Garlic Ginger Pecan Salmon

Everyone has special occasions from time to time, hm? Well this was a recipe I tried for a very special occasion. Wanting garlic-butter, Salmon, and asparagus for the meal menu, I searched for recipes. I found just the ticket on The Endless Meal blog. What a name, hm? Endless tasks do include laundry, taxes, meal prep and clean up!

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 LB Orca Bay Salmon Tails
• 1/4 Maple Syrup
• 1/2 Pecan Meal (Purchase Pecan Flour or grind/chop your own; alternatively, save the bits of flour at the end of a bag to accumulate in your freezer the crust over time)
• Salt and Pepper to season Salmon
• 2 TBSP Butter
• 2 Cloves Garlic minced
• 1 Ice-Cube of Frozen Ginger Puree
• Lemon (cut into wedges)

Sauce is ready and it is ready to bake! Yum!

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Thaw salmon in the fridge until ready to make this meal.
2. Wash the rind and cut the lemon into wedges.
3. Pat dry the salmon pieces.
4. Season the salmon with salt and pepper.
5. Prepare an oven friendly pan large enough to hold the salmon and sauce. Place the salmon in the pan, skin side down.
6. Now, top the salmon with pecan meal, and press to help the meal stick to the salmon.
7. Set aside the salmon until later. Now, its time to make the fabulous sauce!
8. In a small sauce pan, combine all of the above sauce ingredients except for the pecan-crusted salmon and lemon wedges.
9. Cook over medium heat until the garlic is softened and fragrant.
10. Add into the sauce pan the lemon and cook a bit more. This should be boiling gently.
11. Stir frequently.
12. Pour this sauce, including the lemons, gently into the pan next to the salmon. Spoon some of the sauce over the top of the salmon in your prepared baking dish. NOTE: If you pour it directly over the top of the salmon from the sauce pan, it will dislodge the pecans for your crust.
13. Cook for approximately 15 minutes (use the fork-flake-tender test for doneness) in a 375 degree oven.
14. Spoon some of the sauce over the top of the salmon when serving.

Garlic-Butter Pecan Crusted Salmon with Garlic-Butter Asparagus side.

RESULT:

The sauce in this recipe is a winner! It is worthy of making and using outside of this use-case scenario. If you are a person who cannot have SOY SAUCE and also cannot tolerate Coconut or Coconut Aminos, then this sauce it your very worthy replacement!

Mocha Ice Pops

This is a re-spin of an earlier recipe for vegan hemp milk.

INGREDIENTS:

• 4 Cups Strong Brewed Coffee (or a coffee substitute such as dandelion coffee, teechino, etc; this can be with it without caffeine, your choice)
• 3/4 Cup Hemp Hearts
• 4 TBSP maple syrup
• 4 packs sweet leaf stevia
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder

INSTRUCTIONS:

Add cooled coffee or coffee substitute (this can be left over coffee) to the high speed blender.

Add remaining ingredients.

Whirl until creamy and smooth.

Pour into prepared ice pop molds.

Freeze over night before enjoying.

Sauerkraut

Love it or hate it, sauerkraut is a traditional food eaten in many cultures with a huge history as well as having some amazing benefits! Here is a link to an article Healthline wrote on Sauerkraut summarizing some of those details. This traditional food, while readily available in my local supermarket (both canned-having lost its gut health benefits in the canning process, and raw-still retaining those benefits) nevertheless it is worth making at home because: 1) it is an easy process. 2) it is cheaper. 3) making it yourself you can control which types of ingredients you use including the quality of the salt used in making it 4) grocery stores today practice what is known as “just in time” marketing, thereby grocery store raw sauerkraut spoils quickly, where as home made last for months, as it was intended to be.

INGREDIENTS:

1 head of cabbage
Real Salt

METHOD:

1. Begin by removing and reserving any tough outter leaves.
2. Wash the reserved outer leaves.
3. Core the cabbage.
4. Wash it well under running water to remove any dirt.
5. Using a knife and cutting board, a food processor, or a grater, process the cabbage to make thin strips of cabbage. Use a scale to measure the prepped cabbage.
6. Place in a bowl. Sprinkle 1-2 tsp of real salt over the cabbage per pound of cabbage. Massage the cabbage and salt for about 5 minutes until the cabbage has the salt well mixed into it and begins to weep out moisture.
7. Place all of the cabbage and the juice you’ve messaged out into a 1 quart canning jar (wide mouth works best but a regular jar works too if you are careful.
8. Pack down the cabbage into the jar so it is well compacted into the jar.
9. Cut or place the top leaf we reserved over the entire jar ensuring the cabbage stays submerged in the juice.
10. If needed add 1 cup of water with 1 tsp of salt added to it and use this brine to cover the cabbage in water.
11. Lightly cover the jar so gasses can escape.
12. Allow to rest for 7 days. Toss away the top hard outer leaf which was holding the cabbage under the water. Enjoy!

