Butternut Squash Soup

This certainly wasn't my favorite paleo dish (but I'm kind of biased since I'm not much into soups in the first place), but it hit the spot one cold night while curled up in bed watching a movie with Coleman. I'd never had butternut squash before, but he'd insisted on buying two the last time we went to YDFM and this seemed an easy enough recipe to gamble some wasted time on if I didn't like it. (Recipe adapted from one found on Paleo Mama's Cave Chick Cuisine.)

Ingredients:

Soup:
1 large butternut squash
32-oz. box of chicken stock
1 tsp. extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp. corriander
1/2 tsp. allspice
1/4 tsp cayenne
1 tsp. cumin
1/2 cup coconut milk

Seeds:
seeds from the squash
1 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 tsp. sea salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1/4 tsp. paprika

Directions:

Split the squash lengthwise and pull out the seeds and pulp (much as you would with a spaghetti squash). Set the seeds aside for later use.

Spread a tsp of evoo on a foil-lined baking sheet and place the squash flat-side down on the sheet. Bake in a 400 degree oven for about 30 minutes. Once the squash is soft and caramelized, remove from the oven and let cool slightly. Flip over the halves and scoop out the center (the original recipe suggested an ice cream scoop, but a regular spoon worked just fine).

Put into a stock pot and add chicken stock and spices. Puree the squash into the broth - you can either use a stick blender if you have one or do as I did and puree it in batches in a regular blender. You're looking for a creamy consistency here, so make sure to break up any large chunks. Cook over medium heat until soup is warmed throughout.

While your soup is heating, wash the goop off the seeds and pat dry. In a bowl, combine seeds with garlic powder, salt, pepper and paprika. Spread out in one layer on a lightly greased (more evoo) baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Once soup is throughly heated, stir in 1/2 cup of coconut milk. Garnish with the toasted spiced seeds. As could be expected, I added some crumbled bacon as well. Great mix of flavors.

Pasta with chicken and sundried tomato pesto

Pesto:
4 large basil leaves
1 cup walnuts
2 cloves of garlic
1/4 cup sun dried tomatoes
1/4 cup olive oil
1 T lemon juice

Blend in food processor

Pasta:
4 cherry tomatoes diced
1/4 cup sliced baby bella mushrooms
6 oz. Diced chicken
1 T butter
1 large zucchini julienned
Pesto

Sauté cherry tomatoes and Bellas in olive oil. Add cooked chicken and pesto. Add butter and zucchini. Stir until warm. Eat!




-- Katy

Banana Muffins

Gluten Free Banana Mini-Muffins
3 cups almond flour
½ teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ cup agave nectar
¼ cup olive oil
3 eggs, whisked
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 bananas mashed
In a large bowl, mix together almond flour, salt and baking soda
In a smaller bowl, combine agave, olive oil, eggs and vanilla, then stir in bananas
Mix wet ingredients into dry
Place batter in mini muffin tins
Bake at 350° for 15 minutes
Remove from oven and allow to cool


-- Katy

Do you know what this pork needs? Some bacon

Bacon Wrapped Pork
Cook Time: 1 hour
Ingredients:
1 pork tenderloin, cleaned and trimmed
5 slices of applewood bacon
1 tablespoon of garlic powder
1 teaspoon of Lawry's Seasoned Salt
1 teaspoon dried crumbled leaf basil
1/2 teaspoon dried crumbled leaf oregano
1 teaspoon black pepper
olive oil
3 apples sliced
nutmeg

Preparation:
Combine garlic powder, seasoned salt, basil, oregano, and black pepper; rub seasoning all over the pork tenderloin.
Wrap pork with bacon and secure with toothpicks.
Take your olive oil and coat well.
Add sliced apples to the sides and top of the pork and sprinkle with nutmeg.
Place in a 9x13 pan and bake uncovered in a 375 to 400 oven for 45 to 60 minutes, or until pork reaches about 155°.
Remove and wrap in foil. Let stand for 10 minutes before slicing. This pork tenderloin recipe serves 2 to 4.
-- Katy

Dairy-free Crustless Quiche

Breakfasts are one of the hardest meals for me. First off, I'm usually not very hungry in the morning. And second, when I am hungry, I don't have a lot of time to cook something (typically because I'm too lazy to get out of bed in time to do so). In an effort to simplify my mornings, I made a quiche during my Sunday cooking whirlwind and divided it into six aluminum foil-wrapped portions for an quick grab-and-go breakfast. All I have to do in the morning is pop it in the microwave when I get to work, at which time I typically am hungry, especially if I worked at the gym that morning.

