Elk and goat piri piri meatloaf

I've been wanting a meatloaf for some time, and for some reason just never got around to making one.   This came together really well. 

Serves 6 meals with sides.  

Ingredients:

• 1 pound ground elk meat
• 1 pound ground goat meat
• 2 small chicken eggs
• 1/2 cup gluten free bread crumbs
• Piri piri spice to taste
• Toasted onion 2 tablespoons
• Turmeric 2 tablespoons
• Medium yellow curry 2 tablespoons
• 1/2 cup shredded or chopped goats milk sharp cheddar cheese

Instructions:

• Combine all ingredients except cheese in bowl. 
• Form a 'bowl' with roughly 3/4 of the meat
• Full bowl with the cheese
• Cover the cheese with remaining meat and blend top and bowl seamlessly
• Bake in oven at 425 for 1 hour
• Serve and enjoy

Vietnamese style cabbage salad with smokey pork

Had this great salad at a local Vietnamese Pho place and wanted to replicate it at home.  Warning I have not read the recipe anywhere so am solely working by taste and look and working with ingredients that as closely resemble the tastes that I could find that may come from other cultures.

Ingredients:

• Thinly sliced Mechaalany pickled wild cucumbers
• Shredded Red cabbage 
• Shredded Lettuce
• Shredded carrots
• 1 lb pork loin sliced thinly
• Smokey BBQ rub (http://drummingupabettermeal.blogspot.com/2015/07/bbq-spice-blends-i-love.html)
• 3 tablespoons Fish sauce
• 3 tablespoons Mirin
• 2 tablespoons Ume plum vinegar
• 1 tablespoon Madras curry
• 1 teaspoon Market lime powder
• 1 traspoon Lemon peel powder
• Splash of balsamic vinegar
• 2 tablespoons Black Currant Syrup
• 2 tablespoons coconut or grape seed oil

Instructions:

• Combine the shredded cabbages, carrots, and pickles into a bowl
• Combine the Fish sauce, mirin, vinegars, curry, and lime an lemon peel powders in a small container and pour over the bowl of cabbage
• Remove excess liquid and place in small bowl after letting sit for 10 minutes tossing occasionally
• Combine the Smokey BBQ Rub and the pork loin slices in a bowl and toss; coating well
• Heat up a pan (I prefer a metal pan for this) with coconut or grape seed oil until hot, and toss in the pork.  
• Cook the pork on high stirring occasionally to ensure not sticking to pan and to try and ensure that the pork is crusting equally.   This does not have to be perfect, but a good effort
• Take out pork leaving any leftover oil and place in small bowl to cool for a minute
• Add the excess liquid from the salad the black current syrup to the pan and reduce for 3 minutes on high or until nice and thick/syrupy.
• Combine meat into salad and then pour over the syrup and toss salad
• Serve and Enjoy.

The taste profile of this dish is that of Korean smoky BBQ mixed with a freshness and lightness of a  Vietnamese cabbage salad.

Piri piri zucchini and patti pan squash

Time of year for fresh squashes from the local farmers.  Here's another way to enjoy them.

Ingredients:

• 1 patti pan squash diced roughly
• 1 zucchini diced roughly
• 1 1/2 cup coconut milk
• 2 teaspoons coconut flour
• 1 teaspoon ghee
• Piri piri spice to flavor
• Lemon peel powder to flavor
• Four corner salt and pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup of rice, teff, quinoa, noodles, or zoodles.

Instructions:

• Melt ghee
• Add the coconut flour and cook the flour on medium for 1-2 minutes to brown. 
• Add coconut milk and spices and cook for 5 minutes on medium while stirring occasionally.  Sauce should start thickening at this point. 
• Add squashes and cook for 5 min on high.  
• Pour over rice, teff, quinoa, noodles, or zoodles. If you choose zoodles (zucchini noodles), then replace zucchini in main recipe with another squash or additional patti pan. 

Serves two people.

homemade Spicy Banana Pepper Mild Hot sauce

This is a simple pepper sauce and relish I make once the farmers markets start rolling out the spicier peppers.

This blend is a mild for me and I use it in a variety of applications from mild Chili's, stews, scrambled eggs, as a relish on a burger or sausage, and even in small quantities in dressings.  

As a note for some folks not used to eating a lot of Caribbean dishes, or the spicier middle eastern or Asian dishes:  This sauce could be considered a spicy hot sauce, all depending on how spicy the peppers were. 

Banana peppers like jalapeño can range from a very mild to a damn what did I just eat depending on variety.  I did want to add this warning in here, because people who frequently love ghost, habanero, and other peppers higher up on the scale take these peppers for granted and they can sneak up on you.   Also the flavor is completely different (much sweeter), and it's usage in meals needs to be balanced out.

Ingredients:

• 8 Spicy Banana Peppers
• toasted onion flakes
• Head of Elephant Garlic
• white vinegar

Instructions:

• Clean the peppers of seeds and the ribs and place in blender of choice.   I use my Ninja juice blender for this.
• Clean the head of elephant garlic and add to pepper
• Put in two handfuls roughly of toasted onion flakes  (to flavor)
• Put in white vinegar to liquid fill line if using a blender, or to cover if using a food processor
• Blend/process until it looks like a relish.  Usually less then a minute depending on machine.

