Venison Mini Meatloaf Muffins

Venison mini meatloaf muffins

“Here you go, then”, said Mrs. Paleovirtus, casually dropping a slab of frozen venison mince into our shopping basket. “See what you can do with that!”

“How fortuitous”, I thought to myself, for that very morn I had come across a recipe that would suit that particular ingredient down to the ground.

What I had in mind was Mini Meatloaf “Muffins” with a vegetable purée “frosting”.

This idea was inspired by an article by Katie, aka the “Wellness Mama”, which can be found here.

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Makes 12 “muffins”

Ingredients

• 450g minced venison
• 1 red onion, grated
• 4 cloves of garlic, very finely minced
• 2 tsp Herbes de Provence
• 1 tsp smoked Spanish paprika
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1⁄4 cup almond flour
• approx. 1kg frozen cauliflower

Method

• Pre-heat the oven to 200 C.
• Place the minced venison in a large mixing bowl. Add the grated red onion, garlic, Herbes de Provence, smoked Spanish paprika, and almond flour. Mix well. Place in the fridge for an hour or so to let the flavours develop.
• Remove the bowl from the fridge, and allow to come up to room temperature. Mix in the egg with your hands, squishing and squashing the egg and mince together until they are very thoroughly mixed.
• Place some parchment liners in a muffin tin, and fill the liners with the meat mixture. Bake in the oven on the middle shelf until the tops of the “muffins” are nicely browned, about 30 minutes or so.
• In the meantime, cook the cauliflower. Drain well, and then purée with a hand held blender. Set aside.
• When the “muffins” are ready, remove them from the muffin tin, and serve them with the cauliflower “frosting” piped onto the top. We ate them with steamed asparagus dressed with lemon juice and olive oil.

Notes

On the presentation side – here we used a “standard” sized muffin tin, rather than an “American” or “large” one, which meant that the meat came out shaped more like a slightly flattened, large meatball, rather than muffin-shaped. Our local supermarket sell very reasonably priced large silicon muffin-moulds, which might make for a better meat-muffin.

Another slight niggle regarding the presentation – the cauliflower “frosting” was just a bit too runny to hold its shape once piped onto the top of the muffins, something that’s going to require a bit of further research.

As far as the taste goes, we were more than happy there. Our one thought – the mildly gamey, almost lamb-like flavour of the venison mince might work slightly better with different herbs, spices and seasoning. The definitive Swedish go-to recipe book, “Vår Kokbok”, has quite a few recipes for venison, which might give us some interesting ideas on that front.

Lemon and Honey Chicken

Lemon and honey chicken

We were umming an ahing on Friday evening like true champions, unable to arrive at any kind of consensus regarding what we should have to eat.

Time was running out, the hunger demon was tapping on the living room window with an evil grin on his face, and even the cat was getting fed up with the situation. It looked as though a serious bout of tag-team sulking was imminent.

Lemon Pound Cake Mk. II

Lemon pound cake, Mk. II version

This is my second attempt at a Lemon Pound Cake, following on from the Mk. I version, which I posted about here.

As you may be able to tell, this version makes use of one half of the amount of almond flour, coconut flour, coconut oil, honey, and eggs that was in the Mk. I version.

As per Mrs. Paleovirtus’ request to make the Mk. II version more lemony than the Mk. I version, I kept the original amount of lemon juice and zest, effectively making it twice as lemony as previously.

This also had the effect of increasing the overall amount of liquid in the recipe, which in turn gave the cake mixture a less dense, compact texture (see notes below).

Before attempting the Mk. II version, I did quite a bit of research into other Lemon Pound Cake recipes, both Paleo and non-Paleo, and came to the conclusion that the Mk. II version should contain vanilla essence for flavour, and baking powder to assist with the texture, which was one of the areas flagged for improvement after trying out the Mk. I recipe.

To give a more pleasing shape I also bought a 450g / 1lb loaf tin.

My research also suggested that I needed to bake the cake for a longer period of time in a slightly cooler oven – 1 hour in a 160° C oven.

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Ingredients

• Juice and finely chopped zest from 1 lemon
• 3 tbsp coconut oil, plus extra for greasing your cake tin
• 2 tbsp honey
• 1 cup almond flour
• ¼ cup coconut flour
• 2 eggs
• ½ tsp vanilla essence
• ½ tsp baking powder

Method

• Pre-heat your oven to 160 deg. C.
• Prepare a 450g / 1lb non-stick loaf tin by greasing it up well with coconut fat.
• Sift the 2 flours in a large mixing bowl. Mix well.
• If needs be, melt your coconut fat and honey in a microwave or over low heat.
• In a smaller bowl, mix the eggs, the lemon juice, and the lemon zest. Stir in the honey and the coconut oil. Mix well.
• Add the “wet” mix to the flours, and whisk together until you have a smooth cake mixture.
• Pour the cake mix into the loaf tin. Work it with a rubber spatula until you have a smooth, even layer.
• Bake for 1 hour or thereabouts, or until the cake passes the “clean-skewer” test for done-ness.

