Roasted Balsamic Strawberries

Alex called me from the grocery store this weekend because he was picking up his football game junk food, and being a smart husband realized that I would probably like a snack too.  I opted for strawberries since I'm not giving myself any excuses to include grains in my snacks (just the occasional pizza...).  Anyway, the strawberries weren't ripe so I roasted them to deepen their flavor, and I had just seen a recipe for balsamic roasted strawberries so that is what I did, but I made it SCD friendly by using honey instead of sugar.

I think that the key is to use a high-quality balsamic vinegar that you want to drink instead of drizzle on a sandwich.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees (or skip this step and just eat the balsamic strawberries raw, that was tasty too)
Chop 1 lb of strawberries into 1 cm slices
Mix together 1 tbsp honey with 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar and combine with the strawberries.
Spread the strawberry slices out on a tin foil lined pan and bake for 15-20 minutes.
Refrigerate and serve as a dessert topping.  I served mine on top of my homemade SCD yogurt, and it was delicious.  I am thankful that Al thinks that he doesn't like balsamic vinegar so he left it alone.

Steak Tacos

So, aside from a minor hiccup the SCD diet is going really well.  We are sticking to the diet very well except for the occasional trip to the Mexican place by our house.  The proof is in my pant size- I've officially made it down to a size 6 from a size 8 when we started this lifestyle change about a month ago.  That makes me feel very chummy, especially since my workout schedule is very lax and when I DO workout I mainly do nice relaxing yoga instead of my usual "cram 2092 exercises into half an hour" tapes.

The hiccup that has come along is the fact that I need a root canal.  The hints started getting dropped this weekend with a slight toothache that regular tylenol could soothe.  This morning was different.  Even after popping a pill I was in such extreme pain, but I went along with my day anyway and made my way to work.  I officially spent more time on the bus today than I did working.  I  made it for a grand total of one hour before I hightailed it out of there and made my way to my amazing dental clinic. When asked by how much pain I was in I explained that while walking to work I looked cuckoo because I was simultaneously shivering and screaming whenever my teeth touched.  They got me in right away.  I'm kind of annoyed because they flat out told me that if I was able to come in before noon I would be able to have whatever procedure I needed performed.  I might have spoke too soon when I called them amazing.  No such luck, so tomorrow I'll be taking ANOTHER day off from work to go in and unhinge my jaw.

Eating anything that requires mastication has gone out the window for the next couple of days, which means that I am in for some serious diet cheating since I don't have much time to make anything from scratch.  Yes, I had eggnog for breakfast because my tooth hurt so bad :(

Anyway, actually perusing the grocery aisles was a very odd experience.  Being on the Specific Carb Diet you have to be well, specific, about what you pick up.  I can't follow recipes anymore that are like "pick up an already prepared and processed ingredient and mix it with these other canned ingredients over thurr".  I have to read EVERY label- and I have most of the illegal common ingredients memorized.  No sugar, no corn products, no grains, no soy products, no dairy unless it is a specific kind of cheese or homemade yogurt etc.  Alex was initially overwhelmed by the fact that he can't eat away at anything like he did before since a big factor in choosing his ulcerative colitis treatment was that he wanted to be able to eat whatever he wanted like the good old times (aka junk food).

I found it stressful picking out all this food that I know is bad for me (and everyone else for that matter), and I can't wait to go back to shopping the fresh perimeter of the grocery stores that we go to.  Oddly enough knowing that these foods are bad for me makes me not enjoy them as much, instead of relishing them as forbidden fruit.  I'm planning on making a batch of apple sauce tomorrow to make myself feel less crappy about the food that I picked up today to slurp down.  For the record Trader Joe's is mucho mucho cheaper than our regular grocery store- even when we buy organic meat/produce.

ON TO THE RECIPE!

My team at work got me a cookbook for our wedding a few months ago, and with most cookbooks I thumbed through it, marked a handful of recipes that look promising (for some reason I never make a recipe that doesn't have a picture included unless it's something that I'm specifically looking for), shelved the book and forgot about it since I spend so much time perusing the internet for recipes at work.

I made the excellent decision to pluck this book out from the others, and this recipe is why

Steak Fajitas from Bride & Groom Cookbook which has incredibly well-deserved glowing reviews

1 lb steak- either pounded 1/2 inch think or cut into chunks
2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
2 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp ground cumin
Olive oil
2 bell peppers- seeded, ribbed, sliced
1/2 yellow onion- sliced
1/8 tsp black pepper
SCD approved salsa
1 Avocado- chopped
Shredded cheddar cheese
Lettuce

Combine the spices together and add a bit of olive oil to make a paste.  Smooth the paste onto the steak and let it marinate for at least 30 minutes at room temp.
Pan fry the steak until it reaches a desired doneness.
Transfer the meat to a plate, leaving the juices in the pan and add the bell peppers and onion- cook until softened.  Cut the meat if it was cooked in one piece
Serve the fajita mixture over a bed of lettuce and top with desired ingredients.

Coconut Flour Pancakes

Oh yum.  Eating an SCD breakfast just got a whole lot easier.  This recipe makes enough pancakes for 2-3 people, and it refrigerates well.

