Tag Archives: easy

Raw Veggies with a Sweet Tang

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raw veg

Friday night my daughter and I spent doing all things water polo. Her team was dominating! So we got the late start on the games for Saturday. These tournaments last all day and you always end up eating someplace you probably shouldnt! So I though i would throw together something that would travel easy…and be healthy! Plus a few of her teammates are always starving and like healthy foods if you bring them!

A few months ago I had a few bites of a raw broccoli salad that, although I typically do not care for the little raw trees, tasted great! Because of a creamy little dressing with a sweet tang to it! I decided Saturday that would be my inspiration.

I whipped up this salad Saturday morning and took a bucket of it to the games, where the girls devoured it! It was really good! So yesterday I did it again, and have been munching on it breakfast, lunch and dinner!

Here’s the scoop:

Chop up your favorite raw veggies to smallish bites and pile into a bowl. I used:
1 carrot, sliced into coins
3 broccoli crowns, small chop
1 head of cauliflower, small chop
a handful of radishes, sliced
3 inches of Daikon, sliced into little sticks
2 slices of red onion, diced small

then I threw in a little fruit, optional of course:
handful of grapes
handful of blueberries

I think some dried cranberries or raisins would be nice here!

I broke up a handful of fresh pecans as well.

Mix up a quick dressing of:
1/3 cup of homemade mayo
2 Tbsp light raspberry balsalmic vinegar (any light vinegar will work)
1 tsp raw organic honey
a small pinch of salt
Whisk away!

Pour the dressing over the salad and toss, toss, toss. Let it mingle a while, the flavors just keep getting better….toss every once in a while. You can put it in a container with a lid and just give it a shake from time to time….keep it chilled.

This morning I had it for breakfast with bacon crumbled over the top!raw bowl

Been Busy? Chicken in a Pot!

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chicken soup pot

Been busy? Yep. That’s right. That’s me. You too. But I try to think ahead sometimes!
In my house it is non stop. My days are long and my family is busy doing all things all directions, so when I went Paleo I broke down and bought my very best friend, the slow cooker.
I have tried many things in it, some are just great! Some are so-so….but you never know until you try!
(One of my favorite slow cooker recipes is for Ketchup! sugar free! The recipe came from the “21 Day Sugar Detox” By SanFillippo…I add some cayenne pepper and it is great!)

Roasts are a snap. Soups and Chilis are easy and delicious too.

Yesterday I ran home at lunchtime and threw all of the items below in the pot knowing we had my daughter’s water polo game to go to after work, and it would be late when I got home, and I would probably be too tired to start cooking? yep.

Here is how we did it:

Chicken in a Pot (pretty much a Chicken Soup!)

Start layering….I put the veggies on the bottom.
4-5 carrots, cut in 1-2 inch pieces.
3 celery stalks, cut into 1 inch pieces.
1 onion, rough large chop
LOTS of fresh garlic, 10-20 cloves, rough chop
one small finger of ginger, peeled and sliced
salt and pepper liberally
Poultry seasoning, or at least garlic powder, thyme, celery salt
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
Several pieces of organic, free range chicken…I used 2 breasts with skin and bones, and one boneless plus one drumstick I held out from dinner the other night.
(another round of the same seasonings on top of the chicken, plus a little of the chopped garlic)
a handful of fresh parsley

I give it a drizzle of good olive oil and a splash of chicken stock just to put a little moisture on the bottom of the pot…the slow cooking will create a full pot of “juices” as your soup cooks!

PUT THE LID ON….and set it to go for 6-8 hours on low!

Easy easy easy….leave it and come home to lovely smells and a delicious meal….and it is so good for you!

PLUS! Leftovers for the next day! SWEET!

Thai Chicken Meatballs

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20140219_20143620140219_20115720140219_202249

Last night we made Thai Chicken Meatballs and broccoli, which turned out mighty good!
I admit, this recipe was not mine originally. I found it in a favorite book, Primal Cravings, that I have a love/hate relationship with. I think the writers of this book have some fantastic ideas! Great flavor profiles! Super ideas! But I truly do not believe they tested half of these recipes, or if they did, they wrote a few of them up, well, wrong. I have made MANY things from the book, and once I have tweaked and fixed a few things, they are really great recipes! So I will say this is their base recipe, with some tweaking so you don’t throw the book out the window, which I almost did more than once.

