Poblano stuffed chicken

These poblano peppers have been sitting in the refrigerator for a long time so I finally put them to good use. Using ingredients on hand this delicious dinner was made.

Ingredients:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
4 poblano peppers
3-4 cloves of garlic
1/4 onion
1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes
10 cherry tomatoes
handful of greens-spinach, bok choy, chard, whatever you have
salt
12-16 tooth picks

Method:

Roast the peppers. I did this by putting them under the broiler for about 5-6 minutes per side. Once all done place in a paper bag and seal it up quickly so the heat stays in the the skin begins to bubble up a little more.
While the peppers are sitting chop garlic through greens into little pieces. Mix all together in a bowl with a little big of oil from the sun dried tomatoes. Add a dash of salt.

Hammer the chicken breasts to about 1/4 inch thickness and set aside. Placing the chicken between plastic wrap is cleaner. A plastic baggie would also work.

Get your poblanos and peel the skin. It should come off rather easily but if it doesn't slip right off don't worry about it and leave it on. Cut along one side starting at the tip going up to the stem, then work around the stem removing seeds to keep the pepper whole. Lay one chicken breast on your work surface, lay the open poblano on top and fill with a few scoops of the mixture in the bowl. About 3 tablespoons per chicken breast. Make sure the pepper is at the very bottom of the chicken, closest to you, even hanging about 1/2 an inch off the chicken. Tightly roll chicken, pepper and stuffing away from you. Secure with 3-4 toothpicks. Repeat until all ingredients used up.

Bake for about 45 minutes at 350.

Roasted poblanos are the bomb. So good...and this goes really well with a little sour cream.

Lamb shoulder

A while ago I bought lamb shoulder chops at the farmers' market and had no idea what to do with them. I had never cooked lamb before and definitely not a shoulder. I found a recipe and have made it once or twice. Using lamb with rosemary, tomatoes, onions and kalamata olives you really can't go wrong. From memory this is what I came up with.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon cooking oil
2 lamb shoulders (look like pork chops, not some giant hunk of meat)
1 big onion
2-3 cloves of garlic
12 cherry tomatoes or a can on diced tomatoes
12 kalamata olives (or kalamata tapenade if it a pinch)
2-3 tablespoons rosemary

Method:

Heat oil in a pan over medium high heat. Brown the lamb on both sides, about 5 minutes per side. Set aside.

Slice the onions and chop the garlic. Add the onions and garlic to the pan to sautee. While they are cooking slice the tomatoes. I smashed them up a bit to get some juice out of them. A can of tomatoes works better because the juice makes a good sauce. Chop up the rosemary. Add the tomatoes and rosemary to the onions, mix it all up. Add the lamb to finish cooking with the onions and tomatoes in the pan. Since I had only kalamata tapenade I spooned a couple scoops and mixed it up to get the flavor. If you are using whole kalamata olives throw them in to get hot with everything.


Pile the onions on a plate and stick the lamb on top. I garnished with more tapenade. Bon appetit!

Quick and easy

This is our go-to dinner. Super easy, super fast, super delicious.

Ingredients:

chicken breasts
lemon juice
chopped garlic
herbs (either rosemary, thyme, parsley, or cilantro)
olive oil

2 zucchini
carrots

Method:

Using a meat tenderizer pound the chicken breasts so they are all a uniform thickness. Combine olive oil, some lemon juice, chopped garlic and a pile of herbs and pour over chicken in a dish or plastic ziploc bag to marinate. Slice the zucchini or other veggies thinly and place on a roasting dish and dust with some olive oil. Bake in oven at 425 for about 15 minutes. Then turn the oven to broil and make room for the chicken. Place the chicken on another roasting pan and broil about 5 minutes per side until done. The zucchini should be close to done and getting a little brown from the broiling, so keep an eye on it.

Easy and tasty. Sorry, no pictures. But, really my photos are so bad you shouldn't be using them as a guide anyway. Just try it and make sure it tastes good. It's a bonus if it looks amazing.

Salmon, olive, tomato salad

This week I am dialing in my eating with a goal to lean out a bit. My approach to leaning out is a low carb diet, consuming around 50 grams of carbohydrate a day. How does one do this? By eating real food and not tons of it. I haven't been super, super clean in my diet, especially concerning nuts. I eat A LOT of nuts. Although a better fat source than others, nuts are high in Omega-6s and are calorically dense, so I am adding more olives and avocados and minimizing nuts.

