A Calculated Whisk

Creative paleo and gluten-free recipes

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Instant Pot Tomato Sauce (made with fresh tomatoes)

September 9, 2019 By Becky 2 Comments

Instant Pot Tomato Sauce (made with fresh tomatoes)

This simple and luxurious Instant Pot tomato sauce is inspired by Marcella Hazan’s classic recipe, but takes advantage of fresh summer tomatoes from your garden or CSA.

Something about September makes me want to bust out the Instant Pot for almost every meal! All summer long I only used it for rice (it makes the most PERFECT rice!), but now that it’s fall I’m ready to make all manner of sauces, soups, stews, and braises.

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Filed Under: dinner, gluten free, Instant Pot, recipe, vegetarian Tagged With: grain free, instant pot, italian, sauce, summer, tomato, tomato sauce

Instant Pot Short Rib Ragu

September 28, 2018 By Becky 18 Comments

This post is sponsored by Pomì.

Instant Pot Short Rib Ragu

This easy Instant Pot Short Rib Ragu is packed with rich, hearty flavor and is perfect for cool fall nights. Enjoy it with pasta, spiralized veggies, or polenta.

It’s officially fall, which means it’s time for warming comfort food dishes like this Instant Pot Short Rib Ragu. This meaty sauce gets its flavor from organic, 100% Italian Pomì strained tomatoes, a classic soffritto of onion, celery, and carrot, and of course, the short ribs themselves. If you haven’t tried short ribs before, you are in for a treat: after being seared and then pressure cooked to perfection in the Instant Pot, they shred into the most tender morsels of beef you’ve ever tasted. The sauce is finished with a handful of fresh basil for freshness, and a splash of heavy cream or coconut milk for creaminess if you’re so inclined.

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Filed Under: dinner, Instant Pot, paleo, recipe, whole30 Tagged With: beef, dairy free, fall, grain free, instant pot, italian, pressure cooker, short ribs, winter

Caprese Frittata

July 2, 2018 By Becky 4 Comments

Caprese Frittata

This caprese frittata is a fast and delicious way to showcase summer’s bounty. It’s just as welcome for dinner as for breakfast!

My theme this week is caprese everything. These delicious tomatoes and basil from Big Sycamore Farm were just begging to be paired up with some fresh mozzarella and turned into all sorts of caprese things. The other night I made a classic caprese salad, then last night I made caprese sandwiches that were devoured before they could be photographed. And this morning I woke up with a hankering for a caprese frittata.

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Filed Under: #30MinuteMondays, breakfast, gluten free, recipe, vegetarian Tagged With: 30 minute meals, arugula, basil, eggs, grain free, italian, summer, tomatoes

Instant Pot Meatballs

November 28, 2017 By Becky 29 Comments

Instant Pot Meatballs (Paleo, Whole30)

These Instant Pot meatballs are so easy and quick to make–no stove or oven required–and are the ideal paleo & Whole30 comfort food.

How was your Thanksgiving?? Mine was pretty good. I made an apple galette first thing in the morning and we left for Atlanta around 11 to go to a big family Thanksgiving at Ben’s cousin’s house. Amazingly enough, traffic from Chattanooga to the ATL was very light, and we made it in under two hours. I managed to eat only a relatively appropriate amount of dessert and even brought some galette back home, which made a perfect Black Friday breakfast.

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Filed Under: dinner, gluten free, Instant Pot, paleo, recipe, whole30 Tagged With: beef, dairy free, grain free, instant pot, italian, meatballs, pressure cooker, spaghetti squash, tomato, tomato sauce

Bolognese Stuffed Zucchini with Pesto

June 14, 2017 By Becky 36 Comments

This post is sponsored by Uncle Steve’s Italian Specialties.

These bolognese stuffed zucchini with pesto are a satisfying and summery Whole30 meal made with organic tomato basil sauce, ground beef, and plenty of fresh pesto on top.

How is summer treating you so far? Here in Chattanooga it’s been nice and hot (just the way I like it!) and we’ve been getting in a lot of swimming. I’ve also been working on my tan while doing my farm share work, and loving the first rounds of summer produce showing up, like zucchini, basil, and even a few tomatoes.

