Category: Paleo

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness, Paleo

Sweet Sweet Potato and Poblano Pepper Soup

heather

Found another keeper of a recipe!  Tuesday night I made Sweet Potato and Poblano Pepper Soup for supper.  I modified the recipe a little – HyVee only had 1 poblano, so Tim subbed one for an anaheim pepper.  The recipe also called for a TABLESPOON of sea salt, which seemed like a lot for the amount of soup, so I just used a teaspoon.  I also subbed 2 cups of the chicken stock for 2 cups of my homemade bone broth.  We nixed the sour cream (dairy is problematic for me) and added chunks of avocado instead (avocado makes everything better).  Also, I don’t have an immersion blender yet (I’m going to see if I can swipe one from my parents.  Mom – if you are reading this, ignore that last comment), so I had to transfer batches of the soup into our food processor, blend it up, and then pour it into a new pot.  Not only does this dirty an insane amount of dishes, but if you are not careful and you put too much liquid into the food processor and breach the center pole line (where the processor bowl connects to the base), well, then you have a messy problem.  Lots of soup all over your counter top.  After the soup was blended, we ladled it over cooked ground pork and topped it with cilantro and avocado.

Despite the blending drama, I would still make this soup again.  The flavor was very interesting.  It tasted more like potato soup than anything.  We couldn’t really taste the peppers.  Next time I think I will add more potatoes and peppers and leave the soup chunkier.  For some reason, eating a soup with pureed chunks of veggies is less filling than eating soup with non-pureed chunks.  It’s a pshychological thing.  The ground pork was very tasty in it, but this soup would be fantastic with some ham in it. I think this is a soup, though, that eats more like a 1st course and less like a meal.  It was very delicious though.

And, another side benefit, it gave Tim and I both racy dreams!  So, if you’re into interesting, vivid dreams, give this soup a shot.

Happy Cooking!

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness, Paleo

Wrangling with obstinate pork shoulder

heather

Today I woke up at 4:50 AM, and instead of going to the gym to practice swimming (which I really should have done), I did some floor exercises at home, put away the dishes, ate breakfast, took a shower, got ready for work, and prepped 3 lbs of pork shoulder for Spiced Pork and Butternut Squash with Sage.  The prepping involved me using 3 different knives to try to cut the shoulder up into 1 inch pieces.  My right index finger is bruised and blistered due to the encounter.  I think we need some new knives or a stronger Hlo.

Anyway, I finally got the shoulder cut up and then rubbed it with the spice mixture and let it marinate all day.  I cooked it up this evening, and I have to say, the meal turned out super delicious.  It’s not an easy recipe – I dirtied 3 pans, several utensils, a cutting board, and several dishes.  But overall it was worth it.  It’s no surprise that it turned out well – the recipe called for 6 T of olive oil and 2 T of butter.  You could probably cook dirty socks in that much fat, and they would be tasty.

While supper was cooking, I made dessert – cocoa macaroons.  The recipe was very simple, and they turned out very moist and delicious.  The URL didn’t print on the recipe, so I can’t find it on the internet, but if you want the recipe, hit me up in the comments, and I’ll send it to you.  The recipe is awesome, albeit expensive.  Between the coconut and the honey (locally sourced) alone, $6 is down the drain.  For a recipe that made 10 cookies, eek!  I had the pleasant experience of actually getting egg whites to form peaks while making this recipe though.  That was exciting!  It was like magic.

So now comes the real test – horde all these delicious morsels for ourselves, or take some in to work tomorrow to convince people how delicious paleo can be??  We’ll see how my self-control pans out in the morning.  I’m supposed to swim tomorrow morning, so all of my willpower may be exhausted by the time it’s time to go to work (you only have a finite supply, you know!).

Oh, and happy valentines day, everyone.  I’m pissed because I bought 1/2 dozen chocolate-covered strawberries two days ago, and I keep leaving them at work.  They’re probably going to taste like fridge now.  🙁  Poor Teem.  He got me an awesome bottle of Jack Daniels, and I’m going to end up giving him 3-day old fridge-flavored strawberries.  SEXY!

