So, I was perusing my mounds of cooking magazines a few weeks ago and ran across this beauty. (BTW, I may have a problem… So. Many. Magazines.) It’s gorgeous, impressive, wonderfully Paleo, and more than a little intimidating.  For several weeks, it stayed at the back of my mind – I figured I’d wait for a dinner party or even Thanksgiving to try it out, but on Friday Central Market was running a special on pork tenderloins, so I figured I’d give it a try. All by myself.

What I didn’t realize when I bought all the supplies (rookie mistake = not THOROUGHLY reading the instructions before shopping), is that I would actually need to do a little butchery to make this happen.  As it turns out, it was a lot easier than I thought… I’m toying with the idea of a video instructional – anyone interested?

I didn’t really alter the recipe at all – it’s pretty stinking amazing to start with, so check it out on BonAppetit.com:

RECIPE: Bon Appetit Prosciutto-Wrapped Pork Loin with Roasted Apples

So, here’s a little photo account of the preparation. I’ll say up front that I really liked how this dish turned out… It’s a teensy bit complicated, but the flavors are lovely and you can’t beat the presentation. You can even make it a day ahead and then roast just before your dinner… perfect!

Let’s dig in… I’m a huge proponent of the mise en place style of cooking (French for “everything in place”). Especially with a dish with lots of components, I find it super helpful to get all my ingredients prepped and separated into individual containers. This can also help avoid any surprises mid-recipe when you realized that you totally forgot to buy mushrooms. Here’s my mise en place setup for this recipe:

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Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Apples

I’m back! Whew! So sorry for the lag in posting – it’s been a crazy month, and we’ve either been out of town or had house guests the last four weekends in a row. Tons of fun, but it didn’t leave a lot of time for experimenting in the kitchen.  Finally got some downtime with the hubs yesterday, and it really was a fantastic day – woke up to the rain (Rain? In Austin? Seriously??), went for a nice, easy Sunday run, practiced my double-unders & handstands, ate a delish bun-less burger at Hopdoddy (I tried the Llano Poblano – yum!), and then rounded things out with Halloween costume shopping on South Congress (going to rock it this year!). Just lovely. We capped off the day by cooking dinner together and then watching John Carpenter’s The Thing (the original)… really a fantastic film, and despite being made in the early 80’s, it totally stands up today.

So, back to the food!  We made a couple of new dishes yesterday – all the recipes are coming shortly! Let’s start with my favorite of the newbies: Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Apples. Both P.J. and I agreed that this one just tasted like Fall and would be a really great Paleo Thanksgiving side option.  Hope you like ’em! Check out the recipe after the jump…

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One seriously gorgeous cooked lobster.

As you all know, I recently made the leap into true carnivore-dom (yep, I’m totally calling that a word) by killing, cooking and eating my dinner for the first time: lobster! As it turns out, the cooking part of the meal was quite straightforward (aside from placing the live, moving lobster in the water – that one got my heart pounding a little)… if you can boil water, you can cook a lobster.   The bigger challenge is getting all that delicious meat OUT of the lobster’s shell so you can actually enjoy it.  Luckily, my brother Andy was on hand to do the dirty work of cracking shells and harvesting the meat.  Poor guy had no idea how much work he was getting into!

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Paleo Sweet Potato Pancakes on the Griddle

Since going Paleo, I have to say that breakfast has become a whole different animal for me. I’ve always been a breakfast person, but for years, breakfast consisted of a glass of skim milk, a banana, and a cereal bar. Holy glycemic spike, Batman! I’d feel great for about 45 minutes, and then I’d be starving and dragging within a couple of hours… it was all I could do to make it to lunch.

These days, I get some pretty awesome sideways looks from my coworkers when I pull out leftover ribeye and salad to have for breakfast.  I’ll admit, it took some getting used to, but I feel so much more satisfied having some good protein and fat in the morning… I’m no longer starving by lunch, and my energy levels stay much more constant throughout the day. That said, every once in a while I’ll get a craving for some traditional breakfast food… e.g. pancakes.  Given that I love sweet potatoes, I figured I’d give some Paleo sweet potato pancakes a try for me and the hubby over the weekend.  There are tons of great recipes out there, and here’s my custom version, topped with sauteed cinnamon apples.

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Tender, Juicy Sous Vide Pork Chops

I can’t even tell you how excited I am about this recipe… As you know, I got my very own SousVide Supreme for my birthday in July – each new recipe is an experiment! I’d been eyeing the beautiful bone-in pork chops at the Central Market meat counter, and I figured they’d make a good 2nd dish to try out (first dish was a ribeye… still need to work on that one). Pork can be a bit of a challenge to cook without the right tools – it’s super easy to dry it out, and there are few things that I like less than a dried-out pork chop. Ugh. So, I did a little hunting around and ran across a Williams Sonoma recipe that I’ve adapted for the blog… Check it out after the jump!

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Decadent Flourless Chocolate Cake with Banana-Cinnamon Sauce

At my core, I am a baker. I LOVE baked goods… cupcakes, cakes, cookies, caramels, etc. I loved baking so much that I had my own cake design business for several years. One tiny little problem… everything I used to make was loaded with gluten and processed sugars. Sure, I used the highest quality ingredients out there – imported chocolate, European butter, Madagascar vanilla. But, at the end of the day, there was a lot of not-great stuff in those tasty treats, and that just doesn’t jive with my Paleo lifestyle these days.

That said, I’m still not willing to give up the OCCASIONAL baked treat, and figuring out how to make “healthier” versions of past favorites is going to be an ongoing goal. I am super excited about this recipe… my husband and I test-drove it this weekend, and it is stinking delicious. Seriously. I had to get it out of the house as quickly as possible. An extra bonus? It was ridiculously easy to make.

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