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California Dreamin'

2/24/2016

4 Comments

 
As I write this, I am flying to the West Coast to visit my brother and sister.

One thing I love about California (other than the fact that my siblings live there and in February it's warmer than in  Maine) is that I don't feel like a freak when I eat in a restaurant.

Remember the first diner scene from "When Harry Met Sally?":

"I'd like the...apple pie à la mode but I'd like the pie heated and I don't want the ice cream on top, I want it on the side and I'd like strawberry instead of vanilla if you have it, if not then no ice cream, just whipped cream but only if it's real, if it's out of a can, then nothing."

That's me in most restaurants, except it would never be apple pie à la mode, more like:  " I'll have the Cobb salad, without the blue cheese and tomatoes... Could I get avocado instead and some cucumbers,and is the bacon no-nitrate bacon? If it isn't, then no bacon. Oh, and no dressing. Could I get lemon juice and olive oil instead?"  Or:  "Could you please tell me if the Hollandaise is made with flour? If it is, I'll just have the Eggs Benedict without the English muffin and without the Hollandaise and is the bacon no-nitrate? Because if it isn't, then skip the bacon." And then, what you are left with is two poached eggs on a plate, right?  But this usually doesn't happen to me in California, because they "get" Paleo and the menu offerings are often geared to the way I eat.

On a visit last year, I ordered Steak Frites (steak and French fries), without the frites in a Belgian restaurant. " I can bring you some steamed vegetables instead," suggested the waiter (without my even asking) and he brought a huge bowl of beautiful,fresh, steamed veggies, enough to feed the whole table, at no additional charge. In a non-fancy fish restaurant (that is also a fish market), you get  to choose the kind of fish you want, how it is cooked, and whether you want it in tacos, accompanied by rice and salad, or just served over salad ( Paleo!). It is pro forma for burgers to be offered on a bun or "in the grass" (no bun and served on a salad) pretty much everywhere in Southern California.

There are even Paleo food trucks, including my favorite, "Not So Fast." What follows is my adaptation of this fabulous Not So Fast bowl that I've been dreaming of since my visit last year and intend to pursue the minute my plane touches down in San Diego in a few hours.

Paleo Food Truck Pork Belly, Sweet Potato Hash, Mixed Greens
and Fried Egg Bowl (or Fabulous Food Truck Bowl)
Serves 2

Update: Oh, no! "Not So Fast" is out of business! But, to the best of my memory, here's the bowl that you can dream about, too.
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Ingredients
1 lb pork belly, in one piece
2 tsp sea salt
2 tsp coconut sugar
A few grindings of black pepper
2 medium sweet potatoes or Japanese yams, cubed (I used Japanese yams, which look like regular white potatoes, except that they're not)
2 shallots, chopped
1/2 tsp sea salt
A few grindings black pepper
2 TBS coconut oil
A few large handfuls mixed baby greens, baby kale, arugula, etc.
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 TBS olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
2 eggs
2 TBS ghee (clarified butter)
1/2 ripe avocado, peeled and sliced
Hot sauce ( made with Paleo-friendly ingredients), optional
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1. The day before you are going to make the bowl, score fat side of pork belly and use fork to prick holes on the lean side. Mix 2 tsp salt, coconut sugar and pepper and rub into all sides of pork belly. Put it into a zip lock plastic bag and let sit in refrigerator for at least 12 hours.

2. After meat has marinated for its allotted time, preheat oven to 350 degrees and remove pork belly from bag. Dry thoroughly with paper towels and put on a rack in a roasting pan.

3. Roast for 1 1/4 hours, or until top is crisp and browned.

4. Meanwhile, salt and pepper sweet potato cubes and melt coconut oil in frying pan. Sauté sweet potatoes, stirring frequently until almost done.