Notes

Mrs. Paleovirtus felt that the amount of lemon in the Mk. II version was spot on, and flavour wise it only needed a wee bit more vanilla in order to make it perfect.

The combined effect of the extra liquid, the baking powder, the new shape due to the loaf tin used, and the longer baking time in a cooler oven, greatly improved the texture of the Mk. II version.

Due to the nature of almond and coconut flours, this is probably as good a texture as we can reasonably expect from such a cake, which is all well and good, as we’re very satisfied with it as it currently stands.

Autumnal minced pork hash

Minced pork hash

When I was out on my early morning bike-ride the other day I heard a commotion above me, and looking up saw what was for me the year’s first flock of geese calling it a day and heading off for warmer, Southern climes.

They may be obnoxious, violent, feathered thugs, that leave little foul smelling nuggets of hatefulness all over the parks and playing fields of this fair city, but I’ll grant them one thing – they’re way ahead of us when it comes to matters connected to the weather and the seasons.

We may have the fancy satellite networks, but they’re the little bar-stewards who know when the game’s up, and Autumn’s about to arrive with a bang.

The end of summer does have its compensations, however.

Firstly, as the weather turns colder and ever more damp, the hipsters and fair-weather casuals abandon their bicycles for their cars or a seat on a bus, and for the next 8 months the cycle lanes become a less populated and significantly safer place to ride.

Secondly, all thoughts of summery salads and suchlike can be abandoned for the duration – let’s be honest, we’re all getting a bit sick of them by now, non?

Stews and casseroles, and all those rich, meaty, earthy, herb-and-spice jacked autumnal flavours can once again be triumphantly wheeled out.

In a fair world each municipality should hold an annual parade, complete with marching bands, fireworks, and speeches by civic dignitaries, as a giant, symbolic, slow-cooker wends its way through the city streets, to be showered with seasonal garlands by awe-struck civilians.

Once again, though, it looks as though I’ll have to make do with a celebratory pot of Pu-Erh and a blueberry muffin. Hey ho.

This dish is my first real nod this year to Autumnal flavours. Mrs. Paleovirtus suggested something with pork, mushrooms, herbs, cabbage, and apples. Demanded, even.

I was kind of up against it time-wise, so decided to do something based around minced pork.

This is what I came up with. Not strictly speaking a hash, per se, but once again I intend to deploy the “Humpty-Dumpty” from “Alice” Defence, namely,

“When I use a word… it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”

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Makes 4 generous servings

Ingredients

• 1 kg pork mince
• 280g smoked, cubed bacon
• 2 red onions, finely chopped
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 tbsp juniper berries, bruised
• approximately 200g closed cap mushrooms, wiped and quartered
• 2 tsp smoked Spanish paprika
• 2 tsp Herbes de Provence
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 Granny Smiths apples, cored and roughly chopped
• approx. 400g good quality Sauerkraut
• olive oil

Method

• Bring the minced pork out of the fridge to come up to room temperature.
• Heat about 2 tbsp of olive oil in a non-stick frying pan over medium heat.
• Gently fry the cubed smoked bacon until it is just turning golden. Drain off the rendered bacon fat and olive oil, and set aside.
• In a large pan, add the rendered bacon fat and the olive oil, and return it to medium heat.
• Add the onion, and fry until soft, about 5 minutes or so.
• Add the garlic to the pan, and fry for a further 2 minutes.
• Add the juniper berries, Herbes de Provence, smoked Spanish paprika, and bay leaves to the pan. Mix well, and fry for a further 2 minutes or so, adding a splash of hot water if things threaten to stick.
• Add the pork mince, and stir well in, breaking up the mince with your wooden spoon. Stir fry until the mince has lost its raw colour, about 10 minutes or so.
• Add the apples, mushrooms, fried bacon, and Sauerkraut. Stir well. Add water to make enough of a sauce for everything to cook comfortably in.
• Return up to a low simmer. Simmer for about 30 minutes or so, until the pork is thoroughly cooked, and the apples are tender.
• Serve with steamed cauliflower on the side.

Banana coconut cookies

Banana coconut cookies

Sometimes a recipe will appear in the various feeds you subscribe to, and you think to yourself that it sounds and looks great, but then the voice of the Disappointment Elf that constantly sits on the shoulder of the experienced cook and reminds you of failures past chirps up, and urges you to be cautious.

