Tag Archives: diet

Chicken Marbella

19 Feb


Chicken Marbella is a dish first introduced in The Silver Palate Cookbook in 1982. Its unique combination of prunes, capers, and green olives quickly captured the hearts of home chefs and remains a family favorite in many households throughout the United States today. So when a friend requested that I make an adaptation of the recipe, I was happy to give it a shot and see what I could do.

And truth be told, I didn’t make many changes from the original recipe, because it’s already delicious and uses whole ingredients. However, I only used dark meat (instead of a quartered whole bird) to make sure all of the pieces cooked evenly. I also made some minor ingredient changes, like adding half an onion and using a butter and honey glaze instead of a brown sugar coating typically used in this recipe. Altogether, it all adds up to a slightly magical experience: a gourmet-tasting dish that’s dead simple to make!

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Attukal Paya (Lamb’s Feet Soup)

8 Jan


Attukal Paya (sometimes spelled as Aattukaal Paya or just Paya) is a hearty soup made with lamb, sheep, or goat feet served in South India. What fascinates me about this dish is that it’s often served for breakfast – initially this sounded strange to me, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense; why not start your day out with some nutritious bone broth soup?

I also love the idea of throwing together a bunch of ingredients at night and waking up to breakfast already made!

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Sausage and Sauerkraut

3 Jan


To start off the New Year, I’ll be posting only Whole30-compliant recipes this month. What is the Whole30 Program? It’s very similar to what I eat already, but with a few more restrictions: no dairy (except ghee), no white potatoes, no rice, no alcohol, no sugars or sweeteners of any kind. It’s a great way to jump headfirst into an ancestral diet (although easing into a Paleo diet is just fine, too) and see some dramatic changes in your health.

For my first January recipe I wanted to share one of my go-to comfort foods: sausage and sauerkraut. It can be whipped up in less than 30 minutes and always hits the spot! Sauerkraut is a superfood thanks to its healthy bacteria; Genghis Kahn took it with him as he conquered Eurasia, and Germans brought it with them on ships as they traveled to America, in order to fight off disease. Admittedly, many of its healthy bacteria are destroyed in the cooking process of this dish, but don’t let it deter you from chowing down on this tasty recipe! When shopping for sauerkraut, be sure to buy some that only has water, salt and cabbage as its ingredients. You can always make it yourself, too; it’s one of the easiest pickling endeavors you could undertake.

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Perfect Health Diet (Signed Copy) Giveaway!

11 Dec

UPDATE: Congratulations to Heather M., who won the giveaway!

Today I’m taking a break from my regularly scheduled recipe to host another giveaway. I feel like Father Christmas – two giveaways in one month! Don’t worry though, I will still be posting a recipe this week (on Thursday). And it’s a doozy.

The new edition of Perfect Health Diet comes out today, and I’m proud to say that I’m teaming up with Paul and Shou-Ching Jaminet to host a giveaway: a signed copy of their new book! The Perfect Health Diet is the template I use to guide my own dietary habits, and it’s quite a coincidence that this book is coming out on the same week as my two-year anniversary of switching my own diet.

The Perfect Health Diet is a simple and thoughtful approach to eating, which could probably be summed up as 3/4 vegetables and safe starches, and 1/4 meats, with healthy fats and acids to taste. The diet avoids the same foods as a Paleo diet (cereal grains, legumes, added sugar, grain-derived oils) with the exception of white rice, which is considered a safe starch.

Here’s how to enter the giveaway (first one is required, second is optional):

1. Sign up for the Perfect Health Diet RSS feed and leave a comment on this post letting me know you did it. If you don’t use RSS feeds, you can “like” the PHD FB page or follow Paul on Twitter instead.
2. Sign up for my newsletter (on the right sidebar of this page) and leave a comment on this post letting me know you did it.

If you do both options, I’ll give you two entries into the giveaway! You can tell me which options you did in one comment to save time. The giveaway ends midnight Saturday, December 15th (EST), and I will select a winner using a random number generator on Sunday. Good luck!

Giveaway not restricted to US residents – international entrants are welcome!
Giveaway graphic by Alex Boake Illustration.

