Olen koonnut ja suomentanut Monkeyfood.netin resepteistä joitakin ja pistänyt ne nippuun, toivottavasti jollekulle kelpaa! Loppupuolen ohjeissa on käytetty paleosta poiketen joitakin maitotuotteita.

Lataa Monkeyfood – luola-apinan paleoruokaohjeet itsellesi tästä (pdf-tiedosto)

Before I just hated liver. Loathed. But then I prepared some myself. Firstly, the minced liver patties were awesome! Then, I managed to prepare a simple liver paté which has a full, round taste with a bit of acidic sweetness from Bristol Cream. Booze? Oh yeah! Liquor has it’s place and it’s in a paté. Here’s something you might enjoy at Christmas.

Liver Paté

• 300 g cooked organic beef liver
• an onion
• 1 glove of garlic
• 1 dl butter + butter for sautéing
• 2-3 Tbsp cognac or whiskey or sherry (I used Bristol Cream)
• salt, freshly ground black pepper

Sauté the chopped onion, garlic and liver (unless it’s already cooked) in butter. Chop the liver into smaller junks before putting everything in a blender and blending until smooth, add butter, booze and season the whole thing. Check the taste. Let sit in the fridge. Paté will keep in the fridge for a week and in a frozen for two months. May be enjoyed on a slice of courgette or just plain. Or better yet: why not make a paleo voileipäkakku (salty sandwich cake) using this and portobellos! Why not indeed.

And I’m not talking about the sissy, wussy paleo “pancakes” that imitate the regular sweet, wheat pancakes to be enjoyed with jam and chocolate. No! Forget about the mushed bananas and coconut milk and gluten free grains. Ditch the honey and maple syrup how ever organic they may be. These pancakes are made of actual beef liver! You heard me. LIVER PANCAKES!

I know, it’s a tad provocative to call these pancakes. Nevertheless, I think they resemble pancakes and therefore I shall call them that. Or patties? Patties or pancakes, these crepés made out of ground liver are a traditional Finnish food. I always loathed these in school, I couldn’t stand the taste of liver. Still it’s hard for me to eat just plain liver and I don’t really do that even if I wanted to. But these are more subtle in their livery taste and oh so tasty!

I’m proud to present, organic beef liver patties!

Liver patties

• 400 g organic beef liver
• 3 carrots
• 1 onion
• marjoram/rosemary/estragon
• salt
• 1 egg
• (butter for frying)

Grind the beef liver into fine “puré” (we used the finest blade in the meat grinder, the more coarse one would prolly have done as well). Grate the carrots and the onion, mix into liver. Add the egg and season with salt and some dried herbs. I hear marjoram and rosemary are very typical when spicing up liver but since we didn’t have neither I chose estragon. Worked.

Bake the liver patties on a large pan in a generous amount of butter, some three or four little patties at a time. Swap over when they’re settled and fry the other side. Eat with plenty of mushed cauliflower and lingonberries. Superb. And there are any left after your liver feast, believe me, the taste just intensifies after a night in fridge… Boy I turned from liver hater to a lover. Lov-errr <3  A big thank you for the Metsäojan tila who provided the quality liver (and 15 kilos of beef).

These babies are meant for the paleo population that tends to lean towards the sweeter side of life every now and then… Not too often, just often enough to savour the unique taste of sweet. Aaaaah. The inspiration for these first ones came from Rawmazing.com, even though I didn’t (and don’t and won’t) have the patience to prepare them like actual truffles.

But you, feel free to make them sweeties as perfect as you will! This would of course mean forming the filling into small balls, freezing them for an hour and then carefully dipping them (in a toothpick) into melted raw chocolate. Sounds awful lot of work to me. But it might be worth it? See food, you see.

Anyway, I cut all the corners possible and they STILL tasted divine. It’s no brain surgery preparing truffles!

