Bacon-Wrapped Chicken

What a long title! This yummy and nourishing meal is full of good fats and protein, it's sure to become a family favorite!

A few months ago I discovered an ingredient I believe everyone should have in their pantries - smoked paprika. Yes, smoked. I'll admit, it sounds scary at first, but in the hands of a good recipe, it is a bombshell of flavor. It will make you want to replace paprika with smoked paprika in all your recipes! Use restraint with this spice, however, because unlike some dried spices, a little goes a long way. The marinade/rub for this chicken is great and it makes enough for leftovers, which I now have in my fridge. It's perfect for when you need a quick homemade sauce quick, so don't be shy - make the whole batch. I actually halved the recipe from the original amount.

I made this recipe for dinner tonight. G was coming home from work and I wanted something extra special he would just love. We are all on different schedules, and he had not had a "real" homecooked dinner (besides homecooked leftovers from the fridge) for a while. He loves all protein and anything involving bacon in his world = good. I actually have to agree with him! Bacon is quite tasty. Up until a few months ago we never had bacon in the house. It was too "unhealthy" - full of saturated pork fat. But now that my mom and I have been learning about real food, we have bacon again. G and my Dad are very happy! Now we buy two types of bacon, a pork bacon for G, and a turkey bacon for me and mom because we would rather not eat pork. I used two bacons for this chicken - I wrapped mine in turkey bacon and G's in pork bacon, so feel free to use whatever bacon you fancy. They both work extremely well!

Smoked Paprika Roasted Chicken wrapped in Bacon (and stuffed with Cheese)

with spices from Elise

4 chicken thighs with bones and skin, or boneless chicken breasts with skin

1 package turkey bacon or pork bacon

1 Tbsp smoked paprika

1 Tbsp honey

1 1/2 tsp fresh squeezed lemon juice from organic meyer lemons

1 1/2 tsp Tbsp softed real grassfed butter

1/2 tsp sea salt - I used himalayan

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp pepper

cheese of choice, I used aged cheddar cheese - I was all out of raw cheddar!

To make your smoked paprika chicken:

1. Take your chicken and turn them over so the skin is down.

2. If you have chicken breasts, make a slit in one side and stuff in two thick pieces of cheese. If you have chicken thighs like I did, make two slits along the bone and stuff in two chunks of cheese as much as you can. Carefully bring both sides of the chicken together and turn the chicken over.

3. Wrap the chicken with 1 to 3 pieces of bacon, however much is desired, making sure the ends stay tucked under the chicken.

4. In a small bowl, combine spice ingredients. Fold together with a spatula and spread a small dollop on top of each bacon wrapped piece of chicken. Get messy - using your hands (you could use a pastry brush as well) rub the marinade all over the chicken making sure to cover all possible spots on the chicken, not only the top.

5. Place chicken in a large glass casserole dish and roast covered with tin foil at 350 degrees for about an hour. Take chicken out and baste with juices. Then for 15 minutes increase to 375. Finally, take off the foil and roast at 400 degrees for a final 15 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through and the bacon is lightly browned. Remove from the oven and baste with juices before serving. Serve warm with roasted brown sugar and buttered carrots and oven roasted yukon gold potato fries.

6. Enjoy!

G so enjoyed this recipe, as did I. I will definitely be making this again but will use chicken breasts so I can add bacon inside and more cheese. The cheese in my chicken melted and added to the chickens flavor and moisture, and also the outside juices - but it did not stay cheesy in the chicken. It was still good though!

In the photos - the double wrapped is pork bacon, the single wrapped is turkey bacon. Also, that is Annies organic ketchup (which beats Heinz in any taste test, I've done it with my friends and family, you'll be surprised with the results!) and Guldens dijon mustard with some goat and sheep feta from Whole Foods. Not in the picture, there was some local kimchi on the side! Such a tasty meal! It surely will become a staple in the family food rotation!

Boston Baked Beans

Before you scroll down and see the recipe let me just tell you from the get-go. This is not a traditional recipe for Boston Baked beans. I am from New England. And because I am I can take certain liberties with certain regional traditional dishes.

