Paleo DIY Challenge-Friendly Cobb Salad

Ah, the flurry of whole30s, sugar detoxes, and other noble nutrition challenges has taken hold of the Twittersphere. Every other tweet seems to be folks ready to cast aside their dalliance with sugar and other less savory characters in favor of the basics, fuel-wise: meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, fruit, nuts, and natural fats.

When embarking on such challenges, I've come to appreciate the value of having ingredients ready to go at a moment's notice. This is why the paleo-fied version of a Cobb salad makes a great fast meal: everything can be chopped and ready to add way ahead of time. The DIY aspect also makes salad assembly company-friendly.

Also get yo'self some romaine.

This is what we made today when we had my inlaws
for company. I like my Cobb salads to be as colorful
as possible, so I go for as many contrasting hues
as I can manage. Red peppers, orange carrots,
yellow egg yolks - delicious!

Our ingredients included:

• Cubed cold chicken
• Bacon, cooked crispy
• Fresh sliced red pepper
• Fresh shredded carrot
• Some hot-and-sweet seasoned/baked pecans and almonds
  (These pictured I made at home...you can make your own seasoned nuts low carb and challenge-friendly by coating them in the barest splash of hot sauce and macadamia oil before toasting in the oven, 425F for 20 minutes, stirring throughout.)
• Hard boiled eggs
  (We kept them in their shells until chosen for a salad so they'd go right back in the fridge if we didn't use them all.)
• A batch of my homemade ranch

Part of the appeal when serving to company is presentation, and nothing presents more beautifully than simple, fresh ingredients. 

 

 

What salads are you throwing together in a bid to clean up your diet in the new year?

~

The Best Cupcake Wrappers for Paleo Recipes

I'm in Day 2 of this 28 day sugar detox. There's nothing like a nutrition challenge to make me realize how mindlessly I can sometimes eat...like bites I steal of my girls' apple chips when packing their lunches.

I've done a lot of nutrition and paleo challenges, both by myself and with my Crossfit box, but this is the first time I've actively avoided fruit. It does sound kind of extreme, but I still get some carbs from nonfruit sources like butternut squash. I'm also planning on taking in some coconut water (I dilute it half and half with filtered water) during and after hot yoga sessions. If I were Crossfitting or otherwise tackling intense exercise, I'd be following the sugar detox for athletes protocol, which involves strategically adding a little more carbs in the form of fruit or starchy veggies.

Day 2 of a challenge can be brutal - I'm wading through serious headache territory, but thankfully I know enough that by this time next week I should be doing much better. In the meantime I'm keeping myself going with continuous meats, eggs, veggies, and healthy fats.

One of my favorite "to-go" low carb breakfasts involves using preservative free ham as a cupcake liner, cracking an egg inside the ham "cup", and baking. The ham is out for me at the moment during this challenge, though, since it does have some trace amounts turbinado sugar.

This brings me to my favorite paleo baking tool: unbleached paper cupcake liners (and parchment paper, and pie pans, and mini muffin liners) by If You Care. Besides being available in bulk on  Amazon and in single packages from Vitacost, they are also available in Wegmans, Giant, and many other major grocery store chains. I was thrilled when their unbleached paper pie pans helped me to make my first successful GAPS and gluten free pumpkin pie crusts - because for the first time in 3 years of paleo pie-baking the crusts didn't stick or burn to the pan!

No matter what texture is going on, I can always count on If You Care liners to break away from my baked item cleanly without tearing apart and destroying the end product. Yes, even in the case of just eggs! When I want to make something extra pretty - like for a birthday party - I sometimes add a brightly colored conventional cupcake wrapper on the outside of these modest beige ones, after the treats have cooled.

This morning's project:

• Set oven to 425 to preheat.
• Line muffin tin with cupcake liners.
• Crack one egg into each liner.
• Sprinkle eggs with a mix of garlic powder, onion powder, and sea salt.
• Add a slice or two of mushrooms, and a couple of 1/2" pieces of asparagus.
• Optional and delicious, if you have it: crumbled bacon.
• Change oven setting to broil at 425F.
• Broil 15 minutes (or 3 minutes less if you want your egg/yolk a little runny).

