Thai curry chicken burgers with herb salad

This is like eating a full Thai curry packed into a neat little burger patty. I mixed ground chicken with red curry paste, "peanut" butter (actually sunflower seed butter), and other seasonings found in curry sauce. I also added some veggies to for flavor, color, and volume. On the side is an herb salad with a base of mint, cilantro, and Thai basil dressed with fish sauce and lime. I used this recipe, though next time I will use 2 Tbs fish sauce instead of fish + soy in the dressing.

You could also make this as sliders for an appetizer. Just pan-fry mini patties and serve them in lettuce cups with a sprinkling of the herb salad on top.

I used ground chicken, but I think ground pork would be great as well if you're not a poultry fan.

THAI CURRY CHICKEN BURGERS
Serves 4

INGREDIENTS

• 1 lb ground chicken (or ground pork)
• 1 small zucchini, grated
• 1 small carrot, grated
• 1 egg white (or use a whole egg if you'd prefer, it's just to hold everything together)
• 1 Tbs red curry paste
• 1/4 - 1/2 cup nut butter (peanut butter is probably the tastiest but if you avoid legumes, sunflower seed, cashew, or macadamia would all work. Use 1/4 cup if you're watching calories, 1/2 cup would be tastier though)
• 1/2 tsp chili-garlic paste or Sriracha sauce
• 1/2 Tbs fresh ginger, grated OR 1/2 tsp high-quality ground ginger
• 2 scallions, minced
• 1/2 Tbs fish sauce
• 1 Tbs minced cilantro
• 1 Tbs lime juice 

DIRECTIONS

1. Combine all ingredients thoroughly in a large bowl.
2. Using damp hands, form the meat mixture into four uniform patties.
3. In a pan on the stove top, sear each side over medium-high heat until browned (extra-virgin coconut oil is ideal here for greasing the pan, but any fat will work). Reduce heat to low, cover, and cook until opaque throughout.
4. Serve with Thai herb salad on the side

Single-serving microwave brownie

Why you will love this recipe: 1) Makes a single serving in case you're the type to eat a whole pan of brownies when you have them around *sheepishly raises hand* 2) Takes about a minute to prep and 30 seconds to cook 3) Is gluten-free, grain-free, dairy-free, and sugar-free 4) MAKES A BROWNIE.

These are based on almond butter; I got the idea from this recipe at Elana's Pantry. It gives them a nice moist fudgy texture. You can certainly experiment with the recipe and try adding walnuts, chocolate chips, cacao nibs, dried cherries, instant coffee, or whatever else you like.

SINGLE-SERVING MICROWAVE BROWNIE
Serves 1

INGREDIENTS

• 1 Tbs creamy almond butter
• 1 Tbs liquid egg white (or use a tablespoon of beaten egg, I just think liquid egg white is more convenient for this)
• 1 tsp dutch-processed unsweetened cocoa powder such as Hershey's Special Dark
• 1/8 tsp vanilla extract
• 1-2 packets sweetener such as Sweetleaf stevia OR 1 Tbs honey
• Pinch baking soda (about 1/16 tsp; you can try omitting this if you like a denser brownie.)
• Pinch salt (can omit if your almond butter is salty)

DIRECTIONS

1. In a ramekin, small mug, or similar microwave-safe cup, combine all the ingredients. Stir with a fork to thoroughly combine, ensuring that there are no lumps.
2. Microwave on high for about 30 seconds. Note: You can reduce the time for a "molten" brownie. You may have to experiment a bit with cooking times since all microwaves are different. If you're unsure you can try nuking it at 10 second intervals, checking it each time.

Roasted red cabbage and green beans

This sounds like a strange combination, but since developing this recipe I find myself making it over and over again. I had a hard time getting a good photo (and I'm still not particularly happy with this one) because, well, roasted veggies are not as photogenic as their lightly-steamed and brightly-colored counterpart. But I love roasted veggies, I love the flavor and the browning and caramelization that roasting adds, and I'm always looking for different veggie combinations to do. So...just trust me on this one. Make it.

