Homemade Cajun Spice Mix

grilled cajun shrimp

Cajun Spice Mix

  • 1 Tbsp Sea Salt
  • 1 Tbsp Fresh Ground Black Pepper
  • 1 Tbsp Fresh Ground White Pepper
  • 1 Tbsp Oregano
  • 1 Tbsp Thyme
  • 1 Tbsp Basil
  • 1 Tbsp Sugar
  • 2 Tbsp Cayenne
  • 2 Tbsp Paprika
  • 2 Tbsp Chili Powder
  • 2 Tbsp Garlic Powder
  • 2 Tbsp Onion Powder

Mix all ingredients together and store in an airtight container. I always make spice mixes in large quantities, because I cook more than the average bear. Feel free to halve or quarter this recipe if you aren’t a slave to your kitchen like I am 😉

This is good on a whole lot of foods, but will blow your mind on seafood. Grilled Cajun Shrimp anyone? Why not try it with Homemade Cocktail Sauce?

shrimp

Related Posts:

Worlds Best BBQ Sauce (sugar free)

Homemade Worcestershire Sauce

Tender Grilled Brisket

Homemade Probiotic Teriyaki Sauce

Cajun Smothered Pork Chops (Robs Favorite!)

Recipe Index

Sweet and Smokey Spice Rub

garlic

Sweet & Smokey Spice Rub

  • 3 Tbsp Coconut Oil- softened
  • 1 tsp Garlic- minced
  • 1 tsp Sea Salt
  • 1 Tbsp brown sugar or honey
  • 2 tsp liquid smoke

Mix all ingredients. It makes an ugly, brown, mushy paste. Rub all over meat. Cook meat.

Sounds too simple right? Not enough ingredients, way too fast. No way this is going to taste good…..Oh but you’re wrong!

We have tried this on wings, steak, ribs, a pork roast and several cuts of venison. It is delicious! It has a deep smokey flavor with just the slightest hint of sweetness. Very delicious!

garlic2Related Posts:

Coffee Spice Rub

Perfect Barbeque Dipping Sauce

The Worlds Best BBQ Sauce (sugar free)

Homemade Seasoning Salt

How to Peel a Head of Garlic in 10 seconds

Homemade Fajita Seasoning Mix

Homemade Taco Seasoning Mix

Homemade Italian Seasoning Mix

Recipe Index

Perfect Barbecue Dipping Sauce (sugar free)

Perhaps you have figured this out by now, but we love a big hunk of roasted meat around here. So we get pretty excited when barbeques season finally arrives. Here in Michigan, it lasts for about 5 minutes, so we take full advantage. I came up with this dipping sauce a few years ago and we fell madly in love. The charred vegetables give it a smoky flavor that is so addictive! This sauce is great on any kind of meat or fish. I particularly love it on kabobs. Mmmmm kabobs….

kabob

Sugar Free Roasted Dipping Sauce

3/4 lb cherry tomatoes

8 cloves garlic

6 chile peppers, stemmed ( we like Serrano or jalapeno)

2 shallots, halved

1/2 red pepper, seeded

1/4 cup fresh cilantro

2 Tbsp fish sauce

1/4 tsp kosher or sea salt

  • Place vegetables (tomato, garlic, chiles, shallots and peppers) on hot barbecue grill (or broiler) for 8 -10 minutes until blackened and charred.
  • Place garlic, chiles, shallots and peppers in food processor.
  • Pulse until chunky
  • Add tomatoes, pulse until incorporated, but not pureed
  • Stir in cilantro, fish sauce and salt.

Serve warm or cold alongside your favorite barbecued meat. This is a very versatile sauce. We have used it with grilled steak, pork loin, kabobs, shrimp, bass, trout, and chicken. It is also great served with any Mexican dish!

Let me know what you think!

Slow Roasted Tomatoes

Related Posts:

Worlds Best barbeque Sauce (sugar free)

Tender Grilled Brisket

Coffee Spice Rub

Homemade Cocktail Sauce (and how to prepare horseradish)

Homemade Worcestershire Sauce

Homemade Probiotic Teriyaki Sauce

Lake Trout with Morels

homemade Seasoning Salt

Ginger Beer: A Probiotic Summer Drink

IHerb.com Coupon: Save $10

ALL Recipes

Sugar Free Breakfast Smoothie

green-smoothie

Breakfast is tricky for me. I am not hungry in the morning! I know it’s supposed to be this big healthy meal full of protein and fabulous vitamins to start the day off, but quite frankly at 7am I am too tired to chew. I also love to sleep! So I wake up at the last possible second. If I am to eat a ‘proper’ breakfast, I would have to wake up earlier in order to prepare it. Realistically, in the actual life of me…..not going to happen.

