Cheater’s Shish Kabob Chicken

I’ve never had the actual Shish Kabob before but that didn’t stop me to try this seasonings when I saw it at my local supermarket. It was super simple and yummy. I didn’t have a grill and I was too lazy to fire up my oven to bake it (it takes longer and I was too starving to wait another 30 minutes) so I opted pan frying this (or should I say pan grilled?)

Cheater’s Shish Kabob Chicken
Ingredients:
2 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts (or any protein of your choice) – slice lengthwise to speed up the cooking time
1 oz of Shish Kabob seasonings (granulated onions, salt, garlic, sumac, citric acid, black pepper, saffron)

Directions:
1. Place the meat in a gallon size zip lock bag and coat evenly with the shish kabob marinate. Let it sit for about 1-2 hour at least.

2. Heat the skillet in medium heat with 1 Tbsp coconut oil. Pan fry the chicken until cooked

3. Squeeze some lemon on top, then enjoy with any veggie dish of your choice!

 

Taking Care of Some Stuff

Hello all…

Nothing much today either actually. As usual I started off my morning with a workout. This time I only did 12 minute workout as prescribed as I wasn’t really in a mood of a longer workout.

I had the usual post workout snack: 1/2 baked sweet potato.

And I’m not afraid to admit that I had one slice of my homemade whole wheat cranberry bread. Hm..soo good, especially toasted.

Then I made Braised Coconut Shredded Chicken and One Pot Baked Mixed Vegetables (combo this time was cabbage, tomatoes, carrots, and zucchini seasoned with celery salt) for our lunch.

And I went to my dentist for my usual teeth cleaning (gotta use up the insurance coverage before I am out of it after this month!) Did I tell you that I hate going to a dentist (no offense). I just never enjoy having my teeth being scrapped by the tool. And the noise…UGH!

We stopped by at my in law’s house to pick up some mails. My MIL (mother-in-law) was so kind that she offered us some bread that she got from her friend who owns a Chinese bakery. Reluctantly, I accepted some. She got 3 bags FULL OF bread! Although we can’t really communicate well (she doesn’t speak English and I don’t speak Chinese), at least I could understand her telling me to just take my time to look for a job. It’s always like this in the US. How could I refuse her for giving me the bread? She did that out of her kindness. Well I might have a bite here and there but poor Hubby K will be the only one who’s eating them. Ah!

Our dinner was a mix match of leftover from yesterday and this afternoon.

And I made another tray of Baked Yucca Root Fries

Just remember to steam the yucca root before baking them! After steaming, sprinkle some salt and drizzle some oil, bake in 400°F for about 20-25 minutes. YUM!

Btw, I’d like to thank you for all the supportive and encouraging email, twitter etc (you know who you are ) and I also want to apologize that I haven’t got a chance to comment back on your blogs. I’ll try to get around them as soon as I can. Again, thank you

Have a great night, everyone!

 

Yellow Tamarind Cabbage Soup (“Pindang”)

I am known to have tart taste buds (as opposed to sweet tooth) and today I was craving something sour and soupy. When scavenging my fridge I found a block of tamarind paste that I’ve forgotten and finally I came up with an idea of making another Indonesian’s soup called “Pindang” (pron: pin-DUNK). As usual the staple of most Indonesian dish are galangal root (white ginger), turmeric root, lemon grass and lime leaves. This dish is SUPER EASY to make. If you can’t find tamarind paste, feel free to substitute with lemon juice mixed with puree dates, prunes and dried apricots (source). I personally haven’t tried this before but it sounds pretty yummy as well. For galangal substitution, you can just use regular ginger. It might not have the same effect but still fine.

Yellow Tamarind Cabbage Soup (“Pindang”)
Ingredients:
4 tomatoes – cube cut
1 carrot (mine was a giant carrot) or 2-3 regular size carrots – diagonally cube cut
2 shallots
2 inch of galangal root -sliced
1-2 inch turmeric root -sliced matchstick size (or use 1-2 tsp turmeric powder)
Salt to taste
Tamarind block paste

click image for original source

2 stalks of lemon grass -bruised
1/4 cabbage – chopped

Any homemade broth you have (I used my homemade chicken broth) – about 3 quart
3 tsp coriander powder
Handful of lime leaves

Directions:
1. Cut about 1 inch of tamarind block paste, then soak in hot water

Soaked tamarind paste in hot water

2. Cut all the ingredients, set aside

3. Heat a skillet in medium high heat with 1 Tbsp coconut oil

4. Saute the chopped turmeric root, galangal, chopped shallots, lemon grass and lime leaves until fragrant

5. Pour your broth of choice into a pot (about 3/4 filled), dump all the ingredients plus the saute shallots/herb/spices mixture.

