PARADISO CROSSFIT NUTRITION

Coconut Bars!

2012-02-07T10:45:00.000-08:00

I made these for Super Bowl Sunday. They were delicious and one of the easiest desserts I have ever made. Coconut is amazing, read below to see why...

Health benefits of coconut:

Naturally gluten free
Full of heart healthy fats that lower LDL cholesterol
Anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-parasitic
Reduces inflammation and promotes healthy absorption of nutrients
High in minerals such as iron, phosphorus and zinc

Coconut Bars

3 eggs
1 cup coconut milk
⅓ cup coconut oil
⅓ cup maple syrup
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
⅛ teaspoon coconut palm sugar (super optional, next time I won't even use this)
½ cup blanched almond flour
1 tablespoon coconut flour
1 ½ cups unsweetened shredded coconut
¼ teaspoon celtic sea salt

Mix eggs, coconut milk, oil, maple syrup, vanilla and palm sugar with a blender or spoon.
Mix in almond flour, coconut flour, shredded coconut and salt
Transfer ingredients into an 8x8 inch Pyrex baking dish
Bake at 350° for 30 minutes
Cool for ½ hour, then place in refrigerator and serve when chilled

Makes 16 bars
24 bars

Creamy Chicken Tomato Soup

2012-01-26T11:56:00.000-08:00

4 frozen skinless boneless chicken breast
2 teaspoons garlic salt
2 tablespoons Italian Seasoning
1 tablespoon dried basil
1 clove garlic
1 can of coconut milk (full fat)
1 can diced tomatoes and juice
1 cup of chicken broth (I used homemade chicken broth but you can use store bought)
Sea Salt and pepper to taste

Put all the above ingredients into the crock-pot, cook for 9 hours on high. After 9 hours take two forks and shred the chicken, set the crock-pot on warm till ready to serve (making sure to taste it before serving to make sure there is enough salt and pepper)

Served: 6 (with left over’s for lunch the next day)

Recipe borrowed from everydaypaleo.com.

Thor probably ate THORAN, so you should too!

2012-01-24T22:42:00.000-08:00

We have been so lucky to be receiving green beans and kale in our weekly produce order. Today I opened my inbox this morning to find this amazing recipe for Thoran, a native dish of Kerala, a state in southern India. It can in be made with any vegetable really; I've seen carrot Thoran, Spinach Thoran and even banana flower Thoran. Try combination of vegetables to keep it colorful and fun.

[There is a great Indian market inside Samosa House on Washington Blvd; here you can probably source dried curry leaves and tumeric powder. I have a field day exploring all the fun and exotic spices]

Green Bean Thoran

INGREDIENTS

2 tablespoons coconut oil

1 teaspoon brown mustard seeds

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

8 to 10 fresh curry leaves (optional. Bay Leaves may be substituted)

1 pound green beans, thinly sliced on the bias

and/or

2 bunch Kale, trimmed from stem and washed

2 carrots, peeled and diced small

½ teaspoon turmeric powder

1 teaspoon salt

½ cup frozen grated coconut, available at Indian markets (or substitute finely grated dried unsweetened coconut soaked at room temperature in ¼ cup water until the water is absorbed)

3 garlic cloves

1 serrano chile

1. In a large skillet set over medium heat, warm the coconut oil. When the oil is hot, add the mustard seeds. When the mustard seeds pop, after about 2 minutes, add the cumin seeds and curry leaves and cook for 1 minute. Add the beans, carrots, turmeric powder and salt and cook, stirring frequently, until the beans and carrots are tender, 5 to 7 minutes.

2. With a mortar and pestle or in a blender, crush the coconut, garlic and serrano chile until well combined. Add the coconut mixture to the beans and carrots and stir to mix well. Cook for 1 minute and remove from the heat. Serve immediately.

Bites and Truffles!

2012-01-12T23:24:00.000-08:00

Um... delicious. Here are 3 different recipes, all compliments of Primal Palate. I couldn't decide which one to post so I figured I'd supply all 3 and you could choose your own destiny. Two of them don't have any added sugar, which is awesome if you are currently doing a sugar detox or a "Whole 30" challenge. I've already tested out the peppermint ones and they were AMAZING. Nom, nom, nom... enough said.

Chocolate Almond Coconut Truffles

Ingredients:

3/4 cup of homemade or store-bought almond butter
1/3 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
1/2 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Combine all ingredients in a small mixing bowl.
Stir mixture until all ingredients are equally blended together. Form mixture into small balls and place on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Place in the freezer for 10-15 minutes. Enjoy.

Cinnamon Coconut Butter Truffles

Ingredients:

1/4 cup coconut butter, melted
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
A pinch or two of salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

In a small mixing bowl combine coconut butter, vanilla extract, and salt. Stir with a spoon until all are combined. Sprinkle the ground cinnamon on top of the coconut butter mixture and stir until it is fully combined into the mixture. Place mixture into the fridge for 10-15 minutes to harden the coconut enough to roll into balls. Form coconut butter mixture into 4 equal balls and place on a small dish. Freeze for 10 minutes and enjoy.

Chocolate and Peppermint Swirl Truffles

Ingredients:

1/4 cup coconut butter, melted
1/4 teaspoon peppermint oil
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
A pinch or two of salt
1/4 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder

In a small mixing bowl combine coconut butter, peppermint oil, vanilla extract, and salt. Stir with a spoon until all are combined. Sprinkle the unsweetened cocoa powder on top of the coconut butter mixture and stir gently. You want the cocoa powder to blend, but not completely so it has a "swirl" look to it through the coconut butter. Place mixture into the fridge for 10-15 minutes to harden the coconut enough to roll into balls. Form coconut butter mixture into 4 equal balls and place on a small dish. Freeze for 10 minutes and enjoy.

Holy (guacamole) Eggs, courtesy of the Primal Women

2012-01-09T19:23:00.000-08:00

Holy (guacamole) Eggs

The deviled egg's worst nightmare!!!

Ingredients:

A dozen eggs

1 ½ large avocados

¼ c. cilantro- chopped

¼ c. onion- chopped

handful of cherry tomatoes (I used 6 from our garden)- chopped

2 tbsp. olive oil

2 tsp. minced garlic

1 squirt of lemon juice

dash of red pepper flakes

dash of salt

Directions:

1. Hardboil your eggs by placing them in a sauce pan full of cold water and bringing the water to a rolling boil.

2.Remove the pan from heat and allow them to sit for 15 minutes.

3.Move to an ice bath for another 15 minutes. This will make them easier to peel.

(Eggs that are a week+ old tend to peel easier but fresh will work too. )

4. Peel eggs.

5. Gently slice eggs in ½ placing the white on a plate and the yolk in a bowl.

6. Mix the avocado with the egg yolks and olive oil until creamy.

7. Fold in all other ingredients except the salt.

8. Spoon ping-pong ball sized dollops into the egg whites.

9. sprinkle salt over the top.

ENJOY! They didn’t even last 5 minutes in my house.

Thanks Katie and all the ladies at Primal Women in the Kitchen

Kitchen Basics: Searing a Steak

2012-01-06T00:04:00.000-08:00

Email myself, Assassin, if you have cooking questions: Lauren@sweetassassin.com

Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Grapes

2012-01-03T10:30:00.000-08:00

1 bag of brussels sprouts (about 3 cups) chopped in half or quartered

2 cups of red grapes

2 Tablespoons fresh sage

Olive oil, enough to coat everything

Sea salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 450. Toss everything together on a large cookie sheet. Roast in oven for 25 - 35 minutes until tender and caramelized.

Enjoy!

I added some sunflower seeds to the dish too and it was delicious! I think any nut would be a great addition.

Recipe borrowed from SweetCheekshq.com which was inspired by Whole Living magazine.

Almond Butter-Coconut Milk Parfait!

2011-12-28T13:26:00.000-08:00

1/4 cup almond butter

1/4-1/3 cup coconut milk (I think Native Forest brand works best for this because it’s already blended together. If using something else that separates, like Thai Kitchen, try heating it up a bit first to combine it.)

Handful fresh or frozen/thawed berries

Sliced almonds (optional)

— In a dish, layer almond butter on the bottom, pour coconut milk on top,and sprinkle berries over.

Bourbon and Cider Pulled Chicken

2011-12-12T23:03:00.000-08:00

One reason why everyone should own a crock pot or a dutch oven... to cook your meat in Bourbon. Don't worry, a little whiskey never killed any paleo nerds.

28oz. no-salt added diced tomatoes, drained

1/2 onion, diced

2tbs. apple cider vinegar

2tbs. cider syrup or 1/2c. apple cider
2tbs. honey

1/2c. bourbon

2tsp. worcestershire sauce

4 garlic cloves, minced

1/2tsp. ground ginger

2 dashes cayenne pepper

sea salt to taste
3 large chicken breasts, about 2.5lbs.

Put everything but the chicken in your crockpot, stir briefly, then add the whole chicken breasts. Cook on low for 8 hours (so long, but sooooo worth it), until the meat is fall-apart tender. Serve with your favorite size of veggies and enjoy!

Kitchen Basics: Knives and Cuts

2011-12-12T22:30:00.000-08:00

Sweet Potato Hash

2011-12-08T11:09:00.001-08:00

While there are many variations on a hash, this version is pretty basic and can be doctored up to suit your palate's desires, please feel free to add any veggies you may have hanging out from the produce order; cook them at the same time as the onion/peppers. This should yield about 6 servings.

2 Jumbo Yams (orange flesh)
1 large Onion, med dice
1 ea large red bell pepper, med dice
1 ea large green bell pepper, med dice
1 large garlic clove, mince

1 teaspoon cajun seasoning (recipe follows) plus extra to season.

Bacon fat

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.

Peel and dice Jumbo yams.

Heat 1tbs of bacon fat in a large, heavy bottomed pan (cast iron or wok is ideal). Add Bell Pepper and Onion once the pan is really hot (Test heat with one piece of bell pepper, it should sizzle immediately.) Stir constantly. Add 1tsp cajun seasoning. Saute until veg have a nice brown carmelization- to prevent burning, constantly stir!!!

Add garlic. Once fragrant, remove from heat and transfer into a separate container. Wipe pan with paper towels to absorb any excess fat, it does not have to be clean.

Back onto high heat, add another 1tbs of bacon fat. Once hot, add sweet potato cubes. Lower heat to Med-high. Stir and turn potatoes until all or most sides have a nice brown crust. This could take up to 10 mins.

If your pan is oven safe, stick it into the 400 degree oven to complete cooking of sweet potatoes. If not, transfer potatoes into baking sheet or casserole. Bake for another 10 minutes, or until fork tender.

Combine and toss with Onion/Pepper mixture, add more cajun seasoning if necessary.

Eat with your meat of choice and top with a couple over easy eggs :)

Cajun Seasoning:

2tbs Paprika
1tbs Black Pepper
1tbs Cayenne
1tbs Garlic Powder
1tbs Onion Powder
1tbs dried Oregano
1tbs dried Thyme
pinch of clove
1.5 tbs Sea Salt (Optional)

Combine well.

Sweet Potato Ginger Soup

2011-12-04T23:02:00.001-08:00

Sweet Potato and Ginger Soup

2 tablespoons coconut oil

1 medium red onion, diced

1 1/2 pound of sweet potatoes, peeled and diced

1 1/2 teaspoons cumin

2 teaspoons salt

1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger *I learned something awesome recently. If you throw your fresh ginger in the freezer it makes it SO much easier to peel and grate. Try it out!

5 cups water

2 Tablespoons chopped scallions

Melt coconut oil in a large saucepan, add the onion and saute for about 10 minutes until golden and soft. Add the sweet potato to the saucepan and saute for 3 more minutes.

Add cumin, salt, ginger and water.

Lower the heat, cover the pan and simmer for 30 minutes.

Puree the soup until smooth with an immersion blender or by putting it into a blender in batches.

Sprinkle chopped scallions on top and serve.

Enjoy!

(recipe, politely stolen from sweetcheekshq.com... thanks girls!)

Butternut Squash Lasagna!

2011-11-27T12:58:00.001-08:00

Ingredients:

1 lb ground beef, sausage or turkey
1 red onion
3 cloves garlic
15 oz pizza/tomato sauce
1/2 c roasted red peppers
1/4 c olive oil
few leaves of fresh basil
1 small butternut squash

Process:

- Preheat oven 400ºF. In a saute pan crumble the sausage and brown it, along with the onions & garlic. While that’s going, cut the top and ends of the squash off and peel it. Split it into 1/4′s. What I mean by that is, right where the squash starts to turn bulbous, cut it in 1/2, width-wise. Split those two halves in half, lengthwise. This will make it much easier to cut into planks. Pull out the seeds. Slice the squash into the aforementioned planks.

- Make the sauce by pureeing the pizza sauce, red peppers, olive oil and basil. If you don’t a contraption that will puree (blender, food processor, immersion blender), chop up the red peppers and just whisk everything together.

- Using a 9×9 oven safe baking dish, put down enough sauce to lightly cover the bottom of the dish. (This keeps the squash from sticking to the pan.) Next add the squash, trying not to overlap the pieces, then spoon on the sausage mixture, followed by the sauce. Repeat until all your ingredients are used up…trying to reserve enough sauce to cover the top of the lasagna.

- Bake for 45 minutes. You’re looking for a bubbly pan with a crispy, browned top. Right out of the oven, the lasagna may by liquidy, let it set for a good half hour before cutting into it, as it will solidify.

Thai Shrimp Curry!

2011-11-16T11:33:00.001-08:00

Thai Shrimp Curry

1 pound peeled, deveined shrimp
1 tablespoon coconut oil
½ onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes (more if you like it really spicy)
3 teaspoons red curry paste
1 red bell pepper, sliced into strips
1 can coconut milk
5-10 fresh basil leaves, chopped
Cauli-rice, steps above

Heat 1 tablespoon of coconut oil over medium high heat. Toss in the chopped onion and sauté about 3-5 minutes until the onion begins to caramelize and turn light brown. Add the bell pepper, curry paste, red pepper flakes and garlic and sauté for 1 minute. Grab your whisk and slowly add the coconut milk whisking frequently to prevent the curry paste from clumping. Lower the heat to medium and add in the shrimp, continue cooking for another 3-5 minutes. Check for seasonings, add more curry or red pepper flakes to amp up the heat and salt and pepper to taste. Cut the heat and toss in the chopped basil and serve over steamed rice or cauliflower rice.

* This dish can also be made with chicken in place of shrimp. Slice the breasts into thin strips and follow the same steps above. You can also toss in broccoli florets, snap peas or even frozen baby peas to really amp up your veggie servings. Just add the additional veggies at the same time as your protein.

What Paleo Isn't

2011-11-09T23:20:00.000-08:00

Almost half way done with the challenge and I hope most of you are starting to figure this NEWtrition thing out. Whether your journey consists of strict paleo or zone-paleo, I'm sure you have been meticulously weighing, measuring, reading and cooking. With all of the knowledge you are taking in, it's easy to forget just how simple the idea of eating real food really is. Here is a little blurb from a one of my favorite blogs, everydaypaleo.com to help remind you. There is so much out there to learn in regards to paleo and clean eating. These ideas are always progressing, the work is never done. As information continues to become more and more abundant, detailed and ridiculously scientific, don't forget about the simplicity of the diet. It's fundamentals are so pure and easy to understand that it's truly hard to fuck it up. Go forth and feed your minds, hearts and stomachs appropriately. It all does a body good.

What Paleo Isn't

By Jason Seib

Because our society is plagued with diets, most of which make no sense, many people come into this paleo thing with a few preconceived notions. I would like to address some of these misnomers and get us back on the same page. The following is a short discussion of the things paleo is often assumed to be, but in reality is not.

The most important one for me is that The Paleo Diet is not a diet. I know, it really doesn’t make any sense when you say it like that, but it’s true. The Paleo Diet is the modern nomenclature for human nutrition, and the fact that we need to name the concept of “human food” means we have reached a completely ridiculous place in the evolution of our species where we have forgotten who we are and where we came from. It seems like I say this every time I open my mouth or sit down at a computer, but here I go again – humans are the only creatures on earth that use the word “diet” as a verb. Animals don’t do diets, they have a diet. They also don’t suffer from the extensive list of noninfectious diseases that we do. What is the lesson here? We need to try to find the ideal human diet in today’s modern world. Or by definition, go paleo.

Another thing that paleo does not define is a macro nutrient profile. The word “diet”, even in most research papers, is synonymous with weighing and measuring food, even if it’s only part of the intake that we’re interested in, like carbs or fat. Paleo is simply food choices. This means that higher carb paleo and lower fat paleo are completely acceptable as long as your goals reflect those choices. For example, high carb paleo with lots of sweet potatoes, yams and butternut squash is still paleo, but it probably isn’t the best choice for fat loss. On the other hand, if you are an athlete and you need more carbs for peak performance, there is no reason why paleo will not work for you and plenty of reasons why a more neolithic way of eating will be detrimental.

