Avocado Egg

I think I'm overdue for more actual food and cooking posts here. I'm still "doing" Paleo. But I hate saying I'm "doing" it or "on" it because at this point, it's really just my lifestyle, which is eating whole and unprocessed food. Yes, all wheat products are processed. Anyway, here is a picture of an avocado with an egg baked inside:

I just sliced and avocado in half, removed the pit, and then cracked an egg into each one. Next time, I think I would use the smallest egg possible since these ran over a little bit. I think I would also doctor it with some hot sauce and garlic too, but we were so overcome with our avocado egg, we didn't add much:

1 large avocado

1 small egg

Salt, pepper

Shredded cheese for the husband

Crack the egg into each avocado, salt and pepper it to taste, adding cheese if that's your thing.

Bake until the egg is cooked to your liking at 350 degrees. I think ours took about 15-20 minutes.

We loved these for breakfast, and now pretty much all I want to do is find ways to stuff avocados and places to crack eggs into.

Chicken Broth

It seems like when I talk to friends and family about my "new" diet, I'm starting to get some looks I can start categorizing into different lists of patronizing/concern. For example, before I'm done explaining, I often start to see the "Oh, you're doing Atkins" look. No. I'm not going out and buying double bacon double cheese bacon cheese burgers, hold the bun. I'm not counting carbs. Oh, and I just had a banana for breakfast with my egg.

It's often those reactions mixed with, "oh, life without pasta would be so sad, it's not worth it!" mixed with a pitying head-shake. I must say, I might have been guilty of that attitude more than once in my life. I honestly do feel like I've shaken it forever though. To me, pasta is that filler I could pour a pound of into a bowl, cover with cheese, and just eat until I was numb without thinking. Looking back on that, nothing seems sadder. 

Taking the time to be mindful, appreciate the protein and veg on my dinner plate for where it came from, taste the strong flavors, and be done and satisfied when I've eaten the right amount is priceless. I think too many of us have lost the simple sight of that.

Enough philosophizing for this entry. I meant to be writing about home made chicken broth! For my most recent batch, I had saved up two carcasses from recent roasts in the freezer. I was also keeping a bag of all vegetable scraps I wasn't using-- broccoli bottoms, carrot tops, dill that went limp, onions, brussel sprouts we never finished, etc. I took both carcasses, all the veggies, and dumped them into my husband's giant stainless steel pot he uses for brewing beer (maybe that's my secret ingredient??). I add salt, pepper, whatever spices I have on hand that look tempting, and a splash of vinegar the way my grandma used to!

After bringing to a boil, I generally cover the giant pot and let it simmer hours, sometimes all day. Then, I strain out all the liquid, feed some chicken bits to my dog, and dump the rest in our compost bin. I separate the broth out into little containers that I freeze and boom... we have about 10 portioned out tupperwares of chicken broth for the next couple weeks anytime someone wants a bowl of soup or one of my recipes calls for chicken broth.

I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say it might be the best hot liquid of all time. It's been cold and rainy here, which I love, but it's also been a winter of runny noses and fevers around here--and I don't just mean the baby. So whipping out one of these batches of the soup has been a tiny piece of heaveny-goodness each time.

I love this homemade broth so much, I took it outside in one of its containers before freezing and took a picture of it (maybe I need help):

It's magical, I tell you.

So last week when we needed a warm little pick me up, I whipped up this with the broth above:

I took about  1 1/2 cups broth per person

1/2 avocado per person

1 clove raw garlic, crushed

Kosher Salt & Pepper

Dash of lemon

Dash of hot sauce (TJ's Habanero for us)

I heated these up nice and hot and sat around sipping them watching the rain. Perfect. And Paleo.

Bean salad and avocado!

Another item on the permanent rotation around here.

1 avocado, cut into halves

1/2 can of black beans, rinsed

2 stalks jarred hearts of palms

1/2 can corn

a handful of cherry tomatoes, chopped up... or really a 1/2 normal tomato

I mix everything but the avocado up in a bowl, add some lemon juice, some olive oil, salt, pepper, maybe sneak a mashed clove of garlic in there, and let it sit for a few hours...stewing in its own awesomeness. 

Then spoon some into each avocado half (this feeds me and the hubs for dinner), and spoon the rest on your plate as a side because it's so good you can't get enough.

Another favorite dinner salad that's super filling and gorgeous to boot:

Mixed greens

1 hard boiled egg

1 cucumber

4 stalks jarred hearts of palm (Trader Joe's!!!)