6. Pour in the tamarind liquid, salt and coriander. Adjust seasonings to taste. Boil in medium high for about 30 minutes or until all vegetables are tender. I used my pressure cooker and it took me about 5-10 minutes.

Serve with any protein of your choice! I used my cooked grass fed ground beef.

Sweet and sour – just to perfection

 

Egg Loaf Frittata

Frittata is another Paleo friendly recipe that’s been floating among cave bloggers on the blogsphere. There are VARIOUS WAYS to make it and almost no need recipe for it. The most common way to make frittata is using a cast iron skillet, which you cook the omelet then pop it into your oven to fully cook the whole thing.

To simplify the process (also because I don’t have a cast iron skillet nor I’m interested to get one..that thing is so darn heavy!), I just bake the entire thing in my counter top convection oven using my 9″ x 5″ loaf pan.

Egg Loaf Frittata
Ingredients:
6-7 eggs
1-2 Tbsp full fat Greek yogurt
Cooked ground beef or any minced meat of your choice
2 stalks of green onion, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
Chopped onions
Any of your favorite seasonings (I used Trader Joe’s 21 Seasoning Salute)

Directions:
1. In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs until the yolk and white mixed evenly
2. Pour in the rest of the filling and season accordingly.
3. Grease a 9″ x 5″ loaf pan with avocado oil
4. Pour in the egg mixture

5. Bake in the oven with 350°F for 40-50 minutes or until the inside is cooked (use toothpick to check the middle part)
6. Remove the pan from the oven and let cool

The egg loaf might shrink a bit after it cools down but worry not, it’ll still be yummy. Slice and store individual cut in an air tight container and you have a protein ready to go in your pantry! Super easy nutritious snack with very minimal effort. Feel free to experiment with different fillings/toppings.

 

So Ready for the Weekend

Hmm..not much going on today, except I actually made an effort to prepare hot breakfast for me and Hubby K after I finished my morning workout. (I munched on sweet potato prior cooking)

Fried egg, Costco Chicken Sausage and Trader Joe’s Uncured bacon.

Lunch was whatever left over from yesterday: Oven Fried Curried Chicken Fingers, Braised-to-Oven Fried Chicken Drumsticks and steamed broccoli.

Today’s weather was a bit cooler than yesterday, but that didn’t stop me getting my hands on these!

Aah Full Fat Fage Plain Greek Yogurt…I miss you so much! None of the stores around my neighborhood area carry this (only non fat and 2% fat -BLEH!), so when my co-worker C said she was gonna get her lunch at Albertson’s I instantly tagged along with her. That’s the only grocery store in the area which I usually go (in this case my workplace) carries this product!

Got back home, I cooked the lamb shoulder that I marinated the night before for our dinner. Plus steamed broccoli and lotus root from yesterday. Topped with Trader Joe’s Jose’s Hot Chipotle Salsa (can you believe I almost finished that entire jar???)

I’m soo ready for the weekend!

Speaking of which, I’ve been planning to write a post about what exactly is Paleo/Primal lifestyle/diet in depth rather than mentioning it here and there. I know some people would already familiar with it but I can’t always assume readers know about it, right? Also a post about saturated fat being bad is a myth should be a good one as well. Geez, I gotta research more. Writing a research essay is not really my strong point so that explains a lot why I’ve been procrastinating on it. Wish me luck!

 

Braised Lamb Shoulder with Mixed Spices

I came up this recipe on my own on a whim. When you didn’t have anymore decent emergency protein handy, gotta improvise a bit. Feel free to adjust the seasonings accordingly. I didn’t really measure them exactly, just whatever spices combo that came in my mind when preparing the marinate. Of course, feel free to use any kind of protein of your choice.

