Primal Challenge Day 2

I think I'm going to do most measurements weekly rather than daily, but I will track my weight daily.

weight: 135 lbs (-1.4)

breakfast: none


lunch:
salad - escarole, radicchio, endive, carrots, celery, cucumbers, bacon, balsamic vinegar, extra virgin olive oil
topped with leftover steak from last night's dinner
roasted unsalted almonds
primal limeade - water, lime juice, stevia


snack:
chai - coconut chai teabag, heavy cream, stevia
homemade beef jerky
1 oz cheddar cheese


dinner:
barbecue skillet - onions and cabbage browned in ghee, kielbasa, chicken, pinch of bbq rub, 2T of bbq sauce, topped with shredded cheddar


dessert:
baked raspberries and peaches topped with grated dark chocolate and mint leaves; I used a 6oz container of raspberries and 1 peach for 2 people

exercise:
4.3 miles of strenuous walking, part of it uphill. Really got my heart rate up and the sweat was pouring off me!

a bunch of old meal pics

I was going through some of my old pictures today and I found some that I took before I started my blog. I don't intend to really write any of them up as individual posts, but I thought people might be interested in seeing them to get ideas. If you want to see them in a bigger size just click on the picture.


Steak, mustardy mushrooms, salad with almonds and I think tahini dressing.


Blended salad soup. It was, um, an experiment. An experiment gone horribly awry.


Shopping haul.


Fried eggs, blackberries and strawberries with mint, sauerkraut, cucumbers with a drizzle of olive oil.


Ribeye steak, raw fennel salad, roasted green beans and potatoes.


Salmon on a bed of collards cooked with onions and cranberries, garnished with grated carrots and pea shoots. I remember trying to make this picture look fancy but I don't remember why!


Tuna salad and pea shoots wrapped in nori seaweed and a salad with walnuts and tahini dressing.


Pork tenderloin with cinnamon applesauce, sauteed red cabbage, parsley soup. I remember my applesauce recipe for this was awesome (maybe I'll dig it out and post it), but the parsley soup was kind of gross.


Scrambled eggs topped with bacon and a side salad topped with Trader Joe's balsamic frozen veggie mix.


Fried egg with parsley on top of braised swiss chard.


Fried egg on top of sauteed mixed veggies, walnuts and a pear.

Coconutty Fruit Salad

I've been enjoying coconut lately (as you can see from my coconut milk ice cream!), and I came up with this yummy application the other day. I hardly eat fruit at all in the winter since everything is out of season but apples and pears, so when summer comes around I like to have a little fun. I've used a specialty ingredient in this fruit salad, which is coconut butter. It's just like any other nut butter in that it's the whole nut ground up into a paste. The kind I get is Artisana raw coconut butter, which is ground at low temperatures and supposedly retains all the coconutness of the coconut (you know, enzymes, vitamins, fiber, etc). I don't even know if any other companies make coconut butter. Anyway, if you can't find this stuff, I would substitute some unsweetened shredded coconut and maybe a few tablespoons of coconut milk (or even better, if you get the kind of coconut milk that separates in the can into a thick cream and a runny liquid, use only the thick cream).



COCONUTTY FRUIT SALAD

ingredients:
2 heaping cups mixed fruit (pictured is a heaping 1/2 cup each of blueberries, strawberries, red grapes and pineapple)
2 T raw coconut butter
1/4 cup toasted almonds

Cut your fruit any way you want it. Roughly chop the almonds. Gently warm the coconut butter until it becomes runny, then immediately toss with the fruit and nuts. The coldness of the fruit will make the coconut butter harden back up and stick to it like a shell. Dig in and enjoy! I've had this as breakfast, snack, and dinner side dish in the past few weeks. :)

One Local Summer - Week One

Back in April I signed up for the One Local Summer event over at Farm to Philly. I thought it would be a neat way to challenge myself to really use more local and seasonal ingredients in my cooking. I'm excited to see what northern Virginia has in store for me this summer! We were pretty busy this weekend, so my first local meal was a pretty basic brunch we had on Saturday morning before heading off for the day.



We had bacon, eggs, and fruit salad with whipped cream.

The bacon I picked up at the farmer's market from a kind of local farm aggregate called EcoFriendly Foods. It comes from pastured pigs and is cured with just salt and sugar. It was definitely the best local bacon I've had so far, but not quite as good as the local bacon we used to get when we lived in New Jersey from Cherry Grove Farm.

