an (almost) paleo birthday party

When I decided to start the Whole30 on March 1, it was partially because March would be an easy shot. I saw nothing ahead that would throw a wrench into the works.

We have a huge, really huge, party on Easter with dozens and dozens and dozens of eggs to be hidden and found, more food than eggs, a sacrificial lamb (cake), Champagne and wine. This is not a kids-only kind of party or egg hunt, clearly, though the little ones are well represented, usually. It's a fun day. I want to fully participate. And it's in April this year. March looked great.

In the past, too, I've loved to simmer corned beef and cabbage in Guinness and make black and tans for St. Patrick's Day. That's not happening anymore for lots of health-related reasons. No conflict there.

March 11 is my son's birthday and March 14 is his son's. Sometimes we get together on his birthday but not every year. Sometimes he has a kids' party for the little one, not always. This year we invited Jeff over here for his birthday. I was thinking small family Bar-B-Que. I always seem to forget, however, we don't have a small family. As his birthday approached, I finally realized we weren't really talking small BBQ; we were talking party. Birthday party. The reason you can handle being a year older party. And with Adam's birthday only a few days later, it was also a child's party. Kids live for their birthdays. Yikes!

BBQ to me meant steak, maybe chicken or salmon, on the Big Green Egg. We'd toss a salad, add a veggie. Easy. Kristen offered to make some cupcakes for the little one, complete with Angry Birds. No biggie.

Not Paleo, the only exception in fact, but too darned cute.

 

Party meant PARTY. Lots of choices, probably a buffet since people would come and stay awhile. Goodbye BBQ. That's way too much hands on during the PARTY.



Fresh veggies piled on a platter lined in lettuce leaves looks fancy and is SO easy.

My current go-to where parties are concerned is a meat and veggie buffet that is becoming more and more Paleotized with each event. A year ago I would have been scrambling to find something I could eat in the mass of food I presented as party fare. This time, other than the cakes, we only had one item I skipped, the marinated mushrooms. They were perfectly Paleo, but the bare pinch of sweetener in the marinade kept them out of Whole30 status. No problem. Mushrooms are not leaving the planet.

One of the easiest party foods for me is a big, bright, beautiful platter of fresh vegetables. Virtually all of these can be cleaned and trimmed in advance. I like to blanch some like the French green beans and asparagus. Carrots and cauliflower do well with a quick blanching, too, but it is not required. When I say quick, I mean 30 to 60 seconds in boiling water---no more, followed by a dip in ice water. We usually wrap each type in paper towels and store them in plastic bags or storage containers in the fridge. A large platter, like a turkey platter, or even a cookie sheet works beautifully when lined with fresh, leafy lettuce. This is a great use for those big, heavy leaves from lettuce that has begun to bolt. It isn't great in a salad, but it's perfect for a lining. I'm always looking for uses for lettuce in this condition because that's what I usually get in my farm box. It's too tough and bitter to be a good salad option, but neither of those qualities are a problem here. Veggies look a bit artistic, too, in piles showing off their color, shape, and textures.

Without rare meat, no one would know it was our house.

Crudites is fine, but prime top sirloin, grilled in large chunks and sliced, is just plain fun party food. We also had a small platter with well-done meat for those who prefer it, including one of the birthday boys.

In addition to the beast, I grilled lemon chicken, which we served in half inch slices on skewers, and my take on Ginger Lime Shrimp from Melissa Joulwan's Well Fed. Also from Well Fed came baba ghanoush, ranch dressing, and the inspiration for adding sun butter and coconut milk to the base of our (formerly peanut) sauce.

Mixed olives and two types of almond flour crackers inspired by Elana Amsterdam's Elana's Pantry rounded out the food. Oops, almost forgot our marinated mushrooms---a hit at every party.

Our buffet just needs a few finishing touches and we're good to go.

It turned out great. It turned out Paleo (if we ignore the adorable cupcakes.) It turned out comfortably Whole30 safe for me. I never eat everything at a party, anyway.

I'm pleased with the direction my party planning is going. I'm getting closer and closer to serving only good, healthy, great tasting food. I love it, too, that my guests are expecting just that.

Happy birthday Jeff and Adam.





birthdays are fun, getting older? hmm...

About this time every year, I really start thinking about my age and about my mortality. Not so much in gruesome terms, more like a startling afterthought, as in oh! forgot that for a moment. As much as I think, talk, and write about health and diet issues, I often forget that we are all transients on earth.

Obviously from my morose verbiage, I'm guessing one can tell my birthday is coming up, February 20th to be precise. I love birthdays---I think. It could be more like how I love giving parties and celebrating holidays. It's mostly the idea I like. The actuality, not so much. I love looking forward to birthdays, for sure. I love giving myself permission for little indulgences that I might forgo other times of the year. Yesterday for instance, I spent half the day at a spa after having breakfast with my daughter, Kristen, and followed all that with pampering from my hairdresser, Michelle. This whole day thing was a first for me.

