Pumpkin Pie Can Be Humbling

Today is the 50th Anniversary of "The Flintstones."  A national Caveman holiday!  So let's make something special.  Early on in this diet I attempted a recipe for coconut bread, and it came out pretty dry.  In an attempt to moisten it, I added coconut oil, what I got was sort of like a yummy pie crust.  I put that in the back of my head, and thought it would be a good base if I ever attempted a pie.

Well, summer came and went and all my opportunity to make blueberry or cherry pie passed me by.  But if you've been shopping lately you see that pumpkins are everywhere!  So I bought me an organic sugar pumpkin at the farmers market last weekend and today is the day for the great pie experiment!  Let's attempt a pumpkin pie with a coconut flour crust!

First step is to cut the pumpkin in half and de-seed it.  You can certainly buy pureed organic pumpkin in the can at Whole Foods, but unfortunately for my career right now, I've got nothing but time on my hands, so I'll try making it from scratch.  Besides, this way I get the seeds too, one of my favorites!  Scoop out all the seeds and orange junk, and then wash away the orange from the seeds.  At this point I got sidetracked and threw the seeds into a frying pan on low heat and roasted them until they were slightly crispy.  Yummy!  Rich nutty flavor and full of great things for you like magnesium, iron, and zinc.

Then I roasted the pumpkin in the oven at 350 for one hour.  I let it cool slightly and scooped out the soft flesh into a blender.  It came out to about three cups worth of pumpkin.  I added 1 cup of honey (all ingredients, all organic, all the time), 2 teaspoons of cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg, 1 teaspoon of cloves, and about a teaspoon of fresh ginger to spice it up a little!  Added 3 jumbo eggs, and pureed it all together.  Normally the recipe calls for evaporated milk, but we don't eat any dairy products on the caveman diet, so I added a cup of water water, plus left the water that started separating from the pumpkin, which the recipe suggested I strain.  I know this won't be "pumpkin pie" pumpkin pie, but all I'm really trying to do is trick my mind into feeling like it is, by getting the texture, smell, and taste close to the real thing.

Next, I made my dough.  First, I mixed three eggs and 4 tablespoons of coconut oil.  We've talked about coconut before and all the health benefits it has, so don't be afraid of all the "fat."  Remember, the right kind of fat is not only good for you, it's essential for good health!  All that low fat stuff you hear about was created by some Don Draper wannabe so big corporations can sell more products to a scared overweight society.  But eating fat has nothing to do with losing weight!  The more you learn, the better you will eat!

Add a tablespoon of honey (yes more honey, and I know what you're saying, at this point, too much honey equals tons of sugar, but how often do I eat pie?  Once in a while will not kill you, or put on the pounds).  Beat the mixture together while adding coconut flour, which is just ground pure coconut.  Keep mixing until you've got the consistency of a pie dough.  You won't need too much, because coconut flour is a super thickener, and full of fiber!

I bought a little disposable pie tin (I wanted to make two little ones instead of one big one, in case I screwed one up, which I did, so I'm dumb, but I'm smart), and greased it with more coconut oil.  Then I just formed a crust with my hands on the tin.  Hopefully my lack of a rolling pin won't haunt me.  Once the crust was formed, I poured in the pie mixture, leaving about a 1/4 inch for it to rise.  Into a 350 degree oven it went for about an hour and a half.  Important though, after about 15 minutes, I covered the crust with foil to prevent it from burning!  After an hour, I started sticking a knife into it, and when the knife came back out dry, it was done.  Let's take a look:

Looks pretty good if you ask me!  Let's slice it:

Damn, it looks just like a pie.  Although I must admit, I screwed up the seasoning.  Way too much cloves, and nutmeg for my taste, and not sweet enough either.  Plus, you can't taste the ginger at all.  Next time, I cut back on some of the spices and increase the honey and ginger!  However, now that I'm on my third piece it's growing on me, so I'll have to figure it all out next time.

But the crust is perfect!  It's not even overwhelmingly coconut flavored either, it just tastes like pie crust!  I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to make a healthy pie crust without wheat, dairy, or sugar!  Okay, so the pie filling wasn't perfect, but I'll still probably eat the whole thing, and except for the honey, it's kind of healthy!  It's pure food that's for sure, not a processed ingredient in the entire thing, with zero toxins.  Plus, it's pie!!!!  Stuff that in your pie hole, Fred Flintstone!  Ugga-Bugga Dooooooooo!!!!!!!!

Before you go shopping for pie ingredients, in honor of Flintstones Day, I want all you Cavemen out there to check out this great link to my cousin Jon Friedman's Rejection Show.  A hilarious piece about The Flintstone's:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luWjPLYGRbY

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Put Your Loin Cloth Back On, Caveman, I Can See Your Pork!

Hot Damn, did this one come out good!  Thanks to everyone on Facebook for sending me pork loin recipes!  Obviously I couldn't make them all, but I was in the mood for one closest to my buddy Jonathan's recipe, so that's the one I worked off of!  Come, I'll show you.

His recipe calls for cornstarch, salt, maple syrup, molasses, sugar, and brandy or bourban, all no-no's on the caveman diet.  So I replaced all sweet items with honey, which, other than fruit, is the only real acceptable form of paleo friendly sugar.  I added just a little lemon juice to replace the booze and to replace the cornstarch, I used arrowroot.

