Tag: cooking

Potent Primal BBQ Sauce

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If you haven’t discovered Stubb’s BBQ sauce, you are missing out. It’s the cleanest, tastiest stuff on the market. Yes–I did just say tastiest–and coming from a former Sweet Baby Ray’s-enthusiast, that’s A LOT.

However, Stubb’s is not Whole30 approved. In fact, we’ve not seen a Whole30-friendly BBQ sauce at any store, any time, any where. So, we make our own during Whole30 challenges, and this time, I think we made a good one. 🙂 Edit: Since this recipe, we’ve toyed around more with barbecue, and think this recipe is both easier to make and more delicious!
Why do we love this sauce so much? Well, it’s got bold tomato flavor, the natural sweetness of which is subtle but delightful. Then there’s the slightly smokey, lingering heat from the roasted jalapeño and spices. Finally, it has a great tangy bite from the garlic, mustard, and lime juice.
Warning: This sauce is not for the faint of heart. If you don’t like spice or heat, don’t bother reading the rest of this post. You’re wasting your time.

Just kidding! You could easily modify this to suit your tastes, whether you like more kick or less in your sauce. (Follow the recipe below, and then water it down a smidgen with chicken broth or amp up the heat with more spices once you’ve tasted it.)

Potent Primal BBQ Sauce

Ingredients
  • 6 Campari tomatoes, sliced in half and seeded
  • 2 Jalapeños, sliced in half and seeded
  • 3 Garlic cloves
  • 1 Tablespoon of bacon fat, melted
  • 1/4 Teaspoon sea salt
  • 1 Tablespoon coconut oil
  • 1 Shallot, minced
  • 1 Teaspoon organic spicy mustard
  • 1 Teaspoon smoked paprika
  • 1 Teaspoon chipotle chili powder
  • 1 Teaspoon ground cumin
  • 1/2 Teaspoon sea salt
  • 1 Cup organic chicken broth
  • 1 and 1/2 limes, juiced
  • 1 6-oz can of tomato paste

Method

First, roast the tomatoes, garlic and jalapeños:

  • Pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees F.
  • Place the tomatoes, garlic and jalapeños in a baking dish or roasting pan (we used a shallow glass baking dish).
  • Drizzle the bacon fat over everything.
  • Sprinkle the 1/4 teaspoon of sea salt over everything.
  • Roast for approximately 15 minutes.

Set aside and allow it to cool. Then, move on to the rest of the recipe.

 

  • Heat coconut oil in a medium sauce pan over medium heat.
  • Press the roasted garlic and add to the sauce pan.
  • Immediately add the minced shallot. 
  • SautĂ© until shallot is soft and translucent.
  • Add the mustard, smoked paprika, chipotle chili powder, cumin and the 1/2 teaspoon salt.
  • Stir to blend in the spices.
  • Then, add the chicken broth, lime juice, and tomato paste.
 
 
Stir again (use a whisk if you have one!) until smooth.

  • Add roasted tomatoes and jalapeños, and stir.
  • Bring everything to a soft boil, then reduce it to a simmer and lightly cover it with a lid.
  • Simmer for about 25 minutes, stirring occasionally.
  • Remove from heat, and allow the mixture to cool.
Pour the mixture into a blender or food processor (we used our handy-dandy Ninja!), and blend until the whole mixture is smooth.

Wednesday for lunch, we slathered it on slow-cooked pork shoulder and served it on a bed of greens (baby spinach and spring mix, to be specific). It was delicious! Next week, we’re thinking about using it on ribs and/or chicken. We hope you enjoy it as much as we have!

Angry Chicken "Parm"

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delicious easy chicken parm paleo

[Updated September 12, 2013]

These chicken parm bites are something that Heather came up with back in June of 2012, very early into our real food journey.  Lucky for us, we had started this blog, so the recipe was kept documented.  Unlucky for us, we were very new with our presentation, so neither our directions or pictures were especially helpful.

