Paleo Mocktail

I love eating Paleo. That's not a surprise. I feel great, and my body just works better when I'm not putting junk in it. The funny thing is, though, I don't really find myself missing bags of BBQ potato chips, my coveted Canadian Oreos (yes, they are different than American Oreos, so don't even try to convince me otherwise), or sugary sodas. The one thing I do really miss? Pouring a nice glass of red wine to sip on while I cook dinner. Or a nice cool beer with some grilled chicken on a Saturday night. I never drank a whole lot before I went Paleo, but I sure do miss it now! So what to do with all those beautiful champagne and martini glasses now that I'm steering clear of booze? Paleo mocktails! Now, I realize that "paleo-fying" things is sort of a no-no, especially if you're doing Whole30, but I don't consider the occasional little indulgence to be too off the mark!

Paleo Pomegranate Mocktails

POM Pomegranate Juice (a splurge in the produce section, but you don't use much for this recipe!)

Fresh limes

Club soda

In a standard size martini glass, add about an ounce of Pomegranate juice into the martini glass (I keep mine chilled in the fridge). Grab a fresh-cut wedge of lime, and squeeze it in. Top off the glass to the brim with club soda, toss the lime wedge in for garnish, and enjoy! 

The pomegranate juice adds a nice tangy flavor, and the club soda gives it some fizz! The lime adds just the right touch of citrusy flavor. It might not be a Cosmopolitan, but it sure tastes delightful, and it feels so decadent to sip it from a fancy martini glass. 

Bottoms up!

Paleo Kitchen

I am a nosy person. That doesn't sound quite right. OK, I'm a curious person, especially when it comes to people's houses. I just think it's sort of fascinating to see how people personalize their spaces. I'm the crazy person who drives by a pretty house, notices a "For Sale" sign on the outside, and immediately does a Google search on the address to check out and see what the inside looks like. 

Anyway, I thought you as readers might enjoy a little peek into my kitchen. Apart from the 8 hours per night that I spend in bed, the kitchen comes in a close second for the amount of time I spend in there. I'm super thankful that a year ago February, Kevin and I undertook a full renovation of our kitchen - it's definitely made it one of my favorite spots in the house!

EAT! As if I need to be told. Took some time taking pictures today
while a pot of butter simmered on the stove, well on its way to becoming a
fresh batch of ghee.

I love the light in the kitchen - in the morning everything is all
shadowy and mellow.

It took a while, but I believe my current setup is the best yet. My hefty bamboo cutting board sits in front of my cookbook stand. I have a little basket (to the left of my copy of Well Fed 2) that holds my Red Boat fish sauce, and my hot sauce, as well as the little grinders I have for fresh black pepper and Himalayan salt. Don't let your eyes fool you - that plant is 100% fake. Close at hand I keep a canister of almonds (perfect to add to any meal for a boost of good fats), my compost container, the knife block, and my favorite mug (in case the mood strikes for a cup of coffee or tea)

Even though there's not much room in my current diet for alcohol, I do enjoy the occasional glass of wine. In the mean time, though, I love a good Paleo-friendly 'mocktail' (recipe to come soon!). I like the look of all our glasses all neatly lined up, and always keep a canister of cute paper straws on hand to dress up a boring glass of water or LaCroix. 

A peek inside my fridge! Every week when I grocery shop, the first thing I do is come home and clean the fridge out. This involves taking almost everything out, wiping down the shelves with a natural cleaner. Then I load in the goodies, making sure to put any leftover produce from last week at the front (so it gets used first). My fridge layout is pretty standard - the bottom drawers are for produce - peppers, zucchini, cucumbers, carrots, herbs, onions, and scallions this week. The bottom shelf is for raw meats. I found an awesome pork roast at the store today, and picked up a whole chicken (since we embraced brining, our chicken intake has gone up a lot - it's just so tasty!). Off to the right is a pot that has some whole chicken breasts brining to be grilled for lunches this week. I buy the kind with the skin still on, and the bones still on. You get WAY more meat for a way better price! The Deli drawer is full of bacon, lard, Polish kielbasa, hard salami, and some nice prosciutto that I bought for a treat. The top two shelves are full of LaCroix (just sparkling water - no sweeteners or sodium), pickles & olives (two of my favorite things to add to meals), and odds and ends. This week I made a double batch of Paleo mayo, and used it for a double batch of Well Fed 2's remoulade dip. This stuff is good on everything from eggs, to dipping chicken, to veggies. I try to have some on hand at all times, and usually have a few teeny tupperware containers to grab on the way to work. 

So that's my kitchen! I thought it might be something that non-Paleo eaters would be curious about. I have to say, eating Paleo has made my kitchen so much more organized. Since I shop once a week, the fridge is full on Mondays, and by the end of the week it's almost completely empty. I feel like it really cuts down on any waste, since it's harder to end up with mystery containers in the back corner growing fuzzy mold!

