Paleo Chicken Marsala, Some Soul-Searching, And a Revamped Plan

I've been struggling. BAD. I've been eating a total Faileo diet the past few days. I think I was frustrated and discouraged. I'm a HUGE foodie (which is probably why I struggle with my weight) and I just haven't been enjoying ANYTHING I've been eating on this diet, which is hard for me. But with 711 views of this blog in just 10 days I felt that either you're all here because you genuinely want to see me succeed and I should get my shit together and do it as a thank you for your support, or that you all are waiting for me to fail horribly on this ridiculous-sounding diet and I need to get my shit together to prove you all wrong. Either way, I knew I needed to do some thinking and figure out a way to eat a Paleo diet while still enjoying my food so I can pull this off.

After a few days of thinking, I began to realize that it was dinnertime that was tainting my experience. All these Paleo recipes I've been finding online and using as a basis for what I've been cooking have been a HUGE disappointment. When I started this I used to look forward to cooking dinner, as I do every night. The past few nights I'm begging for any reason to go out to dinner somewhere just cause I can't stand the thought of tackling another recipe I'll be disappointed with in the end. And because of that bad attitude and discouragement surrounding dinner, I was growing frustrated with the whole diet, getting sick of my breakfasts and my lunchtime salads, because they were the only thing I looked forward to all day, and after 10 days it just wasn't enough.

I had a major Ah-ha! moment yesterday. I was going about this all wrong. Sure, Paleo recipe sites exist. Sure, they could be a HUGE help in figuring out what to eat. But now that I have all the concepts of Paleo down, and I know what I can and can't have, I don't NEED those sites. I can go through my cookbook of recipes I love and just tweak things here and there to have the meals I love, but in a way that follows the diet. I can be excited to eat dinner again! So I dug through my recipe book and pulled out my FAVORITE recipe; the first meal I ever mastered cooking, way back in high school. I cooked it every Friday night for almost 2 years, tweaking ingredients here and there, adding things, subtracting others, till it was PERFECT and exactly how I wanted it. The majority of what I know about cooking and creating recipes was learned while cooking this many many MANY times. It was the perfect thing to get me back in my groove.

I had some reservations about posting this recipe for you all. It's my secret recipe, and I just don't share it. But it's the Paleo version, so it's not my original to a T, so I'll let it slide this time.

ERIN'S PALEO CHICKEN MARSALA

Ingredients
4-6 chicken cutlets, trimmed of fat
1/4 c. coconut flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. oregano
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. rosemary
1/2 tsp. parsley
4 T. olive oil
4 T. butter*
3/4 c. Marsala wine*
1 jar garlic-stuffed olives (drained well)
1/3 lb. prosciutto ham, shredded

*I did use butter and Marsala cooking wine in this recipe, which depending on some sites is or is not Paleo. I've found more sites saying butter is OK than not, and I used all-natural butter, so I figured it was fine, and a lot of Paleo sites said that a glass of RED wine once in a while was OK as an indulgence, and since Marsala is a red wine, and I've had no wine since this started, I let it go. Getting myself back on board with this diet was more important than getting myself hung up on subtle disagreements between sites.

Combine flour, salt, pepper, oregano, rosemary and parsley and bled well. Heat the oil and butter in a skillet until bubbling lightly.

Dredge the chicken in the flour and shake off the excess. Cook the chicken on medium heat for about 2 mins on the first side, until lightly brown. As you turn the cutlets to the other side, add the olives and ham around the chicken pieces. Cook about 2 more minutes, until lightly browned on the second side. Stir the olives and ham. Add the wine around the pieces, cover the pan and simmer 10 minutes on medium-low heat.

I served this with fresh green beans, which I brought to a boil in a large pot for 5 minutes. Chad likes his plain, so I left his alone, but I'm weird and like to then saute them in butter and garlic and add salt, pepper and an obscene amount of onion powder. Yummy!

The Finished Product:


My Thoughts: I DID IT!!!!! I ENJOYED MY DINNER AND I ATE PALEO!!!!! This was exactly what I needed to get back on track. It tasted almost exactly how it always does. The coconut flour was fine as a substitute to my usual choice, and while it didn't allow the butter and wine to thicken into a nice sauce like the other flour I usually use, it did give the chicken a beautiful golden color once cooked that was much better than usual (which you can't see in the pic cause I plated it with the golden side down - *le sigh*). Love love love love LOVE!!!!!
As an aside, this recipe can be salty because of the olives and the ham. If you don't like a lot salt, you may want to just pick one for the recipe, and instead substitute mushrooms for the other like in a traditional Chicken Marsala (I had to find alternatives when I designed this recipe cause I hate mushrooms).