The recipe calls for 3/4 cup of maple syrup, and 1/4 cup of molasses.  So what I did instead, to get the consistency and flavor of the thick sticky substances I was substituting, I took a cup of scalding hot water and melted about a 1/4 cup of honey into it (all ingredients, all organic, all the time).  I then added 1/8 teaspoon of ground cinnamon, a pinch of ground cloves, and a pinch of cayenne pepper (okay, maybe more than a pinch, but you already know I like things spicy).  Jonathan likes to add whole grain mustard to the final glaze, but I'm a mustard freak, especially when it comes to pork (my favorite is hot Chinese mustard on spare ribs!), so I added mine to the initial glaze, about a heaping tablespoon.  Stirred it up, set it aside.

Then in a dry pan, I mixed 1/4 cup of arrowroot, and 2 teaspoons of black pepper.  Jonathan adds salt and sugar too, but since this is paleo, we're gonna substitute 2 teaspoons each of garlic powder, and onion powder.  That should replace any flavor lost by the two most addictive things on the planet, sugar and salt.  I would've used something else addictive, but I ran out of heroin and cocaine.  Gotta remember to pick some up next time I'm at Trader Joe's (they have the best prices on EVERYTHING!).  I patted my one pound pork loin dry and rolled it around in that sucker until it was coated on all sides.

Next I heated up my cast iron skillet (still waiting for tips out there on how you clean yours) on medium high with some olive oil, which will also add some nice flavor.  Once heated, I shook off any excess arrowroot mixture from the pork loin, lowered the heat to medium, and browned it on all sides.  Jonathan says this usually takes him about 8-12 minutes, but I wasn't paying attention.  My guess is it took me less time because this was a smaller cut than he usually uses, and this was organic pork, and therefore less fatty, so it usually cooks faster, like most lean organic meat.

Once browned, I set it aside, and in the same pan, I poured in my liquid mixture.  Scrape in all those beautifully tasty brown bits on the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon (this is called deglazing), and reduce that cup of liquid to about a half cup, about 5 minutes.  It was now the consistency of a really super thick maple syrup and it was delicious!  The cloves and cinnamon popped through, and it really reminded me of maple!  Instead of brushing the glaze on, I just used my tongs and rolled that beautifully browned pork loin right in the pan until it was coated on all sides.  Into a preheated 375 degree oven it went!

Now I've never used a meat thermometer before, but Jonathan warned me this is the KEY to juicy tender pork loin.  I don't know about you, but my memory of pork loin as a kid was an extremely dry piece of meat, that looked better than it tasted.  I would literally have to choke it down, loaded with some kind of sauce to moisten it.  Now, this wasn't because my mother was a bad cook, it was because back in the day, trichinosis was a real threat.  No, that's not the disease where you have 3 chinosis, it's the disease caused by eating undercooked pork.  But in the years since, trichinosis has practically been wiped out of the US due to all our strict inspection rules, and almost every top chef now serves pork medium rare, so I want everyone out there to adjust their recipes from years ago, and take note!  Because this was not my mother's pork loin!  It came out moist, juicy, and friggin' delicious!  I know, I know, you want to see pictures, wait, don't rush me, I'm not done cooking yet!

Back to the meat thermometer.  I must say it's a lot more intimidating than it sounds.  In the past if a recipe called for a meat thermometer, I'd keep looking for a recipe that didn't.  But it's simple, and nothing to be afraid of.  I don't know what scared me all those years.  Maybe it was the memory of my mother coming at me with the rectal thermometer every time I pretended to be sick so I could get a day off from school.  Anyway, I digress...  After about 12 minutes, stick the thermometer into the thickest part of the  tenderloin.  You want to get it to 130 degrees.  If it's not there yet, back into the oven.  It can take up to 20 minutes depending on how big your loin is, but since mine was small and organic, it was there in 15.  I did another dip into the glaze, and put it back in the oven until the temperature reached 140 degrees, about 5 minutes longer, but again, lots of variants involved like meat size, and how bad your oven sucks.  Remember, if your recipe calls for 160 degrees, it's too hot and you will wind up with my mother's pork loin!  As Jonathan put it, this could be the difference between a great meal and a so-so one, and he was right on the mark!  I removed the tenderloin, dipped it once again into the glaze, and let it sit for 10 minutes.  Take a look:

Is that gorgeous or what?  Look inside.  Isn't it beautiful?  That might be medium rare, I'm not sure, but it's at least medium, or medium plus, which is exactly how I like most of my meat cooked anyway.

My mother's would look white, dry and flaky.  This still has beautiful traces of pink!  I'm going to plate this now, which a little leftover glaze and eat.

Let me tell you something, this came out so tender and delicious, and the best thing for me is, it's completely caveman!!!!  You don't have to skip on flavor, just because your ingredients are limited.  They are only limited by your pantry, your grocery store, and your imagination!  This was by far the best pork loin I ever had, and it was the first one I ever cooked!  And there's nothing in this entire meal that will ever lead to me getting sick, or fat.  Now get the hell out of here, I'm starving.  Don't let the leftovers drenched in glaze that I'll be eating tomorrow night hit you on the ass on your way out.  And close the door behind you, what do you live in a cave?!  Ugga-Bugga!!!!

Leftovers With Flash:

Leftovers Without Flash: 

Both Delicious!

My thanks again to all who sent recipes and to my buddy Jonathan for all his help!

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Real Caveman Eat Buffalo!

When you're only eating one meal a day (see last blog for details), you really have to budget your food preparation.  I made tuna salad on Thursday night from a large can.  Well, I've been eating tuna for three nights now, and I never want to see a tuna again.  Usually I would just eat the leftovers for breakfast or lunch the next day, but on Stage 2, there ain't no breakfast or lunch.  In case anyone was wondering, one large can of tuna is enough for three enormous tuna sandwiches.  Feel free to learn from my mistake.

