Jimmy Kofta

We found Jimmy Kofta.  He's alive and well and in our kitchen.

Seriously, though, ever heard of koftas? Kofte?  Kufte?  This many-spelled word is basically a middle-east-meets Mediterranean meatball on a stick.  Really.  I've seen them just packed on a stick without being made into a meatball first.  Imagine what that looks like.  Poop on a twig.  So don't do that.  It's not pretty.

Koftas can be made of  beef, bacon, lamb, chicken, paneer or even game meats, mixed with eggs, onions and spices.  Sometimes they are a mixture of hard-boiled egg and meat.  This may be where the scotch egg came from, originally.  For flavour, think exotic combos like saffron or allspice or classic mediterranean with just olive oil and oregano.  They can be baked, broiled, barbecued, fried or even roasted in a tagine.  They are totally versatile and flavourful little gems.  But putting them on a stick makes meatballs barbecue worthy, and unlike hamburgers, you aren't tempted into serving these on buns.  They're a nice change from hamburgers on the bbq.

Personally,  for this version, I went for a simple Mediterranean flavour.  Nothing too crazy, let the meat stand up for itself.  They were delicious.  They were so well received that many spice variations may follow.  So here's the first and original version....

And as for the cauli-orzo salad?  This is a Mediterranean twist on "pasta" salad.  I actually liked this a lot better than the original starchy cold pasta or rice salads because with them, the starches always seemed to soak up all the sauce/oil and become sticky unless it was just drowning in mayonnaise.  I didn't want a mayonnaise salad here.  I wanted to taste the nice EVOO and the roasted tomatoes and the sharp olive flavours.  I wanted a clean, crisp taste and this sure fit  the bill.  The cauliflower does not soak up the oil at all.  It stays oh-so-nicely coated in oil without becoming all sticky.  Now, if you are avoiding all dairy, omit the goat cheese.  Its a beautiful touch, but its not the most important ingredient in it.   Definately make the salad first, and let it chill in the fridge so that all the flavours meld together.

This makes 6 generous portions.

Cold Cauli-Orzo Salad

Ingredients:

1 head cauliflower
2/3 c olives, any kind, sliced
1/3 c sundried tomatoes
1/3 c EVOO
3 Tbs apple cider vinegar
1 Tbs dried basil
2 cloves garlic
small pkg goat cheese (113 g)
1/2 tsp salt
pepper to taste

Method:

Coarsely chop cauliflower.  Bring a very large pot of water to a full boil, then drop in cauliflower for exactly 6 minutes.  You are only going to "blanch" the cauliflower here; it will only be halfway cooked at this point.  Remove from heat, dump into a strainer and immediately run cold water over the cauliflower to stop the cooking process. 

Now, while the cauli is drying in the sink, get everything else prepped.  Chop the sundried tomatoes.  Mix all the other ingredients in a large salad bowl,  crumble in the goat cheese. 

In small batches, "rice" the cauliflower with your food processor.  Or chop it crazy-fine if you don't have one.  I use my food processor daily.  You should get one if you don't already have one.  Mix the riced cauli in with the rest of the ingredients, stir well to combine and put it in the fridge until you're ready to eat it.  This will keep for several days in the fridge.

So just let it meld.....

And move onto the koftas.



 

Beef 'n Bacon Koftas

Ingredients:

2 lbs ground beef
1 cooking onion (or 2/3 c spanish onion)
2 stalks celery
3 tsp dried thyme
5 slices bacon
2 eggs
1/8 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp Worcestershire Sauce
olive oil for basting

Method:

Heat oven to 450 degrees.  Finely chop onions, celery and bacon.  Wisk eggs, then mix all other ingredients (except basting oil) and form into 1 1/2 - 2 inch meatballs.  I think I got 49 meatballs.  Thread them onto wooden skewers.    Place  the skewers on a rack over top of a baking sheet.  Brush the tops with olive oil.  Bake for 10 minutes.  Turn the skewers over and baste other side, then bake for about 5 minutes more.  If you want the meatballs browned, turn the oven to broil at this point and keep an eye on them.  Remove when browned.

This would be perfect on the bbq.  Unfortunately, I can't use a bbq.  I burn everything. 

And voila!  Serve over cold Cauli-Orzo Salad.  Prepare to be thanked by your hungry family.

