Fish tacos (without the taco) with lime coleslaw

My mom was in town last week and whipped up this amazing meal. It came from a wonderful man, Peter Selay, who has a great restaurant in Nevada City. I highly, highly recommend New Moon if you are ever in Nevada City and need some good food. Then have breakfast at Ike's Quarter Cafe next door.

For this meal you will be using basically the same ingredients for each dish. So once you start juicing limes don't stop until you are all done. Same with chopping cilantro and jalapenos just keep chopping until you have huge piles. Use extra cilantro as a garnish.

Don't forget the avocados! Make sure you slice up some avocados somewhere in there to use as a topper for the fish.

Fish
Ingredients:

Fresh white fish (snapper, sea bass, halibut, mahi-mahi) 5-6 oz. per person
2-3 limes
1/4 Cup EVOO
1 jalapeno, diced (optional)
3-4 tablespoons chopped cilantro

Combine juice from limes through cilantro in a bowl and pour over fish. Let marinate 15-20 minutes. While that is soaking up the flavor make this lime slaw and salsa below.

To cook either grill on the BBQ or bake about 12-15 minutes depending on the size of the fish, until done.

Lime slaw

Ingredients:
1 head cabbage (a little goes a long way)
1 red bell pepper
1 red onion
4-5 tablespoons chopped cilantro
3 limes
EVOO
s & p

Thinly slice the cabbage, pepper and onion. Combine with the juice of the limes, cilantro and season with salt and pepper. Dress with a little oil and toss all together. Let stand about 15 minutes for the flavors to mingle. Check the limeyness and add more if needed.



Salsa Cruda

Ingredients:

1-2 large ripe tomatoes, chopped
1/2 cup chopped red onion
2-4 tablespoons chopped cilantro
1 jalapeno, diced
1-2 limes, juiced
1/4 cup EVOO
s & p

Combine everything and top your fish with it.

Whew, now that the fish, slaw and salsa are done it's time to put it all together. Pile your plate with coleslaw. Place a couple pieces of fish on that, spoon on some salsa and add a few slices of avocado. Sprinkle some chopped cilantro on top of it all and you have a beautiful, delicious dinner. Your friends who say eating Paleo sounds so restrictive can eat their lame hot dog and the BBQ while you munch on this.

It also works with flank steak! We made this a few nights later with a hunk of flank steak on the BBQ and it was great, just slice your meat nice and thin. And tequila is Paleo...just saying.

With flank steak. (It really wasn't under cooked,
this photo is just exceptionally pink.)

Paleo cobbler

Cobbler is a summer time necessity. With all the delicious fruit and berries around I find it unthinkable to not partake in a summertime dessert. I found a recipe on Everyday Paleo and made only one tweak.

Ingredients:

3 cups berries (I used blackberries, blueberries and strawberries)
1 1/2 cups almond meal
3 eggs
2 tablespoons coconut oil
lots of cinnamon
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Wash your berries, slice strawberries in half if using, and put in a pie dish.

In a bowl combine almond meal, eggs, oil and cinnamon. It becomes kind of thick and clumpy. Break this mixture up over the berries until it is evenly covered then back 35 minutes or until it is all bubbly and delicious. Serve in bowls and eat it up! Have some Paleo coconut ice cream if you are into that.

The almond meal makes for a granola like crust and I thought is was even better the next day for breakfast. I'm thinking any sweet summer fruit would work for this-peaches, plums, all berries. As long as you don't have a tart fruit, like apples, that need sugar you can make this cobbler without adding sugar and still be Whole30 compliant. (Although that's a huge dose of carbs...but everything in moderation.)

Dessert
and
Breakfast!!

YUM!

Simple cole slaw

I love cabbage in every form. I love it even more when it comes from my garden. This year I had two lovely heads of cabbage and one of them became this simple coleslaw. Coleslaw is very forgiving, so play with the amounts and ingredients; try different color cabbages, red onion, white onion, diakon, yellow raisins, currents, sunflower seeds. Really, whatever you have that is fresh and crunchy will work. It will last a couple days so make a big batch and enjoy it for days.

Ingredients:

1 head of green cabbage, thinly sliced (about 4 cups)
2 carrots
6 radishes
1 Granny Smith apple
lemon juice (optional)

Dressing:
1/2 C mayonnaise
2 T white wine or champagne vinegar
2 t celery seed
1 t Kosher salt (optional)
couple of twists of fresh ground black pepper

Using a food processor shred the carrots and radishes. Peel and cube the apple. (If you cube the apple first toss it with some lemon juice to keep it from turning brown. I just cubed the apples and tossed them straight in with the other veggies and had no troubles with discoloration. Why dirty another bowl if you don't have to?) Combine sliced cabbage, carrots, radishes, apples in your serving bowl.

To make the dressing combine all the ingredients (to save another dish measure the 1/2 cup of mayonnaise into a 1 cup measuring cup and then just add the remaining ingredients using your measuring spoons and mix directly in measuring cup.) Pour the dressing over the veggies, toss well to coat and serve right away or chill until ready to serve. The dressing has a strong vinegar flavor on its own but the sweetness of the apples and carrots makes it a great slaw dressing.

