Recipes

A house rub is a spice blend that tastes great on just about anything and everything. Mine is fantastic, and I am constantly making it all the time, and using it on everything including chicken, shrimp, scallops, salmon, fajita beef, and wings. Seriously, it tastes good on everything and my friends love it too.

For my internship while I was in Culinary School, I worked at a fine dining Southwestern restaurant in Atlanta, and they used a rub similar to this one for almost everything. I say almost like this one because it was a little more involved. All of the spices we used at the restaurant came in whole, and we toasted and ground them ourselves. Also, we didn’t use a pre-made chili powder, but we ground up dried whole chili peppers and used our own blend. This was a long process that would take over an hour to make a humongous batch of the house rub, and while it was delicious, I don’t always do those extra steps at home.

Even though I use pre-ground spices, I try to always use organic spices whenever possible, and simply making the rub myself makes for a fresher spice blend. I almost always prefer this rub to any store bought rub.

This rub is delicious on anything from roasted chicken, salmon, shrimp, steaks, pork chops, and as a seasoning for sweet potato fries! I suggest making as big a batch as you can!

Katy’s House Rub

Combine all the following ingredients and store in an airtight container.

1 Tablespoon each of:

Organic Granulated Garlic
Chili Powder
Smoked Paprika
Sweet Paprika
Sea Salt (I use pink sea salt)
Ground Cumin
Ground coriander
Dried Oregano

2 teaspoons each of:
Fresh Ground Pepper
Ground Cinnamon

With Fall looming around the corner, I decided it was the right time to post a little tutorial on how to tackle a troublesome classic fall vegetable…. the Butternut Squash

The Butternut Squash is a vegetable that I think is more commonly known now, but I think that most people are familiar with it because they see it on restaurant menus, most often in the form of a creamy Butternut Squash Soup. But I kind of doubt that the average person would pick up this weird gourd in the grocery store or at the farmer’s market and know what to do with it.

I have to admit, I didn’t really start cooking butternut squashes regularly until this year because I always thought they were kind of a pain to deal with. But I bought a few from Farm Chick’s Produce (my favorite local vegetable farmer) recently and I cooked a recipe so yummy that my husband declared that I had to start making it regularly.

He didn’t realize that this veggie is so tough to deal with, so the next time we made it, I had him go through these steps to show him that it isn’t the easiest task, but that with the right tools you can get the job done. The bonus is that this vegetable is VERY affordable, and a great carbohydrate that is naturally gluten-free.

So… to start with, you just need a few tools. Butternut squash is VERY hard, so you definitely need a sharp knife. A dull knife won’t do at all. For this, I prefer to use a 7-inch santoku knife because it has a rounded tip, and it helps me make very straight cuts. I have both a German Santoku knife and a Japanese Style Santoku Knife by Shun, which is pictured below. I love the Shun knives… they are so elegant.

Secondly, you need a Grapefruit Spoon. I actually use grapefruit spoons for lots of little jobs in the kitchen as a cheap secret weapon. Thirdly, you need a good peeler. My favorite is a Y-shaped peeler because I think they are way better than the ones that you hold on the side. Almost all chefs and line cooks have a few of these in the knife bags that they take to work. They are cheap and the best. You’ll see what I mean below.

Ok, now that you’ve got your tools assembled, use your sharp knife to cut of the tops and bottoms of your squash.

Next, peel your squash using your Y peeler. Hold the squash on the side with your non-dominant hand, and using your dominant hand, drag the peeler from the middle towards the cut end, turning the squash with your non-dominant hand slowly. With butternut squashes, there is usually a “bulb” end and a straighter end… for lack of a better word we will call it the shaft. I know, I know… bear with me. It’s not my fault so many vegetables are phallic-shaped! I usually start by peeling the “shaft” part first, then flip it over and peel the “bulb” end.

