FED - Fitness in an Evolutionary Direction

Caveman Cuisine: Rubble Stones

2012-02-23T12:28:00.001-08:00

If you missed my previous rant on the preposterous Post cereal "Fruity Pebbles", I highly encourage you to check it out (see "Flint Chips").

Otherwise, here's the executive summary. A caveman on the front of a cereal box is bogus and makes me want to smash something with a club.

Now that we're all on the same page, this recipe is focused on taking down "Cocoa Pebbles", so without further ado, I give you Rubble Stones...

Actually, there is some more ado. Check out what you'll find in the average spoonful of Cocoa Pebbles:

INGREDIENTS: RICE, SUGAR, POLYDEXTROSE (SOURCE OF FIBER), HYDROGENATED VEGETABLE OIL (COCONUT AND PALM KERNEL OILS), COCOA (PROCESSED WITH ALKALI), SALT, CARAMEL COLOR, ARTIFICIAL AND NATURAL FLAVOR, BHA (TO HELP PROTECT FLAVOR).

Wow, that sounds really delicious! (By "delicious" I mean disgusting.)

Now, here's what I put into Rubble Stones:

INGREDIENTS: 1/4 CUP ORGANIC SHREDDED COCONUT, 2 TBSP DRY ROASTED MACADAMIA NUTS, 1 TBSP CACAO NIBS, 1 TBSP ORGANIC WHITE CHOCOLATE (CHOPPED).

You see what I did there? I used real foods (including unprocessed cacao) that don't require "natural" or "artificial" flavors, "caramel color" (whatever that is), or BHA to "protect flavor". I topped the whole thing off with a generous glug of full fat organic coconut milk and a hearty splash of unsweetened almond milk.

If Rubble Stones don't get your rocks off, I'll give you a full refund.*

* Note, no actual refunds will be given.

Caveman Cuisine: Flint Chips

2012-02-22T05:52:00.002-08:00

Am I the only one offended by the gross misrepresentation of Paleo foisted upon the American populace by the overlords at Post Foods?

That's right, Post Foods, the people who have since 1971 been selling "Pebbles" (both of the "Fruity" and "Cocoa" variety) with the image of a caveman right on the front of the box.

As far as I am aware, Fred Flintstone ate things like my Roasted Beef Ribs (or were they Brontosaurus ribs?), ran around completely barefoot (no Vibrams on those three toed feet), wore an animal skin loincloth, and was in all (mostly inaccurate) ways, the consummate caveman. He wouldn't have been caught dead eating artificially flavored rice crisps (even though they're now advertised as "gluten free"). I am also highly dubious that his friend and fellow caveman Barney would have violated the social order of their tribe just to steal a bowl of such a breakfast food. Well, I intend to right this wrong.

The original "working title" for Fruity Pebbles was "Flint Chips" (they also came up with "Rubble Stones", but I'll be stealing that in a later post), so my first order of business is to co-opt that moniker for my own purposes. I'm then going to make my Flint Chips out of whole food ingredients that offer nutrition without the need for added vitamins and minerals. Finally, I'm going to eat it out out of a bowl topped with organic full fat coconut milk and almond milk.

Let's forget for a moment that my reimagining of a Paleo cereal uses varieties of fruit never known to paleolithic humans, sources ingredients from geographically disparate locales that would have exceeded any early human's ability to travel or trade, and is eaten in the comfort of a air conditioned room free of parasites and predators. Rather, let's focus on what makes this version of a caveman's breakfast food superior to the fake stuff that comes in a brightly colored box.

First, here is what you will find in each and every bite of Fruity Pebbles:

INGREDIENTS: Rice, Sugar, Partially Hydrogenated Sunflower Oil, Corn Syrup, Salt, Contains Less Than 0.5% of Natural and Artificial Flavor, Turmeric, Oleoresin, Yellow #6, Red #40, Yellow #5, Blue #1, Blue #2, BHT

Sounds like a Yabba Dabba Don't doesn't it?

Then, check out the ingredients in my Flint Chips:

INGREDIENTS: 1/4 cup organic coconut flakes, 1 organic gala apple (chopped), 1 tbsp organic raisins, pinch cinnamon, 1oz chopped Baker's chocolate, 2 tbsp hazelnuts (chopped)

Oh yeah, that's definitely a Yabba Dabba Do!

Hunting and Gathering (plus Sweet Potato Stuffed Sausage Balls!)

2012-02-17T16:43:00.002-08:00

In the typically hazy depths of my memory, there is a particular day that stands out in stark relief.

I was just a boy at the time, and years away from taking the wheel, so I have no idea where I was and how my dad got us there, but we eventually arrived at a large park service cabin deep in the wilds of South Florida for the mandatory hunter's safety course. Inside, the room was packed with tykes such as myself, and proud fathers of future-hunters. The walls were adorned with the skulls, heads, and hides of past hunts and there was a feeling of promise in the air.

We learned about never pointing a gun, loaded or otherwise at anything you wouldn't wish to shoot (such as your face, or someone else's face). We then went and shot a variety of guns, learned the basics of tracking (See that scratch over on yonder tree? That's a sign that bucks on the rut!), and generally had a great time. Then the proverbial shit got real.

With my newly minted certificate in hand, my father and I embarked on a series of hunts that tested my ability to sit in a tree stand for significant periods of time, to wade through vast and seemingly empty wetlands, and our pushed our ability to maintain utter silence to the limit. (What conversations we did have inevitably revolved around hushed explanations as to why the deer weren't where we were.) To my father's consternation, and to me and my mother's secret relief (well her relief was not so secret) this was how it went for many years.

Perhaps you are expecting this story to segue into how I finally, triumphantly, bagged the big one. Or, perhaps you are waiting to hear about how I shot a deer, looked at it in its large, wet, and dying eyes, and promptly became a vegetarian. The real story, however, took a very different turn.

The direction was in fact, no direction (pardon me for getting a little Bruce Lee-ish.)and I continued to eat meat while simultaneously cultivating an inability, or more accurately an unwillingness, to kill animals directly.

Perhaps I will go on a hunt again, but in interim, I am forced to consider that perhaps, in our large, complex societies, there is an inevitable division of labor, responsibility, and awareness. Unlike the relatively small, egalitarian social order of hunter gatherer bands, we operate more like an ant colony, with professional soldiers, workers, farmers, and royalty (although we tend to refer to these as "captains of industry"). As such, I can reliably eat bloody meat without ever bloodying my hands.

Should I be concerned about this? Should my carnivorous diet require that I at least once take on fluorescent orange vest and "Real Tree" shirt of a human hunter and dispatch a woodland creature with a well placed bullet? Would doing so prove anything to myself other than I can, and if so, is that worth killing over?

Clear answers to the above questions continue to elude me, but what I do know is that at it's best, a hunted animal dies quickly and with a minimum of suffering at the end of a life spent in freedom. This is far more than can be said for the 90% of animals who are raised in factory farms and whose short lives are spent in steeped in misery. I am happy, then, to take as much venison from my father's meat freezer as I can manage without suspicion.

With the hunting comfortably outsourced, I am free to exercise skills that are nearly as ancient; the gathering of root vegetables and the cooking of nature's bounty. Of course I did my gathering at a local Whole Foods store, which, on any given Saturday afternoon can be just as dangerous as the ancestral savannas. Similarly, the cooking didn't require that I strike fire from shards of flint and balls of tinder, but it still demanded an awareness of what was being cooked, and the challenge of applying heat to foodstuffs.

Ingredients:

One large organic sweet potato
1lb venison sausage

Directions:

Puncture the sweet potato a few times with a fork. Wrap it in foil, and place in a 350 degree oven. After 45 minutes to an hour, it should be soft and ready to peel and mash.

Once you have a nice bowl of mashed sweep potato, it's time to break out the sausage.

