Dairy-Free Crock Pot Butternut Squash Soup

I've been on a bit of a roll with soup lately. My old crock pot unfortunately died, and we picked up a new one...so of course, I've been inspired to use it!

Overnight I made a delicious crock pot soup, and I'm happy to share the recipe here! It's gluten-free, and dairy-free. It's got a subtle hint of cinnamon and is absolutely belly and heartwarming.

Butternut Squash Soup

4 cups chicken broth
1 butternut squash: peeled, seeded, and diced (pieces don't have to be of equal size)
2 carrots, diced
1 large yam, peeled, and diced
1 yellow onion, diced
2 tablespoons coconut oil
1 tablespoon cinnamon
salt and pepper, to taste

Simple ingredients! Just dump them all in a Crock Pot, stir, and cook on low for 8-10 hours. Once finished, blend up with a hand blender.

Enjoy!

Crock-Pot Mango Coconut Chicken Curry

Absolutely delicious, and a wonderful lunch to bring to work! This makes a crock-pot full!

Ingredients:

12 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1 tablespoon coconut oil (if you don't have this, go ahead and use butter)
1 can coconut milk
2 cups diced carrots
1 zucchini, quartered, then diced
2 tomatoes, diced
2 mangos, skinned and diced
2 bell peppers, colours of your choice, diced
1 1/2 tbsp medium curry powder
1 tbsp grated ginger
1/4 cup cilantro (I used freeze dried)
1 tbsp cumin
1 tsp onion powder
salt, and pepper to taste

Instructions:

Toss it all in your crock-pot or slow cooker, and stir.
Cook on low for 9 hours. No need to stir!

Perfect Pork Loin Rub

If you haven't already discovered this, Costco sells the BEST pork loins. They come in packs of 5 or 6 in the fresh meat section, so you can pack them up and freeze them, cooking only one at a time.

Tonight I made a perfect pork loin rub, adapted from an online recipe I found to accommodate my allergies. It's sweet, with a hint of heat that can be adjusted by the amount of crushed peppers you add! This recipe is enough for one pork loin.

I rubbed this mixture onto the pork loin only minutes before wrapping in tin foil and baking at 350 degrees for 50 minutes.

Enjoy!

Ingredients: (I measured very loosely, so play a little with this recipe to develop your favourite blend!)

1 tbsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp coarse black pepper
1/2 tsp Himalayan salt
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp paprika
1/8 tsp thyme

Shake it up! Rub it on!

Coconut Crusted Chicken with Spicy Peach Dipping Salsa

I apologize for the hiatus...this happened last summer, too. I've been very busy (as summers seem to go...), but also haven't really had much worth blogging about until now!

A few weeks ago I went to a girl's night at my friend's place. She served us a delicious recipe similar to this, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. Coconut crusted chicken....just thinking about it makes me drool. We had peaches laying around in our fridge, and I thought...coconut....chicken...peaches...yes! I'm going to have it all!

This recipe is extraordinary, and I know I'll be using coconut to crust more than just chicken in the future. We used 2 chicken breasts for this recipe, and ate it for dinner. It would also serve as a fantastic appetizer!

*This recipe contains egg.

Coconut Crusted Chicken with Spicy Peach Dipping Salsa

You will need:

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, sliced into strips
1 egg, yolk and white lightly whipped
1 cup (at least) unsweetened coconut (I used unsweetened coconut ribbons from Whole Foods and cut them up a bit smaller to accommodate)

AND

2 peaches, peeled with pits removed
1 tbsp raw honey (optional...if your peaches are really sweet, omit! The peaches I had were not at all sweet)
1/2 tsp red chili flakes


1. Using a hand blender, blend peaches, honey, and red chill flakes until MOSTLY smooth. Refrigerate 30 minutes.

2. Dip chicken strips into egg mixture, then coconut. Cover thoroughly with coconut before placing on a parchment paper lined baking sheet.

3. Once all are complete, bake at 375 for 10 minutes. Flip, then bake for another 5-7 minutes.

4. Allow to rest for 5 minutes prior to serving.


**I managed to save 2 small pieces and a little salsa before they were all devoured...here's what they look like!

Thai Red Curry Paste

A little while ago I posted a recipe for Thai Green Curry Paste. Here's the sequel: Thai Red Curry Paste. The main difference is in the pepper base. This recipe uses hot red Thai chiles which accounts for the red(der) colour!