Ok, now I know you are probably incredibly offended or entertained. Don’t take it out on the vegetable… Let’s just move on to step 3. Now cut the squash into two pieces…. separating the “bulb” and the “shaft”…. (go ahead and giggle some more…)

Now cut the “bulb” end in half straight down the middle. This will expose the seeds. There are only seeds in the “bulb” end.

Now use that awesome secret weapon, i.e. your Grapefruit Spoon, to scoop out the seeds. A pretty awesome little trick, right?

Alright! Now you are good to go! From here you can chop it up however you need it for any number of recipes! I highly suggest my recipe for Cinnamon Maple Roasted Butternut Squash here.

What I wrote about yesterday stirred up some great topics for debate. I tried to read all the comments where my article was shared on social media and here on my blog, and respond personally to all of them. If I missed your comment or share, thank you so much for reading. There were so many of you that appreciated my article, and only a few negative reactions. So today, let’s talk about allergies, food intolerance, and social tolerance.

First, let me say that I am not a doctor, dietitian, or nutritional therapist of any kind. I do have certification in Nutrition and Safe Food Handling practices in the restaurant industry from my degree in the Culinary Arts and from ServSafe certification required of all restaurant managers in the US.

But I also have personal family experiences of both life-threatening allergies and milder food intolerance, so let me tell you a little about that.

In 1990, when I was five years old my little brother, Chandler, was born, and from very early on it was clear that he was allergic to something. My mom had initially tried to breastfeed, but my brother broke out in terrible Eczema, especially on his face and little nose.

She told me that at the time, it was recommended to lay babies on their tummies, and the poor little guy would rub his nose vigorously on the sheet because his face hurt and itched so much.

My mom said that the doctors offered no answers and no help, just ineffective prescription creams. They didn’t seem to want to find out why it was happening, just to give my mom some medicine to treat his condition.

She took it upon herself to read everything she could and had to realize on her own it was likely that foods were causing this serious problem. But remember – this was in 1990. There were no blogs she could read, and what we knew about allergies was very little.

She had to seek out obscure books, which only led to more questions than no one could answer. Since she was still trying to breastfeed, she put herself on a super restrictive diet, eating little more than chicken and green beans because she just didn’t know what was safe to eat.

Chandler’s eczema went away, but my petite mom lost a lot of weight on the restrictive diet and decided to stop breastfeeding after 4 months so that she wouldn’t lose too much weight.

She sought out the dairy-free formula, and when Chandler was old enough to be introduced to solid foods, she very carefully stayed away from all potential allergens that she had read about while researching eczema.

For a long time his diet was very limited, and my mom was very slow to introduce new foods to him, fearful that she would feed him something that would hurt her sweet little boy.

Even with a very limited diet, my brother was a vibrant, happy, healthy little boy and he never showed any signs of being malnourished or underweight.

His favorite food was sweet potatoes. I can’t imagine how my mom must have felt. She didn’t have the GAPS diet or Paleo, but she figured out a way on her own to determine which foods he could eat, and she managed to feed her little boy and make him healthy and strong.

My mom told me that at that time, allergists wouldn’t even agree to treat or test children until they were 4 years old. My brave, smart, strong mom was truly on her own with no guidance.

Once he was older, he had successfully introduced a wide variety of foods, and it was clear that his only severe allergy was to milk, in addition to seasonal allergies and is allergic to mold. Chandler is not lactose intolerant and it has been a constant struggle to help our friends and family (and restaurants that he eats at) to understand the difference.

“Lactose intolerance means the body cannot easily digest lactose, a type of natural sugar found in milk and dairy products.

Lactose intolerance occurs when the small intestine does not make enough of an enzyme called lactase. Your body needs lactase to break down, or digest, lactose.

Lactose intolerance most commonly runs in families, and symptoms usually develop during the teen or adult years. It occurs more often in Native Americans and people of Asian, African, and South American descent than among people of European descent.”

My father, mother, and I all have a degree of lactose intolerance. On both sides of our family, we have some Native American heritage, which could explain this to some degree. My brother, however, is completely allergic to the milk protein, casein.