Divide the sausage into 12 equal portions. Flatten each portion into a small disk. Place a spoonful of sweet potato in the middle of 6 of the disks and use the other 6 to cover. Pinch the edges together to seal (think "meat ravioli").

Place the balls back into the oven and cook for an additional 15-20 minutes.

Enjoy with as clear of a conscience as one can have in this world.

Caveman Cuisine: Mocado Proteini

2012-02-15T18:19:00.001-08:00

While you'll never hear me order a Grande, Non-Fat, no water, 180 Degrees, Tazo® Chai Tea Latte in public, in private, I'm all for fancying things up.

For example, why not sip my green smoothie from a margarita glass? Who's ever going to know? (Well, I suppose YOU know, but you'll keep my secret right?)

After taking the time to carefully select ingredients like perfectly ripe Hass avocados, unsweetened cacao powder, pure unflavored whey protein, fresh ginger root, frozen organic vegetables like spinach and broccoli, and bananas harvested from my own neighborhood, it only seems right to make the presentation special too.

In fact, "Choosing to eat food that is both pleasing to you and nourishing to your body by using all your senses to explore, savor and taste" is one of the central tenets of Mindful Eating, a practice that encourages freedom from reactive and abusive food behaviors.

It's all too easy to get caught up in the raging torrent of life. So remember, treat yourself. You deserve to drink out of a fancy glass.

Ingredients:

1/2 ripe Hass avocado
2 tsp Hershey's unsweetened cacao powder
1 small banana (or 1/2 of a large one)
1" chunk fresh ginger root
1 cup cold brewed coffee
1 cup frozen organic green vegetables (I used a combination of broccoli and spinach)
1-2 scoops pure unflavored whey protein (optional)
1 cup almond milk
Cold filtered water (as needed)

Directions:

Blend all ingredients together until smooth. Add more or less water to reach desired consistency.

Serve in a nice glass. Be sure to clear off your table and take a comfortable seat. Slowly enjoy your drink, taking time to breath and relax. Feel free to let go of any worries and concers.

Caveman Cuisine: The Big BAM

2012-02-13T18:03:00.002-08:00

Ok, so I love food. I love making it, thinking about it, and, most of all, eating it. I don't always do the whole "moderation" thing either.

As a long-time fan of the Travel Channel's "Man v Food" I have even indulged in the occasional "food challenge". One issue that I have, however, is that most food challenges involve eating things that I neither like nor want to put into my body. A pizza the size of a wagon wheel? Nope. An ice cream sundae served in a 5-gallon bucket? Pass. A giant bowl of spicy soup? Ok, I can handle that. At least, that's what I thought.

It was during a trip to L.A. and the venue was one that had been featured on an episode of "Man v Food". I should have known something was wrong when I failed to find a cheering crowd, or even an indication of surprise/awe when I walked in to the Orochon Ramen shop and ordered the "Special #2". Our waitress, a small Japanese woman who looked like she had just jumped out of a Sailor Moon cartoon, was far more excited to find that she and my wife shared the same birthday, in fact, you would have thought I ordered the kid's meal by nonplussed reaction.

Yes, there was a picture of Adam Richmond on the wall. Yes there were numerous other photos of past challenge winners, beaming with their empty bowl. Yet, the lack of fanfare for my own endeavor made the whole scene feel sad rather than inspiring. Then the soup arrived. A fiery red broth contained by the biggest bowl I have ever seen in my life. It was boiling hot and required the addition of numerous ice cubes to be brought down to a temperature appropriate for human consumption. I would soon learn that this would be the least of my concerns.

I began by spooning out the solid bits. The pork, been sprouts, and scant noodles went down easily enough. It was hot, don't get me wrong, but I was still in control of the situation. I promptly lost control of the situation when I started working on the broth itself. As I slurped it directly from the bowl, I failed to realized that I was merely skimming off the most dilute portion of the liquid. A pure gel of micronized chili pepper was forming below the surface and I was, for the moment, completely unaware.

Then it hit. My face exploded as if I had just swallowed a spicy hand grenade. Nose running, eyes watering, and stomach churning. I pushed on, gulping down the pure hot lava and then a strange thing happened. With only had another mouthful or two left (witnesses to this sad affair, my wife and sister-in-law both thought I had the thing in the bag) I became catatonic. I was frozen, staring glassy-eyed at the swirling liquid at the bottom of the bowl. A realization fluttered into what was left of my consciousness. I knew then and there that nothing, and I mean literally nothing, not even one million dollars would be enough to motivate me to finish this bowl of soup.

I stood up, walked briskly to the bathroom, and promptly inverted my stomach. As a final insult, a molten droplet ricocheted back into my eye, blinding me while I heaved like a sea-sick pirate. My skin broke out into a cold sweat and I stumbled back to our table. For the next several hours my wife was concerned that I would have to be taken to the hospital and I didn't even get my picture on the wall.

Today wouldn't go down like that, however. Today would be different. Instead of a ridiculously spicy bowl of soup, I would be making a burger of epic proportions. This time it was on my terms.

The first step was to season a full pound of grass-fed beef. I kept it simple, just fresh ground black pepper, sea salt and a little cayenne pepper.

I then took the meat into my hands and squeezed, kneaded, and cajoled it until it came together into a ginormous patty.

After washing the meat and myoglobin from my hands, I sliced some white onion and put it into a pan with some grass-fed ghee. The onions initially filled the room with a tear-jerking pungency, but it soon gave way to the pleasant odor of Maillard compounds.

With a cry of "BAM!" the big ass meat-patty (BAM) went onto a hot pan. It sputtered and sizzled as the meat browned. To prevent the unnecessary loss of any juices, I followed the "No pressing or fiddling with the meat once it hits the heat" rule and continued with my preparations.

Surely a BAM such as this deserved an equally epic topping, so I plucked a pastured egg from the refrigerator an fried it with some more grass-fed ghee.

The bedding for my bunless burger would be strictly traditional. Fresh chopped lettuce, red onion, mustard, organic REAL ketchup, and high-oleic expeller-pressed safflower mayonnaise.

After the burger was done cooking, doneness was tested by hand. Touching the surface of the BAM revealed that it was firm but yielding, a good sign that there was soft rare meat lurking in the center. I let it rest for a few more minutes and then set it atop it's throne, crowned with caramelized onions...

A fried egg...

And half an avocado.

Feasting ensued, and this time, I finished the meal with my dignity and intestinal contents intact.

Caveman Cuisine: Chicken and Eggs

2012-02-10T13:15:00.000-08:00

All of the sudden, I was awake.

Having been lightened of yesterday's burdens (see the cathartic "Eggs and Chicken" post), I began the day with an appetite, an appetite for food.

IF'ing for breakfast (i.e. eating nothing) isn't my bag so it was back to the refrigerator for another round of "Let's See What We Can Make!" (Which I am pitching as a new Food Network game show so don't even think about stealing it!)

Irrational as it is, I sometimes expect to be surprised when I check the fridge for the 3rd time in a row. Perhaps, unbeknownst to me, a friendly relative or neighbor has stopped by in the interval with a basket full of goodies? Maybe groceries spontaneously regenerate? Maybe I've entered the Twilight Zone and my refrigerator door is in fact a portal to a delicious alternate universe? And maybe not.

What I did find was the same exact things I found the last time I looked. A glass jar of ghee, some kale, chicken (you pathetic and scrumptious creature you!), and eggs.

Melting a chunk of ghee into a pan I sauteed the greens before tossing in chunks of dark meat from the chicken's thigh. I cracked the eggs directly into the pan, and watched as they instantly curdled in the heat.

This dish was something different, I realized, and it turned out better than I had imagined.

Ingredients:

4oz dark meat chicken (torn into pieces)
3 eggs
2 cups fresh kale (washed and torn into pieces)
1 tbsp ghee

Directions:

Melt the ghee in a frying pan over medium heat. Once the ghee has melted, add kale and saute until wilted. Add the chicken and cook only long enough for it to heat up. Crack the eggs directly into the pan and stir. When the eggs have cooked through, it's time to eat.

