So I wanted to offer her something with protein in it, but she was turning down all the meat and cheese I’d put on her plate.

So I invented these.

On a whim… and they were just the ticket! The first small batch I made was gone within a few hours. So that night, I had to make a bunch more, which she happily ate throughout the next day.

This face? This is a sweet-potato-drunk face. She’s eating something like her 6th “cookie” in a row.

So here’s how to make these baby-friendly grain-free gluten-free treats.

Sweet Potato Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 cup cooked sweet potatoes, mashed
• 2 eggs
• 3-4 Tbsp almond butter
• Generous sprinkle of cinnamon.

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit
2. Combine all ingredients until a smooth thick batter
3. Drop on a parchment-paper-lined cookie sheet
4. Bake 10-12 minutes, then flip
5. Bake an additional 5 minutes
6. Cool on a cooling rack

I normally don’t cool things on cooling racks, but for these, because of the moisture in the sweet potatoes, it’s better if you do, especially if you plan to put them in a container for later. Otherwise the bottoms of the cookies will get a little bit soggy from trapped moisture.

And interestingly enough, when the second batch of “cookies” was gone, she seemed to be “healed” from her little picky-fruit-jag. And she’s been happily eating buttered carrots, peas, roast beef, and other foods again, as usual.

So I thought I’d try to gluten-free-ize it. I can’t say primalize, because I used a gluten free flour mix which is mostly bean flour, sorghum, and tapioca, but  it’s a smaller compromise in my mind than using the cake flour the original recipe calls for.

This picture is ugly. I’m aware of that. It was like 8pm and it is DARK, and I took this with my phone because my real camera’s memory card was in my computer. But you’ll just have to trust me… it’s GOOD. At least the picture shows the glossy thick sauce the broth becomes… which is part of the Important Magic of Southern-style chicken and dumplings.

Gluten-Free Chicken and Dumplings – Southern Style Comfort Food

You will need cooked chicken and some chicken stock. You can kill both birds (heh) with one stone by boiling a chicken for an hour or so. I bought a rotisserie chicken though, removed the meat, and then simmered the bones with some carrots and half an onion to make stock. When it’s rich and yummy-looking, strain the broth and discard the veggies (they’re “empty” by now) and the bones.

While that was going on, I made the dumplings.

To make the dumplings:

Mix together:

2.5 cups of BRM gluten-free flour
1 t baking soda
1 t salt

Cut in 5 T cold butter until crumbly texture. I use my fingertips to do this.
Pour in 1 cup cold milk , stirring lightly with a spoon after every 1/4 cup or so.

When it starts to hold together, press into a ball and roll out (this is my favorite tool for this), then cut into strips, about 1”x3” for dumplings.

Drop dumplings into boiling chicken stock and let cook covered about 5 minutes. Make sure no dumplings are sticking together, because they won’t cook all the way and that isn’t the best thing ever. Then add cooked chicken, stir, and let cook about 20 minutes.
Serve with salt and pepper.

How to make Kettle Corn on the Stove

1. In a large pot (mine is 3 quarts) over high heat, melt about 3 tablespoons of organic coconut oil and stir in 2-3 Tablespoons of sugar. When the sugar is mostly dissolved…
   
2. Throw in 1/3 to 1/2 cup of organic popping corn kernels. Cover immediately.
   
3. Let the kernels heat up a bit, shaking the pot a bit now and then. Once they begin popping, shake the pot continuously. It’s like a party all up in there.
   
4. After a few minutes, the popping will slow, and you can turn off the burner. If you keep shaking, sometimes a few more kernels will pop.
   
5. Toss the popcorn with some salt, and it’s ready to eat. Sweet and salty, still warm from the stove, kettle corn made at home is a tasty, easy, and inexpensive treat.
   

Lucky for you, I was paying attention. And lucky for me too, because I will definitely want to make this version again. And soon.

It worked perfectly. And the bread is delicious right out of the oven (well, I let it cool for a few minutes). It holds together well and it’s moist. I have some butter softening on the counter now, so I can spread some on a slice this evening. If there is a slice left. I think Anneliese has eaten 3 pieces on her own, and I’ve eaten several too. More than half is gone already.

You could add nuts or dried fruit or chocolate chips, or crumble topping or anything you want. I left mine “naked” so that I could share with Anneliese.