Anyway, hope y'all enjoyed a little tour of where all the Paleo magic happens! 

Making Paleo Easy

I think that when people first learn about paleo or Whole30, the first thing they think is "I don't want to do that...it sounds so hard!". It can be daunting at first glance. No grains, legumes, dairy, white potato, refined salts, refined sugars, and processed oils. The immediate response can be "Seriously? Then what is left to eat?". It's a totally reasonable response. The typical North American diet consists of a lot of processed foods, and part of the focus of Whole30 is ridding your body of all the sketchy things they put in our food nowadays. Ever read the packaging on something you're eating and come across a bunch of ingredients that belong on the periodic table? Exactly.

Anyway, I thought today would be a fun day to talk about some great ways to make Paleo and Whole30 easy. And when I say easy, I really do mean easy. I always laugh when I see Martha Stewart doing something on her show, and she says "it's easy!". If you have all the time in the world, of course you can spend the morning trimming your moss garden with gilded manicure scissors before giving your purebred dogs a shiatsu massage, but only after you used a three thousand dollar contraption to perfectly iron your bedsheets. Please. When I say easy, it's coming from a girl who works like 48 hours a week, so you know I'm being real.

5 Ways to Make Paleo Easy:

1. Grocery shopping: I know this sounds dumb. "Wow, you mean I have to buy food? Duh!". Honestly, though, making sure you have quick access throughout the week to Paleo-friendly foods will help you stay on track. When you've had a long day, and you're exhausted and can't fathom stopping at the grocery store, you'll be glad you've got a fridge full of awesome options.
   
2. Check out some new recipes, or get your hands on a couple new cookbooks! Having some new awesome foods and experimenting with new recipes will really help keep things interesting! I recommend these: Well Fed, Well Fed 2, Food for Humans, and Paleo Breakfasts and Lunches On The Go
   
3. Keep it simple. I know I just finished telling you to try new recipes, but sometimes the awesome part of Paleo is just reaching in the fridge to grab some pre-grilled chicken breast, some chopped up raw peppers and carrots, and a handful of olives and calling it dinner. Some mornings for breakfast, I find myself eating some good quality hard salami, a little bowl of blueberries, a palmful of cashews, and some sliced red peppers. Is it a weird breakfast from a traditional point of view? Sure. But it's super delicious, super easy to throw together first thing in the morning, and it's very satisfying.
   
4. Don't skip the fat. I know the whole time you grew up everything was screaming "NO FAT! LOW FAT! 100 CALORIES!" but fat is not your enemy. Good fats are good. Things like nuts, olives, and good oils (coconut oil, walnut oil, olive oil) are things you can add to your meals to make them even more satisfying.
   
5. Plan ahead for times of temptation. I love the occasional Larabar, and although I try not to indulge too often, I usually keep one in my desk drawer. We have a weekly event in our office that usually involves a lot of people gathered around some very non-Paleo (but super delicious-looking) foods. Sometimes it doesn't tempt me at all, but on the days where I almost cave and stuff my face full of pretzels and marshmallow Peeps, I'm glad I have a relatively innocuous Larabar sitting in my office.

Happy Clean Eating, everyone!

Easy does it...

I love eating Paleo. I love it. I love to try new things, and I love to tweak old recipes to be new favorites. I love checking out my favorite paleo blogs (like this one and this one), and I love coming up with new recipes with awesome fresh ingredients, carefully layered spices and creative flavors. 

Some nights, though, you just need to keep it simple. Simplifying is one of the things I'm focusing on this year, and the more I do it, the more I thank myself. So, after wrapping up a particularly stressful week at work today, I came home and put together a dinner that was impossibly simple, but completely delicious and satisfying. I had the presence of mind to mix up a ridiculously easy salt-water brine this morning, and I tossed in some chicken thighs on my way out the door. If you've never brined meat before, I cannot recommend it highly enough. Pre-Whole30 Diana would have thought brining to be highly overrated and a completely unnecessary step in the cooking process. Nowadays, though, with Whole30 really giving me the opportunity to taste the natural crazy delicious flavors in beautiful ingredients, I can appreciate the awesome moisture and unbeatable flavor that brining lends to chicken. After getting home and baking/broiling the chicken, I tossed together a quick salad of chopped cucumbers and red peppers with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar, mixed with a little bit of dried basil and cracked black pepper. I tossed a few whole mediterranean olives on the plate, and dinner was ready! It was so easy to put together (about 10 minutes of hands-on time from start to finish....seriously) which gave me ample time to curl up on the couch in my Millenium Falcon tshirt and watch two episodes of "Say Yes To The Dress" while the chicken cooked. 

So, do you want to try brining? Here's my recipe - give it a try!

