Grain-Free Dark Chocolate Cherry Scones

I have not made anything remotely resembling a scone in a long time, but was inspired by Nom Nom Paleo's recipe for these scones this week (see the link for her lovely photos). Also I have next week off, so why not celebrate with Sunday morning scones!? I made them this morning and they were very tasty, and a bit unlike any other grain-free bread product I have made. Perhaps this was due to the chocolate involved, but they were a bit more dessert-like. Not overly sweet, but chocolatey, with a nice texture.

Scones and Tea! Next time I will shape the scone more...

Grain Free Scones - makes 8
3 cups blanched almond flour
1½ teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon fine sea salt
4 tablespoons butter, as cold as possible (preferably frozen)
2 large pastured eggs
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 ounces of 80+% cacao dark chocolate, cut into bite-size chunks
⅓ cup dried cherries

1. Preheat oven to 350. Get out a baking sheet and piece of parchment paper (to be ready when things are sticky!)
2. Mix almond flour, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Grate chilled butter into the flour mixture with a cheese grater, and then cut the butter pieces in with a pastry cutter (or fork). You want the mixture to end up crumbly.
3. Whisk eggs, vinegar, honey, and vanilla in a small bowl. (If you need to heat your honey up to get it liquid, do that, and then put the whole mix in the fridge for 5-10 minutes to cool it down again.)
4. Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the liquids. Use a spatula to mix everything together to get a wet, chunky dough. Add the cherries and chocolate chunks and stir to blend.
5. My dough was very sticky here, so I put it in the fridge for 20 minutes. The Nom Nom Paleo photos do not appear to have sticky dough, so I am not sure if it was due to my warm honey or what. In any case, form the dough into two balls (I wet my hands a bit to help with the stickiness) and move to parchment. Press the tops of the balls down to form flattened circles, about 3/4" thick. Cut each circle into 4 wedges and arrange on the parchment (which is on the baking sheet). My dough was so sticky I just left it in the circular shape and separated the wedges midway through baking. It's not as aesthetic, but still delicious.
6. Bake for 20-25 minutes, turning tray halfway through. They will get brown - check for doneness with a toothpick. Eat!

Oyster Stew!

This recipe is so simple, and so incredibly delicious. Really, how can you go wrong with oysters, butter, and cream - which comprise the bulk of this recipe. The original recipe (from an internet search seeking something flour-free) was modified just a bit - primarily by trading half and half for chicken stock and heavy cream. The oysters I got were huge, and this soup was pretty much to. die. for. Swoon.

Oyster Stew serves 4 and takes about 20 minutes total!
1 stick of butter
1 c minced celery
1/4 c minced shallots (onions worked great for me, I added a bit extra)
1 pint chicken stock
1 pint heavy cream (I ended up not using all of it - a little less was plenty)
24 oz or 1 1/2 lbs fresh, shucked oysters with the juice
Sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
Pinch of cayenne pepper to taste

1. Melt the butter in a large heavy pot. Add onions/shallots and celery, and cook until onions are tender (about 5 minutes).
2. Add broth to pot and let heat a minute or two over medium high heat. Add cream and stir continuously to heat. Just before boiling (you will see lots of little bubbles start to rise), pour the oysters and their liquid into the pot. Season with salt, pepper, and cayenne. Stir continuously until the "oysters curl at the ends." My Charming Companion and I determined this to be after just a few minutes or so, maybe 4. When the ends are "curled" the stew is done and you can turn off the heat. Taste the soup to check your salt and pepper, adjust if needed.
3. Serve immediately! You could garnish with parsley if you had some.
*This was also very tasty when I reheated leftovers the following day. OMG. so good. It was also nice with the crackers from my previous post...you can break them up like oyster crackers!

Paleo Crackers and Escargots

I had a lovely dinner last night that included oyster stew (post forthcoming), herring roe, crackers, and escargots. I had not made any of these things before (or eaten roe, except one time at my uncle's sprinkled on a bit of deviled egg.) The herring roe was from lake superior, and was $10, and was really fishy and lovely and pink! It felt like such a treat (though really the whole meal did).

Some time recently I became curious about making escargots. Do you buy live snails I wondered? I remembered the escargots from the french restaurant I used to work at, and how they were served in a bubbling garlic, parsely butter that smelled amazing. Upon looking it up, I learned that you actually buy snails in cans (though you can cook them in their shell too - this is just the way most snails are sold). I also learned that all snails with shells are edible - just not the slug like things without a shell. So if you live somewhere where snails are plentiful, you can just go harvest your own after a rain storm (they will be much smaller and do require a "cleansing" step and some longer pre-cooking).

