Since starting this journey into grain-free cooking, I have found a whole community of people who believe in a more natural way of eating. The idea is to eat the way our ancestors did hundreds of thousands of years ago. Our digestive systems haven’t changed much since then but our food has. It’s far more processed, pumped full of chemicals, crops have been hybridized out of all recognition from what we used to eat and many of the animals we eat no longer run free across the land.
My family has never eaten too much processed food because I have always been wary of those ingredient lists which are designed to confuse you. I tell my son, if you don’t know where the food came from, don’t buy or eat it. But now I have also eliminated grain, refined sugar, legumes and hydrogenated oils in line with the Paleo way of eating. One of the many blogs I have discovered is Civilized Caveman, a wonderful resource of Paleo recipes. George has now written this amazing cookbook of over 200 Paleo recipes. These are recipes that work whether you are Paleo or not because they are based on good healthy, natural, non-processed eating.
Tonight I cooked one of the recipes from his cookbook. It was simple to prepare and delicious. Because Adriano has a mountain biking race on Sunday, he is carb loading so I boiled a plate of rice for him and Dario but I didn’t need the extra food.
This is NOT a low Fodmap recipe.
- 3lbs/1.4 kg of chicken, cubed (any cut you want)
- 2 cups of red onion, diced
- 2 cups bell pepper, diced (color of choice)
- 3 jalapeños, diced and seeds removed (if you like it spicy)
- 1 clove of garlic, minced
- 1 cup chicken stock
- 1 cup white wine (optional)
- 28 ounces/800gms organic tomatoes with their juice, diced
- 6 ounces/170gms organic tomato paste
- 3 tbsp chili powder
- 2 tbsp pumpkin pie spice
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- ½ tsp sea salt
- 1 whole cinnamon stick
- 3 cups organic pumpkin puree
- 2 tbsp fresh cilantro, diced
- 1 tbsp cocoa powder
- 2 tbsp coconut oil
- Heat coconut oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat.
- Sauté onions until lightly browned, then add bell peppers, jalapeños, and garlic and sauté for another 5 minutes.
- Add in chicken, chicken stock, white wine, organic tomatoes, organic tomato paste, chili powder, pumpkin pie spice, coriander, salt, and cinnamon stick and simmer for 20 minutes.
- Stir in pumpkin, cilantro, and cocoa powder and cook for an additional minutes.
- Reduce heat to low and let sit until ready to serve, or serve immediately.
If you are interested in having a look at the cookbook, it has been reduced from $47 to just $19.95. Click on the book below for more information and the direct chance to buy it at this discounted price.
I love reading about this paleo way of eating. I was looking at the blog “Nom Nom Paleo” and was intrigued by the meals. I’ll have to discover the Caveman Feast too. Good luck to your husband with the upcoming race!
Thanks, Sarah. I will pass that on to him. There are many great Paleo blogs out there. Some are stricter than others so there is wriggle room to form your own version that works for your family.
You are so right about processed foods that I’m considering eating less grains. I love the idea about the cavemen “diet” Although I’m more fond of the idea to use organically grown products than to leave out grains and nuts all together. Because I believe that nuts and certain grains are essential for our diet. However I truly like the direction you are going and think you’ll be very successful.
The Paleo diet does include nuts. In fact some people eat heaps of them. I am wary of them for myself because I don’t think my body likes the heavy dose of phytic acid that you get with them. But in moderation, they bring a lot of good things to the table. Grains are a different matter. But everyone has to find their own way with what suits their body. Eliminating processed foods is a great place to start.
I cooked chilli chicken last night too! But mine didn’t have pumpkin in it. I think a lot of people are thinking more and more about what they put into their mouths. What race is Dario doing? This recipe looks really good but I wish there were some metric conversions. Are there any in the e-book or does he only give imperial measurements?
Adriano is a mountain biker and is doing the Nationals this weekend.
I must go back through and put the metric measurements in the recipe. Thanks for alerting me to this. I must admit, I didn’t follow the exact measurements because this is the kind of recipe where it doesn’t matter.
I love the idea of eating like a caveman, of eating whole foods and knowing what exactly you’re eating! This looks delicious!
I love the idea too, Clare, as long as I don’t need to go out and hit an animal on the head with a club.
Oh this chili looks so flavorful! I love the spices.
It was a very tasty dish and I loved the addition of the pumpkin puree, which thickens it.
We use an awful lot of squash in our house but I hadn’t thought of using a puree of it to thicken a chicken chili. That sounds like a great idea. I’m a bit wary of the pie spices being mixed together with the chili spices, but I suppose I could give it a try. Thanks for sharing this one!
Andrew, I must admit I didn’t add the pie spices because we don’t have those in New Zealand and I don’t actually know what they are but I wanted the recipe to be the original. You could easily leave them out. I did love the thickening aspect of the pumpkin puree. We don’t have pumpkin puree in cans here either so I bought the pumpkin and cooked it before pureeing it.
Hi Suzanne, what a unique dish! I made chili a few days ago, but standard with black beans, and lean ground beef. I have never had pumpkin chili, but it sounds amazing 🙂
It was a very good meal, Talaia, and felt quite filling without the rice.
This sounds like a great way to use pumpkin and to introduce it, to those who haven’t warmed up to the idea of pumpkin yet!
That’s a great thought. I don’t actually care for pumpkin as a single vegetable but love it as a puree added to savoury or sweet dishes.
What a great recipe !
Thank you for posting this, now I have so much inspiration 🙂
You’re welcome. The book is full of such recipes.
Love the idea of pumpkin in chili! I add sweet potatoes all the time, but haven’t thought of using pumpkin – brilliant! And the pumpkin pie spices sound wonderful. 😉 Super recipe – thanks.
I love the fact that the pumpkin is mashed to thicken the chili and that the recipe uses chicken instead of minced beef. The flavours were great.
I plan on making this soon. It looks delicious, thanks for sharing.
It was totally delicious and not hard to make either.