As I have to have a special diet, I reserve the right to poke fun at other special diets. Especially when they are by choice rather than medically prescribed, and especially when the followers are my two best men! I’d invited them both to dinner then realised that vegetarianism and the paleolithic diet are almost exact opposites!

My go-to vegetarian recipes are heavy on legumes, non-gluteny grains and dairy – all of which are out for paleo. When the Gluten-Eating Husband heard about this, he promptly booked a work trip to the US*, and proposed that about the only thing I could serve would be a bowl of nuts or an avocado. Panic!

My friends often go out of their way to accommodate my dietary restrictions, so I fancied the challenge of making a delicious paleo, veggie, naturally gluten-free feast.

Lovely twitter friends had some great suggestions – a vegetable chilli with sweet potato mash, or a curry with vegetable fritters. But I cheated. Rather than creating one ‘free from everything’ dish, inspired by my recent trip to Barcelona, I created a menu of tapas that would enable each of us to pick the bits we wanted. Time consuming, but an excellent solution when cooking for fussy eaters!

Stuffed chicken with carrot & caraway purée, Roasted pepper ‘lollipops’, Gem squash & courgette tortilla.

My menu:

• Iberico ham and chorizo (P)
• Chicken stuffed with dates and almonds (P)

• Manchego with quince paste (V)
• Patatas bravas (V)

• Roasted vegetable tortilla (P, V)
• Rocket salad (P, V)
• Roasted pepper lollipops (P, V)
• Carrot and caraway purée (P, V)
• Spiced roasted almonds (P, V)

Mr. Paleo was very complementary “there are so many flavours here!” which isn’t surprising as he normally survives on an endless litany of sorry-looking roast chickens.

Paleo muffins: looked like cake, and tasted like cake!

And for pudding? Well fruit would be an option, but we all know that fruit isn’t a pudding. I tried out a very autumnal recipe for Courgette & Apple Spice Paleo Muffins. They probably contain about a billion calories due to the heavy-handed use of almond butter, but I was pleased and surprised at how cakey and sweet a grain-free, sugar-free muffin could be. I served them warm with sugar-free apple compote. As Mr. Veggie said: “about the highest complement I can pay these is that they taste just like muffins”.  Win!

And me? I ate everything so got the health benefits of neither :D

*unrelated

This blog comes with all the usual disclaimers about checking with your guests about their precise dietary needs and talking with your dietician before you restrict your food groups in any way.