Here is what should happen:

Put all of the following into a large mixing bowl:
2 pounds ground chicken (we decided last night beef would work here too)
2 Tbsp coconut flour
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
2 Tbsp Peach Jam (all fruit, no sugar added)
2 Tbsp Spicy Chile Sauce (as clean as you can find it!)
2 cloves of Garlic, chopped
1 egg, beaten
1/2 tsp of salt ( or more, to your liking)
Cayenne pepper if you like it spicier….I used about 1/4 tsp
*2 Tbsp water mixed with 1/2 tsp cream of tartar and 1/4 tsp baking soda

Mix with your hands and form golf ball size meatballs. Plece meatballs evenly spaced on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. (Do not use a silpat. This turns into a mess.)

Bake these in the oven at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes, or until and instant read thermometer reads 165+ degrees. They should be browned on the outside and on the bottoms.

While meatballs are browning in the oven, in a small sauce pan bring the following to a simmer and turn off:
1/2 cup of peach jam (from above)
1/4 cup of chile suace, or more to your liking
2 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1/2 minced garlic cloves
2 Tbsp water
salt to taste
whisk until blended, heat to a simmer.

When the meatballs are ready, place them in a bowl and pour peach chile sauce over them and toss gently….you are ready to dig in!
We just steamed some broccoli with lemon and salt to serve with them! These are great the next day for leftovers as well, if any are left!

Plate this!

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mexiplate

Always on the search for something with alot of flavor that is easy and fairly quick on a weeknight, coupled with will everyone in the house eat it….I was flipping through the March 2014 issue of Paleo Magazine and stumbled across some definitely doable recipes! I read through the two recipes that were meant to be served together called “Salsa Beef and Spiced “Rice” Bowls” and thought, this is too simple!

I got my head around it and started a little improvising in my head, and ended up with the recipe below. I wanted to credit whoever wrote the base recipes, but there is no author cited! So, thank you to Paleo Magazine …for printing those two recipes for inspiration! And here is how I made them my own:

I prepped all my ingredients, the chopping anyway,for both recipes and then just threw them together in their seperate skillets at the same time….

Skillet One – Mexican Beef
Brown 1 pound of Grass fed ground beef in a Tablespoon of coconut oil
Once browned, add:
1/2 medium red bell pepper, chopped
4 medium scallions (greens and whites) trimmed and chopped
4-5 garlic cloves, chopped
Continue to cook in the skillet another 5 minutes.
Stir in 1/2 cup of your favorite fresh salsa
Taste and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Skillet Two – Spiced Mexican Rice
Chop florets of 2 heads of cauliflower in a food processor
Saute cauliflower in about 3 tablespoons of coconut oil along with 1 medium chopped red onion, 5 minutes. Add in 5-7 cloves of chopped garlic as you saute.
Season the cauli rice with:
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 + tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp chili powder
salt, pepper and up to 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper, or more, to taste
Keep moving this around in the skillet until evenly distributed.
Whish together 1/2 cup chicken broth and 2 tablespoons tomato paste….add to the saute and mix in.
while that is cooking a minute or two, chop a handful of cilantro and toss in. Mix in, turn off heat.
Squeeze the juice of a lime over the whole thing and give it a quick mix.

SERVE IT UP:
Put a good helping of cauli rice on the bottom of the plate or bowl.
Top it with your Mexican Beef…
Add a dollop of home made guacamole (mine is a secret recipe…for now!) or chopped avocado…

we decided it could be spicier…
Next time around I will put a couple of spoonfuls of pico de gallo in the rice and mix in….I think that sounds good!

This whole thing took 30 minutes, start to finish…smells divine! Tastes even better!
I cannot wait to hear how you like it!

And now a word from my Mother!

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fritatta

My mother sent me a pic of her breakfast last weekend…she does this from time to time…and it always looks amazing so I post it on instagram and everyone loves it and it gets way more likes than anything of mine, whatever! She is paleo, she will not let me tell her age, but I am 43, and she gets discounted movie tickets! So that is all I have to say about that except how cool is it that she GETS it! She is holistic, organic, natural and paleo!

And because everyone on IG wanted to know, here is her recipe for the fritatta above, and her guest post….so, mother….you are on the internet now! you famous!

Guest Post from Mother:

I understand there are some who are
wanting to make the Sunday morning frittata.
This is a meal that fits many occasions. An easy breakfast/brunch
Or try for dinner on a busy day. Aren’t they all?

