Shrimp with Mango salsa OMG this is FABULOUS!! John even liked it and said I could fix it anytime :) I got the recipie from CrossfitanaerobicInc (kids-I can't figure out how to put the link on here so I don't have to type this all out. lessons please)
Here it is typed out:

2 lemons
2 limes1 bunch cilantro
2 ripe mangos
1 red onion
1 jalapeno
1 small red bell pepper
2.5 lbs shrimp shelled and deveined (I'm lazy too, Les, and used the pre-cooked ready to go)
black pepper
cayenne pepper
Extra Virgin olive oil
Garlic
Nutmeg
dried oregano
paprika
sea salt

Preheat oven to 400
Zest the lemons and squeeze lemon juice through fingers into bowl.
Zest the limes and ditto
Peel and mince 3 cloves of garlic
Rinse cilantro and pat dry. Pluck 3/4 cup leaves
Peel and dice mangos and put in bowl.
Remove seeds/pith from red pepper and dace. Add to mango.
Peel and mince the red onion-add to mango bowl.
Rinse and trim jalepeno(remove seeds for no spicy--leave them in for spicy)Mince and add to mango bowl

Start cooking:
Whick together lemon juice, 2 1/2 Tbs olive oil, lemon zest, gar;lic, 2 Tbls oregano, 2 Tbs paprika, 1/2 tsp cayenne, 2 tsp nutmeg, 2 tsp black pepper and season with salt to taste. Add shrimp and mix WELL.

Line sheet pan with parchment and lay shrimp on it in a single layer. Put shrimp in oven and bake till shrimp are pink and curled 5-8 minutes

While shrimp are baking, mince 3/4 cup cilantro leaves

MAKE SALSA--Add 2/3 cup minced cilantro and lime zest to mango(and red onion, red bell pepper and jalapeno) and mix. Drizzle lime juice all over and toss toss toss. Transfer salsa to a serving bowl.

When shrimp are done, transfer to serving dish and sprinkle with remaining cilantro.

Piña colada shrimp stir-fry

Last night could have been easier. Really, it could have! But dinner could not have been much easier than it was. Even after I made it WAY more complicated that it started out. I WAS going to make Garlic Chili Shrimp-where you basically sauté the garlic, toss in the shrimp, then season with a little salt, cayenne pepper, and lime. Then I thought I'd toss in a bag of frozen stir-fry veggies (the asparagus stir-fry that Wal-Mart carries is delicious), some frozen red bell pepper strips, a can of pineapple, and some coconut milk. And this is what I came up with. I served it with brown rice that I had leftover from the night before.

~1 pound shrimp (I used the precooked kind because I'm lazy and I'm terrified of undercooking seafood)
1 bag (maybe a pound?) frozen stir-fry veggies, thawed (Or not, if you're in a hurry...)
1 red bell pepper, cut into strips
1 20 oz (I think) can crushed pineapple, drained
1 13.6 oz can coconut milk
minced garlic, cayenne pepper (crushed or powder, whichever you prefer), salt, olive oil

Put a little olive oil in pan and sauté garlic lightly, for about a minute. Add veggies, pineapple, and shrimp, mixing everything together to keep the garlic from burning. When everything has heated through, about 5 minutes, drain excess liquid. Add coconut milk and heat through again. Season to taste with salt and cayenne pepper.

I'm guessing this would be really good with some lime, but (hold on to your chairs--this will be a shock) we were out. Ricky put a little soy sauce in his and said that was pretty good, too. He also said it would be excellent without the shrimp, in case I ever wanted to make it that way. I'll try to remember to get a picture tonight when I eat the leftovers. Anyway, I wanted to post this because mom is always talking about how good the coconut shrimp at that Chinese place is and how she can never find a good coconut shrimp recipe. I'm sure it's not exactly the same, but maybe it will help satisfy the craving.

Ice cream!!!

