Roasted Veg | PaleoHikerMD

Whole 30: Day 15

Amazing to say, HALF WAY HOME today! I ate a late breakfast of olives today at the office and had a very busy day. For lunch I ordered a hamburger steak from a local restaurant and ate a handful of almonds. I got home and cooked dinner while my wife took our daughter to karate. I decided on grilled flat iron steak and roasted okra. For the okra I lined a baking sheet with foil and threw on the okra. I gave it a good shot of olive oil, salt, pepper and whole cumin seeds. I roasted it at 375 F (convection) for around 30 minutes.

Next I seasoned the steaks and grilled them up. The whole family likes our meat medium rare so that is nice. This meat came out amazing and both kids enjoyed it as much as we did!

Had another good day today! Tomorrow is a big one as my daughter graduates from Kindergarten! Have a good one.

-E

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Posted by PaleoHikerMD on May 22, 2012 in General Paleo Discussion

Tags: Beef, Okra, Roasted Veg, Whole 30

Whole 30: Day 9

15 May

Today I stand at the verge of hitting double digits in my 30 day challenge! Tomorrow will be 1/3 down, and I’m pretty excited about it. I was off today which was nice. I started the day doing some home visits for a hospice that I work for. It’s not often we get out in patient’s homes these days, so the visits have become quite enjoyable for me even though it is my day off! This morning I made a two egg omelette for breakfast with my super fresh farm eggs. Yum! My wife and I had the rare chance to grab some lunch today sans kids and we headed to a local burger joint and ate amazing burgers minus the buns of course. Some sweet potato on the side and we were stuffed!

Dinner tonight actually started two days ago when I defrosted a beef chuck shoulder roast from Butterfield Farms and vacuum packed it after lightly seasoning it.

I prepared my Sous Vide Supreme and warmed the water to 130 F. Using my newly purchased metal rack I put the roast in, and let the magic happen for 48 hours…till tonight. I got the roast out and this is what I found!

In the mean time I chopped up a red pepper, yellow onion, and a head of cauliflower and cranked up the convection oven to 385F. I tossed them with olive oil, salt, and pepper and cooked them for around 40 minutes shaking them around every 10 minutes or so.

I removed the roast from the bag and dried it thoroughly. Using my Iwatani Butane torch I browned it nicely all over. As you can see the meat was perfectly cooked edge to edge…Sous Vide style! The taste of the grass fed beef is definitely different, but we all agree better. My daughter (6 years old) inhaled around a third of the darn roast and declared…”Dad, grass fed is the way to go!” This chuck roast was transformed into meat comparable in taste and texture to prime rib. Cheap cut + warm tub + time = Expensive cut results! The best way I can describe the difference in taste is to say that the grass fed beef tastes like a dry aged steak at a steak house. It must be the grass coming through, but it was very enjoyable. Here is what the end result looked like.

All in all, a very good day off. I really want to encourage anyone out there who is even considering a Sous Vide purchase to do it! I bought the Demi version which reportedly has 85% of the cooking area as the more expensive regular sized unit. The cost of $299 is worth every penny. I do not consider this a kitchen gadget, or fluffy luxury, it is an integral part of my cooking equipment on a day to day basis. Even my wife, the “expensive kitchen gadget we don’t need” queen has admitted that I was…wait for it…”right” about how awesome this thing would be. She is even trying to convince her friends to buy one! If you are serious about Paleo and spend the money on Grass fed meat and wild caught seafood you DON’T want to waste your money and improperly cook things. The Sous Vide is like a guarantee that your investment will be worth it.

I hope all had a wonderful day. I will continue to keep posting about my Whole 30 experience, and plan on continuing to share my insights as a Paleo Physician in a very non-Paleo world. I appreciate everyone who follows, comments, and supports my blog. May you all have a blessed evening.

-E

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Posted by PaleoHikerMD on May 15, 2012 in General Paleo Discussion

Tags: Beef, Grassfed, Roasted Veg, Sous Vide, Whole 30

Whole 30: Day 5

12 May

Day 5 is done! Finally had a pretty relaxed day at work and was able to work on some things at the house. We’ll start with the food happenings of the day, which were pretty basic. Breakfast consisted of a few slices of roast beef and an egg. I had to rush through lunch, and had enough time to hit the grocery by my office for some strawberries, and avocado, and some left over chicken from the house. We had some dear friends over for dinner and I cooked up an awesome sous vide pork loin that was amazingly tender. It’s so nice to be able to enjoy the pork medium/medium rare while knowing it is safe by cooking it long enough in the sous vide to pasteurize it! On the side I roasted up both a butternut squash and an acorn squash. Good food and good fun was shared all around.

