Atkins and Paleo Challenge Box Set (10 in 1): Over 400 Atkins and Paleo Recipes With Pressure, Slow Cooker and Cast Iron for Busy People (Atkins Diet & Paleo Recipes) (45 page)

Although the iron cast skillet is one of the most durable cookware you can find in the market, you still have to take for it. Here are some tips on how to clean your skillet:

1. Season a new iron cast skillet. If you recently purchased a skillet, before using it you need to season it first. Heat your skillet on a top until it smokes. Rub cooking oil on the surface and then let it cool. Do this 3 times.
   
2. After every use, clean with water. You can use the rough side of a sponge for cleaning. If there are stubborn food scraps, immerse it with hot water. Heat water in the skillet until the scraps dissolve or until you can scrape it away.
   
3. Dry your skillet before you store them. You can use a wet paper towel to wipe the surface. If you did it right, there should be dark residue on the paper towel.
   
4. Instead of covering the skillet during storage, leave a dry paper towel in the surface. This will prevent moisture build up.
   
5. Instead of a steel wool, you can use potatoes (as sponge) and baking soda (as scrub) as a safe alternative when scraping debris from your skillet. Strong soaps and detergents will remove the oils that protect your skillet.
   

Now that you have more than 31 recipes to choose from for your paleo diet, the next step is to plan out your weekly meals. Choose one recipe a day that you can cook using your cast iron skillets. Start choosing and begin the 31 day paleo challenge today!

Paleo diet is one of the most popular and healthy diets available today. Couple it with a cast iron skillet and you are on your way to a healthier lifestyle. Remember, you do not have to be an extreme paleo dieter to maximize its advantages. All you have to do is to avoid artificial food products and substitute them with healthier and more natural alternatives. As sturdy as the cast iron skillet can be, it still needs your care with few and simple cleaning and storage steps.

I hope you can share these recipes with your family, friends and other loved ones. Cooking is more fun when you are able to share the food you prepared with others.

Finally, if you enjoyed these recipes, may I ask for your time in sharing your thoughts through a review on Amazon? Thanks and I appreciate it!

Practical Paleo for Busy People

Delicious Recipes for Your Slow Cooker that are Low-carb and Gluten-free!

If you have never noticed, there are dozens of versions of the “Paleo diet”. The bookshelves are lined with books, guides and even a few instructional DVDs to help you get started. There are probably thousands of recipe books from experts, gurus and others and with all of these variations and possibilities there is one common factor: you need to learn to cook these meals at home. By yourself. That is fine if you are a cook of any experience but what if you are used to subsisting on fast food and frozen dinners? What if the extent of your kitchen knowledge starts and ends on the microwave keypad? What then?

Braise this and broil that, the recipes say. Meanwhile, you are scratching your head and wondering what pan you would braise something in and groaning because you have been using the broiler for storage. Is this the time you get frustrated and give up? Do you chuck the new recipe book in the back of the closet and go out for drive thru again? Don’t do that to yourself!

What if there was a way to get the delicious Paleo foods that you know are better and healthier for you than the grease laden and manufactured nonsense that you get from those little windows but without all of the frustrating work that is making you stressed out and a little nutty?

What if you could have these dishes hot and waiting for you when you walk in the door after a hard day at work? Or, what if a tantalizing breakfast was ready for you when you stagger, bleary-eyed and half-awake to the kitchen?

Grab your slow cooker, my Paleo friends and let’s see how that simple little appliance can completely change your life!

• The basic benefits of the Paleo diet
  
• The issues of gluten intolerance and how difficult it can be to avoid
  
• How an ancient diet translates into the modern world
  

Before we go any further, it is important to realize that there is no one “specific” Paleo diet. In fact, there are dozens of versions and while many of them are the same (lots of meat, no grains) there are subtle differences that might be appealing to you for one reason or another. It is important that you start with the diet that is right for you and that might mean reading through several books or websites until you find that perfect match. There are Paleo for the Athlete books, Paleo for the overweight, the underweight and even some that separate by gender.

Don’t get too hung up on the labels, though. What you need to focus on is the foods. Paleo foods are different from standard fare for several reasons. First, you will be focusing on eating clean, unprocessed foods which is a great thing for your health right away. If you are looking for a single benefit to advocate this type of eating, this is the one. The standard American diet, (SAD for short) is just that: sad. It is filled with the wrong fats, too many processed and unnatural foods, too much salt and way too many preservatives and chemicals. Unless you are a laboratory experiment you do not need chemicals!

There are more benefits as well. The Paleo diet is typically more nutritionally balanced especially when it comes to fats. Not too long ago the collective dieting world declared war on fat and it resulted in a major problem. Not only does cutting fat out completely fail in a spectacular fashion everyone ended up fatter and more miserable than before. And then science finally realized that we do need fat! Even better, we realized that there were several kinds of fat and that we need a balance of those fats. Welcome back butter, we missed you, oh so much.

