Gumbo

Gumbo

adapted from several recipes

Prep Time: 45 minutes

Cooking Time: 4 hours, 15 minutes

Makes: 2.5 quarts (8-10 servings)

Ingredients

2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs or 1 rotisserie chicken, pulled apart

1 lb smoked sausage

1 lb smoked ham

1/2 cup bacon grease

6 TBS coconut flour

6 TBS almond flour

2 medium onions, chopped (about 2 cups)*

1 large green bell pepper, chopped (about 1 cup)*

1 large celery rib, chopped*

2 large garlic cloves, minced

2 - 32oz boxes Kitchen Basics Unsalted Chicken Stock

3/4 tsp dried thyme

1/2 tsp black pepper

1/4 tsp ground red pepper

Hot cooked cauliflower rice

Directions

Cut the chicken, sausage and ham into bite sized pieces. Cook the chicken over medium heat in a large dutch oven until browned.  Put into a separate bowl and wipe out the dutch oven. *You can skip this step if you use rotisserie chicken.

Heat bacon grease in dutch oven over medium heat. Gradually whisk in the coconut and almond flours. Continue whisking constantly until the roux is a deep mahogany color. It will almost look like really dark peanut butter. 

Stir in onions, celery and green peppers. Cook about 5 minutes and add in garlic. Cook another 5 minutes or until tender. Gradually add the chicken stock while whisking. Add the meats, thyme, red and black pepper. 

Bring mixture to a boil over medium high heat. Reduce to medium low and simmer, stirring occasionally for 3 hours. Serve over hot cooked cauliflower rice. 

*I make my life easier by buying a cajun mirepoix mix in the vegetable freezer section at my local Kroger. 

**You can omit the chicken and add 2 lbs medium raw shrimp (peeled and deveined) in the last 15 minutes of cooking.

Enjoy!

Sloppy Joe Bowls

These were sooooo good! Especially if you are craving some comfort food. It may seem super weird to put sloppy joe meat over zoodles, but I promise you it's a perfect match. Now hubby does not eat zoodles, so I put his on a whole wheat bun. Regardless, its delish both ways. Plus you aren't getting all those weird ingredients like you would with the stuff from the can. 

Sloppy Joe Bowls

adapted from Jay's Baking Me Crazy

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cooking Time: 30 minutes

Servings: 6-8

Ingredients

2 lbs lean ground beef (grass-fed if Whole30 or Paleo)

1/2 tsp minced garlic

1.5 tsp onion powder

2 tsp kosher salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

1/2 cup coconut aminos 

1.5 cups homemade ketchup

2 TBS tomato paste

Before you get started, make up your homemade ketchup!

Put your ground beef in a medium sized dutch oven over medium-high heat. (I love my Le Creuset!) Once the meat is mostly browned, toss in your garlic and turn the heat down to medium. Toss in the onion powder, salt and pepper. Cook for about 1-2 more minutes. Add coconut aminos, ketchup and tomato paste. Stir to combine and turn the heat to low. Allow the mixture to simmer for 20 minutes. 

While your sloppy joe meat is simmering, make up your zoodles. I use a Paderno vegetable spiralizer to make my zoodles. It's amazing. It has several different blades. I've used it on other veggies too, such as potatoes, sweet potatoes and parsnips. 

Once your zoodles are ready, top them with the sloppy joe meat and eat!

Enjoy!

Cilantro Lime Caulirice

I have to say that this is such a great substitute for rice if you are Whole30, 24 Day Challenge or just trying to clean up your diet. Now I made my own cauliflower rice, but if you are short for time or don't have the right tools, I have seen "cauliflower crumbles" or "riced cauliflower" at Trader Joe's and Target. Anything you can do with rice I'm pretty sure you could do with caulirice. The only thing I will say is that it's pretty stinky while it cooks!

Cilantro Lime Caulirice

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cooking Time: 10-15 minutes

Servings: 4-6

Ingredients

A head of cauliflower
Bunch of cilantro, chopped
4-6 limes, juiced
Kosher salt, to taste

Directions

Remove the leaves and stem from the cauliflower. Chop the florets into uniform pieces about the size of a tangerine. Toss into the food processor and pulse until evenly chopped. It should have a "rice like" consistency to it. Put your riced cauliflower into a sauté pan over medium heat. You could drizzle a little olive oil in the pan if you aren't using a non-stick pan. Sauté for about 10-15 minutes depending on how soft you want it to be.

Dump your caulirice in a bowl. Now I like mine pretty limey so I would put the juice of all 6 limes in there. It's really to taste. Toss the cilantro in there too. Lastly, sprinkle a little kosher salt over it to help bring out the flavors. 

Enjoy!