The other exciting happening of the day was picking up our first order of grassfed beef from our new friends John and Tina Butterfield at their family run Butterfield Farms in Pollack, LA.

We ordered one share of beef which equals 1/4 of the cow, coming in at just under 80 pounds. I was like a kid in a candy store moving individual vacuum packed cuts from the boxes into our freezer. The variety in the cuts was exciting, and I can’t wait to cook some up tomorrow for our first try. I’m thinking I may go simple with hamburger patties topped with some farm fresh Butterfield Farms fried eggs! I’ll be sure to post some pictures of what I come up with.

I have to say, I had a great day today. Talked to quite a few patients about changing their lives with a Paleo lifestyle, met some very nice new people dedicated to getting the best meat put on our family’s table, and finished it off with a great dinner with friends. Ate clean, drank clean, and now I’m gonna sleep clean! Hope you all had a great day as well 🙂

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Posted by PaleoHikerMD on May 12, 2012 in General Paleo Discussion

Tags: Grassfed, Pork, Roasted Veg, Whole 30

Whole 30: Day 3

09 May

So, Whole 30 day three has come and gone! For breakfast I had a hard boiled egg and two dried figs. I ate an early lunch at the office of left over sous vide carnitas and roasted acorn squash.

This evening when I got home I eagarly fished out my beef brisket that I put into my Sous Vide 48 hours ago. It looked amazing straight out of the bag, but it went out of the park after a quick sear in my cast iron skillet. It was abasolutely the best brisket I have ever had, and I lived in Texas for four years in college! It was moist as can be unlike most traditional briskets. This meal will quickly be at the top of our weekly standards! It was a good as it looks.

Every day so far has been easier than the day before. I’m finally getting used to drinking water, and I got through half a mug of black coffee today before I gave up…definite progress! We normally get tons of “goodies” at the office from companies and pharm reps, but today was exceptional. Three boxes of hot donuts on arrival, lunch from a chinese place, and hot, made to order Otis Spunkmeyer cookies! Darn those people! I actually don’t miss any of it at all, especially when I see the others suffering their GI distress in the face of four cookies or MSG laden Chinese food. I ate my carnitas (which were better than anyone else’s lunch) and went on my merry way. Since going Paleo a little under a year ago, I have not eaten ONE sweet brought to our office, and that is saying something. It’s sooooo nice to feel good! Catch ya’ll tomorrow.

-E

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Posted by PaleoHikerMD on May 9, 2012 in General Paleo Discussion, Pictures

Tags: Beef, Roasted Veg, Sous Vide, Whole 30

Update 2/28/12

28 Feb

Well, I had an excellent day off, that included an extended nap! I’ve been thinking of how to improve my crab cake recipe, and I think I did it today! So, here we go!

I started with some wonderful beets I got from Inglewood Farms (all the produce tonight is from Inglewood). I washed and trimmed them, put them in an oven proof dish, add a splash of water, cover tightly with foil, and put in a 400 F oven for 45 minutes or so. The actual cook time will vary depending on the size of the beets. Once done, let them cool, and use the back of a pairing knife to peel off the skins. Dice them up and place in a bowl with salt, pepper, and your vinegar of choice. Now I like beets, and most cookbooks I have say to let the beets marinate in vinegar a while before adding any oil. So, I added balsamic vinegar and around 30 minutes later, added a bit of extra virgin olive oil. Beets done!

Next I’ll address the side vegetables. Tonight we had carrots and cauliflower. I trimmed and peeled the veggies, and placed them on a sheet pan. On the carrot side I added some garlic infused macadamia nut oil with salt and pepper. For the cauliflower i added olive oil and garlic powder. The pan went into the same 400 F oven for around 30-40 minutes and that was it!

Lastly for the crab cakes. In a bowl I put half a yellow bell pepper diced finely, three scallions diced finely, one egg well beaten, two tablespoons of paleo mayo, a tablespoon of Old Bay Seasoning, and a pound of fresh crab meat. Gently mix the ingredients and form into 8 small patties. Put them in the fridge to firm up so they stay together while you fry them up. In a shallow plate sprinkle some coconut flour. Melt a little coconut oil in a skillet over medium high heat. Coat the cakes in flour and fry in the coconut oil around 3-4 minutes a side until the are a nice golden brown on both sides.