Caveman Cuisine: Eggs and Chicken

2012-02-09T18:31:00.000-08:00

Sometimes convenience and cost trumps conscience. Case in point, the supermarket rotisserie chicken.

While I would most definitely prefer to purchase a locally raised, heritage breed chicken raised on organic feed supplemented by natural forage such as fresh green grass and the odd bug or two, whose handsome feathers warmed in the midday sun warm and whose nights were spent roosting in the avian version of the Grand Bohemian, whose name was possibly "Bettie" or "Valerie", alas, this was not the case.

Instead, I opted for a bird whose short life was nameless and miserable. Raised in a cramped cage it likely had little room to move, and even if it could, it's gigantic breast would have made it impossible or difficult anyway.

I'm not proud of purchasing such a bird. I'm not proud of it in the same that I am not proud of pumping gas into my car, wearing shirts made by sweatshops is "Malaysia" or "China", or typing this sentence out on a plastic keyboard that will likely inhabit this earth longer than my children's children. But, I swallow my pride with the knowledge that life doesn't tolerate perfection. It demands compromise. Who must die today so that something else might live?

Back the bird.

In the kitchen it's little headless body looks up, reclining in a full "spread chicken". Peeling off skin, separating limbs from joints, muscles from muscles, connective tissue from bone I parcel it out. It seems inconceivable that something so intricate can be destroyed so easily.

I make a mixed green salad, organic greens of course, and boil a few eggs. I think, "What would a chicken think of this?" I would imagine that it would be horrified (assuming it could have such a thought or express such an emotion), but a chicken is not a human and in my attempt at empathy am simply projecting humanness upon a bird.

So I continue with my preparations and but together a nice salad. It was delicious and morally ambiguous.

Ingredients:

The meat of one chicken thigh and leg plus two wings
2 hard-boiled eggs (easy as boiling water, instructions here)
1 cup shredded red cabbage
1 medium carrot (shredded)
2 cups organic baby greens
Fresh ground pepper to taste
Lemon juice and good extra virgin olive oil (for dressing)

Directions:

In a large bowl, layer vegetables and season with pepper. Sprinkle the greens with lemon juice and olive oil and toss to coat.

Add chicken and hard-boiled eggs.

Enjoy while committing to buy a better bird the next time around.

Caveman Cuisine: Mocha Chip Smoothie

2012-01-30T18:10:00.000-08:00

This past Christmas, my coffee game got a serious upgrade.

Despite having a name that conjures up images of a "special move" (or a triceps exercise) this most ingenious device is actually the hands down, no holds barred, best way to brew a cup of coffee. It is, in other words, a French press.

Complicated looking (wire loops, plungers, shiny metal and glass abound) but extraordinarily straightforward in it's function, a French press only requires hot water, coffee, and time to operate. In fact, it takes no more time than a regular drip-style percolator. (Don't even get me started on those damn Keurig "K-cups". Ok, I'm started, they are a marketing gimmick! All they do is trick you into buying an expensive coffee maker and THEN trick you into buying expensive "coffee" from them...for the rest of your life!)

In simplest terms, you operate a French press by steeping the coffee grounds in hot water just like you would loose tea. Then, you "press" by pushing a wire filter through the liquid. The filter is precisely the same diameter as the accompanying glass pitcher, which insures that all the grounds are retained at the very bottom of the container. What you are left with is a pure ebony liquid that defies expectation.

My first taste of French pressed coffee was a revelation. This beverage that I thought so familiar and predictable, had transformed. This was not the same morning pick-me-up that needed cream (or coconut milk) in order to be palatable. It was black and smooth and rich and wonderful. Gone was the bitterness, the signature "Char-bucks" flavor, replaced instead with the smokey sweet essence of pure roasted coffee beans.

However, there was an unforeseen consequence to having the motivation, and the means, to make great coffee. I made too much, drank too much, and went into a caffeine induced mania of epic proportions.

Hesitant to repeat "The Great Caffeinating", I began a search for ways to utilize leftover coffee. The Mocha Chip Smoothie is the result of this search (and my search for the ultimate chocolate experience).

Ingredients:

1 cup brewed coffee (cold)
1 cup almond milk
1/2 banana (frozen)
1-2 medjool dates (pitted)
2-3 drops real vanilla extract
2 tsp cocoa powder
2 tbsp hazelnuts or walnuts
1 scoop 100% whey protein (plain or vanilla flavored)
5-6 ice cubes
1 tsp cacao nibs (for topping)

Directions:

Combine all ingredients (except cacao nibs) in a blender and mix until smooth. Add more or less almond milk to reach desired consistency. The amount of dates that you use can also be adjusted to increase or decrease the sugar content.

Top with cacao nibs and enjoy the buzz!

Want to step up your own coffee game? I suggest you pick one of these chrome bad boys up.

Caveman Cuisine: Paleo "Cookie Dough"

2012-01-27T17:29:00.000-08:00

As kid, making home-made chocolate chip cookies with mom was always a treat.

During the process it was inevitable that flour would puff and billow out, scenting the air with the dry aroma of wheat. Eggs would be cracked and their gloppy contents, along with velvety softened butter, potent vanilla extract, and grainy sugar crystals, would go into the mix. Chocolate chips would be also be added, although a few always met a premature end, and the disparate substances, initially resistant to the idea of combining, would ultimately yield to "elbow grease", or the tines of an electric mixer.

From their union, cookie dough would be born, and while the alchemical magic of turning liquid dough into solid cookies was intriguing, the real excitement was always reserved for the "cleanup". I'd be handed the mixing bowl and spoon and would quickly go to work on the sweet, raw, gooey goodness. Since eschewing wheat, however, I've given up making cookies, which severely hinders the possibility of enjoying a spoonful of childhood memories now and again.

So I did something about it. It's not perfect, and it is definitely not cookie dough, but it is close, and it hits some of the same buttons without copious amounts of raw egg, sugar, and wheat flour.

Ingredients:

1 tbsp cacao nibs (see "Cacao Cacao" for the backstory on these)
1 tbsp chopped walnuts
2 tbsp almond butter
1 tbsp coconut oil
1-2 drops real vanilla
Pinch sea salt
Pinch cinnamon

Directions:

In a small bowl, combine "wet" ingredients (coconut oil, almond butter, and vanilla). Add "dry" ingredients next (nibs, walnuts, sea salt and cinnamon) and mix well.

Eat with a spoon (or off of a mixer attachment if feeling particularly nostalgic.)

Paleo Pantry: Cacao! Cacao!

2012-01-23T16:01:00.000-08:00

"What is chocolate, really?"

"Do bars grow on trees?"

"Is there more to chocolate than meets the palate?"

Facing such existential questions, I decided to embark upon a quest to find the ultimate chocolate experience.

Carried atop the whirling gyres of my tubular steel steed, I wound through city streets filled with strip-malls, fast food restaurants, and belligerent automobile drivers. Sparse weeds grew determinedly through cracked concrete yet my conviction and my parched mouth pined. In midst of this dietary wasteland there seemed to be no hope for salivation, no redemption for my chocolate cravings.

Desperately, my eyes scanned the horizon, searching for a sign. That was when I saw it. Thinking it must be a mirage, I blinked and rubbed my eyes. Expecting the telltale shimmer of heat to reveal that it had all been a lie. I looked again, hoping that my cacao-deprived brain would aim true.

But it was still there and as I drew ever closer the image became clearer. In the hinterlands between me and my destination marched a great menagerie of hipsters, cougars, and vegans. The vast congregation making their way to pay homage at the gates of yon oasis.

A paper bag hopped and skittered towards me and as it cartwheeled past my feet, I could see the telltale "recycle" symbol and the words "Whole Foods" printed upon it.

