The Great Divide

To Paleo, or Not to Paleo… that is the question!

This holiday weekend we were party central again, this time for both 4th of July and E.J.’s birthday (July 5).  Every year we have a big party to not only celebrate E.J.’s special day, but also birthdays of no fewer than 5 other people which land in late June or July.  That means lots of splashing in the pool and of course, lots of yummy food.

Since we started The Great Paleo Journey in September last year, this is the first summer party that we tried to walk the fence on the whole Paleo thing…. about half of our guests have been trying to follow a diet similar to the one E.J. and I have adopted, plus we tend to have a lot of leftovers from these things, so it was important to me to make sure no one felt cheated for their birthday, but that we stayed relatively in-bounds with regard to the party fare.

For the birthday cake, I ended up making standard full-sugar cupcakes with buttercream icing fashioned into a single “cake” so that the portions were controlled and they were easily portable… away from my kitchen when the party was over 🙂  Per E.J.’s special request, we also had the infamous dark chocolate cake that I made last November for his cousin… and this time, it came out exactly as advertised.  Everyone who tried it agreed with him that it’s better than most chocolate cake you’ve ever tasted.  We also offered both Blue Bell and coconut milk-based Paleo ice creams.

The rest of the Paleo/Primal menu looked like this:

• Sugar & Nitrate-free Summer Sausage
• Cheese selection
• Simple Mills Crackers
• Zucchini Rolls
• Boiled Shrimp with homemade cocktail sauce
• Bacon Wrapped Dates Stuffed with Chorizo
• Grilled Buffalo Wings (we grilled instead of baked)
• Mango Glazed Chicken Wings
• Paleo Ranch Dressing
• Fresh fruit (strawberries, blueberries and cherries)
• Veggie tray
• Oven roasted potato  & sweet potato wedges
• Caprese Salad
• Paleo Cole Slaw
• Cauliflower “Pasta” Salad (Invention of our friend Anita)

We had other items like regular deviled eggs, chips and french onion dip but they were definitely in the minority when it came to the overall offerings.

All in all, the food got rave reviews – I used some of the leftover fruit and made a Strawberry and Blueberry pie for the 4th which turned out tasty, but the crust fell apart.  I’ll have to keep experimenting until I find a recipe that I like for fruit pies.

There’s always at least one failure when I do this much Paleo cooking, but it’s all in the name of learning new recipes and methods and being able to share them with all of you.