Paleo / Primal Shortcuts: Knowing Your Strengths, While Learning from Others

When I first dove into the primal lifestyle last June, I put lots of pressure on myself to tackle the whole spectrum of paleo eating styles right away: acquiring lots of high quality fats, baking paleo goodies, sourcing higher quality foods, and so on. I guess that I thought that it was an all-or-nothing venture! But soon I learned that it was folly to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

For me, going from zero to sixty like that was exhausting - I wasn't managing very well. Then it dawned on me: There's a whole community of likeminded folks on the Internet just overflowing with solid nutritional information and recipes.

Why would I try to become a paleo baking expert overnight? I sure wasn't a baking expert before jumping into primal life, so I knew that I could end up burning up a lot of time and somewhat more expensive specialty ingredients (coconut flour, nut butters, etc.) in a quest to perfect a baked creation of my own.

Meanwhile, there were so many great blogs with scrumptious primal / paleo-friendly baked goods that my family and guests could enjoy, that it suddenly made sense to get a feel for primal / paleo baking by making some of these recipes for a while, first. To throw just a few examples out there (and there are so many more!):

This my slice of Bill's Chiffon Pumpkin Pie, via
The Food Lovers' Primal Palate,
which I chose to contribute to our family's
feast last Thanksgiving. Yum!

• The Food Lovers' Primal Palate (see their recipe list linked here for a whole list of desserts) - Dark Chocolate Coconut Cake is my go-to for a dessert that nonprimal / nonpaleo company has thoroughly enjoyed at our place in the past!
  
  
• Life As A Plate - I have been dying to try out her Irish Cream Gluten-Free Pear Crisp for Two, once I acquire some Bailey's.
  
  
• What I Crave - her most recent creation that caught my eye was Chocolate Chunk Hazlenut Biscotti.
  
  
• Joyful Abode - which has the deliciously simple-looking Almond Flour Shortbread, and of course her Grain-Free Granola Bars, which we have made before at our house and LOVED.
  
  
• Eat the Cookie - which has the coconut-flour- and almond-flour-based grain-free Honey Graham Crackers and a special-occasion-worthy Lemon Tart.
  
  
• And of course...DessertStalker! This recently-debuted recipe-aggregator site features a selection of real-food desserts from around the web - with picture previews. You're sure to find inspiration there!

Deciding to try these recipes has been lots of fun - and guess what? While baking these recipes has taught me lots about the natures of different ingredients and their combinations, letting others' wisdom and experience "write" a delicious dessert menu has freed me up to spend more of my time and resources experimenting in areas where I'm more comfortable - sauces and reductions, roasts, grilling marinades, soups, smoothies, ice cream, etc. I call this a win-win!

Have you decided to "apprentice" yourself by trying out recipes or tutorials from other wise and experienced real-food folks? What sites and writers have you enjoyed and sought to help learn more about areas where you're not so experienced or comfortable?

Ron Swanson Samples Meatless Bacon at Grain 'n' Simple

...or does he?



See my other post where I theorize why Ron Swanson is secretly paleo/primal.

Submit Your Links and Lunchboxes to The Real Food Lunchbox Carnival!

Heyooohhh! The time has come for you to submit links to your recent blog post featuring a meal/(s) or snack/(s) that you packed for yourself or your loved ones.

The linky will be open from right now through 11:59 p.m. Sunday evening. Now's the time to get your linking up groove on!

A reminder of The Real Food Lunchbox Carnival Guidelines:

• 

  Voila! The Real Food Lunchbox Carnival logo.
  Please be sure that when you add it,
  it links back to this carnival's label page!

  Feature The Real Food Lunchbox Carnival logo in your post - and your logo should link back to that the Real Food Lunchbox Carnival label page, so that your readers can come to read the rest of the carnival for fresh inspiration, too!
  
  Grab the logo JPG right now if you like for your posts. It's available on Flickr; click the logo on the right and you will be able to pick up embeddable HTML under the "Share" tab.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Please link to your individual packed meal's post using a permalink, NOT a link to your blog's home page.
  
  
• One linked post submitted per blog per week.
  
  
• The packed/assembled meal or snack that you've chosen to link/feature for this carnival should be primal / paleo friendly. To simplify: no grains or refined sugars should take the spotlight in your linked/featured post, please!
  
  
• No recipes-only posts, please. The goal is to showcase how you've put together your packed meals and snacks! If a recipe is involved but still shows the end product of your packed/assembled meal or snack, that is OK.
  
  
• Your packed/assembled meal can be breakfast, lunch, dinner, or even a snack.
  