Anyway, I bought some snails at Coastal Seafoods - they were $5 for 2 dozen, though there was another kind that were $15 for 2 dozen (I have been trying to learn about escargots farming, and it seems that the practices are pretty sustainable just by nature of how snails live). I am not sure the difference between the two prices - I will ask next time. In any case, the cheaper ones were delicious. Having no fancy escargots dish, I made them in a muffin tin. I will totally make them again because they tasted so good.

Snails in an escargots dish - not muffin tin

Escargots
2 dozen snails
6 T butter
1 T minced onion
(garlic is de rigueur, but I skipped it)
1 T minced parsley
1 t lemon rind
1 t sea salt
fresh pepper

1. Mix everything but the snails together to form a buttery-paste. I used a large wooden spoon to spread the butter and get the herbs mixed in evenly.
2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
3. Put 4 snails in each muffin cup, then divide the butter mix evenly between the 6 cups to top the snails. You want the snails to sort of marinate under the butter as it melts.
4. Put in oven until butter is bubbling - about 5 minutes.
5. Serve with rosemary almond crackers out of the tin, or you can pile them all in a bowl for a slightly more aesthetic experience. : )

*I was sad to leave any of the buttery goodness at the bottom of each muffin cup (usually french bread would dip this up), so I moved all remaining butter to 4 muffin cups and the next morning I cracked an egg into each one. I topped each egg with a splash of cream, and then baked them at 350 degrees until the yolk set. I didn't time them (and mine got a bit overdone) - but remove them when just set and still a little jiggly. Eat with any remaining crackers or a bit of ham or bacon. Yum!

Almond Rosemary Crackers (from Elena's Pantry)
1 3/4 c almond flour
1/2 t sea salt
2 T fresh rosemary, finely chopped
1 T olive oil
1 egg

1. Mix flour, salt and rosemary together - make sure almond flour is nut clumped up. (My rosemary is miraculously still doing just fine in its garden bed outside - it is a little green tree surrounded by snow!)
2. Whisk oil and egg in a small bowl, then add to almond flour mix and stir until combined. The mixture will be wet and quite thick.
3. Roll the dough into a ball and press it between two sheets of parchment paper (this is very useful - I am not sure you can get the crackers thin enough without the parchment without tearing things up). Roll to about 1/8" thick.
4. Remove top parchment layer and cut crackers with a pizza roller or knife into desired size. Transfer the bottom piece of parchment (with cracker dough) to a baking sheet, and bake 12-15 minutes at 350. Let cool for about 30 minutes before serving.
*These are relatively unsalty. You may want to up the salt a bit, or sprinkle salt on before baking. I splurged and got a bit of Herring Roe to eat on these along with the snails - so they were perfect with the low salt crackers.

Deer Offal

I have been meaning to write for some time about my appreciation for roadkill deer (and also for My Charming Companion who it seems cannot leave the twin cities metro without coming across one). Now seems to be a nice time - stemming from an amazing dinner last weekend that came to being entirely because there was very little defrosted meat, but there was a fresh deer.  Though the deer still needed to be butchered, the organs were out and ready to go - hence an amazing meal of offal (organ meat) plus a wee bit of kebab.

Offal seems to be pretty popular among foodies and paleo folk (at least according to my internet perusing), but I am still in the experimental phase of offal-eating. Other than occasional chicken liver (in the form of pate), I've only tried a bit of venison brain and eaten heart ground up with burger meat.

Last weekend, though, I had offal trifecta: deer brain, liver, and lung. It felt really fancy - like I should also have been having some bone marrow or something served at some expensive restaurant in a city larger than Minneapolis. The whole meal was delicious, beginning with fried brain and fried liver and bacon, and then a creamy soup of lung and mushrooms, followed by the mini kebabs. (It felt a little like Fogo de Chao gone wild...haha!)

Brain is super delicate - and it is pretty difficult to remove (so I hear, I have not attempted this yet). To prepare it, poach the brain first. Dry it off, then dust it in flour before frying it in coconut oil. It turns out coconut flour does not crisp up in this scenario. It certainly isn't bad, but a GF flour mix, or rice flour will give you the crispy texture on the outside, whereas the coconut flour is more of a "coating" of browned flour. The brain is really tasty - it has a very soft texture, and tastes creamy.