5. Add shallots and sauté with sweet potatoes until both are nicely crisp.

6. Dress salad greens with oil, lemon juice and salt, toss, and divide into two bowls.

7. Divide sweet potatoes and put on top of salad in bowls.

8. Slice pork belly and put two or three slices on top of each portion of sweet potatoes.

​9. Melt ghee and fry eggs, then top each bowl with a fried egg. And avocado slices. Add your favorite Paleo-friendly hot sauce , if you like, and serve.
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BBQ Chicken Pizza
Serves 4 (or 2, with leftovers...this pizza is pretty good cold the next day)

I first encountered the California Pizza Kitchen years ago in Baltimore, not in California, and, although I was not exactly a pizza fanatic at the time,their BBQ chicken pizza blew me away. Here's a Paleo version that's even better:
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Ingredients
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For crust
2 or more cups almond flour
1 1/2 cups tapioca flour or arrowroot powder
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup water
1/4 cup olive oil
Parchment paper

For topping
1 1/2 cups cut up roast chicken
1/2 cup prepared or homemade BBQ sauce (a little cheat here if you don't make your own--the sauce I found, Scratch, did contain organic cane sugar, but otherwise was close enough to Paleo-friendly)
3/4 cup Paleo mozzarella cheese , grated( see Paleogram post from 12/30/15, Meat-free Mondays)
2 cups mixed baby salad greens
1/2 avocado, sliced
Drizzle of olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

1.Place a pizza stone in the oven, then preheat to 375 degrees. 
2. Combine dry ingredients in food processor
3. Add water and olive oil to dry ingredients and combine until dough forms a ball. Add more almond flour if necessary.
4. Put dough on a large piece of parchment paper and cover with a second piece of parchment paper.
5. Roll out to desired thickness (you want it to be more of a flatbread pizza than a Sicilian pie).  Then remove top sheet of paper, prick crust all over with fork and carefully transfer dough to pizza stone in oven, removing the bottom sheet of parchment paper. 
6. Bake for about 8-10 minutes, until crust starts to turn color and crisp up
7. Mix chicken with BBQ sauce and scatter over pizza then top with grated Paleo mozzarella.
8. Put back in oven and bake for another 8-10 minutes, until cheese melts.
9. Remove from oven and top with salad greens and avocado.
10. Drizzle with olive oil and salt and pepper to taste.
11. Slice and serve.
4 Comments

Soupe du Jour!

2/10/2016

2 Comments

 
Twenty years ago, my husband, Henry, and I adopted a sweet pit bull puppy with myriad health problems. We named her Tess. One day he was walking her in the park when he was stopped by two older women.

"Oh, she's so cute! What's her name," they inquired. "Tess," he answered. "Oh, what does that stand for?"one of them asked.

Henry, who is gifted with a vivid imagination and the ability to think on his feet, answered immediately:
"Theresa Immaculata. The Holy Father has christened her the Holy Dog of Patient Suffering. In fact, she is the star of the radio show, the Catholic Pet Hour. It airs at 6 on Sunday mornings."


When he recounted the story later, I was horrified: "How could you do that? Those poor women are going to get up early on a Sunday morning to tune into a radio show that exists only in your imagination!"

But that was not the only thing going on in his imagination. By the time he got home from the park, Theresa Immaculata, the dog, had morphed into Thérèse-Immaculée, a little French Canadian girl who lived in Montreal in the 1850s. Her raison d'etre was to perform good deeds, especially for abused and abandoned animals. She became the heroine of a tale that Henry spun at bedtime each night, for the benefit of Tess and me.

Each installment began the same way: " One day, when little tiny Thérèse-Immaculée was only 4 years old, she was walking down the streets of her parish in Montreal when she exclaimed 'Soupe du jour!'"

This was what she said when she was about to embark on another rescue adventure.

Thérèse's father was a leader of skilled artisans and her mother was known throughout Quebec for her "superb cuisine and her high standards of housewifery." She fed her family and she also fed the hungry in the soup kitchens of the parish.
​

For Thérèse's maman, making soup was a labor of love. It is for me, too. 


Avgolemono (Greek Lemon Soup)
Serves 4

This soup is traditionally made with rice, but riced cauliflower makes a good Paleo alternative.

