(Paleo) Caramel Sauce

It’s caramel time people.
I know it may sound a bit equivocal, here I am, presenting you with supposedly healthy recipes and talking about nutrition and then throwing in your face a recipe for caramel sauce.
But you see there’s caramel sauce made with loads of sugar, butter and heavy cream and then there’s caramel sauce made with coconut milk, honey and coconut oil. And it is, to put it mildly, amazeballs!
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not claiming that this Paleo version of caramel will make you healthier or increase your lifespan, but of one thing I’m sure: it will improve your mood dramatically.
Let’s say you feel like the biggest loser on the face of the earth, and want to hang your head in shame; you take a spoonful of this caramel sauce and Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo: rainbows, unicorns and puppies.
Seriously, it is a known fact that happiness is one of the biggest keys to longevity, and this Paleo caramel sauce is guaranteed to make you happier, and generally more amazing. Trust.
To be honest, it is probably healthier too. No refined sugars, no dairy, just coconut milk, coconut oil and honey (or maple syrup) some of the best ingredients Mother Nature has to offer.

Black Olive Tapenade

So, Tapenade, huh?
First things first. It’s ‘tap-uh-naad’ not ‘tape-nade’ nor “tap-and-aid”. Please don’t ever call it tape-nade or tap-and-aid in public; especially in one of those upmarket delis where the staff feel compelled to correct your pronunciation with a condescending look. Like they have majored in French literature at Columbia Uni, while you’re nothing but an ignorant who has never set foot outside your home town.
I genuinely hate those food shops with surly and pretentious staff; where you are left feeling unwelcome throughout and a mere inconvenience in their day. Like they have something better to do notwithstanding the fact that you are actually spending 10 bucks for a ¼ lb of cherry tomatoes.
Overpriced food and paraphernalia with a side of indifferent customer service...deffo not my kinda spot.
That’s why I love Farmers’ Market instead. Vibrant gathering places, good prices, top quality produce; where it is common to see people lingering to chat with vendors and maybe even meet friends.
To me, a farmers’ market has a real sense of community, even in a big city.
Or maybe I’m just fooling myself and I’m seeing things that are only in my head.
Guys, am I becoming a tree hugger? Be honest.
The Iron Tree Hugger...weird.

Cauliflower Crust Grilled Cheese

Don’t worry people, I’m going to cauliflower crust rehab in a day or so.
They say the first step in solving a problem is to admit that you have a problem.
So, here it goes: “Hello, my name is Mike and I’m a cauliflower crust addict”
“Hello Mike”
“Over a year ago I’ve first tried cauliflower crust and since then I’ve been making it at least twice a week. It started out with pizza, then it was calzone, hot pockets, breadsticks and stromboli. I can’t seem to stop. I need help!”
Seriously though, when I made the cauli crust stromboli (about a month ago), I thought that was the end of my experiments with cauliflower crust.
Apparently not.
But before we move on, let me say this: If you’re sick and tired of this cauli crust thing, feel free to leave. It’s okay, we can still be friends (or at least I'll pretend to be your friend...)
If, instead, you’re willing to cope with my cauliflower madness in all its psychotic glory, then I can show you what I believe is one of my biggest achievement with cauliflower crust.
I made cauliflower crust grilled cheese! BOOM!

Parmesan Cauliflower Fritters (Low Carb & Gluten-Free)

There's a long line at the grocery check-out counter. Do you sneak a peek at the contents of other people’s carts? Or do you peruse the gossip magazines?
I confess: I definitely peek at other people’s carts.
I try not to be obvious, but I am always curious what other people buy.
It's an entertaining game. I try to guess if they are buying for a family or if they are a single person or a gourmet eater or a convenience food junkie.
Like 10 cases of pop and 20 bags of chips, yeah, maybe they were on sale but still. Or an entire cart filled with lean cuisine, nothing else...weird.
And I try not to judge (even if I do it), because, sadly, healthy food is expensive and I think people are creatures of habit for the most part. They are comfortable buying the same things, making the same 8 recipes in rotation.
Sometimes it gets pretty damn funny. Like this one time I was in line behind someone who had a monster size case of toilet paper, gallons of water and several family size bags of prunes. That's all. Pretty obvious what his plan was. Poor guy.
The only thing that bothers me a bit is when families with kids are buying tons of sugar and junk, but, again, who am I to judge?
Anyway, if I see actual ingredients, like fresh produce or organic meat I’ll give that person a little gold star (mentally of course!)