What's also great about this recipe is that you can play around with the fillers and have pretty much any kind of quiche you want. The first one I made had spinach, sausage and mushrooms in it. This time, since I was out of spinach, I just increased the amount of my other fillers.

Ingredients:

9 oz turkey sausage

8 oz mushrooms

10 eggs

1 can coconut milk

Directions:

Brown sausage and saute mushrooms. (This time around I sauteed my mushrooms in bacon fat and it added a great flavor! Be sure to drain any excess fat still remaining in the pan after cooking though. Otherwise, your quiche is going to leak excess liquid and let me tell you, it's messy!) Mix sausage and mushrooms and set aside. Whisk eggs and coconut milk, and then pour into baking dish. Add meat/veggie mixture and bake at 375 for 30-40 minutes or until golden brown and cooked all the way through.

Don't be alarmed: The quiche will rise a little in the middle during cooking, but will shrink back down as it cools.

Zone breakdown:

16P - 1/3C - 21F ... This is for the whole recipe. To get the breakdown for individual servings, obviously, divide it by the number of servings.

Also, the fat content will vary based on the type of coconut milk you're using. To determine how many blocks are in your can of coconut milk, divide the total fat grams by 7 (the number of grams in a block). Mine contains 147 grams of fat, which divided by 7 gives me 21 blocks.

Ratatouille

This weekend I tried a recipe I found on Off-Camera Chronicles for ratatouille with bonus protein via cheese (which you dairy-haters can leave off) and eggs. I used my brand new, super cool food processor to chop up all the veggies and it was a Godsend! I can't imagine having to cut up all this stuff by hand!

Ingredients:

4 tomatoes

2 eggplants

2 capsicums (I had to

look this one up. It's just a fancy term for pepper, go figure.)

2 zucchinis

1 large red onion

3 cl

oves of garlic

5 Tbsp. evoo

2 tsp. ground cumin

grated cheese (I used

mozzarella)1 tsp. paprika

sea salt & pepper, to taste

5 eggs

Directions:

Dice all your veggies and cook them in a large pan with evoo, cumin, paprika, and however much salt and pepper you want to use for flavor. Cook the mixture over high heat for 10 minutes, stirring regularly.

Then transfer everything into a casserole dish and bake for one hour at 390F. The original recipe said to cover your dish with aluminum foil for baking, but I forgot this step and it didn't seem to have any negative effects. Next time I'll try it with the foil to see if it makes any sort of difference though.

Once done, remove from oven and sprinkle with grated cheese (or not - boo!) and break eggs on top. Bake for another 10 to 20 minutes at 350F until the eggs are at desired consistency.

Since I'm just cooking for me, I had tons of leftovers! I divided it up into tupperware and it was enough for

approximately four

full meals and a smaller portion that can serve as a side dish. This is clutch for me during the week when I'm tired after being at the office/gym and just want to veg out. Instead of being tempted by the convenience of fast food, I can just pop one of these suckers in the microwave et viola, still on track with healthy eating!

Crockpot pork chop and applesauce

I am still looking for ways to use all of my apples from last weekend's apple picking.
I browned both sides of a butterflied porkchop. I added it to the crockpot with the following :
Diced onion
Garlic
2 apples sliced
3 slices of bacon
Nutmeg
Ginger
Pepper
I cooked it on low for about six hours. My appartment smelled amazing. Bacon and Ginger are two of my favorite scents...glade should make that into an air freshener.

-- Katy