Best Primal Breakfast Scramble Ever!

I've been perusing Mark's Daily Apple for quite a while now, and while I haven't adopted the Primal lifestyle, I think of doing so often, and I always eat as such for breakfast.

I used to eat eggs and a smoothie for breakfast, but I think I came to a tipping point in my ability to eat fried or scrambled eggs, and I just can't stomach them for breakfast anymore.  Eating grains for breakfast pretty much ruins my entire day, so I had to come up with something new, and this scramble was the result.  I think it is extremely tasty, and I haven't come across anything terribly similar in a restaurant, so I am going to take credit for it.

This batch usually makes enough for about 4 or 5 servings, and thus one batch can give me almost a week of breakfasts.  It refrigerates and reheats well.

Ingredients:
- 1 TBSP of butter
- 4 or 5 eggs
- 1lb of bulk mild Italian sausage - Try to find some that doesn't add weird, unpronounceable stuff to their spice list, or when I have accidentally thawed the wrong package I have been known to take regular ground pork and make my own italian sausage seasoning.
- 1 white sweet potato: You can use orange yams, or even potatoes, but in my experience they are too wet and make the scramble taste horrible.  You could potentially squeeze the moisture out, or use a potato ricer, but I have found that the white/light colored sweet potatoes do not have a lot of moisture in them and don't require any extra steps.
- 1 cup of diced fruit.  This is the secret ingredient!  Through the fall and winter I typically use one large apple.  In the summer I will use pears, peaches, or apricots.  I have even used blueberries, though it leaves the scramble an overall purple color.

Directions

• Grate the sweet potato.  
• Dice your fruit
• Add your butter to the frying pan and scramble your eggs.  I find the less I stir them the fluffier they are.  When they are done scrape them out of the pan and set aside.
• Add your Italian sausage to the pan and brown
• Add the grated sweet potato and stir for a few minutes till potatoes look limp
• Add the fruit and mix till fruit is warm.
• Add eggs and mix
• Remove from heat.
• Enjoy

Homemade Egg Rolls

I've never really liked egg rolls.  They taste too cabbagy to me.  I'm not sure exactly what causes the cabbagy taste.  Old cabbage, or maybe over cooked?  I'm not sure, because sometimes I eat cabbage and it tastes just fine, great even.  Like in these egg rolls, and other times its just gross.  I'm not sure how or why I found this recipe, or why I decided to try it (since I don't like egg rolls, but maybe Floyd wanted me to), but these are really, really, REALLY good.   Apparently I am not allowed to make them without inviting my mom over.  Oops.

Follow the directions on how to wrap them exactly.  The first couple times I did, but then I started getting nonchalant and then they started unfolding while frying.  I did change the recipe in that I shredded all the veggies with a food processes making them very tiny.  I think it improves the taste and texture of the filling, which by the way is so good, you can eat it by itself.  Having the super thin wraps is also important.  The first time I made them I didn't, and they were still good, but when I did have the thin wraps they were even better.  Personally I am very intimidated about going into an Asian grocery, so I lucked out when I moved, and the grocery store I shop at has a huge Asian section. :)

Rhubarb Scones

When we moved in last year we discovered a few rhubarb plants in our backyard.  Last year I picked all the rhubarb, except one stalk on each plant, in one go and made strawberry-rhubarb ice cream and then did nothing with the rest and it went bad.  The plant withered away over the winter and I couldn't even tell where it went.

Then magically, it started growing this spring--and it grew fast. It got bigger and bigger and bigger and I didn't do a thing!  Definitely my kind of gardening.  However I did do a bit more research and came across an article saying to pick just a bit at a time and the rhubarb will continue to grow and you'll be supplied all summer long, so that is what I plan to try.  I made some more strawberry-rhubarb ice cream with the first batch I picked and decided to try making scones with the second batch.  I made these scones last year with wild red huckleberries and thought rhubarb might taste good too.

I chopped the rhubarb up into tiny pieces and then "dehydrated" it in the oven for 2 hours at 180 degrees.  This didn't completely dry it, but it did reduce the water content.  Then I made scones using this recipe and they are delicious.  I think the lemon zest is what makes them special.  I do prefer the huckleberries more than the rhubarb, maybe next time I won't cut the rhubarb  as tiny, or maybe I'll do huckleberries and rhubarb!  Mmmmm.  I might have to go and eat the rest right now.

