Roast Chicken Breasts with Leeks, Garlic and Thyme

I’ll be honest with you. 

This recipe was the result of a fridge raid on the night before the weekly shop when I had not very much in the fridge. I had chicken portions already defrosted and rummaged around in the fridge looking for something to cook with them. 

Leeks. They go with chicken. Great. Carry on looking. 

Then I find a papery bulb of garlic. 

And an old bundle of thyme sprigs stuffed into the top shelf of the fridge door. I also had the last glug from a bottle of white wine (I only cook with it, I don’t drink it as it is, so it lasts a while in our house). Dinner was sorted. 

The meal was actually so good that I had to share it with you. 

It’s also one of those one-pot dishes that limits time, preparation and washing up. 

Brilliant, right?

Roast Chicken Breasts with Leek, Garlic and Thyme
Serves 4
Ingredients
4 chicken portions, skin-on, boneless
2 large leeks, trimmed and cleaned well
3 cloves of garlic, unpeeled and left whole
a dash of white wine
pinch of salt
1 tbsp avocado or mild coconut oil (stick with avocado oil if you don’t do well with coconut)
small bunch of fresh thyme sprigs

Method
Preheat the oven to gas mark 6/200ºC/400ºF. Get out a fairly shallow roasting dish and chop up the leeks into fairly big chunks – they’re going to act as a trivet for the chicken as well as provide great flavour. 

Arrange the chicken pieces over the leeks, skin side facing up and then scatter the garlic cloves and let them fall randomly onto the dish. Pour in a little of the white wine – about half a mugful would be about right – and then sprinkle a good pinch of salt over the skin of the chicken. Chuck over the thyme springs. 

Slide the dish into the oven and cook for around 35 minutes, or until the leeks have softened and are full of wine and chicken flavour, and the chicken is cooked all the way through and there’s no pinkness left. 

Once the chicken is fully cooked, serve it with the whole cloves of garlic and spoon out the leeks. 

National Cream Tea Day: Strawberry White Tea and Lemon Cheesecake Squares

Today it’s National Cream Tea Day. 

Don’t get me wrong, a lovely traditional cream tea – fruit scones, glossy raspberry jam and thick clotted cream – used to be one of my favourite guilty pleasures on a day out. 

Now, I settle without the cream. Or the scones, actually. Which just leaves the jam. And I don’t want to be spooning that out of the jar, do I? 

When I heard about Higher Living‘s brand of white tea with strawberry, I was quite keen to try it. It’s subtle and light, as you’d expect from white tea, but there is a sweet strawberry flavour that hits you after every sip. It’s actually quite addictive. I haven’t been able to drink anything else since I opened the box. Each tea bag is also wrapped individually so it’s good for taking on days out or to work, too. 

But you can’t just have a cup of tea on National Cream Tea day and nothing to go with it, can you? 

So I made these lovely Zesty Lemon and Coconut Cheesecake Bites. They’re autoimmune-protocol compliant. 

And seriously awesome. 

They actually taste a little bit cheesecakey – but there’s no cheese – not even any dairy. And they have a lovely lemon tang. I really love them. If you downloaded your copy of the Autoimmune Wellness Bundle in May, you’ll find the recipe in The Best of AIP Cookbook. Otherwise, you can get the recipe here, too. 

Happy National Cream Tea Day. Whatever you’re eating and drinking. 

Mackerel with Garlic and Bay Leaves

I don’t eat enough oily fish. I know, I should be eating more of it. 

So I had a look in a brilliant cookbook, The River Cottage Fish Book by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Nick Fisher, which is where I turn to find out how to cook a certain fish and for tasty recipes. And in there, was a recipe for mackerel pan-fried with garlic and bay leaves. 

Sounded simple enough. 

The recipe is really easy – I used frozen mackerel fillets, which have already been de-boned and have the skin left on, to protect the fish while it’s frying in the pan. Even frozen, they took just about 10 minutes to cook. 

And mackerel has quite a strong flavour and a meaty texture so it can stand up to whole garlic cloves frying alongside it, and the bay leaves just give it a sweet, aromatic touch. It was probably one of the simplest dinners I’ve ever cooked, but was also the most satisfying. And I thought I had better share it with you, so that you can give it a try. 

I didn’t deviate much from the original recipe, so it makes sense to just tell you that you can find it here. However I did use mild coconut oil for frying the mackerel (it’s the coconut oil that doesn’t have a coconut flavour – it’s flavourless and some people that can’t handle coconut oil so well find they can tolerate this better). Or for it to be totally coconut free you can use avocado oil or whatever oil you usually use for frying, instead. 

