Read me.

What an incredible year it has been! I am so grateful for the community that has built up around and with Popular Paleo. So many great recipes (and some not so awesome ones), a lot of learning on my part and a fair amount of good eats on your dinner table.  I raise my glass of kombucha (home-brewed, of course) in celebration with you all!

I am excited to be on the cusp of expanding the scope of this blog and offering more resources, recipes and tailored materials to support all who are taking steps—even small ones—toward improving their health!

If you are already an email subscriber to Popular Paleo, then you will continue to receive all posts directly to your inbox uninterrupted.  However, my WordPress followers (how I love you!) will have to stop by, preferably with a housewarming gift, and follow my new website via email. I sure hope you do! 

My blog will be down for a few days, but will resurrect anew very shortly.  It’s like Easter in September.  But without the massive glazed ham. Or plastic eggs filled with candy.

With gratitude,

Ciarra

Ground Beef Stir Fry with Wilted Napa Cabbage

Ok, don’t hate on the ground beef. You can totally substitute a juicy piece of grass-fed steak, pork or even some roasted chicken — whatever will make your dinner guests happy.  Mine happened to be two friends after a long day’s work and two little kids, whom you may have heard me mention a time or two.  We all like ground beef. We all like Asian food. Three-fifths of us like cabbage. These are good odds…

Whole30 Emergency Kits

I had an idea yesterday. I was chopping up a bunch of apples to go with dinner and thinking about how I should really set some aside for today so that I have something ready to go when my case of the munchies hits… And then it occurred to me how helpful this will be for the upcoming Whole30!

One of the things that people are nervous about when doing something like a Whole30, especially if you’re not already eating close to Paleo guidelines, is that you’ll get hungry all the time. My answer? Eat more. Just make sure that you’re eating the right stuff! Setting pre-made snacks aside that you know will take the edge off is exactly the kind of thing that will help you stay the course — on this Whole30 or in everyday Paleo life.

Whether you are in between meals or running late for one, rather than negotiating a drive thru or marching forward with a grumbling tummy, dive into your emergency kit to get yourself stable again.

OMghee Giveaway!

As a token of my gratitude for not leaving me to do this Whole30 Challenge solo, I’m going to share a jar of my favorite ghee with one lucky person! That’s right, a 16oz jar of pure, organic, grass-fed ghee from OMghee!

For thirty days in October we will be 100% dairy free, which may pose a bit of a challenge for those of you who are accustomed to grass-fed butter in your bulletproof coffee, your saute pan or smothered on your veggies.  Thankfully ghee (or clarified butter) is an approved butter substitute as the dairy solids have all been removed, leaving pure fat for our Whole30-ing selves to enjoy. This incredibly healthy spread is exactly the kind of thing we need to focus on next month!

Not familiar with the health benefits of grass-fed ghee? Read more here.

Don’t miss your chance to change your life through this Whole30 AND get a big jar of delicious, grass-fed, organic ghee!

To enter, select this link:  a Rafflecopter giveaway

Follow their easy steps and in a couple days I will announce the winner!!! Heads up, in order to qualify you’ll have to *like* both my page and OMghee’s page on Facebook. And sharing is caring! Find a buddy to do this with, enter to win a jar of artisan ghee and let’s rock this Whole30 come October 1! 

Our morning on the pig farm.

Like many others, I use eatwild.com to find local farms that provide pastured, organic, grass-fed, free-range meat. Months ago I found a pig farm that perked my curiosity and since I finally had the opportunity to hit their store hours yesterday, I showed up at Filbert Acres Farm unannounced. And I fell in love.

Despite living in Montana for several years, I am a city girl. I haven’t had the chance to be around livestock animals or farms much.  It was refreshing to get my boots dirty, walk through the grass that will soon be lunch for these piggies and see with my own eyes where my future carnitas come from. These pigs get to be pigs—running around, eating grass and dirt (which apparently they need to eat… didn’t know that before!) and sleeping and playing as they see fit.  They are spoiled with fresh pasture land (rotating from section to section to ensure steady use and regrowth), organic feed and then finished on fresh apples, pears and hazelnuts from the property itself. Can’t imagine a better situation.

Time for a Whole30! Do it with me?

Alas, the time has finally come for me to embark on a Paleo milestone… completing a Whole30. And you know what? I’m excited! It Starts With Food is one of the best books for understanding Paleo and includes a popular thirty day challenge at the end of it. I’m ready to give it a go! Of course, it wouldn’t be very nice of me to keep this challenge to myself, so I’m hoping a few of you will join me.

Here what you need to do:

• Buy the book. –> http://ow.ly/oQClz
• Read the book.
• Follow me on Facebook, if you aren’t already!
• Commit to 30 days.

Chinese Style Broccolini

Growing up in a Chinese-Italian family, our food never sucked. There. I said it. Just when we thought we couldn’t take one more meatball or piece of lasagne, out came a batch of Curry Crab or Douchi Pai Guat (spare-ribs in a garlicky fermented soybean sauce).  Even if dinner was a heaping pile of shrimp–heads on, of course–and some rice with Shi Geum Chi (a Korean spinach dish—I’ll make it for you), it was always head-over-heels delicious.  We didn’t have a lot of money, but we made up for it with skill and hard work in the kitchen.

Even as kids we helped with meal prep.  Usually it was just washing the rice before graduating to smashing and peeling garlic. I have many fond memories of time spent in the kitchen together and learning family secrets for perfecting our hallmark recipes…

In fact, here are some of the lessons I learned from my grandparents and my dad:

• Don’t be timid with seasonings, but keep the dish in balance.
• Ginger should be considered a vegetable.
• Smell is just as important as taste when determining if balanced is achieved.
• Fat is your friend.
• Often the cheapest cuts of meat yield the most flavorful dishes.
• Get good at using big knives.
• Garlic cures almost anything.
• Cook high and fast or low and slow.
• Try everything once.
• Curl your fingertips under and rest the side of the knife blade against your             knuckles. You won’t cut yourself no matter how fast you chop.
• Chew with your mouth closed or you’ll get popped in the head with chopsticks.

I’ll end my nostalgia there.  How about a super duper easy side dish that you will even want to feed non-Paleo people?

Rainbow Chard with Hazelnuts

Sometimes I get stuck in a veggie-rut. Meaning I tend to grab the same carrots, cauliflower, kale and bell peppers every time I hit the store or market.  As I said before in my post The Paleo Pantry, I recommend challenging yourself (and myself!) to pick a new veggie, something that you haven’t been in the habit of eating, once a week.  Last week it was rainbow chard and I’m super happy with that decision.

I went for a classic Italian-style greens approach for this. Garlic, freshly grated nutmeg (yes, NUTMEG) and a bit of chopped hazelnuts are exactly what rainbow chard want to be partnered with — trust me, we’re very close now.

Remember, I feed my kids all of this food. This recipe got requests for seconds by my nine-year-old and my three-year-old nibbled a couple of bites without protest — in my house, that’s a victory!