Also let me tell you that I've never made any sort of baked beans in my life. I knew I wanted some of these for dinner. See, I grew up having the canned baked beans. They were good. Everyone loved them. Even though Boston is nigh two hours away, no one really questioned why we did not have authentic Boston beans. We had canned beans that were good - so who cared?

My love of cooking and learning about my allergies has definitely changed what we eat. How could it not? We cannot go out and buy cream of chicken soup anymore to make that super-duper wicked easy to throw together casserole. Enjoying food at Christmas parties and church functions has gone out the window. But never have I been so happy. We eat real, fresh, whole unprocessed foods. What can get any better than that?

And seriously, if you haven't figured it out - processed food is soo overrated.

Boston Baked Beans

adapted from JustHungry

1 lb grassfed beef, browned

3 cans navy beans

1 Tbsp organic light brown sugar, packed

1 tsp: black pepper, ground ginger, ground mustard, cayenne pepper

2 tsp sea salt

2 medium sized red peppers, chopped very small

1 medium green pepper, chopped very small

1 medium vadalia onion, diced

4 slices raw/uncooked turkey bacon

2/3 cup molasses

4 cups water*

To make your baked beans:

1. In a crockpot, place all ingredients in and stir.

2. Turn on high for at least 4 hours.

3. Turn on low or warm and simmer until ready to serve.

4. Serve hot with brown or white basmati rice, veggies and real cornbread.

*This dish is not thick - it is more like a soup, so use less water if you want less sauce.

My family LOVED this recipe and said, "I hope you wrote down what you did so you can make it again." I must confess that sometimes I create a dish in the kitchen and do not write it down. Then sometimes they like it and request it again. I can usually remember nearly all the ingredients, but usually am missing some! That doesn't exactly work if we want to have the recipe again!

Banana Cake

Banana cake. Everyone needs to have a recipe. Why? It's good, and if you've never had some you won't really understand. Like bananas? Try it! Don't like bananas? Try it! It's like an amazing win-win situation.

It tastes like: bananas and goodness. It is sweet with a gooey cake texture. You will not believe that this cake is not only nourishing, but good for you!

This stuff is so good I almost died. Enough said.

Banana Cake

    makes one 9x13 pan

Cake:

  2 1/2 cup  mashed bananas

  1/2 cup  organic coconut oil

  1/2 cup  organic maple syrup

  10-12 drops  liquid stevia

  3  REAL eggs

  2 cups  blanched almond flour

  1/2 cup  organic coconut flour

  1/4 cup  sorghum flour

  1 tsp  baking soda

  1 tsp  baking powder

  1 tsp  sea salt

  pinch  xantham gum

  1-2 tsp  cinnamon

Topping:

  2 Tbsp  grassfed butter

  1/2 cup  ground walnuts

  2 tsp  organic cane sugar

  2 Tbsp  packed organic light brown sugar

To make your banana cake:

     1.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a glass 9x13 pan. I like to use left over butter wrappers or Misto olive oil spray.

    2.  In a large bowl sift together dry ingredients.

    3.  In a small bowl, mash bananas with a potato masher. Add maple syrup and stevia.

    4.  In another small bowl beat eggs.

    5.  To the large bowl with dry ingredients, add wet ingredients: mashed bananas, eggs and melted coconut oil. Fold together with a spatula until combined.

    6.  To make the topping - place all ingredients in a bowl and use your fingers to smoosh the butter into the sugar and walnuts to make a crumbly mixture.

    7.  Pour batter into prepared pan and sprinkle with walnut topping.

    8.  Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes or until the top has set and a stick inserted through the cake comes out clean. Let pan + cake cool on a wire rack overnight. Eat for breakfast the next day. Restrain eating it all yourself.

Look at the texture. I pulled apart a corner of it so you could really see the yummy banana insides. Well, actually the cake was like that when I got there. Someone was having fun with the cake or eating it or something. And as you can see, it's almost gone. We all definitely did that.

Like I said before, this cake is so good I almost died. I almost died yesterday at breakfast, and the day before, and today. Almost dying when it comes to baked goods is good. Very, very good. Unless it's your neighbor dropping a piano on your head from the 40th flour because the burned cookie smell is drifting into his window. That is not advised.