Day 2 of fermenting after processing

NOTES:

• There are various recipes online for various add ins to this basic recipe.
• The size of the cabbage you use can vary the sweetness versus sourness of the final recipe.
• Suggested Serving: heating sauerkraut can make some of the gut health benefits diminish. Nevertheless there are many recipes and traditions for soup, sandwiches, even vegan cheeses and pizza made with sauerkraut so I won’t bother mentioning those. Instead how about as a salad dressing? If you live an egg-free life due to allergies, raw sauerkraut makes an excellent salad dressing/mayo replacement. Here is an example.

Kale, Spinach, Mackerel, Kalamata Olives, Celery, Brazil Nuts,band Raw Sauerkraut salad.

Mayo (Vegan)

This version, tastes great, as is as a salad dressing or dip; however, it is thin. The flavors worth tweaking.  Perhaps adding some gelatin to thicken it a bit.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 cup Hemp Seed Hearts
• 3/4 cup Filtered Water
• 1/2 Garlic Clove
• 2 TBSP Vinegar
• 2 TBSP Lemon Juice
• 1 tsp Mustard
• 1/2 tsp Sea Salt
• 3/4 tsp Kala Namak

Blend 2-4 minutes. Refrigerate.

Mayo (Vegan)

Yield: 1.5 cups

Ingredients:

1 cup Hemp Seeds 
3/4 cup Water 
2 TBSP Oil 
1 TBSP Onion Powder 
1 tsp Lime Juice 
0.5 tsp Real Salt 
Bullet Blender or Immersion Stick Blender

Method:

* Add all ingredients together and blend for 30 – 60 seconds on high until smooth.
* Add more water if it is too thick.  Alternatively, if it becomes too thin, add more hemp seeds to thicken.
* Store in the fridge in an air-tight container. 

Variations:

To make dip, make it on the thicker side by adding more hemp seeds.

• Curry: Add 1/2 teaspoon curry powder.
• Onion Dip: Add 2 tablespoons dry onion flakes and 1 teaspoon liquid coconut amino sauce.
• Garlic: Add 1/2 to 1 clove garlic when blending.
• Veggie: Add dried veggies and allow the dip to reconstitute them.
• Tex-Mex: Add minced cactus pieces, 1/2 tsp taco seasoning, and bit of fresh cilantro or 1/2 tsp dried with as hot as you desire wasabi or horseradish root.

Ice Pops

Used Hemp Milk with YL Vitality Peppermint Essential Oil to make peppermint chocolate flavored ice pops.

Cranberry Sauce

There are 3, whole berry, cranberry sauce recipes which work for 3 different types of dietary needs.  They are all equally delicious. However, make this ahead. It is far better served cold.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup water
• 1 pound organic cranberries (fresh or frozen)
• Sweetener of choice.  Choose either 1 cup sugar (standard), 1/2 cup maple syrup or honey (Paleo/AIP option), or 1 TBSP liquid stevia (low carb; note: other kinds of stevia and low carb sweeteners can crystalize, use liquid stevia)

This is perfect! Toss all ingredients into a sauce pan. Boil a few minutes. Taste to adjust sweetener, if needed. Some berries should “pop” a little, then you know it is done.

Can be frozen. Thaw to enjoy. Stir before serving. Otherwise, store in the fridge.

Hemp Milk (vegan)

Useful for a beverage, a baking/cooking ingredient, or as a frozen dessert with the texture of ice milk unless you also add a fat.

Recently I came across a blog post written about one way to make Hemp Heart Milk. I thought the nutritional info and distinction about nut vs hem heart milk was intriguing but knew it wasn’t quite right for me as it was written so I decided to try my own twist on it. I’m especially interested if the hemp milk might be able to be made into ice cream as a coconut-alternative to non-dairy, non-soy, milk (as a baking ingredient) and non-dairy ice cream base.