Almond Flaxseed Yogurt "Granola" Bars

Energy bars, granola bars, breakfast bars, protein bars, the grocery store aisles are full of them.
However, the majority tastes like artificial flavoring (ugh, fake chocolate and PB!), chalk, and misery.
Plus, they all have a way of “looking” healthy no matter their chemical/y flavor profiles and suspect textures.
To be honest, it’s actually pretty rare to find energy bars that are healthy AND tasty.
I, for instance, like Larabars. Each one has between 2 and 9 ingredients, all of which are whole organic foods like fruits and nuts.
Okay, I suppose the few with chocolate aren't "whole" foods in the strict sense (there must be some processing going on there), but here's the thing about Larabars: they actually taste pretty good.
Like fruits and nuts (except the lemon bar; I had it once and it really grossed me out.)
Oh yeah, because - and you probably already know this - I only eat things that taste awesome. I am not interested in bland, gross energy bars. Not worth it.
(Just to be clear, I haven’t received any money nor products to review from Larabars. I just like ‘em so much, I thought you should know!

Turkey Zucchini Burgers with Lemon Yogurt Sauce

I try not to whine too much. Honestly.
While I am writing this post, my legs hurt like hell from doing intervals very fast last night.
I’m actually sitting with straights legs, because they seem to cramp if I keep them bent for more than 1 minute.
But I am well aware that it is my own fault.
I shouldn’t have done intervals, but wanted to because...well...since I’ve promised you guys that I was not going to bore you with my training running mis-adventures, let’s just say that I shouldn’t have done intervals. Period.
Still, I made my choice. I’m an adult, I know what can happen when I overtrain.
There are no accidents to report around here. No whining possible.

(Hand Cut) Crispy Baked Sweet Potato Shoestring Fries

There are some things I’ll just never be able to grasp. Like physics. Or how the trashcan fills up so fast. Or where all my socks go.
For real folks, I have 18 unpaired socks.
And I’m sorry for them. Being a sock isn’t easy already (especially MY socks). But being an unpaired sock is even worse. Forced to make their own solitary way in a world of pairs.
A beautiful love story of Left + Right that started out in a factory faraway, and that ends in separation.
I held the dryer responsible for all these losses.
Because sometimes socks get lost before and after they go into the laundry, but most of the time it seems like the dryer ate them for a snack.
If you ask around, you'll find that pretty much everybody shares my suspicion for the dryer — evil machine.
Or maybe between the washing machine and the dryer, they run way. There's probably a huge black market in runaway single socks somewhere. Who knows...
Anyways, I have 18 unpaired socks, and I’m holding onto them in hopes that their twins will return from the space wrap before I do my annual sock purge.

Beef A La Sichuan (Low Carb & Gluten-Free)

Apparently all of the food blogosphere is going Cinco de Mayo.
Tacos, burritos, nachos, enchiladas, tostadas, pico de gallo, margaritas, horchatas, you name it.
I mean, take a look at my lad Chris over at Shared Appetite; he’s going berserk over it (in a good way, of course!)
He’s been posting the most amazing Mexican-themed food ever lately. Head over there and be ready to salivate!
But I - being the rebel that I am - refuse to participate in this charade because....well, just because I haven’t cooked any Mexican food in the past few weeks. That’s pretty much it.
I actually CAN’T be part of this Cinco de Mayo bonanza, because I wasn’t smart and organized enough to plan around it. My loss.
So, no Mexican for me.
But I made some tasty Chinese-inspired food though if you’re interested.

High-Protein Zucchini Parmesan

You guys. This is good, like really good. Amazing even!
We’re talking Parmigiana here.
It’s no secret that I’m an eggplant parm kind of guy.
Just like Aristotheles “Give me an eggplant, tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese and I will move the earth!”
OK, not really, but I can certainly make you some badass + low-calorie eggplant parm or some pretty darn tasting roasted eggplant and tomato gratin.
If you’re generous enough and offer me some quinoa, then I can whip you up even a yummy eggplant parm quinoa casserole.
Neat-o.

