Breakfast

  • Scrambled eggs + ham, half an avocado. Add extra veggies like watercress or spinach.
  • Or smoothie – fruit + coconut oil + coconut milk. Try adding half an avocado to your smoothie, they go well with bananas. You could also add grass-fed gelatin for extra protein.
  • Fruit: half a punnet of blueberries

Lunch

  • Crudités with guacamole or paleo hummus + ham/chicken/turkey
  • Or any salad with

Veg

Green leaves, tomatoes, cucumber, radish, peppers, carrot

Protein

Chicken, turkey, tuna, salmon, prawns, ham, boiled eggs, smoked salmon

Fat

Avocado, olives, dressing

Dinner

  • Starter: Big bowl of green salad with dressing
  • Main: Spaghetti bolognese with courgette spaghetti or paleo shepherds pie
  • Pudding: Half a melon


Spaghetti Bolognese

A slow-cooked Bolognese sauce is one of my absolute favourite meals. You don’t have to slow cook this, but for best results try to give the sauce at least 45 minutes. I add liver to the sauce, which once cooked, simply lends richness to it and you can’t really taste the liver. If you want to try adding the liver but are worried about the taste, start with just a small amount and build up gradually. If you have a food processor then add the livers, the bacon and the mince to the processor and pulse a few times to combine the meats. If not then finely chop the livers and the bacon by hand and mix in with the mince in the pan. To further increase the nutrients use homemade beef stock (bone broth), but if that is unavailable you can just use water.

Ingredients:

  • Olive oil
  • 1 onion, finely chopped
  • 1 leek, finely chopped
  • 2 sticks of celery, finely chopped
  • 1 carrot, finely chopped
  • 1-2 cloves garlic, crushed or finely chopped
  • 500g grass-fed beef mince
  • Optional – 2 rashers organic bacon, finely chopped
  • Optional – 100g chicken or beef liver, either very finely chopped or minced
  • 2 tins tomatoes
  • 1 tin tomato puree
  • 1 tsp. dried oregano
  • 500ml beef stock (homemade if possible) or water
  • Sea salt
  • Freshly ground black pepper

Method:

  1. In a large frying pan heat the olive oil. Add the onion, leek, celery, carrot and garlic, plus a pinch of salt to stop the vegetables browning as they soften.
  2. Gently fry for 5-10 minutes until the vegetables have softened. Remove the vegetables from the pan and set aside. At this stage I puree the vegetables so that they are undetectable in the finished sauce (so that fussy children will eat it) but this is optional!
  3. Add the bacon, beef mince and livers (if using) to the pan and fry until browned. Add the vegetables back and stir to combine everything.
  4. Add the dried oregano to the pan followed by the tinned tomatoes, the tomato puree and the stock or water. Season with salt and pepper.
  5. Bring to the boil and then turn the heat right down, cover and leave to simmer for at least 45 minutes but up to 2 hours, stirring occasionally. Top up with a little extra stock/water as it cooks, if needed.

*If you have a slow cooker you could transfer the mixture to a slow cooker now and leave on low for up to 8 hours, which will create wonderfully tender meat. You will not need as much stock if you are using the slow cooker as the liquid doesn’t boil away, so only add enough stock to loosen the mixture.

*If you have an Instant Pot pressure cooker this will be beautifully tender after 30 minutes in the Instant Pot

 

Courgette spaghetti – 5 minutes to prepare (if you skip the salting step)

Equipment needed: Julienne Peeler

Ingredients:

  • 1-2 large courgettes per person

Method:

  1. Using a julienne peeler, julienne the courgettes. Once you get down to the middle you can discard the courgette as the middle bit makes the spaghetti a bit watery.
  2. You can cook the courgettes straight away or you can let them stand with salt as follows to remove some of the water: toss the courgettes with salt and put into a colander or sieve over a bowl for half an hour to remove some of the water. After half an hour, pat dry with kitchen paper.
  3. In a dry frying pan with no oil, fry the courgettes for 2-3 minutes. Do not cook them too long as they lose their pasta-type texture.
  4. Add a drizzle of olive oil and stir through the courgettes for another 30 seconds.
  5. Serve under Bolognese sauce instead of pasta.

To have courgette spaghetti on it’s own: In a tablespoon of olive oil fry a crushed clove of garlic and a little chopped red chilli, then remove from the pan. Cook the courgettes as above then stir the garlic and chilli through the courgettes with some chopped fresh parsley and salt and pepper.