Category: Food

Now that spring has truly sprung in Minnesota, I’ve been inspired to try new recipes — some of my own and some that I’ve found interesting. This Salmon Spring Salad is of my own paleo creations. It is quite tasty and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Here are the ingredients …

Feel free to vary your ingredients with other ones that you might enjoy better — for instance, if you prefer green pepper or a white onion instead of a red onion. Ingredients

• 1 Red Repper, diced
• 2 tablespoons Dijon Mustard
• 1/4 of a Red Onion, diced
• 1/4 teaspoon Red Pepper Flakes
• 2 cans Pink Salmon
• 2 tablespoons Paleo Mayonnaise
• Salt
• Pepper

Directions

1. In a medium sized bowl, combine all ingredients.
2. Add salt and pepper — as little or as much as you’d like.
3. Serve immediately or store in the refrigerator.  Will keep for a few days.

I served the salad on a bed of romaine lettuce and it was quite delicious. Enjoy!

This Broccoli Slaw and Cranberry Orange Dressing taught me something new — another use for broccoli stalks (outside of slicing and steaming them). The broccoli slaw and dressing paired very well together.

The original recipe is not paleo but very changes had to be made in order to make it so.

Here are the ingredients you’ll be needing.

Besides grating the cabbage, the hardest thing you’ll have to do for this recipe is to grate the broccoli stalks. I have to say though — it wasn’t very hard at all.  Broccoli stalks grate quite easily.  Yippee!

Next you’ll be making the dressing.  It’s thick so one large dollop on the salad will be plenty. You can use any leftovers on other salads you have.

So — are you ready to try it?

Ingredients (for the dressing)

• 2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 2 Tablespoons dried sweetened cranberries, plumped up in warm water for a few minutes then drained
• 1 teaspoon Spicy Brown Mustard (or a mustard of your choice)
• 2 Tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 1 Tablespoon raw honey
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 Tablespoon orange juice (I juiced an orange and drank the leftover juice – yum!)
• 1 teaspoon orange zest
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 6 Tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 cup paleo mayonnaise

Ingredients (for the salad)

• 4 cups peeled and grated broccoli stalks (crowns removed)
• 2 cups grated carrots (from 3-4 carrots)
• 2 cups shredded cabbage (Napa cabbage, green, or red cabbage)
• 1 cup thinly sliced green onions
• 1/2 cup sweetened dried cranberries, coarsely chopped
• 1 teaspoon grated orange zest
• 1/2 teaspoon of Kosher salt

Directions

1. Peel the outer layer of the broccoli stalks with a vegetable peeler.
2. Make the dressing by combining all the ingredients, putting them in a blender and pulsing them until it is smooth. Slowly add the olive oil to make an emulsion. Then add the mayonnaise and pulse until it’s all blended.
3. Add the grated broccoli stalks, carrots, cabbage, onions, dried cranberries, orange zest and salt in a bowl.
4. Serve the salad with the dressing on the side or you can add it to the salad if it’s going to be eaten immediately (otherwise its best to keep them separate to prevent a soggy salad).

That’s pretty much it! It came out quite tasty and is on my favorites list.

(Click here for a list of other paleo recipes you can try.)

Zucchini is such an easy vegetable to work with. You can bake it in a small amount of olive oil with herbs or saute it like in this Zucchini Saute with Sun Dried Tomatoes recipe which is both paleo and vegan. It tasted delicious for what one might think would be a ho-hum vegetable.

Here are the ingredients (less the olive oil).

After cleaning the zucchini, you’ll be slicing it and putting it in a skillet that has a tad bit of olive oil on the bottom.

Then you’ll be getting the rest of your ingredients ready — including the sun dried tomatoes. They come in a jar and look like this.

Next you’ll be thinly slicing the tomatoes …

Next you’ll be putting them, along with the rest of the ingredients in the skillet with the zucchini and cooking them until the zucchini is soft but not soggy.

I especially enjoyed the flavor and texture of the kalamata olives in this recipe that went so well with the zucchini.

Ready to try it?

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 small zucchini, cut into 1/4 inch slices
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup oil-packed sun dried tomatoes cut into 1/4 inch strips
• 1/4 cup kalamata olives, pitted and halved
• 2 tablespoons parsley (fresh or dried)
• 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

Directions

1. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat.
2. Add the zucchini, cover and cook until softened, turning once, about 7 minutes.
3. Add the garlic and season with salt and pepper to taste.
4. Cook 1 minute longer.
5. Stir in the sun-dried tomatoes, olives, parsley and lemon juice and cook until hot, about 2 minutes longer.
6. Serve immediately.

And that’s pretty much it. I served this with Baked Cod — another simple recipe.

I found this recipe in the book 1000 Vegan Recipes and I’m hoping to post more recipes from this book as they look delicious.

(Click here for a list of other paleo friendly recipes.)

This Baked Cod paleo recipe is too simple — too too simple. But it was delicious nonetheless. Here are the ingredients — (I was a little leery of using Cayenne Pepper on fish as I thought it would make it too spicy but it turned out okay). I used frozen cod and thawed it. The instructions for thawing were really simple and took only 20 minutes. All I did was put the unpackaged cod in cold water for 5 minutes, then change the water and add the cod back in. I changed the water out approximately 4 times every five minutes. Then — it was thawed.

