A Day in Paleo 5-28-2012

1. Breakfast: steamed frozen broccoli, leftover grilled chicken breast, blue cheese, organic strawberries.
2. Snack: locally grown pistachios
3. Lunch: Big-ass salad with turkey, chicken, hard salami, blue cheese, onion, tomato, and (not pictured) homemade ranch dressing.
4. Dinner: Two locally “grown” eggs over easy, uncured bacon, and sauteed onion and wannabe home fries made from a turnip. Does anybody have any good recipes for making home fries, potato or turnip?  Mine still tasted good with lots of garlic, pepper, rosemary and oregano, but they didn’t have the crispy fried edges I really wanted.

(PS: Yes I know cheese isn’t exactly paleo, but I love it a little too much to totally give it up, so just pretend it isn’t there).

 

 

Frittatas are Paleo and Easy

Frittatas are such an awesome Paleo food.  You can actually make a nearly zero-carb frittata if you really want to, but that would be just silly.  Frittatas are a perfect way to cram some extra veggies – including leafy green ones – into your breakfast, alongside protein rich eggs and other meats.  They’re a great way to clean out some leftover veggies hanging out in your fridge, and you always have leftovers that make very satisfying lunches or snacks too.  They’re quiches without the crust – and the crust was always my least favorite part of quiches anyways!

These are the fillings I used this time, but every frittata I make is different.  I ate a slice for breakfast today topped with a little Greek yogurt.

Recipe for a Basic Paleo Frittata in a 9 inch Cast Iron Skillet

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Make sure all your meats are already cooked.  If you’re using bacon, it should be crunchy, not chewy.
3. Grab other veggies and seasonings and flavors, and chop everything up into pieces no bigger than about the size of your thumbnail.
4. Put everything into the skillet on Medium-Low to Medium.  Stir it around for about 60 seconds.
5. Add enough eggs and/or egg whites to fill up to about where the top of the frittata is in the top photo on this post.  Stir to break up yolks and mix everything evenly.
6. Cover and let it cook on Medium Low for about 8 minutes.  6 or 10 is probably OK too.  You really just want to bottom to set well.
7. Uncover the frittata and put it in your oven on the top rack until you can poke a butter knife into the center and it doesn’t come out slimy with raw egg.  This will probably take about 15 to 20 minutes.
8. Wait for at least five minutes before you slice it up and serve it!

 

 

Zucchini: Broil it, Grill it, Dip it!

Zucchini has quickly become one of my favorite Paleo side dishes.  I grill it, I fry it, I broil it.  I’ve sliced it every which way.  I dump herbs and spices galore on it.  I love it!

Today, I sliced two zucchinis diagonally (one small zucchini per serving), laid them out on a greased baking sheet, and sprinkled them liberally with my spice container that says “Italian herbs.”  I also like using my spice grinder called “Pizza Spices” for Italian-style broiled zucchini dippers sometimes.  But if you don’t have anything halfway fancy like that, just some salt, pepper, garlic powder, and oregano will work just fine.

Then all you have to do is put the sheet on a rack that’s about six inches from the top of your oven (for me that’s the top rack) and wait until they start to brown.  My 1/2 to 1/4 inch slices (I’m not very consistent) browned after about seven minutes.  Then I flipped them all over and gave them another three or four minutes.  Most of the time, if you cut them thin enough, you don’t really have to worry about flipping them over.  They’ll be cooked well enough when just the one side is browned.

The dipping sauce is just some canned tomato sauce I found that had the least amount of sugar and zero canola oil.  All I added were some extra “pizza grinder” spices and of course the Parmesan cheese that I grated over the whole shebang.  I know, canned sauce is a crappy shortcut, but some days I just have better things to do than spend a half hour making fresh tomato basil oregano garlic dipping sauce for my zucchini munchies!

One last pic… there actually was some chicken covered in mushrooms, onions, bell peppers, and more sauce on my plate, but it was pretty boring.  All I really wanted was more zucchini please!

All Natural Paleo Dyed Easter Eggs

I discovered this way to dye eggs last year around Easter time, way before I went Paleo.  And now that Easter is only a few short days away this year, it occurred to me that onion-peel-dyed hard boiled eggs are totally Paleo without even having to try!  Besides, I read somewhere that this is how Jesus dyed the dinosaur eggs that were served at his last supper.  Super awesome, right?

All the directions are in the photo above, and all you really need are whole raw eggs, string or rubber bands, onion peels, and an old tshirt.  And no, the eggs don’t really end up tasting like onion or curry.  They just taste like normal hard boiled eggs.

Coconut Oil

Adios grapeseed oil for cooking – I’ve got coconut oil now!  The flavor is pleasant and mild, it’s soft but solid at room temperature, you don’t have to refrigerate after opening, and it remains a safe and healthy fat when heated!  I used it with my eggs this morning with excellent results.  For a little more explanation on which fats and oils are good for which situations, I found this nice little one-page simple PDF: http://www.balancedbites.com/PDFs/BalancedBites_FatsAndOils.pdf  Have a look!

PS: Both WalMart and Smith’s (Kroger to you midwesterners) have these exact jars!

Lunch Meat Boat: Fast Sandwich Replacement

I don’t know whether to think of this Paleo sandwich replacement as a canoe, a boat, or a taco.  But whatever the case, it’s a great crunchy little injection of fuel that lasts nicely until dinnertime.  You can use whatever lunch meats you have or leftover meats – just pretend it’s a sandwich, and add whatever you’d add to a sandwich.

