So what's for dinner?

I'm eating paleo, and I've decided to follow some of the recipes. Tonight, I have to make mussels... which, I've not only never cooked but also never eaten... intimidating.

I bought a lot of leafies (kale, bok choy, collard greens), so some steamed something or other. Does anyone know how to make greens more palatable, yet still healthy?

if you're paleo, use bacon grease. You don't need much. Melt a couple teaspoons in a frying pan, throw in the greens, and toss them for just one minute, wilting the edges but keeping the centers crunchy. I think overcooked greens are gross, myself. You can toss grated nuts on them, too, like pine nuts, almonds.

hmmmm....paleo-man had bacon?

I like greens, but enjoy them either wilted for a few minutes in bioling, salted water and eaten as a mass of salty, tasty wetness, or sauteed. Like Lorna said, they can be very good sauteed in some bacon grease, and I really like them done in a style similar to how Chinese cooks to pea tips and squash tips, cooking some garlic on low heat in oil to semi-translicent, then adding the vegetables and some salt and stir-frying them to done, with done being al dente.

I also make shrimp tossed with green beans, spinach, broccoli, whatever I have around basically, some black olives and mushrooms, and some variation of a garlic-heavy spice blend, sauteeing until done in olive oil and then serving with grated parmesan.

That said, greens are also very good in tacos, which seems odd, but they are. I really like zucchini-tomato-chipotle tacos, and greens are a good addition or stand-in for the zucchini. Rick Bayless has several variations on that recipe I believe.

linkies:

http://mexican-everyday-recipe-revi.../12/zucchini-mushroom-tacos-with-chorizo.html

http://cookingclaire.blogspot.com/2010/04/rick-bayless-zucchini-musrhoom-tacos.html

same recipe I believe, 2 bloggers...in any case, if you use greens they get added late, as they only need to wilt. And you can omit chorizo, or use soyrizo, and this works very good as a sort of casserole, without the tortillas.

Thank you, both, for the ideas! I don't think I'm supposed to eat bacon on a regular basis on Paleo, but maybe a tiny bit of grease wouldn't hurt... I'm not supposed to have salt, though... you can see, then, why I don't like my greens.

I ended up finding a recipe where you wilt the greens and then sort of sautee them in balsamic vingar*, garlic, and olive oil. I added roasted walnuts at the end. It was meh. I don't think I did it right.

My mussels freaked me out. I ate them, but I think I cooked them too long or had too much water. They ended up pretty rubbery. It was an adventure, though.

ETA: I don't know if I'm supposed to have vinegar, either.

1. mussels cook quickly....when the shells open, they're done. 5 minutes later, thay are getting to over-done.

2. I've never read the paleo-diet thing, but I'm leery of no-salt. Especially if it messes with your ability to comply to the rest of the diet. Failing to go 100% paleo because you had a pinch of salt is probably better than failing it because you didn't eat greens at all. That said, you can also buy "lite salt" through several companies, which is just between 20 and 50% KCL. Potassium (the "K") is your friend.

Tonight it will 'something American' as I cross the border for a few weeks. Tommorrow night will be bbq short ribs, baked potato and corn on the cob. Time enjoy the simple.

Tonight I have no clue because we have tball. Tomorrow I am thinking Italian roast beef in the crockpot.

tjwriter said:

Tonight I have no clue because we have tball. Tomorrow I am thinking Italian roast beef in the crockpot.

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I'm going to cook a shoulder roast in the crockpot overnight, tonight. Dinner will be foil packet salmon cooked over aspargus and beets. It's also meh, but it's easy.

quicklime said:

1. mussels cook quickly....when the shells open, they're done. 5 minutes later, thay are getting to over-done.

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So... when they're still sort of longish, off-white blobs? I was waiting until they were tiny, yellow blobs.

2. I've never read the paleo-diet thing, but I'm leery of no-salt. Especially if it messes with your ability to comply to the rest of the diet. Failing to go 100% paleo because you had a pinch of salt is probably better than failing it because you didn't eat greens at all.

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Well, as a benefit of being hopeless in the kitchen, I've learned to eat things that taste awful. So I am eating them, at least. I just don't enjoy them at all. But the no-salt thing also ensures that no one else will eat anything I've made because it's soooo bland to someone who is eating salt regularly. It's annoying. I'll check out the lite salts. I do think the paleo book cautioned against the KCl because half the "issue" is the Cl. But... I don't know, there are quite a few foods I can't tell if I'm supposed to eat or not.

A simple beef stroganoff with meatballs, over noodles, all of the major ingredients store-bought, ready to heat, BUT with the addition of a pile of freshly-picked leaves of the ubiquitous and eminently edible garden pest up here in Alaska, known as chickweed. I've mentioned this plant elsewhere, but it really works in a lot of cooking. It's a close relative of spinach, and works in precisely the same way, cooking quickly, so you toss it in late, just long enough to heat it, basically. Highly nutritious and excellent.