Yes, the little indulgences part of birthdays is not the rub. The getting older part? It can't be all bad. It has it's good points. Compared to the alternatives, older is better. As I mulled this post over in my mind, I thought of talking about my age, my specific age in years, as part of a whole picture, full disclosure sort of thing. A this is who I am kind of thing. Then I remembered something my sister, Beverly, shared with us recently. She said a spiritual leader and teacher who we both respect said one should never tell her (or his) age. Not to be secretive or deceptive, not to pretend to be younger or older, but because we limit ourselves and others enough as it is. We label and define even without meaning to do so much of the time. He said not to add yet another meaningless bit of data to that limiting mess. So I am not talking specific numbers.  I may stop that entirely. For much of my life I have felt the need to reveal more than was needed, probably more than was wanted. For now I'll refrain and rethink those habits.

I will say, for me this is a significant birthday in many ways, my age being only one of them. In recognition of this, my daughter is planning a small celebration with my family. We met yesterday to talk about what we might do and what we would serve. As she started with a list of favorite party foods that we've loved and served over the years, I realized I could no longer eat any of those dishes. Wow! Times have changed. I now control everything that comes into my kitchen and as a result, everything that comes out of it. I focus on good foods I can eat and enjoy and all but forget about the rest. I tend to forget that not everyone cooks or shops the way I do. Not even those very close to me. Of course, if this were a party for someone else, I'd just eat first and no one would notice. Since the birthday celebration is for me, it feels a little different. We have worked it out, I think. Works well for me, anyway.

I love grilling or broiling shrimp even for cocktails. These are from US Wellness Meats.

So far we're planning lemon chicken sate with Sunshine Sauce via Well Fed, lots of beautiful fresh veggies like asparagus, cucumber, sugar snap peas, red peppers, grape tomatoes with a dairy-less dip as yet to be determined. We'll also have rare, grilled steak strips or chunks, shrimp in some form, baba ghanoush, mixed olives, our marinated mushrooms, fresh fruit, and a couple of versions of almond flour crackers. Did I mention this is a very small party? Well, my family is not all that small, but if we didn't overdo the food, we wouldn't recognize ourselves.

On what I find an interesting note, Kristen often says she's afraid to cook for me, even before I knew I had major dietary issues. She is especially hesitant to cook in my kitchen. I don't think I'm that picky, but we never know those things about ourselves, do we?

improvising, december without an oven

I've mentioned often that I am not a baker. It's not that I can't bake. It's just that baking is neither where my interest nor talent lies. But baker or not, I do use my oven a lot. I should rephrase that; I did use my oven a lot. Our oven has been performing badly for months, and only just before Thanksgiving (with 20+ people expecting a beautiful roast turkey to come out of my oven) did I realize why. It was heating a little, very little, with no air circulation, and this is a convection oven. Yikes! I had thrown out two different oven thermometers recently thinking they were not working. Apparently, they were working just fine; it was the oven that had gone south. 

To make matters worse, if that were possible, and as it turns out is possible, my oven is not that easy to service. It's not very old, but it's also not very common, so it's taken weeks to get someone to agree to look at it, and we still are up in the air about actually knowing if it can be fixed. So here we are in December, more family dinners, the dream of my (once a year only) holiday baking and a chance to use some newly acquired almond and coconut flour recipes, and of course, we do need to eat!  This time of year, at least in our house, eating implies roasting. I roast beets, sweet potatoes, squash of all denominations, onions, garlic, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, turnips, carrots, and meats galore. That is I would if I had an oven. Again, Yikes!

In reality, I guess I sort of have an oven. The clock works. The broiler works. And given 3 or 4 hours with the oven set at 450F, the temperature will get almost up to 300. Of course, there are hot spots you wouldn't believe, and I'm not running this stinking oven around the clock. 

Broiling meat is an option. It means using cuts of meats we don't often eat, those that will cook quickly enough to not be burned to a crisp on the outside. I like slow roasting or braising, especially when it's cold, so I usually focus on bigger pieces of meat and dense vegetables.

These chicken legs are a rarity in my kitchen. I bought a package yesterday, partly because they were on sale at our natural foods store, and partly because the kids like them. My plan was to toss them in the freezer. Of course, I had hoped, silly me, that our appliance repair duo would get the thing up and running when they were back out yesterday. That didn't happen, it had been a long day, and I had nothing planned for dinner. We decided on broiled chicken legs and gluten-free Dutch apple pie, another food that rarely makes it into our house. A weird dinner for sure.

chicken legs, seasoned and ready for the broiler

I seasoned the chicken directly on a baking sheet with Frontier Herbs savory seasoning mix, Spice Hunter Chef's Blend, sea salt, and a bit of olive oil. Coconut oil would be better for baking. I was being lazy. The seasoned chicken was in the broiler, set on low,  about 20 minutes. I turned it regularly as it browned.

ready to eat, simple and very good

This was a serious lazy cook's meal after a busy day. We didn't even add a vegetable, though sweet potatoes would be great, as would steamed broccoli. Dessert, which we have maybe 3 times a year, was a store-bought apple pie. This is a first. I virtually never buy anything ready-made. It was almost completely grain free (a bit of rice starch) and sweetened naturally without sugar. GK was less than fond of it, but he eats this kind of stuff more often, way more often, than I. It's been over a year since I ate anything calling itself a pie.



Mine is the sad little piece alone on the plate. His is 3 times the size and loaded with whipped cream. 



I have to share a recent breakfast, note my computer keyboard in the background. More about my versions of Paleo breakfasts soon. These shrimp, by the way, are available frozen from Wellness meats. They're from the US west coast, safe, and responsibly caught.

scampi for breakfast