carefree highway

I’ve been slacking on this… work’s gotten a little more hectic lately, to the tune of my picking up several extra hours. I’m not complaining though! More money equals more yummy Paleo food. Speaking of which…

Things I have made in the last two days:

- NY Strip Steak - dear GODS this was amazing. I followed Mark’s Daily Apple’s article on How To Cook The Perfect Steak to the letter and it came out perfectly! So juicy, so flavorful, so easy! I used the grill pan I bought at Salvation Army a few days ago for $2, which really added to it. I can’t wait for summer so I can grill for reals!

- Garlic & Bacon Egg Salad from Nom Nom Paleo - For future reference, this can be made in the span of one 45 minute long lunch break, so long as you intend to eat it as you walk back to work. Either way, delish :)

- Indian Butter Chicken - Made this for dinner tonight. It was good, but I definitely need to make it a few more times before I’ll get the spice combination just right. Mine was missing a few things as I didn’t have any garam masala and ended up just throwing in what I had of what Wikipedia listed as the component spices. Also, I always knew that people said fresh ginger root was hot, but I didn’t realize HOW hot until I licked one of my fingers after grating it. Yikes. Regardless, the heat was good with this recipe, I just need to work on the spices and flavor.

- The biggest surprise though was this recipe for braised cabbage (again from Nom Nom Paleo). Who would have ever guessed that I like cabbage? I only picked some up on a whim after my roommate mentioned I’d probably like it, and Giant had half heads on sale. Very good! Mine didn’t look near as pretty as the picture on the recipe (mainly because I only had yellow onions, not red ones) but it certainly tasted good!

I honestly don’t feel like I’ve “gone on a diet” like I did when I tried the South Beach diet. This feels more like I’m learning a new way to eat, and I’m liking what I’ve found so far. I’ve devoured nearly every single Paleo meal I’ve made so far (with a few exceptions) and each has left me saying “om nom nom nom nom…”

What’s been difficult to get over is the guilt that hits me whenever I feel really full. I’ve always associated the feeling with overeating and body image issues. I feel guilty for eating too much, ashamed at not being able to control my portions like everyone said you were supposed to. That’s going to be a tough hurdle to get over, but I think I’ll get there. The fact that I’ve lost weight - my old normal jeans are now slightly big and my previously squeeze-into-them-when-everything-else-is-dirty jeans fit rather nicely now :) - is helping to alleviate that feeling. I think that’s just something that’ll fade with time, I don’t know if it will ever be gone.

Last night I succesfully made my own almond flour! I read through a few articles, including this one, and figured why should I pay $10 for something I could make with $4 worth of almonds and a blender? It was almost comically easy - just dump some almonds into the blender and hit the ice crush button a few times. Honestly, the hardest part of the whole thing was figuring out why my blender wasn’t turning on (turns out I had to reset the actual wall outlet. go figure.) I didn’t have one of those fancy flour sifter things, so I just used my metal mesh colander and in less than ten minutes I had a whole cup of almond flour.

So now that I had my wonderful almond flour, what to do with it? Make fried chicken, of course! I had gotten a big pack of chicken drumsticks at the supermarket for less than $5 in anticipation of making that recipe. It was so simple! The only problem was, the drumsticks I had were gigantic. I don’t think I quite cooked them long enough even though I doubled the time on the recipe. I ate the smaller ones though, and they seemed fine for the most part. The bigger ones I’ll reheat in the oven for a good while. But other than that, they were delish!

After I got done frying the chickens, a good bit of the almond flour & spice mixture was left unused. So I simply added a little bit of the eggs to turn it into a sort of dough, and plopped it into the still hot frying oil just to see how it would turn out. It made a little sort of hush-puppy-biscuit-cake thing. Not sure what to call it, but it was scrumptious!

I think for my next trick I’ll try making hazelnut flour. I picked up some raw hazelnuts to try a while back, and while I wasn’t too keen on their flavor by themselves, I think it’d be good incorporated into a recipe. And I’m also going to try my hand at making cinnamon coconut butter tonight.

I’ve also found quite a few amazing paleo recipes that use pumpkin (which is my favorite ingredient of all time. pumpkin all the things!) but as they also incorporate maple syrup or honey for a sweetener, I’ve decided to wait until after my first 30 days to try them. I found pumpkin ice cream sandwich cookies, pumpkin gingerbread cake, and pumpkin waffles (which excites me the most, as I got a waffle iron for Christmas and I haven’t even used it yet).

Randomly, if anyone’s on Pinterest, I have a board where I put any tasty-sounded Paleo recipes I find (http://pinterest.com/taggianto/paleo/). Honestly, I still really haven’t figured out what pinterest is really for. There’s nothing I can do on there that I can’t do on tumblr or facebook… and it’s just one more thing to update. I’ve mostly been using it as a sort of universal bookmarking location, a place to save recipes and pages when I’m not on my home computer.  I guess that’s what it’s for? Either way, there are some yummy things on there.