The eggs were from Joel Salatin's famous and fabulous Polyface Farm. I joined their buying club a few months ago. Every month I place an order with them and pick it up from one of their northern Virginia drop off spots. I cooked the delicious dark yolked eggs in some of the fat left over from cooking the bacon.

The fruit salad was strawberries from Toigo Orchards and some not-so-local peaches (they came from Georgia via Whole Foods). I would have left the peaches out happily, but they were in my fruit basket and going bad, so into the salad they went. To top our fruit I whipped a little heavy cream from J-Wen Farm. Selling raw milk is illegal in Virginia unless you go through a cow sharing program, but the stuff from J-Wen is not homogenized and is just pasteurized rather than ultrapasteurized. The fruit was so naturally sweet that the whipped cream didn't require any sugar. I don't eat very much dairy at all, but I just had a hankering this weekend so I picked the cream up at the farmer's market.

And there you have it!

Salsa Pulled Pork

This is probably the easiest recipe I'll ever share with you, and also one of the most delicious and rewarding!



SALSA PULLED PORK

ingredients:
1 jar of your favorite salsa
1 pork tenderloin

Quantities are not exact and don't matter anyway. Put the pork into a crockpot, dump the salsa on top, and cook it on LOW for 6-8 hours. When you're ready to eat, just shred the meat with two forks.

The meat is tender and delicious and people will think you put some serious effort into cooking, but it just couldn't be any easier.

Son of Grok's Carrot Cake Caveman Cookies

I made these Carrot Cake Caveman Cookies from SoG's blog today:



Go check out the recipe! I think these are more like muffin tops than cookies. No matter what you call them they're pretty yummy.

My tweaks:
I used regular carrots instead of baby carrots
I used 1T pumpkin pie spice instead of nutmeg
I added 1/4 tsp stevia extract

Turkey or Pork Breakfast Sausage

My husband likes sausage for breakfast, but it's hard to find pre-made breakfast sausage that isn't full of questionable additives, fillers, and/or nitrates. This breakfast sausage recipe is really easy to make and contains none of those iffy ingredients. I make up 1 or 2 pounds at a time and keep them in the fridge for up to about a week. If you want to make up even more at a time, you can freeze the patties in an airtight container separated by layers of parchment paper.



Turkey or Pork Breakfast Sausage

ingredients:
1 lb ground turkey or pork
1 tsp onion powder or 1 T onion flakes
1/4 tsp each cumin, black pepper, nutmeg, oregano, red pepper flakes, and ground ginger
1-1/2 tsp poultry seasoning (or 1/2 tsp each dried basil, thyme, and sage)
1-1/2 tsp sea salt
1 egg, lightly beaten

Mix all ingredients together and chill for at least an hour to let the flavors meld. Form it into patties and saute until nicely browned on both sides. If you use turkey you might need to grease the pan a little, but if you use pork it should produce enough of its own fat.

Recipe is adapted from Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon.

Avocado Pudding

I'll admit "avocado pudding" sounds pretty weird, but bear with me. It turns out when you puree avocado in the food processor, you wind up with a mild, smooth, creamy base that is just the texture of pudding. Adding some other flavors to the party turns it from the beginnings of guacamole into an amazingly decadent pudding. Since avocados FINALLY went on sale at my Whole Foods, I was quite excited to buy some and make this recipe again! It's great as a snack, as dessert, or even as breakfast.

Here is how we start:


1 really ripe avocado (too ripe is better than not quite ripe enough)
1 ripe banana
3 T toasted carob powder*
1/2-1 tsp raw honey, optional (not pictured)

Cut the avocado in half and scoop the halves into the food processor. Peel the banana, cut it into large chunks, and add it to the food processor too. Add the carob powder on top.



Looks appetizing huh? Anyway, process the ingredients until they start to break down and get smooth. Taste and adjust sweetness with the raw honey. Process again until the pudding is completely smooth and creamy and then scrape into a bowl.



The pudding is done! Stick a spoon in it and go to town. You can also keep it in the fridge for a few days, but it's a good idea to put a piece of plastic wrap down touching the surface so that it doesn't get a skin (just like "real" pudding). I usually get two servings out of one batch.

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*Note about carob: Carob is often marketed as a chocolate substitute, which I think does carob a pretty big disservice. As a chocolate substitute, frankly, it sucks. As a food in its own right though, I think carob has a delicious toasty flavor. I you don't like carob or if you would rather have a chocolate pudding, just replace the carob powder with cocoa powder and up the honey to 1 Tablespoon (carob is naturally sweet whereas cocoa powder isn't, so the cocoa powder needs a boost).

