Category: Food Diet Lifestyle

Paleo / Primal or not…..

December 10, 2011

Sometimes a girl needs a bit of dessert. One square of 86% cocoa organic dark chocolate and a few fresh berries hits the spot!

Herbed roast turkey breast

December 8, 2011

Last night’s Paleo/Primal goodness was one of my fav go to recipes – Rachel Ray’s Herbed Turkey Breast (without pan gravy- since I’m trying to be paleo/primal, I’ll skip that part).

Luckily we still haven’t had a hard enough freeze to make the sage and parsley in the garden unusable. Grabbed handfuls of each. Pulled out my trusty lemon zester. (there’s a story behind my love of this tool…someday I might share).

Hardest part of the recipe for me is de-boning the turkey breast. Knife skills I do not possess. Nor knowledge of butchering technique. I know you can buy boneless turkey breasts – but they usually also are skinless, and you need the skin in this recipe. I have had my local market butcher de-bone, but I like to use the carcass for broth. So I hack away.

Once deboned, the herb, onion, olive oil and lemon zest paste is tucked under the skin before roasting. A couple of bay leaves are tucked below, and a bit of bay butter drizzled on top.

45 minutes later this goodness:

The pan drippings can be reduced slightly and make an au jus (no flour, so not really a gravy). See the line of green herbs under the skin? Yummy! Sweet potatoes are a perfect side. As are brussel sprouts.

The breasts are bigger than they appear here. One side more than feeds our family with the other for lunch leftovers. Can you say turkey, avocado and bacon lettuce roll-ups?

BBQ ribs -Paleo

December 7, 2011

Finding a good rib rub without any added sugar, grains or gluten is a bit of a challenge. Fortunately Penzey’s 33rd and Galena rub meets the criteria. And delivers a nice spicy kick.

Cooked the two racks on the Big Green Egg with the heat diffuser plate. Used a bit of Applewood for flavor. Placed the rubbed ribs on the rack for 30ish minutes to absorb the smoke flavor. Once the applewood was gone, wrapped the ribs in foil to seal in juices. Cooked another couple hours.

Served their yummy goodness with our favorite Butternut Squash with cranberries from paleoplan.com Was so good forgot to take after pictures. Oops.

Taking A Bite Out Of The Big Apple

May 28, 2011

In addition to a lot of walking around New York, we did a bunch of eating and drinking. This was a work related trip (hubby’s work, not mine). Good food, good company and good drink was guaranteed.

Being the Top Chef fan girl I am, I couldn’t go to New York without visiting Tom Colicchio’s restaurant CraftBar. Naturally, we had walked there. Taking a path up Fifth Avenue with a walk through the Union Square Greenmarket. The Andy Memorial brought a smile to my face.

We were at Craftbar mid-day, so enjoyed a cheese plate, along with some craft beers. Hopefully, on a future trip to NYC, we can add dinner at Craft or Craftbar to my list of Top Chef restaurants where I’ve dined. Tho’ I can already add this to the ones I’ve enjoyed.

One of the highlights of the trip was the “Neighborhood Nosh Tour”. 8 of our group choose this as an excursion on a Saturday morning in early May. We began the tour at Ferrara’s in Little Italy for coffee and cannoli, which we enjoyed outside the restaurant.

After eating our fill of these delectable sweets, we needed to walk a bit to work up an appetite for our next stop. A tour through Little Italy and on the Chinatown, with a stop along Canal Street to haggle on “real” Rolex, Coach, Louis Vitton, Chanel did the trick.

I found the shops and street vendors in Chinatown fascinating.

Our destination was Columbus Park where we ate Tasty Dumplings while watching people young and old perform Tai Chai, play chess, and mingle in the park.

A quick bus ride brought us to the East Village to Yonah Schimmel’s Knishery. I’ve never had a knish. As knishes go, I’m sure these were quite good. BUT….while I love potatoes, knishes just went to my been there done that, checked the box list. Not a fan. The Egg Creams, tho’, I could do again (but I’m a huge fan of Chocolate Phosphates)

We ended the tour with a trip to Empire Candy. Was so stuffed at this point, going to a place to buy something for later ws just the ticket. Bought several treats to bring home to Kiddo while here.

One of the more unique experiences happened on our first night as we walked to the restuarant the group was met by the trip sponsor’s, and asked to sign the “Cask of Dreams”, which was then rolled down the street to Public, our restaurant of the evening.

This was Derby weekend, so we had to find a place to watch the race and drink a mint julep – Brinkle’s worked out well for that. And, of course, I worked in a Blue Moon or two (including on Broadway at Million DOllar Quartet).

On our last morning in NYC, we walked back to the East Village for sandwiches at Katz’s Deli. Made famous in the “I’ll have what she’s having” scene of ‘When Harry Met Sally’, this Ny Deli is known for their pastrami sandwiches and salami. Loved it.

In fact, loved this trip. Can’t wait to get back to NYC!

This is part 2 of a trip report on NYC, part 1 is here

National Bike to Work Week

May 21, 2011

Ok, I admit it. I’m pretty much a fair weather bike commuter. I started bike commuting last fall and rode until the Friday before “fall back”, the switch from daylight saving to standard time. In the fall, I enjoyed riding the 11 mile route in the cool temperatures, and found the early morning frost to be a beautiful addition to the ride. However, I just am not comfortable riding in the dark, nor on snow and ice. So once the time changed, the commuter was put away for the winter.

My schedule and the rainy, crappy weather have been on a collision course for weeks (yes, refer back to the fair weather thing, and add rain and winds over 20mph to the snow, ice and dark list.) I travel extensively for work, often only going into the office a couple of times a week. But I was determined I would ride my bike this week – that no matter what it took, I would commute at least once during National Bike to Work Week. Thankfully, today, on the one day I was in the office, the weather cooperated.

Beautiful sunny morning. Enjoyed seeing a duck pair playing in water on the trail.

Ride in was great. Loved seeing my helmet and gear in my office. So much so, I kept moving it around, so others would notice. On my own little influence others to ride mission around the office.