So, here is my lunch (it's not fancy, but low carb, highish fat, high protein and easy enough).

Ingredients:

6 oz canned salmon
100g cherry tomatoes (about 7)
100g iceberg lettuce (it's what we had, pick a better green if you have it)
8 medium green olives

Put lettuce and salmon in a bowl, slice up the olives and tomatoes. Eat up.

Bruschetta Chop

Now that it's nearly the middle of September I am finally getting ripe tomatoes from my garden. With a huge bowl of yellow cherry tomatoes I decided to make a bruschetta inspired dish. After eating a bowl of it I thought it would be good on the pork chops sitting in the refrigerator, and I was right.

Before I got to dinner I tried a few failed experiments in making eggplant chips. My original hope was to bake little discs of eggplant that were firm enough, but not burnt, to hold a scoop of the bruschetta. Turns out eggplant is either burned to a crisp or too soft when perfectly baked. Raw zucchini slices would do nicely and taste delicious.

Ingredients for bruschetta mixture:
(Makes about a cereal bowl)

3-4 cloves garlic
5-6 sun dried tomatoes in oil (the jar from the store...I don't sun dry my own tomatoes)
1+ cup of tomatoes
1-2 tablespoons EVOO
2-3 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
s & p

Method:

Chop everything up and combine. Pour a little of the oil from the sun dried tomatoes into the bowl. Add a dash more EVOO if you need it. A splash of balsamic and some salt and pepper to taste. This stuff is seriously addictive. Make twice as much as you think you will want.

Use on meats, spoon onto zucchini or cucumber rounds as hors devours or just eat it straight. Use red, yellow and green tomatoes to make it pretty. Throw in some basil if you have it.

Here's how I used it tonight on my pork chops:

Heat lots of oil in a pan over medium high heat, cook chops on each side for a couple minutes then turn the heat down. Add some chopped sun dried tomatoes along with oil from the jar and some chopped cherry tomatoes to the pan. Add a dash of balsamic vinegar near the end. Cook until chops are done. Spoon bruschette mixture over and ENJOY!!

Curried Zucchini Soup

This time of year zucchini is copious. For $2 I bought enough zucchini to last a year, about 25 cups or about 7 lbs coming from 4 gargantuan zucchinis. So, what do you do with all this zucchini when you don't eat gluten filled zucchini bread? You make zucchini bread and give it to your gluten-eating friends. Then freeze a bunch more for future zucchini bread making days. Then you have to get creative because grilled zucchini
can get boring after a while.

Here's an easy summer soup to help empty the fridge of zucchini

Ingredients:
1 teaspoon or so coconut oil
1 onion
3 or so cloves of garlic
1 carrot
1.5-2 lbs zucchini
2 or so apples (I used Fuji)
4 cups chicken broth
1 cup coconut milk
1 tablespoon yellow curry
s & p to taste

Method:

Slice the onions, chop the carrots and garlic. Heat coconut oil (or other oil) in pot and sautee the onions, garlic and carrot. While that is cooking peek and chop the apples and zucchini. (If you are a slow chopper prepare everything before you start cooking so the onions don't get burned.)

Add the zucchini, apples, 4 cups of chicken broth, 1 cup coconut milk and about a table spoon of curry. Bring to a boil then lower heat and simmer about 20 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste, white pepper goes well. Once everything is all soft blend it all up and serve. It isn't very pretty, but tastes good.

Topped with coconut milk.

Kitchen Sink Scramble

This morning I wanted a Greek style scramble, but without kalamata olives or spinach it was hard to create. Instead I cleaned out the fridge and came up with this delicious scramble. This is a good way to eat a lot of veggies and free up some space in the fridge. The more you add the better...even throw in the kitchen sink.

