Sesame Nori Chips and Good Old-Fashioned Meatloaf

In the mood for a salty snack, I trolled the web for some awesome paleo chip replacements, and noticing my remaining nori sheets, I settled on this one!
Sprinkle the sheets with water, and fold them in half to get a thicker final chip. Cutting them with kitchen shears, I spread them out on a baking sheet. At 375 celsius, and watching them carefully, I put the pan in the oven after spraying the strips with Pam Olive Oil and sprinkling garlic salt and sesame on them.
These were realllllly good! I sushi-fied them with pickled ginger and wasabi on the side, YUM!

For dinner, I decided to make a dish that used to make me groan: Meatloaf. The term really just used to imply boring and tasteless meat gunk, I'm not sure why as my mom never made anything that wasn't delicious, but I was intrigued by the idea of making it myself. To bind the dish together, instead of bread crumbs or flour (baddddd bad gluten and starch!), I used an egg and some mushrooms, and I'm not sure why, but it held together beautifully, even staying together outside the dish!


Preheating to 375, I combined my extra lean ground beef, garlic, onion, mushrooms, egg, black pepper, sea salt and oregano. Cooking it uncovered, I put it in the oven for 15 minutes while I prepared a glaze for the top.

This consisted of some soy sauce, maple syrup, garlic, chives, diced tomatoe juice and pepper, I combined it all in a bowl and took my meatloaf out again, spreading it over the top before letting it cook another 45 minutes. I wish this had been thicker, so some paleo ketchup (if you've got a recipe for it) would've been a good addition. The top did come out nice and golden browned though, thanks in part to the onions that carmelized!

This had me in meals for at least... ummm, a day. It was so darned good that I went back for more and had it for lunch AAAAND dinner. SO AWESOME. With some steamed broccoli on the side, this was a really great combination!

Talk to you all soon, hope I stay strong! The success of this diet doesn't mean that I can just go back to eating crap all the time, though I have to remember my cheat meals!

Coconut Beef Curry with Fennel Cucumber Salad

Hello again,

So this is an update on my progress and a few new tasty Paleo recipes I whipped up!
I've fallen off the bandwagon a few times lately, namely with potatoe chips (JUUUUST a few times) and soy milk in those tasty cappucinos that are so helpful during midterm season!

Curry beginnings

For a while there I was subsiting off of cabbage and almond butter, but I went and did quite a few rounds of shopping and along with my staples foods (eggplant, veggies and lots of fruits) I decided to get creative and picked up some fennel, beets, coconut milk and a bunch of new spices (coriander being my favorite!)

I started with a good easy coconut curry, grilling up some beef strips and combining a few veggies in my pan!
I added the coconut milk and some spices, using curry powder, cumin, chilli flakes, coriander, pepper, salt and chives, letting it cook up and reduce a little.
I served it over some fake rice (i.e. mashed steamd cauliflower) with a side of sliced cucumber!

The cucumber gave me a great idea for using my fennel, and I took a look at my favorite paleo recipe index on theclothesthatmakethegirl.com, where I found a delicious looking salad! The recipe called for paleo mayo as a dressing component, but instead I made a great emulsified one with mustard, maple syrup, lemon juice, salt and garlic in my blender! With a mandoline I sliced my fennel (GREAT FREAKING KITCHEN TOOL, i love these things) and cut up my cucumber. This was an amazing salad and the dressing really made it amazing. The key is to combine everything and then add the olive oil really slowly, drizzling it into the moving blender.

Chop the good fennel tops and sprinkle over the salad for a good garnish!

There's a few more posts on the way from my cooking adventures, but I hope you're all inspire to try these ones out. The curry is really good with all kinds of meat, and I've found the leftover coconut milk is awesome in teas and coffee as a dairy substitute!

Day Twelve: Tacos, Arrrrrriba!

So the good news: I have made enough for some quality groceries this week. The bad news: I need to get them done ASAP, as my supply of healthy Paleo leftovers and snack ingredients is dwindling rapidly, and those chips my roommate brought home are looking better and better. EEP!

Taco filling in the pan.

Today I took basically the same filling used in my Stuffed Peppers from yesterday and added a few more veggies (effectively wiping out my crisper drawer). Stacking my filling into a lettuce leaf, which I let simmer on low heat in some tomatoe juice for about half an hour so as to really get the juicy factor, I ruminated on just how awesome leafy greens are as a substitute for buns. Seriously though, the crunch is still there, only you don't find all the flavours of the sandwich/burger/etc get lost amongst all that white, useless bread. With some avocado thrown in for good measure, I had a few wonderful tacos for dinner!

Day Eleven: Stuffed Peppers

So day three of the beerfest, and I have indulged again in gluten-free beer, this time a raspberry pepper brew. It's ridiculously hard not to when you work in a microbrewery all the time and have still yet to try one of the homemade beers... this is making up for all of that (or at least, that's how I'm justifying it!) I got home and decided that I needed to remind myself how amazing no-starch food really can be, and therefore decided to make delicious Paleo Stuffed Peppers!

Now this was just a thrown together piece of work, without any real recipe, but as usual my spice cubby was instrumental in making this dish excellent! I combined my essentials: ground beef (President's Choice Free From variety), zucchini, mushrooms, tomatoe and onion. To this mixture I threw in garlic, steak spice and chili flakes for good measure just to get some heat in the dish. Hollowing out my peppers (I chose pretty yellow ones, but I imagine that all of the colours work just as well...), I left the lids intact as a pretty accent to the whole shebang. Preheating the oven to 350, I took an oven safe casserole dish and set my lidless peppers in the bottom, simply placing the lids in the spaces between them. These took a while, but not wanting to take any chances with having the meat come out uncooked, I let them go for a full hour.

Peppers roasting away!

I loved these! The sweetness of the pepper, the spice of the filling, and the general heartiness of the whole dinner was nicely offset by some avocado slices, giving the dish a TexMex type of feel.

Avocado and Stuffed Pepper!

With two peppers leftover, its all I can do to remind myself that I will want to have leftovers, rather than gobbling them up myself!
I need some sort of coping mechanism for those times when I'm not hungry, but eat because I am bored or because I know just how good things taste!

So far I've really found great, easy recipes that turn out beautifully, just like I wanted to; soon I think I'll reward myself at the halfway point with a crack at a real Paleo dessert, and see if my baking skills are up to snuff!