Chicken Adobo

30. November 2012 · 2 comments · Categories: Entree, Recipe · Tags: , , , , , , ,

Stephanie here…

Have you ever had Filipino Adobo? I have. A friend of mine is of Filipino heritage and she introduced me to short ribs Adobo. Delicious, falling off the bone, amazing-ness they were. I didn’t have any short ribs last night but had seen recipes for Chicken Adobo. All of them called for bone-in and all I had were boneLESS. Sheesh, couldn’t I just get the point and make something else. Nope. No can do. Once I get in the mood for a certain dish, that is IT! Adobo is tangy and a bit spicy the way I was taught to make it. Like pad thai, there are many variations on this dish.

Chicken THIGH Adobo

2 lbs. boneless chicken thighs
1/4 c. vinegar (most recipes call for white, but I’ve used others)
1/4 c. Coconut Aminos
pepper (I put a heaping tablespoon of the ground pepper in mine, like it to ZING)
heap of minced garlic
2 bay leaves

Place the thighs in a nice sized stockpot or deep skillet. Cover with vinegar/coconut aminos and enough water to cover the thighs. Add pepper, garlic and bay. Bring to a boil and cover. Cook about 20 minutes, turning chicken over about halfway through. During the last five minutes, I like to break the chicken up with a strong spatula into smaller pieces and then leave the lid placed so that the sauce can vent and cook down into a thicker sauce.

Serve with some steaming cauliflower and a salad.
Put a bottle of Sriracha on the table for the folk who need MORE spice. Enjoy!

Side note: Some cooks like to brown the chicken before adding the other seasonings. Some cooks like to marinate the chicken before hand. Good for them. I’m usually in a hurry at din-din time. So, give it a go and see what you come up with. If you don’t like pickles or other tangy treats, don’t EVEN try this dish. You won’t be up to it.

Sorry no photos, as we ate it. Will try next time!

Another Pad Thai Option

12. November 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Entree, Lunch, Review · Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Stephanie here…

Thursdays are Asian Food Night at our place. Last week, I made a new version of pad thai for my family, a ketchup containing one which is unusual for us. It came from this recipe, and I had some broccoslaw that I steamed for my own noodles and made a paleo modified version. I really liked it. It’s not my favorite, but it was really tasty and hit the pad thai spot. If you’re an adherent to a certain pad thai school, this one may not be for you. One of the Thai chef’s notes that I was reading said that there are as many variations of pad thai as there are cooks and kitchens! Here’s a peek at my prep plate for this dish…

So, my modifications were to replace the ketchup with a paleo friendly one (Organicville has agave as it’s sweetener, for example), brown sugar with a bit of honey (I don’t like pad thai to be too sweet), coconut oil for the peanut oil, and use a good fish sauce! Also, pad thai isn’t pad thai to me whithout piles of cilantro, so I added that in as you can see on my prep plate. IF you’re going to take the time to make a pad thai dish, do yourself a favor and prep everything first into plates or piles as they go in at different times. It’s really NOT hard, just takes a bit of preparation!

P.S. I eat peanuts. They don’t bother me and there is nothing that tastes like them. If you don’t, choose something else for a crunch!

More Reason to Buy Organic Poultry

25. October 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Of Interest!, Science · Tags: , , ,

Stephanie here…

Remember this sort of lesson in our college ecology classes:

Hold that thought. Enter other contaminants that are often called pharmaceuticals.

A recent lawsuit filing has me chewing on this lesson and organic foods, i.e. poultry, and how imperative it is to use it instead of conventional. A group of Arkansas farmers are suing some large chicken producing companies and a large pharma company over the chicken litter that they have provided. These farmers have been getting high arsenic numbers in the rice they produce and they are convinced that it’s due to medications that the chickens are taking that is passing through to the litter that they then place on their rice crops.

From the article in Arkansas Business:

The suit says that chicken litter, which contains chicken waste, is used by rice farmers as fertilizer. This litter winds up contaminating the soil and, ultimately, the rice crop, according to the suit.
The poultry growers “knew that excessive arsenic in chicken litter used as fertilizer on many rice farms in Arkansas would contaminate the entire U.S. rice crop and infiltrate the general U.S. rice supply, and that public news about such arsenic contamination would result in devastating financial losses to U.S. and Arkansas rice producers …,” the suit says.

Remember the study out of Stanford recently claiming that veggies grown organically are no better for you than the conventional ones. Once again, this reminds me of how they were missing the boat. What concerns me is what organics do NOT have. I’ll have my veggies and meats and poultry without a side of weird science, thank you.

If you missed the Stanford study and it’s fall out. Here are some interesting thoughts on it:
Huffington Post sounds off.
LA Times editorial
And of course, Mark Sisson has something to say regarding this.

Wishing I had space for chickens like Angie has!

Easy Pizza

09. October 2012 · 1 comment · Categories: Entree, Lunch, Review · Tags: , , , , , , ,

Stephanie here…

I’ve been looking for a quick pizza crust to throw together when pizza sounds good, but pizza eggs don’t. I’d looked into the almond crusts (too time consuming), the cauliflower crust (reports were that it was too soggy) and then landed on this one from Caveman Strong’s Josée (clever girl).

It turns out a pizza that looks like this:
Pizza!

I like. It is a bit more like a flatbread pizza than it is like the cracker-like pizza of the gluten days. This is quick to prep and is made easier if you have parchment paper or a Silpat liner like I use.

Also, I have to give a shout out to Applegate Farms Pepperoni. It is just so yummy and free of additives. I did use a smidge of “microplaned” sheep’s milk manchego on this, as I’ve learned that I don’t have the same ick from sheep or goat cheese.

Perfect Burgers for Your Grill

14. September 2012 · 2 comments · Categories: Entree, Of Interest! · Tags: , , ,

Stephanie here…

I love burgers. I mean LOVE. I can dress them many ways, eat them plain, eat them at anytime. I talk about burgers as though they are a true love. Ask any of my walk buddies… all too often the talk on our long journeys turns to my beloved burger and how I’d love to have one of those right now.

My mother-in-law makes the best burgers ever. While visiting this past summer, I watched her carefully and gleaned some of her secrets on making these “best burgers ever”. We asked for burgers several times during our visit.

The secrets:

  • Don’t buy the lowest fat ground beef. Get the 85%. Juicier and more flavorful.
  • Shape them properly.  A flat patty is going to give you a lens shaped finished burger. More on this later in the article.
  • Use 1/3 lb. not 1/4 lb. per burger to get a really nice shape out of it. 1/4 pounders just don’t hold up to the heat/shaping as well.
  • When grilling, turn them ONCE only and only with something that will not pierce them.

That’s it. I followed this successfully at home and we’re amazed with how much different our home burger experience is!

Now, on the shaping. The little burgers need to be 1/3 lb… yep pull out your kitchen scale and make little balls of 1/3 lb. beeves. Next, you’re going to shape them so that they look like Red Blood Cells!! MMMMmmmm.

So, take that ball of beef in your hands and shape it into a nice patty, nice and firm. Next, start to bring the sides up just a bit so that they are concave. You want the sides thicker, since the inside puffs up when you cook it. Pretty cool, really.

 

Here’s mom’s method:

Shaping the burger

The finished burger ready for the grill

And sorry, but I ate the final product fresh off the grill before I could snap a photo. Will try to control myself next time and post a pic of these beautiful finished burgers. Bison, beef, whatever, give it a try!

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