“A food allergy happens when your immune system overreacts to certain foods. In most cases, the reaction is mild, causing symptoms like a rash, a stuffy nose, or an upset stomach. A serious food allergy can make your tongue or throat swell and make it hard to breathe. This can be deadly. Quick treatment can stop a dangerous reaction.”

My brother’s allergy to the milk protein starts out with the mild warning symptoms mentioned above. His throat becomes “scratchy” and he starts to have trouble breathing. He also has Asthma, which can be triggered by milk in addition to mold and other seasonal allergy irritants. If he does not get to his inhaler or an anti-histamine quick enough, the reaction can escalate to full-blown Anaphylaxis.

“An anaphylactic reaction may be characterized by the development of an itchy, reddish rash (hives); a severe drop in blood pressure; swelling and obstruction of the mouth, nose, and throat; abdominal cramps; nausea and vomiting; diarrhea; and severe difficulties breathing. Without immediate, appropriate treatment, the condition may rapidly lead to a state of unconsciousness (coma) and life-threatening complications.”

– Source WebMD

I know my mom and dad struggled a lot when Chandler was young to find foods that he could eat. In 1990 there were no blogs to help my mom learn what to do or to help her find recipes. You couldn’t just “Google It” to figure out if a certain food contained milk or not. My mom learned how to read the labels, and how to look for all the words that meant milk.

It was hard, and sometimes she made mistakes and accidentally gave him food with milk in it and he would have a reaction. One time she even accidentally made him a birthday cake with a cake mix she had used before that was milk-free, but she didn’t realize the company had changed the ingredients, and so the poor kid was allergic to his own birthday cake. I’m sure she felt really guilty.

She had to teach my whole family, my grandparents, other relatives, babysitters, and teachers how to read labels and what to do in case of an emergency. If you think that the awareness about allergies is lacking now, multiply that by 100 for almost 25 years ago.

Now on most food labels, it is clearly marked under the full ingredient list if the product contains milk, wheat, or tree-nut ingredients, but that was not the case in the ’90s.

It’s heartbreaking and stressful to have to teach a child from birth that he can’t eat what all the other kids eat. Long before it was popular, my mom was sending food with Chandler to birthday parties because he couldn’t have the pizza, cake, and ice cream that the other kids were eating.

My grandmother clearly remembers one time when she took me and my brother on an outing and I asked for an ice cream cone (this was before I developed lactose intolerance).

She bought me one and had to find something else for Chandler. He was disappointed when she said, “No honey, Katy’s ice cream cone has milk in it.” Tearfully he said, “Can I just smell it?” Heartbreaking.

One time I bought Vegan Chocolate Chip cookies at Whole Foods and even asked the manager if they were completely free of milk to make sure.

I brought them to Chandler and he ate them happily trusting me and the label. Turns out, he had one of the most severe reactions he has ever had from those cookies. I felt SO guilty and SO mad that I had trusted those cookies too. It might have been an honest mistake, and the baker may have inadvertently cross-contaminated the cookies. I don’t want to accuse the company of being deliberately misleading with their product, but this incident still happened.

My experience growing up with Chandler has taught me a few things. First and foremost, it is very scary to watch him have an anaphylactic reaction. He’s been taken to the hospital by ambulance quite a few times.

This experience makes us over-protective of him at restaurants and we probably annoy both him and the waiter when we are adamant that his food be prepared without milk or dairy of any kind.

I used to interrupt him after he ordered to clarify the point more intensely to the waiter, and I had to learn to stop and let him do this for himself. He doesn’t want to be different or call attention to his condition, but he has to and that’s hard.

One thing that I have also learned is that each time he has a reaction it is different based on the situation. If he has ordered a hamburger at a restaurant, and they put butter on the bun before they toast it, or they put cheese on it out of habit even though we requested them not do that, he has to send it back. He has to trust that they will make him a new one, and not just switch out the bun, or peel off the cheese and send it back to him. Sometimes this happens and he can tell.

Maybe not right away, but probably by the time we are done eating.

