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Creamy Paleo Tortilla Soup {Gluten-free, grain-free, dairy-free, nut-free}
This authentic, blended Creamy Paleo Tortilla Soup inspired by a recent trip to the Islands of Loreto in Mexico, gets an update thanks to grain-free cassava tortillas. If you are cool with corn, go for it babe, it’s one simple swap out, either way. The creaminess of the soup comes not from any dairy, but from the crispy tortillas strips being pureed right into the broth with everything else! Skip out on any cheese to make fully paleo or for a more authentic (and primal) version, add cubed or crumbled cotija cheese or queso fresco. Besides additional crispy tortilla strips, we like to serve ours topped with a drizzle of homemade Salsa Macha, avocado, fresh cilantro and a squeeze of lime, Mexican cheese if we’re feeling nasty!
It’s been a busy couple of months of travel for me, but as usual, I have returned home feeling inspired, refreshed and excited to create. As I have always shared with you guys, getting away and traveling, at times, can be a disruptor to my daily routines, my healthy habits and can sometimes keep me from feeling like my best self. So, as you can imagine I especially love the trips that allow me to maintain my eating preferences, my activity level and fill me up full of magical experiences and ideas to come back and share with all of you.
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Slow Cooker Shredded Beef – Three Ways {Paleo, Gluten-free}
We have fully entered the season of busy. Easy weeknight meals are one of the things you guys ask for most, and this is also the struggle I see with many of my nutrition clients, simple, approchable meals for the busy work week. So, today I am sharing one of my favorite, simple slow cooker recipes, that comes with 3 different variations, so you won’t get bored. You could literally make this dish every single week as part of your meal planning and mix it up a million different ways.
My favorite thing about each of these recipes are the many varying ways to serve it up:
- lettuce wrapped
- on a salad
- over cauliflower rice (or traditional grains, like quinoa or millet)
- over zucchini noodles
- in any kind of veggie bowl
- filling for tacos, fajitas, burritos or enchiladas with your favorite tortillas
- sandwich
- filling an omelette
- nachos
- add to soups or stews
- stirred into a scramble or frittata
- add to fried rice or fried cauliflower rice
- over ramen noodles
- just spooned straight into your face!
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Carne Asada Burrito Bowl {gluten-free and paleo-friendly}
With Cinco de Mayo later this week, it felt more than appropriate to share a Mexican-inspired dish to kick this week off right. As someone who loves Mexican food, with a preferred avoidance of corn, beans and most dairy, it can make hitting up a local authentic So Cal taqueria challenging, at best. Burritos are nearly out of the question.
At best I can always hack any Mexican menu and throw together a killer salad with fajita meat or carne asada, a bed of lettuce with the meat and just load up on guacamole or avocado and skip the cheese, sour cream, rice and beans. I generally avoid the tortillas and skip the chips (or pack my own) – but more and more I am finding this isn’t enough. Many restaurants use spice blends and marinades that contain gluten. Going out for Mexican is just not as fun as it should be.
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Baked Eggs with Spinach, Chorizo and Salsa Macha {Paleo, Keto, Whole30}
If you follow me on Instagram, you probably know that I am having a bit of a moment right now with Salsa Macha. It’s a very deeply rooted love affair and I have no shame in the fact that every single breakfast for the last week has featured it, among other meals and snacks.
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Salsa Macha
We returned home last Monday after spending over a week Loreto, Mexico, in the Baja California Sur, celebrating the nuptials of our very good friends, Debbie and Dan. Since I was coming off a full month + of exceptionally strict eating, since I did Whole30, I was feeling really, really great, but on top of it, I was also several weeks in on experimenting with the ketogenic diet, as an attempt to get my autoimmune kidney disease into remission (more on this soon as I continue to experiment).I had some slight trepidations in spending a week at a resort, both in how hard it would be for me to keep up my preferred way of eating, but also from the standpoint of my actual health and well-being, if 1 week away would ruin 1 month of hard work.
The answer is it wasn’t hard and no it didn’t.
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Boosted Horchata
With today being Cinco de Mayo, I was feeling inspired to create just one more Mexican-inspired recipe. But as usual, I couldn’t leave well enough alone and I had to put a little nutritional spin on this one, too. Classic Mexican horchata is obviously crazy delicious on it’s own, there is no denying that, but often it’s loaded with tons of refined sugar and traditionally it’s made with run of the mill rice and almonds – so, there really isn’t much nutrition happening here. What else could I do except boost it?
This recipe takes a little time to prepare and you may need to do a little searching to find the right ingredients, but none of it’s difficult and I can tell you, it’s more than worth it. The end product is delightful. Full of creamy, rich, sweet and spicy flavor and depending on how you boost it, tons of health-containing goodness, too.
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Grain-free Baja Fish Taco Bowl {Paleo-friendly}
For most of my life, I have always had a (totally rational) fear of fried foods, something I can say I happily accepted and followed. It wasn’t until this past year or so that I finally experimented with for-real frying at home, beyond a simple pan-fry. Besides the occasional french fry indulgence, I never really found myself drawn to deep-fried anything. It just was never my thing. But to be totally honest, beyond the fact that I intuitively never liked how fried foods made me feel, it was mostly because of the scary calories and fat. And while calories and fat should absolutely be a valid concern, in excess, after spending time truly learning about fats and oils in nutritional therapy school program, I have learned what we should really fear more than these numbers, instead are the oils themselves and the havoc that they can wreak on our bodies and our health. That old saying ‘quality not quantity’, has really never been more appropriate.
