Category: Whole 30

Indian Spiced Ribs

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Disclaimer: This is not going to be a complete recipe.

Why? Well, simply put, this delicious dish relies on one very important ingredient: the indian spice blend from Practical Paleo by Diane Sanfilippo (Balanced Bites). I will say that this spice blend does include the usual suspects of indian cooking. However, I won’t provide any details beyond that. Sorry, everyone, but if you want this or any of Diane’s other amazing spice blends, you have to just go buy her book.
If that doesn’t convince you, maybe Brent’s eloquent review will. Or, just google it–there are a lot of really well-written reviews. HER BOOK IS WORTH EVERY PENNY. You should buy it, use it, share it, use it some more, and share it again.
Alright, so here’s the recipe (with the appropriate material omitted):

Indian Spiced Ribs

Ingredients

  • 3 tablespoons of Diane’s indian spice blend from Practical Paleo
  • 1 large rack of pork ribs, about 15 or 16 ribs (We got our ribs from Costco this time, so we had three huge racks in one package. One went towards making this, the other two went towards making the BBQ ribs that we’ll post about soon.)
  • 1 tablespoon of coconut oil
Method
  1. Coat the bottom of your crock pot with the coconut oil.
  2. Rub down the ribs with the spice blend. Go on, get your hands dirty. 😉
  3. Place the ribs in crock pot.
  4. If your crock pot cover doesn’t make a perfect seal (most don’t, from what we’ve seen), seal the crock pot with tin foil and then place the lid on it. This will trap nearly all of the moisture from the ribs inside the crock pot while they cook, which will prevent them from drying out and also makes them fall-off-the-bone tender and moist. YUM!
  5. Cook on low for 6 to 8 hours.
We let this cook overnight and woke the next morning to some pretty amazing smells in our kitchen. For dinner last night, we served this with our Cool Spinach-Mango Salad. It was a great pairing.
Enjoy!
P.S. I apologize for the lack of photos. We were so busy preparing the ribs two ways (this way and with homemade BBQ sauce) that we kind of missed the boat on taking pictures of this as we prepared it. 

Whole30 Challenge, Again. Say what?!

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As we may or may not have already mentioned somewhere on Facebook or Twitter,  Brent and I have begun yet another Whole30 Challenge. We haven’t done one in a while, and we know it makes us feel great. This time, it will actually be more than 30 days:

We started this past Monday and we’re planning to keep clean until the Mid-Atlantic Super Spartan 2012 at 11:00 A.M. Saturday, August 25.

Yep, that’s right. We are participating in the Mid-Atlantic Super Spartan race. It’s going to be insane. We are so very excited and, maybe, a little frightened. (…Ok, ok, I’ll admit, I’m frightened a lot!) We’ve been working out and eating pretty well–I’d say we average 80% clean Paleo most of the time–but we knew we wanted to do something to kick-start our last month of training for this crazy event.

So, on Monday we took measurements and photos. Also, Brent crafted a nifty template which we will use to track our progress! 

Meanwhile, we’ll continue to post as frequently as we can new recipes as well as occasional tweets about the Whole30 approved meals we’re particularly excited about. If you’re doing a Whole30 too, keep in touch with us! Let us know what you’re doing to keep clean. Tweet at us, like our Facebook page and leave a comment on our wall, or simple leave comments here.

We’d love to hear from you!

P.S. If you just so happened to stumble upon this blog randomly and you don’t know what Whole30 is, you should learn more here at Whole9life.com/category/Whole-30. Then, you should try it. 🙂

IT. WILL. CHANGE. YOUR. LIFE.

Crab and Peach Salad with Balsamic Reduction

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Friday morning I found myself staring at the few, scattered items in my refrigerator wondering what on earth I could make for breakfast and lunch. Grabbing a can of not-so-paleo-friendly soup crossed my mind; it would be fast and simple. Not only was having a can of processed veggies and chicken in over-salted water not too appealing, but the weather has also been way too hot lately for soup. Unless, it’s homemade gazpacho. Wow, that’s such a good idea. I might have to try that soon. 😉 Don’t steal my idea! Just kidding. In fact, if you have a good gazpacho recipe that is, or could be made, paleo-friendly, please let me know!

OK, so back to Friday morning: You may have already seen my morning concoction. If you haven’t, check it out: Ancho-Chipotle Over-hard Eggs with Roasted Red Bell Pepper and Avocado

For lunch, I was inspired by the crab meat (freshly plucked, just the other night, from way lots of home cooked crabs–we got them live at the seafood market at the D.C. Warf and man, oh, man, were they feisty until we finished steaming them!) and the HUGE peach that remained from the quart I purchased at the Kings Street farmers’ market. Yummy…. 🙂 Here’s what I came up with:

Crab and Peach Salad with Balsamic Reduction

Ingredients (for 1 serving)

