Creamy Garlic and Purple Cauliflower Pasta

Pre-post note- You may have noticed that I have been blogging less. I have decided to blog 1-3 times per week as opposed to daily/every other day. Its taking a lot of time away from my family and housework. And I don’t want to look up from my blog one day and see my little baby daughter is going to college and I blogged away her childhood. So I’ll just be slightly less posting =)

This is just about the most delicious pasta I’ve ever made. I ate two whole plates of it and I generally don’t eat that much.

You will need-

1 pound of pasta
(I used squid ink pasta, but you can use any you like. Squid ink pasta makes it that much better though!)
Half a large head of purple cauliflower broken into bite size pieces
(you can use white cauliflower, I just prefer the amazing flavor of purple)
5 cloves of organic garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons of organic olive oil
4 tbsp. grass fed butter
3 tbsp. organic flour
1.5 c. raw milk

Its beautiful isn’t it?!

Cook your pasta and set it aside. Put the olive oil, garlic and cauliflower into a skillet and cook it until the cauliflower has started to cook, but is still crunchy.
Make a roux from the flour and butter. (If you don’t know how, the couscous section of this post explains it.) Add the milk to your roux and cook it on medium heat until it thickens. Add the cauliflower and garlic to the roux and get it totally covered then mix in the pasta. (Or you could pour the sauce over everything.) And that’s it!

Add a little fresh grated Parmesan and crushed red pepper.

As my dad always said, ‘Yum, yum, eat em up!’

Enjoy!

Chicken & Israeli Couscous in Pan Gravy Sauce

This was a huge hit at my house. My husband gave me 5 stars on it, and even compared it in deliciousness to our at-home-honeymoon lobster dinner.

I use all organic ingredients and local whenever possible. While its not necessary to make this recipe, I strongly suggest it and personally feel its the best way to eat anything =)

For the chicken:

2 pastured chicken legs*
2 chopped cloves of garlic
1 chopped tomato
1/2 an onion
A big pinch of oregano
3 tsp. dried cilantro
1 tbsp. cumin
A big pinch of cayenne pepper and paprika
2 cups water
2 tbsp. coconut oil
Generous pinches of salt and pepper

(*We generally don’t eat this much meat in one sitting, for a less meaty version, you can make 1 chicken breast and shred it into small pieces and mix it into the couscous.)

Over a medium heat put everything but the water and cook until the chicken is browned on both sides and has started to cook through (easy, huh?).

Add the 2 cups of water, cover and let it simmer until the chicken is cooked completely. Which should be between 20-30 minutes. Take the chicken out and set it too the side, but save all the water you cooked it in and all the drippings/scraps/juice in the pan.

For the Couscous & Gravy:

2 cups Israeli couscous
4 cups homemade chicken broth
2 tbsp. butter
2 tbsp. flour

Bring the broth to a boil, add the 2 cups of couscous and remove it from the heat. Let it sit for 10-15 minutes to let the couscous cook.

In a separate pot melt the butter and mix the flour in. Whisk constantly until it starts to bubble then (while still whisking) cook for 1 minute. For those of you that don’t know, this is called a roux. Add all the cooking liquid from the chicken and stir until it starts to thicken.

Mix the gravy and the couscous together.

It may not look the prettiest, but man oh man, its delicious.

Oven Baked Green Beans:

Even though these aren’t in the post title, you gotta have your veggies and these are amazing. I absolutely can’t stand cooked veggies 95% of the time. But I love these so much I scarf them down the second they’re cooked.

Coat the green beans in coconut oil then add generous amounts of salt and pepper (I like to add a pinch of cayenne pepper for heat, but this is totally optional). Bake them in the oven at 400 degrees. Bake them for 7 minutes, stir them around and bake them for another 5, or until they start to get brown.

SO GOOD!!!

Enjoy!!

~Courtney, The Crunchy Delinquent

Real Food Peach Cobbler Muffins!!

Ah summer! When the delicious peaches are ripe and juicy!

So ripe and juicy in fact, that you find it necessary to pick 30 pounds of them at your local pick your own orchard!!(or is that just me??)

