Recipe: Cajun chicken

Our family loves roasted chicken, so I try to make it in many types of ways as possible. And here is another way. It's a child friendly recipe. My children love it. Usually I serve roasted vegetables, such a carrots, parsnips and swede with roasted potatoes with it. The best part about that is that you can put the chicken at the top shelf and the vegetables with potatoes in 1 oven dish on the bottom shelf in your oven and it is all done at the same time. I put the vegetables at the bottom of the dish and the potatoes at the top, so they get some more crunch to them.

Origin: Louisiana maybe. I don't really know, but I use a cajun spice mix.

Difficulty: easy
Time: 2 hours in total from start to finish, but that is including the 1h30m in the oven, so 30 minutes real work
Serves: 6
Yield: 6 pieces 
Traditional/GAPS/SCD legal, Primal, Paleo

Equipment:

• Oven
• 1 oven dish
• 1 roemer topf or a oven dish with a lid

Ingredients:

• 1 chicken of about 2 kg
• 1 jar of cajun spice mix of Steenbergs
• 1 bunch of thyme
• celtic sea salt
• black pepper

Things to do ahead:
1 day ahead - defreeze chicken
1 hour ahead - soak your roemer topf and take your chicken out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature

Directions:

• Preheat your oven to 180C/350F/Gas4
• Put your chicken in the roemer topf.
• Cut your lemon in half and cut one half again. The other half you squeeze out over your chicken. The other 2 you squeeze out into the cavity and put the squeezed lemons inside.
• Put the part of the thyme inside and part under your chicken.
• Spread about 2 tablespoons of cajun spice mix over your chicken on all sides. Massage it in well.
• Close the lid of your roemer topf.
• Put your roemer topf into the oven for 1 hour.
• After the hour take the lid off your roemer topf. Put up the heat to 220C/430F/Gas7. Pour the cooking juices as well as you can over the chicken.
• Leave the chicken in for another 20 to 30 hours. Depending on how heavy your chicken has been. When it's somewhat under 2 kilos 20 minutes is usually enough. When it is over 2 kilos 30 minutes is often necessary.
• Make sure your chicken is cooked well by checking whether the juices run clear.
• Take your chicken out of the oven, put the lid back on the roemertopf and leave it standing for 30 minutes to an hour to rest.
• Take the bones out of the chicken and let the chicken absorb the juices a bit.

Enjoy!

Recipe: Whole chicken shawarma from the slow cooker

In the slow cooker, adding the rub

Finished cooking, just put it on a plate.

Here is another family favourite. When we lived in The Netherlands we sometimes got Shawarma from the Shawarma take-away. In The Netherlands it is actually written differently: Shoarma. Either way, all of us loved it. Frequently we would get it with mushrooms and peppers added or things like that. There were quite some varieties possible in most of the take-aways. But since we moved the first time to the UK we haven't had it much anymore. When we lived in The Netherlands the last time somehow in the area where we lived then there were mainly döner take-aways there. So we hadn't had it in many years. So when I read about it again a few years ago I realised how long it had been ago since we had it and how initially we had all craved it and the kids had asked about it. At some point they asked me to make it myself. But I couldn't see myself buy one of these upright grills or how to actually make it. It looked very difficult from the way they made it in the take-aways. So I had forgotten about it altogether for years. Until a few years ago when I read about it. At that point it was described on how to make it as a roast in the oven. Of course that worked. But it didn't taste as great as I remembered it. So I started tweaking the recipe and read up on other sites about it and asked friends from the Middle East how they made this type of food. So slowly but carefully I ended up getting it better and better. But then I got lazy and found it too much effort to make a roast in the oven. I started reading a bit more and looked up whether I could make it in the slow cooker. I found that some had done it with good results. So I had to try of course. The first time was right away a great success. The whole house smelled wonderful and everyone was more than ready for dinner by dinner time, they had been smelling it all day long LOL. Since I have made it quite regularly and because we love it so much I felt I should share it with you. We usually eat it with pita breads, garlic sauce, lettuce, onions, tomatoes and cucumber. Not everyone eat all with it. I love the raw onions, my kids not so much :-)

