I am not completely sure of my work schedule now that the restaurant is open Sundays, but I do know that I will at least have every Monday off. Therefore, I will try and get a recipe post up every Monday. Hope you are ready for Monday suppers!

Seared Ahi tuna, with daikon, carrot, and jicama salad, wasabi sauce and coconut cream.

As you may know, I am obsessed with sushi, and wasabi. So, I figured I would incorporate a few of my favorite flavors into my dish. Turned out pretty good i’d say.

This is where I got to stand for hours…and hours for the portfolio show.

This was my friend Alicia and I after being at school for like 14 hours. Goodbye culinary school… now off to find me a job.

In the meantime, I am not really sure what to do with myself. I keep thinking that I have homework to do, or deadlines to reach… but I don’t. Guess I might as well focus on the blog!

We have all had out moments of weakness, I think Dez is aching for cupcakes as much as I am aching for some sushi. I believe I remember her trying to bribe me with sushi… it is my kryptonite.

As we tried to get over our wanting to quit whole30 fit, Dez made us some delicious pork tacos with mango salsa. Yum.

Not only were they pretty, but they tasted amazing. There was not much left over.

Hopefully there are easier days ahead.

Onto day 10!

I should have a lot more food to post but have been in a bit of a pinch with photos and am in need of some new plates for food photography purposes… until then, here was one of the favorites of the week.

I love carnitas. Maybe that is why this is my favorite. I know, carnitas are not nearly as fun without a taco shell or a tortilla to go with them but I promise you that with the right fixings, they are still damn good. I thought about serving the carnitas in a lettuce wrap…but I have done that about a thousand times and I always end up frustrated with a mess in my lap ( or my plate if I am lucky ). Unfortunately lettuce is just not as great of a  food transportation device as a tortilla. Instead of a lettuce wrap I decided to saute some cabbage and top it with carnitas. Perfect. No frustration, yet with all the flavor. It is not as pretty, but in the end, it is the taste that counts.

I served Yucca root as a side for the carnitas, which many people have never tried before. Let me tell you, if you are missing potatoes, and are turning orange from eating so many sweet potatoes than this is the way to go. I prepared them “cuban” style which means you make a sauce made up of onion, garlic, and olive oil and then pour it over the cooked yucca to finish.  To prepare the yucca all you need to do is peel it, cube it, simmer it unitl tender, and then finish it with your sauce.

For the Sauce:

4 garlic cloves, minced

one onion, diced

1/4 cup olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

I put all of my ingredients in a food processor and pulsed until everything was nicely minced, but you can do it by hand as well.

Place sauce in a pan over medium high heat and sautee for a few minutes just to get the raw onion/garlic flavor out. DON’T BURN YOUR GARLIC.

Pour the sauce over your yucca and toss. Season with salt and pepper. Easy peasy.

I also served homemade salsa and guacamole. Nothing is complete without guacamole.

On another note, today I am starting the first day of my last lab class for culinary school. ( granted I pass ) I am almost done. I am all sorts of nervous and excited. I remember the first time I slipped on these chef coats… I couldn’t help but smile. It was the beginning of a new chapter of my life. A chapter I had always dreamed of. Hard to believe that dreams really do come true. I am curious to see what the next chapter in my life has in store for me. I don’t plan to stop dreaming anytime soon.

So this means we restart our whole30 challenge tomorrow. Call me crazy but I am excited. I normally wouldn’t recommend being so anal about the food you eat. The whole30 challenge is TOUGH. Eating in a restaurant and knowing your food is 100% whole30 is nearly impossible. Planning ahead is the key to a successful whole30. It takes a lot of work and thought to just simply eat. I wouldn’t live my whole life this way…but if you are someone who normally doesn’t really think about what you are eating, or know what is in your food, this is a great way to be more aware of what you put in your body. The best part is… it is ONLY 30 days.

I am going to confess now, that although I will be 100% whole30 compliant at home, I am not going to sacrifice the way my food tastes at school. This is my last quarter of culinary school so I am going to have to draw the line here. Since this is my second time participating in the whole30 challenge I already know what foods my body is not so fond of. I know that the Hartwigs ( the creators of the whole30/whole9 program) say that you never have to eat anything you don’t want to and that there are no excuses… well I beg to differ. Sorry Hartwigs, I need to graduate…and find a job. So I need to taste my food before I serve it to a chef. My reputation is on the line here!

If you want to know more about what you can and cannot eat on the whole30 or would like to follow along, PLEASE read this first: http://whole9life.com/2012/08/the-whole30-program/

Enough sushi talk…onto the real food.

My roomy Dez was craving something creamy, so we decided we would give a cauliflower puree a go. Served it with Roasted chicken, chimichurri sauce, and some roasted zucchini. ( not pictured )

For the cauliflower puree, I steamed the cauliflower until very tender. (almost mushy ) and then put it in my food processor with garlic and coconut milk. I roasted the chicken with mexican spices..thought i’d change it up a bit. I made a “compound butter” with coconut oil, chili powder, cumin, salt, and pepper. I placed the coconut oil under the skin just like I would normally do with butter.

For the Chimichurri I placed a few cloves of garlic in the food processor with salt, pepper and parsley and pulsed until turned into a paste. I then added in the oil, lemon juice, and apple cider vinegar. You want it to be a little bit tangy to balance out the creamy/salty flavors of the cauliflower and chicken.

Now onto day three of Whole30, round two.