One time he had eaten something with a small amount of milk unknowingly, and then a few hours later he was playing basketball and the attack came on suddenly without warning. Thankfully, he was playing ball with a neighbor on our street who was a doctor and knew about his allergy. Our neighbor ran to our house to grab an EpiPen and knew what to do. Chandler avoided a trip to the hospital that time, and we were all thankful.

Now, Chandler isn’t a weak guy, and his allergy doesn’t stop him from living life fully. I’m actually really proud of him. He’s strong and athletic, and a senior Cadet at The Citadel, a highly respected military college in Charleston. He’s worked really hard and he is about to graduate this year and earn a prestigious Citadel Ring.

My parents were a little nervous about sending him to the school because of his allergy, but they trusted him to let his friends, superiors, and the dining hall know about what his needs are, and it has been just fine. In fact, there is a designated person in the dining hall that prepares his food for him, and he has become good friends with this cook.

I tell this story not to embarrass him, but to encourage moms out there who have young children with severe allergies and let them know that even though it might be hard. Their kids can grow up to be strong, healthy, and successful.

So an allergy and food intolerance have some commonalities. In both cases, a person eats the food and then suffers the consequences. The difference is usually that an allergic reaction is more severe and can be immediate and life-threatening. It can also take some time to develop into a full-blown attack based on the circumstances. It depends on so many different things. In addition, I’d like to point out that a severe food allergy can present itself later in life.

I personally know someone who developed a severe allergy to wheat later in life and is now diagnosed with Celiac Disease and carries an EpiPen in case of an emergency. But for the majority of her life, she ate wheat without such a serious reaction.

My food intolerance issues are not life-threatening like my bother’s allergy, but they are serious. If I eat gluten on a regular basis, in addition to having heartburn, digestion issues, and headaches, I lose my period. That is unequivocally a sign of an unhealthy body.

In the article I wrote yesterday, I was honest about the fact that on very rare occasions I will have some foods that contain gluten in them. I acknowledged that it is a choice that I actively make in full knowledge of the consequences.

This admission made some people angry because they thought I didn’t really understand what it was like to be Celiac and never be able to have gluten again. They thought I was perpetuating the idea that it is “ok to just have one bite” and that my article was taking away from the seriousness of their condition.

But I talked about it openly because I don’t want to perpetuate the idea that if you want to live a gluten-free lifestyle you have to be completely perfect in order to greatly improve your health, provided that you don’t have a serious life-threatening condition. But I know that for some, just one bite is never possible, and I acknowledge that is really hard to deal with logistically and emotionally.

I hope that by discussing allergies and food intolerance I have cleared up some confusion on these issues. I think it is probably pretty clear that I don’t take either of these situations lightly. And you know what? I am really sorry that I can have gluten on rare occasions, and while I may experience some pretty strong reactions, they are not immediately life-threatening, and that may be really hard to hear if you can’t ever have gluten again.

My article yesterday wasn’t to rub that in your face, but merely to talk about how hard the gluten-free lifestyle can be for anyone regardless of how severe their reaction to gluten is.

I think it is important to acknowledge that it is a hard path and to deal with the feelings of loss and grief of any food that you have to give up for health reasons.

What I do want is to encourage a positive attitude about the subject of allergies and food intolerance, regardless of severity. I hope that by being open and honest about my personal experience that I can encourage more social tolerance on these issues.

Bread…. soft, crunchy, chewy, dense, light, airy, buttery, salty, nutty, yeasty…. bread. It’s just so damn good.

“Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods; and good bread with fresh butter, the greatest of feasts.”

― James Beard

Did I ever tell you that I seriously considered being a pastry chef? I’m sure that everyone that knew me growing up wasn’t the least bit surprised. When my mother taught me how to cook as a child, the first thing she taught me was how to bake. We would make sugar cookies from scratch, chill the dough, roll it out carefully then use different cookie cutters for each season to make festive iced cookies for Christmas, Easter, Halloween, and other fun times in between.

