Two awesome paleo dinners the past few nights. One was significantly easier to make, but both were tasty.
Salmon:
Put salmon fillets on top of a light bed of chopped leaf fennel on parchment paper
Mix more chopped fennel and cream cheese, slather on top of fillets
Spread a little cream cheese on the parchment paper around the salmon
Fold the parchment paper to form a pocket around the fish
Push the air out, and use the cream cheese on the paper to seal up the packet
Bake packet (on a pan!) at 375 for 10 minutes per inch of fish thickness
Curry:
Large dice whatever veggies you have on hand (we had summer squash and green beans)
Cut chicken and beef into bite-size cubes
Put the cream from a can of coconut milk into a hot pan, reserving the coconut water
Put the beef in the pan to start cooking. Turn down the heat to medium-low
Start sauteing the veggies in another pan with coconut oil
Add curry paste/powder to both pans
Once the beef is browned on all sides, add the chicken
Remember to stir both pans occasionally!
If you also have bell peppers on hand, roast them and then dice them. Since they're already cooked from roasting they can wait until the end to be added.
When the chicken is browned on all sides, add the beef, chicken, and sauce to the veggies (or vice versa, depending on which of your pans is bigger.)
Use the coconut water you reserved to deglaze the pan you emptied. Scrape up any tasty bits of browned meats/veggies. Add more curry and some heavy cream. Let it simmer for a while to thicken; meanwhile, any liquid in the other pan will continue to thicken, too.
When thickened to taste, add in the sauce and roasted peppers. Done!
Tonight we're going to attempt eggplant parmesan. We'll see how it goes. We may need to add chicken.
By the way, what shoes will you be wearing this winter? I like my flip-flops and Vibrams for the flexibility they allow, but my feet get cold pretty easily. I may see about a pair of vivo barefoots or runamoks, and I was wondering what others intend to wear.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Friday, August 13, 2010
Cucumbers
Well, we found a few cucumber recipes to try. We had a lot of cucumbers; about a dozen, not even including a couple we cooked up earlier last week.
Recipe 1: Fried Cucumbers
Instead of bread crumbs, we used the 'breading' from Girl Gone Primal's chicken fingers recipe. It mostly worked, and they were tasty with a little sriracha sauce on top, but I'm not sure we'll make them again; they got soggy pretty quickly, and after that the texture was a little off-putting. We didn't even finish the ones we made, which is too bad because that was the last of my almond flour; time to get more almonds to grind up.
Recipe 2: Cucumbers in Cream Sauce
We'll probably make this one again. The onion cuts the coolness of the cucumbers pretty well. We'll use quite a bit less salt, though; the salt in this batch is a little overpowering. Still, it's tasty, and it's not just cucumber.
Recipe 3: Spicy Cucumbers
We'll make this one again too. We had a few substitutions, though; sesame oil instead of corn oil, and dried chipotle peppers due to lack of finding any dried chili peppers. I ended up adding some red pepper flakes too. It's pretty good, with a nice burn (that's easily cut by the cucumbers in cream mentioned above) which we both enjoy, and the extra cooking oil was used to make some awesome chicken. We'll halve the sugar next time though, I think a little is needed but certainly not that much. I may try using honey instead.
Well, as of Friday, all the cucumbers we had in the house were at least part of a dish of some sort. We had quite a bit left over from recipes 2 and 3, and we've got a lot of pickles, but for a little while, our house was free of unadulterated cucumbers.
Of course on Saturday we picked up more from the CSA. Six more, in fact; two big salad cucumbers, and four smaller pickling cucumbers. So yesterday was cooking time again.
We made more pickles. Now we have two pints of crinkle-cut sweet pickles in the works, and a pint of fennel-mustard spear pickles. Hopefully they all come out well! I've never tried fennel pickles, but we got fennel from the CSA so we thought we'd try it. We also made 2 pints of veggie salsa with all our tomatoes, squash, bell peppers, and onion, and then we made a pint of peach salsa with all the peaches we got this week. Both came out pretty tasty. I'm going to have to work on some good cracker recipes so I can enjoy all the salsa. Maybe sweet potato chips would be good with the peach.
We also opened the first jar of pickles last night! I don't think I'd call them dill, but they're definitely pickles, and I like them. It's good that pickles taste so different from plain cucumbers; we're still eating both of the cucumber dishes we made last week. But, once again, and for longer this time, the house is cucumber-free.
Recipe 1: Fried Cucumbers
Instead of bread crumbs, we used the 'breading' from Girl Gone Primal's chicken fingers recipe. It mostly worked, and they were tasty with a little sriracha sauce on top, but I'm not sure we'll make them again; they got soggy pretty quickly, and after that the texture was a little off-putting. We didn't even finish the ones we made, which is too bad because that was the last of my almond flour; time to get more almonds to grind up.