I used my early squash to make these bolognese stuffed zucchini with pesto, which combine seasonal vegetables and a few pantry staples to make an easy but hearty paleo dinner.

And no, I’m not suggesting you make a true bolognese sauce that needs to simmer away for hours in this heat. This is a bit of a cheater’s bolognese, because we’re letting Uncle Steve’s do the hard work for us. Their organic tomato basil sauce is so flavorful that all we have to do is brown the ground beef with a little onion, and stir in the sauce. The resulting filling will fool all your lucky dinner companions into thinking you worked all day to handcraft an authentic Italian sauce.

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Filed Under: dinner, gluten free, paleo, recipe, whole30 Tagged With: beef, dairy free, grain free, ground beef, italian, pesto, sponsored, summer, zucchini

Eggs in Purgatory with Sausage and Kale

May 18, 2017 By Becky 30 Comments

This post is sponsored by Uncle Steve’s Italian Specialties.

Eggs in Purgatory with Sausage and Kale (Paleo, Whole30)

Eggs in purgatory with sausage and kale is a hearty and delicious breakfast that’s Whole30 compliant and perfect if you like to start the day with a little heat. 

How do you feel about a little spice in the morning? Personally, I’m a big fan. A spicy breakfast helps me wake up, kick starts my day, and makes me feel ready for anything. So as soon as I got my hands on a jar of Uncle Steve’s Organic Arabbiata, I started dreaming about pairing it with eggs for an Italian power breakfast.

Eggs in Purgatory with Sausage and Kale (Paleo, Whole30)

I was so excited to discover Uncle Steve’s sauces because they’re made with organic Italian tomatoes and short list of other clean ingredients: organic onions, garlic, basil, and spices plus sea salt. There’s no sugar anywhere in sight! If you’ve ever done a Whole30, you know how frustrating it can be to peruse labels in the grocery store aisle and find that most prepared sauces and stocks have cane sugar or other off-plan ingredients. Uncle Steve’s sauces are all vegan, gluten free, and paleo with no added sugar, so there’s no need to worry.

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Filed Under: breakfast, gluten free, paleo, recipe, whole30 Tagged With: eggs, italian, sausage, spicy, sponsored, tomato sauce

Paleo Pork Scaloppine with Caper Butter Sauce

April 3, 2017 By Becky 49 Comments

Paleo Pork Scaloppine with Caper Butter Sauce | A Calculated Whisk

This paleo pork scaloppine with caper butter sauce is like chicken piccata, but better. It comes together in half an hour so you can enjoy it on busy weeknights!

Monday has reared its ugly head once again. If you’ve got a case of the blues, I have just the thing for you: paleo pork scaloppine. In a mere half an hour, you’ll get to work out your aggression pounding pork chops thin, hear the satisfying sizzle of the meat hitting the pan, pour an irresistible caper butter sauce over a platter of golden brown cutlets, and then dig in. I know I couldn’t ask for a better form of Monday therapy!

Paleo Pork Scaloppine with Caper Butter Sauce | A Calculated Whisk

To make the breading for this paleo version of pork scaloppine as close as possible to the real thing, we’re using Otto’s Cassava Flour (that’s an affiliate link–I love their product and accept no substitutes!). It’s the best one-to-one replacement for wheat flour that I’ve found, and while I used to have to order it online, this past weekend I spotted it at the Chattanooga Whole Foods! To celebrate, I whipped up a big batch of this paleo pork scaloppine.

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Filed Under: #30MinuteMondays, dinner, gluten free, paleo, recipe Tagged With: 30 minute meals, capers, grain free, italian, lemon, nut free, pasta, pork

Strawberry Panna Cotta with Balsamic Vinegar

February 28, 2017 By Becky 8 Comments

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

Strawberry Panna Cotta with Balsamic Vinegar (Paleo and dairy-free options)

This strawberry panna cotta with balsamic vinegar is an easy but gourmet spring dessert. With dairy-free and paleo-friendly options, more people can enjoy it!

Are you thrown off by the idea of vinegar in a dessert? Don’t go away yet–let me explain. First of all, you won’t actually taste the balsamic vinegar in this strawberry panna cotta unless you decide to drizzle extra on top to serve. Second, balsamic pairs really well with strawberries, enhancing their flavor and sweetness without asserting its own taste in any noticeable way.