ROASTED GREEN BEANS AND RED CABBAGE
Serves 4-6 as a side dish

INGREDIENTS

• About half a pound of red cabbage, shredded or cut into chunks
• 1 lb green beans, washed and ends snapped
• 1 Tbs olive oil (or other fat of choice)
• 2 Tbs sherry vinegar (can substitute balsamic vinegar)
• 2 Tbs grated parmesan cheese (can omit if you are dairy-free)
• Salt and pepper, to taste

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 450 F.
2. Toss the cabbage and green beans with the oil and vinegar.
3. Arrange the veggies in a single layer on a foil-lined cookie sheet. You may want to use two cookie sheets; if you crowd the veggies too much they will steam and not get brown.
4. Roast for about 30 minutes, stirring them halfway through. You can cook them longer if you'd like them to get more brown.
5. Immediately toss with the parmesan cheese and add salt and pepper to taste. Serve.

Sardines with fennel, mustard, and dill

Lunch box for normal appetites, snack box for Erica appetite :) (link) Sardine salad over massaged kale, homemade pimiento cheese and homemade baba ghanoush with aleppo. Recipes for the dips forthcoming!

Recently Christina and I did a paleo snack exchange. She posted about the box I sent her here. I asked for goodies from Trader Joe's since I don't have one in my area and she sent me soooo much yummy stuff! I was going to photograph and blog everything but I ate it all too quickly, oops. Some of my faves included a few different brands of dark chocolate, Smoke Seasoning Blend (love it on beef), Flower Pepper (great on salads), nori crisps, rosemary marcona almonds (HOLY WOW), spicy dried mango (I've been adding it to cheese plates!), turkey jerky, and all kinds of other awesomeness.

I bring this up because one thing she included was a box of sardines in olive oil. I had never tried sardines before and I'm really not big on canned fish, so I was skeptical. Turns out I LOVE THEM! I am very happy about this new discovery. They are cheap, portable, incredibly filling, and they have a great fatty acid profile. World's Healthiest Foods has an article about the benefits. So, I decided to develop a sardine recipe.

I used this brand. I knew that I wanted wild-caught fish (farmed fish has inferior omega-3 content due to eating a pelleted diet), I wanted it packed in extra virgin olive oil (NOT soybean oil), lightly smoked sounded good, and I heard that brislings are the best. But if you have other recommendations please let me know!

SARDINE SALAD WITH FENNEL, MUSTARD, AND DILL
Serves 4

INGREDIENTS

• 1/4 cup finely minced dill leaves
• 1 Tbs extra-virgin olive oil or mayonnaise
• 4 Tbs mustard (I used 2 Tbs dijon + 2 Tbs grainy)
• 1 small red onion, minced
• Juice of one lemon (about 2 Tbs)
• 1 Tbs red wine vinegar
• 1 tsp finely grated lemon zest
• Half of a small fennel bulb, sliced very thinly (the sliced fennel gives it a nice textural contrast but also makes it more difficult to scoop up with celery or other veggie dippers, so feel free to finely chop it instead)
• 4 cans of sardines in extra-virgin olive oil

DIRECTIONS

1. Thoroughly combine all ingredients in a medium bowl except for the sardines and fennel.
2. Add the sardines (including the oil) and mash with a fork to the desired consistency. I like it kind of coarse, but some people might prefer it very fine and pate-like.
3. Stir in the fennel.
4. Serve over salad greens or scoop up with veggies!

"Corn"dog mini-muffins

Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. Yes, it's pedestrian. Yes, it's sex with your pants on. Don't care. I like corn dogs.

Hear me out though. It's grain-free faux cornbread -- I used the muffin batter from my "cornbread" stuffing recipe. It's low-carb. And I used nitrate-free organic hot dogs made from grass-fed beef. So, it's a decent compromise. Previously, I had tried making baked corn dogs on a stick, but a lot of the batter fell off in the baking process. So, I decided to go the finger food route and just bake them in mini-muffin trays.

GRAIN-FREE CORN DOG MINI MUFFINS
Makes about a dozen

INGREDIENTS

• About three hot dogs (preferably nitrate-free/grass-fed)
• 1/3 cup coconut flour (preferably Let's Do Organic brand; it's coarsely-milled and the texture is more cornmeal-like)
• 1/4 cup butter or ghee, melted
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• Freshly ground pepper

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 400 F
2. Trim the ends off of the hot dogs and cut each one into 5 uniform pieces.
3. Whisk the coconut flour, salt, baking powder, and pepper in a large bowl. In a seperate bowl, combine the melted butter and eggs. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix well.
4. Grease a mini-muffin pan (preferably silicone). Fill each one 3/4 of the way up with batter. Vertically place a hot dog piece in the center of each one.
5. Bake for about 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. Serve with dipping sauce of choice, such as ketchup or mustard.