Recipe 2: Cucumbers in Cream Sauce
We'll probably make this one again. The onion cuts the coolness of the cucumbers pretty well. We'll use quite a bit less salt, though; the salt in this batch is a little overpowering. Still, it's tasty, and it's not just cucumber.
Recipe 3: Spicy Cucumbers
We'll make this one again too. We had a few substitutions, though; sesame oil instead of corn oil, and dried chipotle peppers due to lack of finding any dried chili peppers. I ended up adding some red pepper flakes too. It's pretty good, with a nice burn (that's easily cut by the cucumbers in cream mentioned above) which we both enjoy, and the extra cooking oil was used to make some awesome chicken. We'll halve the sugar next time though, I think a little is needed but certainly not that much. I may try using honey instead.
Well, as of Friday, all the cucumbers we had in the house were at least part of a dish of some sort. We had quite a bit left over from recipes 2 and 3, and we've got a lot of pickles, but for a little while, our house was free of unadulterated cucumbers.
Of course on Saturday we picked up more from the CSA. Six more, in fact; two big salad cucumbers, and four smaller pickling cucumbers. So yesterday was cooking time again.
We made more pickles. Now we have two pints of crinkle-cut sweet pickles in the works, and a pint of fennel-mustard spear pickles. Hopefully they all come out well! I've never tried fennel pickles, but we got fennel from the CSA so we thought we'd try it. We also made 2 pints of veggie salsa with all our tomatoes, squash, bell peppers, and onion, and then we made a pint of peach salsa with all the peaches we got this week. Both came out pretty tasty. I'm going to have to work on some good cracker recipes so I can enjoy all the salsa. Maybe sweet potato chips would be good with the peach.
We also opened the first jar of pickles last night! I don't think I'd call them dill, but they're definitely pickles, and I like them. It's good that pickles taste so different from plain cucumbers; we're still eating both of the cucumber dishes we made last week. But, once again, and for longer this time, the house is cucumber-free.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Tomato Soup!
Wow. Just wow. Homemade tomato soup = totally awesome. Seriously, awesome.
Mostly fill a medium saucepan with diced fresh tomatoes. We used 8.
Dice and add half an onion and a couple garlic cloves.
Put in a cup of chicken stock.
If you're like us and you like spicy, add half a habanero.
Let it simmer for at least 20 minutes, longer if it's liquidy.
Blend it well. Squish it through a medium-mesh strainer.
Stir in a cup of heavy cream and a couple tablespoons of butter.
Add salt and pepper to taste. (It'll be more salt than you think.)
Serve with wild rice (preferably in the soup.) And maybe a little cream cheese for garnish. (I think sour cream might be better, but we didn't have any.) I also think it would be good with crispy sausage bits in it.
So yeah. Homemade tomato soup, much better than Campbell's MSG-flavored variety. That's all for today. :)
Mostly fill a medium saucepan with diced fresh tomatoes. We used 8.
Dice and add half an onion and a couple garlic cloves.
Put in a cup of chicken stock.
If you're like us and you like spicy, add half a habanero.
Let it simmer for at least 20 minutes, longer if it's liquidy.
Blend it well. Squish it through a medium-mesh strainer.
Stir in a cup of heavy cream and a couple tablespoons of butter.
Add salt and pepper to taste. (It'll be more salt than you think.)
Serve with wild rice (preferably in the soup.) And maybe a little cream cheese for garnish. (I think sour cream might be better, but we didn't have any.) I also think it would be good with crispy sausage bits in it.
So yeah. Homemade tomato soup, much better than Campbell's MSG-flavored variety. That's all for today. :)
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Basket of veggies
Wow, I guess it's been a while. So much for weekly! Where to start? Well, there was a 'Sauces' cooking class, with more yummy recipes to make. We've gone to the gym a few times. We got another couple veggies baskets; the one shown is this past Saturday's. We had to take a picture this time just because of how much there was! In there you can see a lot of corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, summer squash, a pattypan squash, butter beans (in the bag), blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, peaches, rainbow chard, a canteloupe, bell peppers, round cucumbers (the three little whitish round things), and a kohlrabi (the spiky thing on the left. Apparently it's like a turnip, and it tastes like broccoli stems.) Whew! I'm a little surprised we got in all into our fridge. By the way, I know they all look small in that picture, but I assure, those are normal-sized ears of corn, and the tomatoes and cucumbers are quite large. By the way, if anyone has any ideas for cucumbers that doesn't include a salad, I would love to hear it!