I was hoping to make ribs for dinner last night, but there was still a ton of tuna left over, so it was free range chicken of the sea once again.  By the way, if you do make tuna caveman style, make sure it's wild caught, which means organic, and full of Omega-3 fatty acids.  Most of the stuff from a can is farm raised, which means the tuna is fed corn and soy, and filled with bad saturated fat.

Luckily, the rib recipe I'm making calls for cooking it twice, so I was at least able to smell a preview for tonight's meal all day yesterday as it slow cooked.  Believe me, it made the tuna that much harder to choke down.  Boy did it smell GOOD!  For those of you who remember, this blog was started right after I attempted to make caveman pork baby back ribs for the first time.  Just using ingredients I had in the house, I whipped up this sensational Asian BBQ Plum Sauce, which I've since made during the course of the blog, but just not with ribs.  Back then, I used baby back ribs from organic pork.  But this time around, a little health food store I frequent had a sale on grass fed buffalo (or bison, same difference) ribs.  So I bought me a rack and tonight's the night I try it for the first time!

Buffalo tastes a LOT like beef, only much leaner.  I like to refer to it as beef concentrate.  But since grass fed bison is even leaner than factory bison meat, I'm going to assume it tastes like beef concentrate concentrate!  Since the ribs are so thick, I felt I couldn't cook them the same way as the thin pork baby backs, so I looked up cooking times on-line, and found one that was easiest, and closest to the pork baby backs, mostly because they came out amazing and I wanted to stick with a similar cooking method, hoping to recreate the magic!  Taking advantage of the internet is a huge part of this diet for me, since basically I'm a dolt in the kitchen.  But I'm a very well fed dolt.

So first I browned the ribs in my cast iron skillet and a little sunflower oil.  The jury is still out for me on cast iron, only because it's so weird cleaning it with oil.  I'm a little befuddled each time that if I'm even cleaning it right, because we were all taught to clean things with soap and water, and the one thing cast iron warns you to stay away from is soap!  No soap, radio?  Wrong.  No soap, cast iron skillet.  If any one out there uses one regularly, any advice would be appreciated.

Once the ribs were browned, and the drool of hunger was wiped away from my chin, I transferred them to a big casserole dish that I use for everything but casseroles.  I don't own a lot of thing, like the proper knives, dishes, cookware, etc, and I don't have the money right now to invest in a complete kitchen, but you can improvise just like I do, and whatever gets the job done, will work just fine, trust me!

Then I poured the rock star over the ribs.  I say it every time I make it, but it's true, whenever I make this Asian BBQ Plum Sauce, I wind up eating it raw with a spoon, because it's so damn good!  And it's slightly different every time I make it too, because I use whatever I have in the house at the time.  Plums are winding down as fall arrives, so this is probably the last time I'll make it until next summer.  I thought about making a huge batch and freezing it, but part of the caveman thing is eating seasonally, so it won't kill me not to eat it again for 6 months.

This time I made it with some sweet and sour plums, deep purple in color, as opposed to very sweet ones I usually make it with.  But the very sweet ones weren't available at the farmer's market anymore, so these will have to do.  Don't ask me what kind of plums they are, I don't know their names, I just know I was looking for purple and sweet, and the farmer pointed these out to me.  Don't be afraid to ask questions, that's how we learn to be less dolt-like.

I skinned the plums and threw them in the blender.  Next went in three small garlic cloves, and equal amounts of fresh ginger (all ingredients, all organic, all the time).  Then onion powder, dry mustard, black pepper, and nutmeg powder.  Lemon juice, and a spoonful of honey.  Two healthy spoonfuls of caveman ketchup (you can find the recipe in my recipes section, but I'm disappointed, you should have it memorized by now).  By the way, I was out of ketchup, so I had to make a batch for this recipe, which means I'll have to make burgers soon to use up the ketchup.  Jeez, sometimes this diet is friggin' exhausting!

I also had some fresh basil that isn't going to be fresh much longer, so I figured basil, garlic and ginger go well together in Thai food, so in it went.  In the past I've used cilantro, which also worked great.  Finally, to finish the sauce off, I threw in a spicy red pepper.  I have no idea what kind it is, possible a ripe jalapeno, but all I know is, it came in a gift bag of organic peppers my friend Amy gave me.  But I tasted it before using it and believe me, it was HOT!  I had a green jalapeno too, but I thought the red color went better in the plum sauce.  If you like it less spicy, you can de-seed or de-stem the pepper, or lose it altogether.  In the past I used crushed red pepper flakes, which also does the trick.  There's no one way to make this, use whatever you have, and whatever you like!

Into the casserole dish goes the browned ribs drenched in the BBQ sauce.  I covered it up tight with foil, and cooked it for three hours at 250 degrees.  Low and Slow, baby!  Then I turned off the oven and let the ribs sit in the hot oven until it all cooled down to room temperature, probably another two hours!  Into the fridge it went, without even a peek at the ribs.  It sat in the fridge overnight until I was ready to eat it tonight.

I put it in the oven for one hour at 300 degrees, and now it's finally ready!  It smells AMAZING!!!  Let's throw them under the broiler to give them a nice crispy outside.  Take a look:

Is that gorgeous or what?  Now let's sauce one and taste:

Dude.  Please.  It's fall-off-the-bone UN-FRIGGIN-BELIEVABLE!!!!!!!  I'll tell you, nothing makes you feel more like a Caveman than gnawing on a buffalo rib on the bone!  Ugga-Bugga!

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Exit, Stage 2!