This is a spicy recipe! Now, everyone rates spicy differently, but I truly think this would sit at the "Medium" scale in a Thai restaurant. Want less spice- use less chiles...more- use more chillies!

Red Curry is fantastic served with yam, cauliflower, yellow bell peppers, and your choice of protein!

As always, this recipe is gluten-free and dairy-free!
This recipe will make enough for 8-10 large curries.

Homemade Thai Red Curry Paste

17 to 20 (2- to 3-inch-long) dried hot red Thai chiles, halved and seeds discarded
4 teaspoons ground coriander
2 lemongrass stalks (tender inside only)
1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
4 teaspoons chopped ginger
6 (4-inch-long) fresh Kaffir lime leaves
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro roots and stems
5 small shallots, chopped
2 green jalapeño peppers, chopped
2 teaspoons shrimp paste (available at South China Market on Granville Island) (I also read that you can sub this for 1 tsp salt if you're a vegetarian...no guarantees though)

Soak dried red chiles in water about 10 minutes.  Blend all ingredients using a blender or a hand blender (hand blender is more effective).
Once it's all blended together, store in the fridge for up to a week. You can also separate the recipe into individual curry servings- store these in ziplock bags in the freezer and just pop them into the pan when you're ready to use!

To make the curry:
Saute half a yellow onion in coconut oil.
Add diced chicken thighs (or your choice of meat or seafood). Cook until no longer pink inside.
Add diced veggies of your choice....really, whatever you want.
Add a generous dollop of this curry paste along with one can of coconut milk (I use Aroy-D--no binders or thickeners).
Cook until veggies are tender. Voila!

Homemade Taco Seasoning

I love tacos. For a long time, I bought those "taco kits" by Old El Paso. They come with the taco shells, some mystery taco spice, and some extra mysterious "taco sauce" (what is that!?). I always threw out the taco sauce...why is it not refrigerated? Something freaky going on there.

In doing some research about the ingredients of taco spice, I learned:

1. One serving size (1/6 of the package), gives you 23% of your daily sodium intake. (woah)
2. Maltodexrin is the number one ingredient. (huh?!)
3. In addition to maltodexrin, there are some extra special ingredients such as: monosodium glutamate, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, silicon dioxide, ethoxyquin (developed by Monsanto, and labelled as 'moderately toxic'), and the ambiguous "natural flavour"

SCARY!

What's all that doing in my spice mix?!!?!

Now, catch your breath...I know that was horrifying. I have the solution

.

Homemade Taco Seasoning. It works the same, it looks the same, it smells the same, but it's MUCH BETTER FOR YOU! (and this version is garlic free)

This recipe will make a lot. Keep it stocked in a jar and add it to your beef, chicken, pork...whatever! It's multi-purpose!

In a large jar, mix together:
1/2 cup chili powder
6 tbsp paprika
1/8 cup onion powder
2 tsp sea salt
2 tbsp ground cumin
2 tbsp oregano
1 tbsp freshly ground black pepper
4 tsp red pepper flakes

Ta-da! Easy peasy.

Thai Green Curry Paste

Have you ever made homemade Thai curry?

Have you ever made homemade Thai curry with your own homemade Thai curry paste?! Now this picture below looks a little like just a bunch of green mush- but it's GLORIOUS when it's made into a beautiful Thai Green Curry.

Well, this was something that I'd wanted to do since I discovered Thai food. My boyfriend and I love our Thai food and have a favourite place we often frequent (It's called Khunnai Chang Thai Cuisine and I HIGHLY recommend it). We fell so in love with Thai food that we started making it regularly at home. Before I made my own batch of curry paste- we used to use Thai Kitchen. Now, that is good...but it is in no way close to the fresh stuff. This curry paste is amazing. It's easy to make (once you have the ingredients...), but now that I'm here to help you- it will be as simple as reciting the alphabet.

The beautiful thing about this recipe is that it is gluten-free and without preservatives or additives!

