Simple Supper

Cooking from scratch has been part of my everyday routine for most of my adult life-- there's no doubt it's the best way to eat well, and healthfully, while controlling the food budget. Still, I have to confess that, before E and I started eating paleo, we had some bad habits. Frozen pizza night on Thursdays was one of them. Sure, it was an all-natural pie from the co-op freezer, but it was still pizza.

These days, gluten and processed foods are not part of the plan. Consequently, I have to come up with an alternative for facing the Thursday night slump. Much as I love putting together delicious recipes, by this point in the week, I just want to get a tasty meal on the table with minimal effort. Tonight's dinner was along these lines.

When I got home, I turned on the oven, then took a few minutes to wash up a few dirty dishes (I love starting with a clean slate). I peeled and sliced a few sweet potatoes into half-inch rounds, coated them in olive oil, salt, and a cayenne-black pepper blend, and threw them in the oven to bake on a half-sheet pan lined with parchment.

Next, I quickly sliced up a head of cabbage and took a 10-minute break until the sweet potatoes were almost halfway done. I melted a knob of coconut oil in a big non-stick pan, added the cabbage, and liberally sprinkled it with salt and Tsardust Memories seasoning from Penzeys. After giving the cabbage a toss and flipping the sweet potato slices, I put 4 italian sausages in another pan with a bit of water. For the next 20 minutes, I stirred the cabbage and turned the sausages about every 5 minutes (and caught up on social media).

I have got to work on my food photography!

Voila! Dinner is served. The whole shebang took about 50 minutes from start to finish, with closer to 20 minutes of active prepping and cooking. Even better, there were plenty of leftovers to pack for tomorrow's lunches. Let's face it, frozen pizza never made it till the next day.