Origin: Middle east

Just before eating

Difficulty: easy
Time: 8 hours
Serves: 6 
Traditional/GAPS/SCD legal, Primal

Equipment:

• Slow cooker

Ingredients:

• 1 whole chicken
• 6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, divided
• 2 tsp cumin
• 2 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp allspice
• 3/4 tsp turmeric
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• Pinch of cayenne
• Salt and black pepper
• 3 tbsp yoghurt
• juice of 1 lemon
• butter, chicken fat or such

Things to do ahead:
2 days ahead - thaw chicken in fridge
1 day ahead - start sourdough pita breads
1 day ahead - make garlic sauce

Directions:

• Grease the slow cooker with butter, chicken fat or such.
• Make a nice rub with all the spices, yoghurt and lemon juice. 
• After mixing it well, rub it all over the chicken, which you could cut in bits if you prefer. I usually keep it whole. 
• Put the chicken in the slow cooker and turn in on low for 8 hours. or 4 hours on high.

Possible substitutions:
dairy - coconut
butter - coconut, tallow, etc.

Ready to dig in

Recipes: Crumpets, sourdough

Recently I made sourdough crumpets for breakfast. I had had the crumpets one buys in the supermarket on occassion, but didn't really like them. I tried to home made version with white flour every now and then, but still I wasn't satisfied, there had to be a more nutritious way to make them with sourdough. So I read a lot online and experimented a bit. The result of my experimentations you will find below. It is certainly very tasty and my children loved them, hopefully yours will as well.

As for the toppings, you can use a variety of things, savoury and sweet.
Sweet toppings can be: sliced or mashed fruit, whipped cream, clotted cream, butter and cinnamon, home made fruit butter or such. The possibilities are endless.
Savoury toppings can be: home made nut butter, tomato or any other vegetable, either cooked or raw, with some salt and pepper, melted cheese with a vegetable, such as tomato or mushroom, cheese, fried or poached egg, ham, salami, fried bacon, pulled pork, or whatever takes your fancy. You can add some herbs or spices, or chilli to make the flavour you want. Again the possibilities are endless. 

Recently we made pizza crumpets, just add a bit of tomato sauce, salami, ham, mushrooms and cheese and put them under the broiler. The kids loved them :-)

Origin: United Kingdom

Difficulty: easy
Time: about 1 hour start to finish
Serves: 4
Yield: 8 pieces 
Traditional, Vegetarian

Equipment:
* egg, crumpet or american pancake rings, I used silicon ones that I bought on Ebay
* frying pan
* bowl for the batter

Ingredients:
* 2 cups / 500 ml sourdough starter
* 2 TBSP sweetner, such as sucanat or any other whole sweetner (you can omit if you prefer, for instance for savoury crumpets)
* 1 tsp celtic sea salt
* 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
* 1 TBSP water to dissolve the bicarbonate of soda in
* butter, coconut oil, ghee, lard or beef drippings for greasing your pan and rings
* optional - herbs and spices to your liking

Directions:
* Warm up your pan, grease it, grease your rings.
* Put the sourdough starter, sweetner and salt in a bowl, mix well. 
* Mix the bicarbonate of soda and water together.
* Once your pan is hot mix the bicarbonate of soda/water mix with the sourdough mix. Now it will start bubbling and poofing up. 
* You can now put your batter in your rings, make sure you do not fill them up too high as they crumpets will rise while baking. I used a gravy spoon to fill my rings, which was halfway up the ring, but by the time the crumpets were cooked they were to or slightly over the top of the rings, which wasn't a problem as the batter had cooked and was firm.
* Once you see the characteristic holes in the top of the crumpets and they are dry at the top you can flip them over and cook the other side a bit, or, if you prefer tip them out onto a plate right away. When you choose to cook the other side, take them out when they have the colour you want.
* Grease your pan and rings again (clean the rings in between in case they have dough on them) and make your next batch.