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness, Paleo

Flounder sucks and my shoulders hurt

heather

I made this delicious tilapia putanesca recipe for the second time last night.  The first time I made this, it was the bomb.  Super delicious.  We all loved it.  Last night I thought I would widen my realm of meat experience and give flounder a shot.  Flounder sucks. It tastes super fishy and a little mealy.  At least the flounder WE got stinks.  Maybe it was bad flounder?  Tim pointed out that the name of the fish, FLOUNDER, is pretty unappetizing in and of itself.  A floundering fish just does not sound tasty.  And it wasn’t.  Never again.

I have made 2 awesome recipes this past week though.

African-Inspired Chicken Stew – This soup was delicious.  I even remembered to sub 2 cups of my homemade bone broth for two cups of the chicken broth.  However, I did forget to add in the $9 almond butter (ridiculous), until after Tim and I had already dished up our bowls.  When I cook, I get all of the ingredients out, and then put them away as I use them. So, I look over at the counter, and the almond butter is just chilling out there, mocking me.  We dumped our bowls back into the pot and added the almond butter.  I am glad we did!  It gave the soup a delicious, nutty flavor.  Eating paleo, a lot of our food starts to taste very similar.  I use a lot of the same range of seasonings – basil, chili pepper, oregano, thyme, etc.  The flavor of this soup was very unique.  Cooking the chicken IN the soup (instead of separately) was a novel idea for me too.  I’ll definitely make this again.  When I can afford the $9 almond butter.

Crispy Carnitas – This recipe came highly recommended by a coworker, and he was spot on.  This turned out amazingly delicious.  Sure, it takes awhile to cook it, but most of that time is unattended (we even looked at a house and went to the gym while it was cooking), so the recipe is actually really easy.  I cooked it in a cast iron skillet, which worked out great and seasoned the pan with delicious pork fat.  I took an insane amount of pictures and posted them to Instagram – check out the link on the right if you are interested.  We ate it Sunday with sweet potato salad (I made the mayo with olive oil because we are out of avocado oil.  Avocado oil makes much tastier mayo, in my opinion).  Tim made guacamole Monday night, and we doused the leftover carnitas with that, and it very well could have been the best meal I have ever eaten.  A note on the guacamole – a couple of times when we’ve made this, it’s turned out, well, off.  We think it’s the onions.  Whatever you do, DO NOT mash the onions with the avocados.  Onion juice is no one’s friend.  Tim is not a huge fan of raw onions anyway, so he cut the measurement down to about 1/8 of a cup, and it turned out fantastic.

Now, on the shoulders hurting thing.  I found out about this website, Bodeefit, that will email you a body-weight workout every day for free!  You can also upgrade and get additional information from them, but for now, I’ve just been using the workouts.  Each workout will list of the movements and times, and it contains a hyperlink to a short video showing you how to do the movement.  It is really cool.  I enjoyed Crossfit for the few weeks I did it, but I don’t really like working out with people in a hot gym.  I prefer the convenience of my own home where only Tim and Lucent are staring at me, wondering what in the heck I am doing.

Well, I’ve done two workouts on back-to-back days, and I am feeling it.  The first day called for handstand pushups.  Yeah right.  I modified it using a technique I learned at Crossfit – you place your knees on the edge of a box (or in my case my bed) and do “pike pushups.”  It’s easy at first, but by later rounds, it SUCKS.  Both workouts had a lot of arm exercises and squatting exercises.  So my shoulders hurt, my ass hurts, and I jammed my thumb while doing Inch Worms.  So I’m taking a day off.  I’m reading the Primal Connection, and it reiterates the needs to GET OUTSIDE.  The weather has not been optimal, but that’s not a good excuse.  I need to get outside and get in some good, slow movement where I am actually moving through space.  I plan to make it out tonight.

Well, that’s my update for today.  Hope you have a fantastic day!!  It’s going to be light until 5:25PM tonight!  Yeeeeeaaaaaahhhhhhhhuuuuaaaa!!

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness, Paleo

Primal Meal Extravaganza

heather

Two of my coworkers have been doing the 21-Day Primal Challenge in January.  So to encourage them and to feed my need to be social, Tim and I hosted a Primal Meal on Saturday night.  We had 5 people over, and here was the menu:

Main course:

  • Garlic Pulled Pork
  • Beef Brisket – I used Mexican style chili powder, and instead of using sugar in the rub, I rubbed the brisket with honey and then rubbed the spice mixture into the meat on top of that.