Stress is a born killer.  It raises your blood pressure, tears your insides up, makes you lose sleep, among many other nasty things it does to your body.  But for me, like for most of you, it makes me eat.  Stress eating.  I actually get jealous of people who say, "When I get stressed, I can't eat."  God, I'd love a little stress like that.  Obviously those people never grew up with a Jewish grandmother.  Because grandma's answer to everything was, "Eat."  "Grandma, I failed a test at school!"  "Don't worry, here, eat, I just made mushroom barley soup, you'll feel better."  Well, I did feel better.  And bloated.  "Grandma, I just robbed a bank and the cops are after me!"  "Here, I'll make you salami and eggs, sit, eat, it'll be all right."  "Grandma, I just severed a toe!"  "Don't worry, here, I made you a few frankfurters to take in the ambulance, eat, Eat, EAT!!!!!"

I was taught the wrong lesson.  The problems never went away, nor did the fat around my waist.  But hey, that's what love is to many people, food, you can't blame grandma.  The real question is why do we reach for food when problems mount?  Is it because it's comforting?  My grandma's stuffed cabbage is safe, and nothing can hurt me while I'm eating it?  Possibly.  I'm only a pop psychologist, and don't know the real answers.  But in the end, I do know that I seek comfort from stress with food, and it only causes more stress, because then I stress that I not only overate, but I ate the wrong things!  Trust me, if I stressed out on a huge plate of fresh veggies, and grass fed beef, I wouldn't be stressed out about my eating.  But I don't do that.  I stress out on a huge plate of lasagna, or a fatty salty corn fed corned beef rueben sandwich, stuffed with salty sauerkraut, melted processed swiss cheese, and drenched with thousand island dressing, and not the healthy homemade stuff I make, but right out of a jar filled with chemicals and salt and sugar, and corn syrup, um, sorry, I mean corn sugar.

Did you hear about that?  High fructose corn syrup makers hired an advertising firm to reinvent themselves so people wouldn't think it's as bad for them as all the reports say.  So now they call themselves corn sugar.  The commercials go something like, "Reports say corn sugar does the same to your body as cane sugar, so relax."  But what they don't tell you is how bad cane sugar is for you.  Besides, it's false anyway, not all sugars are created equal, your body absorbs some better than others, which is why the only acceptable sugars on the caveman diet are from fruits, veggies, and honey.  And even then, the caveman only ate fruit in the summer, and would only gorge on honey once in a blue moon, when they found an abandoned hive.

But I digress.  We were talking about stress eating.  I've had a lot of stress lately, along with most of the country.  Times are tough, which means bank accounts are shrinking, and waist lines are expanding.  And arteries are being clogged.  Including mine.  I have been eating like the old Jeff, B.C. (Before Caveman), and I feel sluggish, and bloated.  I need to get back to what makes me happy, and that's keeping my weight and my health at levels I'm happy with.  Eating like crap only makes me feel like crap.  Many times I can blame it on out of town visitors, dating, holidays, etc.  But I have no one to blame but myself.  If I really wanted to, I could cook for people, and not go out to eat, where caveman food is non-existent.  Don't get me wrong, I didn't put back on all the weight I lost, not even close, but I haven't been very strict lately, and I need to get back to basics.  I find that if I can control my food, with will power, and discipline, then I can control my life, and all the problems, and stress that it brings.

The good news is the diet plan I followed makes it so easy to go back to the beginning and start over.  Again, I have no affiliation to this site, they pay me no money, and don't even know I exist, I'm just giving them a free plug because I think it's the best way out there to go caveman.  Here's the link again:

http://www.cavemanpower.com/food/diet_and_eating.html

They ease you into the diet in stages.  Stage One was graze all day on organic nuts and berries, some fruit, and root veggies, and then pig out on a feast of anything you want, as long as you don't eat again after your feast until the next morning.  This helps you realize how sick eating whatever you want makes you feel.  It makes you start craving healthy food for Stage Two.  Well, consider the last few weeks of my life the completion of Stage One.  Believe me, I am craving healthy food again.  I want control over my life, and it starts with the food I eat.  I will not give in to cravings, and stress eating.  And once I have control of my life, I will have a better grip on the problems that cause my stress.  That's the theory anyway.  I could just be talking out of my ass, but a little discipline never hurt anyone, and at least I'm making an effort, which is always a good thing.

Stage Two is the detox portion of the diet.  Eat NOTHING, all day (drink plenty of water though, and in my case, I also drink lots of organic green tea, full of antioxidants).  Then have a huge feast of purely caveman food (you know the list by now, and I'm sick of telling you, so go back and read the beginning of the  blog, you lazy bastards).  Eat all you want, and then again, once the feast is over, eat nothing until tomorrow's feast.  You can eat as early or as late as you want, just nothing after the feast is over.  A feast for me usually consists of unlimited portions of an entree, a side dish, and one large piece of fruit for dessert (or two smaller pieces).  By giving your body only pure food (or as some say, real food), it's cleansing itself of all the crap in your system.  I believe it.  Since I've been eating crappy again, I broke out all over.  In actuality it's poisonous toxins trying to work themselves out of my body through every pore.  Gross.  But I never break out when I eat purely caveman.

They suggest you stay on Stage Two for 2-8 weeks, or even longer of you like.  The first time I did Stage Two, I did it for three weeks, and I lost a ton of weight.  Well, I'm starting at a much lower weight this time, and it'll be interesting to see if I lose weight this time, and if so, how much.  As good as I look, and trust me ladies, I look fabulous, but I still have to hold my gut in when hot chicks go by at the beach.  Don't judge guys, you all do it too, you filthy liars.  But maybe after this time through Stage Two my gut will finally go away.  Or maybe I'll break down and have Chinese food after four days.  Let's find out together.  But I will set a goal.  I'm going to do Stage Two for three weeks, then maybe break down and eat a whole pizza, and then STRICTLY doing Stage Three until I go to NY in late November for my cousin Stef's wedding.  Stage Three is satisfying any craving, but within caveman parameters, trying to graze all day and feasting at night, eating nothing afterwards, and eating only pure organic caveman friendly food.  When I get back to LA, no guarantees about stress eating, let's see how full my bank account is before I start making promises about how full my stomach will be.