So I have resorted over the years to either a piece of fruit in the car while I’m driving to work, or a smoothie. Since I am erradicating all Candida from my life for this experiement, I can no long have fruit sugars. According to the experts I’m allowed to eat only the following fruits:

  • Berries
  • Grapefruit
  • Lemon
  • Lime
  • Green Apples
  • Avocado
  • Fresh Coconut

Part of me is tempted just to throw every one of those fruits into a blender and call that a smoothie, but that would be WAY too much fruit sugar all at once. So I add as much protein as I can. I have noticed that this keeps me full for a very long time. I normally take a lunch hour around 1pm, and this satisfies until then for sure!

smoothie 1

Green Apple Smoothie

1 Large  Green Apple- seeded & cored (if your blender is a little on the wimpy side you may want to peel it as well)

5 medium carrots

1 cup homemade yogurt

2 raw eggs*

1 cup greens (not Kale, not making that mistake again)

1 Tbsp coconut oil

Directions:

  • Put it all in the blender, duh
  • Pour it in a glass and get in the car and go to work! Hurry up you have 1 minute and 8 seconds to be out the door!
  • * I wouldn’t consume the average commerically farmed egg raw. That shit will kill you. I am lucky to be madly in love with a chicken farmer, who grows me organic, completely free-range and soy-free eggs (why soy free you ask? READ THIS). They are bright orange-yolked bundles of goodness, full of Omega 3’s and all 23 essential amino acids. Really, the perfect food. You should find yourself such a source and eat raw eggs until the cows come home. Or the chickens in this case.

green smoothieWhat does it taste like you ask? It tastes mildly sweet and very creamy with a bit of tartness from the yogurt and the apple. You could probably sweeten it with Stevia or something, but I like it just fine as is. But I’m weird so…

Related Articles:
Is Cancer a Fungus?

Is Candida Overgrowth a Real Problem?

The Easiest Cancer Cure in the World?

Heat Free Homeade Yogurt!

How to Make Yogurt in the Crock Pot

Real Food Recipes

Candida Diet Taco Salad

 

Taco Salad for the Candida Free Kitchen

2/3 Cup Quinoa

1 Cup homemade Bone Broth

1 lb ground turkey/chicken/beef/venison etc

2-4 Tbsp homemade Taco Seasoning

Romaine or iceberg Lettuce

Olives

Diced Onions

Green Chilies

Grape or Cherry Tomatoes

Sliced avocado

homemade Salsa Verde or ‘green sauce” as Rob likes to call it.

  • Bring bone broth to a boil, add quinoa and simmer until tender
  • Brown ground meat
  • Add cooked quinoa, and homemade taco seasoning. Adding more broth if mixture is too dry
  • Allow mixture to cool slightly
  • Toss mixture with all remaining ingredients to make salad.
  • Top with homemade yogurt if desired.

We love this meal. Something about the still slightly warm meat mixture and the crunchy cold lettuce. Yum! Plus it is “Phase One” safe, if you are following a Candida free way of life, or just plain trying to eat more vegetables!

Candida Cleanse And What To Eat

So I have decided that I’m going to give Gary Kaufmans “Phase One” diet a try and see what happens. I am going to follow it to the letter, including all of the anti-fungal herbs and supplements that he recommends in his books. And you get to follow along on my journey of pain and suffering whether you like it or not. If have no idea what I’m talking about READ THIS first.

Colorful vegetables and fruits

My Symptoms to Start:

  • Constantly and wildly fluctuating hormone levels
  • Hair Loss
  • Sinus congestion
  • Alternating Anxiety and Depression (are we having fun yet?)
  • Constipation
  • Brain Fog
  • Bloated Abdomen
  • Fierce Chocolate Cravings

We are about to find out if any of this is caused by a systemic fungal infection or if I am just a hypochondriac 🙂

grilled veggies

The Diet:

 Eat ONLY the Following Foods

Meats:

Beef, Fish, Poultry, Lamb, Turkey, Pork

Nuts:

Raw nuts, including pecans, almonds, walnuts, cashews, and pumpkin seeds.  Stored Nuts tend to gather mold, so be careful!
No Peanuts and No Pistachio’s

Vegetables:

Most fresh, unblemished vegetables and freshly made vegetable juice. (avoid mushrooms, corn, and potatoes)

Beverages:

Bottled or filtered water, non-fruity herbal teas, stevia sweetened fresh lemonade or limeade, freshly squeezed carrot juice.