So, by request, I will share my ice cream recipe. Honestly it's kind of cheating because I just reworked the recipe that came in the instruction book for my ice cream maker, but it's still delicious. And it's SOOOOOOOO much cheaper than buying the specialty dairy free ice cream at the store. Well, unless you make some ungodly amount of it like I did when I first got the machine. It's a bad idea to mix a pregnant lady, an ice cream machine (a new one, at that!), and a challenge. I'm just sayin'. I'll just put the basic vanilla recipe here, but you can add pretty much anything you like to it. My favorite so far is chocolate covered cherry ice cream. Ricky's is Oreo. Nadia's is, well, whatever you put in her bowl is gone before you get the other bowls served, so I'm not sure she has one. Anyhow, the recipe:

1 cup soy or almond milk
3/4 cup granulated sugar
pinch salt
2 cups coconut milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

In a medium bowl, whisk to combine "milk", salt, and sugar until the sugar has dissolved. (I usually just put it in a leak-proof tupperware container and shake it--because Nadia can help more that way--and I put it in the fridge for a while and repeat until the sugar dissolves.) Stir in coconut milk and vanilla. Cover and refrigerate 1-2 hours. Follow instructions for your ice cream maker. Add candy, fruit, or other add-ins when ice cream has thickened--about 5 minutes until the end of the cycle.

Ok, so that's the short reworked version of what my instruction book for my Cuisinart says. I do the shaking method, then add the coconut milk and vanilla, shake more, then refrigerate. You CAN put it in the machine right away, but I have not had good luck with that. It seems to always turn out too soft. So, the chilling is an important step.

Also, a can of coconut milk (13.5 oz) is roughly only 1 and 2/3 cups, so I just top it off with the almond or soy milk that I was using instead of opening another can. You CAN use rice milk, but I have found the consistency is much lighter with it, although I don't know if that will vary by machine ( I think I used the first machine I bought with it, not this one). Both the soy and almond milks give a really good ice-creamy texture. Ricky loves it and has recently been requesting an ice cream. This is the guy who wouldn't touch most of the commercial soy ice creams I tried with a 30-foot pole.

Excellent things to add are: Oreos, fresh or thawed cut strawberries, Reese's cups, 1/2 cup crushed peppermint candies--or more if you like, chopped cherries with chocolate chips, or whatever else you can chop into small pieces and put in ice cream. Just make sure you chop things small enough that they won't get stuck too much on the paddle of the machine.

Well, I guess now I'm making ice cream tonight. I'll try to get pictures on here, but I can't seem to get them to load right now.

Not-from-a-cow Products

So, since I mentioned that there are lots of good replacements for dairy products out there, I thought I should list a few that I like to use. And easy thing to remember when shopping for non-dairy items is "vegan". Anything labelled as vegan should contain no animal products, therefore, no dairy! Yay!

These are by no means the only ones out there or the best or whatever. And not all of them are vegan, so read the labels for yourselves when you're shopping. These companies have not paid me to say this. In fact, I doubt that they will ever even read this. That being said, these products, in no particular order, are my family's favorite items:
SoyaKaas Soy Cheese (Mozzarella and Monterrey Jack are our faves. They both melt very nicely.) I just found out this contains casein, milk protein. It IS lactose free though.
Rice Dream rice milk (vanilla or original, I'm very disappointed that there isn't an organic vanilla one)
Silk vanilla (the little single serving ones fit very nicely in sippy cups for road trips)
Organic Great Value soy milk (I use it mostly for cooking and it works just fine)
Silk soy yogurt (vanilla for eating, original for cooking)
O'Soy yogurt, strawberry and peach (these are a huge hit with Nadia)
SoDelicious soy "ice cream" (one of the best soy ice creams I've tried)
Coconut Bliss "ice cream" (I had to start making my own ice cream because this one was so good I couldn't afford to keep buying it!)
Tofutti Better than Cream Cheese
Tofutti Better than Sour Cream
SoyaToo Soy Whip (like whipped cream)
Better Life Buttery Spread and Baking Sticks
Earth Balance vegan baking sticks (these are my fave)
Smart Balance Light (the one that says "vegan" on the side)
EnjoyLife semi-sweet chocolate chips (Holy monkeys, these things are AWESOME! I LOOOOOOOOVE them! I often feel the need to eat the entire bag at once. Ricky agrees that they are better than regular chocolate chips.)

Also, several of the Duncan Hines cake mixes and frostings are dairy-free (Devil's Food cake and Fluffy White and Chocolate frostings for sure). You just need to check the labels, because it's definitely not all of them. I haven't found ANY Pillsbury or Betty Crocker ones that are ok for us.

Anyway, hopefully this handy little list can help with some of the shopping needs. Maybe I'll remember I put it here next time we go visit someone so I don't have to rummage through the fridge looking for packages so I know what I buy.