She taught me how to make royal icing, and how to pipe an outline carefully on the cookie, then fill in the middle carefully with a tiny offset spatula.

She taught me how to bake cakes for birthdays and special parties, and even indulged me when I wanted to try and make the crazy complicated cakes on the cover of Southern Living Magazine. Then she let me try making other desserts, even if she thought they would be too difficult or have too many specialty ingredients. At fourteen I attempted her favorite dessert, Creme Brulee, and made it perfectly, to all of our surprise and delight.

After that, I went into a serious custard phase and taught myself how to make flan, cheesecake, french pastry cream, boiled custard, and I even invented a banana pudding so good. My dad declared it was better than his grandmother’s (high praise from an extremely picky guy!).

I even won my husband’s heart with a pound cake fresh from the oven. I really make the best pound cake ever. There are many southern women who would say this, but mine is far above the rest. When Ian and I were first getting to know each other after I decided I really liked him I brought him dinner – a home-cooked meal completely from scratch. I made a hearty, homemade beef stew, a salad with real homemade dressing, and my pound cake.

My grandmother always called it “Husband Catchin’ Pound Cake” – no lie. I brought this feast over to his house, and he asked if he could help carry anything inside, and I told him to get the cake in the back seat…. He picked it up and as he was walking in the house he softly said, “It’s still warm….” Yup. That night he called me his girlfriend. Didn’t ask me, but stated it as a fact. You might say that I wasn’t messing around when I made him that cake. And sure enough, my grandmother was right – I caught myself the best husband ever.

I was never much of a bread baker – that was my mom’s specialty. She loved to make homemade bread, and especially sourdough. Her sourdough is something really special. There are truly few things better in this world than a hot slice of her sourdough slathered with butter.

After I went off to college to be a music teacher, it became clear to me that food was my real passion.

Instead of studying as much as I should have, I spent my days cooking meals for my friends because I longed for home-cooked meals from my mother’s kitchen.

I watched cooking shows non-stop, and after I left college, I went to work in the restaurant industry. After a while, I made up my mind and went to culinary school.

I could either get a Baking and Pastry Certificate that took 6 months or I could get a degree for the full Culinary program which included some pastry courses, so I chose the latter. But my favorite classes by far were baking and pastry, even though I secretly thought that my own baking recipes were far superior to some I learned in school.

I really enjoyed learning how to make REAL French Croissants and buttery layered puff pastry, plus all the different variations of pastries that can be made with that particular, tricky dough.

It really is a special art that I have a profound amount of respect for, and I particularly really enjoy seeing it done in real bakeries and expert dessert menus, rather than the fake stuff so often distributed across the states through Sysco and other mass food producers.

But here’s the thing. Even though I have not been diagnosed with Celiac, I make the very hard choice to stay away from foods containing gluten most of the time. And when I say ‘very hard choice’ I truly mean it. You see, for me, bread and baked goods based on wheat flour have been a huge part of my life. I have deep emotional ties to it and the experiences I have had with those baked goods that are hard to separate from the cold hard facts.

The cold hard fact is that I feel so much better when I am not eating wheat-based foods on a regular basis.

I have far fewer headaches, which has been a problem for me my whole life.

I think occasions of the completely awful, sleep-depriving heartburn that used to wake me up choking on acid in my throat.

I have fewer cramps during my monthly cycle, I have no acne, and typically, my weight is lower.

My joints don’t hurt as much and let’s be frank, I don’t have to deal with countless trips to the bathroom like I used to when I was eating wheat every day.

Do I want this to be the reality? Absolutely not. I often think that I wish that I could go back in time before I found out about the evils of gluten and just be normal and eat and enjoy all the wheat-based foods that I used to without a second thought. I miss real pizza, and cookies, and brownies, and real bread. While there are some good substitutes out there, if I am being honest I will say that they will never be the same. I even hate the word “gluten” because people seem to instantly take me less seriously when I use it.

And sometimes I break down and have the real thing. These instances are far and few between, and I try to save it for times that are really special. This past summer my husband and I shared a wonderful meal at Bouchon Bakery and Bistro in Las Vegas with our cousins, and we did not hold back.

