[Almost No Effort Required] Paleo Breakfast

Who would've thought? Giving myself a break has resulted in more energy and more Paleo meals and snacks than not, this weekend. I'm here to tell you that relaxing once in a while, and giving yourself more grace, can do wonders helping you feel better :)

Over the weekend I was inspired by some items in my refrigerator and came up with a very flavorful breakfast. Another item I purchased on my little grocery store trip to help me have a vacation from scratch cooking everything, was a package of Al Fresco Sweet Apple chicken sausages. I was informed by someone else with a garlic allergy that they are garlic-free, and you cannot quote me on that; if you are allergic to garlic, please check it out for yourself before trying! But so far I have not had any problems, and I can usually tell very quickly if I've had garlic (not being able to breathe is a good clue).

I know this isn't a great photo, but it gives you the idea:

Sauteed spinach & onion with chicken apple sausage + squash with pumpkin seeds and p.pie spice and maple syrup + Earl Grey tea with coconut milk

It's pretty self-explanatory, but here is a short run-down. I've bolded the key ingredients:

Put the sausage(s) into a skillet to heat. Dice onion and put into same skillet, and cover with two handfuls of organic spinach. I like to use the cast iron skillet with a little bit of leftover bacon grease (uncured bacon if possible). The flavors that you will taste from that combination is amazing!

Let the skillet cook everything for ten to fifteen minutes. Meanwhile, put the frozen squash "cube" in the microwave in a safe bowl with a splash of water and cook for four minutes. Stir well, and cook for two minutes more. Sprinkle with pumpkin pie spice, pumpkin seeds and drizzle lightly with maple syrup.

One of my favorite morning beverages is Earl Grey tea with all natural, full fut coconut milk added as "cream." It is delicious! It gives a little caffeine boost without being as acidic or hard on the stomach as coffee. 

Don't get me wrong, I love me some coffee! I try not to have it every day though. To learn more about that, read this interesting post from The Paleo Baby. Then, read this recent article from The New England Journal of Medicine. With all the varying opinions and research out there, I think it best to make your own informed decision about coffee, make sure you're in control of your consumption of this "legal addictive stimulant" (Tom Hanks gets credit for that line) and have peace with it.

Make it a great week, friends!  :)

White Wine Roast Chicken and Vegetables

There's nothing like the smell of roast chicken permeating your home to get your appetite going. My family enjoyed this experience last night. I had a whole chicken in the refrigerator that needed to be used, and white wine gravy was calling my name. I made up a recipe, and thought I'd better share it here because it turned out a success.
If you're home today enjoying a relaxed family day, or tomorrow will be your slow-paced Sunday, try roasting a chicken. The smell and taste won't disappoint! You can save the bones and make a batch of nutritious, tasty bone broth - great way to get the most out of your food budget!


What you need:

Whole chicken, giblets removed and rinsed in/out
Sea salt
Black pepper
Sage
White wine like Chardonnay (nothing fancy, I love using the $2.49 "Two Buck Chuck" from Trader Joe's)

What you do:

Preheat oven to 450. Place chicken in a roasting pan with wings and legs tucked underneath. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and a dash of sage. Pour white wine around chicken in pan, about 1/3 bottle.

When oven reaches 450 degrees, put the chicken in the oven and let it brown and crisp on top for fifteen to twenty minutes.

It will look like this. Beautiful!

Now lower the oven temperature to 375 degrees. Grab a pot holder/oven mitt, pull the oven rack out a bit [carefully!], and baste the chicken all over with the white wine/drippings. I like to baste it five times or more. Close the oven and let it go for twenty minutes, then pull out the oven rack and baste, again.
Repeat this once more - twenty minutes of roasting, then baste. Check the thigh temperature with a meat thermometer. If it reads 170 or higher, you can take the chicken out of the oven. If it's not, put it back in for ten more minutes, and check again.
Once temperature is 170 degrees, take out of the oven, cover the roasting pan with foil and let sit for fifteen minutes. Remove the foil and check the temp. The thigh should be 180 degrees.

Voila! You roasted a beautiful delicious chicken!

At this point you can cut up the chicken into eight pieces - 2 thighs, 2 legs/drumsticks, 2 breasts, 2 wings. For help in doing this, check out this step by step: How to Carve a Roasted Chicken
Also, there are many videos demonstrating this culinary skill on YouTube.


This chicken can be served with steamed vegetables and if you like, white wine gravy* for a lovely dinner. Enjoy your meal!

Chicken and veggies - one of the best

*To make gravy, pour the wine/drippings into a small saucepan over low heat. In a small bowl, make a "slurry" with one teaspoon cornstarch and 1/4 cup water. Mix slurry with a fork, and add to the saucepan of warm drippings. Continue to whisk this mixture together while it heats. When it is thickened to the consistency you like, it's ready. Pour over your chicken and veg, and enjoy.

Slow Cooking: Spicy Coconut Chicken

Slow cookers, a.k.a. Crock Pots. Do you have one? If so, do you actually use it? Confession: I have three slow cookers. Actually, four if you count our GIGANTIC Nesco roaster. They were all gifts-I'm not an addict. However, now five years into my "homemaking career," if you will, I use all of them. It just took me a while to get into slow cooking.