Sides

Dessert

I have to say, we had a great time!  While we may have perhaps have drank more than was primally-friendly, we all enjoyed the food, companionship, and Nerf guns immensely.  The result was well worth the effort.  It also showed me that our house, with a little rearranging, can comfortably fit more than 2 people at a time.  Perhaps we don’t need to spend $150 – $200,000 on a new place so that we can entertain more!

Here are some pictures from the evening.

Here is our living room.  We pulled the church pews out of the breakfast nook and used them for seating in the living room.  They aren’t the most comfortable seating option, but they will do in a pinch (and it was much cheaper than buying a new loveseat, which we are also contemplating).  Also note the beautiful coffee table built and designed by the Benny Boo (my little bro).

 

Rearranged living room

Here’s a picture of the Love You Long Time Cupcakes.  My bananas were not quite ripe enough, so I added in some honey.  They turned out pretty tasty – not too sweet, but nice and moist.

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photo (9)

Cooking/Recipes, Paleo

Dangerous Paleo Treat

heather

My coworker introduced me to this fantastic recipe:  Chocolate Coconut Bars.  He said they taste just like dark chocolate Mounds.  I have to say, he is correct, only I think these actually taste better!  They are super easy to make and dangerously delicious.  I think I could easily eat the whole pan.  Next time I make them, however, I’m going to double the chocolate for the topping and add a smidge more salt to the coconut mixture.  I’m afraid these alterations will make them even more delicious though.  Going forward I can only make these for company because I cannot be trusted around these things.  Sure, they are paleo, technically, but they have 1/4 cup of honey plus 1/2 cup of chocolate chips, so they have a lot of sugar/carbs in them.  But, boy.  Are they ever tasty!!

Health & Fitness, Paleo

Hotter than Hell Barbacoa

heather

Perhaps Tim and I are pantywaists, but I made this recipe tonight, Leftovers: Barbacoa, and our mouths are STILL on fire.  I super appreciate Juli posting recipes free on her blog, so I’m hesitant to express any dissatisfaction, but holy hell!  This barbacoa was SOOOO spicy.  AND.  AND.  I used an extra pound of meat, above what was called for in the recipe!

I should have remembered that Juli likes her food spicy.  I made something else from her, and Tim and I had to cut it down with several extra cans of tomatoes to tame it down.  I think if I cut down the spices by at least half, it would still be plenty spicy.

We now have about 3 lbs of ultra-spicy barbacoa marinating in fridge.  I’m hoping that overnight the flavors will mellow, and it will be all kinds of delicious in the morning.  Tim and I are trying to save about $300/month out of our food budget, so we can’t afford to NOT eat this.

Tonight we ate it over baked sweet potatoes.  I think we’re going to try it with eggs and then maybe over spaghetti squash.  Wish us luck!

Cooking/Recipes, Paleo

Trying my hand at fish

heather

For some reason, I’m intimidated by cooking fish.  Maybe it is because there is such a slim margin for error – cook it a little too long, and it’s all dry and nasty.  Maybe it’s because it’s usually expensive, and so it really sucks when you cook it too long, and it’s all dry and nasty.  Maybe it’s because I grew up in Monticello, IA, 1000 miles from the ocean.  Fish and me are not familiar creatures.

Well, fish is an important part of the primal diet, so I need to get over my fears (fear is the mind killer, you know).  So I started with this recipe:  Tilapia Puttanesca. (Thanks, Diane, for the recipe!).  I made it for my hubby, Tim, and my friend, Michael.  They both totally loved it, as did I.  I used frozen fish from Target (Market Pantry brand), defrosted for 30 minutes in a bowl of water.  The recipe is super simple, yet delicious.  We ate it with a side of spinach salad.  I will definitely be making this again.

Here are a few other recipes I’ve made over the past two weeks that have turned out good.

21 Day Sugar Detox Roasted Spaghetti Squash – You can get this, and many other sugar-free recipes, here.  Not to steal the recipe, but basically you cut a spaghetti squash in half (which is no small feat), rub it down with coconut oil, splash on some salt and pepper, bake that baby at 375 FOREVER (at least 45 minutes depending on the size of the squash), and then shred the squash.  Since this took so much longer to bake than I anticipated, we ended up eating the rest of supper and then using the squash over the next few days in breakfast scrambles.  It smelled magnificent while cooking due to the coconut oil, and it held up really well in the scrambles. Once Tim feels up to tackling another slippery, wicked hard, oblong, rolly object, I’ll make this again.  I know there is a dirty innuendo in there somewhere, but I just can’t quite put my finger on it…

Spaghetti Squash Primavera – This is what I was baking the spaghetti squash for.  We ended up just eating the veggies with some sautéed ground pork.  It was delicious, especially with the dressing called for in the recipe – very tart and delicious.  I love leeks, so I used a whole leek.