Now I don’t know about ya’ll, but crab cakes to me just need a sauce to make them pop! I found some mild pickled type baby peppers my mom gave me (picture attached) and blended them up with my immersion blender along with a few heaping spoonfuls of coconut milk and a few drops of agave syrup. Plate everything up and it’s time to eat! Hope everyone has a good day…

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Posted by PaleoHikerMD on February 28, 2012 in Main Entree, Pictures, Recipes

Tags: Beets, Crabcakes, Recipe, Roasted Veg

Update 2/26/12

26 Feb

Hey everyone! Hope you all had as good a weekend as I did. Just a totally relaxing weekend with the family, and I really needed it! So, what did I do? Well, I started off Saturday morning with a trip to the Green Market downtown to buy some Inglewood Farms organic produce and eggs for the weekend. I got it home, washed it, bagged it, and settled it all into my Veggie Refrigerator Drawer.

Next I did a few housekeeping chores for the kitchen. I was running low on my balsamic vinegar glaze, so I bought two 3 dollar bottles of balsamic vinegar at the grocery, and I simmered it until it was reduced by around 1/2 or more. This makes a thick and rich glaze that is amazing with almost anything. Sure, you can spend tons more on very old balsamic, and I do have some of it, but that is only for special occasions. This stuff is cheap, yummy, and perfect for every day. Next, I put a heap of almonds into the food processor and let them go for 10 minutes. At the end I add a little roasted almond oil, and there ya have it…almond butter!

Saturday night I cooked up my kid’s favorite…Flat Iron Steak! They sell them individually pre-vacuum sealed at Kroger, and I find the flavor just about the best of any steak you can get anywhere. Like I said, the kids love it. Funny enough, they will ONLY eat it medium rare! I always cook it that way, and they won’t accept it any other way. Fine by me! I added another batch of the the Health-Bent.com Roasted Acorn Squash drizzled with a little of my newly made balsamic glaze, and a side of Inglewood Farms Chinese Spinach sautéed in bacon grease…YUM!

I woke up this morning craving something a little different…a cheat maybe? So, I whipped up some Paleo Coconut Pancakes. I’m not ready to say I perfected the recipe yet, so I’ll keep working on it and post it when ready. Pancakes themselves are perfect, just need to work on the spice combination! For a topping all I had was a relatively bruised honey crisp apple. I chopped it up and sautéed it in ghee till crisp, and then added a little cinnamon and agave to finish it off. Added a couple of pieces of bacon, drizzled a little melted raw honey on the pancakes, and that’s all she wrote. Lets just say…we’ll eat these again!

We decided to take the kids on a hike today out at Valentine Lake, so before we left, I collected the cornish hens I put to defrost a few days ago and seasoned them. I my spice grinder I put three dried shitake mushrooms, a tablespoon of sage, and a tablespoon of salt. I whizzed it up and liberally applied it to the birds. At the bottom of my slow cooker I put a chopped up onion, a few carrots, some left over acorn squash from the other night, and three garlic cloves. I put the birds on top, put a third of a cup of chicken broth in the cooker, and set it for 8 hours on low.

When we got back this afternoon, I took the hens out and put them on a rack to cool. With my immersion blender I made an amazing gravy out of the juices and veggies in the bottom of the slow cooker. Just had to add a touch of salt to finish it off.

For my sides, I sauteed up some cubed King Trumpet Mushrooms in olive oil, and roasted some asparagus in the oven at 400 F for around 20 minutes. Just toss them in olive oil, salt, and pepper and pop them in. I usually add some kind of vinegarette to top my asparagus because Kourt just loves them that way, and tonights did NOT disappoint! Whole grain mustard, White Balsamic Vinegar, salt, pepper, and olive oil. All I can say is…Kourt and I were fighting to lick the left overs out of the bowl! Finally, I plated everything up. We have the adult plate, and the kid’s plate! All were happy…

Really, just a great weekend! Good weather, good food, and great times with my family. Time to go start planning tomorrow night’s dinner!

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Posted by PaleoHikerMD on February 26, 2012 in Main Entree, Pictures, Recipes

Tags: Beef, Chicken, Roasted Veg

Update 2/23/12

23 Feb

Ok, so I’ve kind of been kind of slacking on updates lately…been crazy busy with my brother on vacation! I did manage to cook up some yummy grub last night which I stole from other sites!

Ginger Lime Chicken from Paleo Magazine and Roasted Butternut squash from Health-Bent.com. Good stuff!! Post again soon 🙂