Breakfast, Dinner, (and lunch for tomorrow)

I stumbled across this recipe for paleo oatmeal the other day. When I first started paleo, I looked at lots of paleo oatmeal recipes because oatmeal was my go-to breakfast. It was the one thing I was really hung up about letting go of. At first, I avoided making any of them because I wanted to break my habits and look for alternative choices rather than substitute my favourite non-paleo foods (the same reason I still haven't made paleo brownies, tempting as it is). 

What I liked about this one is how simple it is, and that it can be eaten hot or cold. The recipe can be found here. The only deviation I made was leaving out the vanilla extract (I was out) and using almond milk rather than coconut when I cooked it. I had it both hot and cold (the picture is from when I had it cold) and I actually liked it cold better. Though the hot version was sweet and comforting, the cold one had a more pleasing texture (not quite crunchy, not quite chewy). It also has a flavour vaguely similar to one of my favourite cereals - Quaker Harvest Crunch. And best of all? I was full for about five hours after eating it. This cereal is amazing. 

Next I wanted to try another recipe from Paleo Comfort Foods. The stuffed pepper recipe looked good (I can't find a recipe posted online so I'll leave it in the book). 

I was a little concerned when I read through the recipe. I've noticed that many recipes from PCF don't call for salt. I'm fine with salting my own food to taste, but these turned out a bit on the bland side regardless. I think this recipe would be transformed by some different fresh herbs (the parsley it calls for doesn't add much) and some spices. It has potential and is pretty inexpensive so I'll likely return to it, but it's a little boring as written. That's a quiche in the background - recipe also from PCF - which I've now made so many times I know the recipe by heart. That recipe is a definite winner and one of my favourites from the book for sure. 

And now to sit back, watch some tv, and count down the two hours or so until my second whole30 officially begins!

Dinnertime

Today at the grocery store I was delighted to find these "doughnut peaches", also known as "saturn peaches", or, "flat peaches" if you're a little less imaginative (which is how they were labelled at my store). They're so cute and since I'm running low on fruit I picked some up. Fresh peaches are amazing and it seems to be one of those fruits that never tastes as good unless they're in season. 

Later, I made dinner for my boyfriend and I. He had a couple of fast-fry steaks and I had a hormone-free smoked pork sausage. On the side we had some carrots (heirloom carrots have the prettiest colours) sautéed with some onion. We also had a kale-and-romaine salad tossed with homemade ranch dressing...which is amazing. I got the recipe from Well Fed and will likely be making a batch every week. I couldn't resist having one of my flat peaches with dinner. I love having my fruit with dinner rather than after. I feel like it makes the meal more balanced, flavour-wise, and helps eliminate the "need" for something sweet after.

I'm still in the process of mentally gearing up for another whole30 in September, and rapidly tagging recipes I plan on making. I've got a little trip to a local bakery planned for tomorrow (apparently the best ice cream and cookie sandwiches ever!)

Cheers!
Tori

Healthy Yet Again

So, it's been awhile since I've posted. That doesn't mean I haven't been making and eating paleo foods this summer, it just means I've taken a break from documenting it. However, my eating habits this summer haven't been as "clean" as I'd hoped. There's so many awesome things to eat in this city and I didn't want to miss out on any chances. Some highlights were the opening up of a Momofuku Milk Bar store, and a pop-up shop for Magnum Ice Cream bars - with 21 different toppings! There was also a trip up to Northern Ontario that included bonfires and s'mores. 

After a summer of eating about 70/30 paleo, I've decided to return to a more controlled way of eating. A major motivation for this is my boyfriend telling me he'd like to start paleo as well. This came as a shock - from a long-time vegetarian and lover of grains (French toast!) I was surprised that he wanted to start eating what I was eating. Health has become a big priority for both of us, so now's the time to get back on track. To kick off his paleo journey (and kick-start mine) I bought a new cookbook - Gather: The Art of Paleo Entertaining. It has beautiful, seasonal recipes that make large batches (either to feed a crowd, or two of us with leftovers for the next day or two). Here's some highlights from the last few cook days. 

This is the Margherita Pizza recipe from Gather. I mainly wanted this recipe for the almond flour crust and improvised the toppings - we left out the cheese and topped this pizza with heirloom tomato, broccoli, prosciutto, onion, mushroom, and peppers. And yes, that can that says "authentique" is pizza sauce. With everything I was cooking I really didn't feel like making sauce from scratch. Next time. 

It turned out...okay. I didn't have tapioca flour so I subbed in coconut flour. This turned out to be a pretty big mistake as coconut flour is incredibly absorbent and has a sweet flavour. I think it would make excellent shortbread cookies, but this sweet, dry pizza crust was no bueno. I'll use the correct starch next time. 

  

Next up was the Char Siu Pork from Well Fed. My boyfriend wanted me to make the BBQ Pork Fried Rice recipe, also from Well Fed, so I had to make this recipe to go with it. I haven't cooked pork shoulder in awhile and this turned out tender and flavourful. It was really good on its own, and even better two days later in the Pork Fried Rice recipe.

He also wanted to try these two Jicama recipes from Well Fed. Up top here is the "potato salad" and down below is the home fries. I've made them before, but the jicama was way undercooked. Both recipes call for slow-cooking the jicama for 12-24 hours, which I did this time. The jicama still has a bit of texture to it (it's not as soft as boiled potatoes) but it was much more tender than last time. The potato salad is amazing and I will be making it again for sure. It also gave me an excuse to make paleo mayo, and using the method from Well Fed, it turned out perfect.

Here's dinner from the evening of cook-day. I had made the pork, home fries, and potato salad one night after work and obviously wanted to try everything. There's some home-made chipotle mayo on top of the home fries...a very tasty addition. 

To help with breakfast (boyfriend doesn't like eggs) I made lemon blueberry muffins (recipe from Gather) They use coconut flour instead of almond and I was skeptical because the batter was very thin (like cake batter) when muffins usually have a much thicker batter. They turned out delicious, and I think would even make great cupcakes with a bit of frosting. They did, however, nearly burn even though I reduced the baking time recommended in the book. The book calls for 35 min. For my first batch they nearly burned at 32, and turned out perfectly for my second batch at 28 min. 

I also tried the dark chocolate gelato recipe from Gather. I was excited about the notion of having paleo gelato, and though I got a good looking picture of it, the recipe was a bit of a failure. I was surprised when it called for adding the yolks in with all the other ingredients and bringing to a boil (rather than tempering the yolks as other recipes do). As a result, I strained out some scrambled yolks before putting the mix into the fridge. After churning in my ice-cream maker, it was still a bit liquid-y and I knew it was going to turn out gritty - and I was right. It has a very off-putting texture and the flavour is mostly coconut, and barely "dark chocolate" as the name of the recipe implies. It looks like I'll be searching for an alternate paleo gelato recipe. 

And finally, here's this morning's breakfast. There's nothing quite like pork and eggs to start the day, along with some buttery sautéed apples and blueberries. That's all for now!