Awesome Breakfast!

One of the best parts of introducing people to the paleo lifestyle is the excited look on their faces when they bring in their first great recipe to share.  This post is inspired by a practice member sharing their favorite breakfast recipe, I won't list their name in the post but if you're out there reading this feel free to comment below and take credit!  (this is NOT a recipe to have DAILY but rather an occasional treat, apples have lots of sugar, something we should limit in our diet to minimize insulin spiking)

Apple Cinnamon Breakfast Cake

Yield 6-8 Servings

Ingredients

4 Cups Organic Apples (2 extra-large apples)

1/2 Cup Water

1 Tbsp Cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla

2 Tbsp Coconut Oil or Pastured Butter

9 Eggs

1/2 tsp Cinnamon**

3 Tbsp Coconut Milk

1 1/2 Tbsp Coconut Flour (DO NOT SUBSTITUTE ANY OTHER FLOUR)

1/4 tsp baking soda

pinch of salt

**this is not a typo, you will need an additional 1/2 tsp of cinnamon

Instructions

1.  Preheat oven to 350*F

2.  Core and chop apples into 1/2" pieces (no need to peel them)

3.  Heat a skillet over medium-high heat, place apples, water, vanilla, and cinnamon.  Heat until the mixture is the consistency of a chunky applesauce (about 10 minutes)

4.  Add Coconut oil to the mixture, allow mixture to cool for at least 10 minutes

5.  In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs coconut milk, coconut flour, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, baking soda and salt until well combined.

6.  Pour egg mixture into apple mixture, mix well

7.  Pour egg and apple mixture into a well greased 8" x 8" baking pan (grease with coconut oil)

8.  Bake 50 minutes at 350*F or until finished

9.  Enjoy!!

This recipe is adapted from www.primallyinspired.com

Baking the Perfect Steak

If you're like me, one of your favorite foods is steak, and nothing beats a nice steak grilled over charcoal on a hot summer night.  Unfortunately for those of us living in Central New York summer is still a wet cold winter/spring away, and  firing up the grill is not so appealing in this cold wet weather.  It looks like our perfect steak will have to wait until late March, sorry for getting you all worked up (kidding).

In my pursuit of the perfect "winter" steak I came across a simple cooking method that provides the closest thing to that char grilled perfection.  All you'll need for this recipe is a good steak (T-bone, Ribeye, London Broil, etc) salt, pepper, your favorite rub, the oven and a meat thermometer.  If you don't have one, buy a good meat thermometer, like this one on amazon.com it will vastly improve your meat cooking skills.

Ingredients

1 Grass Fed Steak (Ribeye, T-bone, Cowboy, London Broil)

Meat Rub of Choice

Salt

Pepper

Instructions

1.  The night before you plan on cooking the steak, sprinkle with salt and pepper, place in a container and refrigerate.

2. Remove the steak from the refridgerator 1 hour prior to cooking, allow the meat to reach room temperature.

3.  Pre-heat your oven to 250*F.

4.  Place your meat thermometer in the thickest part of your meat, NOT near the bone.  Place the steak on a wire rack, situate this rack on a cookie sheet to catch the drippings.

5.  Put your steak in the oven, checking every 15 minutes or so until the internal temperature reaches 132*F for medium-rare, 140*F for medium.

6.  Remove your steak, turn your oven's broiler on and allow it to heat up for a few minutes.

7.  Place your steak in the oven on a rack 5-6 inches from the top, after 2 minutes flip your steak allow it to cook 2 minutes longer and remove.

8.  LET YOUR STEAK REST 5-10 MINUTES!

9.  Enjoy!!

Be sure to share your experience below!

Slow Cooker Pork Roast

Back with another quick and easy dinner solution!  

This recipe is incredibly easy and takes less than 10 minutes to prep in the morning before work, combine the roast with an artichoke and baby arugula salad for an amazing meal.