Today I am cooking a turkey breast in the Nesco roaster.  This is another new recipe, so hopefully all will turn out well!  None of the bastard grocery stores are open today, so if the recipe bombs, we’ll be eating olives and capers and beer, which is pretty much all we have in the fridge at the moment.

For my next venture into unexplored territory, I think I am going to try making soap and/or lotion.  A lot of the blogs I follow have been writing about using more natural products on your face and skin.  We spend so much time and money on the food we put into our bodies; now the paleosphere has decided we should start to pay attention to the stuff we put ON our bodies (skin is the largest organ, you know).  My cousin-in-law just gave me some soap which smells amazing and also shared some of her recipes with me, so I have a good foundation to start with.  I just need to order some supplies from Amazon and take the plunge.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

Hope you are having a great day with your families!

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness, Paleo

Holiday Weekend Cooking Bonanza

heather

Bananza?  Bonanza?  Bonanza doesn’t look right, but Bananza gets red squiggles under it.  I guess I’ll go with Bonanza.

So, Sunday was Duck Day!  I popped that sucker in around 8 or 9 and followed the recipe almost to a T.  Three comments of note: 1.  I didn’t pull off all the quills.  I pulled off a few and then got bored and tired and stopped.  We just ended up not eating most of the skin.  2.  The molasses in our cupboard, come to find out, expired in 2010.   I had to improvise.  Instead of of 1/4 cup honey and 1/4 cup of molasses, I went with all honey. I also had no Sriracha, so I used Tapatio.  We were in a whiskey kind of mood on Sunday (we started out the festivities with a shot of Templeton Rye), so I added a couple tablespoons of Jack.  I don’t have a pastry brush, so I just poured the glaze on the duck.  The glaze was so tasty, however, that we scooped up the leftovers from the bottom of the pan and dipped the duck pieces in it.  3.  I think I overcooked it.  The recipe said to cook the duck for 4 hours, but it didn’t specify what size of duck to use.  Mine was around 5 lbs.  The legs were tasty, but the breast meat was a little dry.  We ate most of the bird for lunch, and I pulled off all the leftover meat.  For breakfast I chopped it up and sauteed it in duck fat with some veggies.  We ate it with avocado and scramby eggs.  Muy bueno!!!

So, would I do it again?  Yeah, I sure would.  It was an Event!  The duck was tasty, I got almost 2 cups of rendered duck fat, and I was able to spam all my Instagram followers with hourly photos of a duck cooking.  Good times.

For dessert, I made Love You Long Time Chocolate Cupcakes.  These things are so good.  You don’t even know.  Unfortunately, being wiped from slaving over the duck all day (and from drinking a couple of whiskey and sodas), when I was putting the pan of cupcakes into the oven, I hit the shelf and ended up spilling half the batter on the open oven door.  ARGH!!  I was able to salvage about half of them, and they ended up delicious.  They have no added sugar – just ripe bananas to make them sweet.  Tim and I loved them.  I’m not sure if someone who is used to eating a lot of sugar would think they were as good, but we’ll definitely make them again.

Speaking of sugar, I also made Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies to take into the office.  You make regular PB cookies, but then you make this filling of PB, vanilla, and milk, and then you make peanut butter cookie sandwiches out of it.  They were wicked good.  I felt a little bad making them and unloading them on my coworkers, because I just read this article.  Sugar is poison.  Sweet, delicious, hideous poison.  If you want to poison your friends and family, let me know in the comments, and I’ll send you the recipe.

For supper last night I tried another new recipe:  Apple and Butternut Squash Hash.  This recipe was super simple, yet super delicious.  We had it for supper last night, and I ate it for breakfast and lunch today, and there is enough left for breakfast tomorrow.