Just like So Delicious coconut milk

It's nice to have a low-carb, low-calorie substitute for milk. In particular, I like it in my iced coffee or smoothies. For a while, I was using unsweetened almond milk. However, I am always looking to reduce my omega-6 intake (more info on that), and So Delicious brand makes a dilute, emulsified coconut milk that serves the same purpose. It has a more favorable fatty acid profile than almond milk, boasting primarily MCTs rather than pro-inflammatory omega-6s. However, I'm not a fan of it. They use a lot of gums and thickeners that give it a weird texture, and it's expensive for what it is (that is, mostly water). I saw a recipe for making it yourself, which is appealing but it uses soy lecithin as the emulsification agent. I wanted to use a non-soy source, and after some Google-fu I learned that an egg yolk contains as much lecithin as a tablespoon of soy lecithin granules. So, I decided to use that.

I have a Sous Vide Demi, and I used that to pasteurize the egg. Just preheat it to 135 degrees and put the egg (still in the shell) right in the water for 75 minutes. Once it's done, cool it thoroughly in an ice bath, then seperate out the yolk and discard (or save) the white. If you don't have a sous vide machine, you can pasteurize them in a regular saucepan as per these instructions. Or if you like to live dangerously just leave it raw, it's up to you! I have also seen sunflower lecithin in softgels, you could try squeezing out the contents of two of them and using that, but I have not tried it myself.

BETTER THAN SO DELICIOUS COCONUT MILK
Makes 64 oz

INGREDIENTS

• 1 can coconut milk. Read the ingredients and look for a brand that is actually coconut milk, and not coconut extract mixed with water.
• 1 egg yolk (see description for information on pasteurizing an egg)

DIRECTIONS

1. Put the egg and coconut milk into a blender.
2. Add water until the whole mixture measures 64 oz.
3. Blend thoroughly.
4. Store in an airtight covered pitcher such as this; you'll want to use a pitcher with an airtight lid so that you can shake it up before using.

PB&J bars with a healthy secret

Exhibit A: PB&J bars with blackberry jam filling. There's some spinach puree hidden in the filling too!

Exhibit B: Same dealie but with almond butter and raspberry. No spinach in this one. Weird hole is probably from an almond falling out.

I love anything with PB&J. This was conceptually inspired by Ina Garten but the recipe is completely different. I used a modified version of my flourless peanut butter cookies as the base for these; it's pretty much the same, I just added a bit of baking soda. I had recently come across Jessica Seinfeld's recipe for blueberry-oatmeal bars with spinach which gave me the idea to try adding spinach puree. It was completely undetectable with the blackberry filling, so if that sort of thing appeals to you, you can certainly add in some leafy greens! I eat so much greens in salads and side dishes that I probably wouldn't bother for myself. If you use spinach be sure to use a dark colored fruit jam such as blackberry, blueberry, or grape.

For the filling, you can use sugar-free jam, no-sugar-added jam, or you could possibly try chia jam. I have not made it with the chia jam so it isn't a solid recommendation, but it's certainly worth a shot. I would probably add 1-3 tsp arrowroot or other thickener to the chia jam if I made it for this recipe.

I baked this in a loaf pan because I generally prefer to make small batches of sweets! It makes about 6 bars.

PB&J BARS
Serves 6

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup nut butter such as peanut or almond
• 3/4-1 cup granular sweetener, real or artificial (i.e. palm sugar, date sugar, stevia in the raw, or Splenda). I would use 3/4 if the nut butter is unsalted, 1 cup if it's salted.
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 cup (or more) jam (see description for suggestions)
• 1/4 cup spinach puree (optional; make this by defrosting frozen spinach in the microwave, squeezing out excess water, and puree in the blender)
• 1-2 oz (weight) nuts, roughly chopped (I used peanuts with peanut butter, almonds with almond butter)

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 325 F
2. In an electric mixer, thoroughly combine the nut butter with granular sweetener and baking powder. Beat in the egg.
3. Grease a standard loaf pan. Pack half of the nut butter dough into the bottom. The easiest way to do this is mound it in the middle, cover it with plastic wrap, and use your hands to evenly flatten it along the bottom.
4. If using spinach puree, combine it with the jam. Spread the jam over the nut butter dough in the loaf pan. You may use more than the 1/4 cup jam if it looks like it needs more to cover adequately.
5. Use the tines of a fork to rake the remaining dough into crumbles. Sprinkle it over the jam, then sprinkle chopped nuts over that.
6. Bake for 30 minutes. Let cool thoroughly before serving.