Category Archives: Food

Broccoflower Curry Rice

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As I noted in my last post, I had planned to try the broccoli and cauliflower combination again using a different method. Over the weekend, I picked up two broccoli florets and one head of cauliflower at the farmers market.

To prepare the broccoli and cauliflower, I chopped them into pieces small enough to fit into the hole in the top of my Cuisinart food processor. Replacing the blades with the shredding disk, I tediously pushed all of the vegetables through the spinning steel. This pretty well filled my 14 cup food processor, so keep that in mind when deciding how much to make. At first I thought I had made too much, and that the labor wasn’t worthwhile, but I’m thoroughly enjoying the leftovers.

I heated a few tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil in a 12 inch stainless steel frying pan, emptying the entire contents of the food processor bowl to it. To this, I added ample amounts of salt and curry powder. While stirring, I occasionally added more oil, since broccoli and cauliflower are pretty dry vegetables and will readily absorb it.

I need to get some white dishes, so I can take better pictures

It’s a pretty simple recipe and, while I was initially skeptical, it turned out downright amazing. The best part is, having given up rice and other grains, I finally have a staple I can use to soak up sauces.

If you try out this recipe, let me know in the comments what you used for flavor and how it turned out. Enjoy!

Coconut Curry Chicken with Broccoflower Couscous

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For a couple of weeks, I’ve been posting my dinner creations to Facebook. I’ve been doing this for three reasons. First, a lot of people don’t know what they would cook when following a paleo lifestyle, so I want to share what I make after living this way for a couple of years. Second, I hope to inspire my friends and family with these meals. Finally, I like to show off.

The more mundane and repeated meals will probably remain as short posts on Facebook. However, I’d like to capture some of these dinners on my website. This will allow me to share with a wider audience as well as being a better archive of recipes.

Inspired by a post on Richard Nikoley’s website, I’d been thinking about trying Nacho Rubio’s curry chicken dish.

Instead of crafting my own curry powder (which I will do someday), I used curry powder from Trader Joe’s. I stirred about two tablespoons of it into about two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil in my 12″ cast iron skillet. While the mixture was heating, I sliced one package of boneless and skinless chicken thighs into bite sized pieces, which I added to the skillet to cook. When the chicken was cooked through, I added 3/4 of a can of Trader Joe’s light coconut milk, turned up the heat, and let the moisture boil off until I was rewarded with a thick sauce.

While the chicken was cooking, I put two heads of broccoli and one head of cauliflower into the food processor to blend. For a while, it looked like I was making baby food. Once I got the broccoflower mixture into a 12″ stainless steel skillet with several tablespoons of Kerrygold butter and some salt, it started gaining a couscous-like texture.

Updated: I should point out that it was difficult to get the broccoli and cauliflower to process properly. I had overfilled the food processor’s bowl and without a liquid the larger pieces tended to bounce off the blades rather than being pulverized by them. Next time I prepare this, I will probably use the shredding blade (the one that mounts the blade at the top of the bowl) and plunge smaller pieces through it. If I do, I’ll be sure to report my results.

That was it, simple as that. I think it turned out pretty tasty.

After dinner, I treated myself to a cup of Turkish coffee, which I’m enjoying as I write these words. The coffee was Sumatra Blue Batak from Peet’s Coffee & Tea, to which I added turbinado sugar, cocoa powder, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

Farewell Rubio’s

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Once one of my favorite restaurants, you and I simply don’t get along anymore.

I had food from Rubio’s for lunch today, brought in by the company hosting my colleagues and me for some technical training.  Not long after lunch, my asthma began to act up.  Since going Paleo several months ago, my daily inhaler and I have practically parted ways.  However, this evening I felt that I needed it.

A few weeks ago, I had dinner at Islands, where I indulged in some corn chips and salsa.  The following day, I needed my inhaler.  I, perhaps wrongly, concluded that grains, at least corn, were a trigger and have been much happier to avoid them ever since.

It should go without saying that I passed on the tortillas served alongside lunch today.  Nevertheless, not long afterwards I felt that all too familiar tightness in my chest, resulting in the use of my inhaler tonight, after two weeks without.

If I had to guess, I’d say it was the liberal use of soy in the cooking (is it to save money or demonstrate that the food is supposedly heart healthy?) that proved today’s trigger.  I don’t know what specifically was the cause, as it could be any one of soy’s negative properties, or even several in combination.  In the end, this is just further encouragement to avoid eating out.

Except for Elevation Burger (their site appears to be Flash-based, sorry).  That place is awesome.

