G Eats: Honey Ginger Chicken Stir Fry

Stir fry has to be the one of the easiest ways to use up a lot of veggies and stretch out a smaller amount of meat.  It comes together quickly for a delicious meal full of good for you stuff. This recipe came together as one of those toss-what-you-got-into-a-pan-and-make-it-delicious kinda meals.  Feel free to use whatever vegetables you have on hand for this one.

Honey Ginger Chicken Stir Fry

4-6 Boneless skinless chicken thighs, cut into 1 inch pieces
Marinade:
3 TBSP Coconut Aminos
1/2 tsp each Onion Powder, Garlic Powder & Ground Ginger

Place chicken in non reactive bowl. Combine marinade ingredients and pour over chicken.  Toss well to coat.  Set aside in fridge for at least 1 hour.

1/2-1 Cup Tapioca Starch {enough for just a light coating on the chicken} seasoned to taste with salt & pepper
Coconut Oil for the pan
Assorted Mixed Vegetable {onions, carrots, celery, mushroom, broccoli or whatever you have on hand}
2 Cloves garlic; minced
Sauce:
1/4 Cup Coconut Aminos
Ground Ginger
Chilli Flakes
Lime Juice 
Honey
{add the seasonings to your own taste, depending on how hot or sweet you like your sauce}
Arrowroot Powder {for thickening if needed} 

Heat enough oil in a frying pan or wok for a shallow pan fry.  Dredge marinated chicken pieces in the tapioca starch, shaking off any excess.  Pan fry in batches until cooked, flipping part way through.  Roughly 5-7 minutes.  Set aside on paper towel lined plate.

Remove extra oil and toss in your mixed vegetables {except for the broccoli which can be added later so it won't over cook}.  Fry until they begin to get tender {you can add a bit of water to steam them slightly if you want to speed up the cooking process} when they are at the halfway done mark, stir in the broccoli and garlic.  Cook for a couple more minutes, then pour in the sauce.  Continue cooking until the vegetables are at their desired doneness and the sauce has thickened.  Add the chicken back to the pan and mix.

Serve on a bed of riced cauliflower.

Enjoy!



G.

G Eats: Tuna Salad Rolls

We've had some confused weather around here lately.  Last week everyone was out in full force donning summer clothing, only to be rudely interrupted by hail on the weekend.  We were left to frantically pull out our freshly packed away cold weather wear.  My beach volleyball team toughed it out in icy sands, then I awoke the next morning to a beautiful warm sunny day.  Although Mother Nature can't quite make up her mind there is one constant here in my humble abode: even the slightest rise in temperature outside turns my apartment into a stuffy hot box.

Naturally when it gets hot inside I try to keep the stove/oven use to a minimum. We eat a lot of snack plates around here in the summer months.  In a bid to keep our food interesting, even if I'm not cooking it, I've started experimenting with using sheets of nori to make cold rolls.

The other night I was left on my own for dinner and feeling rather lazy.  I decided to whip up a batch of paleo mayo and have some tuna salad.  *A note on mayo {paleo or otherwise}: if you are not making your own mayo, you should be! Fresh homemade mayo tastes sooooo much better than any of the store bought crap.  Also with the use of a regular or immersion blender it's easy to toss together a batch.  I strongly believe that my salads requiring a mayo dressing greatly benefit from a homemade approach.* 

Now, let me say, there's nothing fancy about my standard tuna salad.  It's just canned tuna, mayo, celery, onions, salt, pepper, dill and paprika.  Sometimes I add a little more heat to it if I'm in the mood for spice, but I like the simplicity of it.  Initially I had planned on just eating it with a fork right out of the bowl leaning against the counter like the classy girl I am. Then I figured I'd toss it on some lettuce and perhaps sit down. But the nori beckoned to me from the cupboard and it whispered tuna salad rolls. 

