davepolaschek

Based on this Lemon Chicken Piccata {Paleo, Whole30, Keto} recipe, but with the usual Dave tweaks.

Cook time: 35 minutes Serves: 2-4

Ingredients

• ¾ lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts, thin sliced
• 2-3 Tbsp flour
• ½ tsp kosher salt
• ¼ tsp black pepper, ground
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 2 tsp minced garlic
• ¼ mild yellow onion, chopped
• ⅔ C chicken broth
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• ½ can (roughly ⅓C) coconut cream, unsweetened
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• 4 tsp capers, drained

Directions

1. If you’re making risotto, noodles, rice pilaf, or couscous, start that first
2. Mix flour, salt and pepper in a bowl big enough to dredge the chicken breasts in.
3. Heat a large skillet with 2T of olive oil over medium heat.
4. Dredge the chicken, one cutlet at a time, and place into the pan. Cook 4 minutes on each side, until golden brown and delicious. Note that depending on the size of your pan, you may need to cook the chicken in two batches.
5. Remove the chicken and set aside on a plate.
6. Add 1T olive oil to the pan and get it warm.
7. Lower the heat to medium-low.
8. Add the ¼ onion, sauté until translucent (3-4 minutes).
9. Add the 2 tsp garlic and sauté until soft (a minute or two).
10. Add the chicken broth and lemon juice, increase the heat to medium-high until the broth comes to a boil, then return it to medium-low and simmer for 3 minutes. Stir enough to get any fond loose from the bottom of the pan.
11. Stir in the coconut cream and Dijon mustard, and about half of the leftover dredging flour.
12. Stir to make a thin gravy-like consistency (it’ll thicken as it cooks).
13. Add in the capers and chicken and return to a simmer until the sauce is a good thickness and the starch is cooked
14. Remove from heat and serve over risotto, noodles, rice pilaf, or couscous.
15. Grate some Parmesan cheese over the plate if you like. It’s not needed, but it’s good.
16. Enjoy!

#recipe #chicken

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Cook time: 8 hours. Start this around 8am. You’ll need to fiddle with it about lunchtime and 2pm, too. It’ll be ready about 4pm.

Serves: 8-12. Or a family with 3 growing boys.

Ingredients

• 2 pounds chicken thighs
• 6 ribs celery, chopped
• ½ onion chopped
• 1 tsp tarragon
• 1 tsp marjoram
• 1 tsp basil
• 4-6 C chicken stock
• ¾ bag frozen carrots
• 1 or 2 potatoes, diced
• ½ bag frozen roasted sweet potatoes
• 1 C coconut milk
• 2 tsp minced garlic
• 2 tsp minced dried chives
• 1/3 bag frozen peas
• 1/3 bag frozen corn

Directions

• Place celery, onion, chicken, half of the carrots, and 4C chicken stock into a 4.5 qt crock pot
• Set crock pot on high and forget about it for 4 hours
• Using two forks, shred chicken meat and skin and remove and discard bones and cartilage. You will miss at least one piece of cartilage. That shows the soup is home-made.
• Add potato and balance of frozen carrots
• Turn to low and let cook for 2 hours
• Add frozen vegetables and enough chicken stock (about 2 C) to fill the crock pot, and let cook on low for 2 hours.
• Serve and eat

#recipe #soup

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Ingredients

• pint or pint and a half strawberries, diced
• four kiwis, diced
• one New Mexico chile, plucked off the ristra, washed, deseeded and diced
• tablespoon lime juice
• teaspoon salt

Directions

• mix everything up
• let it sit for a few hours in the fridge
• eat on tortilla chips

#recipe #sauce

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We had some visitors in our yard this morning, and they looked kinda cute. Only managed to get a photo of one of them, though. But this isn’t the first time we’ve seen them, so hopefully I’ll get another chance.

#birb #photography #NewMexico

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Ingredients

• ¼ lb maple-smoked bacon, diced (we use Beck & Bulow wild boar bacon, which is lean enough that I need to put some oil in the pan)
• 1 Tbsp soy sauce
• 1 Tbsp maple syrup
• 2 Trout fillets
• 1 C red split lentils
• ½ C green beans (frozen will work, fresh are better)
• 3 C water
• ⅓ tsp red chile powder (to taste)

Directions

1. Sauté diced bacon in 2 or 3 quart saucepan.
2. Mix soy & maple syrup in a small bowl and set aside.
3. When bacon is cooked, but not crispy, pull bacon from saucepan and set aside. If there’s significant grease, save it for some biscuits.
4. Put 3C warm water in saucepan, deglazing the pan & bring water to a boil.
5. Place trout, skin down, on broiler pan and coat flesh side of trout with maple/soy mix.
6. Broil trout, 9 minutes @ 400F, or 7-8 minutes if you don’t have a temperature setting on your broiler.
7. Put lentils & beans in boiling water, and reduce to a simmer – simmer for 7-9 minutes, until lentils are done.
8. Pull trout from broiler, and sprinkle with chile
9. Add bacon to lentils.
10. Serve and eat. Enjoy.

