Saturday, October 27, 2012
Sweet Potato Chicken Salad: Paleo Version
Last night I made a paleo version of our Tzatziki Chicken Sweet Potato Salad. Instead of the yogurt based-dressing, I used the follow combination:
1/2 c olive oil
2-3 T dijon mustard
1 T lemon juice
salt, pepper, and dried parsley to taste
Depending on how "saucy" you want the salad to be, you might want to double the amount of dressing. It's funny to think that not long ago I hated all types of mustard, but lately I've been adding dijon to a lot of my recipes. I particularly enjoyed the zing the dijon gave to this dish. It was also well received by some fellow CrossFitters! For those of you who are vegetarians, you could leave out the chicken and add 1/2-1 cup of sunflower kernels, or even tofu. Enjoy, and let me know if you try any new variations!
Labels:
chicken,
gluten free,
Main Dish,
paleo,
sweet potatoes
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Paleo Apple Recipes and Things I'm Loving Right Now
Paleo Apple Recipes
When I went apple picking a few weekends ago I knew I would need tons of apples so that I could bake with them! I love eating fresh picked apples, but I like them even more combined with cinnamon in baked apple dishes!
The first recipe I made is a favorite of mine that I created this summer: paleo apple cinnamon muffins. When I make these muffins I have to be careful not to eat the whole
batch because they are that good. Rem
loves the Banana Blueberry Muffins we make, but these apple cinnamon ones are my
favorite! They are super simple to make
and make your house smell heavenly.
The second recipe I made was a new creation inspired by lots of research around the web on grain and refined-sugar free apple crisps. My childhoood favorite had lots of oats, butter, and brown sugar. It was delicious and highly addicting. But I wanted a version that I could feel good about putting into my body, and even eat for breakfast! This was the first time I made this particular apple crisp recipe and
it turned out great! Is it just me, or
is the best part of making apple crisp eating the clumps of topping? Somehow I managed to keep myself from eating
all of the topping this time, but I did eat almost the whole pan of apple crisp. I had to remind Rem to try a bite before it was gone, and I think one bite was all that he got!
Paleo Apple Cinnamon Muffins
1 c unsweetened applesauce
¼ c coconut oil
5 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
½ c coconut flour (I used Bob’s Red Mill Brand)
1 tsp baking soda
2 T cinnamon
1 apple, chopped (with skin on)
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Line muffin pan with 12 muffin liners.
If your coconut oil has become solid, heat it in the microwave with the
applesauce until melted (*don’t melt the oil by itself, because if you add cold
applesauce to it it will harden). Cool
for a few minutes then whisk in the 5 eggs and the vanilla. Sprinkle coconut flour, baking soda, and
cinnamon on top and then stir with a spoon until well combined. Then stir in chopped apple. Let sit for 5 minutes. Spoon batter evenly into 12 muffin cups (I
use a large ¼ c ice cream scoop). Bake
at 400 degrees for 15-18 min or until toothpick comes out clean. As soon as you take the muffins out of the
oven, drizzle a very small amount of honey on top of each muffin
(*optional). Cool in pan for 5 minutes
then remove to a wire rack. Store in refrigerator
for up to 1 week or freezer for up to 1 month.
Paleo Apple Crisp
5 assorted apples (I used Jonathon, Jonagold, and Gala apples)
Lemon juice
Cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger
2 T coconut oil
½ c almond meal
¼ c ground flaxseed
¼ c unsweetened shredded coconut
¼ c slivered almonds
Cinnamon
½ T vanilla
Drizzle honey
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Use
apple, peeler, corer, slicer to core and slice apples, then cut each apple ring
in half OR if you don’t have a peeler, corer, slicer, cut your apples into thin
slices. Toss apple slices with a few
tablespoons of lemon juice, a generous amount of cinnamon, and a few shakes of
nutmeg and ginger. Place apple in 8x8
pan greased with coconut oil. Melt the 2
T coconut oil in a medium bowl, then stir in almond flour, flaxseed, coconut,
almonds, cinnamon, and vanilla. Mix
until combined but still crumbly. Spoon
over apples then drizzle honey over the whole pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 min. I recommend serving this with plain Greek
yogurt!