Tuna Salad Rolls

For the tuna salad:
1 Can flaked tuna in water; drained
2-3 Tbsp Mayo {hopefully homemade}
1 Celery stalk; diced
1-2 Green onions; diced {use just the white part here and reserve the green tops for the rolls}
1-2 tsp fresh or dried dill {or to taste}
1-2 pinches of paprika
Salt & Pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients in a bowl until evenly combined.  Adjust seasonings to taste. Set aside in fridge.

For the rolls:
1-2 Sheets of nori {the number of sheets you use will depend on how thick you want your rolls}
1/3 Cucumber; seeded and cut into matchsticks
1-2 Green onion tops; sliced lengthwise
1/2 Carrot; cut into matchsticks {or you can use a carrot slaw mix like I did to save time}
1/2-1 Cup shredded lettuce
Tuna Salad

Lay out a sheet of nori on a cutting board.  Sprinkle it with a little bit of water to make it pliant.  I just wet my finger tips and flicked the water onto the sheet so it was slightly damp but not so wet that it would tear once I started to roll.

Start by laying down some of the tuna salad.  I leave about an inch and a half of the nori sheet closest to me empty so I have room to start to roll from.  Layer your vegetable matchsticks on top followed by the lettuce.  Now you should have a mound of filling ready to be rolled up.  The amount of filling you put in will not only determine how large your rolls will be but it will affect how easy it is to roll the nori. I'm not an expert at rolling nori so I just went with the good old trial and error method for this.

Grab the end closest to you and pull it up over your fillings.  You want to tuck it over as your begin to roll and really focus on keeping it tight so your salad stays nicely secure in the nori package.  Roll all the way up to the end and make sure it adheres so your roll stays together. Repeat with remaining ingredients. 

Once all your rolls are made you can then cut them into your desired size.  You can keep them longer like the size of a spring roll or cut them more bite sized like sushi.  I suggest you use a very sharp knife that you clean off after every cut or two or it'll become harder to cut through your rolls.

Plate and enjoy!

Note: Feel free to play around with the tuna salad flavourings.  This is just a basic recipe so you can add whatever spices or ingredients you want to make it more exciting. If you're not a mayo person use a mashed up avocado instead.  Hate tuna? Chicken salad would work as well. You could also just lay down the mashed up avocado and put the remaining ingredients on top for a vegetarian friendly roll.  The sky's the limit!

G.

G Eats: Pizza Kale Chips

Kale chips are a revelation.  I'm not sure how I went so long without these tasty morsels of guilt free snacking.  With the use of my dehydrator, it's so simple for me to just toss them in before bed and wake up to delicious chips.  For the most part I have been going the simple olive oil and salt route with flavourings, but over the past few weeks have started to explore some other combinations as well. 

Last week I happened upon a recipe for pizza flavoured kale chips.  Intrigued, I started to browse through a bunch of different recipes before settling on my ingredients. After some measuring, blending, mixing and dehydrating I ended up with these beauties:

{Pizza flavouring - check. Crunchy snackable goodness - check.  Eating a whole helping of this in one sitting - double check}

Pizza Kale Chips

• 1 Bunch of kale {washed, dried and veins removed} 
• 1 Cup raw shelled sunflower seeds {soaked 4 hours}
• 1 small can tomato paste
• 2 1/2 Tbsp nutritional yeast
• 1 tsp each: red pepper flakes, garlic powder, onion powder, basil, rosemary, oregano
• 1/2 tsp fennel seeds
• Salt to taste
• 2 Tbsp Olive Oil
• Filtered water {to thin out mixture}

Combine everything except the water in a food processor.  Blend until everything is well combined and broken down.  At this point you should have a very thick orange mixture that needs to be thinned out.  With the processor still running slowly add in the water a 1/4 cup at a time to create a smooth paste.   The amount of water you use will depend on  how thick or thin your want it to be.  You want the paste to be thick enough to really coat the kale without being too heavy.  It's all personal preference though.

