Primal Catholic: Paleo Meatless Fridays

Since going Paleo, I've been cruising around trying to find some good Meatless Friday dishes that are Paleo friendly. Not that Paleo is completely "meat centered", but it can be a challenge to find meatless dishes that don't overcompensate for the lack of meat by featuring some sort of grain as it's star ingredient. 

I obviously can't resort to the good ole Tuna Casserole, so I thought maybe I'd start a series on here for Paleo Meatless Friday ideas and recipes. 

For my first dish, I'm going with something easy that's not the traditional FISH dish for a Friday meal. Frittatas! 

MEATLESS FRIDAY FRITTATAS

Ingredients:

6 Eggs

Dash of Non-Dairy Milk (I use unsweetened Almond)

1 Tablespoon coconut oil

3/4 cup chopped bell peppers

1/2 cup chopped scallions

1 tomato, sliced

Grab your handy dandy OVEN SAFE skillet (like a cast iron one) and start out on the stove top, medium heat. Oven safe is important here, because in a minute, we're going to stick that baby under the broiler. 

Melt the tablespoon of coconut oil in it, and proceed to drop all your chopped veggies in there, minus the tomatoes! (Feel free to get creative and put other types of veggies in besides the ones I suggested- zucchini, shredded sweet potato, mushrooms, etc. The possibilities are ENDLESS!)

Saute those veggies up until they get a little softer and browner- for say, 5 minutes. 

While you are sauteing those, turn your oven to Broil, and set your rack to the closer but not "too close" setting. 

Then whip those eggs up with the dash of "non-milk"...I use unsweetened almond milk. Whip them good. I've found that the more you whip 'em, the fluffier your eggs get. 

Now pour that all over the sauteed veggies, in the same skillet. Try to pour it evenly throughout. Place the tomato slices on the uncooked eggs. Let the bottom of the eggs/veggie mixture cook for another minute or two and then pop the whole shebang in the oven, under the broiler. 

Set your timer for about 5 minutes but keep an eye on it. I am kind of infamous for burning things under the broiler, so beware. 

When you think it's done, pull it out, and cut through the center to ensure the egg is cooked all the way through. If it's still runny on the inside, put it back in for a minute or two and check again. 

Voila! You can slice that baby and slap it on plates and you've got a delicious, hearty meal. For larger families (ahem, like mine) you might want to make enough for two skillets. 

If you feel like this alone isn't enough to fill your family, you could go all out with a Dinner Time Breakfast Theme and serve up Sweet Potato Hash Browns or Paleo waffles, too. My kids LOVE having "breakfast" for dinner. 

An Ode to Ulcerative Colitis

Wow, sorry for my lengthy retreat from Blog Land. I have this pesky disease called Ulcerative Colitis and I have been recovering from a pretty bad flare. The positive of this is that I've had a little time to read an amazing, very lengthy book that I'm excited to tell you about. Also, I've been doing a lot of baking, which is always top on my "ideas of a good time" list. Since my recent flare, I've been doing some research on UC and diets that might help me stay in remission. I found the holy grail of diet blogs, written by Danielle Walker. It's basically Paleo, and a lot of her recipes are SCD (Specific Carbohydrate Diet) friendly. If you have no clue what I'm talking about as I throw out these terms like "SCD" and "Paleo", consider yourself lucky. Having a severely restrictive diet is, well, I'm not going to sugar coat it- it sucks. 😆 For now, I can not partake in what I consider to be some of the yummiest things in existence. Thank goodness I can still eat seafood!

Some days I would honestly trade my left foot for a hot, steamy cup of coffee with a gigantic dollop of cream in it and tons of sugar. But enough complaints out of me. Instead, check out these delicious muffins I made today, recipe here.

Banana Chocolate Chunk Muffins

Onto the book:

I just finished a lovely book called In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden. Soooooo good. A little backstory: When I was a little girl, I decided I wanted to be a nun. I was pretty convinced of this until my teenage years. I was completely fascinated with stories of the lives of saints, and they had a major effect on me. Any time my brother and I got into a tussle, a little guilt would pop up in the back recesses of my mind, because someday when they wrote my saintly biography, fighting with my brother wasn't going to be considered a "saintly act." However, I admit I still fought with my brother on a regular basis.

 Clearly, God had other vocational plans for me in life, but I still have a serious fascination with nuns. While reading this book, I felt like I got to peep into the lives of a bunch of cloistered nuns, regardless of the fact that they were fictional characters. There were so many important areas touched on in the book- the spiritual battles certain nuns had to go through, lessons about trusting that God will provide, forgiveness, and overcoming pride, just to name a few. The book is over 600 pages long, but I breezed through it because I couldn't put it down. I loved all of the characters, esp. Abbess Catherine. The plot was so well written. When I started the book, I was sort of afraid it was going to be something I had trouble "getting into" but after the first 20 pages, I was hooked. Highly, highly recommend it.