Micro-Chips

Hey, did you know that you could make chips in the microwave?

Yes, I just said that.

I came upon this recipe in Chatelaine Magazine Online-ok, it was more of a blogged food science experiment in Chatelaine (man, do I love Chatelaine).  I get twice-a-week emails from them with ideas and recipes and articles on everything about life in general.  I should really think about getting an actual subscription--but why bother killing all those trees when they already send me the emailed recipes?

Of course, I'm not eating potato chips.

But the possibilities..........

Butternut squash chips!

So I wanted to make squash fries.  I LOVE squash fries.  I love them better than sweet potato fries.  And they're lower in carbs.  Double-bonus!!  Now, being lower in starch than potatoes, squash fries tend to be soft on the inside, and crispy on the outside sometimes.  It's hard to keep them crispy for long.  I am continuously experimenting with ways to make them stay crispier.

So I took a small butternut squash and peeled it.  I ran it through the middle thickness blade on my mandolin. 

I brushed a bunch of slices down with olive oil.  I washed and then brushed down the microwave tray with oil, too.  I laid the slices out flat on the tray and microwaved for about 7 minutes.  I flipped some of them over.  I added a minute of time here and there until they were dry and beginning to brown.  I salted them and set them on paper towels and started again. 

It was time-intensive, I'm not going to lie.  But it was dead simple.  Any chips that didn't crisp up just kept going back in for another minute.  The best part was that they continued to crisp up once they were out.  Many of the chips were as crispy as real potato chips.

This was so simple, a teen could do it for an after school snack.  If you sliced a bunch of squash or sweet potatoes in advance.  That mandolin is scary.  I keep shaving my fingertips with it.

And if this recipe works with the high water content of squash, how awesome would it be with sweet potato?  And what about kale?  Can you make kale chips this way?  What if you had those stacking perforated microwave trays, and could put several layers in at once?  Oh, there will be some science going on in my household, I tell ya.

Now, I have no idea what this does to the nutrition content of the squash.  Microwaving veggies is often the best way to preserve the nutrients in them.  This method appears to be just dehydrating the vegetable, which isn't bad for the food at all.

To make these chips over-the-top awesome, mix some dip for them by combining home made garlic-basil mayo recipe here with a few dashes of hot sauce.  Seriously the best multi-purpose dip I've ever had.  I don't know how I lived so long without it.  I just devoured all the home made mayo in my house.  Damn.

Banana Yogurt Parfaits

Really?  Banana-flavoured yogurt? 

Sure enough, the local grocery store sells their own brand of banana yogurt.  It's sweet and smooth, no bananas in sight. 

So, how do you make home made banana yogurt, then?  Surely if you put bananas into home made yogurt, they'll spoil the yogurt and turn it black and seperate it.  Fruit can do that to yogurt.  You gotta be careful about adding stuff to home made yogurt.  The no preservatives thing can be a challenge.

I thought about adding banana-flavoured pudding--that would even make it nice and thick.  But pudding ain't paleo.  Kinda defeated the purpose.  I could just layer bananas with yogurt and serve it that way.  But then I'd have to prep and serve it each time they wanted it.  Like they'd go to that much effort alone, and they'd still complain it was sour.

Then I had a plan.



It went like this:

First, make sure you make your home made yogurt extra thick--2 packets of gelatin at least, or chia, or tapioca starch or whatever you need to do to thicken your yogurt.  Find my home made yogurt recipe here - just skip the final step of straining to thicken it.  This is NOT greek yogurt.  (I prefer to add 2 packets of gelatin for this style of yogurt--dissolve into a bit of cold milk/water, then stir into yogurt when it's almost heated to 180 degrees, just before you begin cooling it.  Stir VERY thoroughly).  You will find that as soon as you start to add things to your yogurt, it begins to thin down.  If you don't use thickened yogurt, this recipe will basically make a Yop drink.

For Yogurt:

1 750-g tub of home made yogurt (I re-use old yogurt containers)
1 tbsp honey
2 tsp banana extract
4 scoops stevia powder (or stevia liquid equal 4 tsp sugar)

Stir into yogurt.  That's it.  It's seriously that easy.

For Cereal/Crumble Topping:

1/3 c dried dates
1 c almonds
1/4 c coconut flour
1/4 c flax meal
1 tsp honey
1 tbs arrowroot powder
2-3 tbsp butter
pinch salt

Heat oven to 325 degrees.  Throw dates and almonds into food processor and puree until fine crumbs.  Add all else just until combined and broken into small crumbles.  Spread out onto a baking sheet and bake for about 1/2 hour, stirring every 10 minutes.  Allow to cool fully.  This makes a great cereal with almond milk, too, but don't tell my teens or they'll eat it all up.....

Serve yogurt, crumble and sliced fruit in layers.  My daughter's favourite is layers of strawberry AND banana.  Serve in brandy glasses!

PepperMint Patties

Yes, this is what I made.  It was Easter, and I wanted chocolate MORE THAN ANYTHING IN THIS WORLD.  Ok, maybe the time of the month had something to do with it too...  Don't you love chocolate and mint together?  Ok, peanut butter and chocolate is even better, but I'd just devoured a batch of Balanced Bites Almond-Butter-Cups.  I was boldened after that little experiment, but wanted it to be alot simpler.  So I thought--if I use unsweetened chocolate, and just add a dab of slightly sweet chocolate, wouldn't I get dark chocolate??  Like REALLY dark chocolate?  Because actual Bakers dark chocolate is alot more expensive than doing it this way and I'm all about keeping it affordable.  And this is sooooo simple to make.  A quick note--I use a double-boiler for a lot of things like this--it allows you to keep the melted chocolate warm and pliable while you're still working with it.  But if you don't have one, a stainless bowl placed over a pot will do the same thing.  And if you have neither of those, you can always melt the chocolate in the microwave, just be careful not to burn it and you may have to re-heat it a few times.