Luckily, these are GAPS diet friendly, too, so my 2 year old had some with a GAPS-OK liverwurst and guacamole for her second breakfast!

What low carb breakfasts have you tried out lately?

This post contains affiliate links to Vitacost and Amazon. Shopping through these links results in Primal Kitchen receiving a referral bonus at no cost to you - thank you for supporting Primal Kitchen! :)

Tuna Stuffed Mini Peppers

I found a paleo-friendly alternative to the American lunchbox staple that is the tuna salad sandwich: Tuna salad stuffed peppers! Having located a canned tuna that has only olive oil (no soybean or canola oil), I made a batch of tuna salad last week and stuffed it into the mini peppers that we had picked up at Sam's Club. The peppers worked very well as a tidy vehicle for transporting tasty tuna salad into one's mouth.

To make your own tuna salad, try making your own paleo mayonnaise - there's a nice tutorial over at The Clothes Make the Girl. Or, you could do the quick'n'dirty shortcut that I did last week - full fat sour cream (ingredient: cultured cream) mixed with a paleo-friendly salsa verde and some Bubbies relish (which has no sweeteners like sugar or corn syrups added) - all mixed with the tuna. Given the right occasion I would definitely serve these up as an appetizer!

Primal / Paleo Oktoberfest / "Mocktoberfest" - Gluten-Free Schnitzel with German Potato Salad



Come to Mama.


At last, I tackled "Mocktoberfest". Being partly of German extraction - and having lived in Germany for a time, sometimes I just need a good Schnitzel. Schnitten is the German verb for to cut, so you can bread and fry cutlets of just about any meat. Popular choices are beef (especially veal), chicken, and pork. The problem? Breaded Schnitzeln are ... uh ... breaded. Hence my adaptation for those living primally who need to hearken back to the Mutterland every so often.

Today we cuddled ours up next to some German Potato Salad (recipe below) and some canned red Sauerkraut. (If you are looking for a homemade red Sauerkraut recipe, check out AndreAnna's crockpot red cabbage recipe - looks delish!)

German Potato Salad

Ingredients
3 lb. potatoes, peeled and diced into 1" cubes
1/2 cup mayonnaise (you can make your own if you're up for it)
1/2 c. crumbled bacon or bacon pieces
1/2 c. finely diced white onion (this is optional; I left it out today since my husband and his side of the family can't tolerate them)
1/2 c. melted butter (I used Kerrygold)
1/2 c. apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
1 tsp. garlic powder
Salt and pepper, to taste

Directions:
To a boiling pot of salted water, add the cubed potato. Boil for 15 minutes, then remove from heat and use a slotted spoon to spoon the potato cubes into a medium bowl. Whisk together remaining ingredients into a dressing, then pour over warm potato cubes. Allow potato salad to sit for about an hour so that flavors can meld before serving.

Chicken Schnitzel with Creamy White Wine Reduction

Ingredients:
6 chicken breasts, pounded very thin (1/2" or less)
Salt and pepper
1 cup sifted coconut flour
1 cup sifted coconut flour mixed with 1 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
4 eggs
4 tablespoons fresh parsley
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
1 tsp. nutmeg
4 tablespoons milk or cream
1 heaping teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 lb. Kerrygold butter

Directions:
Salt and pepper the chicken breasts, then dip in sifted coconut flour evenly to coat. Mix eggs, parsley, cheese, nutmeg, milk, and mustard thoroughly in a medium-sized bowl, then add 1/4 tsp fresh ground black pepper and 1/2 tsp. salt and mix again. In a large shallow bowl spread out the coconut flour/unsweetened coconut mix. Dip each floured chicken breast into the egg mix and then dip both sides to coat in the coconut flour/unsweetened coconut mix.