I know they make the real stuff there, and fully indulged in their perfectly chewy french bread, their light, and flaky chocolate croissants, and the incredibly mind-blowing Roasted Chicken with Bacon Chive Waffles served with Tahitian Vanilla Bean Whipped Butter and real Maple Syrup. What they do at Bouchon is art, and we paid it the respect it so wonderfully deserved.

But after? We paid for it. I had a headache for the rest of the day, and I spent a lot of it in the hotel room napping on and off with no desire to do anything but lounge in my carb coma. Do I regret the meal? Nope. It was exquisite, and since I don’t have a life-threatening condition I let myself enjoy it.

But I did take note of how I felt afterward and I let that be a reminder of why I don’t eat the bread I love on a regular basis. I let the good meal give me a taste of something truly special that I miss, but I also let it strengthen my resolve.

I understand why, seemingly more than any other food trend, that the general public is so against and so threatened by the gluten-free “trend.” It threatens something that is an ingrained (pun intended) part of our society, and at the heart of it…. we all just really love bread.

I’m not saying that love isn’t well deserved.

I’m not saying that bread isn’t good.

I’m not saying that the gluten-free lifestyle is easy.

I’m saying that for those of us who make that choice, it is a very deliberate one that should not be taken lightly and disrespected.

It’s really hard. It tastes and feels so good right when you eat it, but then somehow we seem to disassociate that bread from the effects it can have on our body later.

So when I ask for a gluten-free menu at a restaurant and I see the server or hostess give me the “Oh great” eye roll, believe me, I get it.

Most of the time I’m thinking, “I know, right? This sucks!” But I tell myself over and over that it is worth it and that it is a choice and a good one that I make for my future because I know that it is true.

UPDATE: Based on the reaction that I got from this article, I decided to clarify some issues that were brought up concerning Allergies vs. Food Intolerance and also on the Social Tolerance of these issues in another post.

If you feel I haven’t adequately articulated the severity of Celiac disease in this post and how for some, just one bite is never ok, you might want to read that one to understand my position more thoroughly.

One recipe that I make over and over is the mayo I learned how to make in culinary school. I usually make this recipe by hand instead of using a blender because I don’t have a high powered blender, and I find that if I make it in the food processor, it comes out too thin for my taste. The chef instructors at my school made sure we could all make a mayonnaise by hand because you never know when your equipment will fail on you, so you have to know how to rely on yourself and your own muscle!

First you start with 3 egg yolks, 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, a teaspoon of Dijon mustard and a pinch of salt. Whisk that together until combined, then walk away for 30 minutes to let the egg yolks come to room temperature with the other ingredients.

After you have waited 30 minutes, the next step is to start whisking the egg yolk mixture vigorously until it has become light, airy, doubled in volume, and significantly a paler shade of yellow than when you first started. Wrap a kitchen towel in a ring around the base of the bowl to keep it from clattering all over the counter.

My egg yolks were from a local farm that raises their chickens on open pasture, so the yolks are bright orange to start and their color only lightened a bit. This step takes about 3 – 5 minutes. (Your arm isn’t tired yet, right? You can do it!)

Ok, almost there. Now you gotta add in 2 cups of a healthy oil, such as a light olive oil or buttery Avocado Oil, drop by drop at first while whisking vigorously. Don’t use a heavily flavored oil, like extra virgin olive oil, and also, please please please don’t use an unhealthy vegetable oil like canola or peanut oil. That stuff is rancid, and unhealthy.

After about a minute, you can start to stream in the oil while whisking, but in a very small stream. Gradually the stream can get a little larger, but not much. Every 15 seconds or so stop streaming in the oil and just whisk to make sure all the oil is being incorporated and emulsified.

After you have successfully added all 2 cups of Avocado oil, you are free to flavor your mayo however you like – I personally love extra lemon juice (about another 2 tablespoons), more salt, and a big pinch of cayenne pepper. The golden hue of the Avocado Oil and the bright orange yolks make my mayo luscious, lemony, buttery, almost like a hollandaise.