We did a fondue dinner last night that helped us eat some of that stuff. We used some of our homemade veggie stock along with a few spices as a cooking medium, which was pretty good, although we didn't add enough salt. We chopped up one of the tomatoes, a bell pepper, half a summer squash and half the kohlrabi for cooking, along with some beef and chicken; we had a few sauces to go with it, including mustard, a couple bbq sauces, a habanero cheese dip, and a cucumber tzatziki sauce that came out pretty good (and used a cucumber! yay!) Turns out it was a lot of food, and at the end of the meal we dumped the rest of the chopped up items into the cooking stock and called it a 'soup' which we had for lunch today.
Today I got to experiment with the rest of the kohlrabi, and made kohlrabi and summer squash au gratin with the rest of the habanero cheese. That worked pretty well too, except for the amount of liquid; you really do need heavy cream instead of half-and-half, but I can't find organic heavy cream at any of the grocery stores we go to. The half-and-half at least comes organic, without the carageenan and other crap. We had fun making deviled eggs last week, too. That's a lot of egg, by the way, since we started with two yolk's worth of homemade mayo and just added more and more eggs after that.
Oh my god, I am so sick of salad. We've had salads of some sort or another in our fridge for the past two months! It's an easy way to use veggies, especially the leafy ones, but a girl's gotta have a limit somewhere. We've made the cucumber-tomato-mint salad for three weeks in a row, and it's tasty stuff, but I'm so tired of it. We're going to try to make tomato soup tomorrow as an alternative tomato meal; I'm betting it'll be good, and it looks fairly easy to make. We have some wild rice we've been saving that will go well with it, too.
In other news, I think that 100-day challenge is over, for now. I've had quite a few non-paleo items the past couple weeks, and not really for any special occasion; on top of that, I've lost track of those. But that's ok. Maybe I'll try again when I'm not so busy with other things, and it's not like I've gone back to the SAD (standard american diet.) It's been a few munchkins on one hand, butter beans on the other, and green bean casserole on the gripping hand; then there's the corn. As you can see we got a dozen ears this week; we got a dozen last week, too, and a dozen the week before that. Right now we're cutting it all of the cob and freezing it in Ziplocs - we have a gallon and a half of frozen corn in the freezer. Who knows what I'm going to do with that stuff. I don't really want to eat it. I found a fun post on Mark's Daily Apple that might have some ideas, though.
So yeah. Any squash or cucumber ideas, please please please let me know. Oh! We did make pickles! We have a big jar of cucumber spears slowly pickling away in a nice dill brine; I really hope they come out well. We'll probably do a lot more of that, cuz I like pickles, and they keep well. I think we'll need more jars. We made more pickled eggs, too. I love those. And now made with farm-fresh eggs from the farm's "all-natural bug control!" But even with the pickles, right now we have 5 very large cucumbers in the fridge, along with a big summer squash, a bigger zucchini, and the ufo-shaped pattypan. I really didn't expect to be drowning in veggies, but it seems we are... can you pickle corn?
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Mt. Washington
This past weekend was our camping trip. We got to the campsite around 2:30 Friday, after a leisurely morning (having packed frantically Thursday night), got our little tent set up, unpacked our stuff and hung out for a while. I don't think I slept at all Friday night, unfortunately. The camping mats were great as far as mats go, but they're hard compared to our mattress, and then my sister borrowed an air mattress from someone for their tent and you know how loud those things can be when someone fidgets, and you can clearly hear it in the next tent, and then of course her boyfriend KICKED THE ON SWITCH on the silly thing at four in the morning, and shortly after that it was the birds, and then we all had to get up at 5 anyway to get to the mountain early enough to beat the storms predicted for the afternoon. (Love you sis! It really wasn't that bad. You're forgiven. :P)
Breakfast time consisted of a hard boiled (farm-fresh) egg and slices of salami. Why salami? It didn't get pulled out in time for me to add it to my lunch wraps, that's why, and I like salami and had no intentions of missing out. (Lunch wraps: two slices of either turkey or roast beef, spread with dijon mustard and rolled up with a slice of cheese. Make 4, put in ziploc, put in camelback pack.) There should have been lettuce to substitute for the tortillas others used, but we forgot to put those in the cooler... but that's ok, they weren't at all necessary.
So our bags are packed and we're ready to go... and it starts raining. Isn't it ironic? (OK, all lyrics aside, it really was ironic because we got up ridiculously early to avoid the rain.) We go anyway. Get to the mountain, still raining, start hiking anyway at 6:50 am. Vibrams are great, my feet are soaked but it's clear that the boots everyone else has aren't exactly dry, we're ahead of everyone except my cousin who's sticking with us, playing with our camera between squalls, we get to the caretaker's hut halfway up, check the midstation weather report and, half an hour later when everyone catches up, we all hike on, for maybe half a mile.
At this point we're well above the treeline, in Tuckerman's Ravine where the snowpack stays put until well into the summer. There's quite a bit still there, although no longer enough to ski on and quite dangerous at the moment due to the heavy rain that's been going on all morning.
