Double Meat

Double meat has been our life lately. Thats the good thing about Paleo, but it is also the really expensive part of Paleo. Still struggling with the costs of all the food and the feeling of being hungry almost all of the time, but I am adjusting. We are already at Day 10, one-third of the way through!

I bought some bok choy at the Farmers Market this

week and I decided that I better use it! So I decided to make a big stir-fry. I pulled out all the veggies in the fridge and

just started chopping. My husband came out of the bedroom and said, "Well, I can see that your knife works...." I chopped up zucchini, broccoli, celery, carrots, onion and bok choy. I also bought some organic, grass fed, open pasture beef at the farmers market that was already cut into stir fry strips. I just love the name, Lucky Dog Ranch. I sauteed all of this in a huge skillet with garlic, powdered ginger, red pepper flakes and sesame seeds. This made a huge amount of stir fry! But it was delicious and another good change of pace.

Paleo - Day 6

Well we have made it almost a week. It has been a tough week, much tougher than I anticipated. The first three days were really hard but about day 4 we started to turn a corner and it started to get a little easier. Except for last night.

We went to a "gender reveal party" last night to find out the gender of a good friends baby, and it was pure torture. There was cakes, cookies, cheese, crackers, and cheesecakes. Ugh. I was doing ok and then people kept offering me cake and sugary punch...it was really difficult. The only thing there we could eat was a plate of strawberries. I had already reached my limit for the day on fruit, but if eating a few extra strawberries keeps me from eating a huge slice of chocolate-chocolate cake, I am going to do it.

We have been looking for variety in our meals because everything we have been eating either has eggs, tomatoes or beef in it. So I spent some time looking through an old Rachael Ray cookbook called "30 Minute GET REAL Meals" which was her take on the low carb and Atkins craze a few years ago. I started reading through it for some inspiration and then I went to the farmers market and found a STEAL on fennel so I made a delicious lunch today. We had mini-turkey sausage burgers with fennel and orange salad.

I took some ground turkey and added fennel seed which makes ground meat taste like sausage, and also added onion powder and red pepper flakes. I drizzled them in grapeseed oil and grilled them off. I also grilled the stems of the fennel, but it turned out too tough to really eat. Meanwhile, I cut up the fennel bulb, segmented two oranges, zested and juiced half of a lemon, added a little pepper and drizzled with a little bit of oil to create the salad. It was a pretty good lunch to wake my taste-buds up again.

Day 1 of Paleo

So we started eating Paleo today and it wasn't too bad. Scott and I were so tired of eating JUNK for the last two weeks that we were super excited to get started on these 30 days of strict Paleo. Last night I made a huge pot of chili that we will be having for lunches for most of the week and we are trying to figure out dinners. Tonight we had chicken cooked in bacon (yum!) and a salad. Feeling pretty good about it and we will see how it goes. Scott says that he already misses Dr. Pepper and I am already missing bread and sweets, but I am sure the cravings will pass. Last night I took some horribly unflattering photos of myself and took all of my measurements so that at the end of the 30 days I will have something to compare to. I will try to post some Paleo recipes in the next week or two as we get this all figured out!

Paleo-What the heck is that?

I will get to this salad later, update first.

I know I have not blogged in a long time but I am due for an update. The hubby and I have become very interested in the Paleo diet. It is also called the Caveman diet and what it is essentially is that you only eat things that you could have hunted or gathered. So basically it is meat, fruits, veggies, nuts and seeds. We became interested in it over Thanksgiving break and spent our 10 hour car ride looking up articles and discussing the possibility of doing this diet. We started debating it more and more and researched and asked lots of questions. I started talking to an old math-major buddy Jessica Alzen because they have been doing Paleo for a year now. She gave us lots of info and has helped us as we are preparing to go hardcore Paleo in January. We have been eating more and more Paleo meals and figuring out what works for us. It will be an interesting adventure. I will keep you posted. For now, a Paleo salad that is delish!

Since Paleo does not allow vinegar, I started to wonder wh

at I was going to use for salad dressing and I found the greatest alternative. Roasted tomatoes.

This is a before and after shot. when they roast they release their juice and that combined with olive oil and a little salt and pepper makes for an insane dressing, trust me.

The other components to this salad are: grilled steak, toasted pine nuts and spinach. Seriously good salad.

More Paleo updates to come!