Paleo is also not inherently a weight loss or muscle gain plan. It is a health plan. If you are over weight, getting healthy will mean getting leaner. If you just gave up running marathons, getting healthy will mean gaining some muscle mass. Beyond basic health, paleo and training can be tweaked for more muscle gain or fat loss. That is not something that can be said for most “diets”. Try packing on muscle mass on Weight Watchers sometime.

Finally, paleo is not an excuse to not exercise. Proper nutrition is absolutely essential, but it doesn’t change the fact that the acquisition of food was inextricably tied to movement for all but the last miniscule fraction of time that our genus has been biped-ing it up on earth. Since the kitchen, in all it’s glory, is is merely steps away these days, you will need to get out and mimic proper human movement. Please note that I said “mimic proper human movement.”

Perspective is everything. All this stuff will fall into place for you when your perspective is right.

Butternut Squash Apple Soup

2011-11-06T22:39:00.000-08:00

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 medium onion, diced
1 medium butternut squash, peeled, seeded and diced into 2 inch cubes
3 apples, peeled, cored and sliced.

1 teaspoon cinnamon
8 cups stock or water

Directions:

In a large pot warm oil
Carmelize onion, sautéing 10-15 minutes until golden brown
Add squash cubes, apple slices and cinnamon and cook for 10 minutes
Pour stock into pot and bring mixture to a boil
Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes
In a Vitamix, puree soup in very small batches (for safety)
Serve hot

Here are some notes on this recipe:

Feel free to make this soup with other types of winter squash such as pumpkin, acorn, delicata, etc.
I used a 2 ½ pound butternut squash for this recipe (weight is prior to peeling and de-seeding)
Experiment with other warming spices such as ginger and nutmeg
I used Braeburn apples in this soup; feel free to experiment with other types of apples

Squash is a very healthy, hearty, nutrient dense vegetable, full of carotenoids and other beneficial antioxidants. Further, it is thought that squash is both anti-inflammatory and helpful in regulating blood sugar.

(Recipe and notes can be found at elanaspantry.com.)

Jamaican Jerk Salmon!

2011-10-30T23:21:00.000-07:00

I know you are all being super diligent with taking your fish oil to get those extra points for the challenge... right? Well, go that extra mile this week and cook up your own omega-3s and season it with this delicious Jamaican Jerk Rub, courtesy of Primal Palate.

Jamaican Jerk Salmon

Ingredients:

1 pound wild caught salmon, cut into 4-6 oz portions
1 teaspoon all spice
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon thyme
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
The juice of 1.5 limes

Process:

Rinse salmon under water and pat dry with a paper towel.
Cut salmon into 4-6 oz portions, and place in a gallon ziplock bag.
In a small mixing bowl, whisk together spices, olive oil, and lime juice.
Pour marinade over salmon, seal bag, and make sure the salmon is evenly coated in the marinade.
Marinate salmon for 2-4 hours before grilling.
Preheat grill to 400.
Place salmon on a fish plate, skin side down first, and grill for 4 minutes a side, flipping once.
You can also bake this in the oven, 375 degrees for 35-40 minutes, broil for about 8 minutes per side, or fry in a skillet. This rub will taste delicious no matter how you cook the salmon, so do what you are comfortable with.

Crock Pot Roast

2011-10-26T11:16:00.000-07:00

I am horrible at writing recipes. I'm true free spirit in the kitchen and hate to be bound by measurement and instruction. This recipe will be more conversational.

7-9# Roast- can be chuck, round, sirloin... The only thing I would say no to put in a crock pot would be a rib roast, which is better suited for a dry cooking method.

Stab the chunk of meat a bunch of times to make slits in the flesh. Insert slivers of a garlic into slits. Season very liberally with salt/pepper/garlic powder.

In a heavy bottomed pan (like cast iron!!) heated with a nice layer of grape seed oil or bacon fat or ghee (the shit should smoking!) brown the roast on all sides. You will need to stay near the pan and turn once a nice crispy crust has formed. Once that is done, place roast into crock pot.

With the hot pan on medium heat, add large dice of an onion, a leek, 2 celery, 2 carrot and 2 tomatoes. Stir constantly, scraping up all the good bits on the bottom of pan.

Turn heat on high. Deglaze pan with a 1/2 bottle of red wine or 12oz of a good stout beer. Scrap up the bottom pan for all the tasty bits. Once boiling, dump into the crock pot.

Add these final ingredients:

2 bay leaf
2 teaspoon peppercorn
1 whole head of garlic, peel and all
1 bunch parsley with stems
3 sprigs of thyme

Add enough water to cover a little more than half way up the roast. Cover and set crock pot to "Long Cook" or 10 hours or "Low" what ever the longest setting is on your dial is. Do not set to "High."

Come home from work/crossfit, take the roast out of the crock pot- let it be sexy for a minute.

Strain the cooking liquid, discarding everything, EVEN THE VEGGIES.

Bring cooking liquid to a boil and let simmer on med-low while you roast fresh veggies in the oven. The sauce should thicken slightly, making it an aus jus.

Stuff the hungry hole in the middle of the thing you call your face.

Chocolate Avocado Mousse

2011-10-24T22:46:00.000-07:00

3 Avocados
1/2c. Dutch Cocoa Powder
1/2c. Raw Honey or Agave
2Tbs. Vanilla extract (no added sugar or alcohol)
Pinch of Salt

Beat until smooth with mixer... or with your beat it by hand, cause you have the guns to!

Put in fridge to "set" for about 2 hours. Or if you're impatient like me, just pop in the freezer for 15 mins :)

Then gorge like a crazy bulimic :)

Farmer's Pie

2011-10-23T21:45:00.000-07:00

I know what you are thinking. "The list of ingredients for this recipe looks ridiculous and I don't have the time." Well, guess what... you're wrong! The list is ridiculously short. You don't have to use 2 different kinds of meat and the vegetables can always be changed. If you have carrots, use those. Throw some beets in there. Celery is always delicious but so is cabbage. Anyway, point of this recipe is that it is a massive dish of random deliciousness (most things that come in your market order) that will last you almost the entire week. Only thing I will have to go buy is Worcestershire sauce (gluten free, of course). The rest... spices, vinegar and oil... I already have in my kitchen. They are essential and you should have them as well. Time to stock up! If you haven't gotten that spice rack, now is the perfect time. JUST DO IT!

Anyway, these types of dishes are my favorite. I find them easy because I can throw it all in a pirex (my favorite baking dish) and leave it for 30-45 minutes, go take a shower and come back to some delicious home-style cooking. This recipe is compliments of "Paleo Comfort Foods". If you haven't checked out their book, I highly suggest you do. Their recipes will save your life and comfort your heart. Plus, this pie freezes REALLY well and it's enough food to last all week. ENJOY!

Farmers Pie

1 tbs. coconut or avocado oil
4-6 cloves fresh garlic, chopped
2 pounds ground lamb
1 pound ground grassfed beef
2 cups onions chopped
2 cups carrots, peeled and sliced (I most likely WON'T peel them, I'm lazy.)
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 tbs. fresh rosemary, chopped fine
2 teaspoons dried thyme
1 small can (6 ounces) tomato paste
2 tbs. balsamic vinegar
2 tbs. Worcestershire sauce**
6 cups (1½ L) Mashed Cauliflower

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).
2. Heat a large skillet over medium/medium-high heat. Add the 1 tablespoon of the oil and once hot, stir in the garlic, being careful not to burn.
3. Add in the lamb and stir, combining with the garlic. Cook until the meat is browned.
4. Remove the lamb/garlic mixture from the pan, then add in the onions, carrots, celery, rosemary, and thyme.
5. Cook until onions are translucent and carrots and celery softened.
6. Add the meat mixture back into the pan, and stir in the tomato paste, balsamic, and Worcestershire and bring to a simmer. Simmer until most of the liquid has evaporated off (especially if your tomatoes are really juicy).
7. Pour meat/vegetable mixture into a 9″ x 13″ (23 cm x 33 cm) baking pan, and with a rubber spatula spread a layer of the Mashed Cauliflower over the top, forming a solid layer of the mash.
8. Bake for 20 minutes or until the mashed cauliflower is slightly browned on top.

Kitchen Tools

2011-10-19T22:36:00.000-07:00

And now... what you've all been waiting for. Our first video tutorial! We decided that since this whole cooking thing is new for MOST of you, our first episode would be a little rundown of all the kitchen items that will make this experience easier. Assassin, being the experienced chef that she is, showcases some of the important kitchen utensils and dishes, while giving a brief description on how to use them.

We hope you enjoy. Remember, this is our first experiment with the camera. Give us some feedback! We'd love to hear about what you guys want to see.

Produce!

2011-10-18T22:27:00.000-07:00

Second day of the challenge is dwindling down. Are you starting to feel flustered yet? Tired, cranky, starving? Let us know and we'll do our best to give you tips on how to avoid all of those nasty things. Assassin and I have done this challenge before so cravings and withdrawals aren't new to us. We know just what kind of snack to make this easier for you.

Tomorrow is Wednesday which means... PRODUCE! I found this nifty little article with helpful tips on how to store your produce in order to keep it fresh and tasty. Click HERE to read. Also, if you have questions about the items we got this week, let us know. I'll post in the comments a list of the items once I pick up my order so you can google away, if necessary. Remember what Assassin said at the symposium... due to the organic nature of the food, be sure to eat the leafy greens and fruit first, as they won't last as long as the root vegetables.

If you aren't quite sure where to start my suggestion would be to chop up your broccoli, carrots and beets and roast them at 400 degrees for 35 minutes. I use a pirex but a regular baking sheet works just fine, too. I coat them with a little bit of olive oil and BAM... deliciousness for 2 or 3 dinners.

My new favorite thing to do with the cauliflower is make "mashed cauliflower". It's SUPER easy. Break the cauliflower off it's stock and throw it into a pot. Add about 1 cup of chicken broth, 1/2 a tablespoon of rosemary and boil on high for 20 minutes. Blend until creamy and enjoy! (Go here for more detailed directions).

Typically, I use the kale for breakfast. I chop it up and saute it with onions and peppers for my egg scramble. I use the rest of the leafy greens for salads or as a bed for my meat. If it's a lettuce that is a bit on the bitter side, I saute with garlic until tasty unless I find a recipe that specifically calls for it. Cabbage you can roast, saute or use for enchiladas.

Please refer to the link above to see how to store all of these things. And if this is your first time ordering produce, don't get discouraged if you can't cook or eat it all before it goes bad. It will take a couple rounds before you get used to it. Trust me, it's no big deal.

Let us know if you have any questions!

Nom, nom, nom!

Let the games begin!!

2011-10-17T12:18:00.000-07:00

Day 1 of the challenge and I couldn't be more excited! I hope everyone is prepared for what will be an amazing experience. As you can see, the nutrition blog is undergoing somewhat of a transformation as well. Being that today is the start of a new chapter in most of your lives, nutritionally, I thought it would be the most appropriate time to vamp up the site and make it more user friendly. Keep in mind that I'm not a computer nerd so you may see some F-ups with the layout from time to time. No worries though, things can be fixed.

In addition to the sexy new look of the blog, Assassin and I will be posting paleo recipes in addition to NEW zone-specific recipes for those of you out there who have chosen that path for this challenge. Assigned reading will be posted to further your education about nutrition and health and all things that we believe are worth knowing in order to obtain optimal performance (mentally, nutritionally and physically).

We will be posting a series of "How To" videos covering topics such as:

What you'll need in your kitchen to cook better than Gordon Ramsay
How to sear a steak
How to properly cut veggies, etc... safety first kids. : /
Whatever else the ninja and I think are important and helpful to you!

Please refer to the "Resource" tab for more information on how to take advantage of the meat, produce, fish oil and Brian's Bowls services that we offer through the gym. They are fantastic and will help you get the most out of this challenge.

If you need a "fresher-upper" on the guidelines for paleo and zone, please refer to the appropriate tabs. As the week progresses there will be more additions and changes made to the blog, so don't freak out and stab your steak if you see something missing. It will take a couple tries to make the blog perfect.

As always... if you have questions, please ask!

Your's in the kitchen,

Assassin and Jamie

Pumpkin Muffins!

2011-10-09T19:29:00.000-07:00

I love fall! I love pumpkins and I love anything that tastes like a pumpkin. That pretty much sums it up. Enjoy this delicious recipe compliments of Diane at balancedbites.com. I used butter instead of coconut oil because I wanted to make sure the pumpkin was the strongest flavor. NOT saying the coconut oil version is bad, it's not. It's still delicious. I also added walnuts because walnuts are the shit. But I understand some peeps are allergic. These muffins are also delicious with or without nuts. :)

Pumpkin Muffins

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter or coconut oil, melted (I used Kerrygold grassfed butter)
6 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup pumpkin puree (can be canned or fresh, if fresh, cook, cook and strain excess water from your pumpkin before using it in this recipe)
1/4 cup honey or maple syrup (I used maple syrup)
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 & 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon allspice/nutmeg (I used 1/4 teaspoon of each)
pinch salt

How to:

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F.
Grease a standard muffin tray or use paper liners (paper is probably ideal).
Combine wet ingredients in a large mixing bowl together until well beaten: butter, eggs, vanilla, pumpkin and honey/maple syrup.
Measure dry ingredients (coconut flour, baking powder, cinnamon, cloves, allspice/nutmeg) into a sifter and slowly sift into the wet ingredients, whisking as you do so that you don’t have lumps in the batter.
Divide the batter evenly into the muffin tins and bake for approximately 15-18 minutes or until slightly golden brown on top and a toothpick comes out clean.

Variations:
Add chopped walnuts and/or Enjoy Life gluten/dairy/soy free chocolate chips to the mixture before baking or place some on top.

Sweet Potato, Bacon and Egg Salad

2011-10-04T16:23:00.000-07:00

Here it is! Finally got around to posting a recipe for the epic bacon sweet potato salad I made for the MOTHAF$%&#@ BOAT! It was discovered by my friend on livingpaleo.com and it is equally delicious served warm or cold. I made it twice so far, both times with homemade paleo mayo which I think is a must. :) Enjoy! Mama Diso

Ingredients

1 small to medium sweet potato, diced
2 eggs
8 slices of bacon, diced
1 Tbs coconut oil
4 Tbs dill, finely chopped
2 Tbs mayonnaise
2 Tbs lemon juice

Instructions

Place eggs in small sauce pan, cover with cold water, cover pan and place over high heat until just before boiling.
Remove from heat and let sit, covered, for 13 minutes.
Immediately rinse in cold water, peel eggs, dice and set aside.
Meanwhile, dice sweet potato.
Heat skillet over medium-high. When hot, add bacon and cook for 5 minutes. Add diced sweet potato and continue to cook until potato is tender and bacon is fully cooked.
In a small bowl, mix dill, mayonnaise and lemon juice.
Add eggs, sweet potato and bacon, and mix. Serve warm or cold.

Mint Lamb Burgers

2011-09-29T14:30:00.000-07:00

If you haven't pre-ordered "Make it Paleo," the new book my Bill and Haley over at primal-palate.com then be ashamed of yourself! Nah, just kidding! If you are interested in having A LOT of really awesome recipes at your disposal, I suggest ordering the book. If everything in the book is as good as these "lamburgers" look, then you are in a for a sweet treat.

Juicy Mint Lamburgers

Ingredients:
1lb ground lamb (or any ground meat you like)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 shallot, minced
1 tbsp mint, minced
Salt and pepper to taste

Grillin' it:
1. Heat grill to medium heat
2. Mix ground meat with minced garlic, shallot, mint, salt and pepper.
3. Form into 4 equal-sized patties
4. Grill lamburgers for approximately 4 minutes per side, turning once. Adjust cooking time for desired internal temperature accordingly.
5. Garnish lamburgers with mint leaf

Serve it up on a plizzz-ate or with a greek salad!

Scallops!

2011-09-24T14:42:00.000-07:00

I feel like I haven't posted in forever! I looked back at the last post I did and it was ten days ago, my apologies everyone. I hope everyone survived. Ha, kidding. But seriously... sorry for slacking. Last week was busy. Anyway, I made a trip to Trader Joe's yesterday to stock up on some meat until I could place a legit order with US Wellness Meats and for some reason scallops ended up in my basket. I've never cooked scallops before. Hell, I've only eaten them a couple times in my entire life. They seem tricky but after doing some research, I've found that they are ridiculously simple to cook. If fish isn't your thing, venture out of your comfort zone, you never know what your taste buds might take a liking to.

Ingredients
About a handful and a half of scallops per person seasoned with salt and pepper
One handful of coriander
Two chilies (de-seeded and chopped finely)
Three cloves of garlic
Four tablespoons of coconut oil
Juice of two lemons or limes

Heat the coconut oil until its almost smoking then add the scallops and fry them for a few minutes before adding the garlic, chili and lemon/lime juice. Turn them over and continue frying them for another minute or two before adding the coriander (you could also add a tablespoon of butter at this point if you wanted to). If a lot of water comes out of the scallops don't worry, just turn up the heat even higher to reduce it.

