Amatriciana Sauce with Miracle Noodles

Browsing the halls of Whole Foods, or other natural markets, we’ve often come across Miracle Noodles, which seemed weird and probably out of science fiction. For those of you who are unaware, these “miracle noodles” are actually Shirataki noodles or yam noodles, and advertise as EVERYTHING-free: gluten, soy, carbohydrate, and calorie. Sounds too good to be true, right? While they work for us on occasion, they’re probably not the best everyday staple. Sarah Ballantyne did a write up on the subject recently, and I recommend it as a good primer on the noodles and their potential up- and downsides. That having been said, we picked these up on a whim and decided to make a sauce to try them.

Amatriciana sauce is an Italian pasta sauce traditionally made with cured ham, cheese, and tomatoes. We’ve taken some liberties with the recipe, including basil, red pepper flakes, and always more garlic than you might find in other recipes. If you tolerate cheese, feel free to use a high quality parmesan to top your pasta and sauce, and feel free to substitute these miracle noodles for something more up your alley, like homemade zoodles or sweet potato noodles. However you choose to serve this sauce, we think you’ll enjoy it. Also, if you sign up for Butcher Box, you can get a free pack of paleo bacon delivered to you to make this recipe!

ABC² Pesto

Months ago, there was outrage and chaos when the internet suggested we add peas to guacamole. We might have a similarly sacrilegious recommendation when it comes to pesto. Pesto, traditionally defined, is: pesto ˈpestō/noun, a sauce of crushed basil leaves, pine nuts, garlic, Parmesan cheese, and olive oil, typically served with pasta. We’ve made some different pestos in the past, and you can find them here on the blog, but this version is a bit more controversial.

First, we’ve added clove. Basil and clove might sound like a strange combination, but the sweet and spice of each play off of each other really well. Also, we’ve substituted pine nuts for raw cashews. We completely skipped the cheese, and instead added a ripe avocado. You heard it here, folks. Avocado added to pesto is absolutely amazing. It makes for a creamy sauce that is to die for. Follow the recipe below and you’ll see how to make it yourself.

Paleo Picadillo

Picadillo is a dish made with ground beef, tomatoes, and spices. Popular in many Spanish-speaking countries as well as the Philippines, this take on using minced meat is a flavor-filled option. The addition of green olives and raisins is something I would have never expected to work (like I felt about the sauce for my mom’s cocktail smokies), but was gladly proved wrong. You’ll enjoy this picadillo on its own, with cauliflower rice, or even mixed up into leftovers with eggs or additional sautéed greens.

We were inspired to do this recipe by the ground beef from Butcher Box in our freezer. Butcher Box is a 100% grass-fed meat subscription service. It’s an excellent way to get quality, healthy meat delivered to your door without breaking the bank or investing in a chest freezer. (Learn more here!) We typically just use ground beef to make chili or burgers, but we wanted to do something new with this grass-fed ground beef. We hope you will check out the Butcher Box website, get some great quality meats, and enjoy this recipe!

Sardine and Scallion Salad

This sardine and scallion salad is inspired by a local business owner and chef in the town where I grew up: Sheboygan, Wisconsin. A woman named Toy was famous for her international grocery store, restaurant, and very popular cooking classes. She was generous with many of her recipes, but kept a few ‘up her sleeve’ that nobody could seem to wrangle from her.

This salad is one my mom recreated during Easter weekend, almost entirely from memory. It has some reminiscences of a Thai fish salad, as I attempted to reverse engineer the recipe through Google, and is a nice change of pace from your more traditional tuna or chicken salad. We hope you’ll enjoy!

Spicy Thai Eggplant and Basil

We’ve commented before that our local Thai restaurant is one of our favorite places to dine out or get delivery when we’re not in the mood to cook or eat leftovers. A recent favorite of ours is a spicy eggplant and basil. At first I thought this would be too difficult to figure out, but SURPRISE—this is pretty straightforward.

I hope you’ll give this spicy Thai eggplant and basil a try. If you’re not a big fan of spice, halve the Thai chilies and remove the seeds. If you like it hot, enjoy the recipe as is. It starts with a slow burn and a lingering heat, but never gets too out of control. It won’t leave you with tears or sweats, but will certainly light up your taste buds. We think you’ll enjoy this paleo Thai eggplant and basil.