Bacon Mushroom Cauliflower Risotto with Scallops

January 1, 2016January 1, 20164 Comments

I have a rule: anytime I go out to eat I just eat gluten-free. This mostly comes from me just not wanting to be a burden to the people I’m going out to eat with as well as my waiter/waitress. Since I live in Austin, it’s pretty easy to eat gluten-free at just about every restaurant, including Italian. Lately I’ve been going to a place called Taverna that has amazing gluten-free options including pizza and pasta. But my favorite has to be the risotto.

Well – I reimagined risotto in a more paleo-friendly way. And let me tell you – it’s amazing. I kind of just did it on a whim and I honestly don’t even know if this is the proper method for risotto, but screw it – I’ll do it how I like haha. So I hope you enjoy this recipe! It sure was tasty!

Bacon Mushroom Cauliflower Risotto with Scallops
Ingredients
– Cauliflower, riced
– Butter/olive oil
– 1 Shallot
– Strip of bacon, cut in pieces
– Mushrooms, I cut mine into really small pieces, but you can chop them to your desired size
– Cashew cream
– Scallops
– Garlic powder (or you can add fresh garlic, I didn’t have any on hand)
– Salt and pepper to taste
– Parsley for garnish
* Depending on how big your head of cauliflower is will determine how many people this will serve – adjust your ingredients accordingly.

Method
– Prep everything! Chop your mushrooms, bacon, shallot, and rice your cauliflower in a blender or food processor. If you don’t know how to do this – cut your cauliflower into florets and then pop them in the blender or food processor and process until the cauliflower resembles rice. As well, be sure you’ve made your cashew cream – which you can find a recipe for here.
– In a pan, heat the butter/oil and add the shallot.
– Add the mushrooms and bacon and let them cook.
– Once everything is about cooked, add the riced cauliflower.
– While the cauliflower is cooking, heat another pan and add oil to sear the scallops – this shouldn’t take long at all.
– Cook the scallops until seared on each side and set them aside.
– Add the cashew cream and incorporate it into the cauliflower. I don’t have an exact measurement for this, but make sure to not add too much.
– Add the salt, pepper, and garlic powder to taste.
– Plate the risotto and top with scallops and parsley.
– Enjoy!

Xoxo,
Paige

Almond Flour from Almond Pulp

February 18, 2015February 17, 20151 Comment

It’s only been a recent thing, but I now make my own nut milks. I never really believed anyone when I read that making your own nut milk was “so much better”, but it really is. It is so much better than you could imagine. I don’t actually like store bought almond milk to drink plain, but I’ll drink the unsweetened almond milk I make alone. Yeah – that good.

With that being stated, there’s a reason I typically prefer cashew milk over almond milk – there’s nothing left over. When you make almond milk, you have to strain it and you’re left with a lot of pulp. The first time I made almond milk I felt so wasteful just throwing it away (which is incredibly reasonable considering nuts aren’t cheap).

Anyway, from my last batch of almond milk, I turned the pulp into almond flour/meal. If you bake with almond flour, you know that stuff isn’t very cheap either. Well now you can get almond milk AND almond flour using your bulk almonds! I think for me, raw almonds were $7.99/pound when I last bought them. I spent around $11 on almonds, which I was able to put into mason jars to store (the ones that go up to 1 1/2 cups in measure).

So let’s make some almond flour!

*Use this for all your nut flour needs, adjusting drying time as needed. No need to spend all that money on nut flours when you can make your own as a result of nut milk.
*This is going to take awhile. Be sure you have 4-6 hours to just kinda, hang out. For any college students out there, this is great to do on Sundays when you’re kind of just watching a Law and Order: SVU marathon. Just 4-6 episodes and not only have you watched your favorite show ever, you now get some almond flour out of the deal! Or, you know, you could do it while you’re doing homework/studying (but I suggest the SVU option).

Almond Four

Ingredients
– Almond pulp from almond milk (use my Cashew Milk method, but strain. You can find the nut milk bag I like there)

Method
– Preheat your oven to its lowest setting. For me, this was 170 degrees.
– Empty the contents of your nut milk bag onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet.
– Spread out the contents like so.

– Put into your preheated oven and set a timer for 4 hours.
– Let dehydrate. I you want, you can keep your oven cracked. However, I think it made the process a bit longer for me.
– Be sure you’re checking your flour every few hours. Feel it, see if it’s still moist or not. I’m a huge fan of testing as you cook. If you find it has been 4 hours and it’s still a bit moist, keep it in for an extra hour or so. Mine took closer to 6 since my oven is always a bit cooler than the preheated temp.
– Once your flour is dehydrated, place in a blender or food processor and blend. You want to break-up the big chunks. I used my Vitamix.

– Boom, now you have almond flour! Store in an airtight container and keep in the fridge for good measure.

