1 large plantain, ripe (slightly soft to touch)
1 1/4 inch thick slice of pancetta, cubed
4 leaves kale, chiffonade
1/4 C raw pistachios
1 T butter or vegetable oil
creme fraiche
salt & pepper

Dry heat a non stick skillet to medium high or high. Add pancetta cubes when hot. Let cook most of the way; add evenly sliced plantains, salt, pepper. Flip them over when golden on one side. Let cook 1-2 minutes at medium high heat, add kale. Don’t let kale cook too much. It should be crisp and somewhat raw tasting, but with improved color.

Place on serving platter, add raw pistachios on top, serve with creme fraiche.

1/2 C buckwheat flour*
1 1/2 C unbleached all purpose flour
2 tsp kosher salt
1 heaping tablespoon baking powder
dash baking soda
6 T unsalted butter, cubed the size of dice
roughly 1 cup milk, buttermilk, or almond milk (do not use soy)

Preheat to 425 degrees. Mix dry ingredients with a whisk; add COLD butter cubes to the dry and quickly use your fingers to smudge the butter into the flour to make it look like an uneven collection of breadcrumbs. Don’t let the fat get too warm, as the pockets of it are what create the air bubbles that make the biscuits airy/flakey.

Make a well in the center of the bowl, add milk and mix quickly but not too thoroughly until its a sticky but not too wet mess. Use floured hands to handle as little as possible into biscuit shape and toss onto parchment or silicon lined baking sheet. Bake 15-20 minutes until cooked through and golden on top.

*alternate white flour here for regular southern biscuits and make sure to use whole milk or buttermilk (sub partial yogurt to reg milk for same volume if you want)

Bulgogi marinade for the flank steak (skirt steak would be OK too) roughly .7 lbs:

1 T red pepper flakes
1/3 C olive oil
4T balsamic vinegar
1/4 C soy sauce
6 cloves minced garlic
fresh ground pepper
1/4 C Jack Daniels or other whiskey

Marinade overnight or up to two days, grill on medium high heat until well cooked outside (do not serve rare or it will be too chewy). Preferably medium or medium well.  Slice thinly on the diagonal grain and serve.

1/2 C quinoa, rinsed and drained
1 C water
pinch cayenne, ground dry ginger, salt

Bring quinoa and water to boil, reduce heat, cover, simmer for 12-15 minutes until water absorbs completely. When almost finished, add chopped broccoli and let cook until just brightened but still very crisp. Mix together with spices.

3 large carrots, cleaned and peeled
2 inch peice of hawaiian young ginger (or less of other, stronger ginger)
toasted sesame & sea salt mixture in a sesame grinder (gomasio)
olive oil
salt & pepper

Cut the carrots on the diagonal, grate the ginger over them as they are finishing cooking (tender but still crisp) in the olive oil, put salt & pepper on them at the beginning of cooking, and serve topped with gomasio.

For the Crepes:
1 C minus 2 T Buckwheat Flour
3 Eggs
2 T melted butter
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 C (about) almond milk

Whisk dry ingredients, whisk wet seperately, combine to minimize lumps. The batter should be the consistency of light cream. Let batter rest for at least 30 minutes, ideally 2 hours. Cook on medium high heat in a non-stick shallow skillet or sautee pan, browning on one side until the edges pull away from the pan, and then the other side. Do not add too much batter at once, the crepes should be relatively thin (one coating on the pan).

For the Filling:
2 chicken cooked chicken breasts, cubed (we BBQ’d a whole bunch at once with just oil & vinegar)
1/4 onion, diced
1/2 red bell pepper, diced
1/2 crown broccoli, chopped bite size
5 leaves purple kale, chiffonade
1/4 C raw cashews
1/2 C heavy whipping cream
1/4-1/2 tsp fresh ground nutmeg
4 T grated parmesan-reggiano cheese
olive oil
salt & pepper

Sautee onion and pepper in olive oil with salt and pepper. When soft, add broccoli. Let cook a bit, get bright green. Add cream, nutmeg, and parmesean. Let simmer until reduced a bit. Add kale, cashews, chicken, cook until chicken warm but not hot. Turn off heat and reserve to fill crepes.

Lately I’ve been on a major health kick, trying hard to stabilize my blood sugar without any other aids. Food, you’ve probably heard, is a drug. I’ve been trying all sorts of strange things from San Francisco’s famous Rainbow Grocery Co-Op, including different types of grain and especially flours like chickpea flour, buckwheat flour, quinoa flour and more (I’ll be writing more about this in the future as I figure out things that taste good, especially pastas).

This morning I was asked to make pancakes, and so sad that I wouldn’t be able to eat any because of the white flour & sugar, I made some adjustments to the recipe I posted a few days ago for Fluffy, American pancakes.