Primal Prescriptions!

2011-09-15T21:43:00.000-07:00

The past few weeks I have been on the road to recovery from a minor shoulder injury. My recovery has included deep tissue massages, scaling down on upper body training and gaining a better understanding of how our muscles work in conjunction with each other. Diet is also key in recovery and lately my diet has been less than par, I won't lie. But, as a punishment, I'm totally feeling the wrath of it and not just in my gut. It boggles my mind how the nagging health issues and symptoms I had before I went paleo creep up on me so fast when I cheat. Headaches, moodiness, bloating, stomach ache, sleep disturbances, lack of appetite... the list could literally go on. I'll end it there because well, none of those things ever make anyone feel strong (mentally and physically) or pretty.

Anyway, like the average person, I used to tackle these issues with the wrong type of thinking. Saw multiple doctors, drank a shit ton of pepto bismal, popped a couple ibuprofen, ate some disgusting comfort foods and BAM!... no results. And then like a dummy, I would repeat the cycle of ingesting over-the-counter drugs because that's what the commercials told me to do. That was until I went paleo. Paleo, being a change in lifestyle, not ONLY diet, helped me to cleanse my body of the yuckiness so I could start fresh and give it the right amount of attention it needed. I discovered that all I had to do was just listen. Imagine that!

I find it interesting that the moment I start slacking and ignoring my body, a friend in the paleo community blogs about it. Ok, ok... it wasn't about ME specifically, but the post hit home regardless. Mark's Daily Apple posted this little bit, reminding me how to listen .When in doubt, just let your body tell you how your food, sleep and training are benefiting/hurting you.

Listening to Your Body

by Mark Sisson

Question: what does your body feel like right now? Go ahead. Take an inventory. From the toes to the head, what’s going on in there at the present moment? How’s your back? How’s your stomach? Your head? How about muscles? Your energy level and mood? Is your thinking clear this morning? Good and bad, what signals are you getting? Beyond the here and now, what’s your body been trying to tell you lately? Any changes since beginning the Challenge? Most important of all perhaps – are you accustomed to listening to what your body has to say?

Everything about our culture, it seems, discourages us from doing just that. From the commercials insisting we don’t need to put up with that headache to the glorification of binge drinking, taking a body’s hint isn’t exactly at the top of most people’s list of talents or priorities. Why live with that pesky fever when you can simply beat it back with 1000 milligrams of extra strength head-in-the-sand? Indigestion from eating that second Big Mac today? Try some Pepcid AC.

Think about it. People bring a kind of pride to pushing through the pain (and I’m not just talking about childbirth or weightlifting here). People go into work sick as dogs (my personal favorite). They knowingly ignore with the clear physiological effects of chronic stress. They eat a diet for much or all of their lifetime that leaves them sluggish and overweight. It’s only when serious illness hits that we sit up and take notice. (Ironically, sometimes serious illness teaches us how to listen to our bodies, to discover how symptoms – however subtle – can be a crucial barometer for larger issues.) The body has – and shares – its own brand of wisdom. We’d do well to heed its cues before it smacks us over the head with a club.

Too often, of course, we surrender the power that comes from reading and knowing our bodies. We unthinkingly relinquish it to doctors and other practitioners, either because we genuinely believe that theirs is the only substantive opinion or because we don’t really want to take responsibility for our health. Owning your well-being is an unofficial but essential Primal principle. Appreciating your ability to listen to your body’s signals follows from it.

In yesterday’s post, I wrote about the potential (and fun) of self-experimentation. You’re your very own guinea pig. (Oh, the possibilities…) Ultimately, however, the crux of self-experimentation is self-assessment – physical assessment to be exact. A glucose monitor can be a handy tool. A heart rate monitor is a good gadget to have. A notebook and pen (or Word document) might be an even better set of instruments, however. (It all depends upon an open and perceptive mind of course.) I’ll venture to say that your body will tell you in its own way what the machine displays. By all means, take advantage of technology, but use it to help hone your own perception. What does a certain heart rate feel like? What sensations creep up when your glucose hits a certain number?

What does a headache mean? A backache? What precipitates foggy thinking or acid reflux? What confers a sense of lightness after lunch or a good night’s sleep? What choices seem to contribute to or prevent that infamous midafternoon slump?

Think about all the sensations that your body can produce – positive and negative: fatigue, foggy thinking, dizziness, digestive issues, rapid breathing or heart beat, skin flare-ups, back pain or general achiness, stiffness, stuffy nose, neck tension, dry eyes, constipation, dry mouth, headache – and the balanced, comfortable opposites of those symptoms like a clear head, steady energy, effective digestion, relaxed muscles, and regular bowel movements. (Don’t underestimate the gratification and importance of a good poop.)

Genuine health of course isn’t just the absence of obvious negative symptoms as it’s often thought of. Living a life in line with its genetic expectations goes a long way toward deciphering the softer signs. For example, lots of folks tell me it was only after going Primal that they were able to pinpoint food allergies or underlying chronic conditions. Going Primal finally allowed them to perceive the subtler signals that had previously been blocked out by bigger noise of a SAD, inflammation-promoting, digestion-busting diet, chronic cardio, or consistent lack of sleep. Most of us have had this experience on some level. Going Primal reveals long-term disruption we didn’t even know existed until we had the experience of living without its sources and subsequent misery.

To complement your self-experimentation or just enhance your Challenge success, learn to hone your perception skills with regular practice and keen assessment.

Keep a reminder with you. Psychologists often advise clients to keep a stone or other object in their pocket or on their wrist as a reminder to assess their well-being periodically during the day.
Stop a few times a day – a few consistent times and any time you feel a peak or valley on the horizon. Put your hand on your heart if you need an added gesture to get into the spirit of the exercise. Take an inventory of every part, but don’t just look for the bad or use the “okay” as the measuring stick for good. Identify what sensations are associated with real vitality (e.g. relaxed shoulders, soft eye expression, a bright feeling in your upper body).
Record the negative and positive feelings you observe. Think about what’s going on in the present moment. Where are you are? What kind of interactions and activities have filled this part of the day? What have you eaten in the last one to two hours? When was the last time you were outside? How does this compare to how you felt yesterday at this same time?
Compare the sensations and connections to your self-experimentation project. Are you onto something? Write it down, and see if similar conditions the next day produce the same sensations or if changed circumstances interrupt the pattern.
Think about where you’re at in your self-experimentation or Challenge transition. If you’ve chosen to overhaul your diet and finally ditch grains and sugar this week, the fatigue you may be feeling is possibly the low carb flu. If your goal has been to ratchet up your exercise but you’ve been overdoing it or not allowing for adequate recovery time, you might need to give yourself a rest period. The truth might be found in both the details and the big picture.
Get in the habit of thinking through your physical sensation. Give the body its due as part of the intellect. Like all animals, we apprehend and interpret our environment bodily as well as abstractly. Ask the body in whatever manner of speaking you’re into, what do you need now? Movement? A nap? Some fresh air or sunlight? An extra layer of clothing? Maybe just a good laugh?
Whatever you undertake in response, take time to read the subsequent signals. What’s changed? What happened to the old sensations? What new ones do you notice? Are parts of you affected that weren’t before? Maybe you didn’t notice any mental fogginess before, but now you realize how much clearer and sharper your thinking is after a brisk walk or a few minutes of play. Relish and repeat.

Bacon Jam!

2011-09-14T11:13:00.000-07:00

An angel appeared to me last night to inform me that the most miraculous recipe had been created. A recipe that would excite the pants off of meat-eaters everywhere, restore good levels of fat to your body and satisfy every barbell lifting, kettlebell swinging, and double-under doing palate out there. A recipe from the Crossfit God's (or... just those two hilarious blokes over at Modern Paleo Warfare).

Behold... BACON JAM!

Ingredients1 large pack of bacon (cut up into semi-medium pieces)
One tea spoon of cacao (or cocoa powder :D)
Half a tea spoon of cinnamon
Half a tea spoon of allspice
Juice of two lemons
3-4 garlic gloves (mashed)
1 quarter of a large onion (finely chopped)
2 tea spoons of chili powder or one whole red chili
one small cup of strong coffee

Directions
Fry the bacon in a large pan until the fat starts to render. It should still be floppy after a few minutes. Drain off the bacon fat and leave that aside before adding everything else. Stir it well and add back a few table spoons of bacon fat to lubricate the whole mess. Cover and keep on a low heat for 2 hours. You have to keep checking on it though every 10-15 minutes so the bottom of your pan doesn't burn.

After two hours (I bet your kitchen smells like heaven by now) stick the bacon mush into a food processor and blitz until its the consistency you like. If it dries up too quickly don't worry - add another tea spoon of bacon fat to the mix.

As for me? I plan to smear this goodness on everything. Meat, sweet potatos, icecream... I don't give a f-f-f-fruit salad.

PTB Salad

2011-09-12T10:38:00.000-07:00

I will admit, the ladies over at Sweet Cheeks HQ really know how to whip together an awesome salad. They are some busy busy bees, always on the go whether it's training, working, cooking, being awesome, or whatever. I can totally relate to this busy lifestyle and I'm most positive a lot you can as well. This is why their simple and delicious salad recipes are so appealing. The pictures grab your attention, you read the list of ingredients, browse the directions and think... "I can totally do this in no time at all!"

Here is their "Farewell to Summer Salad". Get them peaches, chow down and enjoy your last days of Socal awesomeness. :)

PTB (Peach, Tomato, Basil) Salad

1 Peach

1 Heirloom tomato

3-5 small basil leaves shredded

drizzle of olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Chop all your ingredients, put them in a bowl, drizzle with olive oil and let sit a few minutes before serving.

Butter Poached Salmon with Warm Tomato Relish

2011-09-08T22:47:00.000-07:00

Another delicious looking salmon recipe from everydaypaleo.com. The relish sounds amazing!

Butter Poached Salmon with Warm Tomato Relish

Tomato Relish:

1 small red onion, sliced
2 medium tomatoes, diced
¼ cup kalamata olives, sliced
3 tablespoons capers
2 tablespoons grass fed butter (you can get this at Trader Joe's. Brand is called Kerrygold)
Fresh ground pepper to taste

In a small saute pan melt the butter over medium heat, add the onions and cook until the onions begin to caramelize. Add the remaining ingredients and cook for another 2-3 minutes, remove from heat and set aside. The relish is enough for at least 5 filets.

Salmon:

(This is how to cook one filet, obviously if you are cooking more than 1, you will use 2 tablespoons of butter per filet)
1 salmon filet, skin on
2 tablespoons of butter per filet
Sea salt and black pepper

Preheat oven to 350. Generously season both sides of the filets with salt and pepper. Melt the butter in a small oven proof saute pan until the butter is hot enough to sizzle when you place the fish in the pan. Place the fish in the hot butter, skin side down. Let it cook for about 3 minutes. Start basting the salmon with the melted butter (I just used a spoon to pour the melted butter repeatedly over the salmon.) Continue to bast the salmon for approximately 4 minutes. Finish the salmon in the preheated oven for another 6-8 minutes, dependent on the thickness of desired doneness of your fish.

Top the salmon with a big scoop of the tomato relish and enjoy!

Breaking it down

2011-09-01T23:19:00.000-07:00

I found this article on Crossfit Palo Alto's website. I browse it from time to time because Nomnompaleo and Fitbomb both go to that box and well... seeing what other boxes are up to is always fun. This little blurb explains in the most simplistic way what you should be eating and when in order to become an awesome athlete. It's important to know how your body breaks down what you feed it, especially after a workout. Planning my meals is super important to me and I like to get the most out of what I eat. With that said, read on... but don't plan super hard this coming holiday weekend. The gym will be closed Monday, which is Diso's way of telling you to take an f-ing break and rest. So do it!

As for me, I will be heading up North to visit the Moms. I have successfully convinced my little sister, sister-in-law and Brother to go paleo. So far they have had excellent results. I plan to cook all of our meals this weekend, browse my hometown's farmers market and check out their new gluten-free store. Coming from a place where Red Robbin is super popular, this will be really interesting. I accept the challenge. Mom's gone paleo and she doesn't even know it yet. I'll fill you all in as the weekend goes on.

Enjoy yours! :)

One of the biggest misconceptions about Paleo is that it has to be a low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diet. The truth is, athletes like CrossFitters need to eat more than they think in order to recover from our tough workouts, speed up fat loss, and build the most muscle possible.

What happens when I exercise?

Exercise is primarily a tool for increasing work capacity. This is achieved by increasing muscle mass, cardiac/respiratory endurance, and metabolism. On a cellular level, you are actually inducing micro-trauma in your muscles, and it’s vital to repair those tears so the muscle can grow larger and stronger. On a hormonal scale, exercise increases insulin sensitivity. This is a good thing, because insulin is a storage hormone that will shuttle protein and carbohydrates to where they need to go in the body to start the recovery process. When you don’t eat after a workout, you lose that optimal feeding window, and may crash and burn in the long-term.

Okay, so what do I eat?

Well, if you’re following the Whole9 Meal Simple Template, your meals consist of protein, lots of fresh veggies and healthy fat. And you should be eating until you’re satiated. Traditionally, the types of veggies that are recommended on the Paleo diet are low-carbohydrate, however there’s a certain danger associated with low-carb eating and CrossFit. Any time we tap into our muscle glycogen, we need to eat a good post-workout of meal consisting of protein and a starchy carbohydrate. If we don’t, we risk using all the glycogen in our muscles, then our liver, then our brain. If that happens, there are some pretty serious risks including dizziness, shakiness, coma and death. That’s why we take our post-workout recommendations so seriously (and cause we want you to be your best).

The protein in the meal does a couple of things: it starts the repair of all those micro-tears that we created during the workout. It also stimulates the release of a hormone called glucagon. Glucagon is an energy access hormone that allows us to use body fat for energy (a good thing!). The carbohydrate in the meal gets converted into glucose and goes straight to your muscles to refill those tanks.

Personally, I like to eat some scrambled eggs with veggies and a yam. It’s important to avoid fat in your post-workout meal, as fat slows down digestion (great for increasing the satiety in the rest of your meals, but not appropriate when we’re trying to get nutrients in fast). Also, avoid fruit in this meal as fructose (the main sugar in fruit) will cause all sugars to go to your liver instead of refilling your muscles glycogen tanks. And make sure that you can get this meal in within 30 minutes of finishing your workout. If that means bringing your food to the gym with you, do it. Remember, this post-workout meal is a bonus meal that you get to eat in addition to your normal meals because you exercised. Trust me, you’ll feel the difference pretty quickly and you’ll wonder what took you so long to start making smart post-workout choices (I know I did!)

Your partner in STRENF!

Badier

Badier Velji is an active member of the SF Bay Area Paleo Community and writes about nutrition at The Lazy Caveman. Visit his website and follow @TheLazyCaveman on Twitter for more tips on how to improve your nutrition and quality of life.

Beef "Enchiladas"

2011-08-27T15:16:00.000-07:00

Sounds way more appetizing than Red Cabbage Rolls.

Pre-heat oven 375 degrees

1# Beef Ground Beef
1 Green Bell Pepper, small chop
1/2 Red Onion, small chop
2 large tomatoes, med dice
2 cloves garlic, minced
S/P
Pinch of ground cumin

7-10 washed, whole red cabbage leaves

1 can red or green enchilada sauce (15oz.)

Brown ground beef. Set aside. In the beef fat, saute the pepper and onion until soft. Add garlic; once fragrant, add tomatoes. On med high heat simmer until the tomatoes break down. Return beef to pan. Season with S/P and cumin.

Cool this mixture.

Rolls:

Spoon about 3-4 tablespoons of beef filling into a dry cabbage "cups."

Roll firmly, tucking in the ends. Place seam side down in the casserole dish.

Cover with enchilada sauce. Cover with aluminum foil. Bake for 60 minutes, or until the cabbage is fork tender.

Banana Cinnamon Rolls!

2011-08-26T12:30:00.000-07:00

I mentioned yesterday at the gym that I found this "cinnamon roll" type recipe and a couple people who shall remain nameless (cough, ahem, Thomas) freaked with excitement. I TOO am a lover of cinnamon rolls so I share that same old fashioned "fat kid" mentality. Caution: this recipe does contain a little bit of milk so if you are strict with the milk well... subsitituions and experimentations are in order. Without further ado...

Get this recipe and more from modernpaleowarfare.com. Two UK crossfitter who are not only geniuses in the kitchen, but absolutely hilarious. Hence, some of the measuring lingo is a bit, ermmm... different.

Ingredients:

one egg

one large banana

half a pod of vanilla (1/2 a pod equals 1/2 a teaspoon, I think!)

one table spoon of honey

a handful of sultanas (raisins)

an equal handful of almond flour

150ml of milk

a dash of cinnamon

a dash of nutmeg

- Choose some coffee cups, grease them up real nice with some butter and preheat the oven to 180.

- Mix all the other ingredients together and then spoon them into the cups.

