Eat: Roasted Beet Hummus

If you like beets at all, even just a little bit, you have to try this Roasted Beet Hummus recipe from The Primalist.  This recipe has garnered rave reviews.  Ever since I shared the recipe with some friends, the rave reviews are nonstop.  You can even boil the beets if you don’t want to go through an hour of roasting the beets.  My only thought now is trying this with golden beets.

Had I known about this recipe over the winter when I was suffering from beet overload, I might have been on better terms with beets during the late winter and early spring.  No matter, this recipe is for the save and use over and over again file.

Go try it:

Roasted Beet Hummus Recipe by The Primalist

 

PS If you have a food processor, save yourself some grief and use that.  If you don’t, I hope you don’t end up fighting with your blender like I did.  After fighting with my blender, a Vitamix is on my wishlist.

Eat: Zingy Dressing

Last week, I was on the phone with one of my best friends (I realize that makes no sense, since best implies one, but just go with it, okay?) and she asked me if I had any ideas for zucchini.  Of course my favorite way to eat zucchini popped into mind and I sent her Health Bent‘s Paleo Pad Thai.  In return, she sent me a dressing recipe.

Now, you must know, I hate dressing.  It’s seems like a lot of work and extra calories.  (I’m not one of those skinny minnies for the record…just trying to justify my laziness when it comes to making dressing.)  Plus, why eat salad if you have drench it in dressing to make it edible.  That just boggles my mind.

Rants aside, this dressing recipe changed my mind.  The recipe is for a full salad, but you know me, I barely follow the rules.  Given that I didn’t have some of the ingredients and I don’t eat peanuts, I made a bunch of substitutions.  So below is my version of the recipe.

Zingy Dressing

inspired by Food 52’s Lacinato Kale and Mint Salad with Peanut Dressing

• 3 Tablespoons Almond Butter (I used Justin’s Maple Almond Butter)
• 3 Tablespoons room temperature water
• 3 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 1 Tablespoon honey (this is my friend’s substitution and optional)
• 1 Tablespoon wheat free Tamari
• 1-2 cloves of smashed/minced garlic
• 1-2 Tablespoons of fresh minced ginger (peel first please)
• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• pinch of cayenne pepper (optional)

Mix all the ingredients together and pour over your salad of choice.

My version was actually a bit of an accident because I read the original recipe wrong.  So you’ll see a lot more ginger and garlic in my version.  I’ve also forgotten to put the honey in and it’s a lot more zingy.  In fact my sister and I prefer the honey free version.  We get enough sweetness from the maple part of the almond butter that we have.  Finally, I have a tendency to just approximate and throw together what I remember from memory.  Tastes good every time.

Final note, I think that blitzing all the ingredients together in a blender would make the dressing extra creamy.  I haven’t tried this one yet, but there is a thought for you. (Edit: The original instructions say to make the dressing in a blender…I did not read carefully the first time around…so, not such an original idea.)

I love that this dressing is all sorts of good ingredients thrown together in a tasty drizzle worthy dressing.

Enjoy!

Eat: Green Smoothie

I don’t know when the last time I wrote a blog post was.  It’s been a while.  A good long while.  In that span of a while, a lot of things have happened, but nothing productive that I wanted to happen really happened.  Life has been chaotic and I feel like I’ve been dragged around by life rather than my being in control of my life.  I suppose we’re not always in control, but I feel better when I think I’m in control of what’s going on.

Stress has a way of making me lose my appetite.  Food hasn’t been all that appealing and I’ve definitely gone to sleep a few nights this past week without eating dinner.  Tonight, my solution to this problem was to make a green smoothie.  I was inspired by this recipe: Ginger and Spinach Green Smoothie.  Check out the link for beautiful photos of a what sounds like a very tasty green smoothie.  I didn’t take any photos of mine.

I made some changes to the inspiration recipe and this is what I came up with:

Funny Eater Green Smoothie

Arugula, a handful

Spinach, two fistfuls

Fresh ginger root, about two inches long, peeled and chopped

Coconut milk, about 2 cups

Chia seeds, a few tablespoons

Frozen mango chunks, a few large chunks

**Dump everything into a blender and blend until smooth.**

As you can see, there aren’t any exact measurements.  I tend to use whatever I have on hand when cooking.  I prefer not to buy more ingredients when I don’t have to.  My farm share started a little over a week ago, so the arugula and spinach were fresh from the farm and oh so tasty.  I had some left over mango chunks in the freezer and this seemed like a good time to use them.  I liked that the mango evened out the green flavor without eliminating the peppery spiciness of the arugula and the zing of the ginger.

I’m usually not a fan of drinking my calories, but right now I need to get some calories in at dinner time and this seems like a good way to do it.  So, mission accomplished.

What kind of fresh smoothies do you like to make at home?