The Best Homemade Mayo

Ingredients

3 egg yolks
2 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice
1 large pinch of salt
1 teaspoon Dijon Mustard
2 Cups of Avocado Oil or extra light olive oil
extra lemon juice, cayenne pepper, and extra salt to taste

Instructions

Combine the first four ingredients and allow to come to room temperature for 30 minutes.

Whisk egg yolk mixture for 3-5 minutes vigorously until doubled in volume.
Add in Avocado Oil, drop by drop at first, then in a steady stream, whisking constantly.

After all the oil is emulsified, add in lemon juice, cayenne, and salt to taste and whisk again to combine. Store in a mason jar in the fridge for up to a week.

So you know how I roasted a duck on Thanksgiving? Well, one of the wonderful things about roasting a whole duck is that you get to keep all the wonderful duck fat that renders into the pan as the duck slowly roasts. I got almost two cups worth from just one duck.

Chefs call duck fat “liquid gold,” and for good reason. Duck fat is just magical. I personally love lots of different types of animal fat, including lard and tallow, but duck fat is a little different and the only way I can think to describe it is unctuous. You can buy duck fat in stores like Whole Foods, and also online from a few sources, like Fatworks. (I have not personally tried that brand, but I’m sure it is wonderful as the company has very high standards.)

The french term “confit” means to cook an item slowly in fat. This was originally a method used to preserve food before the time of modern refrigeration, but great chefs still use this technique because it yields delicious results. If you frequent fancy-schmancy restaurants you have probably seen duck confit on a menu or two, which is simple duck leg quarters, cured and then slowly cooked in a bath of duck fat at a low temperature. Chefs can actually use the duck fat over and over, and this cooking technique also is a natural way of preserving the duck meat, so that it naturally has a longer shelf life.

Anyway, I decided to do the same thing with garlic cloves. I bought 3 packages of already peeled organic garlic cloves from Whole Foods because I detest peeling garlic. I’ve also seen already peeled garlic at Trader Joe’s, and every once in a while at bulk stores like Costco. I estimate that each package of peeled garlic contains about 90 cloves, and since I cooked three it was probably around 270ish cloves. It sounds like a lot, but once they cook down, the garlic cloves all fit into a 16 oz mason jar, and this method of slow roasting the garlic in duck fat preserves the garlic, so it will keep for a couple of months in your fridge… if it lasts that long.

The garlic cloves themselves become incredibly sweet and caramelized. If you are a garlic lover, you can eat them whole. My husband eats them by the forkfull. But this garlic confit can be used in so many different ways, adding depth of flavor to sauces, dressings, soups, and literally almost anywhere you would use garlic. Top a grilled steak or pork chop with a spoonful of the cloves, and the heat from the meat will practically melt the garlic confit onto your dinner. Or serve in a small bowl with a charcuterie and cheese spread to elevate your appetizers to chef status. If you love garlic as much as me and my husband do, the possibilities are literally endless.

If you don’t want to roast your own duck first, you can use store bought duck fat, or you could probably also use lard or tallow. If for some reason you don’t want to use an animal fat, you could probably use coconut oil or avocado oil. I have seen many recipes that use olive oil, but there is some debate as to if olive oil should really be heated, so I’ll leave that decision up to you. But I prefer duck fat. It’s amazing, and amazingly simple.

DUCK FAT GARLIC CONFIT 

PREP TIME2 minsCOOK TIME60 minsTOTAL TIME1 hour 2 mins Author: KatyINGREDIENTS

• 250-270 peeled garlic cloves
• 2 cups of duck fat

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Turn the oven to 300.
2. In a non-reactive baking dish, stir together the duck fat and the garlic cloves. Duck fat starts to soften pretty quickly, so there isn’t much of a need to melt the duck fat first. Just make sure all the garlic cloves are coated in the fat.
3. Slowly roast for 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes, depending on the size of the cloves, stirring a few times while cooking. The cloves should be swimming in the fat, but they don’t have to be completely submerged, as long as you stir just a few times.
4. The cloves are done when they have turned a very light golden brown.
5. Remove the caramelized garlic from the duck fat with a slotted spoon and store in the fridge in a glass jar. You can keep the duck fat and re-use it.

