Paleo Diet Dishes

If you’ve been following my Gym Virgin Diary series, then you’ll be aware that I was advised to go paleo by my trainer. I had visions of Atkins and was having cold meat sweats at the thoughts of going back to the diet I tried in my early 20s and which ended up giving me gall stones (thank you Dr Aktins).

If you’re like me, and I think that I can speak fairly reliably for at least 50% of the female population (I’ve based that on scientific evidence and research of those four women sitting around me in the office so it possibly is not entiiiirely accurate), then you’ve probably tried numerous different diets over the years - Weight Watchers, South Beach, Atkins, Slimming World, GI, the list is endless.

In fact, a lot of us will spend our lives in a permanent flux of diet to binge and back again. And I’m not here to argue to merits of each type of diet out there, nor am a doctor.  This is just my opinion and a tale of how I’m now eating.

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I think Paleo aka the Caveman Diet, is here to stay.  Sure, did it ever go away I hear you ask. Now, at first I was very dismissive of it -I’ve friends in LA who’ve been speaking about it for years and I thought, yeah yeah, another fad. But truth be told, it’s not really a diet and more just a healthy way of eating. I’m not going to lay out the ‘rules’ in this article (you can find more info at www.thepaleodiet.com). But in a nutshell you don’t eat anything processed, you cook a lot, you try and eat only things that ‘cavemen’ could have gotten their hands on. And they didn't have pick 'n' mix.

So for example, you can load up on fruit, non-starchy veg, fish, meat, poultry, nuts, seeds, berries and even some fats. I can still have veggie days, I’m getting all my greens into me and I’m not eating crap, so all in all it’s hard to argue that it could be anything but healthy.

Anyway, the whole point of this article is not to debate the merits of any specific diet, but merely to share with you some of the recipes that I’ve learned along the way.  Some have been influenced by others and some are complete inventions by yours truly.  Here’s one to get the ball rolling and if it’s something you’d like to see more of them do please let us know in the comments and we can set up a series of a healthy but scrummy recipe each week to help you on your journey to look beautiful both inside and out!

Lemony Prawn, Pesto ‘Pasta’

Serves 2 (or 1 if you’re greedy like me!)

Ingredients

1 large courgette

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Packet of raw prawns

1 tsp ghee or butter

1 Cup Basil

¼ Cup Walnut pieces

1/3 Cup Olive Oil

½ Lemon

¼ Cup Grated Pecorino or Parmesan Cheese

Salt & Pepper

  • Toast the walnuts in a dry pan for a few minutes until they smell delicious and nutty.  Watch them like a hawk so they don’t burn. Then set aside. In a food processor blitz the basil and walnuts, then slowly add the olive oil and finally the cheese and voila you have pesto. By now your kitchen smells delicious!
  • Then take your courgette and turn it into spaghetti or even courgetti in your spiralizer. I can’t recommend enough investing in one of these babies.  I use it constantly now and it gives me all the ‘pasta’ I need. If you don’t have a spiralizer then use your veg peeler to make papardelle shaped ribbon ‘pasta’ from the courgette instead.
  • In a pan add the ghee and fry the prawns for a few minutes until pink, then squeeze the lemon juice over them. Pop your courgetti into the same pan and mix gently for about 2 mins until they soften. Then mix through your pesto, and serve with some more grated parmesan.

It’s a hug in a bowl.  And trust me, by the miracle of science, the courgetti will no longer taste like courgette.  Which I don’t normally eat, but once it’s in the shape of spaghetti it seems to taste differently. I can’t explain it; it’s just how it is!  Dinner is served in less than 15mins.

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Buon appitito!

Are you a fan of the paleo diet? Would you like to discover some more delicious and healthy recipes?

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