense of regret.

A few weeks ago during a visit to Maryland with some friends, the talk turned to food. As we discussed various forms of shredded meat (this is totally normal), I began bemoaning the process of shredded poultry. That’s when my beautiful, brilliant, perfect friend uttered five words that changed my life forever:

“I use the KitchenAid."

I begged her to tell me more. The explanation took about 30 seconds. It goes something like this: put cooked chicken in the Kitchen Aid and turn it on. The end.

Seems too good to be true, but it really works. I tried it last weekend with a huge batch and it came out perfect. I prepared the chicken by boiling because I wanted to make broth at the same time, but I think baking on low could work too.

Super Simple Shredded Chicken

• 4 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts (or as much as you like) 
• 1 onion, peeled and quartered 
• 4 garlic cloves 
• half a bunch fresh parsley (or 2 T dried) 
• 2 bay leaves 
• 1 T salt 
• 1 tsp pepper

Shredded chicken heaven.

While these are the spices and flavorings I chose, you could really flavor it any way you like – or even none at all. It's basically as much work as you want to put into it.) First put all the non-chicken ingredients in a large stockpot. Then drop in the whole chicken breasts and covered the whole thing in water. Put the pot on a medium high heat; when it starts to boil turn it down to a simmer and let cook for 30 minutes.

After it's done cooking, turn off the heat. You can pull it out right away, but it was really hot (duh) so I let it sit for another 30 mins on the stove to cool a bit. Then I picked up each piece of chicken with tongs and put it in the kitchen aid mixing bowl. I used the paddle attachment and turned it on the lowest setting and watched the magic happen. It took about a minute to create perfectly shredded chicken goodness. Life changed.

I used this good stuff all week with various sauces and sides; it was awesome. I couldn't find a great paleo BBQ sauce so I ended up throwing a bunch of stuff together to make due. Maybe I'll make it again and actually measure the ingredients so I can share.

Do you have a good sauce recipe? Would love to hear it!

PS If you knew about this trick and didn’t tell me, we are no longer friends.

PPS Unless you have a good BBQ sauce recipe for me, then we're cool.

Eat Your (Creamy and Awesome) Veggies

I usually make a recipe more than once before writing about it, but this week I concocted something I couldn't wait to share. It was inspired by National Eat the Frozen Things in Your House Week (it's real, trust me and don't google it).

What started with a couple bags of boring frozen veggies turned into a really good side dish. I would say it reminded me of mac and cheese, but then your expectations would be crazy high. So instead I will just say that it's creamy, spicy, veggie, goodness.

Basically it's mashed vegetables with spices and coconut milk. My husband offered up some wisdom about possible names for the dish while he was chowing down. It went something like this....

Husband: You should call this Squash-cauli-fake-potato-awesomeness

Me: Why?

Husband: Cause it's like cheesy mashed potatoes without the calories.

Me: There are still calories.

Husband: Bummer. Can't you lie? I mean it's just a blog.

Me: (sigh)

So, with that said, I give you Squash-cauli-fake-potato-awesomeness...

Squash-cauli-fake-potato-awesomeness

1T bacon fat
1 T butter
1 20 ounce bag frozen diced squash
1 16 ounce bag frozen cauliflower
3-4 cloves garlic
1 1/2 tsp Ras Al Hanout
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 can coconut milk


Put a medium-sized thick pot on the stove and turn to medium-high (I used a le cruset pan that I bought at a yard sale for $10, tra la la). While it's heating, mince your garlic. Throw in the bacon fat and butter into the pot along with the garlic. Dump the frozen bag of squash and the bag of cauliflower on top and mix (I whacked the veggies on the uncounted to break them up first). Stir to combine and then put a top on the pot to speed up defrosting it all.

Wait about five minutes and remove the top to give it another stir. As it's defrosting, throw in all the spices and mix it all together. As you mix, the squash will breakdown into creaminess and the cauliflower will break into smaller chunks too. When it's defrosted, pour in the coconut milk and let the whole thing bubble together to bring out all the flavors. Then try not to eat it all at once!

Editor’s note: This post took approximately 20 mins to write and 2 hours to post. So, that wasn’t frustrating at all! Anyone with good tips on working photos/spacing on blogger (especially when posting from iPad) will be rewarded with a spice mix from me.

Fat Bottomed Pineapple

The other day I posted on Facebook about grilling pineapple and got lots of enthusiastic responses. Apparently there’s a large contingent of people who want to know more about grilled fruit, which makes me pretty happy about my group of friends.

Because I got a number of questions surrounding the mechanics of pineapple grilling, I took some time this weekend to map it out. This means I got had to make and eat more grilled pineapple – poor, poor me.

