Recipe: Coconut Shrimp and Pineapple Fried Rice

Okay, so it's not 100% paleo. But on the positive side, it used everything I had in the house, so I didn't have to go to the store. So…I consider that a win, for a dreary, rainy, cold day like today. 

I always have frozen shrimp on-call in the freezer. They're easy to thaw, ridiculously quick to cook, and are perfect for adding to starches or salads. You'll notice I have basically zero idea of the proportions I used in any of this. Sorry about that. I was pretty much winging it and it came out perfectly. Keep in mind, this makes shrimp for 2 and rice for probably 2 and leftovers.

Photo courtesy of CL Tampa Bay
(since mine was eaten too quickly to photograph)

Ingredients

Shrimp

• Fresh or Frozen shrimp (obviously); peeled and de-veined
• Coconut Flour
• Panko
• Shredded Coconut (unsweetened)
• 1 egg
• Cayenne Pepper

Pineapple Fried Rice

• 1 1/2 cups of rice (dry); cooked
• 1 can of pineapple chunks/tidbits, etc. (preferably just in juice. Avoid anything with syrup)
• miscellaneous refrigerator veggies (I used 3 carrots and about 1/2 cup of red cabbage, but the frozen vegetable medleys of corn/peas/carrots would work here too)
• 2 Tbsp Soy Sauce (give or take)
• Powdered Ginger
• Onion (3/4 to 1 whole white or red onion); diced small
• 2 garlic cloves (minced finely or pressed)
• White Pepper

Instructions

1. Begin with your rice (which is helpful to have pre-cooked, but I didn't. No big deal.); cook it if it isn't cooked according to the directions. As it's finishing, in a large pot, heat up a tablespoon or two of oil (coconut is preferable) on medium. Toss in your onions and garlic first for a few minutes, followed by your veggies until they're just starting to soften for a few minutes. 
2. While you're stirring the veggies around, take the time to pull out a cookie tray and start setting up your "shrimp stations". You'll want to break an egg (1 egg was good for ~12 shrimp for me) and whisk it in a small bowl, have a second small bowl with some coconut flour in it (remember, you can always put more in, but since it's raw shrimp you can't do anything with the excess but toss it), and a third bowl with a ratio of 2:1 or 3:1 (that was more like mine) of shredded coconut to panko and toss in a small pinch of cayenne. If you're strict on paleo, just leave out the panko. It'll be OK. As the veggies are going, take each shrimp, coat it in coconut flour, then dip it in the egg (the flour helps the egg stick), then coat it thoroughly in the shredded coconut/panko mixture. Set it on the cookie tray and repeat. By the time this is done, you'll probably have your veggies finished. Pop the shrimp tray in the fridge just so everything sticks a bit better.  
3. Put a skillet on the stove (preferably cast iron) and melt coconut oil in it on medium-high heat. This is what you're going to fry your shrimp in, so make sure that it has that deep popping sound to it when you flick some water in to test the temperature. While it's heating up, dump your rice and your pineapple into the already cooking veggie mixture. It'll probably need to be in there, if it's fresh rice, for 9-10 minutes or so until it starts to dry out a little bit and brown. 
4. Pull the shrimp out of the fridge when the coconut oil is up to temp. Work in batches of probably 5-6 depending on how big your pan is. I did about 2 minutes per side, and then since my shrimp were deveined, I put them on their backs for another 30 seconds just to get everything fried up nicely. As the shrimp are done, pull them out and put them on a plate lined with paper towels so they don't get soggy. 
5. Finish up your rice with the soy sauce and a sprinkle of ginger and white pepper for another 2 minutes. Everything should be ending just at about the same time, so you should be able to just plate it all and go!

I garnished mine with some leftover pineapple chunks and drizzled my shrimp with a coconut balsamic vinegar (one of the best slightly-intoxicated purchases I've made in the last year, courtesy of Epicurience VA last summer…). 

Enjoy, and Happy Cooking!

CJ

Recipe: "Winter Is Coming" Pear Smoothie

Winter Is Coming...

Literally. It's almost December. How does time pass so quickly?

Time however, did not pass quickly this morning, and so I found myself wandering about after a light workout wondering what I could pass off as a healthy interlude between breakfast and lunch. I didn't have milk or soy milk for a smoothie, and water with those sounds pretty gross. However, I did have coconut milk in the pantry and then had a genius idea to use up some of the fruit I had left from last weekend's market run.

Turns out, it was a shame to waste one of the most delicious pears I've ever had in a smoothie, but it was still delightful in this creamy and spicy snack. 

