Month: March 2013

30 Day Paleo Challenge: Day 1

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Today is Day 1 of the 30 Day Paleo Challenge!

30daypaleochallenge

I’m psyched.  I’m sure my family, friends, co-workers, twitter followers, etc. are tired of hearing about it already, but I’m into it.

This morning I felt a little unprepared to begin the challenge.  Not because I wanted a hamburger, but this morning after I made my green smoothie and paleo pancake for breakfast…

paleobreakfast

I realized I was out of vegetables.  I put away an entire bag of Costco spinach by myself in less than a week.

Womp. But I made due with what I had.

day1lunch

Last night I cooked some ground turkey with onions and peppers.  Today I mixed it with frozen peas and carrots then topped it with avocado (ended up eating 1/4).  For a filling, paleo-friendly lunch.  I also had a carrot and some strawberries.  I packed some cuties in case I got hungry, but I only had 1 (wasn’t even hungry just wanted something sweet).

Looking at my lunch, it reminded me of when I was in grad school and I was too busy to cook and too cheap to buy lunch so I would pack a clif bar, a carrot and an apple and call it a day.

Today was slightly different.  My lunch today was definitely more filling.

Around 6pm, I thought it’d be a good idea to get dinner started.  If there’s one thing I’m realizing it’s that this paleo challenge is going to make me have an actual dinner.  Ordinarily, I’m used to just sort of having snacks for dinner (i.e. tortillas with beans and cheese, or random bites of left overs with a handful of chocolate chips… not my finer moments).

So today I decided to keep up with the use-what-you-have trend.  Over the weekend, since I baked a million pies (or 3), I had 5 egg whites that needed to get used.  So dinner was themed around that…

dinner

Scrambled Egg Whites with Peppers and Onions and Spicy Sweet Potato “Home Fries”

Now these home fries aren’t really home fries.  They’re just super quick sweet potatoes that I think are tasty.

What You’ll Need to serve 1-3 people:

  • 1 large sweet potato
  • 1/4 onion
  • 1 mini sweet pepper or 1/4 red/yellow bell pepper
  • Salt, Pepper, Cumin, Chili Powder, Paprika, Cayenne

Step 1: Microwave sweet potato until cooked (depending on size 5 mins ish? I think mine took 6 minutes)
Step 2: Chop some onions and peppers and add to a pan with a bit of oil.
Step 3: Chop the sweet potato into chunks and add to the pan with some salt, pepper, cumin, chili powder, paprika and cayenne (all to taste).
Step 4: Turn up the heat, once the sweet potatoes are browned and sort of crisp, serve with your scrambled egg whites!

spicysweetpotato

Ta-da! Dinner!  I ended up topping it with the 1/4 of the avocado that I didn’t eat earlier.  Pretty tasty.

I won’t lie.  I really wanted to add ketchup to this mix, but alas, not paleo friendly.  Also this was a HUGE meal.  5 egg whites is a lot of egg.  Just saying.

How about you?  Did you make dinner tonight?  What’d you make?

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Pies before Paleo

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This weekend consisted of lots of eating.  I’m definitely ready to start the paleo challenge tomorrow.  I feel like my body needs a cleanse.

Friday night, as I had mentioned, I went to Newport Landing for OC Restaurant Week.

I had Manhattan Clam Chowder, Potato Wrapped Salmon, and Molten Chocolate Cake.  Tasty!

Then Saturday night, there was another birthday dinner at an Argentine restaurant in San Diego called Puerto La Boca.  Jesse and I headed down to San Diego a bit early.  We sat at the bar and had a drink ($3 wine!) while we waited for everyone to arrive.

IMG_1075

By the time dinner happened (about 9pm?), we were starving.  Empanadas, Bread with Chimichurri, Meat, Salad, French Fries.  All tasty (and garlic-y like woah).

Then today, a co-worker is having an engagement party.  I offered to bring pies.

He requested Avocado Pie (because he loved it last time)

avocadopie

A Banana Cream Pie using this recipe from Epicurious.

bananacreampie

And Chocolate Mousse  (I’m totally NOT happy with how this one looks.  Womp.  But hopefully it will taste awesome!)

chocolatemoussepie

This is by no means a normal weekend, so I definitely feel ready to eat normal food.

How about you?  Ready for the Paleo Challenge?

30daypaleochallenge

I’m totally pumped!  I keep talking about it.  I think my boyfriend is already annoyed.

Pretty soon I’ll turn into one of those people…


 

“Is this Paleo?”

30 Day Paleo Challenge: The Countdown and a Paleo Pancake

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It’s Friday!!!

The challenge officially starts on Monday

30daypaleochallenge

But the last few days I’ve been easing into it.

Breakfast was full paleo this morning.

paleobreakfast

Green Smoothie + Paleo Pancake+ Almond Butter + Coffee

Let’s talk about the Paleo Pancake.

paleopancake

I discovered this on Carrots N Cake a while back and have been eating it for a few months.  I’ve seen it around the web as well, but I finally found the combo (and method!) that I think is the tastiest.

Paleo Pancake

3/4 of a banana large banana (or 1 small)*
1 egg
splash of vanilla extract

Slice the banana and put it in the magic bullet cup.  Crack the egg in there as well.  Add the vanilla.  Blend until smooth.  Alternatively you can mash the banana and just mix it in a bowl, but I found that the magic bullet really made it smoother and tastier.

Heat a small skillet (sprayed with a bit of cooking spray) over medium heat.  Add the batter and turn the flame to low, cover with lid.  Cook about 3-4 minutes until you shake it and it no longer giggles (it takes a bit of time).  Flip and cook for an additional minute or two.  Turn onto a plate and slather with almond butter!  Delish!

*the other 1/4 of your banana can just be sliced on top or used in a green smoothie!  I found that if you put too much banana then your banana to egg ratio is off and the pancake breaks.  I’ve also tried with 2 eggs and that just tastes too eggy to me, but try it if you’d like!

I used to think my Magic Bullet was totally useless, but now I’m finding new uses for it!

Also I should note… Please please please don’t expect this to taste like a regular pancake.  That’s just impossible.  But it is tasty and definitely worth a try!  Not to mention that it kept me full for a really long time.

For lunch, I packed some spinach salad with peppers, pickles and avocado, left over rotisserie chicken, and cuties.

paleolunch

There were food trucks parked outside my office building

But I passed that up, not only in anticipation of the Paleo Challenge but because…

For dinner, I’m headed out.  I semi-feel like I’m going out of mainstream eating with a bang.  This week is OC Restaurant week.  So I’m going to dinner to celebrate some friends’ birthdays at Newport Landing.

Surprisingly the thing I’m looking forward to is NOT dessert!  This Potato Wrapped Atlantic Salmon sounds aaaa-mazing.

What’s on your agenda for the night?