Italian Slow Cooker Pork Roast

Prep:  10 minutes

Cooking time:  8-12 hours

Ingredients

3-4 lb Bone in Pork Roast (Boston Butt, or Bonless Roast will work as well)

3-4 Garlic Cloves

1-2 Tbsp Italian Seasoning

1-2 tsp Sea Salt

Instructions

1.  Peel your garlic cloves, cut each one into 3 "slivers".

2.  Using a small knife cut 9 small "pockets" approximately 1/2" deep in the bottom side of your pork roast, try to space them evenly.   (just press the tip of the knife into the roast about 1/2" and turn 180 degrees)

3.  Place 1 "sliver" of garlic in each of the 9 pockets.

4.  Combine the Italian seasoning and sea salt in a small dish, lovingly rub this mixture to cover your roast.

5.  Place the roast in your crockpot on low for 8-12 hours, NO LIQUID NECESSARY!

6.  Remove from the crockpot, pair with a salad and enjoy!!

Don't forget to let us know what you think about your roast in the comment section below!

Whats for breakfast?

"Okay so I am eating paleo now, how do I replace my greek yogurt and granola I had every day for breakfast? I mean what can I eat that won't take 20 minutes to make every morning?!?"

I get this question pretty frequently, instead of answering it 12 times a day, I figured I'd post a few recipes over the next few days.  

Before we start making breakfast, don't forget last night's leftovers, its not as cool as "Brinner" (breakfast foods for dinner) but "Dreakfast" (dinner foods for breakfast) is always an option.  In our house we rarely cook a meal without making extra portions.  Lots of extra portions.

This first recipe is super easy, takes very little time or effort and yields an amazing concoction of eggy-bacony heaven.  There are plenty of variations on this recipe, my favorite is bacon, peppers, and cooked onion with a little cayenne pepper scrambled into the egg mixture.

Scrambled Egg Muffins

Yield:  8 Muffins (2 muffins is one serving)

Time:  Around 30 minutes

Ingredients:

coconut oil or paper muffin liners

8 eggs

1/8 cup water

1/2 lb bacon, chicken, ham, or sausage, cooked and cut or crumbled into small pieces

2 cups diced vegetables (1 red bell pepper, 1/4 lb asparagus or broccoli and 1/2 yellow onion recommended, but use whatever is on hand)

1/4 tsp salt

1/8 tsp ground pepper

Instructions:

1.   Preheat oven to 350℉.

2.  Grease muffin cups with coconut oil or line with paper baking cups. (Fill any remaining muffin cups with 1" of water, so they do not scorch while baking.)

3.  Beat the eggs in a medium bowl, if you'd like to add spices to your eggs, do it!

4.  Pour your scrambled eggs into the muffin cups, fill them about 3/4 of the way full.

5  Add desired COOKED meat, vegetables, salt, ground pepper, and any other ingredients you wish to your muffin cups.

6.  Bake for 18-20 minutes.

"The Un-Diet: Eating for the Health of it"

Thank you to everyone who joined us last night at The Beer Belly Deli for our dinner presentation, "The Un-Diet:  Eating for the Health of it".  It was really inspiring to see all of you join together in the pursuit of greater health and wellness!  Steph and I truly enjoyed our paleo night out, great people, great food, and hopefully some inspiration to start eating for optimal health.

  I'm working on a post with helpful paleo links, look for it next week, until then here are a few of the recipes featured last night.

Southwest Turkey Sliders over Spicy Avocado Slaw 

(the sliders were served over Beer Belly Deli's beet and carrot slaw, I'm working on getting that recipe to post later)

Prep time:  15 mins Cook time:  10 mins Total time:  25 mins

Serves: 4

 

Ingredients

For the burgers

1lb ground turkey

1/2 red onion, diced

1/2 poblano pepper, diced

1/2red bell pepper, diced

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper

salt and pepper, to taste

1 tablespoon fat (I used bacon fat)

For the slaw

1 small head of cabbage or bag of cabbage, chopped

2 avocados

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 teaspoon lime juice

1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper

salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions

1.  First make your burgers

2.  Add all your ingredients for your burgers in a large bowl.

3.  Shape small burger patties.

4.  Heat up a large skillet under medium heat with a bit of fat in it (mmmm bacon fat) and add your sliders. 

5.  Flip after about 3-5 minutes or when you see the sides of your sliders begin to turn a white color (meaning they are cooking through).

6.  Now make your slaw.  Pull out your handy dandy food processor, add all your ingredients for the slaw other than the cabbage and pulse until smooth.

