Carotty sweetness

The recent resurrection of this blog and Cornells enthusiasm increased my drive to experiment a bit more with paleolithic meals.
Another reason to experiment a bit more is the cost of the meals. Eating paleolithically tends to be a little bit more expensive than eating neolithically. Vegetables and fruit is more expansive than potatoes, rice or pasta. And as I found that since starting to eat this way I spent more each month than I gained I had to reduce costs. And I found that it was quite easy to spend 4,5 euro's less each day on my food.
One good way to get a costreduction is using vegetables of the season. They are often national products (not imported), and way cheaper...
So today I chose carrots. Not the little ones you get in summer, but real, large carrots. We call them 'winter carrots' in Holland (or Winterpenen).
I had a kilogram of those for less than a euro! So I cut them in little slices.
I cut 250 grams of mushrooms in quarts and I sliced up two onions.
I fried the onions, added 280 grams of lean minced meat, and seasoned with curry powder, paprikapowder and pepper. When the meat lost its red color I added the carrots and mushrooms and stir fried those a couple of minutes. Then I added some curry powder, some sweet chili sauce and some ginger sauce.
The result was very good.
The carrots are sweet of themselves, and stir frying them until they were a bit softer really brought that taste to the front, I think thu sugars in the carrots caramelizes a bit. A good combination with the sauces.
I had enough for three portions! So I know what I will have for dinner tomorrow and the day after!

Simple, but satisfying ...

Good combination:
Stir fry one onion, cut in small pieces. Add strips of smoked bacon (150 grams), add a rather large amount of curry powder and some paprika powder.
When the bacon is ready, add 500 grams of brussels sprouts, cleaned and cut in half. Stir for a couple minutes more, until the sprouts are coloring. Add some sweet chili sauce.
Mmmmm....

(sadly it took me twenty minutes to clean and cut up all the sprouts. But it was worth it...)

The Spice of Life

Last time I was over at Johan's for some Playstation fun, we spiced up our game with a few snacks. Some were paleo-proof, some were pushing it a bit and some were downright neanderthin nasty. But hey, they all were yummy, so who cares? We did decide to think up some more caveman snacks though, because after all, what's a healthy diet without snacks?

So here's my first addition to our after eight repertoire. It's dates rapped in Schwärzwalder Schinken, which I'll name "blind dates" and dates filled with garlicky cream cheese. Eat these all day and you won't be giving your body the real caveman treatment, but as an occasional snack, they're fine.

Sushi Salad

A friend of mine works at a sushi restaurant. Every now and then I'm lucky enough to get some leftovers. The fish is fabulous and I love the salmon eggs with yaki nori. The herring is my doing of course... so I might have to stay away from the chef. I wouldn't be surprised if he'd get insulted by my freestyling. Especially if he knew I didn't eat half of the rice...



This is a nice spinach, tomato and andive salad with some olive oil and a bit of balsamico vinegar. The main dish is chicken, paprika, Brussels sprouts and white cabbage.



Stir fried pollack and veggies, with a big salad featuring egg, tomatoes and seeds and dressed with some olive oil and balsamico vinegar.

nice breakfasts

I've been experimenting with different combinations for breakfast too, the past few months.

A nice one to start the day is a salad of half a cucumber, cut in pieces, three tomatoes (also in pieces), and a can of tuna (on brine, the tuna with oil has more calories). I also add some mixed nuts, and eat an apple when I'm in the train on the way to work. This breakfast keeps me going until lunch time ...

In the weekends I tend to take a little more time for my breakfasts. The past two weekends I made myself an omelet with some bacon (50 grams), mushrooms (approx. 130 grams), cut in small slices) and two eggs (stirred), I sprinkle the omelet with rasped cheese ... No it's not paleo-approved, but it's great none the less! After some experimentation (and complicated by my absent sense of smell) I found the right way to make the omelet without letting it burn. Delicious! And I take an apple for the vitamins.

For lunches at work I still tend to take carrots (500 grams, it's cheaper than the packages with 300 grams. It's a strange world we live in...), and some meat.

Johan

Another winter dish ...

Ah ... A new year, and new resolutions: to keep this blog up and running ...
And when Cornell posts fifteen new posts filled with pictures of delicious, inventive and tasty cave-person approved dishes, I cannot shirk my duty ...

The month december was a hard time for me to keep to the paleolithic diet. First because I was on vacation in Australia for two weeks, then the christmas and years' end festivities ... And to be honest, last weak I had bread at lunch at work... But instead of feeling guilty about all that, I will just enjoy life and eat what I like, and that is this paleolithic thing.
Also nice to find I didn't gain much weight over the festive season. That is, I didn't weigh, but my pants (size 34!) still fit, and even seem a bit wide. So that's progress ...

I've bought a digital camera a month ago, so in theory I should be able to add pictures to my posts. But I have to change the batteries, so not tonight.
But even without pictures to accompany my posts, I will inform you of the winter dish I made this evening:

I took two chopped onions and stir fried those in oil, added lean minced meat, and mushrooms, and then a package of 'zuurkool' (german: sauerkraut), a kind of fermented cabbage, and I stir fried it all. Then I added sambal to spice it up. I had half of this with half a can of apple-compote. Stir fried 'sauerkraut' tasted rather good, especially with the sambal. And the sweet apple went well with the rather salty cabbage.

Johan

Black is Back!

I'm very happy to have black plates again. The colours look nicer and it makes my job of taking pictures a bit easier.
We have eggs, tomatoes and pesto, then a filet of Victoria bass marinated in pesto rosso, after that comes minced lamb and a walnut salad and finally a nice winter dish of chicken, dried tomatoes and Brussels sprouts.

