My favorite way to hard boil eggs....

place your eggs in the bottom of a saucepan so they are only 1 layer and preferably not touching each other.  Fill your pan with cold water to cover your eggs by about 1/2", then place the pan over high heat.  Bring to a boil, once it comes to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover and cook for 15 minutes.  Immediately drain and fill pan with cold water or just place your eggs in ice water to cool quickly. You should end up with a perfectly done egg, one with out the ugly grey ring around it, and a yolk that is nice and moist.   What is your favorite way to hard boil eggs?  Any tips to share?

Spinach Stuffed Chicken With Bacon

10 slices of "clean" bacon, (nitrate, nitrite free, etc.), divided

1/2 cup red onion chopped

4 large garlic cloves chopped

3/4 pound of spinach, chopped

4-5 boneless skinless, organic, free range chicken breast 

dried Thyme

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.  Take 6 slices of bacon and chop them up into about 1/2 inch pieces and fry them in a med-large skillet until nice and brown.  Then remove the bacon from the pan  and saute the red onion in the bacon grease for a few minutes.  Add in the garlic cloves and saute until the onion is translucent.  Add the spinach, sprinkle with salt and pepper, simmer just until the spinach is wilted nicely, and remove from heat to cool slightly.  Stir in the precooked bacon peices.

Then taking your chicken butterfly each chicken breast and spread filling evenly on one half of each chicken breast.  Then flip the other side of the chicken back over to cover the spinach filling, and wrap each with an additional slice of bacon.  Place in a glass baking dish, sprinkle lightly with salt, pepper and dried Thyme leaves. 

Bake uncovered at 375 degrees for 35 minutes, then increase temperature to 500 and bake for 10 minutes more to brown the bacon.  If it is not brown enough you can broil the chicken for a few minutes, but be sure to watch it!  Serve and enjoy.

Easter Egg Time!

 Glad dying Eggs for Easter is Paleo, well okay the dye probably isn't but the eggs are!  Had to go buy some white cage free vegetarian fed eggs  so we could hard boil and dye them.  I usually buy the cage free, vegetarian fed, brown, omega-3 eggs.  

Hard boiled eggs it will be tomorrow, may even have to make some homemade Mayo for deviled eggs! 

Happy Easter to everyone!

In Honor of Good Friday

 I made fried eggs, bacon and sweet potato hash browns for breakfast.  It was the first time I have ever made Sweet potato hash browns, and I wonder what took me so long to think of it?!  They were supper easy and super tasting!   It would also make a great post-WOD snack.

SWEET POTATO HASH BROWNS

2 Large Sweet potatoes, shredded ( should equal about

4-5 cups shredded) 

3 TBSP coconut oil (or a combination of coconut oil and macadamia nut oil)

Salt & Pepper to taste Or Cinnamon and Salt to taste

In a food processor, shred the sweet potatoes with the grating attachment.  Then in a med-large skillet melt or heat your oil on med-high heat till hot.  Add your potatoes, sprinkle with salt and pepper and stir to coat with the oil.  Reduce the heat to medium and cook a couple of minutes at a time before flipping them.  Do that until they are done to your liking.  We like ours caramelized and almost burnt in places.  It's all up to your liking as far as how long to cook them.  Enjoy!  It took under 10 minutes from start to finish to make these and we loved them, hope you do too.

 

 Shredded Sweet Potatoes cooking in the pan.

Sweet Potatoes, after they are done waiting to be dished up.

Plated sweet potatoes with my eggs for breakfast, tasty!

Made it home last night after being in Scottsdale, Arizona

for a week.  We really enjoyed our time together and the weather was great!

With a little advanced planning traveling and Paleo can be simple and even save you money.

  The day before we left for Arizona I cooked up some boneless chicken breasts and roasted some sweet potato slices.  I packed them in 2 small sealable containers, 1 for each of us, and threw them in our carry ons.  We also packed some coconut flakes, macadamia nuts, and dried figs.  When lunch time rolled around we were able to eat a lunch that cost much less than if we bought it in the airport and we were guaranteed it was Paleo. 
While we were there we stayed in a Condo which had grills, so we grilled nearly every night.  In fact we ate Filet Mignon, yes, that's right Fillet Mignon two nights!  I admit it wasn't grass fed, but what a treat!  A package of 4 steaks were only about $24.00 at Costco, making 2 meals for the two of us.  I estimate that the Filet Mignon and veggie meals were about $8-$9 dollars per person, just a small fraction  of the what it would have cost us to eat out for Dinner.  The first night we grilled Filet Mignon, grilled sweet onion,grilled mini sweet peppers and grilled zucchini.  Then we used the leftover veggies for a breakfast scramble the next morning.   Another night we grilled pork tenderloin, asparagus, peppers, zucchini and sweet potatoes.  It was all so yummy!  Grilling makes everything taste so much better.
On our last night we grilled extra pork chops, veggies and sweet potatoes to use on our trip home.  We also had some left over sausage links that we sliced and pan fried.  We then divided all the leftovers between our two containers for the trip home and we were good to go.  One suggestion I do have, is to pre-cut your food before hand, especially your meat, since you can't pack a knife of any kind on board planes.  Cutting it into bite size pieces and packing a plastic fork makes it easier later when it's time to eat.  You could even throw in some napkins or hand wipes.
The few times we ate out our biggest indulgences were goat cheese or blue cheese and dressing/vinaigrette on our salads.  And I have to admit the night I finished my CrossFit Cert class and passed we celebrated by eating "real" Haagen Daz ice cream.  What a treat!
The rest of the time we stayed on track with our eating by making our own breakfast, lunch and dinners.  If you are traveling for any length of time and can't stay with family and friends, check out Vacation Rentals By Owner.  Often you can find a great deal on a house, condo, etc.  We happened to find a condo that was very, very nice and after bargaining with the owner we paid less than it would have cost us to stay at a mid-range hotel.  And it provides the option to prepare your own meals, unlike a hotel/motel, creating an additional savings and making eating Paleo easy.  Traveling and eating Paleo is not hard, it just may require a little more planning.
I enjoyed those grilled meals so much that since we had a sunny day today, I decided to grill dinner.  Grassfed Ground beef for Hamburgers, which I topped with pre-made guacamole, and served with sides of grilled zucchini, yellow squash and sweet potatoes.  Looking forward to more nice weather and grilling.  Paleo and grilling go so well together.

 Hamburgers on the grill

 Zucchini and squash grilling

 And sweet potatoes got grilled too.

Dinner tonight, minus the guacamole.  

Fresh and delicious!