Now, for those of you who have never been on the Tuckerman's Ravine trail, let me explain something. I've said the caretaker's hut was halfway. And so it is; the whole trail is about 4 miles, and the hut is a little more than 2 miles up. What that doesn't explain is the elevation. At the point we were in Tuckerman's Ravine, we had almost 2,000 feet left to climb - upwards. The hardest part, the steepest part, of that trail is entirely rock. Lichen-covered, and at that point very wet, rock.
With the fog, the thunderstorm warnings, and the hail warnings posted at the caretaker's hut we decided that it just wasn't worth the risk for us, and we all turned around. One of my more disappointing Mt. Washington hikes, to be sure, but at least that meant I was able to wear my Vibrams the whole way. We were back down at Pinkham Notch at 11:30. My feet hurt, my ankles hurt, my knees hurt; at least my bunions didn't, although I did get a small blister. I didn't feel like I would ever be dry again.
I'm not certain I would have made it down in my Vibrams if we had gone all the way up. Now, though, I have a pair of KSO Treks to try out, and with the thicker soles and better grip I think they'll be much better for those long hiking trips.
Of course, at that point, we go back to the campsite, where it is still raining. We all change in an attempt to dry off, and my mom, my sister, and I go out shopping for a canopy to put up. Of course when we get back with our little 9x9 canopy tent (after stopping for Irish Coffees, of course), it's stopped raining. But that was ok. We set it up with our three tents around it so that if it rained during the night we could get in and out of our tents easily, without getting water inside. It looked like a cute little tent séance.
Then, of course, it's appetizers and drinks and dinner time. As is usual with my mom's family, there is an overabundance of food: many chickens, lots of ribs, shrimp cocktails, the pasta salad I was asked to bring, the cole slaw my parents brought, veggie platters, cheese platters, and sweet potato chips. And of course cake and cookies for dessert. I was pretty good, paleo-wise: I ate a few bites of the pasta salad, since I'd spent so much time chopping veggies to make it; I ate far too many sweet potato chips, unfortunately fried in corn oil (my parents brought 20 sweet potatoes with them for this purpose); and a bite of cookie and a few bites of cake. Other than that everything was paleo-friendly, and although probably not paleo-ideal I think I did well. By the way, 20 sweet potatoes take about half an hour to peel and slice, even with a mandolin (thanks, Rich and Dad) and far, far longer to fry up. I think we fried them in about 15 batches, with most batches eaten before the next one was done. At least they were appreciated! BTW, for perfect chips: soak thin, even potato slices in water. Get oil up to 400 degrees. Drop in slices, carefully to avoid too much splatter from the water. Stir occasionally and take out when they start to brown. Salt immediately upon removal, and drain on paper towels.
Then it comes time to split up leftovers, pack it all in various cars, hang out a little longer, and go to bed. I slept really well Saturday night. It's amazing what a long day can do. Breakfast was an egg, a banana, a watermelon slice, and coffee.
Then it was a three hour drive, followed by cooking class. Moist heat methods today:
Osso buco
Pork and butternut squash stew (Rich and I made this one)
Braised rabbit
Braised chicken
Braised fennel with sea bass
Artichoke salad (the artichokes were stewed first, we worked on this one too)
Braised purple cabbage
Braised short ribs
Overall, enough to feed 12 with plenty of leftovers for people to take home, and not more than a cup of flour and a tablespoon of cornstarch in all of it put together. By far the most paleo-friendly cooking class yet, and we've come away with some amazing recipes to use. I liked all of those dishes.
Bonus! The two rabbits used were whole, and came with livers and hearts and things. Apparently nobody else likes liver, so Rich and I got those. I also managed to snag one of the osso buco bones for myself as leftovers, and ate the marrow as part of lunch yesterday. I've heard marrow described as 'buttery', and I really can't think of a better description. I was a little skeptical, never having tried it before, but now I'm hooked. I will find ways to make this. (Dreams of a trip to the butcher...)
So after class, we visited a friend who graciously picked up our CSA veggies for us. As expected, it was more than we could handle, so we insisted he keep quite a bit, as an expression of our gratitude for having picked them up for us. There's more corn, of course, and we haven't even finished the corn we got last week; there are far too many cucumbers, more tomatoes, green beans, zucchini and squash, and a cabbage I hadn't seen before and a squash that I'd only seen once. (Pointed cabbage and pattypan squash, as it turns out.) Last night in an effort to use the rest of last week's tomatoes we made a lovely little salad to go with leftover chicken from camping, and as part of lunch today. We're going to have to freeze the beans, and I think Rich is going to make corn pudding for himself with the four ears we still have.
Well, we had a very busy weekend, and we get to the gym and Smokey Bones tomorrow, the print shop (to look at wedding invitations) on Thursday, out for a friend's birthday Friday, and up to my parent's place Sunday. I'm starting to wonder if things will ever slow down. Anyway, here's the recipe for the salad we made.
