Simply Norma

It’s been awhile since we had this dish but it was so good that I needed to share it with you.

The Carne Asada (especially because of the rub) was absolutely delicious served with grilled onions.

Since we don’t eat bread on the paleo diet, this was served on a bed of lettuce. I highly recommend it as it was very very good!

I was so glad I tried this Baked Sole recipe. The fish came out moist and delicious and it required very few ingredients. It’s also a paleo recipe and no substitutions had to be made.

The 1/4 cup of butter is melted then spread out in the bottom of a casserole dish.

The sole is then laid out on top of the butter and turned to make sure both sides are buttered.

The onion/lemon mixture is then added to the top of the sole, put in the oven and baked.

I served this “light” entree with a Winter Citrus Salad. Delicious!

Here’s the recipe for you …

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup of melted butter
• 1 pound of sole
• 1/4 cup of chopped green onion
• 3 tbsp. fresh squeezed lemon
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. of fresh ground pepper

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Mix chopped green onion, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Set aside.
3. Pour melted butter into a 9 by 13 inch rectangular metal pan.
4. Add sole and flip to coat both sides with butter.
5. Top with onion/lemon mixture.
6. Bake for 10 minutes on bottom rack of oven.
7. Move to top rack of oven and broil 2 minutes.

Special thanks to ThinandThinner for this recipe.

Back in May, yes, yes, I know … I’m a tad bit behind. I try to get out in the yard as much as I can in between the Minnesota rains. One would think we were living in Seattle.  Oh well …

Anyway, back in May, my son made a Paleo Pumpkin Pie which turned out to be quite scrumptious.

It had just the right amount of coconut taste as the recipe uses coconut milk and coconut oil. This is a great substitution for “regular” pumpkin pie and will be made again once Thanksgiving rolls around.

Here’s what a slice of the pie looks like …

Yes indeed … pretty pretty good.

Special thanks to Marla’s Paleo Porn for this delicious recipe!

I decided to try a couple of new paleo recipes. They are both simple to make but tasted great!

The first one was for Salmon Cakes with Garlic Aioli. I was surprised at how true to the recipe the salmon cakes turned out. Moist yet dense.

Here they are right before I baked them in the oven.

And the Garlic Aioli I served with them had a more fluid texture than I anticipated but tasted great also. Thanks Emeril!

So — here is the salmon recipe so you can try it for yourself.

Ingredients

• 1 large sweet potato, cooked then peeled and mashed
• â…” cup almond meal
• â…“ cup packed finely chopped parsley
• 2 Tablespoons finely chopped onion
• 1 Tablespoon fresh squeezed lemon juice
• ½ to 1 Tablespoon hot sauce (I used only 1/2 tablespoon and it turned out fine)
• ½ Tablespoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1¼ teaspoon paprika
• ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 2 large eggs (at room temperature)
• 2 14.75-ounce cans Wild Alaskan Pink Salmon (remove skin and bones)
• 2 Tablespoons coconut oil

Directions

1. Wash the sweet potato and use a fork to poke holes in it.
2. Bake the sweet potato in the oven at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for approximately 30-45 minutes. A fork should pierce through easily when done.
3. After removing the potato from the oven, let it sit for 15 minutes or so to cool then mash it.
4. Add the almond meal, chopped parsley, onion, lemon juice, hot sauce, salt, cumin, paprika, black pepper and eggs to the mashed potato.
5. Open the cans of salmon and slowly turn the can upside down and dump the salmon in your hand. With the other hand, halve the salmon and remove the bones from the inside. At this point, you should remove any skin that’s on the outside also.
6. Add the salmon to the other ingredients and mix thoroughly.
7. Using a 1/3 measuring cup, scoop out evenly sized salmon cakes until you have approximately 12 patties.
8. Chill the mixture in the refrigerator for a minimum of 30 minutes.
9. Heat a large frying pan over medium high heat. When it’s hot, add 1 tablespoon coconut oil for every six patties. Let the oil completely melt until the pan is very hot then slowly add the patties and cook for 4 minutes on each side.

This was truly a great recipe! I made 6 and froze 4 patties. My patties were a little larger as once I had them in the frying pan, I flattened them out. Very very good.

I served these with Sweet Potato Fries. Another simple but goodly recipe.

Special thanks to EverydayMaven for these delicious salmons!

This is a really easy Cinnamon Fruit Salad with a hint of coconut. Very good to have as a snack, side or “just because” you feel like it.

