Avocados w/ Hot Sauce

Ingredients:

1) 1 or 2 avocados (3-4g carbs per avocado)

2) Cholula hot sauce (0g carbs) – Obviously, you can use whatever kind of hot sauce you like.

3) Cilantro, chopped

Directions:

1) Cut the avocados in half, then while the avocado meat is still in the “shell,” cut the meat into cubes by cutting 3-4 times horizontally and then 3-4 times vertically.

2) Scoop the meat out of the shell and into a bowl.

3) Put as much or as little hot sauce on it as you would like.

I haven’t tried this with some chopped cilantro on it, but I think that would be amazing.

Mashed Cauliflower w/ Artichoke Hearts

Ingredients:

1) 2 large cauliflower bunches (or 3 small ones)

2) 1 can of artichoke hearts

3) Butter

4) Garlic salt (I’m sure other kinds of salt would be good too or just regular salt with pepper)

5) Parsley (optional)

Directions:

1) Cut off the stalks of the cauliflower and cut up the non-stalk portions into about 2-inch pieces.

2) Boil the cauliflower pieces in a big pot until you can easily cut through one of the cauliflower pieces with a spoon.  I think this takes about 30 minutes.

3) Drain the water from the can of artichoke hearts.

4) Cut up the artichoke hearts into 1/2-1 inch pieces and set aside.

5) Once cooked enough, drain the water from the pot with the cauliflower and water and put the cauliflower back into the same pot you cooked it in.

6) Mash up the cauliflower with a potato masher, big fork, or pasta scooper.

7) Mix in the chopped artichoke hearts.

8) Put into a glass tupperware container and let cool with the top off.  Once cool, refrigerate.

9) To make a serving for yourself, scoop 1-1.5 cups of the cauliflower + artichoke mixture into a bowl,  top with 0.5-1 tablespoons of butter (cut up in a few pieces), and then microwave for 1-2 minutes.

10) Top with as much garlic salt and parsley as you like.

Note: I usually make this ahead of time and don’t eat some right then, hence the refrigeration step.  But if you are wanting to eat some right away, just skip the refrigeration step and mix in the butter, salt, and parsley to the already warm cauliflower + artichoke mixture.

This is very easy to freeze and also make a lot of in advance.

Meatballs

Aside from being incredibly delicious, these are easy to freeze before or after cooking them.

Ingredients:

1) 1 lb. of ground beef

2) 1 lb. of ground pork (You can substitute this with another pound of ground beef.  I have made it both ways and both taste good, but the pork adds more flavor, probably due to the increased fat content.)

3) small yellow onion

4) 3 eggs

5) 1/3-1/2 cup of ground flax seeds (aka flax meal)

6) ground pepper

7) black truffle salt

8) extra-virgin olive oil

9) your favorite pasta sauce

10) sliced mushrooms (I like shittake)

11) curly parsley

Directions: 

1) Preheat oven to 350.

2) Put the ground beef and ground pork in a big bowl and let get to room temperature.  (If you don’t do this step, when you try to make the meatballs, your fingers will get super cold!)

3) Chop the onion into fairly small pieces and add to the bowl.

4) Chop up the parsley and put aside.

5) Add the flax meal and eggs into the bowl of meat + onions.

6) Season the meat mixture with about a 1/2 teaspoon of pepper and about 2 teaspoons of truffle salt (though you can really do however much you’d like for this).

7) Use your hands or a wooden spoon to mix up everything in the bowl and then form small balls.  (You can also skip the last part of this if you’d like and just scoop the mixture out in spoonfuls.  See note about this two steps after this.)

8) Place the meatballs on any dish that can go in the oven and cook them for about 10-20 minutes so that they are really solid in their ball formation.  It’s ok if they aren’t cooked throughout, because you’ll be cooking them more in the sauce.

9) In a rather large pot, heat up some butter and cook the sliced mushrooms in it.