Of course! Whole Foods! The bourgeois bastion of healthy comestibles was my destiny from the start. Where else would I find the culinary equivalent of dreadlocks and nag champa in the heart of Urbana?

A cool blast of air raised my hackles as hot flesh instantly ran cold. A cursory check of the candy aisle confirmed my suspicions that nothing novel would be found there. Chocolate bars full of goji berries and other "superfoods" was not what I sought. Continuing to circle the perimeter of the store, I came upon the gourmet foods; the stinky cheeses, the wines, and charcuterie. Again, it was the usual suspects. Blocks of Belgian chocolate, drops of fondue-ready morsels, but nothing for my heart's longing.

Yet again I found myself plunged into chocolate-free abyss, curled up under a self-serve cart of olives and rolled grape leaves, I surrendered to the despair. But from the darkness came a light. A dove, or at least what my delirious mind contrived to be a dove, rose up and spoke to me. It told me to continue my journey, that I woulf find the chocolatey grail if I only went to the center.

The center? The center of my soul? My being? The molten core of the earth itself? "No stupid," the ephemeral dove said in a language that surely spoke without words, "The center of the store!"

Crawling past carts, dodging swinging, and reusable, shopping bags, I plunged into the inner sanctum with newfound vigor. Pushing past Ja-Chad, and ignoring his derisory affect, I checked each aisle with a fevered intensity. And then, I was there.

At the epicenter of the baked goods aisle, it stood haloed in an supernatural light. A single word, "Theo", was scrawled into its surface. I recognized it immediately as a reference to the true name of chocolate, theobroma cacao.

I quickly grabbed my bounty, thrust a wad of crumpled bills towards the nearest bespectacled cashier as a sacrifice to the corporatocracy and emerged, like a Fury, onto the crumbling city streets.

The journey home was a blur, in the crazed heat of activity, it was over in moments. Fumbling with my keys I stumbled inside and found myself safely nestled in my kitchen. I next turned to the canister of brown gold.

Prying it open, I was immediately struck by the heady perfume of chocolate. Upending the container into my waiting maw, I took the jagged contents into my mouth and began masticating them with relish. Resistant at first, the nibs quickly yielded with a satisfying crunch.

My eyes closed tightly, entranced by the symphony of flavors. Smoky charcoal quickly gave way to sweet coffee and bitter hops. The experience lingered for a few more seconds and then faded into a satisfied buzz.

I had found it, this was my manna and it was good.

Do you have a craving for cacao? Here are a few recipes that showcase the naturally delicious nibs...

Paleo "Cookie Dough"

Mocha Chip Smoothie

Caveman Cuisine: Spicy Tuna Breakfast Patty

2012-01-17T14:55:00.000-08:00

It's been a long week. You've been hooked up to the work-eat-sleep hamster wheel for days. The cupboard has officially run dry.

But wait, what is this? Behind the stack of soup that you are saving till the apocalypse is a can of tuna! Scouring the fridge yields a couple eggs, and, while technically "spoiled milk", there is even a dollop of sour cream and some shreds of cheese that seem game.

The fresh veggies, however, have left the building. So what about something green? You head out to the back yard to think about your predicament. From the corner of your eye you notice a familiar sight. A single puffball atop a long slender stem. The lowly dandelion to most, but nutritious roughage to your vegetation deprived eyes.

In another neglected corner of your yard, a small orange orb stands out in stark contrast to the dry weeds. The last two habaneros of summer have managed to hang on until this moment. Plucked from their stems with a satisfying pop, they join the dandelion greens as you head back to the kitchen.

While this situation might seem oddly specific for a recipe, this is EXACTLY what happened to me just a few days ago, the result being the Spicy Tuna Breakfast Patty.

Ingredients:

1 can tuna fish (Drained, I used chunk light but just use whatever works for you)
2 eggs
2 tbsp shredded cheddar cheese
1 tbsp sour cream
2 habanero peppers (or just one finely minced if you don't need the extra for decoration)
1-2 cups fresh dandelion leaves (washed and dried)
2 tsp ghee (or coconut oil or tallow or any other good fat)
Fresh ground black pepper

Directions:

In a small bowl, combine tuna, eggs, black pepper, minced habanero and cheese. Once you finish this, bring a small frying pan up to medium heat. Add fat and, once it melts, add dandelion greens. When the greens have wilted (about 1-2 minutes) add the tuna-egg mixture to the pan. Turn the heat down to medium-low and cover.

After about 5 minutes or so, the eggs should have completely set (if not, you can simply let them cook a little while longer as I recommend against turning up the heat). Use a spatula to scrape across the sides and bottom of the pan, ensuring that the entire contents are free.

To serve, flip the Spicy Tuna Breakfast Patty over (this will reveal the nice caramelized greens on the bottom) and top with sour cream.

Serves Uno

Caveman Cuisine: Spicy Pig and Plantain Soup

2012-01-13T18:39:00.000-08:00

Making soup seems simple enough. Toss some leftover meat and vegetables in a pot and boil right? Well...there is soup and there is OMFGTIDG (Oh My F'king God This Is Damn Good) soup. The trick to making the later, rather than the former, is to follow the oft repeated and equally oft ignored advice to "layer flavors".

Layering flavors doesn't mean adding a lot of different flavors or over-seasoning. (This generally resulting in a dish that tastes confused or like just took a bath in the dead sea.) It does mean, however, coaxing every bit of goodness out of the flavors you do use, bringing them, soaring, to the ecstatic heights of gastronomic nirvana.

Returning to our discussion of soup, the way that we would go about layering flavors for this particular type of dish is to start with either a mirepoix, włoszczyzna, or a sofrito (depending on whether your predilection is for French, Polish, or Spanish cuisine respectively). Regardless of what you call it, it is essentially a combination of finely minced aromatic vegetables (onions, garlic, shallot, celery, carrot, etc) slowly sauteed in either butter or olive oil. The combination of heat and fat releases, softens, and massages the flavors of the aromatics.

Next, we are most definitely NOT going to use water (or more accurately, just water) to form the base of our soup. For a lip-smacking, full bodied bite, we need broth, and not just any broth. For our second layer of flavor we want lots of gooey, gelatinous connective tissue to go into our solution. The best way to do this is to boil up some pig, cow, or chicken feet, but you can also recycle the cooking liquid from recipes such a pork shoulder submerged in coconut water and slow cooked for eight hours. This was what I did and you could have stood a spoon in the stuff.

The last stop on the flavor train is as essential as it is obvious. Taste as you go. Why wait till you serve your food to find out that it needed some pepper, a touch of salt, or some other essential seasoning? Good cooks don't like surprises and you want to know that your dish is just right before it hits the plate. A little spoonful from time to time is all you need to inform your taste-buds and save you, and your guests, from bland food.

In making this particular recipe, I employed all of the above techniques and the result was OMFGTIDG. I encourage you do do the same.

Ingredients:

Leftover pork and roasted plantains from the "Pulled Pig and Mashed Plantains" recipe
~3 cups of broth from an Epic Pig
1 tbsp each of coconut and red palm oil
Sofrito (diced carrot, onion, celery, and garlic)
~3 cups pure water
Sea salt and fresh ground pepper
1/2 avocado (diced for topping)
Hot sauce (optional but not really)

Directions:

In a large pot, melt coconut and palm oil over medium-low heat. Add your sofrito, stirring frequently while it cooks. When the aromatics have cooked down and are nice and soft, add your broth, water, plantains and meat.

Bring the soup up to a boil and skim off any foam (failing to do this may result in an "off" taste for some complex scientific reason).

Reduce the heat to a simmer, and allow the soup to cook partially covered ~30 minute.

Season to taste and serve with sliced avocado and hot sauce on top (I'm particularly fond of sauces made from scotch bonnets but Cholula or Sriracha would pass muster as well.)