You may say about Stage Two, "Sure Captain Caveman, anyone can lose weight if they starve themselves all day, Jerk-Wad!"  Well, you may say that, but I'd be angry you called me a Jerk-wad, so if you say that, please leave the last part off.  Well, the starving is part of it too.  Firstly, it shrinks your stomach, and doesn't let you eat too much food.  We already eat much more than we need to survive.  Nature didn't account for the all you can eat buffet, otherwise archeologists would have dug up an ancient Sizzler in the Serengeti by now.  Starvation also triggers your body to make resveratrol NATURALLY!!  If you don't know what that is, Google it and try to catch the 60 Minutes piece on the subject.  In an organic nutshell, resveratrol is the thing in red wine that makes it so healthy.  When you starve, your body's natural survival tools kick in, and flood your body with this incredible antioxidant substance, to fight off death.  In a weird ironic way, starving makes you healthier!  The less you eat, the healthier you get!  Crazy right?  Well, it's true.  Now I don't recommend you do that, you could die of malnutrition, but if you eat all healthy caveman friendly food, in smaller portions, your body will be a lean mean health machine.  There are actually many people out there who adhere to the starvation diet, but life is too short for me to eat nothing but a cup of tomato soup every day for the rest of my time here on the planet.  Eventually, I'm going to need a slice of pizza from Lenny & John's.  And probably a sausage roll too.  And a root beer.  And a chocolate Italian Ice.  No, no, make it a zeppole with powdered sugar instead.  To go.

Sorry, no photos today.  Tonight, and probably tomorrow night is just simple tuna sandwiches, made from whatever I have in the house.  I'll make some mayo, add the tuna, and then I think I have some red onion, parsley and dill in the fridge, along with some spicy peppers, so I'll mix it all up together, bake some almond bread, and have a sandwich with nice slices of tomato and avocado on top!  It's a big can of tuna, so I'll probably have enough for at least two meals.  Looking in the freezer and fridge, I can tell you future meals coming up will be organic pork loin (have no idea how to make that yet), grass fed buffalo ribs (I'm starting to salivate for my Asian Plum BBQ sauce), and a new favorite, zucchini linguini!  There will be photos, complaining, bowel updates, cooking, self deprecation, and all the things you've grown to love and hate in my blog.  "Mmm, Caveman like starving until 6pm and then not eating again until next night."  Hmm, doesn't have the same ugga-bugga excitement as it does when I make brisket.

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Well, That's How The Maztoh Ball Bounces!

This is the time of year when Jews repent, or as we say, atone, for all our sins.  We knock it all out in one day, Yom Kippur.  None of this confession once a week stuff for us, we don't pay retail, even in sin (thank you for the use of your joke Jon Stewart).  What happens is we gorge ourselves and then fast for 24 hours, while we feel REALLY sorry for all the bad things we did the past year, then we gorge ourselves again since we're forgiven.  It doesn't stop anyone from sinning again right away, but it is a good excuse to eat (like we need another excuse).

Since I haven't sinned all year, I'm going to celebrate by trying to make caveman matzoh ball soup.  Traditionally, matzoh balls are made with matzoh meal, aka ground up matzoh.  Also traditionally, since matzoh is involved, it's really a staple of the Passover meal, but Jews love the stuff so much, we make it pretty much for any holiday these days.  However, cavemen don't eat matzoh, which is simply wheat flour and water baked into a flat bread.  Remember, no wheat, or grains of any kind on the caveman diet.  So I'm going to attempt to make it with almond flour, which if you're a regular reader, you know that's how I make caveman flatbread.

Other than that the recipe is pretty simple.  All it is are eggs, oil, garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper (usually salt, but not on the caveman diet), and matzoh meal.  So I replaced the matzoh meal with almond flour and some arrowroot as a thickener, and let it sit in the fridge to set for about a half an hour.  Now the really good cooks get their matzoh balls to be light and fluffy.  Some do this by adding seltzer to the mixture, or by whisking the egg whites into a fluffy consistency, or other secrets people have picked up over the years.  But I don't like them fluffy.  I like them hard as rocks.  I want to have to chisel mine open.  That's the way my grandmother made them, and that's the way I like them.  She knew how to make them fluffy, but my uncle and I liked them to be slightly harder than golf balls, so she made the rest of the family suffer for our tastes.  But being how this is an experiment, I have no idea how they'll come out.  I'll try to make them hard, but no guarantees.

I'm actually jumping ahead.  Because before you make matzoh balls, you make chicken soup.  In this case of what came first, the chicken or the egg, the chicken definitely comes first.  This is a traditional soup, much like my grandmother made, and many grandmothers throughout Europe and Brooklyn.  I start with a whole chicken in the pot, including the neck, but not the giblets (all ingredients, all organic, all the time).  Add water until it's covered.  Then I add carrots, celery, parsnips (usually turnips, but I'm a little sick of them after last week's brisket, so I left them out this time), onion, garlic, parsley, and dill (which my grandmother didn't use, but I love it, and so do many others, so in it went).  Usually a main ingredient is salt, but that's not happening on my watch.  So to add some extra flavor to make you forget about the lack of salt, I also add some sage and thyme, which of course go well with chicken.  Then I cook it on low for four hours.  That's it.  All organic, no salt (I'm used to it, but I'm sure you would all be reaching for the salt shaker if I served it to you), and all good for you, even the fat from the organic chicken, which is rich in Omega-3 fat, the building block of good health.  I made the soup the night before, because I think something magical happens to soups the next day, and the flavors get better.  It also gave the soup a chance to cool, so I could take all the meat off the chicken bones without scalding my hands.  I put all the dark meat back into the soup, some of the white meat, and saved the rest of the breast for leftover sandwiches and salads in the days to come.  The wings I ate on the spot.  I cannot pass up an opportunity to eat a chicken wing, ever.  It's not a sin, so no atoning necessary.