Strawberry Panna Cotta with Balsamic Vinegar (Paleo and dairy-free options)

Years ago when I was living in Houston, I threw one of my first dinner parties. I think everything I made that night was from the first cookbook I ever bought myself, Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics. A friend of a friend brought vanilla ice cream for dessert, along with a bottle of chocolate balsamic vinegar. He explained that he’d been to a vinegar tasting, and had learned about how balsamic can enhance desserts. Although skeptical, I drizzled a bit of the heady syrup onto my ice cream, and was totally blown away. The tang of the vinegar made all the other flavors in the dessert pop in the best possible way. I was sold.

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Filed Under: dessert, gluten free, paleo, recipe Tagged With: balsamic vinegar, dairy free, egg free, gelatin, grain free, italian, no-bake, panna cotta, spring, strawberry

Paleo Chicken Piccata with Asparagus

February 29, 2016 By Becky 10 Comments

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

Chicken Piccata with Asparagus (Gluten free, Paleo, Whole30)

This paleo chicken piccata is an easy, quick, and super flavorful weeknight dinner. Adding asparagus makes the already delicious combo of chicken, lemon, and capers even tastier and more nutritious.

Do you see those little green leaves gracing the top of this paleo chicken piccata? Can you guess what they are?

If you guessed parsley I can see why, but they’re actually carrot tops. Yup, as in the lengthy greens that sometimes come with a bunch of carrots, making the whole shebang almost impossible to fit into one of those little produce bags at the grocery store (I’m not the only one who has trouble with that, right?!).

I’m not a big fan of parsley. While it looks nice as a garnish, I often find its flavor too assertive, and sometimes I can barely taste whatever is underneath. So when I was at the grocery store yesterday and they were out of organic parsley, my eyes landed on a gorgeous bunch of organic rainbow carrots with their pristine, frilly greens still attached. I had no particular plan for the carrots, but I knew exactly what I’d do with the greens: chop them up and sprinkle them all over this dish. I actually just snipped them with kitchen shears, which was much easier than chopping, and their delicate flavor was perfect here. This paleo chicken piccata is so flavorful already from the capers, lemons, and ghee that it doesn’t need an assertive herb on top. (This garnish won’t use up all of your carrot tops, but you can use the rest to make carrot top-kale pesto! It’s amazing. Of course, you can also just use parsley here if you like it more than I do.)

Chicken Piccata with Asparagus (Gluten free, Paleo, Whole30)

That’s probably enough about the garnish, though–let’s talk about the paleo chicken piccata itself. This dish is so easy to make. Basically we’re pounding out chicken cutlets to make sure they’re nice and thin, dipping them in some seasoned tapioca flour, and pan-frying them in ghee and olive oil until they’re golden brown. Next we’re quickly steam-sautéing some asparagus in the same pan and making a quick sauce with chicken stock, lemon juice, capers, and a little more ghee or butter. That’s it, and dinner is served! I sometimes find chicken piccata too lemony, but the asparagus and ghee add some richer, earthier flavors here so that the balance of tart and savory tastes is just perfect.

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Filed Under: #30MinuteMondays, dinner, gluten free, paleo, recipe, whole30 Tagged With: 30 minute meals, asparagus, capers, chicken, dairy free, italian, lemon

Pesto Shrimp Bake with Squash and Tomatoes

August 3, 2015 By Becky 25 Comments

This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Pesto Shrimp Bake with Squash and Tomatoes #30MinuteMondays | acalculatedwhisk.com
 
I know this is a totally blasphemous thing to say in the food blogging world, especially in the middle of summer, but I’m really not a fan of tomatoes. They’ve grown on me since I was a kid, when I wouldn’t touch foods with them in it (including pizza, ketchup, and most of all anything involving raw or sundried tomatoes). I now really enjoy a good tomato sauce (like this bolognese or this garlic tomato sauce) and I’ll dip into a fancy ketchup if it’s got curry mixed in or something, but the appeal of raw tomatoes still largely eludes me.
 