In a large pan, melt 4 tbsp. butter on medium heat. Add breaded chicken breasts to the pan, turning after 3 or 4 minutes. Continue turning breasts every few minutes until all sides are golden brown and chicken is cooked through. (In my case, this was side A 3 minutes, side B 3 minutes, side A 3 minutes, side B 3 minutes.) Keep adding butter to the pan a little at a time while cooking in order to prevent burning; the chicken breasts will soak up a lot of the butter while in the pan.

Creamy White Wine Reduction

After chicken breasts are all cooked, add 1/2 c. cream or milk to the pan, with 2 tbsp. butter and 2 tbsp. white wine of choice. Use a spatula to scrape brown leftover schnitzel bits off of the bottom of the pan and keep stirring to combine while sauce reduces. Once desired thickness is reached, drizzle over plated Schnitzel.



Optional but fun addition: gluten-free beer. :)



Menu Plan, and First Time Roasting Duck!

I didn't have plans to go to Whole Foods on Monday, but it happened - because I made an unexpected trip about 45 minutes away for another errand, and why pass up the chance when Whole Foods is right there and there isn't one near home?

I was perusing the meats and poultry when I came across fresh duck! Remembering a recent Mark's Daily Apple post on roasting duck with a honey tamari sauce, I picked one up on the fly. Turns out, this was a very simple process, one I'll definitely repeat.

First, I Googled, "How to Roast a Duck", and the very first results, a detail and picture-filled tutorial from The Amateur Gourmet, were a good starting point for me. I scored the fat on the duck on each side (used a basic steak knife to cut cross-shaped marks in the fat). Then, I used my mini food chopper (~$10 at WalMart) to blend honey, tamari, and a bit of juice from a Clementine. (I didn't copy the MDA recipe but I liked the general flavor profile so it was good inspiration.) I poured about 1/3 of the sauce over the duck on a roasting pan, roasted it for an hour at 300 F, flipped the duck, poured another 1/3 of the sauce, roasted another hour, flipped and added the rest of the sauce, roasted another half hour, and then broiled at 450 for 5 minutes to get the skin dark and crispy.

So in all: 2.5 hours total roasting time, flipping and saucing the duck every hour, plus 5 minutes broiling at the end. A very hands-off dish, and for a dark meat poultry lover like me, absolutely terrific final results. I used some of the duck drippings to roast some home fries that went into my husband's lunch today, and he pronounced them delicious when I happened to call while he was eating.

Here's the rest of the scoop on this week's menu plan. I'm trying to get the carbs lower because it feels like Thanksgiving has sent me on a bit carb craving roller coaster lately, and I'd like get more of a handle on the cravings.

Wednesday:
Breakfast - Fried eggs, bananas for the girls
Lunch - Leftover grass fed ground beef with Trader Joe's organic vodka sauce
Dinner - Baked chicken, sweet potatoes (I may skip the sweet potatoes)

Thursday:
Breakfast - Almond butter cinnamon smoothie
Lunch - Maybe intermittent fast?
Dinner - Creamy tarragon asparagus soup, bacon on the side

Friday:
Breakfast - Mashed boiled eggs, "egg nog" (this is really just a shot of heavy cream with some nutmeg sprinkled on top)
Lunch - Veggie soup with bacon
Dinner - Beef in the crock pot

Spicy Sausage with Tomatoes, Broccolini, and Garlic Cream Sauce

This resulted from another session of weekend experimentation. My husband and preschooler reported that their main regret was that there wasn't more!