Most time consuming thing is grating the sweet potato. “What?” you say.
Yes sweet potato!
Recipe coming up and it is very healthy!
I have a little farm where I grow some of my own vegetables and herbs.
Love that and of course we do it organically !
So here is the frittata using veggies and herbs
a la my farm garden.

Sunday Morning Frittata with Chorizo
the oven does alot of the work for you…..and fast!

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons coconut oil

1/2 -1 lb. chorizo sausage uncooked ( I used veal chorizo)

1 small sweet potato, scrubbed and shredded (about1 cup)

1/2 large yellow bell pepper sliced

1/4 cup of yellow or white onion

8 large pasture raised organic eggs

1 tsp. coconut milk

1/4 tsp sea salt

2 roma tomatoes sliced, (even 9 or 10 small grape tomatoes sliced is fine)

Garnish: avocado slices and fresh chopped herb of your choice, cilantro, sage, basil

the marriage:

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Heat the oil in an oven safe skillet over medium heat.

Add the sausage, sweet potato, yellow pepper, and onion and sauté apx. 5 min.

(I browned the sausage first, and added the rest for a sauté of 5 min.)

Beat the eggs with the coconut milk and salt, then pour into the skillet and cook for 2 minutes

Just pour evenly, no stirring or turning…….just easy

Arrange the tomato slices in a circular pattern on top of the eggs. (I added1 cup chopped spinach first)

Place the frittata in the oven and bake for 12 minutes.

Serve with the avocado and sprinkle with the torn herb

**I would add some “smashed garlic with sea salt”, we tend to thrive on alot of garlic!

And if you like hot peppers, I would do either of the next suggestions for a little “tickle” for your taste buds.

Just chop one hot pepper, could be cayenne, our personal favorite that we grow, or jalapeño or a small Tai pepper. I seed them mostly and chop finely with sea salt.

Add 8-10 sliced grape tomatoes. Toss some of this on each slice of the Frittata.

Or do all of the above except sauté with 1 teaspoon grass fed butter or oil in a small skillet for a minute and then add 1/4 to 1/2 cup of full fat coconut milk or unsweetened almond milk and stir till thickened slightly. You can add some(grass fed) grated cheddar to this or just spoon it as is over… anything really. Just delicious!

Oh! Don’t ever breathe over a skillet with hot peppers cooking or you will choke a bit and or sneeze, depending on your particular physical make up. Experience is our teacher, right?

I think it took me longer to write out the recipe for you than it did to make it.

So, hope you try this, it will work for any “busy girl for a paleo world”.

And, that’s Lunch

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and thats lunch

All right, one last one for today.
Lunch kind of just happened today, but happened really well!

So, I posted earlier about a little cucumber veggie salad that I like alot made with chopped veggies, mayo, Sunny Paris Seasoning, fresh garlic, S&P and a little vinegar. Well, the nice thing about that mix is it gets better as it sits, and I had a little (very little!) left over last night, and I kept it! I decided to make a salad at lunch and a sweet potato and a little leftover grilled chicken.

I just made a salad with spinach and lettuce leaves. Added a little more veggies (more radishes, carrots, a stalk of hearts of palm) and a tiny bit of organic feta cheese (goats). I hit the whole bowl with a small dollop of mayo, a little more vinegar, and dumped the remainder of last nights salad on top! mix mix mix . wow and WOW! look at that plate! I sort of went into a trance while I was eating away, ended up not even eating much of the chicken and of course devoured that tater!

So this I guess is kind of a recipe? More of a guideline of how quick and easy paleo lunches can be! Keep easy things on hand like leftover proteins, lettuce, fresh organic veggies, and a fresh jar of your home made paleo mayo at all times!

Hope you like my pretty plate, I know I did!

Inspired Italian Meatballs

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italilan meatballs

I am a huge fan of Michelle Tam of http://www.nomnompaleo.com and book, Nom Nom Pale, Food for Humans. She was the first paleo blogger I found when I did my first Whole 30 about two years ago. I loved all of the things she made and the fact that she is a mom of two boys and works full time and seems to truly love food! Everything I have ever made from her blog or book has had such depth of flavor, just amazing food!

Well, I had a pound of ground meat on hand and wanted to make one of her meatball recipes, but she used veal, and seasonings that lended themselves to veal like basil. I had beef…so I ran with that using her recipe as a base to stem from.

They turned out light and airy and so flavorful!

