Week 1 of meal planning with cookbooks was a success. I made 3 meals from Everyday Paleo: Slow Cooker Chicken Curry, Chopped Salad, and Ground Pork and Pear Stuffed Winter Squash, and we loved all three.

Slow Cooker Chicken Curry had a broth made from vegetable broth, coconut milk, and curry powder. I was really worried that it wouldn’t be flavorful enough and I was shocked at how much flavor and spice there was in the sauce (I may have snuck in some chili garlic sauce, but only 1 tablespoon!).

The Chopped Salad recipe was really a suggestion, kind of a ‘hey, why don’t you cut up a bunch of veggies and make a salad.’ And now that I write that out, I realize that all salad recipes are like this if you really think about it, but this one didn’t specify amounts or anything. On Sunday night, I made a huge platter of chopped veggies:

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Cucumbers, Yellow Peppers, Cauliflower, Green Onions, Radishes, Celery, Broccoli, Carrots, Red Cabbage (tossed in apple cider vinegar), hard boiled eggs, artichoke hearts, avocado, tofu, goat cheese, and toasted walnuts. We barely made a dent in them, but we continued eating them throughout the week and loved having a weeks’ worth of great salads. Would definitely do this again!

The last Paleo recipe we made was Ground Pork and Pear Stuff Squash. All the ingredients sounded good in this recipe, but I was still timid. As odd as this sounds, fresh parsley makes me leery. I’m not crazy about it and find that it can quickly overpower a dish.

We began the recipe by not following directions- she wanted me to cut a squash in half while it was raw and that just screams emergency room to me. Instead, I threw it the oven whole and cooked it at 350 for 45 minutes. Then I let cool and cut it, perfect!

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The stuffing was made out of ground pork, onion, celery, carrots, mushrooms (my addition), peeled and chopped pears, garlic, chopped almonds, fresh sage, and fresh parsley. I topped them with goat cheese and baked them for about 25 minutes.

The flavors and textures were well balanced. It was definitely guest-worthy and a great way to use ground pork (we had some from our CSA).

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The recipe called for acorn squash, and I grabbed what I thought was an acorn-like squash, but it was actually more of a spaghetti squash. It was a great surprise as that is our favorite kind of squash.

Overall Review of Everyday Paleo

I am impressed. Sarah knows her stuff. I find that some bloggers (me included) know enough to make some good dishes, but may not totally understand how all of the different ingredients play off each other and how to achieve an evenly matched dish (I admit, mine are a little heavy on spices).

With the stuffed squash recipe, I was impressed with how well balanced the flavors were and how they all built off each other- the fresh sage and parsley paired with the pork and the sweetness of the pear and the creamy crunch of the almond. That recipe made me want to go back and choose more recipes from the book for Week 2. But alas, that’s not the goal….

Next week we are going vegan, so stay tuned for the meal preview….

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