Recipe adapted from Nourishing Days

• 4 eggs
• 1 cup coconut milk
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1/2 cup coconut flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• Coconut oil or butter

Beat the eggs for 2 minutes in a medium-size bowl, mix in the coconut milk, vanilla extract, and honey. 
Combine the dry ingredients and mix into the wet ingredients and stir until the flour has been thoroughly mixed in.
Heat a cast iron skillet over medium-low heat and add coconut oil or butter to grease the pan.  It is easy to make the pancakes small- about 1/4-1/2 cup of batter each.  Cook for 2-3 minutes per side, or until you can easily slide a spatula under the pancake.  There is a learning curve to making non-flour pancakes, but even the ugly pancakes are delicious.

Cottage Pie

Last week Alex made me Raman Prasad's Shepherd Pie from his book Recipes for the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, we ate the whole thing in one sitting.  I was pretty annoyed by the lack of leftovers, so this week I decided to repeat the meal but beef it up with... not beef but vegetables.  This more than doubled the yield, which means that I have leftovers for the next two days- hoorah!

1 tbsp olive oil
1 lb ground beef
1 red onion- diced
4 carrots- chopped
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp lime juice
1 medium-large zucchini- spiralized or julienned
2 cups frozen peas- thawed
1 head of cauliflower- chopped into florets
2 tbsp butter
3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 325

Heat up a pan over medium heat.  Add olive oil, ground beef, red onion, and carrots and cook until the meat has browned.

Meanwhile, steam the cauliflower until it is tender.

Once the meat has browned, lower the heat, add the cumin and salt, and cover to allow the onions to soften up a bit more.

Once the cauliflower has steamed through, add the butter and mash it however you prefer- I have used both a food processor and an immersion blender.

Add the zucchini and peas to the pan with the ground beef in it and stir to combine everything.

Fill a large pie plate/pyrex container with the ground beef mixture, top it with the cauliflower, and sprinkle the cheese over the top.  Cook for 15-20 minutes and enjoy!

Bulgogi Wraps

Is this a pile of meat and green onions on a bed of lettuce?  Yes it is, and despite the bland look it is definitely worth making again.  Eating on the SCD diet is restricting in the sense that you have to do more prep work to get a satisfying flavor, but it definitely makes me appreciate every bite.  I have been instructed that the next time we make this we need to double the meat, but with a side dish/snack this is a decent sized meal for 2.

Ingredients

• 1 lb rib-eye steak
• 1/4 cup SCD Asian soy sauce (recipe follows)
• 1/3 cup sesame seed oil
• 2 tbsp honey
• 1 tbsp chopped garlic
• 8 spring onions- chopped
• Pepper and salt to taste
• Lettuce leaves for serving

Cut the steak into thin slices, combine all of the remaining ingredients except for the lettuce into a bowl, add the meat to the marinade and let it marinate for 1 hour.  Add the meat to a wok and cook over medium-high heat (with sesame oil I find it better to add the meat and wok to the stovetop before I turn on the heat, otherwise you get a bunch of smoke).  Cook until the meat has cooked through and serve in lettuce wraps.

SCD Sauce

• 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
• 4 tbsp honey
• 1/4 tsp minced ginger
• 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
• 2 tsp minced garlic
• 3 cups water
• 1 tsp salt

Combine all the ingredients on a small saucepan and cook over medium heat until it has been reduced by half- about 20 minutes 

Peanut Butter Banana Smoothie

SCD diet update- Alex and I have been struggling to stay on the diet- it's hard when you love Mexican food and the restaurants always keep on refilling your chips and salsa without asking, but we've been doing an excellent job abiding by the SCD laws in the grocery store!  We've been going by Trader Joe's a lot, which makes it easy to shop with their incredible organic meat supply and fresh fruit.

Notice that I got a new table?  If you're interested you can see more of it on my other blog

Ingredients

• 2 cups almond milk (or milk option of your choice)
• 3 ripened bananas
• 2-3 tbsp peanut butter to taste
• 1 tbsp honey
• 4 ice cubes

Blend together in a blender (this diet has me lusting after a Blend Tech or a Vitamix, someday...)

Zucchini Pasta- or How to Eat (and Enjoy) Two Zucchini in One Sitting

I'm currently trying to immerse myself in the Specific Carb Diet- the premise behind this one makes sense.  Certain foods create bacteria/yeast in your digestive tract which compromise your health, and you avoid such foods (wheat products, refined sugar, preservatives, potatoes...).  It is essentially gluten-free meets paleo meets raw, and I'm really enjoying how I feel on it.  It is so fabulous that a lot of people attribute it to curing autism/Crohn's/Ulcerative Colitis/ms/etc..

Now, I love pasta.  Noodles & Co was my to-go spot in high school, and even whenever I would wind up at the Mall of America I would always pass the more "exotic" eateries in favor of good old Noodles.  With that said, it is going to be hard for me to pass up pasta.  To cope with this loss, I bought a spiralizer

With said spiralizer I have had this same meal twice in one week, which testifies to the fact that it quick, easy, and crave-inducing.

