A famous blogger, The Pioneer Woman, recently posted a recipe for Sunday Night Stew which our family tried and determined it was very good.
Stew
The interesting thing about this stew (although you can’t see it in the picture) is that the stew goes over mashed potatoes or in our case (to keep it more paelo style) sweet potato mash. We also did not use the heavy cream and cream cheese that is used in the original recipe which made it dairy free also.
I’ve never had stew except with rice. Did the mashed sweet potatoes taste good with the stew on top of it? Absolutely.
If I say, “try it, you’ll like it,” will you try it and let me know how it tastes?
We have slowly started introducing butter into our paleo diet now. Well, when I say slowly, I guess I shouldn’t be posting about Chicken Kiev because it seems to have a LOT of butter — perhaps in seems that way because I haven’t had butter in while?
Chicken Kiev with Roasted Asparagus
This recipe/chicken was delectable if not surprising. My son warned me to “cut” into the chicken carefully and I was thankful for that warning as the butter spewed out and almost splattered on my clothes. For the breading, since we’re paleo, we used almond flour.
The side dish of the ever humble Roasted Asparagus was not to be outdone though. The recipe is both easy and good.
I was never a fan of asparagus in the past and my first taste was as an adult at my mother-in-law’s house. Since then, I’ve learned to appreciate this delicate vegetable that, if made correctly, tastes very good.
For the salad, we did not use bacon grease nor sugar as the original recipe recommended but instead substituted honey and olive oil. I loved the way the salad dressing came out! This was a yummy salad!
Alaskan Salad
The sweet potato recipe calls for cumin which gave it a different flavor, but overall was a good fit.
Overall, all three recipes blended quite nicely together and I would definitely have them again.
Once a week, we head out to try out a new restaurant. One we always drive by, but have never tried, is the Tavern Grill. The parking lot is always super busy and we don’t want to have to wait “forever” to be seated.
However, next door to this restaurant is The Sheraton Hotel (in Woodbury) that has a restaurant called the Red Rock Grill. The parking lot is not very full here so it would lead one to believe that the restaurant is not very good.
But — you would be wrong.
Upon entering the hotel, the restaurant is straight ahead right past a fireplace. There were few people in the restaurant when we arrived at approximately 5:30 p.m. The hostess seated us right away and was very pleasant.
It was still “happy hour” so we ordered the Truffled Pommes Frites (french fries). Very very good. (On a paleo diet, we don’t normally eat potatoes — except for sweet potatoes — but we make an exception when we go out to eat.)
The entrees come with “sides” that are shared by everyone at the table. Â We chose the green beans which were scrumptious.
Red Rock Grill Restaurant – Green Beans
There were three entrees that we ordered but I only took pictures of two of them.
Red Rock Grill 16 oz Grilled NY Strip EntreeRed Rock Grill Minnesota Walleye Entree
I had the Tenderloin Medallions which (even though I requested them well done) were quite tender. I was very surprised as normally when I request meat to be cooked well done, it tastes tough.
Overall, we were very pleased with the Red Rock Grill’s service and food. Â I believe we’ll be heading back sometime soon.
We haven’t had corned beef on the paleo diet until trying this recipe.
So, how did the Corned Beef and Sweet Potato Hash taste? Well, it was interesting. Good, but interesting. The corned beef turned “shreddy” while cooking which gave the beef a whole different texture while chewing.
Corned Beef and Sweet Potato Hash
I had the corned beef for breakfast and it “microwaved” very well as leftovers on other days.
This is a very simple recipe to make and tastes great with scrambled or fried eggs — just like “regular corned beef hash.
A recent article in the U S News paper talked about different restaurants that have secret menus.
It’s true! Even before the article came out, my family was looking at what the menu possibilities were at Panera (a bakery/restaurant) and we happened to come across their secret menu or as they call it, the “hidden” menu.
There aren’t too many options but enough to hopefully satisfy a paleo diet.
Here are the menu items they currently have:
For breakfast there are two: Power Breakfast Egg White Bowl with Roasted Turkey and Power Breakfast Egg Bowl with Steak
For lunch/dinner there are four: Power Mediterranean Chicken Salad, Power Mediterranean Roasted Turkey Salad, Power Chicken Hummus Bowl and the Power Steak Lettuce Wrap
My son and I stopped at Panera’s recently and decided to try a couple of their lunch options. We settled on the Power Mediterranean Chicken Salad and the Power Steak Lettuce Wrap.
Ordering was simple enough but we had to wait awhile to get our to-go meals. It appeared that the “cooks” weren’t familiar with the items we ordered but eventually our items were bagged up and ready to go.
The meals come in a box and we were given a plastic fork and knife for each meal.
Panera Hidden Menu
Here’s the Steak Lettuce Wrap which at $7.99 seems a bit high for the amount of food you get (a LOT of lettuce). I was disappointed in the presentation and the quality of this entree. The pesto sauce, what little there was of it, had almost no flavor. Everything else just seemed to be plopped together on top of four large lettuce leaves. Not quite what I consider a “wrap.”
Steak Lettuce Wrap
My son didn’t seem to have any complaints about the Mediterranean Chicken Salad which was also $7.99.
Mediterranean Chicken Salad
Well, at least they’re trying, right? Perhaps we’ll go back to see if there’s any improvement.
It is so tempting on a lot of the paleo recipes we try to think of having white rice with them. It seems like the rice would go perfectly with this recipe also as the rice would soak up the juices. But, enough of that talk as rice on the paleo diet shouldn’t be eaten very often unless one needs extra carbs because they’re exercising.
On to the review of this recipe.
Beef Rendag
It was pretty good! A couple of ingredients — cinnamon and cardamon pods — give the beef an interesting taste. No, not a bad taste. Just interesting. I would never have though of putting cinnamon with beef, would you?
The Beef Rendang does require some interesting ingredients that you wouldn’t have in your cupboard. Well, most people I know wouldn’t have MOST of the ingredients in their cupboard.
But hey, it’s always good to try something new and add a little spice to your life. Yes?
I’ll bet you’re wondering what Shakshuka is, eh? The definition from Wiki is as follows:
“a dish of eggs poached in a sauce of tomatoes, chili peppers, onions, often spiced with cumin.” Sound good so far?
Shakshuka
We used an iron skillet to make this dish and served it right from there (it would have been quite cumbersome to take it out).
You do have to like tomatoes in order to enjoy this dish. I would say “have it with rice” but since we’re eating paleo, we had it with Sweet Potato Wedges and Avocado Sauce. Quite good!
Shakshuka
Simple, filling and healthy! That’s what food should really be all about.
The Shirazi Salad we had was delightful, tasteful and simple to make. Only three veggies needed to make it and a tad of lime juice. That’s three gold stars for this salad.
Persian Shirazi Salad
But this was not the entree for our dinner. This was the side dish to a Pomegranate Stew with Chicken. I hear what some of you are saying … pomegranate stew? Yes, pomegranate. It is a unique recipe (at least for me) and tasted fine. You can even taste the cardamon in this recipe — very subtle.
Pomegranate Stew with Chicken
The combination of the salad with the stew seemed a little odd to me at first but when you have a hot item with a cold one it blends quite well.