The liver was sliced and tossed in a bit of coconut flour, which worked great here. The slices were fried and then served with bacon pieces - and this was DELICIOUS, probably due to the young tender fawn that the liver came from. Really. I may have shied away from deer liver before, but no more.

Finally the lung. I had never really thought of lung as edible before, but nothing surprises me much anymore. (My Charming Companion is anxiously awaiting enough deer testicles to comprise a serving portion. If testicles, why not lung?!) The lung was much more reddish and red-meat looking than I thought. I imagined it to be pale for some reason. The lungs need to get pounded to remove all the air pockets, and also require some trimming of the trachea and some bigger air vessels. Once that is done, the lung gets poached, and then it is ready to add to whatever dish. We had it in a soup that was chicken stock, portobella mushrooms, some wine, and cream. And a little lemon and salt and pepper. The lung tastes remarkably like a denser mushroom, and it was nice in the soup.

And I guess that doesn't leave much else for deer offal. Kidneys (I have not tried them yet), and the aforementioned testicles...hmmm.

*I realize that I don't give you enough information here to actually make these dishes (or about how to extract them, etc), so if you want to know that, you will have to call My Charming Companion to walk you through it.

Eggnog (paleo-ish)

I love eggnog - especially in my (decaf) coffee. I made some for the first time this week, and it is SO easy. I found several recipes online, but settled on this conglomeration of a few. I went ahead and used raw egg yolks, but there are plenty of recipes out there that heat the nog if you prefer.

For 2 servings:
4 egg yolks
1 c. coconut milk
1 c. heavy cream
1-2 T. honey (depending on your taste)
1 t. vanilla
1/4 t. cinnamon
1/4 t. nutmeg

Blend egg yolks in blender. Add coconut milk and honey (my honey is the raw kind, so I have to heat it up with a little water so it is liquid!) and blend. Add vanilla, spices and heavy cream and blend for a couple of pulses (you don't want to whip the cream - it gets too fluffy).

Sprinkle a little nutmeg on top, and serve! You can chill it for up to a few days as well (probably longer, but I always drink it by day 2).

Paleo/GF gravy!

My Charming Companion got a surprise free turkey from the church next to his house on Thanksgiving. So, now, here it is a few weeks later and time to eat that turkey. With copious amounts of gravy. I am quite pleased because I enjoy eating leftover turkey, and not having made one this year, did not get to. Until now! (A nice turkey tarragon salad recipe coming soon...)

This gravy tasted really nice, and was very easy. The amount below is for a 10-12 pound turkey - adjust as needed for your size bird. The same recipe would also work well for chicken, and other herbs would also work great.

Turkey, mashed cauliflower, gravy, and cranberries!

Paleo Gravy
 

• Drippings from pan
• 2 c chicken broth
• 4 T coconut flour
• 1 T fresh sage, minced
• 1 T fresh thyme, chopped
• Salt and pepper to taste (depending on the saltiness of your bird and broth)

Heat the pan drippings in a heavy saucepan along with broth. Whisk in coconut flour (whisk brusquely so you don't get lumps). Add in herbs and taste for saltiness. Add salt and pepper to your preference. Simmer the gravy a bit so that it thickens/reduces. Serve!

Roasted Veggies

The local veggies that seem to be brimming over at the co-op right now include about 8-10 squash varieties (I am really all about the kabocha right now), lots of mushrooms, and tons of root veggies - particularly parsnips, carrots, and beets. So I made up a big batch that I mostly have been eating for breakfast with some eggs - with fresh parsley over everything. I definitely did not follow this recipe exactly (also pasted below), but it had basically all the root veggies I happened to have in my fridge plus some brussel sprouts. The whole thing is creamy and delicious and carmelized tasting. And so easy!

Ingredients - feel free to swap or change amounts:
3 parsnips
6 carrots
1 onion
1 large sweet potato
1 lb brussel sprouts
olive oil
salt and pepper
fresh chopped parsley

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Scrub carrots and parsnips (cut into 2-inch pieces if large). Slice onion in wedged slices.  Peel and slice sweet potato into wedges. Trim Brussels sprouts and cut in half. Toss all vegetables in generous amount of olive oil. Add salt and fresh ground pepper to taste.
Spread onto a large baking sheet and roast, turning occasionally until cooked and browned, about 45 minutes. Sprinkle with fresh chopped parsley.