Ingredients:

oil of your choice
about 1/4 cup diced red onions
small handful of greens (I used beet greens since I had no spinach)
some sliced black olives
1 heaping tablespoon capers
3-4 cherry tomatoes cut into sixths
about 1/2 cup left over salmon
3 eggs
pepper

Method:

Saute the onions in the oil over high heat. Slice the greens up finely and throw them in to cook up quickly. Remove the pan from heat to let it cool down (you don't want to shock your eggs by throwing them into a super hot pan. They will cook too fast and become tough.) Break your eggs into a bowl and stir them up. Return the pan to low heat. Pour eggs into the pan with the onions and greens, stirring to keep the eggs from cooking too quickly on the bottom of the pan. Add the sliced black olives, chunks of salmon and a few cracks of pepper. Stir to mix everything up. Add the tomatoes near the end so the get hot but not all squishy.

If you do dairy goat cheese or feta would be good. Any fresh herbs would also go well, especially rosemary.

Bon appetit!

Fritatta thingy, Spanish omlete, egg pizza, quiche

It has many names in this house, but it's a simple summer dinner and great as leftovers.

Spanish Omelet, Egg Pizza, Fritatta

Ingredients:

1 Tbs cooking oil of your choice
half a large onion
2-3 cloves garlic
couple of zucchinis
good handful of spinach
handful of cherry tomatoes
herbs-rosemary, thyme, chives, basil
6-8 eggs
(goat cheese if you do dairy)

Method:

Preheat oven to 350.

Heat your fat in a 10 inch oven-proof frying pan. Dice up all your onions, zucchini and chop the garlic and herbs. Finely chop the spinach and quarter the cherry tomatoes. Saute the onions until soft and translucent, add garlic then add zucchini and spinach. While that is cooking crack your eggs into a bowl and beat. Add your fresh herbs (dried works too) and a few cracks of pepper. Pour the egg mixture into the pan and give it a quick stir to make sure the veggies are evenly distributed. Drop the tomatoes in (don't stir them in, it is prettier if they sit on top) then drop chunks of goat cheese if you are using it. Place whole pan in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes or until set (not runny in the middle). Top with a sprinkle of chopped herbs as garnish. Fresh out of the oven

Be careful!! The handle of your pan is HOT. You will inevitably forget this after you get it out of the over and are preparing to serve.

Egg pizza (named by my three year old) flipped onto the serving dish, garnished with chives from the garden.

Now the fun part. You can either serve it straight from the pan, which is easier but means putting a hot pan on the table, or flip it out of the pan onto a serving plate. Just scrape down the sides of the pan to loosen the eggs, getting underneath the eggs, then put a plate on top of the pan and flip. The whole things should come out in one go. Then place your serving plate on the upside down eggs and flip it again. Some work but it's pretty.

Bon appetit!

Blueberry Pancakes

Sometimes you just want pancakes. I have tried almond meal and coconut flour but this time created a hybrid coconut flour/almond meal pancake that was decent. Straight almond meal leaves a strange stickyness in my mouth and is just too heavy. Coconut flour is pretty good, especially with pineapple, shredded coconut and macadamias on top. Today I got creative and was pleased with the results.

Coconut almond blueberry pancakes

Food is hard to photograph

Ingredients:

1/2 cup almond meal
1/2 cup coconut flour
3 eggs
1-1.5 cups coconut milk
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons lemon juice (can substitute vinegar)
lots of cinnamon
1 cup blueberries
coconut oil or other oil for cooking

Method:

Combine the flours and sift to get rid of any lumps. Add the baking soda and lemon juice. (I actually didn't measure, just eyeballed it and poured, but you need the acid (lemon) to react with the baking soda to create fluffy pancakes. If you don't have baking soda and lemon use baking powder.) Mix in 3 eggs and enough milk to make it pancake batter consistency. Not too runny but not to thick either (More an art than a science). Add lots of cinnamon and any other spice you like (nutmeg, cloves, ginger). Finally, mix in your blueberries. The more the better.

Heat up a skillet over medium high heat and add some coconut oil until nice and hot. Spoon in the batter. I find that because the batter is usually thicker than normal pancake batter it doesn't spread out so you need to use the back of the ladle to push the batter around to make it thin enough. If you wait a second the batter in contact with the pan will cook together and make it easier to manipulate the batter without pulling the pancake apart. Cook for a few minutes before flipping it over and finishing the other side, maybe 3-4 minutes per side.

