Street-Style Chicken Tacos

Finally! I made something that got immediate requests for MORE. More now, more later this week…

Street-style chicken tacos
inspired by Los Altos Taqueria

Ingredients:

• 1/2 lb leftover roasted chicken, shredded
• 2-3 Tbsp gelatin/broth from chicken
• 1 tsp Spectrum shortening
• Adobo seasoning to taste
• 1 lime, cut into wedges
• 1/4 onion, chopped fine
• 1/2 bunch fresh cilantro, chopped fine
• 1 doz small, soft corn tortillas. (Go for organic or white corn to avoid GMOs). I use these:

Directions:

Chicken:
Heat oil or shortening in skillet, add chicken, gelatin and 1/2 tsp Adobo, to taste. Finish with a squeeze of lime.

Tortillas:
Heat on non-stick surface to soften. I use a Green Pan and no oil. Heat for a few seconds them flip over.

Garnish:
Mix chopped onion and cilantro together.

Plate it up:
Tortilla, chicken, garnish. Add more lime juice, Cholula hot sauce or favorite salsa. The tortillas are too small to load these up with a lot of stuff, but feel free to ad whatever moves you. Avocado, maybe? Cotija cheese?

I serve this with beans and rice. Old school style.

In praise of Adobo

I have started to rely on spice mixtures more often in my cooking. I have a lovely top-secret blend of Armenian spices that makes divine meatballs. I don’t know what’s in it. One of my friends makes it and delivers it in a small glass jar with a picture of Mt Ararat on it.

I make the Savory Spice Mix from Practical Paleo in bulk. I love that stuff! Worth the price of the book.

Shout out to Penzey’s Spices as well. “Love People. Cook them delicious food.”

But my work horse is this stuff:

It is magically delicious. I’ve tried a couple of different Adobo blends. Trust me, this is the best one. It’s the key to my delicious roast chicken and killer street style tacos.

I find it at my local Whole Foods. You can also find it on-line. Get some!

Happy Father’s Day Menu

If the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, the path to my husband’s heart is paved with gravy, red wine, and a good stinky cheese.

Our menu:

Roast Chicken with gravy
Mushroom risotto
Sautéed baby spinach
Flour-less chocolate cake from Trader Joe’s

Our gluten-free Father’s Day dinner rounds out the trifecta with 2 more a
favorites: mushroom risotto and a flour-less chocolate cake. Yum!

Super Easy Roast Chicken

Ingredients:

• One 3-4 lb organic chicken, giblets, etc., removed, rinsed
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1 tsp Adobo seasoning
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1/2 tsp ground sage

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350
• Grease roasting pan. I use a Pyrex dish with high sides.
• Mix spices and salt together. Rub on chicken
• Place chicken breast side down.
• Roast for 20 mins per pound. A 3 lb chicken will be 60 mins, a 4 lb chicken will be 80 mins. Let rest 5 minutes before carving.

Mushroom Risotto

Ingredients

• 1 and 1/2 c dried arborio rice
• 4 c. chicken broth
• 2 tbsp ghee, divided
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 20 oz sliced mushrooms (I used the big package of pre-sliced crimini mushrooms from Trader Joes)
• 1 clove garlic, finely minced
• 1 tbsp dried parsley
• 3/4 c. grated cheese (I used a mix of asiago and parmagiano)

Directions:

• Heat broth in a large sauce pan.
• In a large skillet or thick-bottomed pot, heat 1 tbsp ghee. When melted, add garlic, clean sliced mushrooms. Add in batches, don’t crowd the pan.
• After all mushrooms cooked, add dried parsley. Cook for addition 1-2 mins. Put mushrooms in bowl. Set aside.
• Melt 1 tbsp ghee and add 1 tbsp olive oil to pan you just emptied–keep all the bits of cooked mushroom, garlic, parsley that stayed in pan.
• Add dry rice. Cook dry rice in oil for 3-4 minutes.
• Start adding hot chicken broth 1/2 c at a time. Stir frequently, adding more broth as it’s absorbed into the rice.
• Add mushrooms when you’re about half way through the broth.
• When rice is cooked through after about 15-20 mins–get a small spoon and taste it!–add shredded cheese, mix thoroughly, then cover with heat off to finish cooking.

Paleo Mushroom Gravy

Mushroom Gravy

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp ghee or Spectrum Shortening
1/2 large onion, sliced very thin or grated
2 packages of sliced crimini mushrooms, 10 oz each
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1-3 Tbsp port, sherry or wine of choice optional
3 tbsp plantain or sweet potato flour
1 c chicken broth
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Melt ghee over medium heat in a large skillet
Add onion and cook until starting to caramelize
Add mushrooms in batches, don’t overcrowd the pan. Add additional ghee is needed.
Once all the mushrooms are well cooked and soft, add thyme and port. Cook until thoroughly heated.
Turn off heat
Add 2-3 Tbsp of plantain flour–enough to absorb all the fat in the pan.
Add chicken broth, salt and pepper.
Turn medium heat back on and cook until the gravy thickens, stirring frequently.