Spicy Sausage with Tomatoes, Broccolini, and Garlic Cream Sauce
Serves 2 very generously

Ingredients:
5-pack brat-style sausages (I used Nature's Promise spicy Italian pork sausage from Giant)
Generous handful cherry tomatoes, sliced into thirds
1 bunch broccolini (enough to hold with one hand), sliced into 2" chunts
3/4 c. organic heavy cream
1/2 tablespoon garlic powder
Salt, to taste
1 tablespoon coconut flour (optional; for thickening the sauce at the end)

Directions:
Heat a large pan to medium-high heat. Using kitchen shears and working quickly, slice brat sausages into 1/2" long chunks into the pan. Stir about as sausage bits begin to brown (about 3 minutes), and then add sliced cherry tomatoes. Once the juice from the tomatoes and the grease from the cooking sausage begins to combine, add garlic powder, cream, and salt, and stir to combine, about 2 minutes. At this point, you may add coconut flour to thicken the sauce. Add broccolini last, stir continuously, and remove the pan from heat once the broccolini becomes just tender after a few minutes. Serve immediately.

5-Ingredient Green Curry Pot Roast

Mmmm beef. It just really hits the spot the way that nothing else quite can, y'know? This is my lazy woman's pot roast - a bit Southeast-Asian-reminiscent with its is-it-getting-hotter-in-here-or-is-that-just-me?, yet still hearkening to my paternal grandmother's way with a roast.

And: I'm pretty sure that I'm commiting an "Asian Fusion" gaffe here or something by combining green curry and Japanese condiments, but this is really tasty served with a bit of wasabi paste.

5-Ingredient Green Curry Pot Roast
Serves 4-5

Ingredients
1 pot roast - at least 2.5 lb.
2 tablespoons bacon grease (or cooking oil of choice)
1/8 c. tamari (wheat-free soy sauce)
1.5 tablespoons (or to taste) green curry paste*
1-2 c. water

*Note that I use Thai Kitchen brand, which others rate as being weak in terms of heat and flavor for a green curry paste...so...less may do it if you are using a different brand! Thai Kitchen's curry paste contains: Green Chili, Garlic, Lemongrass, Galangal (Thai Ginger), Salt, Onion, Pepper, Coriander, Cumin, Kaffir Lime.

Directions
Melt bacon grease in a pan at high heat. Sear pot roast on all sides, then place in deep pot (or crock pot). Add tamari, green curry paste, and water. Cook on low for at least 6 hours, until meat is tender and easily pulls away with a fork.

Bleu Double Moo

I seem to be on a bit of a beef and cheese theme here lately, but for good reason. On Sunday night I braised some steaks in tamari (350 F for a couple of hours in the oven until very tender), and topped them with triple cream bleu cheese out of the oven. If you've never tried a roast or steak (or any beef for that matter) topped with a blue-veined cheese like bleu, Roquefort, or gorgonzola, then you should definitely give it a go. Your taste buds will sing with delight!

Coconut Curry Chicken & Spinach Soup

When that nip in the air starts to come back, I get really excited. I love cold weather, and I love cold weather comfort foods. This fall will prove a new challenge as I try to Primalize some of my longstanding fall/winter treats, but I'm up for it.

Soups, though, aren't that hard to conquer in terms of Primalizing. This one is super simple, warming, and comes together in less than 15 minutes. Great for a nourishing lunch!

Coconut Curry Chicken & Spinach Soup
Serves 4

Ingredients:
2 c. small pieces of leftover roasted chicken
2 c. organic baby spinach
1 can coconut milk
2 tbsp. coconut oil

Warming spices, any/all to your liking:
garlic powder
onion powder
ginger
nutmeg
cardamom
curry powder
turmeric
cumin

Directions:
Melt oil in medium-sized pot on medium. Add spices to your liking and let them simmer in the oil for a minute or two. Add chicken pieces, and stir to coat with oil and spices. Add coconut milk, and stir to combine. Let simmer for just a few minutes so that flavors blend and the coconut milk is warmed through. Just 3-5 minutes before serving, add the baby spinach. Serve while spinach is bright green and just barely wilted for maximum flavor.