Get to the point, right?

Primal Pumpkin Bread

Ingredients:

• 1 cup almond butter (another nut butter can be substituted, but I used almond)
• 3 large eggs
• 1/3-1/2 cup pumpkin puree
• 4 Tbsp melted butter
• 1/4 cup honey
• Generous sprinkling of cinnamon
• Another generous sprinkling of pumpkin pie spice blend (or you could do your favorite combo/ratio of spices)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• butter for the loaf pan

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. In a stand mixer, or with a handheld electric mixer, combine all ingredients except for lemon juice.
3. Add lemon juice last and don’t overmix at that point.
4. Optional – at this point, fold in any dried fruit, nuts, chocolate, or other “add-ins” you would like.
5. Butter a medium loaf pan and pour the batter in.
6. Bake about 45 minutes or until the loaf passes the “toothpick test” (a toothpick inserted near the center will come out clean).
7. Let it cool for a few minutes, then slice and eat.

Lemony Potatoes

Ingredients

• red potatoes, quartered
• lemon juice – about one lemon per 6-8 small potatoes
• olive oil
• sea salt

Technique

1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Bring a pot of water to boil while you wash and cut the potatoes.
3. Throw the quartered potatoes in for about 7-10 minutes. Drain.
4. Put the potatoes back into the pot on low heat, and squeeze the lemon juice over them (I did this through the sieve to catch the seeds). Stir them around in the juice and let the juice mostly steam/evaporate away.
5. Pour in a bit of olive oil or other cooking fat (I really would’ve preferred to use bacon grease, but I don’t have any right now since I haven’t been feeling the bacon thing lately) and stir to coat the potatoes.
6. Pour the lemoned-oiled potatoes into a glass baking dish (or whatever) and sprinkle generously with sea salt.
7. Bake as long as you’d like, until the outsides are as crispy as you want them. I generally do at least half an hour. I think today was closer to 45 minutes. I like crispiness.
8. Eat. Yum.

And even if he doesn’t end up in the middle of nowhere surviving while waiting for someone to rescue him, he still has to have food on hand to eat on long (like 8 hour) missions while he’s strapped into the cockpit.

(this isn’t my picture, nor is it my husband. It’s from http://www.aircraft-wallpaper.com . But you get the idea. )

Even if he ate a good breakfast, he’s going to get hungry if he is in the plane for that long. And personally, the idea of him chowing down on CLIF bars just because they’re convenient makes me really want to gag. All they are is sugar and soy protein. Mmmm genetically modified phyto-estrogenic foods.

I’ve been wracking my brain trying to think of foods for him to take with him for mid-mission snacks and also for longer-term survival. Larabars were one of the first things to come to mind. They’re awesome – real food in delicious combinations. But they have a lot of sugar (from dates). They’re great for a snack, but I don’t know if I’d want him eating 3 a day, 4 days a week.

The coconut cream ones are a bit higher in fat – which is good of course – than the others. If he were going to eat just one, that one would likely be best. It helps that they’re delicious too.

Then there’s Tanka snacks. They’re made of buffalo meat and dried cranberries, along with spices. Also awesome (though I haven’t tasted these yet – they have great reviews) but low carb AND low fat. As a result of this, each bar is only 70 calories. Good calories, but that’s not something you can survive on, especially at $2.80 a bar.

So for longer-term survival (the dreaded “in case”), rather than just snacks while mid-mission, I found these pouches of salmon. They don’t require refrigeration and they (well the smoked salmon one) have a good amount of fat in them, which makes them higher calorie, and therefore higher energy.  So awesome. Expensive, but he won’t be eating these on every mission. These are the “worst case scenario” foods.

My genius idea today (I was SO excited when I thought of it) is a portable, delicious snack he can eat without looking and with one hand with zero mess (unlike the “make a sandwich out of two cookies and some peanut butter” idea he was given by some other pilots). Take a look at these stats too, and try to tell me this isn’t a GREAT, satisfying, balanced snack.

Perfect Paleo Power Pouches

Nutrition per serving:

Calories: 330

Protein: 10.5g

Carbs: 25g

Fat: 24g

Right??? Right???!?!?! One recipe took me about an hour and a half to make (you’ll see why), but it makes 30 power pouches, and the total cost is about $15, not including the packaging and spices.