We now rejoin our previously interrupted matzoh ball recipe, already in progress:  Since I'm leaving out the matzoh meal flavor (voted best flavor by Jews in their 40's), and no salt either, I need to replace the flavor somehow.  So I'm adding about a quarter cup of the broth to the mixture.  Hopefully it will give it some flavor.  I also added some extra parsley.  Then I boiled up some water, and added even more broth.  The thought is, when matzoh balls are dropped into liquid, they soak it up like a sponge while cooking, so hopefully they'll soak up even more flavor.  But these are made with nuts, not flour, so I'm not sure how much soaking anything's going to be doing.  Anyway, in they went.  They were real hard to form into balls, but I managed to get them in.  As soon as they bounced to the top, I figured they were done.  I cut through one to make sure, and yes, it was cooked through.  They looked a lot like matzoh balls!  The soup came out great too (it's hard to screw it up).  Take a look:

Now I'm cheating a little with this photo.  It looks like the matzoh ball is resting nicely in the bowl with all the soup around it, but actually, the thing fell apart, and that's only half a ball resting on top of a pile of soup stuff.  They didn't come out great.  They were firm, but only the parts that actually made it out of the soup in one piece, which weren't many.  Most of it fell apart immediately and tuned into an almond oatmeal that tastes a lot like chicken soup.  Not bad tasting, but nothing I would crave.  Ever.

Maybe God is angry because I attempted to make Matzoh Balls healthy.  Or maybe I'm being punished because I'm not fasting with the rest of the tribe.  Or maybe you just can't make matzoh balls out of almonds.  Either way, back to the drawing board, and at least I have some delicious soup to eat, and some chicken stock to freeze for future dishes and soups.  But I should say one prayer before I'm struck down by lightning.  "Dear God... Ugga-Bugga.  Amen."  Whew, safe for another year.

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Happy Jew Year!

For those reading for the first time, let's play a little catch up.  I catered a small gathering a few weeks ago, and my friend Wendy strongly urged me to make a caveman brisket for the Rosh Hashana holiday (brisket being the traditional meal), also known as the Jewish New Year.  But I was only going to do it if I didn't get an invite to friends' or family's for the holiday meal.  Well, as the days approached, it looked like an invitation wasn't coming (not surprising, I'm not very lovable, and probably talk with food in my mouth too much, spitting it across the room like a sprinkler head like my Grandmother used to), so I went to Whole Foods and bought a grass fed brisket.

But wouldn't you know it, turns out I'm loved after all (aw shucks), especially by my friends Jessica & Pash.  They invited me over and the food was delicious!  Pash's mom made these incredible side dishes and salad, which I will definitely feature in a future blog, and Jessica's mom made an amazing brisket!  I picked her brain about how to cook it and turns out she mixed ketchup with apricots, along with spices and covered the brisket, cooking it over potatoes (yes, I cheated and had a potato, so sue me) for 3 hours.  It inspired me not to keep my grass fed brisket in the freezer until Passover, and make that sucker this weekend.

My sister gave me a recipe, but my friend Shari's recipe intrigued me, because her sauce was a combo of ketchup and grape jelly!  That may sound like an odd combination to you, but a friend used to mix ketchup and grape jelly and bake chicken in it, calling it Hawaiian Chicken, and it was fabulous.  So I decided to make Shari's recipe.

I also looked up a bunch of recipes on-line, and all the traditional Jewish recipes called for the same things, Lipton Onion Soup Mix, and Heinz Ketchup.  Shari's and my sister's recipes also called for these.  Okay, maybe our Jewish grandmothers weren't the most creative cooks once they came to America, but in the age of "Mad Men," it proves advertising worked on immigrants!  Obviously I can't use Heinz ketchup, but if you're a regular reader, you know I solved the ketchup problem early on in my caveman dieting.  I think my homemade ketchup gets better every time I make it.  I substitute honey for sugar, and lemon juice for vinegar, and it tastes so thick and tomatoey (new word?), and FRESH!  I had a huge batch left over from my Labor Day weekend at the cabin, so that was one less thing I had to cook.

Then I looked up the ingredients in Lipton Onion Soup Mix: Dehydrated Onions, Salt, Cornstarch, Onion Powder, Sugar, Corn Syrup, Hydrolyzed Soy Protien, Caramel Color, Partially Hydrogentated Soybean Oil, Monosodium Glutamate, Yeast Extract, Natural Flavors, Disodium Inosinate, Disodium Guanylate.

Yummy!  I've been craving Disodium Guanylate since I went caveman!!!!  Just like Grandma used to make.  We'd come home from school, and there'd be a fresh batch of Disodium Guanylate waiting for us, right out of the oven!

We've all eaten so many chemicals for so long, and we don't need to, folks.  The choice comes down to convenience over health.  I'm choosing health.  My buddy, who looks as healthy as a horse, just informed me he used to have Hodgkins Disease.  He was convinced it was from all the pesticides used in commercial farming, and he's been eating organically (and has remained healthy) ever since.  I believe him.  Okay, enough preaching, let's make this Lipton's Chemical Soup Mix into a healthy alternative.