Caveman Cuisine: Veni-Naghetti

2012-01-11T18:39:00.000-08:00

I have always found making a "semi-homemade" spaghetti sauce from canned crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, and fresh herbs to be an easy and delicious way to get my pasta sauce fix. I suppose it should really be called "squash sauce", but I digress. Recently, however, I have begun to wonder if, in addition to "easy and delicious", this is also less healthful that some pre-made options.

While I despise the fact that most ready made pasta sauces contain a large amount of added sugar (sometimes as much as 15gms of high fructose corn syrup per serving, speaking of which, Newman's Own and Emeril should be ashamed), industrial seed oils (like canola and soy oil), and so-called "natural" flavors, making your own from canned tomatoes might be just as bad of an idea.

In a Prevention.com article titled "7 Foods That Should Never Cross Your Lips", Univeristy of Missouri endocrinologist Fredrick Vom Saal, made the following comment:

"You can get 50 mcg of BPA per liter out of a tomato can, and that's a level that is going to impact people, particularly the young...I won't go near canned tomatoes."

Here I thought I was being healthful with my food choices and yet I was inadvertently exposing myself to high levels of a toxic chemical that has been strongly linked to "developmental problems as well as a variety of adult health concerns, including erectile dysfunction, breast cancer, heart disease, and diabetes"?!

Feeling the PR heat, companies like General Mills (producer of "Muir Glen" organic tomato products) have resolved to eliminate BPA from their cans, but another option, and one I am personally in favor of, is to avoid canned foods entirely (barring a zombie apocalypse or some other such end-of-days scenario of course).

Lacking any fresh tomatoes, I went with a quality jarred option that was free of HFCS and other such nasty ingredients for this venison "naghetti" ("not spaghetti") recipe. The result was an easy, delicious, AND healthful meal!

Ingredients:

1/2 jar quality tomato sauce (glass jar, no HFCS, industrial oil, etc.)
1lb ground venison (grass-fed beef would work as well)
2 tbsp Parmesan or Romano cheese (freshly grated)
1 medium spaghetti squash (halved with seeds removed).
Butter or some other animal fat (for the roasting the spaghetti squash)
"Italian Seasoning" (dried oregano, basil, and parsley)
Sea salt and fresh ground black pepper

Directions:

Begin by roasting the spaghetti squash (directions here). While the spaghetti squash roasts, bring a saucepan up to medium heat and add venison. When the meat is cooked through, add the tomato sauce (you can add more than 1/2 a jar, but I like my sauce X-tra meaty) and heat through. Season with salt and pepper to taste, adding additional Italian seasoning if necessary.

When the squash is ready, remove the flesh with a fork and plate. Top with meat sauce and freshly grated cheese.

Serves 2-3

Caveman Cuisine: Pulled Pig over Mashed Plantains

2012-01-09T18:13:00.000-08:00

Plantains, or "green bananas" are a staple food in many parts of the world but in much of the United States, they are a culinary enigma. When green (unripe) plantains are starchy and possessing of a neutral flavor reminiscent of a potato. When yellow (ripe) and black (very ripe!) they are sweet and can be eaten raw like a regular banana.

Bananas and plantains are in fact the same species, but just different varieties bred for different purposes. Bananas are almost always eaten ripe and raw, while plantains are typically cooked (fried, baked, grilled, roasted, or boiled) while still unripe. Like bananas, however, plantains are a good source of potassium and other micronutrients.

Luckily for me, I live in an area where plantains are readily and cheaply available. At any of the many Hispanic or Asian grocers around town, I can pick up enough for several meals for about $1.00. If I want to save a trip to the store, there is always the option of embarking upon a little urban foraging.

Ultimately, the inspiration for this dish was the result of watching the documentary film Pururambo. In it, the film makers sought to explore the depths of Papua New Guinea and to visit isolated tribes who had never before been in contact with Europeans. Watching the film, I was interested in gleaning some insight into the diet of these hunter gatherers and was happy to see foods that I recognized.

The indigenous peoples raised pigs, and would occasionally slaughter one to supplement their regular diet of rhinoceros beetle grubs, birds, and lizards. Another staple food was, yup, green bananas, roasted over a fire.

Thus, Pulled Pig over Mashed Plantains was born.

Ingredients:

4-5 plantains (slit lengthwise)
3-4lb pork shoulder
Dry rub (equal parts sea salt, black pepper, paprika, and a few pinches of garlic and onion powders)
1 can (~16oz) coconut water
Optional: Coconut oil or Red Palm Oil

Directions:

Start the pulled pig the day before by rubbing it with generously with dry rub, covering, and refrigerating overnight.

The next day, put the pork shoulder into a crock pot or slow-cooker and add the coconut water. Set the heat to low and allow the pork to cook all day (~8hrs). About an hour before the pork is ready, preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Place the plantains on a baking sheet (I like to cover mine with foil to make cleanup easier) and bake for 60min. When the plantains are done, they should have the consistency of a firm baked potato.

Remove the peels and cut the plantains into 1-2" chunks. Using a potato masher or a large spoon, mash the plantains, adding a coconut oil or red palm oil if desired.

To serve, pile some mashed plantains on a dish and spoon some of the cooking liquid over them. Add a generous heap of pulled pork and dig in.

Feasts 4

Caveman Cuisine: Fried Eggs over Chestnuts, Sausage, and Kale

2012-01-06T13:10:00.000-08:00

Nowadays, chestnuts are most famous for "roasting on an open fire", but these stately trees have played an important role in many cultures for their quality lumber and sweet, starchy nuts for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

The American chestnut was brought to the brink of extinction by a fungal blight in the early and mid 20th century, so most of the modern supply hails from Europe. Chestnuts can be bought whole or roasted and ready to eat. (Note: Be sure to score the shells of any whole chestnuts you purchase prior to roasting them. A few years back I neglected this step and took an exploding chestnut to the eye as a result.)

Low in fat and high in carbohydrate, chestnuts can be used in ways more similar to that of potatoes (as part of a casserole) or grains (chestnut flour makes delicious gluten free baked goods). The smoky sweet flavor nicely compliments richer meats and as such, I decided to include it in this breakfast dish of venison sausage, sauteed kale, and fried eggs.

Ingredients:

5-6 roasted chestnuts (diced)
2-3 cups kale (roughly chopped)
4oz loose pork or venison sausage
3 eggs

Directions:

In a large skillet, cook sausage over medium heat until nearly done. Add chestnuts and mix until thoroughly combined. Remove the sausage and chestnut mixture to a small bowl and leave any grease from the sausage in the pan. Add kale and cook until the leaves are wilted.

Plate the kale and wipe down the skillet. If necessary, add a small amount of butter or animal fat (lard, tallow, etc.) to the pan. When the fat has melted, and hot enough to make a drop of water sputter, crack your eggs into the pan. Fry the eggs for several minutes before flipping, ensuring that the yolks remain intact.

When the eggs are ready, top the sauteed kale with the sausage and chestnut mixture. Top with fried eggs and season with fresh ground black pepper.

Caveman Cuisine: Roasted Beef Ribs

2012-01-04T17:54:00.000-08:00

"In the early twentieth century, Louis-Camille Maillard happened upon what came to be known as the Maillard reaction when he was trying to figure out how amino acids linked up to form proteins. He discovered that when he heated sugars and amino acids together, the mixture slowly turned brown."

(From TheExploratorium.edu)

How would you describe the quintessentially perfect piece of meat? Undoubtedly it would be moist, with juices and fat retained and flowing within the flesh. It would also be meltingly tender, surrendering to the tooth with seductive resistance. Would you also say that this perfect meal would be coated with glycated amino acids? Of course, you wouldn't actually say that, but you would definitely be thinking about it.

Discovered in the early 20th century by Louis-Camille Maillard, the Maillard, or "browning", reaction involves the combination of proteins and sugars in the presence of high heat. The result is one of the absolutely essential elements of a perfectly cooked piece of meat. An aesthetically pleasing and gustatorily sublime crust. (Our desire for this meaty crust may even have its roots in our very evolution!)

