This weekend we had some friends over to say goodbye to the summer with a good old fashioned Labor Day weekend pool party.  Most of our friends are now down with the Paleo thing, so I got to flex my kitchen muscles a little bit and try some new baked goods and dips.

I have to say it all turned out pretty yummy, so I’ll be adding these to my recommended recipes page shortly:

• Lemon, Coconut & Blueberry Muffins – I followed the recipe here as written, except for adding about 1 cup of fresh blueberries to the mix before baking… Yum!!
• Paleo Sour Cream & Onion Dip – This one is made with cashew cheese – I’m still working on how to get the really creamy texture, but the flavor was really great.
• Rosemary Crackers – I am addicted to these things.  They are light and crisp and nutty, and a perfect companion to the Roasted Beet Dip.
• Paleo Carrot Cake – So this very tasty, but quite different from regular carrot cake in texture and flavor.  You can really taste the orange peel in it, for starters, and mine came out a lot more like a torte, rather than a cake – very dense.   But all in all, I think it was pretty good.
• Paleo Pumpkin Cheesecake Dip – OMG, this stuff is crack.  Granted, there’s a ton of coconut sugar in it, so it’s very sweet, but wow is it yummy.  If you’re a pumpkin spice junky, this is a great fix.  Especially with…
• Paleo Apple Chips – this week there were honeycrisp apples featured and on sale in the grocery store, and honestly I think they make the best chips

And then there was the coup de grace, the Crusty Paleo Bread loaf.  Oh, where have you been for the last year of my life?  This yeasty bread came out perfectly golden and delicious – sliced well and held it’s shape to be slathered with butter, pate, pumpkin dip, or whatever I had lying around.   I know this recipe is going to be pulled out for every holiday from now on – it’s that good…

Of course, after gorging myself on all of this stuff, brisket, sausage, paleo cole slaw, sweet potatoes, and balsamic brussels sprouts, the scale is not my friend.  Ah well, it was another lovely diversion, but now it’s back to the daily routine.

Admittedly, I would never have tried this if E.J. hadn’t practically dared me to, but this weekend, I tried a new recipe with a completely new vegetable.  I don’t know if I even remember seeing the chayotes (or mirlitons) in the grocery store before, but E.J. said he really enjoyed them in dishes he ate when he was stationed overseas many years ago.

To me, the flavor is kind of like a cross between zucchini and a bell pepper.  It’s not very strong flavored and is pretty soft when boiled, but firm enough to hold on to stuffing, which is how I ended up using it for this dish.  Apparently Shrimp-Stuffed Mirlitons are a New Orleans delicacy, and I can see why – with shrimp and crab in a soft shell, it’s both fancy and flavorful.  I decided to amp up the flavor with garlic powder, thyme, oregano, and cayenne just to give it a little spicy kick.

I paired it with sweet balsamic beets, which in hindsight might have been a bit overpowering for the delicate squash, but I’m always a sucker for the sweet & spicy combinations.

In addition to my adventures in strange green squash, I had some other really nice successes in the kitchen.  Earlier in the week I found a Vanilla Bean Ice Cream recipe that I’m really excited about.  The almond milk makes the color a little tan, but the flavor is amazing.  We actually drizzled some dark chocolate flavored balsamic vinegar on it for kicks, and it was amazing.

I also made shrimp tacos again on Saturday for guests and though I wasn’t happy with the tortillas, the Mexican Cauli-Rice was really good.  I’ll definitely be making that again as a paleo-friendly southwestern-style side dish.

The last dish of the day yesterday was this Slow Cooker Balsamic Chicken & Sausage, which came out alright.  I shredded the chicken with the veggies and served that with the sausage links for some nice weekday lunches – I haven’t had a chance to sit down and enjoy a full plate of this one yet, so I’ll reserve judgement, but the small taste I had was promising.

Have a great week everyone!

When our daughter was young, she used to call restaurant food or any other special occasion meals “Dandy Dinners”.  The term stuck in our family and we often find ourselves declaring a dinner to be “dandy” when it turns out exceptionally yummy.  This week, despite our Whole 30, we managed to enjoy some very nice meals.  First, we got to enjoy an amazing steak at Peli Peli – a favorite special occasion place on Wednesday when I finally got the promotion at work I had been working toward.  Then on Friday, we celebrated my mom’s birthday at Pappadeaux, a cajun seafood restaurant, where we enjoyed a broiled redfish with shrimp & butternut squash.  Then on Sunday we took advantage of a Kroger sale on lobster and had lobster tails with asparagus.   It just goes to show that you can eat healthy and still really feel pampered.

Our meals for this week also turned out very well.  First on Saturday we smoked another pork shoulder to feed the crowd that came over to play tabletop games and hang out in the pool.  We served the pork with baked sweet potatoes, roasted cabbage & Brussels sprouts and garnished it with a homemade Whole 30 BBQ Sauce that turned out very tasty, even without the missing liquid smoke ingredient.  We went to several stores looking for a version that was Whole 30 compliant and struck out, so I did without, but ended up ordering one from Amazon for next time.  The pork shoulder came out very tender and juicy, and had a wonderful flavor from the applewood that E.J. used.

Then on Sunday with E.J.’s prep help we made our favorite TexMex Casserole, roasted 2 chickens in the Instant Pot, and tried a new recipe from Nom Nom Paleo.  Let me tell you, I was skeptical of this recipe because the ingredient list is a little on the strange side, but OMG is it good.