The hardest things to find are the Kaffir Lime Leaves and Limes. They are essential for this recipe- so don't substitute. These limes are heavenly. I found them at the South China Seas Trading Co. on Granville Island. I couldn't find them at Whole Foods, Safeway, or No Frills. You could probably also find them at a large Asian Grocery Store. The rest of the ingredients I found at No Frills.

If you've never worked with lemongrass before: here's a video on how to do it!

This recipe will make roughly 8-10 large curries.

Homemade Thai Green Curry Paste
2 stalks lemongrass, minced 
5 green jalapeños
3 shallots, sliced
1/4 cup ginger, sliced
1 cup chopped cilantro leaves & stems
1/3 cup dried basil
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. ground pepper
1 tsp. ground coriander
6 tbsp. gluten-free tamari
2 tsp. shrimp paste (available at South China Market on Granville Island) (I also read that you can sub this for 1 tsp salt if you're a vegetarian...no guarantees though)
2 Kaffir lime leaves

The zest of 2 kaffir limes

I blended all ingredients together using my new handy hand blender. I've also made a batch using a regular blender, but it takes a bit more time. Since the paste is thick, you have to stop and hand mix the stuff in the blender often. A hand blender took me 3 minutes at most. 
Once it's all blended together: stuff it in a jar, and put it in the fridge! It lasts up to a week in there. Another option is to put it into Zip-lock bags in single uses, and put that in the freezer! Then, when you're making curry, just pop your single serving amount out of the freezer, and drop it into your pan!

To make the curry:
Saute half a yellow onion in coconut oil.
Add diced chicken thighs (or your choice of meat or seafood)
Add diced bell pepper, bamboo, green beans, eggplant....really, whatever you want.
Add a generous dollop of this curry paste along with one can of coconut milk (I use Aroy-D--no binders or thickeners).
Cook until veggies are tender. Voila!

This curry paste is spicier the more you add! It's honestly amazing. SO worth it. I made a batch for my Dad for his birthday!

Spicy Turkey Lettuce Wraps

Here's a dinner idea that is not only delicious, but healthy! They're also low-carb- no grains here!
Spicy Turkey Lettuce Wraps

You will need:
lean ground turkey
1 head iceberg lettuce
2 organic carrots, shredded
3/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1/2 cucumber, diced
1/2 yellow onion, diced
1 tbsp (or more!) diced fresh ginger
1/2 red pepper, diced

sriracha sauce to taste
pepper to taste
1 tbsp gluten-free tamari sauce

Fry turkey, onion, and ginger over medium heat until the turkey is no longer pink.
Add tamari, red pepper, pepper, and sriracha and continue to fry for 3-4 minutes.

In a large bowl, combine fried mix, carrots, cilantro, and cucumber.

Wrap with iceberg lettuce leaf.
Add more sriracha sauce, if desired!

Yellow Yam Curry

I have the ability to make a meal out of what's left in seemingly empty cupboards. There are those days where it's been awhile since you've been grocery shopping, and you don't have the time to go!
That's the situation I was stuck in tonight, and I ended up making a delicious dinner out of what I had.

In my kitchen I had:

Can of light coconut milk
3/4 package of rice stick noodles
yellow curry paste
yellow onion
1 yam
leftover chicken stock
fish sauce
Coconut Oil

This dish ended up warm, comforting, and delicious. Perfect for Vancouver's first rainy Autumn night.

Yellow Yam Curry

3 tbsp coconut oil
1 can light coconut milk
Rice stick noodles, cooked.
2 tbsp Thai Kitchen Yellow Curry Paste
1 medium yellow onion
1 medium yam, peeled and cut into bite size pieces.
1/4 cup chicken stock (make sure it's gluten free!)
1 tbsp Thai Kitchen Fish Sauce
1 cup cooked chicken breast, cut into bite size pieces.

Instructions:

Heat coconut oil in frying pan over medium heat.
Add chopped yellow onion, and fry until soft.

While onion is cooking: boil yam pieces for 9 minutes.

Add curry paste, and combine well with onion.
Add coconut milk, chicken stock, and fish sauce.
Add chicken breast, and cooked yam.

Simmer for 5 minutes.
Serve over rice noodles.

