Bacon Wrapped Water Chestnuts

Hi. 

Are you ready for Friday yet?

Are you nervous about Friday? You know, the beverages, the snacks, just the usual FriYay stuff that comes in to play ... 75% of my standard FriYay stuff is NOT Whole30 compliant ... 

BUT

These little things ARE!  Sweet!

Here you go:

2 cans of WHOLE water chestnuts (not the sliced ones!) 
1 pkg of bacon 
toothpicks

Grab a large baking sheet and lay out a large piece of parchment paper over it. Turn oven on to 375 degrees. I think I may have fallen over that Amazon sells Kirkland's parchment paper (Costco)??!!

Drain the water chestnuts and dump them out on the cutting board (or plate, whatever).  Open your bacon and cut it in half.

Wrap each water chestnut in bacon, as tight as you can, secure with a toothpick pierced all the way through.  Toss the bacon wrapped nuts on to the baking sheet and spread out to give a little room between them.

*Yes, I do stand mine up but it's not a requirement*

Bake for 15 minutes or til the bacon is cooked to your liking. Yes, you can burn these so keep an eye on them ;-)

I serve mine naked. I know a lot of people make these and then douse them with bbq sauce or some other glaze (teriyaki sauce?) which is fine and dandy, but for me, I like them just bacon and water chestnutty ;-)

Enjoy! 

Looking forward to sharing with some of these GREAT Parties ... go check them out!

*This post may contain affiliate links ... click here to read my disclosure :-)

Cabbage Salad with Almond Butter Dressing

This turned out to be a really GOOD recipe and I'm always grabbing bags of coleslaw and when I see them, the "asian" cabbage mix bags ... just toss the two smaller bags with the dressing and croutons and go to town to make this!

Here's what you need:

Chopped or shredded cabbage with carrots, etc ... in other words, a bag of coleslaw will work perfect!
cooked chicken, chopped, or in my case, when originally made, cooked turkey
cucumbers, chopped
red or any color peppers, chopped

This was from Costco back when I first made this recipe. I see it now in Target and Publix so look by your salad bags! Toss the dressing packet!

Now, time to make the dressing which really is the star of the salad!

1/3 cup almond butter (make sure you stir it well otherwise it will be real stiff)
garlic clove, minced
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
2 tbs white wine vinegar
juice of one lime
2 tbs coconut aminos
4 tbs avocado oil (or olive oil), enough to make the dressing a little pourable
salt and pepper to taste

Just so you know, coconut aminos are pretty similar to soy sauce ... and since I'm sort of/kind of back on Paleo/Whole30, this was fitting the Whole30 bill to a T.

 

                          Whole Foods                Costco (old pic as now I've got the good                                                                            stuff, JUSTINS!)

Dump all the dressing ingredients in a bowl and whisk to combine.

Toss your cabbage mixture into a bowl (serving size or larger to share), top with cucumbers, peppers and chopped turkey. Pour the dressing over all and toss to combine. Honestly? I used my bare hands as my dressing was still a little to thick ... I ended up adding more oil to the dressing to make it thinner.

This is really good and works great with leftover chicken, turkey, pork or, I suppose, even beef if you had!

*I originally made this Thanksgiving weekend and it was PERFECT with the leftover turkey from that big day!

Looking forward to sharing with some of these GREAT Parties ... go check them out!

September 2016 Whole30 Week 1 FALSE START

That seems to be a lot of numbers in a blog title, doesn't it?

#SeptemberWhole30

So, how did you do on your first week?

Did you cave in on Friday night? Saturday? Or, how about Sunday, since it's a holiday weekend?  Monday? Did you hold out??

Ahem. Sorry. Just curious!

Thursday morning started out like any other morning, I'm so glad that I've been skipping the sugar in my coffee for the past few months ... I'm also so very glad that most of my breakfast choices for the most part, are Whole30 approved ;-)

Day 1

Meal 1:

3 eggs cooked in ghee
1 Aidele chicken apple sausage, chopped up and sauteed in ghee
handful of leftover green beans with diced onion
2 cups of coffee with almond milk

Meal 2:

large salad made with ice berg lettuce, half chopped cucumber, 4 cherry tomatoes, chopped, 2 hard boiled eggs chopped, 2 carrots, chopped and then a dose of Tessemae's Lemon Garlic dressing ... yummmm (and again, this is somewhat a standard lunch for me!)