4 medium-size cucumbers
3 large tomatoes
Dice and toss with dressing.
To make the dressing, blend together:
1/2 cup Olive oil
1/4 cup Lemon juice
1/8 cup Sherry wine vinegar
A lot of dried mint (maybe 2 tbsp? freshly chopped would be better if you find it)
A dash of dried thyme
Sea salt and black pepper to taste
The longer you let it sit, the more mint flavor you get. It actually smells like watermelon, which is odd, but it's quite tasty, especially with a dollop of Greek yogurt on top.
Breakfast time consisted of a hard boiled (farm-fresh) egg and slices of salami. Why salami? It didn't get pulled out in time for me to add it to my lunch wraps, that's why, and I like salami and had no intentions of missing out. (Lunch wraps: two slices of either turkey or roast beef, spread with dijon mustard and rolled up with a slice of cheese. Make 4, put in ziploc, put in camelback pack.) There should have been lettuce to substitute for the tortillas others used, but we forgot to put those in the cooler... but that's ok, they weren't at all necessary.
So our bags are packed and we're ready to go... and it starts raining. Isn't it ironic? (OK, all lyrics aside, it really was ironic because we got up ridiculously early to avoid the rain.) We go anyway. Get to the mountain, still raining, start hiking anyway at 6:50 am. Vibrams are great, my feet are soaked but it's clear that the boots everyone else has aren't exactly dry, we're ahead of everyone except my cousin who's sticking with us, playing with our camera between squalls, we get to the caretaker's hut halfway up, check the midstation weather report and, half an hour later when everyone catches up, we all hike on, for maybe half a mile.
At this point we're well above the treeline, in Tuckerman's Ravine where the snowpack stays put until well into the summer. There's quite a bit still there, although no longer enough to ski on and quite dangerous at the moment due to the heavy rain that's been going on all morning.
Now, for those of you who have never been on the Tuckerman's Ravine trail, let me explain something. I've said the caretaker's hut was halfway. And so it is; the whole trail is about 4 miles, and the hut is a little more than 2 miles up. What that doesn't explain is the elevation. At the point we were in Tuckerman's Ravine, we had almost 2,000 feet left to climb - upwards. The hardest part, the steepest part, of that trail is entirely rock. Lichen-covered, and at that point very wet, rock.
With the fog, the thunderstorm warnings, and the hail warnings posted at the caretaker's hut we decided that it just wasn't worth the risk for us, and we all turned around. One of my more disappointing Mt. Washington hikes, to be sure, but at least that meant I was able to wear my Vibrams the whole way. We were back down at Pinkham Notch at 11:30. My feet hurt, my ankles hurt, my knees hurt; at least my bunions didn't, although I did get a small blister. I didn't feel like I would ever be dry again.
I'm not certain I would have made it down in my Vibrams if we had gone all the way up. Now, though, I have a pair of KSO Treks to try out, and with the thicker soles and better grip I think they'll be much better for those long hiking trips.
Of course, at that point, we go back to the campsite, where it is still raining. We all change in an attempt to dry off, and my mom, my sister, and I go out shopping for a canopy to put up. Of course when we get back with our little 9x9 canopy tent (after stopping for Irish Coffees, of course), it's stopped raining. But that was ok. We set it up with our three tents around it so that if it rained during the night we could get in and out of our tents easily, without getting water inside. It looked like a cute little tent séance.
Then, of course, it's appetizers and drinks and dinner time. As is usual with my mom's family, there is an overabundance of food: many chickens, lots of ribs, shrimp cocktails, the pasta salad I was asked to bring, the cole slaw my parents brought, veggie platters, cheese platters, and sweet potato chips. And of course cake and cookies for dessert. I was pretty good, paleo-wise: I ate a few bites of the pasta salad, since I'd spent so much time chopping veggies to make it; I ate far too many sweet potato chips, unfortunately fried in corn oil (my parents brought 20 sweet potatoes with them for this purpose); and a bite of cookie and a few bites of cake. Other than that everything was paleo-friendly, and although probably not paleo-ideal I think I did well. By the way, 20 sweet potatoes take about half an hour to peel and slice, even with a mandolin (thanks, Rich and Dad) and far, far longer to fry up. I think we fried them in about 15 batches, with most batches eaten before the next one was done. At least they were appreciated! BTW, for perfect chips: soak thin, even potato slices in water. Get oil up to 400 degrees. Drop in slices, carefully to avoid too much splatter from the water. Stir occasionally and take out when they start to brown. Salt immediately upon removal, and drain on paper towels.
Then it comes time to split up leftovers, pack it all in various cars, hang out a little longer, and go to bed. I slept really well Saturday night. It's amazing what a long day can do. Breakfast was an egg, a banana, a watermelon slice, and coffee.