Fruits:

Berries, grapefruit, lemon, lime, green apples, avocado, fresh coconut

Dairy:

Organic butter, organic plain yogurt, ( use the following very sparingly) cream cheese, unsweetened whipping cream, real sour cream


Eggs

Vinegar:

Apple cider vinegar

Oils:

Olive, grape, flax-seed, cold pressed virgin coconut oil.

Sweeteners:

Stevia,  Xylitol.

brussles sprouts2

According to www.knowthecause.com:

PHASE ONE DIET

“This diet minimizes fungal food, because it minimizes sugars that fungi require in order to grow.  Ask your doctor about experimenting with this diet for 30 days and monitor your results.   Many people keep a dietary log each day and share this with their doctor upon their next visit.  Often, people begin to challenge this diet, wanting back some of the foods they miss, after achieving good results within a month or two.  Most find that their symptoms begin coming back as they go back to their regular diets.  This indicates that the fungi were successfully starved, but perhaps not eradicated.  Many people, after reading our recipe books, realize that there are hundreds of wholesome and delicious recipes on this phase one diet.  With their symptoms much better and their diets now getting more exciting, this diet becomes the genesis of their health program.”

Ok Doug, we’ll see! I’ll share my arsenal of anti-fungal drugs and start on new recipes tomorrow. I’m scared! Did you notice the complete lack of cookies on this program? No cookies! Holy Crap! Wish me luck.

Related Posts:

Is Cancer a Fungal Infection?
The Easiest Cancer Cure in the World?
Is Candida Overgrowth a Real Problem?

 

Brussels Sprouts with Bacon

This recipe is very simple, but full of flavor. I love the saltiness of the bacon, the sweetness of the raisins and the bitter brussels sprouts all mixed together. A fabulous side dish!

Brussels Sprouts with Bacon

3 slices thick bacon

4 cups brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved

1/4 cup golden raisins

1 medium shallot, minced

1 Tbsp butter

1/2 cup homemade chicken stock

2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

sea salt and fresh pepper to taste

  • In a heavy skillet, cook bacon until crispy. Remove from pan and set aside to crisp up.
  • Add Brussels sprouts to the pan and season with salt and pepper. Cook until well browned and almost soft. About 7 minutes.
  • Reduce heat to low and add raisins, shallot and butter. Cook 3 minutes
  • Add broth and bring to a boil, being sure to scrape up all the browned bits from the bottom of the pan.
  • Reduce heat and simmer broth 1-2 minutes.
  • Mix in vinegar and crumbled bacon. Taste and season as needed. Serve warm.

I only had a tiny amount of golden raisins on hand, so I added 1/4 cup of dried cranberries also. It turned out delicious!

I mix mine with lettuce or spinach and eat it like a salad. Yum!

 

 

 

Lake Trout with Morels

Any fish will work for this recipe. Just pick your favorite fillet and go with it. We just happened to have a huge lake trout in the freezer, so this is what I used. It is finally mushroom season, and morels are my favorite. Time to stock up!

Lake Trout with Morels

1 lb fish fillets 1/2 to 3/4 thick

2 Tbsp butter

1 1/2 cups fresh mushrooms, sliced

1/3 cup green onion, sliced

Sea salt

1 tsp fresh thyme, or 1/4 tsp dry thyme

  • Thaw fish if frozen. Pat dry and place in baking dish. Sprinkle with sea salt.
  • In a saucepan melt butter and add mushrooms, onions and thyme. Cook until tender.
  • Pour over fish and bake in 450 degree oven for 12-18 minutes. Fish should flake easily with a fork when done.

If you are lucky enough to have a surplus of morels this year there are many ways to preserve them. I have tried just about everything, and several methods work.

1. I thoroughly rinse the mushrooms in cold water. Then sauté in butter for no longer than 3 minutes. Let cool and place in a zip lock baggie with juices from pan. When you are ready to eat, cut off the plastic bag and place the whole frozen block in a skillet. Cover and cook on low. Tastes just like fresh, with a slight difference in firmness and texture.

2. I have dried them on a string in the attic for a month, I have laid them on the oven rack and dried them at 160 degrees for about an hour. I have laid them on window screens out in the back yard until dry. I have never owned a dehydrator, so that’s the only method I haven’t used. Of everything I’ve tried, threading them onto a string (like a little mini-clothes line) was by far the best. When rehydrated the taste and texture was exactly the same as fresh out of the ground. Maybe because no heat is used?

3. I have washed and drained the mushrooms so they are almost dry. Then laid them on a cookie sheet and placed them in the freezer until solid. Pack into bags and vacuüm seal. This method changed the texture a bit, but the flavor was the same.

4. My least favorite method was packing a mason jar (or other freezer container) with mushrooms, covering that with cold water and freezing. They would be ok for soup, but the texture was too mushy for my tastes. And a lot of the flavor gets dumped out with the water after thawing.