Possible substitutions:
butter - ghee, coconut, tallow, lard, beef drippings etc.
sucanat - honey, maple syrup, coconut/palm sugar, maple sugar
celtic sea salt - himalaya salt, persian salt

St. Nicholas pepernoten, spiced little cookies

Pepernoten

This is an old recipe. It is from the time when people were still fasting before the christmas period. This means that there are no dairy or eggs used in this recipe. I personally do sometimes use milk or butter, simply because I like the flavour.
There is pepper in this recipe, as you can see in the name of the cookies. There are also other spices in there, which were shipped in from Asia by the Dutch trading ships and because of that fairly soon already common goods in The Netherlands, while they were still relatively unknown in other European countries.

Origin: The Netherlands

Difficulty: easy
Time: 30 minutes preparation, 1 night waiting, 20 minutes baking
Yield: about 50, depending on the size you make them

Equipment:

• Oven
• Kitchen machine

Ingredients:

• 125 grams sprouted flour
• 125 grams sprouted rye flour
• 1/2 tablespoon baking powder
• 100 ml honey
• 1 tablespoon of maple syrup
• 1/8 teaspoon black peppercorns
• 1/8 teaspoon cloves
• 3 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon cardamom
• 1 teaspoon aniseed
• 100 ml water (I often use buttermilk as this prepares the flour better for digestion)
• a pinch of salt
• a bit of oil or ghee

Directions:

• Put all the spices in the kitchen machine and grind to a powder consistency. alternatively use all powder, though the flavour will be more rounded when using the whole spices and grinding them yourself.
• Make sure honey is fluid, if need be warm it up a bit au bain marie.
• Mix baking powder and flour, make sure there are no lumps in there.
• Mix in the spices.
• Mix in the honey and maple syrup
• Add the water (or buttermilk) bit by bit, maybe you will need a bit less or a bit more than the 100 ml. Try to achieve a nice soft dough.
• Put it in the fridge overnight.
• Preheat the oven to 180C
• Rub a bit of oil or ghee on a baking tray, or use a silicon mat.
• Make balls the size of a marble, or cut squares the size of marbles from the dough. Make sure the balls lay relatively close to each other, so that they rise up in stead of sideways.
• Bake in a preheated oven for about 15 to 20 minutes, check after about 10 minutes how they are fairing. When you have made your balls small, they may need to go out after 10 minutes, when they are average it takes about 15 and big ones take about 20 minutes, use your nose and your eyes to check where they are.

Possible substitutions:

1. butter - coconut, tallow, etc. depending on which flavour you can handle. In this case I would go for deodorised coconut oil if at all possible.
2. sugar - honey, but then leave out the milk.
3. sprouted flour - plain flour

Speculatius spice mix

As I do not live in The Netherlands any more it isn't easy for me to get hold of speculatius spice mix these days, fortunately it is very easy to make myself.
Usually at the end of November I make a preserving jar full of it. I tend to use a LOT of it in the month of December for my St. Nicolas and Yuletide baking. And just in case I do not finish it, I can continue making speculatius biscuits until it is all finished.

This is what it looks like.

Origin: Dutch

Difficulty: easy

Time: 10 minutes

Traditional, Primal, Paleo, Vegetarian, etc

Equipment:

• preserving jar
• measuring spoons

Ingredients:

• 5 tablespoons and 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon clove
• 2 teaspoons ginger
• 2 teaspoons white pepper
• 1 teaspoon cardamom
• 1 teaspoon anisseed

Directions:

• All need to be powder, so in case you only have the whole part, pulverise it.
• Put all in the preserving jar, stir, done!

St. Nicholas Kruidnootjes, spiced small biscuit balls

As I am Dutch I really like making traditional Dutch treats during the St. Nicholas time. These are one of them.

