Tag Archives: Paleo

Review: Let’s Eat Paleo by The Merrymaker Sisters

February 11, 2014 4:42 pm , 3 Comments ,

I’m a cookbook fiend but in an already tightly-stuffed apartment, there’s only so many books a girl can keep in stock.

Enter, the e-book. Now normally, I do like my cookbooks to be a touch splattered with the dinners of days gone by. But, for The Merrymaker Sisters and their cute new e-book, Let’s Eat Paleo, I’ll try & keep the mess to a minimum (garlic-scented iPhone anyone?)

Let's Eat Paleo

Let’s Eat Paleo provides an easy introduction for those new to paleo life & a refreshing approach to daily dino chow for those already in the know. And if you like your paleo treat eats, The Merrymaker Sisters oblige with a variety of sweets including tarts, smoothies, cakes & brownies.

Having made a few recipes from The Merrymaker back catalogue, I was excited to see which delights had made the cut for the 50 paleo recipes included in the PDF. While there’s plenty of new additions, my favourite recipe from the girls – the De-Snicker-licious Raw Cake – deservedly makes an appearance, as does the Spinach & Leek Meache which I keep meaning to whip out. It’s got Sunday night supper written all over it!

De-snicker-licious cake

The bottom half of this extravaganza I made last year is the De-Snicker-Licious Raw Cake – it lived up to its name!

Other recipes I can’t wait to crack out include Sweet Potato & Kale Pancakes, Raw Bircher Muesli, Mustard & Chive Scones, Lamb Korma in the Slow Cooker and Shepherd’s Pie in a Capsicum (why did I not think of this!?). I’ve also got the Creamy Chicken & Tomato Pasta plotted into the meal planner this week – stay tuned for my verdict & happy snaps later in the week.

In addition to the recipes, there’s an inspiring intro which focuses on the paleo lifestyle, not just the paleo diet. It’s obvious from the blog & Instagram feed The Merrymaker Sisters maintain that they’re active little vegemites who know there’s more to maintaining health & wellbeing than running endless kilometres on the treaddie! It’s so great to see this attitude being spread by young Aussie women.

If you want some fun foodspiration, a way to support young local talent or just a handy little e-cookbook, Let’s Eat Paleo is a splatter-proof investment.

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Things I Love Thursday: 12 Sep

September 12, 2013 7:20 am ,

Here’s what’s been floating my boat this week 🙂

  • Researching all things Paleo! This meal planning template was a particularly useful find.
  • Pinterest funnies, especially this:

  •  Celebrating the birthday of my best friend since forever on the weekend. Friendship established 1992 & still going strong!
    Nina's birthday

    Here we are as chubby-faced primary schoolers 🙂

  • LOVE GRIT! Is it a tough workout? Here’s my post-GRIT face… Pooped!post grit
  • This Paleo Pizookie recipe with this banana ice cream recipe… Decadent but still a tick in the technical paleo book!

Paleo pizookie

  • And on banana ice cream: OMG!? I’d seen this article from The Kitchn before but just thought it was a bit of a beat up, or that I’d need some fancy-schmancy Thermomix-style blender. Ahhh no! It is pure magic! I shared the recipe with a workmate & he’s now using it as a bribery tool with his toddler. Bribery with just a frozen, blended banana – so simple! Just make it. You’ll see.
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21 ways to get from paleo to delicious

September 11, 2013 8:22 pm ,

The internet is rife with all manner of paleo resources – the good, the bad, the delicious and the downright ridiculously devilish (Clean Eating with a Dirty Mind, I’m looking at you).

Even though the guidelines of paleo eating may sound restrictive, there’s so much you can do beyond a slab of meat & a pile of steamed greens. I thought I’d put together this little slideshow of some of our paleo meals from the last few weeks to stoke the fires of creativity & point out some great paleo websites I’ve discovered along the way.

One more thing we crack on, I’ve read a lot around the traps about this way of eating being known for an over-reliance on meat. Long before starting to align our eating with paleo, we had enjoyed a tradition of a weekly “Meat Free Monday” dinner where vegetarian food was the no-excuses order of the evening. Interestingly given this criticism of paleo, we’ve continued this tradition without too much of a battle and I’ve included a few of these meals below.

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The next chapter: Hello Paleo!

September 9, 2013 7:06 am ,

There’s change afoot in our household.

For the last 3 weeks, we’ve been eating to Paleo rules. That is:

  • Lots of vegetables & fruit
  • Plenty of meat & eggs & seafood too
  • A good dose of nuts & other healthy fats

Sounds good right?

Well, there’s only a slight catch. Excluded from paleo eating are:

  • Dairy
  • Legumes
  • Grains
  • Sugar (mostly refined – some occasional honey & real maple syrup are cool)

So, other than for a couple of celebrations where we indulged a little, we’ve binned the tinned chickpeas, left the dairy farmers in the lurch and kept the bag rice buried in the top of the pantry.

“But for what incredible benefit would you now avoid blue cheese??”, I hear you cry. Well, we’ve been really surprised at the benefits of eating this way and, to be honest, how easy it’s been to stick to.

For the last few years, I’ve had a gluten intolerance so that’s kinda helped us get used to the no grains bit a little but, don’t get me wrong, we did have brown rice, polenta and oats queued up, along with tins upon tins of cannelini & kidney beans, lentils & corn kernels.

Like I’m sure many young women do, I’ve always tried to stick to low-calorie options, squirming whenever more than a quarter of an avocado came my way & trying to think happy thoughts when chowing into fat-free tuna in springwater with cucumber on paper-thin 60-calorie wraps.

It feels positively wild putting 150 grams of chicken and half an avocado in a hearty salad at lunch time but you know what, it fills me up so much more than the traditional low calorie, low fat diets we are normally pushed towards for optimal health. I no longer snack between breakfast & lunch. I have a pre-gym snack before I leave work in the afternoon & a recovery mini-meal post-gym. And then it’s dinner time. We haven’t given up the two squares of quality dark chocolate after dinner but beyond that, we’re paleo all the way, baby!

We’ve lost a couple of kilos, actually feel hungry by meal times but never hangry (a major issue for me previously!) and, this is purely our experience, but we’re finding our tastebuds have been totally re-invigorated.

This is merely the beginning – we started out thinking we’d stick to it for a month & see how things went but now, after 3 weeks, I can’t think of eating any other way.

I’ll post more about our paleo adventures here. Don’t worry, it’s not all zucchini and beef: there’s some seriously indulgent things you can do with a bag of almonds, a handful of dates and an avocado.

You might have heard of caveman style eating? This is it. Forget all processed “food”; if it needs more than a quick steam or a sizzle in the pan to become edible, there’s a very good chance it ain’t paleo, sister. If you want to read more about the whole deal, hit up paleo gurus Robb Wolf, Stupid Easy Paleo or Eat Drink Paleo for more information.  

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