DRY:
1/4 C buckwheat flour
1/4 C unbleached, enriched, all-purpose flour
1 T baking powder
3 T sugar
1 tsp. sea salt

WET:
2/3 C almond milk (unsweetened) *don’t use soy, it makes it tough
1.5 tsp sherry or cidar vinegar
1 egg
1 T sour cream or creme fraiche
2-3 T sparkling water
zest of one orange (or lemon)

Whisk together the dry ingredients. Whisk together the wet ingredients. Combine them. Cook immediately on non-stick skillet with minimal butter at a medium heat. If you wait to cook this batter, do not combine the wet and dry until right before you cook, or you will loose the fluffiness that happens when the vinegar and baking powder meet.

Using buckwheat flour increases the nutrition in these pancakes, lowers the glycemic index, and makes them slower processing, meaning less of a blood-sugar spike results. They also have a higher protein content.

Serve with peaches or other fruit on top. I suspect this recipe would also be fantastic with chunks of dark chocolate with chili pepper in it.

For Two:

1/2 C Black quinoa, rinsed and drained
1/2 avocado, sliced
1/4 C raw walnuts
1/4 C raw shucked pistachios
1 small shallot, minced
1/4 C broccoli including stems chopped bite-size
1/3 orange (or other) bell pepper, diced
2 inches zucchini, sliced very thin
1/4 C “live” bean snack, rinsed (sprouted fresh beans like garbanzo, etc)
3 leaves Japanese Kale, chiffonade
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp mustard powder
1 lemon, juiced
2 T hazelnut oil (substitute other nut oil or olive oil if not available, but this stuff is great for raw food)

Cook the black quinoa 1 part grain to 2 parts water by bringing to a boil, covering, and immediately reducing heat to low for 20-30 minutes until all water is absorbed.

Meanwhile, mix all chopped vegetables in a bowl with hazelnut oil, salt, and pepper. Mix mustard, cayenne, and lemon juice separately, and pour over vegetables to mix in. Mix in the nuts.

Once quinoa is cooked, mix while hot with vegetable mixture to slightly warm and also wilt the kale. Serve with BBQ chicken (we marinade ours as a default in balsamic vinegar and olive oil).

I’m single-handedly battling my own metabolic syndrome by getting off of corrective pills and embracing a healthier, vegetable rich, flour & sugar low diet. I’ve found an easy way to incorporate more vegetables is to start adapting raw recipes and ideas into my diet. It really is like power food, though sometimes hard to digest depending on what you make.

Surprisingly, it’s very filling and I was only able to eat half of the below portion in one sitting:

For One:
1/2 C quinoa
1/2 avocado
raw cashews
bell pepper (orange or red)
broccoli
sprouted beans
arugula, chopped
1 snack box raisins
cayenne pepper
hazelnut oil
salt & pepper

Cook the quinoa (1 – 2, bring to boil while combined, cover and reduce to low for 10-15 minutes until water is absorbed; quinoa is the quickest cooking whole grain & is also high in protein.), meanwhile chop vegetables into diced size after washing and toss in hazelnut oil, salt, pepper. When quinoa is finished cooking, add raisins, salt and cayenne pepper. Lightly mix all the ingredients and serve with sea-salted avocado in top.

1 bunch wild arugula, washed and drained
3 small stalks Japanese kale
1/3 C blueberries
4 small-medium golden beets
2 T raw pumpkin seeds
1/3 lb Capricho di Cabra or other fresh goat cheese
1 small lemon
olive oil
salt & pepper

Clean and trim beets and place in foil, covering with olive oil, salt, pepper generously. Close foil up, place in oven at 350 for 45 min-1.5 hours. Beets should give slightly to firm squeeze when they are finished.

Meanwhile, clean produce. Whisk juice of 1 small lemon or half normal lemon with 1/3 as much olive oil, add salt & pepper. Dress the arugula, and the kale after slicing it in thin strips.

When the beets are finished, clean and serve warm by placing in ice water and scraping skin away with a knife, then slicing into wedges. Assemble salad with goat cheese chunk, beets, blueberries, and pumpkin seeds.

Carnaroli Rice (eyeball to cover sautee pan bottom for 2)
olive oil
1 shallot
4 C home made chicken stock
1/2 C dry white wine
10 good looking salt water shrimp, peeled and deveined
Heavy pinch Saffron
Salt & Pepper

Sautee the minced shallot and the rice in hot oil until the rice becomes golden, adding salt & pepper. Add 1/4-1/2 C white wine, let liquid reduce, and then use HEATED home made chicken stock, to which you have added saffron, to slowly cook the rice by maintaining a low liquid level and neither boiling nor searing the rice. When it’s almost done and the rice is about soft, add the shrimp.