You can make zucchinia pasta without a spiralizer of course.  You can use a mandolin to create wide and thin noodles, you can use a julienned (this would take longer of course), and you can just match stick the zucchini (this would be the least consistent and take the longest).

Ingredients

• 2 medium sized zucchini- spiralized
• 2 handfuls of grape tomatoes- sliced in half
• a few slices of roasted red peppers and a few tablespoons of their juices if from a jar
• 1-2 tbsp butter
• salt

Heat up a skillet over medium heat and add the vegetables and butter.  

Heat up until the butter melts and the zucchini warms up a bit (the less you cook it the crunchier it will be).

Adjust the butter and red pepper juice to taste and lightly salt to taste.  Yummo!

My New Favorite Thin Crust Pizza

Sometimes I make something so good that I'm glad that no one else is home with me to make me share with them.  This was one of those meals.  I really wanted pizza yesterday when I got home, so I threw together some ingredients and prayed that it wouldn't require 10 hours of dough rising.  It was so delicious that I ate the whole thing even though I was stuffed after I ate half of it.
The dough was thin, crispy, chewy, and this was one of the more bubbly pizzas that I have made to date.  Yummo!

Ingredients

• 1.5 cups warm water
• 2 tsp yeast
• 3 cups of all purpose flour
• 1 cup of bread flour (or all purpose if you don't have it, but I won't be making the switch anytime soon)
• 2 tsp sea salt

Mix the water and yeast together, mix in the salt, then add in the flour.  Knead until the dough is smooth and slightly tacky to the touch.  Place in a bowl and cover with a pot lid or a damp towel.
Place a pizza stone in the oven and preheat oven to its highest setting- mine tops out at 500.
After about half an hour roll out the pizza dough on a floured surface. 
Place the dough on a pizza peel that has a light coat of corn meal on it, with the pizza placed as far away from the handle as possible to make sliding it off easier.  Before I had a pizza peel I used one of those flexible thin cutting boards.
Top the pizza with your favorite toppings- I like to brush on a 1 inch thin coat of olive oil around the outer crust, spread out a thin layer of salt-free tomato sauce, top it with fresh mozzarella balls and sliced tomatoes, I also hold my sea salt grinder high above the pizza and crank it a few times.
Slide the pizza onto the preheated pizza stone and cook until the crust is golden and the cheese has melted.
Top with fresh basil and enjoy.

Santa Fe Chicken with Spaghetti Squash

I have a diet FULL of variety.  Some days I do paleo, some days just gluten-free, and more often than not I carbo-load even though I'm not entering into any marathons anytime soon.  Incorporating spaghetti squash into my diet is a new way for me to satisfy my cravings for pasta without having the post-pasta guilt trip.  One cup of cooked spaghetti squash contains about 42 calories, whereas pasta contains over 200 calories per cup.  Aside from the longer time commitment to cook a spaghetti squash, the health benefits make this a no-brainer.

I slow-cooked one of my favorite meals to serve mixed in with the squash- and IT'S INCREDIBLE.  I've been eating the leftovers for lunch now for a few days, and I'm thrilled to report that spaghetti squash microwaves much better than pasta does.

Santa Fe Chicken recipe adapted from Skinny Taste
4 boneless chicken breasts
14.4 oz can diced tomatoes
14.4 oz chicken broth (I filled the tomato can with water as a measuring tool and mixed in some Better than Bouillon)
2 cups of cooked pinto beans or black beans
2 cups of frozen corn
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp cumin
Salt and pepper to taste

Optional garnish: cilantro and diced green onion

Mix together all of the ingredients and set the chicken on top.
Slow cook for around 4-5 hours on high or 8 hours on low.
One hour before serving shred the chicken, adjust the spice and salt, and start cooking the spaghetti squash.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Wash and dry the spaghetti squash. 
Cut it in half, remove the seeds with a large spoon, and place in a large glass casserole dish or in separate pie plates.
Bake for 40 minutes to an hour. 
Remove from an oven and use a fork to separate the ribbons of squash from the skin.  If the squash isn't easy to separate place it back in the oven for an additional 5-10 minutes or until it doesn't resist.

Serve the two together- and savor every bite because it is delicious!!

Balsamic Pork Tenderloin

Contrary to popular belief, we have been cooking in this household!  We've just been taking advantage of our grill and most of our recipes have been meat seasoned with salt, black pepper, and red pepper flakes with a veggie side.  Anyway, this recipe was worth sharing due to its deliciousosity and its novelty in our household- I don't think that I've ever had pork tenderloin before?

Recipe adapted from Kitchen Confidante
5 tsp minced garlic
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
2 pork tenderloins

Stir together all the ingredients (except for the pork) to create a paste.  Coat each pork tenderloin with the paste and allow to marinate for at least one hour- preferably 24 hours.

Preheat grill to medium high heat and grill each of the four sides for 5 minutes.  The internal temperature should be 160 degrees, if it isn't keep on grilling until it reaches that point.

Let the tenderloins rest for ~5-10 minutes before slicing.