Smoked Orange Chicken

1 1/2 lbs bone in, skin on chicken drumsticks or thighs
1 small - medium orange juiced and zested (I used a blood orange)
1 tsp Penzey's BBQ 3000
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp ginger powder
1/2 tsp mustard powder

Place chicken in a zip lock bag. Zest and juice orange into the bag. Add seasoning and marinate for 12-24 hours. Place chicken in smoker and reserve the marinade in a bowl for sopping. I used mesquite, but any kind of wood would work well with this. Smoke chicken at 150-180 degrees F for about 4 hours. Periodically, brush chicken with reserved marinade.

When ready to eat, grill or bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes
.

Green Curry Shrimp

2 Tbsp coconut oil
1 lbs Shrimp
1 small onion, thinly sliced
1/2 Tbsp garlic, minced
1/2 Tbsp grated fresh ginger
1/4 cup coconut milk
3 Tbsp Thai green curry paste

Heat oil in pan. Add onion. When onion is translucent, add shrimp. When shrimp starts to get pink and curly, then add ginger and garlic. after about 2 minutes, add coconut milk and curry paste. Cook for a couple more minutes and serve with cauliflower rice or zucchini noodles.

Spinach Omelet with Pesto

3 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup frozen spinach or 1/4 cup cooked/wilted
1/4 cup zucchini linguini
1 Tbsp Cilantro Pablano Pesto (or any pesto you've made recently)
Grilled onions
Roasted red peppers
Avocado slices
Hot sauce (I used Chipotle Tobasco, my FAVORITE.)
Chili Cilantro Aioli (optional, but recommended)


Heat spinach (thaw if it's frozen) and mix together with pesto and zucchini. Scramble eggs and cook in a pan (duh). Mix onions and peppers into the spinach-pesto mix. When eggs are almost cooked, put veggies in the middle and fold. When the eggs finish cooking and the veggies inside are warm enough (you might want to heat them before you put them in the omelet if they're not already hot) remove from pan an put on plate. Top with avocado and hot sauce.

Italian Sausage Stuffed Zucchini

For the sausage:

1 lb ground pork
1/2 Tbsp fennel seeds, toasted
1 tsp hot pepper flakes
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp basil
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp cayenne (optional)
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar or red wine vinegar

Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl and set aside.

For the zucchini:

6-8 small zucchinis

Cut the tops off the zucchini, then cut them in half, lengthwise, and scoop out seeds. Stuff with sausage. Bake at 350 for 45 mins - 1 hour.

Boiled Bone Dog (or Cat) Treats

Halle

Step One: Make bone broth. I use the Balanced Bites recipe. It's simple and easy. Do not use onions to make your broth if you plan on feeding these treats to dogs. I'm not sure about cats, but I've heard that onions aren't good for dogs. The bones must be soft enough to grind, so if you're using bones from large animals (cows, bison, lamb, etc) make sure they have been boiled for a long time. You don't want to break your meat grinder!

Step Two: When you strain your bone broth, try to separate as much of the garlic from the bones as possible. You could omit the garlic to make this easier, but then your broth won't taste as good. The only vegetable I use to make broth is garlic. If you use carrots to make broth and they turn to mush and you can't separate them from the bones, it's ok. Garlic might not be good for dogs, but carrots are fine.

Step Three: Grind bones in a meat grinder. I use the meat grinder attachment for my Kitchenaid Stand Mixer and it works fine. The bones are pretty mushy after boiling for 24 hours. Since I have a small dog, I use the coarse grind first and then run it through a second time with the fine grind. I've never tried a food processor for this.

Step Four: Line food dehydrator trays with parchment. Scoop pureed bone mush into desired size and shape. I like 1/8 cup for my 50 lbs pitbull and 60 lbs lab mix and 1 tsp - 1/2 a Tbsp for my 17 lbs pug. For fun, you can use cookie cutters to shape the treats. 

Step Five - Dry on 155 degrees for 12-24 hours depending on climate. I live in a vast desert wasteland so it doesn't take long for me.

Hazel and Jack

Step Six - make your pet happy.

Cole Slaw

In my quest to get Nikos to eat more vegetable, I made cole slaw.

2 tsp salt
6 cups shredded red cabbage
6 cups shredded green cabage
2 carrots, shredded
1/2 cup paleo mayonnaise (or more if you like it extra creamy)
2 Tbsp cider vinegar
1 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp celery seeds
1/2 tsp caraway seeds

Combine cabbage and salt and mix thoroughly. Drain in a colander for about an hour. Squeeze out the excess water.

Heat seeds in a pan and toast until fragrant.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the vinegar, seeds and mayonnaise. add the cabbage and carrots and mix thoroughly. It's good to prepare it a day in advance because it tastes better on the second day.

Mayonnaise

I have several recipes for aioli and flavored mayo, but none for plain mayonnaise. Mostly because it's more fun to add flavor and you can find a basic mayonnaise recipe anywhere. This is what I used in my cole slaw recipe. I figured if I publish the cole slaw recipe I should include a recipe for mayo on the site for easy reference.

1 egg
2 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
juice from 1 lemon
1 tsp dry mustard powder
1/2 tsp salt
pepper
3/4 cup olive oil

Combine the first 6 ingredients in a food processor. blend thoroughly. slowly drizzle the mayonnaise in while blending. Once all of the olive oil is in, keep blending for a couple more minutes. store in a glass container and refrigerate.