Pepperoni Pizza Puffs

Pepperoni Pizza Puffs!!
This recipe is from a Rachael Ray magazine recently and it is a great little meal. I add into it some seasonings (red pepper flakes, oregano, garlic) and some parmesan cheese. These are really yummy and I think they would make a great party snack too!

I am super behind in my blogging-so these pictures are from a few months ago (!!!) but we had these for lunch today so I thought it was time to blog them!

Blogging Frustrations

I really want to blog more, but I spend so much time making each blog post that it makes me not want to blog. My main problem is that I spend SO much time formatting the pictures and trying to make them look right that I don't even want to start! Is this a normal problem with Blogger? Do people have better luck with Wordpress (or any other blogging site)?
I really do want to blog, but I don't want to spend an hour formatting every picture that I put into the blog.

Birthday Present

Here she is! I decided to buy the KitchenAid stand mixer and I am so glad that I did! I found a pretty good deal on it at Kohls and they even had it in red!! I used it right away and made homemade marshmallows (post to come soon!).

The super fun part of my birthday was hanging out with some dear friends and going out to Tex Wasabis for dinner and our place for ice cream.

Tex Wasabis is one of Guy Fieris restaurants and we are both big fans of his. The restaurant is a fusion of BBQ and sushi. We tried

some of the "gringo sushi" which is BBQ meats stuffed in the sushi. We had the "kemosabe roll" which had BBQ beef brisket, french fries and garlic chili mayo sauce. We also tried the "screaming gobbler roll" It had roasted turkey, jalapenos, pepper jack cheese and siracha mayo. They

were really good especially since Scott and I don't like real sushi! We also ordered a BBQ beef brisket dinner that was pretty delicious too. All in all, it was a wonderful birthday!

Birthday Decisions

My parents gave me some money this year for my birthday and these are the two things I am debating between. The foodie in me really wants the stand mixer but the crafter in me wants the sewing machine. So we will see if the crafter or if the foodie wins out.

The other thing I may use the money for is a digital camera. Mine was stolen during our trip to Southern California. The friends we were staying with had their house broken into and they grabbed both my purse and my friends purse. The neighbors saw it and chased the guy and so he ultimately ditched our purses, but only after he grabbed my cash and camera. We praise God that he only got those two things and not our ids and credit cards too. I wonder what he thought when he realized it was a pink camera with about 200 pictures of food on it....

For my birthday on Saturday we are planning on going to Tex Wasabi's here in Sacramento. Tex Wasabi is one of Guy Fieri's restaurants. We are huge fans of his and we have been to his other restaurant in town, Johnny Garlic's. We have really wanted to try Tex Wasabi's for their "gringo sushi," which is sushi filled with pulled pork or BBQ chicken. I will defiantly post about that adventure!

Summer Corn and Pasta

School is out for the summer and therefore, I have lots of time to cook! I was catching up on my 46 hours of Rachael Ray that I have recorded and I came across this recipe for fettuccine with sweet corn and fresh dill. I was inspired by those flavors in this dish and adapted it to go along with what I already had on hand.

I love summertime food, especially corn on the cob. It is such a good deal at the grocery store, I had bought 6 ears of corn for the two of us! We had used one ear of corn in a stir-fry, so I had 5 ears of corn to use. The method that Rachael Ray used was she sautéed half of the ears of corn and making a puree out of the other half.

So I did just as Rachel Ray did. I sautéed half of the ears of corn along with a large onion and lots of red pepper flakes. Once the onions were soft and corn caramelized, I added the corn that was pureed with a little bit of the cooking water from the pasta.

Do you see something else that doesn't belong in the sauce? I forget to hold the blade sometimes and this does happen often. :)

It created a very thick sauce, so I added a little extra of the cooking water to thin out the sauce. Lots of black pepper, parmesan cheese and parsley went into the sauce as well. I then added lots of angel hair pasta and we topped it with crispy turkey bacon. It ended up being a really light (and pretty healthy) summer dish. It ended up being equally good cold today as leftovers. So, if you have lots of corn, try this one out!

Caramelized Onion and Fennel Spaghetti Penne

Doesn't that look delicious?