Things I’m loving right now…
source: http://toucanfoods.com/healthy/2012/01/25/snowville-creamery-%E2%80%9Cbetter-than-organic%E2%80%9D-pasture-grazed-dairy/ |
Snowville Creamery Grass Grazed Milk
Based on a lot of our recent research and our values about the food we
eat, we decided to be more proactive about buying and eating mainly grass fed
beef. In fact, we found a farm that
sells grass fed beef and bought half of a cow!
In the same vein, we decided to start buying milk from grass fed cows. We’ve been trying to find a brand of milk
that is isn’t crazy expensive, and happily discovered that our local Giant
Eagle carries milk from Snowville Creamery, an Ohio farm! Milk from grass fed cows is better for the
cows, for the environment, and for our health.
Visit the Snowville Creamery website to find out more about their
company and the benefits of their grass grazed milk
source: http://www.tuaw.com/2009/09/29/dropbox-the-iphone-app-has-dropped/ |
Dropbox
Dropbox is a free online service that lets you save your files so that
they can be accessed from any computer or mobile device that you use. You set up a “drop box” account, download the
service to your computer and a drop box folder becomes available on your computer. Then you can save any document in the drop box
folder. When you go to use a
computer other than your own, just sign in on dropbox.com and your files are
there ready to be opened! This is
amazing for me as a teacher because I previously found myself sending tons of
e-mails with attachments of the files I needed to print or work on at
school. Now I can just save everything
to drop box and it’s available anywhere!
source: http://willworkforfoodgirl.com/2010/09/08/the-great-peach-crunch-experiment/ |
If You Care muffin liners
These are THE BEST muffins liners ever.
They are coated with silicone so your baked good won’t stick to
them. They are also unbleached and made
from 100% recycled materials, which makes them very environmentally-friendly! I originally found these at Whole Foods, but
after my first box was gone I ordered them from amazon.com. I decided it would be frugal to just order
them in bulk, so I ordered a package with 24 60-count boxes. Yep, that’s 1440 muffin liners. I think I’m set for the next 10 years or so!
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Tzatziki Chicken Sweet Potato Salad
We have a new favorite mid-afternoon/post-workout/whenever
you’re hungry snack at our house - another weekend concoction that ended up
being mighty tasty. We have other sweet
potato salads we like to make (if you still don’t know, we eat LOTS of sweet
potatoes), but this one is refreshingly light with the tzatziki dressing and
big chunks of veggies. Also, the chicken
adds enough protein to make it the perfect, well-rounded snack. When Rem or I take it out of the fridge to
eat, the other one usually sneaks over and steals a couple bites. That’s usually how we tell a recipe is a
keeper.
One tip when you make it: don’t cut the pieces too
small. Just smaller than bite size for
each piece is good, so you can still eat the components together, but can enjoy
each individually too (plus it maintains a nice texture that way).
Tzatziki Chicken Sweet Potato Salad
**Note: this was another one of our throw together recipes,
so all measurements are approximate. We
went with the “that looks like a good amount” method of measuring.
2-3 lbs chicken (we use the frozen chicken thighs from
Trader Joe’s)
4 large (2-3 lbs) sweet potatoes (skin on or skin off, your
choice)
1 large cucumber
1 lb broccoli florets
Dressing:
1/2 c. plain greek yogurt
1/3 c. olive oil
1/4 c. lemon juice
Salt, pepper, and parsley to taste
Bake the chicken until done (will depend on what type of
chicken you use; we just follow the directions on the bag). Chop sweet potatoes and boil until just tender. Dice chicken once it’s done cooking, and
allow sweet potatoes and chicken to cool.
Chop cucumber and broccoli. Combine with cooled chicken and
sweet potatoes. Combine yogurt, olive
oil, and lemon juice with whisk (start with the yogurt, add lemon juice, then
continue to add oil until it reaches dressing-like consistency). Pour dressing onto mixture and season to
taste.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)