I have been eating Paleo for quite some time now, and this is my second time participating in the Whole30 challenge. The first time around, the hardest part was kicking my energy drink habit…which I successfully did. I am still energy drink free thanks to Whole30. The hard part this time around is that my birthday is landing within this 30 day challenge. Yep. Realizing that I was doing another whole30 challenge during my birthday made me want to tell Robb Wolf to suck it, Punch Mark Scisson in the wiener, and slap the pretty little smiles off of the Hartwigs faces. I was supposed to get sushi on my brithday, which happens to be my favorite paleo cheat food. I am obsessed with Sushi, and it is a treat. A treat I won’t be getting on my birthday. I will admit, I am pretty sad about this, and I am not yet done throwing my tantrum. It’s my party, I will cry if I want to.

Onto the Food:

For dinner we had a spaghetti. Paleo spaghetti of course. We used Spaghetti squash for the noodles and the usual spaghetti sauce with grass-fed beef, canned tomatoes, onion, carrots, celery, garlic and some sauteed spinach. In the summer I would normally use fresh tomatoes, but believe it or not canned is better in the winter. Tomatoes are canned when they are ripe and actually have flavor. Those tomatoes you see in the produce aisle right now- are fake…well, they might as well be considering they have no flavor.

Sorry for the bad food photo. It looks a little more Everyday Paleo and less Nom Nom Paleo.

Off to plan today’s menu!

I have finally settled in and taken some time to relax over my winter break. I don’t start back at school until Jan. 9th so that leaves me a little free time to get back in the swing of things. Also, next quarter is not only a new quarter and a fresh start, but it is also my last quarter. Yep. I graduate from culinary school next quarter. It seems surreal. It is something I have been dreaming about for so long… I can’t believe it is finally here. I guess it is proof that dreams really do come true.

The thought of graduating next quarter brings both excitement and fear. I have finally accomplished a huge goal of mine…but where do I go from here? What is in store for me next? I have plenty of ideas of what I would like to do, but nothing concrete. As long as I am working after graduation, that is a step forward. Baby steps.

In other news, somehow I convinced two out of three of my roommates to do a whole30 paleo diet challenge with me starting today. I am really excited to have others doing the challenge with me this time around and also looking forward to posting some more recipes throughout the month.  Anyone else doing a Paleo challenge for the new year?

Yep. How about them apples?

It doesn’t get much better then apples picked fresh off of the tree in your backyard. I love that I was able to have picked them myself, and know exactly where they came from. Doesn’t get much more local than that!

So many options came to mind when I carried in my basket of apples…pie, cobbler, poached apples, apple compote for a more savory dish, apple muffins, apple turnovers,  apple butter….ah yes. Apple butter. It would be perfect to bring along with the biscuits I was taking to my crossfit gyms little Friday get together.

Before going paleo one of my favorite things to eat was biscuits and jam. ( you would think I was a fat kid ). There is just something about biscuits…they taste so comforting. It is one of those foods that is wrapped in memories. With the colder weather I was in the mood for a little comfort food and decided to work on a more paleo friendly biscuit. Sure, it is still a treat, but at least it isn’t a gluten bomb that will haunt you for weeks.

Yep. Pure heaven.

I will start with the biscuits:

What you will need:

Ingredients:

1 cup of almond flour
1 cup of coconut flour
4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
5 Tbs. cold butter ( unsalted )
3 Tbs. Honey ( you can omit this but it rounds out the flavor…. your call! but I like it   )
3/4 cup coconut milk ( the full fat canned kind )

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F
Mix together the dry ingredients ( flour, baking powder, salt )
Cut the butter into small pieces and add to the dry mixture.

Yes, I used real butter. It will work with chilled coconut oil too but seriously…what is a biscuit without butter? If you are going to have a treat. Have a treat.

Cut in the butter with a pastry cutter or a fork until it reaches a corn mealy type texture like this…

Then add in the Honey and the coconut milk. Don’t be a pussy and mix it with your hands.
The dough will be a bit wet but the coconut flour is super absorbent so don’t worry. The good thing about gluten free biscuits is that you don’t have to worry about over working the dough.
After mixing, your dough should look like this…

Place the dough onto a flat surface and flatten to about 1-2 inches tall.

Cut out the biscuits to your desired shape. I have a round biscuit cutter so… that is what I used.
You can also just drop semi-formed rounds of dough onto a sheet pan to make it easier.

Bake for 15 minutes. They will be a little brown on the bottom/top but
don’t worry its not burning.
Pull out of the oven and let cool….if you can wait.

Yum. Now for the apple butter.

What you will need:

• Ingredients:
• About 5 Granny smith apples..or whatever you have, sliced
• 12 oz dates, chopped ( I put mine in the food processor until it was paste-like ) It is probably about 3/4 cups worth of dates after processing.
• 2 cups of apple cider
• 1 Tbs. apple cider vinegar
• 1-2 Tbs. Cinnamon
• 1 pinch of ground nutmeg
• Pinch of ground cloves (optional)
• 1 Tbs. Vanilla extract
• Generous amount of coconut oil for sauteing

Saute sliced apples until they are coated with the coconut oil. Then add in your dates.

Keep stirring constantly the apple/date mixture over medium-high heat. Your dates will start to break down.
Saute until it looks like this.

Then add in your 2 cups of apple cider, cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg, and cloves.

Turn your heat down to low and let simmer. Stirring occasionally. Reduce until it looks like this…

Remove from heat and let cool. Process in a food processor until smooth… enjoy.

Now if you want to be 12 years old like me, watch this video and try and read this post without laughing….

Happy Cooking!