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There’s no denying the comfort that a grilled cheese sandwich brings. In fact, I don’t think of a grilled cheese sandwich as kid food — I think of it just as good food. The concept is highly adaptable too, so if you’re looking for a new version, or perhaps a gluten-free one, here’s one for you.

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The rustic-modern Gypsy Kitchen has a sink, a two-burner cooktop, a convection oven/toaster, and an under-counter drawer fridge; it’s portable, and entirely one piece.

From Apartment Therapy → Introducing the Gypsy, the Little Kitchen that Could

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In Defense of Eating Dinner in Front of the TV

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I never thought I would be the kind of parent who lets her family eat while staring at a screen. I also never thought I’d have a husband and three children, or that I would end up settling in South Carolina. But life comes at you fast, as they say, and so you go with it — and my family loves sports.

Only some of us like playing them (not it!), but we all enjoy watching, pulling for a team together, or not-so-gently ribbing each other when we’re on opposite sides. It’s fun, and watching a game doesn’t stop the conversation — it inspires it. So while I have a strict “no television at the dinner table” rule, sports are my exception.

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If you need dinner on the table with zero delays, then a microwaved baked potato is pretty much an ideal solution. A single potato is ready in just over five minutes, and cooking a few more alongside hardly takes any longer. Topped with leftover chili or some simple steamed vegetables, this dinner staple couldn’t be quicker or easier.

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Rice is a very important grain. It is the number-one staple food in dozens of countries, providing an inexpensive and readily available source of energy. In fact, 20 percent of the world’s dietary energy comes from rice. It is nutritious — but it is far from perfect due to its high starch content.

Here’s why that’s an issue — and a surprising way to actually mitigate rice’s less-healthy aspects with one simple, surprising cooking method.

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Vegan Tofu and Vegetable Pot Pie

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It’s true that on its own, tofu can be very bland, but it can make for a delicious meal if you know how to prepare it. Think of tofu like a blank slate that is ready to absorb whatever flavor or preparation you give it. Whether you want it fried crispy and mixed in a grain bowl, or blended smoothly to make your favorite snack dips vegan-friendly, the sky is the limit. Here are 15 ways to start thinking outside the carton.

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Sausage and Zucchini Soup

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Put away the cream, skip the hassle of making a slurry, and leave the stick blender where it is — there’s an easier way to thicken your soup, and the answer is right inside your pantry.

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When Jeff Maughan began researching quinoa in the 1980s, only diehard health nuts had heard of it. In fact, when Maughan, a plant geneticist at Brigham Young University, told people he studied the native Andean seed, they used to laugh. “They’d ask, ‘Is that some kind of dog or cat species?’” he says. “They had no idea.”

Not anymore.

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This isn’t a weight loss story, although I am extremely proud of all those Apples who’ve experienced tremendous weight loss success–kudos! Mine is, however, a story about how Primal living allowed me to exterminate my auto-immune issues and overcome my lifelong battle with eczema.

I grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa, during the post-Apartheid Nelson Mandela era. My folks and I moved there from London in 1994 when I was two, so I count myself lucky to have been exposed to people from a multitude of cultures, nationalities, and faiths. It’s quite hard to imagine that only 10 years prior to that blacks and whites lived in forced separation from each other under an iron-fisted government!

Anyway, I always had systemic inflammation as a kid, and our family doctors constantly told my parents that I would quite possibly never grow out of the eczema which plagued me every break-time at school. South Africa, being a sports mad country, has always encouraged its children to play outdoors (which is wise in and of itself), however, my experience was often quite different. I remember being ten and playing with my friends on a hot cricket pitch. The sun was out, smiles were in heavy supply, but I was in agonizing pain. My eczema would develop sporadically in sun exposed areas and would leave me in crippling pain, unable to even concentrate on the games we played. Whenever rugby season came around in high school, I knew that my chances of being able to maneuver around the pitch easily (and at speed, I played wing) depended on whether or not my skin irritation ceased.

I had always been into “clean eating,” a principle I emulated from my mother, who first took me to the gym at age 13. Meals at home were largely centered around green leafy veg and meat, and at Christmas when we went to see family in Ghana, I would divulge in fresh coconut and plantains. Although there were many primal aspects to my childhood, I still had a love of whole grains and milk, which I would devour religiously after weekly training sessions. This of course didn’t help my teenage acne and certainly ruined my mood, especially as I was in a rag and tag (although beautiful) boarding school. I also rowed quite competitively during high school and by the time I was eighteen, I had developed a nasty case of over-training in an attempt to “be fit”…this failed abysmally.

Fast forward to college a year later and I was studying history in Dublin, Ireland–the home of Guinness Beer and Oscar Wilde (yes, both). Studying abroad was, and continues to be, a surreal experience. During my first year I did not have adequate health insurance and navigating the Irish health care system was a daunt  task for a foreign student. My grandmother made me promise that I would take “extremely good” care of myself so as not to need any health care, and so I turned to the web to help me get “extremely” healthy. I became a devout reader of Muscle & Fiction, and Men’s Ill-Health alike, and the fact that I naïvely took a greeting job at Abercrombie & Fitch–the mecca of vanity and self-delusion–didn’t help…yes, some of those boys have perms! Thank God this misdirection only lasted a year. I was fortunate to meet a number of open minded health enthusiasts on my college track team and in my Bible study group, a number of whom were self-proclaimed ‘Biohackers.’

Great things happened and I read The Primal Blueprint (the divine book of fitness, health, and living long while looking darn good doing it!). I also read Robb Wolf’s Paleo Solution and the Hartwigs’ It Starts with Food. My health CHANGED. Mr. Sisson opened Pandora’s Box of health for me and I quickly realized how steeped in delusion much of the health industry is.

I now train a mere three times a week with one conditioning session, outdoor sprints aren’t always possible in a rainy country so body-weight does the job, and I’ve had the pleasure of training friends and family too!

As a student today, I’ve seen too many twenty-somethings running around on treadmills and eating 12 meals a day between lectures for the sake of “bulking up,” while denying their auto-immune issues because conventional wisdom shuns fat and praises the grain. I have seen too many cases of male bigorexia and have seen far too many girls wearing waist trainers for it to be okay. Primal living has taught me to respect myself and in turn, my body has disallowed eczema and other autoimmune problems from inhabiting it. I’ve only just gotten my sleep on track, and being in bed by 10:30 is no social death. Those who matter don’t mind, and I fear that those who mind won’t be with us sixty years down the line. Health isn’t hard, it is a God given birth right we all have.

Thank you Mr. Sisson for your tireless work in the ancestral health realm. My family has a copy of The Primal Blueprint sitting on a bookshelf in South Africa, my family in Ghana have their copy on the way in the mail, and I am trying to gently, but persistently, spread primal knowledge with all those I am encountering in Europe.

Yours truly and Grok on!

Kwadwo