Summoning the holy trinity of meat (tender, crusty, and moist) may at times be daunting. The journey fraught with dry or insipid clods of cooked flesh, but do not fear. For I have come to guide you upon the path. It is but one path among many, but I assure you that it will lead to salivation.

For our purposes, we will choose a piece of meat that offers several distinct advantages.

One: Lots of fat and connective tissue. These are important as they will lubricate the meat from within as they melt.

Two: Must be eaten with hands. The banner of this site reads "Live Caveman". Enough said.

Three: Delicious. I want my food to taste like what it is. Tasting "like chicken" is not an option.

Four: Cheap. As an affordable cut, it allows room for errors and repeated experimentation of a single effort runs afoul.

We will also be cooking the meat using a three stage process.

One: An initial high-heat sizzle. This gives us an opportunity to develop browning compounds on the meat while it is still relatively cool, sparing the juices inside. (For this same reason, an initial high heat "sizzle" in the oven would make the Thanksgiving turkey a little more toothsome rather than waiting until the end to brown the bird.)

Two: A low and slow roasting period. This allows the temperature of the meat to gradually increase towards the center, sparing moisture while liquidizing fats and other tissues.

Three: A final rest before carving. Sufficiently resting your meat will allow juices to redistribute through the flesh as well as allowing for a little more time for the internal temperature of the meat to even out. Rest your meat at room temperature. Allowing it to sit in the oven, even if the oven is off, will continue to cook the meat and defeats the purpose.

Note: Proper execution of this cooking process is also made much easier by using a large skillet that can transition from the stove top to the oven. In other words, no plastic or Teflon cookware!

Ingredients:

2 1lb racks of beef ribs (~2 ribs each)
Coconut oil or some other highly saturated fat (ghee, tallow, etc.)
Sea salt
Fresh ground black pepper
1/2 white onion (sliced into rings)

Optional:

1 cup white wine
1 tbsp yellow mustard
3 medjool dates (diced)
Black pepper

Directions:

Heat a large oven proof skillet over medium-high heat. Coat your ribs with coconut oil and when the skillet is hot, place the ribs fatty-side (the "top") down in the pan. Season the underside of the ribs generously with sea salt and black pepper. Preheat your oven to 300 degrees while you let the ribs sizzle for ~5-7min.

Turn the ribs over and season the browned side with salt and pepper. Remove the ribs from the pan and add sliced onions. Set the ribs on top of the sliced onions and place the entire pan in the oven.

After one hour, carefully remove the pan from the oven (use mitts!) and set the meat aside. Allow the meat to rest for at least 5 full minutes before carving. The meat will be medium-rare and perhaps a touch bloody in the center. If this scares you, there are some chicken recipes on the Caveman Cuisine page.

While the meat rests, you may want to try creating a sauce from the pan drippings. Put the pan over a burner at medium heat. Remove the onions and add white wine. Using a wooden spoon, scrape up all the brown bits. Add mustard, black pepper, and chopped dates. Bring the sauce up to a high simmer while continuing to stir. Add the onions back in. If the sauce becomes too thick, add a small amount of water, or even better beef stock.

Carve the ribs by slicing parallel to and between the bones with a sharp heavy knife.

Serve with plenty of napkins!

If you dug this recipe, I highly recommend that you pick up a copy of the River Cottage Meat Book by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. This epic tome (calling it a book would be doing this work a disservice) details every nuance of the meat eating experience from the philosophical implications of carnivory, to tips on butchery, and everything else from farm to table and nose to tail.

The 7 Steps: The Art of Re-creation

2012-01-02T17:49:00.000-08:00

No, this quaint single room log cabin on the top of a mountain is not actually my home. It makes for a good visual though!

RECREATION - Origin, Middle English recreacion, from Anglo-French, from Latin recreation-, recreatio restoration to health, from recreare to create anew, restore, refresh, from re- + creare to create

From Merriam-Webster.com

The hum of a smart phone signals that someone commented on your Facebook page. Instantly, you hand darts to the device and with a flick of the finger, the screen lights up. A series of taps follows, a quick reply, and then back to... Another message pops up. Your friend has just sent you a link to a "OMG watch this!!!" video on YouTube. Wow, that dog really knows how to beg, you think. A related video follows and the cycle continues. Pavlov couldn't have done it better.

Surrounded by our "friends", ensconced in 3G (or is that 4G?), making our way through the world without seeing anything beyond the screen; it's a comfort blanket for the "always on" generation. What are we gaining? What are we losing? Are we simply swept up in a techno love affair? Or, is something more insidious at work?

Human beings evolved as social creatures. Our ancestors' survival was doubtless dependent on the ability to quickly glean the emotions, social status, and reproductive fitness of other members of our tribe. If this wasn't the case, we would not have entire industries devoted to celebrity, fitness (or, in the case of cosmetic surgery, the illusion of fitness), fashion, and universally recognized "emoticons. :)

Evolution, however, has no need for explanations. While the standard social science model might suggest that participating in the social milieu is a learned trait, it is doubtless that this is something that is, in fact, embedded into our very DNA. Our taste buds are wired to respond pleasurably to sweet, salty, and fatty foods, our entire nervous system is "turned on" when we anticipate, simulate, or participate in a sexual encounter, and we enjoy a good bit of gossip. All of these behaviors are rewarded automatically, all without being "told" that we should enjoy them, and all without explanation as to how they will ultimately increase our chances of passing genetic material to the next generation.

Having the means to push our evolutionary buttons at will is inherently attractive and we are all well aware of the dangers doing this on a nutritional level (otherwise, you would be eating a Big Mac rather than reading this blog!) The idea that we may be doing equal, or even greater harm to ourselves through chronic mal-socialization is somehow harder to digest.

What we can be sure of is that the beneficial effects of strong social ties are well documented. In a study titled "Social Networks, Host Resistance, and Mortality: A Nine-Year Follow-Up Study of Alameda County Resisdents", researchers Lisa Berkman and Leaonard Symes presented the following findings:

"(P)eople who lacked social and community ties were more likely to die in the follow-up period than those with more extensive contacts...The association between social ties and mortality was found to be independent of self-reported physical health status at the time of the 1965 survey, year of death, socioeconomic status, and health practices such as smoking, alcoholic beverage consumption, obesity, physical activity, and utilization of preventive health services...)"

Many studies examining the effects of media consumption have typically focused on questions about the incidence of risky behaviors in teens while seemingly avoiding the larger issue of chronic population-wide effects (of course, the guys behind the SouthPark TV series have weighed in on the issue). Studies investigating the effects of multi-tasking, such as an article titled "The laptop and the lecture: The effects of multitasking in learning environments" by Helene Hembrooke and Geri Gay published in The Journal of Computing in Higher Education have begun to circle the issue however.

"Two groups of students heard the same exact lecture and tested immediately following the lecture. One group of students was allowed to use their laptops to engage in browsing, search, and/or social computing behaviors during the lecture. Students in the second condition were asked to keep their laptops closed for the duration of the lecture. Students in the open laptop condition suffered decrements on traditional measures of memory for lecture content."

Extrapolating these results into a social situation, it is easy to see how spending time with one's online "friends" while in the company of a real-world friend could negatively impact relationship quality. Regardless of our perceived ability to do "two things at once", we are at the mercy of our limited attention span and any activity that perpetually draws our focus away from the task at hand, whether it is driving or having a conversation, will impair our performance.

Personally, I am not without reproach. By the very act of composing this post, which will doubtless be reposted on a Facebook fan page, I am perpetuating the very thing I seem to be rebuking. My message, therefore, is not that new technologies, media, and the like must are inherently "bad" and should be feared, but rather than they are used responsibly and with an awareness of the costs associated with their use.

What I propose, then, is to engage in periods of literal recreation.

Turn off the electronics (yes, this includes the phone).

