amazingly tasty so much more than pesto with red chile and basil shrimp over spaghetti squash

Anybody want to name this dish?
I've been meaning to make this for a while and finally got to it last night. It was all eaten before I got a chance to remember to take a picture, but it was beautiful, green and freaking yummy. Guess this isn't the most pro food blog you've ever seen, but then again, that's not really the point I suppose. The point is to post easy wing it recipes. So here you go....

SPAGHETTI SQUASH: cut it in half, scrape out the seeds, place it cut side down with some water on a pan in the oven, and roast at about 400 (my Better Half does 375 I think) until soft. 30-45 minutes? When it's done, scrape it out of the skin/shell and treat it like pasta.

While that's cooking, get busy throwing all the following stuff into your food processor (I use a Ninja blender and it seems to work just as well).

PESTO STUFF:

• olive oil
• a few hand fulls of fresh basil
• a couple hand fulls of fresh, raw spinach
• a ripe avocado
• a small pile of pine nuts
• a heap of garlic
• lemon or lime juice
• even more fresh basil (or maybe even some cilantro instead)
• salt/pepper
• a little bit of whatever veggies you have left over from other stuff: I threw in a bit of raw cauliflower along with some sauteed onions and serranos.
• I definitely recommend adding some kind of chile pepper like serrano or jalepeno, but the extra veggies are just that: extra. By all means, leave out anything you think might jack up the flavor or texture too much.

When the spaghetti is done, cook your shrimp. I like to wait until the spaghetti squash is done since shrimp takes relatively no time at all. 

RED CHILE & BASIL SHRIMP: saute everything together, adding the basil at the very last so it wilts just enough to release the best flavor without over-cooking. You could even turn off the stove, and then throw it in.

• shrimp
• minced garlic
• cooking oil/fat of choice (I prefer bacon grease)
• red chile flakes
• *splash of white wine (optional)
• chopped, fresh basil
• salt/pepper

 Finally, mix and/or layer everything-- spaghetti squash, pesto, and shrimp-- to your liking, and enjoy with a lemon or lime wedge. This is definitely one of my favorites!

back on the wagon with chorizo sweet potato hash, etc.

I don't have a sweet tooth. I have a whole face FULL of them (and I also wish I could take credit for that line, but nope). My Better Half is actually the same way, and, as we've both been under more stress than usual lately for various reasons, we both fell off the wagon. Please understand, I'm not just talking about a cookie here and there or a reasonable normal human being serving of ice cream after dinner. I'm talking face-plant off the wagon and dragged behind it for a few hundred yards. Admittedly, I'd been doing it for the last month or so-- Better Half for a few days.

So, after a climactic and thoroughly nauseating last tumble through the sugary, sticky, sweet mud and debris that comprised pretty much the entire day on Saturday-- starting with baby shower french toast and pastries (along with baby blue Jelly Bellies), then moving onto other sundry sweets scattered throughout a one-year-old's birthday party later in the afternoon and into the evening--it was time to make a change.

We made a pact, a bet, a challenge--whatever you want to call it-- to hold each other accountable without the stereotypically associated shaming ("You ate a SNICKERS?? I thought we were in this TOGETHER!") if either one of us breaks. I think shame just makes you want to give up and eat more crap, so that's not our style. You see, we're both trained massage therapists, but we rarely take time to work on each other. So, whoever breaks over the next few weeks has agreed to work on the other person. Not such a bad deal! Since we've also been going in a zillion circles on what to name our baby, we also toyed with the all-or-nothing deal that the person who breaks has to let the other name him. Noooooooooo. Not that I've had a whole lot of cravings, but I fear I'd be one strong, hormonal craving away from my child being named after a monster truck. Knowing he's more disciplined than I am (although I think stubbornness is a good substitute for me in this particular scenario), he's very confident that he wouldn't have to worry about baby boy getting one of my wimpy nerd names. Yeah, I think we'll stick with the massage idea and just keep sifting for a good, balanced, nerdy, monster truck name.

Anyhow, enough rambling. Here's how we got our groove back, starting Sunday morning:

CHORIZO, SWEET POTATO HASH over field greens and topped with fried eggs and avocado.

We used....

