recipes

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! 🙂

Ancho-Chipotle Over-Hard Eggs, Roasted Bell Pepper and Avocado

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I’ve decided I’m my most creative with food when there’s very little food in the house. Crazy or logical? Maybe it’s a little bit of both?


Anyways, for breakfast this morning, I wanted to do something different but quick and easy. We still have a jar of roasted red bell peppers in olive oil in the fridge, plenty of eggs and bacon, some veggies (carrots, zucchini, avocados and the ingredients for Brent’s cabbage slaw which I didn’t want to use), a few green apples, one peach from the quart I bought for just $2 at the King Street market on Wednesday, and a variety of condiments. Oh, and there was that crab meat too… but I’ll get to that when I put up the post about my lunch. 😉

OK–so, what’s a girl to do other than the traditional scrambled eggs and bacon we have almost every morning… Eggs over hard? YES. Roasted red bell pepper on the side? Sure! What about those yummy avocados… I can’t resist. To make them work harmoniously, I just threw in some spices.

Ancho-Chipotle Over-Hard Eggs, Roasted Bell Pepper and Avocado

Ingredients

  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 teaspoon of ghee or the fat/oil of your choice
  • 1/2 – 1 roasted red bell pepper
  • 1/2 of an avocado, sliced
  • Ancho chili powder, chipotle chili powder, salt and pepper to taste
Method
  1. Place the roasted bell pepper on a plate (or in your plastic container, like I did, if you’re planning to carry this to work). Sprinkle some ancho chili and chipotle chili powder over it. 
  2. Melt the ghee in your pan over medium-high, then crack your two eggs into it and fry those babies up! Within the first minute of them cooking, sprinkle some salt, pepper, ancho chili powder and chipotle chili powder over the eggs.
  3. Note: If you’re like me and you prefer sunny-side up with a fully cooked yolk, let the eggs fry for a couple minutes on medium-high, then turn the heat down to low, cover and let cook for about 10 minutes. 
  4. Once the eggs are done, simply add them to your plate or container.
  5. Top it off with the avocado and you’re all set to eat and enjoy or run off to work with a delicious breakfast in hand. 🙂

Angry Chicken "Parm"

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delicious easy chicken parm paleo

[Updated September 12, 2013]

These chicken parm bites are something that Heather came up with back in June of 2012, very early into our real food journey.  Lucky for us, we had started this blog, so the recipe was kept documented.  Unlucky for us, we were very new with our presentation, so neither our directions or pictures were especially helpful.

Another win in our favor is that we have since made great friends in the community who led us to take better pictures and inspired us to do better work.  As this is one of our favorite recipes, we updated it recently to share with you.  This is absolutely fabulous, and I think you will really like it.  These little “parm poppers” are delicious on their own, but definitely are well suited to the zoodles and red sauce.  I would gather you could likely use this wash and coating on larger cuts of chicken as well, but we haven’t tried it just yet.  Either way, we hope you’ll love this creation.  Let us know what you think!

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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.