Truth: Slow cookers are not the most glamorous kitchen tool, and the food they produce isn't always beautiful for photos. However, it is always delicious, and so simple and easy to get it that way. I think slow cookers are making a comeback with savvy cooks. In some cases, you can have a delicious hot dinner ready in the evening after just five minutes of prep work in the morning. Slow cookers save money because they can make just about any cut of meat moist, and it's hard to overcook something. And they are rumored to be one of the best ways to cook with a low energy cost - as low as two cents per day!

This recipe evolved from a recipe for Tandoori Chicken over at Crock Pot 365. I only made that dish once, with Greek yogurt. After a few weeks post-partum, all my food allergies came back in full force, and I couldn't have dairy at all. I wanted to make it again sans yogurt, so I did a little thinking and came up with a new twist to the dish: canned coconut milk as a yogurt sub. I also modified the spices (I'm allergic to garlic, so that went away with the yogurt). After cooking this on four separate, but all delicious, occasions, and playing around with the spices each time, I've landed upon what I think is the perfect combination of flavors. I also think my creation is unique and tasty enough to deserve it's own name. I'm calling it...

Spicy Coconut Chicken

What you need:

3-4 quart slow cooker (If you have a larger one, simply double the recipe. Leftovers of this dish are WONDERFUL!)
Fresh/thawed boneless, skinless chicken pieces. Try this combo: 4 small chicken thighs and 2 medium chicken breasts (I like Trader Joe's fresh organic, free range)
One can of coconut milk (Go for a brand without preservative chemicals, such as Taste Nirvana or Trader Joe's)
Bag of frozen broccoli or cauliflower pieces

1/2 to 1 tsp* of the following ground spices:
turmeric
curry
smoked paprika
cumin
coriander
ginger
crushed red pepper flake

*Use your taste as a guide. We love spicy around here, so for the real heat I recommend 1 full teaspoon of each spice.

What you do:

Put chicken pieces into the slow cooker (I used my 3 quart Hamilton Beach). Gently -to prevent splashing- pour half a can of coconut milk on top. Scoop each teaspoon of spice right on top of the chicken and coconut milk. Once everything is in the slow cooker, take a fork and start turning the chicken pieces, working from the bottom to the top. Get both sides of each piece coated. The spices will mix together on their own while you do this. When everything looks good and well coated, put the lid on, set the heat at Low, and cook for three to four hours, depending on thickness of chicken and power of your slow cooker.

At this point, add your frozen veg and keep the heat on Low. If the veg pieces are small, it won't take long to finish - less than twenty minutes. Dish up a plate: a piece of chicken, a few scoops of veg, and some extra sauce as there will be plenty. You can serve this on a bed of "riced" cauliflower for something extra. This is a great, convenient Paleo meal, it is super easy using the Crock Pot, and it has plenty of the three components we need: 1) lean protein (chicken), 2) healthy fats (coconut milk) and 3) vegetables (broccoli and cauliflower)!

Like I said, the slow cooker doesn't always produce aesthetically pleasing dishes, but this really tastes wonderful. Give it a try tonight!

Bone Broth - Chicken edition

"Good broth will resurrect the dead." -South American Proverb

Well, if that doesn't set your expectations high, I don't know what will. Wow, this stuff is good. I've been hearing about the benefits of bone broths for years, but this was my first time to make it. It is so easy; you could spend less than an hour of your time every week to set up your slow cooker, cook, strain, and store the stock - you have to call that easy.

Bone broth has a myriad of health benefits. Homemade stocks are something that used to be simmering on every home hearth and cook top, but as our country has lost touch with eating real, whole foods, we've lost touch with traditional cooking and with that, lost the health benefits that come with it. And to think, we have so many great tools and appliances now that our great grandmothers didn't have. No excuses! :)
For the details on bone broth benefits, read the article by Sally Fallon entitled "Broth is Beautiful"

I adapted Balanced Bites' recipe for Mineral-Rich Bone Broth. For bones, I used what was left of dinner from the other night - a rotisserie roasted chicken. Most of the meat had been taken off and I simply put the chicken into the slow cooker, poured water over it, literally broke a few washed carrots apart with my hands and tossed them in, sprinkled in about a half cup of frozen leeks (picked them up at Trader Joe's last week) and put the lid on. That's IT. Couldn't be simpler.

What you need:

roasted chicken carcass
approximately 4 quarts of water (Fill stoneware 2/3)
splash of apple cider vinegar
3 carrots, broken into pieces
1/2 cup frozen leeks

What you do:

Put everything in a 6 quart slow cooker, set to high. After two to three hours (depending on amount of water you used, it will be simmering/gently boiling. Switch heat to Low and let cook overnight. I started my stock about 6 pm - lowered the temp around 9 pm - and turned it off at noon, so eighteen hours total this time. Let it sit for an hour or a few, then put a fine mesh metal strainer into a large bowl. Using a slotted spoon, move the large pieces into the strainer, then pick up the stoneware insert (hopefully your slow cooker insert is removable - here's an incidence where that comes in very handy) and gently pour through the strainer. You can then pick through and pull out the cooked carrots-they taste incredible- and get all the last bits of chicken meat off the bones. I collected over one cup of chicken.

For storage, I love the use of glass jars. They are low cost, toxin free, made in the USA, and you can get them "for free" by sanitizing old jars from spaghetti sauce, store bought applesauce and canned peaches, etc. Ask your friends and family to save their glass jars for you and you'll be set! I run mine through the dishwasher, lids on the top rack.
Ladle the soup into your jars or other storage containers, leaving room for expansion at the top. You now have a supply of homemade stock ready to freeze for a few months, or keep in the refrigerator for a few days. Enjoy!