The only thing to look out for is fillers in lunch meat.  You would seriously be surprised.  Or not, I guess.  It’s kind of depressing.  Our favorite lunch meat brand right now is Prima Della, and Wal Mart of all places sells it.  The big wrapped up chunk of turkey that they slice my meat off of says “no fillers.”  I trust that about as far as I could throw that giant wad of turkey meat, but I guess it’s got to be better than the brick right next to it from another brand that says, “Ham,” and then in small print says, “35% water added/flavorings added/this is a ham and water product.”

Here’s what went into my Paleo meat boat (apparently I’ve decided on boat).  The boat is an outer piece of hearts of romaine lettuce.  I try to always keep hearts of romaine on hand – they’re good chopped up for salads, and awesome for Paleo Tacos too!  Then I added two thin slices of turkey, two thin slices of salami, two slices of avocado, 1/4 of a small chopped up tomato, some sun-dried tomato basil feta cheese, spicy mustard, and a small diced fresh basil leaf.

Paleo Chocolate Covered Bananas

OK, so maybe the title is a little bit of a stretch.  I took this quick cell phone shot of my evening snack – something I decided on a whim to try.  I had a ripe banana and some pure unsweetened cocoa powder, and I figured it just might work.  And it did!  Although now that I’m thinking about it, cocoa is a bean… does that mean it’s not Paleo?  Oops.  But who cares – at least there’s no added sugar, and you only need a very very tiny amount of cocoa powder.

All you need is the pure unsweetened cocoa powder and a banana that is at least ripe enough to no longer have any green on it.  Actually, the more brown the better.  Up to a certain point anyways.  No rotting allowed.

My plate has half of a big room-temperature banana on it, sprinkled lightly with cocoa powder.  Pat the powder down onto the banana slice before you pop them in your mouth though – accidentally inhaling dry cocoa powder is not fun.  The ripe banana gives you all the sweet you need, especially if your taste buds are fully adjusted to the Paleo way of eating.  Mine definitely are.

Desert Lemon Mint Sun Tea

Since it’s going to be chilly, rainy, and windy here for the next couple of days, I thought I’d post this photo and recipe of my refreshing Desert Sun Tea to remind myself that the sun will be back again soon!

Add 10 mint leaves and the rind of one lemon (you can use a paring knife to cut the rind off in big pieces – you don’t want to grate or “zest” it off) to a gallon of water in a glass container.  Drop about 8 of your favorite type of tea bags into the water.  I like Lipton black tea the best, but lemon and mint will go well with any type of tea.  Then just let it all sit out in the sun to slowly brew over the course of at least three hours.  The longer you can leave it in the sun, the better – I try to shoot for five hours.

Because the tea was slowly brewed in the sun instead of boiled, you should make a point to drink your tea within a day or two just to be safe.  Bacteria or germs or whatever.  But don’t worry, you won’t have any trouble with that.  It’s delicious!

Paleo Bruschetta with Grilled Zucchini

The weather yesterday here was AMAZING.  78 degrees, sunny with a light breeze.  I knew however that by the weekend, the temp would be dropping and the clouds would be moving in for a couple days of chilly rain, so I took advantage.  I made Paleo vegetarian bruschetta with grilled zucchini!

Make your topping first, so it has time to marinate a little.  The only ingredient I didn’t list in the photo above is a few splashes of white wine vinegar.  It’s probably unnecessary, but I sometimes do unnecessary things.  Did you know that I currently have SEVEN different kinds of vinegar in my house?  Like I said, unnecessary.

Next, cut your zucchini like this.  I used five small zucchinis.  If you have a mandoline in order to get nice uniform slices, please send it to me.  I need more clutter in my kitchen like I need a loaf of bread (lame paleo joke!), but they sound like a pretty cool tool.

Either my griller man should have paid more attention or I should have cut the slices thicker, because some of our zucchini ended up a little bit too well done.  Probably a combination of the two.

I know it’s bad, but I kind of like the taste of burnt things.  Anyways, all you have to do now is spoon your bruschetta topping onto the grilled zucchini slices.  I enjoyed it kind of raw and fresh like that, but you can also stick your topped zucchini under the broiler for a couple of minutes to soften the onion, melt the Parmesan, and warm everything up.

NorCal Margarita

The guy who wrote the book on the Paleo lifestyle recommends this combination for an alcoholic drink.  I said previously that vodka was the most Paleo alcohol (even though you really shouldn’t drink at all if you’re Paleo), but any straight pure clear liquor works really.  Like clear tequila, clear vodka, clear rum, etc.  Gin is questionable.

But anyways, this drink is really good – IF you like citrus.  If you don’t like citrus, don’t even try it.  But I do, and I personally like this drink even better than margaritas I’ve had on vacation or at Mexican restaurants.  I tend to not like sweet drinks, and this is all of the lime-y salty goodness of a normal margarita minus the over the top sweetness and plus some fizzy bubbles!

PS: Lime juice helps to blunt your body’s natural insulin response to alcohol!  Hooray for that!

PPS: When it gets really hot this summer, I’m definitely going to blend the tequila, lime, and ice together in the blender for frozen NorCal Margaritas!  After blending, I’ll pour it out into a glass, top it off with the Club Soda, and stir it lightly with a spoon.  That should make a delicious fizzy frozen treat.  I’ll let you all know how it works out when it gets hot enough and I try it!  🙂