paleo takeout

Moo Goo Gai Pan

I’m out of town for work this week and next, slumming it in Spain, Sicily, and Italy! If you’re interested, you can follow some of my adventures via Instagram. In order to keep my “new recipes every Tuesday” theme going (something I’ve proudly maintained since 2011), I’m sharing a favorite from my second cookbook, Paleo Takeout.

Here’s what I wrote in the book about this dish:

Moo Goo Gai Pan (蘑菇雞片) is an Americanized version of a Cantonese stir-fried chicken and mushroom dish, which translates literally (“Moo Goo” = button mushrooms, “Gai” = chicken, and “Pan” = slices). I like this recipe because it’s a cinch to put together and has a light, refreshing body to it. Feel free to experiment with adding more vegetables. How about a bit of cabbage or some bamboo shoots?

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The Paleo Takeout Costco Survival Guide (and a Giveaway)

Costco has always been one of my favorite stores, for various reasons, over the years. As a child, I loved it because of the free samples they would give out (I’ve always been obsessed with food, especially the free kind). As a young adult, I liked perusing their gadgets and, ahem, cheap alcohol. Today, I like that they have become increasingly quality-conscious when it comes to food items; in many remote cities, Costco carries the freshest, highest quality ingredients around. It’s slowly become a legitimate, viable option for families looking to improve their health through diet.

I was ecstatic to learn that every Costco in the United States is currently carrying my cookbook, Paleo Takeout. So much so that I’ve written up this guide to how to make the process of cooking through my book even easier (and more affordable).

Before we get to the guide, let’s talk about a giveaway I’m running right now: I’m giving away a $25 gift card to eight different readers. There are two cool things about these Costco gift cards (they call them “cash cards”): $25 covers the price of Paleo Takeout if you don’t have it yet, and you don’t need to be a Costco member to use the card! To enter, click here and fill out the Rafflecopter form. Giveaway limited to US residents, and will end at midnight EST on August 6th, 2015. Good luck!

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Bam Bam Shrimp

At long last, Paleo Takeout has arrived! To celebrate, I’d like to share one of my favorite recipes from the book. This “Bam Bam Shrimp” recipe is inspired by a certain shrimp dish found in a couple different chain restaurants across the United States.

One cool fact – when coming up with a title for the recipe (one that reminded readers of the original dish without infringing any copyright!), I was stumped. So I posed the question to the Paleo Takeout Facebook group and after a lot of great feedback, we decided on the term “Bam Bam Shrimp”, since it got the point across and had a bit of a Paleolithic (in other words, Flinstones) feel to it. Other frontrunners included Bazinga Shrimp, Dynamite Shrimp, and Whiz Bang Shrimp.

I want to take a second and thank everyone for your continued support, enthusiasm, and readership. Paleo Takeout began as a whim, then an eBook, and now it’s finally here as a full-scale print book, and easily the most challenging (and rewarding) project I’ve ever undertaken. The book is now available online and in stores, wherever books are sold. If you’re an international reader, please note that Book Depository ships worldwide for free.

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The Whole30 and AIP guide to Paleo Takeout

Although my recipes principally follow a gluten-free, Paleo, Primal, and Perfect Health Diet framework, I often get requests to adapt my recipes for Whole30 and the Autoimmune Protocol (AIP). These two eating styles in particular are further restrictive in that the former is intended to reset your eating habits, while the latter is designed to heal and reverse autoimmune symptoms.

I’m familiar enough with both eating parameters that I was able to go through every recipe in Paleo Takeout and make individual adjustments to comply with those requirements while still preserving the spirit of each recipe. So if you’re trying out a Whole30 or healing from autoimmunity, feel free to use this guide as a means to enjoy my book. I’m very proud of this guide, as it took me nearly a month to compile everything, and I was able to retain 94% of the recipes for Whole30 and 80% for AIP, which is pretty awesome. Plus this is definitely my longest post ever, over 7,000 words! Substitutions are referenced in order of appearance in the recipe.

Other helpful links:


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Twice-Cooked Pork

Things are really moving with my next cookbook, Paleo Takeout: Restaurant Favorites without the Junk. For starters, the book finished printing last week, and my publisher overnighted a copy to me so I could be one of the first to check it out. I’m very happy with the finished product, and I think you’ll love it too! I’m in the middle of scheduling a summer book tour, and I’ll be sure to share the dates as soon as I have everything arranged – if you haven’t already, be sure to sign up for my brand new newsletter, where I’ll be sharing news and recipes in one convenient little email package.

For this week’s recipe, I wanted to highlight some of the techniques and ingredients that you’ll find in the book, to set the stage for when it releases on June 23rd. This Twice-Cooked Pork dish uses a technique common to Chinese-American takeout restaurants called velveting, where lean meat is thinly sliced, marinated in a starch mixture, then blanched and drained before being added to a stir-fry. Have you ever had some Beef & Broccoli with steak pieces that are super soft and tender? That’s velveting at work.

While this method isn’t absolutely required for any of the recipes for the book, it’s a fun technique that really adds a tasty dynamic to your Asian-inspired dishes. I also tend to start my velveted meat as the first part of the cooking process, so that I can chop my veggies and prepare my stir-fry sauce while the meat is tenderizing – the timing tends to flow naturally that way.

In terms of ingredients, I used this recipe in particular to highlight rice cooking wine (sometimes labeled as Chinese cooking wine or just rice wine) and Sichuan chili peppers (those are the whole dried peppers you’ll find in dishes like General Tso’s Chicken), since both are commonly used in Chinese-American dishes. Similarly, arrowroot starch is commonly used in Paleo Takeout to create a thickening slurry; both potato starch and tapioca starch can be used in a pinch, but I’ve found that arrowroot best mimics the thickening properties of cornstarch.

For a full list of uncommon pantry ingredients that are found in Paleo Takeout, be sure to check out my online shopping guide that lists the ingredients plus how often they appear in the book. Additionally, I’ve set up a similar guide for tools that I used in writing the book.

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Paleo Takeout Recipe List

Folks, I have some great news for you – Paleo Takeout was sent to the printer last night! In celebration, I’m totally going to buck a few trends here. Instead of teasing you with snippets of the book, only showing off the very best dishes, I’m just going to let you see the whole shebang right now! This is the actual visual index taken straight from the book. I’m confident that once you see this full recipe list, complete with the picture for each recipe, you’re going to flip a lid.

Bear in mind that many of these recipes have variations and sub-recipes listed for them. For example, the combination of techniques, rubs, and sauces for the wings yields 20 different experiences! Similarly, there are 8 different types of ramen in this book. All told, there are over 200 recipes in Paleo Takeout – how awesome is that? Read on to see everything that is included in the book when it releases on June 23rd.

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