For supper tonight I made Low Carb Italian Wedding Soup accompanied by Coconut Flour Muffins (from The 21 Day Sugar Detox).  The soup turned out really tasty.  I dirtied about 1/2 of our dishes though and had a run-in with a ziploc baggie of frozen chicken broth.  I ended up breaking a bowl and burning some of the precious duck fat whilst wraggling with the baggie.  But, well, you know.  It’s all over now, and we had delicious soup with MUFFINS!  Paleo muffins though – no sugar – just coconut flour, eggs, coconut milk, coconut flour, baking powder and salt.  Tim said they tasted like macaroons (did I mention they have coconut in them?).  I broke mine up and added it to the soup. It was nice to have a bread-ish texture with the soup.  I think they would taste fantastic with some raisins and/or dark chocolate chips.

So that’s all my recipes for the past few days – lots of winners and will-make-agains in there.

Oh, and we didn’t just EAT all weekend.  We also biked 15 miles and ran 5, raked the lawn, and cleaned the house.  So we burned off some of the energy at least!

Take care, and I’ll let you know how the rest of the week’s recipes pan out.

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness, Paleo, Uncategorized

It’s Novembeeeeer

heather

Wow.  It’s been like 3 weeks since I’ve posted.  It’s been a busy time.  I went to Florida and Des Moines for work, then I went to NYC for play (visit the bros), and now I’m finally back home for a few solid weeks.  I have another trip to Des Moines in early December (Business Analyst Boot Camp) and then no more trips on the horizon.  Which makes me both happy and sad.  I’ve found that I’m rarely ever in exactly one mood or feel one way about anything.  I’m happy tinged with sadness or looking forward to an event and looking forward to it being over, so I can be at  home in bed.  You get the idea.  Anyway, I digress.

Due to the traveling and getting used to the new season/lack of light, I’ve gained about 3-5 lbs over the past few weeks.  I’ve been eating out more, drinking more delicious beer, and not exercising as much.  It’s a dangerous combination.  I’m pretty sure that if I reign in the cheats (alcohol, chocolate, donuts at work, etc.), I’ll normalize pretty quickly.  At least, I’m hoping so.  This will be my first winter fully paleo.  In reading the paleo blogs and posts, I was looking forward to pure bliss over these short days – no winter blues for Hlo this year! HA!  The winter blues have hit me harder than I ever remember.  I blame it on a confluence of events.  1.  I was outside A LOT this summer – more than any other year.  My body got used to copious amounts of sunshine, and when that sunshine went away, so did my good spirits.  2.  For a variety of reasons, it’s been a stressful month, which  is hard on the disposition 3.  I’ve not been following the paleo diet strictly.  I’ve been eating more dairy than usual and drinking more beer (gluten!) than usual.  That exacerbates my allergies and throws me out of whack.

But now that I’ve identified what I think to be the culprits, I can go about fixing them.  Right now I am sitting in front of my Light Therapy light, which really does seem to help.  I just planned out a week’s worth of 100% paleo meals, and today we biked and raked, so I got some vitamin D and some exercise.  We’ll see what a difference this makes.

I haven’t been all bad, though.  I have made a couple of tasty recipes lately.

I made Garlic Pulled Pork again.  This time I put the garlic rub on the meat the night before and then stuck the roast in the Nesco Roaster on about 200 for about 5 hours.  I also didn’t put the fresh garlic INTO the meat.  It turned out FANTASTIC.  We ate it last night with cauliflower and spinach sauteed in coconut oil.  We also ate some for breakfast.  I sauteed it with coconut oil, fried some eggs, and covered it all with avocado.  Amazing.

I also made 5 Ingredient Breakfast Stuffed Acorn Squash.  This turned out good, but next time I would NOT crack the egg in the squash and bake it in the oven.  I left it in the oven FOREVER, and the egg still did not bake.  I had to scoop the mess out and fry it on the stove top.  I don’t think it’s necessary to stuff everything back into the acorn squash skin and bake it, unless you are into presentation, which I’m not.  I just am into tasty food.  This was tasty, but next time I’ll make it the easy way.

I also made Cream Chicken Casserole.  As you can see, I’m a big fan of paleomg.com!  She has great recipes.  This recipe made a TON of food.  We ate it for supper, breakfast, lunch, supper, and still had some leftover. Tim even liked it, even though the base is made from coconut milk.  I did notice that my stomach was a little upset after eating it – maybe due to the coconut milk and hot spices?  Tim noticed it as well, so the next time we ate it, he had toast with it.  That seemed to help.

And that’s it for tasty recipes as of late.  I’m attempting to cook a duck tomorrow.  Wish me luck!