Enjoy your almond flour! I’m working on a breakfast sandwich recipe using mine, so stay tuned! Let me know how this worked for you, as well as the yummy stuff you made. Obviously, how much flour this will yield will depend on the amount of almonds you used. I got about 2 cups of almond flour from my batch. This is a great way to start building your own stock of almond flour. I find I don’t bake very much, so this will last me awhile!

xoxo,
Paige

Smoothie Packs

February 12, 2015Leave a comment

I have a confession – I don’t actually like eating fruit. I think this comes from not eating much as a kid, but also that I don’t really care for things that are very sweet. Even now if I have to sweeten anything, I only like a certain kind of sweetness. I’m a very picky sweets eater.

Since most fruits are pretty sweet, I avoid them. I’m more of a vegetable girl – I’d rather eat a plate full of broccoli than one filled with strawberries. With that being said, it is important to have some fruit in your diet so you can get the nutrients you need. This is where the almighty smoothie comes in.

I started making smoothie packs when I realized that:
A) Adding a lot of fruit to a blender produces way more than one serving of smoothie
B) I was wasting a lot of good food
C) I am not good at making decisions on what flavor of smoothie I want, so I would add a little of everything (which wasn’t very good)

These nifty little packs just go in your freezer and are ready for you to use whenever you have a smoothie craving. Just add your liquids of choice – for me it’s plain unsweetened whole milk kefir, homemade nut milk, and green tea – and any nutrient boosters – I add chia seeds for a little boost and texture – and blend. It’s thoughtless, simple, and incredibly easy.

*Depending on how many of these you make is going to determine how much time it takes you to pack these.
*You’re going to need Ziploc bags. I used quart storage bags, but sandwich would work just as well.

Smoothie Packs

Ingredients
– Any frozen or fresh fruit of your choice. I typically stick to frozen berries, but it’s up to you. Get creative! Mango, melon, pineapple, banana – they would all be good choices!
– Leafy greens, such as spinach and/or kale. You’ll see in the pictures I also use some zucchini. Actually a very good smoothie addition if you’ve never tried it.

Method

^^^This was my assembly line before cutting the zucchini.
– Prepare your fruits and vegetables. If you have fresh fruits and vegetables, wash and cut them accordingly. For bigger fruits and veggies, I’d try and cut them into pretty small pieces. This is what my zucchini looked like after cutting.
– Lay out all your ingredients like in the above picture.
– Assemble your bags. It’s fun to mix it up a little. One bag with strawberry and blueberry, the next with raspberry and blackberry. Just be sure to always add a leafy green or vegetable. Or both, because you love nutrition.
– Zip up the bag, label it, and place it in the freezer.
– Repeat all steps until you’re out of ingredients.

That’s it! It’s super simple! This is also a great way to meal prep. I ended up making about 24 of these smoothie packs from buying 2 bags of each frozen fruit, the large tubs of spinach and kale, and the small zucchinis. This will last me for awhile and is something I don’t have to do often – which is great. This is what my freezer looks like after placing all the packs in there.

Hope this helps some of y’all out! I know being a busy college student this has helped me out tremendously!

Keep it healthy!
xoxo,
Paige

Spaghetti Squash

February 11, 20151 Comment

When I first started living a grain-free life, the one thing I knew I would miss would be pasta – particularly noodles. There’s something so calming about twirling some spaghetti around a fork. However, after a lot of research I found I could use zucchini’s as noodles. They filled the void until I finally broke down and tried spaghetti squash.

Spaghetti squash takes grain-free pasta dishes to a whole new level. Very neutral in flavor, these noodles remind me of angel hair pasta (though it’s been awhile since I’ve had real angel hair pasta, but oh well).

Use this as a replacement for noodles in a variety of Italian inspired pasta dishes, such as my Seafood Alfredo.

This should take about 30-40 min to cook, and prep time isn’t too long. Anywhere from 5-10 min. It’s great to prepare this on a Sunday so it’s ready to use throughout the week (or whatever day you have available).

Spaghetti Squash

Ingredients
– Spaghetti Squash
– 1-2 tablespoons of butter or ghee, melted (feel free to use your favorite oil, sometimes I’ll use avocado)
– Salt and pepper

Method
– Preheat your oven. This is tricky for me because I have an oven that I’ve got to set pretty high. I preheated mine to 415 degrees.
– Take the squash and cut it width wise. You could cut it length wise, but trust me – width is easier.

-Clean out the seeds and discard the waste so your squash looks like this

– Melt the butter and coat the the meat of the squash. I used two squash’s and needed 2 tablespoons of butter. Mine were somewhat smaller than some I’ve seen. Once oiled, sprinkle with salt and pepper.

– Once the oven is preheated, place the spaghetti squash face down on a cooking sheet covered in foil (you’ll thank me for that) and let cook about 30-40</>min.

– After your timer has dinged, take the squash out and make sure the squash is tender to the touch. They’re going to be hot, but you should be able to poke and see. If not tender, let cook another 5 min. Let the squash cool.
– Once cooled, it’s time to get the meat out! Using a fork, scrape the squash into a bowl. It will come out like spaghetti noodles!

– Place your prepared squash in airtight containers and enjoy! This should last for about a week in the fridge.