- Stick them in a roasting dish and fill the dish with water to reach around halfway up the cup sides.

- Bake them for 35 minutes (uncovered), let them cool then turn them upside down.

- Drizzle with honey, dress with creme fraiche and grated nutmeg.

Mustard Greens

2011-08-25T12:46:00.000-07:00

This week's produce order contained my first ever batch of mustard greens. It's VERY spicy, much like arugula. I don't know about any of you but this stuff really has a bite to it. You could just sautee it down with some oil and garlic but I thought maybe this soup recipe with sweet potatos, yellow split peas and mustard greens would be way more fun. Plus, I'm looking for any excuse to use my new handmixer. If any of you mothers need paleo baby food, give me a call. ;)

Yellow Split Pea Soup with Sweet Potatoes and Mustard Greens

What goes in the pot:

2 tablespoon Olive Oil
1 large onion (chopped)
4 clove garlic (minced)
2 teaspoon cumin
2 cups dried yellow split peas
5 cups water
4 cups chicken or vegetable broth
3 ripe plum tomatoes (seeded, peeled, diced)
1 med. Sweet potato (peeled and cubed)
½ lb. Mustard greens (coarsely chopped)

How to do the damn thing:

- Heat olive oil over medium heat, add onion, cook 4 to 5 minutes, until onion is soft. Add garlic and cumin, cook one minute more. Add split peas, water and broth, bring to a boil, reduce to simmer, cook about 1 hour until peas have broken down.
- Add tomatoes, sweet potatoes and mustard greens, simmer until vegetables are tender – approx. 25 minutes. Season as desired with salt and pepper.
- Blend with a handmixer to make creamy or serve chucky as is. That's your call.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Sidenote: Check out this coconut flour recipe website here for some ideas on paleo breadmaking. Coconut flour drop biscuits would be great to accompany this recipe!

Mashed Cauliflower

2011-08-21T20:55:00.000-07:00

Here is a lovely "blurb" followed by an instructional video and of course, directions on how to make mashed cauliflower. Just to warn you, this dish will make your house/apt smell like Thanksgiving. Garlic plus rosemary plus chicken broth makes my hungry heart flutter. Anyway, enjoy this awesome recipe from Paleo Comfort Foods. If you like it as much as I did, show your support and preorder their new cookbook here.

Cauli mash (aka “faux potatoes”) is one of the most versatile side dishes you can create. Add-ins that we’ve used/tried to change up the flavor have ranged from chipotle sauce, paleo mayo (for creaminess), bacon crumbles, sundried tomatoes, roasted garlic, jalapenos, Italian parsley, and for those of you putting some dairy in your life, try these with some goat cheese, butter or some heavy whipping cream. There are so many ways you can flavor these – experiment and see what you like!
A few tips and tricks:
- Cooking the cauliflower in chicken stock really adds some nice depth of flavor to the mashed. While you could just steam the cauliflower, I think the flavor is completely different when cooked in the stock.
- Cauliflower has a pretty high water content, so when we cook ours in the chicken broth, we try to get it almost dry (without burning). This usually gives us the creamy texture we personally like.
- If you are more of a chunky mash kind of person, just use a hand masher to retain some of the lumps in your mash.
Watch the video here if you need more detailed info on the “how.”

Ingredients
- 1 head cauliflower, leaves removed, stem and florets chopped into similar sized pieces
- 1 cup chicken stock or broth (more for a particularly large head of cauliflower)
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 2 cloves garlic, smashed
- 1-2 teaspoons fresh rosemary leaves

Instructions
1. Place all ingredients in a medium sized saucepan or Dutch oven and bring to a boil.
2. Reduce heat to medium and cover, allowing to cook for 15-20 minutes or so, or until the cauliflower is very tender and easily mashed with a fork.**
**You may need to add more stock if everything dries up and your cauliflower is not yet cooked through. Keep an eye on things as it cooks to see if you need to add some more.
3. Once cauliflower is tender and cooked through, pour off any excess stock that remains and reserve.
4. Pour all contents into a food processor and mix. If the cauliflower seems too dry, add in some of the reserved stock.
Add in any spices, herbs, or “mix-ins” that you’d like as discussed above.

Organic Cantaloupe on sale at Whole Foods!

2011-08-18T23:21:00.000-07:00

Hey kiddos! Whole foods is have a Friday ONLY sale of organic cantaloupe... 2 for $3. What a great steal! It's tomorrow only though so skip over there on your lunch break or right after work to get some good ones. Here is a simple summer cantaloupe recipe so that you can enjoy them over the weekend, perhaps at a BBQ or picnic. Summer is ending, gobble these fruits up while they last. :)

Cantalope Salad Recipe

Ingredients:

3 1/2 cups (approximately) cantaloupe balls

1/4 cup mint leaves, packed

1/4 cup lemon juice (about 1 and 1/2 lemons)

Olive oil drizzle

chopped red onion (optional, but gives it a little spice)

Directions:

- Next, using a melon baller, scoop about 2 cups of cantaloupe into a large mixing bowl and set aside. If you don’t have a melon baller you can always cut up the cantaloupe into about 1-1 1/2″ squares.

- blend mint and lemon juice in a blender until mint is finely chopped.

- Pour a SMALL amount at a time of the mixture and drizzle olive oil over the cantaloupe pieces and combine well. Do this a little at a time to make sure you get the right flavor. Some like more mint flavor and some don't... palates are different. You can be the judge, it's your salad. :)

- Serve right away, or cover and refrigerate until needed.

Brian's Bowls!

2011-08-16T13:59:00.000-07:00

Hey kids! I've got some cool news for you all...

A couple weeks ago while I was visiting another box, I met a lovely young lady who told me about this frozen food delivery service that she and a friend have just started up. Best part is, it's all Paleo. How cool, right? The company is called Brian's Bowls. Here is a little blurb from their website that pretty much sums everything up...

"Our all-natural grain-free frozen meals are made from scratch to order once a week, and delivered to your doorstep. While the meals have varying levels of "paleo strictness," they always avoid 3 main items: 1) Grain of any kind 2) Industrial Oils 3) Artificial Ingredients. Our ingredient lists are shockingly short and we intend to keep it that way."

I'm writing this post on my lunch break after just consuming my first bowl of jerk chicken, sauteed kale and sweet potatos. It was delicious, not a bite left! I can't wait to try the beef curry tomorrow. Anyway, Paradiso does a lot to provide us with fresh food every week and this service could be a great addition to that. (Especially for those who don't have as much time to cook for every meal) We understand that work schedules can be hectic and food preparation is sometimes overwhelming. So, for those moments when you are forced to choose between "eating out" for lunch or starving, Brians Bowls is a great solution. It's really a fantastic idea and in my opinion, a huge step towards helping people with their nutritional struggles. I won't go into a "save the world from diabetes" rant right now, but I will say that what they are doing is super cool.

Browse the website. As of right now they only deliver to the South Bay but if there are enough people interested in ordering, they would be willing to make PCF a new delivery stop. That is, if you're responsible enough to leave payment with the Diso's ahead of time.

Let me know what you guys think, perhaps a discount rate could be applied for large orders! :)

Get nerdy!

2011-08-15T22:25:00.000-07:00

Article borrowed for your nerdy pleasure from Mark's Daily Apple...

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“People from Africa, Asia, and Latin America eat lots of grains and manage to stay skinny, so what’s the deal?”

You know this line of questioning. We’ve all heard it. We’ve probably all pondered it. It may have even stumped a few of you, left you stuttering and stammering for a quick explanation. But by the time you think of a reply (if you even have one), the moment has passed and they have “won” the argument.

A briefly open mind was now closed. But let’s be honest: it’s a valid question, and a tough one at that. We can’t just avoid the tough questions. So let’s take this head on.

Like always, the answer is multifaceted. Health is not reliant on a single feature. It’s not just diet, it’s exercise, stress, sleep, family, community, genetics, infectious burden. Within diet, it’s not just what is eaten, but also what isn’t eaten. It’s how food is prepared, whether it’s cooked or eaten raw. Find me a culture who thrived on grains as a staple food, and I’ll find you a culture who came up with some elaborate preparation method to mitigate the antinutrients and enhance the nutrient bioavailability of those grains. Find me a culture whose health thrived on toxin-rich grains as a staple without mitigating said toxins, and I’ll be waiting a long time (and observing the United States through smug Primal shades while I wait).

In today’s post, I’m going to explore the primary reason for why so many traditional cultures who ate grains managed to stay thin and relatively free of degenerative diseases: traditional grain preparation, including soaking, sprouting, and fermentation. If you’re familiar with the Weston A. Price Foundation‘s stance on grains, you’re probably aware of these preparation methods. Each step alters the nutritional experience of the grain to varying degrees, making it more digestible, less toxic, and tastier. I for one am not willing to go through hoops to make grass babies go down easier, but the process is nonetheless extremely interesting. And in the future, if any of my readers want to give grains a shot, at least they’ll do it right, or as right as it can get. As I always say, the only reason to make grains any part of your diet is as a cheap source of calories that converts to glucose very quickly.

You know how cool parents will drink or smoke with their teens to teach them mature consumption of potentially illicit substances before they learn to do it all wrong it in the wild world? This post is kinda like that.

Let’s first do a quick rundown of what exactly we’re trying to avoid, deactivate, or mitigate. We gotta know what we’re up against.

Phytic acid: Phytic acid is the main storage form of phosphorus in grains. That’s awesome for the grain, which needs phosphorus, but there’s a catch. Phytate also binds to many minerals, including zinc, magnesium, calcium, and iron, to name several. And, since non-ruminants don’t possess phytase, which digests phytate and releases the bound minerals for easy absorption, eating large quantities of phytate-containing foods results in mineral deficiencies for meat-eating apes. These deficiencies, taken to an extreme, can manifest as tooth decay, which might explain why early grain eating populations had worse teeth than the hunter-gatherers who preceded them.

Enzyme inhibitors: Grains are seeds that require certain wet, nutrient rich conditions for proper growth. Spontaneous germination is counterproductive (you don’t want your children settling down in an area with high crime and high unemployment, do you?), so enzyme inhibitors prevent it. When moisture abounds (like, when soaking grains), the inhibitors are deactivated and sprouting occurs. So why should we care? Certain other enzyme inhibitors also inhibit our ability digest the grains. If you’re relying on grains as a dietary staple, you can’t afford not to wring every last drop of nutrition out of them.

Lectins: I covered lectins fairly comprehensively in a previous post, so I’ll keep it brief. Lectins are nature’s pesticides, protecting the tiny grain from predation. They can perforate the intestinal lining, disrupt our immune systems, and there’s even evidence that they bind to leptin receptors in the hypothalamus (potentially triggering leptin resistance).

Gluten: You know this guy. Found in wheat, rye, and barley, he’s a real bastard of a protein – and possibly not just to celiacs. There’s some evidence that true fermentation can break down gluten, but not all of it. Some Italian researchers used a unique blend of bacterial species to break down 99% of the gluten in sourdough bread, but it was under strict, extremely contrived laboratory conditions. More on that later.

So, how do traditional cultures take care of the aforementioned?

Soaking and Sprouting

I’ve written about soaking nuts and seeds before, and soaking grains is the same idea. The grains are covered with water, placed in a preferably warm place, and soaked for between 12 and 24 hours. There’s not much more to it than that. After soaking, you drain them, rinse them, and let the grains sit out for a couple days. To get grains to sprout, rinse and drain them a couple times each day until sprouts emerge.
Effect on phytate: If the grain contains phytase, some of the mineral-binding phytic acid will be deactivated, but not much. And if the grain has been heat-treated, which destroys phytase, or it contains very little phytase to begin with, the phytic acid will remain completely intact. Overall, neither soaking nor sprouting deactivates a significant amount of phytate.

Effect on enzyme inhibitors: Well, since the seed has been placed in a wet medium and allowed to sprout, the enzyme inhibitors are obviously mostly deactivated. Digestion is much improved (cooking will improve it further).

Effect on lectins: The evidence is mixed, and it seems to depend on the grain. Sprouted wheat, for example, is extremely high in WGA, the infamous wheat lectin. As the wheat grain germinates, the WGA is retained in the sprout and is dispersed throughout the finished plant. In other grains, sprouting seems more beneficial, but there’s always some residual lectins that may need further processing to deactivate.

Effect on gluten: Sprouting reduces gluten to some extent, but not by very much. Don’t count on it. A little bit goes a long way.

Fermentation

After soaking and grinding, grains are traditionally mixed with a starter culture or allowed to wild ferment. Starter cultures often include whey, kefir, yogurt, or left over fermentation medium from the previous batch. Wild fermentation occurs when the grain mixture employs bacteria already present on the grains, or picks up wild yeasts and bacteria from the environment. Both methods are far more effective than just soaking and sprouting at deactivating antinutrients and improving digestibility. Plus, fermentation lends interesting flavors to and enhances the shelf-life of the resultant food (which was extremely valuable in the days before refrigeration and canning).

Effect on phytate: Remember phytase? It’s the enzyme that deactivates phytate, and it really gets cooking during fermentation. In grains that contain high amounts of phytase, like wheat, rye, and buckwheat (technically a pseudo-cereal, but close enough), a day of fermentation deactivates most of the phytate. To degrade the phytate in low-phytase grains, however, the fermentation time must be extended. Adding small amounts of phytase-containing grain to the mix will also speed up the process. Increasing the temperature also improves phytate breakdown. In millet, a low-phytase grain, it took 72 hours to completely degrade the phytate. In wheat, it took ten hours to reach a maximum of 88.8% phytate reduction using a specific bacterial strain. Other strains resulted in reductions of between 28% and 86% (with most reaching above 80%). Standard quick rise baker’s yeast only reduced 16% of phytate (that’s what 99% of wheat eaters are eating nowadays, remember!). Ten hours may not always be enough, however – another fermentation study found that at 48 hours, phytate in wheat was still degrading.

Effect on enzyme inhibitors: Fermentation also significantly reduces enzyme inhibitor activity. A few examples would be prudent, since fermentation has different effects on different enzyme inhibitors in different grains. In 24 hour traditional sorghum fermentation, both trypsin inhibitor and amylase inhibitor (which impedes starch digestion) were reduced by up to 58% and 75%, respectively. In millet, a 48 hour fermentation was required to completely deactivate amylase inhibitor. As I mentioned in the last section, one study found that 48 hours of fermentation resulted in maximum wheat starch digestibility, presumably by deactivating amylase inhibitor.

Effect on lectins: Fermentation reduces lectin load fairly comprehensively across the board, but it might take longer than you can spare. In lentils (I know, not a grain, but with similar antinutrient issues), 72 and 96 hours of fermentation at 42 degrees C eliminated 98% and 97.8% of the lectins, respectively. Specific info on grain lectin breakdown due to fermentation is sparse. Overall, fermentation appears to be pretty effective at reducing lectins (and cooking reduces them further).

Effect on gluten: No store bought garden variety sourdough you find is going to be gluten-free. A team from Italy was able to produce a gluten-free sourdough wheat bread by using specific bacterial strains from all over the world and subjecting the bread to many days of fermentation. The process was totally unfeasible for the home or average commercial baker. There’s also a guy who sells monthlong fermented sourdough bread out of LA-area farmers’ markets and claims celiacs can eat it without issue. Reviews on Yelp seem to corroborate. Maybe I’ll swing by his stand and give it a shot, but I’m skeptical. And besides, I’m personally more worried by WGA, which is biologically active at nanomolar concentrations and which may not be fully degraded by fermentation.

To Eat, or Not to Eat

Some may turn up their noses at agrarian people for relying on a “sub-optimal” grain as staple food, but not me. Yeah, I’m definitely no fan of grains, and I think avoiding them is one of the biggest positive steps a person can take for their overall health. That’s beside the point. As a technical feat, I find the taming of the grain incredibly impressive, a testament to mankind’s awesome ability to adapt to and overcome adversity. Any other animal that switches over to a new staple food that prevents nutrient absorption, causes intestinal perforation, and increases inflammation had better develop some physiological adaptions to deal with the antinutritive factors, and quickly, if it doesn’t want to die out or be forced to move to a new habitat. A human, though? Humans figured out a way to preserve the toxic food, make it palatable, drastically reduce its antinutrient content, and make it more digestible, thanks to the big efficient brain inside our skulls. It’s not physiology (well, kind of), it’s not some advantageous mutation that’s naturally selected and saves the day. It’s human ingenuity, knowhow, knowledge, and wisdom. It is manipulation of the environment to suit our immediate needs. That gets us into trouble on occasion, but you can’t say it isn’t impressive.

