Autoimmune Protocol Diet Meal Challenge

April 20, 2018

The meal was served Family-Style

I wanted to share a special meal I made a few weeks ago for a friend. She has a lot of food allergies and sensitivities but has found that following the Autoimmune Protocol (AIP) has drastically decreased her symptoms. AIP is not only gluten-free but also grain-free (wheat, corn, rice, and oats), free of nightshades, dairy-free, nut-free, processed sugar-free and there are some other no-no’s.

I definitely know what it feels like to go out to eat with friends and not be able to eat some of everything. So I wanted to cook an entire meal where nothing was off limits for her. Sounds challenging? Well, Yes! But it actually ended up opening my mind to new flavor combinations and it was a lot of fun. I felt like I was on a cooking show. I started off searching for Paleo base recipes. Base recipes are life-savers when cooking for someone with food allergies because you are not reinventing the wheel. In this case Paleo recipes were a good choice because they lined up with AIP restrictions a lot of the time. Also Paleo recipes tended to have fewer ingredients which made swapping when needed much easier.

The hardest part for me was the beef spare ribs. First challenge was they had to come from grass-fed only cattle. I found a “local farm” (about an hour from my house) that met those criteria on https://www.localharvest.org/. Since I was sort of in a time crunch, I ordered the ribs online but decided to choose the pick-up from farm option. Next challenge was creating a flavor profile within the rules of AIP. Yes, I could have just sprinkled so salt on them bad boys and called it a day but where is the fun in that? I stumbled upon this AIP blog. In that article, there is a chart with different suggestions for adding flavor to curry. The chart inspired me so much I came up with 2 different flavor profiles for the spare ribs. My friend and I couldn’t choose between the two so I ended up making both. Thankfully, they were a hit!

I baked the ribs 20 minutes
before adding the paste

The Cinnamon, Ginger & Lime Spare Ribs

I know you don’t usually think of cinnamon & ginger when you are dealing with ribs. I wanted to them to have a slightly spicy, sweet and savory taste. However, AIP does not allow for any peppers (including black, cayenne, paprika etc) or sugar. The cinnamon added the sweetness and warm smoky-like flavor; while, the ginger added some spiciness into the mix. I also placed dried cloves on top of the ribs before pouring on the Cinnamon & Ginger paste to turn up the warmth and cloves kind of has a peppery aftertaste. All and all, it produced a Jamaican-style taste that my friend and Mr. Madrid absolutely loved.

The Lemon, Garlic & Basil Spare Ribs

This one was my favorite but the recipe started off as quite the headache. At first I was planning on using lemongrass in this recipe. Lemongrass supposedly has a lemony-herbal taste. I say supposedly because I was unable to find any fresh lemongrass at four grocery stores (lemongrass paste has Whey and sugar in it). I did find an enormous potted plant at Home Depot but it was too expense to waste and too big to keep in my tiny apartment. So instead I went with lemon juice, zest and basil for the paste (still keeping that lemon leafy flavor). In the end, these ribs had an Asian-like flavor. Very yummy!