Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Eggplant fries, sauteed veggies, red grouper - it's what's for dinner

Actually, it's what is for lunch tomorrow. For dinner today, I had leftovers from yesterday. Marcos, my husband, said "it was like an Italian party in my mouth." I made it a little different from Juli's recipe on PaleOMG, but kept it Paleo. My mouth is watering just thinking about that dish.

For dinner tonight, I threw together a medley of dishes based on what we had in the fridge. I know green beans aren't considered true Paleo, but c'est la vie. This meal wasn't extremely difficult nor super creative, but it was delicious, so I figured I'd share.

My pictures aren't great, but I'll get better at photographing my food. Promise.

Eggplant Fries
Ingredients

  • 1 large eggplant
  • 1 egg
  • Paleo "breadcrumbs":
    • almond flour
    • garlic powder
    • oregano
    • salt
    • pepper

Directions

  1. Peel eggplant and cut into "fries".
  2. Whisk an egg in one bowl, create Paleo breading in another.
  3. Heat up enough oil on a skillet to coat the bottom and then some, on medium-high heat. You'll know it's ready to go when a drop of water sizzles on the oil. But you know this already, this is Cooking 101.
  4. Roll eggplant fries in Paleo breading, dip in whisked egg then roll in breading again. Transfer to skillet.
  5. Don't fill up the skillet with too many fries. I got lazy and put too many in, and the breading fell off some of the fries. Best to set them up so they are easy to flip and won't touch other fries.
  6. Fry for about 2 minutes on each side, then transfer to a plate with a napkin on top (to catch all of the grease).
  7. Repeat for remaining fries.
  8. What until they are cool to enjoy. I made the mistake of not waiting.
  9. Nom.
For the other two items, I won't go into insane recipe detail. I sauteed the veggies and then the fish.  But here is a gist of the ingredient - nothing fancy:

Veggie Medley
Ingredients
  • Green beans
  • Yellow onion, quartered
  • Red pepper, chopped
  • salt
  • pepper
  • couple of dashes of cayenne pepper (or more, if you live in our house. We heart cayenne pepper!)
  • garlic powder - I normally have real garlic lying around, but not today

Red Grouper
Ingredients
  • Surprise! - red grouper
  • garlic powder (ditto on the comment above in Veggie Medley)
  • salt
  • pepper
  • cumin

So, a few pretty simple dishes. Nothing crazy tonight. Tomorrow we're doing pizza on the grill (using a stone). Can't wait!  And I better enjoy it, because very soon I'll be doing the 40 Day Challenge.

Speaking of which, start marking your calendars if you are interested in participating. I plan to post the guidelines this weekend. We will start the challenge on Wednesday, February 13 and finish the challenge on Sunday, March 31. I will make the challenged more "primal" than "paleo" - but more on that when I post the guidelines. Stay tuned!

Oh, and one more random thought before I go. Check out this super awesome mug one of my bosses gave me for Christmas! Too cute. Drinking my Tazo Bedtime tea from it now... night y'all!

5 comments:

  1. YES, YES, and YES! I want you to come and make me Paleo food. LOL. i will definitely have to try this!

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    Replies
    1. Do I hear a dinner date in the works?! :) BTW - Marcos (hubby) is going to do the challenge with us. Hooray! I have there whole participants now.

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  2. I'm thinking about posting a daily "food diary" during the challenge to help share ideas for meals. :)

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  3. The eggplant fries were AWESOME!!! Definitely making them again.

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    Replies
    1. Hi Apryl! I'm so happy you enjoyed them! Minus my bogus pictures =P I updated the recipe... turns out if you roll them in them in the breading, then dip in the egg, then the breading again - they come out much better.

      Also - try it out with different veggies. We made zucchini fries tonight. I used a little cayenne pepper in the breading. Gives it a nice kick.

      Thanks for posting!

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