Pear Smoothie

Ingredients

• 1 ripe pear, peeled and cut into small chunks
• 1 ripe banana, chunked
• 5-6 tbsp coconut milk (or however much to make it your preferred consistency)
• small dash of nutmeg and cloves
• 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract
• handful of ice cubes

Instructions

No more simple than this: put it all into a blender, pour into a glass, top with another little dash of nutmeg and cloves, and drink up! A perfect sweet and spicy blend to welcome in the winter! 

Recipe: Roasted Pork Loin with Wild Mushroom Sauce

Hello, friends!  

Hello...?

While I'm not sure there's anyone actually reading this blog, I have fallen woefully behind on Paleo, and also on documenting my recent recipes, so I thought I'd start up again. The inspiration? A flipping FANTASTIC dinner last night amidst the throes of much life stress. A running theme? Yep.

First, let me catch you up on what's happened since April. I moved to the middle of nowhere, where there are only rednecks and chain restaurants. Somehow I have survived. The new job has been fantastic, but has taken a lot of adjusting. I tried CrossFit - and liked it - but somehow haven't maintained the willpower to keep doing it (also..holy moly it's expensive). My car has had to have repairs, my student loans are going back into repayment, and Halloween just killed my paleo efforts. So...there's that.

Thankfully, boyfriend still appreciates my cooking, and so that's where I go to escape from all of the above. 

That brings me to my post topic: 

Roasted Pork Loin with Wild Mushroom Sauce

(adapted from Avec Eric)

Ingredients

• 1.5 lb pork loin, tied
• 4 tbsp butter (I use grass-fed from Kerrygold)
• 1 head of garlic, split into cloves and peeled; 1 clove finely chopped
• 2 bay leaves
• 3 sage leaves, torn into small pieces
• splash-ish of dry white wine
• 3/4 cup of organic chicken stock, 1/4 cup heated separately
• 1 packet of dried Porcini Mushrooms
• 2 large heads (?) of fresh Oyster Mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
• 1/2 small onion, diced
• 2 sprigs thyme

 Instructions

1.  Preheat oven to 350F. While pre-heating, melt half your butter in a large pan on medium-high heat (I couldn't live without my Le Creuset), salt and pepper the pork loin, and sear it on all sides. Toss all the peeled garlic cloves (except the chopped one) into the pan, and put it in the oven. If you don't have a pan that can go into the oven, keep it on the stove-top, lower the heat, and cover it. Cook this for ~30/35 minutes or so or until the internal temperature reaches 150. 
2. In the meantime, heat up 1/4 cup of chicken stock, and soak your dried mushrooms for 20 minutes or so. Then melt the other half of your butter in a separate pan, toss in your onion, chopped garlic and thyme for a few minutes. Drain your mushrooms (reserve the liquid!) and chop them roughly. Add these to your pan, along with the sliced fresh mushrooms, and cook down for ~5 minutes. Set aside. 
3. Remove the pork loin from the pan in the oven, set it on a cutting board and cover. It'll continue to cook. Deglaze the pan with the liquid reserved from your mushrooms (just don't dump in any sediment) and a splash of white wine (I just dumped some out of the glass I was drinking from...). Add your bay leaves and sage. Cook this down, and keep adding more chicken stock as necessary to create enough liquid, for ~10 minutes or so. Turn off the heat, and add the mushrooms. 
4. Cut your pork in thin rounds, arrange on your plate, and then spoon the mushroom sauce over the top. Et voila!

Note: I made this a full meal with baked smashed potatoes (put into the oven just before the pork loin came out. I turned the heat up the last few minutes the pork was in there to about 415F) and cooked asparagus (cooked in the second pan as soon as I dumped the mushrooms into the sauce). Will link to those recipes when they're up!

Happy Cooking!

CJ

Recipe: Grilled Avocado with Fresh Salsa

Sorry it's been almost 3 weeks since my last post - how shameful! Work got totally nuts and I absolutely (mostly) fell off the paleo bandwagon. For shame. 

However, I am back to enlighten you all on the merits of avocado. Seriously, this is the best food item on the planet. Versatile, yummy, fantastic for you. It's amazing. And I just discovered how wonderful it is when you grill it. You heard me - break out those grills! 

Plus, this is all entirely paleo! Special thanks to Relay Foods for always providing amazing produce. I love you guys!

Grilled Avocado

Ingredients

• 1 Ripe Avocado
• Lime or Lime Juice
• Olive Oil
• Salt and freshly ground pepper

Instructions

It can't get any easier than this, folks. Cut the avocado in half and take the pit out. Brush it with a combination of olive oil and lime juice (not a ton, just brush it), salt and pepper it a little, then toss it on a medium-high grill for 5-7 minutes, flesh side down. 