Another win in our favor is that we have since made great friends in the community who led us to take better pictures and inspired us to do better work.  As this is one of our favorite recipes, we updated it recently to share with you.  This is absolutely fabulous, and I think you will really like it.  These little “parm poppers” are delicious on their own, but definitely are well suited to the zoodles and red sauce.  I would gather you could likely use this wash and coating on larger cuts of chicken as well, but we haven’t tried it just yet.  Either way, we hope you’ll love this creation.  Let us know what you think!

Continue reading “Angry Chicken "Parm"”

Fresh Rainbow Pepper Salad

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delicious easy pepper salad

This salad is a very quick and delicious side salad (as long as you have a mandoline) that is refreshing but still filling. That, and the color is a nice contrast on a plate that can be otherwise bland.

We threw this together to go alongside some baked trout, and it was a nice balance.  Feel free to add some other spices in to mix and match your favorite entrees.

Ingredients
1 large red bell pepper
1 large yellow bell pepper
1 large orange bell pepper
2-3 stalks of celery
1/4 of a red onion
3/4 tablespoon coconut vinegar
3/4 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
1 Tbsp minced garlic

Method

sliced peppers and celery and onion

Slice the peppers, celery stalks, and the onion thinly using a mandoline.  After this, I used a knife to quarter the slices so that the salad would be manageable with a fork.

mixed bowl of peppers and red onion and celery

Mix the sliced items and the rest of your ingredients in a large bowl.  I used a slightly larger tupperware bowl so I could just put on the lid and shake vigorously–mixing is lame.

dressing for pepper salad

Mix your olive oil, coconut vinegar, salt, pepper, and garlic in a small bowl to create your dressing.

tossed pepper salad

Allow the salad to rest for at least 15 minutes. (The longer it can rest, the better the flavors will blend.) 

final easy pepper salad paleo

Serve and enjoy!

Pan Seared Creole Tilapia

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We’ve been making a lot of recipes from the 21 DSD program and our favorite Paleo sites lately (PaleOMG, Primal Palate, Mark’s Daily Apple, etc.). So, tonight for dinner, I wanted to be a little creative. Ok, maybe creole tilapia isn’t all that creative… but at least it isn’t something we’ve found on any other specifically Paleo website, so there!

The best part is, this recipe is really quick and easy.

Ingredients

  • 2-4 Tilapia fillets
  • 1 Tablespoon coconut oil (or extra virgin olive oil)
  • 1/2 Tablespoon onion powder
  • 1/2 Tablespoon garlic powder
  • 1/2 Tablespoon dried oregano
  • 1/2 Tablespoon dried basil
  • 3/4 teaspoon thyme
  • 3/4 teaspoon black pepper
  • 3/4 teaspoon white pepper (If you don’t have white pepper, you can just double up on the black pepper; personally, I can’t taste the difference.)
  • 3/4 teaspoon cayenne
  • 5 teaspoons paprika
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • lemon wedges (optional, for garnish)
Method
  1. Blend all the spices together in a small bowl.
  2. Dredge the tilapia fillets in the spices. Make sure both sides of each fillet are fully covered in the spice rub.
  3. Heat the oil over medium-high flame.
  4. Cook each fillet for 2-3 minutes per side. (If your fillets happen to be thicker than 3/4 of an inch, you may need to let them cook longer per side.)
As you can see, I paired my creole tilapia with roasted sweet potato and asparagus because that’s what we had in the house that needed to be used. However, I think sautĂ©ed kale would have been better than asparagus. You could also serve this over cauliflower “rice” instead of with sweet potatoes.
Did I mention this was delicious? I love, love, love a good cajun or creole dish (yes, they are different, if only slightly). One of these days, I’m going to try making dirty rice from scratch… and make it paleo-friendly, of course. Anyways, until I get around to figuring that out, I hope you find this quick and easy tilapia recipe a good way to get your Louisiana fix. 😉
For the heat seekers: To get a really good bite, use 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon more of the cayenne, garlic and pepper.
P.S. This recipe is Paleo, Whole30 and 12 DSD friendly. Enjoy!