Paleo and primal

[Daughteroughter]

I have been reading about paleo and primal diets has anyone tried them?

My dcs adore kale chips. I would never believe it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes.

Favadi, would arrowroot work for a tempura batter?

Ballby, welcome!

Sweet potato is a winner with most dc, makes good chips (a few chunky cut ones sautéed in butter or coconut oil, served with a home made burger will put a smile on their faces!

Most of kids favourites can be adapted to make something taster (minus the plastic toy of course!), that they will like the look of.

Raw, I'll give it a go. I've just ordered some tapioca and arrowroot (as non of the local shops stock them) flour, so will report back once they get here. :)

Whilst I wait for the flours to arrive, I'm cooking the pork sugo anyway as a whole chops.

I'm considering getting a vegetable spiralizer, any suggestions?

nappy, thanks for your recommendations of paleo friendly sausages! Will go shopping ;)

I have just started drinking bone broth daily, one week now, used to be occasionally.

I turned 40 this year and I really am beginning to feel my age, so I need all the help I can get, so the bone broth is one of my many desperate symptoms of having a mid-life crisis ... My hair is getting thinner (I remember the same happening for my mum) and although I am losing weight, I seem unable to shift it from my bum :) And although going gluten-free helped, I am still breaking out in spots just before my period and if I am stressed.

Misscph, thinning and patchy hair loss was one of the things I found resolving when I ditched wheat, but I have had further improvements since stopping using maize as an occasional cheat - I realised that I get "glutened" symptoms from it (but milder). Surprising as it has no gluten but apparently about 10% of people who react to wheat also react to something in maize!

Misscph, careful not too go too low carb. I've lost so much hair when I tried below 30g/day; I looked bald in places to the point of introducing a fringe as a sort of comb-over.

I'm not one to follow recipes and tend to use them as inspiration but today I was a good girl and followed a couple of recipes (well! close enough!)

The pork sugo was lovely. I only cooked just over 1lb and there's still some left.
Instead of the pasta, I cooked courgettes with avocado cream but I used less than half the sauce stated. I don't think I could stand up had I used all of the cream! It was/is delicious cooked or raw! I think the avocado cream would be lovely with most veg and chicken, pork or white fish-one to write in the recipe book. :)

We had pork tonight too from Paleo Comfort Foods - the pork fillet was stuffed with an apple purée and served with a garlic-almond sauce. I cooked up some spring greens and roast swede chips - ds said he felt cheated as he hadn't realised the swede chips weren't potato - he won't touch sweet potato! Dd did me proud - she has now developed a firm acceptance for cabbage - 5 months ago we were struggling with one floret of broccoli! Have joined the recipe book club on The Food Forum - it's Mexican Made Easy this month, which will only encourage me in my current passion for all things chipotle and there are loads of good recipes, especially for the summer and no doubt they will adequately challenge the dc's taste buds.

Hello all. Have been a bit rubbish, paleo wise, over the last week or so, but trying to get back on track. Toomuch in the way of grains - so stupid as I know for sure now that they don't agree with me! Also, interestingly, have noticed Ive been much snappier and more stressy after a week or so of not eating very clean. Dp has been getting severely on my nerves

So, last night was pollock, spinach and sweet potato chowder, which was delicious. Followed by strawberries and blueberries in cream, crisps with hummous and some 85% choc! I think this weeks sugar/grain intake has spiked my appetite... Today will be having some sort of salad for lunch and apparently mushroom stroganoff for dinner (mine will be with cabbage or cauli instead of white rice)

Thanks for your input on hair, Fava and Raw ;)

I went out and got paleo friendly sausages from nappy's list yesterday, chipolatas from Waitrose, really lovely, and in spite of "bits" (thyme) both kids ate them happily as did over-the-top-paleo-dh ;)

To go with the sausages I made this red cabbage:

fastpaleo.com/sauteed-red-cabbage-with-onions-apples/

Must admit I added a small squirt of honey to sweeten it ;) Really nice, can highly recommend.

miss, that sounds delicious. I like quite a few recipes on fastpaleo! :)

tea, crisps with hummous sounds you're after something quick, naughty and satisfying. ;) How about some crackers with cheese or guacamole or salsa. Guacamole last a 2-3 days in the fridge or a few months in the freezer.