  
• When you link, please use this format to tell us what you've packed, and who you are!
  Subject (Blogger or Blog Name)
  
  
  Sample Format (as far as I know these blogs are fictitious):
  
  Chicken with Sweet Potato Fries and Dip! (Cro-Magnon)
  Grain-Free Breakfast Burrito On the Go (Grokerella)
  Paleo PB&J (Cave Kid at Heart)
  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
These are just tips, not mandatory:

• A picture or pictures in your post will help your readers' frame of reference bigtime. A list of foods is kind of dry, but a close up or a few of your packed meal or snack is much likelier to capture readers' imagination. Plus, you get to add the picture's thumbnail to the linky below.
  
  
• Make it fun! Add some discussion in your post as to the meal's contents, or even explore whether the meal was a hit or a miss. (Yes, lunchbox fails are very much welcomed and even celebrated! Lessons learned make for great commiserative reading and fyi.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

♥ Thanks so much for submitting a link! It makes my heart sing. :) ♥

Let me know if you have questions, comments, suggestions for the carnival! You can also email me at primalkitchen at gmail dot com.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lunchbox #79

Today, my preschooler's lunch featured:

• Triangles from a sausage and cheese calzone, the crust made from tapioca flour based Chebe
  
• Organic whole milk yoghurt
• Half an apple (in a plastic sandwich bag)
• Sugar snap peas with Trader Joe's creamy goat cheese to dip

~
Disclosure: This post contains an Amazon affiliate link. Thanks for supporting Primal Kitchen at no additional cost to you!

Lunchbox #78

Today, my preschooler's lunch featured (clockwise):

• Leftover spaghetti squash and spaghetti sauce (Victoria) with Trader Joe's grassfed ground beef
• Sugar snap peas
• Mashed sweet potato with raisins to top

~

Dying Easter Eggs with Eco-Eggs' Natural Vegetable Dyes

My husband has been traveling for work this month. It definitely leaves me sort of beside myself in terms of menu-planning. He's my only truly regular opinion in taste-testing, so when he's gone I lack the motivation to bust out new recipes knowing that my 4 year old would just as easily eat some scrambled eggs, and my toddler would just as easily eat the carpet.

So the culinary efforts were dialed down for a bit - but now that he's back I'm starting to think of some new tastes I'd like to try out for his verdict.

One thing we did do recently that was novel and would be appreciated by my 4-year-old...Easter eggs!

Hot liquid, then dye added.

I was looking for something a little less psychedelic than the usual artificial dye kit, and I was delighted to find a deal on the Eco-Eggs Easter Egg Coloring Kit. (I think that you can score these at Whole Foods and other retail locations as well!) Since it was my first time venturing outside of my usual dye kit and I didn't want to accidentally sacrifice a pricey dozen organic eggs if something went disastrously wrong, I bought some conventionally raised white eggs for this project.

I also waited until my toddler's naptime. Aw, snap! Oh, no, she didn't.


You bet I did. My toddler's at that delightful age when she requires constant, constant supervision, so any project involving breakable foodstuffs, hot liquid, and vegetable dye...well, 'nuff said.

You might want to get a
cup of coffee to sip
while the eggs are hot tubbin'.

I boiled the eggs and let them cool completely (this was while the toddler was still awake).

Then, we added 1/2 c. very warm water each to three glasses, and poured in the itty bitty pots of vegetable dye.

5 of the 6 colors on the chart required the eggs to soak anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes, so I cuddled up to a cup of coffee while we waited.






I hope that you agree the wait was entirely worthwhile. :)

I love the mellow, rich, and earthy palette!

Disclosure: This post contains an Amazon affiliate link. Thanks for supporting Primal Kitchen at no additional cost to you!

Lunchbox #77

Today, my preschooler's lunch featured (clockwise):

• Two boiled eggs
• Half a banana
• Shredded coconut pudding
• Oven-roasted asparagus

~

Submit Your Links and Lunchboxes to The Real Food Lunchbox Carnival!

Rock on! The time has come for you to submit links to your recent blog post featuring a meal/(s) or snack/(s) that you packed for yourself or your loved ones.

The linky will be open from right now through 11:59 p.m. Sunday evening (giving y'all a little extra time since I'm late getting this up...). Now's the time to get your linking up groove on!

Also, in case of technical difficulties, please bear with me AND shoot me an email - this carnival series is my first time using this linky partner, so I'm not certain of what to expect.

A reminder of The Real Food Lunchbox Carnival Guidelines:

• 

  Voila! The Real Food Lunchbox Carnival logo.
  Please be sure that when you add it,
  it links back to this carnival's label page!

