Cooking with Apples: Apple Butternut Hash

02/23/2011 Leave a comment

Ingredients for 2-3 servings

  • 1 Butternut Squash, cut into 1/4 inch cubes
  • 1 or 2 Organic Fiji or Pink Lady Apples, cut into 1/4 inch cubes
  • 4 Green Onions, chopped
  • 1 1/2 Tbsp Virgin Coconut Oil
  • 1/2 tsp Saffron
  • 1 tsp Organic Vanilla Extract
  • 1 tsp Fresh Thyme
  • Salt and Pepper to taste

Instructions

  1. Heat Coconut Oil in large cast iron pan
  2. Add white to light green portions of green onion to oil and cook for 3-5 on medium high, stir to avoid burning
  3. Add  Butternut Squash and spices and continue to cook on medium, medium-high heat stirring often to avoid burning.  Cook for about 15 minutes.  Squash should be a little firm, but easy to stick your fork into.
  4. Add apples and remaining green onion pieces and combine well with squash, lower heat and cook for another 5 minutes
  5. Serve and enjoy.  We usually pair this with Pork Chops or White Fish.

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Acorn Squash Cream Soup with Bacon

05/26/2010 7 Comments

We love a good squash, butternut, spaghetti, acorn, etc. Today we would like to share our Acorn Squash Cream Soup topped with yummy crunchy bacon. Mark Sisson calls Acorn squash a smart fuel, and duly so.  This soup is fabulous warm or served chilled on a hot day for lunch.  Either way, it is incredibly light and yet totally satisfying.  We recommend at least 2 strips of bacon as topping. :-) This recipe feeds 4 very hungry Primals, or 6 as an appetizer.

Acorn Squash Cream Soup with Bacon

Mmmmm…Yumm – Enjoy! Jo and Henry

Ingredients

2 medium Acorn Squash halved & seeded
1 teaspoon Sea salt to taste
1 teaspoon Crushed Chili Flakes to taste
2 cups Water
1/2 cup Raw Cream
1 1/2 tablespoons Unsalted butter
4 strips Bacon

Instructions
Pre-heat oven to 350°F.

Cut acorn squash in halves long side and removed all seeds with a big spoon. Place the squash upside down onto cookie sheet and bake for 15 minutes. Then add ¼ tbsp to one half and salt lightly. Put squash back together so it looks whole and bake for another 15 – 20 minutes. You will know if it’s finished by taking a look at the squash, if it’s very shiny and moist looking on the outside and if a fork can penetrate the skin, then you’re good to go.

Take it out of the oven and let it cool for about 10 minutes. Otherwise it’s too hot to peel and you’ll burn yourself.

Once cooled, scoop out all the flesh and place it in a soup pot. Tip: I usually put on some dishwashing gloves and scoop everything out with my hands – it is so much easier and faster. Mash the squash up with your hands or a big spoon and add all other ingredients with the exception of the bacon. Once all ingredients are coarsely mashed, puree them with a handheld blender until very smooth.

Filed under Entree, Food Wisdom, Hors D'Oeuvre, Primal, Side Dish Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Lomo al Trapo! grass-fed, of course!

05/05/2010 2 Comments

Since my husband is Colombian and from Bogotá, he is more than familiar with this absolutely fantastic dish – I, however was not. So on our recent trip to Northern California, we cooked some lomo al trapo together at our friends Rob and Francesca’s house. It is traditionally a Colombian dish and is a beautiful large piece of beef tenderloin. Lomo = filet, Trapo = rag or cloth, so Lomo al Trapo = beef tenderloin in cloth!

I forgot our camera, so our pictures are not great this time. …sorry!

For 4 adults, with several side dishes, :-) we bought 3.5 lbs. Make sure to trim it of all fat and silvery skin that may be around it. (Normally I would never suggest to trim the fat, but this dish calls for it for good reason)

What you’ll need:

  • 3 – 4 lbs of center cut beef tenderloin, grass-fed of course
  • 1.5 lbs salt (don’t worry  - it will not be salty)
  • 2 – 3 stems of fresh rosemary
  • 1 – 2 stems of fresh thyme
  • 1 cotton 18 x 18 napkin or cloth
  • some twine
  • hot smoldering embers
  • and 45 to 50 minutes of time

Fresh herbs are always key, you can choose your favorite ones – they don’t have to be rosemary or thyme, just as long as they are fresh and you love the taste.

First, place the cotton cloth diagonally, corners pointing toward you, onto your counter. Pour the salt on top of the cloth to form a layer 1/4 – 1/2 inch thick that extends to about 1 inch of the edge of the cloth.  Place herbs onto salt.

Lay the beef tenderloin on top of the salt at the far end of the cloth and roll the cloth and salt around the tenderloin, starting in the far corner. You want to make a very compact roll.    Now take the points of cloth at each end of the resulting package and tie them together on top of the tenderloin. Do this right before your charcoal or gas grille are ready.

So now to the cooking methods. As you can see, our friends cooked the lomo al trapo in their fireplace. But you can also cook it on your gas grill.

First here’s how to cook it the fireplace method:

Light a fire with some wood, burn it down until you have beautiful embers, and lay the wrapped tenderloin right on the wood cradle, knot side up. Let it cook in the fireplace for about 40 – 50 minutes for a tender red middle – turn it a couple of times within that time frame. The cloth will burn and  yes you’ll see some flames, but that is ok, it’s meant to.  The whole thing will look like a burnt log, but not on the inside. It really is amazing.

cutting in motion :-)

Once it’s done 40 mins for rare plus, carefully remove it and cut the cloth open. Slice it and serve. It is so incredibly smooth, soft, tender…amazing. You have to taste it to be able to describe it. Oh, and let’s not forget the amazing flavor.