3-Ingredient Crunchy Strawberry Ice-Cream

One of the things I’ve learned since I started this blog is that NOT everyone’s got a microwave, a blender, a juicer, a slow cooker or an ice-cream maker.
Personally I own all of those kitchen appliances/gadgets, but you probably have a washer-dryer in your apt; I don’t...hence, you win, I lose.
Let me explain...in the City That Never Sleeps the real luxury, the one item that can make all your friends green with envy, the thing that pierces the fantasy of entitlement is owning a washer-dryer.
Like it’s yours and it’s right there, in your apt.
There’s no more descending to the depths of the basement laundry room. Or worst, walking a couple of blocks to a sad laundromat, where (notwithstanding what you see on commercials) there’s never a Victoria’s Secret model waiting for you, stripping to her underwear, throwing her dirty clothes in the washing machine and then hitting on you.
Never happened, never will.
So you fill the washer-dryer void with many kitchen gadgets, and you convince yourself that owning an ice-cream maker is way cooler and 100 times more useful.
Because you know, sometimes it's okay to lie to yourself.

Eggs Baked In Avocado Boats

I first saw this concept on Pinterest a couple of months ago. Since then I haven’t been able to get the image of a baked egg in an avocado boat out of my mind.
Are you big fan of Pinterest? I certainly am. It’s like the greatest place ever on the internet to find inspiration. Although it’s undeniably ruled by women.
According to my friend Denise, girls like Pinterest because they’re so desperate to get away from Facebook.
She says that for girls Facebook isn’t so much of a social network, it’s more of a tool you use to show how much further ahead in life than your friends.
Such as posting when you get a new job, complaining about how stressed you are about your job, taking pictures of your engagement ring, showing that your lunch consists of only 2 lettuce leaves and a dry tomato, posting pictures your mom took of you giving birth (which I’ve just found out you’re not supposed to comment, ever) and posting 400 pictures of that one time you went out in the last four months.
Not the guys are any better; the only reason we use Facebook is to repost things we’ve found on Reddit so that we can look witty, smart and generally badass. Or ranting about sports/politics.
That’s pretty much it.

Chicken Piccata (Low Carb & Gluten-Free)

How many movies do you have on your Netflix queue?
Seriously.
I just checked mine and I have exactly 153.
I guess it will take me about 10 years to catch up on it.
Unless I take a month off from work, veg in bed and binge on movies.
Something that sounds pretty cool, but that I already know will probably drive me mental after the third day.
The funny thing about my Netflix queue is that it’s completely random.
It includes everything from classic sitcoms, 21st century classics, action movies, horror movies chick flicks (?), kid cartoons such as “Dora the Explorer” (??) and even the One Direction's movie — which can either mean that Niece found out my Netflix’s password or that I logged in into my account when I was completely wasted.
For real though, there’s no logic behind that list of movies, at all.
It’s like a 1-year old was left in front of my laptop for an hour and kept on clicking the mousepad. Random.

3-Ingredient (Dairy-Free) Cocoa Mousse

I had a really bad dream two nights ago, more like a nightmare.
I was riding the subway, I had no iPad, iPod, Kindle, book, magazine or even newspaper with me and I sat across from a woman who kept staring at me.
I didn’t want to make eye contact, so I kept looking at the floor. But for some reason (dreams are always weird) I was eventually forced to meet her eyes and she started talking to me.
We had like the most weird conversation ever, which seemed to never end.
Let me tell you, I woke up drenched in sweat and scared as hell.
I mean, engaging in friendly chit-chat on public transportation?
That’s something we just don’t do around here.
I’m sorry, we’re from the City, we are not trusting people!
Okay, okay...I’m exaggerating a tad, but I honestly don’t think I ever said anything, let alone had a conversation to anyone on the subway (who wasn't a friend/acquaintance).

Cauliflower Crust Stromboli

This is me showing you that cauliflower crust is dope.
Dope as in awesome and nasty as in “Yah brah thats sik!”
Shaka sign dope and awesome and sik. Got it?
Because there’s really no end to what you (and I) can do with cauli crust. Like really.
Pizza, calzone, pizzettes, hot pockets, garlic breadsticks and today Stromboli.

