Nice Summer Salad Recipe

Tom and I like to go to this nice restaurant about every 3-4 months. It's a really neat place, especially for Kansas, and serves real food. I don't know that it's organic, but a lot of it is locally grown and it's not made with processed garbage. Most of the fun is in the fact that every Wednesday the Row House does a "tasting" ... a four course meal, but you only get a small portion of each course. The idea, I think, is to sample their wares, and then for you to enjoy it enough for you to come back again and order a full order of whatever it is you liked.  


Tom and I enjoy it because it forces us to try things we would have never have tried before. 9 times out of 10 I really like what they present us. There have been a few things (like cucumber soup) that I have had to say "uhmmm... yeah... here Tom eat this quick and make it look like I loved it!"  Ha 


Anyway, we recently ate at Row House and among the other dishes, they served us a fresh salad. The ingredients: Spring mix salad, blueberries, feta cheese and a honey-lime dressing. 


I thought "UGH! I really dislike blueberries, and feta is so... feta-y. Blech!"  Surprisingly, it was very good. The blueberries and feta worked really well together. And the dressing was awesome. 


Tom has always enjoyed the more "fru-fru" salads, rather than just a bunch of vegetables mixed together, so I thought this recipe might be worth trying to figure out.  I probably don't have it just the way Row House prepared it, but I think it's close. 


Salad:


Organic Spring mix
Half cup blueberries
Freshly grated feta (maybe 2-3 tablespoons?)


Dressing:


Juice of two limes
1-2 tablespoons raw honey*
2 tablespoons olive oil


whisk together until blended.


*okay, so raw honey is kind of a pain to work with at times. It's not really runny and it takes forever to incorporate it into a smooth mixture. The first time I used honey (and then nearly threw it away I was so annoyed by the clumps), but I had to work with it for a while. The second time I use some maple syrup--high in antioxidants!--it's more powerful, so I cut the amount by half. 

Place greens in a pretty bowl. 
Sprinkle berries on top of greens. 
Use a mini-grater and grate feta on top of berries.
Pour your whisked dressing and pour over salad.
Toss gently if you want, but you'll lose the pretty berries to the bottom of the bowl.
Use a pretty spoon to serve. Why?  Because it makes it taste better. What? Yes, it does.  

Of course I meant to take a photo of the pretty bowl, but I didn't, so I only have a photo of it served on an ugly plate.

Easter Goodies

I hope everyone had a very happy and blessed Easter!


My kids seemed quite happy with their Primal(ish) Easter baskets. Although, the natural cherry licorice was not received well. They didn't even ask why and when the Easter Bunny went Primal. I guess this means they have now accepted our new way of eating as normal. That's pretty cool!

We went to 11 o'clock Mass, and then headed to Tom's mother's house for lunch. We kept it primal with turkey, green beans, mashed sweet potatoes, olives, and cookies and cake for dessert.

 
The kids had a great time hunting for eggs. Grandma has been very supportive of our new lifestyle change, filled the eggs with objects the kids could trade in for dollar bills. No candy. Thank you! 

We then headed to our friends' house for dinner. I had thought I'd cheat for Easter, but I ended up staying fairly true to GP. I had ham, chicken, asparagus, brussel sprouts and about 1/4 cup of green bean casserole.  My friend Cathy made an almond crust, strawberry cream pie (what was it called, Cathy?) She said it did have some sugar, but was Primal-friendly in all other aspects, so I had some of this and it was awesome. I wish I had thought to take a photo, because it was just as pretty as it was delicious.


Oh, I also had half glass of red wine. 

Overall, not too bad, I don't think. 

Now, I made a chocolate cake and it looked (and smelled) fabulous until I transferred it to a cake stand, where it promptly cracked in ten different directions. I made a quick cream, but whipping heavy cream and vanilla, and served it with the cake. The cake was so dense, it needed something light and cool to balance it. 

(I was going to include the recipe here, but given that it is from a cookbook, I don't know if this would take away sales from the author or what, so if you really think this cake is for you, go to Amazon and buy Paleo Comfort Foods.) My thoughts on it?  It is way too rich. I love dark chocolate, but this was really something else. This recipe includes cayenne pepper.I hate spicy-hot things, so I only added about 1/2 tsp of the cayenne. It gave the cake a really nice warm flavor but without making it spicy. However, you can't properly enjoy it because you're reaching for your water to wash down the sticky, dense cake taste. I suppose if you are desperate for dessert and you would die for chocolate, this cake might be worth a try. 

I also made the Coconut Cookies which seemed to be worthy of a potluck event. I've even made them for the kids when they have school functions, and while my kids feel funny about it, other people eat them and come back for me. So this might be a good thing to bake 'n' take to family/friends gatherings. Maybe?

Then, just to be safe, I made brownies. I just can't seem to get it right. Either the middle is under baked or it's fine and the outer edges are burned... argh.  

I used:

1 cup Cashew butter
1/4 cup raw honey
1/4 cup coconut oil
1 egg

Mix well. Pour in a 8x8 glass cake pan. Bake for 20-30 minutes at 350 degrees (or so say the directions)   I sprinkled with dark chocolate chips since I believe brownies should include chocolate somehow. 

 Oh, I also made Tom a berry tart (simmered and reduced berries with 1tbls honey, poured onto a baked almond crust, and put in fridge to set for an hour). I topped with whipped cream.  It didn't turn out so well. The berries were still pretty bitter/tart despite the honey I used to sweeten them. Maybe maple syrup would work better?

So a very busy weekend, but lots of fun. Now that Lent is over, I can go back to experimenting with baked goods. I'm hoping to have time for baking coconut bread tomorrow. I really want a ham sandwich.

Happy Easter!

Brownies

I ran across a brownie recipe (I think maybe a FB posted it?), and I thought it looked interesting. 


As a baker I was decent, cupcakes were my expertise, but brownies, ugh! I loved brownies, but they hated me... I never could get them to bake up the right way. It was really annoying. 


So now I'm skeptical of brownie recipes, but given that we are desperate, and the recipe is ridiculously easy, I thought we'd try it. 


Brownie recipe:


1 cup Nut Butter  (I wanted to use cashew butter, but I didn't have enough, so I went with Sunbutter)
1/2 Cup Honey  (you could use less, I think)
1/4 Cup Coconut oil 
1 Egg


Mix all ingredients together.


Pour into an 8x8 dish. 


Bake* at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.  


*I sprinkled a few dark chocolate chips on top before baking.


Mine burnt a bit, so I'm not posting a photo (next time!)


Anyway, they looked like brownies... even if they were a little flat, but hey, it was a brownie! And it was soooooo yummy. Nutty, yet sweet, and a hint of chocolate.


Most of us always have the ingredients around anyway, so it's a great pick-me-up if you need it. 


Try it! 


Happy St. Joseph's feast day too :)