That said, will I start soaking, sprouting, and fermenting big batches of grains in my kitchen? No. It’s way too much work and it’s unclear whether the toxins are fully mitigated (and in the case of wheat, they almost certainly are not). I’ll admit that crusty sourdough bread can be a nice occasional treat when eating out, but it’s not something I’m interested in eating on a regular basis. Furthermore, I’m not missing out on any magic nutrient by avoiding grains, but I am avoiding the elaborate prep work required to make them moderately edible (and the toxins that may or may not be deactivated). For the billions that rely on grains for sustenance, these traditional preparation methods are necessary. Choosing between potentially toxic food and starvation, you choose the food – no question – and then you do your best to make it more nutritious. For those of us who don’t need to make that choice, for whom bread is an extracurricular treat, I think removing the risk altogether by simply avoiding the potentially toxic food is a better move. And if it’s carbohydrate you’re after, stick with safe starch sources like roots, tubers, or even white rice (the sole grain that requires no elaborate processing).

But at least you know there’s a better way than what most people do with grains nowadays. At least there’s somewhat of a middle ground for people who won’t relinquish the grass babies.

What about you guys? Do you think you’ll ever experiment with traditional grain preparation?

Cabbage patch Kids!

2011-08-11T13:47:00.000-07:00

A big ass head of cabbage!

Dressing:
1/2 c Rice wine Vinegar
1/2 cTamari (not Paleo!!!)
1/4 c Sesame Oil
1/4 c. Honey
1 c Olive Oil or Grapeseed Oil
Several dashes of red pepper flakes

Pepitas or Almonds or BOTH!

Chiffonade the Cabbage. Put all ingredients for dressing in a shaker cup and shake it up.

Ta-DA!

Please feel free to add to the salad: chicken, shrimp, bell peppers, sesame seeds for more crunch, thinly sliced onion- red or green, fresh cilantro or parsley... and the options are endless!

O! Burger

2011-08-08T21:26:00.000-07:00

Many of you at the gym have the same obsession as I do for grass-fed beef burgers . I've seen MANY of you more than twice at The Counter. I don't blame you, I'm there quite often. It's a love affair that we all partake in because well... building your own burger is the best relationship strategy ever. And the sweet potato fries... straight food forplay.

On that note... I came across this new place in LA called O! Burger that serves grass-fed burgers. Lots of folks from this years Ancestral Health Symposium visited this restaurant and then blogged about it. It's quick, casual, organic and grass-fed. I like all of those things and I'm sure you will too. If you check it out before I do, let me know what you think. Perhaps The Counter will have some legit competition? Counter-4-life!

Chicken and Rice!

2011-08-03T12:16:00.000-07:00

Growing up my mother used to make this chicken and rice dish. She would bake the chicken tenders in rice coated with this creamy deliciousness. Some kind of milk, mushroom soup and butter concoction, I'm sure. Items that I would never eat today. Sad! It's definitely a comfort food that I can no longer enjoy. Until I find a way to make that dish paleo, this version of a chicken and rice dish will have to work. It's from the ladies over at Sweet Cheeks which means it's definitely delicious. The salsa gives it a little mexican spice and flare, which I'm never opposed to. I think that I might try it with a red salsa and use grilled red peppers instead of the spinach bed of lettuce. Make your own tweeks, be creative! :)

Chicken and Rice

Ingredients:

1 head or 1 bag cauliflower-chopped

1 small yellow onion-chopped

1 can green mild green chiles

2 chicken breast (baked and cubed very small)

black olives-sliced (garnish)

spinach

Trader Joe's Salsa Chile Verde

salt and pepper- to taste

dash Cayenne pepper

1 tsp Cumin

Olive oil

1.Chop cauliflower into small pieces, then, in a food processor pulse until the consistency of rice, very small pieces. Don't over pulse or you will make mush!

2. In a medium size sauce pan on medium heat add 1 tablespoon olive oil, add chopped onions and cook until golden and soft.

3. Add in cauliflower and cook until soft approx 5 minutes-taste for desired doneness.

4. Next add green chiles, a dash of cayenne, salt and pepper and cumin and chicken. Cook until Hot.

5. Serve on a bed of spinach topped with sliced olives and salsa Verde.

That's it. One pan does it all, that's of course if you've got your chicken prepped.

Carrot Salad!

2011-07-25T10:08:00.000-07:00

I still have in my fridge the carrots from the last two market orders. I need to chomp them down fast or throw them out. I've been debating what to do with them. I could boil them, roast them, make a puree... but for some reason all of those options just sounded really boring. As luck would have it, the ladies over at Sweet Cheeks have once again pulled through with this delicious looking summer salad. :)

Carrot Salad

2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger

2 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

2 tablespoon olive oil

2 tablespoon red wine vinegar

pepper

3 large carrots, peeled (or buy pre-shredded carrots)

¼ cup chopped fresh parsley

In a small bowl, combine ginger, oils, vinegar and pepper. Whisk to blend.

In a food processor, shred carrots. Drizzle about half of dressing over carrots and mix in parsley and sesame seeds.

Enjoy!

Oh, what to do with the big bunch of Chard that came in this weeks' produce delivery...

2011-07-21T12:20:00.000-07:00

Chard and Almond pesto
1½ teaspoons kosher salt
2 pounds Swiss chard
1 cup basil leaves, loosely packed
¼ cup fresh mint leaves, loosely packed
2 garlic cloves, crushed and peeled
10 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
⅓ cup almonds, sliced and toasted
½ teaspoon peperoncino flakes, or to taste

Bring a large pot of well-salted water (at least 6 quarts with 1 tablespoon salt) to the boil. As it heats, rinse and drain the chard leaves, and cut off the stems; if the central rib of the leaf is thick and tough, cut it out. (Save the trimmings for stock.) Pile up the leaves, and slice them crosswise into strips about 1 inch wide.

When the water's boiling, heap all the chard into the pot and stir, submerging the strips. Return the water to the boil, and cook the chard until tender to the bite, about 10 minutes. With a spider or other strainer, lift out the chard strips, and drop them into a colander.

When the chard has drained and cooled a bit, squeeze the strips by handfuls, pressing out the liquid. Loosen the clumps, and pile the strips in the colander.

To make the herb-and- almond pesto: Put into the food-processor bowl the basil and mint leaves, the crushed garlic cloves, three tablespoons of olive oil, and 1 teaspoon salt. Process to a chunky paste, about 10 seconds, then drop in the toasted almonds and process again for 10 seconds, or until you have a smooth bright-green paste.

~Lidia Bastianich

Braised Cabbage!

2011-07-17T21:01:00.000-07:00

If you've been wondering what to do with all the cabbage we have been getting in our market order, here is a wonderful recipe I found on nomnompaleo.com. It takes a really long time to cook even though the prep-time is only 15 minutes. But it's so worth it. You can cook that whole head of cabbage at once!! And in my opinion, much like brussel sprouts... anything braised tastes wayyyy better.

Braised Cabbage

1 medium head green cabbage (about 2 pounds)
1 large red or yellow onion, peeled and thickly sliced
1 large carrot, peeled and cut in 1/4-inch coins
1/4 cup chicken stock or water
1/4 cup lard, ghee, or bacon grease
Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
Aleppo peppers (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Lightly grease a large gratin dish or baking dish (13-by-9-inch works well) with fat of choice.
Peel off and discard any bruised or ragged outer leaves from the cabbage. Cut cabbage in half, then into 8 wedges. (Don’t trim away the cabbage heart.) Arrange the wedges in the baking dish on their sides, overlapping a little but trying for a single layer. Scatter the onion and carrot over the cabbage. Drizzle with stock or water and the melted fat. Season with salt, pepper and pepper flakes. Cover tightly with foil and transfer to the oven.
Braise for 1 hour. Uncover and gently turn the wedges with tongs, keeping them as intact as possible. Add a little water if pan is drying out. Cover pan and return to oven. Bake 1 hour.
Remove the foil, increase the heat to 400 and roast until vegetables begin to brown, about 15 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Why Snacking Makes You Weak, Not Just Fat!

2011-07-13T22:51:00.000-07:00

I came across this article today thanks to Katy Rickman over at Karma Crossit. I thought it did a great job explaining some basics. Be educated and enjoy! Click on the title of the article if you want to check out the entire blog. :)

Why Snacking Makes You Weak, Not Just Fat!

All of us want to stay as strong and fit as we can, with as little effort as we can…and the profusion of ridiculous exercise gadgets and workout books testifies to our desire to look like fitness models, while living and eating like Homer Simpson.

What we want...

...and what we get.

However, the government-recommended “food pyramid”—and its inevitable consequence, sugar (‘carbohydrate’) addiction—sabotages our efforts to be healthy and strong. Snacking doesn’t just make us fat…it makes us weak.
To explain why, we need to review some metabolic facts.

Insulin: The Storage Hormone
Our bodies strongly regulate ‘blood sugar’, which is just the amount of free glucose in our bloodstream. Under normal circumstances, this is about a teaspoon.
If we don’t have enough glucose in our blood, our cells start dying very quickly, starting with our brain. If we have too much, it slowly poisons the kidneys, eyes, heart, and circulatory system—and we experience all the complications of untreated diabetes, such as numbness, blindness, muscle wasting, gangrene, renal failure, and heart failure.
When we eat and digest food, its nutrients are absorbed into our blood, through our intestines. If that food contains glucose (‘starch’, ‘carbohydrate’, ‘sugar’)—or certain amino acids (‘protein’)—our pancreas secrete a hormone called insulin, which signals cells all over our bodies to take these nutrients out of our bloodstream and store them. This keeps our blood sugar from getting too high.
Since there’s a lot more than a teaspoon worth of glucose in most foods (look on the ingredient label: most of “Total Carbohydrate” is glucose), it’s obvious that both our pancreas’ production of insulin, and our cells’ response to insulin, has to be solid and well-regulated, or we will have major health problems—which we call diabetes.
(Diabetes is just long-term glucose poisoning. Type I diabetes is when your blood sugar stays high because your pancreas can’t make insulin. Type II diabetes is when your blood sugar stays high because your body stops responding to insulin.)

Here’s another important metabolic fact: unlike body fat, which is a dedicated organ for storing energy in the form of…fat, our body has no dedicated storage organ for protein. (Recall that “protein” is just chains of amino acids.) Our body’s tissues—primarily our muscles—do double duty here. Muscles move our bodies, and they provide a storage reserve for our body’s daily protein needs.

This is why long-term fasting, or protein deprivation, causes you to lose muscle: your body disassembles it for the amino acids it needs every day to maintain itself.

Insulin, Proteolysis, and Protein Synthesis: It’s Not Just About Blood Sugar

Insulin has many effects in the body, not all of which are completely understood. Click the image for a long discussion.

Now we are getting to the meat of the story.
There is an interesting fact about insulin: it doesn’t just cause our bodies to store fat, and it doesn’t just cause our bodies to try and build muscles and tissues. It also tends to inhibit proteolysis, which is the process by which our bodies break down our own tissues (again, primarily our skeletal muscles) for protein.
But it doesn’t always do this.

Am J Physiol. 1993 Nov;265(5 Pt 1):E715-21.
Acute hyperglycemia enhances proteolysis in normal man.
Flakoll PJ, Hill JO, Abumrad NN.
Skipping to the middle of the text:
“Previous studies from our laboratory have indicated that the effect of insulin on suppressing proteolysis is highly dependent on the availability of plasma amino acids. [...] At maximal insulin levels…protein breakdown was suppressed by approximately 90% when amino acids were available compared with 45% when hypoaminoacidemia was allowed to develop. These studies were performed with glucose fixed at euglycemic levels.”
So we know that insulin + available protein = 90% reduction in proteolysis, while insulin + no available protein = 45% reduction in proteolysis. Now we return to the abstract:
“ABSTRACT: The influence of hyperinsulinemic-hyperglycemia on protein and carbohydrate homeostasis was assessed using L-[1-13C]-leucine and [3-3H]glucose combined with open-circuit indirect calorimetry. After a 30-min basal period, healthy human volunteers were subjected to two sequential experimental periods (150 min each) during which insulin was continuously infused at a rate to elicit maximal effects (10.0 mU.kg-1 x min-1, resulting in 220-fold basal levels) in conjunction with an infusion of L-amino acids to maintain euleucinemia. Plasma glucose was maintained near basal (94 +/- 2 mg/dl) during period I and at twofold basal (191 +/- 4 mg/dl) during period II. The endogenous rate of leucine appearance (index of proteolysis in mumol.kg-1 x h-1) dropped by 80% from basal during period I (P < 0.01) but only by 44% during period II. [...] The present study demonstrates that, during hyperinsulinemia, acute elevations of plasma glucose to two times basal levels result in a marked stimulation of whole body proteolysis during hyperinsulinemia.”
And now we also know that normal blood sugar + maximal insulin = 80% reduction in proteolysis, whereas high blood sugar + maximal insulin = 44% redulction in proteolysis.

These are two very interesting sets of facts. Here’s the summary:

Insulin increases whole-body protein synthesis…but the protein has to come from somewhere.
If protein is available in the bloodsteam and your blood sugar is normal, insulin almost completely stops the process of breaking down your muscles for your protein needs. This makes sense: why break down muscle when protein is already available?
If protein is unavailable in the bloodstream, insulin only halfway stops this process. This also makes sense: if protein is unavailable from the food you ate, you still need to get it from somewhere.
If your blood sugar is high (twice normal), insulin stimulates whole body proteolysis.

And here’s the takeaway:
Every time you stimulate insulin production by eating carbohydrates, you need to eat some complete protein with it—or instead of rebuilding your muscles and tissues, your body will continue to disassemble itself to get that protein. And the higher your blood sugar spikes, the more your body will disassemble itself anyway.
Are you seeing the problem? When you eat, insulin signals your body to stop eating itself…but only if you’ve eaten protein, and only if your blood sugar isn’t spiking.
Every time you eat candy or drink a soda by itself, not only are you signaling your body to store fat…you’re disassembling your own muscle.
It’s even worse. That ‘healthy’ mid-afternoon apple or orange, to keep your blood sugar up? Same problem. And remember the food pyramid? Those “7-11 servings of heart-healthy whole grains” we’re all supposed to be eating every day? How are you going to stuff eleven servings into three meals?
You’re not: you’re going to snack.
That’s what we’re advised: never, ever let yourself get hungry. Keep your bloodstream filled with sugar and insulin at all times! So that’s what we do. Crackers, bagels, muffins, corn chips, rice cakes, cookies, danishes…all low-fat, of course.
And, even worse, low-protein. Being grain and sugar-based, snack foods contain little protein—and the protein they do contain is incomplete. (Corn and wheat are deficient in lysine, one of the essential amino acids.) If your body is short on any essential amino acid, it will still have to disassemble itself to get the one it needs, regardless of how much of all the others are available.
Every time you eat high-sugar, protein-deficient food—even whole fruit and “heart-healthy complex carbohydrates”—you’re making yourself fatter and weaker.
In support of this theory:

Ann Surg. 2005 Feb;241(2):334-42.
Influence of metformin on glucose intolerance and muscle catabolism following severe burn injury.
Gore DC, Wolf SE, Sanford A, Herndon DN, Wolfe RR.
“Metformin administration was also associated with a significant increase in the fractional synthetic rate of muscle protein and improvement in net muscle protein balance. Glucose kinetics and muscle protein metabolism were not significantly altered in the patients receiving placebo.
CONCLUSIONS: Metformin attenuates hyperglycemia and increases muscle protein synthesis in severely burned patients, thereby indicating a metabolic link between hyperglycemia and muscle loss following severe injury.”

Why would giving a diabetes drug to burn victims cause them to heal more quickly? Because metformin stops the liver from making glucose—lowering blood sugar.

Conclusion: Snacking Makes You Fat, And Snacking Makes You Weak

This explains a lot, doesn’t it? Why so many joggers can pound out hundreds of miles and still squeeze up muffin tops? Why so many cyclists can spin for thousands of miles and still have to stuff a beer gut into their Lycra? Why even the skinny ones often look like famine victims—not like strong, healthy, capable humans? And why you never look like the people in the magazine ads, no matter how long you spend on the hamster wheels at the gym?

This helps explain why so many vegans (especially raw vegans) appear scrawny and malnourished. Fruit might have some nutrients in it, but it’s still essentially protein-less sugar.
It also helps explain why obesity with Type II diabetes is so difficult to recover from: high blood sugar keeps you from building muscle like a normal person. (There are many other positive feedback loops in obesity and diabetes…this is just one of them.)

Not only does that post-workout bran muffin contain more calories than you burned—it’s making you fat, and you’re still losing the muscle you’re trying to build.
It’s not the “food pyramid”—it’s the “fat pyramid.”
Stop eating birdseed (‘grains’) and diesel fuel (‘vegetable oil’).
Start eating real food.
Live in freedom, live in beauty.
JS

Postscript: How Do I Stop Snacking, And What Do I Eat Instead?

Answer: eat real food and you won’t need to snack. Here’s how I stay lean and strong with very little effort.
For more information, you can read my three-part series on carbohydrate addiction: Mechanisms of Sugar Addiction, “Adjacent To This Complete Breakfast!”, and The Myth Of Complex Carbohydrates.