• onion
• garlic
• serrano
• orange and red bell pepper
• grated sweet potato (just because it cooks faster that way and we were hungry)
• fresh chorizo from the deli
• salt/pepper

You may have super skills in determining what order in which to cook everything, so don't by any means take my way for the "right" way. Remember, I just wing it most of the time, but I started with sauteing the onions for a couple minutes, then adding the garlic and serrano with a quick stir/toss before throwing in the potatoes. Let that cook for a couple minutes, then add the chorizo. I like my bell peppers to retain a little bit of their texture, so I tend to put those in last, once the chorizo is almost done.

Serve it over field greens and top it with a couple of over easy to over medium fried eggs for a great start to the day.

*You could also just scramble the eggs right into the hash, which is also really good, but I just enjoy the way the egg yolk acts as a little extra sauce for everything. Speaking of, I'm hungry, so I'm going to sign off and EAT.

NO BANANA paleo zucchini bread

This morning was another one of those where eggs and veggies just didn't sound appealing. I wanted something rib-sticking and breadish. Seems this tendency toward grains is mostly a morning plague, so I raided the fridge and pantry to see what I could find. We had some good, solid, clean-food staples: zucchini, carrots, eggs, almond flour, and shredded coconut. Surely I can find something to do with this! And so began the Google search for paleo zucchini bread... but just about every recipe I found had banana in it! Or coconut flour. Don't get me wrong, coconut flour is great, but my experience with using it for baking has been somewhat less than satisfactory. The breads and cookies attempted with coconut flour have turned out like flavored chalk: tasty, as long as you don't mind every drop of moisture being sucked right out of your face. Clearly, I have not mastered coconut flour, so I'll stick with almond meal.

This is the recipe I settled on using as inspiration: http://www.againstallgrain.com/2012/04/24/almond-flour-zucchini-bread-and-a-giveaway/

While I'm sure it is absolutely fantastic in its own right, note the banana in the ingredients list. I love those sweet, self-contained, sugar-dense fruits, but my more disciplined better half generally steers clear of them. So if I want him to dig this treat as much as I want to dig this treat, it has to be tweaked.

This is what I decided to do: leave out the banana. Ta-DAH!

It could've been that simple, but I wanted to throw in a bit more flare, so I also added the following:

• shredded carrots
• shredded coconut
• vanilla

Super easy and delicious. Enjoy!

Not paleo.... At all.

I broke in the most major way possible this morning with a massive pile of homemade biscuits and gravy. My Texas taste buds won today and my stomach feels very much like I swallowed a brick. I'll blame pregnancy for my naughty cravings while I can still use the excuse!

Paleo Breakfast Pizza

This is what I saw online:

http://www.fitsugar.com/Avocado-Egg-Toast-24881966?_szp=23427&_szu=skinnymom

Looks really freaking good, and almost Paleo, right?

First, don't be scared off by the bananas and the cheesy half of the pizza you see below, as those ingredients are very optional and the only two that aren't paleo. Second, take a gander at these things:

Inspired by the breakfast pizza link, I used that trusty paleo pizza crust link* from the previous post and did my thing. I winged it and this is what turned into one fine breakfast:

*I left the pepper out of the crust recipe, replaced the oregano with basil, and added a bit of flaxseed meal.

Berry Breakfast Pizza

• make a compote out of fruit/berries of your choosing
• berries, arrowroot powder (the more the thicker the compote), lemon juice, maple syrup (optional), splash of water if needed

• slather the compote on the mostly cooked crust

Bacon, egg, and avocado Breakfast Pizza

• mash ripe avocados together with garlic, salt, pepper, and lemon juice (super basic guacamole) and spread evenly over mostly cooked crust 

•  we chose to scramble eggs for even distribution, but fried eggs look really good too!
• chop up a few slices of bacon and cook 'em up before you set them aside while you use the bacon grease for the eggs
• saute onions, serranos, garlic, red bell peppers in a little bit of bacon grease (or oil of your choosing) and add in whipped eggs. Scramble together.
• Top the avocado with egg/veggie mix, then bacon.