Everyone knows that I am a huge Rachael Ray fan and often times I do not follow her recipes exactly, but use a recipe in order to gain ideas of something different to make. I came across a recipe for Fennel and Onion Spaghetti and I thought that the combo sounded really good. My parents used fennel in cooking as a kid and I remember liking fennel, but I don't think that I have ever cooked with it as an adult. So i bought a bulb of fennel (which was kinda pricey $3.99 and I used it all in one meal-is that a normal price for fennel?) and I had everything else on hand to make it.


If you noticed in the title that the word Spaghetti was crossed out, well here is why. I went to pull out the box of spaghetti and I ended up dumping the entire box on the floor. Oops. I had a box of whole wheat penne and I really liked the whole wheat pasta in this recipe. I caramelized the onion and fennel and then I added some chicken sausage (since my hubby likes meat in his dinner) and put it all together with the penne. I topped it with a few fennel fronds, because it looks pretty, but neither one of us really liked the texture of the uncooked fennel fronds along with the rest of the meal.


What are new foods that you are cooking with?

Broiled Brownines

No, broiled brownies is not some fantastic dessert I have created. Sadly, quite the opposite. One night I wanted to make some brownies for dessert, and I had a box of the No Pudge Brownies (so that dessert is guilt-free too!) and I mixed all the ingredients together and got the brownies in the oven. I set the timer for 25 minutes and my hubby and I sat down on the couch and after a few we were already smelling brownies. We thought it was a little odd that after 8 minutes the brownies smelled great. Then the realization washed over me: I set the oven to broil, not to bake!

Now before you judge me harshly for making such a silly mistake, take a look at the knob on our oven. Can you tell which way to turn the knob? If you turn it to one side, you will turn the oven to bake and make all your food come out delicious, if you turn it to the other side, you turn on the broiler and ruin your food.

Can you tell which way to turn the knob?

Caesar Salad with Fried Ravioli

I am a Caesar Salad junkie. I love Caesar salad anyway that you can make it. It is one of my fall-back meals that I make all the time and I was feeling like finding a new way to have my old favorite. I decided to look on Rachael Rays' website and I found this recipe for Caesar Salad with Fried Ravioli. I didn't make my own dressing since I always have a bottle of Caesar Salad dressing around. The best part was replacing the croutons in Caesar Salad with the fried ravioli!

It was super easy to do and elevated a Caesar Salad to an entree (and my hubby didn't even complain that it was a vegetarian dinner too!). You cook the ravioli to package directions, we used cheese ravioli, then drain the pasta. Then you toss it in a combo of cornmeal, parmesan cheese and lots of pepper. Then it goes into a skillet with a little bit of olive oil, a few minutes on each side, and then you have beautifully golden fried ravioli!

Next time you are in the mood for Caesar salad (or fried ravioli!) try this one out!

Oatmeal Carmelitias

I love to make up my own recipes, or take my own spin on recipes, but I can't do that when it comes to baking. I am a Rachael Ray girl to the core and so I cook a lot, but I have not mastered the art of baking. If I bake, I follow other peoples recipes exactly. One of these days I am going to learn what the difference is between baking powder and baking soda, but until then, I am going to use other peoples recipes.

A dear friend of mine, Rebecca Hoehne, made these Oatmeal Carmelitias one day and brought them to work and I fell in love! They are such a unique taste and texture combination. It is like an oatmeal cookie covered in carmel and chocolate chips and then topped with more crunchy oatmeal. Out of control!

The recipe is pretty simple, the only downside is you have to wait 1-2 hours for it to cool before enjoying! But it is worth every minute of the wait!

Pizza Panini

This is my new favorite idea that I am obsessed with. Who doesn't love pizza or grilled sandwiches? This is super fast and easy dinner and I am excited to keep playing and perfecting this meal.


I used really good sourdough bread, spread both sides with butter and then stacked up my sandwich. One side got shredded mozzarella, then pepperoni, a little bit of spaghetti sauce and a few slices of provolone cheese.

I don't have a real panini press, so I put my sandwiches on my grill pan, put another pan on top of it and weighted it down. Ghetto, I know, but it served its purpose. The sandwiches got pressed down and gooey with cheese.

I love this meal because it is super fast and easy. Next time I want it try it with some spinach....what else should I try putting in it? What do you like on your panini?

Welcome!

I have been wanting to start a food blog for a while. I tried to blog about my life, and I was never consistent with maintaining it. I figured if I blogged about my favorite subject, food, I could possibly be successful. Hopefully you will enjoy some of the recipies, ideas and reviews that I share.