Here’s the gas BBQ/grill method:

Heat your BBQ/grille as hot as possible. Arrange the cloth wrapped tenderloin on the grate, knot side up.    Grill until the bottom is charred black, about 18 – 20 minutes. Cover the BBQ! Turn the meat log over and grill until the other side is jet black and remove. Should roughly be about the same amount of time.

We served it with Butternut Squash boats, and yesterday’s post of bell peppers with Bacon Swiss Chard.

Lomo al Trapo is one of my new favorite dishes of all time!

We hope that you too try it and let us know what you think. It is not a cheap dish, so save it for a special occasion! :-)

Happy Cooking! Jo and Henry

Filed under Entree, Food Wisdom, Health & Fitness, Paleo, Primal Tagged with , , ,

Looking for a lunch alternative? Butternut Squash Soup

04/09/2010 3 Comments

Let’s face it, salads are great and we eat them all the time. But once in a while we welcome an alternative. So with that said, let us share our Butternut Squash Soup with you. You can easily make this in advance and have it at work or as a dinner.  We just made this for our friends as an appetizer a couple of weeks ago and they loved it.

So what’s in a butternut squash?
It’s considered a Powerhouse, because it’s low in fat, is loaded with dietary fiber, which of course makes it an excellent choice for our powerhouse, the heart. This squash despite it’s pale external color, offers a deep orange flesh (the more orange the better) which signifies an abundance of carotenoids, also a protector of heart disease. It is also important to know that this little beauty has super high levels of beta-carotene (converts to Vitamin A), which help block against breast cancer and other aging factors. Studies have shown that butternut squash helps healthy lung development in fetuses, as well as newborn babies. Hmmm…amazing! Not to forget, it’s also packed with the good old Vitamin C, an important antioxidant. As most powerhouse veggies, it also provides us with ample potassium, is a proponent for bone health, and the important Vitamin B6, which helps us take care of our nerves and immune system.

So please pick some up today and amaze your friends and family with this most excellent dish.

Butternut Squash Soup

Ingredients

2 medium Butternut squash halved
1 large Yellow onion sliced
2 medium Organic Gala Apples halved
6 cups Water
1 pinch Fresh ground nutmeg
1 pinch Turkish Cumin
1 pinch Cayenne to taste
1 pinch Turmeric
1 teaspoon Sea salt to taste
1/2 tablespoon Unsalted butter

Instructions
Pre-heat oven to 350 °F

Peel, de-core and quarter the apples, place upside down on cookie sheet. Peel and quarter onion, place onto cookie sheet. Salt and pepper lightly. Spray with olive oil.

Cut squash lengthwise and scoop out seeds. Place the squash in a high rimmed baking pan and fill with water so that the squash is bathing in it. Lightly sprinkle with sea salt, and place a small piece of butter into the scooped out part.

Push both the squash and the onion and apples into oven and bake for about 30 to 40 minutes until the squash is tender. Once the butter has melted, brush the surface of the squash with butter so to ensure that it stays wonderfully moist. You probably want to do that a couple of times.

Flip the onion and apples once so to make sure that they are golden brown – don’t over bake the onion as it will get dry and hard, not the texture that you want, (about 15 to 20 minutes), and remove from the oven – let cool.

Get a soup pot ready, add onion and apples and 6 cups of water, bring to a boil. Once the squash is done, scoop out all the flesh and add to the boiling ingredients, reduce heat to medium. Stir in all spices and reduce heat to low. Now it’s time to blend all ingredients together with a hand-held blender. Blend as long until there are no lumps left in your soup.

Serve with some fresh cream, or a small dab of Labne or straight up as per this picture with just a simple rosemary garnish.

In an airtight container this soup will last several days in your fridge or is also freezable for those evenings when you are too tired to make anything else.

This is an amazing dish – enjoy!

Filed under Entree, Food Wisdom, Health & Fitness, Paleo, Primal, Side Dish Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Simple Spaghetti Squash Recipe

03/24/2010 Leave a comment

Ah…spaghetti squash! It’s simple, it’s tasty, it’s pretty, it’s easy, and it’s only 40 calories per serving (one cup).  It is also a great substitute for traditional pasta.  Imagine being able to feel full and satisfied without feeling bloated much like with traditional pasta.

There are many different ways that spaghetti squash can be seasoned, experiment with it and have some fun.

Our recipe here is a very simplistic line up of flavors – have a look and try it!

Ingredients

1 medium Spaghetti Squash halved
1 pinch Sea salt to taste
1 tbsp Ghee
1 pinch Cayenne
1 pinch Fresh ground nutmeg

Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 °F. Cut squash in half, long side and scoop out all seeds then place onto a baking sheet. Sprinkle with sea salt, cayenne or pepper, nutmeg and place ½ tbsp of ghee in each squash half. Once the ghee has melted, distribute evenly with a brush. Bake for about 30 minutes or until tender.

With a large serving fork scrape from side to side (u-shape) so to make sure that you don’t destroy the noodle like fringes.

We love it as a pasta substitute or just as a super low-calorie, but filling side dish.

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Napa Valley Prawns

02/24/2010 Leave a comment


Jumbo Prawns with Chardonnay


Ingredients

20 Prawns shelled and cleaned
1/2 tablespoon Coconut oil
2 ounces Chardonnay
1 pinch Sea salt to taste
1 pinch Black pepper ground

Instructions
Heat (cast iron) skillet to med – high, add praws, sea salt lightly, crack some fresh black pepper, flip and cook until almost done, then add chardonnay, and simmer for 2 minutes. Plate and add 1 – 2 tbsp of Trader Joe’s Roasted Red Pepper and Artichoke Tapenade on top of prawns.

 

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