  Feature The Real Food Lunchbox Carnival logo in your post - and your logo should link back to that the Real Food Lunchbox Carnival label page, so that your readers can come to read the rest of the carnival for fresh inspiration, too!
  
  Grab the logo JPG right now if you like for your posts. It's available on Flickr; click the logo on the right and you will be able to pick up embeddable HTML under the "Share" tab.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Please link to your individual packed meal's post using a permalink, NOT a link to your blog's home page.
  
  
• One linked post submitted per blog per week.
  
  
• The packed/assembled meal or snack that you've chosen to link/feature for this carnival should be primal / paleo friendly. To simplify: no grains or refined sugars should take the spotlight in your linked/featured post, please!
  
  
• No recipes-only posts, please. The goal is to showcase how you've put together your packed meals and snacks! If a recipe is involved but still shows the end product of your packed/assembled meal or snack, that is OK.
  
  
• Your packed/assembled meal can be breakfast, lunch, dinner, or even a snack.
  
  
• When you link, please use this format to tell us what you've packed, and who you are!
  Subject (Blogger or Blog Name)
  
  
  Sample Format (as far as I know these blogs are fictitious):
  
  Chicken with Sweet Potato Fries and Dip! (Cro-Magnon)
  Grain-Free Breakfast Burrito On the Go (Grokerella)
  Paleo PB&J (Cave Kid at Heart)
  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
These are just tips, not mandatory:

• A picture or pictures in your post will help your readers' frame of reference bigtime. A list of foods is kind of dry, but a close up or a few of your packed meal or snack is much likelier to capture readers' imagination. Plus, you get to add the picture's thumbnail to the linky below.
  
  
• Make it fun! Add some discussion in your post as to the meal's contents, or even explore whether the meal was a hit or a miss. (Yes, lunchbox fails are very much welcomed and even celebrated! Lessons learned make for great commiserative reading and fyi.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

♥ Thanks so much for submitting a link! It makes my heart sing. :) ♥

Let me know if you have questions, comments, suggestions for the carnival! You can also email me at primalkitchen at gmail dot com.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lunchbox #76

Today, my preschooler's lunch featured (clockwise):

• Raw zucchini sticks
• Leftover slow-roasted Brussels sprouts
• Fruit smoothie (in the drink container)
• Babybel cheese
• Two fried eggs

~

Lunchbox #75

Today, my preschooler's lunch featured (clockwise):

• Leftover roast beef
• Baby carrots
• Babybel cheese
• A type of banana bread (it was tasty but not really yummy enough to publish)

~

Lunchbox #74

Today, my preschooler's lunch featured (clockwise):

• Spinach, mushroom, and cheese omelette, cut into pieces
• Half a banana
• Small cup of almonds

~

Beef and Broccoli Sesame Slaw

This is a very quick recipe that comes together easily with leftover steak. A great cold meal alternative as the weather warms - and a nice option for picnics. Monitor the taste of the dressing as you add the tamari - it is very salty and so your preference for it may vary.

Beef and Brocolli Sesame Slaw
Serves 4 as a main dish

Ingredients
1 ten-ounce bag of brocolli slaw
1 cup lightly packed fresh cilantro (omit if you're one of those folks who doesn't "do" cilantro...or substitute fresh diced basil leaves)
20 oz. steak, cooked medium, chilled, and sliced very thin (I use kitchen shears to shortcut this!)
1/4 c. cold-pressed extra virgin sesame oil
1/4 c. vinegar of choice (apple cider vinegar or rice vinegar are good options)
Tamari, to taste

Directions
Combine first three ingredients in a gallon zip bag. Add sesame oil and vinegar, zip bag, and toss to coat. Add tamari to zip bag a spoonful or two at a time, shaking in between added spoonfuls to combine, until desired taste is achieved.

Lunchbox #73

Today, my preschooler's lunch featured (clockwise):

• Leftovers: broiled chuck steak, yellow squash, and mushrooms
• Sliced Dubliner cheese
• Half a banana
• In the drink bottle, a whole milk yoghurt fruit smoothie

~

Sour Creme - It's "Unreal!!!"

I wish that I could say that I were making this up. It actually is a parody of itself. I was visiting our local dollar store with Easter stuff in mind when I did a double take while passing the small food fridge/freezer at the back of the store.

Whaaaaat?

It reads SOURCREME. Is the French spelling of the
latter half of the product name supposed to add allure?

Oh, yes, you read that correctly; it does in fact say, "Unreal!!!"

Talk about truth in advertising.

This is the best part: besides the awfulness of the preservatives,
other junk additives, and the fact that partially hydrogenated soybean oil
is the second on the ingredient list after water, the allergen caveat at the end reads:

CONTAINS: MILK, SOY.