Don't go online or check Facebook (Do, in fact, check out a book from the library!)

Let yourself feel a little uncomfortable and awkward (solo or in social situations).

In other words, reacquaint yourself with the nuances, complexities, risks, and rewards of real face-to-face interaction with your environment.

I suspect you will find the experience quite memorable.

This past week I had the opportunity to re-create with my family and friends. I hope these pictures inspire you to do the same.

Caveman Cuisine: Chicken Cordon-Bacon

2012-01-01T10:41:00.000-08:00

I really don't consider myself a breast man (give me a nice butt or some ribs any day), but given that I had a one on hand, I figured I'd make the most of it. To that end, I pounded it out, stuffed it with cheese, and wrapped it in bacon.

Ingredients:

1 boneless chicken breast
5 slices uncured bacon
2oz cheddar cheese (crumbled)

Step 1: Pound it out

Sandwich your chicken breast between two sheets of plastic wrap. Using a meat mallet, pound the breast, starting from the edges and working your way inwards, until it is about 1/2 inch thick.

Step 2: Stuff it

Spread chunks of cheese over one side and then fold the other side over the top.

Step 3: Bacon it

Lay out several strips of bacon (I used a nice thick-cut). Place your stuffed chicken breast on one end and roll it up in the bacon.

Step 4: Bake it

Wrap the entire breast in aluminum foil and put in a 350 degree oven. Bake for 20 minutes. Unwrap the foil and broil for an additional 5 minutes to crisp up the bacon (you may also wish to flip the breast over and broil the bottom side as well).

Urban Foraging: B-a-n-a-n-a-s

2011-12-20T17:05:00.000-08:00

Gathering, the less contentious and less romanticized half of the "hunting and gathering" equation, predates fast food restaurants, supermarkets, agriculture, tools, language, and most of the other qualities that we use to define us as "human". When we were apes, we gathered. When we were rodents, we gathered. When we were reptiles, amphibians, and fish, you guessed it, we gathered.

Out of our approximate 2 billion year evolution, the only time we have not directly acquired food from our environment (in this case, sedentary foods such as plants, fungi, and shellfish) has been the past 50 or so years. Thanks to the modern food production system, colorful packages full of mouth-watering, popularity, fun, and entertainment are predictably available at just about every street corner. As a result, something that has been part of the fabric of our existence from time immemorial has been rendered quaint at best and obsolete or even impossible at worst.

The knowledge of what wild foods are good to eat has been drowned out by the noise of so many I-pods, flickering screens, and rumbling engines. Our day to day efforts no longer provide food, rather, they provide "value", to a corporation, a customer, or to some other agent that rewards our labor with a piece of paper that holds the promise of something worthwhile. We trust in the system because we have no choice. Or do we?

In the middle of the land of McDonald's, the people are stirring. In the past few years, there has been a blossoming interest in ancestral foodstuffs (Paleo), self-sufficient living (Homesteading) and food-gathering (Foraging). I have personally been moved to stretch outside of the comfortable aisles of the grocery store and have ventured forth to gather my own food.

On this particular day, I decided to explore a patch of banana trees growing in the back of my neighborhood. To my delight, I discovered several bunches of bananas, with a primal thrill, proceeded to harvest them and haul them back to my house.

The fruits were smaller than those from a store and with thicker skins, but they were definitely bananas. A week or so after harvesting, some of them had ripened to a nice yellow, and I found the fruit to be sweet and delicious. My conscience too was enlightened as these bananas could be enjoyed with the knowledge that they were not the product of multi-national conglomerates (such as the company formerly known as United Fruit), slave labor, and environmental degradation.

Of course, one must exercise a degree of caution when foraging. Taking food, fruit, or anything else from someone else's property without permission isn't "foraging", it is stealing. Also, be aware of the possibility of contamination from passing cars (roadside dandelion greens for example) and other pollutants. If you're not sure what is edible in your area, a quick internet search will often yield useful results. Keeping in mind, however, that certain things, such as mushrooms, are best left to experts to identify. Numerous clubs, books, and other resources are also available.

If you have a foraging story that you would like to share, I would love to hear it. Feel free to use my Facebook page or the comments section below.

Caveman Cuisine: Crunchy Kale Chips

2011-12-19T08:49:00.000-08:00

Can you have crispy, crunchy, carb-free snacks? You sure can!

Kale, a leafy green vegetable in the broccoli family, is an extremely versatile ingredient that is packed with nutrition. While my typical kale recipes involve blending fresh kale into smoothies (Green and Clean) or sauteing the leafy greens like spinach (Pasture Fried Eggs), this recipe calls for baking it in the oven in order to create a crunchy kale "chip".

Before you dismiss this as another "healthy but nasty" recipe, I must say that these passed the ultimate test. While I was cooking up a batch, my wife, who is my most strident food critic, came over and tried a few. She ended up taking several handfuls, confirming that this is, indeed, a tasty and healthy recipe!

Pre-made kale chips are available in some specialty stores, but they are extremely expensive. Making kale chips at home will save you quite a bit of money, and they are so easy that there is really no reason to bother with buying them.

Ingredients:

10oz of washed and dried kale leaves (remove the stems)
1-2oz of coconut aminos or tamari
1-2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 250 degrees. On a large baking sheet (I covered mine in parchment paper for easy clean-up), spread out the kale leaves. Drizzle with coconut aminos, olive oil, and a some fresh ground pepper. Toss the kale to evenly disperse the flavoring and put in the oven. Set your oven timer to 15 min.

When the timer goes off, stir the kale. Keep checking it on 15min intervals, gently stirring each time, until the leaves are very crisp. While they are still hot, season with sea salt if desired.

Store in an air-tight container along with a paper towel to keep them crunchy.

Kale chips can be enjoyed as a snack, or used as a garnish for other dishes.

Caveman Cuisine: Lindt Excellence 99% Cacao Dark Chocolate Bar

2011-12-15T12:45:00.000-08:00

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you will well know my professed love for pure, unsweetened chocolate (see: Bakers, Hershey's, and the ultimate chocolate showdown). The astringent bite, the smokey flavors, and the lack of, how do you say, crappy ingredients (sugar, chocolate "flavor", etc.) all combine to form what is, for me at least, a near perfect treat.

Some, however, find the pure chocolate to be just a tad intense. On my recommendation, a friend of mine once purchased a pure chocolate bar and, after a bite, spit it out and threw the rest in the trash. With this in mind, I wanted to explore some "lighter" options that may appease gentler palates.

To my delight, I stumbled upon the Lindt Excellence 99% Cacoa Dark Chocolate bar. This spectacular confection is specifically designed for tasting, unlike the industrial blocks of unsweetened chocolate that I typically sink my teeth into, and as such is much more approachable.

The bar itself is very thin, and scored to make separating out an individual square easy and painless. Placing this square on your tongue, and allowing the heat to slowly melt the chocolate is a sublime experience.

Containing just a touch of sugar, the bitterness of pure chocolate is slightly subdued and the sharp edge is softened to a silky sheen. The chocolatiers at Lindt truly know their way around a cacao bean, and this is one treat that should not be missed.

Caveman Cuisine: Green and Clean

2011-12-14T16:52:00.000-08:00

As the EZ-bake oven of Summer gives way to the wet chill of Fall and as our table finds its fare becoming progressively heavier, fattier, and laden with sweets, meats, and all sorts of decadent treats, the need for a momentary respite deepens. The mounting indulgences, one heaped upon the other like football players in a pile-up, tax the digestive apparatus in evolutionarily novel ways.

Taking a breath, creating some space, and clearing away the accumulated detritus of one too many holiday parties was the special task of this particularly green decoction of concentrated living things. The ingredients were sourced from the small garden plot in my back yard (see How Does Your Garden Grow?), the same square of soil that has lain fallow and neglected for weeks. I chose to honor the sad and heroic efforts of the few stragglers, dandelion, broccoli, parsley and kale, by atomizing them in my blender.