Diana's Easy Chicken Brine: 

(makes enough for 4-6 chicken thighs, or 4 chicken breasts)

1/4 cup of salt (kosher salt is best, but you can use regular table salt if you don't have kosher)

2 bay leaves

1/2 teaspoon of ground coriander

2 tablespoons of minced garlic

1/4 teaspoon of cracked black pepper

1/2 tablespoon dried sage

water

In a large bowl (like a large salad bowl, or a medium sized soup-pot) add all of the dry ingredients along with the minced garlic. Add enough water to fill about half of the bowl/pot. Give the water a good stir, so that all of the dry ingredients and garlic are mixed in evenly. Add in your chicken, making sure there's enough water in the bowl/pot to cover it completely. If you need to add a little bit more water at this stage, go for it! We're making chicken here, not attempting to launch a shuttle into orbit. Next, put the whole thing in the fridge for about 8 hours. That's it! After 8 hours (which is conveniently approximately the length of a work day, or approximately the time it takes you to sleep at night), pour out the brine mixture, and pat the chicken dry. At this point, you can either cook it right away, or (if you brined it overnight) you can toss the chicken in a big Ziplock bag and cook it later. Whatever you do, though, don't be tempted to leave that chicken in the brine for longer than 8 hours, or I promise it will come out tasting super salty. Like incredibly salty. Like Poseidon's salty boogers. Nobody wants that. Happy brining, everybody!

Dinner....sooooo good!

January Cure

Hey y'all!

It's January. It's 2014. Mindblowing.

It has been a LONG time since I've posted, because the holidays were just so busy (also I was feeling sort of lazy...so....). Here are 10 fun things about my Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's:

10) On Thanksgiving morning, Kevin and I ran our first 5k! It was pretty exciting, and INCREDIBLY cold. It was the coldest Thanksgiving on record in the Atlanta area in 100 years, but we warmed up pretty quickly once we started running. I was pretty pleased with my sub-40-minute 5k!
9) I ate a lot of stuffing on Thanksgiving day. Kevin's mom makes really really good stuffing, and that was one of the first (of quite a few) non-paleo things I ate between Thanksgiving and New Year's.
8) I got the coziest pair of pajamas for Christmas, and I'm not sure how I'll be able to wear real work clothes come Monday when I go back to work.
7) Kevin surprised me Christmas morning with the most gorgeous 1920's locket. It's fairly large (about the size of a silver dollar) and has a beautiful sort of sculptural design on the front of two ladies with their hair pinned up. It's got little diamonds and sapphires inlaid into the design, and I'm obsessed with it. I can't wait to find the perfect gold chain so I can start wearing it!
6) Now that the new year is here, I'm back on strict paleo! I'm somewhere in the midst of ketosis right now, so I'm feeling less than stellar, but I know I'll come out on the other side in a few days feeling like a champion and getting that much closer to my weight loss goal!
5) Kevin and I rented a cabin up near Lake Burton from Boxing Day till December 30th, and it was total bliss. The cabin had two fireplaces, a hot tub outside, a giant jacuzzi bathtub inside, and I can't believe I left willingly. Four days cozied up by the fire reading was just what I needed to unplug from the crazyness of life! On the downside, I managed to do some pretty decent damage to my finger when I cut a chunk off of it with a kitchen knife, but I did think at the last minute to bring peroxide and a first aid kit, so that was good.
4) I made brownies for the last day of work before Christmas. They were topped with Heath bar chips, mini-marshmallows, melted caramel squares, and chocolate chips. They were not paleo. I ate two, and felt terrible later.
3) New Year's eve was delightfully low-key. After getting back from the cabin, Kevin and I cozied up on the couch for New Year's. We started off by watching Inglorious Basterds (one of our all time favorites) and then watched a few episodes of Adventure Time before watching the ball drop with a bottle of champange.
2) We sold Kevin's condo! Hooray! We had been renting it out since we got married, and finally put it on the market and sold it. We are SO excited!
1) I'm ready for 2014!

All of that being said, I'm super excited for what's next: I've decided to participate in the January Cure with Apartment Therapy! It's sort of a fun plan you follow to get your house ready for the new year. Today I've been giving myself a bit of a head start, but doing a pretty good deep clean of the kitchen. Yesterday I spent most of the day in the walk-in closet in our bedroom, and succeeded in cleaning it all out, vacuuming it, and organizing our clothes better. Next up on our list is finishing the kitchen (yikes!), which will involve installing the remainder of the crown molding, and the toe-kick pieces. Also on deck is cleaning out the closet in the office. Weirdly, I find myself cleaning that closet out several times a year, but I never actually go in there for anything, leading me to think that maybe I should just trash/donate most of the stuff in there, and free up the real estate for more pressing needs.

As for New Year's resolutions? I've pretty much decided I don't believe in them. I always get grandiose ideas of the great things I'll do, and then promptly fall off the rails and feel terrible. Ultimately, I want to continue some of the things I've been working on since last year: read more, eat clean, simplify, and be kind to myself and others. Just four things, but I feel like sticking with a mantra is better for me than trying to tackle specific resolutions.

How's your January shaping up?