“Two ingredient banana and coconut cookies”, he whispers, “sounds too good to be true, mate”.

“But the photographs look so good“, I insist, “You can almost smell them, and the people posting in the comments seem to have made them work”.

“Up to you, Charlie Mouse”, he replies, “Do I have to remind you about the time you…”

He never gets to finish the sentence, because the Go-For-It Gnome that sits on the other shoulder sucker punches him when he isn’t looking with a good old-fashioned right handed haymaker, and while he’s out cold insists that we have a crack at the new recipe. After all, what’s a banana and a bit of dessicated coconut in the grand scheme of things, eh?

And so, mes amis, it came to pass that a few minutes later I was blitzing banana and dessicated coconut together into a cookie dough, forming them into diskettes, and throwing them into a pre-heated 180° C oven.

Let it be noted that I got a 4 cookie yield from each batch of 1 banana and ¾ cup of dessicated coconut mixture.

25 minutes later they were out and cooling.

The results were very encouraging. A first attempt at a new recipe is always a “proof of concept” job – you really should be keeping things as simple as possible to see if the base recipe itself actually works.

These cookies do!

I think the recipe itself cries out to be used as a starting point or base for experimentation – the next version will no doubt see the addition of honey, coco-powder (100%, of course), and quite possibly cinnamon.

Link

That link again… 2 Ingredient Banana and Coconut Cookies, by grokgrub.com

Zucchini spaghetti puttanesca

Zucchini spaghetti puttanesca

I love this dish – all those earthy, pungent, salty flavours.

This makes for a super-quick and easy lunch or supper,  a true chop, chuck, stir and serve job, ready in under half an hour if you play your cards right.

Add to that the ease, convenience, and flavour of zucchini / courgette spaghetti, and you’re on a real winner.

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Ingredients

• A good bowlful of zucchini / courgette spaghetti. I prepared the ones I used for this particular meal with my new Westmark Spiromat.
• ½ a red onion, finely chopped
• 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• 10 green olives, pitted and roughly chopped
• 10 black olives, pitted and roughly chopped
• 50g of anchovy fillets, chopped
• 2 tbsp capers
• 1 tsp Herbes De Provence
• 1 tsp smoked Spanish paprika
• fresh lemon juice
• Hot chilli flakes
• Black pepper

Method

• Heat 2 tbsp of olive oil over medium-low heat in a non-stick frying pan.
• Gently fry the onion until starting to soften, about 5 minutes or so.
• Add the anchovies, and fry for a further 5 minutes.
• Add the garlic, and continue to fry for a further 5 minutes.
• Add the Herbes De Provence and the smoked Spanish paprika. Fry for a further 2 or 3 minutes, adding a little water to the pan if things start to stick.
• Add the olives and capers to the pan. Mix well, and cook for 5 minutes or so.
• Serve over the zucchini spaghetti, dressing with black pepper, hot chilli flakes, and fresh lemon juice to taste.

Coconut bruise

Coconut bruise

This ultra-simple dessert earned its name because like a bruise it’s black, blue, and red.

The tart taste of the berries with lemon juice works well in a sweet-and-sour kind of a way with the coconut.

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Serves 1

Ingredients

• a handful of blueberries
• a handful of raspberries
• a handful of blackberries
• fresh lemon juice
• full-fat coconut milk
• dessicated coconut

Method

• Rinse the berries. Place in a serving bowl.
• Squeeze a dash of fresh lemon juice over the berries. Mix well.
• Drizzle over coconut milk to taste.
• Sprinkle over a generous dusting of dessicated coconut. Serve.

Product review – Westmark Spiromat spiral cutter

Let’s get one thing out of the way before we go any further…

Disclaimer

I am not connected with Westmark, or anyone who sells Spiromats, in any way, shape, or form. I have received diddly-squat for producing this review.

Having said that, and to paraphrase the late, great Douglas Adams, I am not above sponsorship deals in precisely the same way that the sea is not above the sky. If you are a manufacturer or a retailer even vaguely interested in sponsoring this blog, get in touch.

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A while ago I produced a How-To post detailing the process of producing “pasta” made from zucchini / courgettes / squash ( you can find that article here ) without the use of a spiral cutter.

However, last weekend I was in a cookware shop, and they just happened to have a Westmark Spiromat spiral cutter in stock.

Having trained in the dark arts of vehicle body engineering, I like to think I know a thing or two about manufacturing standards, and the Spiromat seemed to be well made.

I had also just received a bit of a windfall, so I was easily able to afford it.

I think the photographs are self explanatory. You clamp your vegetable of choice onto the unit at one end, on the spiked face of the hand-crank unit, and the other end at the tubular “pivot” on the blade unit.

