Eggplant Arugula Pizza

The crust before it went in oven

Before we cooked the toppings

This is our lunch we just stuck in the oven! Well the pizza crust portion of it! I am starving and can't wait to eat it!! We made it once before and loved it, so we decided today was a good day to make it again and use up our fresh eggplants we got last weekend at the farmers market! One of the hardest things to give up is pizza on busy nights, so I always welcome new pizza ideas! It has a great flavor with the combination of eggplant, arugula, and prosciutto. This recipe was adapted from the cookbook Make it Paleo.

Eggplant Arugula:

Ingredients:
2 eggplants, grated
1/2 cup flax seed meal
1/2 cup almond flour
3 eggs
Salt and Pepper to taste
2 tsp olive oil
1-2 Roma tomatoes, thinly sliced
1/2 lb prosciutto 
2 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp dried basil

1. Preheat the oven 350 degrees.
2. Grate the eggplant with a food processor or cheese grater, discarding the skin.
3. Place grated eggplant in a clean dish towel, and squeeze over sink to remove excess liquid. I use paper towels for this step since I was out of clean dish towels.
4. Pour grated eggplant into a large mixing bowl.
5. Add in the flax meal and almond flour.
6. Whisk eggs in a smaller bowl and add to batter.
7. Add salt and pepper to taste.
8. Mix until ingredients are evenly combined.
9. Pour batter onto a parchment-lined baking sheet.
10. Smooth batter out with hands into a thin layer abou 1/8  inch thick.
11. Bake crust for 30-35 mins.
12. Remove the crust from oven. Lightly grease another piece of parchment paper with olive oil, and place it on top of crust. Carefully flip the crust and then slowly peel off the parchment paper from the bottom side.
13. Brush the flipped side lightly with olive oil.
14. Bake opposite side for about 15 minutes.
15. Remove from oven and apply toppings and spices.

Bake an additional 7-10 minutes, then serve.

The pizza will be finished once the tomatoes have cooked down and the prosciutto was "wilted"

It is also good with some fresh goat cheese added on top if you eat cheese. 

I mixed up some fresh pizza sauce to serve on the side. I got this Wildtree Pizza Sauce mix and love it. All you do is mix one can of tomato sauce with 1 Tbsp of the pizza sauce seasoning. 

The Finished Pizza!! 

Enjoy

Spicy Roast

This is our dinner for tonight which has been cooking all day in the day. It smells delicious and is torturous waiting for it to cook all day. I want dinner now.

Crock Pot meals become your best friend for paleo dinners. I change up the combination of ingredients I put in with the roast, depending on what we have in our fridge for the week. So today I wanted to make an effortless dinner and cook up the rest of the farmers markets goodies before they go bad.

Spicy Roast:
1 grass fed beef roast (use one the size you want)
4 Mushrooms sliced
1 onion sliced
1 jalapeno diced
1 banana pepper diced
1/8 cayenne pepper
1/8 garlic powder
salt & pepper to taste
1/2 cup- 1 cup beef broth 

Place the roast in the crock pot. Rub down the roast with the cayenne pepper, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Slice your mushrooms, onion, jalapeno, banana pepper and place in the crock pot. Add the beef broth and cook on low for 5-7 hours or high for 4-6 hours.

Enjoy the smells that fill your house from the roast.

You can shred it and make coconut flour tortillas. Roll the meat inside the tortilla and shred fresh cheese or any other toppings you like on top, or mix up some cauliflower mashed potatoes for a side.

Egg White Omelet with Cream Cheese

This was the creation for breakfast/lunch today. We had some fresh food we needed to cook up from last weekends farmers market.

Egg White Omelet with Cream Cheese

Ingredients:
1 cup egg whites
1-3 green onions sliced
1 jalapeno  diced
2-4 Mushrooms diced
Handful of Spinach, diced up
1/8 cup cream cheese room temperature-optional 
salt & pepper to taste
1 Tbsp coconut or olive oil

Mix all ingredients into a bowl and whisk together. Take a pan and heat coconut oil or olive oil. Pour half of your mixture into pan and cook about 5-7 mins. Flip and cook the other side then fold in half and serve!