7.  Pour your avocado “mayo” on the cabbage and mix. Salt and pepper to taste.

8.  Place your cabbage on a plate and top off with your sliders

9.  Consume!

Thai steak salad

4 oz of steak per serving (Sirloin works well)

1 bag of salad greens

1 cucumber, chopped

1/2 cup shredded carrot

1 large tomato, seeded and thinly sliced

1 bunch cilantro, stemmed and chopped

1 bunch green onion, chopped

1/2 purple onion, thinly sliced

1/3 cup olive oil

4 garlic cloves, crushed

several limes, juiced

zest of 1 lime

1/3 cup olive oil

1tsp soy sauce (or fish sauce)

sweet chili paste (trader joe's or supermarket)

Instructions:

1.  In the morning, in a big baggie, marinate the steak in the olive oil, 3 crushed garlic cloves, 1 tsp sweet chili paste, lime zest and the juice of a lime.  Allow to marinate all day

2.  When you are ready to start dinner, throw the bag of meat in the freezer for about 10 minutes. This firms up the meat and makes it easier to slice really thin. While you are waiting on the meat, slice up your onions, chop the cilantro, slice the tomato. 

3.  Take the meat out of the freezer and with an extremely sharp knife, slice it very thin. Heat a pan with a little coconut oil and stir-fry the beef. Remove the beef from the heat when cooked and let it cool. 

4.  Place all salad ingredients and meat in a large bowl.

5.  Mix 1/3 cup olive oil, 1/3 cup lime juice, 1Tbsp soy sauce (or fish sauce), 1 crushed garlic clove and 1tsp sweet chili paste for the dressing. Poor over the salad and toss to coat. 

6.  If you like it spicy add some red pepper flakes to your dressing

Breaking out of the Zoo

Imagine for a moment you are a Zookeeper (its okay if the animals at your zoo talk to you, we won't judge), you have one job--keep the animals healthy and happy.  Okay just move the animals out of their habitat, put them all in a cage and feed them corn, right?  

Not likely...Pandas get pissed when they can't get their bamboo fix, and we all know pandas have skills.  Not to mention corn is well... lets save that topic for another post, for today lets just say corn has no place in the breakfast of champions or pandas.

All kidding aside, to ensure the animals live a happy, healthy life you would do your best to reproduce the environment in which the animals evolved.  You would give birds space to fly, monkeys trees to climb, and of course your pandas need their bamboo.  Animals living in the wild are healthier, often live longer and rarely become ill.  The same principle holds true to humans, to be healthy and happy we need to move, eat and live in ways that resemble the humans of the wild.

So what is the "natural habitat" of humans?  For most of human history, we have functioned as hunter-gatherers in the wild.  Not only did our ancestors survive... they THRIVED! 

From the Arctic to the tropical rain forests, deserts and mountains to grassy plains, humans adapted to living in the most extreme environments.  An ever increasing amount of evidence is proving our hunter-gatherer ancestors were taller, stronger, and healthier than we had previously believed.  Sure life expectancy was lower for our ancestors due to trauma, violence and infection-- most hunter-gatherers lived a life free of chronic disease and obesity.  All of this WITHOUT domesticated plants or animals-- just communication, teamwork, and some human ingenuity.

Fast forward to 10-15 thousand years ago, the Agricultural Revolution;  humans began to tame the wild, domesticating wild grains into what we know today as wheat, corn and rice.  Wild animals were bred and kept at pasture for their milk and meat, humans were exposed to new foods they had not evolved to eat.  These "advances" allowed for human kind to settle into more permanent dwellings, civilization was flourishing, while individual health was negatively affected.  "Diseases of Civilization" like cancer, heart disease,  diabetes, and obesity began to occur frequently, those same diseases avoided by our hunter-gatherer ancestors.

If it's so easy a caveman could do it.. why can't we?


Short answer--we can, by eating a diet more like that of our not so distant ancestors (you don't have to ditch your fork and knife).  Okay makes sense, I'll do that, but wait what did our hunter-gatherer ancestors eat? Well thankfully some wicked smart kids up at Harvard dedicated the time to figuring this stuff out (okay I am sure they are not all from Harvard but some of them had to be).  Turns out hunter-gatherers ate only what can be hunted or gathered (d'uh) meat, veggies, nuts, berries, and some fruit.


If you have any questions about how to eat more like a hunter-gatherer, or would like more information on how to get started don't hesitate to email me or comment below.