Which leaves you scouring the internet for any and every peach recipe you can find to use up all of the peaches you didn’t can. So let me help you out by giving you this absolutely delicious recipe for-

Peach Cobbler Muffins

You will need:

Muffin-

2 cups fresh (or home canned) organic peaches cut into small pieces
1 cup organic whole wheat flour
1 cup organic unbleached flour
1 1/2 tsp. good quality baking powder
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1 stick or 1/2 cup of butter (from grass fed cows would be best!)1/2 cup organic, unbleached sugar
2 free range eggs
2 tsp. homemade or good quality organic vanilla extract
1/2 cup raw milk
1 tsp. organic cinnamon

Topping-

3 tbsp. organic unbleached sugar
1 tbsp. organic whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp. organic cinnamon
2 tsp. coconut oil (at least 76 degrees so its in its liquid state!)

Beat the sugar, eggs and butter together until there are no large lumps. Add in everything except the peaches and mix until its combined. Then fold in the peaches. Scoop into well greased muffin tins (or use unbleached muffin papers).

Whisk together the ingredients for the topping and sprinkle a bit over each muffin. Bake for 20 minutes in a 350 degree oven.

Served with some homemade whipped cream or a tall glass of cold, raw milk (or on their own!), these are delicious!!

Go pick some peaches and enjoy!!

~Courtney, The Crunchy Delinquent

Chicken Tacos with Super Spicy Tomatillo Sauce

Yum! Like oh my goodness yum.

Me and my fiance were both sweating when we finished eating them from the tomatillo sauce.

First off, some of you may not know what a tomatillo is. Its kind of like a green tomato in a husk. Like an ear of corn and a tomato had a baby. Its a staple in Latin American cooking and is quite delicious. You peel the husk off and just eat the fruit inside. You may have to look in the ethnic foods section of your grocery store or a specialty store to find them. If your paying attention though, they are readily available.

Tomatillo Sauce

2 lbs. Fresh tomatillos
4 Cloves of garlic
1 Bunch of fresh cilantro
1/4 of a large onion (or 1/2 a small onion)
3 Cups of water
4 large Jalapeno peppers

Remove the outer paper from the tomatillos and wash them off. Cut everything except the cilantro into large chunks. I cut the tomatillos in half, the peppers in thirds and roughly chopped the onion. Put them all in the water and bring to a boil.

Look how deliciously fresh this looks!!

Turn it down to just below a boil and cook for half an hour. Let it cool until its manageable, add in the cilantro and blend it until its smooth. This sauce is super spicy and goes on ANYTHING! Use it as a healthy substitute for classic taco sauce, use it on chicken, beef, pork, in carnitas, on enchiladas, on pretty much anything you’d like to be spicy. Its honestly the most amazing sauce ever. Plus you can eat it hot or cold.

Beautiful green sauce!

Chicken Tacos

2 Boneless chicken breasts from free range chickens
1/4 of a large onion (or half a small onion)
3 Garlic cloves, chopped
1/2 Jalapeno pepper, chopped
3 Tsp. ground cumin
1 Shredded carrot
The juice from 1 lime
4 Tsp. dried cilantro or half a bunch fresh cilantro
Salt and pepper
2 Tbsp. Coconut oil (to cooking in)

(Note, use organic ingredients for the best result!)
(Another note, either grate the carrots or use a vegetable peeler and peel the whole carrot into long thin strips and chop the strips so you don’t have big chunks of carrot.)

Start out by chopping up the chicken breasts into small cubes and put them in a pot in the coconut oil, jalapeno and onions. Start cooking on medium high heat.

As its cooking add in all of the other ingredients. Continue cooking until the chicken is fully cooked and all the juice is cooked off. When the chicken is mostly cooked through start chopping it up with the spoon your cooking with. It chops easy when its cooked. And that’s it! Top with tomatillo sauce, cheese and lots of greens. I personally think arugula and spinach taste the best with tacos.

Serve it with a delicious…

…Mason jar lemon-limade slushy

Put the juice of one lime and one lemon in a mason jar and add 1 tablespoon of organic sugar. Add two slices of lemon and fill it the rest of the way with water. Put the lid on it and shake it vigorously until the sugar is dissolved and pop it in the freezer for 3-5 hours, or until it starts to freeze. It’ll turn itself into a slush.

Super amazing dinner =)

Enjoy!

~Courtney, The Crunchy Delinquent

This post was shared on the Get Inspired Blog Hop and Tuned in Tuesday!