Along with the sacrificial sprouts, a haphazard mix of items from my refrigerator and pantry were also surrendered to the whirling altar. Their contributions afforded a surprising palatability to the final product, a frothy green melange suffused with the essence of life and death.

Ingredients:

3 handfuls of assorted greens (kale, broccoli sproutlings, dandelions, parsley, radish tops, etc.)
1 medium carrot (broken into chunks)
1 handful of the green leafy bits from the heart of a celery stalk
1 Fuji apple (sliced from the core)
1" chunk of fresh ginger root
1 scoop unflavored whey protein
1 tsp maple syrup
2-3 drops real vanilla extract
1 pinch sea salt
Pinch cinnamon
1 tbsp chia seeds
3 Brazil nuts
1 tsp almond butter
10oz cold distilled water

Directions:

Add all ingredients to a sturdy blender. Gradually increase the intensity of the blending till "liquify" is achieved. Rub your head and pat your belly. Then, drink the mixture straight from the blender or from your favorite glass. Be sure to clean the glass thoroughly if it was in fact your wife's favorite glass and she is not amused by dried on green bits.

Caveman Cuisine: Coco-Chia

2011-12-11T11:34:00.000-08:00

Mysterious and unknown outside of the canyon-lands of Mexico, the ultra-marathoning Tarahumara tribe of were catapulted out of obscurity when Christopher McDougall wrote his best-selling book, "Born to Run". Since then, the ways of the Tarahumara, from their "huarache" running sandals to their dietary staple pinole, (a kind of corn gruel), have been adopted by Western athletes hoping to boost their health and performance.

Another Tarahumara tradition that has found popularity is the use of chia seeds. Yup, the same "chia" as in the infamous Chia Pets and Chia Heads is also the main ingredient in chia fresca (also known as "Iskiate") a traditional beverage of the Tarahumara. It is made by combining chia seeds, water, and lemon or lime juice and is touted for it's dehydration-fighting effects.

While I personally prefer to drink plain water as my preferred source of hydration, I have recently been experimenting with adding the occasional glass of chia fresca and have found it to be quite refreshing. Of course, I wasn't satisfied with the recipes I found online, and decided to do a little experimenting to see if I could improve upon the original.

The result is Coco-Chia, and it is a great way to stay hydrated during hot days and tough workouts.

Ingredients:

1 tbsp organic chia seeds (you can purchase cheaply here)
1/2 can (8oz) coconut water
Slice of lemon or lime
Pinch sea salt
1 cup filtered water

Directions:

Chia seeds are small and tend to get everywhere except where you want them to be, so I used a paper funnel to direct a generous spoon-full of chia seeds into an empty glass bottle (I used a clean GT's Kombucha bottle). Then, I squeezed in some lime juice, added the coconut water, sea salt, and finally topped the bottle off with filtered water.

After screwing on the lid and giving the bottle a good shake, I put it in the fridge and allowed it to sit over night.

When your Coco-chia is ready, you will see that the chia seeds are suspended in the liquid in a sort of gel.

Caveman Cuisine: Venison Sausage with Cranberry Cream Sauce

2011-12-08T13:38:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately (or fortunately if you are a member of PETA) I have never killed an animal. Granted, I have been complicit in the deaths of a multitude of creatures as the end consumer of a wide variety of species from lowly crustaceans all the way through to herbivorous ungulates (moo).

Fortunately (or unfortunately if you are a member of PETA) my father is a frequent hunter and absconds several times a year to remote locations in Georgia and northern Florida with with a car load of rifles, bullets, neon orange vests, doe (a deer, a female deer) urine, and camouflaged everything.

More often than not, he will return, a week or so later, with a cooler full of neatly wrapped white packages, each one marked with the words "ground", "sausage", "tenderloin", "back-strap", or "cube" (as in "cube steak"). These packages represent what was, just a few days prior, a large deer that happened to have the bad luck of walking through the wrong patch of forest.

I, the frequent benefactor of such trips, then find my own freezer soon loaded to the brim. From both a nutritional and financial perspective, this abundant surplus of wild meat is just about the best thing ever.

This years harvest was processed by a Mennonite family that apparently knows their way around a deer carcass. The sausage they produced could scarcely be recognized as wild game as the flavor was almost porcine. Rich, flavorful, herbed and spiced to perfection, I've been living off this stuff for days.

Simultaneously, I was also experienced an abundance of another sort. Thanksgiving had recently concluded, and there was quite a bit leftover. The bowl of home-made cranberry sauce, sweet, tart, and bright red seemed to be a perfect foil for the unctuous venison sausage. Bringing all of the flavors together, however, was a job for another category of food.

When it was all said and done, I think that the recipe was a resounding success. I'm not ashamed to admit that I licked the plate.

Ingredients:

1lb venison sausage (see "Meat Grinder" for how you can make your own loose sausage, venison or otherwise)
1/2 cup home-made cranberry sauce
1/2 cup organic European style sour cream (it has an almost liquid consistency and Whole Foods carries a great brand called "Wallaby")

Directions:

Form the sausage into little balls about the size of a golf ball and flatten slightly with your hand. In a large frying pan, cook the sausages over medium heat, flipping once after 3-4 minutes. Allow the sausages to cook for another 3-4 minutes. The result should be a nice crusty brown color. I didn't mind having mine slightly rare on the inside, but if you're squeamish about raw meat, feel free to cook all the way through. When the sausages are done, set them aside on a plate. (I decided to not bother draining them as I wanted to have a nice little pool of fat to mix with the sauce.)

In a small bowl, combine cranberry sauce and sour cream. You want the sauce to have the consistency of kefir (a sort of drinkable yogurt) and may need to play with the proportion of cranberry and cream depending on the particular ingredients you are working with.

To serve, drizzle a generous amount of the cranberry cream sauce over the sausage. This dish stands alone, but you may also wish to serve along with some poached eggs or some sauteed greens.

Caveman Cuisine: Pumpkin Pie Coconut Milk Ice Cream with Chocolate Chunks and Almond Butter Swirl

2011-12-07T08:26:00.000-08:00

After the Thanksgiving glut, supermarkets everywhere are itching to unload their surplus of canned pumpkin. And, unlike the old days where "pumpkin pie filling" (i.e. pumpkin plus all sorts of other crap) was the norm, there are generally multiple options to choose from.

For this particular recipe, I recommend picking up some pure, organic pumpkin and a can of Native Forest organic full-fat coconut milk. I also used Baker's unsweetened 100% cacao chocolate, but there are now several 100% chocolate bars available including a Fair-trade variety produced by SunSpire and a 99% cacao bar by Lindt.

An ice cream maker is also recommended, but there are ways around it if you really don't need another kitchen gadget. It will take a little more time, but you can use a cold metal bowl instead. Just fill it with your ice cream mixture. Pop it in the freezer, and every 5 minutes or so, pull it out and give it a good stir.

If you do have an ice-cream maker, this recipe will only take about 20 minutes from start to finish (quicker than running to the grocery store!) and the result is rich, creamy, and far better for you than even the best store bought varieties.

Ingredients:

1/2 can (~6oz) of organic canned pumpkin
1 can (~12oz) organic full-fat coconut milk
Pinch each of cinnamon, nutmeg, and all spice (plus a little extra cinnamon for topping)
1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 tsp succanat (this is essentially evaporated cane juice, a slightly better form of brown sugar)
1/4 tsp sea salt
4 tbsp almond butter
1oz unsweetened 100% chocolate (chopped up for topping)

Directions:

Mix all ingredients except for almond butter and chocolate together in a bowl. Add to your ice cream maker and begin stirring. Continue occasionally stirring mixture every 30s or so until mixture reaches a firm consistency (about 10min). Remove the mixer and stir in almond butter.

Serve topped with cinnamon and chocolate chunks.