Mindful Mint Truffles

Filling

• 1 dl of cashews (soaked in water for three hours, pour the water away)
• 1 dl of desiccated coconut
• a little water
• few drops of mint extract
• (vanilla stevia if you want to sweeten it – if I remember correctly, I didn’t use any)

Blend the soaked cashews and add the coconut. Add enough water to get the blender going and the stuff forming into a ball. Spice it up with the mint! Set in a silicone icecube mold, one teaspoon per each hole. Refridgerate it to prepare the raw chocolate.

Raw Chocolate

• organic coconut oil
• organic cocoa butter
• organic raw cocoa powder
• a little quality salt
• some vanilla stevia

Melt the coconut oil and the cocoa butter. Mix in the other ingredients and add stevia and salt to your liking. Pour in the icecube mold over the bits of filling and set to fridge to settle. Once they’re cooled down, you have the most rawmazing mint truffles to indulge with.

This next one is the oldest trick in the paleo (dessert) cookbook but just to remind you: it’s still fabulous! The soft strawberry taste of this creamy delight brings me back to the days of my childhood. In my family we had this special treat when we would eat vanilla icecream together with some heated mushed strawberries (mom had mushed them in the summertime and they’d been heated to melt them from the freezer). That and my mom’s chocolate sauce with vanilla icecream are THEE BEST THINGS I know. Or knew. Paleo change things… Hmmpf.

Strawberry Icecream

• frozen strawberries
• coconut milk
• vanilla stevia

Take the berries out a few minutes before making this to let them melt just an inch from their ice cold state. Once they’re ready to be blended without breaking the blender, blend them into a powder like consistency. Add coconut milk until you get the desired consistency. Add stevia and taste to adjust the sweetness. You may freeze this but it’s better refridgerated, at least in my opinion. Not too hard but soft and cold and… Delicious! Just like icecream.

Ain’t saying that this would be anything new under the Monkey sun and ain’t saying this is something spectacular, but just to remind you of the variety in paleo cooking, I present yet again an oven-baked dish. Easy, simple, delish. Will keep a couple of days in the fridge and is tasty hot and cold.

[A forkful.]

Fishy stuff

• smoked whitefish (in my case, savusiika, “lavaret”) OR smoked salmon
• fresh champignons
• 3-4 onions
• 2,5 dl coconut milk
• 3 organic eggs
• salt and pepper if needed

Chop the onion and champignons, fry in butter until tender and golden. Rip the fish into bite size bits and put in an oven casserole together with the onion-mushroom mix. Mix in a separate bowl the coconut milk and eggs, season if the fish isn’t too salty. Bake in approx. 200 degrees until the bake is settled, about 40 minutes. Enjoy hot or cold. I’d say it’s even better when it’s cold!

If you want a cheesy crust in your fish pie, try this dairy free Monkey trick:

• coconut flour
• nutritional yeast

Combine equal amount of these too and sprinkle on top of the casserole before baking it. Forms a nice salty crust as you can see here:

[The version I made... (all gone by the way O_O)]

Hi y’all and thanks for waiting! The summer vacation is over tomorrow so the monkey’s back in da kitchen. Bet ya are hungry already? Since we spent 10 days of our vacation in Croatia, first on the island of Hvar and then two nights in Split, I’d like to share a very common croatian recipe for a delicious paprika sauce. It accompanied every meat platter, mixed grill and pork cutlet dish we ordered and was always as good. I googled some recipies and this was my first attempt. Pretty good I’d say, follow me!

[...and the original in Croatia.]

Croatian ketchup (it’s probably unorthodox to call this ketchup but just to give you the idea)

• 1 red bellpepper
• 1 eggplant
• (finely chopped fresh chili if you like – I didn’t have any and it’s not supposed to be hot)
• 1-2 garlic cloves
• vinegar
• salt
• olive oil

Roast the eggplant and the bellpepper in a hot oven approximately 30 minutes so that the eggplant turns softer and the bellpepper sweeter. Put the bellpepper in a plastic bag when it’s still hot so it’ll be easier to peel. Scrape the eggplant flesh out with a tablespoon and mix the peeled pepper and the eggplant in a blender together with a clove of garlic. Add a dash of vinegar and some salt to taste.

