Day 7 - Phew!

One week of food photography comes to an end. Quite nice to document my food for a week and I just had a look back at last year's Whole 30 in February when I did the same. I think the main difference is the choice of seasonable vegetables (hence the constant reoccurrence of cabbage and carrots) and that the food is now prepared for a significantly larger family, so I can no longer do my fancy single portion omelettes.

Breakfast today was prepared by Simon: banana and butternut squash omelette with bacon and salad.

Mummy and baby portion of omelette

Nice hot stock for lunch with mince, left over mash, some rice and salad.

Only three for lunch

Simon wins the fanciest dinner of the week with his skewered chicken burgers. They were topped with sweet and sour sauce and served with roasted vegetables.

Definitely try this garlicky sweet and sour sauce: 

1 grated apple

2 tbs chopped raisins 

1 clove garlic, minced

2 tbs chopped fresh coriander

2 tbs apple cider vinegar

2 tbs water

1tsp tapioca flour to thicken the sauce

Combine all the ingredients in a small pan and let cook for approx. 15 minutes. Take the pan off the heat. Stir tapioca flour into a tablespoon of water and pour this mixture into the pan to thicken. Done!

Day 4 of my Food Diary

It's Wednesday and it's been a good food day, but then everyday is. We take turns cooking and we all have our different styles, which spices things up and adds a lot of variety to the meals - apart from the ever present cabbage salad :)

Breakfast was a cold chia seed porridge with apple, orange, banana and coconut flakes. Basically a rerun from Monday, but slightly different, as mother Paulsson made it.

I spent another day at Little T's nursery, so this time I packed my own lunch… It consisted of omelette, carrot sticks and some liver pâté.

Dinner was sliced beef tongue, sweet potato and celeriac mash and cabbage salad. Yum! Cecilia will have to share the recipe for beef tongue some time. It is surprisingly tender and all I know is that it involves a slow cooker for several hours.

Day 2

Oh dear... It's only day two and I almost forgot to take my pictures. Not good. There is a clear pattern emerging on the meals already: cabbage features heavily, it is so good raw!

Breakfast was a bowl of chia seed "porridge": chia seeds blitzed in a blender with some kefir, avocado, coconut milk, banana, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, then left overnight in the fridge. Topped with apple, orange, yoghurt and coconut flakes.

There was hot bone broth for lunch, this time with leftover burgers and roast vegetables.

And then finally, dinner was homemade "falukorv" (recipe in Swedish here), broccoli/cauliflower/butternut squash mash and cabbage salad.

Picture Food Diary - Day 1

I thought it was about time that I shared an example of our weekly menu, as some people wonder how we can survive without bread and various other types of food. Hopefully this will provide some inspiration to try out Paleo food. Starting today, I'll be sharing photos of our food for one week… well, the food that I eat anyway, since we all have our own variations of what we eat.

Breakfast eggs sizzling away on the wood fired stove

For a special weekend breakfast, we had fried eggs, home-cured bacon, some cabbage salad and a few slices of apple. Enjoyed with glass of kefir and cup of coffee. It was Sunday after all.

Lunch comes served in a giant mug. Today it included ox tongue, chopped roasted vegetables, a tablespoon of rice  and some other bits of leftovers. This was then topped with hot bone broth. Simple and definitely needed in this cold weather!

Dinner was beef burgers, big spoon of garlic mayo and cabbage two ways: sautéed and chopped in a salad with carrots and beetroot.

Viewings and Chow

While I've been happily immersing myself in functional movement in a gym, my parents have been slaving away at home, preparing to sell the house. Things suddenly got a bit hectic, now that we've found a fantastic place out in the sticks and now need to sell this house. It's been go, go, go for a few weeks now, whipping the house and garden into shape for photos and tomorrow's viewings.

It's good to be home though, eating food off proper plates and not from glass jars. Despite a rather full on cleaning day, we managed to eat pretty darn well. And tomorrow, while potential buyers are viewing the house, we'll be treating ourselves to brunch in a restaurant. :-)

Omelette with home cured bacon, lingonberries and salad. Fermented beetroot juice, don't ask...