By J. Stanton | March 29th, 2011 | Category: Science
Tags: blood sugar, carbohydrate addiction, complex carbohydrates, diet, fat pyramid, food pyramid, how to stop snacking, paleo, snacking makes you fat, snacking makes you weak

Sweet Potato Hash!

2011-07-12T10:58:00.000-07:00

Gretchen's post today on the PCF blog was all about figuring out how to use your market order veggies quickly before they go bad. Well, here is a great idea. Perfect side to any meat dish. You've got your veggies and carbs all in one. Naturally, the veggies can always vary depending on what our lovely farmer brings to us. Experiment with seasonings and have fun! This recipe is compliments of the lovely ladies over at Sweet Cheeks. If you haven't checked out their blog, you can do so at sweetcheekshq.com. They are friends of the gym and super cool!

Sweet Potato Hash

2 sweet potato

1 small onions

1 zucchini

1 red peppers

2-4 slices bacon

small hand full chopped fresh sage

seasonings to taste:

chili powder

cayenne pepper

salt

pepper

olive oil

Preheat oven to 350.

1. Place bacon on baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes until almost crispy.

2. While bacon is baking, chop sweet potatoes into uniform size small cubes.

3. Remove bacon from sheet and lets drain on paper towels, next with same pan, in the bacon grease take about half of your chopped sweet potato mixture, toss with a little bit of salt, and broil until golden brown.

4. Chop the rest of the vegetables, onion, zucchini, peppers into the same size pieces as your sweet potato.

5. In a cast iron skillet coated with olive oil add in onions, cook for 2-3 minutes then add remainder of sweet potatoes cook until they start turning brown and golden. Then add in zucchini and peppers.

6. Use scissors to chop bacon add it in just before the vegetables are tender.

7. Season with chili powder, cayenne, salt and fresh chopped sage. Toss in broiled sweet potatoes that have a bacon essence.

8. Enjoy, serve with eggs, along side baked chicken or atop wilted greens!

Garlic-Lime Marinated Flank Steak Tacos!

2011-07-08T11:49:00.000-07:00

Diane Sanfilippo from Balanced Bites is a featured chef on Wellnessmeats.com this month and she created this delicious recipe using their grassfed flank steak. Place an order with Diso and enjoy some delicious tacos! :)

Marinade

juice of 1 lime
1/4 of a red onion, thinly sliced
1-2 cloves of garlic, grated or pressed
sea salt & black pepper
1 lb flank steak

Marinate steak for 1-3 hours in the fridge. Grill approximately 3-6 minutes per side depending on how well-done you like it. For an indoor grill-pan I recommend 3 minutes per side and then finishing in the oven at 400 degrees for 5 minutes. Serve with butter/Boston lettuce leaves, diced cucumber and 4-ingredient guacamole.

US News "Best" Diets

2011-07-05T22:39:00.000-07:00

If you are a paleo geek, then you've probably already heard something about the article that US News posted ranking the Paleo diet dead last in a list that included SlimFast, MediFast and Weight Watchers as contenders. If not, read up on what Dr. Loren Cordain had to say in response. It's such an amazing article. Makes my healthy heart tingle with happiness knowing that there is so much science and proof behind the successes of the Paleo diet. It makes me sad that people are still falling for these fad diets. Save your money! You shouldn't have to buy pre-packaged food or starter kits to be healthy. Just eat real food. The concept is simple and sweet as pie!

Click here for article: US News "Best Diets

Once you're done reading, go school (in a nice way) your friends with all of the cool things you learned. :)

Apple Blackberry Crisp

2011-06-23T10:16:00.000-07:00

I made this for a group of friends over the weekend. Four of us finished off the 13x9 pan of goodness. It was REALLY delicious. Summer is here and this is the perfect way to celebrate. MMmmmMmm, fruit!

Apple Blackberry Crisp

Ingredients:

5 apples, peeled, cored and sliced (Gala, Braeburn or Honeycrisp)

1 pint fresh blackberries

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon arrowroot powder

1 cup blanched almond flour

¼ teaspoon celtic sea salt

¼ teaspoon baking soda

2 tablespoons grapeseed oil

2 tablespoons agave nectar

Directions:

Place apples and blackberries in a large bowl
Sprinkle with lemon juice, vanilla and arrowroot, tossing to incorporate all ingredients
Place apple-blackberry mixture in an 8x8 inch baking dish and set aside
To make topping, in a medium bowl, combine almond flour, salt, baking soda, oil and agave
Crumble topping over apple-blackberry mixture
Cover with tinfoil and bake at 350° for 60 to 75 minutes until fruit is juicy and bubbling
Remove from oven and uncover
If topping is browned, allow to cool for 10-15 minutes
If topping is not yet browned place in oven uncovered for 5 minutes, or until browned
Serve and enjoy!

Suuuuuuuummertime!

2011-06-15T11:23:00.000-07:00

Nothing like grilled meat and veggies!

Asian Beef Kabobs

Marinade:

1/4 tsp red boat fish sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil
1/4 cup coconut aminos
3 cloves garlic minced
1 tbsp minced fresh ginger
1 tsp red pepper flakes
Black pepper

Skewer Ingredients:

1 lb flank steak, cut into chunks
1 green bell pepper, chopped into chunks
1 yellow onion, chopped into chunks
1 zucchini, sliced and halved

Process:

Marinate steak and vegetables for 1-4 hours in a Ziploc bag.
Preheat grill to medium-high heat.
Skewer the meat and vegetables on large metal skewers.
Grill 12-15 minutes, turning every 3-4 minutes until evenly cooked.

Asparagus Basil Salad

2011-06-08T22:17:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure why, perhaps it's because summer is coming, but I've been having cravings lately for foods that are fruity, tangy and sour. Smoothies, anything sauteed in lemon, crispy fresh watery veggies... you name it. Maybe I'm just dehydrated and need a glass of water, who knows. Whatever the reason, it led me to this salad recipe from elenaspantry.com and it is sound exactly like what I'm in the mood for. The tomatoes, lemon juice and dijon mustard will definitely give it that extra kick. Enjoy!

Asparagus Basil Salad

1 lb asparagus, trimmed and halved
1 cup grape tomatoes, halved
1 ripe avocado, cut into cubes
1 cup sliced basil leaves
¼ cup olive oil
2 teaspoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons dijon mustard
½ teaspoon celtic sea salt
½ teaspoon pepper

Directions:

Steam asparagus for 5-7 minutes until fork tender

Place asparagus, tomatoes, avocado and basil in a large bowl

Stir in olive oil, lemon juice and mustard

Sprinkle with salt and pepper

Serve

Avocado Goodness

2011-06-03T09:59:00.000-07:00

I found this recipe at everydaypaleo.com. It's perfect considering how many avocados we get in our market orders. A simple and tasty snack. Enjoy!

Avocado Goodness

2-3 avocados, cut in half and the pit removed

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

¼ teaspoon garlic powder

¼ teaspoon sea salt

Black pepper to taste

Whisk the dressing ingredients together and fill each avocado half with the dressing, eat the avocado and the dressing with a spoon.

The Great Bacon Debate

2011-06-02T11:34:00.000-07:00

If you've been eating paleo or zone for awhile you should know by now how popular it is among your crossfitting peers. It's undeniably delicious. I, for one, get super excited over any dish containing bacon. But, as the world turns, so does your diet. My paleo diet is constant but there are definitely things that seem to come and go. I get hooked on foods, like bacon, and tend to overdue it. After reading these articles, I am beginning to question my love for bacon. Is it an item that is super unhealthy or something that is fine in moderation? Awhile ago I found myself having this same debate over dairy. In the end I decided to listen to my body. My stomach ultimately said "no, thank you."

Anyway, read up paleo kids. I don't know A LOT about this topic, but these articles give enough insight to make me want to further educate myself. I hope it does the same for you. I'd love to hear your thoughts, post comments!

1. Bacon: Health Food or Devil in Delicious Disguise? (by Diane Sanfilippo)

2. http://whole9life.com/2011/05/the-bacon-bummer/

Pork stuffed Pork Chops

2011-05-26T23:01:00.000-07:00

Yea, I got your attention! Pork INSIDE of pork? It makes it total sense.

Preheat oven at 350 degrees.

1-1/4# Sausage link of your choice (raw). Spicy Italian works out great
1 med Granny Smith apple, small dice
6 med White mushrooms
1/4 onion, small dice
1 ea celery stalk, small dice
1/2 tsp dried sage
S/P
Oil to saute, I use coconut oil

2 Thick cut Pork chops, bone-in, at least 2"-3" in thickness, about a 1# each.

Remove sausage from casing and saute in a very hot pan, breaking up the meat. Brown. Add onion, saute until translucent. Add apples. Saute for 2 mins. Add Celery. Saute for 2 mins. Add mushrooms. Add salt; this will draw out the water from the mushrooms. Saute from another 3 minutes.

Cool sausage stuffing.

*For those in new territory being in the kitchen, to Saute is derived from the verb sauter "to jump." So when you saute it usually mean med-high heat, with constant stirring and movement in the pan.

With a sharp knife, cut a long slit in the middle of the pork chops, lengthwise, starting opposite of the bone. You want to make a deep pocket to stuff. Once the stuffing is cool, pack as much of it into the slit. Taking toothpicks, use them to "staple" the slit closed.

In an oven safe fry pan, heat oil (coconut oil because it has a high smoke point 300+ degrees) until smoking. Sear both sides until a nice crisp, dark brown. Immediately stick into the oven. 1# should take about 35-40 mins. I would pull it out at 35 mins, cover with foil and let the meat "rest." It will continue to cook out of the oven. But always check with a fork that the juices run clear and not red, pink is ok. REMOVE THE TOOTHPICKS BEFORE SERVING :)

Be a heathen and throw out the knife and fork and eat it with your hands-- that's why there's a bone, it doubles as a handle :)

~Chef Assassin

Stuffed Bison Filets!

2011-05-25T20:21:00.000-07:00

I saw this recipe on primal-palate.com and immediately thought of Diso. But to all of the other meat lovers out there... enjoy. The bison filets used in this recipe are from US Wellsness Meats and well, the description that these paleo bloggers give is perfect...

"This recipe was unbelievable. I'm pretty sure Bill and I both agree that we would willingly eat this every night of the week with no complaints whatsoever. The grass fed bison filets from US Wellness were so tender and juicy. They literally melted in our mouths. The flavors of the mushroom and onion stuffing, sauteed in a hint of balsamic vinegar complimented the flavors of the steaks beautifully. I think we will be dreaming of this recipe until we place our next order." -Bill and Haley (primal-palate.com)

Ingredients:

2 grass-fed bison tenderloin filets
1 package (about a cup and a half) of shiitake mushrooms, stems removed
1 small yellow onion, thinly sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon unrefined, virgin coconut oil
2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
Salt and black pepper to taste

Process:

In a frying pan, melt coconut oil on medium heat.
Add garlic, onion, and mushrooms to the frying pan and saute until the onions are translucent and the mushrooms have softened.
Pour balsamic vinegar over mushrooms, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and continue to saute for 3-5 minutes.
Remove mushrooms from heat and set aside.
Preheat grill to medium heat.
Rinse bison filets under cold water and pat dry with a paper towel.
Cut a small pocket in each filet, leaving about 1/2 an inch between the pocket and the outside of the filet.
Stuff the filets with the sauteed mushrooms and onion, leaving remaining mushrooms for garnish.
Grill bison filets for 5-7 minutes per side.
Top with sauteed mushrooms, and serve.

Paleo Choc-Chip Cookies (again)

2011-05-20T10:58:00.000-07:00

Chocolate Chip Cookies (paleo, of course)

People have been asking me to repost this recipe, so here you go! One day I'll fix the "search" button on the blog so you all can easily find old recipes.

***One thing to note is the brand of chocolate chips. In order to keep these paleo, buying that brand is very important. Most choc chips contain soy but the "Enjoy Life" brand is gluten/dairy/soy/nut free. You can find them at Whole Foods. :)

Ingredients:

3 cups Blanched Almond Flour
1/2 cup Virgin Coconut Oil, unrefined
1/2 cup Pure Maple Syrup (I use dark amber)
2 Omega 3 Eggs
1 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 1/2 cups Enjoy Life Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
In a medium sized mixing bowl combine dry ingredients.
In a small mixing bowl beat eggs, maple syrup, and vanilla extract with a hand mixer. (My hand mixer broke so I just used a wooden spoon and my crossfit muscles. They still came out delicious)
Pour wet ingredients into dry and beat with hand mixer until combined.
Melt coconut oil, pour into batter, and continue to blend until combined.

Stir in chocolate chips.

On a parchment lined baking sheet, drop balls of cookie dough, about a tablespoon in size.
Bake for 15 minutes.

Breakfast cupcakes!

2011-05-17T21:31:00.000-07:00

It's very strange that I've never posted anything breakfast related before because it really is my favorite meal of the day. I have perfected my omelet down to the last detail. But this little take on it makes it way more fun and... you can make these once to last all week, CRAZY! I added and subtracted some ingredients to better suit my own taste buds (added bacon and kale), but you can find the original recipe and more at primal-palate.com.

Ingredients:

50/50 mix of omega 3 eggs and Trader Joe's Cage Free 100% Liquid Egg Whites
Red onions
Kale or spinach
Peppers (green or red)
bacon
Coconut oil
Non-stick muffin pan or a traditional size muffin pan with cupcake papers.

Process:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Saute the vegetables in a frying pan over medium heat with the coconut oil. Besides tasting great, coconut oil has many health benefits (and is also a fat-burning catalyst, because it is a medium chain fatty acid. Here is a great article explaining the health benefits of coconut oil!)
Cut off the sauteing process about half-way through cooking. The veggies will finish in the oven.
Divide vegetables evenly between your muffin tins.
Mix the eggs and the egg whites in a bowl, and pour into the tins. Only fill the tins ¾ of the way to the top – they will rise a little.
Stir the vegetable and egg mixture briefly to disperse the vegetables evenly in the tins.
Bake the egg muffins in the oven for approximately 20 minutes. Your cooking time may vary depending on the tin, the oven. Adjust accordingly.
Once muffins have cooled, store in your refrigerator for a healthy breakfast meal / anytime snack! They typically keep for about a week.

Curried Meatballs!

2011-05-13T16:48:00.000-07:00

I used this recipe last night to cook my first order of ground bison from US Wellness Meats. Let's just say... I will never buy anything else. It was so tender and juicy... I barely had to chew it. Diso was right all along, Ha. This curry recipe complimented it really well and it was HONESTLY super fast to make. Try it out this weekend!

Meatballs

3 lbs ground beef

1 cup finely diced red onion

1 cup apple finely diced

1 egg

2 tablespoons curry powder

½ tablespoon sea salt

Fresh ground black pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400. In a large bowl, place all of the meatball ingredients and mix well. using your hands. Form into meatballs just a little bit bigger than a golf ball and place into a large glass baking dish. Bake for 25 minutes. Makes 24 meatballs. While the meatballs are cooking prepare the sauce!

Curry Sauce

2 tablespoons coconut oil

1 teaspoon crushed garlic

1 tablespoon raw organic honey (optional)

1 tablespoon curry powder

2 tablespoons tomato paste

½ cup chicken broth

In a large skillet saute the garlic in the coconut oil over medium heat for 2-3 minutes. Add the honey, curry powder, and tomato paste and whisk together. Add the chicken broth and continue to whisk until the sauce is smooth. Bring to a simmer. After the meatballs come out of the oven, add them to the sauce in the skillet and coat well. Cover and cook for an additional 5-10 minutes. Serves 6-7.

Warm Spinach and Sweet Potato Salad!

2011-05-09T10:31:00.000-07:00

I found this little gem today on primal-palate.com and my mouth immediately began to salivate. Fancy salads have been a minor obsession lately. Mendocino Farms and Tender Greens being some favorite lunch spots. Check these places out or... make this one at home. So easy and delicious. (duh, there's bacon in it)

Warm Spinach and Sweet Potato Salad

Salad Ingredients:

3 cups peeled and diced sweet potatoes

1 tbsp coconut oil

1 apple diced

8 strips of bacon, diced

2 leeks, thinly sliced

6 oz of fresh baby spinach

Handful of sliced almonds for garnish

Dressing:

¼ cup olive oil

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

1 tsp spicy brown mustard (from Trader Joe’s)

Fresh ground black pepper to taste

1 tbsp of dried basil

Pinch of cayenne pepper

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 400. Toss the diced sweet potatoes with the coconut oil and spread evenly on a baking sheet. Bake in your preheated oven for 20 minutes. While the sweet potatoes are baking, cook the diced bacon in a large skillet. Once the bacon is crispy, add the sliced leeks in with the bacon and saute for another 4-5 minutes. Put your spinach in a large salad bowl and add the bacon and leek mixture. Toss well, letting the warm bacon wilt the spinach. Add the apples and sweet potatoes to the salad and toss together. In a separate bowl whisk together the salad dressing ingredients. Pour over the salad, mix well and garnish with the sliced almonds.

