Roast Beef Asparagus Salad

Tonight we had a pretty simple dinner: A salad.

Easy. On top of some greens of your choice toss some steamed asparagus, roast beef sliced, sliced Swiss cheese (if you do dairy) and some tomatoes. Top with your favorite vinaigrette - homemade or whatever. You can also toss in some avocado, red onion, finely chopped jalapenos - get creative.

Enjoy!

Mini Frittatas

Trying to mix up breakfast, just a little and Sunday offers a bit more time so I made some mini sausage and spinach frittatas with avocado-tomato-onion salad. They're really easy to make and if you make enough (& don't eat them all ;-) you can refrigerate them and heat'em and eat'em later as a high protein snack!

OK, here's how to do it. Preheat the oven to 350ºF. In a bowl whisk a few eggs, egg whites, or egg substitute. You can add a little cheese if you like (I added a spoonful of cottage cheese) or milk (I didn't add any milk. Heat up some vegetables (I used frozen spinach) and a meat (I used organic spicy sausage) chopped into small pieces. Allow the vege and meat to cool. Now mix it all - eggs and meat and vege - together. Season as you like and this is where you could get really creative. I added a ton of mexican style seasoning - salt, pepper, cilantro, cayenne, etc, but you could leave it plain, add Italian seasoning, Cajun flavor, etc. Pour into a greased muffin pan; you can use cupcake papers (I used tinfoil ones and they worked brilliantly with the egg just coming right out and leaving nice little ridged sides, a nice visual effect). Use a slotted spoon to make sure that they all have some of the vege and meat. Now bake at 350ºF for about 30 minutes or until a knife stuck into the center comes out clean (i.e. the eggs have set). If you like sprinkle a little parmesan, cheddar, or other type of shredable cheese on top during the last 5-10 minutes of cooking so that it melts in. I served these along side a piece of Coconut Flour Bread-French Toast and avocado-tomato-red onion salad (because we had no salsa). Once they are cooked simply pop out of the papers, or muffin tin and eat. Refrigerate leftovers for up to 3 days. To re-heat either pop them back in the oven for a few minutes, microwave for 60-90 seconds, or place in a toaster oven. If you made a few extra of these on Sunday then they might make a good on-the-go breakfast for during the work week.

Enjoy and share your variations!

Coconut-Almond Butter

Nut butter are easy to make if you have the time. You can also get creative by combining different types of nuts to make cool combos. Here I combined some organic unsweetened dried coconut flakes with almonds to make a Coconut-Almond butter.

1 serving (~168 calories, 4 grams of carb, 16 grams of fat, 4 grams of protein)

Combine in a food processor: 15(+/-) almonds, a pinch full of dried coconut, a 1/3 teaspoon of coconut oil, a dash of cinnamon and a drop (literally 1 drop) of almond extract. Blend. You will have to push it down with a rubber spatula several times and the whole process takes about 15 minutes, but in my mind it's worth it. Very good spread on a fruit (e.g., apple, pear), tossed into a paleo pancake, spread on some coconut flour bread, etc.

Enjoy!

Cherry Smoothie

No picture it went down too fast. Ha!
Super easy: buy some cherries, they're in season and taste great. Not to mention they are low-glycemic and generally pretty darn good for you.
I used about 10 Ranier Cherries, 1/2 cup unsweeted almond milk, a dash of cinnamon, and (it's my cheat day so don't judge me) a scoop (about 1 tbsp) of cottage cheese. Add some ice, about 2-4 cubes. Blend. Enjoy. Tasty.

Paleo Po'Boy and Yam-a-tato Salad

I've been watching a lot of cooking shows on television, or really just the food network and one show I really like is Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. Well, just about every time I turn that show on they are making some form or shape or version of a Po'Boy. I've never been that deep south, but it looks really good! Over the past few days I've been thinking about a way to make one and stick on the diet. This is the result and I must admit it was quite tasty....

