Time for another food post. Things I’ve made or eaten the last several weeks…er, month! Oops, another realization I’ve waited too long!
Recipes when available. (Ok, I lied. I only have links to 4 recipes. I usually just throw meats & veggies together! Roasts: I use tons of garlic & onion & spices. Hamburgers. Nothing fancy.) Usually, I just throw things together, or alter recipes to make them Paleo compliant, or just better!

The day after Whole30 ended (Jan 31), we loaded up the car and headed to Houston for my first 50miler. Since I’m originally from the area, I had lots of places to stop. We wanted to hit a museum, Central Market (best grocery store, ever!), see family. My cousins live right across the street—well, dirt road and a short walk–from a raw milk farm! We brought the big cooler and really stocked up. Dairy isn’t Whole30 at all, but if I’m going to have it, it’s going to be this stuff: pastured, no grains, no hormones, antibiotics. Just…love! No dairy from the grocery store for me. Chemicals, hormones, and whoknowswhatelse in that factory stuff. It’s taken a couple years to get to this point of not wanting store bought dairy, but I love this raw stuff. I’m really glad this farm is several hours away.
EatWild is a great site to find local farmers!

When we got home after the weekend, we used the tremendous amount of cream to make our own butter! It’s actually pretty easy, I encourage everyone to try it! You don’t need a big KitchenAid to do it, a hand mixer works fine. It’ll just take a little longer. This is the blog/instructions we usually follow. (her pics are MUCH better than mine) However, the pics & instructions below are all it takes. It’s really simple. I usually divide the butter up and make salted, unsalted and herb varieties. This time was chive, rosemary & thyme.

To start: pour cream in mixer and mix! That’s it. Just mix, mix, & mix some more.

After about 8-10min it goes past ‘whipped cream’ and starts clumping into butter! You’re left with butter and buttermilk. Delicious.
Separate it out with a mesh strainer, squeeze the liquid out, and you’re left with a butter ball. Or log. Whatever shape you like.

Now, lots of food collages! Things I’ve eaten this month.

Lets start with some breakfast.

We have sautéed veggies & bacon frittata. Then, my usual, scrambled eggs (usually with some type of veggies) w/salsa, and home cured bacon.
Marks Daily Apple has some good frittata recipes, but they’re just like scrambled egg: throw whatever you have in there! I had yellow squash, red pepper & spinach. Garlic and onion too, of course. Then bacon on top.

Lets get to lunches! Usually some type of salads or leftovers, that I eat at school. Hence the leftover containers. Here we have kale salad w/apples, radish, pine nuts & almonds, yellow beets, mint & parsley, olive oil & lemon. Delicious. Top right is roast hog and salad. Bottom right is salad with buffalo burger, I think. And then a plain ‘ol salad.

Here I wanted to show some portion sizes. I try to get a TON of volume of veggies. The top left is an egg salad. Veggies piled high with egg dumped on top. I forced myself to eat it all! (the plates are huge) Then roasted veggies w/deer & regular salad. Oyster happy hour (YUM!), I ate 3 doz. Finally, sometimes I get desperate. I *NEEDED* to eat something, and I had an orange. I was in the car. Nowhere to let the juices drip & to put the peel….
SO, an orange in a shoe box it is!

Got my first sack of crawfish for the season (it’s still a little early), and the dogs were VERY interested in them. They thought the mudbugs were delicious, btw.

Let’s address eating out!

Went out several times, especially when we were in Houston. My dining partner got some scallops over risotto (I did not try). When we were leaving the Museum of Fine Arts, the food trucks were parked outside! I was so excited. I got some kind of meat wrapped in bacon. It came with a wonderfully spicy guac. I also got some kind of taco, sans shell. Both were delicious! Finally, some BBQ in a cup.

Now, some dinners!
Fall off the bone crock pot wild hog. (no recipe)
Hog & asparagus
PaleoOMG bacon ‘alfredo’. I altered this and added tons of brocoli, lots of spices. It was really good. I’ll probably make it again.

Here’s more meat pictures.
I think this is deer or hog with caramelized onions & garlic.
On the right, is sausage stuffed pork chop and steamed broccoli. YUM.

And finally, the roast chicken I made this week. I adapted Thomas Kellers Ad Hoc recipe. I used rutabaga, turnips, carrots, leek, onion, garlic, sweet potato. Used some homemade raw butter, rosemary, thyme and tons of S&P. It was so good, I wanted to give you three views. The veggies were out of this world. I love roasted vegetables.

And, there you go! Things I’ve eaten this month! I’d like to do a food post once a week, but I don’t think I have the variety for that. I make 2-3 ‘bigger’ meals a week, and the rest of the time it’s either eggs, big salad or leftovers. The leftovers go pretty far. I’d like to try a new recipe every week, but I don’t think I’d actually take the time for that.