Pour a bit of olive oil into a thick bottomed kettle and add the mixture. Let it cook down mixing it often until a paste forms. You may now either eat the damn delicacy or put it in a jar for later. Excellent with meat!

NOTE: you may not want to throw the eggplant peel away. If you chop it and fry it on a pan with, say, minced meat, it’ll be tasty. I do love eggplant. Learn to love it as well!

Love at first sight! That’s what it was when I laid my eyes on this recipe just a few brief days ago in Thee Finnish Food Blog, Pastanjauhantaa. The recipe originated from a Finnish glossy food magazine Glorian Ruoka and included a whole HALF a decilitre of sugar. A genuine paleo monkey such as myself of course arrogantly sweeps away even the thought of adding sugar in food and so I just skipped that one ingredient, whistling like Piglet. Still, the result blew me away. As well as the rest of the eaters. Oh yes, this one’s a keeper.

Indeed it’s not the best quality paleo salad there is since it includes a whole lotta mayo but you gotta get your omega 6s somewhere to balance the omega 3s from all the grass-fed beef and wild-caught salmon  (or the lemon tasting bottle, to tell the truth). You are welcome to prepare your own mayo (I can has mayo!) but I just went with a store-bought this time.

Mayo Monster (aka broccoli salad)

• 1 kg broccoli
• 4 shallots or a generous bunch of spring onion/a junk of red onion/whatever onion you like
• 2 dl (0,8 cups) cashews
• 300 g bacon

Tear the broccoli florets in a bowl and chop the onion(s) along them. Roast cashews on a hot pan, set aside. Leave the bacon until later. Prepare the sauce.

Sauce

• 2,5 dl (1 cup) mayonese
• 2 Tbs raw apple cider vinegar (or white wine vinegar)
• 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Mix the sauce and blend it among broccoli and onion. Let the salad sit in the fridge for about two hours. When it’s time to serve the course, bake bacon until crispy and cut it in pieces. Spread cashews and bacon bits over the salad and dig in! …it’ll be gone before you have time to say HOLY CATS!

And again I’m blogging in Finnish since this is about a new Finnish gluten-free dairy-free product and not sold elsewhere. So hang in there, my English readers, this is not turning into a Finnish written but I’ll just make some occasional visits to mother tongue.

[Kuva Biofermen sivuilta, omat purkkimme olivat syödyt ennen kuin pääsin kameraan kiinni!]

Eli suomeksi mennään! Sain kesän alussa kotimaiselta pieneltä yritykseltä Biofermeltä postia ja sitten lähetyksen: katsokaa mallia Pastanjauhajilta, sain samanlaisen, käsittämättömän anteliaan setin! Kyseessä on siis kaupassa myytävistä kaurapohjaisista hapatetuista “jogurtinomaisista” tuotteista vastuussa oleva firma, joka lähestyi uuden tuotteensa esittelyasioissa. Yosa-valmisteet ovat kaurasta hapattamalla valmistettuja eivätkö siis sisällä gluteenia tai maitotuotteita lainkaan.

Makeampia jogurtteja tai muita en kaipaakaan, mutta uusin tuotteensa Ruoka&Dippi tuli ihan tarpeeseen. Kyseessä on ruokacrémen tapaan käytettävä tuote, jolla saa kastikkeisiin jne. kermaista tuntua. Ja maukasta sellaista! Pelkästään maisteltuna Ruoka&Dippi maistuu lähinnä maustamattomalta soijajogurtilta emmekä innostuneet sen dippi-ulottuvuudesta, mutta ruoanlaitossa se toimi erinomaisesti.