Place your kale in a large bowl and pour your sauce on top.  Use your hands to mix ensuring that every leaf is covered in your delicious pizza flavours.  Don't be afraid to get your hands dirty and really massage the sauce into each piece of kale.

Lay out in a single layer on your trays and dehydrate overnight {approx. 12 hours} or until chips are completely dry and crispy.

Consume with enthusiasm. 

*Note: I have a very cheap dehydrator that doesn't have any sort of temperature control, so timing will most certainly vary depending on what kind of dehydrator you use.   

Happy snacking!

G.

The Gradual Evolution Of My "Diet"

 I have become a cavegirl!!! 

 Well more specifically I have adopted the Paleo way of eating, which is to say I've gone waaaaay back to our roots. The Paleo "Diet" {I don't really like the term diet because, for me, this is more an adapted life change and not a fad or crash diet solely based on loosing weight as fast as possible.  It's more about living a healthy lifestyle.  But I digress.} is all about eating more like the cave men used to eat. Lots of veggies, lean meat, seeds, nuts and healthy fat and cutting out dairy, grains, processed foods/sugars, legumes and starches. For a more in depth description you can check out this site: http://paleodietlifestyle.com/ which will describe exactly what it is way better than I could.

So how exactly did I end up here? For me it seemed like a natural progression.  After all of my weight gain due to injury I found myself lacking energy and generally feeling like crap all the time.  In addition my blood sugar began to jump all over the place.  I've always had to be careful to make sure my sugar levels didn't drop or I would feel really sick, but it was at the point where I wasn't even hungry but they were acting like I hadn't eaten in hours.  I started to re-evaluate my diet and lifestyle and try to figure out what I could do to even out my blood sugar, lose some weight and start feeling healthy again. I started by making more health conscious choices and getting more exercise in.  A few months ago I decided to cut gluten/wheat out of my diet, and in the process I read the book Wheat Belly.  It opened my eyes to the kind of food I had been consuming and I decided to give the diet a try.  I cut out a lot of crap from my diet and went through full wheat withdrawal as I purged it from my system.  I found that I was having a hard time motivating myself and that I didn't love all of recipes in the book.  But I was starting to feel better.

I am a notorious recipe searcher, I can spend hours combing the internet/books/magazines/etc for new ideas on things to cook.  I knew the answer to my motivation problem lay in the blogosphere and started looking for sites that had recipes that were "wheat belly" friendly.  I found a lot of gluten free/celiac friendly blogs at first {they are close but not quite what I needed. They still contained components that I no longer ate}, then I began to see sites talking about the Paleo Diet.  It was really similar to the diet I was already on, but seemed a bit more cohesive.  There were some differences that made more sense and it made me excited about the food I was eating.  The more recipes I scrolled through, the more I read about what exactly this eating habit entailed and how I could adapt to the lifestyle.  I thought to myself, well you're almost there anyways mine as well give it shot.

I realize that a lot of people think I'm crazy.  There is now a long list of food I can't eat and the majority of it used to be what I consumed most. I am now one of those difficult to go for dinner with people too, most of the menu items are not on my list of 'can haves'.  In fact my first restaurant experience since my switch was last week and resulted in me being very sick for a couple days.  The initial move to this diet is not easy, you have to re-adjust what your body thinks it's craving and really dedicate yourself to it 100%.  There is A LOT of temptation, but so far the results I am starting to see are nothing but positive. I have not had a blood sugar drop in weeks, I have dropped about 10 pounds, I am finally at the point where I don't miss bread, my energy levels are up and food is soooo good! When I eat I am full but not bloated/over stuffed, just perfectly satisfied and every day I miss my old diet less and less.  I am still new at this, learning the ropes so to speak, but it's not going to stop me from making delicious meals and yummy {paleo friendly} baked goods.  For me this is a whole new way of thinking and living, and so far I'm loving it.


G.

 
P.S. Stay tuned for updates on this AND my adventures in culinary class.