Braised Lamb Shoulder with Mixed Spices
Ingredients:
2 lbs of lamb shoulder – chopped (mine was pre-cut already)
2 Tbs peppercorn
Dash of caraway seeds
Nutmeg
Coriander powder
1 white onion – chopped
4 whole cloves
1/4-1/2 cup coconut aminos
Salt
Handful of fresh lime leaves
1 Tbsp butter

Directions:
1. Mix the seasoning (except cloves, onions, lime leaves and butter) in the bowl.
2. Using a gallon size zip lock bag, marinate the lamb shoulders for about 2 hour or overnight.

3. Heat the pan in medium heat with 1 Tbsp butter
4. Saute the chopped onions, fresh lime leaves, whole cloves until fragrant
5. Pour in the lamb shoulders – including the marinate
6. Cover and cook for about 1 hour in medium low heat or until the lamb is tender (I used pressure cooker so I cooked it under pressure for about 20 minutes, turned off the heat and let the pressure came down for about 15-20 minutes)
7. Serve!

 

Strawberry “Cake” Paleo Birthday

I had a fun time hanging out with my friends who were nice enough to have a get together to celebrate my birthday. Usually the birthday person got a chance to pick his/her own restaurant. I picked a Mexican restaurant, ChaCha’s Taco & Tequila in Brea.

Complimentary tortilla chips (which obviously I didn’t touch) and salsa.

Prior coming to the restaurant, I was aiming for their Roasted Chicken which what they’re famous for. The restaurant claim that they use all natural meat and free range chicken. Okay..sounds good to me. The waiter told us the Roasted Chicken are usually only served during dinner time, but lucky for me, they actually already made at least 5 of them so I could order it. SCORE!


I basically asked them no tortilla, rice and beans and asked for a little extra veggies. I was unaware that there were corn, but no sweat, I just ate around them.

Hubby K ordered “Wood Oven” Carnitas without any beans (just rice and flour tortilla on the side)

Usually when dining out I just stick to H2O, but I heard the waiter mentioned their freshly squeezed lemonade doesn’t have any added sugar in there.

I tasted it and I could tell you that they might still add some sweetener in there. There is NO WAY a pure lemonade doesn’t taste completely sour. It has some sweet taste in there. Lesson to learn, just stick to WATER (or plain iced tea) when dining out, no excuse.

Everyone else ordered some Enchiladas, tacos, mahi mahi, carnitas etc. I was so glad that everyone really enjoyed their meal and they liked the food. People kept asking me if I ever came here and I said no, just read it online.

The restaurant gave me a complimentary birthday cake, Tres Leches Cake. Pretty much a vanilla chiffon cake soaked in tres leches (some kind of milk?). I knew this cake would be super sweet beyond my taste buds could handle so I let each of my friend had a little bite from it. (ugh..I guess I’ll just rot in hell later for passing on the “evil food” aka sugar and gluten to my friends)
Sorry I just realized I forgot to copy the picture to my computer and I already erased the ones in my camera! ARgh!

Anyway, the biggest highlight was this gorgeous Strawberry “Cake” that was “made” by the get together organizer, my friend, Sweet J.

I mentioned her not bother buying a birthday cake, instead just gave me bunch of strawberries in a box..LOL. I didn’t expect her to actually arrange them nicely like this! This surely made my day. The best Paleo birthday “cake” EVER! Isn’t she so sweet?
Thank you Sweet J for the lovely Strawberry “Cake” for my birthday!

But I am not completely innocent though. I did had some small bite of gluten this morning for my breakfast.

No, not that! That’s my gluten free Coconutty Strawberry cake…

This guy!

I might not mention it but I had to start purging all my flour in my pantry, so I made a Cinnamon Raisin Wheat Bread couple days ago.

Sorry, I can’t justify myself to just throw away all those wheat flour and stuff. Those things cost $$$!

Anyway, I gotta get ready to go to bed. One day out meaning all weekend chores/meal preparation all got pushed back to…tomorrow!

Good night!

 

Bacon Topped Meatloaf

I’ve never made a meatloaf before but after I saw Nom Nom Paleo Super Porktastic Bacon-Topped Spinach and Mushroom Meatloaf recipe, I finally decided to give it a try. Since I didn’t have most of the ingredients, I ended up subbing majority of them and in the end created my own bacon topped meatloaf version.