Chad's Thoughts: I love Chicken Marsala. Just sayin'. So suffice to say I might be a little tough on these types of recipes, especially when needed to be modified to paleo. That being said, I love Erin's recipe, both original and paleo. The paleo version didn't taste any different really, except for the lack of extra sauce (which she explained above). I loathe olives, so some of the saltiness was out for me. I am also particular on my prosciutto, as some brands are saltier than others. I believe the brand I got was Carando, which is less salty.
The coconut flour worked well for the coating, however, I recommended that Erin not try it for sauce thickening, as it is more absorbent than wheat-based flour, so I did not know a correct ratio.
Overall, fantastic and flavorful recipe.

Paleo Hungarian Beef Goulash

I was super excited about this one. After reading the recipe I decided that it would be real food.

Ingredients
1 lb. stewing beef, cut into cubes
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 T. paprika
3 tsp. caraway seeds
2 (28 oz) cans diced tomatoes (juice only)
3 c. beef stock

1. Brown the beef cubes in a skillet. Put the beef aside, and brown and saute the garlic on medium heat.

2. Transfer beef and garlic to Crock Pot and add spices, tomato juice and stock. Put lid on Crock Pot, and cook on Low for 2 hours.

I served this with asparagus, boiled for 1 minute than sauteed briefly with oil, salt and pepper.

THE FINISHED PRODUCT:


Erin: The asparagus was my favorite part. I'd been SO excited for the Goulash, and it was basically little beef cubes. They were overcooked (the recipe I was adapting this from said to cook it for 2-1/2 hours. I have for this reason shortened mine to 2 hours only). And the caraway was the most powerful flavor in the dish - not the paprika. Honestly, I'd leave it out next time IF I made this again (and I won't). Hopefully tonight's dinner is better, but after the past 2 nights I'm feeling a little discouraged.

Chad: I am a big fan of paprika, so I was pretty excited when Erin said she was cooking something Hungarian. I really liked the taste of the beef, though I think it would go better over rice or something like it (verboten, I know, but it would get more of the sauce into my belleh!). The asparagus was crisp and peppery, just the way I like it. I plopped some carrot sticks onto my plate, as I knew it wouldn't be enough, just the beef and asparagus. Good compliment, and I was full by the end of the meal. I really like this diet: I don't feel like I'm starving myself.

Paleo Spaghetti

Our first Paleo dinner! Here's the recipe, followed by a quick review:

Ingredients (makes 4 servings)
1 lb. ground turkey
3 T. olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 carrots, diced
2 celery stalks, diced
2 tsp. dried oregano
2 T. tomato paste
1 bay leaf
2 (28 oz.) cans whole, meaty tomatoes
2 spaghetti squashes

1. Cook the ground turkey in a large pot until no longer pink. Remove the meat with a slotted spoon and set aside.

2. Use the same pot to cook the garlic, carrots, celery and oregano in the olive oil over medium heat, until just tender. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, ground turkey and bay leaf. Break up the tomatoes with a spoon. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer for 45 mins.

3. In the meantime, heat your oven to 350 degrees F.

4. Cut spaghetti squashes in half length-wise. Remove and discard the seeds. Put the halves cut-side down on a baking sheet, and bake for 28-35 mins, checking after 25. Do not overcook or they'll be too mushy. It should easy break into strands with a fork to make pasta-like strings.

5. Serve with sauce over spaghetti squash.

THE FINISHED PRODUCT:


Erin's Opinion: It wasn't bad, exactly. But it wasn't really good either. There was nothing wrong with it. It actually tasted almost exactly like my grandmother's cabbage soup, which is only helped by the cabbage-like texture of the spaghetti squash (did I do it right?). So apparently some people (like my grandmother, my mother, my grandfather, etc.) LIKE that flavor, so I must not have done too badly. It's just rotten luck for me that it was never one of my faves. So this dinner wasn't a great kick-off to our new diet. I ate it, but I'm not in a rush to ever make it again.

Chad's Opinion: The change from spaghetti to "spaghetti" was interesting to say the least, and a little crunchy (in a vegetable sort of way), but I liked the way it had been cooked. It could serve as a viable replacement for pasta, if someone wanted to drop carbs. The sauce...loved it! And she is right...it tasted like Nana's cabbage soup. I, apparently, liked the dish more than anyone else...had two bowls worth, and a little of our son Cody's, after he rejected it. I'd have it again, if it were served to me, but, a little like Erin, I wouldn't actively go seeking it out.