Here is the original blog post which prompted me thinking in this direction. Definitely worth a read as its got great info too. https://desireerd.com/nourishing-hemp-seed-milk-recipe/

INGREDIENTS:

• 4 Cups Water
• 3/4 Cup Hemp Hearts
• 4 TBSP Maple Syrup (Keto Option: use any maple or syrup flavored sweetener instead)
• (3 scoops Kal stevia)
• 1/4 Cup Cocoa Powder (omit for creamcycle or chia flavors)
• 2 drop YL Peppermint (or Tangerine for creamcycle flavor, or cinnamon/clove/nutmeg for chia) Vitality Oil

INSTRUCTIONS:

Blend all of the above ingredients together into a slurry. Taste and adjust sweetener or peppermint oil, as needed. Enjoy as a tasty beverage or freeze in ice pop molds and/or an ice cream maker.

RESULTS:

This recipe works with 1/2 cup hemp hearts, the same amount of water, 2 TBSP maple syrup, straight up as a milk you can drink. The basic recipe is definitely worth your time and ingredients to tweak to your likely. Since this “milk” has no preservatives in it, the parts settle while it is stored in the fridge so if you will be drinking it, remember to shake well, before using in a baking recipe or enjoying as you would use milk.

This recipe also works as stated above for chocolate milk. The entire recipe is sized correctly, yield wise, for a recycled Oat Milk 1.5 Quart recycled container to store it in the fridge. I am going to also trial this milk as a base for ice cream. I’ll post more later on that topic. If you get the portions just right, this may make a base for coffee style creamer, flavored, or not.

Tempura Batter (Gluten Free/Vegan)

While traditional tempura uses eggs, this tempura is egg-free and vegan as well as gluten free. Use it to bread your favorite veggies to deep fry them.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1/2 Cup Chick Pea Flour
• 2 – 3 TBSP water (to make a dipable batter consistency)
• Seasonings as desired up to 1 tsp (switch it up, use just the basic salt and pepper, or use one or more seasoning to match your meal such as italian seasoning, lemon pepper, or another favorite combo),
• a pinch of baking soda.

INSTRUCTIONS:

Blend all ingredients together to form a batter. Dip your veggies into the batter. Deep fry in hot oil.

A FEW SUGGESTED ITEMS to DEEP FRY?

• Cauliflower
• Broccoli (try nutritional yeast dip as a condiment)
• zucchini
• other squash varieties
• fish
• tofu
• poultry
• onions

NOTE: Fully cook, deep fried, cool in a single layer freeze and seal once frozen in an air-tight sealing bag for reheat and serve later treats minus the common nightshades in such store-bought versions.

RESULT:

I’m not a fan of this tempura. It isn’t great. It isn’t horrible. It more or less tastes like hummus on your (what ever your deep frying). It doesn’t stick as evenly as arrowroot does.

Hot Dogs (Vegan)

Frankfurters, wieners, banger, dogs, hot dogs, carrot dogs, vegan hot dogs–there are a LOT of different names for this recipe!

Traditional hot dogs are made with ground meat, spices, and water.

INGREDIENTS:

• 5 lbs protein source (beans, beef, etc)
• 2 TBSP Paprika
• 2 TBSP Garlic Powder
• 2 TBSP White Pepper
• 2 TBSP onion powder
• 1 TBSP Real Salt
• 1 Tbsp curing salt
• 2 cups ice water

Notes: as you can see from these standard ingredients, you could easily turn the standard recipe (using beef, turkey, or other traditional meats) into a vegan wiener by simply replicating the spices. However a few things of note: curing salt, contains nitrates. While this will color your hot dog the traditional color, its not healthy. Likewise, if you are avoiding nightshades, skip the paprika. A good substitute for paprika is nutmeg. A good substitute for curing salt is beet powder, colorant wise.

A note about shaping. Once your dog is ready to shape, you need a casing. These can be purchased by the old-fashioned self-sufficient way is to make your own from cotton, canvas, muslin, or other fabric which can be boiled. Once made, you will want to wash and boil your casings before reusing.

CARROT MARINADE

• 1/4 Cup Soy Sauce or Tamari
• 1/4 Cup Water
• 2 TBSP Vinegar
• 2 TBSP Maple Syrup
• 1 TBSP Olive Oil
• 1 tsp liquid smoke (optional)
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp black pepper

Marinate peeled (and shaped, if desired) carrots in this mixture for up to 24 hours. Then boil marinate and all (add water if needed) until carrot dogs are fork tender and it will reduce into the carrot. Eat right away, or grill (pan or bbq).