It has a nice creamy richness added to it from the cream cheese. Another simple breakfast idea you can make in twenty minutes

Spicy Eggs & Bacon

This was my delicious creation for breakfast the other day. 

On Sunday, Caleb threw some chicken in the crock-pot with some salt, pepper,1/8 tsp Italian seasoning, 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper, and an onion. It is always nice to have cooked up meat for the week for salads and other meals. 

 I cooked up some bacon and eggs and placed the shredded chicken on top of the 2 over easy eggs. To top it off I sliced up some fresh jalapenos from the farmers market last weekend and placed on top of the chicken for a spicy garnish. 

Super quick and easy breakfast if you precook your meat for the week, or even just a few days of meals! 

Loaded Sweet Potato Bites

These are the best loaded potato bites I have had yet! The best thing is that they are healthy for you!!
There made with sweet potatoes, cheddar cheese, bacon bits, green onions, and some sour cream to top them!!

Loaded Sweet Potato Bites:

Ingredients:
1-2 large sweet potatoes
1/2 cup cheddar cheese freshly shredded
1-3 strips of bacon cooked and crumbled
1-3 fresh green onions
1/8 cayenne pepper
1/8 garlic powder
salt & pepper to taste
1 Tbsp Olive Oil


Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Slice your sweet potatoes into 1/8 inch thickness. Take your olive oil, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, salt & pepper and place in a large zip lock bag. Add the the sweet potato slices to the zip lock bag with olive oil and evenly mix them over all of the sweet potatoes. Take a cookie sheet line with foil and rub some coconut oil on the sheet or use non-stick spray. Place the potatoes evenly on the cookie sheet. Place in the oven and cook for 10 minutes. Flip after the 10 minutes and cook for another 8 minutes. Place the cheddar cheese, cooked crumbled bacon, and green onions on top of the sweet potatoes. Place back in oven and cook for another 2 minutes.

Enjoy these delicious treats with a side of sour cream!
They are so good they will not last long!!

Paleo Tuna Cakes

Today I found a good recipe to try for crab cakes. I love crab cakes but unfortunately am allergic to shell fish, so I made some alterations and made tuna cakes

Tuna Cakes 

Ingredients:
2 cans of tuna in oil
1/4 cup paleo mayonnaise 
1 green onion sliced
1 egg
Salt & Pepper to taste 
1/4 tsp ground red pepper
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1 1/2 tbsp almond or coconut flour plus 3 tbsp to coat to fry 
1/4 cup coconut oil

First step whip up some homemade paleo mayonnaise. Take tuna and drain the oil, mix it up with the mayo. Add green onion, whisked up egg, seasonings, and coconut/almond flour. Make the mixture into patties. Place patties on parchment paper on a cookie sheet and place in the fridge for a half hour. Heat olive oil in a pan. Take refrigerated patties and coat both sides with coconut flour/almond flour. Place in pan and cook till both sides are browned!

I made ours with almond flour and they were delicious! Caleb who is not a fan of tuna loved this!

I also mixed up a tbsp of sour cream and Italian seasoning to serve on the side!!

Enjoy

Green tea smoothie

Tonight we made this super simple delicious Grape green tea smoothie.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups green grapes
1 frozen banana 
1 cup spinach 
1 cup green tea

Place all ingredients in blender and enjoy your delicious smoothie!!

Basil & Prosciutto Stuffed Chicken and Corn Bread

On Saturday we did our new normal routine of going to the Farmer's Market for some fresh goodies! After that we went to Whole Foods for some fresh chicken and a few other items we needed! I love that store especially on Saturdays with all of the free samples!! yum! So for dinner we decided to make some stuffed chicken which is Primal, but if you make it without cheese bam you have some paleo chicken. We also made some paleo "cornbread" muffins which don't use corn like the name may suggest and some fresh tomatoes and basil with balsamic vinaigrette. 