The instructions also say to leave the garlic and bay behind in the pan – I lifted out the bay and didn’t serve it but I did eat the softened garlic cloves along with the mackerel. You leave the skins on to help keep the cloves from burning in the pan. 

Hope you love it – another way to get those beautiful omega 3s into your diet. 

My Paleo Autoimmune Protocol Birthday Cake

So at the end of last month it was my birthday. And, call me old fashioned, but on my birthday I quite like to blow out a candle or two on a cake. 

In previous years, I’ve either avoided having cake completely or I’ve indulged in something not healthy for the sake of the day, just to end up on birthday evening clutching my tummy on the sofa with a hot water bottle. Been there, done that. Don’t want to do it again, thank you. 

So I was SO pleased to stumble upon Kate’s Butternut and Rosemary Cake, from Healing Family Eats. It’s really easy to make, it cut firmly and it still had a little bit of crumble to it. It also didn’t have that really sandy texture that a lot of AIP baked treats have. 

By the way, my kids HATE butternut squash, but they loved this cake. 

I swapped out the rosemary, as I’m the only one in the family who completely loves it – and grated in the zest of two oranges to flavour the cake, instead. It reminded me a bit of one of those Italian polenta cakes – slightly damp, not too sweet and quite rich. The only thing I did wrong was not keep a close eye on it while it was baking – all ovens are different and mine cooked the cake a bit quicker than the recipe specified. It didn’t matter, it was still gorgeous. I also think lemon zest would work brilliantly here, too.

Go over to The Paleo Mom, where Kate guest posted the recipe to see how to make one up for yourself. Hope you love it as much as I did! 

I used this Great Lakes Gelatin for this recipe – it works as an egg replacer in other AIP compliant recipes too (affiliate link). Click below for more details. 

Update: Exciting Things!

I’ve been away for a couple of weeks. But don’t think that I haven’t been thinking of you all, because I have. Awww…..

I just needed a little bit of time to get myself back on track after a super busy few weeks, and this also coincided with a bit of rare (rain-free) sunshine here in the UK so I spent a few days soaking up the rays in the garden with a chilled coconut milk and blueberry smoothie. 

I’d not been sleeping too well, my psoriasis flared up (as it always does when I lack regular sleep) and a migraine threatened (my first sign is occasional double vision) and that’s triggered by, yep, you’ve guessed it – lack of sleep and eating regular meals. Guilty of both. So you understand that I needed a bit of time out. But I’m back now. 

So what had I been up to, to lead to this busy week? Well, here goes… 

Primal Eye Magazine
I’m proud to be one of the contributing writers for the new Paleo and Primal based online magazine, Primal Eye. I’m loving it – I write recipes and food articles – I’ve done an awesome beef and chimichurri burger recently and it’s one of my favourites. Garlic, parsley, beef, mushrooms… *swoons* I’ll be sharing other articles from the magazine on Facebook so keep an eye out for those… 

Tom, George and the Time Machine
I’ve written a children’s book. And I enjoyed every second of it. It’s a story – not (totally) paleo related, although they do go back in time to the paleo era. It’s called Tom, George and the Time Machine and it’s published on Amazon Kindle and I’m looking into getting it published in print so you have actually hold a copy in your hands, but I’ll keep you posted on that. 

Paleo Breakfast Mushroom Burger
I was contacted by the Just Add Mushrooms campaign to develop a mushroom recipe – and I made you all a paleo breakfast burger. Warning. There’s egg porn. (I know you love that, really.)

New ebooks
Each time I finish an ebook I always think that will be it and I won’t think of anything else to do an ebook on. But then, just when I start to relax, a new idea pops into my head and I’m so excited I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m playing with three (yes, three!) different ideas at the moment and doing some planning around those, but they will be AIP and paleo based, and they will contain awesome new recipes. In the meantime, check out the ebooks I’ve published so far here. I also have quite a few reviews to write up for you, including a psoriasis shampoo and conditioner – I hope you’ll find it useful. 

New recipes
I’ve also been trying out some new recipes from other bloggers – I’ve loved the Tangy BBQ ribs from the book Nourish, Autoimmune Paleo’s Pork Pesto Skillet and the Beef and Orange Stew from Healing Family Eats. I’m always posting what I’m cooking and what I’m doing on Instagram, so come and join me there, if you like. And of course I still have the Facebook page which is updated daily. 