Ingredients

• 1 medium navel orange
• 1 kiwi, peeled, sliced and quartered
• 1 medium ripe banana, sliced
• 1 medium apple, sliced
• 6 seedless grapes, halved
• 2 tablespoon sunflower kernels
• 1/4 cup coconut milk
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions

1. In a large bowl, combine fruit and sunflower kernels.
2. In a small bowl combine coconut milk and cinnamon then mix well.
3. Pour over fruit and toss to coat.
4. Serve immediately. This yields approximately 8 servings.

See how easy that was?

Now, I have a confession to make. I didn’t grow up in the kitchen whipping up food from whatever was in the pantry. As a matter of fact, when I was a single mother I would make baby cereal for me and my son for dinner. I just didn’t have the “cooking” instinct in me. Later in life, I developed a desire for cooking but with mostly tried and true recipes like this one.

But, having said that, I follow most recipes right to the letter. So … wanna have a nice laugh today? Here goes. What do you see in the picture below?

Are you laughing yet? The recipe called for 6, count them, six green grapes halved. So, that’s what I sliced. After I did this, I laughed out loud and just about rolled over on the floor. I became a rebel and doubled the green grapes to twelve!  (I have to be careful what I write because I’m sitting at a coffee shop right now laughing out loud and people might think I’m nuts.)

The only reason that I can think of to stick with the quantities in this recipe is because of the coconut milk. Add too much fruit and you won’t have a good coconut-cinnamon taste.

So — let’s all be rebels in the kitchen. I don’t know why I reverted back to my “really old” days of making sure I stick by the recipe, especially with a recipe like this one which has lots of room for flexibility.

Oh — it was good! I loved it — my non-coconut-loving husband thought it was just okay. I served it on the side with Orange Chicken as my entree.

Wow! This Orange Chicken recipe that I made is wonderful and will be on my “must have again” list. Served with a Cinnamon Fruit Salad, it fit the bill to satisfy an empty stomach. I imagine that one could make these vegetarian by using FriChik by Worthington (although I haven’t made them that way yet).

I did have a “learning” moment while going through it so I’ll share that with you later in this post. So — here goes!

And of course, the orange juice (without pulp)

Ingredients

• 1 lb. chicken breast cut into bite size pieces
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup almond flour
• Olive or coconut oil (I used olive)

For Orange Sauce

• 1/2 cup freshly pressed orange juice
• The zest of 1 orange
• 2 tbsp. tapioca starch
• 1 tbsp. coconut oil
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tsp. fresh ginger, minced
• 1/8 tsp. crushed red peppers (more if you want it spicy)
• 1 tbsp. fish sauce
• 1 tsp. white wine vinegar
• 1 tbsp. honey
• 2 green onions, thinly sliced

Directions

1. In a small bowl, mix the orange juice with the tapioca starch and whisk until the starch is all dissolved. Set this aside.
2. To prepare the sauce, preheat 1 tbsp. coconut oil in a skillet over medium heat, add the garlic, ginger, crushed red peppers, and half of the orange zest. Cook until golden, about 1 minute.
3. Once the oil and spices are golden, add the fish sauce, the white wine vinegar, honey and cook about 10 seconds.
4. Add the orange juice/starch mixture to the skillet and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Note: Be careful not to keep it on the burner too long or you’ll get a really thick consistency which is what you don’t want.
5. Reduce the heat and simmer for a minute or two. Remove the mixture from the heat, but leave it in the skillet.
6. Break the two eggs into a bowl and whisk them together.
7. Dunk each piece of chicken in the raw eggs and coat them with the almond flour.
8. Pour olive oil (or coconut depending on your preference) into a big skillet until it’s about 1/2 an inch deep. Heat it to at least 365 F.
9. Add the pieces of chicken to the oil and cook until golden on each side, about 5 minutes.
10. Transfer the cooked chicken pieces to a paper towel for a few minutes then transfer them to a serving dish.
11. Once the chicken is fried, place the skillet containing the sauce back on medium heat and warm it up. When it’s warm, pour it over the chicken pieces and mix to get them nicely coated with the sauce.
12. Garnish with the remaining orange zest and the sliced green onions.

This was really delicious. As I mentioned in direction #4, I did have a problem with the sauce but it was easily corrected thanks to the advice from my friend Kathy.

Here are a few pictures for your perusal …

So — this is what happens if you cook the orange sauce too long … quite “gummy.”

I added a little bit of orange juice at a time to make the consistency pourable but still “thick.” Like this …

Here’s my “workstation.” I had it to the right of the stovetop so I could “dunk” the chicken in the egg and flour and straight into the hot oil. Those eggs should be whisked!

The frying went well. I “eyeballed” when the chicken was done by how crispy it looked. See the ones I turned already in the picture? They were nice and browned and ready for turning.

And of course, the finished product.  Oh, did I already say how delicious they were?

Yum! Very thankful to Paleo Diet Lifestyle for this recipe.

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