paleo

Check out my Amazon.com Store

It’s probably pretty hard to track all of the food-related recommendations I make on my site, so I set up an Amazon.com store that you can use to easily peruse my favorite cookware, gadgets, ingredients, and cookbooks. I’ll be updating it as time goes on, so be sure to check back often – I made a handy little link to the store on the right-hand side of the site.

Keep in mind that while I totally recommend all of the products in my store, you may find better prices for many of the items locally (especially the food items). The cookware, gadgets, and books are priced pretty competitively though.

Good luck and happy shopping!

Turkey Gravy

Creating a turkey gravy is pretty easy. Essentially, you just use all the stuff that comes from cooking a turkey. The only real trick is get the taste right. Luckily, you’ve got me to figure that part out for you.

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Grill-Roasted Turkey

Note: I’ve tweaked this recipe over the years, and HERE is my definitive method/recipe.

For Thanksgiving this year I tried my hand at roasting a turkey on the grill. The resulting bird was crispy on the outside and juicy and tender on the inside, and only took a few minutes longer than roasting it in the oven. Also, adding woods chips imparts an authentic smokey flavor that really made the turkey stand out on the Thanksgiving table. Lastly, it frees up the oven for other endeavors!

Also, when grilling a turkey (or roasting it in the oven, for that matter), you want to use a v-rack (often called a roasting rack). We just started using one recently and it’s amazing how evenly it cooks the bird, since it allows air to circulate around the entire turkey. Depending on how your grill plates run, though, the v-rack may fall through the plates; to prevent this, put the v-rack on a grill pan.

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Moules à la Marinière (Mussels in Wine Sauce)

Here in the United States, mussels have a bad reputation as being a “lesser” shellfish. I happen to disagree. True, they may have a less intense flavor than clams or oysters, and they sure like to turn into a rubbery / chewy mess with a quickness, but with the right amount of care you can make something remarkable. And to top it all off, mussels can be found for relatively cheap compared to their more popular cousins.

This preparation is a Provençal (SE coast of France) dish. The “à la marinière” part of this dish translates to “mariner’s style”, which is when shellfish is prepared with white wine and herbs. Although the white wine really enhances the mussels’ taste, I like to think that it’s the butter and cream that really do the trick. Either way, you’re in for a treat.

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Smothered Pork Chops

For me (and probably many others), smothered pork chops remind me of being a kid. It is a generally easy way to make sure pork chops are both cooked thoroughly and not too tough or chewy, and many houses across America have their own variation. Unfortunately, too many of those recipes rely heavily on instant soup packets and/or cans, which are loaded with sodium, unhealthy oils, and wheat. In response, I set out to make a healthy alternative without compromising on taste. Here’s how it turned out.

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Grilled, Butterflied Chicken

Grilling chicken is a time-consuming process; often, it takes upwards of two hours to cook a whole chicken. This process creates a crispy and juicy bird in just 30 minutes (minus brining time!).

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Amendment to my BBQ Ribs Recipe

You may remember one of my favorite recipes, my easy BBQ ribs. Well, since posting the recipe last year (and a revised version this March), I’ve been slowly honing this dish, and I’ve made enough changes that I figured I should write a quick amendment post.

The biggest change is that after cooking, I have been letting the ribs rest for about ten minutes, and then cutting each bone away from the rack using a pair of kitchen shears. This step makes for a much cleaner and fulfilling eating experience.

I’ve also found that adding peppercorns to the apple cider/white wine mixture in the first part of the cooking process really adds a depth to the meat’s taste.

Chard, Amaranth and Lambsquarter Greens

I’m starting to find that bringing constant, new content to this site during the summer months is going to be difficult. Not only is my family much busier, but I find myself falling back on the same, tried-and-true meals as the summer heat kicks in – and they almost all include grilling. Since many of the dishes I love to grill are already on the site, I’m caught in a bit of a predicament.

Luckily, we signed up for a vegetable CSA share through a local farm which means that we’ve been getting all sorts of unexpected and new veggies every week. This basically requires me to find out more about each vegetable we get, and to research recipes to boot. This is one such recipe, although the same method can be applied to traditional greens (collard, mustard, turnip, etc).

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Gluten Free Fried “Saimin”

Saimin is a dish unique to Hawaii, and a marriage of the many cultures found on the islands. Chinese egg noodles are served in a Japanese broth with garnishes taken from Chinese (char siu), Japanese (fish cake), Filipino (adobo), Korean (won bok cabbage), and Portuguese (sausage) cuisine. My favorite saimin in Hawaii is found at Shiro’s Saimin Haven, which features 70+ variations of the dish (my favorite is “dodonpa” – 10 garnishes!). Likewise, fried saimin is a stir-fried version of the soup, and is also popular in many saimin shops. It’s a refreshing break from noodle soups and your everyday lo mein-style dishes. Unfortunately, saimin noodles are made with wheat.

To remedy this, I settled on sweet potato-based noodles, which as far as I know are a Korean invention. They are made with just sweet potato starch and water, and are similar to glass/bean noodles used in dishes like chicken long rice.

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