Lunchbox #2

 

Today's lunch featured (clockwise):

• Chicken salad (Last night's dinner - chicken baked with garam masala and coconut oil - cooled, diced, tossed with crème fraiche...YUM.)
  Note: I actually had my preschooler try several bites of this to make sure that she enjoyed it so that I knew that she would be familiar with it when she opened her lunchbox.
• About 3 tablespoons of trail mix: Pepitas (pumpkin seeds), raisins, hazlenuts, pecans, walnuts, pistachios
• Two dark chocolate covered almonds (same container as the trail mix)
• Crudités - yellow squash, carrots, green peppers
• Apple slices, with almond butter for dipping in the mini blue container

Shrimp, Sausage, and Summer Squash Casserole

Earlier this week, I gave a whirl to doing Mark's listed recipe from last Saturday: Shrimp, Sausage, and Summer Squash Casserole. A few adaptations (since it seems I can't resist tinkering) were made.

Here's the casserole pre-oven time.

And after baking:

Notes:

• I added about 3 handfuls of kale, ripped up into smaller bites, right at the end of the "pot cooking" phase. I also added just a little bit of blackstrap molasses and a tiny drizzle of balsamic vinegar, which added a depth of flavor.
• This was very tasty. My 3.5-year-old pronounced it "Very yummy," so I could definitely give this a go again some time. I thought that it actually tasted even better the day after, cold from the fridge (and this saves the microwave from rubberizing the shrimp in your leftovers).
• Mine was a big soggier than what I had envisioned. I suppose this could be remedied by crisping the bacon seperately, removing, sauteeing the squash in the rendered fat, and then adding the bacon back in on top at the last minute. (?) Suggestions, anyone?
• I used a whole pound of shrimp, a whole pound of sausage, and 12 oz. of uncured bacon - which was cut into little pieces with my kitchen shears to cook faster. This produced a massive dish of casserole - enough to feed us easily for two meals.
• Since my sausage was (horrors!) conventional, I precooked it and drained the fat, allowing the uncured no antibiotic no hormone bacon's fat to take center stage. (Yes, I realize still excess Omega-6's from grain-fed pork, but what am I to do with no pastured or fully organic pork products sold by my nearest grocery store?) From our current stage in life, there's still probably going to be a lot of conventionally raised animals - it's a budget thing and a logistics thing; I simply haven't yet found access to quality, affordable pastured animal products. So, with any conventionally raised meats we eat, I'll usually be trimming or draining the not-really-that-great-for-us fat (it's usually too Omega-6 heavy due to being grain-raised). With any grass-fed/pastured stuff we can find, we'll eat it up! This reminds me: I should really find us a quality fish oil to offset our excess Omega-6 consumption stat.

Mashed Boiled Eggs

The idea for these came to me by a 11/16/2009 comment by Danish (I think) commenter Budzinksi left on Dr. Harris' PaNu site . The basic idea: boil eggs. Mash'em with butter and salt, he said. Mmm! This was a winner with my husband and preschooler. Here's how I tackled it:

Mashed Hard-Boiled Eggs
*aka*
"Alas, Poor Yolk! I knew him well."
Serves 1

Ingredients
Four eggs
2 tablespoons butter, or to taste (I used salted Kerrygold)
Pepper (I used freshly ground)

Directions
Boil eggs in a rolling boil for 15 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and plunge immediately into bowl of ice water (this turns your yolks the pretty yellow instead of sulfuric grey). Shell the eggs while they are still warm, place in a bowl, mash with butter, garnish with pepper, and serve. This goes well alongside the parsnip hashbrowns.

===
Copyright © 2010 Primal Kitchen
Do not copy this blog's content without my express written permission. See "Contact" tab at Primal Kitchen's home page for contact information.

Basic Butter-Glazed Shrimp

I have a sister-in-law in the Midwest who is a kitchen wonder - recipes inspired by her cooking certain to appear again and again on this blog. In the beginning of June (life before Grok, as it were), when she and her family were visiting, she introduced my husband's side of the family to the concept of buying, peeling, then butterflying fresh shrimp, glazing with a basic butter marinade, and then grilling to perfection.

It was one of those meals when even the most talkative in the crowd fell silent as we savored every bite. And though I've mentioned this before in my 4th of July post, I thought that the shrimp recipe merited a little extra post of its own, because it is so easy and so fast!

