Tuna Salad

HELLOOOOO Perky Paleo! I know it has been a loooong while and I am not even sure if some of you are still doing gluten, dairy and soy free anymore but even if you are or aren’t or added one of these ingredients to your diet, this salad is a must and I wanted to share it with you! Especially since summer is just around the corner. A friend of mine made this one night and I loved it! Therefore, this salad has become a weekly favorite of ours. Hope everyone is doing well!

Tuna Salad:

a tomato
a green bell pepper
sliced almonds (or any kind of nut that you want really)
Golden raisins (or regular raisins or cranberries)
carrots
romain lettuce
1 can drained tuna

Dressing:
soy sauce
rice vinegar
olive oil

Directions: chop all ingredients and place in a salad bowl, including the can of tuna. Put even amounts of the 3 dressing ingredients over the salad. Put as much ingredients of the dressing to your liking and taste. Mix and serve!

*if you are still not doing soy use a soy sauce substitute. Not a 100% if there is one but I am assuming there is! Also, this is just what I put in the salad but you really could add anything you want 🙂

Cuban Black Bean Stew

This was one of the recipes on the gluten free menus Spencer and I bought on group on. It was SO good! Have to try this one. I am making it again this week.

INGREDIENTS:

2 Tablespoons olive oil
¾ red onion, cut into small dice
1 ½ red bell peppers, cut into small dice
1 green bell pepper, cut into small dice
2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
Kosher salt & black pepper
1 teaspoon dried oregano
½ teaspoon cumin
2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
1 ½ cups gluten free vegetable broth
2 – 14 ounce cans organic, no salt
added black beans with liquid plus
1/2 can of drained beans
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
Pinch of cayenne pepper
1 cup diced ham (low sodium, no nitrates added), about 4 ounces *Optional

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Heat a large soup pot over medium heat and add in oil. Once
the oil is warm, add in the cut vegetables and garlic, sprinkle
with salt & pepper, and season with dried oregano, cumin and
white wine vinegar. Stir to combine, reduce heat to
low/medium, and sweat the vegetables for 10 minutes. After
10 minutes the vegetables will be softened and the onions will
be translucent.
2. Add the broth and 2-1/2 cans of black beans (2 full cans plus ½
can left over from Meal #3) to the pan of cooked vegetables.
Stir to combine and add in salt and a pinch of cayenne pepper.
Simmer for 5 minutes.
3. Carefully remove about half of the beans and vegetables with
a slotted spoon and place into the blender (use caution: hot
liquids can cause pressure to build up in the blender). Add just
enough liquid to blend until fluid and smooth, return to the
pot, and stir in chopped ham if desired. Gently simmer for about 5-10 minutes.
Pressed for time and don’t want to
dirty the blender? Skip the blender step and serve the soup as is.
4. Serve warm.

* I had no idea what “sweat vegetables” meant so I looked it up. It means to just cook uncovered on low heat so that they don’t burn or get brown. Stirring occasionally.

juuuust one more

i found this website-slash-blog: http://everydaypaleo.com . Some things look…interesting but some look pretty good and simple! I really like how this website is set up for some reason. Just click on “food” and it takes you to all her recipes. I want to try this one:
http://everydaypaleo.com/two-minute-tuna-salad/
I have been looking for tuna something without mayo or homemade mayo in it and this is the first!

Hope everyone is doing well and the withdrawals are slowly fading off. cheers to paleo!

BLT’s

Spencer mentioned these in a comment and figured I’d share!
All you need is some lettuce, bacon, tomatoes and avocado.
Sprinkle some salt and pepper, wrap it up and you got yourself a BLT!
These are great for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, or a quick snack.

Who inspires you? response.

Thinking about this, I took the time last week to look through pinterest and cook books that I have to just see if there was anything worth while we could eat. Many recipes I found for sides, soups and meats were gluten, dairy and soy free! You just have to take the time to look and think of things to add, substitute and/or eliminate. I was happy that for some recipes you don’t have to do any of that which makes this whole thing a little less daunting. SO I would suggest looking through cook books you already have and “normal” recipes online and you will be surprised what you find!