Packaging:

• So I save up bottles that have re-closable lids for this for my home use.   Make sure they are clean.  
• I typically like an 8 or 16 oz bottle.   This can be potent stuff for most people and I personally do not try and keep a batch longer then 6 months.   With the vinegar it may be theoretically last longer, but I like making fresh every year, and I save some peppers in freezer for a batch off season.
• What I like to do so that it's not too watery is to use a fine mesh sieve and separate the vinegar and the 'pulp'
• Pulp goes in a small 8 oz or 16 oz container.   This will look like a fine relish.  Pack well and then cover with some of the vinegar.
• The vinegar with all the awesome heat and flavor I save in a jar appropriate to amount 32oz typically.  I can use this vinegar for a wide variety of applications including salad dressings.  Not as spicy as the pulp but great flavor.

Homemade Habanero Hot Pepper Sauce

This is a simple pepper sauce and relish I make once the farmers markets start rolling out the spicier peppers.

Todays blend is roughly a medium for me and I use it in a variety of applications from mild Chili's, stews, scrambled eggs, as a relish on a burger or sausage, and even in small quantities in dressings.

Ingredients:

• 8 Habanero's
• 8 Jalapeño's
• toasted onion flakes
• Head of Elephant Garlic
• white vinegar

Instructions:

• Clean the peppers of seeds and the ribs and place in blender of choice.   I use my Ninja juice blender for this.
• Clean the head of elephant garlic and add to pepper
• Put in two handfuls roughly of toasted onion flakes  (to flavor)
• Put in white vinegar to liquid fill line if using a blender, or to cover if using a food processor
• Blend/process until it looks like a relish.  Usually less then a minute depending on machine.

Packaging:

• So I save up bottles that have re-closable lids for this for my home use.   Make sure they are clean.  
• I typically like an 8 or 16 oz bottle.   This can be potent stuff for most people and I personally do not try and keep a batch longer then 6 months.   With the vinegar it may be theoretically last longer, but I like making fresh every year, and I save some peppers in freezer for a batch off season.
• What I like to do so that it's not too watery is to use a fine mesh sieve and separate the vinegar and the 'pulp'
• Pulp goes in a small 8 oz or 16 oz container.   This will look like a fine relish.  Pack well and then cover with some of the vinegar.
• The vinegar with all the awesome heat and flavor I save in a jar appropriate to amount 32oz typically.  I can use this vinegar for a wide variety of applications including salad dressings.  Not as spicy as the pulp but great flavor.

Ghost curry chicken thighs with roasted garlic and turmeric naan:

Originally posted by me in GlutenFreeFoodandRecipes Facebook group on July 26, 2014

 

 

I posted my basic paleo style naan recipe. So take that basic almond, tapioca starch and coconut recipe and add powdered roasted garlic and turmeric spices mix well. 

Ingredients:

• 1 boneless/skinless chicken thigh
• 2 small shallots
• Ghost curry spice mix
• Turmeric
• Charnushka
• 2 teaspoons of cashew meal
• Roughly 2 cups coconut milk
• 2 tablespoons of coconut oil

 
Instructions:

• Chop chicken thigh meat in small cubes and mix with curry, turmeric and charnushka until the cubes are coated and dry
• Chop the shallots loosely and toss into a pan with coconut oil at med to med high for roughly 2 minutes until they start getting soft.
• Add in coated chicken cook roughly 5 min.
• Add coconut milk and cook another 2-3 minutes.
• Add the cashew meal and cook until the sauce gets thickened.

Serve in bowl and eat with pieces of naan.
Could add a cup of rice to turn into a two person meal. If for two double the chicken and naan.

Dirty rice

Originally posted by me in GlutenFreeFoodandRecipes Facebook group on July 24, 2014

Ingredients:

• 3 leeks diced
• 1small fennel diced
• 1 leftover cooked chicken breast diced
• Ghost curry and salt to taste
• Roughly 1 cup of coconut milk
• 1 cup leftover rice
• 1/2 cup frozen corn

instructions:

• Place leeks and fennel in pan with 2 tablespoons coconut oil
• Season with ghost curry and salt
• Cook until leeks and fennel start getting translucent. Roughly 5 minutes.
• Add in diced chicken, rice and corn.
• Cook 1 additional minute.
• Add the coconut milk and cook until it's all absorbed

Substitutions:

• Make vegetarian by removing any meat products
• Any left over meat, and any veggie that you liked cooked can be subbed in to add variety to this simple meal.

Spicy unfiltered apple cider vinegar

I make this every so often.   This vinegar I use for a number of things, but one of the best uses is for flavoring meals that require a spicy vinegar.

Ingredients:

• Braggs unfiltered/raw Apple Cider Vinegar
• 2 whole Ghost Peppers
• 1 small horse radish root (roughly hand sized)
• 1 piece of fresh ginger root (roughly hand sized)
• 1 piece of fresh turmeric root (roughly hand sized)

Instructions:

• Take out out 1/4 of the vinegar from the bottle, try and place as many of the ingredients as whole as possible in the bottle.   Replace vinegar until full.  Place any leftover into another closable bottle for use.
• Let sit for a few months (as much as 6 if you can wait).
• Remove the ingredients from the vinegar, should now have some good flavor and kick.

Some people believe that this is a good vinegar to add to teas to assist with removing colds.  I keep it around for that for more personal use but use it for many recipes for additional flavor kick when Apple Cider Vinegar is called for.