1 avocado, or you can use half

1/3 red onion

A couple slices of salami to garnish with

That will give you two servings, and a beautiful dinner to look at and feel good about eating. 

I still fail at updating this in a timely fashion.

Anyway, regarding weight goal-- I'm within 5 pounds of my pre-pregnancy weight and I'm elated! Old clothes are fitting...(happy dance).

Food pic and recipe: It's been unseasonably warm here for the past few days (though now it's cold and rainy again, which is also fine), so I decided to post one of my favorites:

OH, yeah.

Shrimp, fresh from the store. I just don't have good luck heating and cooking shrimp that's been frozen.  I love to defrost it under cold water and eat it in a million different varieties of salads, but for grilling or anything else, they have to be fresh!

Anyway, I took these suckers, poured some oil and chopped garlic over them and let them sit a couple hours. Then grilled them on skewers until they were firm-ish.

Gratuitous picture of them all skewered coming off the grill:

More pictures, you ask?

They are truly a thing of beauty. 

And these grilled little guys were perfect with that salad above. 

My summer salad goto:

1 large tomato, or a couple smaller ones

1/2 red onion

1 avocado

1 cucumber

All chopped up into similar sized pieces, and drizzled with salt, pepper, lemon juice or red wine vinegar, and extra virgin olive oil. SO good, so refreshing, and the perfect accompaniment to grilled or roasted meats (in addition to a crisp white wine of course!).

I topped the salad over quinoa that I just cooked up with nothing special added, but this could easily have been a lower carb meal without it.

Beans, eggs, lettuce, oh my!

I was working at home today and determined to not resort to my usual I'm-stressed-out-and-need-comfort-carbs-in-huge-quantities, so I tried something a little new for me. I'm really trying to cut down on the white carbs and, more importantly, large portions, and came up with this. It took under 15 minutes to get ready, was delicious, and kept me full until late afternoon:

How awesome does that look? It tasted pretty awesome, and my body thanked me.

Here's what I did:

Maybe 1/3 or 1/4 can black refried beans
1/4 avocado
1/2 slice pepper jack cheese
1/2 cup to 1 cup chopped romaine lettuce
Loose pour of tomato salsa (I love trader joe's red table salsa)
1 egg

I put the beans on a plate, topped with cheese and heated up for a minute or so. In the meantime, I threw an egg in my pan and let it cook sunnyside up. I flipped it right at the end and topped my beans with it. Then I added my salsa, avocado, and lettuce around the sides. Delicious! Healthy! Happy lunch.

Lunch the first.

I'm generally the kind of person who enjoys spending Sunday afternoon/night cooking a batch of something to portion out and bring to work as tiny little lunches for Monday through Friday. Sometimes though, I think I have too much leftover food from the weekend and will throw together something totally random for Monday. Such is this Monday. We have a salad of leftover veggies and lettuce and a lone avocado I found:

You'll notice the two stalks of hearts of palm--courtesy of a glass jar from Trader Joes. Some capers, tomatoes, avocado, spinach, oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, and............

Leftover tender delicious chicken from a chicken I roasted. We've been having leftovers for days from this guy--also from Trader Joe's. You'll notice the Trader Joe's obsession eventually, and I'm not on their payroll or anything (but wish I was--sigh). Anyway, this is lunch for Monday. I think it looks exciting.

I wish I had taken a picture of the chicken I roasted as it came out of the oven--browned and pretty with its skin and the such. Instead, I have a before picture of it looking pinkish and peppery and probably nervous. I have an after shot of it right before we started eating, but after I attacked it with a knife:

That's my before. It's so easy, everyone (who eats chicken anyway) should be roasting one of these at least once a month. I took it out of its plastic, rinsed it off, removed the giblet package, put it in this dish, covered in a little olive oil, salt, pepper, italian herb mix, lemon, and that's it. Leftovers for days.

And now for the poor guy after I took a knife to him:

This is after probably 1 and a half hours on 400 degrees. I will get better at making these recipes exact for everyone too, I promise.

Finally, the first nights dinner. We had a leg each from the chicken, plus zucchini, roasted. I chopped the zucchini into fourths, covered in the usual--olive oil, salt, pepper, and baked for an hour. Also cooked up some quinoa that I brought to a boil and covered and let sit for 15ish minutes. I usually do a quick saute of onions and garlic and add that to the quinoa at the end for extra flavor. Compared to rice and potatoes, I think quinoa tastes so much better, and is just so much better for you. I'll do a whole post soon on why it's so amazing: