Category Archives: Recipes

Elvis Burger, Paleo Style

Posted on by
Reply

Since moving to Minnesota, we’ve learned about the peanut butter burgers Elvis so loved. It’s a thing around here, so much so, that when I travel back to San Diego for work, I’ve been asked, “have you had a peanut butter burger yet?!” I don’t eat peanuts, BUT I did try a bite of one (when in Minnesota) and let me tell you, amazeballs. It’s been sounding good ever since, so I recreated it to make it paleo-friendly and it did not disappoint! You could make them multiple ways, but this is how I made mine.

Elvis Burger, Paleo Style

  • 2 burger patties
  • Cashew butter
  • Grassfed extra sharp cheddar
  • Uncured, cooked bacon
  • 1/2 banana, sliced

Place one burger patty on your plate and slather with cashew butter (or, again, nut butter of your choice), stick the cooked bacon on top of the cashew butter, place the 2nd burger patty with melty grassfed extra sharp cheddar, cheese side down on the bacon, slather top patty with cashew butter as well. I had the sliced banana on the plate, and ate a slice with each bite of burger I had. The burger stayed together well. Nice for different, rich flavors than the usual burger staples!

IMG_3099[1]

4th of July Sangria!

Posted on by
4

I typically always drink red wine – it seems to be as a person with type 1 diabetes, just about the only thing I can drink that a) I enjoy the flavor and variety, but more importantly b) it has zero impact on my blood sugar. Bonus, it goes well with cooking and Frank 😉

This 4th of July we had friends over, played yard games (dubbed the 1st annual Swanson yard game olympics), grilled (read: grazed on food allllllll day) and drank. It was such a fun day!

Because I didn’t want to drink red wine all day – too “heavy” and it was warm and slightly humid, I decided to try and make a more minimal-to-none, diabetes blood sugar spiking version. I’m also not a huge fan of sugary drinks in general, they give me crazy headaches and make me feel puffy and gross (especially the day after). I googled all sorts of recipes and didn’t care for any of them, so I ventured out on my own. The result was a light, refreshing, flavorful sangria that I loved and our guests did as well! Plus I got a new sangria pitcher out of it 🙂

Sangria

  • 1 bottle merlot
  • 1 bottle raspberry road (Carlos Creek Winery – wine tasted here recently)
  • 1/2 cup blueberries
  • 1 cup quartered strawberries
  • 2 sliced oranges
  • Club soda

Combine everything above except the club soda into a pitcher and refrigerate for at least 6 hours (overnight would be fine). When ready to enjoy, pour into a sangria pitcher and add 4 (mini) 10 oz bottles of club soda. My family recently wine tasted at Carlos Creek Winery in Minnesota, so I picked up a bottle of their raspberry road for this recipe, but I think any fruitier flavored wine would work. [Disclaimer: I almost added some raw honey, but decided before I did to let the fruit sit in the wine and see how it tasted = result, no honey needed].

Light, refreshing, flavorful and especially on a warm summer day 🙂

IMG_2692[1]IMG_2694[1]IMG_2699[1]

Cinnamon Fruit Salad

Posted on by
Reply

Happy first day of July (WHAT)! It’s really feeling like summer lately (although it was 55 here at my house in Minnesota this morning, brrr), so it’s salads of all kinds with grilling and more grilling.

A couple weeks ago my mom and dad were here for the night before we all headed to a weekend at the lake for Summer Solstice. Seth and I cooked up a fabulous dinner for the four of us, grilled steaks, grilled hash browns with peppers/onions and cheese, grilled eggplant and cinnamon fruit salad.

I had three very ripe mangoes that needed to be used before we left for the weekend, so I cut them up into pieces and tossed them in a bowl with fresh blueberries and cantaloupe. I then squeezed the juice of two limes over the fruit, a shake of raw coconut sugar (maybe 1/8 cup?) and a sprinkle of cinnamon (roughly 1 tsp). It really doesn’t take much cinnamon to flavor the salad – I went light because my dad isn’t a huge fan of cinnamon, and I was surprised at how cinnamon-y it still was. There was a small serving leftover, and it kept great in the fridge until it was finished with breakfast the next morning.

You could easily change up the fruits, but it was a nice flavor change from regular fruit salad!

IMG_2309[1] IMG_2310[1] IMG_2311[1] IMG_2312[1]

Surf-n-Turf and Grilled Celery

Posted on by
2

Peak grilling season is here in Minnesota! Our beloved Puerto Rico Char Broil grill would have never survived the move from San Diego to Minneapolis. We complained about that grill for years, but it was pretty reliable. You couldn’t touch it, as it’d fall over into a heap of rusty metal, but hey, it worked! We bought it in 2006, and it lasted 9 years of almost year-around grilling in Puerto Rico, Virginia and San Diego, so not bad for $300 🙂 So long Char Broil, hello Weber! Seth just purchased the corvette of grills a couple weeks ago now that we’re getting settled in MN, so we’ve been grilling every chance we get.

Last night we grilled surf-n-turf and celery (a random experiment). I had the biggest, fattest, most awesome hunk of sea bass with the skin on, Seth had an enormous T-bone, and grilled celery! We wrapped the sea bass in a foil boat with a little olive oil, salt, pepper and tons of fresh citrus slices-I used 1 grapefruit, 1 orange and 1 lemon – all fruit that needed to be used. Tip: fish with skin on is far more juicy and flavorful, and it falls right off after cooking, so don’t be scared of fish skin! Seth seasoned his steak with garlic, Lawry’s, salt and pepper. The flavor of the fish was extremely buttery.

I’ve never grilled celery, but I think you can grill just about anything, so, since it’d been in the fridge for a while we gave it go – man was it tasty and super easy! Wash the celery and trim the ends, toss in a bowl with olive oil, sea salt, pepper and garlic salt, then lay directly on the grill for approximately 12-15 minutes. When it came off the grill I sprinkled with just a little fresh sea salt before eating. It had great celery flavor, still crispy, less stringy, and a charred salty flavor. So good!

IMG_2524[1]IMG_2504[1]IMG_2506[1]IMG_2513[1]

Broccoli Salad – a summer favorite!

Posted on by
2

Broccoli salad has been a staple in my family for as long as I can remember. We’d have it on holiday occasions and periodically in between, but makes a cool summer salad for when things start to heat up. It’d been sounding good to me for a while so I decided to re-create the traditional recipe to make it a little healthier. Rather than commercial shredded cheese, miracle whip, sugar and bacon bits, it’s no sugar added, uncured smoked bacon and Sir Kensingtons original mayo.

Re-vamped Broccoli Salad

  • 1 12 – 16 oz bag frozen broccoli (ran under cold water to thaw, and dry a bit)
  • 2 fresh ripe mangoes diced
  • 1/2 diced large red onion
  • Cut up beef (we had some leftover from our smoker, so I used kitchen shears and cut it up!)
  • Cut up cooked bacon
  • 1 cup Sir Kensginton’s original mayo
  • White vinegar (enough to get mayo to dressing consistency you prefer)
  • Salt/pepper

Toss everything in a large bowl and let refrigerate overnight. The mango adds the perfect touch of sweetness instead of a cup of refined white sugar, and the recipe remains dairy free! I really did not miss the cheese at all, and it’s full of healthy colors!

Enjoy (I apologize, I only took one photo, which is a pretty crappy photo)!

IMG_2200[1]