Quick and easy

Some very quick meals. The paprikas were very tasty, so I decided to eat them as they were. The meat you see on the mango is the organs of the chicken that went into my soup. The soup was stone soup, without the stone...

Marinated shrimp

Two dishes with Norwegian shrimp. The first is marinated shrimp (bought them that way), stir fried with paprika, cucumber and red onion, simple and tasty. The second is a salad featuring shrimp, avocado, egg, romanesco cauliflower, paprika, spring onions and celery stalks.
The third is pollack (koolvis), stir fried with paprika, courgette, mushrooms and spring onions. For some reason or other this combination turned out to be (naturally) savoury and very well balanced. A winner!
The last two dishes are fast food - I only had minutes to cook. It's lamb and salmon.

Christmas crisis

I just came home from my aikido class. Several of my classmates had visibly! put on weight during the holidays. Christmas dinners and New Year's snacks have taken their toll on their bodies. I was quite surprised that it's possible to grow your gut so fast. Then again, I remember how bloated I felt after the holidays in previous years. More than once I have sat in the train on my way home after spending christmas and boxing day at my mother's and vowed to fast for at least a day and probably two because I felt like a stuffed turkey. Of course the next morning those vows would soon dissolve when I woke up famished.

This year was different. I ate a lot, but it was (mostly) paleo-approved. My mother's divine roast chicken and turkey, trout and eel and lots of greens and fruit. I skipped the roast potatoes and beans and only had a very tiny helping of ice cream as desert. Even though I cheated and ate a few cookies and some crisps, going easy on the empty carbs made all the difference. I felt lean and fit instead of bloated and didn't gain any weight. My tummy is flatter than it's ever been, so no new year's resolutions for 2008...

Trout and Coconut

1 Yes, it's green beans again. They are not paleo-proof...
2 Forgive the grainy picture, it was overcast and dark. The chicken is pretty spicy, but to soften it up a bit, there's lots of coconut on it.
3 Cactus fruit for breakfast.
4 A beautiful salmon trout baked with some sea weed to add flavour. Yummy...
5 The last of the cactus and the first Sharon fruit of the year. It wasn't ripe yet, but even then sharon fruit tastes great.

More trout

The tryout trout was a treat, so I decided to do more of those. This time I used lost of koriander, lime juice, garlic, ginger, and some kurkuma and pepper to spice it up. Delicious! Serve with lemon or lime juice.

My most popular dish...

... turns out to be mussels. It's the only dish I keep repeating, as it's something I often cook for friends. They're a treat every time.

Trout and lime

1 This trout was as tasty as it is pretty!
2 I found that green cabbage has a nice deep colour, strong taste and great texture when stir fried.
3 Sea robin and chinese cabbage

Don't forget to take your own picture!

I've been eating "cave-style" for about eight months now. I have only one very big regret and it's something that bugs me all the more because I'm a photo enthusiast. In a blindingly stupid lack of foresight, I forgot to take a picture of myself in the (almost) nude when I started my paleolithic lifestyle. This really annoys me to no end because now I can't show people before and after pics. Or enjoy them myself for that matter, as the difference is quite stunning.

Only a few people have commented on me looking trimmer, mostly because my loss of weight was just starting to show when the weather got cold enough to make me wear sweaters. At the time I bought them, I chose clothing that would flatter my figure and basically hide the flab. And since those clothes don't hug my form they don't show off the progress either. But the scales don't lie, I've lost more than 10 kilos and gone from a fat percentage of 30% to below 20%. My gut seems to be melting away and my love handles have become affection handles. I look healthier - I really, really hate that I don't have a good "before" picture - and feel a lot better and stronger.

So if you are considering going neanderthal, for goodness sakes, get an early stone age polaroid taken!

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Winter blues

Yummy yum yum... more food. Wait, where's my camera? Don't want to forget to take a picture for all our blog readers. Speaking of which, I just checked op on Google Analytics and noticed we recently had a visitor from La Victoria in Peru. Hi there! It's always nice to meet new global neighbours.

Where was I? Ah, yes, my camera. You know, one thing I don't like about the winter days we have over here, is that it gets dark so soon. By the time I've cooked my food, there's hardly enough light to take a good picture. I try to have supper a bit earlier than I would in summer, but it's overcast quite often, so you'll have to forgive the occasional dreary and noisy looking shot. I could do better if I used my tripod, but letting my food get cold just so I can put up another pic on the blog seems like overdoing it a bit.

Anyway, you didn't come here to listen to me rant about low light and cold dishes, so here are some new plates. And they don't even look dark!

And stir frying cucumber in a little oyster sauce like in the second picture is a big hit.

Win some, lose some.

1 Chicken, white cabbage, leaks and paprika.
2 Chicken, spinach, dried tomatoes and Brussels sprouts
3 This is salmon wrapped in Schwarzwälder Schinken (a German smoked ham). Delicious!
4 Sea robin. The cauliflower and leaks were not to die for, I won't be repeating this combination
5 Sardines in tomato sauce

Orange

1 A simple dish of chicken, leaks and pumpkin. I really can't recall what spices I used, sorry...
2 I'll let you figure this one out on your own
3 Chicken and broccoli, witlof (or Belgian endive) and melon
4 Don't try this at home! The green beans are not cave-person proof - how deliciously p.c. of me ;) - and the cinnamon I put on the witlof is not something I'd try again. Can't win 'em all...
5 Those aren't potatoes, just apple. And unpaleo green beans again. I didn't realise at the time that these weren't "green". Legumes (including all kinds of beans and peas) are apparently not cave-man cool. Errmmh, that's cave-person cool, of course.