Grilled Pineapple

·         1 fresh pineapple

Turn your grill to medium heat. 

Pineapple Carnage



To “butcher” the pineapple, lay it on its side and cut off the top and bottom, making sure you have a flat surface on each end that is all yellow and free of skin. Flip the pineapple back up to the now-flat bottom. Sidebar: “fat bottomed girls” just started playing in my head – I like this recipe more now.

Grip pineapple with one hand to steady the fruit, then take your knife and cut a strip of skin off the pineapple from top-to-bottom. Continue cutting around the fruit until you have what looks like a big hunk of pineapple.

Take the hunk and lay it on its side, then cut it into 1/2-3/4 inch slices. Drop the slices onto the hot grill. You will think that a pineapple will grill fast. You will be wrong. The longer the fruit grills, the juicer it becomes – totally counterintuitive, but trust me on this one. I’m intentionally typing a lot in this paragraph to help take up some of the long grilling time. You’re welcome.

Grill on one side for 15 minutes or until you can see a visible char on the fruit. Flip and grill about 10 minutes on the other side. Remove from grill and enjoy the juicy, caramelized pineapple goodness.

Cheaters Chicken Salad



I made this random collage to distract you
from the fact that I didn't take any photos
of the chicken salad - whups.



I think I’m supposed to start this entry by apologizing for not posting for a long time. Then I should ramble on about how hectic and exciting my life has been (blah blah blah). Finally, I'm probably supposed to promise to be a more diligent blogger. Can we skip all that mess and talk about food? Awesome, thanks!  

I took a pretty simplistic view to cooking this week. Lots of meat + veggies + salsa. I did one old standard my hubby likes too – chicken salad. It’s good for him because he’s on the road a lot for his job. And since most of my cooking needs to be eaten hot, he often has some less desirable lunch options (Read: hoagies/pizza/various Wawa items).

 My chicken salad, like most of my cooking, is simple. In my early days, I would grill chicken, cool it and then dice it up. Then I discovered the Whole Foods rotisserie chicken and my life got waaaaay easier. I like the balanced flavors of this recipe…it’s creamy, a little sweet, and still savory.  



Cheaters Chicken Salad

•  1 rotisserie chicken
• 1 medium-large bunch celery
•  1 large red onion
• 1 medium green apple
• Lemon juice
• ½ cup raisins
• 1/2 cup walnuts
• 1-1.5 cups paleo mayo
• Salt and pepper to taste

Slice the celery bunch (all at one time) into ¼ inch strips – doing the whole bunch at once saves a lot of time, which is good because I’m lazy. Throw in a large bowl. Then chop your red onion into a small dice and toss on top of the celery. Do the same with the apple, but toss it in lemon juice before you add it to the large bowl. Throw in the raisins. Coarsely chop the walnuts and add them to the bowl as well.



Strip the chicken from the bone in large chunks, keeping the skin if you like to have it in your chicken salad (I do, natch). Once you have the large chunks, tear it into smaller pieces and add it to the rest of the yummy goodness. At this point, it’s time to get everything mixed together. I stick my hands in the bowl and toss it until everything it’s incorporated. Sprinkle with you preferred amount of salt and pepper and repeat the hand toss. Finally, plop on your mayo and mix it up (I switch to using a spoon once the mayo goes in). Adjust the salt and pepper if needed. This recipe yields between 6-8 servings depending on your (or your husband's) hunger level.

Meatball Overload

I am about to say something I never thought possible: I have eaten too many meatballs. In the search to perfect the recipe, I made many batches. I had meatball taste tests. I had meatballs for breakfast. I shared them with friends. In short, I consumed many balls of meat.

One thing to chop.

The reason this recipe took so long is that I was trying to find a low-maintenance ball. Hee. The original recipe had so many things to chop that by the time I got to rolling them I was over the whole thing. And while I like fresh ingredients (paleo, duh), I always pair my meatballs with greens or another veg so I’m not terribly concerned about getting only fresh stuff into ball themselves. So, finally after mentioning it a few times here, I’m happy to reveal this recipe for Easy Ballz. You only have to chop on ingredient. It's actually fairly underwhelming. Sorry about that. 

