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.