Some of These Things Just Ain't Like the Others!

Now, don’t get me wrong—there are a million benefits of adopting a paleo/primal diet and lifestyle.  The health benefits are awesome, indescribable at times.  The food is fantastic and the recipes are brave and creative and full-flavoured, but sometimes... I miss the foods I used to eat pre-paleo—not all the foods, heck no; I am eating WAY better foods now than I used to.  (Goodbye “foods from a box”)....  But you know—certain foods, special foods...  There are foods that just cannot be converted into a paleo-acceptable alternative.

Baked beans

Macaroni and cheese

Fettuccini Alfredo

Now you know what I mean.

Ironically, this is as much as Steve and I can think up.  3 things.  Because for everything else, where there is a will, there is a way.  We’ve been eating this way for so long now; we can’t recall what we’re missing.  Our taste buds have changed and we’ve become accustomed to how we eat.

Of course, we’ve learned so much now that eating out has become harder instead of becoming easier.  Our stomachs have adjusted and – healed? -   it is no longer as easy as ordering a side caesar with a steak and maybe some sweet potato fries.  We go home thinking we ate pretty good, and two to four hours later, stomach issues begin.  Nothing hideous, just discomfort, and we realize that there was hidden crap in the food.  Maybe sour cream in the caesar dressing.  Maybe those fries were lightly floured when I thought they looked dipped in egg white.  And then 3 days of bloating begins.

We used to be so laid-back.  I called us primal, not paleo, because while at home we did everything we could to eat clean and appropriately, we would still have soya sauce and full-fat dairy and our butter and meat was not grass-fed.  And while I still want to be laid-back and not go to any extremes (isn’t never eating a grain or boxed/processed foods, sugars and starches extreme enough??) it would appear that my stomach has other ideas.

The bloating and discomfort have been returning lately.  The “food baby” look is back.  Slow weight gain, nothing major, but annoying.  First, I blamed it on my cheats—the weekly hakka meal that was full of wheat flour.  I had to say goodbye to that cheat meal.  It is no more.  I can no longer have wheat even as a small cheat.  My guts have only begun to heal a week after hakka, and I then I go and bombard them again.  I was still meeting the 80/20 rule, but I wasn’t doing my stomach any favours. 

And when that wasn’t enough??  I blamed my dairy.  I know I’m lactose intolerant, but I have always been able to handle yogurt because of the live bacteria, and my home made yogurt was DELICIOUS and FULL of active bacteria.  Seriously.  The recipe doesn’t work if there are not enough bacteria.  But I had to say goodbye to dairy, too.  Damned stomach.  It’s fussy. 

So I go through spells of experimentation.  I love to collect recipes, I hoard them.  I get all these recipes emailed to me, all the time, from Chatelaine Magazine, from Canadian Living, from Kraft Kitchens.  And 99% of them are completely inappropriate, but that 1% are almost there, or have the potential to get there, so I try.

Sometimes it works out, but some recipes, while tasty and grain-free and sugar-free, just don’t work so well.  Maybe they don’t have enough protein.  Maybe they’re too high in carbs.  Maybe they just aren’t filling which would trick the body into eating more than it should.  For example, I converted a recipe this week that was a cold overnight oatmeal.  Delicious?  Yes.  Grain-free and sugar-free?  Yes.  It contained nuts, chia, banana, almond milk and vanilla.  It was light and fluffy.  But who wants to eat light and fluffy?  I had to gobble down a hard-boiled egg just to feel fed.  The naturally sweet taste made me want more—and a whole banana is way too much carb for MY level of activity. 

So this week I had a hankering for fettuccini alfredo.  Crazy, I know—it’s 2 evils at once—dairy and grains.  So I made some adjustments to a recipe I’d made before with chicken and zucchini, and the recipe turned out delicious, everyone ate it without a word of complaint (a rarity in my house).  But did it taste like fettuccini alfredo?  No.  So we won’t call it alfredo because its not and never can be.  If you can do dairy, you can get really close, but I can’t. So here is my it’s-not-alfredo recipe.  You’ll definitely like it.  But don’t expect it to taste like alfredo sauce.