Organically speaking, there's plenty of Dehydrated Onions and Onion Powder out there, so that was easy.  No corn starch, but I do have arrowroot, which is a thickener as well, and not made from grain like corn (no grains at all on the caveman diet).  Obviously no salt, one of the major no-no's in Caveman Cooking, so I added some dry spices to make up for the taste lost due to the lack of salt: black pepper, garlic powder, thyme, and sage.  Forget the sugar, the sauce will be sweet enough.  All the other Lipton ingredients can be tossed out the window, I wouldn't know what Hydrolyzed Soy Protein tastes like, let alone try to recreate it in a healthy way.  But my guess... tastes a little like chicken.

I didn't bother looking up the ingredients in Welch's grape jelly.  I have all the info I need in the name.  I had some fantastic organic California Red Seedless grapes, that I threw in the blender.  I added the ketchup (saving some for leftover brisket sandwiches later in the week), and blended them together with 2 cloves of garlic into a sauce.

Since I can't use potatoes, I just cut up a bunch of root veggies into large chunks instead.  Carrots, celery, rutabaga, turnips, parsnip, and something new to me, celery root (all ingredients, all organic, all the time).  Celery root is an ugly mother of a veggie, but once you peel away the outer skin, it tastes a little like a watery potato.  Not sure this is the best way to cook it yet, but still, mixed in with the others, it was delicious, and the potato wasn't missed at all!!  The veggies had the same texture, taste, and feel of  potatoes, without all the bad things potatoes bring to your body, like toxins and saddle bags on your thighs.  Eat as many of these root veggies you like, you will not gain weight!  And if they're organic, you will never get sick from them either.

Okay, I put my root veggies in a deep casserole dish, and drizzled some olive oil, giving them a toss, so they wouldn't stick to the bottom or to each other.  I then layered some red onion slices on top.  Then I took out my grass fed brisket, and browned each side in a cast iron skillet.  Once it was browned, I rubbed the Caveman Onion Soup Mix into the warm brisket.  Then I laid it on the red onions and veggies, fat side down, poured the Caveman Ketchup/Grape Sauce over it, turned it over, and poured the rest on top of the fat side.  I like cooking things with the fat side up, so it drips down into the meat while it cooks.  Fat IS flavor!  Remember, not all fat is your enemy, and when it's grass fed, or wild, the fat is rich with Omega-3, which is one of the healthiest things on earth.  It's the fat from farm animals being fed corn and soy that makes them so unhealthy, so keep it organic and eat all the fat you want!

I covered it tight with aluminum foil and baked it at 350 degrees.  Supposedly it takes an hour a pound, but with all the questions I asked, and all the recipes I looked up, I couldn't get a definitive time for cooking brisket.  So Shari helped me while I cooked it, telling me when to check it.  I figured since it was a relatively small brisket (after all, I'm only cooking for one), at 2.27 pounds, I could get away with 2 and a half hours of cooking time.  Shari told me to check on it at 2 hours, and stick a fork into the end. If the meat breaks away easily, it's done.  If not, turn it over, cover it back up and keep cooking.  I stuck a fork into the end, and panicked because it didn't fall away.  In fact, it seemed pretty tough.  Uh-oh, could be a disaster.  Another disaster for the Jews.  But maybe they'll make a holiday out of it one day.  Pretty much every Jewish holiday is the same anyway, "They tried to kill us, they didn't, let's eat."  In this case, "us" would be the brisket I was slowly killing at 350 degrees.  But back into the oven it went, praying for a miracle.

Left it in for another hour, and behold at the 3 hour mark, the tip fell off just like Shari said it would.  I guess no matter how big or small the brisket is, it still needs 3 hours to break down all the fat.  I let it settle for a few minutes, and it sliced just like it does on TV (or when a real cook makes it)!  The brisket was tender, juicy, and delicious!  It smelled amazing too!  The grass fed beef was definitely leaner than any other brisket I've ever had before, but it was still seasoned well, and juicy.  The sauce was amazing, maybe even too sweet for my taste, but still great.  Maybe next time I'll use less grapes.  The veggies were outstanding, and made me think I can make mock mashed potatoes one day roasting a similar combo of root veggies.  The meat soaked up all the flavor from the red onion and the veggies, and the veggies sopped up the flavor from the meat, all complimented by the sauce.  Take a look for yourself:

Man, I feel so wonderfully Jewy right now!  Like Super Jew!  Able to leap tall cabinets in a single bound!  Able to balance a check book without a calculator!  Able to graduate medical school in only three years!  I made a brisket using no salt, using only organic ingredients, and all the fat was healthy!!  My grandmother would've had me committed if I told her that was possible 35 years ago.  Funny, the more technology we have, the more I want to resort back to the caveman days.  Next time you make a brisket, maybe give this a try and save your family's health.  They can always add salt later from a shaker if they want, but at least it'll be mostly healthy.  And delicious!!!  Maybe make it for Passover.  You might even hear from the open door, "Mmm, Elijah like Caveman Brisket!!  Ugga-Bugga!!!" (Sorry, a little inside Jewish humor for you gentiles).

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Whole Lotta Cheatin' Goin' On!

Hi again.  Long time no read.  I hope you all had a wonderful Labor Day weekend.  I spent my holiday up in the neighboring mountains near Big Bear.  California is so gorgeous and I hope you all get to visit one day.  But this isn't a travel blog, it's about food.  And this weekend I was stuffed like a turkey with a lot of food I'm not used to eating.