Ingredients
6 cups chicken broth (I use Imagine brand)
1/2 small head of cauliflower, diced in a food processor, so pieces resemble grains of rice
4 eggs
5 TBS fresh lemon juice
2 tsp or more sea salt
Freshly ground pepper
Chopped parsley or mint for garnish 


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1. Bring broth to a boil, then add cauliflower.
2. Lower heat and simmer for 10 minutes until cauliflower is tender
3. Beat eggs until frothy
4. Add 6 TBS of hot broth to the eggs, one TBS at a time, stirring after each addition.
5. Carefully pour egg mixture into simmering broth, stirring the whole time. Do not allow broth to boil, or eggs will curdle.
6. Season with salt and pepper and garnish with parsley or mint 


No-Bean Ribollita 

Serves 4 

On a trip to Tuscany over 20 years ago, I fell I love with this soup, whose name means "reboiled". I ordered it in every restaurant. Of course, this iconic soup is made with beans. But this version, made with pumpkin seeds, is as delicious as any I ate in Italy. It is very thick, more like a stew than a soup. Served with a salad, it's a complete meal and a great idea for "Meat-free Mondays" ( see Paleogram post 12/30/15). 


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Ingredients
1 cup pumpkin seeds, soaked over night in water and 1 TBS sea salt
6 TBS extra virgin olive oil
1 large leek, white part only, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 large zucchini, steamed and puréed, to make about 2 cups
3-4 large fresh tomatoes ( or frozen, and defrosted, if you've been lucky enough to preserve the bounty from your summer garden)
1 lb cabbage, sliced
2 sprigs fresh thyme
2 tsp or more sea salt
Pepper to taste
1 cup baby kale, sautéed in 2 tsp olive oil, for garnish
1/2 cup grated Paleo mozzarella cheese (see Paleogram post, 12/30/15)



1. Heat olive oil in large pan and sautée leeks, carrots and celery until soft.
2. Add tomatoes, thyme and puréed zucchini; cook for 5 minutes.
3. Add cabbage, salt and pepper and cook for 10 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, drain and rinse the pumpkin seeds and purée 1/2 cup of them in 1/2 cup water. Add the whole pumpkin seeds and the puréed pumpkin seeds to the soup pot.
5. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and cook slowly for one hour. Add water if soup gets too solid, but soup should be thick. Taste and correct seasonings.
6. Ladle soup into bowls, then garnish with sautéed kale and grated Paleo mozzarella cheese and serve hot. 




Super Easy Pumpkin Soup 

Serves 4 

I get lots of emails from other food bloggers, mostly Paleo, but some vegetarian/vegan as well. The other day, a recipe jumped out at me from the screen because I was feeling a little lazy about making dinner and because I had all the ingredients right in my pantry. We ended up having this wonderful, easy-to-prepare soup along with some leftover Paleo meatloaf and a salad. The original soup recipe, from the blog www.bychefchloe.com, only needed a little tweaking to make it Paleo. 
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Ingredients
2 TBS olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 apple, peeled, cored and sliced
2 tsp sea salt
Small pinch of cayenne pepper
3 cups low sodium chicken broth (I use Imagine brand) or vegetable broth ( to make it vegan)
1 15-oz can organic pumpkin purée
3/4 cup canned organic coconut milk
2 TBS coconut sugar
1/4 cup raw shelled pumpkin seeds, lightly toasted in a frying pan or toaster oven
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1. In large pot, heat olive oil over medium heat and sauté onion and apple until soft, about 10 minutes. Stir in salt and cayenne pepper and cook for another minute.
2. Add broth and pumpkin and bring to a boil. Lower heat and add coconut milk and coconut sugar. Stir and then turn off heat
3. Purée soup with an immersion blender or purée in batches in a regular blender. In any case, reheat and serve hot, garnished with the toasted pumpkin seeds. 


2 Comments

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      Deborah Shepherd

    New recipes and Paleo adaptations of family favorites I've been cooking for years that I hope will work for all of us, whether Boomers or beyond.

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