If you follow me on Instagram, you probably see a fair amount of really good food.  The reason though is because my husband is cooking us that really amazing food!  I’m getting better with being more adventurous when I cook as time goes by and I learn from Ben, but for the most part, those amazing dishes are all him!  Sometimes they come from recipes that he’s wanting to try and sometimes they just come from his head.  Now, I can follow a recipe and have it turn out alright, but concocting something from thin air??  I probably wouldn’t even want to try that :-)

So, as we’ve been eating Whole30, we’re fairly limited with what we can eat, so sometimes we do have to get creative.  Last Saturday we were making a dish for dinner that was going to take a while.  And we were SO hungry!  So, our “appetizer” ended up being a shrimp salad since we had all of those ingredients.  We had just been to the Palmetto Olive Oil, Co. that afternoon and since we had come home with a bottle of Red Apple Balsamic, Ben decided to use that to “candy” some walnuts we had.  If you have not been to that store and you live in Greenville, SC… you must go.  Like, now.  Their oils and balsamic and vinaigrettes are amazing!  We tasted many, but I told Ben that once we’re finished with Whole30, I want to go back so we can try them with bread and ice cream!  Yes, ice cream.  YUM!

To give the shrimp flavor, we tossed it in some “Pyro Powder” which we got the recipe for from the NomNom Paleo app for the iPad.  (If you have an iPad or iPad Mini, get this app.  It’s SO worth it. Or you can see a lot – but not all – of her recipes on her website here.)  We decreased the heat, so our version is below.

For the dressing, we made a citrus vinaigrette from the NomNom Paleo app, but there’s a list of Whole30 approved dressings on this post here.  You can also go to the store and purchase a Whole30 approved dressing, but you MUST read the ingredients to make sure it’s ok!  Or, if you aren’t doing Whole30, you can use whatever dressing you like :-)

I asked Ben to let me now what he did for the shrimp salad so I could share it with my mom who is taking the Whole30 venture (you can do it, mom!!), and figured I would share it with you guys too!

I wish I had more photos of the salad, but we only used our phones to post online.
If I had even thought this would make a good blog post (note taken, Sabrina), I would have pulled out the camera and taken more!

1 teaspoon of red pepper flakes (feel free to add as much as you like for more spiciness!)

1 tablespoon onion powder

1 teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1. Put red pepper flakes into a spice grinder (we just used a mortar and pestle)

2. Grind pepper flakes until they’re finely chopped, but not pulverized. Transfer the crushed red pepper flakes into a separate bowl and add the onion powder.

3. Add the paprika, garlic powder, salt, and pepper.

4. With a spoon, stir until ingredients are throughly combined.

5. Season your meats with Pyro Powder, or just sprinkle it atop your dishes as a finishing salt.

Amount of shrimp of your choice

1 tablespoon of coconut oil

1/3 cup chopped walnuts or pecans would be yummy too! (increase or decrease as you like, but Whole30 suggests to limit nuts)

2 tablespoons or more of a sweet balsamic, we used Red Apple Balsamic (as pure as possible, no sugar)

3 cups or more of spinach or lettuce mixture of your choice

handful of cherry or grape tomatoes

1. Toast the chopped walnuts or pecans in a pan and glaze with a sweet balsamic.  Remove from pan and set aside.

2. Toss peeled & deveined shrimp in some pyro powder.

3. In same pan you toasted the walnuts, melt the coconut oil and add the shrimp.

4. When the shrimp is almost done, add some sliced (or whole) cherry/grape tomatoes to warm them a bit.

5. When the shrimp are cooked, place them, the tomatoes and walnuts onto your bed of greens.

6. Use a Whole30 approved dressing, or make your own Citrus Vinaigrette (like we did!)