No Fair Food This Year

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Every year my wife and I attend the San Diego County Fair at least once or twice. Aside from the garden exhibits and animals, one of the big lures is the food. I mean, doesn’t this look delicious?

Fried Food at the Fair

Fair Fare

Not pictured is the deep fried s’more, which was a big hit with my daughter last year. It appears to have been replaced by the deep fried brownie.

A few years ago, I could eat a funnel cake, a battered onion, a doughnut chicken sandwich, some Indian fry bread, and follow that with various and sundry deep fried candy bars. As each year passed, we ate a little less of the food. Last year I could only stomach a couple bites of funnel cake after helping my daughter eat her deep fried s’more.

I took my oldest daughter to the fair today, to get her out of the house and shower her with attention after the birth of her baby sister. We even stood in front of the vendor pictured above. In the end, I ate nothing at the fair. There wasn’t anything that looked at all appetizing. Actually, the smoked turkey legs always look awesome, but I refuse to pay $10 for something I can make so easily myself. Maybe finally removing these foods from my diet has had an effect on my taste. Maybe the fact that I’ve been slowly replacing my wardrobe with size small shirts and, just yesterday, purchased several pairs of size 32 shorts, kept me from partaking of such disgustingly unhealthy fare. Either way, I don’t really miss eating that stuff.

Trying Out a CSA

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csaweek1CSA is short for community-supported agriculture. Last summer, the company I work for set itself up as a delivery location for the Sage Mountain Farm CSA. I’d been talking about signing up for it since it was announced and, last week, finally did so. I pledged for four boxes, just to try it out, and my first box was delivered on Wednesday. Getting the food home was interesting. I take the train to work, so I felt a bit strange standing on the train platform holding a box of fruit and vegetables.

Wow, what a lot of food. The picture on this post doesn’t do it justice. I was only able to fit about half of the included produce in my refrigerator and left the rest on the counter. Unfortunately, after Saturday’s heat, this meant that we had to throw some of it out. But, I was able to use most of what was on the counter before we did. I’ve never taken the time to try cooking beets or parsnips, and rarely buy chard, so having it selected for me was fun. That was one reason I wanted to try a CSA.

The sheer amount of food in the box caused me more stress than it was worth. I had expected the box to be much smaller and that we would still be able to visit the farmers market, which we enjoy attending. Suddenly something I thought would be a joy has become a burden. Why is there so much lettuce? I don’t even like salad. How can we possibly eat all this food? Where can I store it every week? How will I fit other food in my refrigerator? The small box, which I ordered, is advertised as being able to feed a family of two or three for one week. The members of that hypothetical family must be big fans of Michael Pollan, because they’d have to be eating mostly plants. We are not that family.

I have three more boxes coming over the next three weeks, so I’ll see how it shakes out. I’ll need to figure out what to do with the food when I receive it. I’m thinking of starting an extended family dinner and game night on Wednesdays, cooking as much of the food as possible and sending everyone home with leftovers. The rest I’ll prepare just enough so it won’t take up too much room in the refrigerator. Even so, I think that after the fourth box, we’ll go back to making our regular Saturday trips to the Vista Farmers Market. The market is more enjoyable for us. It gets us outdoors, we can pick our own food, and we can interact with the farmers and vendors.

Almond Walnut Bread

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Almond Walnut BreadOne of my favorite types of food (you know, besides bacon), particularly during the winter holiday season, is the sweet quick bread. Since going Paleo earlier this year, this solstice staple is no longer welcome in my house. Fortunately, I’ve come up with a suitable replacement for a basic quick bread recipe.

The folks over at the Cooking with Trader Joe’s blog came up with a recipe for almond bread. I tried baking it a couple of weeks ago, with one substitution. Instead of the agave nectar, which is pure fructose, I used Trader Joe’s Desert Mesquite Honey (I don’t currently have any of the awesome raw local honey available at my local farmers market). I also added a teaspoon of xanthan gum, which is useful in gluten-free recipes. The result was a dense loaf of nutty bread, which was a big hit with everyone who tried it, especially my diabetic grandfather-in-law (who was happy to finally have something to soak up his egg yolks).

I recently modified a fruitcake recipe to be more Paleo-friendly (more on that in another post), which was also a big hit with my in-laws. I decided to try adapting the almond bread recipe using the same techniques that proved so successful with the fruitcake. Primarily, this involves the substitution of coconut flour for some of the almond meal. So, without further ado, the recipe I came up with.

