For the past five years, dinner at The House has been I buy it, Mike prepares it, we eat. Most of the time it was frozen or something easy. I buy chicken, he adds stuff to it (such as spices and whatnot), and we eat. When we opted to do the Paleo diet I looked for recipes, cleared them with him, and bought the stuff, but when it came time to cook I realized there was a lot more to it than just, you know, take it out of the freezer, take it out of the box, and put it in the stove (bad me and frozen pizza). So rather than cook alone (I had the recipes on my phone so I was now "The Cooker"), I called Mike in, showed him what we were making, and set him to cutting or doing something.
Our kitchen isn't that big. So we're sometimes in each other's ways. And we cook differently. I follow recipes. He cooks to taste (which he imagines in his head, which I can't do). He's creative about cooking - he can throw something together from available stuff. If I don't have a recipe I make something I've always made (not just a throw together meal). So imagine these two people in the kitchen together, trying to reach one goal (a meal). Yeah. It's been...a challenge. There we go.
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Bacon, spinach, and
mushroom casserole |
But we have found some things that we both liked, and I want to share those with you. All of these came from
Quick Paleo Meals at Paleo Diet Lifestyle. First up, bacon, spinach, and mushroom casserole. First off, my brain says this isn't a casserole because it doesn't fit my brain's criteria for a casserole. But whatever you call it, it has a good taste. I personally would prefer the bacon crispy (as I always do), but it had a good taste and we liked it. Mike took the leftovers and made an omelet with them. The recipe calls for a casserole dish that you cook everything in on the stove but we just used a regular saute pan. One nice thing about this is it's a one pan deal - no other pans or lots of cleanup required.
Moving on. Liver and onions. You can tell me as long as you want that liver's good for you. And that's great. And Mike likes it. The idea of it, the taste of it, and everything about it just don't sit right with me. But at the beginning of this Paleo journey I said I'd try everything once (but not brains, Sarah). I tried it. I don't like it. I'm done. Will I have it again? *Rolls eyes and sighs* If Mike asks for it, sure. It's easy. It's pretty inexpensive. I don't know about your grocery store, but my grocery store had 1 container of liver (that I bought for $2.50). Moving away. From liver.
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Paleo pork chops
with apples and onions |
Pork chops with apples and onions. Yeah. This is good. I've talked to a lot of people about different Paleo pork chop recipes and I was pretty happy with this one. The apples and onions give it a good flavor and again, it's pretty easy and quick. The cutting up of the apples and onions took the longest time honestly. I may start cutting up gads of stuff at a time so that cooking will be easier. I should have eaten two of these but Mike had two, I gave one to Silas (who refused to eat it), and we only had 4. I did eat his leftovers the next morning for breakfast...
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| Canned salmon salad |
Cold salmon salad you say? Sure. For lunch one day we made canned salmon salad. We halved the recipe because it was just the two of us eating lunch, and we still had leftovers. We used lettuce wraps to make little "sandwiches" rather than just put it on a bed of lettuce as a salad. Quick and easy (aside from the cutting, again). I will definitely make this again and may even make some up to bring to work. Mike says he thinks it would be tasty with celery rather than cucumbers as well.
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| Paleo Chicken Fajitas |
Last up was Paleo Chicken Fajitas. We had these for dinner one night when a family friend was over. He enjoyed them as well (in a tortilla, no lettuce wraps for him). Definitely tasty and "one skillet easy." We'll definitely keep this around because it's quick and something good to serve if folks who don't follow the Paleo diet have dinner with us.
So what would we like to try? I'm really interested in some sort of pizza type thing. But I think the crust would involve a lot of work so I'm kind of waiting for next week when I can have a leisurely time of making it (kids at school, Mike at work). Do you have go-to lunch and dinner ideas? Share in the comments!
