Paleo Pancakes

February 2013

Simple Recipes from Shawn's cooking fire

Paleo Pancakes

As many of you know we are constantly preaching about the evils of grains and encouraging everyone to find alternatives to this staple of the Standard American Diet (SAD). Most of our digestive systems do much better with squash and root vegetables for complex carbohydrates than grains do, so here’s a recipe for pancakes that I make every other week or so. You can make a large batch of them freeze the extra and put them in the toaster oven when you’re ready to have some more. Also they go great with the soup recipes that Minga has shared with us over the past few months.

Ingredients:
2 cups Squash (1 large squash makes about 2cups)
2tbs arrowroot
2eggs
1tbs coconut oil or organic butter

Start with a large squash. Either butter nut, acorn, kabocha (Japanese pumkin), or pumpkin. Split the squash in half scoop out the seeds and place face down on a cookie rack greased with coconut oil. Bake at 350 F for 45min to 1hour.
Use a fork to check when it’s soft and cooked all the way through. Pull from the oven and let cool until it can be scooped from the rind without burning your hands.

Scoop the flesh into a large mixing bowl measuring 2 cups. Next stir in your 2tbs of arrowroot powder using a fork to break up all the fibers of the squash till you have a smooth paste. Finally beat your two eggs and stir them in to your batter.

Heat an iron skillet or thick pan with medium heat and coat with coconut oil. These pancakes take longer to cook than traditional pancakes to be patient. It takes about 15 minutes for the first side (if they are burning turn the heat down so you can cook them longer) and 10-15 minutes on the second side. When they’re done use generous amounts of organic butter or coconut oil and add a little salt to taste. Enjoy!

Pork Shoulder recipe Jan 2013

January 2013

Traditional Recipes from minga's Kitchen

 

This is an excellent season for roasts. They keep the house warm and fragrant during these cool days. They can be done quickly or slowly depending on your schedule. They are delicious!
This pork shoulder is best with the bone in, but I have done it boneless as well, just decrease the roasting time by an hour. This is the first roast I’m sharing because it creates a fragrant lake of fat, which I use for cooking all week long. The benefits of healthy, free range, organic pork fat are innumerable:  it has antiviral properties, antioxidant properties superior to vitamin E, it is high in monounsaturated like olive oil, and is rich in vitamin D (be gone depression!). Portland is an amazing place to get good pork. Until I moved here I hardly ever ate pork because good pork is so hard to find. These days we enjoy it almost every week.

The dipping sauces can take you in any flavor direction you’d like to go. I’ll add two to this recipe: an Argentine chimichurri and Thai green sauce.

Simple Slow Roast Pork shoulder

1/2 cup sea salt
pork shoulder bone in or out skin on or off what ever you have found from your local pig farmer

1~Rub sea salt into the roast. I like to let my shoulder cure in plain sea salt in a plastic bag with all the air pressed out for a couple of days before rinsing and roasting for the best flavor. No other seasoning need be added. One day is enough if you forget to get an early start.
2~Set the oven to 250 degrees
3 ~Rinse the roast & place on a roasting rack in the roasting pan skin or fat side up.
4~Roast for 9 to 10 hours if bone in & 7-8 hours if boneless. The internal temperature should read 190 to 195. the meat should shred easily with a fork.
5~Remove from the oven and let sit for 20 mins.
6~Serve and enjoy with dipping sauces or pan sauce after you drain and collect the fat. The fat will keep for a week in the fridge or indefinitely in the freezer.

There are many more wonderful sauces but these two are easy favorites of mine.

Chimichurri Sauce

Ingredients
1 cup  fresh parsley leaves, washed and dried
5 medium cloves garlic, peeled
2 tablespoons oregano leaves (fresh if possible)
1/2 cup of olive oil
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (if you’d like it spicy)

1~Place parsley, garlic, and oregano a food processor. Pulse until finely chopped, but not a paste.
2~ Transfer to a bowl and stir in oil, vinegar, salt, and red pepper flakes. Can be stored refrigerator for up to 2 days or eaten right away.

Thai Green Chili Sauce

Ingredients
3 fresh green chili- stem and seed discarded (for a very spicy sauce leave in the seeds)
5 stems of cilantro
2 cloves garlic
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1   tsp salt
2    tbs red boast fish sauce

Preparation
1~ Coarsely chop the chilis, cilantro and garlic by hand or in a food processor
2~Add vinegar, salt and fish sauce. 
3~ Stir together well and serve!

Beef Stew recipe

December 2012

Traditional Recipes from minga's Kitchen

The hardest part about travels for us is not having our own kitchen. We had a chance to sample some delicious Brazilian fare & will try them out in our kitchen before sharing them with you. When we got home all we wanted was our simple home meals. Amazingly, we had beef and broth waiting in the freezer and herbs in the garden, so I was able to whip together this wonderful beef stew in the morning before running errands & it was ready for lunch. Simple hot meal & enough for leftovers too!

2 lbs of stew meat (beef, lamb or buffalo)

2 ribs of celery cut into half inch pieces

1 large onion cubed

1 bay leaf

1 rosemary sprig

1 leaf of fresh sage

3 sprigs of parsely

2 tablespoon of duck or pork fat

a pinch of ground cloves

lemon rind from one lemon ( from our morning lemon water)

3 carrots cubed

1 large turnip cubed

1 large rutabaga cubed

1 cup frozen peas (I found some in the fridge and decided to throw them in)

6-8 cups of beef broth.

1~ heat your stew pot, add the oil and stir in the meat browning it well. add the celery, onion, herbs, spices and lemon cook until fragrant, about 15 or 20 minutes.

2~ add the broth and let cook over low heat for 90 minutes or so until meat is tender

3~ add vegetables and cook until they start to soften, about 20 minutes. Toss peas in just before you serve, they will heat very quickly.

Serve & enjoy!