Mediterranean Chicken

INGREDIENTS:

4 chicken breasts (thawed)
1 small red onion
2 T lemon zest
1 lemon
1 t dried oregano
1 t dried basil
4 roma tomatoes
20 pitted kalamata olives
Olive oil

INSTRUCTIONS:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a small bowl mix together lemon zest, dried oregano & basil. Tear off four pieces of aluminum foil. Place a thawed chicken in the middle of the foil. Slice tomatoes into thick pieces and place 3 on top of the chicken. Take 5 olives and place on chicken, as well as 1/4 cup sliced onion. Spoon 1/4 of lemon zest mixture onto chicken and vegetables. Drizzle olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste on top. Fold up all sides of the foil. Repeat for each piece of chicken. Place all 4 foil packets onto a baking sheet and cook for 35-40 minutes.

Enjoy!

*I wasn’t so precise with my measuring of the lemon zest mixture so do how ever much you want and whatever looks right ( I zested a whole lemon). With the tomatoes and olives, put however many of those you want (I used black olives instead of kalamata just f.y.i. spencer isn’t a fan and it was still good!). Also with this “original” recipe, the lemon zest mixture includes one 4 oz. package of feta cheese mixed into it as well. ^Hence why it looks like big pieces of delicious feta on the chicken in the picture^. Since we aren’t having cheese at the moment I left it out. But for those of you whose cheese deprivation is going to end and you want to maybe make this in the future, git that stuff on top!

Chili

I have the “Betty Crocker Cooking Basics” cook book and I found a chili recipe that is simple and something we can eat. Here is the recipe:

http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/chili-con-carne/dbb42f32-4e45-4c54-8604-a681fd87c06f

– We used ground turkey instead of beef
– didn’t put in the baking cocoa at all
– For the red pepper sauce I used El Pato (little yellow can of mexican sauce sold in any store)
– I added a green pepper & a zucchini 

If you are feeding a lot of people (more than 2) and/or want left overs (we’re big leftovers people) I would double the recipe excluding doubling the turkey. If doubling I would also add as can of tomato sauce.

We wished so badly we could reach back into the far corner of our fridge, pull out that sour cream and add a dollop on top. and some cheese. but we refrained. 

Dessert anyone?

Peanut butter Banana Ice Cream:

Frozen bananas
natural peanut butter
Cocoa (optional)

Put all ingredients (as much of each to taste) into a blender and serve!

Paleo Parents

A new website i found with some good looking recipes.

http://paleoparents.com/tag/recipe/

 

Spaghetti Squash

Not only will this meal forever remind me of family vacation, Park City 2012 but it makes me feel like I am eating normal lol. And because all of us are not as talented as Mark in whipping together Spaghetti sauce from scratch (bravo mark!) I made a recipe that was simple, with the help of Prego.

INGREDIENTS:

1 jar Prego Traditional Spaghetti Sauce (it’s gluten free! used a large jar for leftovers)
1 pound Italian Seasoned Ground Turkey (tastes like sausage)
1 can stewed tomatoes
1 zucchini
some shavings of white onion (as much to liking)
1 or 2 Spaghetti Squashes (if you want left overs or not)

I had no idea how to make spaghetti squash until I saw Kristy make it. Maybe you all already know how it’s done, but I found a recipe how to make it and it turned out yummy.

SPAGHETTI SQUASH:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cut off stem and cut squash in half long ways. Deseed center. Sprinkle salt & pepper on the halves and pour olive oil generously on top. Bake for 40-90 minutes. To know when it’s done, take a fork and stab the outter ridge of the squash right beside the skin. If it pokes through and falls apart easily it is ready. Take that same fork and begin scraping the meat of the squash into a bowl, discarding the skin, and mix it up!

SAUCE:

Cook turkey. When its done (the good thing with turkey is you don’t have to drain it like you do ground beef) add in all sauce, tomatoes, chopped zucchini and onion. Cook until zucchini is cooked and serve on top of squash!

You ladies probably did not need ANY of that detail on how to make it but I was just happy to find gluten free spaghetti sauce, something that doesn’t take a lot of work but looks and tastes like it did and easy to whip together. Enjoy!