Creamy Red Chard Linguine

Channing and I (mostly Channing, I just chopped) made this when we were at Leslie's house, and it was delicious! Nadia liked the noodles, and I think everyone else liked all of it. I think we used rainbow chard, but otherwise pretty much exactly followed the recipe from Post-Punk Kitchen. Post-Punk Kitchen is a really good resource for vegan recipes. It's the blog of Isa Chandra Moskowitz, who has a few cookbooks out. Veganomicon is one that I really like for general meal-cooking, and she also has several others that I haven't looked into. I try to find vegan recipes as often as possible, because I feel like it's important to not always eat things that are covered with cheese. You know, for health.

Leslie suggested that maybe this could be paleo-ok if you used spaghetti squash instead of pasta, but it does have a little bit of wine in it. Is that cavechef approved?

Applesauce

Ok, so I feel like I'm kind of cheating by posting this as a recipe, but it's good. And it requires a little prep work, and, honestly, it's the only thing I had made recently that I knew actual amounts of anything that was in it and could get a picture of the finished product. I got the "recipe" from a few friends. It's so easy the cat could make it (well, if he would pry his butt off the couch and quit whining that someone looked at him funny). The awesome thing about this, I've found, is that it's REALLY hard to mess it up. For proof, read past the recipe.

Ingredients:

10 apples (I've been using organic Gala apples)

1. Core apples and cut into eighths (not sure how necessary that is, but my corer cuts them for me, so it's one easy step and I figure they'll cook faster, so I'm all for it).

2. Place in stock pot.

3. Cook over low heat for 4-6 hours (or more) until apples get mushy when you stir them. Stir every 30 minutes or so in the beginning, until they begin to release some of their juice, so they don't stick to the bottom and burn.

4. Put contents of pot into blender or food processor and puree.

5. Eat some before the kids devour it all. It makes approximately 24 ounces. According to the little measurement line on my tupperware bowl.

The first time I did this, I used apples that we had had for weeks. Seriously, they were almost going bad. And it was SOOOOOOOOO good. It was really sweet and tasted like it had cinnamon in it and everything. Ask mom, she had some. The second time, I did not stir the apples for almost an hour and a half because I forgot they were cooking. So when I did, all the apples on the bottom were burned. Great, just wasted all those apples, right? Nope! The sauce came out really dark and had a very different flavor. I thought it kind of tasted like sweet potatoes. Ricky thought it tasted like guava candy from Guatemala. Emily had some of that batch. The third batch had no problems and was not nearly as good as the first two, but it's still good and the kids love it.

Kale and Grilled Cheese with Red Peppers

This is a fairly typical meal in our house. Except for the fact that it's being stalked from the next room by a small kitten. Usually the kitten is closer.

Anyway, it's typical because it's really easy. Here's what you need:
For the kale:
1 bunch of kale (we used dinosaur kale this time)
1 T (approximately) sesame oil or whatever oil you like for frying stuff
1 small onion or shallot

For the sandwiches:
4 slices of bread (ours is California Black Bread, but anything will work)
a few slices each of Pepper jack and Meunster cheese (or whatever kind you like, just make sure you have enough to make two thin layers on each sandwich)
1 small red bell pepper
A little butter

To make the kale, first wash it and separate the leaves from the stems. Remove any gross-looking woody parts from the bottoms of the stems and discard. Chop the stems into smallish pieces (about 1/2 - 1 inch) and roughly chop the leaves, keeping them separate. Thinly slice the onion or shallot. Heat the oil (we use sesame for frying because it splatters a lot less than olive oil) in a large saucepan. When it's medium-hot add in the stems and thinly sliced onion or shallot. Stir until slightly softened, about 3-5 minutes. Then add in the kale leaves and stir. Once the leaves shrink down a little bit, add a few tablespoons of water and cover for another 3-5 minutes until the water is cooked away. The longer kale cooks, the softer it gets, so take it off when it tastes good to you. 

The sandwiches are really easy if you've ever made grilled cheese. You just do the same thing but put a layer of thinly sliced red peppers in the middle of two layers of cheese. I always butter the outside of the sandwiches but not the part next to the cheese, because cheese is going to stick to bread no problem anyway. So just put those in the pan on medium-low heat until the cheese starts to get melty. Flip them over and they're done whenever the bottom bread is toasty and all the cheese is melted. If you don't have enough cheese they fall apart, so don't be too stingy there. You can also skip the butter and make these in the oven or toaster oven, open-face style. I cut ours double ding-dong style (four triangles) so the peppers wouldn't slide out during the eating.

And that's it!

You could easily make this dairy-free by using soy cheese and margarine in place of cheese and butter. I'm not sure how to make it paleo since I'm still not totally sure what is and isn't paleo, but maybe the kale would be ok?