Bacon Topped Meatloaf (adapted from Nom Nom Paleo)
Ingredients:
About 1.3lb grass fed ground beef
2 green onion stalks
3-4 garlic cloves
1 shallot
1/2 cup chopped onions
1 cup of Mushroom Gravy
2 eggs
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/4 cup coconut cream
1 cup of chopped cabbage
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
1. Mince the garlic, onions and shallot (I used my newly purchased Magic Bullet) – well mine turned into a puree instead.

2. Puree the chopped green onions with the coconut cream

No coconut cream? You can use coconut milk or hack your own (like me )
Refrigerate coconut milk for overnight.
Scoop out the top layer (careful, don’t scoop the liquid part)
Whip it using your hand mixer with whisk attachment
Voila!

3. Mix all the ingredients to the ground beef. Season accordingly.

4. I cooked a small patty on the pan to determine the taste.

5. Fill the meat mixture into a nonstick 9”x 5” loaf pan

6. Line the bacon strips on top of it. (I used Trader Joe’s brand Uncured Apple Smoked Bacon)

7. Bake for 1 hour in 350°F

8. Set to broil for another 5-7 minutes to crisp up the bacon strips

9. Remove from the oven. Drain off the excess liquid – careful don’t let the meatloaf slide out from the pan or your entire effort will be wasted!

10. Let it cool a bit before transferring it to a plate.

This meatloaf tastes even better when eaten together with Trader Joe’s Hot Chipotle Salsa sauce!

It’s Paleo friendly as well.
Ingredients:
Diced tomatoes, tomato puree (water, tomato paste), cider vinegar, onions, chipotle chili peppers, distilled vinegar, garlic, cilantro, red peppers.

It might not look as pretty and neat as Nom Nom Paleo’s, but tastes amazing! My version was a bit crumbly probably due to the Mushroom Gravy Sauce. Well at least I figured out how to finish off the last batch without wasting it

Feel free to sub the ground beef with any protein of your choice! As usual, enjoy!

 

Catching Up with a Friend

Thank you for all your sweet comments on my last post, really appreciate it! Sorry for the lack of post yesterday as I was out for the whole day, hanging out with M, one of my college friend (Btw, did anyone watch the Royal Wedding coverage? I didn’t). It’s been a while for me to just hang out with a friend (not in a big group) so it was nice to catch up on our stuff plus…SHOPPING!

The weather was gorgeous as well!

But we both are not big sun bathing fan, so mostly we just spent our time indoors…window shopping

I got myself some additional sets for my work outfit.

Time flew by so fast that we didn’t realize it was past lunch time. Both of us had a very late breakfast thus we weren’t that hungry either. But we knew we had to at least have something for lunch or we’d be way too starving.

Pizza and Paleo will never be good friends so I specifically asked the waiter for a gluten free menu. I ordered Wild Caught Mahi Mahi served with wok stir fry mixed veggies (the original version comes with spaghetti)

We spent at least 2 hours here, talking more stuff. M actually reads my blog once in a while so she asked me about my current diet (Paleo/Primal) and I told her more details about it. I usually don’t talk much about my food choices to others unless they specifically ask me about it cause I just don’t want to sound preachy. The last thing I want when get together with friends are criticizing their food choices and lecturing about them while we just want to sit, relax and eat! I’m glad M actually said she’s actually curious about it too. Besides she and her husband also starts buying more organic produce ever since they had their daughter.

Btw I forgot to take my credit card with me after paying the bills. We found out when I was about to pay my purchase at another store after we finished lunch. Thank goodness I could retrieve it back in the end. Phew! I never forgot to take my card with me after paying the bills. This was my first time..EVER.

It was nice to just hang out one to one with a friend. Nothing’s wrong with a big group but it’s just hard for me to talk in a big group. I constantly have to listen to different conversation at once and after a while everything becomes white noise. One to one or 4 people in one group at most is my ideal.

Thanks M for coming out and spending the entire afternoon with me I know being a full time mummy means working 24/7 and you do need a little time off from the routine! We should do this again sometime in the future.

After I came back home, I just heated up some random food for my dinner.

“Dessert” was cut up strawberries and super sweet oranges (these oranges tastes like candy! They’re super super sweet!)