Put pizza(s) back in the oven for a few minutes. Then, take them out, add any additional toppings-- grated coconut for the fruit, or fresh herbs for the eggs--slice them into pieces, and get your day started with a delicious and special breakfast.

playing with your food: making meatwads

Have I mentioned yet that I'm a pretty handsy, tactile person? Gloves, while cozy, drive me nuts because I don't get to FEEL what I'm doing: playing in the dirt garden which will someday also hopefully be a vegetable garden (I hear these little seed things that I buried might actually turn into food someday), making things out of clay and glue and beads and other stuff, and, yes, making food. I like feeling food too, but I'm also necessarily big on WASHING my hands, so no worries. Going barefoot is pretty sweet too, but that's different. I am not one of those few, awesome people who have developed the foot dexterity to do all of life's tasks with no hands, so I keep my feet distinctly OUT of the food. My hands, however (I had to avoid a pun there), are different, which brings us to tonight's dinner. Meatwads. Yup. You read that correctly. It's not meatloaf, nor are they meatballs. These babies are way more fun and convenient than either of those things. We make wads in this house and let me tell you why.

Credit goes to a woman with whom I used to work who was raised in, and who also raised, a large farm family. One of her tricks to having pre-portioned meals for the throngs and that also freeze well was to make meatloaf in a muffin tin instead of a bread pan. Genius! Granted, she did not call it meatwads, but that's exactly what it looked like to me the first time I pulled it out of the oven, so the name stuck. Admittedly, we're also fans of Aqua Teen Hunger Force around here.

So here's tonight's version:

• Italian Sausage
• elk meat
• eggs (I've found these to be relatively optional, depending on other ingredients)
• diced Hatch Green Chiles
• chopped onion
• minced garlic
• chopped/riced cauliflower
• gluten-free soy
• Worcestershire sauce (hate having to spell that one)
• salt, pepper, chili powder, cumin 

Have your muffin tin ready to go and preheat your oven to 400.

Put all your ingredients in a big bowl and--are you ready? I recommend taking your rings off and rolling up your sleeves-- SQUISH. See isn't that nice? Use your hands to mix it all together, then form a meatwad for each space in the tin. You can go traditional and top with ketchup, as we have tonight, but depending on ingredients on hand and in the wads, I've also topped with marinara or enchilada sauce. Some clever people I've seen online even make meatloaf cupcakes, topping their wads with mashed potatoes! I LOVE that idea.

Anyway, bake your wads until they're cooked through, which will depend on how big you made them. Usually 30-45 minutes works for ours.

Tonight, we're enjoying ours with some deviled eggs and citrusy napa cabbage cole slaw. Happy eating, ya'll!

Believe it or not... Paleo Pizza!

Oh yeah, and, speaking of paleo food that looks and tastes like non-paleo food, we made pizza the other night and it was AMAZING! I think the Kiddo might even like this one, but she'll probably want cheese. Baby steps, right?

We used the crust from this blog: http://preppypaleo.blogspot.com/2012/12/best-paleo-traditional-pizza-crust-to.html. Seriously, we've tried other crusts, and this one--THIS ONE-- will rock your socks if you're looking for traditional.

To top it, we roasted a bulb of garlic...

• place on foil, slice the top open, pour in olive oil, wrap up foil, and roast at 400(?) until it's soft-- 30 minutes-ish

We mashed up said garlic to more of a paste texture and spread it over the almost cooked crust before layering...

• marinara of your choice
• toppings of your choice

We chose fresh red bell peppers and bison meat sauteed with onions, garlic, fennel seed, red chile flakes, oregano, salt, and pepper. *Fresh herbs like oregano, thyme, and basil = always a good thing!

Then, as the crust recipe states, throw it back in the oven for another 10ish minutes, and TA-DAH!

Serve this puppy up with a nice, big mixed green salad with some balsalmic and olive oil, and you will be one happy primal camper. 

I wanted oatmeal

It's entirely possible that what I'm about to say is the equivalent of paleo blasphemy, but there are days when I'm just really freaking sick of eggs and meat. Especially for breakfast. Blegh. Over it. I want pancakes and waffles and oatmeal and all that warm comfort food junk.