Primal Peach Patties

I was cruising around yesterday trying to find more paleo blogs when I came upon Son of Grok. I can't believe I had never seen it before! Anyway, this recipe for Primal Peach Patties caught my eye so I decided to make them today.



Man are they good! The recipe says it makes 10 patties, but I got 13. Only 12 would fit on my baking sheet though, so I just ate the last one uncooked and it was absolutely delicious. I did add a smidge of salt to mine because I'm a salt junky.

I'm hoping to pack some of these for my husband to eat for breakfast. They seem like they would make a very nice dessert as well.

I'm back! oh, and an awesome roast beef recipe

Well I was away from the blog for quite a bit longer than I expected! Things just kept stacking up...the holidays, I lost my camera (found it, finally), and some family drama followed by a rousing bout of the flu.

But you guys don't care about that stuff, you're here for the recipes! So without further ado, I present you with the perfect roast beef:



ingredients:
a beef roast - I used top round, but I've read that top sirloin is even better - size is not an issue because this recipe is based on temperatures instead of times
salt
pepper
1 T olive oil, coconut oil, lard, or bacon grease, etc etc
a meat thermometer

If your roast isn't already tied, use some butcher twine and tie that sucker up (here are some instructions). This promotes even browning and even roasting.

Preheat the oven to 250 Fahrenheit. Heat your fat in an oven safe Dutch oven over medium high heat. Salt and pepper your roast and sear it in the Dutch oven, about 2 minutes a side.

Once seared, insert the meat thermometer into the thickest part of the meat and put the Dutch oven, uncovered, into the oven. Once the meat reaches 110 degrees, crank the heat to 500. At this point, you're looking for your meat to be 120 degrees for rare or 125 for medium rare.

Once it reaches the magic temperature, whisk it out of the oven and put it on a board to cool. Cover it with a foil tent and let it rest for 20 minutes. Remove the butcher's twine. Cut the roast into thin slices (I use an electric knife, but a sharp serrated one will do).

You can eat it right away or pack it up to eat throughout the week for quick breakfasts and lunches. I like to eat mine with little hot pickled peppers. Mayo is good too, but it's really hard to find/make mayo with acceptable ingredients.

The technique for this roast was found in "The Best Meat Recipes" from the editors of Cook's Illustrated (the America's Test Kitchen people).

Mostly Paleo Muffins

I say these are only mostly paleo because they do use baking powder/soda and flavoring extracts, which I doubt our cavemen buddies had access to. They are very tasty however, and and make a nice breakfast alternative to eggs or leftovers. I don't make them all the time, because let's face it, a muffin is a muffin! So eat these with care. I was procrastinating on writing this post because I have not felt the urge to eat pans of muffins myself, but I decided to just go ahead and write it anyway and try to find some old pictures to show you.

Note: I use maple syrup or raw honey as my sweeteners of choice. I do not use agave nectar because it can be up to 90% fructose; fructose is processed in the liver instead of the bloodstream and has many deleterious effects.



recipe makes 6 muffins

PUMPKIN CRANBERRY MUFFINS:
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1 1/2 cups almond flour
3/4 cup pureed pumpkin (you can used canned, but make sure to get just plain pumpkin and not pumpkin pie filling)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
3 eggs
1/4-1/3 cup maple syrup or honey depending on your sweet tooth
1 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped cranberries

Preheat oven to 350.

Mix together all the ingredients except for the cranberries until smooth. Fold in the cranberries.

Spoon batter into 6 greased muffin cups (I use coconut oil) and bake for 20-25 minutes.

These are very soft and cakey muffins. I think that cutting them in half and toasting them is very nice since it gives it little crisp edges.

Variations:
Banana nut muffins - use pureed bananas in place of the pumpkin, chopped walnuts in place of cranberries, and omit the pie spice.
Flax muffins - replace up to 1/2 cup of the almond flour with ground flax seeds

Recipe adapted from Eating Stella Style by George Stella.

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recipe makes 6 muffins

COCONUT MUFFINS:
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1 1/2 cups almond flour
1/2 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
1 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1/4-1/3 cup maple syrup or honey depending on your sweet tooth
1 1/2 tsp coconut extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp salt
2 T coconut oil

Preheat oven to 350.

Mix together all ingredients until smooth.