Pulled-Pork- The Easiest Recipe You'll Ever Make.

After my honey kept bugging me to make pulled pork, I finally decided to get down and try it. I don't know any meat-eater that doesn't like pulled pork. I discovered a recipe that, frankly, is the easiest thing I've ever made. I'd love to pretend I laboured for hours to make such a delicious dish- but honestly, it's absolutely painless- and absolutely delicious.

You will need a slow cooker, aka. Crock Pot. I've got a fantastic orange and brown 70's style Crock Pot that I picked up at a garage sale before I moved out for College years ago.

Ingredients:
1 boneless pork shoulder
A bottle of your favourite BBQ Sauce- I used Amazing Dad's Original BBQ Sauce- It's GF and organic!
2 medium yellow onions
1 cup ginger ale

Instructions:
Slice up your yellow onions into large pieces. Put the pieces of one onion on the bottom of the slow cooker.
Add in your pork shoulder
Put the pieces of the other onion on the top of the pork.
Pour 1 cup ginger ale over the mix.

Cover, and cook on low for 8-10 hours.

After 8-10 hours the pork should easily be falling apart.
Drain all the liquid, and then take 2 forks to tear apart the meat. It's so much easier than I thought it would be. All the fat has been melted off and was drained with the liquid.
Add in a generous amount of BBQ sauce and stir- the pork is cooked at this point, so you can test and see if you added enough BBQ sauce. Add as much to your liking- but know you can also add more to your sandwich if you decide to later. I like to use less, and add more if needed later.

Cook on high for an additional 1-2 hours- stirring every half hour or so.
This recipe takes absolutely no effort, but it does take time. Make sure to plan accordingly!

What do I do with that chicken!?

This post is the first of a couple that I'm going to make today, and it deals with the question above.

When you're stuck for dinner, one popular thing to do is to pick up one of those supermarket roasted chickens, right? I recently did this last week for my if-i-get-even-slightly-hungry-i-think-the-world-is-going-to-end boyfriend, who truly thought he would die if he didn't mean now. So, I went out and bought a chicken.

If you're like me, I don't really like tearing it apart. I go straight for the goods. The chicken breasts on top.
Once those are gone it's definitely a bit of work to get the rest.

So what do I do with that chicken carcass!?

The answer: SOUP!

As I posted before, soup is so rewarding. I really should make it more often.
Here's my (loose) recipe for Supermarket Roasted Chicken Leftovers Soup:

Ingredients:
Chicken carcass with meat/skin/bones/all that's leftover from the pickings.
Water
1.5 medium yellow onions
Several garlic chives
Coarse Sea Salt
Rosemary
Oregano
Peppercorns
1.25 cup (approx), cooked jasmine rice
One long skinny leek- sliced thinly.
4 small/medium carrots- sliced thinly.

Put chicken carcass, bones/skin/everything, into a very large pot. Cover with water, and bring to a boil.
Once boiling, add 1.5 medium yellow onions cut into 1/4s.
Add 2 tbsp sea salt, 1 tsp rosemary, 1 tsp oregano, and 1 tbsp peppercorns.
Boil boil boil!!!
Add a small handful of garlic chives.
Boil boil boil!!!

(I boiled for over an hour. Up to you. The longer, the better, in my opinion)

Strain everything from the pot, into another large pot so all the liquid and solids are separate.
Time to sort the junk from the good stuff.
Pick out all the pieces of chicken, and discard skin, bones, cooked onions and chives, and other unidentifiables.

Add the good stuff (chicken pieces) to the liquid and put on medium heat.
Add leek, carrots and rice.
Season with salt and pepper to your taste.

Cook until the carrots can be pierced with a fork.

Enjoy!

Curried Cauliflower

YUMYUM!

I bought a cauliflower this past week knowing that I wanted to experiment with it. Cauliflower is a great vegetable- especially cooked. It's so neutral that it can be made with anything. If you haven't done mashed cauliflower as a heathy replacement for mashed potato, you absolutely should. It's divine. And you feel especially healthy eating it.

