Early May Meals

Breakfast: sunny-side up eggs, red chard, Japanese sweet potato with butter (yay more starch!), and local Jasmine kombucha. 

Breakfast: ham steak, fermented ginger beets, and sweet potato fries. 

Lunch: Wild Planet canned shrimp, arugula, baby romaine, cucumbers, fermented ginger carrots, and a clementine (fruit in salad is the greatest) with a dressing made of avocado oil, toasted sesame seed oil, raw apple cider vinegar, ume plum vinegar, salt, and garlic.

This trusty recipe (I think this was the first time I followed the "make a custard on the stove" part of the recipe and was not disappointed) with additional gelatin, 1.5 tsp of mint extract, a handful of mint leaves, and Equal Exchange bittersweet chocolate chips. Oh, and I multiplied the recipe by 1.5x. Duh.

I've decided that a dog-free couch is a futile endeavor.

So close, Martha, yet so far.

Breakfast, Lunch, & Dinner + A Recipe

An end-of-the-semester adventure!

A breakfast hash with sweet potatoes, mushrooms, and rainbow chard seasoned with smoked salt, cumin, and white pepper. Topped with what was supposed to be soft boiled eggs (win some, lose some, right?). 

Things are looking a bit greener and sunnier, so today called for a Huge Ass Salad of baby romaine and herbs, cucumbers, and maple smoked salmon (curtesy of Framingham's WFM in-house smoker) dressed with Tessemae's cracked pepper. 

Half a duck breast with rainbow chard and a Japanese sweet potato dripping in cultured butter. 

How to cook a perfect duck breast every time:

1. Score the skin with a sharp knife. 
2. Heat a skillet on medium with fat of your choice (I prefer tallow or bacon). 
3. Cook the duck for four minutes skin side down.
4. Reduce flame to lowest and cover with a tight-fitting lid. Cook for 14 minutes. 
5. Flip the duck so the skin is up, recover it, and cook for four more minutes. 
6. Remove from heat and let it rest for 5 minutes. 

Courtesy of Hudson Valley Duck Farm! 

Spring Break Eats

Leftover leg of lamb with raspberry vinaigrette, carrots roasted with maple syrup and ginger, and a sweet potato with orange garlic sauce and butter. I don't have a recipe because my mom had made it from scratch and it was sitting in the fridge, because life at my parents' house is good like that. 

Omelette with Asian-inspired mix of microgreens, smoked salmon, beets with balsamic, and roasted asparagus. 

Cooked chicken pulled off the carcass, a small handful of raisins, baby chard, and mayonnaise. 

A Huge Ass Salad with Asian microgreens, baby Swiss chard, some sprouts, spinach, carrots, and cucumbers with canned salmon and a raspberry vinaigrette dressing. Must be something about the longer days and not warmer temperatures that makes me crave big salads.

This is my second round of that dessert recipe I tried a week or two ago–the Meyer lemon fluff. This time, however, I turned it into blood orange chocolate! I doubled the recipe, but somehow it ended up less fluffy and more like a panna cotta. But it was still delicious.

In the past 2+ years, I can count on one (maybe two) hands how many times I've "paleo baked." No matter what, it doesn't make me feel good. That doesn't stop me from trying once and a while, and these sure did taste good. I used this cupcake recipe and for the frosting, I just mixed a package of unsalted Kerrygold butter, a half cup of honey, a teaspoon of vanilla, a half cup of coconut milk, and two tablespoons of chocolate. Not bad for winging it! 

On my last night at home, I made pork spareribs with carrots, yellow squash, and onions. This was quite a big meal, especially since I didn't photograph the purple sweet potato. 

On my last morning, I had a ham, asparagus, and spinach omelette with duck prosciutto on the side. Served with some hibiscus kombucha. 

Not too attractive but on my first night back in my apartment, I made spaghetti squash and topped it with smoked clams and had a side of cumin-roasted cauliflower. 

A super fast lunch after 4pm on Saturday was two grass-fed hotdogs, dill sauerkraut, and horseradish mustard. I've never really noticed nightshade spices in hotdogs to bother me (since I eat them only a few times a year), but this time they may be causing some pain. I'm not too sure. I also tried to trial white potatoes early in the week. They were twice-baked, organic, and peeled. Unfortunately, the next day, the dogs did something stupid while I was holding on to them, and my shoulder luxated. Who's to say it wouldn't have if I hadn't eaten the potatoes? Although I'm having a hard time remembering the last time that happened and it may actually have been before my diet upheaval. So there's a strike against white potatoes. It'll have to be a while before I try again, because my shoulder still doesn't feel right. 

Saturday was spent doing lots of cooking and not enough school work. For dinner, I made this tiny chicken with Niter Kebbeh Ghee. I also made braised endives, which I used to make a lot my senior year of college when I was very strictly low FODMAPs. I couldn't find that recipe again (it involved lemons and was kind of involved), but this time I found this recipe. 

Dinner is served.

And the batch cooking recommences.... Beef spareribs with lots of garlic, rosemary, and carrots. They got a little dry but I was trying to do too much with the one oven. 

Lots of cinnamon-y butternut squash with lard for breakfasts this week. 

A simple Sunday morning affair: pork jowl bacon cooked with spinach, topped with scrambled eggs cooked with herbs de Provence and garlic.

A Very AIP Christmas (and New Year)

The first morning I was home, I had a simple breakfast of bacon and kale:

I realized there was no fat for me to eat, other than coconut oil, so I made a whole pound of bacon for that fat, and I took my first stab at making lard.

The verdict is........ well, it took me two hours to chop all that up, and even then it probably wasn't as small as it should be. The food processor looked like it was going to explode when I tried that, so I had to do it by hand. I probably ended up with about 3 c. of lard, much less than I was expecting. Sure, it tasted good and I was able to not burn any of it. But until I get a meat grinder or something, I don't think my frozen pork fat is going anywhere. 

For Christmas Eve dinner with family friends, I made three recipes. The first as a simple pot roast, the second was a parsnip and white and yellow carrot mash (a big hit with many non-paleo folk, also included lard and broth), and the third was a new liver pate recipe: blueberry balsamic liver pate, except I used half chicken and half duck liver. I doubled it, and was left with almost twice as much blueberry topping as I wanted but I thought it turned out really well. The two other liver-lovers at dinner weren't thrilled with it. I think they prefer it more savory. But for me, as much as I love savory liver pate when it's fresh and warm, I really don't like it cold as leftovers the next day. But this recipe I'm enjoying eating days later and luckily I have a lot leftover.

For Christmas Day...

One little boy was very happy to have his own stocking

We started with an apple and fennel soup

The main course consisted of...

A beet and orange salad (I had to use regular oranges)

 Cauliflower and leek stuffing (so good, it felt just like grits)

Roasted brussel sprouts in bacon fat

 And a fresh ham (from my pig share) with apple sauce

I followed TPM's recipe, with some snafus in cooking times (I think I tried to stuff too much in the pan) plus I stuck in a lot of whole cloves

The night finished with another round of this pumpkin pie, this time with a little less gelatin. It turned out much better than last time and is shaping up to be a go-to recipe. 

As for New Year's Eve, I put some GT's kombucha in my champagne glass and snacked on caviar-topped cucumbers and then polished it off with some more pumpkin pie. It was later than some of us had stayed up in a while...

We (I) added another four-legged addition to our family. This is my first experience with a shepherd and he's shaping up to be a doozy :)