Origin: Dutch

Difficulty: easy

Yield: about 80 to 100 kruidnootjes

Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Traditional, Vegetarian

Equipment:

• kitchen machine or pastry cutter
• baking tray
• oven

Ingredients:

• 150 grams sprouted flour
• 100 grams cold butter
• 75 grams rapadura, sucanat, coconut sugar or maple sugar
• 5 grams baking powder
• 10 grams speculatius spice mix
• pinch of sea salt
• milk

Things to do ahead:

• several days ahead: sprout your grains and make the sprouted flour
• make speculation spice mix

Directions:

• Put all the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix well.
• Cut the butter in with a pastry cutter or do it in the kitchen machine
• Knead to a ball while adding little by little some milk to make it a nice and somewhat firm biscuit dough.
• Once you have a nice ball put it in a bowl, covered, in the refrigerator for at the minimum half an hour, but overnight is just fine as well. I prefer leaving it in overnight as it is easier to work with when it has stood around for a bit.
• Preheat your oven to 170C / 325F / Gas3.
• Put baking paper on your baking tray.
• Make small balls out of your dough and put those on your baking tray. If they want to roll away, push them onto the baking paper a bit, so they stick. My children love helping with this. But do make sure that the small balls have a similar size, else you may have the problem that some will be nearly black and others not done yet by the time you want to get them out of the oven. If you end up with the situation that they are all different, check regularly how they are fairing and taking out the ones that are done and leave the rest in until they are cooked. It can be done, it is just more hassle, but sometimes totally worth it when the children help out :-)
• Make sure you put the small balls a little away from each other as they still rise a bit.
• Baking takes anywhere between 10 to 15 minutes depending on the size of your balls. 

Variety ideas:

• Dip them partially or fully in some melted chocolate (chocolade kruidnootjes)
• Dip them in melted white chocolate or any other chocolate you like and dust them with cocoa powder (truffel kruidnootjes)

Possible substitutions:

1. butter - coconut, tallow, etc. depending on which flavour you can handle. In this case I would go for deodorised coconut oil if at all possible.
2. sugar - honey, but then leave out the milk.
3. sprouted flour - plain flour

Thai cashew chicken.

This dish is one of the favourites of my kids. It is also super easy and quick to make. We hardly ever have left-overs of this one, which is unfortunate for me as I love taking it to work the next day for lunch.

Finding a way to make this dish started many years ago.
When we lived in The Netherlands there were these boxes, with which you could make certain ethnic dishes. Thai cashew chicken was one of them. So once in a while we used it. After we moved to the UK in 2005 and I learned about traditional cooking, I learned that some of the ingredients in the boxes had not been so wonderful. So, because I couldn't get it that easily anyway anymore and because it didn't have such great ingredients I started searching on how to traditionally make this myself.

I searched the internet and found many recipes which were called Thai cashew chicken. But most didn't really have great ingredients and others didn't taste so well. So I started experimenting. And this is the result of my experiments.

So I will share it here with you in hopes that you will like it just as much as we do. 

Enjoy!

Soaked rice, ready for eating, still in the haybox, nice and warm.

The chicken sauce

Here it is on a plate

Origin: Thailand

Difficulty: easy

Time: 30 minutes

Serves: 6

Traditional/GAPS/SCD legal, Primal, Paleo, Vegetarian, etc.

Equipment:

• hay box (optional)
• 2 pans
• spatula

Ingredients:

• 600 grams (or more) pasture raised or organic chicken, cubed
• coconut oil
• 2 hands full of crispy cashew nuts
• organic whole grain rice
• a bunch of organic spring onions
• 2 tablespoons of rubbish free thai fish sauce
• 2 tablespoons of rubbish free oyster sauce.
• 2 cups of home made chicken broth
• organic corn starch for thickening (optional)

Things to do ahead:

• 3 days ahead, soak organic cashew nuts in salty water for 6 hours and dehydrate
• 1 day ahead, make chicken broth
• the evening before, soak the rice overnight in an acidic medium
• the morning before, cook rice for 20 minutes and put for the rest of the day in the haybox, alternatively cook it a few hours before

Directions:

• Make the crispy nuts, broth and rice ahead of time, as described above
• Cut the chicken in cubes
• Fry the chicken in the coconut oil, add the fish sauce and oyster sauce
• Clean and cut the spring onions
• Once the chicken is fried well, add the spring onions and the cashew nuts
• Add the broth
• Optionally thicken the sauce with the corn starch. Often enough I don't thicken as the rice soaks up the sauce well enough. In the pictures above I haven't thickened the sauce as I had not motivation to do so :-)

Substitutions

It is not easy to get rubbish free oyster sauce. In case you can't find it, use shoyu or tamari, or just omit altogether and add a bit more fish sauce. With shoyu and tamari it will taste slightly different, but it is still equally tasty.

