Thursday, June 27, 2013

Sesame Coconut Chicken

This is a new favorite.  It is easy to make and tastes like Chinese takeout except it's better for you.  I got the original recipe from the Paleoaholic website.  There are some great recipes there and the paleo diet lends itself well to allergen friendly diets like ours.  I modified the recipe a little but you can find the original recipe HERE.  J and I loved it.  This also helped us discover a replacement to soy sauce.  J loves soy sauce and recipes that use it but I've never liked soy sauce much and I stay away from soy due to hormone imbalances.  I also prefer to keep L away from soy since hormone problems run in the family and most soy is now GMO.  She also seems to have more stomach issues when soy oils are used on anything she eats.  Such a sensitive digestive system our toddler has.

Ingredients:
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 garlic cloves, minced
1-2 Tbsp. onion, minced
1 tsp. ginger (fresh grated or powdered/dried works)
3 Tbsp. coconut aminos (soy sauce replacement, you should be able to find this at any health food store)
1 Tbsp. sesame oil (I was actually out of sesame oil and used olive here.  It worked just fine so don't worry if you don't have sesame on hand)
1/2 cup apple juice (make sure it is a pure apple juice)

Directions:
In a large bowl, mix together garlic, onion, ginger, aminos, oil and apple juice.  Add the chicken in the bowl and toss to coat.  Let marinate.  Mine marinated for a couple of hours but it should marinate for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 425*F.  Cover a baking sheet with foil and place chicken on the pan.  Spoon a little bit of the marinade over the chicken and set aside.  Bake the chicken for about 20 minutes.  Turn chicken and spoon a little more marinade over the other side.  Bake for another 20-25 minutes.

I served this over rice and cooked the rice with a little bit of the apple juice, ginger and coconut aminos mixed in as well.  It was VERY good.  It will be added to our regular list of meals because it was easy and tasted so good.


Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Quinoa Crusted Chicken

I completely stole this recipe.  You can find the original recipe HERE on a blog called The Simple Dish.  I must give credit here.  It's a very good recipe.  I was impressed.

Ingredients:
4 chicken breasts
1 cup uncooked quinoa
1 egg
salt
pepper
olive oil
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 Tbsp. onion powder
1 Tbsp. parsley

Directions:
Boil quinoa in 2 cups of water.  While the quinoa is cooking, I took the chicken breasts and used a mallet to make them thinner.  When the quinoa was finished, I put it in a separate bowl and mixed in the salt, pepper, garlic, onion and parsley.  In a separate bowl, scramble the egg for dipping the chicken.  Prepare a baking sheet with olive oil.  I have a Misto sprayer to spray the olive oil and keep the chicken from sticking.  Preheat the oven to 375*F.  Dip each chicken breast in the egg, then coat in the quinoa mixture.  Lay out on the baking sheet and bake for approximately 45 minutes.


Chicken Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

I've seen several recipes of stuffed sweet potatoes, especially since the paleo diet has become so popular.  This is actually my own recipe.  I read several recipes and kind of mixed them as I though my family would like.  This is a recipe for two servings.  If you have more people in you family, just add a sweet potato, chicken breast and two slices of bacon per person.

Ingredients:
2 sweet potatoes
2 chicken breasts (diced)
4 slices bacon
parmesan (or preferred) cheese (optional) (I think this would be really good with something like goat cheese as well)
coconut or olive oil (unless cooking chicken in bacon grease)

Directions:
Now I already had bacon cooked so I chopped up and reheated it.  We keep our nitrate free bacon cooked and ready to warm up for the toddler.  She loves and can actually eat this one type of bacon so we keep it around.  If you are cooking the bacon, just use the bacon grease to cook the diced chicken in.  If not, use the olive or coconut oil.  First, you will need to bake the sweet potatoes.  This takes at least an hour in my oven so those will cook for 30 minutes before you even have to start on the rest.  Then cook the bacon.  Then saute the diced chicken in the bacon grease or oil.  When the potatoes are done, split them in half, unless you baked them that way.  Hollow out the middle a little, pushing the inside of the potato to the edges.  Split the chicken and bacon evenly into the hollowed out centers of the sweet potatoes.  Top with parmesan cheese.  I topped with parmesan from a jar.  I'm sure it would be better with fresh but I get so few shortcuts anymore that I take advantage of the few I can.


Watermelon Juice

This is how I used watermelon that needed to be eaten.  It is hard to get rid of watermelon when you are the only one in the house who will eat it.

Ingredients:
Watermelon chunks
1/2-3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup lime juice
Water

Directions:
Blend watermelon chunks and strain to remove seeds.  Add lime juice and sugar.  Stir in water to fill the pitcher.  Stir or shake up before pouring anytime because the watermelon will settle to the bottom.  It's pretty good.  Try it.



Monday, June 10, 2013

Strawberry Bread

I know it has been so long since I have posted regularly on my blog.  Life has been crazy.  And not very nice.  Plus, I got a new computer.  Normally this would make me very happy but I absolutely despise Windows 8!  But it's summer break again so I am back to experimenting with food.  Although I don't really feel like it is an actual 'break' this year.

Since L had so much trouble this year, I now can or freeze almost everything we eat at home because everything has preservatives and dishonest labeling. This way, I know exactly what she is eating.  The health benefits, of course, are for all of us but this all started because she is so important.  So, this summer, since I don't have a full garden at home yet, we have been raiding the farmer's markets and fruit and vegetable stands for fresh and organic products.  We also found a local source for grass fed beef.

Anyway, with the last batch of strawberries I had, I made this wonderful bread.  The original recipe came from another blog which you can find HERE.

But I changed it up a little.  This bread is VERY moist.  And don't be fooled by the toothpick coming out clean when you check the bread.  My toothpick came out clean but it was still more like a crumble instead of bread in parts.  It was still really good though.  Nobody complained about how gooey it was.

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups strawberries, chopped
2 Tbsp. sugar
3 cups all-purpose flour (I'm positive this could be changed for a gluten free.  We went with a corn-free.)
2 cups sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
4 eggs, beaten
1 1/4 cup grapeseed oil (original recipe said vegetable oil but in this house, we only use grapeseed, olive or coconut.)
Olive oil to grease loaf pans
1 tsp. vanilla (working on this to be corn-free)

Directions:
Mix chopped strawberries with the 2 Tbsp. sugar in a small bowl.  Set aside.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease loaf pans.  Combine flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.  Then combine remaining ingredients but don't over stir.  Fold in the strawberries.

Divide evenly between the two greased loaf pans.  Bake for 50-55 minutes.

Note:  Pictures to come.  I'm still working on moving my pictures over after changing computers.