Chocolate Banana Ice Cream Recipe - Low Sugar and Low Carb

Since I'm not able to eat sugar any more I've been very sad about not getting to eat ice cream.  Ice cream was my go-to comfort food, and I have spent a lot of time learning how to make delicious homemade ice cream.  I don't want that skill to go to waste!  So I've been pondering this very low sugar/low carb ice cream recipe for a while and I finally got around to making it and I think its delicious.  It is perfect for my palette that no longer likes things super sweet and it satisfies the chocolate and creamy goodness of ice cream.  I think it would also work well as a nice dessert for people with diabetes.  You can easily adapt the recipe to a normal ice cream recipe by adding 3/4 cup of sugar (I have included where to add this in the instructions).

A half cup serving of this ice cream will give you about 12g total carbs, 3g of fruit sugar, and 2g of cane sugar.

Chocolate Banana Ice Cream Recipe

INGREDIENTS

• 4 or 5oz of dark chocolate cut into pieces
• 2 TBSP unsweetened cocoa powder
• 4 egg yolks
• 2 cups of whipping cream
• 1 cup of 2% milk
• 2 overripe bananas
• 1 vanilla bean (could substitute half tsp of vanilla abstract)

INSTRUCTIONS

• Take 1 cup of the cream and warm it up on the stove.  Add the cocoa powder and the vanilla bean. (Slice the vanilla bean open and scrape it and let it soak in the warm milk.  
• Once hot remove from the heat, add the chocolate and stir until its melted.  Move the mixture to a new large bowl and let the warm mixture sit with the vanilla bean in it.
• Rinse out the pot and warm up 1 cup of milk (If you want to make this a fully sweetened ice cream you can add 3/4 cup of sugar to the milk now).  Put the egg yolks in a separate bowl and whisk.  Pour the warm milk slowly into the bowl while whisking constantly.
• Pour the egg milk mixture back into the pot and cook over medium heat stirring constantly.  When the mixture (custard) coats the spatula and you can draw a line on the spatula with your finger, the custard is done.
• Pour the custard through a strainer into the chocolate/milk mixture.
• Immediately pour in the last cup of cream and stir vigorously.  You should put the bowl in an ice bath, but I never do that step.
• Pull out the vanilla bean and scrape as much of the insides as you can.  Discard the shell.
• Peel the two bananas and break them up and put it in the mixture.  Use an immersion blender, or pour the mixture into a blender and blend.
• Cover the ice cream and put in the fridge, preferably overnight.
• Pour in your ice cream maker and churn according to its directions.
• Eat straight from the ice cream maker or put in a container and freeze.  I like to use small glass mason jars.

See here for more ice cream making tips.  Please comment if you try this recipe.  Thanks!

Cutout Sugar Cookie Recipe

This is a Tea Cookie recipe my mother gave me.  Unfortunately she gave me her only copy of the recipe so when we went to make Christmas cookies at her house we didn't have the recipe.  So I decided to post it here, so it will be available no matter where we are making cookies (granted internet is available).  I like the recipe because it doesn't require extensive planning (no chilling the dough in the fridge), is made with butter, is easily halved or even quartered.

Tea Cookie Recipe (Makes 12 dozen)

1 cup of soft butter
2 cups of sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp of cream
1 tsp of salt
1 tsp of baking soda
1 tsp of vanilla
6 cups of flour

1. Mix ingredients
2. Roll out dough
3. Cut out cookies.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and cook for 5-7 minutes.

Make Your Own Tortillas Without a Tortillas Press

The ingredient list on most tortillas isn't pretty and I've been on a quest to remove processed foods from my diets.  I read quite a few books that pointed out the health benefits of nixtamalization and how the discovery of nixtamalization coincided with the rise of the Mayan and Aztec civilizations and I put it on my list of things I should try, but from what I read it didn't seem like a very simple process.  Then I discovered I could buy corn flour that was already nixtamalized.  Perfect!  Granted the likelihood is that the corn used is GMO corn-- you can never win. :(  


Anyway I bought a bag of Maseca, which you probably can find at most Mexican grocers, but I was lucky to find it at Central Market, the fancy shmancy grocery store that not only is wonderful, but is close to my home.  Once you have nixtamalized corn flour making tortillas becomes as simple as adding salt and water to create a dough.  Rolling out the tortillas and frying it in a pan with butter, like a pancake.  It took a bit of practice in getting them rolled out correctly and onto the frying pan without breaking, but once I did they take a couple minutes per tortillas and they taste delicious!  