Paleofied Banana Pudding

As you may remember, last week I baked a batch of pretty darn awesome (Paleo) Nilla Wafers with just one goal in mind, whip up some banana pudding during the weekend.
Which is what I did.
It turned out great; so great, I offered some of that pudding to a couple of friends I had over for dinner... and before I knew it, there was none left. Like none, nada, zip, zero, zilch.
This, under normal circumstances, is fantastic; there’s no more satisfaction for a cook than seeing no leftovers of the food you offer.
But you see, I hadn’t taken pictures of the banana pudding yet, and in the food blogging world not taking pictures equals to a catastrophe of epic dimensions.
I’m talking about “Release the Kraken!” or Death Star destroying entire planets or the Chitauri fleet invading the Earth, that kind of catastrophe.
Catastrophe as in you have to start all over again from square one.
Buying the ingredients, baking the wafers, assemble pudding, let it rest and then hope, hope there’s still a ray of light outside that will allow you to take decent pictures.
Not great, decent.
Good enough to make you guys wanting to try it out. Because this is the point of this whole site and what I do. Inspire you in making the recipes I create. Right?

(Paleo) Nilla Wafers

As you might have noticed, I have an innate desire to take awesome things and figure out how to make them even more awesome.
Do you know what’s awesome (besides me, cauliflower crust, and basically everything else that I’ve previously declared as such)? Banana pudding.
And do you know what you need to make banana pudding? Nilla Wafers.
And do you know how much crap there is those vanilla cookies that have been around for years? Too much — including stuff like partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil (a trans fat, one of the real villains of nutrition.)

Chicken Souvlaki Kebabs with Tzatziki Sauce

I am obsessed with food trucks. Really obsessed.
So obsessed last night I’ve found myself taking notes while watching “Eat Street” on the Cooking Channel; and mentally planning a coast-to-coast trip with stops and detours at the coolest food trucks around the country.
I love food trucks because they have revolutionized the concept of meals on wheels by bringing a healthy, innovative, sustainable and gourmet approach to standard street fare.
Excellent food, convenient, casual, fun, with not a hint of formality. My kinda eatery.

Salmon, Avocado and Arugula Salad with Lemon-Parsley Dressing

How do you feel about doggy bags? Yes or No?
Personally I disdain wasting food - especially when the food is good - and leftovers can be a wonderful treat to have the next day.
But how many times those styrofoam clamshells or cardboard boxes just spend a couple of days in the fridge before being tossed into the dumpster?
I often just forget about them.
Other times, no matter how appealing the food looked when it was served at the table, it looks so inevitably soggy and unappetizing the next day.
That’s why I’m always on the fence about asking for doggie bags.
As I do not own a canine friend, bringing scrap bones and other food to my pet doesn’t really work for me.

Vanilla Berry Chia Pudding

When someone says “chia”, what is the first thing that pops into your mind?
For millions, the answer is “Chia pet”, the terracotta figurines where the chia sprouts grow within a couple of weeks to resemble the animal's fur.
Who doesn’t remember the Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia commercial?
“They’re fun, they’re green, they’re the greatest thing you’ve ever seen...I want a chia puppy for my school! I want a chia guy for the office! I want a chia tree with a color changing star light!”
Best.Commercial.EVER.
Seriously, name one commercial better than this one.
It's enticing. It's smart. It's forward-thinking. It's caring. It's sensitive.
It brainwashes you into running out and getting one of those super fun chia pets. It is actually so powerful I’m thinking of getting one right now.
In your face Old Spice!

Cauliflower Crust Garlic Breadsticks

Remember when you were a kid and you thought that being grown up just meant driving cars, not having to go to school and eat all the ice-cream and pizza you wanted?
Well, we all grew up. And we discovered that adult life is indeed about driving cars, (sadly) not going to school, and about the ice-cream+pizza part...well we figured out our metabolism is not as fast as it used to be, and as much as we would love to eat ice-cream+pizza 24/7, we really can’t (turning into a big tub of lard is a far too easy with that kind of diet.)
But we are also smarter than we used to and we have discovered new healthy ways to enjoy our favorite foods.