grain free Archives - Page 11 of 16

Matcha Avocado Ice Cream

April 20, 2015 By Becky 12 Comments

This matcha avocado ice cream is delicious, easy to make and full of healthy fat. It’s gluten free with a dairy free option!

I’m working with high school students this semester, and on Mondays we have great chats about our weekends. I always feel like a boring, lame adult because every time they’re like, “What did you do this weekend?” I’m like, “Oh, I did a lot of cooking, and only a little bit of cleaning.” Welcome to my life.

I was excited last Monday because I felt like it sounded a lot cooler to say I made ice cream. Cooler both literally and figuratively, I suppose.

Of course, they wanted to know what flavor, and I wish you could have seen the looks on their faces when they found out I put avocado in my ice cream. They didn’t know what matcha was, and that part kind of flew under the radar–everyone was really stuck on the avocado.

You know what, though? It’s not weird at all. I knew I wanted to make a matcha ice cream (because matcha in all the things feels like spring to me), and I decided to throw in an avocado because green tea and avocado are spring-green-colored soul sisters. The finished product doesn’t taste like avocado, but has an added richness and health boost thanks to that sneaky addition.

Slow-Cooker Pulled Pork with Peach Barbecue Sauce

April 17, 2015 By Becky 49 Comments

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Slow-Cooker Pulled Pork with Peach Barbecue Sauce | acalculatedwhisk.com

I’m not sure where to start: there are so many exciting things going on here! We’ve got a tangy, sweet, paleo peach barbecue sauce, spice-rubbed, slow-cooked pork that’s perfect on its own or drenched in the aforementioned sauce, and a pair of hard-core, handy-dandy meat claws.

Was that too many adjectives? Is it possible for a tool to be both hard core and handy dandy? I apologize–there’s just something about pulled pork that makes me a bit verbose. It’s so tender, so easy, so versatile, and so GOOD.

For this recipe, a pork shoulder is coated in a simple spicy-sweet mix and popped in the slow cooker with an onion and a bit of olive oil. While the pork is cooking, you can put your feet up and enjoy the wonderful aroma permeating your house.

Or, you can make some peach barbecue sauce to go with it.

Golden Cake with Strawberries and Whipped Cream

April 11, 2015 By Becky 6 Comments

This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Golden Cake with Strawberries & Whipped Cream (Gluten free, Grain free) | acalculatedwhisk.com

How were your Easter and/or Passover celebrations? Ben and I had a few people over on Saturday and then went to another Easter dinner on Sunday. I won a pork crown roast from Snake River Farms over at Rhubarbarians, and it was pretty great. I also made this cake–we enjoyed one of the layers on Saturday, and brought the other one, pictured here, to the party on Sunday.

So, yes, I’ve been sitting on this cake recipe for an entire week. I apologize! I had one of those very busy weeks that I should have seen coming, but instead somehow managed to take me completely by surprise. Am I the only one that happens to? Between papers and evaluation reports and trying to get at least a little shuteye, it took me all week just to edit these photos.

Kale and Bacon Quiches with Hash Brown Crust

April 1, 2015 By Becky 42 Comments

This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Kale and Bacon Quiches with Hash Brown Crust | acalculatedwhisk.com

It’s my second blog birthday! I feel like I’ve come a long way since my very first post, but last year’s blogiversary feels like it was just yesterday. Time flies when you’re eating well!

At the risk of sounding sappy, I want to say thank you for stopping by my site. Reading your comments and connecting with you on social media makes my day, and turns the often solitary activities of cooking, photographing, and writing into something that’s actually meaningful.

To celebrate the occasion, I made grain-free kale and bacon quiches with hash brown crust. They’re like little crispy nests of savory goodness. This was my first time making a potato crust, and I’m totally hooked. I’m even thinking it might work in some sort of a dessert pie (is that too radical?). Here, the crunchy potato tangles hold a filling of eggs, kale, shallots, crisp bacon, and crumbled goat cheese. These are perfect for Easter brunch or any weekend morning (or a blogiversary, of course).

As I embark on my third year of blogging, I’d love to hear from you. What would you like to see more of here on A Calculated Whisk? For example, are you looking for quick and easy recipes, Whole30 meals, desserts, vegetarian meals, or something else? Would you like to see more non-recipe posts (reviews, giveaways, perhaps travel stories)? Whatever it is, I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

Blueberry Frangipane Pie Bars

March 27, 2015 By Becky 11 Comments

On the way to work the other day, I heard the Cheers theme song on the radio (“sometimes you want to go where everybooody knows your naaaaame…”) and was overcome by nostalgia. I didn’t watch Cheers as a kid, but I watched the show that was on right before it (Seinfeld, I think), and always left the TV on so I could hear the theme song. Even as a kid, it made me feel nostalgic.

