Guys. We’re mad geniuses (said as we pour bubbly, brightly colored liquids into various beakers while wearing white lab coats and manically laughing – JK, that’s not how we cook here…).

In an effort to prove that “gluten-free” and “boring” are not synonyms, we went a little wild. We’re all about shirking labels today. Welcome to Garlic, My Soul: Mad Scientist Edition.

Even we weren’t sure that bacon in granola was really going to work. But it exceeded all our expectations. We’ve been eating it for breakfast with a nice plain greek yogurt and it has been just heavenly. Salty, sweet…healthy? Probably not. But that’s half the fun.

We didn’t set out to but we did inadvertently prove that keeping to a gluten-free diet doesn’t mean you always have to eat healthy either. Eat what you want (except gluten, duh) and live well, wheat-sensitive friends. You deserve it. Being gluten-free can be hard so why not make it fun and even sometimes enviable along the way?

Treat yourself to that fancy cut of bacon you’ve been eyeing (we used Applegate brand) and pour in those bacon drippings unashamedly. For life is far too short not to eat bacon (if you adhere to that sort of thing. Sorry veggies! This is still a great gluten-free recipe just ditch the pork!)

Ingredients

½ cup gluten free steel cut oats
½ cup gluten free rolled oats
¼ cup golden flax seeds
2 tablespoons golden flax seed meal
1 tablespoon pure maple syrup
2 teaspoons coconut oil, in liquid form
All the bacon drippings (optional but amazing)
¼ cup chopped gluten free, preservative free bacon

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375.
2. Cover a large baking sheet with tin foil. Set aside.
3. Measure and mix all dry ingredients in a large bowl.
4. If you’re preparing bacon yourself, cook to your own desired done-ness. We love ours extra crispy, which also just happens to work amazingly for this recipe. Just a tip.
5. Drizzle in maple syrup, coconut oil (heat/melt if your coconut oil is solid) and bacon drippings.
6. Mix until fully incorporated.
7. Spread evenly on foiled baking sheet.
8. Place on top rack for approximately 20 minutes, rotating after 10. Depending on your oven, you may need more time, you may need less. Keep an eye on it. It’ll burn easily!
9. Remove from oven when it is your desired crispiness and enjoy with plain greek yogurt or even an egg. Go wild this morning!

The turkey sandwich is kind of a Palluzzi thing. When Nikki got engaged, she celebrated with a turkey sandwich. When I got engaged, I also celebrated over a turkey sandwich. It’s all we want to eat when we’re starving, or happy, or sad, content, or distraught. It’s just what we want.

When we were little we would have a big loaf of Italian bread and line up to make a family’s worth of turkey and cheese sandwiches. It’s what we’d have at our beach house, it’s what we’d have during long stretches of summer vacation, it’s what was available for school lunches and late night snacks. Turkey sandwiches are probably one of my strongest food memories, besides Italian food galore, and they are just always the thing that reminds me of family and home and love. Turkey sandwiches are safe. They’re our soul. Garlic, and Turkey Sandwiches, our Soul, was an alternate blog title.

I consulted with Nikki on this sandwich to make sure we captured the essence of what makes the perfect sandwich, and I’m pretty happy with the results.

Here are the basics of what you need for your sandwich:

Palluzzi Sisters Turkey & Cheese Sandwich

deli turkey (or fresh turkey)
cheese (white American preferred, in this case Gouda)
greens (in this case, microgreens, also sprouts suggested)
avocado
aioli/mustard/mayo (Nikki hates mayo, but I love it; dealer’s choice)
bread (baguette preferred, or Italian bread)
tomato (optional: Nikki hates it, and I need it to be the perfect one in order to eat it raw)
s/p
chips (not really optional, but any kind you want)

This particular one is the perfect, perfect turkey and cheese you guys. Nikki recommends putting the chips directly on the sandwich, if you’re in the mood, which you probably are. We love salt and vinegar, or ridges, but you can use whatever you want/have – we usually have tortilla chips around. And – make sure you pepper that avocado, as it just adds a little something-something.

What are some of your food memories? Do you have things that remind you of family and home?

Whenever we’re experimenting with paleo recipes, we have to remind ourselves to try new foods and meals. That’s why trying plantains seemed like a perfect choice for this paleo blog post! We made one big batch of plantains and coated them in different seasonings, making a potato-style dish, perfect as a hearty side for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, as well as a sweeter dessert style, tossed in honey and cinnamon – great as a sweet treat. We’d recommend this paleo dish as a special treat, since it requires twice frying the plantains, but it’s oh-so-tasty!

