Photo credit http://www.primalpalate.com/paleo-blog/baked-chicken-thighs/

(1) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
(2) Remove the skin from 4-6 bone-in chicken thighs.
(3) Line an oven sheet with foil and spray with cooking spray, or place on a wire rack.
(4) Arrange the thighs and spray them.
(5) Using a half teaspoon of each, season the thighs with with sea salt, fresh ground pepper, granulated garlic, turmeric, paprika, dried tarragon, basil and oregano leaves.
(6) Into the oven for 20-25 minutes until top begins to crisp.  Then turn over, season the other side, back into the oven for 10-15 minutes.     Continue reading →

I have a bad habit of skipping breakfast, a time I should be fueling up for the morning. I’ve begun doing smoothies again and I went to Naturesmarket Healthfoods today for some Spirutein Whey Vanilla protein powder. While there, I thought I’d get some extra nutrition while I was at it. I stocked up on chia seeds, magic greens (it has spirulina in it, also alfalfa powder chlorella and barley grass) and soy lethicin for my power smoothies. I told the clerk I used to take soy lecithin but I don’t remember what I took it for. She laughed and said it’s good for memory!      Continue reading →

Spaghetti squash and kale for breakfast, sprayed with Bragg’s Liquid Aminos and sprinkled with nutritional yeast. The Bragg’s is a nutritious version of soy sauce, and the nutritional yeast is cheesy tasting savory flakes full of B vitamins, folic acid, selenium, zinc and protein. You shake it on the same as parmesean cheese and it’s great on veggies and popcorn.

2 TBS of olive oil
1 small yellow onion (1/2 cup diced) (I used a large white onion)
2 cups of diced raw sweet potatoes
2 cups of diced raw white potatoes
4 cups of vegetable stock (I used chicken broth)
2 cups of pure water
half of lemon freshly squeezed for juice   Continue reading →

Yummy no fat dessert: a cup of Kaffree Roma faux coffee with six fat pitted dates dropped in. The dates get warm and chewy and gooey-ish and each one is like a mouthful of chocolate cake. Which I don’t eat. Which is why I’m eating this instead.

I’ve been making lazy soups, semi-homemade soups. I’ve got it down to a formula.  I love formulas.  The formula is:  (1) choose a protein,
(2) chose your veggies,
(3) choose a broth: chicken, beef, veggie
(4) choose your spices, then
(5) simmer and eat. 

I’ve been grilling vegetables in my new grill pan so when I do that, or when I roast veggies, I set some aside to add later to soups and salads.  This morning, I had some grilled peppers and onions that I put in a small (1 quart) saucepan and filled half way with low sodium chicken broth.  I added a teaspoon each of turmeric and jerk seasoning, a half teaspoon each of salt, pepper, garlic powder, dried basil, dried tarragon and fresh chopped rosemary.    Continue reading →

I’m loving my new Rachael Ray anodized aluminum grill pan. For lunch yesterday I made turmeric cinnamon jasmine rice and grilled zucchini and yellow squash in the grill pan. Maybe it was the grill marks distracting me, but it seemed to carmelize up quickly and taste better than simply sauteed. I sliced them into thin planks for maximum grilling surface. A spritz of olive oil onto the grill, then onto the planks themselves. Sprinkle crushed or dried rosemary, basil, tarragon, salt and pepper. Who knew a couple of squash could be so yummy and satisfying? Then I created the perfect dessert, also in the grill pan: I sliced a banana into planks and lightly grilled it, then tossed in a half handful of fresh raspberries and raisins. I added a little water to plump up the raisins. It was delicious, much better than a bowl of ice cream. And zero fat or added sugar.

Into 16 oz of low sodium chicken broth, drop a thumbsized piece of ginger sliced thin (will remove later), one stalk of lemongrass chopped into one inch pieces (will remove later), 2 keffir lime leaves chopped and a tsp of tamarind paste. Heat to a rolling simmer for 20 minutes, then drain the liquid into another pot to remove all the sticks and grasses.  It’s just the broth you’re making here. After straining you can add veggies and carcass.   Continue reading →

For Christmas, I prepared a turkey breast in an oven bag.  I first made a mixture of:

Two tablespoons of flour, two tablespoons each of fresh chopped rosemary, sage, thyme.

One tablespoon each tarragon, onion powder, garlic powder, curry powder.

A half teaspoon ground cinnamon and crushed mustard seed, salt and pepper.
I mixed it well, then placed 1/3 of the mixture in a roasting bag and shook it all around to coat the bag.  I cuffed the top of the roasting bag down to make it easy to put my turkey breast in there after I’d seasoned it.  To the flour and herb mixture, I added 3 tablespoons of olive oil and mixed it into a gooey paste,  I put on kitchen gloves and rinsed the bird off and dried it well.  I then rubbed it down with the oil and herb mixture , under the skin, too, and placed it in the cooking bag.  The 7 pound breast went into a 325 oven for 105 minutes.  It was flavorful and juicy and clean up was a snap.     Continue reading →

Relishes, chutneys and salsas, are all related, but they have different taste and textural characteristics.  They are made from basically the same ingredients and differ from each other primarily in the relative proportions of these ingredients.  By changing the proportions, each side dish gets its distinctive qualities.  For example, salsas are usually the hottest of the three, i.e., there is more emphasis on the hot peppers. Chutneys are usually the fruitiest and relishes generally emphasize vegetables more than chutneys do.  Chutneys tend to be a tad thicker than relishes and significantly less south of the USA border than salsas.  Continue reading →