Basic Butter-Glazed Shrimp
Serves 3, conservatively, or 2 generously

Ingredients
1 lb. raw fresh or thawed shrimp, peeled, butterflied, tails removed (This process actually takes only about 10 minutes per pound)
1 stick butter (I prefer to use salted Kerrygold)
Drizzle honey (totally optional - but my sister-in-law had it in her original recipe so I include it here)
A few cranks of freshly ground black pepper
1/2 tablespoon garlic powder

Directions
Mix all ingredients. If grilling, skewer about 4-5 to a skewer, turned continuously on the grill, over a piece of foil if desired. (This is great also with pineapple on the skewers.) Do not overcook - once they are all pink and just a bit browned from the grill (see pic below), serve hot!

You can also sautee at high heat for about 5 minutes - but you must watch carefully and stir constantly. Take the pan off of the heat as soon as the grey is gone and the shrimp are all pink, lest you overcook and make them tough.

Here are the shrimp already peeled and tails gone, soaking up that butter. I'm about to butterfly them.

This is me butterflying a shrimp - just run a serrated knife along the "spine" to open it up a bit. This gives you more surface area for that delicious butter glaze to cover. ;)

Sauteed (last night's meal):

Grilled (though these had not been butterflied):

Serving suggestion with pineapple and asparagus
(great meal for nonprimal company):

Tahini Dressing, and Lamb Kebabs with Yoghurt Sauce and Lambrusco

On our vacation, my sister-in-law (a nonpaleo/nonprimal) kindly sought a meal that I could also consume with relish...or more like...consume with taragon greek yoghurt. :) She made these honey-lime lamb kebabs, which were so tasty, especially with a little Lambrusco - bought by my parents at Trader Joe's - served on the side. (If I make the kebabs in the future, I'll probably cut the honey by half or more to make it less carby.) Our offering was a kale salad (still using our friends' kale!) with tahini dressing and cucumbers and tomatoes.

Quick Tahini Dressing

Dresses one large salad

Ingredients

1/3 c. sesame tahini

1/3 c. tamari (wheat-free soy sauce)

1/3 c. apple cider vinegar

1/3 c. balsamic vinegar

Olive oil, to desired consistency

Directions

Blend all ingredients except olive oil in a mini food processor. Add olive oil slowly, until desired consistency is achieved.

Salad with Carnitas, Mango Salsa, and Raspberry Vinaigrette

Man, oh, man. We had company planned for Friday night. Out-of-town relatives who might be moving to our area soon - and the lady was just ordered by her doctor to give up grains and carbs in general. I was excited to share some primal cuisine with them and my parents, brother, and sister-in-law.

I rolled up my sleeves and got a menu going. Boy, was this going to be good.

Primal Carnitas
Serves 8

Ingredients
10 lb. pork roast, presliced (I bought two ~5 lb.'ers, conventional, as Kanye would say: #ITSAPROCESS)
2 c. schmaltz, for browning (I use mine rendered at home after roasting chickens)
1 large yellow onion
3 tablespoons ground cumin
1 tablespoon dried chipotle pepper flakes
1/3 bottle white wine
4 large tomatoes
8 cloves garlic, peeled
1 c. chicken broth

Directions
Put the white wine, the tomatoes, and the garlic into a blender or food processor and puree. Cut onion into 1" by 1/2" pieces and spread the pieces over the bottom of the crock pot.

Melt a couple of tablespoonfuls of the schmaltz on high heat in a large pan, and sear slices of the roast on both sides until browned. Layer slices of the pork with drizzles of the tomato puree and shakes of the cumin up to the top. (As you transfer the pork slices to the crock pot, you'll need to add a couple of tablespoonfuls of schmaltz to the frying pan with each new round of to-be-browned pork slices.) Add chicken broth and chipotle pepper flakes and cook on low 7-8 hours, occasionally moving slices from top to bottom with tongs, until falling-apart tender.

