Recipes

Maiana's Sourdough Bread, adapted

This is how I currently make sourdough bread, constantly evolving and now including new steps from Maiana's recipe.

750g flour (Maiana uses 100% white spelt, and it's awesome; I use ~200g whole spelt, and 550g either white spelt or white bread flour (the former has slightly better flavor, the latter has slightly better rise, and both are great). You can also use all white bread flour, which might need a tiny bit more water to make a dough that isn't too stiff)

Poached Salmon

This is an easy way to prepare salmon, and it’s good hot or cold, especially with a pile of seasoned sushi rice.
2 lbs. Salmon
1 T. salt
Put salmon and salt into a 4-quart saucepan. Cover with filtered water by one inch, cover the pot, and bring just to a boil. Turn off the heat and let sit for nine minutes.
Meanwhile, combine the marinade ingredients:
1 T. tamari/soy sauce
2 T. toasted sesame oil
1 tsp. Minced fresh ginger
1 clove garlic, pressed or minced.

Honey Lime Chicken

This fabulous recipe is from Megan over at Eatbeautiful.net, one of my favorite recipe-creators of all time.

Sauce:
3 T. honey
1.5 T. lime juice
1.5 T. soy saucepan
1/4 tsp. Salt

1 lb. Chicken thighs, boneless and skinless
1 T. avocado oil
¼ tsp. each dried ginger, ground cumin, ground black pepper, onion powder, garlic powder/granules

4 oz. Sliced mushrooms
Other thinly sliced vegetables, if you wish (no more than about a cup or so)

Combined sauce ingredients in a small cup.

Simply Perfect Beef Stew

1 tbsp. Fat or ghee
2 pounds beef stew cubes
2 tsp. Salt

¼ onion, diced
1 stick celery, diced
1 carrot, diced (optional)
1-2 leaves cabbage, chopped
2 bay leaves

½ cup marsala wine (dry)
water to cover
2 white potatoes, peeled and diced (or use leftover cooked rice)

Balsamic Marinated Steak

This is a super delicious marinade, and will tenderize the steak as it sits in the fridge; best not to let it sit longer than eight hours so the meat doesn’t get mushy.

2 tbsp. Balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce (optional)
2 tbsp. Soy saucepan
2 tbsp. Avocado or olive oil
2 tsp. Dijon mustard
1 tsp. Honey
2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
½ tsp. Black pepper
½ tsp. Dried rosemary
1 lb. Steak

Poached Chicken with Garlic

Poaching simply means to cook in a large quantity of liquid. The trick is to make sure that liquid is extremely flavorful, and to include enough salt; then you can serve the finished dish with noodles or rice to sop up the deliciousness. This is simple, yet tastes like something you'd order at a Chinese Restaurant.

4-5 pounds chicken parts (use skinless and boneless if you prefer, but bones and skin will add flavor)
6 whole garlic cloves, unpeeled
4 tsp. salt
6 cups water

Simple and Delicious Meatloaf

2 lbs. ground meat
3 egg whites
1 onion, diced
½-1 cup shredded green cabbage
2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground pepper
¼ c. dijon or other prepared mustard
2 c. breadcrumbs (can whirl some stale bread in the blender)

Preheat the oven to 375f. Grease a 9x13” pan if you like a thin meatloaf, or a more square/deep pan if you want leftovers shaped for sandwiches.

Mix together all ingredients so that everything is completely mixed; use your hands if you need to, or a big wooden spoon.

Super Easy and Also Delicious Sourdough Bread

We haven't eaten wheat in ten years...but that hasn't stopped me from wishing! And my latest goal is to someday soon heal our guts enough to be able to consume gluten-containing grains. Turns out that this week...is not the week we are ready. But the bread I made was very easy and delicious, with great texture and rise. I recommend weighing the ingredients when indicated, because the volume measurements are approximate. The process takes 24 hours.

Fantastic Cassava Banana-Blueberry Muffins (no added sweetener)

This is an amazing recipe: https://eatbeautiful.net/2018/07/25/paleo-blueberry-banana-muffins/ . The only changes I made here were in order to eliminate the added sweetener. The texture is wonderful, and it's like banana bread except the muffins get cooked all the way through! No goopy centers, and big bursts of blueberry flavor. :) Sooooo delicious with butter or ghee.