At most restaurants, even the nicest of places and honestly in most people’s homes, fried foods are generally cooked in denatured vegetable and seed oils. These are usually highly refined polyunsaturated fats that are highly unstable, especially in high heats. Often they are hydrogenated and when exposed to heat they oxidize and go rancid very quickly and form free radicals. “These chaotic, skewed fatty acid molecules, now in the form of free radicals, wreak havoc on the body attacking and damaging DNA and RNA, cell membranes, vascular walls, and red blood cells, all of which cascade into deeper physiological damage such as tumor formation, accelerated aging, arterial plaque accumulation, autoimmune imbalances, and more!”[1] WOAH – just woah, right? My life-long intuition-led opinion on fried foods was definitely not for nothing.
Now, before we get into this recipe, I am certainly not advocating that fried foods, even in healthful oils, are something we should consume often. Like sweets and treats, even of the more healthy variety, this type of cooking falls into the category of once-in-a-while eating. But, being totally afraid of something and never being able to enjoy it, that doesn’t really feel good either and it certainly isn’t a lifestyle I ever want to live or promote. However, these curiosities for a better option, this is usually how I manage to come up with an alternative, a new way to enjoy something one-in-a-while that I never get to, but in a much more health-minded approach.
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The Benefits of Travel
If you follow me on social media, you have probably noticed how much traveling I have been doing this year. Being on the road, exploring and discovering – this ignites my soul in a way that I can’t even express into simple words. Just this year alone, I have been on-the-go in bustling cities, I have ventured home to experience the comforts of family and my old stomping grounds, I have hosted and experienced retreats in the forest of Northern California, amongst the mighty sequoias and at an ashram in the desert and I visited a bison ranch run by an inspiring family, following traditional and sustainable practices. However, one of the most relaxing trips I have taken this year, was the luxury and rejuvenation I experienced in Loreto, Mexico, in the Baja California Sur. {You can read a bit about this incredible trip and the delicious food, here}
In the Indian culture there is a tradition of taking retreats to rejuvenate and revitalize the body, mind, and spirit. This is time away from work and responsibilities to focus on the self, to gather strength and wisdom so that we can return to society with new energy and enthusiasm. Yet here in the west we rarely allow ourselves such a luxury. We work too hard, too much, and don’t allow enough time in the day for contemplation, let alone an entire day to devote to our spiritual growth. And we feel it – maybe over time it happens so gradually that we get used to the sluggishness and struggle – but that’s not the way life is supposed to be.
Taking vacations can improve health in several measurable ways. So let’s chat about the Benefits of Travel. Read the rest of this entry »
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Danzante Halibut with 3 Chile Sauce
It’s been a few weeks since my trip to Loreto in Baja California Sur, Mexico and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss the food as much as I did the incredible views and starting each day with yoga on the beach. OK and maybe those creative cocktails and mocktails, the spa treatments and the sunsets…
Besides all the beautiful, fresh local fruit, the traditional Mexican foods and of course, their house-made gluten-free baked goods, the beautiful seafood was above and beyond, it is certainly what I most remember, when I think of all the delicious food. Most, if not all, the seafood served at the Villa del Palmar is sourced from the local waters, the Sea of Cortez. Chocolate clams (chocolate for their color, don’t worry they didn’t serve with chocolate) and the various fish were my favorites. You cannot beat fresh seafood, caught in the morning and served up to you in the evening.
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Spiced Hibiscus Rum Cooler and the Islands of Loreto
Tasty Yummies Travels // I am finding myself, once again, bitten by the wanderlust bug and therefore I have been hitting the road, traveling more and more. There is so much to explore in this vast and beautiful world, but this can also be completely daunting to those of us venturing out with a list of dietary challenges. As I hit the road I plan to share my travels and adventures along the way with you. It is important to me to share both the ease and at times, the struggles of traveling while maintaining the balance of the lives we cultivate and flourish with at home. For the first in this ongoing series I am taking you along with me to the beautiful Islands of Loreto, in the Baja California Sur, Mexico.
Growing up on the east coast, Mexican culture wasn’t exactly part of my upbringing. Enjoying the foods and all of the incredible bold flavors was something I reserved for trips to Texas or California. Since moving to Southern California I have had the pleasure of visiting Mexico on several occasions this past year and each trip is an exciting, beautiful and of course, delicious adventure.
My visit to the Islands of Loreto this past week meant I was fully submerged into all the Baja California Sur has to offer. Truth be told, these Islands off the coast and this particular region of the BCS was an area I previously didn’t even know existed as a travel destination. It’s off the beaten path, likely overlooked by most travelers in favor of it’s popular neighbor to the south, Cabo San Lucas. But, what Cabo is to college-aged Spring-Breakers, Loreto is to calm, relaxation-seeking, wellness warriors, like myself.
My stay the Villa del Palmar Resort at the Islands of Loreto was a phenomenal one I will never forget. A week of wellness where delicious, fresh, beautifully prepared food was abundant, each plate served was a work of art more beautiful than the last. We ventured out on morning hikes into the hills over-looking the serene Sea of Cortez, the many islands and the incredible, vast untouched land surrounding the resort. We started and ended our days with yoga on the beach while the sound of the soft, calm waves found their way onto shore. By boat, with the salty sea breeze and the hot sun, kissing my skin, we explored the islands and witnesses some of the many native birds. We got an even closer look at the marine-life by snorkeling amongst the coral in the crystal blue clear water off one of the islands. Our lush time at the gorgeous Sabilla Spa took pampering to a whole new level with accommodations unlike anything I have ever seen, the hydrotherapy room alone is worth the visit. We also took a guided group trip into town, complete with a visit to the Misión de Nuestra Señora de Loreto Conchó. I loved exploring and experiencing the rich culture and history of the area and of course let’s be real, the local foods. This was the most wonderful way to feel deeply connected to the roots of this magical place I was so fortunate to visit.