Salad with Mango Salsa and Raspberry Vinaigrette

Serves 8

Ingredients

3 heads romaine, washed and chopped into bite size pieces

2 lbs. strawberries, quartered

3 nectarines, cubed

1 tub (~1 lb.) mango salsa (Mine is from Giant, and has all primal ingredients - woo! Or you overachievers out there can make your own...)

Olive oil and raspberry blush vinegar, to dress

Directions

Put romaine in bowls, and top with a generous spoonful of each of mango salsa, followed by a generous spoonful each of strawberries and nectarines. Dress with olive oil and raspberry vinegar. Top with fresh shredded hot pork carnitas.

----

And would you believe it? Poor Mr. Grok came home sick for the first time in ages and we had to cancel on our company. So now I have a clean house, 10 lbs. of carnitas in my crock pot, and enough salad to feed 8. Guess that I won't need to cook the rest of the weekend!

Bacon-Wrapped Scallops

Because, really, isn't everything better wrapped in bacon?

These scallops were accessorized with some stir-fried yellow and green squash and carrots, and some pan-fried plantain coins.

 

First Ever Meatloaf

I've never made meatloaf. I'm not exactly sure what it's supposed to taste like.
I suppose this was an advantage?

I made the meatloaf recipe from Mark's Daily Apple in my mini loaf pans (one recipe made three miniloafs for me), then finished it with leftover vodka sauce, cheese, and fresh basil. Not bad, but it's still a little bit of a meat bricklet. I'm guessing I could find tastier applications for ground beef, but this is sure one of the most hands-off recipes out there.

Note to self: must start searching out ground beef recipes for variety.

Korean Pork Ribs

I gave the Korean Ribs recipe from Mark's Daily Apple a try last weekend.

As many of the commenters on the MDA post had done, I decided to make the sauce and then pour it over the ribs in the crock pot.

Lessons learned:

1. Straining out the blackberry seeds, as one MDA reader had suggested, was a brilliant plan. The very few seeds that made it in kind of psyched me out because my brain confused them for tiny bones while chewing on a rib. Next time, I may buy straight-up blackberry juice (no other juices/sweeteners added) to save time, effort, and also punch up the tart flavor. That said, doing it with juice may render it a "special occasion" dish as it could be slightly carbier.

2. The crock pot version of these was very tender and mild - and the company served declared them tasty. I'm guessing that if they had been grilled per the recipe, they'd have had a tangier, thicker sauce.

Next to try on my ribs recipe hopper - Son of Grok's rumored-to-be-fabulous primal BBQ sauce.

I Do Love A Bit of Gorgonzola

...in my omelettes, that is!

1. Saute 2-3 tablespoons chopped onions in butter in the omelette pan. Set aside in a bowl along with 1 handful fresh baby spinach (stems removed) and 3 tablespoons gorgonzola.

2. Beat eggs with a fork (I used 6 since my daughter was hounding me to share.). Pour in omelette pan.

3. Sprinkle onions, gorgonzola, and fresh baby spinach on top of cooking eggs.

4. Flip as necessary. Note: I stink at flipping omelettes. That is why mine looks more like an egg cruller. I welcome omelette flipping tutorials.

5. Eat with gusto! (Or whomever else is your dining companion, if Gusto's not free to join you for breakfast.)

Venturing into Omega-3s

I've never been a big fish person, but I'm really trying lately to broaden my horizons with seafood in my menu planning and cooking. Despite the seafood counter at my grocery store always seeming strangely exotic (hey, I'm a daughter of the Midwest, what can I say?), I've been visiting it a lot more often and making friends with the employees there. I'm learning a lot via helpful websites (eHow.com, allrecipes.com, etc.) on how to prepare the fish (scallops, crab legs, etc.), too. God bless the Internet. ('Cause otherwise I'd be relying on...my modest cookbook collection?)

To wit: This past Sunday's grilled salmon (seen below marinating).
Pretty tasty (though I would still take steak over fish almost any day).