My Paleo Diet

Breakfast started at 5 am.  I couldn’t sleep since 3:30 am for some reason so I got up and started working (I work from home).  I had a leftover boiled egg (good things to keep on hand) and a banana.  At around 9 am, it felt like lunch time (or the Hobbit’s “second breakfast”).  So I cooked a sausage patty, a couple slices of bacon, then two eggs over medium in the bacon grease.

Lunch was delayed, during which time I had a handful of nuts and some beef jerky.  I ended up shopping with my son for camping supplies and there was a McDonalds in the building (Paleo fail alert!).  But I was good.  I got a double cheeseburger off the cheapo menu, threw away the bun, scraped off the mayo and the cheese.  I still got trace amounts, but not enough to declare failure!  So two hamburger patties, a fairly thick slice of tomato, and a bit of lettuce.  When we got back home I had leftover Muffaletta salad, both plain and wrapped in a slice of ham with spicy mustard (if I can ever find brown mustard seeds I plan to make my own) and sprinkled liberally with Tabasco sauce.  Hot stuff!  Also on the side I had a sliced Roma tomato.  I couldn’t resist drenching it in Tabasco as well.  Mouth on fire!

Dinner was delayed as well, and I ended up eating the last pork rib from earlier in the week, as well as the last Scotch egg.  In fact, I just finished as I was typing this up.  These I drenched in Habanero sauce.  I also ate a whole lemon.  I love eating whole lemons and limes.  Grosses the family out.  Well, at least makes them make funny, contorted faces!

Ok, so I cheated a bit tonight, but not too bad.  It was my son’s 7th birthday, and he wanted a crawdad boil!  He also likes snails so I made some of those as well.  He didn’t like those as much as those at the restaurant.  Oh well.  But everyone loved the crawdads (prepackaged and pre-seasoned), corn, new red potatoes, andouille sausage, and shrimp.  My daughter, her friend and I put it all together, sort of making it up as we went along, with some help from my wife.  But in reality, it wasn’t very hard to do.

I ate one corn (half an ear) and one potato, but no cake or ice cream.  That’s all the cheating I did!  Most just crawdads, a couple snails, shrimp and andouille sausage.  It was a great evening.

Pun intended.  When you put asparagus in the refrigerator, it needs to be very dry.  Put it away wet, and it will rot by the next day.  However, if this happens, all might not be lost!

Asparagus seems to rot from the top down.  If it smells rotten, but the stalks look more or less good, try this.  Run water and put the asparagus tips under it.  With your fingers, squeeze the soft, mushy tip off completely, and continue this until there is only solid asparagus left.  If they aren’t too far gone, you’ll be able to rescue most of the asparagus and still use it.  You’ll know you’ve done enough when you can smell them and you no longer smell rot, just asparagus!

This salad was just something I threw together from what I had laying around or in the fridge. Here are the ingredients for the salad:

• Bowl full of your favorite greens (I just hand shredded some iceberg lettuce)
• Sprinkling of sesame seeds
• Oil and vinegar to taste (I used Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Red Wine Vinegar)
• Top with 1 sliced hard boiled egg
• Top with ham slices

Of course, you can certainly add more or less to the mix. Now for the other veggies:

• A handful of Brussels sprouts, each cut in half
• A handful of asparagus spears

You will need some oil or grease in the pan. Fortunately, my wife had cooked bacon this morning and the grease was still there in the pan. So I just heated it up and added the asparagus spears and the Brussels sprouts, flat side down. I brushed Extra Virgin Olive Oil on the tops over everything, then cooked on medium heat until the spears and sprouts were nicely browned. I did flip the sprouts for a short time.

I had hoped to put everything into the salad bowl but got carried away! But this was a great lunch. Finished it off with a sliced apple with some almond butter.

Breakfast was nothing if not excessive this morning.  I probably overdid it.  I started with a boiled egg and one of the Scotch eggs I had for dinner last night (still have 2 left!).  But it’s my son’s birthday, and he wanted bacon and eggs.  So since mom was fixing them, I mean, what would you have done?  So I had two fried eggs (over medium) and about 4 half slices of bacon.

I’m not going to label this a paleo fail, but maybe a paleo overdid it!

The Easy Pan-Fried Lemon Chicken recipe came from stupideasypaleo.com, and it was indeed, stupid easy. I know it doesn’t look like much in the picture, but it was pretty tasty. I forgot to slice it like they suggested on the website, but oh well.

The Oven Roasted Broccoli recipe came from From Paleo Comfort Foods, Mayfield & Mayfield, p. 208. In spite of the burned appearance (I might have overcooked it a bit), it was quite a hit and what I thought was way too much broccoli turned out to be gone by the end of dinner. I also threw in a handful of asparagus spears for good measure.

Funny enough, this is the only time I have ever cooked anything at 500 F. My wife said she had only gone up to 475 F.

Buy on Amazon (Paperback): Paleo Comfort Foods: Homestyle Cooking for a Gluten-Free Kitchen

Buy on Amazon (Kindle edition): Paleo Comfort Foods: Homestyle Cooking in a Gluten-Free Kitchen

The scotch eggs were nothing short of decadent. Delicious. Hard to keep them together. It took an entire pound of ground beef for 6 large boiled eggs, and even they they fell apart a bit. But it didn’t affect anything. They were also a hit. Best part is, I have leftovers for the next day or two!

You can find the recipe here. For reference, I used 6 eggs, 1 lb ground beef (not too lean), a generous sprinkle of paprika, and total of around 4 tbsp minced garlic (I use the kind in the jar – I can’t tell the difference between that and fresh for this type of cooking). Lastly, I baked them on a cookie sheet at 350 for probably 12-15 minutes. They were still a bit red on the inside so if you like them thoroughly cooked you might either up the temperature to 375 or cook them a bit longer. Enjoy!

This recipe comes from a great site full of Paleo resources. Here is a link to this recipe: Muffaletta Salad Recipe.

The recipe was spot on, and the salad was delicious. If you like muffalettas, chances are you will like this salad. I also took sliced ham, added some salad in the middle, rolled it up and basically had a muffaletta sandwich without the bread. Great lunch!

I got this recipe from ultimatepaleoguide.com, which I highly recommend. However, you have to subscribe to see this recipe (it is free). But I have actually seen this recipe numerous places, so I will summarize here.

In a blender, add 3 bananas, 3 eggs, 1/4 cup almond butter, and blend until smooth. Add your favorite oil (I used coconut oil spray) and cook just as you would any pancake.

I should note that this did not work well for me, so I added a few tbsp of coconut flour to thicken it up. As you can see from the picture, I still need some practice. Especially with the larger pancakes!

Pick your favorite (probably fruit) toppings. I added a sausage patty, and used grass fed butter. It did not look that great, but it was very tasty!

No picture this time. My wife cooked some lightly barbecued ribs of which I ate two. She also make a nice stuffed squash. However, the stuffings were a choice of brown sugar, or rice and cheese. They looked great, but I passed on them.

Later I had a couple of celery sticks with almond butter (too runny – not recommended). I had another celery stick and a banana with about 2 tsp of crunchy peanut butter.

Leftover bangers and mash, as well as sautéed mushrooms and shallots. I added a sliced Roma tomato, spicy mustard, and a pile of hot pickled banana peppers. Great stuff!