Sweet Potato Chili Fries

I stole this recipe from PaleOMG, although I suppose since I'm telling you this it's sharing, not stealing? Anyway, I made these tonight and they are delicious. What they lack in the crispiness of real fries they make up for in flavour.

EDIT: did you know there are sweet potatos that aren't bright orange?? I got some various brands of sweet potato from the farmers market this week, and some were purple, while some were red on the outside and white inside! These non orange sorts seemed to crisp much better (sometimes the orange ones are a bit soggy).

They don't even have any gluten in them which, since it's Wheat Month, is actually a problem right now. Which brings me to the real reason Wheat Month is going to make me fat, aside from the wheat. It's because my thought process, when I'm allowed to run about consuming wheat products at my leisure, goes like this: "Hm....what shall I have for dinner? I know, paleOMG's chili fries. Oh shoot, there's no gluten in those...." at which point I wandered around the grocery store looking for a gluten product worth consuming and left with a box of President's Choice Decadent Peanut Butter Icecream Sandwiches. I won't tell you how delicious they were because that would be mean.

NOTE: Nick points out I did not have to buy junk food to get my gluten, I could have thickened my chili with flour like a normal person. Touche. I'll remember that.....once the cookies are gone....

paleOMG's Sweet Potato Chili Fries

I did mine slightly differently than Juli (i.e., I did less work because I'm lazy). Also she somehow has sweet potatoes that aren't bright orange....dunno where to get those.

Ingredients

• One large sweet potato. Pick one that's stout and round not long and warped for optimum fry size
• Ground beef or sausage
• 2-3 tomatoes, diced
• seasonings to taste (salt, pepper, paprika, chili powder, garlic/onion powder, a dash of cayenne pepper)
• half a sliced avacado

1.  Start browning your ground beef or sausage
2. Slice your potato into fries (cut in half and quarters lengthwise, etc, until you have somewhat even fry sized strips.
3. Dust the fries lightly with olive oil. If you put too much they won't crisp.
4. Salt the fries and bake on ~400 until squishy (cooked) and then broil for a few minutes (to crisp) until your smoke detector tells you they're done.
5. Meanwhile, add diced tomatoes to the meat and season. Simmer until the tomatoes are all juiced and the chili starts to thicken again.
6. Make a nest with your fries and plop the chili in the middle. Serve with a sliced avocado to cut the heat of the cayenne and get some tasty fats.

Creamy chicken avocado alfredo

I'm newly obsessed with the song "A Warrior's Call", by a Danish band called Volbeat. I've never heard of them before, but apparently they've been around since 2000 (says Wikipedia). Every time this song comes on the radio I feel a strong urge to get to the gym and lift/throw heavy things. My friend points out that while he wouldn't have thought of it on his own, it seems somehow fitting that the perfect crossfit anthem would be by a Scandinavian metal band. I'm going to have to add it to the request list for the Games workouts.

In other news, avocados are super! So versatile. When it was suggested to me that one could use them as a base for a creamy pasta sauce, I was sceptical, but it turned out to be delicious! The avocado somehow simulates the creaminess of a proper alfredo, it's marvelous. I cobbled together several internet-searched recipes and ended up with this pesto-alfredo hybrid. I ate mine over zucchini noodles but I think it would go well with spaghetti squash as well. Oh! OR perhaps as a cold salad with cucumbers and cherry tomatos...must try that.

Creamy chicken avocado alfredo
All of the sauce ingredients are to taste. I fail at measuring stuff. For the pesto I used my hand crank processor, which worked well. An electric one would have made it all smoother but I think I like the texture. This made enough for 2 meals.

Ingredients

2 chicken breasts
Garlic/onion powder, salt and pepper, and olive oil for the chicken
3 small zucchinis (or enough for two servings of noodles) (or spaghetti squash)

For the sauce:
1 ripe avocado
a small handful of fresh spinach
basil (I would have used fresh but I only had dried)
a good squirt of lemon juice (2-3 tablespoons, roughly?)
a smaller squirt of lime juice
olive oil (maybe a tablespoon)
some crushed walnuts for texture (about 2 tablespoons)
1 clove of garlic, chopped or minced
salt to taste

1. Chop chicken into bite-sized pieces. Season with salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic, etc, and saute in some olive oil.
2. If you're making zucchini noodles, boil some water, and cook them for about a minute and drain. I normally just let my sauce cook them, but this sauce isn't heated.
3. Meanwile, dump all of the pesto/alfredo ingredients into a food processor and blend well. I may have accidentally knocked some parmesan cheese in there as well...
4. Toss the sauce with the chicken and noodles and enjoy!

Warning: the internet says not to heat the avocado sauce, so if you made enough for leftovers, set aside your sauce separately and reheat the chicken/noodles on their own.

Tim Lim's Tasty Every Time Burgers. And a Bowl of Vegetables.

Tim made these most excellent burgers for a Paleo potluck last summer. Actually, he prepared the beef for the burgers, which somehow never got cooked over the course of the party. Those of us who deemed ourselves too full of wine to go home benefited enormously from this lapse the next morning. Burgers, salsa and scrambled eggs: Breakfast of Champions, I tell you.

Imagine my happiness to discover that these gourmet delicacies are super simple! This is now my standard burger recipe, and it's all thanks to Tim Lim. He told me I didn't have to give him credit, but it's too late, Tim. You're in the title now, and there's nothing you can do about it. :)

I topped this particular burger with my first attempt at guacamole. It is only very lightly spiced, and therefore would not be Tim Lim approved. I ate it with my standby bowl of vegetables.

Tim Lim's Tasty Every Time Burgers

Ingredients
1 or 2 eggs per lb of beef
hot sauce (I use tabasco)
Wheat free Tamari (a fermented soy sauce that Mark's Daily Apple says is ok...some people use coconut aminos instead but I have yet to try them)
salt and pepper to taste

Squish it all together (you know you want to use your hands) and grill/fry. Top with salsa, guacamole, mustard...all that good non-bun stuff. When I next have my planning hat on, I intend to try portabello mushrooms as a bun....

Not-as-hot-as-Tim's Guacamole

Ingredients
1 ripe avocado
1 small tomato
a bit of hot sauce
lime and/or lemon juice
salt and pepper

1. Extract your avacado from its casing and smoosh it all up with a fork.
2. Dice the tomato and add it in.
3. Add a few shakes of hot sauce, several more shakes of lime juice, and some salt and pepper until it tastes good.
(I added a bit of cumin. Don't do that, it wasn't good, I had to drown the cumin flavour with more lime)

Bowl of Vegetables

Ingredients
Vegetables
Oil and Balsamic vinegar

I realized very early on in the Paleo challenge that I get really bored of chewing on lettuce, and that I was using the lettuce more as a vehicle for all the more substantial stuff. So one day, I just left the lettuce out. I felt so free! This is an extra easy side when you come home from a WOD and can't imagine mustering the effort to cook a vegetable to go with your slab of meat.

My standard vegetables to have on had for this purpose are:
Bell Peppers
Cucumber
Radishes
Mushrooms

I dice up the veggies, top with some grated beats, and dress with ground pepper, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. I don't even mix the dressing together before I add it, because I'm kind of lazy, but it all works out.