If the thing is going to grow in my garden, eating it is my best revenge.

caw

I'm not sure I've ever seen anything suggesting chloride was an issue; sodium itself is fairly questionable for most folks, so long as they get plenty of water.

Last night we had pan-roasted chicken, which was a sort of amalgam of two recipes, one from Marcella Hazan and one from Cook's Illustrated. It was extremely easy and really good!

I bought a chicken and asked my butcher to cut it into serving pieces for me (my butchers are awesome guys). I already had garlic, rosemary, and white wine, because I usually do, and I had some proscuitto (although pancetta would have been better IMO).

I browned the prosciutto until the fat rendered in a bit of butter & olive oil in my big Le Creuset braiser (I mention this because it's important that the pan be big and able to go in the oven). I took five cloves of garlic and sliced them thin, and cooked till they were golden. Then I removed them.

I added about a tsp more of olive oil and added the chicken pieces skin-side down, and left them for a good five minutes until the skin was nice and golden, then flipped them over to brown the bottoms. Then I removed them. (Since my pan had a lid I just turned it upside down and set all the removed stuff into it.)

I added about a cup of white wine and about half a cup of chicken stock, and deglazed the pan/scraped up some of the fond. I dropped in two rosemary sprigs and let them simmer for thirty seconds or so. Then I dumped back in the prosciutto and garlic, and placed the chicken pieces in skin-side up. The liquid covered the bottom of the chicken but not the skin.

I stuck it into a 350F oven and let it cook uncovered for about an hour and ten minutes or so (until it reached safe temperature; actually it was well over but because of the liquid it wasn't dry at all).

Then I put the chicken on a platter, skimmed the fat from the cooking liquid, poured it into a saucepan, and simmered it for a few minutes; I added a tsp or two of cornstarch mixed with water and simmered another minute or so. Yummy--it wasn't quite thick enough to be a gravy, but it was fantastic on top of the crispy-skinned meat-falling-off-the-bone chicken pieces, and on the mash I made to go with it.

Very easy! I was really pleased with it.


Tonight it's burgers and fries.

Hazan is one of my favorite authors.

I am thinking of making a whole prosciutto in the basement this year....have 2 duck breasts "prosciutto-style" curing right now, so we'll see how that goes.


On my way home to make (for lunch, not dinner) brick and meunster cheese omlettes with mushrooms and olives.

heza said:

Thank you, both, for the ideas! I don't think I'm supposed to eat bacon on a regular basis on Paleo

ETA: I don't know if I'm supposed to have vinegar, either.

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You can search and find many paleo flame-wars about these topics. Fruit, if you let them sit, ferment into vinegar. Salt was always available and probably used as a meat preservative long before agriculture, so bacon (or salted smoked meats of various sorts) were arguably more common 50000 years ago than now. If you can have jerky, you can have bacon, following logic only. Animals find salt and lick it; people are animals. ergo.

Am going over to Stacy's house for the next chicken bake.

and love caw's solution of eating his invasive weeds--never tried chickweed.

Thanks, lorna! Some of the does and don'ts seem arbitrary to me, sometimes. Like, no salt... but I can have wine. What's up with that.

When I was growing up, we regularly ate chickweed. I have actually foraged in the wild for my food. But now I've changed regions. There's something growing in my yard that looks sort of like the chickweed I know but not exactly, so it scares me. Also, I'm not sure if I should eat anything that's been getting city runoff.

A double-batch meatloaf (layer of meatloaf mix, a layer of bacon, another layer of meatloaf mix, KETCHUP KETCHUP KETCHUP KETCHUP KETCHUP) and bacon/cheese drop biscuits.

I want some of Stacia's chicken and I want it nao!

Taking the wife out to new restaurant run by one of the chefs on "Top Chef". Guess we'll see what he's made of up close.

I'm too tired to bother with food tonight so I'm just munching on marshmallows and drinking root beer.

AbielleRose said:

I'm too tired to bother with food tonight so I'm just munching on marshmallows and drinking root beer.

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I had no idea you were a vegan.

Its called lazyism. I wouldn't object of a sweet little Chiuey stole some of Stacia's yummy chicken and brought it over to share.

I typically eat healthily, lots of veg, low fat, etc., but on errand day, which today was, I allow myself a blowout meal, damn the fat/sugar. Tonight's was one of Safeway's cheddar cheese jalapeno bagels--have you who have Safeways seen these things? They're gigantic cheese bombs. Your arteries harden just contemplating the thing. Must be on the order of 700 calories and 25 grams of fat. Plus grapes. It was a really great combo.

Peppers are starting to ripen so:

Sliced garden-fresh green pepper, chopped mild jalepeno (fresh picked also), and sliced Vidalia onion sauteed in fry pan. Remove and keep warm. Add chicken sausages. Cook til done. Pile all on a hard roll.

It's only 11:20 in the morning here and I can't wait for dinner.

I think I'll just bring the salad I didn't eat last night to work. Nothing fancy just some lettuce, carrot, cucumber with a bit of Italian dressing.