Thai Beef Salad

Yesterday I attended the CrossFit NLP Invitational and volunteered as the nurse for the event. It was great to be out there and watch the competitors in action. I have to say that it still blows me away to see the athletes work their magic during the WODs but what has me amazed is the team spirit and closeness of all of the affiliates. I don't think I've ever seen any other sporting event where opposing teams openly cheer for each other. There is a great spirit of competition and a great spirit of family. Yesterday for me, confirmed the fact that I am right where I should be. I am in the heart of a community that supports one another to go farther, lift heavier, run faster and be better than you were the day before. I love being a CrossFit Girl!

So now let's talk about dinner. This dish is by no means original. In fact, very few dishes in the world are. But it's the way they can be changed to fit the paleo lifestyle that makes them unique. You've heard me profess my love of Thai food. It's got to be my favorite. But there's almost nothing that's going to be paleo friendly coming from that region of the world. (They do give us coconuts, bless their hearts). So we shall do a small tweak here and there and make a great paleo friendly Thai Beef Salad (que salivation).

What you'll need:

4 oz of steak per serving (Sirloin works well)

1 bag of salad greens

1 cucumber, scored and chopped

1/2 cup shredded carrot

1 large tomato, seeded and thinly sliced

1 bunch cilantro, stemmed and chopped

1 bunch green onion, chopped

1/2 purple onion, thinly sliced

1/3 cup olive oil

4 garlic cloves, crushed

several limes, juiced

zest of 1 lime

1/3 cup olive oil

1tsp soy sauce (or fish sauce)

sweet chili paste (trader joe's or supermarket)

What you do:

In the morning, in a big baggie, marinate the steak in the olive oil and 3 crushed garlic cloves. Oh, what the heck, squeeze a lime in there, grate a tsp of lime zest, add a tsp of sweet chili paste and throw it in too. Let it sit in the fridge all day. When you are ready to start dinner, throw the bag of meat in the freezer for about 10 minutes. This firms up the meat and makes it easier to slice really thin. While you are waiting on the meat, slice up your onions, chop the cilantro, slice the tomato. If you have one of those really cool but utterly useless cucumber peely things (to make stripes on the cucumber skin) you can use that. Otherwise just scrape the skin with a fork or just leave it alone and chop the cucumber.

Take the meat out of the freezer and with an extremely sharp knife, slice it very thin. Heat a pan with a little oil and stir-fry the beef. Remove the beef from the heat when cooked and let it cool. Place all salad ingredients and meat in a large bowl.

Mix 1/3 cup olive oil, 1/3 cup lime juice, 1T. soy sauce (or fish sauce), 1 crushed garlic clove and 1tsp sweet chili paste for the dressing. Poor over the salad and toss to coat. If you want more heat you can use some red pepper flakes.

Enjoy!

ps. I have no idea why the first paragraph of this post is blue and underlined. I'm going to have my two-year old look at it for me when he wakes up.