These were fluffier than the usual almond meal pancakes and the juicy blueberries provided enough sweet juicy flavor that syrup was not needed. My kids wolfed them down and the 6 reasonable sized pancakes were gone in now time. A slab of butter would have gone nicely though, but some delicious bacon had to suffice. Other good toppers are bananas and pecans, and any other kind of berry you have laying around. Try other variations too-blackberries, raspberries, bananas, apples all make good pancake fillings.

Fish tacos (without the taco) with lime coleslaw

My mom was in town last week and whipped up this amazing meal. It came from a wonderful man, Peter Selay, who has a great restaurant in Nevada City. I highly, highly recommend New Moon if you are ever in Nevada City and need some good food. Then have breakfast at Ike's Quarter Cafe next door.

For this meal you will be using basically the same ingredients for each dish. So once you start juicing limes don't stop until you are all done. Same with chopping cilantro and jalapenos just keep chopping until you have huge piles. Use extra cilantro as a garnish.

Don't forget the avocados! Make sure you slice up some avocados somewhere in there to use as a topper for the fish.

Fish
Ingredients:

Fresh white fish (snapper, sea bass, halibut, mahi-mahi) 5-6 oz. per person
2-3 limes
1/4 Cup EVOO
1 jalapeno, diced (optional)
3-4 tablespoons chopped cilantro

Combine juice from limes through cilantro in a bowl and pour over fish. Let marinate 15-20 minutes. While that is soaking up the flavor make this lime slaw and salsa below.

To cook either grill on the BBQ or bake about 12-15 minutes depending on the size of the fish, until done.

Lime slaw

Ingredients:
1 head cabbage (a little goes a long way)
1 red bell pepper
1 red onion
4-5 tablespoons chopped cilantro
3 limes
EVOO
s & p

Thinly slice the cabbage, pepper and onion. Combine with the juice of the limes, cilantro and season with salt and pepper. Dress with a little oil and toss all together. Let stand about 15 minutes for the flavors to mingle. Check the limeyness and add more if needed.



Salsa Cruda

Ingredients:

1-2 large ripe tomatoes, chopped
1/2 cup chopped red onion
2-4 tablespoons chopped cilantro
1 jalapeno, diced
1-2 limes, juiced
1/4 cup EVOO
s & p

Combine everything and top your fish with it.

Whew, now that the fish, slaw and salsa are done it's time to put it all together. Pile your plate with coleslaw. Place a couple pieces of fish on that, spoon on some salsa and add a few slices of avocado. Sprinkle some chopped cilantro on top of it all and you have a beautiful, delicious dinner. Your friends who say eating Paleo sounds so restrictive can eat their lame hot dog and the BBQ while you munch on this.

It also works with flank steak! We made this a few nights later with a hunk of flank steak on the BBQ and it was great, just slice your meat nice and thin. And tequila is Paleo...just saying.

With flank steak. (It really wasn't under cooked,
this photo is just exceptionally pink.)

Paleo cobbler

Cobbler is a summer time necessity. With all the delicious fruit and berries around I find it unthinkable to not partake in a summertime dessert. I found a recipe on Everyday Paleo and made only one tweak.

Ingredients:

3 cups berries (I used blackberries, blueberries and strawberries)
1 1/2 cups almond meal
3 eggs
2 tablespoons coconut oil
lots of cinnamon
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Wash your berries, slice strawberries in half if using, and put in a pie dish.

In a bowl combine almond meal, eggs, oil and cinnamon. It becomes kind of thick and clumpy. Break this mixture up over the berries until it is evenly covered then back 35 minutes or until it is all bubbly and delicious. Serve in bowls and eat it up! Have some Paleo coconut ice cream if you are into that.

The almond meal makes for a granola like crust and I thought is was even better the next day for breakfast. I'm thinking any sweet summer fruit would work for this-peaches, plums, all berries. As long as you don't have a tart fruit, like apples, that need sugar you can make this cobbler without adding sugar and still be Whole30 compliant. (Although that's a huge dose of carbs...but everything in moderation.)

Dessert
and
Breakfast!!

YUM!

Simple cole slaw

I love cabbage in every form. I love it even more when it comes from my garden. This year I had two lovely heads of cabbage and one of them became this simple coleslaw. Coleslaw is very forgiving, so play with the amounts and ingredients; try different color cabbages, red onion, white onion, diakon, yellow raisins, currents, sunflower seeds. Really, whatever you have that is fresh and crunchy will work. It will last a couple days so make a big batch and enjoy it for days.