You will need:

A foodsaver vacuum sealer thingy.

A roll of foodsaver plasticy stuff.

2 26oz. jars of almond butter. (These cost $6 each at Costco)

1 24oz bottle of honey (I got 3 bottles for $10ish at Costco)

A generous splash of vanilla extract. (I used my homemade vanilla)

Other stuff (optional) – cocoa powder, cinnamon, molasses, ginger, nutmeg

So here’s how you do it. Mix together (using the paddle mixer thingy) 2 jars of almond butter and almost 1 bottle of honey. You could really dump in the whole thing, but I had calculated the nutrition facts for this particular ratio.

When everything is blended together, drizzle in some vanilla extract to taste. Some sea salt would probably be awesome too, but I didn’t think of that until afterward.

Now, you’ll need to make a bunch of pouches. First, cut lengths of the foodsaver bag stuff about 5-6 inches long. Seal one of the long sides (the short sides are already sealed).

Then, mark the center with a sharpie (see my little tiny mark near the bottom?) and make 2 vertical seals, one on either side of the center. You’re making 2 pouches that can be cut apart since each one is individually sealed.

I did 3 tubes for the first one, but they were harder to fill, so the wider shape worked better.

Label them with permanent marker before filling. I did vanilla first.

Use a medium cookie scoop to fill the bags. I just did two blobs in each one, which turned out to make exactly the number of pouches I had planned on (30).

Vacuum/seal the top edge, trim the pouches and separate them by carefully cutting between your two center seals, and voila! You have perfect primal/paleo power pouches – tasty for a snack, convenient, not bulky, and full of good stuff.

When I finished packing up the vanilla batch, I divided the remaining mixture into two bowls. I added plenty of cocoa powder (to taste) to the first batch to make chocolate flavored power pouches – similar to Nutella, but without the vegetable oil aftertaste (yes, I said it).

To the last batch, I added lots of cinnamon, a sprinkle of ginger and some nutmeg, and about 2 tablespoons of molasses (this changes the nutrition information for this batch slightly of course). They have a spice-cookie taste I think is really nice. I couldn’t label them “gingerbread” though, because my husband doesn’t like gingerbread. WHAT?? I’ve been married to him for 4 years and just learned this, AFTER we made hundreds of gingerbread cookies together.

This should be enough for a little while, anyway!

One final (optional)step. You know all those packages of things you buy (dried apricots, cheese, whatever) that have the little notch in the plastic instructing you to “Tear here”? That. In the wider sealed edge (the one that was one of the originally sealed vertical edges in the plastic tube), snip a little diagonal 1/4” long cut.

(It’s just a slit, not a notch. I’m pulling it apart in this picture so you can see it though.)

My husband had to test whether the slit “Tear here” thing worked. And it did. And the perfect Paleo power pouches are husband-approved.

I feel pretty good knowing that I’m sending him “out there” with some really good sustenance. You know, not snacks that will cause him to grow man-boobs (see: soy) or get diabetes. But snacks with a great balance (when used together) of protein, carbs, and good fats. Not pictured are the Larabars, but don’t worry, he’s getting those coconut cream ones too.

I am still planning on trying my hand at making real pemmican (50% dried powdered beef, 50% rendered tallow is the basis… plus dried fruits, honey, seasonings – all optional), but the idea freaks him out a little, and I’m glad to know that he’ll have something really good in the meantime.

When I read this BlogHer post, I became obsessed with finding rice paper. Easier said than done… but finally I found a “hole in the wall” Asian grocery store, and they had them. So I happily carted them home, and filled them with chopped lettuce, cooked bacon, and thin slices of local heirloom tomatoes ($4 a pound but so worth it, and hardly any seeds/slime… just juicy flavorful goodness).

The vegetables are asparagus and some local wax beans I picked up at the farmer’s market in Hanford. To blanch, just bring water to boiling, throw in veggies (just a bit at a time or your water temp will drop too much), cook for a couple minutes until the color is bright, then plunge into ice water to stop the cooking. They’re not raw, but crunchy and crisp, and retain their freshness (seriously, if you wanted to freeze green veggies, this is how to do it so they don’t get nasty in the freezer – blanch first, then freeze).