Meal 3:

Hmmm. 4 beers. And a microwave bag of popcorn.  Needless to say, we are starting officially, on Monday, September 5th.

Check back later to see how my first REAL week went ;-)

Cilantro Lime Riced Cauliflower

Did you see my excitement a few weeks ago when I finally found the bags of riced cauliflower at Trader Joe's? I made a bag of that stuff that very night without any thought ... that's how excited I really was ;-)

It was really easy too since the cauliflower was already riced ... all I had to do was zest a lime, chop some cilantro, juice the lime and cook the "rice".

I have turned so many people on to this stuff in the past few weeks
that I may never find it again at the Trader Joe's by my house!
*Type 1 Diabetics should be stockpiling this stuff with only 3 grams of carbs per serving!

This isn't really a recipe, so to speak, but more of a process. And I'm looking forward to making it again!

Here's what you need:

1 12 oz bag of riced cauliflower (or you can certainly rice your own, it's just messy)
handful of cilantro
1 lime

Toss your cauliflower rice into a non-stick skillet over medium heat and allow to heat through without messing with it much. I used my Green Pan and didn't use oil or anything else and it was cooked in 15 minutes.

Add the cooked cauliflower to a bowl and toss the cilantro in. Zest your lime, cut the lime in half and squeeze both halves over the rice/cilantro mix.

Give a quick fluff/stir and serve up ;-)

I had made this for Taco Tuesday (which really was a Taco Wednesday) and had a taco bowl - shredded lettuce, "rice" and meat ... can I just tell you how dang happy my tummy was?? It was pretty tasty and I can honestly say that the day of Taco Salads are gone ... I will forever be having taco bowls (ohhh....a knock of Chipotle bowl is in the future!!)

Looking forward to sharing with some of these GREAT Parties ... go check them out!!

Island Shrimp

This recipe comes from a book I got a while ago, Primal Blueprint Quick & Easy Meals. which prompted me to get back in to the actual cookbook mode ... even though I have tons of them, I need more that are on track with this new way of eating!

By the way, in case you didn't know, 450 Swagbucks will  give you $5 in Amazon cash ... and that's how I've been buying the cookbooks ...

Another side note ... I do NOT like to have them on my Kindle. I mean, yeah, it's sort of cool to just open up the Kindle BUT I don't like the layout/format whatever. It's not the same as looking at the 2 pages, side by side ... so I've decided no more cookbooks on the Kindle.

Anyways ... 

It's Whole30 Compliant! Sweet! Perfect for January 2016 which is RIGHT around the corner, you know?

I renamed the recipe to Island Shrimp with Avocado, then, just Island Shrimp ... more appealing to ME than Tropical Avocado & Shrimp. And yes, there were a few modifications along the way ... if you want the real deal, buy the book and flip to page 57 ...

You can easily double, triple or even quadruple this recipe, as I was only feeding myself for a late lunch and early dinner, I made it in the quantities listed below ... Ready? Ready ...

1/4 cup mango, cut into chunks

1 jalapeno, seeds removed

Juice of 1 lime

dash of salt

3 tbs olive oil

1/2 lb raw shrimp, peeled and deveined (personal note, I always take the freakin tail off, it annoys me)

1/2 tsp cumin

1 avocado, cut into chunks

3 radishes, sliced

1/4 red onion, sliced

chopped cilantro (optional but recommended)

Get out the big gun food processor ... add mango, jalapeno, lime juice, olive oil and salt.

Let it rip and make a sauce. 

Put sauce in fridge to chill a little. Trust me. I wasn't crazy when I tasted to adjust the seasoning, but after it chilled for a bit, it was a whole different flavor!

Sprinkle the shrimp with the cumin and saute in a bit of olive oil til cooked (not overcooked!)

In large bowl, combine the shrimp, avocado, radish, onion and cilantro. Toss with the sauce and serve OR you can pour the sauce over prior to serving. Either way, recommend making this ahead of time and letting chill in the fridge for 45 minutes or so ...

Good? Yes it was ... the radishes really tasted good with the mango sauce. I think I was in love for a minute there.