So I’m back, having learned a bit more about my health and had time to reflect on what’s been going on and also now very excited about all the new things I have coming up for you all soon. 

Take care, and speak soon! 

Jo

I’ve Written A Children’s Book!

A quick pause, because this is not entirely food related. It’s not actually food related at all, to be honest. 

But I have written a children’s book. 

It’s REALLY exciting.

It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a really long time and as the story formed in my head, I knew I had to write it down – and after a lot of editing, drawing and having fun coming up with characters, it’s finished. I’m so happy with it. And so are my children, who got to read it before it was published. You know, in case I made any mistakes. 

It’s called Tom, George and the Time Machine and it’s about two kids who stumble upon an old contraption in Tom’s Grandad’s garage. They go inside to investigate and end up embarking on a crazy adventure through space and time – from drumstick-wielding in the Paleolithic era through to sandy Ancient Egypt, a look at a Tudor royal couple and then onwards to the present day. 

The thing is, Tom has a personal problem of his own, and he wonders if, while he’s lucky enough to be able to command time travel, if it would be possible to use time to fix it. He soon finds out. 

As well as the fun of travelling through time and meeting characters face to face from the past the story also introduces children to some of the philosophical arguments for and against time travel. Like – if you go back in time and do something completely microscopic that you don’t even realise, you could affect the future and even something really important like your own birth. Imagine that. 

In my mind all along was to help encourage a love of reading, but also to really paint the picture of what it would be like to walk through the fine sand in ancient Egypt or to get lost in a bustling, sixteenth-century street. What noises would you hear? Who would you see? What would it all smell like? I wanted to take the reader back to those times and pause for a second and imagine what it would really be like to stand in front of a king, or see the sun glinting off a Pharoah’s gold head-dress. This is all stuff you don’t usually get in the textbooks, which are full of facts and dates. This book allows you to use your imagination and actually travel with Tom and George, back through time. (Although it’d be a bit of a tight squeeze in that tiny time machine). 

Oh, and Grandad. You have to meet Grandad. He’s brilliant. 

I hope you like it. It’s available for download from Amazon Kindle worldwide. To get to the book, just click on the cover photo above. 

Paleo Breakfast Portobello Mushroom Burger

You all know how I feel about #mushroomsasthebun, don’t you? 

I love it. And mushrooms have much more flavour, texture and are much juicier than any bread roll I’ve ever had. 

I was contacted by the Just Add Mushrooms campaign, who asked me to come up with a fab mushroom recipe that you would all love. Well, I think I cracked it. 

Look what I made you… 

This breakfast burger (although feel free to eat it any other time of the day, too, obviously) is made up from two Portabello mushrooms, a home-made sage pork sausage burger, wilted spinach, streaky smoked bacon and a runny fried egg. Gorgeous, don’t you think? 

I’ve included some step-by-step pics so you can see how the whole thing is made. Easy peasy and flippin’ gorgeous. 

Paleo Breakfast Portobello Mushroom Burger
Serves 2
Ingredients
4 Portobello Mushrooms, cleaned thoroughly
1 tsp avocado oil, or your usual cooking oil
pinch of salt
400g pork mince
2 tsp dried sage
quarter tsp ground mace
quarter tsp garlic salt
4 rashers smoked, streaky bacon
2 big handfuls fresh baby leaf spinach
2 free-range eggs

Method
First, arrange your cleaned Portabello mushrooms in a baking or roasting dish and drizzle over about a teaspoon of your cooking oil. If your cooking oil is solid, rub it between your fingers first and add it on with your hands. Sprinkle over a pinch of salt and slide into the oven preheated at gas mark 7/210ºC for 10 minutes. 

Meanwhile, mix the pork mince, the sage and garlic salt in a bowl and form into four burgers. You’ll need two of them for this recipe, so save the other two for leftovers during the week). 

Fry them in a frying pan or griddle for about 5-7 minutes, or until golden and sealed on the outside. Using tongs, transfer them to another roasting dish and slide into the oven to finished cooking. 

The mushrooms should now be softened, dark and sizzling. Remove them from the oven and leave to rest for a minute. 

Using the pan you fried the pork burgers in, cook the bacon until crisp and put to one side. 

You will now have a griddle or frying pan with all those bacony, pork sausage flavours. Don’t waste it – dump the washed spinach into the pan but turn off the heat. The spinach leaves will wilt gently in the residual heat in the pan. 

