Not so boring Breaded Zucchini

I've been on a bit of a Zucchini kick lately, trying to come up with ways to make the otherwise rather bland vegetable that are more exciting than roasting **note, I considerd calling the post "Zucchini Warriors" as a shoutout to one of my favourite childhood authors, Grodan Korman, but I figured the sample size of those who would get it was small....but just know, I thought about it.

First up in the "zucchini isn't boring" series is courtesy of Nick, who suggested "why don't you bread it in some of your almond stuff." He's so smart. If I'd had parmesan and tomato sauce at the time I likely would have gone even further and made Zucchini Parmesan. But I didn't. Add that to the "pending dinners" list.

"Breaded" Zucchini
These are an excellent way to get some good, filling fats into your meal while excitifying your veggies!

Ingredients

• zucchini
• handful of almond flour
• 1 egg
• salt, pepper, and herbs if you want (I used a bit of oregano)
• olive or coconut oil

1. Slice the zucchini with the slices as even in thickness as possible
2. Heat your pan with olive oil or coconut oil
3. Whisk the egg in a bowl
4. Put the almond flour in another bowl and stir in seasonings
5. Dip the zucchini slices in the egg and then in the flour mixture (both sides)
6. Fry until the almond flour starts to brown and then flip, less than 5 minutes each side I'd say. Watch the almond doesn't burn. The zucchini doesn't take long to cook so you're just getting the batter to your desired toastiness.
7. Serve plain or with tomato sauce (and parmesan if that's your scene)

Option: Try with eggplant? I feel like eggplant is more complicated though and requires some sort of salting process so probably ask the internet before trying that....

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.

Zucchini Linguine and other noodle substitutes

So, Christmas happened, and I fell off the paleo wagon in a big way. To be fair to myself, that was my intention. After completing a 10 week paleo challenge on December 23rd, during which I had only a handful of (mostly non-glutenous) cheats, I went home to mom's in London and I ate. A lot. Indiscriminately. I'll excuse myself for the gluten and sugar-filled Christmas dinner under my self-composed Plan to Cheat clause. For the rest of the holiday, I have no defense, except perhaps that gluten from mom's house doesn't count?

Climbing back aboard the paleo wagon is going to be made somewhat more difficult by the fact that I did not experience any immediate negative feedback from stuffing my face with...well stuffing. I did, however, experience several delayed consequences. The first was what I can only assume to be one mad sugar hangover (imagine feeling like you've been drinking all night, without the pleasure of a single glass of wine). In addition, my performance upon returning to the gym has been rather sub-par (I haven't been winded after a 500m warmup row in some time...)

I had planned to share the recipes from our pre-Christmas paleo cookie exchange, but in light of my recent vegetable cravings, I've decided my body has the right idea; the cookies can wait for another day. Instead, I'm sharing my favourite pasta substitutes. Pasta, as I see it, is really just a vessel for the sauce (with the possible exception of fresh, made from scratch noodles with nothing but parmesan, butter, and salt/pepper, but I digress). If you've been missing spaghetti, these substitutes are very tasty and often satisfy my noodle-type cravings.

Paleo Pasta
My favourite paleo "noodle" is spaghetti squash (pictured to the left). Cleave the squash lengthwise in half, scoop out the seeds, and bake face down for about 30 min or until a fork pierces the skin. Scrape out the innards with a fork and you've got spaghetti! Bonus: toss the cleaned seeds in olive oil and seasalt and toast in the oven for a tasty snack.

Zuccini is the next best noodle (on the right, with a tomato and cream cheese rose sauce and crumbled sausage). You can slice it with a mandoline for more spaghetti type noodles, or use a vegetable peeler lengthwise to make lingine. I've seen directions that suggest you saute or boil the noodes, but I find that if the sauce is hot enough you can just pour it on the raw noodles and they heat up sufficiently.

The last subsitute I've tried is chopped cabbage. It was hardly pasta-like in texture, but served as a handy vessel for my meatsauce one evening when I was feeling lazy.

Go nuts with your favourite sauce. I've put a couple suggestions below.

My version of a Meat Sauce

1. Brown ground beef or sausage in a large pan.
2. Add things that need sauteing like mushrooms, onions, peppers, carrots, and/or garlic
3. Add a diced tomato or 2 or three. Probaby you'd add tomato paste here, if you had that sort of thing, which I usually don't.
4. Season: I use lots of paprika and chili powder, salt and pepper, oregano and any other herb I feel like that day.
5. Simmer. Sometimes I add a bit of water. I usually leave the lid on for a bit to let the flavours distribute, and then leave the lid off to reduce moisture.
6. Sometimes I put a bit of red wine.

Usually by the time my squash is done baking, or I've finished making zucchini noodles, the sauce is ready to serve!

Creamy Mushroom Sauce

I haven't tried this exact recipe, but I made a similar tasty sauce for some porkchops and this one looks tastier (from Family Living Simple).

Ingredients
2 Tablespoons of Ghee or coconut oil
3 Cloves of Garlic
1 Cup of Mushrooms sliced
1/2 Onion chopped
1 Cup Coconut Milk (Full Fat)
1/4 Cup White wine
Pepper
Parsley

Heat the butter in a pan over medium heat. Add the onions and cook until transluscent. Add the chopped Garlic and cook a few more minutes. Add the mushrooms. Mix everything up really well to make sure to coat all the mushrooms. Continue to cook for 3-5 more minutes. Add the wine and make sure it boils to cook off the alcohol. Turn the heat down to Medium low and add in the coconut milk. Add spices and let the sauce thicken a little bit and then remove from heat.

They served their sauce on steak but it looked like an excellent pasta sauce to me! Let me know if you try it.