Day 1: What's on the menu?

I hope you aren't starving because you were waiting on me to post what the meals for today are. If you are, then I'm sorry. On the brightside, consider it as an education in the paleo lifestyle, as hunger was a common occurrence when you ran around all over the place, chasing after food.

But, I digress.

I'm planning to kick this off with a "comfort" dish I've created, but whose main wrinkle to make it paleo was inspired by a blog posting from a local Crossfit affiliate, CrossFit Central. I'll be dining on Paleo tacos (recipe to be appended at the end of the post) with some guacamole (also included at the end of the post). It really turns out to be a yummy dish and fully adhering to paleo if you, obviously, cut the beans and rice and tortilla and cheese (so, basically, just leaving the meat). However, tacos wouldn't be tacos without having something wrapping up the inner taco-y goodness.

The answer: use large leaves of lettuce to replace the tortilla. My preference is to get a nice large head of Romaine lettuce and rip each individual leaf from the base. Most heads of Romaine lettuce will yield about 5-7 leaves big enough to be used in this way. Also, ensure that there aren't any tears in the middle of the leaf (duh) as the meal will get messy in a hurry, otherwise.

Recipes

Paleo Tacos

1.5 - 2 pounds of ground beef or chicken (going with chicken tonight)

1 large bell pepper, diced (I prefer red for the color)

1 medium sized jalapeno pepper, diced (86 if spicy isn't your thing)

1/2 large white onion, diced
juice from 1/2 a lime

2-3 medium to large cloves of garlic, minced

1/2 cup fresh cilantro, diced

1 teaspoon chipotle powder

3 tablespoons ground cumin

2 tablespoon black pepper

1 tablespoon red (cayenne) pepper

2 teaspoons crushed red pepper flakes (again, cut out if spicy isn't your thing)

Dash of salt

2 tablespoons of olive oil (substitute with your favorite oil, like coconut or canola)

Putting it together

In a large skillet, add 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Sauté half of the garlic in the oil over medium-high heat. After the garlic is sufficiently sautéed, add the meat and cook thoroughly. Once the meat is cooked, remove and let drip a little in a colander while sauteeing the veggies. Add the other garlic, onions, bell pepper, and crushed red pepper flakes in 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Once the veggies are completely sautéed, add the meat back in the skillet. Add enough water to cover the bottom of the skillet, but no more. Add the cumin, chipotle, black and red pepper, and salt. Mix and heat until all of the water has been cooked off. Add the cilantro and lime juice at the end and mix over low heat before serving.

Guacamole

3-4 large avocados, seeded and removed from peel

1 whole large tomato, diced

1/2 large white onion, diced or minced (depending on taste texture preference)

1/2 cup fresh cilantro, diced

1-2 large cloves of garlic, minced

2 tablespoons of black pepper

1 tablespoon of ground cumin

Dash of salt
juice from 1/2 lime

Putting it together

chop the veggies. Deseed the avocados and mash to preferred consistency. Mix tomatoes, onions, garlic, cumin, pepper, cilantro, lime juice, and salt with avocados in a large mixing bowl and mix.


Hopefully, you all will find it as yummy as I do. Let me know if the recipe needs tweaking and I'll address it as I was going off the script.