I guess the idea with the Cheers song is that after a tough day, you can go to a bar where everyone knows you. But for me, it always felt like the song was really about going home, or going back to a simpler time. Because, as the song says, “making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got”.

If the modern world has you feeling a bit beaten down, I have a solution for you. Click the link in the first paragraph and listen to the Cheers song over and over while you make yourself a batch of pie bars. They are just the thing if “your third fiancé didn’t show”, “your shrink ran off to Europe and didn’t even write”, or if, like me, you’ve just had kind of a long week.

Burmese Chile Prawns with Cucumber and Avocado Salad

March 23, 2015 By Becky 24 Comments

Burmese Chile Prawns with Cucumber & Avocado Salad--Easy, 30-minute paleo meal | acalculatedwhisk.com

Are you fast in the kitchen? I’m super slow. No matter how much I wish I could be an ingredient ninja, I just can’t seem to get things located and prepped very quickly. I took a knife skills class a few months ago, which helped a little, but I think the issue stems more from disorganization than a lack of dexterity.

I’m working on making more 30-minute paleo dinners to share here on A Calculated Whisk. To make sure I’m representing things accurately, I time myself as I cook, which really highlights my lack of culinary efficiency. For this recipe, I started timing, assembled most of the ingredients for the marinade, and then realized I couldn’t find a sharp knife to cut the lime in half. I paused the timer while I located a chef’s knife and washed it, because I thought you, my wonderful readers, were likely to already have a clean knife on hand. Several other misplaced items and dirty dishes slowed me down and I didn’t stop the timer every time, but I still managed to make this meal in JUST over 30 minutes (if you’re making rice, you may need an extra 3-5 minutes to get that measured and set up).

So, even if you’re less than speedy in the kitchen, like me, you can have this dinner on your plate in just about half an hour.

Today’s recipe comes from Sue at Couscous and Consciousness. I was assigned her blog for this month’s Secret Recipe Club reveal, and had so much fun browsing through her delicious recipes. (I was also excited to read that Sue is a yoga teacher. I love yoga and have been trying to do at least a few sun salutations every morning. I wish I could take a class with Sue, but she lives in New Zealand, so it would be quite a commute.)

Sue’s food is colorful, creative, and usually on the lighter side, so there were a lot of tempting options to choose from. She also has many internationally inspired dishes, which makes browsing her site really fun. For this month’s reveal, top contenders included bengali aloo with lemon turmeric aioli, roasted apricot gelato, and plum and cardamon cake. Even though I’m not much of a salad person at all, I also found myself wanting to try this salmon with green tea soba noodle, broad bean, and radish salad and this watermelon and feta salad with preserved lemon dressing.

Pan-Seared Salmon with Capers and Baby Artichokes

March 19, 2015 By Becky 6 Comments

Were you a picky eater as a kid? I was pretty much the worst. The only vegetable I would eat was broccoli, and it had to have cheese on top. Everything else I deigned to consume was white or golden brown in color: chicken fingers, macaroni and cheese, grilled cheese, french fries, and pizza without tomato sauce (read: dough with cheese). I wanted slices of American cheese melted on top of almost all my food. It was actually called “Becky cheese” over at my dad’s, where no one else ate it.

I remained picky through high school, when I invented a white pizza with broccoli and two kinds of cheese at my favorite local pizzeria. My friends and I called it “Becky pizza”, and it was fabulous (I still think something like it should be added to the menu).

I’m proud to say that things have really changed. Today I’ll try almost anything, and there are very few foods I don’t enjoy. However, until a couple of months ago, salmon was still on my “no” list. I found it too fishy, and something about its orange-pink hue didn’t sit well with me.

Recently I worked on a project where I had to make several salmon recipes. To my surprise, I ended up loving them! The key for me is to really crisp up the skin (and brown the other side as well) and serve the salmon with a flavorful sauce.

Matcha Mug Cake

March 17, 2015 By Becky 17 Comments

This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Matcha Mug Cake (Paleo, Gluten-free) | acalculatedwhisk.com

You’re less than ten minutes away from a scrumptious, grain-free matcha mug cake! It’s paleo friendly, dairy free, and sweetened with honey or maple syrup.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I made you a matcha mug cake. It’s not at all Irish, but at least it’s green!

I was excited to make something green for St. Patty’s Day, but I don’t like to use artificial coloring in my food. Since I had my heart set on making a dessert, using spinach or kale as coloring agents didn’t seem very appealing. Matcha was the perfect solution.