I used a glass baking dish and added the olive oil and lemon juice to the bottom of it.

Next I prepared the cod by first drying them on paper towels then seasoning them.

Next you’ll be adding the cod fillets to the baking dish along with the lemon peel, garlic and a dab of ghee on each fillet.

Next you’ll be baking it.  Ready to try it? Ingredients (you’ll be adding the amounts you wish)

• Olive Oil
• Garlic Cloves
• Ghee
• 2 Lemons
• Salt
• Garlic Pepper
• Cayenne

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 400° Fahrenheit.
2. Drizzle enough olive oil and the juice of half a lemon on the bottom of a baking dish.
3. Season both sides of the cod with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and a hint of cayenne. (The cayenne gives the fillets a nice flavor — I only used 1/8 of a teaspoon.  Use more cayenne if you want it more spicy.)
4. Squeeze the other half of lemon all over the cod, and put both halves of lemon — now juices squeezed — in the baking dish. Add about 6 whole cloves of garlic, skin off, into the pan as well.
5. Put about 1/2 tablespoon of ghee on each piece of fish then cover the dish tightly with tin foil and place it in the oven.
6. Bake until the cod fillets are cooked which is about 20-25 minutes — the inside temperature should be around 145° Fahrenheit (I use a meat thermometer to test it).

That’s it!  Easy enough, no? I served this with Zucchini Saute with Sun Dried Tomatoes.

Special thanks to Foodloverrocknroll for this recipe.

A couple of years ago I was given a cookbook called The New Way to Cook Light. I hadn’t looked at it for awhile since I’m able to find a lot of my recipes online. But, sometimes you just want to “feel” something in your hands, don’t you?

So, I was able to find a really good recipe in this cookbook called Simmered Cabbage With Beef, Shan Style.  I changed it up just a tad to paleo-ize it. It’s a pretty good recipe and I served it with a side of steamed broccoli and sliced tomatoes in keeping with the “light” theme.

Here are the ingredients you’ll be looking at getting.

The hardest “labor” in this recipe will be chopping up the cabbage. Pretty easy, eh?

Okay so, now that you know it’s an easy and goodly recipe, are you ready to try it? (You can even prepare the cabbage ahead of time the day before and then it’s even oh so simple.)

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 cup thinly vertically sliced shallots
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• 1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper
• 1/4 pound ground sirloin
• 4 cups finely shredded cabbage (about 1 small head)
• 1 cup thin plum tomato wedges (about 2 medium)
• 1/3 cup slivered almonds

Directions

1. Heat a wok or Dutch oven over medium heat.
2. Add the olive oil to the pan and swirl it around to coat the bottom.
3. Add the shallots, salt, turmeric, and red pepper then cook for 3 minutes or until the shallots are tender, stirring frequently.
4. Add the beef then cook for 2 minutes or until the beef begins to brown.
5. Add the cabbage and tomatoes then toss well to combine.
6. Reduce the heat to medium-low then cover and cook for 10 minutes or until the cabbage wilts and the beef is cooked through.
7. Stir in the almonds then cover and cook another 10 minutes or until the cabbage is tender.

There are approximately 238 calories per serving in this dish (not including any side dish you may include).  That’s a pretty “light” dinner, no?

Hope you enjoy it!

I thought I’d better post some of the recent recipes I’ve made before I get too far behind — especially since the weather is warming up, the snow is melting and I might be able to do some yard work soon.

This Balsamic and Rosemary Chicken Breasts recipe by Primal Palate is a recipe that’s a keeper because of it’s simplicity. Who wants to spend a lot of time in the kitchen when they get home from work, right?

The ingredients are so ho-hum simple.

You’ll be preparing the chicken breasts and putting them in an oven proof dish.

Before you plop this dish in the oven, you’ll want to make sure you cover it with aluminum foil (that keeps the chicken breasts from drying out).

Then you’ll be baking them, preparing a side dish and in no time at all you’ll be eating.

Ready to try it?

Ingredients

• 1 Tablespoon Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 1/4 cup Balsamic Vinegar
• 2 cloves Garlic, minced
• 2 teaspoons dried rosemary
• 2 boneless and skinless Chicken Breasts
• 1/2 tsp Salt and Pepper, to taste

Directions

1. Rinse the chicken breasts under cold water, pat them dry with a paper towel, and place them in a baking dish.
2. Drizzle olive oil over the chicken breasts and lightly rub to evenly distribute the oil.
3. Sprinkle salt and pepper over the chicken.
4. Press fresh garlic and rosemary onto the chicken breasts.
5. Bake at 400°F for about 20 minutes (convection oven) or until the internal temperature is approximately 170°F.
6. Remove the chicken from the oven and pour the balsamic vinegar over the chicken breasts.
7. Serve with a side of vegetables.

That’s pretty much it!

I’ve also stuffed the chicken with minced garlic, aged parmesan cheese and crushed rosemary then put salt and pepper on the top. It came out pretty good.

Hope you enjoy it!

(Click here for a list of other paleo friendly recipes.)