Week 1 FINAL GRADES

Overview Week 1:

FINAL GRADES. Each week I will evaluate the past week's dishes. Grades range from A to F. Dishes are graded based on:

1. Flavor- did it taste good?
2. Degree of difficulty-- did it require a lot of work/ dishes/ etc (easier is better)
3. Second use- Did it make useful leftovers?
4. Freezability/ reheating-- (if known)- being able to freeze and eat it later it is better, being able to heat it up and eat it again is required
5. Does it look appetizing? Nobody wants to eat ugly food.

Dinners/ Lunches:
Turkey Meatballs with Zucchini Noodles:
 Grade: B-
 Comments: Turkey meatballs were awesome, zucchini noodles were too watery to be delicious, or edible (frankly). There was just not a lot of taste going on there, unless you doused it in marinara. But don't get me wrong... those meatballs were on point.

Chicken Enchilada Stew:
  Grade: A
  Comments: Great, flavorful dish. Needs to be served with something else to be a full meal. Great on top of salad, great as a soup (if you added some more broth), great by itself with some sweet potato. I love a good tasting, flexible dish.
   *No one gets an A+ unless it is absolutely flawless. I teach college courses and there literally isn't an A+ I can even give... but I would dole it out here if I felt a dish was worthy of the A+... but it will literally have to blow my socks off.

Crockpot Ropa Vieja
  Grade: B
  Comments: This was just okay. The food was fairly flavorful, but it could have used a more rich flavor in there... I'm not sure, it just felt like it was missing something. I've never had the original before- so I can't speak to what it's supposed to taste like, but if I were to make this again, I would consider adding some liquid smoke (not sure if that's paleo... probably not), or perhaps some ghee or more garlic. Crockpot cooking isn't always gourmet and brimming with a full bouquet of flavors... but this felt a little too dominated by bell peppers and onions. I didn't make the rice that was originally associated with this recipe (it was a lot of work)-- that may have been a mistake. I'm just not a huge fan of cauliflower rice. Also, this tasted even more bland re-heated in the microwave.

CCL Thai Chicken Coconut Soup
  Grade: A
  Comments: This was my favorite meal this week. It was just different-- rich, creamy, savory, and filling. Awesome dish to take the edge off some really cold days this week. I will definitely make this again. I realize I'm totally biased because this is my recipe, lol. The only downside is you do need to eat something else with this to really have a meal (in my opinion). There are also some strange ingredients you may not have on hand (lemongrass, red curry paste).


Breakfasts:
Baked Egg in Pepper:
  Grade: F- (yes, that's BELOW the possibilities of the grading scale)
  Comments: Truly disgusting. Also took an incredible amount of work and dirtied a bunch of dishes-- I had to chop up a bunch of veggies, roast the peppers prior to baking, fill eggs with the funky green filing (that had to be cooked separately first...dirtying another frying pan!), drop in the eggs (which spilled everywhere), then had to bake them again (they took twice as long as the recipe said they would), and on top of that-- it tasted like I was eating a hot compost pile. F MINUS. In the words of my friend Michael, this was a Paleo Fail-eo.

Scrambled eggs w/ Rope Vieja, Bell Peppers, Sweet Taters:
  Grade: B+
     This was a good use of leftover beef-- still a bit bland. In hindsight, just adding some sriracha or hot sauce would've improved things a bit... but still-- a little too sweet for my savory-loving tongue!

Snacks:
Plantain chips:
  Grade: A-
  Comments: I love plantain chips-- so I thought these were great. I think they need to be sliced a little thinner in the food processor next time (2-3mm). I have concerns about how well these would hold up over the course of a few days. I've made kale chips in the past and they don't hold well at all-- I'm afraid these would be similar. But don't you know... we ate them all in one day pretty much. I had a few the next day (stored in a plastic ziploc bag--and they were fine). The jury is out on storage and how well they hold over time.

Roasted sweet taters:
  Grade: A
  Comments: Easy, delicious, versatile. I'll make a lot more of these. You can eat these at pretty much any meal. I need to be a little cautious though, sincethere's a lot of carbs here. I'm not looking to lose a lot of weight, but I also don't want to gain any, lol. Muscle ups are hard enough. I don't need to pull any more weight.

Spinach Bread:
  Grade: B
  Comments: Healthy.... Also tastes very healthy. Pairs well with breakfast/ lunch. It's got a pretty strong spinach taste-- I may try tweaking this recipe a bit so it doesn't taste so much like spinach concentrate.