Total time, about 25 minutes.

#recipe

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The house finches are building a nest again in last year’s birdhouse. Yay!

#birb

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Makes about 15 biscuits. We ate 3 of them before I could take the picture.

Ingredients

• 4 C all-purpose flour
• 2 Tbsp baking powder
• 2 tsp kosher salt
• ¼ C honey
• ¾ C bacon grease, chilled
• 1 can (13oz-ish) coconut milk

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 450F
2. Prepare a baking pan by placing a piece of baking parchment in it
3. Mix flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl
4. Add honey and bacon grease, and cut ingredients together until a “crumb” has formed
5. Shake can of coconut milk well, open, and pour into bowl
6. Stir ingredients together just until a dough forms
7. Put dough onto a floured surface and fold and knead a few times
8. Roll dough into ¾ inch thick sheet
9. Cut out biscuits using a biscuit cutter or a drinking glass, and place onto pan
10. Reform leftover dough into a sheet and cut out remaining biscuits, placing onto pan
11. Bake for 15-17 minutes, until golden brown on top
12. Transfer to a cooling rack, or eat as soon as you possibly can without burning yourself

#recipe

Based loosely on 5 Ingredient Dairy Free Biscuits

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For each taco:

• 1 large soft taco shell (burrito-size tortilla)
• 1 trout fillet, approx 3oz
• 1 half-strip bacon
• 1 tsp orange oil
• 2 tsp olive oil
• ⅛-¼ tsp Penzey’s Pico Fruta

Directions:

• About a half hour before cooking, coat the flesh side of each trout fillet with oils and spices
• Grill or broil 7-10 min with bacon on top of trout
• After broiling, remove bacon and turn it into crumbles, which get sprinkled on top of the trout (the bacon might need a minute or two more in a skillet, depending on your grill / broiler)

Salsa (enough for 4 tacos):

• 1 apple, cored and diced
• 1 tsp lime juice
• 8 round slices dill pickle, diced
• 1 Tbsp mayonnaise
• ⅛-¼ tsp red New Mexico chile powder

Also chop up a tomato and have some dark greens (spinach, mustard, etc) and salsa verde for garnish.

#recipe

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The birdhouse I built for our yard last year was sized for house finches. This year, I wanted to build a birdhouse for the bluebirds that are already trying to nest.

As before, I used pallet wood, but the pieces I had on hand this year were smaller, so I needed to glue them up into wider boards.

Once the glue had dried, I picked one edge and planed that smooth and flat. Then I used that as a reference to mark the other three sides before cutting the pieces to size, and then finally planing the surfaces flat. I also drilled a hole in the front, and cut the corners off the bottom and left and right sides to provide ventilation.

Here are the measurements I used.

Then I glued and screwed everything together. I used a fancy hinge I had on hand. A friend pointed out that I could just as easily hinge one of the sides with a couple screws going into oversized holes. Next year!

Then I dug a hole in the yard, put in a post, and mounted the birdhouse to it.

I think it looks pretty good, and we can see it from our dining room table.

This morning, while we were eating breakfast, there was already a pair of bluebirds checking it out.

#birb #woodworking

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Ingredients

• 1 pork chop
• 1 packet Thai aromatic bbq (https://ASIN.cc/XVwgPf)
• ¾ pound 16/20 shrimp, peeled, de-veined, with tail removed
• ½ seedless English cucumber, (or an equivalent amount of zucchini or eggplant) cut into 1cm slices (18 slices)
• 18 pearl onions
• 1 pint cherry tomatoes
• 1 tsp red chile powder
• 1 oz soy sauce
• 1 Tbsp dark honey

Directions

Night before

• Cube pork chop (you’re looking for about 30 pieces) and marinate overnight in Thai aromatic bbq mix
• Peel and clean shrimp, sprinkle with chile powder, and let sit overnight

Cooking time

• Slice cucumber into 1cm thick slices
• Peel pearl onions
• Mix 1oz soy sauce with 1 tbsp dark honey and warm until honey dissolves (10 seconds in the microwave is plenty)
• Load up the skewers: pork, shrimp, cuke, onion, tomato, pork, tomato, cuke, onion, shrimp, pork
• Grill, about 7-10 minutes per side, drizzling the kebabs with the honey and soy mix. Or broil, 8 minutes per side at 500F.
• Serve in a pita or on couscous. Makes 9 kebabs. Serves 4.

#recipe #kebab

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