Zucchini Sandwich

The treat today was a zucchini, and canned chicken sandwich. I grabbed all the fresh veggies I had and threw  them together in this palatable delight!

Fresh spaghetti Stuffed zucchini

Paleo-sagna!

Sades and I made this beast last night for our GIRLS NIGHT!!! We got together with some girls we met volunteering in Haiti and had an awesome night catching up while eating this yummy lasagna. The only problems I had were the "noodles" being too crunchy, and that I didn't have marinara sauce and had to make it from scratch, mine was a little too celery-y. Delicious none the less.

Then we got our girl par-tay on with an awesome face-mask from Lush

Chicken Salad Sandwich on Portobello

Here's one for all you busy folks. Takes less than 15 minutes, and serves 3.

1. Mix 1 can of chicken with 2 avocados, you'll need to do some squishing to get the avocado to mush.

2. Slice 1C grapes in half, and crush about 1/2C of cashews so they are not whole, but not powder. Add to the chicken/avocado mix.

3. Add 1/2teaspoon of curry, and a pinch of salt. Mix well and put aside.

4. Cut 2 large portobello mushrooms in 1/4" slices, and put the chicken salad mix on the mushrooms.

5. Slice 2-3 medium sized tomatos and add to sandwich. Either top with another slice of portobello, or enjoy open face. 

A few dates make an excellent treat after this sandwich!

Also, I realize I haven't updated you with the struggle to be paleo. So far, the first 2ish days were the worst, and now I don't really want to eat anything that isn't paleo. I thought I'd miss soda a lot more than I actually do - I have replaced it with a little fruit juice mixed with a lot of water - I do go after fruit tons more than I "should," but I keep myself pretty clean. I did have a piece of cake on Sunday because I was at dinner with some friends and it looked fantastic... but you'll all be relieved to hear that I didn't even like it. I have never been a big cake fan, and it just made me feel guilty. It's also getting easier to be creative with my meals, I even started meal planning this week with cute little calendars, and shopping lists I designed.

Peach Gelato & T-bone Steak

Today, Brian and I went boating on Utah Lake with his family. What a blast! We got home pretty late, and his family picked up some fast food; no, I didn't break guys.. I did eat some sweet potato fries, probably fried in canola oil, but whatever - I was sooo hungry! Then we got home and I made this delicious meal in my furry of hunger!

Talk about great... Here we have a grilled T-bone steak seasoned liberally with my favorite steak seasoning (it was rare, of course, my paleo ancestors would never have eaten a fully cooked steak) scrambled egg whites with green pepper, mushrooms sautéed in coconut oil, and boiled Brussels sprouts! I love Brussels sprouts...

So this is the first attempt, I found a recipe on allrecipes and substituted 1Cup almond, 1Cup coconut milk, 1Cup coconut cream, 1/4Cup honey, and 1Cup of mashed peaches. The gelato wasn't very sweet, and is missing that "cream" taste, but with some fresh peaches on top, it hits the spot... (just as long as you didn't think of it as "gelato").

Cauliflower "Rice", Spaghetti Squash, and Chicken Stirfry

Okay! This was awesome, and look at that cute table cloth!

1. Before hand: Cook spaghetti squash by poking holes in the squash and then;

Bake: about an hour in the oven at 375 F

Microwave: 10-12 Minutes, then stand for a 5-10 minutes to steam

Boil: 1/2 hour ish

sidenote: Microwaves are gross, people. Just do the prep before hand to avoid those carcinogens ;)

2. Finely chop cauliflower into 2Cups of the rice-ish looking pieces, place in a pot of water.

3. Add 2Cups of spaghetti squash (just use a fork to scrape it out) to the cauliflower pot, and add 1/2Tablespoon of curry, and 1/2Tablespoon of salt; cover and boil for 15-20 minutes.

4. Cut up 3 chicken breasts in strips, and place in a pan with about 1/4Cup coconut oil, and 1Tablespoon of poultry seasoning (this is my favorite kind). Cook on medium heat until cooked through (no pink).

5. Chop 1/2 a red onion, 10-15 green beans, and slice 5ish white mushrooms, add to the chicken mix, and cover at medium heat until the onions are translucent, and beans aren't as crunchy (about 5-8 minutes).

6. When the cauliflower/spaghetti squash is finished, place in a bowl, and top with the chicken mix! Enjoy!

Serves 2 with some leftovers for lunch. 

Stuffed Zucchini!

1. Steam hollowed zucchini slices in a pan of water for about 10 minutes, take out and set to the side.
2. Place chicken strips in a pan with a spoonful of coconut oil and about a teaspoon of poultry seasoning. Cook on medium heat until white on the outside.
3. Cut 1/2 red onion diced, and about 1 cup of broccoli diced in with chicken. Add 2 more spoonfuls of coconut oil, continue cooking on medium heat until middle of chicken is white. Take chicken out and place on side.
4. Add 1/2 a cup of water, and asparagus (ends up to about an inch and a half of the head diced) and cover for 5 minutes.
5. Now assemble chicken slices, and about 1/2 cup veggie mix in each zucchini slice.
6. Top with an assortment of nuts and raisins as desired. Enjoy!

For desert, rasberry chocolate nobake cookie! Yum!

Day 3

Zucchini's the flavor of the week, guys. Not because I particularly like it, or think it's great for me, but becAuse it is in ample supply during the summer in Utah, is paleo, and is pretty much tasteless, so you can do a lot with/around it.