Here is what I did:

Place all of the ingredients below in a mixing bowl and mix with hands:
1 pound organic grassfed ground beef (would be good mixed with pork)
1/2 finely chopped onion
4 cloves of garlic, finely minced
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup chopped italian parsely
1 tbsp italian seasoning
1 tsp coarse sea salt
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1 cup garlic cauliflower mash (Steam 1 head of cauliflower cut into florets with 5 cloves of garlic for about 10 minutes. Pulse through the food processor until smooth with 2 Tablespoons ghee or butter from a grassfed source)

Shape into golf ball sized meatballs. Brown in a good skillet over medium-hi heat in a mix of ghee or butter and coconut oil for 2-3 minutes per side, keep turning until browned all over.

You can sauce these up so many different ways or just eat on their own! Easy stuff!
We ate with the remainder of the cauliflower mash on the side and a chopped veggie salad.

Let me know what you think!

Weekend Update….Let’s start with that Garlic Beef Pot/Stew!

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garlic beef pot

Wow! I had a busy weekend in the kitchen and never had so many people from instagram asking for recipes! So watch out, alot of posts coming today.
I want to start with this Beef Stew though.
My daughter and I were strolling around Whole Foods on Friday afternoon, as we do, and she is the sample princess, will try all of it!
In the produce department, the WF Chef had whipped up what he was calling a beef stew with ingredients on the sale table. (Obviously, they were trying to move the meat!)
My daughter tries it and says WE SHOULD MAKE SOME BEEF STEW! (I don’t care for beef stew. She doesn’t know that…)
I always am up for winging it in the kitchen, and she kept going on about it so I let her pick up a couple of pounds of cubed round. We picked up a few other things that sounded like they would work together….and to my complete happiness and surprise, here is what happened!

Garlic Beef Pot/Stew

Start by dumping 2 pounds of grassfed cubed round beef in your slow cooker.
Add to it a LOT of fresh chopped garlic! (I think I put in about 15-20 cloves that I quick chopped in the mini chopper)
Add 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
Add 1 tsp dried oregano
Add 1+ tsp coarse sea salt
Add 1/4-1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper
I gave it a sprinkle of garlic powder and onion powder
1 Tablespoon of unsweetened cocoa powder

Then I mixed it all up by hand right in the slow cooker pot, so that the meat and seasonings were well mixed.

I added about 1/3 cup of fresh chopped parsley
2 cans of diced organic fire roasted tomoatoes
2 chopped stalks of celery
2 carrots chopped in coins
1 onion, chopped large
about 1/4 cup of good balsalmic vinegar

I let it go on low for about 5 hours then kicked it up to high for another hour or so.

The flavors were amazing! The Broth was rich and lovely, the meat was tender! We all really enjoyed it, having leftovers tonight! And I will be making this one again for sure!
Let me know what you think!

AND!!!
You can now get to my blog by going to http://www.busygirlforapaleoworld.com
See you around!

When all else fails, and sometimes it does!

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Jake shake

Guess I am still on yesterday’s topic! Perfect example of how the day can get away from you and you run out of time and energy but you have to do something because you are really hungry and confident there is a bag of M&M’s somewhere in the house! Full day at work, straight to my daughter’s swim meet, pets at home waiting waiting waiting for me to come home and feed and walk them, I sit happily watching her swim, but can hear the ticking of the clock in the back of my mind. Chatting away with a friend in the stands who is grabbing a quick bite during the meet, I got to thinking, what in the world am I going to eat and when? by the time I got home it was after 8:00 and the dogs needed attention! Cat was tapping her paw on the staircase using her catskills to chastise me for such and unacceptably late dinner while watching my every move to make sure hers was first!

Pets happily fed and watered, it is 9:00. Should I just go to bed? NO! I’m actually hungry! But tired, but lazy, but hungry.

Smoothie time. Smoothie time!!!

How fast is a smoothie? So fast! And is light or heavy as you decide to make it.

Here is what happened:

Into the blender went
1 ripe banana
1 cup of almond milk
cinnamon to taste…maybe 1/2 tsp
a dash of vanilla
1 Tbsp raw organic local honey
ice cubes

2 minutes later…Banana smoothie! (in the Adventure Time glass of choice, becomes a “Jake Shake”!)

To beef up the smoothie, try this:
add any or all of the following:

1/4 of a ripe avocado
1-2 Tbsp Almond Butter…or Almond Flour…nice protein boost
1-2 Tbsp Cacao Powder….gives it a hint of chocolate with all kinds of health benefits!
or add other fruits too…strawberries are good here!

This worked….I felt good, not hungry any more, and could get a few things done before hitting the sack.