Cooking without Heather

If you read my wife's blog or follow her on Twitter, you've probably read that we're making some changes to our diet.  As she puts it we're eating Paleo-ish. Our house has no bread in it and our consumption of 2 gallons of milk every 3 days has been replaced with almond and/or coconut milk. Since we're not using grains as filler, we've been eating many more vegetables to take their place.

It was a big change in our diet and though I've not totally removed grains (I still eat my oatmeal for breakfast and have had a few slices of pizza and some beer), I do feel just as good if not better.  And my recent cholesterol test has shown significant improvement as well.

But a few weeks ago, my wife went on a trip to Harley-Davidson's corporate headquarters with other women bloggers.

As you know, I enjoy cooking, so I planned out our meals. That was important considering I still had to work and the kids had summer league swim meets each night.  But I tried to stay true to the paleo-ish diet we were taking on.

Day 1

Cumin Crusted Salmon Summer Salad (recipe on AllRecipes.com) with Apricot Brulee from Health-Bent

I found the recipe for the salmon years ago in a newspaper insert and have made it several times. Its a nice combination of salmon and salad. The citrus dressing gives the meal a light, bright summery taste.  To make this all the more vegetable-y, I added a diced red pepper to it.  It was fast to make, in fact, I prepared it in two batches. The first was for Kid3 and me, who ate earlier, followed by Kids 1 and 2 who were at swim practice and got home later.

The brulee was fun to make because I got to use my kitchen torch (in fact, that's a theme that carried through from the original poster's blog as well).  What also made it neat was that I was able to use some of Heather's organic, alternative sweeteners, in this case, coconut sugar.

Coconut sugar is much like brown sugar, though not as moist and not quite as sweet.  I'm not sure of any other nutritional differences from regular (likely beet) sugar...

Day 2

Smoked Tri-Tip with a Coffee-Spice rub and Chipotle Coleslaw from Sunset Magazine

The weather was great and we were going to have a picnic dinner at the swim meet that night, so I decided to smoke tri-tip.  I had the time, because I was working from home while Heather was travelling, but I didn't pay enough attention to the tri-tip. I followed the recipe and smoked them for 2 hours, but that was too much for the tri-tip steaks. I think the recipe was intending larger tri-tips (or a more attentive cook).

When they came out, they were well done, but luckily not overly dry.  At the last minute, I made some Chipotle Guacamole to help them slide down.  Nice and smokey and the coffee flavor was great to get in the evening as opposed to just the morning with my espresso.

Day 3

Day 3 was a busy day. Not only was there work, the ferrying to activities and the swim meet, but Heather was returning home this afternoon.  It was Kid3's turn for a swim meet, but we just weren't going to be able to be home to make a healthy lunch.

I asked Kid1 what Mom would do and he suggested some healthy options (subtracting the mayo and sauces) for lunch at Burger King.  Surprisingly, BK had added some yummy (and bordering on not bad for you) menu choices of salads and sweet potato fries.  It kept me in the paleo-ish arena and I wish I was indulgent enough for the bacon sundae.  They also had wifi which was great for getting some work done while I was out.

After picking Heather up, I packaged dinner so we could eat at the swim meet. We got to the swim meet for his last event but didn't eat there. Keeping to the paleo-ish diet, we had

1. More smoked tri-tip
2. Left over Chipotle Coleslaw
3. A Syrian roasted red pepper vegetable dip
4. Watermelon Salad with Vidalia-Onion Vinaigrette 

Not as much a hit, but I got credit for lots of vegetables, especially as veggies served as the dip transport mechanism.  In my house, I'm the only one who really likes savory watermelon salads. Kid2 will eat them, because she loves anything that has to do with watermelon, but that salad wasn't well accepted. Nor was the dip.

Oh, well, you win some, you lose some.

A Recent Business Trip

I tried to keep up the good diet on a recent business trip. Instead of going to the Waffle House or one of several fried chicken restaurants, I shopped at Publix market.  I think I was able to get healthier options than at a restaurant at about the same or less than I would have paid eating out.  I wonder how often expense reports have grocery store receipts submitted with them!