For the chicken you can use whichever variation of mixture inside of it. 

Basil & Prosciutto Stuffed Chicken Breast

Ingredients:

2-4 chicken breasts

handful of fresh basil chopped

1/2 yellow onion diced

3 tbsp minced garlic

3 full slices of prosciutto (we get ours fresh from Whole Foods)

1 jalapeno-optional (added for spicy flavor)

1/2 cup fresh shredded cheddar cheese- omit if making it paleo

1 tbsp olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375 degrees 

Take your chicken breasts and slice down the middle and fillet the sides out a little to create a pocket to stuff goodies inside. Be careful not to cut all the way through the chicken. Take basil, onion, garlic, prosiutto, jalapeno, cheddar cheese and mix all together. Make sure all of your ingredients are chopped first. Then take your mixture and stuff inside of your chicken breasts. Put a few toothpicks into the top to close up the chicken while it cooks. Drizzle the olive oil over the top with salt and pepper and bake for 30 mins. 

[prep time 5-10 mins] [cook time 30 mins][serves 2-4]

Paleo "Cornbread" Muffins

Ingredients:

2/3 cup coconut flour

1/2 butter (or coconut oil)

8 eggs

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Whisk together the coconut flour, salt, and baking powder. In another bowl, beat the eggs. Whisk in the melted butter or coconut oil. Add the coconut flour mixture to the egg/butter mixture and stir to combine. I used my Kitchen Aid mixer to blend quickly until it formed a dough mixture. Divide the batter among 12 greased muffin tins. Bake for 25 minutes or until golden browned. Take out of oven and let cool. 

Tomato & Basil Salad

Ingredients:

4-6 baby tomatoes 

handful of basil chopped

1 tbsp garlic

1/2 cup of balsamic vinaigrette or to your taste

Slice the tomatoes and chop the basil. Mix in a bowl with the garlic and balsamic vinaigrette. If you eat cheese slice some mozzarella and refrigerate until dinner is ready. It is perfect with the cornbread muffins! 

Enjoy  

Butternut Squash Sweet Potato Soup

          We went to the Farmers Market this morning and I found a nice Butternut squash. I have been wanting to try this soup for some time now. I decided it was the perfect cool day to whip up some soup. This was a super easy recipe. The longest part of it is peeling and slicing and dicing everything. While it was cooking I even had time to cut a friends hair. All together it took me about an hour to make. So here is the yummy recipe.

• 1 small to medium Butternut Squash, peeled and cubed
• 1 Sweet Potato, peeled and cubed
• 1 Apple
• 1/2 a medium sweet onion
• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 tablespoon fresh ginger, minced
• 1 quart low sodium organic chicken broth
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

Cut butternut squash, apple, and sweet potato into 1 inch even sized cubes.

Heat a large pot or dutch oven over medium heat. When hot add olive oil and once the oil is hot add onions. Saute onions until tender.

Add in squash, apple, sweet potatoes, ginger, garlic, and chicken stock and bring to a simmer, cooking until squash is tender (about 15 to 20 minutes)

Carefully add mixture to a blender or food processor and puree.

Once pureed, add content back to pot and stir in cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and pepper.

Paleo Pork Chops Dinner

Our dinner last night evolved from our monthly CSA drop off Wednesday. The first picture is from our meat from the CSA this month. It's a surprise box full of goodies every month. I have noticed we get really excited for our pick up day! This month our box was full of lots of pork, which I wouldn't usually buy if I was grocery shopping before. I always had this fear associated with pork since I was little; I remember how my whole family got food poising from it. It is amazing how we tag memories with food. 

So lately I have been recently experimenting with some new pork recipes. I found this one last night that was delicious! I added some of my own touches to it of course.

