Simple Sides

Photo by Grant Cochrane

One of the things that is most appealing about eating Primal/Paleo is how simple side dishes suddenly become.  Gone are the days of choosing a protein (unless it was meat-free day -- boy does that make me laugh now!) and trying to come up with something unique and different that we hadn't eaten four thousand times before.  ("Well, we why don't we try having some couscous since we're all so burned out on rice?" "Ugh, couscous is so bland."  "Well, I could toss in some cheese or something....")

When I'm fixing sides to go along with my Paleo meals, I'm just working with veggies.  Not only is this good for me because I'm truly lazy at heart, it's also a lot cheaper.  Really.  Veggies are cheaper than all these darn starches that we've been having up 'til recently.  True, a box of pasta or a cup of rice is mighty inexpensive, but have you considered how much you add to make them taste like anything other than bland cardboard?

Tonight's dinner was petite sirloin steak, with fresh spinach salad, and zucchini sauteed in butter.  The zucchini cost me about 50 cents, the butter was already in my fridge, and I finished it with a few leaves of rosemary off  the plant that is growing in my kitchen windowsill.

Zucchini nutrition information (per cup):

2 grams protein
2 grams fiber
40 mg calcium
20 mg vitamin C
41 mcg folate
319 mg potassium
2011 mg vitamin A (no, that is seriously not a typo)

and other assorted vitamins and minerals including phosphorous, magnesium, B vitamins, vitamin K, and iron.