Then put them on a plate, put fresh salsa where the pit used to be, and top with some more salt and pepper. Et voila. You have an excellent side dish (one half), or you have a healthy, filling lunch (both halves). 

Fresh Salsa

Ingredients

This is all up to you with proportions/ingredients/etc. But here's what I used today because I had it all on hand:

• 1/4 onion
• 1/3 pint grape tomatoes
• 1/3 jalapeño pepper
• bunch of cilantro (from the garden - aren't you proud of me?!)
• splash of lime juice
• 1 tbsp (ish) of olive oil

Instructions

Put it all together in a blender and pulse it until it's the consistency you want! (That simple, folks...there's no excuse to not make your own salsa all the time.) You can leave out some of the olive oil - that's what's made it a little different colored in the photo above. 

Recipe: Easiest Ever Roast Chicken

This chicken never disappoints. 

Boyfriend is a ridiculously lazy cook, as well as a garbage can for food, so imagine my skepticism when he "cooked a chicken for dinner". With reluctance, I ate some of what he'd sliced and, to my glorious discovery, it was moist, delicious, and had crispy skin! Hurrah! An easy recipe with little to no effort involved is actually delicious.

You can thank me later.

Easiest Ever Roast Chicken

Ingredients

• 1 3-4 lb young chicken (I got a Kosher Valley Young Chicken at...you guessed it....WF)
• 1/2 small onion, cut into wedges
• 1/2 apple, cubed
• Fresh Spices: Thyme, Rosemary, Sage
• 2 garlic cloves, sliced thinly 
• 1 cinnamon stick
• Sea Salt and Freshly Ground Black Pepper
• Olive Oil

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven at 350F. While you're waiting, take out the "innards" from your chicken (mine didn't have them included - yay!), and stuff it with your onion, apple, spices, garlic and cinnamon until it's full. The cavities in young chickens are pretty small, so you might have to get a little extra friendly with your chicken to make it fit...

2. Rub olive oil over the entire chicken, and then season with as much salt and freshly ground pepper as you like. I like mine pretty seasoned. 

3. Place on either a broiler pan or - if you're having a "me" moment - just put it on a baking rack over top of a cookie sheet lined with foil. It cleans up pretty easily. (A trick one of my coworkers suggested: if you want to just put it on the cookie pan, surround it with rice or potatoes, and they'll soak up some juice so your bird still gets crispy.)

4. Put in the oven for ~20 minutes per pound; then you'll want to raise the temp to 425F for an extra 20 or 25 minutes so it gets the skin nice and crispy.

5. Pull it out of the oven, and wait 15-20 minutes before carving !

How to carve a chicken (yeah, I didn't know how to, either):

My first attempt was a butchery, but hopefully it'll improve with time!

Thanks for Reading!

CJ

Recipe: Mexican Chicken Lime Soup

I've been terrible with Paleo lately. I haven't committed, I've scrounged, and I've been digging into the candy dish at work. So I need to step it up. Life's been a bit on the difficult and stressful side recently, which has also contributed to the sheer lack of motivation. So I'm working on it. See, nobody's perfect...you just have to keep trying, and you'll get there.

That being said, the other night I was feeling highly unmotivated, but also starving and craving Mexican food. Scouring the awesome Paleo websites out there, I found this gem of a recipe, and wanted to share (with my amendments, of course!).

(also, I may have scarfed down my bowl before remembering to take a photo, so the stock one from Paleoaholic will have to do...)

 Mexican Chicken Lime Soup

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp (ish) of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 1 finely chopped medium-sized onion
• 4-5 cloves of garlic, pressed (or sliced thinly, if you don't have a press)
• 3 chicken breasts, cut into slightly larger than bite-sized pieces
• 3 canned chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, plus some extra sauce (this is to your taste. I think I used like, 5 peppers, but mine was a little spicy, even for me. If you just want the flavor, and not the heat, just use one!).**Note: Make sure the can you buy doesn't add high fructose corn syrup. Most have sugar in them, but you don't want any HFCS. Yuck.
• 4-5 cups of chicken broth, depending on how brothy you like your soup
• Juice of 2 limes
• 1 handful of fresh, roughly chopped cilantro
• salt and pepper
• 1/2 Hass avocado per serving, sliced thinly

Instructions

1. Heat the olive oil over medium in a large pot (this one is the one I use, that I can't live without), put garlic and your onions in there and let them get nice and translucent, and the garlic will get fragrant (about 5 minutes). Toss in your cubed chicken, salt and pepper to taste, and stir your mixture every so often for the next 5-7 minutes, or until you can tell the chicken is cooked. Then add your peppers and adobo sauce, and give it a good stir.