Easy Meatballz

·         2 pounds ground beef

Chopped

·         1/2 cup dried minced onion (I use penzey’s)

·         1/2 cup almond flour (ground up almonds)

·         1 whole bunch flat leaf parsley (this is what you have to chop)

·         2 eggs

·         1.5 T salt

·         1.5 T garlic power

First off, mince the whole bunch of parsley. Make it small. My rule of thumb is that once you think you’re done, chop it five more times. I

Action Shot

have a stand mixer, so I literally just throw everything together in the order it’s listed and let the mixer do the hard work. Before I realized I could use the mixer, I just mushed it all together with my hands. That was kinda fun. Once it’s combined, I use a small ice cream scoop to ball up the meatballs. Line them on a baking sheet and cook at 350 for about 30 minutes. You can also grill them. Or cook them on the stove on medium heat. Eat in moderation.

Can You Grill a Meatball?

Hell yes you can. Evidence:   

 

All done. (And partially eaten removed.)

I’ve been experimenting with a new recipe. These were yum. I need to make them one more time to tweak the spicing and then I’ll share. I put these bad boys over a bed of spinach and pour sauce on top. It makes a good lunch because the spinach wilts when it heats up. 

Cooking Therapy

Over the last three weeks my school, work and health converged into a giant swell of busy and left me unable to cook. Add in a few holidays and I literally hadn’t done my weekly cook-up in a very long time. (Picture lots of Chipolte, Five Guys, Elevation Burger, sushi, hot dogs and green smoothies.)

I had Saturday all to myself. It was fabulous.  I started the morning at CrossFit Aspire – this is my first week post-cankle boot. It’s been great getting back into the swing of things at the gym, but I am way out of shape. Yikes. I was sucking wind . Six weeks with no cardio leaves you pretty bad off.

After Aspire I headed to Whole Foods where I stocked up on all the good stuff. My cart looked so pretty I had to take a picture. (Yes, I am the crazy person at WF snapping shots of her cart.)



How cute are those tiny spaghetti squash?



Cooking is relaxing for me. Cathartic even. There’s something very fulfilling about preparing delicious and satisfying food for you and your loved ones. The more I cook, the better I feel. So let’s just say I was VERY relaxed by the time I was done. 

Here’s the damage:

·         3 pounds meatballs (recipe coming soon)

·         Roasted spaghetti squash

·         Grilled chicken drumsticks

·         Sausage-stuffed peppers

·         Creamy Spice Market Kale (Well Fed)

·         Chorizo and Kale Breakfast Casserole

·         Jimaca Home Fries (Well Fed)

And I feel so good knowing that I have the whole week of food taken care of. No mornings without a breakfast to grab. No wondering where I have to run out and get lunch.

Café Pantz will be serving it up all week. Hallelujah.

Miss Me?

Chicken Fingers

So it’s been a while. Miss me? Probably not, ha ha. It was spring break and I unintentionally unplugged from the blogosphere. And by blogosphere I mean kitchen. Which means I ate a lot of takeout. (Feel free to translate this whole intro into the fact that I ate a lot of tortilla chips.)

So now that’s out there, let’s talk about one recent culinary adventure I took. (They’ve been scarce over the last few weeks.) How do you feel about chicken fingers? I feel amazing about them. And I just had a bunch. They were good. The end. Not really.

The longer version of the story is that making chicken fingers is easy. Keep reading and I’ll tell you how. The first step is keeping a simple spice mix on hand. Stupid simple. Here it is…

Spice Mix

·         2 T salt

·         1 T pepper

·         1 tsp paprika

·         1 tsp garlic powder



Not chicken fingers. Still good.



There is almost nothing that couldn’t be made better by a few sprinkles of this stuff. (Exclusions include ice cream and mangoes.) I make big batches and keep in a used empty spice shaker. 

OK, so take this lovely spice mix and do the following….

Chicken Fingers

·         1-2 pounds chicken breast

·         ½ cup almond flour (i.e. ground up almonds)

·         ½ cup dried minced onion

·         1-2 T spice mix

Mix together almond flour, minced onion and spice mix. Cut the chicken breast into strips (4-6 strips per breast) and dredge the pieces in the mixture. Throw onto a cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Eat. Now it’s really the end.

Breakfast is My Jam



Breakfast is my jam. Eggs are my friend. Sausage is my cuddle buddy. And bacon…I don’t even know if we can go there (even on the internet).

Part of what makes my morning meal so awesome today is that pre-paleo my breakfasts were pretty lackluster. Instant oatmeal, a fiber bar, maybe some egg whites topped with low-fat cheese…that is some sad food.

On my first 30 day paleo challenge (30 days of eating 100% paleo), I started eating eggs for breakfast. In the beginning, I had a hard time eating egg yolks. Not because I didn’t like them (they are golden heaven), but because I had been taught they were “bad.” Oh, how wrong I was…

Early on, in what I’ll call my “egg phase,” I ate a lot of hard boiled or fried eggs with meat on the side. But something was missing. I was veggie-less.

