Recipe for Baby Kale Paleo Taco Salad with Chile-Lime Dressing

Baby Kale Paleo Taco Salad with Chile-Lime Dressing has all my favorite taco salad flavors!

Ever since I fell in love with baby kale, I've had fun experimenting with it in different salad combinations, and this Baby Kale Paleo Taco Salad with Chile-Lime Dressing is another baby kale salad that I loved.  The word Paleo in the recipe title means I think this salad will work for the Paleo or Primal way of eating.  (When I told my friend Bonnie about this salad, she asked "What is Paleo?" so click that link if this is new to you as well.)  Since Paleo eating fits so perfectly with my commitment to low-glycemic foods, and quite a few of my friends are embracing it, I decided it would be nice to feature Paleo Recipes once in a while.  If you don't care about Paleo eating, you could add a little grated low-fat cheese to the salad; either way it's delicious!

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Recipe for Three Cheese Zucchini Frittata with Mozzarella, Feta, and Parmesan

Three Cheese Zucchini Frittata can use those monster zucchinis that suddenly appear in the fall garden.

I mentioned last week how I love the idea of Sneak Some Zucchini on to Your Neighbor's Porch Day, but I am puzzled as to why the holiday comes so early in the gardening season.  In Utah, zucchini grows at least until the end of September, and those last few weeks of the summer are when you're most likely to wander out to the garden and find a giant zucchini staring you in the face.  For a few weeks now I've been experimenting with the monster zucchini a good friend has been giving me, and this Three Cheese Zucchini Frittata was one of the happy results.  Besides using Mozzarella, Feta, and Parmesan cheese, I have a couple of other tricks here that made this one of the best tasting zucchini + egg dishes I've ever had.

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Recipe for Grilled Cuban Pork Chops Mojo

Pork chops marinated in traditional Cuban flavors and then grilled.  Make them before it's too cold to grill!

(Updated with photos and better instructions, September 2013)  During my time as a leader in my local teacher's union, I was lucky enough to visit Miami several times for meetings, and pork marinated in sour orange and lime juice was one type of Cuban cuisine that I loved every time I tried it there.  In the earliest days of my blog I developed this recipe for Grilled Cuban Pork Chops Mojo to capture some of the flavors I remembered from Miami, and it's been hanging out in the archives longing for some photos all this time!  I finally snapped some pictures of these tasty pork chops, so hopefully I can inspire some of you to try them (and I hate to bring it up, but grilling weather won't be around too much longer for this year!)  Be sure to serve with limes cut lengthwise into fourths, so each person can squeeze lots of fresh lime juice over their pork chop. 

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Recipe for Spicy Grilled Eggplant and Zucchini Salad with Thai Flavors

All I am saying is give grilled eggplant a chance!

(For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites, and I'm hoping this amazing salad might convince some eggplant-reluctant people to try grilled eggplant!)

Recently I made this very tasty Spicy Grilled Eggplant and Zucchini Salad with my nephew Jake.  We both loved the Thai flavors in the dressing, and absolutely devoured the salad, with both of us loving the grilled eggplant with slightly charred skin.  Then over the next couple of days I told various people about this new favorite salad, and one after the other they told me "I don't like eggplant."  I explained to each person how I never liked eggplant either, until I tried grilled eggplant.  So if you like Thai flavors, I'm urging you to be adventurous and give grilled eggplant a chance.  Of course you could make the salad with all zucchini if you insist, but Jake and I both thought the grilled eggplant was so spectacular in this that next time I'd probably skip the zucchini and use all eggplant.

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Fresh Garden Tomato No-Cook Pasta Sauce Recipe with Garlic, Basil, and Thyme

This No-Cook Pasta Sauce with Garlic, Basil, and Thyme is a wonderful summer-into-fall way to use fresh garden tomatoes!

(Updated with new photos and step-by-step instructions, September 2013.)  For many years I turned my nose up at the idea of no-cook pasta sauce. I'm not sure why, but for some reason I had it in my mind that you needed to cook tomatoes to make a flavorful pasta sauce. Was I ever wrong about that! in 2007 I first made this Fresh Garden Tomato No-Cook Pasta Sauce with Garlic, Basil, and Thyme, which has to be one of the best tasting things I've made with fresh tomatoes.  Since then this no-cook sauce has been one of my favorite ways to use tomatoes when they're at their peak of flavor, especially at this time of year when you've had lots of tomato salads and you'd like something a bit more substantial to do with those fresh tomatoes.

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Recipe for Grilled Zucchini Mini Tostadas with Refried Beans

Grilled Zucchini Mini Tostadas with Refried Beans are a good way to use giant zucchinis.

I realize August is the month with a special day to celebrate zucchini, but everyone who's grown zucchini in a garden knows that in September and October, when you're not focused on the garden so much, you can find giant zucchinis springing up overnight.  I have a few friends and relatives who've been giving me giant zucchinis lately, so I'm having fun dreaming up new ways to use them.  I used a big zucchini about 3 inches across to make these Grilled Zucchini Mini Tostadas with Refried Beans.  This was easy to make and if you have kids it would be a fun meal to get the kids to help assemble.  If you want to make this and you don't have giant zucchini, I would just slice smaller zucchini the other way and make oblong-shaped tostadas; enjoy!

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South Beach Diet Phase One Recipes Round-Up for August 2013 (Low-Glycemic Recipes)

Kalyn's Favorite Phase One Recipes for August 2013 were Grilled Zucchini Caprese Stacks; Green Bean, Tomato, and Feta Salad; Summer Tomato Salad with Goat Cheese; and Slow Cooker Frittata with Kale.

I really love September, when Utah has the most perfect weather imaginable, but I have to admit I always feel a sense of impending loss when I realize that summer flavors are not going to be around much longer.  And if you look through this round-up of South Beach Diet Phase One (Low-Glycemic) Recipes from the past month, you'll notice that there's definitely a summer-foods theme in the ones that are from my own blog.  I can't help myself; when I have fresh tomato salads and zucchini, that's about all I want to eat!  Luckily there are lots of options featured from other blogs to round out the menu of delicious low-glycemic recipes for this month; hope you enjoy trying some of them!  (You can use the label Low-Glycemic Recipe Round-Ups to see all the posts like this one.)

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