Hard Work Pays off

2011-05-03T10:18:00.000-07:00

I'm a day late, but I just wanted to say congrats to everyone who participated in the IWC Challenge. I'm so excited to see how going paleo/zone has transformed all of you! There are so many great benefits to eating clean food. The goal of this challenge was to help your mind/body get accustomed to eating clean so that you could reap the benefits of being stronger, faster, and healthier.

Before this challenge started, I was eating mostly paleo. Mostly meaning no gluten/dairy/soy because it makes me super sick. BUT...I was consuming way too much sugar (fruit, dark chocolate) trying to compensate for always being hungry. For this challenge, I cut all of those sugars out. Haven't had one chocolate bar, fruit occasionally (not everyday) and I can totally feel the difference. I have lost a little bit of mid-belly softness, I'm not savagely hungry between meals and I have found that I sleep sooooo much better when sugar is absent in my diet. I have also gotten significantly stronger. Little by little lifting more and more weight. So many PR's since the challenge started.

Food has some crazy effects on the mind/body. I would love to hear your experiences, struggles, victories, PR's, epiphanies with the challenge. On that note, take some time to celebrate your accomplishments. Keeping it clean, of course!

I celebrated last night with a little bit of this goodness... :)

The Battle over Grass-fed Meat

2011-04-29T11:38:00.000-07:00

My friend Will at Karma Crossfit in Manhattan Beach, showed me this article on Robbwolf.com this morning. It's astonishing to say the least. And the report Fox News did about grass-fed beef makes me want to throw a kettlebell through their studio window.

Anyway, watch and read for yourself.

Link to video... Why Grassfed Beef is Worse for the Environment

Link to article... Shit Fox News Says

Tacos

2011-04-27T11:00:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, sorry I've been lagging lately. I've been really busy. So, I found a quick and delicious recipe from primal-palate.com for those of you who work long hours or can't seem to detach yourself from the barbell. It's one of my favorites. Who doesn't love tacos... c'mon.

Ingredients:

2 T chili powder

1-1/2 T cumin

1-1/2 T paprika

1 T onion powder

1 T garlic powder

2 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

Process:

Cook ground turkey on medium until all pink is gone. Drain off most of the juices, and mix in 1 tbsp of the taco seasoning.
Continue to mix seasoning in until uniformly distributed.
Place 1/2 cup of ground turkey on a lettuce leaf, then put on the toppings of your choice. I typically do all the toppings shown at right (onion, avocado, tomato & black olives).
Wrap the lettuce leaf around the meat and eat it!

Some simple sides for your Easter feast.

2011-04-22T10:53:00.000-07:00

Garlic and Herb Mashed Cauliflower

Ingredients:

1 head of cauliflower, washed, and cut into florets
1 vidalia onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tablespoon fresh thyme, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, chopped
2 tablespoons kerrygold unsalted butter
Salt and pepper to taste

Process:

Place cauliflower in a steamer basket in a large soup pot, season with salt and pepper, and steam until soft (about 10-12 minutes, test with a fork).
Heat 1 tablespoon of kerrygold butter in a non-stick frying pan on medium heat.
Saute onion, garlic, and herbs until onion is translucent. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.
Place steamed cauliflower into a high speed blender or food processor. Add the sauteed onion, garlic, and herbs, along with the second tablespoon of butter. Process until smooth.
Garnish with a sprig of rosemary, or a sprinkling of fresh ground pepper.

Kale Salad with Fresh Mint & Orange Vinaigrette

(the picture shows spinach but I say use the kale we got in this week's market order)

Salad Ingredients:

4 cups blanched kale1 small red beet, raw, peeled & shredded
1 small zucchini, raw & shredded
(using a food processor with a shredding disc is ideal, or you can shred them by hand)

Mint & Orange Vinaigrette Ingredients:

Juice + zest of 1 orange (you can use a lemon if you don’t have an orange)
1 Tbsp Raw Organic Apple Cider Vinegar or more to taste
2 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil (or melted coconut oil/bacon fat)
1/2 Tsp gluten-free dijon mustard
4 fresh spearmint leaves, finely chopped
pinch of granulated garlic/garlic powder (or grate a bit of fresh garlic on a zester!)
sea salt & pepper to taste

Preparation:

Place spinach in your salad bowl or plate.
Shred the beet and zucchini.
Whisk to combine the dressing ingredients, then toss the shredded beet & zucchini into the dressing.
Top the spinach with the dressed, shredded veggies.
Garnish with half of an orange slice and sprig of mint. Done!

and of course...

Roasted Asparagus

Ingredients:

1 bunch of asparagus
2 tablespoons olive oil¼ - ½ teaspoon celtic sea salt

Trim dried parts from bottom of asparagus stalks, removing ½ an inch
Line asparagus spears side-by-side, in a single layer, in a 9x13 pyrex baking dish
Drizzle with olive oil and then sprinkle with salt
Give the pan a few shakes to roll the asparagus a half-turn
Roast in an oven at 350° for 10 to 12 minutes, remove from oven when tips start to brown
Cool a few minutes, then serve

Roasted Beef Brisket

2011-04-20T10:33:00.001-07:00

I've been obsessing about baking brisket lately. I don't own a roasting pan with a rack, but I think after finding this recipe I'm just gonna have to suck it up and go buy one. You should too! This dish takes awhile to cook but just look at that meat. So tender and juicy. Nothing compares!

Roasted Beef Brisket with Parsley, Mint and Thyme

Ingredients

1 (4-pound) beef brisket, trimmed
Salt and pepper to taste
3/4 cup roughly chopped fresh parsley
1/2 cup roughly chopped fresh mint
2 tablespoons roughly chopped fresh thyme
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
6 cloves garlic
1 cup roughly chopped yellow onion
2 cups low-sodium chicken broth

Directions

Preheat oven to 350°F. Season brisket all over with salt and pepper and then arrange on a rack in a roasting pan; roast for 1 hour. Meanwhile, put parsley, mint, thyme, vinegar, pepper flakes, garlic, onion, salt and pepper into a food processor and pulse to make a thick paste; set aside.

After 1 hour, remove brisket from oven; reduce oven temperature to 325°F. Carefully add broth to pan, spread herb paste over brisket, cover pan with foil and continue roasting, basting every 45 minutes or so, until very tender, 2 to 3 hours more. Transfer brisket to a platter; set aside to let rest for 10 minutes. Skim off and discard any fat from liquid in pan. Trim brisket further, if desired, then thinly slice against the grain and spoon pan sauce over the top.

Legumes

2011-04-18T12:05:00.000-07:00

Beans beans, the magical fruit. The more you eat the more you...

Click on the picture for a great article about legumes that was posted on whole9life.com. You'd be surprised how much damage these little guys do to your body. Read on, learn some things, then go battle the other bean-eating kids on the playground who are tooting all over the place. :)

How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick

2011-04-14T11:22:00.000-07:00

Thanks Joe Unger for sharing this article. It's some good reading. A little depressing, but insightful. Hopefully these articles are encouraging you to eat clean food. It's so super important, physically and mentally.

Click HERE to find out why the effects of urbanization are making people everywhere in the world both fatter and sicker.

Spicy Stuffed Peppers

2011-04-13T15:10:00.000-07:00

Day 31 of the IWC Challenge. So close to the finish line, keep up the good work! Here is a great recipe from primal-palate.com to help keep you going. Growing up, my mother made these for my dad alll the time. Granted, she stuffed them with rice and put a lot of cheese on top, but I'm guessing this paleo version tastes just as lovely (especially if you use all the good spices).

Try it, let me know how it turns out. :)

Ingredients:

4 Bell Peppers
1 lb Lean ground turkey
1/2 Onion, chopped
2 cups Cauliflower, grated
1 large tomato, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
Montreal Steak Seasoning
Crushed pepper
Olive Oil

Process:

Preheat oven to 400°.
Clean all vegetables, slice peppers approximately 1" from tops and save tops. For miniature peppers, slice closer to the top.
Clean out seeds and membrane from the inside of the peppers, then rinse.
Grate cauliflower coarsely, and microwave for 1.5 minutes (if you'd prefer, you can add it earlier on in the sauteeing below in place of microwaving*).
Cook turkey in a skillet on medium heat, and add Montreal steak seasoning, salt and crushed pepper to taste.
Once turkey has cooked through, remove from heat and set aside in a bowl.
Saute onion and garlic in your choice of coconut oil or olive oil. Add in tomato to briefly saute (about 1 minute)
Add in cauliflower rice, then turkey and stir for 2-3 minutes before removing from heat. Allow mixture to cool a few minutes.
Scoop turkey mixture into peppers, re-cap, then brush the outsides lightly with olive oil.
Bake peppers for 15 minutes at 400°, or until edges are golden and peppers are somewhat soft. Smaller peppers take approximately 20 minutes to cook.

Sugar and Sweeteners!

2011-04-12T12:12:00.000-07:00

Great article about sugar on BalancedBites.com today. Diane Sanfilippo knows what she's talking about. Here is it, copied directly from her site. :)

The Dish on Sugar & Sweeteners

I get a TON of questions about sugar and sweeteners. Most people just want to know which are okay to eat and which are bad. But, of course, I can’t just say “eat this, not that” without some kind of explanation behind it. In an effort to keep this as short and sweet (pun intended) as possible, I’m going to boil it down to a few key points.

1. ALL sweeteners, caloric or non-caloric, can contribute to weight-gain or prohibit weight loss.
2. Sweeteners that come from nature are always better to consume than those that come from a lab or factory.
3. Regardless of the source, it’s ALWAYS best to minimize your exposure to sweeteners.

To read what Diane has to say about these 3 key points... click HERE!

Bacon-topped Spinach and Mushroom Meatloaf

2011-04-08T16:12:00.000-07:00

Super Porktastic Bacon-Topped Spinach and Mushroom Meatloaf

Heading into another paleo weekend. Weather report says it's supposed to be cold and rainy all weekend. Perfect weather to try out a warm and cozy meatloaf. This recipe from nomnompaleo.com caught my eye because of it's topping. I can't deny bacon. When it calls out to me I give in. Oh, so delicious!

Ingredients:

1 pound chopped spinach
1 ¼ pounds of pork, veal, or beef
¼ cup coconut flour
1 medium garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more as needed
1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper, plus more as needed
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 cup small-dice celery (from about 2 medium stalks)
1/2 cup loosely packed fresh Italian parsley leaves
1/4 cup coconut cream or coconut milk
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1/2 cup finely chopped yellow onion (from 1/2 medium onion)
1/2 pound finely chopped Cremini mushrooms
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
3-5 bacon slices
Tomato sauce, warmed, for serving (optional)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 F with the rack placed in the middle.
Sautee spinach until it's soft, press all of the excess water out of it.
Heat the butter over medium heat in a large cast iron skillet and toss in the chopped onions and mushrooms, along with some salt and pepper to taste. Sautee until the liquid evaporates and the onions are softened.
Blend coconut cream, parsley and celery until a puree is formed.
Place the pork in a large bowl, followed by the chopped spinach, coconut flour, garlic, measured salt and pepper, and nutmeg.
Then add the coconut cream puree, beaten eggs, onions, and mushrooms.
Mix ingredients together with your hands.
Transfer mix into an UNGREASED 9x5 loaf pan.
Layer the bacon on top then bake the loaf for 70 minutes, rotating it at the halfway point.
Broil for 3 minutes to crisp the bacon on top.
There's quite a but of grease that pools in the pan so pour it off and let the roast sit for 20 minutes before eating.

Starting your own Garden

2011-04-06T10:57:00.000-07:00

Starting Your Own Garden

As some of you may have heard, Diso and I were throwing around the idea of starting a garden on the roof of the gym. Unfortunately, the landlord said no. But, we aren't going to let that get us down. Having a community garden for gym members would be so much fun. There is nothing more primal and paleo than growing your own veggies and spices. How awesome would it be to just walk outside after doing Fran and picking your own veggies for dinner? Anyway, ideas are still being tossed around so if you have any, we'd love to hear them.

(Click HERE for article)

I know a lot of us live in apartments that don't cater to our community garden dreams, but if you have your own space that could accomodate a garden, consider doing it. You can grow a lot of food in a small space. I found this article on RobWolf.com yesterday and took it as a sign from the crossfit gods that starting a community garden for PCF is something that just needs to be done. For those of you who have the spacial capabilities to start a garden, this article will be of much help to you. For those of you still dreaming, it's a nice inspirational read. :)

Eating Meat

2011-04-05T12:13:00.000-07:00

Eating Meat: A Primer for the Meat-Challenged

I remember when I first started eating Paleo. I was still on the college diet. Anything that was cheap. Pasta, frozen pizza, peanut butter and jelly... anything from the 99 cent store. The thought of eating a big slab of meat for every meal was exhausting. But once I cut out grains, there really wasn't much else to eat. My new relationship with meat began. And I must say, this is a relationship that will last forever. I started out cooking simple things, things I knew. Ground meat and some chicken... that was etty much it. Then slowy, meat became something that I craved all the time. Now, I cook all kinds of fish, steak, fliet mignon, ground turkey, pork chops, you name it.

Here is a helpful article from whole9life.com. It's breaks down reasons why meat is such a good thing and gives you tips on how to make it a regular staple of your diet. For those of you who still have a hard time eating meat, I highly suggest you read this. (Click HERE.)

Just a small side-note: When purchasing meat, try to buy grassfed as much as you can. Aside from the health benefits of not ingesting chemicals and antibiotics, they taste amazing! So juicy and tender. Remember, you eat what the animal eats. :)

Ask Diso about the monthly US Wellness Meat order he places every month. It's well worth your money!

Grilled Mahi Mahi with Mango Chutney

2011-04-04T10:47:00.000-07:00

Grilled Mahi Mahi with Mango Chutney

I made this last night for dinner and it turned out great. Not all of us are lucky enough to have a full-size grill, so I used a George Forman Grill and it worked just fine. The fish stayed super juicy, despite what I had expected.

Classic mango chutney has added sugar, but the recipe relied solely on the ripe mango for the sweet flavor of the dish. This mango chutney packs a powerful flavor punch, so they kept the seasoning for the fish more mild. They accompanied the dish with a simple cauliflower rice to bring it all together. You can find this recipe and more at primal-palate.com.

Ingredients: Mango Chutney

2 ripe mangoes, chopped into bite size pieces
1 red bell pepper, chopped into bite size pieces
1/2 of a large red onion, chopped into bite size pieces
1 tablespoon garlic, minced
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, minced
The juice of 1.5 limes
1 tablespoon coconut oil
1 tablespoon curry powder
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Process:

In a large frying pan, heat coconut oil on medium.
Add garlic and ginger to the frying pan and saute for 2 minutes.
Add red onion and red bell pepper to the frying pan and continue to saute for another minute.
Add the chopped mango, lime juice, curry powder, and red pepper flakes. Continue to saute until the red bell pepper, onion, and mango have softened. About 5 minutes.
Turn heat down to simmer, and cover with a lid until serving.

Ingredients: Grilled Mahi Mahi

4 Mahi Mahi filets (ours were about 5-6 oz in size each) (I used two big fillets from Trader Joe's)
The juice of one lemon
1/2 cup olive oil
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp red pepper flakes
3 cloves garlic, chopped

Process:

Combine marinade ingredients in a food processor until well blended. (I used a magic bullet)
Marinate the fish in a ziploc bag for up to 1 hour before grilling.
Heat grill to medium heat (about 400 degrees). If you have a fish plate for your grill, allow it to preheat as well.
Place fish on the grill, skin side down first. Cook for 4-5 minutes before flipping.
Cook opposite side for 4-5 minutes, until fish is opaque in the center.

(almond flour crust) QUICHE.

2011-03-31T21:40:00.000-07:00

Sun-dried tomatoes, mushrooms, chives, shallots. delicious!

Ingredients – serves 8
(taken & crust slightly modified from cosmopolitanprimalgirl.wordpress.com)

Crust
- 1 Cup almond flour
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1 egg
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp sea salt

For the crust:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix Melted butter, almond flour, egg, baking soda, and salt in large bowl.
3. Take crust and form in pie pan. Push up edges edges of plate
and form even layer.( hint, hint: Plastic wrap between your hand and the crust may
help) Poke a few holes in the bottom of the crust with a fork.
4. Place crust in oven until you have a lightly browned crust.
5. Remove crust from oven and set aside. No need to refrigerate overnight.

Filling
- 16 eggs
- 6 shallots – chopped
- 3-4 Cups mushrooms – sliced
- 2 Tbsp fresh chives – chopped
- 1 cup sun dried tomato
- 1/2 cup Broccoli florets (or any other veggies you fancy!)

Directions
1. Pre-heat oven to 375
2. In a small bowl mix together ingredients
3. While crust is baking, heat 1 Tbsp of olive oil in a skillet and add the shallots, Once shallots have softened, add mushrooms and cook through
4. Add chives for the last 2 minutes of cooking the mushrooms. Set aside.
5. In a bowl, whisk together eggs
8. Pour the mushrooms/shallots into the bowl with the eggs and stir together.
9. Pour the egg mixture into the baking dish.
10. Bake in the oven for about 45 minutes – or until the eggs are cooked (test with a fork..)