Pour into 6 muffin cups greased with coconut oil and bake for 15-20 minutes.

Recipe adapted from Eating Stella Style by George Stella.

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recipe makes 12 muffins

LEMON POUND CAKE MUFFINS:
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I don't have a picture for these. This is an experimental recipe. The original recipe is from a low-carb book and uses butter and Splenda. I am 99% certain that you can subsitute paleo ingredients and end up with a tasty product, but I have only tried the original version and haven't made the paleo version yet. If anyone wants to try making these, let us know how they turn out!

2 cups almond flour
stevia to equal the sweetness of 1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
scant 1/2 tsp salt
1 cup coconut oil (original recipe is 1 cup butter)
1/3 cup maple syrup or honey (original recipe is 2/3 cup Splenda)
2 T lemon zest, or about 2 medium lemons' worth
1 tsp lemon juice
5 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350.

Whisk together almond flour, stevia, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Meanwhile, melt the coconut oil.

In a food processor, process maple syrup or honey with the lemon zest until combined. Add lemon juice, eggs, and vanilla. Process until combined.

With the food processor running, add the melted coconut oil in a steady stream. This should take at least 20 seconds.

Transfer mixture to a large bowl and gradually stir almond flour mixture into the wet mixture.

Grease 12 muffin cups with coconut oil and distribute batter equally among the cups.

Bake 10 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 325 and continue baking til done, keeping an eye on it, about 20-25 minutes. The time can vary a lot so be sure to keep an eye on it and don't let it burn.

Recipe adapted from 500 More Low-Carb Recipes by Dana Carpender.

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Happy eating!

"Sam I Am" Eggs

Ok, so I can't take credit for these amazing scrambled eggs at all! I found the recipe here at the lowcarb friends messageboard.

They are an amazing bright green color and taste great. Use the proportions of 1/2 cup raw spinach and 1 T coconut milk to 1 egg. Put all the ingredients in a blender or magic bullet and puree. Then just scramble like normal in whatever your preferred cooking fat is.

Non-meat, non-egg, paleo breakfast

Does such a thing exist?! Yep, and I've eaten it for the past two days.



A coconut muffin made with almond flour, dried unsweetened coconut, and agave nectar. Sliced strawberries. Earl grey tea.

I'll do a muffin post soon because I have several different recipes to share.

Meal Photo: Breakfast

Just a photo for you. Roasted almonds, pear slices, black coffee, and braised red cabbage with two medium-boiled eggs. With a spread like this, you don't even miss all that sugary, grainy breakfast food that is usually the norm.

Paleo Fruit Crumble

serves 3-4

ingredients:
fruit of your choice (I used one can of apricots canned in juice and about 1/2 cup frozen raspberries)
1/2 tsp arrowroot powder, optional
1/4 cup prunes or dates
1/2 cup almond flour
1 cup walnuts or pecans
1/2 tsp cinnamon
stevia to taste

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Place your fruit of choice in an oven safe dish of the appropriate size and sprinkle with the arrowroot powder (this will make the filling more syrupy/cohesive, but is optional).

Puree the prunes or date in a food processor along with the almond flour. Add the whole nuts and cinnamon and pulse briefly to combine. Taste and adjust sweetness with stevia. The mixture should hold together when you squeeze it, but be crumbly if you rub it between your fingers; if it's too dry add a little splash of juice, if it's too wet add some more nuts.

Press the nut mixture down firmly over the fruit. Place in the oven and bake for 30 min. Let cool for 15 minutes before eating.

This refrigerates well for at least one day and is excellent reheated for breakfast.



Recipe was modified from: http://forum.lowcarber.org/showpost.php?p=7315732&postcount=97

Easy Breakfast

Super easy breakfast. Two eggs over easy with some cantaloupe wedges. :)

Over Easy Eggs with Fennel Cucumber Relish

serves 1

ingredients:
2 eggs
1 T olive oil

1/4 of a large fennel bulb, finely diced
2 inches of cucumber, seeded and finely diced
3 kalamata olives, diced
small handful of parsley, minced
zest of 1/2 a lemon
pinch of salt
1/2 T apple cider vinegar
1 T olive oil

Combine all the relish ingredients in a bowl and set aside. Heat the 1T olive oil in a small skillet over medium heat. Crack the eggs directly into the skillet. Once the eggs have begun to set, carefully flip them and try not to burst the yolks. Cook for a further 30-60 seconds. Serve the relish over the eggs.

Inspiration for the fennel relish was taken from: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/106594