Birria (Mexican Stew)

As the weather cools down for us here in the DC area, my mind have moved from barbecues and light refreshing salads to more substantial meals and stews. We are huge fans of chili and pulled pork, but I wanted to expand our repertoire. Especially because I am prone to colds or falling under the weather as the seasons change, I wanted something that could help keep my sinuses clear with the help of capsaicin. (Check out the medical uses in this Wikipedia article—warning: not AIP friendly.)

For me, this is an ideal winter stew, and is much heartier than our hot and sour soup, which was my go to meal when fighting a cold up to now. We hope you’ll give it a shot, and enjoy it in a variety of ways.

Artichoke Heart Salad

When in a pinch for a quick meal, I will often go to the local supermarket to find something healthy to eat. Most of the time, I end up either picking up some no-filler meats, e.g. Applegate hot dogs, or the salad bar. More often than not when going for the salad bar, I end up with mixed greens, cucumber, hardboiled egg, and olive oil with salt and pepper. This was somewhat bland, but pretty satisfying, until I came across an artichoke salad. I started putting this atop mixed greens, and I haven’t gone back since.

Determined to remake this at home to save money and time, we developed the following recipe. I love how this improves as it sits in the fridge, and it is fantastic on its own or on a bed of greens. Plus, it is ready in under half an hour. This is a must-have to improve your salad game.

AIP-Friendly White Barbecue Sauce

On Saturday, our friends Stacy and Matt of the Paleo Parents, hosted their annual Halloween party. Brent and I have a habit of inadvertently bringing foods to their parties that Stacy can’t have (she follows an autoimmune protocol, AIP), and I always feel bad about it. Plus, we knew another AIP friend, Sarah Ballantyne, aka The Paleo Mom, was going to be attending. So this time, I was determined to make sure we brought something that everyone could enjoy.

I began experimenting a couple weeks in advance, and the result was this AIP-Friendly White Barbecue Sauce. It is tangy and smoky, but you won’t find a multitude of nightshades that are present in traditional barbecue sauces. In fact, the only pepper is white pepper. It’s optional because some people following AIP can tolerate it (Stacy and Sarah both can), but others cannot.

Lastly, I want to point out that I made this white barbecue sauce using our homemade mayo recipe. Some folks can tolerate eggs when following a modified AIP. However, if you’re following a strict AIP, you’ll want to use egg-free mayo. Melissa at The Clothes Make the Girl has an excellent egg-less homemade mayo recipe that we’ve linked to in our ingredients list for you all to try.

After tasting my AIP-Friendly White Barbecue Sauce, Brent crafted our AIP-Friendly Game Day Wings recipe—Also live on the blog today!—and the two are a match made in heaven. Everyone at the Halloween party enjoyed the wings and sauce. We hope you will, too.

AIP-Friendly Game Day Wings

As long as we’ve been on our paleo journey, we have been fortunate to not find ourselves specifically reactive to anything beyond standard grains, dairy, and legumes. Because of this, we have had the terrible habit of visiting friends, such as the Paleo Parents, with homemade treats that those following an autoimmune protocol (AIP) can’t enjoy. After 2-plus years of embarrassment for spacing out on this fact, Heather made a commitment to put together something that all could enjoy. That’s how she came up with today’s co-post of AIP-Friendly White Barbecue Sauce.

To go with this barbecue sauce, I put together these wings. They have a sweet and savory flavor that won’t have you missing the fiery spice of traditional barbecue wings. I’ll be honest—at first I was really intimidated by the restrictions of AIP but thankfully I found an exhaustive listing of what can, might, and can’t be used on the protocol (Thanks, Sarah!). These are great for game day, or for any other occasion where you want finger foods and want to make sure everyone can enjoy them.

Buffalo-Style Cashews

It’s football season, so I am admittedly slightly obsessed with buffalo-flavored everything (did you know that Buffalo Wild Wings has a great chart for what is gluten-free on their site? Perfect for going out for the game and navigating the menu). That being said, one of my favorite previous treats was Snyder’s of Hanover’s buffalo-wing pretzels. They’re greasy, salty, crunchy, and awesome—they just make me feel like garbage with the additives and wheat.

These cashews are a great way to get that kind of experience at home and make a fun project of it, too. The instructions have variations depending on how intense of flavor you want and level of crunchiness. We know you will love these in addition to your Sunday (and Saturday, and Thursday, and Monday) ritual, just so long as you don’t wipe your hands on your jersey.