For the Pork Chops

Ingredients:

2-4 lamp chops ( I used 2 boneless skinless pork chops)

1/4 cup olive oil (or enough to cover pork chops)

Juice of 1/2 lemon

1 shallot, minced

1 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp cayenne pepper(optional, we like things spicy at our house)

sea salt/pepper to your taste

1)Combine olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, shallot, oregano, salt, and pepper in 1 gallon zip lock bag.

2)Rinse pork chops under cool water, pat dry, and place in the zip lock bag. 

3) Toss the chops until evenly coated with olive oil and seasonings. 

4)Marinate in the refrigerator for 1 to 24 hours (your preference)

5)Preheat grill to high heat (or your broiler)

6) Grill chops 5-6 minutes per side(I cooked ours in the broiler on low for a 1/2 hour to cook till no pink showed)

While the Pork Chops were cooking I also grilled up some pineapple with cinnamon to compliment the chops. I put a few slices of pineapple on a cookie sheet and lightly coated them with some ground cinnamon. They turned out delicious and were a great addition. 

We cheated with dinner last night and had corn and cheese on our salad. No worries we enjoyed our delicious dinner!We are completely happy with our small cheats, knowing that they are healthier options to  our old diets.

Enjoy!!    

Our Latest Dinner..Rainbow Trout

We recently picked up some fresh Rainbow Trout from the Farmers Market. I personally have never experimented with any sort of fish other then Tilapia which is a favorite in our house, Salmon occasionally, and Cod. So I found a website called punchfork with a ton of trout recipes. I then procedded to let Caleb picked out one that he wanted to try. I was nervous about making it but it turned out delicious! 

The recipe is as follows

Ingredients

We used one fresh Rainbow Trout from the Farmers Market. 

4 Tabelspoons of unsalted pasterized butter

A Handful of Walnuts

Half of a Lemon

Tarragon

Parsley

Heat your oven to 450. While your oven is preheating prepare your fish. Put the skin side on a cookie sheet or whatever you prefer to cook your fish on. Sprikle fish to your tasting with Sea Salt, pepper, Tarragon, and parsley. Slice the lemon and place it on top of the fish. Place in oven and cook for 10-12 minutes ro until the fish flakes easily with a fork. 

I also made Asparagus with onions and Garlic cauliflower mashed potatoes with dinner. You will want to start the Cauli Mashed first being that it takes the longest to prepare. 

Cali Mash

Ingredients

1 head of Cauliflower

Garlic 

Chili Powder

sea salt/pepper to taste

5 tablespoons Coconut Milk(can)

1 tablespoon of unsalted pasterized butter or coconut oil

Steam the Cali

Place into a food processor  with all the ingredients. Season it to your liking. I am still playing around with seasonings that I like in the Cali Mash. Sometimes I make it with curry powder too just     depending on what you will be having with it.         

The asaragus and onions is very simple

Wash  your asaragus

snap the ends off 

pace in a pyrex dish 

Slice your onion

Add it to the Asaragus 

Coat theAsaragus and onion with olive oil, sea salt and pepper. 

Cook in oven on 400 for 15 minutes. 

Enjoy!

If anyone tries this recipe please leave me comments and ideas on things that I can improve on. 

 

Our First Paleo Meal

Our Frist Paleo Meal consisted of trying a skirt steak for the first time from our first CSA meat dropoff. We had no idea of what to expect, but none the less it was delicious! It was our first recipe from our new cookbook Make It Paleo. The recipe was calld Skirt Steak with chive butter.

We also had sauted cabbage and a salad with some hard boiled eggs almond slices. Our first meal was delicious. We have created this whole new quality time in the kitchen while making healthy delicious food! Life couldn't be any better

The recipe is as follows

       Ingredients
      *1lb skirt steak
      * Salt to taste
      * 3 tbsp unsalted pasture butter, room temperature
      * 1/4 tsp salt
      * 1 tbsp chopped chives

    Prep Time: 15 min
    Cook Time: 6 min
    Serves 2-4

  Process
1) Preheat gril to high heat. We live in an apartment on the seond floor so we use our broiler a lot. It gives it the same effect.
2) Rinse skirt steak under cold water, and pat dry with a paper towel.
3) Cut skirt steak into 3 pieces of equal length.
4) Sprinkle each side generously with sea salt.
5) Grill for 3 minutes per side.
6) Remove from grill and alow to rest for 5 minutes.
7) While steak is resting, whisk butter, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and chives with a fork.
8) Slice steak against the grain. Top with chive butter and serve.