Pesto Shrimp Bake with Squash and Tomatoes #30MinuteMondays | acalculatedwhisk.com
 
My best experience so far has been with a couple of memorable caprese salads, including one at dbar, one of my favorite Boston restaurants, which is conveniently located just blocks from our apartment. A caprese salad with housemade mozzarella and tomatoes and basil from their rooftop garden was on the specials menu, and my mom and I had to try it. And, surprisingly enough, I didn’t hate the raw tomatoes.

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Filed Under: #30MinuteMondays, dinner, gluten free, paleo, recipe Tagged With: 30 minute meals, grain free, italian, pesto, primal, shrimp, summer, tomato, zucchini

Slow-Cooked Bolognese Sauce with Sweet Potato Spaghetti

June 10, 2015 By Becky 17 Comments

Slow-Cooked Bolognese Sauce with Sweet Potato Spaghetti (Gluten free, Paleo, Whole30) | acalculatedwhisk.com
 

There’s nothing more comforting than a slow-cooked Bolognese sauce with sweet potato spaghetti! It’s gluten free, paleo, and much more colorful and nutritious than regular spaghetti and meatballs.

This is Whole30 comfort food at its best. Making Bolognese sauce every Friday is a new tradition of mine, and even though I’ve only been doing it for a few weeks, it’s already made my weekends much heartier and more delicious.
 
I have Fridays off this semester so I can stay home while this fragrant sauce simmers away, but if you have to work you could start the sauce in the morning before you leave and finish it in the slow cooker, or make it your Saturday or Sunday tradition instead.
 
Slow-Cooked Bolognese Sauce with Sweet Potato Spaghetti (Gluten free, Paleo, Whole30) | acalculatedwhisk.com
 
You want to let this sauce cook for a nice long time because the flavors will continue to meld and develop over the course of several hours. The long cooking time is the reason bolognese sauce is so synergistic. I also think the sauce tastes even better when I reheat it a day or two later, but I can never resist eating at least some of it the day I make it. The aroma is so enticing!
 
Because everyone’s schedule is different, I’m providing a slow cooker version and a version that cooks completely on the stovetop. Other than the cooking time, which is much longer for the slow cooker version, the only difference is the amount of liquid you add. The stovetop version needs extra liquid since much of the water in the sauce will evaporate, but the slow cooker keeps all that moisture locked in.
 

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Filed Under: dinner, gluten free, paleo, recipe, whole30 Tagged With: beef, bolognese, grain free, ground beef, italian, mushrooms, pork, sauce, slow cooker, spiralizer, sweet potato, tomato, tomato sauce

Parrilla Mixta Italiana

May 19, 2015 By Becky 8 Comments

This Italian summer grilling post is sponsored by Colavita.
This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
 
parrilla mixta italiana 3 v2
 
To me, a mixed grill is the epitome of summer eating. When I spent a semester in Buenos Aires during college, I loved to go out with friends and order a parrilla mixta, which usually consisted of grilled steak, chicken, chorizo, and often organ meats as well, with a big bowl of herby chimichurri sauce and an even bigger bowl of french fries on the side. Add a bottle of wine and you have yourself one happy evening!
 
parrilla mixta italiana 1
 
I don’t know why it took me so long to recreate a parrilla mixta at home, but when Colavita asked me to write a post on the theme of Italian summer grilling, this was the first thing that came to mind.
 
Here I’ve given the Argentine parrilla an Italian twist, marinating the steak and chicken with Italian seasonings and adding capers to the chimichurri. Argentine cuisine is heavily influenced by the food of Italy to begin with–even the Spanish spoken in Buenos Aires sounds uniquely reminiscent of Italian–so Colavita’s oils and vinegars work really well with all the components of this South American meal.
 

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Filed Under: gluten free, paleo, recipe, uncategorized Tagged With: Argentine, beef, capers, chicken, chimichurri, chorizo, Colavita, grain free, grilling, italian, primal, sauce, sausage, sponsored, steak, summer

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Hi, I’m Becky!

Welcome to A Calculated Whisk, where I share creative paleo and gluten-free recipes. Learn more about me here.

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Instant Pot Colcannon

Instant Pot Colcannon

Instant Pot Balsamic Short Ribs

Instant Pot Tomato Sauce (made with fresh tomatoes)

Instant Pot Short Rib Ragu

Instant Pot Short Rib Ragu

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