Sunday, March 27, 2016

(almost) paleo sweet-potato hash

With the crazy-deep-orange-red yolks in the eggs I buy from a local farm, I just can't get enough of them. Thank goodness science has disproved the whole egg-cholesterol thing!

I saw this recipe yesterday and had to try it, pronto. Of course I changed it quite a bit (just can't help meself). The original recipe said it was a breakfast hash, but who has time to do this much prep and then bake something in the morning? I did a lot of the prep last night, got it all together (except for the eggs), and let it dream in the fridge overnight. And we had it for dinner tonight. I pulled it out of the fridge when we got home this evening from a superb afternoon at the park, put it in a 350 F/170 C oven for about 20 minutes to reheat, and then put the eggs in for another 20 minutes. If you like really runny eggs, cook them for about 15 or so.

Here's how it went down.

You'll need:
  • 1 sweet potato, scrubbed, dried, and chopped (leave the skins on)
  • 1/2 kabocha (Japanese green-skinned, orange-fleshed pumpkin), chopped (leave the peel on)
  • sea salt 
  • olive oil
  • 1 red pepper, diced
  • 5 or so pieces of bacon, diced
  • 10 or so mini sausages, sliced 
  • more olive oil
  • dried parsley
  • garlic powder
  • salt and pepper
  • dried onion flakes
  • leftover British Heinz baked beans from the Nonoichi Costco, if you have them on hand (this is where this dish deviates from Paleo--and I did add the beans, and then had to have a digestive enzyme after the meal--beans do not like my GI system one bit) 
  • as many eggs as you like
  • toppings: chopped fresh parsley and (not shown, because we did this individually on our own plates) sliced green onions
  • Tabasco sauce for serving (I had none and wished I did--this was great without it, but I had a craving for it for some reason)
Do this:

Roast your sweet potato and kabocha with sea salt and olive oil till tender.

In an oven-proof pan, saute the red pepper, bacon, and sausages in olive oil till a bit browned, then add dried parsley (or fresh), garlic powder, salt and pepper, and onion flakes (and baked beans, if using).

In the saute pan, stir in the roasted sweet potato and kabocha. You can either go ahead and make some indentations to add the raw eggs and then bake this for 15-20 minutes at 350 F/170 C, or you can leave off the eggs for now and put this as-is in the fridge to use later.

If you've put it in the fridge, pull it out when you're ready and bake for 20 minutes, then add the eggs for 20 more, if you like. When I made the indentations to add our 6 eggs, I broke one egg at a time into a small bowl before dumping in to make sure there were no shell fragments.

There was just something about this that made the eggs so, so extra creamy, almost like cheese. It was a delightful meal.

(I use all-natural bacon and sausages: no artificial colors or flavors and no nasty chemical preservatives.)

Monday, March 21, 2016

paleo breakfasts

If you try to eat sort of Paleo-ish, here are a few of my recent breakie ideas:

1. Fried (in grapeseed oil) farm-fresh deep-orange-yolked eggs, sprinkled with salt and pepper and smothered in lettuce, green onions, and kimchi. Oh my! The lusciousness.
2. Leftover curried egg salad wrapped in natural ham (no dyes, no preservatives, no junk) and served with edamame. Superb.
3. Pumpkin muffins (recipe in Practical Paleo) made with coconut-flour, coconut oil, warm spices, and cranberries. All-natural uncured Canadian bacon (no preservatives, no junk, bought from Costco), tea with almond milk, and some warm water with gelatin dissolved in it (I drink this every morning for my joints).
What do you eat for breakfast? Any new ideas for me?