Whole30: Days 19 & 20

Day 19 

Meal 1: Sweet & Savory Blueberry Tortilla. It was so good that I had to make it again. It looks weird, but I promise that it is good! I left out the pepper this time. Made this on my way in from work. I was too hungry to go to bed without anything in my belly. 

Meal 2:Woke up hungry after sleeping all day, but it was too close to dinner for a full-fledged meal. Roast beef and a handful of almonds.

Meal 3: Salad with grilled chicken, capicola ham, pepperoni and salami. 

Day 20

Meal 1: 2 Aidells Chicken & Apple sausages, almonds and baby carrots

Meal 2: Leftover kitchen sink soup. 

Meal 3: Um well, we sorta went to Skyline. I stayed within the guidelines and did a potato with chili on it. Those 3 ways and coneys looked good though!

Whole30: Day 17 & 18

Day 17

Meal 1: Sauerkraut with 2 Aidells Chicken & Apple sausages

Meal 2: Tuna mixed with avocado, a couple tablespoons of homemade mayo & guacamole seasoning mix that I got at Findlay Market and fried plantains from Melissa Joulwan's blog The Clothes Make the Girl.  

Meal 3: Italian sausage with sauteed peppers and onions, Rao's marinara and zoodles. 

Day 18

Meal 1: Sweet & Savory Blueberry Tortilla from Stupid Easy Paleo. OMG this was AH-MAZING!! The picture totally looks gross. I think I cooked it a little too long. Also the tupperware is because I was saving the other half for the next day. Totally did not happen!

Meal 2: Kitchen Sink Soup. Made this one up on the fly. I was freezing and really wanted some soup to warm me up. I used leftover chicken stock that I had, added some potatoes, carrots, celery, onion, kale, oregano, thyme, black pepper, kosher salt and chicken. Delish!

Meal 3: My tuna-mayo-avo concoction

Meal 4: Leftover italian sausage, marinara and zoodles

Whole30: Days 12-14

Day 12

Snack: Running out the door to take my daughter to school I ate 2 hard boiled eggs and a handful of almonds. I knew I was going to brunch with my sister so I didn't want to eat too much.

Meal 1: Market Hash (minus the cheese) from First Watch. I had brunch with my sister and cousin. It was delish! I obviously did not eat the english muffin on my plate. 

Meal 2: Leftover Skillet Chicken Divan

Meal 3: Orange Chicken with cauliflower rice -sooooo good! 

Day 13

Meal 1: I don't even remember! I'm sure it was eggs and some sort of veggie.

Meal 2: Oriental Chicken Salad - meh. needs a lot of work. I'm not sure I'm even going to post it until I rework it. The original recipe was either wrong or misleading.

Meal 3: Burger with guacamole, lettuce, tomato and pickles

Meal 4: Leftover Skillet Chicken Divan - eaten quickly at midnight or something. It was a long, long night at work.

Day 14 

Meal 1: 2 Hard boiled eggs, handful of macadamia nuts and some dried apricots. 

Meal 2: Omelet with local ham, mushrooms & onions and crunchy skillet potatoes

Meal 3: Antipasto Salad with capocolla ham, prosciutto, salami and grilled chicken.   

Skillet Chicken Divan

This was very good! I do have some changes that I would make - add paleo mayo, reduce the curry, add more broccoli. The flax meal on top was a nice addition and give it a good crunch. My 2 1/2 year old took a bite and like the broccoli, but I think the chicken had too much curry on it.

Skillet Chicken Divan

adapted from Popular Paleo

Prep Time: 30 minutes (plus overnight soaking)

Cooking Time: 20 minutes

Servings: 4-6

Ingredients

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, diced

2 cups broccoli florets

1 cup raw cashews

cloves garlic

cup white or yellow onion, large dice

cup chicken stock

tsp kosher salt

1/2 tsp curry powder

1/4 tsp fresh black pepper

1/4 cup flaxseed meal

Directions

The night before you plan to make this, soak your cashews in 1 1/2 cups of water. Before you use them, just drain the water off. 

Add the soaked cashews, chopped onion, garlic cloves, curry, salt and black pepper to a food processor. Pulse it a few times to break up the cashews. Turn the food processor "on" and use the small feed tube to continuously stream the chicken stock into the cashew mix. Let it run for another minute or two after the chicken stock has finished streaming into the bowl. Set your sauce to the side.

Heat a skillet on medium high heat with olive oil, ghee or clarified butter (I used clarified butter). Once hot, put your chicken in the pan and cook until golden brown. Toss the broccoli on top, cover the pan, reduce heat to medium and cook for 3-4 minutes. 

Uncover and add the cashew-curry sauce to the chicken and broccoli. Simmer for 5-10 minutes, or until sauce thickens. 

Before serving, sprinkle the pan with the flax meal. 

Enjoy!