So let me get this straight: This is a faux sour cream, but anybody hoping it provides a dairy-free alternative would be mistaken - it still contains various frankenbits of overly processed dairy, but with a hefty dose of heart-eviscerating trans fats AND soy. And it's 80% calories from fat, so you can't even claim that you'd be buying it to satisfy some low-fat diet requirement. Why, for the love of single-ingredient ingredient lists, WHY would somebody think this is a superior purchase to, say, Daisy Sour Cream, which you can find and buy for essentially the very same price of ~$1/lb., and contains only GRADE A CULTURED CREAM?!


~

Lunchbox #72

Today, my preschooler's lunch featured (clockwise):

• Leftover Chebe crust pizza
• Whipped heavy cream
• Diced nectarine
• Half a banana

Disclosure: This post contains an Amazon affiliate link. Thanks for supporting Primal Kitchen at no additional cost to you!

Menu Plan

Yesterday morning: Sliced mango and leftover chicken,
whole milk on the side.

Wow, we made it through March! It was a very rainy March for us - and it's still rainy today, hence the playlist.

I was shocked at how much money we saved on groceries last month with my husband being the primary grocery shopper -- enough to have him involved in grocery shopping a lot more often from here on out.

Also? My preschooler is more or less geared now toward the idea of whole foods for breakfast; I can't remember the last time that she asked about breakfast cereal, and I consider that a milestone of some sort.

Here's what's on the menu this week:

Monday:

Leftover beef brisket soup, absolutely
loaded with leeks and mushrooms.

Breakfast - Hot tea for me, bananas and leftover chicken with mango for my girls
Lunch - Liverwurst, smoky autumn beef brisket soup using leftover beef roast
Dinner - Flank steaks on the grill - it's grillin' weather, baby, YEA! :)

Tuesday:
Breakfast - Hot tea for me, milk and fruit for my girls (I meant to get some protein in for them, too, but the morning got ahead of me!)
Lunch - Leftover beef brisket soup, Dubliner cheese
Dinner - Chebe Pizza!*

Wednesday:
Breakfast - Onion and cheese omelette
Lunch - Fasting for me, probably
Dinner - Chuck steaks under the broiler, baked Brussels sprouts with butter

Thursday:
Breakfast - Frozen blueberries, warmed with cinnamon, served with cottage cheese
Lunch - Lamb shoulder simmered in tamari and butter
Dinner - Salmon filets, coconut oil veggie stir fry

Friday:
Breakfast - Whole milk yoghurt with liquid whole leaf stevia and vanilla extract
Lunch - We're visiting with a friend and her daughter! She's providing the chicken for grillin', I'm supplying a loaded salad and maybe some Green & Black's as a special treat :)
Dinner - Bacon and eggs

Tonight's Chebe crust pizza, which I made using the
very simple and low-carb Victoria tomato basil sauce.
It is, quite simply, delicious.
I would be proud to serve it to company.

*Look away if you are dogmatic -- I saw Chebe Bread Pizza Crust Mix as somebody had mixed and baked it up on another paleo blog (it's tapioca flour based, very short ingredient list, came highly rated). Drumroll...this means that yes, our household will have the occasional pizza night! (I haven't been contacted by Chebe with any review requests; I discovered and bought Chebe of my own initiative, and am glad that I did!) I did some Googling, and discovered that Chebe also sells frozen pizza crusts with the same ingredients as the dry mix ... but unfortunately the wet ingredients added in the frozen crust include (ick! so bad for you) canola oil.

Definitely some leftovers going with my husband
and daughter in their lunches tomorrow.

But now that I know that the tapioca flour crust won't "die" while waiting in a freezer, I hold out some hope that I could make the dry mix (as I did tonight) fresh at home with Kerrygold, but then press it flat and and add some toppings, and finally freeze it for when unexpected dinner company drops in, or those nights when we arrive at home after some long trip with nothing in our fridge, or in case of nausea/illness/recovery when something simple and fast is needed. Hmmm, maybe that is a case where a vacuum sealing appliance comes in handy -- as it did for Joyful Abode when she cracked open some frozen vaccum sealed twice baked potato skins that she had made with her postpartum recovery time in mind.

Disclosure: This post contains Amazon affiliate links. Thanks for supporting Primal Kitchen at no additional cost to you! All opinions expressed here are honest and my own.

Lunchbox #71

Today, my preschooler's lunch featured (clockwise):

• Leftover beef brisket soup (liquid mostly drained off)
• Red peppers
• Yellow squash
• Liverwurst
• Cantaloupe

~