Today I made eggs and bacon for breakfast. Tom is not always so big on eggs, so I made him a coconut-strawberry smoothie.
(you know, one of these days I'll take photos of all the food we eat, just for the heck of it)
Amy stayed home from school since she was running a 106.0 fever yesterday. She is my one child who spikes really high fevers. Thankfully, we got it down quickly, had the dr check her out, and found out it's just a virus. As usual. Anyway... she stayed home with me today, so we tried to make mayonnaise for the third time.
Someone (or maybe a few people) suggested making mayo in a jar. Here's the method we tried. We tried this method since it sounded fast and easy. I used Extra Virgin Olive Oil for the first batch, and it was awful. Did not emulsify or taste good. At all. So I went to Google and the consensus seems to be that EVOO is not a great oil to use. Darn. I'm out of avocado oil, and I don't have any other oils (other than coconut which is too solid). Many people suggested using Light Olive Oil. Now, for some reason I thought Light Olive Oil is bad for you and you shouldn't use it-- (Though, I happen to have a bottle of it since I bought it six months ago without realizing it's [possibly] bad for you)--I looked on MDA boards and it seemed to be mixed reviews, so I decided just to try it.
The mayo worked immediately and tasted really good. I was really exited it worked, but there was a slight cloud since I wasn't sure if I was killing myself by eating the Light OO. Anybody know the deal with the light oil?
So after making the mayonnaise, we made ham and lettuce wraps. It was pretty awesome.
So for dinner we had fried chicken. Last night I put drumsticks into a Ziplock bag, and covered the chicken in a pint of buttermilk. I don't know why. That's just what the recipe said to do, so I did it. About 40 minutes before I wanted to cook it, I took it out of the fridge and let it come closer to room temperature before cooking (to help it warm up enough to cook evenly.) Then I coated the chicken in coconut flour, salt and pepper--knocked off the excess flour, and placed the drumstick in a skillet of hot coconut oil. Cook for about four minutes per side, then place in a pyrex dish, and bake at 350 for about 35 minutes.
So the coconut flour gives it a very light hint of sweetness. The color browned up nicely. The skin was not crispy like I thought it would be, so that was a bummer. The inside was fairly juicy though. A little bland, but I think that can be fixed if we just play around with the spices a few times.
Tom and the kids (except Amy) loved the chicken, which was surprising because Tom does not generally care for dark meat, and I didn't particularly like this batch, so I didn't expect everyone to enjoy it so much. Tom says to put it in the "Family cookbook" which means I can safely make this once a week and everyone would be happy.
I sauteed the asparagus in a little olive oil and added some salt. Butter is better to use for this, but I was lazy and didn't use butter this time. Cook for about 3-5 minutes (do not cook it to death, people!) and serve almost immediately. It tends to get cold quickly.
Then I made a hollandaise sauce. Add three egg yolks, 1/4 tsp dijon mustard, 1 tbsp lemon juice, and a dash of Tabasco to a blender, blend on high until you see it all incorporate. Melt one stick of butter and then add to the (running) blender. It should emulsify immediately. Poor into a dish and serve warm. This goes extremely well with green vegetables. The kids loooove it. All good fats too!
Don't worry about the light olive oil. Perhaps a bit of the nutrients are lost by being slightly more processed, but no big deal. Mark SIsson notes in his receipe that extra virgin creates too strong a flavor and can be bitter particularly if you use an electric device rather than a whisk to mix the mayo. He recommends using light oil oil for mayo. I've made it twice and I don't think I had room temperature eggs but it still worked fine. The first time I used the stick blender and used half olive oil, half bacon grease, vinegar and a little Dijon mustard. Last week in Aruba I used a regular blender, no measurement of ingredients but used a couple egg yolks, some fresh squeezed lemon juice and light olive oil. It came out fine. :-)
ReplyDeleteI had the same exact experience with Extra Virgin, it really is awful. And yeah, as the first commenter noted, light olive oil is actually in the recipe in the Primal Cookbook (and it does work great). As far as I'm concerned, if Mark says it's ok, it's definitely ok. Some Primal people are REALLY strict, I think they can be pretty excessive. I generally think as long as wheat is out entirely, I'm fine. I really slip up with chocolate. But hey, still losing weight, so whatever.
ReplyDeleteThe only time I made mayo I used regular olive oil (not EV) and I whisked it by hand and it came together fine. Mayo is an emulsion and a blender or food processor can be too rough causing the delicate globules to smash together causing the sauce to break. It's not that much work to whisk the bowl and it's MUCH easier cleanup than a blender.
ReplyDelete