Then it was a three hour drive, followed by cooking class. Moist heat methods today:
Osso buco
Pork and butternut squash stew (Rich and I made this one)
Braised rabbit
Braised chicken
Braised fennel with sea bass
Artichoke salad (the artichokes were stewed first, we worked on this one too)
Braised purple cabbage
Braised short ribs
Overall, enough to feed 12 with plenty of leftovers for people to take home, and not more than a cup of flour and a tablespoon of cornstarch in all of it put together. By far the most paleo-friendly cooking class yet, and we've come away with some amazing recipes to use. I liked all of those dishes.
Bonus! The two rabbits used were whole, and came with livers and hearts and things. Apparently nobody else likes liver, so Rich and I got those. I also managed to snag one of the osso buco bones for myself as leftovers, and ate the marrow as part of lunch yesterday. I've heard marrow described as 'buttery', and I really can't think of a better description. I was a little skeptical, never having tried it before, but now I'm hooked. I will find ways to make this. (Dreams of a trip to the butcher...)
So after class, we visited a friend who graciously picked up our CSA veggies for us. As expected, it was more than we could handle, so we insisted he keep quite a bit, as an expression of our gratitude for having picked them up for us. There's more corn, of course, and we haven't even finished the corn we got last week; there are far too many cucumbers, more tomatoes, green beans, zucchini and squash, and a cabbage I hadn't seen before and a squash that I'd only seen once. (Pointed cabbage and pattypan squash, as it turns out.) Last night in an effort to use the rest of last week's tomatoes we made a lovely little salad to go with leftover chicken from camping, and as part of lunch today. We're going to have to freeze the beans, and I think Rich is going to make corn pudding for himself with the four ears we still have.
Well, we had a very busy weekend, and we get to the gym and Smokey Bones tomorrow, the print shop (to look at wedding invitations) on Thursday, out for a friend's birthday Friday, and up to my parent's place Sunday. I'm starting to wonder if things will ever slow down. Anyway, here's the recipe for the salad we made.
4 medium-size cucumbers
3 large tomatoes
Dice and toss with dressing.
To make the dressing, blend together:
1/2 cup Olive oil
1/4 cup Lemon juice
1/8 cup Sherry wine vinegar
A lot of dried mint (maybe 2 tbsp? freshly chopped would be better if you find it)
A dash of dried thyme
Sea salt and black pepper to taste
The longer you let it sit, the more mint flavor you get. It actually smells like watermelon, which is odd, but it's quite tasty, especially with a dollop of Greek yogurt on top.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
All kinds of things
I guess it's been a while since I last posted! Whoops. I'll try to post at least once a week from now on; it's easier that way. I did try to write a post on my iPod on Saturday, but I somehow managed to delete it... :(
Cooking class on Sunday after our Six Flags trip was Soups, Stocks, and Salads. Rich and I made a southwestern squash soup in class that was delicious, and one we'll make again. It's very paleo-friendly. The other soups were less so, unfortunately, but I'm hoping to find ways to alter them, because they were quite tasty. (Yes, another special occasion meal gone...) We also picked up a couple good salad dressing recipes, and have started freezing all our vegetable and meat scraps to make our own stocks. We ended up with enough leftover soups to last us for lunch the whole week. Next week we get to braise rabbit!
Then, this past weekend, we visited my parents for the 4th of July. It was a rather tiring weekend, but a lot of fun. We had a gym session on Friday, and we headed North after picking up our veggies Saturday. So many veggies this week! Soon it's going to border on ridiculous. Rich has been resisting freezing or dehydrating our veggies so far, but this week it's a necessity. Anyway, we hung out with my parents on the lake, played bocce and horseshoes, and went hiking Monday before leaving Tuesday in time for yet another gym appointment. The hike was awesome. It was fairly short, about 5 miles, but one section is all rocks and caves that are tons of fun to climb through. We did that same hike last fall as well; I definitely felt more confident hopping from rock to rock in my Vibrams than I did last fall in my big clunky hiking boots. My feet did get tired again, but at this point we've done all the types of terrain we'll encounter on Mt. Washington this Saturday. I feel confident we can handle it. (We're still going to bring our boots along, though. We haven't done that kind of distance in our VFFs yet, and tired feet on the way down could be dangerous.)
So one question I've gotten from a few people is why I'll sometimes eat things that are clearly not paleo (like a brownie with ice cream over the weekend, and an ear of corn. There goes yet another special occasion meal!) or things that I've said I don't eat, like potato or rice.
The answer's pretty simple. My purpose is to enjoy my life. Finding a diet that helps me feel better, that I think is healthier overall, and that will increase my quality of life in the long term has been a big step towards that. However, I won't give up dairy (go strict paleo) unless I feel my life will be better by doing so, and since I'm at a more reasonable weight now, I don't think that it would. I also will occasionally eat things off-diet because I feel my life is enhanced by those small moments of pleasure. This is why I say I follow a moderate paleo diet; I won't give up dairy, and I don't follow it very strictly.
