Friday, November 8, 2013

Almost Paleo: Breakfast and Dinner Lately

I don't know about you, but I feel a big difference when I eat a lot of processed, commercial foods versus when I cook my own meals from whole ingredients. Avoiding processed foods, with their added sugar, salt, and preservatives is one of the main elements of the Paleo lifestyle, from my research, anyways. I don't think I could ever go permanently Paleo, because I love me some cheese and think that there are nutritional benefits to a lot of the foods that Pales eschews, at least in moderation. Anyways, I try to keep Paleo principals in mind when cooking for myself and I notice a big difference.

For breakfast this past weekend, since I'd gotten off to an early start, I modified this recipe from SkinnyTaste. Rather than baking the eggs, because I hadn't gotten up early enough to deal with preheating my oven, I cooked the eggs on the stovetop.


I sauteed baby spinach to wilt it, then pushed it to the edges of my pan, creating an empty space in the middle for the eggs. I let the eggs cook a bit and ended up covering the whole pan at the end to help the egg whites firm up. I hate gooey egg whites! I added two chicken sausage links (probably not Paleo) from al Fresca. All in all, the whole recipe didn't top more than 300 calories but kept me fueled through my mornings.

I got home late from work and CrossFit a few nights ago and needed a quick and healthy dinner. I'd been marinating a chicken breast in some oil, vinegar, and spices while I'd been working out. I cooked it with some olive oil in a fry pan and added about one stalk of organic kale to the pan about 3/4 of the way through cooking the chicken.


I steamed half of a spaghetti squash in the microwave for about 12 minutes (4 minute increments). After everything was done, I scraped the spaghetti squash into a bowl and added the sauteed kale and chopped up chicken. I'd wanted to use some canned diced tomatoes that some friends had given me, but since I couldn't get the jar open, I went with some organic pasta sauce (not Paleo). It ended up taking me about 15 minutes to cook and about 5 minutes to scarf down.

My favorite part was definitely the kale. I'd never sauteed it before, but will definitely be doing it more in the future. I'd skip the pasta sauce next time though. While it tasted good, I've been having tummy troubles every time I eat pasta sauce lately, which is a big bummer because I love red sauce. I think it's the acid and was hoping to have better luck with plain diced tomatoes. Maybe next time I'll be able to get the jar open! 

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