The Roll: Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Separate 6 eggs and whisk the whites into a fluff. Add garlic powder, paprika, sea salt, ground pepper, and a teaspoon of honey to the yolks and mix well. Combine the whites and the yolks, mix, don't destroy by over mixing. Then add 4 tbsp coconut flour. Mix well. I ended up using 4 tbsp, but started with 2. You want the batter to be thick enough to be able to 'roll' into a ball. Once you have that consistency roll them up and place on a cookie sheet that's been dusted with a little coconut flour. Wrap each of the rolls with some aluminum foil that's been folded up; this is to prevent the rolls from spreading and becoming a pancake. It worked brilliantly. Now drizzle just a touch of honey on top and sprinkle with sesame seeds if you so desire. Bake for about 150-25 minutes (a knife should come out clean when pierced through the center). Remove and set aside.

The Yam-a-tato Salad: Boil 2 yams until soft, but not mushy. When you pierce them with your fork it should be easy, but they should not fall apart. About 12-15 minutes. Allow to cool or give them an ice bath. In the meantime mix together 2 sliced radishes, 1 stalk of celery chopped finely, 1/2 apple chopped finely and 1/2-1 de-seeded jalapeno. Add sea salt, paprika, ground pepper and toss the ingredients together. Now add a tbsp of your favorite salad dressing (e.g. mayo, paleo mayo, slaw dressing, etc). Mix well. The yams are probably cooled off now if you iced them so go ahead and mix them in as well. Mix until everything has a little dressing on it. Refrigerate. Best to make this a few hours ahead of time so that all the flavors can meld together.

The Shrimp: Heat 1-2 tbsp coconut oil in an oven-safe frying pan.  Remove the shell and vein of about 20-30 shrimp. Bath in an egg milk mixture and allow to sit in there a bit to absorb the mixture. Now toss in your coating. Our coating consisted of coconut flour, a tbsp of flax seed meal, creole seasoning, paprika, sea salt, garlic powder, and ground pepper. Make sure that all the shrimp are about 90% covered. Move to second bowl if necessary; I found that they all got covered if I just stirred them around carefully with a spoon. Now carefully place your shrimp into frying pan. Cook for about 60-90 seconds per side tossing them frequently to make sure all sides get a little of that frying pan cooking. Then place into the oven for about 10 minutes or until shrimp are cooked to your desired level of taste.

Serve these bad boys up on the bun slathered (ok, not slathered, but...) with some remoulade sauce, top with a slice of tomato and some onion slices and a pickle on the side. We also served a small green salad.

This was my first attempt at this meal and I really think it turned out good; the fact that Austen's already packed her lunch pail with the leftovers also suggests it wasn't too bad ;-)

So, Guy Fieri when you start visiting homes or CrossFit gyms, the latter of which you could use (just sayin') you're going to have to swing by CrossFit Gwinnett for a Paleo Po'Boy!

And for the rest of you:
Enjoy!

Jalapeno Clementine Sea Bass Steak

So, it's "fish week" at home. We're trying to eat fish at least 4-5 times this week. Trying to keep it interesting and not eat the same fish day in and day out so today I went to the Asian Market (Super H mart, love!) and bought some wild caught Sea bass steaks. I marinated them in a combo of honey, olive oil, sea salt, ground pepper, 1 packet of Stevia, garlic powder, sesame oil, and the juice from one clementime (+ clementine zest and a few pieces of clementines). I also added oven-roasted jalapeno. To roast simply de-seed, slice into strips, drizzle with olive oil, sea salt and ground pepper. Roast for about 15 minutes at 400ºF, or until browned. Cut up into pieces and add to the marinade. When it's time to cook, I simply grilled the fish. On a medium heat grill it took about 4-6 minutes per side.

We served us with roasted green beans and snap peas and 1/2 Korean yam that was oven roasted.

Not my prettiest meal, but it tasted pretty good if I say so myself. I think Austen liked it too. :-)

Enjoy!

Lunch Leftovers: Broiled Tilapia

Leftover fish usually sounds pretty disgusting to me. I try to eat it, but sometimes heating it up is a challenge - if it's something I can throw on a salad cold then that usually works, but last night we had tilapia. I made a ton of extra fillets so that we could have them throughout the week as snacks, lunch, etc. Heating it up was simple as could be: simply place the leftover fillets on aluminum foil and broil for about 3-4 minutes. Just until the outer surface begins to brown. The insides will be warm, not piping hot, but the refrigerator chill will be gone and it will be edible. I left mine pretty plain and served it with a romaine salad. Easy lunch!

Enjoy!