Been a few days since I posted, life gets carried away like that sometimes. Exciting things that have happened since my last update:

- Found out I’ve lost a little more than 5 lbs since I started Paleo. Huzzah! This is the first significant weight loss I’ve had in a long time. I’ve fluxuated back and forth about 10lbs since I graduated college (where I put on most of my weight. Curse you, cafeteria food!), but this is the first time I’ve dipped below that.

- Made stir-fried beef with some organic, gluten-free soy sauce I found. Wasn’t too impressed. The broccoli was of the frozen, steam-in-a-bag variety (which I didn’t realize when I got it or else I wouldn’t have picked it up) and it didn’t really cook all that well. I added a bit too much soy sauce and it was a little tart for my taste. Oh well, live and learn!

- Got the food processor from my aunt mailed to me by my parents (THANKS GUYS!) and successfully created mashed cauliflower for lunch yesterday. I only set fire to one towel in the process!

- Unsuccessfully tried to make Paleo mayonaise in said food processor and ended up with very expensive egg-yolk-and-coconut-oil-slop. When it says to add the oil slowly, it means SLLLOOOOWWWWLLLYYYYYY.

- Successfully created Paleo mayonaise on my second try. Note to self: do not add as much lemon as is called for in the recipe. Not a fan of lemon.

- Made spicy salmon salad on cucumber rounds for dinner last night. I drew inspiration from this recipe, but I simplified it quite a bit. Basically, I just used canned salmon with a little paleo mayo, celery and a cajun spice mix I have and piled it onto cucumber slices (like they were crackers). A myriad of ingredients I’ve never tried, but they came together really nicely! The cucumber kind of overpowered the spicy fish taste though, so I’ll either slice them thinner next time or add more spices. This’d be good with any fish, really.

So overall, it’s going really well. I just have to keep finding ways to add in more veggies to my diet, I fear it’s a little too meat/fat heavy. Unfortunately, with the way my work schedule has been, I haven’t been able to get back to central market. And when I go to the supermarket I’m afraid to pick up too many veggies because I don’t want them to go bad and just turn into wasted money. I suppose this is all part of the learning process when switching diets like this.

That was the single most delectable thing I’ve eaten since switching to the Paleo diet, and in all honesty, for some time before switching as well. 

I set out to make Bison burgers with the ground bison meat I found at Giant the other day (and immediately grabbed with joy because bison meat is incredible). I checked out a bunch of different Paleo burger recipes just to get a general gist of how to make them, took some ideas from each and ran with it. Not all the quantities were exact, I didn’t measure everything out. Plus, everyone has different heat tolerances… if I’ve learned anything this week, it’s to go with your gut when cooking. If it seems like a recipe calls for too much cayenne or pepper or anything, then cut it back. What I ended up with were more like Bison Meatcakes than burgers, because I didn’t really flatten them down enough before I started to cook them and they just puffed up more as they cooked. But I digress. Here’s the approximate recipe I followed, posted for posterity. 

Amazing Bison Meatcakes (or Burgers)

1 lb Ground Bison meat
2-3 large Garlic cloves, chopped
1 medium sized Shallot, chopped
Some chopped green bell peppers (to taste - they don’t really cook down too much, so they give it a bit of a crunch. I liked it, you might not.)
1 egg, lightly scrambled
1T Butter (optional)

Seasonings (add as much or as little as you like, I added roughly 1/2t of each)
- Paprika
- Crushed red pepper
- Cracked black pepper
- Onion powder
- Chili powder
- Sea salt 

Put everything except the butter in a large mixing bowl and combine the ingredients (use your hands like a true caveman/cavewoman!) and then divide into patties. In a large frying pan (that has a lid), melt the butter if you’d like - once I started cooking these I found I probably didn’t really need the butter, as the meat made plenty of juices on its own. But it did make them taste good :)

On medium heat, place the patties in the pan and cover with a lid - this helps to keep all the moisture in the meat and not in your kitchen’s air. IMPORTANT: Don’t do that thing that all fast-food workers do and smash your burger down into the pan with your spatula. This releases all the delicious juices from the patties and makes them dry and dull. Resist the squish!

Cook the patties until they reach your desired done-ness. I let mine go a little too long, but like I said, they were rather thick and I didn’t want to risk under cooking them. Serve with your desired toppings and enjoy!

Optional: Before you remove the patties from the pan, but after you’ve turned off the heat, top with cheese (I used Cabot Seriously Sharp cheddar, naturally lactose free!) and replace the lid until it melts.

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Most Paleo burger recipes called for the patties to be placed on either large lettuce leaves or mushroom caps. As I didn’t have any lettuce and mushrooms are a culinary area I’ve not yet gotten the courage to venture into, I just ate mine with a knife and fork. Divine!