Since we hadn’t made plantains before, we used this recipe as a base and then re-worked it to make it paleo-friendly and easy-to-use.

Ingredients

2 cups water
1 tablespoon garlic powder
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 and a ½ cups olive oil (could also try subbing in ghee or coconut oil)
2 green plantains

Toppings

Paprika
Salt / pepper
Honey
Cinnamon

Directions

1. Put water, garlic powder and salt in a bowl. Set aside.
2. Peel and slice plantains
3. In a large pan heat olive oil (325 degrees recommended)
4. Add plantains to pan in a single layer. Fry for 1-1/2 minutes.
5. Flip and fry again.
6. Remove the plantains and place them on a paper towel lined baking sheet.
7. Use a flat spatula or slated wooden spoon to squash each plantain (you want to press them down to about half their width).
8. Put the plantains in the water mixture. Let sit for 1 minute.
9. Remove them and pat out extra moisture with paper towels.
10. Bring the oil back up to 325 degrees F.
11. Add plantains back in. Fry for 2-4 minutes.
12. Flip. Fry again.
13. Remove the plantains and set on another paper towel. Now for the fun part!
14. Toss the plantains in seasoning. For the home fry style, toss in a medium sized bowl with the paprika and salt and paper. For the dessert style, add the plantains to a bowl, drizzle honey on top, toss, drizzle again, toss and then add your cinnamon. The plantains should be evenly coated. Serve!

The plantain home fries style has a potato texture and the dessert style plantains tossed in honey and cinnamon are a decadent treat both paleo and non-paleo eaters will love!

What do you guys think of plantains? Do you like them, have you ever tried to cook with them? Share your recipes here for us to try!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, chickens!

This year, we went over to a friend’s house a few nights ago to celebrate this most Irish, and therefore Bostonian, of holidays. There was Guinness and potatoes and shamrock-shaped cookies, and I made Soda Bread on request, since it is one of my fave things and reminds me of my mom and growing up and learning the ropes in Los Angeles all in one tiny delicious buttered bundle.

When I moved to Los Angeles, I wanted to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with some soda bread. St. Patrick’s Day in LA is often overlooked, with none of the parades, shouting frat boys, car bomb shots at every local pub, and generally good cheer in which it was celebrated during my college years in Boston.

I couldn’t find currants anywhere. None to be found in my local groceries stores, and this before I ventured routinely to the bulk bins of Whole Foods, where I eventually did find some a couple years later. But I found raisins, I had my mom’s recipe, and off I went.

This year, as I volunteered once again to whip out the bread, my host B and I walked through the recipe he uses and the importance of soaking the raisins with whiskey, so the end product bread isn’t dry. I used currants, of course, and made sure to let them soak overnight in whiskey so that they were plump and juicy when they were mixed into A Cozy Kitchen’s batter. I also have a recipe here, that’s a little sweeter than the one I used, if that’s your jam. I made it with my friend A which was why I love baking and holidays – a chance to spend time doing something you love with people you love! And, of course, then drinking beers on 90 degree days.

Whatever your fave recipe, I hope you make it tonight and have soda bread for breakfast all week – it seems like the best way to welcome in spring coming later this week. Make sure to slather each piece with a hefty serving of butter and drink a cup of tea or coffee with this for maximum happiness.

Hope you’re celebrating wherever you are tonight, friends!

First off, I don’t know how this smoothie ended up being green but to say that my beet was striped white and pink and didn’t seem to have the usual beet qualities of staining everything they come in contact with. Good for my cutting boards, hands, knives, and kitchen, but bad for a beet colored smoothie.

Since spring is coming and since St. Patrick’s Day is this week, the green works. If you drank a bunch this weekend and need to mellow out and get back to fruits and veg this recipe is for you. If you also like simple breakfasts that you can mix up the night before, this is for you, too.

This beet smoothie is good even if you don’t like beets too much, because you use the greens, too, which mellow out the beet flavor. But, if you like beets you can add an extra half of beet and all will be right in the world.

Beet Greens & Citrus Smoothie
Adapted Slightly from Simple Green Smoothies
Serves 2
2 cups beet greens
1/2 cup water
2 oranges, peeled
1 raw beet, washed and diced
2 tbsp fresh grated ginger
Juice of ½ lemon

Directions: Mix all in a blender and blend until smooth. Makes 2 smoothies – one for now, one for later.

This would also be good with a little yogurt and some granola or berries, if you’re looking for a heftier breakfast, or you can split it up into four smaller servings – whatever floats your boat!

Here’s to cleansing Monday smoothies, amiright?!