2. Move the pot to a cool burner, take two forks, and carefully pull your chicken cubes, so they're a little bit smaller, and not so chunky. It makes for a much nicer eating experience. Paleo doesn't have to be lazy! Move your pot back onto the hot burner, and add your chicken stock.

3. Let this simmer for anywhere from 15 - 30 minutes; the longer you do this the more the flavor melds together. Right before you serve, add the lime juice to the pot and stir. 

4. To serve, place some slices of avocado in the bottom of your bowl, ladle in the soup, and top with some chopped cilantro and some extra avocado! Depending on your dairy tolerance, you can probably add a dollop of sour cream here, or some pepper-jack cheese to make it extra yummy. 

(Note: this soup is EXCELLENT the next day, too, because all the flavors come together much more overnight. So make plenty!)

Thanks for Reading!
CJ

Recipe: Shrimp and Avocado Salad

Guess what, everyone?! I actually stuck to my budget at WF today! They overcharged me for 2 things, and I ended up buying some "extras" that I forgot I needed (i.e. Mayo), but those aside, I hit the mark!

And in celebration of actually sticking to a grocery list, here's what I made for dinner:

Shrimp and Avocado Salad

(taken sort of from The Paleo Mom)

Ingredients

Marinade:

• 2 Tbsp Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
• 1Tbsp Lemon Juice
• 2 Tbsp Lime Juice
• Chopped Cilantro (to your taste)
• Freshly Ground Black Pepper
• Dash of Salt

Salad:

• 12 - 15 pre-cooked shrimp (frozen, then thawed and dried off) per serving
• 1/2 Avocado per serving
• 1/4 head of red cabbage, shredded
• Lettuce of your choosing
• Diced Tomato (optional)
• Cholula Hot Sauce (optional)

Instructions

1. Thaw the shrimp in a colander under a faucet for 8-10 minutes with cold running water. Then cut these into bite-size pieces and dry them off.

2. Mix Olive Oil, Lemon and Lime Juice, chopped cilantro, pepper, salt, and shrimp in a large bowl. Let this marinate in the fridge for at least 1 hour (the longer, the better!). If you have more than 2 or 3 servings, you might want to adjust the juice and olive oil up a bit. Just don't put too much olive oil in like I did...

3. Chop your leaves (red cabbage, lettuce, etc.) and put them on a plate (or in a bowl) along with bite-sized pieces of avocado. Put the shrimp salad on top, then top with diced tomatoes and some hot sauce, and devour! 

Thanks for Reading!

CJ

Product Review: Siggi's Skyr Yogurt

My failure at Paleo is breakfast. 

I can't help it. There is nothing appetizing about dinner for breakfast. Breakfast for dinner? Sign me up. Breakfast should be that glorious meal that immediately transports you to a sunshine-filled kitchen filled with the scents of bacon, the noise of the griddle sizzling, and the encompassing warmth of love...Okay, so I might be a little ridiculous, but I need breakfast to stay breakfast. And that means keeping yogurt in my diet.

I stumbled upon Siggi's when I was looking around for a yogurt that didn't have a lot of sugar, used milk from cows that weren't fed growth hormones, and that still tasted delicious. 

It's different, I'll grant you. It has the consistency of sour cream and some of the bitterness of Greek Yogurt, but it's exceptionally smooth and has just the right amount of flavor to make it delicious without having to add any additional sweeteners. 

My favorite flavor? Orange & Ginger. I find it to not be so mild of a flavor that I'm left wondering what it was supposed to be, though the 2% Coconut is (according to the boyfriend) vastly superior.

So what is Skyr, you ask? 

Skyr "is the traditional yogurt of Iceland. It is made by incubating skim milk with live active cultures. The whey, the water naturally found in milk, is strained away to make for a much thicker, creamier, concentrated yogurt. So to make just one cup of skyr, with all that water going out, you need 3-4 times the amount of milk required to make a regular cup of yogurt. As a result of this process skyr comes out with 2-3 times the protein count of standard yogurt" (www.skyr.com)

Siggi's has 2 different types of Skyr; one has 0% milkfat, and the other has a bit of cream thrown back into the mix at 2%. I find the Siggis's with 0% are more easily found, and have better flavors, but that's just me.