I started searching for ways to eat my veggies in the morning too (two cups of veggies at every meal!).  One of the best breakfast combinations I’ve done recently is grilled chicken legs with a green smoothie (recipe coming soon).

This week I improvised a breakfast casserole that has all sorts of good stuff in it, including greens. It’s not revolutionary, but it’s tasty!

Chorizo and Kale Breakfast Casserole

·         2 pounds fresh chorizo (I use Whole Foods)

·         1 large onion, chopped

·         I bunch kale, stemmed and torn into chunks

·         16 eggs

·         ¼ cup Frank’s Red Hot

·         1 T garlic powder

·         Dash of pepper

Pre-heat oven to 350. Dice onion and crumble chorizo in a large skillet. Cook on medium high until the sausage is cooked through. Once it’s cooked, turn to low and fold in the kale. The kale will wilt into the sausage and make awesomeness. Take the mixture and spread it into the bottom of an 11x17 pan.

Separately, beat the eggs and fold in the Frank’s and the garlic powder. For less spice, use less Franks (duh).  Once it’s blended, pour it over the meat mixture. Take that yumminess and put it in the oven for 30-40 mins. Cook until it’s firm in the middle.

This makes enough to serve for breakfast (for two!) all week. And you can say you got some veggies for breakfast. It’s a win win.

How to Organize Your Freezer for $2 (or Meat Jenga)

Dollar Store Baskets

Because I buy beef from a cow share, the freezer gets pretty full pretty fast. In my early days of bulk buying, I stacked the cuts of meat on top of each other on the freezer shelves. When I wanted to get a piece out it was a balancing act – a little game of meat Jenga. When you pull out the wrong piece you get a meat avalanche. (Note: When a 5 lb brisket lands on your bare foot, it hurts.)

In addition to dangers of creating a meat avalanche, my set-up wasn’t using the freezer space efficiently. And when you have 40+ pounds of meat in your freezer, every inch counts. When I was organizing my closet, I bought some small, cheap plastic baskets to throw my socks, belts and scarves in. I grabbed up an extra and stuck it in the freezer. Viola! It worked like a charm. Now my meat is all stacked up nice and neat. And my feet are safe.  

Seriously though you should try this. Because let’s face it, no one wins at meat Jenga. Not even the meat.  

Simple and Kickass

Whenever my husband sees “S&K” jotted on our weekly cook-up list, he is a very happy man. That’s because it stands for Sausage and Kale. This dish was created by Steve of The Paleo Drummer and is slap-your-momma good. It also takes almost no effort to make. In short, it’s perfection.

The first time I had S&K was at a paleo potluck. I remember taking a few bites and then immediately walking up to Steve, interrupting his conversation, and begging him to tell me how this magical creation was concocted. When he said “it’s so easy” I almost kissed him, which would have been weird. He might have taken his K&S home.  

Off to the store…

PS The Paleo Drummer is an awesome blog and resource. Steve knows his stuff and is an amazing source of information on the science and other geeky about paleo. He is awesome-sauce.  

Steak Nirvana

The perfect portion. So I had two.

We are down to the last cuts of meat from our cow share. And this week I pulled the final few hunks out of the freezer to finish them off (what a lousy chore, ha ha). I didn’t know I would discover the most amazing, simple meat on the planet. Oh, and be reminded of what this paleo thing is all about.

So the steak I saved for last was a porterhouse. Mostly because neither of our previous shares had included one and I wasn’t quite sure how to cook it. Ignorance really is bliss.

As a dinner companion, I wilted down a bunch of baby spinach on low heat with garlic and olive oil. This took all of five minutes and three ingredients. While I’d like to give credit to the amazing spice complication (salt and pepper) and the fantastic grilling of my husband (4-5 mins a side on direct high), the beauty in this meal was the simplicity of the steak itself. It tasted like meat, butter and fireworks.

This is where grassfed meat really shines. In my opinion, grassfed, pasture-raised meat simply cannot be matched in quality. Beef is an item where you truly get what you pay for (this stuff isn’t cheap). However, one bite of that steak made me feel like I got the bargain of the century.

Above all else, this dinner reminded me that paleo doesn’t have to be complicated. It doesn’t have to be about carefully emulsifying olive oil and lemon. It doesn’t have to be blending complex and varied spice mixes. It doesn’t have to be finding “substitutes.” It can just be simple. And shut-the-front-door good.

Lesson learned. Thank you porterhouse. 

PS The next cow share arrives my house this weekend. I'm crossing my fingers for a porterhouse.