Zucchini Grand-Style

Feeds about 5

Takes about 40 minutes from start to finish

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs of chicken, light or dark, deboned and cut up small
• Fat of choice, for sautéing
• 4-5 zucchini
• ½ large Spanish onion
• ¼ c chicken broth
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 tbs butter
• 1 can full-fat coconut milk
• 3 tbs arrowroot powder or tapioca starch
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• ½ tsp mustard powder
• Red pepper flakes, to taste
• Salt and pepper

Add-ons:

• Cherry tomatoes, chopped
• Green onions, chopped
• Bacon, cooked and crumbled

Directions:

Pull out your handy mandolin.  Slice your zucchini into thin spaghetti-like strips.  Place all the zucchini into a large strainer, layering with salt, and allow to drain over your sink or over a plate.  The salt will draw some of the excess moisture out.  Set aside.

Cook up your bacon and chop your add-ins, then set aside.

In a large skillet over medium heat, sauté your chopped onion and garlic with a bit of fat just until onions become translucent.  Do not scorch the garlic.  While this is cooking, debone and chop up your chicken.  Salt and pepper the chicken.  Now, in the skillet; add your butter, coconut milk, broth, nutmeg, mustard powder and red pepper flakes.   Bring it to a simmer.  Add your chicken and let it poach for about 20 minutes or until cooked through.

In a small bowl, whisk your arrowroot/tapioca starch with a bit of cold water to dissolve.  Slowly add it to the chicken and sauce, stirring and allow it to thicken.  Honestly, you want this stuff as thick as possible, overtly thick, because the water in the zucchini will thin it back down.

Once your sauce is really thick, stir in your zucchini and let it just heat through.  Adjust to taste with more red pepper flakes, salt and black pepper. 

Serve it out onto plates, then top with add-ins.

Enjoy! 

Quick note—this recipe does not make good leftovers.  Re-heating the zucchini causes it to release more water, which turns the sauce into soup.  Unless you happen to like zucchini and chicken soup.

Bacon-Wrapped Meatloaf with Roasted Spiced Rhudabaga

How many times can I type rhudabaga and spell it wrong?  Speller doesn't even know what it is.  It's winter turnips, silly!  I used to make great homefries, baken in the oven all low-fat but spicy.  Well, so many things have changed, but I missed the flavour of the spices, so I thought, what if I toss cubed turnip in some fat, and add all those familiar spices?  Tasty goodness, that's what.  But there was no dipping these in sugary ketchup like I would have in the past...  Lucky thing I had home made mayo and mixed in a little bit of curry paste, voila, good dippin' too!  (Because with my British-Canadian background, all foods must be in sauce, gravy, or dip--it is in the National Charter!!)  Ok, there is no such charter, but there should be.  BTW, I use this dip for fish, sweet potatoe and squash fries.  I like Patak's Curry Paste, but use whatever you got, it's all good. 

Repeat after me, "Bacon makes it better".  It just does.  We all know this.  So wrap your meatloaf in bacon and rejoice!  It will taste awesome.  Here's what I did to mine...

The uncooked meatloaf--see the bacon lattice?

Serves 6

Ingredients:

2 lbs ground meat--I used beef
5-6 strips bacon
2 eggs
1/2 cup almond flour/meal
1 can tomato paste
1 tsp cumin
2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp dry mustard
1 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp sea salt

Heat oven to 375 degrees.  Mix eggs, meat, spices, almond meal and half of tomato paste together and form into a loaf shape in a large casserole dish or on a cookie sheet.  If you use a loaf pan, it may increase cooking time.  Spread loaf with remaining tomato paste, then lay bacon over top.  Steve thought he'd be creative and spread the tomato paste ontop of the loaf.  Both ways work, but your bacon is crispier if its on top.  Bake, uncovered, 1 hour to 1 hour, 10 minutes, checking for doneness after an hour.  We like our ground meat well done, so we gave it 1 hour, 10 minutes.



My food photography is lacking...

Roasted Spiced Rhudabaga

1 medium rhudabaga, peeled and cubed
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp oregano
1 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 tsp cayenne
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp sea salt
fat of choice--2-3 tbs

Toss cubed rhudabaga with melted fat--I used chicken fat that I'd saved by freezing in ice cube trays.  Then toss cubes with spices.  Lay on cookie sheet and bake alongside meatloaf, for about 45-50 minutes.  Great dipped in curry-mayo.  Now if only I could figure out how to make these tasty guys crispy...  then I will never miss home fries again.