Luckily, there's a great paleo pancake recipe out there, but I'll have to ask my better half what it is and where to find it. Crepes are also a wonderful option. Instead of milk and flower, I really enjoyed the recipe from this website: http://janeshealthykitchen.com/paleo-crepes/#.UUhqdRj34jE. We filled them with homemade fruit compote thickened with arrowroot powder (no sugar) and a bacon/spinach mix, all topped with chopped pecans. Want to impress someone with some fru-fru looking food that's also super tasty? Do this.

As for those mornings, like mine today, where you don't have anyone to impress and you're just plain hungry and you don't really care what it looks like, I'd like to recommend this....

It still looks kind of pretty because this is before it gets cooked and stirred together, and I'm sure someone out there could make it pretty. Feel free to post a photo if you do.

In this bowl, I put layers of:

• almond flower
• blueberries
• strawberries
• cashews
• coconut milk

The layers really aren't necessary. Figuring it might scare people away from this yummy, easy concoction, I just didn't want to post a picture of gruel. 

Cook it all together for a few minutes-- add water or almond milk if you need/want to-- stir it, then enjoy. It's not oatmeal, and it's SO much better.

kitchen sink cooking

"Kitchen sink" cooking is one of my favorite ways to cook. Like I've mentioned, I'm not very good at really sticking strictly to recipes, as it feels too limiting to me and, besides, what if you forget to buy an item at the grocery store? I'd much rather work with whatever I have on hand, and that's just what happened last night. As an added bonus, especially on busy weeknights, if I can keep it all in one pan to keep clean-up to a minimum, I've found perfection.

Admittedly, I did run by the grocery for some shrimp and some cauliflower because I had an idea in mind of what I wanted, based on everything we already had on hand. But the basil shrimp fried cauli-rice didn't happen. It actually strikes me now that I still could have thrown the shrimp into what I did make and it would've been fantastic, but oh well. Here's what happened: There were two links of Italian sausage screaming to be cooked before they turned.

I hate wasting food. I die a little on the inside every time we have to throw anything out. It's a waste of money and precious resources, on a small scale and large. I mean, we try to avoid most processed and inorganic food for various reasons, including but not limited to resource sustainability, but still... We, as consumers use up X amount of land and Y amount of water and other resources to produce Z amount of food, etc; and reportedly 40% of the food Americans purchase ends up in the trash! What if we could reduce that by just half? And this notion doesn't even begin to touch on the fact that a lot of the processed food that stocks Western shelves is largely void of any real nutritional value. LOW FAT AND LOW CALORIE DOES NOT EQUATE TO HEALTHY! We can pack in the calories, gain weight, become obese, and still starve our bodies. Ok, that was a total tangent. Back to what we actually made.

• SAUTE chopped onions, minced Serrano pepper, and minced garlic with two links of Italian sausage
• Other spices I added: ginger, salt, coriander
• Once sausage is crumbled and almost cooked through,
• ADD finely chopped (rice-ish) texture cauliflower and SPLASH of coconut milk and let SIMMER for a couple of minutes
• FOLD IN chopped chard and let wilt
• TURN OFF heat and add a handful of chopped fresh cilantro

• SERVE AND ENJOY!

I don't have a picture of it, but I also didn't really pretty it up at all, so pics wouldn't do it justice anyway. It was mighty tasty.

chocolate coconut almond balls

Pretty self explanatory, except I used all the shredded coconut so I couldn't include it in the picture.

Instructions:

• melt the chocolate (double boiler or VERY low heat to keep it from burning)
• mix your best guess quantities of all the ingredients together well (don't forget the shredded coconut) and let them cool to room temp
• dump a bunch of coconut flower/sugar on a sheet of parchment paper and roll balls of the batter/dough in it, so each ball gets a sugar coating
• cool the rest of the way in fridge
• EAT those suckers and enjoy!

Stay tuned....

Backlogged successful kitchen creations yet to be posted:

• vegetable avocado pesto sauce/dip/stuff
• paleo lasagna
• meat wads
• tomato and napa cabbage balsamic tilapia
• roasted garlic z'oodle primavera
• paleo ice cream
• fruit leather (a fruit-heavy, wonderful solution to hating beets in just about every other form)
• beef (or whatever protein of choice) fried rice-- one of my personal favorites, pictured

Coconut Curried Chicken

I'll get better at taking pics of my food, promise. This really was delicious!

