If you are a faithful reader from the beginning, I apologize, this is an old recipe.  It needed a better picture and a little revamping! This is one of my hubby’s favorite dinners.  Unfortunately, it is one of the least photogenic recipes that I make.  No matter what I do, it still looks like a big lump of almond butter on chicken and vegetables! It is, however, very easy and has a ton of flavor!  Using some chicken and some Paleo pantry stables, this is a quick recipe that seems to be popular with several husbands of some of my blog readers!

This is originally a  recipe from A Year of Slow Cooking.  If you haven’t checked out this blog, you should.  It is genius.  She cooked with a Crockpot everyday for a year, in 2008, and blogged the good, the bad and the ugly.  Simple, yummy food.  She also has a child that is celiac so the recipes are already gluten free, they don’t need much adapting to be Paleo! One of my most used blogs for recipes.

Almond Butter Chicken

• 1-2 lbs chicken breast or chicken thighs
• 1/2 cup almond butter
• 1 Tbsp cumin
• 1 tsp crushed garlic
• 1 lime, juiced
• 1/4 cup GF soy sauce/coconut aminos
• 1/2 cup chicken broth

Notes:

• If you don’t have a lime, use another form of citrus (such as orange juice, lemon).
• Consider doubling the sauce, it is awesome on rice, cauliflower rice or some steamed vegetables like broccoli!
• I have also made this recipe in the oven and on the stove top. It turns out great!
• You can cook the sauce with the chicken or on its own, you decide.

 Directions:

1.  Spray a 4quart slow cooker. Put the chicken into the bottom and add the almond butter.
2.  Add cumin and garlic.
3.  Squeeze in lime, and add soy sauce/coconut aminos and chicken broth.
4..  Stir as well as you can to combine (the almond butter will be clumpy, and that’s just fine).
5. Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours, or on high for about 4 hours.
6.  Serve over rice or cauliflower rice and vegetables.

Here is a great recipe with multistep pictures to show you how to make delicious cauliflower rice from Nom Nom Paleo.

Other Asian inspired recipes to check out:

• Beef and Broccoli - This is so easy and turns out SO GOOD!
• Lemon Chicken…also great, although I would cut back on her use of the lemonade concentrate. Just use lemon juice and honey, or at the least, only use half of the can.
• Orange Chicken…Made this twice this month and forgot to take a picture! Aaagghhh. Seriously good.
• Lettuce Wraps….an old post of mine

I love this recipe! I have been trying to experiment a little bit more with veggies. I have been partially inspired by Go Kaleo (www.gokaleo.com), a super cool lady I follow on FB.  She is pretty awesomely NOT Paleo.  She posts some awesome veggie pictures and recipes and workouts.  She made some points lately about people thinking they don’t like vegetables, but only because they don’t properly know how to prepare them.  I think she is right.  We get so excited about our baking and meat recipes that we don’t think about making our vegetables exciting and different.  I had a lot of good response on the Cauliflower Caponata recipe from a few weeks ago.When I  saw this recipe posted somewhere on the internet a week or so ago, I knew I had to give it a try.  I love Greek food and tabbouleh is something I have missed!

I made a few modifications based on what I had available, but the original recipe is here: http://www.realfooddigest.com/cauliflower-tabbouleh/  I like to give credit where credit is due, and this was a genius idea.

I get a lot of questions about the process of cooking, getting ideas, making substitutions, etc…so I just want to walk the reader through what I was thinking to end up with my final product. 

• Cauliflower rice is a great little paleo trick.  Just pulse the cauliflower through your food processor.  You can make “fried rice” or “mashed potatoes” with it. 
• The recipe called for chopped tomatoes or pomegranate seeds.  This is a pretty central component of tabbouleh.  I personally don’t like regular tomatoes out of season and although I love pomegranate seeds, you can only get them at Trader Joe’s.  I didn’t want to make a special trip and several of my blog readers don’t live anywhere near TJ’s anyways.  I decided to substitute strawberries, because I have a ton of them.  Strawberries provided the same sweetness and juicy-ness that the pomegranate seeds would have. 
• I will eat almost anything, but I HATE green peppers, so I left those out.

Paleo Tabbouleh

• 3/4 head of cauliflower, pulsed in food processor
• 1 large bunch of parsley, finely chopped
• 1 bunch of mint, finely chopped
• 1/2 cup strawberries, diced
• 1 bunch of green onions, chopped
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 lemons, juiced
• 1/2 to 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1 pinch allspice (can use a little bit of ground cloves here)
• 1 pinch cinnamon

1.  Out of sheer laziness, I threw the parsley, mint, green onions and strawberries into the food processor and pulsed them together.  It would probably be more visually appealing if the individual components were chopped appropriatly.  Maybe next time!

2.  Mix all ingredients in a large bowl. 

I served this with a chicken that I had roasted.  I covered it in coconut oil and Penzey’s Greek Seasoning. 

Catching up on some old recipes again here.  I have made this dish twice, once for a potluck and once for dinner.  The hubby doesn’t much like cauliflower, but he really like this one.  It seemed to go over pretty well at the potluck, also.  You are going to eat A LOT of veggies when you go paleo/primal, so you might as well stock up on recipes that make those same old veggies taste different! It goes a long way in getting your family to jump on board!

Other than the golden raisins and pine nuts, which we didn’t have and I had to search for a little in the grocery store, all the other ingredients were in my pantry.  There is no reason you couldn’t omit one of those things.  This would still be great just with the sauce.

Cauliflower Caponata (inspired by Primal Blueprint Quick and Easy Meals)

• 1/4 cup olive or coconut oil
• 1 cauliflower head, broken into small pieces
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 shallot, diced
• 1 garlic clove, minced (I used the stuff in the bottle. Gasp.)
• 1/4 cup golden raisins
• 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1 Tbsp honey
• 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
• salt and pepper

On a baking sheet, spread out cauliflower and toss with oil.  Roast at 350 degrees until the edges start to turn a little brown.  You may have to toss it a couple of times in the meanwhile. (The recipe calls for sauteeing the cauliflower in a pan, but I like roasting it, do what you like.) 

While cauliflower is roasting, saute onion and shallots in some oil for a minute, add all other ingredients (except pine nuts) and simmer with a lid on medium-low heat for about 10 minutes.  Stir a couple of times. 

Throw cauliflower into a big bowl, pour “sauce” over it and toss together.  Add pine nuts and salt/pepper to taste. 

Double or triple this and take it to a potluck! Made great leftovers.