Salmon BLT Delicousness

 While trying to decide what to make for dinner tonight I recalled a conversation with my friend Davis (Primal Bacon-lover) about whether he missed a good BLT.  He said that you could probably make a good BLT salad with mayonnaise dressing so today that's just what I did and it was delicious.

 Salmon BLT Salad (served 2 adults and one 4 year old)

1 14.75 oz can Wild Caught Salmon (skins removed if you like)
6oz cherry tomatoes cut in half
3-4 TBS Olive Oil Mayo
1 TBS capers
2 TBS liquid from the capers
1/2 package of bacon cut into small pieces*
Spring Mix Lettuce
fresh ground pepper

1. Cook Bacon until crispy
2. Combine mayo, capers, and caper juice.  Toss in tomatoes and give a good grind of pepper.
3. Fill serving bowls with spring mix and top with salmon.  Then top with tomato-mayo concoction.
4. Sprinkle bacon on top and enjoy!

*I use my kitchen scissors to cut the raw bacon into small pieces before cooking it.

This is my Mother's Spaghetti...well almost

 Last I was home in Mississippi my Mom cooked a delicious spaghetti squash lazagne for dinner one night.  I thought it was delicious so I made it myself, with a few alterations.

Spaghetti Squash Lazagna

1 Spaghetti Squash cooked (I baked at 375 for 40 minutes, my brilliant mother uses the microwave)
1 jar of your favorite spaghetti sauce, I used a marinara by Simple Truth Organic
4 oz regular cream cheese
~3/4 cup shredded parmesan
1 cup whole milk Greek yogurt
1 1/2 tsp dried oregano
salt and pepper
optional: pepperoni chopped up in the tomato sauce, yummy!

1. Spread out cooked squash "noodles" in casserole dish.
2. Pour spaghetti squash on top and cover evenly,  give the dish a shake to get it down in the "noodles"
3. Combine cream cheese, yogurt, Parmesan, and oregano. Salt and pepper to taste.
4. Spread cheese topping over the top of the sauce.
5. Bake at 350 for about 40 miuntes, turn on broiler for a few minutes to get some browning on top. Watch it closely.

Decorate a Cake (no icing bag required)

I have become the celebratory cake baker around here and try to come up with some creative ways to decorate without artificially colored icing.  Here are some ideas:

 Here is the dinosaur cake from my daughters recent 4 year old birthday.  It's a chocolate beet cake covered in 72% chocolate.  I baked this one in a spring form pan, when it was still hot I removed the pan and place squares of chocolate directly on the cake and they melt.  Just spread that delicious melted dark chocolate around and instant chocolate shell.  I added yogurt raisins, to the melted chocolate for Flintstones-esque rocky accents and a $1 T-Rex figurine.  The foliage is from my daughters play food (plastic cherry stems and scallion greens).

This was a lemon cake that I baked for well...Doug.  Thin slices of lemon fashioned into letters and placed in the lemon yogurt/cream cheese icing.

A going away Amaretto Apricot Butter cake for Anna and Davis.  I used some white paper board that came out of some kind of food packaging.  Using my daughters markers I drew and cut out the words and taped them to three bamboo skewers.  By the way apricots simmered in Amaretto are absolutely delicious.

photo by Anna Wa

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Beach Cookies

This week my 4 year old wanted to make "beach cookies." Sure.  I had been wanting to try a Martha Stewart fossil cookie idea that I had seen so... I dug up some shells and an Urban Poser almond flour sugar cookie recipe and we headed into the kitchen.  

 We tried three different shells and this was definitely the most successful.  Press shell into a ball of dough then gather dough around the shell.

 I was pretty impressed at the amount of detail that the cookies had after baking.  I also tried adding some arrowroot to half of the batch to see if it helped with detail in the shells.  It didn't really make a difference in the appearance of the cookies but we did not like the way that they tasted as much as the ones without it.

 It was a fun project to let this one get her hands into in the kitchen.

note: I used coconut oil to replace the applesauce in the recipe.

