Fajitas!

Whenever I make this AH-mazing Beef Fajita recipe from Paleo Effect, I also use the Adobo Seasoning to make some Chicken Fajitas.  I just sprinkle the seasoning on a couple of boneless, skinless chicken breasts and put them on the grill with the flank steak.  Then I stir-fry extra veggies and and I have a couple of lunches for coming days!  I take some guacamole along to top the dish.  YUM!

Delicious lunch!

Beautiful colored bell peppers and jalapeno prior to stir-frying

Leftovers: stir-fried more veggies and added the leftover grilled
chicken in at the end to re-heat.  Dinner!

What's on my Plate?

I'm sure you all are dying to know what I've been eating, so here's some photos!

Skirt Steak with Chive Butter from the Food Lovers Kitchen

A T-bone, seasoned and grilled with sauteed mushrooms,
sweet potato fries and homemade mayo

I'm getting bored with mashed sweet potatoes and sweet
potato fries, so I peeled them and cubed them and fried them
in coconut oil with salt & pepper!

The fried sweet potatoes went great with our pastured pork
sausage & green beans!

Fajitas!

I tried this fajita recipe from Paleo Effect last night and all I can say is....


....................................................................................................... WOWSERS!

That's some good stuff!  The meat had so much flavor and was so tender.  The one thing I did differently was letting the seasonings sit on the steak overnight.  I put the adobo seasoning, salt, vinegar, pepper, lime juice, cumin & garlic on the meat and rubbed it in before work in the morning.  Then I wrapped the meat up in 2-3 layers of plastic wrap and threw it back in the fridge until after work.  I also left the mushrooms & cilantro out (personal preference).  I overcooked the veggies a little and under-cooked the meat a little, but the taste was PHENOMENAL!  I cooked the meat 5 minutes on each side, but my flank steak was a little thick in the middle, so next time I'll go about 7 minutes on each side.  The pieces were still a little pink in the middle.

I apologize for not taking any pictures.  I was hungry and it was Husband's birthday, so I was busy preparing dinner and dessert.  

A Good Dinner & a Not-so-Good Dinner

I made Smoky Country Style Ribs and Cajun Sweet Potato Fries Wednesday  night for dinner.  The ribs were too dry and tough and the fries were too spicy.  The dinner was edible and not awful, but it is not one I will make again.

On a happier note, I found spaghetti squash at the farmers market yesterday and got 2 small ones for only $3!  The lady that grew them told me that would keep a long time, so I figured I'll make them in a week or 2.  I also bought this from her:

I didn't know what to do with it, but her son said he cuts them in half and puts melted butter mixed with cinnamon, nutmeg and brown sugar on it and then bakes it.  I followed his advice, but left out the brown sugar.

I started by cutting the stem off the top and then cutting the squash in half the long way.
Then I scooped the seeds out.

Then I melted some butter and added some cinnamon & nutmeg.  Of course, I didn't measure.

I brushed it all over the insides of both halves.   I put them in a glass baking  dish and covered
them with tin foil.  I baked them on 400 for 55 minutes then took the foil off and baked them another
5 minutes.

Here they are after they are done baking!  We just scooped the meat out and ate them out of the shells!

Overall, the squash was good, but I can see why he put brown sugar on them!  I think they would be delicious hot out of the oven with some banana ice cream.

I also made buffalo wings for dinner last night (paired them with green beans).  They were tasty!  

Turkey Burgers with Creamed Cucumbers

I sort of made this recipe on accident about 2 weeks ago and didn't get a picture, so here it is!  I start by making my grandmother's Creamed Cucumbers recipe.

CREAMED CUCUMBERS
Ingredients:

2-4 cucumbers (depending on size and how big of a batch you want to make)
Mayonnaise (I use Hellman's, but you can experiment with paleo mayonnaise)
Salt & Pepper
Vinegar
Sugar Substitute (my grandmother always used just a pinch of sugar, I used Stevia in the Raw)

                                                                Directions:
Peel and slice the cucumbers (thinner slices are better!).  Put about half the slices in a bowl and generously shake salt on them, then put the rest in and salt them some more.  Give them a stir and put them in the fridge for a while to allow the juices to run out (I put them in the fridge while I made the turkey burger patties).  Take them out of the fridge and drain the juice off of them.  I also take a paper towel and mop some of the juice up that way.  If you don't get the juice off, they will be runny rather than creamy.  Add some mayonnaise to the bowl (I don't measure, but start with about 1/8c.)  Add about 1/2t of vinegar and 1/2 packet of Stevia.  Mix it all together and then determine if more mayo needs to be added.  It should be creamy and all cucumbers covered in the dressing.  Add some salt and pepper and put them back in the fridge until dinner is ready!  These make a great side dish to any summer grill meal, but I thought they were AMAZING atop my turkey burger!

For the turkey burgers, I used 1lb of 85/15 ground turkey.  I added some garlic powder, S&P and Italian Seasoning and mixed it all up.  I then formed 4 patties out of it.  I grilled the turkey burgers and when they were just about done, I put a slice of provolone cheese on each one and let it melt (you can skip the cheese if you are non-dairy).  Then I placed a slice of tomato on top and spooned some of the creamed cucumbers on top of that!  YUM-O!