Ingredients:

1 head of green cabbage, thinly sliced (about 4 cups)
2 carrots
6 radishes
1 Granny Smith apple
lemon juice (optional)

Dressing:
1/2 C mayonnaise
2 T white wine or champagne vinegar
2 t celery seed
1 t Kosher salt (optional)
couple of twists of fresh ground black pepper

Using a food processor shred the carrots and radishes. Peel and cube the apple. (If you cube the apple first toss it with some lemon juice to keep it from turning brown. I just cubed the apples and tossed them straight in with the other veggies and had no troubles with discoloration. Why dirty another bowl if you don't have to?) Combine sliced cabbage, carrots, radishes, apples in your serving bowl.

To make the dressing combine all the ingredients (to save another dish measure the 1/2 cup of mayonnaise into a 1 cup measuring cup and then just add the remaining ingredients using your measuring spoons and mix directly in measuring cup.) Pour the dressing over the veggies, toss well to coat and serve right away or chill until ready to serve. The dressing has a strong vinegar flavor on its own but the sweetness of the apples and carrots makes it a great slaw dressing.

West Indian Chicken with orange sauce

Last night's dinner came courtesy of "Grill It! Recipes, Techniques, Tools," a great BBQ cookbook with lots of how-to tips. This is our recipe based on the one from the book since we didn't have or couldn't find all the ingredients called for.

The chicken:
4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts (10-12 oz each
2 t mustard powder (or more)
4 red Fresno chiles, stemmed (or something spicier than a jalapeno)
1 T minced ginger
1 T curry powder
1/4 C roughly chopped scallions, white and green parts
Kosher salt and freshly cracked pepper

Put mustard through salt and pepper in a blender or food processor and puree. Pour over chicken and marinate for about an hour, turning to make sure chicken is all coated.

While that is marinating make the sour orange sauce (mojo)

1 C orange juice
1/3 C distilled white vinegar (we used white wine vinegar)
1/3 C olive oil
2 T dried or fresh oregano
1 T garlic
Kosher salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and set aside. We thought the mojo was too watery so try less juice and oil, but play with it to see what you like.

To cook put the chicken on the grill about 7-9 minutes per side until done.

Arrange the chicken breasts on a platter and spoon the mojo over them. Place extra mojo on the table for people to add as they wish. Served with the simple coleslaw-another post coming soon!

The other white meat

Once again I began thinking about dinner after a meeting at 6:00. Pork was on my mind, so I picked up 2 lbs of pork tenderloin for my super easy, home run dinner. Always a winner and is ready in about 45 minutes or less from car to table.

Ingredients:
pork tenderloin

for the rub(listed in greatest amount to least amount):
kosher salt
ground mustard
ground pepper
celery seeds
fennel seeds
rosemary (works without it, but salt and rosemary go together so well.)

side:
green beans*

I put all the rub ingredients together in a mortar give them a quick grind with the pestle then rub the pork tenderloin with the concoction. Cook for 30 minutes at 425 or until done. Let rest a few minutes and then slice up and serve.

As a side I roasted some green and wax beans since the oven was the right temp. Just trim off the ends of the beans, toss with some olive oil and pepper (salt if you're into that) and bake for about 15 minutes or until tender.

Quick, easy and great for dinner parties. Pork tenderloin is juicy and tender and the rub gives it a nice flavor. Every rub I make is different, and just use the above list as a rough guide. Whatever is in the spice rack usually works.

And my 1 year old and 3 year old love this.

*I know green beans aren't technically Paleo, but I live by more of a whole30 model. And there is a lot of good stuff in green beans.

Creamy, stuffed peppers

Creamy? How can that be? I don't know, but my husband came up with a great Paleo recipe.

Ingredients:
4 bell peppers, any color
1 onion
1 shallot
olive oil
4-6 little zucchini or other summer squash
1 lb ground meat (we used andouille sausage)
cayenne
salt
3 eggs

Cut the peppers in half and gut them. Slice zucchini. Chop the onion, shallots and any scraps of pepper finely. Saute the veggies in olive oil until good and soft. Add sausage, cook until brown and broken up. Add zucchini, stir in and cover to kind of steam the zucchini so it doesn't get mushy. While that is going on pre-heat to oven to 375 and boil the peppers for 1 minute.