We dipped everything into the homemade Ranch sauce, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves on this summer evening.

What FRESH dinners are you enjoying now? What are you looking forward to as summer goes on?

Peanut Chicken Recipe

Note: If you don’t want to use peanut butter, sub any nut or seed butter you like.

In a deep pie dish, combine:

• 6 Tbsp peanut butter
• 2 Tbsp honey
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 tsp ginger
• 2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 tsp salt

Whisk until combined and creamy. Add strips of chicken to marinate for at least 30 minutes. I used 2 large chicken breasts.

Bake in a foil-lined pan at 375 degrees for 20 minutes or until cooked through. Sprinkle with sesame seeds, and broil for a couple minutes until seeds are toasted.

Tangy Broccoli Recipe

Cut broccoli into florets and wash.

Meanwhile, heat 2 Tbsp olive oil and 2 Tbsp butter in a pan.

Throw the broccoli in and toss around until the broccoli is bright green. Cover the pan and steam until desired softness.

Sprinkle generously with soy sauce and lemon juice. Do not add salt – there is plenty in soy sauce!

Turn heat to low until you’re ready to eat it (within a few minutes, otherwise it’ll get soggy and no one likes soggy broccoli!)

TABASCO asked if I’d like to try out their Original Red hot sauce and develop a recipe for Superbowl parties. I love hot sauce, though I don’t eat it too often, so I jumped at the chance to use some creativity in the kitchen.

That said, I was a bit stumped about what to make at first. I’m loyal to another brand’s hot sauce when it comes to Buffalo chicken. And really, my favorite thing to use TABASCO sauce on is EGGS. And who serves EGGS at Superbowl parties?

Well, I took the idea of eggs, and ran from there. And came up with this awesome snack.

One of my favorite “bar foods” is potato skins. And while I think they’re fine to eat – all real ingredients – they’re not low-carb. Which means they’re likely to make me eat more than I’m actually hungry for, and make me hungrier and possibly bloated. Low-carb food doesn’t do that. So I made this high-protein version!

Loaded Fauxtato Skins

This recipe is for a small amount – 5 “skins”, because I didn’t want to make a ton while my husband is away for work. But this one is super-easy to double/triple/etc.

You will need:

• 2 eggs
• 1 Tbsp + 2 tsp coconut flour
• Cheddar cheese – about 1/3 a cup, shredded. Please grate your own rather than buying pre-shredded.
• Bacon, cooked and cut-up. For the love of bacon, please don’t buy “bacon bits.”
• Green onions, sliced, optional
• Full fat sour cream
• TABASCO® Original Red Hot Sauce

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a small bowl, combine the eggs and coconut flour until smooth. If you’d like an extra-zingy version, also add some Tabasco sauce to the mixture. Let sit for a few minutes while your oven preheats and you get your baking sheet ready (line with parchment). Then stir again. (Coconut flour usually needs a few minutes to “absorb” completely.)

Drop spoonsful of the egg mixture onto the parchment-lined baking sheet. Jiggle your baking sheet back and forth in one direction so that the lumps morph into oval-shapes. Pop in the oven and cook for about 7 minutes. These are the “skins.”

Meanwhile, mix some sour cream with Tabasco Original Red hot sauce, to your taste. This is where the dish gets its flair.

When they’re finished cooking, flip your fauxtato skins over so the flat side is up, and top with cheese and bacon. Pop in the oven for a few more minutes to melt the cheese.

Remove and sprinkle with green onions.

Serve with the Red hot sour cream for dipping.

The folks at TABASCO also have other ideas for your Game-Day Party Menu , in case you’re interested.

Preheat the oven to 300ish degrees Fahrenheit.

Take some bacon and cut slices into 4 pieces each, width-wise.

Before wrapping each pitted date, give the bacon a little stretch, to make it a little longer. Then wrap and secure with a toothpick.

Bake on a foil-lined sheet 20 minutes, then flip them all over and bake the other side until everything is crispy.

If you bring these to a party or have them at a gathering you’re hosting, people might be afraid of them because they look a bit like crispy beetles or something. LET THEM be afraid! They’re so good you won’t want to share anyway.

PS I think they would be really tasty with a morsel of feta cheese stuffed inside too, for a bit of zing. But I haven’t tried it so if you do let me know how it goes!