Paleo Turkey Meatloaf with Asparagus

This recipe — Turkey Meatloaf — tasted good although the loaf didn’t hold together very well. Perhaps it should have sat and cooled longer than it did.? The texture was a little different than the beef meatloaves I’ve had in the past — more “soft” — so it was a nice change.

Kind’ve looks like a “regular” meatloaf but green, no?

Turkey Meatloaf
Turkey Meatloaf

Zucchini, bell peppers and basil are what give it the “green” look.

Not to be outdone by the meatloaf, the Browned Butter Roasted Asparagus that was served on the side was delicious! It’s amazing to me how I’ve grown to like asparagus. As a child, the only “green” food we ate was iceberg lettuce. To this day, my mother serves iceberg lettuce as a “salad.” Occasionally, we have a tomato thrown in but not usually. Oh — we do have sliced avocados also so that counts as a “green” vegetable.

I believe one has to acquire a taste for asparagus — it took me many years.

Oh — I almost forgot to show you a picture of the asparagus. Um, um, good!

Roasted Asparagus with Browned Butter
Roasted Asparagus with Browned Butter

I’ve read that asparagus is a good antioxidant. I’ll let you google for more info on that if you’re interested.

Turkey Meatloaf
Turkey Meatloaf

What kind of vegetables are your favorite?

 

 

Persian Eggplant Stew

This Persian Eggplant Stew with beef was very good and the amount of curry used in the recipe was not too spicy. The original recipe calls for having the stew served over cauliflower rice. We didn’t do that. I have a hard time calling anything with cauliflower “rice.”

Beef and Eggplant Stew
Beef and Eggplant Stew

The stew was nice and thick so we didn’t really need to put it “on” anything. We did have a side salad though — a recipe from Pottery Barn!!! I didn’t know that they had recipes, did you?

It was a Butter Lettuce with Mango Salad with Mint Vinaigrette. The original recipe calls for goat cheese but we left that out. This was one good and “pretty” salad.

Mango Mint Salad
Mango Mint Salad

I loved the macadamia nuts in it.  And I can eat mangoes for breakfast, lunch and dinner when they’re in season.

I’m glad summer is just about. Time to head out to some of the farmer’s markets in the area.

 

Baked Salmon with Assorted Vegetables

This is a very simple recipe to make: Baked Salmon with Assorted Vegetables. Simple is always good, right?

Baked Salmon with Assorted Vegetables
Baked Salmon with Assorted Vegetables

The only change we made in this recipe is replacing the Yukon Gold Potatoes with sweet potatoes which made the recipe more paleo friendly. And it was good and healthy.

There are many fish paleo recipes out there. Some of them have salads as a side and others, like this one, use vegetables. You can link to other recipes I’ve tried below.

If you have any recipes you’d like to share for us to try, please let me know.

Chicken Broccoli Bake

This paleo Chicken Broccoli Bake was a good one-entree meal (no sides). It looks like a conglomeration of food, eh? Chicken, broccoli, sweet potato and spices. Simple enough.

Chicken Broccoli Bake
Chicken Broccoli Bake

It’s easy to make — just slap all the ingredients together, drizzle olive oil over them and bake. Wahlah!

Thanks to Our Paleo Life for sharing this simple, filling and great tasting recipe.

 

Paleo Breakfast Sausage

Here’s another bison recipe we tried … Breakfast Sausage. The prep time is quick (about 10 minutes) and the sausage is good although this one came out a little dry.

Breakfast Sausage
Breakfast Sausage

We did not add pork (as the recipe calls for) but used more bison and ground beef to offset that change.

I like that the ingredients can be made ahead of time for up to 1 week and/or frozen for 3 months. So make lots so you can make them as you need them.

An interesting ingredient in this recipe is nutmeg. I never would have, even in my wildest dreams, thought to put nutmeg with any kind of meat. Okay, okay, I don’t normally dream about meat but you get my drift.

Breakfast is one meal that I like to be as simple as possible as it sets the tone for the rest of the day.