Remove pan from heat and crack three eggs into the stuffing. Just mix the eggs right in, don't worry about mixing them up in another bowl before combining with the onions, sausage, etc. Stuff the peppers and bake about 18-20 minutes.

If you have leftover stuffing just put it in a little dish and bake it like this:




Somehow the eggs mixed with the grease from the sausage and the juice from the sauteed onions to make a creamy filling that held everything together. It was an amazing alternative to breadcrumbs and cheese. Flavorful sausage helped, so if you are using plain ground meat be sure to season in well. Bon appetit!

I imagine this would work with any other veggie you had on hand-mushrooms, carrots, spinach, green beans, asparagus. You could play with the spices and herbs, do a Thanksgiving pepper with turkey sausage with sage and thyme. Lots of possibilities with this one!

Salmon in Parchment Paper

I must be in a fishy kind of mood.  I've made this a few times, and seeing as it's Paleo, I figured I ought to blog it out.  It was very satisfying last night.  :)

Ingredients:  (serves 4)
4 salmon filets (about 6 oz each)
4 Tbsp tarragon chopped
4 scallions thinly sliced
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 lemons halved
1 lb asparagus cut into 1 inch pieces

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Place the each salmon filet in the center of a piece of parchment paper (15inx15in).  Put salt, pepper, and oil on the filet.  Then cover the top with the tarragon, scallions and asparagus.  Finally, squeeze the half lemon on top and place the lemon on top of it all.  Pull the sides of the parchment over, folding several times to seal.  Place the salmon pouches on a baking sheet and cook in the oven for 20-25 minutes.

I have also made this recipe with dill instead of tarragon.

I've served the fish with roasted potatoes, rice and more steamed veggies.

Mmmm, mmmm, good.

Salmon Filet with Roasted Root Veggies

After much talking with fellow blogger Nicole, I decided to roast some veggies for dinner tonight.

Ingredients:

Vegetables
1 small butternut squash seeded and cut into pieces
2 small turnips cut into pieces
2 parsnips cut into pieces
1 sweet potato cut into pieces
1 yellow onion
1 Head of garlic
Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper to taste

1 6 ounce salmon filet

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
I cut up the butternut, turnips, parsnips, sweet potato and onion and put them into a big bowl.  I added about 3 tbsp of olive oil and some salt and pepper and tossed it to coat all the veggies.  I then wiped two baking dishes with oil and dumped the veggies in equally. I pulled apart all the cloves of the garlic and peeled them.  These I set aside for later.

I put the veggies into the oven for about an hour.  After the first 30 minutes, I added the garlic cloves.  Stir the veggies every 20 minutes or so.

For the salmon, I put a little salt and pepper on the filet.  In a small pan heat olive oil.  Cook the fish on each side for 3 or 4 minutes.  Serve.

This made A LOT of veggies which I saved for future meals.  Veggies could easily serve 4-6 people.

Can of tuna...oh, the possibilities.

At 5:00 I started thinking about what to make for dinner. We had a refrigerator full of veggies from the farmers' market and a trip to Costco, but not much in the way of protein. Deep in the pantry cupboard were the trusty cans of tuna for a night like tonight.

Here goes.

Ingredients:
2 cans of tuna
hard boiled eggs
baby beet greens (or any other green)
beets
carrots
onions or shallots
zucchini

Dressing:
6T EVOO
1.5T red wine vinegar
fresh herbs-thyme, sage, rosemary

I chopped the veggies to about the same size then roasted them at 425 for about 45 minutes (finished the beets and carrots at 450 for about 10 minutes because we were hungry and impatient).

While they were roasting I put the baby beet greens in a bowl, topped with the tuna and diced hard boiled eggs then mixed up the dressing. Any vinegarette will do, so play with herbs, garlic, lemon juice, different oils.
Once the veggies were fork tender I pulled them out of the oven and topped the salad with them. The carrots looked tye-dye from the beets, which I found pretty. Everything got a splash of the salad dressing then Bon Appetit!

Options: Any vegetable that roasts up nicely works for this salad; tomatoes, asparagus, green beans, squash. I like it best at room temperature so it is good to plan ahead a little more than an hour before dinner. Toasted nuts would also go well with this. Grilled chicken or any other protein works, too. This is a really versatile dish and so tasty!