Home pickled herring in paleo mayo, with salad and cold sweet potatoes.

Salmon fillets wrapped in smoked salmon, salad (we like kraut, yeah), paleo mayo sauce and some cold rice.

Keep your fingers crossed for us tomorrow!

Simple(ton) Sauce

Eating clean when on the move can be a challenge. I stayed with some family friends in Lidingö while in Stockholm and although I had full access to their kitchen, I didn't exactly have oodles of time to cook.

Inspired by one of my classmates, I threw together this meat sauce late one evening. It took me perhaps half an hour from start to finish and did the trick. Plus it has very few ingredients, my general credo in the kitchen.

500 g mince meat (organic mooooh, please)
500 ml tinned tomatoes
1 large onion
At least a teaspoon each of powdered ginger, cumin, dried thyme (or whatever strikes your fancy in the cupboard. Go on, go crazy.)
Salt and pepper to taste
Ghee or butter for frying
A dollop of butter to thicken the sauce before serving

Chop and fry the onions on medium heat in a frying pan for a few minutes until soft. Watch them like a hawk, don't let them burn.

Add the meat. Mash up. Season. Fry for a few minutes until no pinkness remains. Dunk in the tomatoes. Mix well, then put on a lid and let it simmer for 10-15 minutes while you make a salad, pick the lint out of your belly button or check Facebook.

Add the butter. If you're feeling frisky, go all the way and plonk in 3-4 tablespoons. Stir and watch the magical transformation of an otherwise average sauce.

Eat it while it's hot. Then put the rest in a glass jar and eat cold the next day at work. Because microwaves are evil. 

Excellent choice of paper bags to bring food in to low carb class (matavfall=food waste; Karamellkungen=CandyKing)

Schon Gegessen - Today's Lesson in German

Although I wouldn't say that I'm very fluent in German anymore, there are a few terms that I still use on a regular basis. There are just some words that need to be in German, for example "schon gegessen" to describe food that looks like it's already been half digested, ie "already eaten".

This morning's breakfast certainly fit the bill. The PB posse was polite as usual, but agreed that we have seen better-looking food before. My sister kindly offered another translation of the term: "vom", ie vomit. Lovely.

Lump of something eggy, served with decidedly sloppy leftover kraut salad from last night

In my defence it has to be said that I had to wip up something real fast out of leftovers, plus the below for our trip:

A lot prettier, but who knows what it'll taste of...

But let's face it, food doesn't always turn out Michelin-worthy. It's just that those "vom" dishes tend to stay off the blogs. ;-)

Tweak Week

The first day of anti-osteoarthritis week (or month or year, we'll see) went well.

I started off my day with an 8 am run, workout and walk. I haven't really done much training since I left Höö, so I figured it was time to get going again. Yikes. Five rounds of box jumps (thank you officer M), pull-up negatives, overhead squats (log included) and sit-ups left me pretty tired but satisfied.

This is where the fun began. Because after this, we all went straight to the garden to start a two hour session of digging. Let's just say things went pretty slowly, given that the sun was cranking up the heat by 9 and we were starting to get hungry... There was some whining (no names divulged, but it wasn't me) before we finally sat down for brunch at 11:30. Given that I've pledged to give up non-organic meat (no bacon for a while... oh the hardship), I went for a slightly odd breakfast option of salad, eggs and herring. Oh, and mamma's green smoothie made of weeds. :-)

Swedish Midsummer come early

Instead of the usual breakfast chaser of "egg latte" and nut & seed crackers with butter, I had two cups of egg latte with some additional coconut oil to set me up for more garden work.

Heaven in a mug

After the initial slo mo moments this morning, the rest of the day in the garden felt like any other day, i.e. pretty energetic. The bikini weather may contributed to it...

By the time 5 pm rolled around, we were all starting to feel a bit peckish, so we cobbled together some dinner. Given my self-imposed meat restriction, I had to dig through the pantry to find some more fish, this time tuna.

