Lemon Basil Seared Scallop Pasta

When people tell you not to do something…do you want to do it 10x more? I do. When people told me they didn’t want me to post fashion pictures, I did it more. When people tell me they don’t like that I cuss, I cuss WAY more. This behavior came from being told not to do something as a child, which meant I absolutely did it. It’s pretty much a lose-lose situation with me. Want me to do something, I might do it. Want me to not do something, I definitely will. So if you feel as though I shouldn’t cuss, please don’t waste your breath asking me not to. I’ve been emailed many times, received many comments all over social media channels and been asked by my mother probably hundreds of times to not cuss, and I continue to. Cuss words aren’t offensive to me, they are a way to express your feelings with exuberance and passion. That’s all. Stop taking life so seriously, buttercup!

I think I’m officially back to normal after stuffing my face all weekend in Austin with my friends. I stayed completely gluten free while I was there, which is pretty easy to do, but I still ate WAY more than I usually do and had WAY more sugar than I usually do, so it was pretty tough on the body. My stomach hurt, my joints ached and I wasn’t sleeping well. But I’m back on track after doing 3 workouts in a row and limiting my sugar.

But those weekends are so worth it. And since I didn’t have my normal Paleo(fx) recap this year, I wanted to share a quick recap of all the places we ate and the grub we chowed down on! You ready? Let’s do this!

I’ve been staying with the same lovely group for the past few years now! Sean and Suzanne from Pastured Kitchen, Anthony and Katrina from We Are Primal Two, Cassy from Fed and Fit, Vanessa from Clean Eating with a Dirty Mind, and this year I met Lexi from Lexi’s Clean Kitchen for the first time! We always rent a new house, make meals together and eat out for LOTS of meals. It’s a pretty wonderful weekend.

As soon as we flew into Austin, we did our normal routine: getting food at 24 Diner. Because it’s always so incredibly good. I grabbed the blue cheese burger with a side of bacon braised green beans. So bomb.

After settling in, we headed straight out for Dolce Neve. Which was interrupted by a down pouring of rain. Normal Texas behavior at this point. This gelato spot was started by a man from Milan who only uses grass fed dairy. I grabbed the sea salt caramel and dark chocolate sea salt. So salty, so sweet, so cute! Gelato is so much better than regular ice cream. DON’T FIGHT ME ON THIS ONE!

Every time we are in Austin (seriously, every time) we always hit up Picnik. They have THE BEST butter coffees and the best paleo/primal treats with amazing ingredients. I almost always get a mocha chocolatte and absolutely always get their almond butter blondies. They are f*cking UNREAL. I can’t emphasize it enough how good they are!

So last year we waited in line for Franklin’s BBQ for 5 HOURS and wanted to try something different this year. My first year at Paleo(fx), I tried La Barbecue and absolutely loved it. I personally thought La Barbecue was better than Franklin’s so I was pumped when we decided to grab that this year. Luckily my friend Vanessa is obsessed with BBQ so she found a line sitter kid who sat in line for us in the rain and we just took his place to get food. No waiting for us! And he made $50 and waited for only 2 hours. $25 an hour at 13 years old is doing too bad, right?!

If you’ve never heard me talk about Siete, I don’t know how that’s possible. I use Siete Foods paleo tortillas almost weekly. And I know the family run company on a personal level as well. So when they asked our group to come over for a 5 course dinner, I was SO PUMPED. Not only to hang out with the awesome company, but to try the food they made! And you guys, I was absolutely blown away. Out of all the food I had that weekend (Salty Sow being one of our favorites that is pictured), the Siete Foods dinner was by far the best. The friend and chef that had cook for us did an absolutely outstanding job. Every single bite of these plate was some of the best food I’ve ever had. EVER. So unreal.

So we always go to Lick in Austin because it’s been one of our favorite forever now. And they always have the best flavors. But I still always just get the salted caramel because I think it’s the best. Personally, I like Dolce Neve more, but that’s just my gelato-love preference.

With my business, I rarely ever meet the people that I work with in person. It’s all emailing and calling. Luckily, Paleo(fx) brings together so many of those people to one place. This year, I got to meet Emily and Antony of Real Plans, the meal planning service I just announced that I partnered with! We ended up meeting for breakfast at a popular place called Olivia. Honestly, I wasn’t crazy impressed with my breakfast burger. But that could have been because I was going on 3 days of overindulging. Who knows.

If you’ve seen my instagram, you know that I’m slightly obsessed with kimchi. Kimchi and curry. So when I saw that there was a place with kimchi loaded fries from Chi’Lantro, I was ALL OVER IT. And these fries did not disappoint. You top them with beef and you can add all sorts of other stuff like guac and I don’t know what else. All I know is that it was UN.REAL.

For our last meal, we decided to hit up Odd Duck because so many people recommended it. It’s a tapas style restaurant which means you don’t get much food for a lot of money. That’s what they should say when they tell you they serve their food tapas style, “Hey, you’ll feel broke soon and still slightly hungry.” Since we had a big group, we ordered 2 of everything. Then Vanessa ended up ordering the sweet potatoes 5 more times. I guess she was into those. Everything was delicious and super fresh. Looking back, I loved every single thing we tried, I just don’t see myself going back because I like a little more bang for my buck. But it was definitely awesome and flavor mouth explosions all over the place!

That was all I ate. Just a small amount. After we were done with the weekend, we all agreed we needed to include more outdoor activities next year. We just get so excited about all the amazing food that we forget that we also have limbs that come move about and do cool things around the city, other than just moving one arm from table to mouth. Next year will be different…probably not. Just more walking involved. Which means less cute wedges. Sacrifices.

Enough about food. Let’s talk about more food!!

______________

You May Also Like:

Butternut Squash Gnocchi with Sage Brown Butter

Chicken Enchilada Lasagna

________________

Click Here To Get All My PaleOMG Recipes Into Your Meal Planner With Real Plans!

I may be compensated through my affiliate links in this post, but all opinions are my own. This compensation helps with expenses to keep this blog up and running!