a yummy substitute for maccas: baked eggs with sausages
Recently a good friend of mine decided to go on a paleo diet. This is a diet that mimics the eating habits of the people of paleontological times (our caveman ancestors) – meats, seafood, vegetables, fruits, and nuts. It’s a way of eating that is designed to encourage your body to burn fat rather than muscle. It also has a range of health benefits including weight loss (only if you are overweight), increased energy levels, and vastly reducing one’s risk of heart disease. Basically, if it lives or grows, you can eat it.
It’s a style of eating that makes a good deal of sense to me. With regardsto weight loss (and I’ve ranted about this before) calorie counting is tedious and an often ineffective way of trying to shed unwanted kilos. If one follows this diet then the need for calorie counting vanishes and the focus shifts to fuelling your body with lean meats and fresh produce and only eating when you are hungry – an entirely logical and sensible way to approach nutrition. My friend shared with me that not only did her joint pain disappear, thus enabling her to exercise more frequently, she was losing weight in a relatively effortless manner.
Her partner shared with me some other equally fantastic insights: ‘I love waking up in the morning and having steak for breakfast’. There is no need for portion control or eating at certain times, therefore waking up in the morning and eating your favourite food regardless of whether or not it is traditionally a dinner food is totally acceptable. In fact, if that is what your body craves, then the diet would encourage you to eat it.
As with all diets it is not something that can be stuck to religiously – it would be very sad to give up double cream brie. Also, having to go on a last minute road trip and having time to pack a paleo lunch is a situation where it is better to avail yourself of what is available (usually something full of fat and carbs) then to starve. But as with all lifestyle choices it is an ebb and flow – sometimes you will stick to it diligently, while other times this may not be possible. But as long as the overall trend is steady then the benefits of the paleo diet will be long lasting.
One of the many wonderful things about this diet is the surprising amount of supposedly “guilty” food that is on the “ok to eat” list. Bacon and eggs, for example, gets the green light. I found a recipe that incorporates the paleo diet with a modern flair. Hope you enjoy it!
Ingredients
Olive oil
1 red onion, peeled and thinly sliced
1 red capsicum, seeded and diced
500g button mushrooms, roughly chopped
1 chorizo sausage, chopped
3 sausages, roughly chopped
½ pitted green olives
2 x 400g tinned tomatoes, diced
4 eggs
½ bunch coriander, roughly chopped
½ bunch flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped
Method
Preheat oven to 180C.
Heat a splash of oil in a large, sturdy frying pan over medium heat. Add chorizo and sausage pieces and cook, stirring constantly, for 3 minutes or until coloured. Transfer to a plate lined with a paper towel, reserving the oil in the pan.
Add onion and capsicum to the pan and cook in the reserved oil and juices, constantly stirring, for 10 minutes, until softened. Add the mushrooms and cook for a further 5 minutes.Add the tinned tomatoes along with the chorizo and sausage pieces. Bring to the boil then cook for 5 minutes until the sauce has thickened slightly.
Ladle mixture into 4 x 18cm shallow, ovenproof dishes. In the centre of each dish make a hollow and then gently crack the egg into it. Transfer to the oven and bake for 10 minutes.
Once the eggs are cooked, scatter each dish with the fresh herbs and olives. Serve immediately.
Serves 4
This recipe was inspired by a recipe found on Taste.com entitled “Morrocan Baked Eggs”