Recipe - (Makes 4 taco sized tortillas)
1 cup Maseca
2/3 cup of water
1/2tsp - 1 tsp of salt (depending on preference)
1-2 tbsp of butter (depending on preference)

• Mix Maseca, salt and water into a dough ball
• Split dough into 4 balls
• Roll dough between two pieces of wax paper, or silicone baking sheet, or silicone baking sheet and waxed paper (If I was cool I would have a tortilla press and then it would make the tortillas the perfect shape, but I don't and it is kind of cool to have the organically formed shape)
• Warm skillet to med heat
• Put butter on skillet
• Use spatula to move dough to skillet
• Wait until golden (about 1 min)
• Flip like a pancake
• Wait until golden
• Fill with yummy stuff and eat

Minimally Sweetened, Fresh Mint, Strawberry Ice Cream Recipe

I've been trying to cut back on sweeteners.  It is recommended that you get no more than 25g of extra sugar (so not counting fruit) a day.  25g is pretty much one bowl of ice cream.  I have been doing pretty good overall.  There is a little bit of sugar (about 3-4g) in the piece of toast I have each morning (Dave's Killer Bread) and then my bowl of ice cream in the evening.  However I'd like to do better.  So I decided to make a minimally sweetened ice cream.  I figured strawberries would be good for it because you can macerate the strawberries in a bit of sugar to bring out their natural sweetness.  I also thought some fresh mint would be yummy.  I like to mix strawberry ice cream and mint ice cream in the same bowl so I figured making an ice cream with them together would be good too.  The ice cream turned out yummy. It probably would have been even better with more sugar, but overall it was a success.  Here is the recipe:

Minimally Sweetened Fresh Mint Strawberry Ice Cream
* Start this in the morning if you want the ice cream in the evening
* This makes about 5-6 generous servings which is about 12-14.5 grams of sugar per serving

1 lb of strawberries
1/2 cup of evaporated cane juice (3/4 cup if you want fully sweetened)
fist full of mint leaves
1 cup whole milk
2 cups of cream

• Warm the milk and 1 cup of cream on the stove.  Remove from heat, put the mint leaves in and cover. Let them seep for a couple hours
• Hull and chop the strawberries and put them in a bowl.  Mix the evaporated cane juice in and let them sit for a couple hours.
• Pull out the mint leaves and press them through a strainer back into the milk to squeeze out all their mintiness.
• Put the strawberries, minty milk, and cream in a blender and blend.  It is up to you how much you want to chop up the strawberries.
• Put the mixture in the fridge for a few hours. 
• Pour it into your ice cream maker following your machine's directions.
• Eat it!  

For more ice cream making tips see my previous post.

Easy Way to Bake Your Own Bread

So this has been blogged all over the world, but I guess I'll join in too. This bread really is simple. I admit I have messed up this recipe the first time I made it (I used old yeast) and I was a little annoyed that all the blogs I read said it was idiot proof. But it really is easy and it takes only a few minutes a day and it tastes really good. Here is a link to the 5 Minute Artisan Bread Recipe. I've been trying to eat less bread, especially stuff that isn't whole grain, as it isn't good for blood sugar levels, but I have decided that if there is something I'm trying to eat less of and I make it myself then it is fair game. ;)

This bread tastes great. It has a slight sourdough taste. It is very convenient to always have dough in the fridge. Whenever I make a meal that would taste good with bread I can just pop it in the oven. It also makes good french toast. I keep my dough in a ceramic bowl with saran wrap over it with a small cut in it. I also took the suggestion of not cleaning the bowl between batches to get a head start on a sourdough flavor.

I have also used the dough for pizza. It isn't as good as this recipe, but since I always have this dough in the fridge it is more convenient. I'm impatiently waiting for the author's books at the library (see little amazon ads). I have heard there is a good cinnamon roll recipe and I also want to try to make sandwich bread. I would love to find a fairly easy recipe to make bread like Dave's Killer Bread. We spend a small fortune on that stuff every month.

The other great thing about this recipe is that it provides instant toddler entertainment. Selena loves to roll the dough, so I give her a chunk and a rolling pin and she is entertained for at least 20 minutes. We even used cookie cutters to cut out dough shapes and baked them for bread sticks.

Homemade Ice Cream That is Better Than You Can Buy

I got an ice cream making machine for Christmas and have spent the last nine months making lots and lots of different kinds ice cream. It is really addicting and is a step towards fulfilling my goal to not eating any processed foods. ;) My first few batches were not very good, but the more and more ice cream I make the better it is. Here is what I've learned so far:

Machine:

I have the Cuisinart 1-1/2-Quart Automatic Ice Cream Makers. It seems to be a really popular machine. Lots of great reviews on Amazon, and can be found at most any store. It is very easy to use. It has a bowl that has some special freezing potion inside it. You keep the bowl in the freezer all the time and pull it out when you are ready to mix up the ice cream. It is open on top so you can peek inside and see how the ice cream is doing. It is big enough to make about 4 - 5 generous servings of ice cream. It takes about 15 - 30 minutes for a batch of ice cream to thicken up. My only complaint is that some of the non-stick coating has scraped off when I scoop the ice cream out of the container. I am sure that the stuff is not good for you to ingest.