My go-to, stand-by, tried and true emergency protein is roasted chicken breasts that I have already cooked and ready to go in the fridge. I actually love chicken cold better than hot, but what I can’t stand is chicken that has no flavor and is pale and flabby looking. Ick.

But having delicious chicken in my fridge at all times has become part of my secret to making sure I always have something healthy for me and my husband to eat. More often than not it ends up being the protein in our salads I pack for our lunches everyday, but it is also great as just a snack straight out of the fridge with some mustard. In a pinch it can even become a quick dinner, although we usually eat fish for dinner these days in an effort to stay lean.

The key to this recipe is my House Rub. It’s delicious, and I have had many of my friends tell me they love it too. It’s awesome on a lot of things, but it is REALLY good on chicken, and I make it in bulk so that I always have it. With the rub already made in my pantry, this takes me all of 10 minutes hands on time, and while the chicken cooks for 45 minutes I usually have time to clean my house, do some laundry, or whatever else is on my to-do list.

Here’s what I do:

1. Twice a week I buy a few packages of the best quality chicken breast I can afford – usually free-range, organic chicken breasts.
2. I set the oven to 375, and spread the chicken breasts out on a sheet tray (cookie sheet), season both sides of all the chicken evenly and pretty heavily with my House Rub. Sometimes I hit the top with a little extra smoked paprika because I think it makes them taste like BBQ chicken.
3. I drizzle the tops of the chicken breasts with either melted coconut oil or avocado oil, then using a silicone basting brush (which you can find at the dollar store!) I baste the tops of the breast with the oil to make sure that the tops of all the seasoned chicken breasts are coated with a little oil. Don’t brush so hard that you brush off the spices.
4. Then bake for 45 minutes, cool the cooked chicken and store in the fridge. If you want, you can even cut the breasts into slices to make salad assembly even easier.

Look, I get it. You’re busy and you have stuff you have to do. But if you get in the habit of cooking a few recipes over and over so that you always have them available, eating healthy will be so much easier. All worthwhile habits take a little time and effort to become part of your natural routine.

I’ve made this dressing in a very small batch a few times for my husband’s salads that I pack for him to take to work for lunch, but we both really like it so I decided to go ahead and make a full batch. It’s nutty, tangy, sweet and spicy and just plain delicious. It goes well with chicken and also tuna as a protein in a salad, and really any vegetable, and even fruit.

This morning I packed it with my husband’s salad that had organic spinach, freshly grated carrots, sliced cucumbers, red onion, my House Rub Roasted Chicken, and pomegranate seeds. I have also drizzled it over cooked garlic shrimp and steamed sugar snap peas for dinner – YUM.

Tahini Honey Lime Dressing

• 1 cup of Organic Tahini (the one I used was roasted a
• salted but with no added sugars or oils, from Whole Foods)
• 3 tablespoons of organic raw honey (you could use maple syrup for a vegan option)
• juice from 2 limes
• 1 teaspoon of organic rice vinegar (or apple cider vinegar)
• 3 tablespoons of mashed Garlic Confit (store-bought minced roasted garlic would also work)
• 1/2 teaspoon of white sesame seeds
• 1/2 teaspoon of black sesame seeds
• a big pinch of cayenne pepper
• a big pinch of ginger powder
• 1/3 to a 1/2 a cup of filtered water

• Mix all the ingredients together except the water and blend well. Slowly blend in the water until the dressing is pourable, dressing consistency. You can add less water if you’d like it to be more like a dip than a dressing. Taste your dressing and season to your taste with extra sea salt if it needs it. My tahini was already salted, so the dressing didn’t need any. *