Lunch was breakfast again today... it is probably going to stay that way forever too since I can't get up one second before I absolutely have to. So I went home for brunch and made some zucchini, broccoli, mushroom stirfry with nutmeg and - you guessed it - coconut oil! If ever "they" decide coconut oil's terrible for you, I will be the first to die, I put it on errrythang. So I throw that in a tupperware with a chicken hot dog, a goji cacao & maca snack, and pistachios on the side. I'm not crazy about those laughing giraffe organic snacks, but they're convenient when I'm in a hurry on my lunches. I then washed it all down with a big glass of unsweetened coconut milk. #satisfied

Sade and I made zucchini bread after work, it was delish, almond flour substituted the wheat. It was nutty and soft and just sweet enough. Mmmm. You can find the recipe here.

Dinner was zucchini spaghetti. Pretty good, but I went a little overboard with the onions.

Also, I tried this Naked Coconut water today... same deal as the other flavor, not my fav, but not terrible.

Sugar

That's all I want... Just some good ol' fashioned soda, lots of fruit, or some cliff shots... I'm really not too picky. Unfortunately... Paleo gods say no to sugar... Poor me. Thank heaven for Whole Foods, I went tonight as soon as I was off work with Sades and acquired quite the booty. Among other veggies and such, here's the stuff I tried out today.

First we've got some naked coconut water, this lychee variety - not the best, we'll see if the mango variety is better.

The soda is aight, not worth the money though, it's just carbonated water with citrus juice, much cheaper to mix yourself, which is what I will be doing from now on when I'm craving some soda. 

Then comes the magic- coconut chocolate paste. YUM! I could straight up marry this stuff!

It's German... For "food"

Welcome!... to my blog about the food I'm eating... So here's the deets: I was in Haiti for 6 weeks teaching with an organization called Sustain Haiti. It was an INCREDIBLE experience which I loved every single second of. Unfortunately, the food over there may or may not have given me GI issues... boo. So now you're up to speed. I am blogging about my attempt at: THE PALEO DIET!! Well I don't really know a whole lot about it right now, the reasoning, the dietary science, the breakdown, or legitimacy of the "feces in yo bloodstream" idea... yeah, this guy is radical, no, not all paleos think this extremely... so okay... I am being a little dramatic... but he started it. Articles like this should not pop up when you're looking for legitimate research on the paleo diet. Blame it on the g-g-g-g-google. (that's supposed to sound like second 18 of the song below..)

Well anyways... here's what I ate today... actually... here's a story about how I almost starved first. So last night, I went on a hike up Little Cottonwood Canyon (LCC - remember that, I love to abbreviate, in fact from now on, abbreviate, you are abrv.) This hike was supposed to be a climb, but where's the fun in not getting lost in scrub oak and setting a rap that's a bit too long for your 70m rope? I get it.. you don't climb and aren't quite pickin' up what I'm puttin' down... here you go... it's not actually very helpful but it was funny to me, and hey - I tried. So I get home, pretty dang tired at 1/2 am, and wake up after the 6th snooze attempt this morning at 7:30, work starts at 8. Well I rush into work on my second day of the paleo diet, yeah, super hungry, and don't have the chance to leave til 10:30, at which point, I smash up some avocado, blend some curry, salt, and canned chicken into it, and realize that I don't actually want to eat that all by its self. This is where the crisis began. So I head to Harmon's and am scouring the shelves for vegetable chips (not technically paleo when fried in canola oil, like the Harmon's variety I bought, but I don't care) So I call my bester (that's Sadee's abrv) who is the reason I even know about this diet, she's a health nut, and always going from healthy thing to healthy thing. Well she tells me that the chips are there, if only I can "open my mind" to the secret world of paleo. I do, and wham! everything that contains sugar, wheat, soy, or dairy suddenly turned into pokey monsters and were chasing me around trying to cut my large intestines open so my feces will leak all over the place... No success for them though, I found the stupid chips (40 minutes and many insults at the "wheat haters" later) and then started scouring the rows of attacking processed food enemies for chocolate without soy, milk, wheat, or sugar. Good freaking luck right? Well I failed there, and instead found the peanut butter section, not quite what I was looking for, and honestly the hazelnut butter I picked up has sugar in it AND is gross, but I had some coconut chocolate butter from Sadee the other day, and it was good, so I had to try it. The almond butter is actually pretty good though success. 

Here we have it then, mashed avocado, canned chicken, salt, curry, and way more veggie chips than are pictured here. I don't even like veggie chips... I just needed something to throw this little mix onto.

Here we have the nut butters, and here are the rest of them.

Soooo basically, I am hungry all the time, it's day two of my diet, and all I really want is to not feel sick after I eat! Wish me luck... One meal down, two to go today. Also... I miss Mnt. Dewwwwww! But stop encouraging my bad behavior. 

Day 1

Here I am again on my own... going through this big fat fridge all alone... For my very first paleo day, I poured all my Mnt. Dew down the drain... the storm drain, actually... dramatic? No, lazy. my stash is in my closet, and I live on the 2nd floor, so, yep, poured it right onto the roof because I was too lazy to walk downstairs with it all. I threw out all the candy, and punished my fiancé when he came over as he tried to eat granola, SINNER! No, he's not paleo, he's afraid of me when I'm slicing onions with a large knife. Don't worry folks, I made up for it... Look at that highly skeptical man eating onion, zuchini, and carrots sautéed in coconut oil, hard boiled eggs on the side and errthang. Seriously though, he liked it okay!? Welp wash that down with some unsweetened coconut milk, and VIOLA! First paleo meal - check!

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