Viewer's Choice: Paleo Meatza or Egg-Bake

With only 13 days left until the Avon walk in NYC, I have decided I am going to walk as many days as possible to get my feet prepared for the 40-mile trek even though I already completed my 500-mile challenge. My feet, as (too) many of you know, are not exactly my nicest feature. My mom always said that I will have no problem finding a husband one day as long as I am always wearing at least one sock! Maybe I will post a picture of my feet if I reach 10,000 followers. On the other hand, that may decrease my following back down to 20 random paleo cavemen with foot fetishes. I will have to think about this one...

On today's 5-mile lunchtime walk, I was pleasantly surprised to see there was a Tufts women's 10k road race for Columbus Day. There was amazing energy in the city, and it was a perfect day for a walk. I thoroughly enjoyed walking through the public garden with "Eye of the Tiger" blasting from the Common. I then escaped the race commotion for a bit and walked through the esplanade. I snapped a gorgeous picture of a perfect fall tree. I wish this time of year would stick around for a lot longer.  

Today's recipe started out as a variation of my standard once-a-week egg-bake/casserole, but as I went, I decided it also could be a wannabe recipe for paleo meatza. I'm leaving this one up to you! Either way, this is a perfect recipe for breakfast, lunch, or dinner and is great because it can feed five hungry people. All the veggies came from my SOWA trip yesterday, and the eggs are from Siena Farms - everything is so fresh, and I am convinced you can taste the difference. It took a serious amount of restraint to stop eating this, but I decided that a pound of turkey and a dozen eggs is probably a bit much for one day. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

- ~1lb. all natural ground turkey (or any other ground meat)

- 12 eggs

- 1 onion, chopped (I like the sweet ones)

- 1 big shallot, chopped

- 1 Tbsp. chopped garlic

- 2 zucchini, sliced

- 2 big heirloom tomatoes, sliced (forgot to include them in the picture, but I promise they were beautiful)

- Sea salt, pepper, & oregano

- 1 tsp. fat (I used bacon grease - other options are coconut oil, olive oil, avocado oil...)

- Olive oil

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees

2. Melt your fat in a pan over medium heat, and add your chopped onion, shallot, and garlic

3. Let them cook down and soften up for 5-10 minutes and then add the ground meat

4. While the meat is cooking, put your zucchini in a gallon sized plastic bag and add some olive oil, salt, pepper, and oregano. Seal the bag and dance around for ~45 seconds or until the zucchini is evenly seasoned

5. Lay the zucchini slices on a baking sheet (I covered mine in tin foil for easy cleanup) and bake for 20-25 minutes flipping halfway through

6. Once your meat mixture is fully cooked, transfer it into a greased casserole dish using a slotted spoon to get rid of any extra fat

7. Layer your thick tomato slices on top of the meat

8. Take your zucchini out of the oven and carefully layer that on top of the tomatoes

9. Crack a dozen eggs on top of the layered dish and bake for 12-20 minutes depending on your egg preference

P.S. A few of my yolks broke during the baking process, so I broke the rest of them with a fork so everything would cook evenly.

P.P.S. If you like spicy food (I don't), you could add some cayenne pepper, hot sauce, etc. to this.

Paleo Chicken Soup on SOWA Sunday

Do you love food enough to go to two food festivals, a paleo potluck, and a farmer's market all in weekend? I do! Today's adventures included the Boston Local Food Festival and the SOWA market. If you are wondering what a 26-year-old paleo girl eats at a food festival when she is all alone, here it is: 

This meal definitely was worth all the embarrassment of carrying such an absurd plate around without a friend by my side. Knowing that any friend of mine would support this decision was all that mattered. I ate my Thai chicken stick and Haitian plantain and then visited 50-100 vendors all with local products and businesses. There were farms, restaurants, gluten-free bakeries, sustainable energy vendors, bands, and more. The weather was horrible, but it was well worth the trek. I even got to taste the most delicious gluten-free macaroons that were 100% paleo! I would've taken a picture, but I ate it too quickly :)

After the food festival, I headed back to the South End and stopped at SOWA to stock up for the week. You can see I got a solid haul this week of carrots, parsnips, turnips, zucchini, honey crisp apples, tomatoes, eggs, shallots, onions, some fantastic paleo crackers (www.sproutedrawfoods.com)and a beautiful 5lb. pastured chicken from Westminster meats (www.westminstermeats.com). My favorite part of SOWA every week is when I buy my eggs from my favorite farmstand - a fantastic barefoot hippie farmer in a cowboy hat picks a dozen eggs for me, opens the carton, gives all twelve a slow, careful stroke, and then tells me they are beautiful. This man makes my Sunday every Sunday.

After having some great chats with the local vendors and filling up my bags, the rain finally started. I headed home and did what any person in their right mind would do on a rainy Sunday in the fall - make chicken soup. 

Ingredients:

- 5lb. chicken (mine was frozen)

- 2 bunches carrots, chopped

- 3 turnips, chopped

- 2 parsnips, chopped,

- 2 onions, chopped

- 2 Tbsp. chopped garlic

- 1 quart chicken broth

- 6-8 cups water

- Olive oil

- Salt, pepper, paprika, parsley, and oregano

1. Heat olive oil over medium-low heat and add chopped onion and garlic for 5-10 minutes

2. Place whole chicken on top of onions and season generally on both sides with salt, pepper, paprika, parsley, and oregano

3. Add the quart of chicken broth and all of the chopped parsnips, turnips, and carrots

4. Add 6-8 cups water as needed just to cover the chicken 

5. Bring the pot to a rapid boil and then cover the pot and cook on medium-low for about two hours (can do less if you're really hungry)

6. Take the chicken out of the pot, remove skin and bones, and add all shredded meat back into the pot

7. Put on some sweatpants, turn on an amazingly bad tv show, and enjoy!

 P.S. If you are ever wondering how to remember the difference between turnips and parsnips, just ask my mom - turnips are round, and parsnips look like... well, just ask my mom!