The sauteed cabbage is very simple.  Heat up some coconut oil in a pan. Slice up the cabbage and add it to the pan. Cook in til it is tender. BAM there you have a very simple starter Paleo meal!

Welcome To Our Everyday Paleo Adventure!

Welcome to our Paleo Adventure we have embraced in our lives. My boyfriend and I currently live in Madison, Wisconsin. We went to our first Farmer's Market last summer, which began the change in our lives. It wasn't in till a few months ago that we fully embraced a complete new way to eat.
   
 I took a Business Ethics class and began to question the way companies operate. Most companies have horrible ethical practices. After a lot of case studies on Monsanto and other food companies I began to question where our food that we consumed with very little question came from. I had begun to learn about the effect of pesticides and other harmful things like GMO's (Genetically Modified Food) to our bodies. I came home from class one night and was telling Caleb my boyfriend all about how unhealthy our diets really were. We decided to research our options on healthier ways that would benefit the both of us.

 At the time Caleb was trying this awful diet of what I called the eggs, chicken, and rice diet. I was tired of trying to cook two meals every night with all of the mess and dishes that came with it. Plus I am one of those people that gets very bored eating the same thing day in and day out. I love experimenting in the kitchen with new recipes. We have begun throwing all the big Holiday Parties at our house and love entertaining our friends with great food and company.

 I had heard from other friends in the Madison area that the area offers CSA's (Community Supported Agriculture). You pay them a monthly fee and they deliver meat or veggies to you. The best part is your supporting your local community, eating healthy, and know where you food comes from. We didn't realize how many farms we had options to choose from. We ended up going with a recommendation from teacher for a farm that delivered to the coffee shop down the street from our house for an extra $5 a month. Caleb's work ended up reimbursing us the first month of our membership and got a few other people to join the healthy adventure.

Our next adventure began when I had been hearing about Paleo from my friends that do CrossFit. I began to finally look into realizing we had a lot of work to do if we wanted to go down this road. We decided to embrace the change and headed to our local grocery store from some healthier choices. At first it was challenging to shop at the grocery store. We had no idea that coconut flour/oil and almond flour even existed.  Our local grocery store didn't even sell the flour's that we needed. We then embarked on the amazing Whole Foods adventure. That store is amazing, yes expensive but needless to say AMAZING!! They have all of those weird ingredients that you never knew existed!

Once the Farmer's Market opened we made it a new Saturday requirement. We get up on Saturday's and head to the Farmer's Market in the morning and then to Whole Foods for those other ingredients that we need but can't get at our store close to our house. I then bought my first Paleo cookbook called Make It Paleo! Best starter cookbook EVER! Every recipe has pictures and there wasn't a recipe that we didn't like or wouldn't make again. That cookbook made the possibility of switching our diets to eliminate sugar, flour, dairy, and all that other unhealthy stuff a whole heck of a lot easier.

We began to see how our good our bodies felt after eating healthy. We also began to see how our bodies reacted to foods that were not in our diets when we had cheat days. So we made an active effort to fully pursue the Paleo lifestyle. We do have days that we sneak some dairy in our diets like cheese. I mean we do live in the cheese state after all.

So please take the time to follow our blog on our trials and errors in the kitchen while embarking on the Paleo/Primal lifestyle. Our pictures thus far are not the prettiest being that they are only iPhone photo's for now. We do hope to purchase a nice camera in the near future but in till then please bear with the photo's I attempt to take!

Enjoy!!