Non-Paleo options: sprinkle some goat cheese on top.

Dinner tonight

It is another sunny day in the Northwest so the BBQ is getting fired up again. Tonight's feast is cumin lime chicken and grilled zucchini, yellow squash and eggplant.

Serves two adults and two reasonably hungry toddlers with no leftovers. (Make more than I did. You will want leftovers.)

Ingredients:
1 zucchini (with blossom still attached!)
1 eggplant
1 yellow squash

2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
EVOO
cumin about a teaspoon or more
chili powder about half as much as the cumin (although my poured out and I had about 3 times that.)
juice of 1/2 of one lime plus some chopped up lime chunks
chopped garlic

I used a mandolin to get a consistent thickness on the veggies, tossed with some olive oil and salt then grilled.

Marinate chicken in a baggie with the remaining ingredients for a little while (about 10 minutes tonight). One of the chicken breasts was a little thicker so I took the meat tenderizer to them so they would cook at the same rate. After a few minutes in the marinade they were put on the BBQ and grilled to perfection, about 7 minutes on each side.

Dessert: grilled Rainier cherries. Whole cherries put on a skewer and grilled about 10 minutes until hot and juicy. Easy and delicious.

This was the most perfect dinner. The chicken was tender and juicy, the flavors of the lime and cumin were great. The eggplant was so good and grilled summer squash is about the best thing on a summer night. Everything was from the farmers' market, so in addition to being Paleo it was also a local, happy, feel-good meal.

Beef Taco Salad

While I've made plenty a taco salad in the past, I had never done one with the seasoning from scratch.  So, just to get it down...

Ingredients

Seasoning:

• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper

1 lb Ground Beef

2/3 Red Bell Pepper chopped

2/3 Onion chopped

1 clove garlic minced

Black olives sliced

Avocado

I browned the beef with the onions, pepper and garlic on medium high heat.  When the meat was browned, I added the seasoning mix along with about a half cup of water.  Once it was all mixed in, I allowed the meat to simmer for about 5 minutes.

I put the taco meat over a bed of green leaf lettuce and topped it with black olives (which I should have sliced but was too lazy), and had I remembered to buy one, I would have added avocado as well.  Yummy!

My Best Egg Scramble Yet

After watching my sister Jody prepare scrambles, I was ready to find some success finally.  This is probably mostly hers (if you want to give credit), but I thought I'd share as it was my most successful scramble to date.

Ingredients:
2 slices of bacon
1/3 Red bell pepper chopped
1/4 Onion chopped
1 clove garlic minced
1/4 cup spinach coarsely chopped
3 eggs
salt and pepper to taste

First I cooked the bacon on medium heat.  I removed it from the pan along with the majority of the fat left behind, but left some in the pan to act as the oil to cook the veggies.  When I started cooking the veggies, I lowered the heat to Medium Low, knowing that it would cool down by the time I put the eggs in.  I cooked the pepper, onion and spinach together.  As they cooked, I chopped the bacon into small pieces.  When the veggies were nearly done, I added the garlic and the bacon to the mix.  I then added the eggs.  Because it is cooking on a lower heat this takes patience.  I constantly moved the eggs until they begin to set.  I then let them rest for a time to really set in.  So good!  I feel like I can finally make a good scramble!

If they had been available I would also have added mushrooms and topped with avocado, but nevertheless, it was great.

Delicious Portland Meals

While in Portland, I had some great meals.  The first night we had steak with grill roasted sweet potatoes and grilled asparagus.  The second night was fajitas with spice rubbed flank steak and slow cooked chicken.  On the final night we had a pork tenderloin that Greg cooked on the grill along with grilled zucchini and squash and a side salad.  Everything was so good but I didn't have my hands in everything and couldn't describe all that went into the dishes.  Here are pictures of nights 2 and 3 (forgot to take a pic night 1).

Fajitas with Flank Steak and Slow Cooked Chicken

Side Salad, Pork Tenderloin, Grilled Zucchini and Squash

Almond Banana Pancakes

Okay, while down in Portland this weekend I had the additional support of my sister and brother-in-law who are also doing Paleo right now.  Because of this, we had some great meals together.  Greg has been getting sick of eggs for breakfast so we thought we'd try an alternative.  I found a recipe for pancakes online and we tweaked it until it tasted good.

