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!

Day Twenty-One: Pork Spare Ribs

So yesterday was a leftovers buffet, with some ham, fruit and vegetables thrown in as a light snack!

I worked most of the day, basically grazing on the good stuff, like nuts and salad!

sauce simmering!

Today however I worked out for the first time in too long, following my friend to his boxing gym for a class that (literally) kicked my ass! With all the skipping rope, punching bags and learning basic combinations I'm WIPED! and my arms feel like lead!

In need of some new dishes, I picked up some pork ribs at the store on my way home, searched my fridge for marinade components and started cookin'!

Boiling the ribs seemed the fastest way to get what I wanted, so I started them off for about 45 minutes while I sauteed some onions and garlic with paprika, soy sauce, black pepper, chili flakes and just a titch of cinnamon. Then, transferring my ribs to a baking dish, I covered them in my sauce and with the oven at 325 and the aluminium foil on tight, I sat back to wait!

Ready to go in the oven!

These were great! The cinnamon was a little interesting, but it was such a small amount that it worked out well! A small salad sealed the deal.

Mmmmm, the crispy top on these ribs was awesome, and they literally fell right off the bone!

I've been researching good ways to work out that wont take too long (think around an hour) and wondered if anyone has some good suggestions that wouldn't really require a gym and that might be a little more fun than weights (not that those aren't great... really).

As dessert I had a chocolate, Yep surprise! there are still quite a few left! They're still great and still frozen, if you haven't made these yet, what are you waiting for!?

Tonight for dinner I ate out at the new Gordon Ramsay restaurant for a friend's birthday and as usual, Paleo options were prettttty slim. The ribs was amazing though (I scraped a lot of the sauce off), and the salad was full of candied pecas, shaved anise, dill and dried acorn squash. I declined the creamy dressing though and took just olive oil.

Tomorrow will most likely be a leftover day, but maybe I'll find time to cook a lil something! I'm getting all my finances in order. Now that I've cleaned up my eating, lets see if I can find a few dollars here and there to finally go organic!