Breakfast break!

I'm doing blitz of dinners we ate this week but meanwhile, here's a picture of one of my breakfasts this week.

Poached egg over sautéed spinach with shallots, garlic, and Aidell's chicken apple sausage.

 

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Turkey spinach egg "muffins"

I've been looking for more portable breakfasts, so on Sunday morning I threw this plate together. Yum! The strawberries are just sliced for ease of eating, and the recipe for the muffins is here. The muffins also reheat pretty well, so I've been zapping them in the microwave all week either just before I leave the house or right when I get to work. I think I will try more variations on this theme soon!

 

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I love summer.

It's already hot here and I don't love to cook anyway. So here's my quick, early dinner:

2 eggs, lightly scrambled and cooked in olive oil
Leftover diced tomato
A small handful of arugula (which I recently found out is what they call rocket in the UK), drizzled with lemon-flavored fish oil, sea salt, and ground black pepper
Some canned black beans, rinsed
A small avocado

I had some unsweetened chilled ice tea with it, too. Yum!

By the way, this sort of meal could easily be made vegetarian by drizzling the arugula with olive oil instead of fish oil, or even just lemon juice. I ate it with the egg and it was a really interesting mix of flavors.

Sweet Potato Salad

So I'm finally getting in on the EWF fun! I should start off and introduce myself. I'm Bird, and I'm the resident paleo. No, that doesn't mean I go around in a fur bikini eating raw meat. It also doesn't mean I'm into low carb or weird evo-psych theories about gender roles.

I focus on eating whole foods, preferably from local, organic sources. This means a lot of vegetables (soon to be coming from the CSA we've joined), good eggs from chickens that get to scratch in the sunshine, and meats from a woman farmer friend of mine--yay for supporting feminist enterprises! Along with that I eat some fruit, some nuts, and sometimes a bit of good quality dairy. I have celiac disease, so I have been gluten free for about five years now, and going paleo wasn't a big shift. I feel healthier and happier eating this way, and I've also gained a closer connection to my food and local farming community.

So, on to the food! Today's recipe is a paleo sweet potato salad that's vegetarian-friendly too.

Sweet potato salad goodness

One of the tricky things about eating gluten and grain free is sharing a meal with vegetarian friends. Yesterday my partner and I were invited to dinner with friends, and I needed to bring a side dish to share. I knew other people were bringing green salads, so I wanted a starch dish that would be exciting and easy to transport to a potluck. I had some sweet potatoes in the pantry and some homemade mayo in the fridge, so I thought a sweet potato salad sounded like a great idea. I looked around online and found a lot of the recipes included bacon--not exactly a vegetarian option. So, how to get that umami taste without adding meat? Sundried tomatoes to the rescue! However, it still needed a little bit of...something...to balance it, so I also used a tablespoon of dijon mustard, which balanced nicely with the sweetness from the potatoes, and green onions added flavour and an appealing crunch.

Sundried tomatoes make me want to eat them like candy

Ingredients

2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and diced into 1/2" cubes
2 tbsp coconut oil
8 hardboiled eggs, peeled and chopped
1/4 cup homemade mayonnaise
6 sundried tomatoes (packed in olive oil), chopped
1 tbsp dijon mustard
4 green onions, chopped
sea salt

Sweet potatoes in the pan

Directions

Heat coconut oil in a deep cast iron skillet over medium heat. Add sweet potato chunks and cook until browned and soft. Transfer to large mixing bowl and set aside to cool.

Once potatoes have cooled, add eggs, mayo, tomatoes, mustard, and onions, and mix well. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Gorgeous eggs from Meadow Creek Farm