  • 3-4 medium or large romain lettuce leaves
  • 1/2 – 1 cup of fresh crab meat 
  • 1 large peach
  • 1 small shallot
  • 1/8 cup of balsamic vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon of olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon fresh cilantro (mine was frozen, and it was fine, but fresh is best)
  • 1 teaspoon fresh parsley
Method
  1. Mince the shallot.
  2. In a very small pot or pan, simmer the balsamic, shallot and olive oil together for at least 5 minutes, but no more than 10 minutes. In the meantime, you can prepare the rest of the salad…
  3. Chop the lettuce and place on your plate, in your bowl, or (if you’re like me and taking this to work) into your plastic container.
  4. Chop the peach into bite-size (or smaller) pieces. If you’re planning to eat this right away, go ahead and toss the pieces over the romaine. If you’re taking it to work, put them into a separate plastic container. (Mixing everything before toting it off to work or where ever you plan to go will result in the salad getting rather soggy from the peach juices.)
  5. Chop the cilantro and parsley. Go ahead and toss those in with the romaine.
  6. Sprinkle the crab meat over the lettuce mixture.
  7. Once the balsamic mix is reduced: Again, if you’re going to eat right away, drizzle it over the entire salad, toss together and enjoy. If you’re taking it to work, pour the reduction into a separate small travel container.
  8. Once you’re at your destination and ready to eat, mix all the ingredients together and gobble up! 
Leftovers really can be a gold mine! This salad was delicious. Here are a few photos…

However, I couldn’t help but think of some alterations. Spinach in addition to or instead of the romaine would have been perfect for this salad. Also, the parsley wasn’t necessary. A little more fresh cilantro would be great. Finally, I don’t think I needed to add the olive oil to the balsamic reduction. Ok, last one: I could have cooked the shallot just a smidgen before adding it to the balsamic vinegar for the reduction.
Do you have any ideas for alterations to spice this up or improve it? Let us know by leaving a comment. Thanks! 🙂

Baked Wild Salmon Over Spinach

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This past week we were fortunate enough to come across wild salmon at the Costco.  Their farm raised salmon is delicious and economically friendly, but this past visit all that was left was the wild salmon.  It was so pink and vibrant it made the other stuff looked like canned fish in comparison.  With the skin on and everything, it was a perfect change of pace.

We diverged from our typical cooking of the salmon just a bit, but it totally paid off.  We used:

  • One 2 lb salmon filet
  • 1 Tbs ghee
  • 4 cloves minced garlic
  • 1/2 cup white wine
  • Spinach
  • Lemon wedges to garnish
After preheating the oven to 375ºF, we placed the salmon in a Pyrex dish and brushed the fish with melted ghee and minced garlic.  
The white wine was added for subtle flavor (we used a less sweet Chardonnay) and to keep the fish as moist as possible.  We put foil over the salmon and put it in the oven for 25 minutes.
The fish was absolutely fantastic.  Flavorful, flaky, and great with the fresh spinach.  The lemon was nice to squeeze over the mixture, but I would not have missed it should we not have had lemon on hand.  I will definitely keep my eye out for fresh salmon more often, and hope you will do the same.

Baked Lemon & Rosemary Rainbow Trout

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Last night, we wanted to have fish and the plan was to grill it. The plan was to pick a couple fillets up at the grocery store, let the coals heat up while we each did a quick workout, and then grill those babies. Oh, and given how hot and humid it was, we wanted a side dish that would keep things cool–like a fresh salad (check it out Brent’s creation: Fresh Rainbow Pepper Salad).

Well, we forgot to buy coals (just a couple nights ago, we forgot to put the grill and coals back into the shed after dinner… and then it rained…). We were too tired to go back to the store–Isn’t it disappointing how the weeks shortened by holidays can sometimes feel like the longest ones?–so we decided to bake our trout. Oh, yes, we bought rainbow trout. I forgot to mention that detail, but you already knew that from reading the title of this post. 🙂

So, anyways, we looked for some basic recipes, took the ideas and came up with this little number. It was quite yummy. We hope you like it as much as we did!

Baked Lemon & Rosemary Rainbow Trout


Ingredients

  • 2 Rainbow Trout (approx. 1.5 lbs each), cleaned
  • Half of a lemon, sliced in rounds as thinly as possible
  • 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil (just enough to brush both sides of each fish)

Method

  1. Rinse the fish and pat dry.
  2. Preheat the oven to 475 degrees F.
  3. Line a large baking pan with tin foil and then place a baking rack inside (so that it rests on top of the foil). The foil isn’t required, but it will make clean up a LOT easier. 🙂
  4. Open up each fish so the flesh is exposed.
  5. Sprinkle the flesh of both fish with salt and pepper.
  6. Lay out the slices of lemon on one side of the each fish’s flesh.
  7. Lay one spring of rosemary inside each fish and then close both by folding one flap of flesh and skin down over the other.
  8. Brush the outside of both fish with olive oil until well coated (this will help prevent the skin from sticking to the baking rack).
  9. Lay the fish side by side on the baking rack in the pan.
  10. Bake for approximately 25 minutes, or until the flesh of the fish is milky, white and somewhat flakey. (FYI: We learned last night that Trout doesn’t flake quite as much as Salmon, so we don’t think flakiness is the best guide for knowing when the fish is done.)
  11. Plate each trout over a generous helping of Fresh Rainbow Pepper Salad (or by itself with the salad on the side or even over any kind of greens/salad you like), and enjoy.

The fish was perfect. A little milky and soft in texture, with a fresh tang of lemon and the slightest hint of savory rosemary.

Oh, and we were so eager to eat, we completely forgot to take “before” and “during” pictures. So, all I have is this [hopefully] appetizing “after” picture.

Yes, by “after” I meant, “after eating,” haha. Sorry!

P.S. You may have already realized, “Ha! Their dinner was full of rainbows.” And you have even wondered, “Did they intent to do that?” Answer: No. But, indeed, I realized soon after we started eating and I began formulating these posts in my head that yes, there’s an odd appropriateness or simple weirdness, depending on your perspective. Take it as you will. We had a rough (albeit short) week, and maybe fate or karma or whatever decided we simply needed a few rainbows to cheer us up last night. 🙂