Ingredients for Matcha Mug Cake (Paleo, Gluten-free) | acalculatedwhisk.com

If you haven’t discovered matcha yet, I highly recommend it! It’s just very finely ground green tea leaves, so it has a bit of caffeine and all the great antioxidants contained in green tea. The flavor is hard to describe, but it’s exotic and a bit earthy. Matcha is delicious on its own in desserts, but also pairs well with chocolate. I’ve made this matcha mug cake with and without chocolate chips and still can’t decide which one I prefer.

Crispy Chicken with Spring Vegetables

March 13, 2015 By Becky 2 Comments

Remember when Dorothy threw a bucket of water on the Wicked Witch of the West? And the witch screamed in agony: “I’m melting! Melting! Oh, what a world!”

As I walked to the train station yesterday afternoon, I could almost hear my city’s dirty snow screaming the exact same thing. Boston is not free of snow yet, but we sure have a lot less of it.

The thaw seemed like my cue to start celebrating spring in the kitchen by making a dish with bright green veggies. For the protein I went with crispy chicken thighs, because truly crispy chicken skin is the best thing ever. Ben only likes skin-on chicken when it’s as crunchy as possible and not moist at all, so I practiced and practiced and now have my routine for chicken-crisping down pat.

Here’s how you do it: sear the chicken skin side down in a very hot skillet for a little longer than it seems like you should, and then flip it over and finish it in a 450 degree oven. While the chicken roasts, you’ll have just enough time to fry some bacon and chop your veggies. Then, while the chicken rests, the vegetables cook in the fat from the chicken infused with a bit of lemon.

Orange Peach Raspberry Smoothie

March 9, 2015 By Becky 4 Comments

This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Orange Peach Raspberry Smoothie (Paleo, Vegan)

This orange peach raspberry smoothie is bright, easy, tasty, and full of antioxidants. Avocado and a bit of turmeric give this smoothie great depth of flavor.

When I’m sick, I crave smoothies. Just thinking about blending together a bunch of vitamin-packed produce makes me feel a tad better, and my outlook only improves once I’m actually drinking it. Smoothies, especially ones that look like sunshine in a glass, also help me momentarily forget about winter. For me, they’re are an important aspect of self-care.

I wanted this smoothie to have plenty of Vitamin C, so I used oranges, peaches, and raspberries. Also, like I almost always do, I added an avocado. It makes the smoothie really creamy, but you won’t taste it. The healthy fat from the avocado also makes this nice and filling.

To make the smoothie pack even more of a punch, I added some turmeric and fresh ginger. In addition to providing more potential health benefits, these rhizomes add depth of flavor, and the turmeric deepens the golden color.

The cara cara oranges I used also contributed to the hue of this drink. I bet using blood oranges would make the color pop even more!

Grain-free Coffee Cake Muffins

March 7, 2015 By Becky 6 Comments

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Grain-free Coffee Cake Muffins | acalculatedwhisk.com

These grain-free coffee cake muffins make a decadent grab-and-go breakfast, complete with a cinnamon swirl inside and streusel on top.

Having a dozen freshly baked coffee cake muffins in your kitchen is like having all 12 new episodes of House of Cards waiting for you on Netflix, brand new and ready to be enjoyed. In fact, I think the muffins are even better, because I can make more of them whenever I want. Once I finish watching that last House of Cards episode, I’m out of luck for a long time.

Can you tell that I’ve already watched all of Season 3 (and eaten all of these coffee cake muffins)? What is left for me to look forward to?

Blood Orange Mascarpone Panna Cotta

March 4, 2015 By Becky 4 Comments

My winter survival strategy goes a little something like this: hibernate, obsessively check the sunrise and sunset calendar to track the slow lengthening of days, and eat all the blood oranges.

I buy blood oranges every time I see them at the store, but I love snacking on them so much that this is the first time all season that I’ve managed to use them for a blog recipe. I’m so used to having a supply of them around that when I turned to the fruit bowl the other day, ready to make this panna cotta, I was surprised to find there was only one orange left.

Luckily, that single fruit yielded just enough vibrant zest and sweet juice to lend the perfect amount of citrusy brightness to this panna cotta. If you’re not familiar with panna cotta, it’s like an eggless pudding. It couldn’t be easier to make. The name means “cooked cream”, but I’d hardly even call it cooking–the cream is warmed over low heat for less than five minutes, just long enough to dissolve the gelatin. For this recipe, the gelatin and cream are whisked with blood orange juice and mascarpone for an extra creamy, cheesecake-like finish. The panna cotta is sweetened with honey, which adds a floral note that plays nicely off the bright flavors of the orange juice and zest.