If you go back in time, say five or ten years, you would not hear the word “gluten” outside of nutritional studies and labs. Sure there were some people who had celiac disease that knew about gluten but those cases were rare and many had still not found a diagnosis for their condition. Then, it happened. The gluten intolerance (a real condition) and the gluten shunning bandwagon rolled into town. Not only were people skipping bread they were skipping everything that had gluten in it. That is when one of the saddest facts of the SAD diet was discovered: gluten is in virtually everything under the sun, even foods that should not have it at all and there it was, hiding in the labels and confusing everyone.

Of course, food manufacturers didn’t waste a single minute. They pounced on this fact like a puma on a bunny rabbit and suddenly there were “gluten-free” labels on everything. They may have gone too far when they started slapping those labels on bananas, but you get the point. Now people who were gluten intolerant could eat muffins and cakes and dozens of other things without worry because they were gluten-free. Sadly, they were not calorie or chemical free. And most of these foods would not make the cut on the Paleo diet.

As a follower of the Paleo diet, you will eliminate most if not all of these boxed foods, these processed nightmares that are just pretending to be your nutritional friend. In fact, you will skip over whole sections of the grocery store so you are never tempted by the lure of their bright boxes ever again. Think of shopping for the Paleo diet as a hunting expedition- you will track your prey around the perimeters of the store but never in the middle or heart of the processed jungle. Bad juju in there- so stay away.

Critics of the Paleo diet have always snorted and chortled because this is not caveman time. We live in a modern world with modern foods- you can’t get mastodon steaks at the local market, so how are you going to eat like a caveman? Apparently those people just do not understand the basics of the Paleo diet or the benefits that it can bring.

Even the cavemen did not live on mastodon steaks- that notion is historically and hysterically incorrect. Cavemen only got to eat meat when they managed to stalk and bring down an animal. In some areas, that would be a fairly rare occurrence. Instead, the cavemen lived on other things- like the plants they gathered and berries. Cultures that lived near water ate more fish than other meats. Sure, there are modern Paleo diets that advocate all meat, all the time, even telling you to eat great slabs of bacon and that will make you lean and healthy- but those are the popular diets that are meant to get your attention and get you to try, fail and try something new. Ignore those for now. The sensible people among us know that you cannot live on four pounds of bacon every morning.

The modern Paleo diet is low-carb because it focuses on lean protein sources and non-starchy vegetables and some fruits. It is gluten-free because it eliminates most of the common grains as well as beans and rice. It is a simpler plan that trying to count carb grams and because most of the foods are going to be fresh and as close to nature as possible, you won’t need to spend hours reading labels either.

• How to choose the right slow cooker for your Paleo needs
  
• The best ways to use the slow cooker to get the maximum benefits
  
• Tricks and tips to ensure the best taste for all of your recipes
  

A slow cooker or crockpot is going to be your go to appliance- no more relying on substandard food that you zap in the microwave and no more exhausted cooking when all you want to do is sit down! The trick is to find the right one for your needs. You will need one that is the right size and has features that make using it easy and rewarding.

First up: the right size. A slow cooker should be large enough to hold the foods that you are most commonly cooking but not so large that it has large pockets of unused space. That space means longer cooking times for some foods and could also mean that foods are not reaching their optimum cooking temperatures. Not only could this spell dried out and unappetizing foods but it could also mean foods that do not meet minimum food safety standards as well.

Slow cookers come in a wide variety of sizes (and shapes). The smallest are 1 ½ to 2 quarts and are really beneficial for snacks and some breakfast recipes for a single person. If you are the only one that will eat a certain snack then these are okay- but not entirely worth the investment if you don’t already have one on hand. The small size that range from 3 to 4 quarts would feed two adults. A 6 to 8 quart size would feed a family of four to six and may even give you some leftovers.

Next up: the right shape. There are oval, round and square models to choose from. Sure, the square one is more space efficient on the counter but it can be a nightmare to clean especially if you don’t carefully watch your food and end up with a bit of burned particles on the bottom. Rounded bottoms are easier to keep clean because there are not edges to trap food.

The right features will be the last thing you consider. Choose a model with a glass lid so that you can peek in and see what’s going on without lifting the lid up. Every time that you lift your slow cooker’s lid you are adding about fifteen to twenty minutes of cook time. Your slow cooker should have a dial that allows you to set the temperature at the very least but there are options that allow you to set more than just that- you can program it for time and even when to turn itself off. Some will go to a “warm” holding temperature when the cook time ends which gives you the advantage of food that is perfectly cooked and still nice and warm even if you have been detained for some reason.

It cannot be stressed enough that easier cleanup will make your slow cooker more enjoyable to use. Always choose a model with a removable crock so that you can soak it or put it in the dishwasher rather than trying to struggle with a bulky appliance in the sink. If you do not have a removable crock then invest in slow cooker liners- they will make your life that much easier.

Practice may be one of your best tools here. Follow the recipes and the cooking guidelines for your slow cooker especially the first couple of times. Eventually you will know exactly which recipes work the best and which may need some minor adjustments to give you the results that you are looking for. Here are a few more quick tips to make your cooking experience more successful:

• Always err on the side of caution- use just a little more liquid than called for until you see how a recipe will cook.
  
• Make sure that the slow cooker is on the proper surface especially if you will be away from home during the cooking process.
  
• Remember that newer units run a bit hotter than the older models so adjust your time and temperature choices accordingly.