Zucchini Carbonara

After a long hiatus I have decided to return to this blog.  My food sensibilities have definitely evolved since I was last posting (Currently I am trying the Primal Diet) but the title still applies so I decided to stick with it.
I am often asked to share a recipe and I have to type it up and send it via email to whoever has requested it.  Instead I am just going to put my recipes and food ideas on this blog and perhaps it will help someone somewhere to decide "what's for dinner?" (or dessert!)

Tonight's dinner comes to you by the fact that organic zucchini was on sale 2lbs for $3.  I bought a big bag full and had to come up with an easy dinner to make use of my bargain. And mushrooms, we always have mushrooms because they are Viola's(the 4 year old) favorite,  I saved the double one to show her.

 I cut half of a package of bacon into small pieces.  I use scissors to cut most meat (chicken, bacon, fish, thin beef) because its easier.  I learned to use my kitchen scissors whenever possible from my sister-in-law.

 I threw in some slightly freezer burned peas.

 I have to admit that I did not measure the cheese.

Zucchini Carbonara

6-7 small zucchini, cut into fork-able pieces
1 8oz package white mushrooms, sliced
6oz bacon cut into small pieces
olive oil
frozen peas
2 eggs
1 cup shredded parmesan
salt and pepper

Fry bacon in pan until cooked.  Add mushrooms and a good glug of olive oil since the mushrooms will probably soak up all of your bacon grease.  Saute until mushrooms are soft.  Add zucchini and cook until desired tenderness is achieved.  While that is cooking lightly beat eggs in a small bowl, add cheese, salt, and pepper.  When vegetables are cooked remove from heat and immediately pour egg mixture over and stir.  
Serve.

I thought it was delicious.  Husband said that he liked it too but chased his Primal (grain free) dinner with two pieces of buttered toast.

Pumpkin Time

Its fall and that means that its time to enjoy pumpkin again.  I found a sugar pie pumpkin and decided to give fresh pumpkin a try.  First I made an attempt at making raw pumpkin cookies but the pumpkin was a little bit bitter and the cookies were too squishy so I ended up baking them in the toaster oven for a few minutes to firm them up.  Hopefully there is a dehydrator in my future so that I can make raw "baked goods" a bit easier.  With the second half of my pumpkin I decided to stay in my comfort zone and bake the cookies.  Since my friend Sarah, who is allergic to wheat,  is coming over to baby sit tonight I made these gluten free.

 

Gluten Free Pumpkin Chocolate Chunk Cookies

2 cups oat flour*

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1 egg

1/4 sup light olive oil

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup fresh sugar pie pumpkin (bake at 350 for about 15 minutes)

1/2 cup palm sugar

3 squares Lindt 85% dark chocolate chopped into small chunks

Combine first four ingredients.  In another bowl combine egg through palm sugar.  Then pour into the dry into the wet and mix, then fold in chocolate chunks.  Bake on 350 for 20 minutes. 

*I put rolled oats in my grain grinder to make the oat flour but you can also make oat flour in an electric coffee grinder (wipe out the coffee) or a food processor.

I have developed a love of parchment paper.  No more cookies ripped apart during pan removal, and no need to scrub my cheap rusty cookie sheets.  And you can use it multiple times or even flip it over.

I decided to make some tamari pumpkin seeds with the seeds from my pie pumpkin.  I just tossed the seeds in enough tamari to lightly cover them and baked in my toaster over for about 20 minutes.

They were pretty yummy but after they cooled I thought that they could be a wee bit crunchier so I put them back in the toaster oven.  Then the dreaded "whats that burning" smell hit me.

Blerg.  Maybe next time.

Here's a fun thing.

Some time ago I decided that I was sick of throwing away so many aerosol cans of cooking spray, there had to be a reusable solution.  Enter Misto.  It is a refillable oil sprayer.  No chemicals or propellants added just a little bit of elbow grease.  You put the top on and give it a good 10 pumps to fill the bottle with air and blamo, a mist of oil.  The choice of oil is up to you.  Right now I have Filippo Berilo olive oil in mine.  I buy it in bulk in the pretty yellow can that you see behind my misto.  I use this oil to bake and pretty much anywhere that I don't want to waste my good cold pressed extra virgin.