Tonight's recipe I call:

Curried Cauliflower and Chickpeas over Jasmine Rice

1 medium yellow onion
2 tsp yellow curry paste (I used Thai Kitchen- found at Whole Foods)
1 1/4 cup chicken broth (replace with veggie broth if you're a vegetarian!)
1/2 cup coconut milk
Olive Oil
1/2 jar Dalla Terra Roasted Pepper Antipasto (found at Whole Foods)
15 baby yellow potatoes
1 head of cauliflower, chopped into medium-large bite size chunks.
1 medium tomato
1 can chickpeas
3 cups cooked jasmine rice (I prepared with 1 cup jasmine to 2 cups water)

Over medium-high heat, heat up a small amount of olive oil in a large wok or pan.
Cut all baby potatoes in half, and add to pan. Cook 5 minutes.
Add chopped onion. Cook 3 minutes.
Add cauliflower. Cook 3 minutes.
Add to pan, chicken broth, curry paste, coconut milk, and antipasto. Cook 5-7 minutes.
Add chickpeas.
Once all veggies are tender, add fresh tomato.

Serve over rice!

Since the antipasto and curry paste have so much flavour to them...I found the final dish needed no extra seasoning!

Fantastic!

Dinner Idea: Baked Chicken Kebabs!

Tonights dinner: Baked Chicken Kebabs.

The great thing about this recipe is that it can be entirely customized with your favourite veggies, meats, or marinate some tofu and make it vegetarian!

The vegetables I chose:

White Mushrooms
Red Onion
Red Pepper
Yellow Pepper
Orange Pepper
Zucchini
Cauliflower

and for protein:

Chicken Breast

So simple...cut everything into bite size chunks...and skewer. I lightly olive oiled my veggies and chicken before I skewered them, and once skewered seasoned with salt and pepper! You can choose to make a marinade if you'd like, but I wanted the veggies to shine on their own!

Bake in the oven on the lowest shelf possible at 425.
After 10 minutes, flip!
Bake for 10 more minutes and you're done!

Serve over some jasmine rice, and with a delicious salad with balsamic and olive oil! I served the kebabs with some hot sauce, for dipping!

Easy Salmon Dinner

Let's talk about butter.

Butter is one of those things that I eat with no problems. I've done some research and while there is casein in butter, it is in very very trace amounts. I've got a casein allergy, but seem to have no issues with it...and margarine is scary stuff. I prefer butter over margarine anyway.

With that in mind...I made a simple, delicious dinner tonight that I wanted to share!

Baked Dill Salmon with Leeks and Red-Skinned Mashed Potatoes.....

Ingredients:
20-30 baby red-skinned potatoes
1/2 cup UNSWEETENED Almond Milk
One generous dollop + 2 tbsp of butter
One salmon Filet (mine was approx 1 inch thick)
2 Leeks
Salt
Pepper
Dried Dill

To prepare:

POTATOS:

Boil a large pot of salted water.
Add 20-25 baby red-skinned potatoes.
Boil the hell out of them until they are easily broken apart with a fork.
Strain.
Mash with 1/2 cup UNSWEETENED Almond Milk, and a generous dollop of butter!
Season with salt and pepper


SALMON:
Preheat oven to 450.
Take 2 leeks and slice the dark leaves and end tips off.
Rinse.
Slice the leeks lengthways.
Rinse again.
Slice the leeks one more time lengthways.
Fan out, and rinse.
Place fanned leeks on a large sheet of tin foil.
Melt 2 tbsp of butter- and pour onto leeks and salmon.
Lightly season salmon and leeks with salt.
Lightly sprinkle salmon with dried dill, and place face down on the buttered leeks.
Close up the tin foil to make a neat little package.
Bake for 16 minutes- DO NOT OVERCOOK SALMON. It is so sad when it is overdone.

I also served the meal with some sautéed mushrooms! Yum!


This was so easy peasy and it was absolutely delicious. No gluten ever!

Shepherd's Pie

Shepherd's Pie is a good old English dish. I've had it too many times to count and you can customize it by adding or subtracting any veggies you'd like. Add peas, corn, or broccoli if you so desire. This dish can also be made with lamb, but there was no fresh ground lamb available to me- so I went with beef! You can also double up the potatoes if you like a nice, thick layer of potatoes on top.

My family always ate it with ketchup...so I added ketchup on top when I served it. This is up to you...it's also delicious just on it's own!

