Paleo Grilled Dill Salmon with Baby Squash

This was such a wonderful little summer paleo meal, my stomach couldn’t be happier right now.  The scallop squash is stuffed with feta cheese (paleo cheating!), capers, fresh basil, and kalamata olives, and the baby crookneck squash was so sweet and flavorful, it defied any seasonings.

The salmon was grilled atop a cedar plank and a bed of dill, and is served on a bed of mixed local lettuces.  That’s lemon thyme and parsley sprinkled on the salmon.  A few slices of cucumber added crunch.  Awesome.  Just awesome!

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The stuffed patty pan squash is so pretty!

Simple Paleo Spaghetti Sauce

Recipe for Simple Paleo Spaghetti Sauce

(one serving)

1. One finely chopped tomato
2. One tablespoon tomato paste
3. Once diced slice of an onion, doesn’t really matter what color/type
4. Two tablespoons coconut milk
5. One minced garlic clove
6. One teaspoon dry oregano (or four medium fresh oregano leaves)
7. One teaspoon dry basil (or four medium fresh basil leaves)

Dump everything into a pan on medium heat and stir.  Though if you’re using fresh herbs, leave them out until the very end of simmering time.  As soon as your ingredients start to show signs of boiling (or as close as something that thick can get – probably about a minute or two at most for one serving), turn it down and let it all simmer with a lid on for about 20 minutes.  Add a little salt and pepper if you want to, though I didn’t feel it needed it.  Then stir again and serve, hopefully on spaghetti squash with big fat delicious meatballs!

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 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.

Fresh Basil Vinaigrette

I set out to make a flavorful paleo friendly salad dressing today after picking up some fresh basil at the grocery store.  Next time I’ll probably add some dried oregano too, but other than that, the ingredients are all listed above: 1 lemon, 1 basil stem full of leaves, 1 clove garlic, red wine vinegar, fresh cracked black pepper, sea salt, and some mustard – preferably spicy or dijon.  Squeeze it, dice it, shake it, eat it!

If you don’t have one of these handheld citrus juicers, you really should try to pick one up soon!  They’re easier and faster to use and clean than electric juicers, particularly if you only need juice from a handful of fruits at a time.

So I made my little lunch salad – still by the way using my second ever whole baked chicken!  That meat is really stretching a long way.  And then I started wondering… is something missing?  Yes!  I decided to add some fresh grated Parmesan cheese and two pieces of chopped up deli pepperoni.  It would have been a good salad without those last two additions, but it was even better this way!!!

Zucchini Crust Pizza for Two

How cool is this!?!  There is absolutely no flour of any kind here, so it’s pizza that’s great for nearly any type of diet or eating style you are following – paleo, caveman, south beach, slow carb, low carb, blah blah blah.  The pizza crust is made from zucchini!  And we both really loved it!  You can’t exactly pick the pieces up – they’re not quite firm enough for that – but they stay together well enough to keep their shape and not be at all soggy.  I figured out my recipe for this zucchini pizza crust by basically skimming about 20 other bloggers’ zucchini crust recipes, shaking my head around to mix them up, and then trying something along those lines.  Here’s what I did:

1. Grate two normal grocery store size zucchinis (like maybe 10 inches long each?  I’m not talking about those massive leg-sized zucchini people get out of their gardens when they’re in season – you’d probably only need one of those!)
2. Squeeze as much moisture out of of your grated zucchini pile as possible.  I had to use four hand towels to squeeze as much out as I wanted to.  Good thing tomorrow is laundry day!
3. Add some grated Parmesan cheese (optional) and some pizza/Italian spices.  The more the merrier!
4. Add one egg and one egg white.  Then mix it all together really well, and spread it out on a greased baking dish or pizza stone.
5. Bake the crust by itself at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

While the crust is baking, chop up your other ingredients.  If you add meat, be sure to cook it on your stovetop first.  Just because of what we had on hand this time, ours ended up being a vegetarian pizza.

When your 20 minutes is up, turn your oven up to 425 degrees and take the crust out.  I added a thin layer of pesto before spreading the toppings around, but you can use regular red pizza sauce instead if you want.  So then add your toppings, and maybe a little sprinkling of Mozerella, Parmesan, or Feta cheese, and some more pizza spices.  Then pop it back into the oven for another 15 minutes at 425 degrees, and voila!  Zucchini crust pizza goodness!