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Brazilian Cheese Buns (Pão de Queijo)

30 Oct


Pão de Queijo is a traditional cheese bun popular in South America, most especially in Brazil. The dish has been around since the 17th century, and was made with just tapioca starch and water before the widespread domestication of cattle in Brazil in the 1800s. Today, it’s a popular breakfast food and can be found in most bakeries in Brazil.

Cheese buns are some of our favorite non-bread breads to make. They’re dead simple – mostly tapioca starch and hard cheese – and are a great complement to many meals (not just breakfast). We first discovered them in our pre-Paleo days at a Fogo de Chao Brazilian steakhouse. Later we started making them using pre-packaged Chebe brand dry mixes, until we found out that the Jaminets over at Perfect Health Diet had posted a recipe of their own. My recipe is very close to theirs, the only main difference being that I use a combination of cream and water instead of milk (there’s nothing wrong with making it with milk, but I have an easier time digesting cream than milk). I’ve also adjusted the portion sizes so that our recipe only makes 15-20 cheese balls – otherwise, that’s all we would be eating at every meal!

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Mimi’s Sticky Chicken

28 Aug


One of my readers recently turned me onto a dish called “Mimi’s Sticky Chicken“, and I was immediately intrigued by its foolproof technique and the mid-1990s feel of Mimi’s website. So I gave it a try, and I liked the recipe enough to share.

This recipe is unique in that it only needs one dish (I used a cast iron skillet), and it uses a relatively low cooking temperature of 250 degrees. Sure, it takes four to five hours to cook the bird, but it’s worth the wait.

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Easing into a Paleo Diet

26 Aug

A couple months ago I wrote a guest post talking about easy ways to incorporate healthy eating into your life, and I decided to revise it a bit and put it up here on the site for posterity’s sake.

It is no secret that I follow a mostly Paleo-minded way of eating and cooking (more specifically, a model based on the Perfect Health Diet). And while the Paleo diet is a lot of fun and a great template to eat from, it’s a pretty drastic change from your standard, everyday Western fare. Switching to a Paleo way of eating is a major adjustment, and one that many people aren’t willing to jump into headfirst. And I get that. So I wrote up a few steps that anyone can take that aren’t drastic, or terribly inconvenient, but are big steps towards eating better. Think of this as the first steps in easing into an ancestral diet at your own pace.

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Russian Cabbage Rolls (Голубцы)

12 Jun


Cabbage rolls are found all over Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. They are staple dishes in Croatia, Poland, Ukraine, Russia, and Sweden; in Russia, they’re called голубцы (golubtsy) and make regular dinnertime appearances in most homes.

There is some controversy over the origin of the dish. One common theory is based on its name, which could be linked to the word Russian word for pigeons (голуби). Russian cuisine and culture was heavily influenced by the French in the 17th and 18th centuries, and these stuffed cabbage rolls could be an attempt to recreate roasted pigeons, a popular French dish at the time.

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Venezuelan Corn Cakes (Arepas)

5 Jun


Let’s talk about corn a little bit. Although it’s a grain, it is considered moderately safe depending on individual tolerance, so this year our family has decided to try and re-introduce it into our diet. We don’t plan on eating corn that often (heck, I mentioned that I was going to eat corn six months ago and I’m just now getting around to it), but we like the idea of adding a little variety to our eating habits. Mainly, we plan on eating it in the form of tortillas, popcorn, and these little pieces of heaven you see in this recipe: arepas.

Arepas are corn cakes that are popular in Venezuela, Colombia, and other parts of Latin and South America. They couldn’t be simpler to make – ground corn, water, and salt – but they bring a unique texture to other foods. Something about the crispy outside and slightly-mushy inside make them the perfect little sandwich pockets. It’s hard to describe, but they have a density and feel not unlike buttermilk biscuits, but a little grittier.

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Kalbi, Illustrated by Alex Boake

1 Feb

Yesterday I posted my own recipe for one of Alex Boake’s awesome illustrations. I was really happy with the results.

Additionally, I’ve got a little secret: in writing up one of her creations, I secretly coerced her into making an illustration of one of my recipes. She decided to take on my kalbi recipe, and her piece is probably the coolest thing on the entire internet right now. Head over to her blog to check out her post about my recipe.

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