Friday, December 28, 2012

Dill-icious Shrimp from Weeknight Dinners & Giveaway

Last week, I vowed to try another recipe form Weeknight Dinners  and here it is.   I had a fair amount of paleo mayonnaise that I needed to use, so I decided upon Dill-icious Shrimp.  As promised, I am going to apply my lessons learned from making the Spinach Stuffed Chicken Breasts and Balsamic-Glazed Brussels Sprouts.

I forgot to mention this in my last post, but if you are interested in seeing what the book looks like, Amber offers a free 39-page sample of the book Paleo Savvy.  This was not one of the recipes in the sample and I've not seen it anywhere, so if you want it, you'll have to buy the book if you want the exact recipe or perhaps you could win a copy here on the blog?!?  Keep reading for details on that. 


First, I re-typed the recipe.  This gave me an opportunity to also reorder the list of ingredients so that all items that needed to be chopped, peeled or grated were at the top of the list.  I also reformatted the recipe instructions in to a bulleted list and simplified the wording a bit in places.  No pretty pictures, but its easy to read, to me. 

Friday, December 21, 2012

Spinach Stuffed Chicken Breasts and Balsamic-Glazed Brussels Sprouts from Weeknight Paleo

A couple of months ago, Amber Beam at Paleo Savvy contacted me about reviewing her cookbook: Weeknight Paleo: 9 Weeks of Quick and Easy Gluten-Free Meals.  We corresponded a bit and I explained that I don't review cookbooks per se, but recipes.  She graciously sent me a electronic copy of the book.  Life took over and well I didn't get around to cooking anything from the book until this past weekend.  Thanks for your patience Amber and the cookbook.  I am always looking for new recipe resources and am proud to add this book to my paleo library.

While I don't review cookbooks, I'll first give some general observations about the book.  First off,  the concept of her book is having a weekly menu.  Some of the recipes within that menu are derived from other elements of recipes you have made earlier in the week.  My goodness the thought and work that Amber put into this book.  The pictures are beautiful.  

But you know we aren't all about pretty pictures here at The Paleo Review, so let's put some recipes to the test.  

I had a hard time selecting a recipe for two reasons.  First, each time I saw something that really looked good, it ended up that you needed to have made a whole other recipe.  For example, Amber suggested that I make her Spaghetti with Meatball Sauce. When I looked at the recipe, I found I would have to make pesto first.  The second reason was that many of the recipes have ingredients that I personally typically avoid (e.g. fruit, nuts, honey).  Of course, if you don't avoid these things, you won't have troI finally decided to live a little and have the Spinach Stuffed Chicken and Balsamic-Glazed Brussels Sprouts from Week 3. 

Spinach Stuffed Chicken Breasts

First I gathered my ingredients. 


Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Pressure Cooker Chicken Broth The Paleo Review Style

As you know, I am a fan of making my own broth.  I've also become obsessed with getting my broth to gel.  Its a badge of broth success.  I've made broth on the stove top and in the slow cooker with gelled success, but not with the pressure cooker.  I tried two times to make Nomnompaleo.com's pressure cooker beef broth without success with respect to taste or getting it to gel.  She recently posted/bragged about her pressure cooker success and well, I couldn't stand it any longer, I knew I had to try again.  

OK, perhaps she wasn't bragging, but it sure felt like it given my failure.  After seeing her recently post a picture of her ready to go gallon size plastic bags of broth bones, I saw her secret.  CHICKEN FEET!  Chicken feet=Guaranteed Gel!

Before I dug my pressure cooker out of my storage closet, I did some internet searching about pressure cooker broth making and found that some had success with pressure cooking the broth for up to 2 hours.  NomNomPaleo's recipe calls for a maximum of 50 minutes.

I decided to not follow her recipe but rather just assemble the ingredients that I would for my slow cooker chicken broth and cook it for 2 hours.  

Here is what went into my 8 quart pressure cooker: 

     Roughly 3 lbs frozen chicken backs 
     4 chicken feet (I cut the talons/nails off, but you don't have to.)
     1 Onion, quartered (Yellow or White-I don't think it makes a difference.)
     3 Carrots, unpeeled, washed and cut in half (stem ends cut off too.)
     1 handful fresh parsley, washed (I used flat leaf because I had it around.)
     3 celery stalks, washed, cut in thirds
     8 whole pepper corns
     1 tbs apple cider vinegar (My usual slow cooker recipe uses 2 but this seemed like a 
        smaller batch, so I used less.)

Pretty colors!

Friday, December 14, 2012

Crockpot Turkey Breast by Stupid Easy Paleo

Each year, I have a a holiday party at my home.  It's a lot of hard work cleaning and preparing food, but its worth it to have my house full of friends.  My menu isn't all paleo as the majority of my friends are not paleo eaters, but I offer some solid paleo options.  This year, after learning that some serious paleo eaters would be attending my party, I decided to up my game and make my own turkey breast instead of buying prepared turkey breast.  I knew I'd be pressed for time on the day of the party, so I decided a slow cooker recipe would be best.  After searching the internet, I found this recipe from Stupid Easy Paleo.


My main worry about making the turkey breast was dryness.  I commented on the recipe asking about the juiciness level of the turkey.  The moderator, I couldn't find the name of the person who authors this blog anywhere on the site, said that it was juicy but suggested brining the breast as a way to guarantee juiciness.  So here I go again:  making a recipe for the first time for company.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Beef Stew from Paleo Comfort Foods

Happy Tuesday!  You may or may not have noticed, that I did not post a recipe on Friday.  This past Friday, I had my annual holiday party and I was swamped with yard work, house cleaning, and last but not least, food preparation.  We may have missed a post on Friday, but you will soon gain the best turkey breast recipe I have ever tasted in my life (Sorry Mom and Mamaw).  In the meantime, today I will review the Beef Stew from Paleo Comfort Foods: Homestyle Cooking for a Gluten-Free Kitchen.  I didn't see that they have posted this recipe online anywhere, so I hope you have the book! 

There are many stew recipes out there to choose from, but I wanted to cook this one because it uses anchovies.   I was curious how their addition would add flavor to the stew.  I also wanted to try this recipe because it allows for finishing the stew in the slow cooker.  

First, I gathered my ingredients.