Pan-Roasted Sweet Potatoes

This is a super straightforward but surprisingly tasty way to cook sweet potatoes. They caramelize and cook down a little, and so there are some crusty bits that form deliciously along the way, yielding a side dish that is not quite mashed, but soft and sweet enough for decadence. :)

3 large sweet potatoes, of any type, peeled and cut into uniform chunks approximately 3/4-inch square.
4-6 tbsp. ghee
salt and pepper to taste

Heat the ghee in a heavy-bottomed saucepan with a lid, over medium heat; add the sweet potatoes and salt and pepper, and toss to coat.

Delectable Dolmas (Stuffed Grape Leaves)

This is not a recipe to provide complete instruction on the Middle Eastern art of creating amazing Dolmas; instead, this is How To Make A Delicious and Wonderful Filling for about 150 grapeleaves. Cookbook Google can provide you with instructions for rolling the dolmas - I will just add to the great information online that you can use tender, young, wild grape leaves without blanching them first!

2 onions, diced small
2 tbsp. salt
1/4-1/2 cup olive oil

Sauté gently for about ten minutes. Add:

Our Best Liver Pate Recipe

Liver is so super healthy, and I'm always trying to find sources that are good-quality. We usually eat it once per week as prepared in this recipe, with plantain chips to dip, and maybe some good goat cheese and raw veggies on the side. I'm really pleased with this recipe (thanks to Kristen for the seasoning details! It tastes a little like liverwurst, which is more popular with more members of our family than previous recipes), especially because it is SO much simpler than other techniques, and quite delicious.

Quantities of ingredients may be adapted to taste.

Delectable Solar Oven Peach Cobbler

This came out much better than I thought it would - the peaches kept their shape, the "gravy" was neither too thick nor too thin, the peaches didn't require peeling nor sweetener, and this recipe made delicious and generous servings for six people. The cobbler can be cooked in a regular oven, but you'd have to adjust the temperature and timing - maybe 350f would work, but don't cook it nearly as long (maybe 45 mins), and be careful not to let the bottom scorch. You probably wouldn't need to cover the pan in a regular oven, either.

Beautiful, Tender, Fluffy Paleo Panckes

Green banana alone is too dry; cassava flour alone is too goopy. Together, they make a delicious, awesome pancake that is easy to mix up, holds together great, and yields a truly fluffy, delicious breakfast/lunch/dinner. If the mixture thickens up too much while you're cooking the first couple of batches, just stir in a bit more water.

Makes enough pancakes for six hungry eaters.

Super Easy, Inauthentic, But Delicious Thai Curry

After testing innumerable complicated, three-hour-prep-time, requiring-of-many-obscure-ingredients Thai Curry recipes, I decided to make up my own. And if I do say so myself, this is a very versatile technique more than a recipe, and many substitutions can be made if you wish (you can use chicken instead of fish, broccoli is delicious, but you can use another vegetable - etc.). And, it tastes really good, even without fussy sauteeing or parboiling, etc.

Super Delicious, Light and Airy Gluten-Free Sourdough Drop Biscuits

I honestly didn't think these could be possible - light and airy, not gummy, no gums, with just a delicate, crunchy bottom crust. Plus, they're fermented! This is pretty much everything I was hoping for in a biscuit.

Start these the night before if you want to eat them for breakfast.

Makes 12 2.5-inch biscuits

170 g. (1 c.) white rice flour
28 g. (1/4 c.) tapioca starch
33g. (1/4 c.) potato starch
3/4 tsp. salt

Gluten-free Sourdough Egg Bread

When you google special-diet recipes, you realize that everybody's got different requirements. ("Hmmm...that fried chicken IS gluten-free, but it's definitely not vegetarian! Gotta get those search terms straight...") And googling Special Diets is what forces you become a Recipe Developer instead of merely a connoisseur.

Perfect Pear Pancakes (Gluten-Free)

Make enough for 4-5 hungry people

This is the easiest way to use up leftover gluten-free sourdough starter! Just feed the starter (and measure, to make sure you'll have the right amount in the morning) so that it's very thick (and for even better texture, make the last feeding tapioca flour, white rice flour, sweet rice flour, and/or other gluten-free flours - the starter doesn't like this for regular use, but if it's the final feeding-before-it-gets-eaten, it works just fine).