Recipes:

I bought Perfect Scoop: Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, and Sweet Accompaniments and Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book. I first started reading these recipe books and it talked about how much better homemade ice cream was than store bought and I didn't exactly agree with them as my ice cream hadn't turned out that great so far, but then I tried the Lemon Ice Cream recipe in the Perfect Scoop and changed my mind. The Strawberry Sour Cream one is also a favorite of mine. The flavors are really strong. The strawberry ice cream really tastes like strawberries and the lemon ice cream really tastes like lemon. Mmmmm. I prefer the Perfect Scoop over the Ben and Jerry's book.

So far I have made strawberry, plum, mango, lemon, peach, fresh mint, chocolate fresh mint, chocolate, mint chocolate chip, peanut butter and chocolate, mixed fruit, roasted banana, chocolate banana, and chocolate chip ice cream. I am looking forward to making my own ice cream sandwiches, and pumpkin, ginger, and strawberry apple ice cream.

Tips:

• All ice cream comes out soft serve, even what you buy in the store. Putting it in the freezer before you eat it will harden it up.
• When you harden the ice cream in the freezer many times it comes out icy. I kind of like the icy taste for fruit ice creams, but for chocolate I do not. Recipes that have you make a custard with a minimum of 5 egg yolks makes for the creamiest and least icy ice cream.
  
• Chilling the mixture in the fridge for at least a few hours, preferably over night, before you churn it, will help make stiffer ice cream.
• Keeping the ice cream in the ice cream maker longer also makes for stiffer and creamier ice cream. I keep it in till the ice cream starts climbing up the paddles and is fluffy not runny.
• Filling the ice cream maker no more than half way allows for more air to be whipped into it and also makes for a creamier, more scoopable, less icy ice cream.
• The Ben & Jerry's ice cream recipe's have you use raw eggs. Catching Salmonella from raw eggs is really quite rare and eating raw eggs doesn't bother me, but it does bother some people. If you don't want raw eggs, you can make a custard first, but raw egg recipes are a lot easier to make. The Perfect Scoop describes how to make a custard very well. I could not taste the difference between using raw eggs, or making a custard when only using two eggs. I have not tried using a 5 egg recipe with raw eggs.
  
• To chop chocolate or to make chocolate chips you can put a chocolate bar in the freezer and then grate the chocolate with a cheese grater.
  

I am working on the perfect chocolate ice cream recipe. The problem is the more chocolate ice cream I eat, my idea of perfect changes, but I will share what I have so far soon.

Best Salad Ever

I have always hated salads. I hardly ever would eat one. Probably because most salads have iceberg lettuce and/or light salad dressing. Yuck. About a year ago I went to my sister-in-law's bridal shower where there was a salad bar and it was really, really good. I added a few things to the salad I had there, and now I am eating one every day (and craving it if I don't) for lunch. I admit while it is super tasty it isn't completely filling. I usually have a half a sandwich or some raviolis as well.

Recipe:

• Organic spinach or mixed salad greens. I get these at the farmer's market every Saturday. The mixed salad greens makes interesting salad because you get different tastes every bite. Once there were sprigs of dill in it, and that was so good. Floyd teases me and says I'm eating weeds, but I do think there are some dandelion in the mix so I guess I might be. Buying packaged lettuce at the grocery store is not very tasty, and they probably add some sort of preservative or something. Buying romaine or spinach at the grocery store is a better bet. I have mixed results with the spinach at Fred Meyer. The spinach from the farmer's market was the sweetest spinach I've ever had. This is definitely an instance where the fresher it is, the better it tastes.
  
• Organic unsalted hulled sunflower seeds. I buy these in the bulk section at Fred Meyer.
  
• Regular cottage cheese
  
• Organic canned garbanzo beans
  
• Organic berries - I've tried strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries. All are good.
• Random organic veggies. I like green onions and carrots. Sometimes I use cucumber, broccoli, or avocado.
• Dressing - 2 parts olive oil, 1 part balsamic vinegar (I eyeball it), a pinch of sea salt, and grind in some fresh pepper. Mix it in a bowl and sprinkle over the top.

This salad has a ton of anti-oxidants in it to flush out all the yucky stuff in you. The veggies and sunflower seeds are packed with vitamins. The cottage cheese, sunflower seeds, and olive oil give you a nice amount of fat to help you absorb the vitamins. The whole thing is delicious. Make sure you don't leave anything out, because it really isn't as good if you do.

Let me know if you try it and enjoy it.

This is part of my What I am Eating series.