 So, I'm terrible when it comes to actually following recipes, thus, the description of this blog, but I started by Googling coconut curry with tomatoes. Originally, this recipe was written out for a friend, so I actually included some vague notion of quantities of each ingredient. Really though, have fun and wing it. What's the worst that could happen?

This is what several Googled recipes and some improvisation turned into....

SAUTE in a bit of coconut oil:

• 6 boneless, skinless chicken thighs cut into bites
• 1 small onion, chopped (shallots would've been good to, i think)
• 1 package of mushrooms (although I think it could've used more)
• about a TBSP of minced garlic

ADD:

• about a TBSP of minced ginger
• at least 2 TBSP of curry paste (I mixed both red and green)
• 1 can of fire roasted diced tomatoes
• 1/2 can of coconut milk (get the good stuff without preservatives or sugar, usually organic)

SIMMER until you're satisfied everything is cooked to your liking,

THEN ADD:
a couple handfuls of fresh baby spinach
a generous heap of chopped, fresh basil

SERVE over cauliflower rice.

We also make a fantastic fried cauli-rice and also use it to stuff peppers and add sustenance to pretty much any kind of casserole. Here's a website to get you started with it if you haven't yet discovered the magic of cauliflower:

http://whatscookingamerica.net/Vegetables/CauliflowerRice.htm

Let's do this thing

So, here goes. Just like anyone writing a blog about food, I dig on cooking, and I also really dig on eating. While I've always been into reasonable eating-- I also kind of got thrust into this whole Paleo thing by my better half. I say "reasonable" rather than healthy, not because I don't think I've always eaten pretty well, but because I'm not without my own cravings and vices. Ahem... Namely, sugar. I don't believe in diets, and experience tells me that feeling like I'm restricted or missing out with regard to food creates undue stress and exponentially increases the difficulty of making lasting or real lifestyle changes. So, I get creative and end up eating much better-- in both nutritional and flavor satisfaction-- than I would had I given myself the luxury of complacency.

My formative culinary years were actually spent as a vegetarian, but before you run screaming from this post, fearing whatever notions of advice a reformed vegetarian could possibly offer on living a meat-heavy lifestyle, let me just say this: I've learned a lot of different ways to feel good about what I eat; AND I learned to cook by watching my vegan chef dad and by experimenting to find things that fit my lifestyle in a way that didn't feel painfully limited. In short, I learned to love lots of vegetables and I learned to get creative; and these culinary tendencies come in just as handy taking on the paleo lifestyle.

I'll admit, though, not having really learned to cook meat until after college, I still leave the steaks completely in the hands of my guy. He makes the best steaks, salsa, and meaty marinara sauce I've ever had (not to mention a couple of very-special-once-a-year-very-non-paleo treats that involve lots of sugar, cinnamon, and white flower); and we have very different styles when it comes to cooking. While I hardly know what I'm cooking until it's on our plates or in our bowls, he actually measures and weighs things and follows recipes as instructed. I'm a little envious of his focus, honestly, but I think our differences make for some pretty great creations! Anyhow, he comes from a background of trying to eat healthy while hating vegetables. He used to call cauliflower, broccoli, and brussels sprouts the "axis of vegetable evil," and he wouldn't touch the stuff. He's still far from a fan of the evil B's-- brussels and broccoli-- but they still make it to our plates in various forms, along with a ton of other veggies; and he's actually a huge fan of cauliflower now.

Seriously, that stuff's pretty magical: versions of cauliflower rice and cauliflower mashers can really complete a meal and give you that "comfort food" feel. We also use it to stuff peppers, thicken sauces, and add sustenance to just about anything. Good stuff.

And, finally, a last little note in this intro post, I'll definitely post links to favorite other recipe and exercise sites as we find and use them. Just want to give credit where credit is due. I have absolutely no affiliation with any of them, other than appreciation. A couple to get you started are:

http://paleomg.com/
http://whatscookingamerica.net/Vegetables/CauliflowerRice.htm
http://janeshealthykitchen.com/paleo-crepes/#.UTv9pBj34jE
http://everydaypaleo.com/
http://justlikemomnevermade.blogspot.com/
http://centralathlete.com/
http://farmhousedelivery.com/home.html

my better half, me (pointing at him), and the kiddo

HAPPY EATING!