Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Recipes: What's A Girl Gone Primal To Do...

...when all she's serving herself is meat, yet she craves and misses cooking up exciting primal food?

She cooks for her boyfriend! Ah, how progressive and feminist of me!

She also does this at 11:30pm. Normal, right?

Ok, so the boy needed some breakfast, and since I don't allow him to buy his overpriced and unhealthy "Norganics" (a brand, but really means 'not organic[s]') granola anymore, I make it for him. Easy peasy, and I'm also scaling back the amount of rolled oats I use every time, so he'll be fuller and have better control over his blood glucose and health. (Shhhh....)

Sweet-Tooth Granola

Ingredients:

Rolled oats
Chopped nuts (I use walnuts and almonds)
Dessicated coconut
Seeds (I use sunflower and/or pumpkin)
Egg whites
Sweetener (I use Splenda since he is such a sweet-tooth, but you could try dehydrated honey or maple syrup)
Ground cinnamon

Ratio that works - about one egg white for every three cups of nuts/coconut/seeds/oats.


Method:

Preheat fan-forced oven to 150°C.

Combine all dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.

Place egg whites in a small bowl, and beat until frothy. Pour over dry mixture, and stir until thoroughly combined.

Line baking tray(s) with baking paper, and spread mixture evenly over paper. Place in oven, checking every five minutes.

Once the ingredients begin to brown slightly, remove from oven and stir to break apart any clump. Replace in oven until golden - your nose may help detect the perfect toastedness of the nuts. :)

Remove from oven, allow to cool, and store in an air-tight container.

Serve with cream, fruit, or on its own! My boy loves it with defrosted blueberries (and milk, ick. At least I've rid the house of low-fat milk!)


Now, in the course of making the granola, three egg yolks were orphaned and set for the trash since I'm all-meat at the mo'. Instead, I decided to put together a tasty frittata for beau's lunch:

Primal Frittata Lorraine (or something)

Ingredients:

3 egg yolks
2 whole eggs
2T pure cream
50g bacon, cooked and diced
30g cheddar cheese, diced
1T dried thyme
1t butter/coconut oil
3 thin slices tomato

(This is to make one very generous serving, and I bet it would easily serve two people as a side or light lunch)


Method:

Preheat oven to 100°C.

Whip eggs and cream together until frothy.

On your stove's lowest setting, over your smallest element, melt butter in tiny oven-safe ceramic saucepan (well, it's what I did, and it worked perfectly).

Add egg mixture, thyme and diced bacon. Allow to cook gently, stirring to lift cooked sections away from the base and sides so that other liquid may set.

Once most of the mixture has set, add diced cheese and stir together gently. Top with the slices of tomato.

Remove from element, and place in oven. Bake until top of egg mixture is set.

Remove from oven, allow to cool slightly, and then carefully remove from pan. I had prepared myself for a disappointing extraction, as the ceramic pans sometimes do not favour eggs, but low sustain heat did the trick - check out my perfect bottom:


(Yes, pretty ordinary photo, but I couldn't resist the pun...)

Et voila (so sad that the only available lunch container ws a tad narrow for the perfect roundedness of the frittata):


Serve with crisp green veggies.

So that's what the boy is eating tomorrow - he now informs me that his work will be providing lunch for him tomorrow, but since it will probably be boring old sandwiches, he might eat the food I made for him instead. Oh, and he eventually remembered to say thank you. Men, huh? :P


(By the by, love, we're having pork roast for dinner. What, free-will? Never heard of it...)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love reading your blog, it really makes me think differently about nutrition. However, if you add oats to your granola, it can't be called grain-free. Oats are grains.

Best,

N.

Jezwyn said...

LOL - thanks, N! I don't call this granola 'grain-free' - I call my 'Nola 'grain-free' since it is, you know, grain free.... This batch was the first inception of WHEAT-free cereal for the beau, and took on many incarnations until I finally developed Nola. :)

Rae said...

Does the Fritta reheat well? The boyfriend and I are trying to find a good grain-free breakfast that doesn't require alot of time in the morning (looking for a reheat and Go)......