Bacon Wrapped Shrimp

We had friends over for dinner Saturday night.  For appetizers we had raw veggies with ranch dip (hidden valley ranch packet & tub of sour cream), deviled eggs & cranberry trail mix.  Dinner consisted of the quartered cabbage recipe from the farmer's market, Grass-fed Top Sirloin Steak and Bacon Wrapped Shrimp (see recipe below)!  It was delicious!


Bacon Wrapped Shrimp

1. You need a pound of uncooked wild caught shrimp, shells removed and deviened.
2. 1 package of uncooked  bacon.
3. Slice raw bacon strip into 3 pieces.
4. Wrap each piece around a piece of shrimp and secure with a long wooden or metal skewer.
5. Repeat. You can place several pieces of bacon wrapped shrimp on a single skewer.
6. Heat up the grill! Lay all of the shrimp and bacon skewers on the grill. A few minutes on each side is all you need for crispy bacon and juicy shrimp.  

This recipe is from Intentional Consumption.  See some of his other ideas for bacon here. I'm thinking of trying the chocolate dipped bacon!


Next time I make this I will keep the grill heat low (to avoid flare ups from the bacon grease) and allow more time.  It took a little longer than I had planned.  

Menu Planning ~ Week 4!

Here it is!

The bacon wrapped shrimp recipe can be found here and the beef roast recipe here.  We're having friends over to grill out on Saturday, so I thought the shrimp would make a great snack and go well with the steaks!  Have a great week everyone!

Twice Baked Sweet Potato!

If you ask my mother what my favorite meal that she makes is, she'd probably say her famous Twice Baked Potatoes made with ham, cheese, garlic and love!  So, when I stumbled across this recipe for twice baked sweet potatoes from Strictly Paleo...ish!, I couldn't resist giving it a try!  I chose cream cheese, shredded cheese blend, green onions and bacon for my fillers.  I went ahead and baked them on Sunday night while I had the oven on for baking my hubby's cod.  After they cooled, I scooped the guts out and put them in a container in the fridge.  I put the shells in a separate container.  I also opted to finish them on the grill since I was already firing it up for our steaks.  I left them on with the lid down for 8 minutes (the cheese on top was getting "melty" already) and then I cooked our steaks for about 7-1/2 minutes with the top up.  I closed the lid and left the potatoes on for about 2-3 more minutes after that.

All the ingredients ready to go!

4 slices of bacon, cooked & crumbled
2 oz of regular cream cheese
1/2 of a bunch of green onions
1/4 C. shredded cheese
S&P

All mixed up and ready to go in the shells!

Weekly Menu Planning ~ Week 2

I meant to post this last week, but ran out of time.  Here's our menu for this week (although, I forgot that we'll be camping on Friday so, I can save that meal for next week):

I made the woodchuck chicken from this recipe.  I used boneless, skinless chicken breasts in stead of the bone in thighs and I used raw honey in stead of coconut crystals.  It was really good!  Now I have yet ANOTHER reason to love woodchuck!

New Goals, Ideas and Paleo Heaven

New Goal:

• Replace some of my "red meat" meals with more fish/chicken/turkey.  I eat A LOT of beef.  I know it's not necessarily "bad" for me, but I think I could get a little leaner if I ate some leaner meats.  My plan is to alternate days on my weekly menu so that I am making a "red-meat" dinner (which also serves as lunch for the next day) on night and a "lean-meat" dinner the next.

New Idea:

• I want to try some form of Intermittent Fasting to see if it helps me lose fat.  My thoughts are that currently my "eating window" is about 12-13 hours (6am-7pm), so I want to try to reduce it to 8-10 hours.  Since my hubby works 3rd shift, we don't eat dinner until after 7pm, so I am going to have to start eating my first meal later in the day.  I also need to get in the habit of eating more calories at night.  The idea is not reduce calories (necessarily), but just to have a longer "fasting" period to burn more fat.  This will be a work in progress.

I mentioned in a previous post that the Farmer's Market Vendor that I bought my cabbage from was handing out copies of a good recipe.  I tried it last night (slightly varied, of course) and it was very good!  My cabbage was huge, so one quarter was enough for both of us.  I put 2 pieces of bacon on quarter and instead of baking it, I put it on the grill for about a half hour before grilling our steaks.  I also sauteed some onions and bell peppers.  This is what Paleo Heaven looks like:

Salmon on the grill!

I bought a one pound slab of fresh wild-caught salmon at the farmer's market on Friday.  It smelled so amazing, I couldn't wait to grill it up!  I found this recipe from The Food Lovers Kitchen.  It's simple and tasty.  I cheated a little and used lemon juice out of a bottle because I was out of lemons, but it turned out good and next time, I'll be sure to have lemons on hand!

Marinading...

Grilling...

I also made this simple, fresh salad to go along with it:

1 Cucumber, peeled and sliced
1 Tomato, diced
1 Bell Pepper, diced
Onion, diced (I use about 1/2 cup)

Mix it all together in a bowl with generous amounts of salt & pepper.  It will start to make it's own juice, so stir it all up before serving!