10) Once the mushrooms are cooked, add the sauce to the pot.  Cook for a few minutes, then add the meatballs for a while.

11) When you’re all done, top with chopped parsley and add some more truffle salt if you’d like.

Eggs w/ Carnitas & Avocado

Being from the bay area, I can’t get enough Mexican food.  Even if it is in some small way kind like Mexican food, I want it.  This is one of my many semi-Mexican food dishes.

Ingredients:

1) 2 eggs

2) few spoonfuls of carnitas (I got mine pre-cooked from the buffet at Whole Foods)

3) 1 avocado

4) Cholula hot sauce

Directions:

1) With a fork, beat the eggs up in a big mug or cereal bowl.

2) Mix the carnitas into the egg mixture.

3) Cook for 1-3 minutes, mixing it up half way through.

4) While the eggs are cooking, cut up the avocado into cubes.

5) Mix the avocado into the eggs and add as much hot sauce as you like.

Carrots & Nut Butter

About an hour ago I was exhausted and dying for a snack–not just food, snack food.  I didn’t have anything that was appealing and I decided to go check out what was in the doctoral office kitchen.  What did I find?  A super yummy snack that I can imagine kids LOVING.

Ingredients:

1) Peanut butter (almond butter or any other kind of nut butter works, since peanuts aren’t paleo).

2) Baby carrots.

Directions:

1) Eat together.  Yum.

Green Smoothies

Ingredients:

1) 1 cup frozen leafy greens: I prefer spinach (chopped is cheapest), but you can also use kale or collard greens.

2) 1 cup sparkling naturally-flavored water:  From whole foods, I like strawberry, lemon raspberry, and citrus.

3) splash of lemon juice (optional)

4) chia seeds or ground flax meal (optional)

5) Frozen berries (optional)

6) full-fat Greek yogurt (optional; non-paleo)

Directions:

1) Put all of the ingredients into a blender and add as much or as little water as you want to it.

2) Blend and drink!

Note #1: I started drinking these smoothies with both fruit and Greek yogurt.  After a while, I started focusing on eating more paleo and more low-carb, which meant goodbye to both the yogurt and the fruit.  However, I didn’t do this all at once, because I think the shift would have been so drastic that I would have hated what I was drinking.  Now I can drink these green smoothies and really enjoy the taste even though I know my friends who never drink them would hate them.  So I just slowly phased out the yogurt and fruit; I went from having a cup of berries in my smoothies, to half a cup, then a quarter cup, etc.  It’s surprising 1) how much you will eventually enjoy the smoothies without them (maybe it’s the energy boost?), and 2) how much flavor even just a small handful or a few berries gives a smoothie.  I used to think I would need a whole cup of fruit, but now I realize that’s not necessary.

Note #2: I started drinking these because I don’t really enjoy eating spinach and kale and yet they are so amazingly good for you.  This has been an amazing way to get these foods into my body without having to suffer through a spinach salad.

Broccoli w/ Sausage & Garlic

Ingredients:

1) 1 cup of frozen broccoli

2) 5 medium garlic cloves

3) about 3 ounces of Olli salami

4) 1/2 tablespoon butter

5) garlic salt

Directions:

1) Put butter in frying pan on medium high.

2a) Cut each garlic clove into thirds.

2b) Cut salami into coins that are about 1/4 inch thick, and then those coins cut into quarters).

3) Once butter is melted, put garlic in pan and cook until a bit golden (a few minutes), stirring consistently to get garlic browned on all sides.

4) Add salami to pan and cook for 2-3 minutes to get the sides browned.

Note: Don’t worry if the butter starts to brown.  It will still taste good.

5) Microwave broccoli for 2 minutes and drain/get rid of any excess water.

6) Cut up the broccoli in the bowl so it’s in easy to eat pieces.

7) Add broccoli to the frying pan and cook until roasted a bit (2-3 minutes), using a spatula to stir it all up.

8) Add garlic salt.  I use a lot, but whatever tastes good to you is fine.