 

 

Stir Fry Beef

As one of my friends would say … oh dear …

This Stir Fried Beef with Ginger and Spring Onions was simply delicious. We did “cheat” on this though and used soy sauce which we normally don’t use on the paleo diet but every now and then (so I’ve been told) it’s okay to cheat as long as it doesn’t make you digress back into the “old days” of sugar and gluten laden foods.

Stir Fried Beef with Ginger and Spring Onions
Stir Fried Beef with Ginger and Spring Onions

The soy sauce did make a huge difference (for me) in this recipe. I’m not sure if replacing it with something else would have given it the same “umph.” Any folks out there have any ideas on this?

It’s hard for us to find a good Asian restaurant to eat at that doesn’t have food laden with msg.

The stir fry was served with Gluten Free Carrot Muffins and broccoli.

I so look forward to my dinners, especially, on the paleo diet.

 

 

Butternut Squash and Chicken Mash

The title tells it all — Butternut Squash and Chicken Mash. My photo for this dish didn’t come out so great — a little blurry (see below). What was I thinking? It must be the dry eyes I’ve been struggling with for the past 6 months … but I digress.

Irregardless of the picture, this is a paleo recipe you should try. It’s definitely filling and uses one of my favorite food ingredients — butternut squash. The chicken is shredded which is good since there are crushed hazelnuts that the recipe calls for also which gives it a good texture.

(Did you know … Some people – like me – are allergic to hazelnuts. I can eat them when they are in a bag and out of their shell and usually not have any problems. But if I buy them in their shell, crack them then eat them, I get tingly sensations on my tongue. Weird, eh? Anyone else have that problem?)

Back to the recipe. The dish was a little bland (spinach doesn’t have too much flavor) but it suited me just fine. I don’t think I would have changed anything about it.

Chicken Butternut Squash Hazelnut Mash
Chicken Butternut Squash Hazelnut Mash

We paired this Butternut Mash dish with a Blood Orange and Avocado Salad. Simply delicious!

Blood Orange and Avocado Salad
Blood Orange and Avocado Salad

I’m a huge fan of avocados though so that will always make me lean to the right in a reviewing a recipe.

This recipe also calls for spinach (we had a big Popeye eating dinner with lots of Vitamin A and K and, well, a lot of good stuff!)

This pairing of recipes worked really well together.

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Gluten Free Paleo Carrot Muffins

Now, truly, this is a paleo muffin that I could sink my teeth into!

It’s not easy for my son to find recipes for us to try that will satisfy our hunger for bread but this one did just that.

This Gluten Free Paleo Carrot Muffin recipe uses almond flour which I normally wrinkle my nose up at. “Normally” the recipe just doesn’t taste like bread at all.

But with bananas, carrots and pecans thrown in there with everything else, the recipe was moist enough and definitely satisfied my longing for the “good old days” of bread eating.

Gluten Free Carrot Muffins
Gluten Free Carrot Muffins

Shall we take a peek inside this wonderful muffin?

Gluten Free Paleo Carrot Muffins
Gluten Free Paleo Carrot Muffins

And can we all say — YUM!!!!?

Healthy and delicious!

Lamb Stew

In some of the recipes we have been trialling, some of the ingredients have been left out and others have been put in. One thing that it has taken me a long time to learn is to tailor the recipe to what I like.

This paleo lamb stew that my son made was modified just a wee bit.

Lamb Stew
Lamb Stew

For one thing, we did not add the chickpeas that the recipe called for since we’re trying to eat more “paleo” and chickpeas are not part of that diet.

We also used bone-in lamb stew since it was on sale for very cheap at a local store called Kowalski’s.

The stew itself was very very good and the cumin and coriander did give it its “Mediterranean” flavor.

I still miss my occasional bread though so for those of you who make the stew and aren’t trying to avoid gluten, a nice hunk of french bread would have gone well with this stew.

 

Salmon with Sweet Potato Salad

There are only so many ways to make salmon taste “different,” right?

For me, besides the cooking of the salmon, the topping or marinade makes a huge difference in whether the salmon can be called okay, good or great. I happened to like the dill sauce that was used on this Baked Salmon recipe.

Salmon with Dill Sauce
Salmon with Dill Sauce

Paired with (a matching) Sweet Potato Salad, this healthy paleo meal can be had any day of the week as far as I’m concerned.