Food on the Farm

I'm currently beginning month 4 of gluten freedom. I have had a coupe rough patches where I ran out of will power and just needed a piece of bread. But they were few and far between. I ate fast food for the first time in almost 4 months on Saturday, the Farmer and I went on a day road trip to Green Bay and we stopped at Burger King. Last time I got a salad and I was less than impressed so I figured if I was going to eat something gross and terrible for me, I might as well enjoy a little bread, right?! So I had a chicken sandwich - it was OK. I sincerely do not miss fast food. French fries, though....they continue to be my biggest weakness. They're technically gluten free- but they're fried and salty and ranch dressing makes them so irresistible. Baby steps!

This morning I tried those 3 Ingredient Paleo Pancakes you've seen floating around Facebook and Pinterest and since social media claims they're amazing I figured I would give them a try....

To put it lightly, they left something to be desired. 

I was expecting a stack of fluffy, delicious pancakes. Instead, I managed to not screw up 2 of them. They were tricky to flip and the first 4 didn't make it past the first side. The final product was more like banana flavored scrambled eggs than the fluffy short stack I had envisioned. I even cooked them with coconut oil and used Agave Nectar instead of syrup. I added fresh strawberries to the top and ate both of them and I am full. They weren't terrible, but probably won't be on my menu list regularly. The person who claimed these things were so amazing must have never had the real thing because we're talking about apples and oranges here. There was no comparison.

So that's it, that was just my little review of the 3 ingredient pancakes that Facebook is raving about.

 In case you'd like to try them anyways, here's what I did:

 I started with 2 eggs, 2 bananas peeled and mashed, a dash of cinnamon and a little bit of vanilla extract. Whisked it all together with a fork and it becomes a nice little batter.

I warmed a skillet on medium heat and sprayed it with some expeller pressed coconut oil. Like I mentioned flipping them was a little tricky and in order to get them to flip and not fall apart I turned the heat down a little after pouring the batter and cooked them for 3-4 minutes per side.

They never reached the sightly crispy hard exterior that I was expecting - like with traditional pancakes. They were just soft - like scrambled egg consistency. The flavor was fine, just not what I was expecting texture wise.

So there you have it. Don't let me discourage you - again, they weren't terrible and I am pretty full considering I only had 2. This recipe probably would have yielded 6-8 pancakes had I not screwed 3/4 of them up.

If you're interested in a recipe that I actually really LOVED and will be adding to my regular rotation then I'll share with you what I had for dinner last night! SALMON EN PAPILLOTE which sounds super fancy and if you ever want to impress someone with your culinary skills (whether you actually possess any or not) make this dish! Seriously requires little to no cooking skill. Sometimes if you don't cook a lot making something like salmon can be intimidating. But making anything en papillote (which literally means in paper) is super easy and dummy-proof!

I followed the recipe found here at Jessica Gavin  Culinary Scientist. I also just looked at the date on this post and it was 12/15/14 - the exact day I changed my eating habits for the better....funny coincidence.

I made a few minor mods. I didn't have carrots so I just omitted them. I started with my asparagus (trimmed the bottoms a little) on the bottom of my paper pouch (I followed her recommendation of 15"x 18" piece of parchment paper cut into a heart shape) topped the asparagus with thinly sliced red onion, then my salmon which I seasoned with a little minced garlic (about 1 tsp or less) kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper. I skipped the lemon zest and just put a pinwheel of lemon on top with a little bit of chopped fresh chives. Finally (not pictured) I put a couple dollops of the basil compound butter she had in the recipe - it's pretty amazing, but if you're satisfied with conquering one culinary trick at a time then regular butter will suffice!

Oven heated to 450 degrees and popped these babies in for about 10 minutes. Once you fold over the pouches, put them on a cookie sheet for easy handling. 

The finished product:

Just cut open the pouch and serve! She explains the science behind how it cooks but basically the steam cooks the fish and veggies perfectly inside the pouch. So no flipping, sauteing or boiling necessary. Just super flavorful food not to mention extremely healthy. And the Farmer LOVED it. So that's a triple win!

The menu for this week includes
 marinated skirt steak tacos + avocado cucumber relish

Marinated Pork Tenderloin

and probably shrimp risotto - because when I'm not sure what to make I just default to risotto.

I also invented an amazing home made chicken salad recipe that I was eating for lunch last week. I'm going to attempt to recreate it this afternoon and hopefully post about it later. It was fabulous wrapped in some big lettuce leaves or just over greens as a salad. Yum, now my mouth is watering. Time to go!

Happy cooking - from the Farm,

The Farmer's Wife