Tuna salad, crudités and Jerusalem artichokes (with a LOT of ghee and coconut oil added) 

Dinner was finished by 6 pm and given that we've got a few things to do before brunch tomorrow, we're probably looking at an 18 hour fast. I've said it before, more extreme fasting is probably not that great for women, so I will definitely not want to make that too much of a habit. Also, the point of  this particular exercise is not to lose weight (or get cranky), so I will want to limit it to 16 hours on most days.

Progress report to follow!

An Average Thursday Menu II

The great thing about paleo is how easy cooking has become. With some simple prep, good quality ingredients and plenty of good fats, it is difficult to make a mess of it. This is what we ate yesterday.

Breakfast: Spiced banana scrambled eggs with bacon and blueberry "sprinkles", served with egg latte.   Lovely, as usual, but Cat and I both got a bit hungry by 11, so had another "latte".

Lunch: The usual lunch at Casa Paulsson is leftovers. This time it was ox heart stew with a bit of extra stock added. I chopped up a bit of cauliflower, tomato and avocado to "line" the plates and then added the stew. Served with a dainty side of avocado/green banana/spinach/coconut cream smoothie. Cat and I were quite active yesterday, because we had to have a snack of pâté and salad a few hours later.

Dinner: Fish curry with cauliflower "rice" and sauerkraut salad. The curry made mamma break into a sweaty rant about who put too much spice into it, ha ha. If she wants me to cook, she better get used to it. 

The Curse of the Low Fat Lunch

What to do when the spectre of low fat-ness strikes?
You strike back with butter. Eat that!

Post Christmas Party

Let's keep lunch simple when your brain is about as fried as what's cracked in the pan.

All packed up and ready to go to work. Admit it, you're seething with jealousy! Ehem.

Eat More Liver!

Liver is a great source of iron, protein and vitamin A, and it is a cheap cut of meat. I have honestly never been a great fan of the flavour, apart from in pâté, which effectively disguises the liver taste. Even though pâté is so lovely, I was a bit sceptical about making my own, but after encouragement from mother Paulsson and Cecilia, I took on the challenge. I have now made a few batches, this was my latest recipe (makes two 300ml jars of pâté):

500g chicken livers
400g yellow onions (sliced)
4 garlic cloves (minced)
Rosemary
Salt
Pepper
Swig of whiskey
100g butter

Fry onions in some of the butter until soft, add salt, pepper, garlic and rosemary towards the end. Fry chicken livers in some more butter until brown, but still pink inside, add a swig of whiskey at the end and scrape up what has got stuck at the bottom of the pan. Whizz liver and onions in a blender with the rest of the butter until you have your desired consistency. Add more salt and pepper to taste. Spoon the mixture into glass jars. These keep in the fridge for about a week, but also freeze very well.

Serve with crudités for a nice lunch or starter.

Quick Lunch/ Musings on Chicken Feed (As You Do...)

Working from home is quiet and a bit boring, but being able to make lunches like this makes up for it. Quick and so lovely!

The eggs are from Sheepdrove Organic Farm and are always positively luscious (I get them from their butcher in Maida Vale). There must be something in the worms they eat, because the shells are pretty damn hard to crack at times. The colour of the yolk speaks for itself.

The difference to conventional organic eggs becomes especially apparent when I occasionally have to "slum it" with Tesco or Waitrose organic eggs. Whatever organic feed they are using to feed them, it certainly doesn't seem to be optimal, as the shells are much more brittle, the yolks less firm and with weaker colour, the egg whites runny. Goes to show that just because it says organic on the tin, doesn't mean that you're getting your money's worth despite the premium. And that's not even going into the actual animal welfare issue that you think you've got covered when you buy organic. Trying to figure out whether the chickens can actually venture outside by reading on the packet is nigh impossible because of all the fluffy marketing lingo.

Parade of Random Lunches

I think my colleagues can attest to that the great art of culinary presentation is not my forte.  Meat, a dollop of coconut oil and a side serving of carrot. Ta-daaa! Lunch is served. 

It isn't pretty to look at but I swear, my lunches nowadays are tastier than ever before, despite mostly being served cold (my relationship with microwave ovens is frosty at best). I will stretch to pouring som boiling water on it to melt the fat.... Et voila! A scrumptious soup! INCLUDING a side of free entertainment for my colleagues. :-)