I love when the universe aligns to allow great things to happen. In this case said alignment resulted in delicious little cups of awesomeness. Gotta love that! When one first begins eating and thus cooking Paleo, there can be the sad face response to delicious very non-Paleo things you encounter in the big, wide world of grains. However, once one begins to dabble in Paleo cooking, I’ve found this as my overwhelming reaction: Jigga Whaaaat: I can totally make that shit Paleo! As such, welcome to my weekend.
I sat down and turned on the tube, almost changed the channel from whatever random, food related show was on the cooking channel until I heard, “lasagna cupcakes.” First response: gross. Second response: curious. The more I watched, the more I desperately wanted to consume those televised goodies, and the more I wanted to consume them without my stomach telling me that I suck as its general overseer of happiness. Thus began the quest to make Paleo-fy Aarti Sequeira’s Lasagna Cupcakes. I kept the first part of her recipe the same because it totally rocks and is Paleo friendly, (you can find her original recipe here,) but I went in and did some serious tweaking with the rest. Actually, not so serious. Very easy and straightforward tweaking. I promise. I also have recently become OBBSESSED with making and consuming my own coconut butter a la Mark Sisson – aka: the man! Here is his recipe. I promise it’s like the easiest thing ever and totally worth it. This recipe has said coconut butter in it, but you can always just use straight-up cashews and I’m sure it will be marvelous.
Next step: start planning a party to celebrate your little meat cups! And then giggle. Just a little.
Ingredients:
Meat Sauce:
- 2 Tbs olive oil
- 1 inch piece of cinnamon stick
- 4 whole cloves
- 1 onion
- 4 cloves garlic
- 1 lbs Italian chicken sausage, casings removed
- ¼ c. tomato paste
- 1 (28 oz. can) crushed tomatoes
- ¼ c. chopped fresh basil
Cashew Coconut Cream Filling:
- ¾ c. raw cashews
- ½ c. coconut butter (check out link above for recipe, or rock some more cashews, or maybe some macadamia nuts…)
- 1/3 c. mango chutney (I had to scour WH a bit to find this, but make it happen, b/c it seriously makes this filling happen!)
- salt and pepper to taste
Other Stuff:
- 2 zucchinis (3 if they are tiny little guys)
- ¾ lbs proscuitto (proscuitto, while kick ass, can be a little pricey. Chicken deli meat can also totally work as your cups, it is just provides a little less of the salty, crispy pork experience…)
How it’s Done:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Soak cashews in a bowl of warm water (makes them easier to break down for the sauce.) Start coconut butter if you are going the homemade route (recipe above.) Technically, you may be better off making your coconut butter a few hours to way earlier in order to allow it to harden slightly, but I think you should still be ok making it as you go. Your filling will just be slightly runnier – still delicious though. You can also buy coconut butter, I just don’t like the taste as much – or you can use more cashews or perhaps macadamia nuts.
Start with the sauce. In a large pot heat up olive oil, and then add the cinnamon stick and cloves. Let these simmer for a little bit to allow them to open up – in the meantime, finely chop your onion. Add onion to the oil and spices along with a little bit of salt. Cook until it starts to become translucent. Chop garlic and add to the onion. Allow to cook for about 1 more minute. Fish out your cinnamon and cloves at this point before you lose them forever, and to prevent you from chomping down on a whole clove mid meal: less than ideal.
Remove your sausage from its casings. I cut it down the center; turn it inside out, and break it down with my fingers as I drop it into the pot. You just sort of need to go after it – aggressive sausage breakdown!
Continue to break the sausage apart with your stirring implement until it is in small chunks. Allow it to cook until it is no longer pink. Add your tomato paste and cook for 1 to 2 minutes. Add your crushed tomatoes, chopped basil, and salt and pepper. Stir together and allow to simmer for about 15 minutes while prep your filling.
Put your cashews along with a tablespoon or two of water in your food processor and blend till they are almost completely smooth. Think just before nut butter texture. Add coconut butter and blend till combined. Scrape out your cashew/coconut mixture into a small mixing bowl. Add mango chutney allow with a hefty grinding of pepper. Combine.
And now we construct…
First lets prep our zucchini. If you have a mandolin, mandolin those squashes right down the middle to make long, thin slices. Then, cut eat long slice into about 1 ½ inch pieces (they should be just narrower than your muffin cups.) If you rdon’t have a mandolin I might rock first cutting the zuchinni into 1 ½ inch chunks short-ways, then cut each chunk into thin slices about 1/8 – ¼ inch thick.
Next: proscuitto. You are using each piece of proscuitto to line a muffin cup in order to create a base for your lasagna experience. Depending on the size of your proscuitto, you can go about this in several ways. When I had larger pieces from the butcher I used the whole piece and wrapped it around the cup. When I had slightly smaller and thicker pieces from a pack, I cut them in half and crossed them in the bottom of the cup. Both worked. And don’t stress if they’re not perfect – they will still be super neat and delicious. Breath!
Once the proscuitto is down, spoon a small amount of sauce in each cup (about 2, maybe 3 Tbs.) Top sauce with a small scoop of your cashew/coconut cream (about a tsp.) Then top with a piece of zucchini. Layer one: done! Repeat the above process one more time: meat sauce, cream, zucchini. Finally drizzle, or rock the spray can, olive oil over each cup, and top with salt and pepper. Boom!
Cook the cups for 25-30 minutes, or until the zucchini starts to soften on the top.
Pair with a yummy salad (I did arugula, avo, strawberries, olive oil, and balsamic,) and enjoy those happy little cups of deliciousness!
*Got extra basil – throw it on a salad, maybe with some strawberries and avo. Got extra tomato paste that will inevitably go bad in your fridge before you remember it again – freeze it in Tbs size portions to be ready to go for next time!
Protein. Lots and lots of protein. Welcome to my life for the past week. I’ve been stumbling around a bit with my diet of late. Perhaps too much coconut ice cream (for a while there I was rockin’ a whole little family of flavors in my freezer door) and not enough green veg and protein. A lovely way to subsist for sure until alas, that delicious frozen dessert while seeming to feed one’s soul, doesn’t necessarily spread the love to the rest of the body, resulting in my just feeling not so vibrant. The habit needed to be kicked – at least for a little while. However, saying that I will cut back on my tasty treat consumption is waaaaay easier than me actually cutting back on my tasty treat consumption, especially when Hail Mary macaroons stare at you in the face every time you open the fridge door (if you haven’t tried these little coconut gems of awesome – you should.) And so, I sought outside help via Heather Kelly and her OPENutrition seminar. (She’s great – granted she’s a rower, so I like her on principle, but you will too because she knows her stuff!) Two days and two 3 hour sessions, I was suddenly committing to a 5 week strict Paleo challenge minus nuts and fruits and coupled with a lean mass gain – jigga what?! Needed: yes. Shocking: also yes. Continue reading 