Happy mushroom hunting!

The Truth about Sea Salt

Hawaiian Deep Sea Salt

Salt has received a lot of press in past years. One minute it is absolutely essential to life, and the next it is giving you hypertension and trying to kill you.

Salt contains sodium, which is necessary for life. It also provides chloride, which produces acid necessary to digest protein. Chloride is also essential to proper brain growth and function. Salt contains magnesium, which is important for many, many functions and is a crucial, but often overlooked mineral. See my post about magnesium here. Salt is important for muscle contraction and expansion, nerve stimulation, and the proper functioning of the adrenal glands. As with any thing on earth, moderation is the key. The body needs 500 mg of sodium per day. Today the average person eats 6,000 to 10,000 mg of sodium per day!

The truth lies in the different types of salt.

Celtic Sea Salt

Table Salt

  • Heated to over 1,200 degrees
  • Highly processed
  • Mined from rock salt beds
  • 97.5 sodium chloride
  • Added iodine
  • Aluminum hydroxide added as a ‘flowing agent’
  • Added silicon dioxide and dextrose
  • Added fluoride
  • Often contains corn sugar to make it more palatable

Sea Salt

  • Unrefined
  • Unheated
  • Extracted from ocean water by evaporation
  • High mineral content: potassium, calcium, magnesium, selenium, copper, iron, zinc, and manganese.
  • Contains zero additives
  • Contains microscopic plant life, which naturally contain iodine
  • Contains live enzymes, which aid in digestion

Portugese Sea Salt

I love sea salt, and find the highest quality that I can afford. By far the best tasting salt I’ve ever had is Selina Naturally Hawaiian Sea Salt. It happens to also be the sea salt with the #1 highest mineral content. So if you are looking for my top recommendation, that would be it. (around $24 lb)

Runner up: Celtic Brand Sea Salt, not quite as high in mineral content, but very delicious. ($11.00 lb)

Other high quality sea salts I like are Selina Naturally Portuguese Sea Salt ($8 lb) and Himalayan Sea Salt ($5 lb).

Most other brands I’ve seen marketed as natural sea salt, have such low mineral content that you might as well buy iodized table salt and not bother.

Himalayan Sea Salt

The Worlds Best Barbeque Sauce (sugar free)

It is grilling season, so it’s time to whip up my secret weapon. I have been adapting and changing this recipe for so many years that I don’t remember what I originally started with. All I remember is that I had a half used can of tomato paste in the fridge I was trying to get rid of, and this recipe was somehow born. I love that it has no sugar, but still tastes sweet and has this great spicy kick that goes well with just about any meat. I also really love the base of nourishing bone broth, which you can never have too much of.  Tonight we’re grilling bone-in pork ribs from our local farmer with some cornbread. Mmmm, I’m getting hungry just thinking about it!

The Worlds Best Barbeque Sauce

makes 2 cups

1 Tbsp grass-fed butter or coconut oil

1 cup sweet onion, diced small

1 Tbsp soy sauce

3-4 cloves of garlic, minced

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp dry mustard powder

1 tsp oregano

1 tsp basil

1 tsp chipotle chili powder

1 Tbsp chili powder

1 can (6 oz) tomato paste

1 1/2 cups homemade chicken stock (or beef or vegetable)

2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

1/2-1 tsp stevia powder (or sweetener of choice)

Heat butter/oil in sauce pan and sauté onion for 3-4 minutes until translucent. Add all remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. You can serve it just like this, but I like to boil it down to thicken it a while. I turn down the heat, cover the pan and let it simmer for 20 minutes or so. I also find the longer cooking time melds the flavors, and it turns out even more delicious.

I have used this sauce on every cut of pork, beef and chicken that I can think of. It is a great marinade, basting sauce, oven baking glaze and dipping sauce. If you are feeding young kids or someone who doesn’t like spicy food you may want to add the chili powder a little bit at a time and taste as you go.

If you want to make this even healthier, you could let it cool and add 2 tbsp of whey and leave it on the counter over night. Then you would have a sugar-free probiotic condiment.

This keeps for 3 weeks in the fridge, and also freezes very well. If you eat as much meat as we do, it won’t last you that long 🙂

Related Posts:
Coffee Spice Rub

Tender Grilled Brisket

Real Food Taco Soup (in the crockpot)

Real Food Chili (in the crockpot)

Real Food Lasagna (SO Simple)

Stuffed Green Peppers in the Crockpot

Country Fried Steak

Real Food Meatloaf

The Worlds Best Chimichangas!!

COMPLETE LIST OF REAL FOOD RECIPES

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