Lasagne

Difficulty: easy
Time: Oven 1 hour, slow cooker 4 to 7 hours
Serves: 6
Yield: 6 pieces 
Traditional/GAPS/SCD legal, Primal

Equipment:

• Oven or slow cooker
• Pan
• large oven safe bowl in case the oven is used

Ingredients:

• 1 kg beef mince or 500 gr pork mince and 500 gr beef mince
• butter, lard, tallow, beef drippings
• courgette
• onions
• mushrooms
• garlic
• passata
• grated cheese
• salt, peper, oregano

Things to do ahead:

• 1 day ahead thaw meat

Directions:

• Preheat the oven on 180C/350F, fan assisted on 160C, gas 4 when using the oven
• Clean and slice the courgette
• Cube the onions and set aside
• Slice the mushrooms and set aside
• Brown the beef in a pan in some butter, lard, tallow or beef drippings, add onions, mushrooms and garlic to the pan and fry with the meat until soft
• Add the passata and let it cook for a bit.
• Add salt, pepper and oregano to taste, keeping in mind that there will be courgette used in stead of the traditional lasagna sheets, which means that the sauce may need a bit more salt and pepper
• Spoon some of the sauce into the bowl or slow cooker crock, top with a layer of sliced courgette, again a layer of sauce, topped with a layer of courgette, until the sauce and the courgette are all done, finishing with a layer of sauce.
• Top with grated cheese.
• When using the oven put the bowl in the oven for about 35 to 45 minutes, keep an eye on it by the time you reach the 35 minutes mark.
• When using the slow cooker, put it in for 6 hours on low or 3 hours on high.
• Buon apetito!

Possible substitutions:

1. butter - coconut, tallow, lard, beef drippings

2. cheese - omit or use a bechamel sauce

Goulash, Hungarian

Difficulty: easy

Serves: 6-8
Traditional

Ingredients:

For the goulash:

2 tablespoons butter or lard

2 onions

6 garlic cloves

1/4 cup smoked paprika

1/4 cup tomato paste, organic

1 teaspoon caraway seeds

Sea salt, to taste

2 cups chicken broth, preferably homemade

2 kg stewing beef

1/3 fish sauce

1/4 cup cornstarch or arrowroot powder, organic

2 bay leaves

For the rice:

Sea salt

Filtered water

500 grams brown rice, soaked for at least 12 hours.

Garnishes:

1/2 cup sour cream or creme fraiche, organic

Black pepper, freshly ground

Sauerkraut

Directions: 

Rice:

1. The night before, soak the rice in a large pan in acidic water.
2. In the morning, bring the rice to a boil and after 20 minutes of cooking, put it in the haybox and leave it there until dinner to get thoroughly cooked.
Alternatively:
cook it as per the instructions on the packaging. This will get it done faster, but the rice is less nutritious. You may consider using white rice instead of brown when you do not have the time to soak the rice overnight.

Goulash:
1. In a large pan, heat the butter or lard over medium heat.

2. Peel and finely dice the onions and garlic cloves. Add to the pan along with the paprika, tomato paste, caraway seeds, and 1/4 teaspoon of sea salt.

3. Cook until the onions are softened and lightly browned, which will take about 10 to 15 minutes.

4. Cut the beef into large cubes. Set them aside.

5. Stir in the chicken broth, scraping up any brown bits.

6. Transfer the onion mixture to the slow cooker.

7. Add the meat to the slow cooker along with the fish sauce, cornstarch/arrowroot powder and bay leaves and stir to combine. Cover and cook on low until the meat is tender, 4 to 5 hours.

8. Remove the bay leaves from the crock pot. Stir one cup of the stewing liquid into the sour cream to temper, then stir the sour cream mixture into the stew.

12. Season the stew to taste with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.

13. Serve the stew over the rice with extra sour cream and sauerkraut on top.