Coconut oil

2011-03-29T22:38:00.000-07:00

Some good reading for the 17th day of the challenge. Also, it will give you something to think about while doing the Crossfit Games Open 11.2 workout. Longest 15 minutes of your life... Hahaha!

Click on the picture to view this awesome article :)

Have a wonderful Wednesday everyone.

IWC Day 16!

2011-03-29T08:59:00.000-07:00

I love meat delivery day:)

Riceless Jambalaya - IWC Day 15

2011-03-27T23:15:00.000-07:00

I made this one pot dish this past Friday night for some fellow PCF'ers and the result was a completely empty pot.

Many of you may or may not know that I have a professional cooking background, so I cook by instinct using my all my senses to gauge flavor. I don't really follow a recipe, nor do I measure, so I apologize in advance if the amounts seem "off." Cooking in pro kitchens we mesure by weight, not by volume, so my estimates will be by weight or by the each whenever possible. Have faith that if you make it with love, it will be delicious.

6 chicken thighs (I leave the skin on. FAT=FLAVOR!!!)
4 chicken breasts (See above^^)
1# Andouille sausage (see Courtneyrose)
1# 30-40 peeled, raw Shrimp (this means there are 30-40 shrimp in a pound- it's the size of the shrimp)
4 Celery stalks
2 Green Bell peppers
1/2 large yellow onion
2 med. tomatoes, diced.
5 cloves of garlic
2 bay leaf
1 teaspoon of Worchestershire (I actually omitted this, but it's probably tasty)
1/2 bottle of lousianna hot sauce (I like it hot :)
1 tbls Coconut Oil
2 tablespoons of Creole Seasoning (recipe below. You can buy premade Creole seasoning, but I recommend making your own so you can control your sodium content)

Dice/Chop all veg into 3/4" pieces. Set aside.
"Smash" garlic. Set aside.
Slice andouille into pieces. Set aside.
Cut chicken breast into 1" cubes. Split the thighs into 3 pieces, using a meat cleaver. Or you can slice the meat off the bone. Sprinkle Creole Seasoning onto meat and massage the seasoning into the chicken. Yes, touch your meat!!!

Heat coconut oil in heavy bottom pot. Brown the sausage. Remove from pot. Add dice onion, bell pepper and celery. Saute over med-high heat, stirring constantly, for 5 mins or until onion is translucent. Add garlic. Once the garlic is"fragrant," add tomatoes and bay leaves. Stir well, scraping the bottom of the pan so you can loosen all the tasty, crusty bits of flavor.

Add all seasoned chicken pieces to the pot. Return sausage to pot as well. Add enough water to barely cover the meat. Add hot sauce to your taste (1/2 bottle was perfect!!!). Bring to boil, then drop heat to medium and "half" cover the pot, so water can evaporate and intensify the flavors.

Simmer for about 20 mins. Taste the broth. Test for salt and heat. Adjust as necessary. Stir in raw shrimp. Re-half cover and let the shrimp cook through, less than 10 mins.

NOw eat it!!

This recipe will feed 5-6 hungry Crossfitters :)

~Assassin

Creole Seasoning a la Emeril Lagasse:

2 1/2 tablespoons paprika
2 tablespoons salt (You may omit this!!)
2 tablespoons garlic powder
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon dried thyme

Thai Green Curry

2011-03-27T21:06:00.000-07:00

I've been on a curry kick so I made this the other night and it was delicious. I got the recipe from everydaypaleo.com. I didn't use all of the same ingredients they used, but it still turned out wonderful.

Thai Green Curry

1.5 lbs boneless skinless chicken breast, diced into bite size pieces (I used cod fish. Random, but that's what I had thawed)
2 carrots, diced
1/2 a large head of green cabbage, shredded (I used cauliflower)
3 cups crimini mushrooms (Used zucchini instead.)
1 can coconut milk
1/2 cup chicken stock
1 tablespoon Thai curry paste (if you are using red paste, start with 1/2 a tablespoon and add more later if you want it spicier – this stuff has a kick! If you use the green paste, I actually use 3 to 3 1/2 tablespoons because it’s much milder and we like the extra kick – experiment and find the amount that works for you!) (I used red)
1-2 splashes of fish sauce or more to taste
1-2 splashes of coconut aminos or more to taste (didn't have this)
Cilantro (totally forgot I had this on hand)

In a large soup pot add the coconut milk and curry paste, mix until blended and bring to a boil. Turn down to low and simmer for 5 minutes. While the coconut milk and curry are simmering, dice up your chicken and chop your veggies. Add the chicken, carrots, chicken broth, fish sauce, and coconut aminos to the coconut milk curry – mix well and simmer for another 10 minutes. Add the cabbage and mushrooms and cook for another 3-5 minutes or until the cabbage is tender. Top with diced cilantro.

IWC Day 12

2011-03-25T07:31:00.000-07:00

Heading into weekend number two! Keep the great posts coming!

Deniz's Famous Old School Meat Sauce Recipe

2011-03-24T11:01:00.000-07:00

Go Italian tonight. Enjoy some delicious spaghetti squash with this fantastic meat sauce, compliments of our very own Deniz!

Deniz's Famous Old School Meat Sauce Recipe

2 lbs of ground beef/bison
1 medium size brown or yellow onion
Finely chopped garlic to taste- (i believe the miracles of garlic, hence I use 8-10 cloves of garlic.)
2 cups of tomato sauce or crushed tomatoes
1 bunch of cilantro, chopped
black pepper
salt
coconut oil

heat the coconut oil
add onions, cook until soft (very slightly brown)
add the meat
mix/stir on medium heat medium for a minute or until all ingredients are completely mixed (1 min)
add garlic, salt, pepper
mix/stir on medium heat medium for a minute or until all ingredients are completely mixed (1 min)
add the tomatoe sauce/crushed tomatoes
mix/stir on medium heat medium for a minute or until all ingredients are completely mixed (2 min)

bring to medium/low heat
cover
cook for 35-45 min

add the chopped cilantro- this is the secret:)
mix

serve over spaghetti squash (click here to see how to prepare spaghetti squash!)

Fried Egg and Kale Salad

2011-03-22T21:06:00.000-07:00

Every once and awhile I'll open the fridge and realize that I forgot to put some meat out to thaw. It's late, I'm starving and I definitely don't want to go pick up food. This is when eggs seem to save the day. I made a massive salad using the kale from the market order, ,bacon pieces, walnuts, olive oil and the juice from 1/2 an orange. Served it with a side of fried egg and SHABAM!

I was unusually hungry tonight so I ended up eating a small sweet potato, too. :( But the main course was simple and quick and satisfying. Perhaps I'll have another fried egg to get some more protein in there. Sometimes you just have to improvise.

IWC Day 9 on the books!

2011-03-22T00:41:00.000-07:00

We should get together around the dinner table more often...

Baked Apples

2011-03-21T07:43:00.000-07:00

Baked Apples
(modified from simplyrecipes.com using stevia as a natural alternative for sugar)

Ingredients

* 4 large good baking apples, such as Rome Beauty, Golden Delicious, or Jonagold

* STEVIA -6 packets OR 1/2 tsp liquid
(conversions for 1/4 cup sugar. see conversion table & more stevia info @ cookingwithstevia.com)
* 1 teaspoon cinnamon
* 1/4 cup chopped pecans
* 1/4 cup currants or chopped raisins
* 1 Tbsp butter
* 3/4 cup boiling water

1 Preheat oven to 375°F. Wash apples. Remove cores to 1/2 inch of the bottom of the apples. It helps if you have an apple corer, but if not, you can use a paring knife to cut out first the stem area, and then the core. Use a spoon to dig out the seeds. Make the holes about 3/4-inch to an inch wide.

2 In a small bowl, combine the stevia, cinnamon, currants/raisins, and pecans. Place apples in a 8-inch-by-8-inch square baking pan. Stuff each apple with mixture. Top with a dot of butter (~1/4 of the Tbps).

3 Add boiling water to the baking pan. Bake 30-40 minutes, until tender, but not mushy. Remove from the oven and baste the apples several times with the pan juices.

Serve warm.

(full write up: livebeautifull.blogspot.com :)

IWC Day 8 - Chicken Pesto [no] Pasta!

2011-03-20T15:03:00.000-07:00

Spaghetti Squash is the new black.

...and it has become a staple in my freezer. Make large batch, separate servings into freezer baggies and take them out whenever to accompany with stir fry's, fish, chicken, sauces....whatever!

Spaghetti Squash how to video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1dcMKCaXWw&feature=related

Farmgirl's Full Flavor Pesto ( slighty modified from: www.farmgirlfare.com)

Makes about 1½ cups pesto

1/2 cup (about 2½ ounces) raw or roasted whole almonds
4 ounces fresh basil leaves (about 4 cups packed. but it's best if you weigh it)
3 to 6 large cloves garlic, peeled
10 ounces fresh tomatoes (about 3 smallish) any kind, quartered
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, or more if desired
1 1/2 lbs chicken breast (precooked and cut in bite size pieces)

Process almonds and garlic in a food processor until finely chopped. Add the basil, tomatoes, and salt and process until thoroughly combined and the consistency you like.

With the food processor running, drizzle in the olive oil through the chute. Add more salt to taste if necessary and more olive oil if desired.

Mix Chicken and pesto into saucepan to marinate/warm.

SERVE over spaghetti squash!

www.livebeautifull.blogspot.com

One Week In!

2011-03-20T01:18:00.000-07:00

One day at a time is all it takes. Soon it is one week, one month and one year. The only constant is change. The journey is the destination. You know the story! Work hard to improve one day at a time and you might be surprised how quick things start to happen!

From the Vault: Diso circa 1999, looks like some late night BBQ!

Day 6 and Counting

2011-03-19T02:02:00.000-07:00

Happy Saturday! Stay strong through the weekend!

Day 5 already!

2011-03-18T02:22:00.000-07:00

There are so many great blogs out there supporting the Paleo lifestyle. Be sure to use them as guidelines and ideas. A great site that can be used as a starting point is Foodee.com. They link to all types of great Paleo websites and have a great search function. Have fun hunting and gathering!

Roasted Curry Salmon with Tomatoes

2011-03-17T14:03:00.000-07:00

For some reason I was compelled to buy grape tomatoes at TJ's last night. There were so many, they must have just gotten a shipment in. I don't even know what they taste like, honestly. I was gonna put them in my scrambled eggs... and then I found this recipe. It was meant to be, right?

There are so many ways to cook salmon, that's why I love it so much. You can have a completely different meal using the same fish and it's so quick and easy to make. Prepare, pop it in the oven and then go do laundry, hop in the shower, check PCF's blog, read an article about the paleo diet, whatever. So... pick some grape tomatoes up from TJ's and try this recipe out, I'm sure it's delish!

Roasted Curry Salmon with Tomatoes

1 pint grape tomatoes

1 tablespoon olive oil

kosher salt and black pepper

1 1 1/2-pound skinless salmon fillet

2 teaspoons curry powder

1/4 cup torn fresh basil

Heat oven to 400º F.

Meanwhile, on a rimmed baking sheet, toss the tomatoes, oil, and ¼ teaspoon each salt and pepper.

Nestle the salmon among the tomatoes. Season with the curry powder, ½ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper. Roast until opaque throughout, 15 to 18 minutes.

Sprinkle with the basil and serve!

Bacon and Guacamole Sammies

2011-03-15T21:53:00.000-07:00

Most of you embarking on this challenge are probably finding yourself more hungry than normal. To keep yourself from reaching for sugar, try these bacon and guacamole sammies from fitbomb.com. These are the ice cream sandwiches of the Crossfit world. My mouth is watering as I type this and I'm tempted to stay up late just to make them. Holy Moly Guacamole! I typically like to add onions, cilantro, tomatoes, etc to my guacamole but if you're short on time... here is a simple recipe.

Ingredients:
4 strips of thick-cut, nitrate-free bacon
1 medium-sized Haas avocado
1 lime
salt to taste

Mash up the flesh of half an avocado, and cut up the other half into half-inch cubes. Then mix both halves together in a bowl to get a nice blend of chunky 'n creamy. Flavor it with a squirt or two of lime juice and a generous pinch of salt. Enjoy!

IWC Challenge Day 2: The adventure Continues

2011-03-15T00:52:00.000-07:00

A lot of people get stuck in the what you can't eat mindframe, but there are so many different foods you can try! Go to your local farmers market and see for yourself! Go online and make a recipe that sounds interesting. A classic example is using different root vegetables to substitute

for potatoes, such as: sweet potatoes, parsnips, celery root, rutabaga, turnips and kolrabi. I didn't even know those things existed a couple years ago and I am still discovering new things I love today!

Food is an adventure, embrace it! Just be sure to share your moments of glory and defeat in the comments below:)

Day 1 of the IWC Challenge!

2011-03-14T11:45:00.000-07:00

Day 1

The IWC Challenge starts today! Time to get into the game, mentally and physically. The first couple weeks will be mostly a mental challenge (the hardest kind). Then after that, you'll begin to see how changing your diet has helped you gain so many strengths, physically. I hope everyone is as pumped as I am.

If you need to refer to the challenge rules or for a brush up on what is paleo and what is zone, click here and it will take you to Diso's post on 3/11/11. That post best explains everything. If you've been sitting on the fence about whether or not you want to participate... don't be a pansy, just do it. It's completely worth it. Now is the perfect time because there are so many other PCFers who will be suffering the same pain. The suck brings us all together.

Also, use this blog as a forum to share what you are experiencing. People love to hear how others are doing. Best way to keep track of your progression is to post EVERYDAY what you are eating, what you are struggling with, what parts are surprisingly easy, etc! If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. :)

Good luck and happy eating!

In the kitchen with Charlie Sheen!

2011-03-11T12:20:00.000-08:00

For those of you who need help in the kitchen... watch, listen and learn.

"My body is a lock box of diamonds, uranium and assasin nobility."

Have a lovely paleo weekend. :)

Sun-dried Tomato Chicken Bake

2011-03-10T21:14:00.000-08:00

I won't lie... I rarely cook chicken because it scares me. I'm trying to get over that fear of "is it cooked all the way?", "am I going to get sick?"... yada yada yada. I found this recipe on everydaypaleo.com and decided to give it a go. Well, it turned out delicious. I DID cook it a little bit longer than the recipe called for to be on the safe side but, hey, it's the beginning of my new relationship with chicken.

Sun Dried Tomato Chicken Bake

2 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts cut in half (I used the organic free range chicken breast tenders from Trader Joe’s)

8.5oz jar of julliane cut sun dried tomatoes

8 garlic cloves, sliced thin

2 tablespoons dried basil

Sea salt and black pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375. Place the chicken breasts in a large glass baking dish. Sprinkle with the dry spices and mix well. Sprinkle the sliced garlic on top and spread the sun dried tomatoes and the olive oil that it’s in the jar over the entire dish. Seal tightly with tin foil and bake for 20 minutes (I've found that if you cover any meat dish you are baking with foil, it stays super tender instead of drying out, just a side note). Remove the tin foil and bake for another 15 minutes or until the chicken is no longer pink in the middle.

I tossed the kale and strawberries we got in this week's market order to make a simple, yet yummy salad. I thought perhaps I would need to add a dressing but the strawberries were so sweet that all I added were blueberries, walnut pieces and olive oil. It was a great compliment to the SD tomatos.

Enjoy!

The western diet and lifestyle and diseases of civilization

2011-03-10T16:46:00.000-08:00

For all of you paleolithic nerds out there, here is a great article I found today. MORE IMPORTANTLY, if you're new to this paleo thing... you should read it, too. Then read it again in a month. It's on scientific side; sometimes you have to take that stuff in small doses. (Click below)

"The Western Diet and Lifestle and Diseases of Civilization"

FAUX PHO {Sphaghetti Squash}

2011-03-09T17:40:00.000-08:00

A delicious soup incorporating Spaghetti Squash as noodles! Here's the quick glance recipe:

In a CROCK POT: (modified from recipe book PRETTY DELICIOUS by Candice Kumai)

-Chicken Broth (4 cups)
-Garlic (3 cloves finely minced)
-Ginger (2-3 teaspoons grated)
-Shitake Mushrooms (~7 shitake mushrooms chopped)
-Celery (~2-3 stalks sliced)
-Carrots (1 large sliced)
-Salt (1 teaspoon)
-Soy Sauce (optional-low sodium-2 tablespoons)

PRE MAKE:
*boiled eggs
*bake Spaghetti Squash (for noodles)

*** @ serving time, add in (all items optional):
-Fresh Spinach leaves
-EGG (Pre-boiled, cut in half, for added protein
-Sprinkle with chopped scallions
- 1/2- 1 cup of cooked SPAGHETTI SQUASH as noodles.

Bon appetite!
(check out www.livebeautifull.blogspot.com for full recipe blog)