These are alright to keep on your countertop when they're done, but I really recommend keeping them in the fridge.  I found the chocolate "bloomed" on my countertop, and the mint is stronger and sweeter from the fridge.  But do try to make them as thin as possible.  I made 12 with this recipe, and they were as thick as a peanut-butter cup, and very hard to bite down on (so I chopped mine up into  small bite-sized pieces and just let it melt on the tongue....)

You will need:

baking sheet
cupcake liners
double-boiler

Ingredients:

8 squares Bakers Unsweetened Chocolate
3 squares Bakers Semi-Sweet Chocolate
1/4 c coconut creme
2 tsp mint extract
2 tsp honey

Method:

First, prepare thy self!!  Measure out coconut creme in a small microwave-safe dish.  On a baking sheet, lay out at least 12 paper cupcake liners.In a double-boiler, melt chocolate. 

Once the chocolate is melted, measure out half of it into the paper cupcake liners.  I just used a metal spoon and poured a spoonfull into each liner.  make sure it fills the bottom of the liner; you may have to smear it/spread it around a little.  Leave the rest of the chocolate on the double-boiler.  It should stay warm enough.

Place your cookie sheet with the paper muffin liners on it into the freezer for five minutes.  While this is freezing, melt your coconut creme and then mix in the mint extract and honey.  Remove the frozen chocolate from the freezer, and measure out a small teaspoon of mint into the middle of each chocolate bottom.  Use it all up.  Do press it somewhat flat, but do not spread it all the way to the edges.  Put it back in the freezer for another 5 minutes.

Now use up the rest of the chocolate on the frozen mint and chocolate base.  Remember to keep it as thin as you can or they become very hard to bite down on.

Slide your cookie sheet back in the freezer to set everything firm.  Once set, you can move it all into a tupperware container and into the fridge.

Voila.  It really was that simple.

Now, if you'd rather have an almond-butter-cup, just switch the filling to almond butter with a splash of vanilla and honey.  But you won't be able to stop eating them if you do this.  Sure, there's barely any sweetener in this, but its still a treat, not a meal....

Chocolate, Wine and Happiness

Last night I asked my husband what he wanted to do for Christmas Eve this year.  This has always been a 'finger foods" night for us, and truthfully, my kids and I always called it "foods in a box" night because it was all the horrible junk food that comes in boxes in the frozen section of the grocery store--jalapeno poppers, chicken fingers, onion rings, sausage rolls, breaded mushrooms and breaded zucchini.  I'm not Betty Freakin' Crocker.  I bought foods in a box.  It was a gastric nightmare and it always sounded like such a great idea until we sat down with it and 10 bites in, just pushed the plates away.  It was...too....much.  Just too much to digest.  It sat like lead in the belly.

This year, on my whole paleo mighty-horse, I thought we'd say goodbye to finger food Christmas Eve in light of healthier fare, maybe something truly foodie, even.  But what our hearts want is finger food because it is a tradition.  So we brainstormed this one out.  Why not finger foods?  Could we do it paleo-style and not miss the old foods?  The other day I came upon a recipe for grain-free pigs in a blanket.  Now that's something the kids could really get into.  Maybe even like.  So here's what we planned out:

• grain-free pigs in a blanket from
  http://realfoodforager.com/2011/12/recipe-grain-free-party-franks/
• veggies and dairy-free ranch-flavored dip from http://www.janssushibar.com/
• asparagus wrapped in bacon and grilled
• home-made mini-meatballs baked and glazed in paleo bbq sauce from the Primal Comfort Foods cookbook
• chicken threaded onto skewers and grilled, dipped in sunshine sauce from http://www.theclothesmakethegirl.com/ (basically a sunbutter version of peanut sauce, that I will make spicy)
• avocado and salsa, with plantain chips for dipping (I will buy these from the Bulk Barn)
• maybe I'll even make some dark-chocolate-coated almonds if I'm still on my hormonal PMS roller-coaster....  Because chocolate and red wine make me happy, whether or not it's paleo. 

We've always had a big family Christmas dinner, but this year...not so much.  Circumstances have prevented that.  So maybe, since there will only be 3 of us, we will drive all over town until we can find a restaurant that will take us, and we will, for once, eat slowly, savouring every bite and enjoying the quiet that this year has brought, because next year--it's party on again!

I will, however, be partaking in a Boxing Day dinner feast (And if it snows, I'll take pictures and they'll be spectacular), and just to make sure the temptation isn't too great, (or the stomach pain too much) I will be bringing my own versions of my favorite things--stuffing and pie.  The stuffing will come from http://www.cavemanstrong.com/ and the pie...I'm eyeing the recipe submitted to Robb Wolf's recipe contest labelled French Silk Pie.  I'll let you know how it goes......  And red wine.  We will bring, and there will also already be, copious amounts of red wine.  Red wine and chocolate make me happy.  Have I said that already?  It needs to be said again.  And again.  I'll stop that now..