 

 

en papillote

**cross posted to Funny Eater**

I have been wanting to try this whole “en papillote” cooking thing for a really long time now.  I saw it on TV when the great Jacques Pepin was cooking (on PBS).  He did some really cool geometric things with the parchment paper…yeah not me.  Then, I saw it in a magazine as a recipe to impress.  When I saw it on Health Bent, I had to do it.

The only thing I really followed from the Health Bent recipe was the oven temp.  I dialed the time down to about 10 minutes because I was using our fantastic convection toaster oven and it was a small piece of fish.  Instead of spring onions (sadly, I ran out and have to wait until market on Thursday to get more), I put in chopped sweet vidalia onion, sliced local garlic that we bought yesterday, and some fresh basil leaves.  I did my usual coating of olive oil with some himalayan salt and fresh ground black pepper on top.

The final result is a tasty fish done in 10 minutes.  Awesome.  (In fact it’s so awesome, the dog is begging for some.)

Try it out.  It’s easy and it makes you feel fancy.

 

All the Tasty Things

So much tastiness going on here lately.  I admit, I was in a funk before, but no longer.  I think it’s all that going to the farmer’s market stuff.  I also have some thoughts on sleep and a new app that I’m trying out with my phone.  More on that in a different post.

I mentioned in previous posts that I am not good at cooking meat.  I feel like I have to learn how to cook all over again.  I always left the meat cooking to other people.  The most that I’ve done is cook some salmon and cook shrimp.  Even with those, I find myself at a loss for how to cook them well.  Enter the lovely convection toaster oven that my parents have, some himalayan salt, and fresh ground black pepper.  Salmon and shrimp are done in less than 15 minutes and 10 minutes, respectively.  I’m convinced it’s the himalayan salt that makes everything so tasty.  I use almost no salt when I cook, so I think that salt here helps me get the salt that I need.

Check it out…salmon…

And shrimp!

Looks tasty, huh?  So how can you get yourself some of this tastiness?  Simple, follow these directions:

1. Get some fish or seafood of choice.  Frozen is fine.
2. If frozen, make sure you defrost item of choice in fridge overnight.
3. Rinse and pat dry the fish or seafood
4. Place on aluminum foil.
5. Drizzle olive oil over fish or seafood.  Make sure that each piece is well coated.  I use my hands to make sure that every piece is coated all over with oil.  Don’t be shy about how much olive oil you use.
6. Arrange on the foil on the baking sheet.
7. Sprinkle some Himalayan salt and fresh ground black pepper over all the pieces. 
8. Cook at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 15 minutes for fish and about 10 minutes for smaller seafood.  (I used a convection toaster oven, so you should keep an eye on your food to figure out the optimal cooking time in your kitchen.)
9. EAT!  Yum.

I have been trying to amp up the color in the vegetables we eat since I’m trying to phase out those pesky bell and sweet peppers from our diet.  Honestly, taking out nightshades really makes adding color to meals a lot more challenging.  Most of our most frequent vegetables fall into the nightshade category.  How annoying.

On the bright side, you can get creative and make this:

This is zucchini, sunburst (or pattypan) squash, and spring onion sauteed together.  So tasty.  I like to put the spring onion in first with some olive oil and then add the squash and cook until just cooked.  I like to have some crunch when it’s done.  Plus, this saves well in the fridge for later if you make a lot.  I just had some cold for lunch.

Okay, Farmer’s Market update to come a little later on.

Lunch Today

Better post this quick before it becomes “lunch yesterday.”

Seafood Medley

I couldn’t find any good protein sources, so I poked through the freezer and found a bag of mixed seafood, some frozen scallops, and some frozen shrimp.  Toss them in with a big splash of olive oil and a bunch of chopped up in season veggies from the Farmer’s Market and you get this loveliness for lunch in a matter of minutes.

Yum!

For the record, all the vegetables were waiting in the fridge in a washed state.  We’ve been making it a habit to wash all our produce when we get home from the farmer’s market.  It keeps dirt out of the fridge and it makes it easier to cook throughout the week.  I usually find myself reluctant to cook because I hate washing veggies and having to chop them.  Having at least half (sometimes more if I pre-chop my veggies) the prep work done means I don’t groan when it’s time to cook.  🙂

Time to sleep.  Send good vibes my way – tomorrow is going to be a long day and I need all the luck and good vibes that I can get.  Thanks in advance.  🙂

Sweet dreams!

Paleo Primal Lunch

*Note: this is a reposting/cross-posting of my original post (with a few modifications) at my food blog Funny Eater*

A Paleo/Primal Lunch:

Some chicken off a rotisserie chicken with chopped sweet vidalia onions, escarole, and colorful bell peppers.  I threw some toasted almonds on top for some crunch and flavor, but it’s good with or without nuts.

Left over bell peppers got chopped up and went into the fridge for later.