I made these crackers this morning but I added 3-4 tbs of poppy seeds to them. The only problem is they are too moreish.

Favadi those crackers are lovely, I made some this afternoon - we have some fabulous Lancashire bomber cheese calling our name from the fridge. I reduced the rosemary down to 1/2tsp - I thought 2tbsp might be overpowering. Doing my best to ignore them.

Dinner tonight is chicken cooked in the slow cooker - haven't done that before, we'll serve it with a lemon butter or a garlic and herb butter, some roasted root veg and spring cabbage.

Fava, those crackers look fabulous - thankyou! May even give them a try later...

Another bad move today - homemade clotted cream cake was brought into a work meeting and I actually did want to try it! Am trying to justify it in the basis that it was homemade and therefore free of artificial stuff, but I know I'm kidding myself . Was good though!

Clotted cream cake ... Can I just say I would not have been able to resist that either!

Clotted creeeeeam, yum! Good job I've ran out of almond flour or I might be tempted by these scones.

The crackers I made yesterday disappeared into thin air, so I made another batch this morning. This time I divided the dough into two and rolled thinner and they are lovely and crunchy. Dh, who has breakfast but not lunch, decided to skip breakfast and take quite a few crackers with cheese!

Do people find nut flours go stale quickly. Cook's thesaurus suggests they should be kept in the fridge.

They say you can substitute ground nuts (also called nut meal) for nut flours but ground nuts/nut meal will produce a courser texture.

No, unless it's almond flour (or almond in general) from my tree! I guess cooler and damper conditions here(UK)!

Sorry, I hope my answer didn't sound snappy-feeding time at the zoo! Other than my own, the bought version seems fineme think Grok still learning how to make own . In my latest baking adventure I was using months (opened) old flour.

I haven't noticed my almond flour going stale.

I don't use much nut floor, some coconut and some almond... The coconut is fine in a well sealed bag for ages but the Almond starts to Taste different (not rancid, but staring to go that way), after only a couple of weeks, so I tend to buy quite small bags. Mostly I use the Almond for toddler DS4's nut porridge, so want it nice and fresh.
It's probably my sense of taste ( I always taste things going stale/off before other people!

RCM Do you keep the almond flour in the fridge?

No room in the fridge! Not for a big bag anyway.

My almond flour doesn't get a chance to go off, I eat a lot of it.

I had halloumi for breakfast for a change. Salty like bacon but a nice change.

Struggling to buy almond flour.. Love it esp for pancakes. Use flaxseed too and recently got a quinoa flour(much less successful)

Okay!!!The tapioca and arrowroot flours arrived, bought the almond flour locally (doubled in price ). So, I tried the pasta...As an experienced pasta maker, this was a strange experience.
Working/kneading tapioca/arrowroot feels like working with icing sugar, I'd call it folding and press (if you knead, the dough breaks/crumbles).
Once you have the dough:the pasta machine is too rough on it but it's so easy to roll very thin by hand-rolling;too crumbly to cut with pasta machine but a knife or pastry/pizza cutter work great.
Cooking the pasta:oil in cooking water is essential; 2-3 mins is excessive, 30 seconds to a minute is ample to see the pasta float (i.e. cooked).

Taste: is sooooo close to the traditional home made, it's scary!

Downside 6 eggs and £2.50+ worth of flours later and the pasta only serves 4 people as a starter (sauce not included!). And all that starch! Ouch!
Bonus points I did put it to the test. Rather than serving it with a sugo (tomato based) or a sugo in bianco (no tomato, mostly wine/stock based), I served it with game and cream sauce (full flavour meat with no water giving sauce! ). It worked beautifully. A special occasion treat in my little black book. [happy]

P.S. Salbertina, It can be a real struggle to source ingredients locally (sad thing is my almond tree is very productive but there is only one tree in my garden and four of us making demands!)