Spiromat, vegetable clamped in place

To produce your spirals, you then simply turn the crank, and at the same time feed the vegetable into the blade by siding the crank unit towards the blade unit.

Simply turn the crank handle to produce spiral cuts

Honestly, it’s far harder to describe the process than to actually do it. I hesitate to use the phrase “idiot proof”, because I’ve worked in public transport, but this gizmo is about as close as you are ever going to see to being precisely that.

I’ll put it this way – no manual is included, because quite frankly one isn’t needed.

The product comes with 3 choices of blade, which cleverly slide into the body of the cutter when not in use.

The blade that’s going to clearly see most action in this household is the one that produces a cut very similar to spaghetti.

Zucchini spaghetti as made by the Spiromat

Another blade produces strips slightly wider than that, but not quite as wide as tagliatelle.

The last blade produces strips that are as wide as the vegetable itself, if you follow, a straight-forward spiral cut rather than ribbons, in other words.

Although to be fair it’s still early days with this device, I have to say that on the basis of its performance so far it gets a hearty Paleovirtus thumbs up.

If you’re in the market for a well produced, well thought out spiral cutter, you most certainly could do a lot worse.

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Links

• The Westmark Spiromat on Amazon.
• A brief but helpful video showing the Westmark Spiromat in action. In Dutch.

 

Chakchouka

Chakchouka served with boiled eggs

I first happened across this recipe way back in 1990, when I bought three cookbooks produced by British supermarket chain Tesco in association with Good Housekeeping.

They were being sold for the knock-down price of 3 for £1, so I snapped up “Light And Healthy Cooking”, “Good Food Fast”, and “Cooking For One Or Two”, where this recipe appeared.

Chakchouka is often described as a dish with its roots in Morocco, but as the Wikipedia article about it details, it has a complex history, with links to the rest of North Africa, and into the Middle East.

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Serves 4 as a side dish, 2 as a main course

Ingredients

• 2 medium red onions, finely chopped
• about 5 large cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 medium red peppers, de-seeded and sliced into 1/4 inch strips
• 2 medium green peppers, de-seeded and sliced into 1/4 inch strips
• 2 medium aubergines, sliced into 1/4 inch rounds
• 2 440ml tins of chopped tomatoes
• 2 tsp ground coriander
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp smoked Spanish paprika
• 1 tsp extra hot chilli powder
• olive oil
• salt & black pepper

Method

Chakchouka

• Place the coriander, cumin, cinnamon, paprika, and chilli powder plus salt and pepper to taste in a small bowl. Add about a cup of water, and stir well. Set aside.
• Heat 2 tbsp of olive oil over medium heat in a large non-stick pan. Add the onions, and fry for about 5 minutes or so.
• Add the sliced peppers, and fry for a further 5 minutes.
• Add the minced garlic, and fry for a further 2 minutes.
• Add the spice mixture, stir well, and cook for about 5 minutes over a low heat, adding more water if required.
• Add the chopped tomatoes, bring up to a low simmer, and cook for about an hour, until the peppers are tender.
• While the sauce is cooking, prepare the aubergines. Pre-heat a grill-pan to medium high heat. Brush the aubergine slices with olive oil, and grill, turning once, until they are tender and have those wonderfully characteristic char-lines and associated smoky flavour. Set aside.
• When the sauce is ready, stir in the grilled aubergine slices. Serve.

Serving suggestions

Chakchouka as a side dish to grilled lamb

• Chakchouka works really well as a side dish to grilled meats, especially lamb.
• If serving as a main course, add boiled eggs (see notes), and crisp lettuce leaves in lieu of flat-breads.

Notes

• This dish will taste even better if the peppers are charred under a hot grill or in a very hot oven, placed in a freezer bag to steam in their own residual heat to loosen the skins, and then peeled when cooled. This will give the peppers a wonderful, smoky flavour, and a quite different, softer texture. Cut them into strips once cooled and peeled, and add them to the sauce at the last minute.
• The extra hot chilli powder can be replaced or supplemented by as many fresh hot chilli peppers as you dare. Simply finely chop them, and add them after the onions have started to soften.
• If serving as a main course, instead of using boiled eggs, you can cook the eggs in the sauce, either by poaching the cracked eggs in the sauce on the stove top, or by cracking them into a “well” in the sauce, and then baking them in the sauce in the oven.
• As with all stews, the flavour of your Chakchouka will improve if left in the fridge overnight.

Tea break

Mixed nuts with Pu-Erh and pear

Time for a mid-morning snack – a “Triomphe de Vienne” pear, a small bowl of cashews and walnuts, and a refreshing pot of Pu-Erh tea.