Spicy Tuna Cakes (NomNom Paleo)

I backed off on the spice since I didn’t know exactly what to expect, but this is easily one of my new favorite recipes.  The closest comparison I can come up with is it’s like a spicy crabcake, except with a tuna flavor.  I packaged it with roasted spiced cauliflour and have been adding avocado slices just to round it out.  Yum!!  I’m really liking these recipes that bake in muffin tins because they are so easy to grab and go for lunches or snacks.  I’m definitely going to have to get a set of silicone muffin trays at some point though, since the hardest part is getting the food out in one piece.

Happy Monday, everyone!

So, by now you’ve seen lots of Paleo and Whole 30 goodness coming out of my kitchen, and I’m really excited about the way I’ve been able to find “real food” recipes that mimic or even sometimes are better than their standard counterparts.  This weekend, however, I had a need to make regular old chocolate chip cookies – full flour, sugar, and the whole bit.  I was making them for some of the guys in my team at work who were slaving in the data center all day Saturday to make some major changes to our networks & servers and I wanted to give them goodies that weren’t limited by my new lifestyle changes.  Mind you, I LOVE cookies.  They are my absolute favorite treat, but since I am in the middle of a Whole 30 right now, these (and any other cookies) are definitely off limits.

Oddly enough, though, I wasn’t really tempted.  That’s a first for me.  I happily made the cookies, washed my hands along with everything else, packaged all of them up, and delivered them without regret, or yearning, or resentment.  A year ago, I would have been feeling all of those things.  Heck, 2 months ago I would have felt those things too.  I guess I must be doing something right.

In the middle of the work projects this weekend, I still managed to do my cooking for the week.  This week, I started with our favorite Chorizo Meatloaf, though I forgot to pick up spinach at the store so I used celery instead.  I daresay it tastes even more amazing with that substitution.  I paired it with Brussels Sprouts & Bacon for a hearty lunch package.

Here are the new recipes for this week:

• Gyoza Meatballs – Have you ever ordered Potstickers from your favorite Chinese or Japanese restaurant?  These meatballs are like the inside of those without the noodle.  Rather than mess with the sauce for make-ahead lunches, I just put them on a bed of cauli-rice and oven roasted broccoli and topped them with Coconut Amino Teriyaki Sauce
• Lamb-stuffed Zucchini – I have found that I’m a big fan of lamb, especially in Shepherd’s pie, but I wanted to try another Whole30 friendly dish that would take advantage of the monster zucchini I picked up at the farmers market this weekend.  I paired this with Instant Pot baked sweet potatoes
• Baked Kale Chips – We also picked up some pretty kale at the farmers market and I’ve been meaning to try homemade kale chips.  I was pleasantly surprised at the result.  I don’t know what I expected, but the light and crispy taste was really enjoyable.  I could see eating the entire batch like popcorn for a movie night.

Looking forward to lunches this week!!

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.

This weekend, E.J. and I went up to Dallas for their big comic & sci/fi convention “Fan Expo”, and while we were up there, we visited Mudhen Meat and Greens for a lovely early evening paleo dinner.  If you ever find yourself near the Dallas Convention Center, Mudhen is a 5 minute drive, and bonus, there are a bunch of farmer’s markets right there around it, so hooray for fresh seasonal produce!!  We enjoyed a lovely honey-sweetened avocado chocolate mousse for dessert which inspired one of this Sunday’s endeavors.

Sunday cookday was another full day in the kitchen, but I got to make some new things and use some new tools, so that always makes it better.  First, I started with a double-batch of our favorite Paleo Chili, and then broke out our new Instant Pot (Thanks, E.J.!) and pressure cooked some of the fresh beets we picked up at the farmer’s market.  All I did was remove the tops and ran the Instant Pot on manual for 30 minutes, letting it decompress naturally for about 15 minutes.  After that, I donned my gloves and gently peeled them and sliced them, and then marinated them a la this recipe from Nom Nom Paleo.  These turned out fantastic and I packaged them up in meal boxes with some of the other dishes of the day.

While the beets were cooking, E.J. worked on frying up our weekly breakfast bacon, so I moved over to the blender and made a double batch of this Dark Chocolate Avocado Mousse from Fit Foodie Finds and added about 6 pitted medjool dates to the blender which gave the mousse a little more depth and a nice consistency.  E.J. added some fresh strawberries on top, which smelled too good to pass up when we were walking by in the grocery store earlier in the morning.  I often follow my nose when it comes to buying fresh fruit.  If I can smell it as I walk by (peaches, strawberries, etc), then I have to get some.
Next I made these fantastic Cabbage Rolls from Stupid Easy Paleo.  I added some sea salt and balsamic vinegar to the tomato sauce just to give it a little more zing, but otherwise followed the recipe exactly.  We had a couple of these for dinner last night and they were wonderful.  

Finally, I rounded out our weekly meals with a couple
of quiches – first this Chorizo and Spinach Quiche from Everyday Maven which baked up beautifully (I can’t wait to try this one for lunch today) and this favorite – Sweet Potato, Spinach, and Bacon Quiche from Paleo Leap.  Typically, I serve up a quarter of a quiche in lunch containers along with avocado, or some other healthy addition.

I’m looking forward to all of my meals this week, and that’s a great way to start a Monday!