April/May Meal Plan

Up!

Every weekend I take my kids to a trampoline center to burn off their excessive energy and still be able to conserve my own meager energy. Energetically, we are a spectacular mis-match.

I set myself up at a table, grab a big cup of tea, and then read, research (ask me about nagalase or NO/ONOO!) or write while they happily bounce and flip. And play killer dodgeball.

The guaranteed “desk time” is what makes it possible to drum up meal plans. I would really love a separate room to take a nap, but failing that, I’ve found a way to manage a few household tasks with decent attention and help make sure my active little pumpkins burn off enough steam so they can sleep well. Win-win!

Its mid-April, so I’ll just call it what it is–a four-week meal plan built around the primary protein. I’ve had to edit out a lot of chicken and corn to accommodate one kid’s new allergy test results and the proposed food rotation.

As always, meals are gluten-free and paleo friendly. When I serve a bean or a grain, I soak it per Weston A Price guidelines to reduce the phytates and increase digestibility. I use organic produce and pastured meat and eggs as often as possible. My cooking fats of choice are Spectrum Shortening and ghee made from KerryGold butter.

Four-Week Meal Plan

Week 1

Monday: Sweet potato and bacon turkey burgers with sautéed green beans with baked French fries

Tuesday: Burrito bowl with carnitas

Wednesday: Tomatillo Chuck Roast with roasted broccoli, cauliflower purée and rice

Thursday: Faux Chik-fil-a nuggets with dipping sauces, organic tater tots, carrot sticks and romaine salad

Friday: Easy Roast Chicken with baked sweet potatoes, sautéed greens

Weekend: GF Spaghetti and meatballs

Week 2

Monday: Turkey Italian sausage meatballs in Muir Glen pizza sauce, zucchini or GF noodles

Tuesday: Steak tacos (recipe in Practical Paleo)

Wednesday: Beef stew, cauliflower purée

Thursday: Pork chops, homemade applesauce (recipe in Eat Like a Dinosaur), sweet potato hash, green beans

Friday: Hamburgers on GF buns, romaine salad, French fries

Weekend: Pizza

Week 3

Monday: Turkish spice sliders, cucumber salad, chick peas, rice, raita

Tuesday: Spicy turkey tacos with brown rice tortillas, pico de gallo, beans and rice

Wednesday: Korean short ribs, rice, braised bok choi.

Thursday: Chicken with a handle (drumsticks), sweet potato fries, broccoli

Friday: Not-crab cakes, fried zucchini, cole slaw

Weekend: Hot dogs with GF buns, green beans, french fries, fruit salad

Week 4:

Monday: Big O’s sliders from Nom Nom Paleo recipe app (get it!), roasted sweet potatoes, braised cabbage with apples

Tuesday: Steak tacos (Yes, again. It’s that good!)

Wednesday: Tortilla soup

Thursday: Breaded turkey cutlet (make fresh breadcrumbs from GF bread, minced onion, salt and pepper), hash browns, romaine salad

Friday: Meatball soup

Weekend: Teriyaki beef skewers

And over!

Randoms

• How to pack apple slices so they don’t turn brown. ^^^^
• The new CDC statistics put autism rates at 1 in 50.  1 in 50!!!!!!  At what point do we declare this an emergency?
• From a lecture from the 2012 Weston A Price conference:  1/10 ppm of glyphosate (RoundUp sprayed on a field) in the soil is enough to change the soil biology to kill off the beneficial and protective soil based organisms plants need to build structure and store nutrients.  For instance, a potato crop can be up to 40% smaller because all the taters are tiny.
• Same lecture: there has been a 25% increase in infertility among stock animals (cows, pigs, chickens) in the US over the past 5 years.
• We use 880 million pounds of glyphosate in the US per year.
• GMO crops are less drought resistant.  Oopsie.
• The book Cutting for Stone is not about stone cutters.
• Some doctors and researchers consider Alzheimer’s to be Type 3 diabetes.

Roasted Corn with Lime

I didn’t set out to post a lot of recipes, but a lot of the feedback I got when I was running support groups–and what I bump up against–was fundamental: “how do you feed your kids on a gluten free diet?”

This one is a street food steal. If you are dairy free, leave off the sour cream. You can also sub out the sour cream for cotija cheese or queso fresca.

If you feel adventurous, you can roast the corn on the grill. This is a skillet method. Fast and yummy!

Roasted Corn with Lime

Ingredients

• 1 lb organic corn
• 1 Tbsp ghee or oil of choice
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 fresh lime

Toppings:
• Hot sauce — we use Cholula or Pepper Plant
• Sour cream
• Cotija cheese
• Chopped cilantro
• Diced avocado

Directions:

• Melt ghee in large skillet
• Cook corn thoroughly, don’t stir it for a few minutes so it caramelizes. maybe 5 minutes total.
• Add salt and lime juice.
• Serve and garnish.