The trick is to keep sampling till you have the seasonings JUST right :)



Sauce:

1.5 cups Almond Milk
1.5 tablespoons Gluten-Free Flour Mix (use a blend...there are several recipes online)
2 Leeks- chopped into 1/2 cm strips
1/2 tsp dried Thyme
1/4 tsp dried Rosemary
1/4 salt
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 cup red wine

Filling:

2 tbsp olive oil
1 pkg ground beef
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 black pepper
1 pkg brown mushrooms, quartered (or more if you love mushrooms!)
1 large red bell pepper chopped
30 baby carrots cut in half
1 small cauliflower, broken into florets
1/2 cup Chicken Stock (look for gluten-free!!!)
1 pkg baby red potatoes (or more!)


FOR SAUCE:

Combine milk and flour in blender. Blend at high speed for 30 seconds.
Heat a large saucepan over medium heat, add leeks, thyme, rosemary, salt, and 2 tbsp water.
Steam-saute until leeks are lightly browned.
Stir in the garlic powder, wine, and reduce liquid by half.
Gradually add milk mixture until sauce is smooth. Don't allow to boil!

FOR POTATOES:
Boil potatoes until soft.
Strain and return to pot.
Add 4 tbsp olive oil.
Mash, with skins.
Season to taste with salt and pepper.

FOR FILLING:

Preheat oven to 375. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.
Season beef with salt and pepper, and cook until browned.
Add the vegetables and stock.
Stir.
Cover and cook for 8 minutes.
Transfer mixture to a large casserole dish.
Spoon mashed potatoes evenly over the mixture.
Bake for 45 minutes.
Remove, and let sit for 10 minutes.

Serve with any extra topping you'd like:

Ketchup!
Hot Sauce!
Melt some cheese or faux cheese on top!

More wonderful recipes in this book:

Potato Leek Soup

Gluten-free/Dairy Free soup!

Soup is honestly so easy to make and so rewarding. I don't know why I don't make it often enough.

If you're living dairy-free, but not gluten-free, you've GOT to try this one:

http://www.food.com/recipe/cream-of-asparagus-soup-vegan-18803

I've made it several times, never being disappointed. It's amazing. Unfortunately, now that I'm living gluten-free, it's out of my books.

Today's project is Cream of Potato Leek Soup!

And guess what. It was delicious. Even my dairy-eating, gluten-eating, regular type diet man loved it!


The ingredients list is very simple:

1.5 pounds Yukon Gold Potatoes
3 large Leeks
Dairy-Free Milk Substitute (I used Almond)
Salt
Pepper
Gluten-Free Chicken Broth
Olive Oil
Chives (optional)

Heres the recipe:
TO PREP:
Peel and chop 1.5 pounds of Yukon Gold Potatoes (into 2 inch chunks)
Cut white and light green part of 3 large leeks into 1 inch sections

NEXT:
Fry leeks over low/medium heat with 2 tbsp Olive Oil until semi-soft
Add 1 L of Chicken broth, and put in potatoes.
Cook over medium heat until potatoes are soft.
Add 1 1/4 cup milk substitute
Add salt and pepper to taste.

Blend in a blender till smooth

Put back on the stove, and cook for an additional 20 minutes over low heat.

Top with chives, and if you're feeling crazy- crunched up tortilla chips!

Gluten-Free Dinner Idea- Fish Tacos!

Fish Tacos!

So yummy...add lime margaritas and you're good to go.

I'll put down my cooking method here but I freestyled with measurements so I don't want to fool you with wrong measurements.

Heat up olive oil in a frying pan on medium heat.
Add cod filet, season with salt and pepper.
Throughout cooking process squeeze lime juice onto fish!

Flip once to even cooking on both sides.
Cook cod well! This is a fish you don't want to undercook.

Heat a pile of corn tortillas wrapped in tin foil in the oven for 20 minutes.

DOUBLE WRAP your tacos- the corn tortillas are super delicate.

Pile fish, salsa verde, pico de gallo, lettuce (or cabbage if you have it!), and more lime juice (yum!) into the DOUBLE WRAPPED corn tortillas.

CONSUME!!!!!!