Wow, am I excited about what I have to show y'all today.  I got my hands on a pre-release copy of All-American Paleo Table to review and I could not be happier about it.  Written by Caroline Potter, this book is her publishing debut with a fantastic compilation of favorite American recipes that have been stripped of their allergens, but not of their flavor.  Potter was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age 20.  Soon after her diagnosis, she sought a whole-foods approach to coping with her illness and spent a lot of time frustrated that she could no longer enjoy the foods she so loved with the rest of her friends.  After much determination, she finally decided that her food sensitivities should not be a limitation to enjoying the foods she had always loved.  Hence, the basis of this cookbook was born.

I can't explain how pumped I am about this cookbook.  As soon as I received it in the mail, I wanted to make every recipe I flipped to!  Case in point: it includes foods like corn dogs.  PALEO. CORN DOGS. 

Another awesome part of the design of Potter's book is that each recipe includes the list of food sensitivities it caters to at the very top of the page.  This is important for those wanting to cook from All-American Paleo Table, as Potter sometimes uses dairy in her recipes.  However, if a recipe includes dairy, it also includes a variation on how to exclude it if that is one of your allergies.

I drooled over the majority of this book, finally settling on a recipe to make first and share with y'all.  The Buffalo Chicken Meatballs are an easy recipe that brought out my love of hot wings and still got in a serving of leafy greens in the process.  What?  I never thought I'd use "hot wings" and "leafy greens" in the same sentence.  Another good thing to note is that this is one of the recipes which includes dairy (blue cheese inside of the meatballs), but the simple variation for dairy-free is to simply omit it.  The texture of the meatballs is not compromised and they still stay fully intact throughout the cooking process.  Now that is a sign of a solid recipe!

Before I go into sharing the Buffalo Chicken Meatballs with you, let me just go ahead and get you excited about some of the other incredible creations from this book:

  • Slow-cooked Pulled Pork Sandwiches (p.102)
  • Chewy Hazelnut Chocolate Chunk Cookies (p.92)
  • White Sausage Gravy with Biscuits (p. 46)
  • Steak and Egg Breakfast Fries (p.42)
  • Crunchy Cinnamon Toast Squares (p.18)
  • Creamy Chocolate Peppermint Truffles (p.224)
  • Sausage, Apple, Mushroom Stuffing (p.206)
  • Loaded Nachos (p.158)
  • Duck Fat Fries (p.140)
  • Pumpkin Mousse Cheesecake (p.208)

And the coolest part about these recipes is that Potter arranged each of them around a well-known American holiday.  This includes a Thanksgiving, Christmas, game day, and even a movie night section.  Meal and party planning will be a breeze with these classic recipes already bundled up for whatever occasion you are celebrating!

All right, now for the moment you've all been waiting for... here is that awesome recipe!  Please let me and Caroline know if you make it and what you think!

Buffalo Chicken Meatballs

Prep time: 15 minutes   Cook time: 20 minutes   Total time: 35 minutes

Yield: 16 meatballs

Directions

Ingredients

  1. Preheat oven to 350ºF (176ºC) and warm a large nonstick skillet to medium heat.
  2. In the bottom of a mixing bowl, sift together the almond flour, salt and garlic.  Add in the ground chicken and green onions.  Use your hands to mix together the meat, incorporating all the ingredients, but be careful not to overmix because the chicken will become gummy.
  3. Lightly grease your hands with coconut oil, shape the chicken into small meatballs, and set them aside on a plate.  If the chicken becomes too difficult to work with, wash and re-grease your hands.
  4. Drizzle the olive oil in the warm skillet, swirling around to coat all sides of the skillet.  Sear the meatballs for 8 minutes, rotating every 2 minutes so that all sides are seared.
  5. Transfer the meatballs to a baking dish, placing them close together so that all sides are touching.  This is easiest if the baking dish is similar in size to the meatballs; I find that a 9 by 13 inch (22.8 by 33 cm) dish usually works well.  Pour the hot sauce over the meatballs and place in the oven.
  6. Bake for 20 minutes.
  7. Serve over a bed of arugula with blue cheese crumbles or Ranch Dressing.

1 cup (110g) almond flour

2 tsp (10g) salt

2 tsp (6 g) garlic powder

2 lbs (907g) ground chicken

1/3 cup (45g) green onions, chopped

2 tbsp (30 ml) olive oil, for searing

2/3 cup (158 ml) buffalo hot sauce*

2 handfuls fresh arugula leaves

4 oz (113 g) blue cheese crumbles, optional (omit for dairy; the photos of my batch are dairy-free)

Coconut oil for greasing hands

Ranch Dressing (page 168), for serving

*Potter recommends Frank's hot sauce.