Paleo Bites

You've probably seen a theme here as of late...my little mason jar beauty's.  this has been the easiest way for us to have on the go lunches.  But that's not all I've been up to;  I recently tried my hand at paleo baking.  One of my new goals is to make a recipe weekly/semi regularly found on Pinterest and see if its all as easy and amazing as it seams.

Sesame Chicken Salad

Grilled Chicken 

Carrot shreds

Diced cucumber 

Lettuce 

Orange 

I used trader joes sesame dressing, not paleo, contains soy.  You can't win them all.  Maybe when I have a little more time I can figure out a paleofied version.

Grill Baby Grill

Our grill has saved us this summer.  It's been way to hot to heat up the kitchen with cooking.

I found these amazing pre seasoned ribs at Costco for $18!  They lasted us about 3 days.

And pre grilling your chicken really saves time on packing lunches.  Nothing like a nice char.

Grapes of Wrath

Look what Hubby found in our back yard!  We didn't see them until he started hacking away at the over grown weeds. He came in the house so excited to share.  The vine is actually growing up and around one of our trees, which is in danger of being choked.  Hubby's decided to build a arbor to lead the grapes to, really hoping nothing dies in the process!

Berry Breakfast Bars

Recipe found at here

My bars did not come out quite as cakey as the pictures lead me to believe, but there may be 2 reasons why.

1. I substituted apple sauce for mashed banana.

2. The site did mention that coconut flour could be tricky with absorption. 

Don't get me wrong, the bars were good. Just not to die for.  It was a good try though.  I think I will give it another go but this time with dark chocolate. Mmmmmm. 

Here's something new, well new to me.  I saw a add for E Meals on another paleo blog.  They have all kinds of amazing weekly meal plans that will fit anyone's life style/diet.  There was even a deal on groupon, I got a whole year for under $30.  I haven't made anything yet but I have about 3 weeks of menus to pull from so far.

My other great find was Paleo food delivery.  There just aren't enough hours in the day, especially when you work 13 of them.  I was getting desperate, to the point of asking a friend to cook for me.  I figured it was worth a google search, if I needed help others must too.   Here are the top sites I found in the So Cal area.

1. Hunt Gather Food

2. Brian's Bowls 

3. Paleo On The Go

4. The Paleo Box

5. Loss Arts 

6. Body Food Kitchen

The bottom two have great options but were way out of our price range.

We tried Brian's bowls first and they are good but they only offer 3 bowls a week, so if your not big on repeats you may have to supplement, but if your just looking for a back up supply of food in a pinch they are great.

We got our order from Hunt Gather this week, so far so good.  When we calculated everything out from groceries, fast food and eating out we found we spent just as much if not more than we would for the convince of this program.  The food tastes great, it's totally portable, fresh and healthy.

Paleo on the go is next on our list to try.  

The Paleo box is based out of Florida and is not yet shipping out of state, but they have crazy cool snacks and bread!  I'm on the notify list for when they ship.

Mason Jar - Greek Salad

We had company this weekend so I didn't get to dabble in a new recipe.  Greek salad is one of my favs for the summer, it's light and filling.

I chose the wide mouth Kerr jars from Target over the Ball jars because they are more uniform in size and if you decided to eat straight from the jar you wouldn't get dressing hands!

You can also see in my pic that there are two salads layered differently.  

Ingredients:

Kalmata Olives and Juice

Thin sliced red onion

Diced cucumber

Feta cheese

Chicken

Romaine lettuce

Greek Feta Dressing from Trader Joes OR Newmans Greek

There's no set amount for each ingredient, layer to taste.  I will say though that the onions can get a little strong.

Left Salad

Hubby doesn't like olives of any kind.  He also works from home so I left his dressing out so he could choose how much or little to use.

Right Salad

For me, the more Greek the better!  I chopped up 6 olives, a little onion, 1.5 tbsp olive juice and 2 tbsp feta dressing for the bottom of my jar.  Followed by chicken, feta, cucumber and lettuce. 

What I'm trying to say here is do what works for your family.  There's no wrong way here. 

Mason Jar - Dijon & Fig Glaze Salad

My latest fascination is mason jars. They are charming, country, space efficient and eco friendly. As you saw in my last post I've gone pin crazy on smoothie recipes and salads. I spent my Sunday testing new smoothie recipes and making mason jar salads.

I've also been looking into the differences between paleo and primal eating.  I am a lover of cheese, primal allows dairy.  I really shouldn't be doing dairy because of my auto immune deficiencies but as I'm dipping my toes back into the paleo pool I'm not going to cut it just yet, starting back with cutting grain and processed sugars.  You'll see some cheese etc in my recipes so change to fit your needs.

Dijon Fig Pear Champagne Glaze Salad

This glaze recipe was originally found on Trader Joes website.  I never cook a whole chicken because its just the 2 of us plus I prefer boneless skinless breasts, so I modified this slightly to fit my taste/need.  Usually I marinate and grill my chicken but in this case I'm using the glaze as my salad dressing.  Hubby kindly pre grilled a bunch of chicken for me so I could chop and go.

4 tbsp champagne pear Gorgonzola dressing

1 tbsp Dijon mustard

1 tbsp fig butter

Stir in a dish and microwave for 30 seconds to meld all the flavors. 

If your grilling chicken go ahead and start marinating, leave a little on the side for dipping.  If your making your salad wait for it to cool before placing in the jar.

I'm no expert here but I was told its all in how you layer your jars.  You want dressing on the bottom (be careful not to splash up on the sides) followed by meat and/or items that can marinate in dressing without falling apart, then comes your hearty veggies like cucumber, bell pepper, mushroom etc. and finally leafy greens

In my salad I chose glaze, chicken, cherries, candied walnuts, cucumber and romaine.

What do you like in your salads?