Giving up wheat and other grains, though, has improved my life, and so it will continue. For example, my trail mix for Saturday is nutritious and interesting, and will provide me with all the energy I'll need. Macadamias, almonds, hazelnuts, pecans, sunflower kernels, and a few cashews and walnuts; chopped-up baking chocolate; craisins, raisins, dates, and occasional blueberries, raisins, pineapple, and banana. Tonight I'll be dehydrating a couple apples and peaches to add, too. It wasn't hard to avoid peanuts, pretzels, soynuts, and Chex, and I think those items detract from my quality of life rather than enhance it.
Well, this weekend I'll be hanging out with my aunts, who mostly disagree with me on my dietary choices; that will be interesting. I think this time I'll be prepared and bring along some info for them. I'm not very good at defending my choices when I don't have a computer in front of me yet. I'll post whatever I pull together, since I'm hoping to either find or create a good, informative summary of what I eat and why.
Oh! One more thing! The cats ate canned food instead of raw meat over the weekend, since we were out of raw meals and didn't have time to dismember chickens until yesterday. Their breath stank. Far worse than what's normal for them now. Back to raw meat again! Unfortunately, though, it doesn't appear that a raw diet affects how much they shed. There's fur everywhere. Poor kitties.
Cooking class on Sunday after our Six Flags trip was Soups, Stocks, and Salads. Rich and I made a southwestern squash soup in class that was delicious, and one we'll make again. It's very paleo-friendly. The other soups were less so, unfortunately, but I'm hoping to find ways to alter them, because they were quite tasty. (Yes, another special occasion meal gone...) We also picked up a couple good salad dressing recipes, and have started freezing all our vegetable and meat scraps to make our own stocks. We ended up with enough leftover soups to last us for lunch the whole week. Next week we get to braise rabbit!
Then, this past weekend, we visited my parents for the 4th of July. It was a rather tiring weekend, but a lot of fun. We had a gym session on Friday, and we headed North after picking up our veggies Saturday. So many veggies this week! Soon it's going to border on ridiculous. Rich has been resisting freezing or dehydrating our veggies so far, but this week it's a necessity. Anyway, we hung out with my parents on the lake, played bocce and horseshoes, and went hiking Monday before leaving Tuesday in time for yet another gym appointment. The hike was awesome. It was fairly short, about 5 miles, but one section is all rocks and caves that are tons of fun to climb through. We did that same hike last fall as well; I definitely felt more confident hopping from rock to rock in my Vibrams than I did last fall in my big clunky hiking boots. My feet did get tired again, but at this point we've done all the types of terrain we'll encounter on Mt. Washington this Saturday. I feel confident we can handle it. (We're still going to bring our boots along, though. We haven't done that kind of distance in our VFFs yet, and tired feet on the way down could be dangerous.)
So one question I've gotten from a few people is why I'll sometimes eat things that are clearly not paleo (like a brownie with ice cream over the weekend, and an ear of corn. There goes yet another special occasion meal!) or things that I've said I don't eat, like potato or rice.
The answer's pretty simple. My purpose is to enjoy my life. Finding a diet that helps me feel better, that I think is healthier overall, and that will increase my quality of life in the long term has been a big step towards that. However, I won't give up dairy (go strict paleo) unless I feel my life will be better by doing so, and since I'm at a more reasonable weight now, I don't think that it would. I also will occasionally eat things off-diet because I feel my life is enhanced by those small moments of pleasure. This is why I say I follow a moderate paleo diet; I won't give up dairy, and I don't follow it very strictly.
Giving up wheat and other grains, though, has improved my life, and so it will continue. For example, my trail mix for Saturday is nutritious and interesting, and will provide me with all the energy I'll need. Macadamias, almonds, hazelnuts, pecans, sunflower kernels, and a few cashews and walnuts; chopped-up baking chocolate; craisins, raisins, dates, and occasional blueberries, raisins, pineapple, and banana. Tonight I'll be dehydrating a couple apples and peaches to add, too. It wasn't hard to avoid peanuts, pretzels, soynuts, and Chex, and I think those items detract from my quality of life rather than enhance it.
Well, this weekend I'll be hanging out with my aunts, who mostly disagree with me on my dietary choices; that will be interesting. I think this time I'll be prepared and bring along some info for them. I'm not very good at defending my choices when I don't have a computer in front of me yet. I'll post whatever I pull together, since I'm hoping to either find or create a good, informative summary of what I eat and why.