West Indian Chicken with orange sauce

Last night's dinner came courtesy of "Grill It! Recipes, Techniques, Tools," a great BBQ cookbook with lots of how-to tips. This is our recipe based on the one from the book since we didn't have or couldn't find all the ingredients called for.

The chicken:
4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts (10-12 oz each
2 t mustard powder (or more)
4 red Fresno chiles, stemmed (or something spicier than a jalapeno)
1 T minced ginger
1 T curry powder
1/4 C roughly chopped scallions, white and green parts
Kosher salt and freshly cracked pepper

Put mustard through salt and pepper in a blender or food processor and puree. Pour over chicken and marinate for about an hour, turning to make sure chicken is all coated.

While that is marinating make the sour orange sauce (mojo)

1 C orange juice
1/3 C distilled white vinegar (we used white wine vinegar)
1/3 C olive oil
2 T dried or fresh oregano
1 T garlic
Kosher salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and set aside. We thought the mojo was too watery so try less juice and oil, but play with it to see what you like.

To cook put the chicken on the grill about 7-9 minutes per side until done.

Arrange the chicken breasts on a platter and spoon the mojo over them. Place extra mojo on the table for people to add as they wish. Served with the simple coleslaw-another post coming soon!

The other white meat

Once again I began thinking about dinner after a meeting at 6:00. Pork was on my mind, so I picked up 2 lbs of pork tenderloin for my super easy, home run dinner. Always a winner and is ready in about 45 minutes or less from car to table.

Ingredients:
pork tenderloin

for the rub(listed in greatest amount to least amount):
kosher salt
ground mustard
ground pepper
celery seeds
fennel seeds
rosemary (works without it, but salt and rosemary go together so well.)

side:
green beans*

I put all the rub ingredients together in a mortar give them a quick grind with the pestle then rub the pork tenderloin with the concoction. Cook for 30 minutes at 425 or until done. Let rest a few minutes and then slice up and serve.

As a side I roasted some green and wax beans since the oven was the right temp. Just trim off the ends of the beans, toss with some olive oil and pepper (salt if you're into that) and bake for about 15 minutes or until tender.

Quick, easy and great for dinner parties. Pork tenderloin is juicy and tender and the rub gives it a nice flavor. Every rub I make is different, and just use the above list as a rough guide. Whatever is in the spice rack usually works.

And my 1 year old and 3 year old love this.

*I know green beans aren't technically Paleo, but I live by more of a whole30 model. And there is a lot of good stuff in green beans.

Creamy, stuffed peppers

Creamy? How can that be? I don't know, but my husband came up with a great Paleo recipe.

Ingredients:
4 bell peppers, any color
1 onion
1 shallot
olive oil
4-6 little zucchini or other summer squash
1 lb ground meat (we used andouille sausage)
cayenne
salt
3 eggs

Cut the peppers in half and gut them. Slice zucchini. Chop the onion, shallots and any scraps of pepper finely. Saute the veggies in olive oil until good and soft. Add sausage, cook until brown and broken up. Add zucchini, stir in and cover to kind of steam the zucchini so it doesn't get mushy. While that is going on pre-heat to oven to 375 and boil the peppers for 1 minute.

Remove pan from heat and crack three eggs into the stuffing. Just mix the eggs right in, don't worry about mixing them up in another bowl before combining with the onions, sausage, etc. Stuff the peppers and bake about 18-20 minutes.

If you have leftover stuffing just put it in a little dish and bake it like this:




Somehow the eggs mixed with the grease from the sausage and the juice from the sauteed onions to make a creamy filling that held everything together. It was an amazing alternative to breadcrumbs and cheese. Flavorful sausage helped, so if you are using plain ground meat be sure to season in well. Bon appetit!

I imagine this would work with any other veggie you had on hand-mushrooms, carrots, spinach, green beans, asparagus. You could play with the spices and herbs, do a Thanksgiving pepper with turkey sausage with sage and thyme. Lots of possibilities with this one!

Salmon in Parchment Paper

I must be in a fishy kind of mood.  I've made this a few times, and seeing as it's Paleo, I figured I ought to blog it out.  It was very satisfying last night.  :)

Ingredients:  (serves 4)
4 salmon filets (about 6 oz each)
4 Tbsp tarragon chopped
4 scallions thinly sliced
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 lemons halved
1 lb asparagus cut into 1 inch pieces

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Place the each salmon filet in the center of a piece of parchment paper (15inx15in).  Put salt, pepper, and oil on the filet.  Then cover the top with the tarragon, scallions and asparagus.  Finally, squeeze the half lemon on top and place the lemon on top of it all.  Pull the sides of the parchment over, folding several times to seal.  Place the salmon pouches on a baking sheet and cook in the oven for 20-25 minutes.

I have also made this recipe with dill instead of tarragon.

I've served the fish with roasted potatoes, rice and more steamed veggies.

Mmmm, mmmm, good.