Some Nutritional Facts

• Gluten Free
• Milk from Grass Fed Cows
• No Aspartame
• No Sucralose
• No Gelatin
• No artificial Colorings
• No preservatives
• No High Fructose Corn Syrup
• No rBGH 

Quick Note on Paleo/Primal on Yogurt

Dairy consumption, especially the fermented stuff, is pretty much in a "gray area". If you're sensitive to dairy, don't eat it. But the current arguments that it has casein as the primary source of protein (so does human milk so that one's debatable) I basically just disregard. The fact that yogurt is fermented also means that the lactose gets broken down, which cuts down on true sugar and carb content.

Two great articles to read on the subject are:

The Health Benefits of Fermented Food

and

The Definitive Guide to Dairy 

Thanks for Reading!

CJ

Recipe: Bacon Sweet Potato Soup

Oh. My. Gosh.

This is heavenly, and I'm purloining it almost exactly from The Clothes Make The Girl. 

Ingredients

• 6 slices of bacon - cut into 1/4 inch slices (preferably nitrate-free)
• 1 medium onion, finely diced
• 1 tbsp-ish Ras el Hanout (just add equal parts ginger, cumin, cinnamon, and a smaller amount of cayenne, coriander, and allspice/cloves/nutmeg). No need to be spot-on.
• 5 cloves of garlic
• 2 lbs sweet potatoes (2-3 large) - peeled, quartered and thinly sliced
• 3 cups chicken broth
• 2 cups vegetable broth
• 1 cup water
• dash of salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper

Instructions

1. Cut bacon into 1/4-inch slices and place in a cold soup pot. Heat the pot over medium-high heat and cook the bacon until it’s crisp. Remove with a slotted spoon to a plate covered with paper towels and set aside to drain and crisp.

2. Keep 1 tablespoon of the fat in the pan and discard the rest. Re-heat the fat over medium-high heat, then add the onions, Ras el Hanout, salt, pepper, and cayenne. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are soft, about 5-7 minutes. Toss in the garlic and stir, cooking until fragrant, about 30 seconds.

3. Add the sweet potatoes, broth, and water to the pot. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to simmer, cover, and cook until the potatoes are tender, about 10-15 minutes.

4. Take the pot off of the heat, let it cool for a few minutes, and then use an immersion blender until it’s smooth. Taste, and adjust seasonings. Ladle into bowls, then sprinkle with a little bacon and chives. Both the bacon and soup hold up well in the fridge for a few days.

Thanks for reading!

CJ

Recipe: Paleo Fish Tacos

Paleo Fish Tacos

Walking around Whole Foods and seeing some of their seemingly astronomical prices on things is sometimes awfully discouraging. Until you remember that YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT. So I swung by the seafood counter the other day, and they had nice Tilapia fillets on sale for $7.99/lb. Turns out, a single fillet is a little more than 1/4lb, so my dinner for that day was only $2.50 or so. Success! 

However, when I got home, I realized I had no idea what I was going to do with it. So I looked in my fridge and there I miraculously found some butter lettuce, tomatoes, and some bell peppers. It sounded "taco-y" enough, so I went with it. This is very much a veggie garbage-can meal...

Halfway to Dead (also known as: The Beginning)

So I thought it was funny to say, when I was much younger, that those people who had birthdays of an unfathomable age (like, *gasp*, 40) were "halfway to dead."

And you know what? Sadly, it's true. We're poisoning ourselves slowly with food that is "good for us", we stress ourselves into oblivion, and our kids grow up in a culture where they're weaned off of their mothers and onto processed foods out of boxes, and bags, and plastic. By the time most of us are 40, we will have accumulated diseases, conditions, and maladies that are entirely of our own making. 

Where is the real food? How can we get back to that? 

How can we keep our minds sharp, our bodies healthy, and our souls happy? 

-----

I am a quarter century old, now.

That's:

9,125 days

219,145 hours

3 dog years

and most importantly...

27,375 meals (give or take...)

And until recently, I hadn't given much thought to my food. I just ate what was available, made sure it tasted good (though I was in college once, so pardon my Ramen phase), and tried to do it as cheaply as possible. That's changed over the last year or so, and I'm learning, though somewhat reluctant to change.

And that's what this blog is about: learning about what really makes us "healthy", how I can maintain balance and serenity in an otherwise chaotic world, and how I can ensure that I keep developing into the woman I want to be, instead of the one that most of us are forced into becoming. 

-----

So stay tuned for my inspiration, my recipes, and some of the things that influence me.

Thanks for reading!
CJ