Note: I have made this with cooked shrimp ... in that case I just added the cumin to the food processor when making the sauce ... I'm all about making do, you know?

Looking forward to sharing with some of these GREAT Parties ... go check them out!

*This post contains affiliate links ... click here to read my disclosure :-)

Making Mayo

I'm a mayo snob, I'll admit it. Do NOT ever put that Miracle stuff anywhere near my plate ... and no, I do not like Kraft either. Only Hellman's ... thank you very much.

BUT ... once I made the stuff from scratch (it's really easy, I promise!) I never ever looked at another sale jar of mayo again.

Oh. Well. Sort of ... I do buy the jar, I think maybe 2 in the last 12 months? Only because if we are doing something with heavy mayo, I'd be dying in the kitchen to keep up, you know?

For the most part though, it's the stuff from scratch. Hubby will even inquire if we have enough for say, Blackened Chicken Sandwiches (birthday party, 10 people), or Blue Cheese Dressing ... or ... well, a lot of stuff ... he likes it as much as I do, and I hope you do too!

The recipe calls for FIVE ingredients, that's all. F I V E! Go grab your jar of mayo from the fridge and look at the ingredient list. I'll wait. Ok, are you convinced maybe you should give this a try?

A few notes:

1.  Make sure all ingredients are at room temperature.

2.  Give yourself 5 to 8 minutes of undivided attention as you need to do this slowly.

3.  Buy a large bottle of LIGHT Olive Oil. I know, it doesn't have ALL the benefits of extra virgin, but if you use regular, you will mayo that taste VERY strongly of olive oil ... and while some people might be ok with that, we were NOT.

Seriously, this is all you need.

This was made with regular olive oil ... see how it's got a yellowish/greenish tint?

When the oil goes on sale with a buy one get one free, I'm stocking up baby!
 
Ok, are you ready to give this a try?

1 egg
2 tsp lemon juice (yes, I do use the stuff in the bottle IF I don't have fresh lemons)
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dry mustard powder
1 cup olive oil

Put the egg and the lemon juice in your food process and walk away for an hour or so. Seriously. See up there ... PATIENCE? In order for the stuff to incorporate and emulsify, it MUST be room temperature. Honestly, I had mine out for 2 hours the first time, an hour or so is normal for me.

When it's all to room temp, go ahead and cap the processor. Drop the dry mustard and salt in the chute, fire up the machine and pour the 1/4 cup of oil in and let it rip for a minute.

Now comes the FUN part ... roll your shoulders, flex your triceps muscles and S L O W L Y start drizzling the 1 cup of oil down the chute. Be slow about it, you want a very thin stream of oil going in!

The stuff will start spattering around and you'll be tempted to stop and scrape but DON'T GIVE IN, keep drizzling it through the chute.

Suddenly, it sounds like slapping. Keep drizzling.

And just like that, the whole thing changes. The sound, the feel everything will suddenly become a smooth hum. You are almost there. Keep drizzling. Ignore the cramp in you triceps, keep drizzling. This is nothing folks, keep drizzling.

When you get down to that last bit, RESIST THE URGE to just dump. Keep drizzling.

When olive oil is all emptied out, let it continue for about 30 seconds more. Turn off processor and flex arm.

Rub hands together, give an evil grin  to the Hubby and take off the lid.

Hot Diggity Dog!! Creamy. Luscious looking. I slathered some right on a piece of turkey and ate it. Yummm. Oh, how about some deviled eggs using the mustard powder along side?? Oh, I think I might be on to something here!

This made a nice size jar of fresh mayo. It should keep as long as your egg was fresh. I have a feeling it would last a little longer than a week beyond what the egg carton says for the "sell by date" but if you follow food police guidelines, use that for your 'expiration' period.

Can you tell which is EXTRA virgin and which is LIGHT?

Honestly, this is an every 7 to 10 day occurrence in the kitchen. Nobody even thinks to remind me that there is an egg sitting on the counter ... they KNOW its for MAYO and I think do a little skip in their head as something yummy is fast approaching!

Go ahead, whip up a batch. I think you will be oh, so very surprised AND hooked.

Looking forward to sharing with some of these GREAT Parties ... go check them out!

*This post contains affiliate links ... click here to read my disclosure :-)