Ingredients:
2 cups almond meal
6 eggs
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
1 banana
walnuts or pecans (optional)
fresh fruit (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries)

I mixed the first 4 ingredients together, and did a test pancake.   Cook the pancakes like you would a traditional pancake. After the test cake, Jody decided to add a banana to the mixture.  This added a good amount of flavor and made them more edible if you are avoiding honey, syrup or butter (which I am).  We also added walnuts and pecans later and both were great.  I topped them off with some strawberries and they were quite tasty.

Simple Chicken Stir Fry

In preparation for leaving for the weekend I wanted to use as many of my fresh veggies as possible.  So, I decided to make a simple chicken stir fry with veggies.

Ingredients:
1 boneless skinless chicken breast cut into small pieces
4 baby bell peppers sliced
2 zucchini quartered long ways then sliced into small pieces
Sliced mushrooms
1/3 yellow onion chopped
4 cloves of garlic chopped
Small handfull of cashews
Sea salt
Black pepper
Oregano
Garlic powder
Ground ginger
Paprika
Red pepper flakes
Green curry paste
Olive oil

I heated up some oil and cooked the chicken with a little salt, pepper and green curry paste (this was very little - maybe 1/2 tsp).  I removed the chicken from the pan and put in the onions and garlic.  After about a minute I added the other veggies (if I did this again I add the peppers, then a minute or two later add the zucchini and mushrooms as they were a little soft at the end).  Then I seasoned the veggies with salt, pepper, ginger, garlic and red pepper flakes.  After cooking the veggies for a few minutes I put the chicken back in and cooked in all together to get the flavors on everything.  At this point I added a bit of oregano and paprika as suggested on a few websites I'd see earlier.  For the last minute I added a small handfull of cashews just because I like them in my stir frys.

Overall it was much better than the beef stir fry I had made earlier in the week.  Not sure if it was the chicken, the addition of the mushrooms or that I just did a better job seasoning but it was tasty.

Chili

So, my friends were getting together tonight for a baked potato bar.  We all were supposed to bring toppings for the potatoes.  Usually I would top mine with butter, sour cream, cheese, bacon, and maybe chili.... So, I was down to chili or bacon.  Bacon had been claimed by someone else and there was no way I was going to eat a potato with only bacon... not interesting enough for me.  Therefore, chili was the answer.

Ingredients:

2 lb ground beef

4 Tbsp olive oil

2 bell peppers

2 medium onions chopped

2 14.5oz can tomatoes (petite-diced)

8-10 cloves of garlic minced

8 Tbsp chili powder

4 tsp oregano

4 tsp cumin

salt and pepper to taste

I warmed the oil on medium high heat.  Browned the beef with the onions and garlic.  Then added everything else and let it simmer for 30 minutes.

This was served over a baked sweet potato.  I also had a bit of avocado on top and a few little pieces of bacon.

I thought it was tasty and would eat it over potatoes or stand alone.  I think it would be cool to add other veggies, but I'm not sure what I could add that would taste good.  Thoughts?

Stuffed Chicken (Sundried Tomato, Red Pepper and Spinach)

Unfortunately, I didn't think to take a picture of the dinner my friend Nicole and I made last night.

Ingredients:
2 large chicken breasts
Spinach
Garlic
Sundried Tomatoes
Roasted Red Pepper
Pepper
Salt

We chopped the spinach, garlic, sundried tomatoes and roasted red peppers and mixed them together in a bowl.  We then sliced the chicken in half and stuffed it with all the goodies.  I believe we baked the chicken at 350 until it was done.   We did not salt and pepper this but we wished we had.

We ate the chicken with a side of roasted squash and zucchini and some cumin caramelized carrots.

It was DELICIOUS.

The Rhyme and Reason

I have just recently started eating under the restrictions of the Paleo Diet. While there are several blogs online with recipes, I wanted to start one for myself.  This is for me to look back on and find great recipes that worked as well as to improve on what does not.  Hopefully it will also help others seeking recipes that might be right for them.  I will do my best to take pictures to remember the meals and to be specific about what I did.  I may also invite my fellow Paleo people to join in and share successful recipes.

Gonna try to make a chili tomorrow so I will let you know how that goes.