Lemon Cranberry Cabbage Salad

Pictured here alongside my Kentucky Fried Haddock, this is my go-to paleo potluck dish. It's got a certain tang to it that I love, and it always seems to go over well. I've put it in rotation as one of my regular side dishes, although I use "rotation" losely because once you buy the cabbage, and if you live alone like I do, you end up eating cabbage salad for about a week straight, after which it takes a while for you to desire cabbage again...I'm really selling this one aren't I...I swear it's delicious. Sorry again about the vague measurement system, but really it's all to taste. Some day I'll put the stuff in a spoon before I put it in the salad so I can report proper ratios.

Lemon Cranberry Cabbage Salad

Ingredients
Chopped cabbage
Lemon juice (a lot)
Cider vinigar (some)
Olive oil (just a little)
Salt and pepper to taste
Dried cranberries
Seeds of some description for texture(I usually use flax and sunflower)

Mix all of the above together in a bowl. Let it sit for a minute or two, then taste test your cider to vinigar ratio. Add extra dressing ingredients as needed. Be sure to let the juices soak in before taste testing. Sometimes by the time I get the ratio right I end up with too much juice pooled at the bottom, in which case i just drain it off (otherwise you'll end up with some seriously lemony bites at the end).

I've also tried it with currents instead of cranberries, which is also yummy and less sugary, but also less flavourful. Which reminds me, be warned that the dried cranberries usually have sugar in them, so not strictly paleo. I hear legends of dried cranberries sweetened with apple juice at Whole Foods, but as I rarely have occasion to venture to Oakville I have not investigated these claims.

WARNING: The salad does not keep well, so don't make leftovers (or don't make it too far in advance of your potluck!). There's some sort of weird slimey-fication process that makes it much less excellent the next day. It's pretty quick to make though, so I often whip up a container in the morning to take to work for lunch.

Sometimes, you just need a piece of toast

When I started crossfit I didn't jump on the paleo bandwagon straight away. I started gradually reducing my wheat consumption in lunches and dinners, but I was still very much addicted to my morning bagel with peanut butter. I had been eating either toast or a bagel for breakfast every day of my life, it was hard to imagine anything different.

Last Christmas I did something drastic and decided to only have a bagel every other day. Breakfast has always seemed to me like the hardest meal to change; it's much easier to get moving in the morning if you just carry on with your regular routine on autopilot, so it takes some directed effort and perhaps planning to do something different.

Anyway, in order to give up morning toast EVERY DAY for the current 10 week paleo challenge I'm attempting now, I decided it was time to find an alternative. I tried making this bread first, because it was the only paleo bread recipe I could find that actually looked fluffy. Most of them look more like banana bread in density, which just won't do for toast. It one didn't work for me, in short. It didn't rise at all and so was hardly wide enough to spread nut butter on.

My next attempt was much more successful. The recipe is from Elana's Pantry, which has a slew of gluten free goodies that appear to be mostly paleo friendly. I didn't have the tiny pan she recommended (I got mine from Fortinos), so my slices are more the shape of malba toast. Mine also has brown flecks because Fortinos has only flax meal instead of golden flax meal.

I love this bread. It's light and fluffly like proper bread, and even tastes like it's buttered already! It's good with nut butter, or all by itself. It also doesn't take very long to make at all. I mixed the ingredients while my spaghetti squash was roasting, and baked it while I ate the spaghetti squash (with ground beef, simmered for a while in diced tomato with garlic, salt and pepper, tamari, and lots of paprika and chili powder...delicious!). I have also successfully eaten this bread toasted with an egg, tomato, and bacon, and it did not fall apart, although it's a bit incorrectly shaped...unless you have a rectangular egg pan...

EDIT: It looks much better with golden flax meal, as prescribed, and I think it tastes even better too.

Paleo Bread
Ingredients
1 ½ cups blanched almond flour
2 tablespoons coconut flour
¼ cup golden flaxseed meal
¼ teaspoon celtic sea salt
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
5 eggs
¼ cup coconut oil
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

1. Place almond flour, coconut flour, flax, salt and baking soda in a food processor (or a bowl)
2. Pulse ingredients together (or stir with a fork)
3. Pulse in eggs, oil, honey and vinegar
4. Pour batter into a greased 7.5" x 3.5" Magic Line Loaf Pan
5. Bake at 350° for 30 minutes
6. Cool and serve