Start to assemble the burger. First, place one of the mushrooms, bottom-side up, on a plate (tip off any excess juices that have collected first). Then add your spinach. The pork burgers should now be thoroughly cooked – check before serving, and then place one of the burgers on top. Fold over the crisp, golden bacon rashers and place these on top of the burger. 

Next, quickly fry the eggs to your liking and place one on top, finishing with the other mushroom. 

Serve while hot. 

For more information about using mushrooms in your favourite recipes, visit www.justaddmushrooms.com 

This is a sponsored post. 

Argentine Arrollado de Carne (Rolled Beef)

You know what can get boring on the AIP diet? 

Picnics. 

You’re there, with your can of tuna flaked into a little bowl with some salad leaves looking over at everyone else with their quiches, cheese scones, pork pies and sausage rolls. A tuna salad is tasty enough, but sometimes, when you’re restricted with what you can eat, it does get a little bit boring. Just a little bit. I know there’s more to AIP than tuna salads. But sometimes you just want something a bit different. 

But not any more. 

Because I have made you all some Arrollado de Carne. (It’s pronounced ARROJZ-ADO DE CAR-NEH). Gorgeous. 

When we went to Argentina, all anyone could talk about was Matambre. They kept saying that they would make me Matambre that night for dinner, but then we’d end up at a restaurant or at someone else’s place and never got around to it. For anyone that doesn’t know what the heck I’m talking about, Matambre is a big thin cut of meat from the belly of the bullock, that’s laid out on a board, spread with hard-boiled eggs, veggies, herbs and then rolled up, tied and boiled for a couple of hours. It’s then cooled and sliced into rounds. 

Well I made it with Bavette Steak from Farmer’s Choice, which, as I found on the internet, wasn’t really suited to frying like a sirloin, for example, unless you have it really rare. Otherwise it can be tough. The toughness of the meat I thought would work well then, if it was rolled up and then slow cooked for a few hours. And it did. 

I think this is perfect for a picnic – you have the marinated, meaty outside and then salty, smoky bacon on the inside with some carrots, garlic and parsley. It’s kind of similar to an AIP version of Matambre. Make it the day before, and slice it after a night in the fridge. Honestly, it’s incredibly good. I’ll definitely be making it again. 

Argentine Arrollado de Carne
Serves 6
Ingredients
1 x Bavette Steak 

For the marinade: 
1 cup (about 200ml) cider
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
good pinch of salt
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely chopped
small bunch of freshly chopped parsley
2 bay leaves

For the stuffing: 
1 large carrot, peeled and trimmed
1 onion, peeled and thinly sliced
8 rashers of smoked streaky bacon

To cook:
1 onion, peeled and roughly sliced
hot water, from the kettle

Method
First, you’ll need to butterfly your Bavette steak so it’s long and flat. Place it on a board and carefully slice into its thickness, eventually opening it out like a butterfly’s wings so you have one large, thin piece of meat. Don’t cut all the way through, the meat should still be joined and in one piece. 

Combine the ingredients for the marinade in a large roasting tray and add the steak, leaving it to marinate for at least an hour. If it’s a hot day, this is probably best done covered, in the fridge. 

Once the marinating time is up, get the roasting tray with the meat in, out in front of you and set your slow cooker on ‘high’. 

Leaving the meat in its marinade, thinly slice or peel (I used a julienne peeler, the kind I make carrot ‘noodles’ with) the carrot and arrange the slices all over the surface of the meat. Continue with a layer of the thinly sliced onions and finally arrange over the bacon rashers. Starting with the longest side of the meat facing you, roll up the meat very tightly, being careful to push back any of the veggies that try to escape, as you go. Tie it up securely with string. 

Arrange the onion slices over the base of the slow cooker and carefully lift the rolled beef and place it on top. Pour enough boiling water so that it comes up about three-quarters of the way up the beef. Tip in any of the marinade that’s still in the roasting dish and replace the lid. Leave to cook slowly for about 3 hours. 

Once the beef is all cooked, turn off the slow cooker and lift it onto a plate to cool. Once cool, cover with cling film and place in the fridge to chill. Once well chilled, cut off the string and slice into portions. Beautiful eaten cold. 

I received a contribution towards the cost of the ingredients for this recipe form Farmer’s Choice, an online butcher who provide free-range meat in the UK. Go check them out! 

Also, I’ve written two ebooks on the food and drink of Argentina – It’s Not All About The Beef is a guide to the foods you can eat over there, and the other is a collection of recipes inspired by my trip there. The recipes are for non-specific diets and contain cakes, breaded dishes and desserts. Have a look here (affiliate links):