  • 3 ½ 4 ½ cups almond meal
  • 1 cup coconut flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon xanthan (or guar) gum
  • 9 5 eggs
  • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
  • 2 tablespoons honey
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
  • ½ to 1 cup walnuts, toasted
  • 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
  1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.
  2. In a large bowl, combine all of the dry ingredients.
  3. In another container, beat the eggs and add the remaining wet ingredients.
  4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix thoroughly (you may recognize this as the muffin method).
  5. Fold in the toasted walnuts.
  6. Transfer the mixture to a 5×9-inch standard loaf pan, lightly greased (I use butter and parchment paper in a wonderful clay baking dish).
  7. Pour melted butter over the top.
  8. Bake for 60 minutes or until a skewer or knife inserted in the bread comes out clean.
  9. Cool and slice (my dish yields 11 slices).

If you can’t find coconut flour, or simply want to use all almond meal in the recipe, use 4 ½ cups of almond meal and use only 5 eggs. The coconut flour absorbs a lot of moisture, so the usual advice is to use an additional 4 eggs for every cup of coconut flour. Hey, this is Paleo baking, right? The more eggs, the better.

I found most of the ingredients at Trader Joe’s. They sell one pound of almond meal for $3.99. The coconut flour we found at Henry’s, which is a Wild Oats store, now owned by Whole Foods. As for the eggs, we go through so many that we buy them at Costco.

Update (5 December 2010): After eating the bread for a week, we decided that it was a bit too dry. I’ve updated the recipe to be a bit closer to the original, using only almond meal. This also makes it a little easier and cheaper to make.

My Primal Meal Photo

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Primal Snacking by cdgrau, on Flickr

A Simple Foraged Primal Dinner

Yesterday, Mark’s Daily Apple held a primal meal photo contest. All I had to do was submit a photo of a primal meal I ate. For most people, this would be dinner; something they cooked up after work.

Unfortunately, on the day of the contest, I didn’t have time to cook dinner. However, that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to eat dinner. When I got home, before I headed off to my karate class, I “foraged” through the wilds of my refrigerator for something to eat. We always have hard cooked eggs and salami on hand, for snacking or quick dinners. We’ve also been buying strawberries every week, since they’re a year-round crop in Southern California. And that was my entry. It’s not the fanciest primal meal anyone has come up with, but that’s okay; the winner will be picked randomly from all of the entries.

Also, if anyone is interested in having a “Grokfeast” for a chance to win a cow, let me know.

What Do Canadians Eat?

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After our direct flight from San Diego to Toronto on Air Canada, we were starving. Sure, there was food available on the flight, but it seemed expensive for what you get. The barbecue beef sandwich the girl next to me ordered sure smelled good, but I didn’t think it was worth the five dollars (USD and CAD) to find out.

Once we checked into the hotel in Markham, we started wondering what was typical Canadian food. When I visit Mexico (or heck, stay in San Diego) I know what Mexican food is and I know where to go for the good stuff. What’s Canada known for? Is it like asking what American food is (well, that depends on what part of the States you’re in)?

Having not been able to answer the question, we started driving until we came to a cluster of restaurants in Richmond Hill. We chose a nice-looking place called Marlowe on York Blvd. The food was excellent, and Hoegaarden was on tap, served in the appropriate glass (that is to say large; I had two).

Miles Away from… the Border

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While I was out with my dad and grandmother, we decided to grab some lunch. We came across a Skippers and popped inside (where it was warm and dry) to have something to eat. Perusing the menu, I saw the usual assortment of fish and chips, fried clam strips, and clam chowder. My eyes happened to drop to a sign advertising brand new fish tacos. Just like being south of the border the sign promised. Great, I thought, I love fish tacos and wasn’t in the mood for anything else on the menu.

As my order of two fish tacos was set down on the table in front of me, I immediately wondered which border the sign was really referring to. Unwrapping the paper revealed a limp flour tortilla containing a breaded fish fillet that would look more at home with yellow slicker-clad fisherman, iceberg lettuce, Pace picante sauce, and… here’s the kicker… thousand island dressing.

As a fish sandwich, it was mediocre and about all I could expect for a couple of bucks. As a fish taco, well, it was about as far removed from a fish taco as I could have imagined. At least, before I had encountered this fish… something.

Thank you Skippers. I can now understand the disgust expressed by my friends, those deprived souls who have not had the pleasure of real Baja cuisine, when I tell them of the beauty… nay, the culinary perfection… that is the fish taco. A warm corn tortilla surrounding chunks of beer-battered pollock, shredded cabbage, pico de gallo, and white sauce. My mouth waters.

What the Pacific Northwest, and perhaps the rest of the country, needs is for Rubio’s to appear and introduce decent Baja style fast food. Thank goodness I live in San Diego.
Rubio's Fish Taco