Oh! One more thing! The cats ate canned food instead of raw meat over the weekend, since we were out of raw meals and didn't have time to dismember chickens until yesterday. Their breath stank. Far worse than what's normal for them now. Back to raw meat again! Unfortunately, though, it doesn't appear that a raw diet affects how much they shed. There's fur everywhere. Poor kitties.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Vibrams at the theme park
We went to Six Flags today with a couple friends. Following a suggestion from one of them, we wore our VFFs to the park. All day. Including the water park.
My feet are tired.
But other than that, they're happy. No pain from my bunions. One small blister, but it's not a painful one. The cobblestones were fun to walk on. And we had four different people ask us about our shoes. Would I wear them to the park again? Definitely. However, they didn't dry as quickly as I would have liked, and I would not want to wear them for very long when wet. My toes turned into raisins. Still, it was better than no shoes, in that kind of place... And they don't let you wear sneakers on the water park rides.
We packed lunch and ate on the grass next to the car rather than eat the overpriced, overgreased park food. Chicken salad and tuna salad, with various mustards and spices and bbq sauces and such, on bok choy leaf wraps. Recipe!
First, mayo.
Beat two egg yolks with 1 tsp lemon juice and 1 tsp prepared mustard. (Or 2 tsp lemon and 1/2 tsp. dry mustard.) Beat until the mixture forms a ribbon when you pull out your whisk, rather than droplets. (You can freeze the leftover whites to use in a soufflé.)
Get a cup of olive oil (or other oil. I happen to like the flavor from olive oil; many people like to use high-oleic sunflower oil for half of it to soften the flavor.) One drop at a time, beat oil into egg yolks. Once you've added a third of the oil you can add it faster - a tablespoon at time - until it's all beaten in. If it's not thickening while you add it, you've broken your mayo, and you'll need to start over with a clean bowl, with a new egg yolk and some lemon juice beaten to ribbon-texture, and slowly beat in your broken mayo. But do it slower this time. Once all your oil is in, taste, and add more lemon juice if wanted. Add water to thin it until you like the texture.
Now that you have your mayo, either grill a few chicken breasts or drain a few cans of tuna. If chicken, shred with forks. Mix protein with mayo. Dice and mix in a tomato and half an onion. Dice the stems of your bok choy and add that in too (or celery, if you're not using bok choy.)
Place spoonfuls into bok choy leaves (or other cabbage or lettuce leaf.) Add any mustards or spices you like. Add-in suggestions: lemon pepper, cumin, cayenne, Italian spice blend, Dijon mustard, wasabi. Sunflower seeds are a nice addition too. Wrap and eat!
All of the above fits into a cooler really well, and thus makes an awesome theme-park paleo picnic lunch.
My feet are tired.
But other than that, they're happy. No pain from my bunions. One small blister, but it's not a painful one. The cobblestones were fun to walk on. And we had four different people ask us about our shoes. Would I wear them to the park again? Definitely. However, they didn't dry as quickly as I would have liked, and I would not want to wear them for very long when wet. My toes turned into raisins. Still, it was better than no shoes, in that kind of place... And they don't let you wear sneakers on the water park rides.
We packed lunch and ate on the grass next to the car rather than eat the overpriced, overgreased park food. Chicken salad and tuna salad, with various mustards and spices and bbq sauces and such, on bok choy leaf wraps. Recipe!
First, mayo.
Beat two egg yolks with 1 tsp lemon juice and 1 tsp prepared mustard. (Or 2 tsp lemon and 1/2 tsp. dry mustard.) Beat until the mixture forms a ribbon when you pull out your whisk, rather than droplets. (You can freeze the leftover whites to use in a soufflé.)
Get a cup of olive oil (or other oil. I happen to like the flavor from olive oil; many people like to use high-oleic sunflower oil for half of it to soften the flavor.) One drop at a time, beat oil into egg yolks. Once you've added a third of the oil you can add it faster - a tablespoon at time - until it's all beaten in. If it's not thickening while you add it, you've broken your mayo, and you'll need to start over with a clean bowl, with a new egg yolk and some lemon juice beaten to ribbon-texture, and slowly beat in your broken mayo. But do it slower this time. Once all your oil is in, taste, and add more lemon juice if wanted. Add water to thin it until you like the texture.
Now that you have your mayo, either grill a few chicken breasts or drain a few cans of tuna. If chicken, shred with forks. Mix protein with mayo. Dice and mix in a tomato and half an onion. Dice the stems of your bok choy and add that in too (or celery, if you're not using bok choy.)
Place spoonfuls into bok choy leaves (or other cabbage or lettuce leaf.) Add any mustards or spices you like. Add-in suggestions: lemon pepper, cumin, cayenne, Italian spice blend, Dijon mustard, wasabi. Sunflower seeds are a nice addition too. Wrap and eat!
All of the above fits into a cooler really well, and thus makes an awesome theme-park paleo picnic lunch.
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