Sain tuotetta niin monta purkkia että sitä tuli testatuksi monessa. Parhaimpina kuitenkin vuosien takaa itselleni tuttu savulohikastike, jota en ole syönyt sen jälkeen kun jätin pastan (siitä on enemmän vuosia kuin osaan laskea). Pannulle siis sipulia ja vaikka porkkanakiekkoja, ehkä sieniä, ja Yosa Ruoka&Dippiä. Kylmäsavulohta suikaleina sekaan ja keitellään hiukan kasaan. Autenttinen maku! Todella hyvää.

Toinen kokeiluni joka sai käsittämätöntä ylistystä Lihansyöjän taholta oli lihasuikalekastike, joka syntyi suunnilleen samalla tavalla. Palaute kuului häikäisevästi “melkein yhtä hyvää kuin isän lihakastike lapsena”. Toisin sanoen varmaan juuri yhtä hyvää, aika kun kultaa muistot ja maut… Siis helkkarin maukasta ja Yosa tuo hyvän rakenteen, pitää raaka-aineet kasassa.

Ruoka&Dipin lisäksi saimme läjän erilaisia smoothieita ja “jogurtteja“, joista kaikista Lihansyöjä piti valtavasti samoin kuin kollegani töissä, jossa tarjoilin muutamia makuraadille. Ja mm. punaiset marjat -niminen tuotos sai vakiystävän puheterapeutistamme. Vanilja-Yosa olisi myös hyödyllinen jälkiruokatyyppisissä ratkaisuissa, vaikka juustokakuissa, jos sellaisia haluaa tehdä.

Oma vatsani on niin herkkis, ettei Yosa valitettavasti sovi ruokavaliooni kuin kovin harvoin, mutta suositan kyllä erityisesti Ruoka&Dippiä arjen ja juhlan pelastajana, kun täytyy saada täyteläistä maidotonta ja gluteenitonta ruokaa. Veikkaan, että Yosa lähtee vielä maailmalle! Ja huom. Yosa Ruoka&Dippihän on myös täysin kasvipohjainen eli hellii myös vegaaneja.

It’s not EXACTLY paleo to even try preparing ice cream but since I’m not following EXACTLY paleo diet but more eating based on all the knowledge on what’s best for humans for their health (and longevity and performance, thanks Robb!) such as butter and some dark chocolate and red wine combined with the ancestral diet I just gave it a go. And it turned out delish! I haven’t had real ice cream in so long that I say: this is JUST like ice cream! Go nuts on the sugar festival!

Chunky Monkey goes paleo

• 1 ripe fair trade banana
• 4 dl of coconut cream
• 1 pod of vanilla bean
• 2 organic eggs
• (cinnamon)

Peel the banana and put in in the blender together with coconut cream and eggs. Cut the vanilla pod lengthwise and scrape the seeds into the mixture. Add some cinnamon if you like; I thought it made all the difference. Blend until thoroughly  mixed. Move into a large dish and set it it the freezer. After an hour or more start visiting your ice cream every now and then to mix it up: scrape the icy bits and mix them with the still softer mass. This will make the consistency more airy and icecreamy. Eat when the level of stickiness suits you. Garnish with nuts or seeds or fresh pineapple fried in butter! Or just eat plain.

Sweeter Shade of Pale (this one was too sweet for me but it may suit you)

• 2 ripe bananas
• 2 dl coconut cream
• 1 organic egg
• 1 vanilla pod

Prepare as above. Eat away!

Awwwhh, this was good! Continuing on the raw side of life this also turned to be not just paleo and low carb but vegan as well. So it really suits everyone doesn’t it? Here’s just the basic idea, you may vary the vegetables and season it with chili or garlic or peppers or oregano. Still, it’s a perfect dish for the hottest day of the summer that’ll also please you delicate tummy being easy to digest.

Monkey Mush

• generous amount of chinese cabbage
• some broccoli florets
• a tomato
• a junk of courgette (aka zucchini)
• 2 stalks of celery
• coconut milk
• quality salt

Chop the veggies a bit and mush them in a blender. Pour in some nice coconut milk to make it more like a stew or even a soup if you like. Spice it up with salt and whateva! Tasty as hell and filling, thanks to the coconut.