How often do you hang out with your friends?

 

Paleo Friendly Pantry

How’s everyone’s Easter Sunday? We had a weird weather today – a complete opposite from yesterday. It was cold, gloomy and raining!

on our way to grocery store

I got up super early (5:45am) for some reason (this time not because of someone’s making noises the whole night) and couldn’t fall back asleep. As I was trying to go back to sleep, my brain kept nagging me to start clean up my kitchen pantry to be more paleo. That thought alone pumped up my energy, so I jumped out from my bed and start puttering around in the kitchen.

So this was how my kitchen cupboard looked like all this time. Mix and match of what’s paleo and not.

My fridge door.

I started off with my kitchen cupboard. I took out all the stuff, separated them to what’s Paleo friendly and what’s not.

Paleo approved!

FAILEO

I was quite surprised that 80% of my cupboard was already paleo friendly, just need to organize them better. So here what I did:
I refilled my spice jars with all necessary spices that I usually use quite often. Usually I bought spices in bulk bags instead of jar because it’s cheaper that way. The only downside is having loose plastic bags lying around in your cupboard which could create visual clutter. So I put all those loose bag spices in one big container.

My cupboard has 3 shelves so I put all the non paleo stuff at the very top shelf (sometimes Brother A might want to use it, but it’ll be very rare. Besides, I’m trying to convert nudge everyone in the house towards Primal. So making non paleo stuff inconveniently accessible should start discourage them, right?? And I put my big jar of various spice bags in front of it.

The lower 2 shelves are paleo friendly!

Next I worked on the fridge door.
See this guy? I used to use this fish stock powder A LOT when making soup. It was convenient and taste good – sounds very tasty, huh?

But wait, what exactly this thing made of?? UUH, not so pretty!

First: Salt then Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) then comes the dried bonito powder and the latter ingredients are not getting better. So this one was OUT- BYE~!

Some Chinese preserved turnips, dried shiitake mushrooms, Chinese dried red dates and dried shrimps – I guess these guys could stay.

I saw a bag of assorted Chinese herbs and decided to make Chinese Herb Soup with my homemade chicken stock for lunch. Perfect dish for this rainy weather.

Anyway, here’s my fridge door after the make-over. First 3 are Paleo friendly (Top shelf is for Kerrygold butter, second for uncooked sweet potatoes and other perishable fresh herbs/spices, third would be for other dried stuff).

The last 2 are for non paleo stuff – cough medicine and whatever non paleo Chinese sauces/marinates and ketchup.

That whole thing took me about 1-2 hour and I didn’t have my breakfast until 9:30 am. Despite not having any dinner last night, I didn’t feel hungry at all. But I just had to eat something or I’ll crash badly later on. So what’s my breakfast? Left over burger from yesterday’s lunch on top of steamed Chinese greens.

After Hubby K finally rolled out from the bed and had his breakfast, we went out in the rain for grocery shopping. Came back home, I already planned exactly what to do for lunch.

First of all, I made Chinese Herb Chicken soup in my pressure cooker.

Pretty much I dumped everything in the pressure cooker (except the mushrooms – I added them later after all the herbs were cooked) and let it cooked under pressure for about 15 minutes.

Next I put together the marinated pork butt to make Primal Chinese BBQ Pork (Char Siew)

Then cooked my last batch of grass fed ground beef with the usual salt, pepper, onion and seasoned with Provence Herbs.

Oops, just realized I didn’t take the ground beef pic, but you got the idea.

Steamed Chinese Kale (Gai Lan) topped with Kerrygold Butter and dash of black pepper.

Since we both had pretty late breakfast, we didn’t have lunch until around 2:30pm. But it was perfect timing because the BBQ Pork was just done! Brother A missed it because he ate much earlier than us..so only ground beef and steamed veggies for him.

Here’s my lunch!
Chinese herb soup (trust me, it looks like those Chinese herb medicine, but this one is not bitter…slightly sweet and salty- YUM)


I missed my roasted kabocha!

After lunch, I made One Pot Baked Veggies which turned out yummy!

What’s for dinner? Well you are just looking at them Or I might actually skip dinner.

Ah, weekend is over but I will have extra days off this coming week!

Have a great night!

Have you ever discovered something in your pantry that you have forgotten?