A bunch of friends rented a log cabin and were nice enough to invite me up.  Everyone had to prepare one meal for the group.  All the food was great, but I am just not used to eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and huge portions at that.  Since I've been caveman-ing, my eating habits consist of grazing all day long on small handfuls of nuts, berries, fruit and veggies, and then a big dinner of all organic ingredients, toxin, salt, and added sugar free.  So obviously I just said to myself when I accepted their invitation, "Screw this, I'm gonna eat anything, and everything, and just get back on the caveman program again on Tuesday."  But my body is not used to it, and I definitely felt a difference eating food with wheat, beans, salt, sugar, etc, all weekend long.  Forget about whatever weight I gained over the trip, I'm not worried about that, once the caveman food starts again, the weight will fall off.  But I still feel like a bloated whale.  I had to dodge harpoons all the way back to LA.  I have no energy, and all I want to do is sleep it off until I shrink back to size.  I wish I was a Shrinky Dink right now (boy I'm really dating myself with that reference).

The first night we had delicious lasagna and garlic bread.  Nothing a caveman could eat, but nothing this caveman could resist.  There was salad too, but come on, when you see a plate full of cookies and cakes, and there's also a piece of fruit as a healthy alternative, chances are you're reaching for the pastry.  By the way, there were also LuLu's cookies there, and they're my favorite oatmeal cookies too, so there was a never ending assembly line of them being carried into my mouth all weekend long.  Oatmeal is not caveman friendly, but I was like an addict.  If I could inject one into my veins I would.  If you've never had one, here's the link: http://www.LuLusCookieShop.com/

Part of the problem was all my friends are good cooks, and I was praying one of the meals would be shitty so I could pass.  But there wasn't a bad morsel to be found.  Every breakfast included amazing bacon and eggs, homemade baked bread, frittatas, butter, cheese, and milk abounding!  The dairy screwed up my system more than anything.  One night we had mac n' cheese, one of my death bed meals, and I had two hefty helpings.  Without getting gross, I was bound up all weekend.  What I wouldn't have gave to produce a cheese log in that log cabin bathroom, but my bowels were not yelling "timber" anytime soon.

Actually lactose intolerant people are really the healthy ones.  Humans are the only animal that eats and drinks other animals' milk, so it's not natural.  It only started with cultivation of farm animals 10,000 years ago, but for millions of years before that, we never ate dairy.  So when your body rejects it, it's completely natural.  Now I've never been lactose intolerant, so I've eaten and drank dairy my whole life. But when you go 9 months with only eating it sporadically, and then you drench yourself in it for three days straight, problems arise.

I kept the meal I served simple, no experimenting with other people's food.  I made burgers and tried to keep it as caveman as I could.  The beef was grass fed, I made the ketchup, mayo, and thousand island dressing, and the lettuce, tomato, and red onion were all organic.  Some of the kids were allergic to nuts, so I didn't bother with my almond bread, I just bought some organic buns (which were shit, so next time, just go for the wonder bread buns and be happy about it).  I made onion rings with it, and told everyone I wouldn't be offended if they added salt to everything, since there was zero added to my food.  After I announced that, I think I saw a couple of fights break out over the salt shaker.  Some people went in the back yard and started digging a salt mine.  But I'm not here to judge.  I was one of them myself in the not so distant past. A happy hypertension suffering salt lover.  My grandfather used to pour salt, and I mean POUR salt on his food before he even took a bite.  I wasn't quite that bad, but I loved it.  Everyone loves it.  Because they're supposed to.  It's an ADDICTIVE SUBSTANCE!  Same with sugar.  But it's bad for you, so try to cut back for your own good.  Not as bad as heroine, but just as addicting, and over time, it can cause a lot of damage to your body.

I felt my body swelling as the weekend went on, gulping down BBQ pulled pork sandwiches, chili, kale soup (sounds healthy, but there was sausage with lots of salt, and beans in it, both unfriendly to a caveman, and despite it being one of the most delicious soups I ever had, it still wreaked havoc on my body).  And that was just the meals, there was also lots of snacking going on.  Cheese and crackers, homemade fig newtons, muffins, and cookie cookies, cookies!  I brought organic unsalted corn chips and caveman salsa and guacamole as a good mini-cheat, but I still ate all the other crap too.  I ate more salt this past weekend than I ate all year combined.  There wasn't enough water in Big Bear Lake to quench my thirst, and stop my lips from puckering.

By Sunday night I felt like a Weeble.  Then they busted out a LuLu's Cookie Cake for my friend's birthday, and believe it or not, I could not eat anymore non-caveman food.  I was craving something simple and organic.  After only a few days of going off the diet, my body was ready to sue for emancipation.  While the others dug into the cookie cake, I got out the organic leftover thousand island dressing, lettuce, tomato, and red onion from my burger meal and made myself a little salad.  The next morning I made a much bigger salad, but this time in the toilet bowl.  I felt 15 pounds lighter.  Talk about Labor Day, I felt like I just gave birth!

It's good to be back on the caveman diet today, although I still have a lot of cheating waiting for me this week.  I'm going out to dinner tonight (more lasagna), and then Rosh Hashana dinner at a friend's house on Wednesday.  But I think if I'm only eating one non-caveman meal a day, and not three, including all the snacking, etc, then I should be fine.  I have a wedding in NY this November, and with all my food haunts there, I'm going to have to learn from this experience, and not overdo it.  It'll be tough, but if I want Wo Hop, and Katz's Deli, and Lenny & John's (Brooklyn in the house!), then I'll have to learn to pace myself, and keep it to one non-caveman meal a day.  Or I'll stuff myself until I explode like I normally do on a visit to NY.  Either way, rest assured I will get back on the caveman wagon once it's over, and my innards will once again thank me.  Sometimes if you listen to a happy stomach gurgling, it sounds a lot like, "Ugga-Bugga."

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