Category: Fav. Paleo Recipes

Day 10. Cauliflower Pork Fried Rice

“One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.” ― Sigmund Freud

Pork Fried Rice for dinner. Except with grass fed ground beef from Trader Joe’s, cauliflower rice, diced butter nut squash and broccoli. Sautéed in coconut oil and because I like it spicy, red curry paste. Yum.

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This whole clean eating thing teaches you to read labels, scrutinize them. Did you know it’s next to impossible to buy bacon without added sugar? Try it. Step into a grocery store and read the ingredients. I scrutinized every package at Trader Joe’s. Every. Package. They all contain added sugar.

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I have been able to buy meat from a local farm including what is probably the best bacon I have ever had, ever. I’ll have to check with the farmer on the next trip to see if he adds any sugar to his bacon before freezing.

I’m struggling with my stamina. My ability to work out. It sucks. Let’s say I’m struggling with my lack of stamina. I have none. Tonight I strained to push the weighted prowler from one end of the parking lot to the next during Strongman. Pretty sure I left my heart and CO2 supply some where out there on the asphalt. 57lbs. keg overhead felt like 105lbs. A newer Strongman peep hoisted the 75lbs. keg overhead like she was swatting away a fly. Then she sprinted from one end of the parking lot to the other with the prowler.

It’s a terrible mistake to compare yourself to others in life. A very dark alley. Do yourself a favor and just don’t do it. I try to remember to not fall into the trap. Tonight I failed at this. Disappointed with my ability to simply do, I found myself comparing myself to others in class that could do and more. They could do what I once could do. From the depths of this disappointment comes the desire to give up. The journey back seems too long. It seems out of reach. This is a poor attitude, I know, but it helps to say it out loud, to recognize the negative pattern and simply let it go.

I simply will not give up on working my way back. I will not give up on getting stronger. I simply will not give up.

Day 4

“But the coconut is also a symbol of resilience, Samar. Even in the conditions where there’s very little nourishment and even less nurturance, it flourishes, growing taller than most of the plants around it.” ― Neesha Meminger

cocnut milk

Midday check-in. I go between bouts of wanting to put my head on my desk and nap and feeling absolutely energized – ready to take on the world!

KUNG FU!

Zzzzzzzzzzz…..

Karate CHOP!

yawn.

This morning I discovered Coconut milk in my coffee. Not the coconut milk found in the carton by the milk and half and half, this is the coconut milk you find in the can. And (this is coming from someone who loves her heavy cream in her coffee and grew up giving away her Almond Joys at Halloween, blech..) the coconut milk from a can in your coffee is GOOD. Drain the water and use just the coconut paste, it’s so thick and creamy! Bonus points, stir it with a hand-held frother, and you’re standing in the middle of First Cup of Coffee in the Morning Heaven.

For lunch, sliced roast beef over spinach salad with olive oil and vinegar. Pretty basic, but does the job when it’s busy at work.

This was left in the break room today. Cider doughnuts and chocolate chip cookies. I stood over them letting the fresh baked aroma goodness waft up to me, and took a picture.

doughnute

I remain strong with the help of my Whole30 Crew.

cold nights. warm soup.

soup1“When you know my love, my love will warm you.” ― Ruby Dee

It takes time to eat healthy. Yes, there’s prep involved; chopping and slicing and dicing. For me, Sundays are a good day to do this. But it has been so cold recently and I’m just ramping back up out of the Holiday into eating healthy mode that the fridge still remains relatively sparse and there’s only so many days you can rely on Chipotle. I love you Chipotle, you know who you are, but even I can grow weary of your scrumptious ways.

So when I found myself home from work with an hour to spare before the WOD I discovered it’s actually fairly quick and simple to make butternut squash soup. From scratch. Yes, I said simple and quick soup from scratch. The ingredients to make butternut squash soup stay good for over a week if not longer so you can keep them on hand and not feel rushed to make something before they go bad.

Peel and dice the following: a whole onion, green apple, handful of carrots, cloves of garlic, and a one butternut squash. Put them in a pot with some chicken stock, couple of bay leaves and a teaspoon of ginger. Slowly bring to a boil while you put away your stuff, get changed into your WOD duds, throw the ball for the dog, thumb through the news.

Once the pot boils, cover it and turn off the hot stove top. Set the covered pot aside and let it simmer.

Head out to CF and hit the WOD.

Simmer.

I was gone a total of an hour and a half. By the time I came home all the ingredients were cooked and ready. All I had to do was puree. Easy to do with a simple immersion blender, mine did stop working mid-puree last night so I ended up using a traditional old blender, a little more messy and time consuming but the last step.

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Nothing beats hot soup on a cold winter night post WOD. Nothing.

3rd 90 Day Benchmark WOD:

1RM Backsquat. Completed: 165lbs. PR!

Behold. Paleo Pad Thai.

Behold the strength of a food processor! Who the heck knew! I suggest, upon newly purchasing a food processor, and it being your first, practice with veggies you’re not necessarily feeling too attached to, or.. err.. hungry for.

Behold pepper, cucumber, celery puree! Bletch. Need to google some recipes for this. It’ll keep for a few days.

Second attempt, not so much of a fail. Used the slicer blade. Ohhh.. ahhh… But damn it’s quick. And when you’re slicing for one person, its more like, oh, and… well, that’s it. When you’re used to slicing by hand, and then suddenly utilizing your brand new shiny stainless steel Cuisinart 9 Cup food processor, well, let’s just say, the shi*t gets done. Quickly.

The real point of this story, is to highlight probably one of the best damn Paleo dishes I have ever, ever, had the pleasure of preparing, and then… wait for it…

Eating.

Paleo Pad Thai. Taken from the front runner of best Paleo cook books to date, Well Fed. OMGG. Better than the non-paleo version. True Story. Total, complete, pure joy.

Sometimes I’m just too tired at the end of the day to cook. Not going to lie here, eating healthy takes work. Lots of prepping and chopping and more prepping, and small food containers of left overs and unused singular ingredients.

I like sauces. There’s only so many times a person can use olive oil and Frank’s Hot Sauce. Whilst this is an excellent combination, particularly as salad dressing, it can get old. In an effort to add more variety to my current Whole30 food plan, I’ve been experimenting with pre-preparing sauces to have on hand so less time spent chopping and mixing when the time comes that I’m just really hungry and don’t have the patience to food prep. This happens quite often. You know the feeling. You get home after a long day of work, and ideally a WOD, and there’s still a ton of shi*t to do. And you’re freaking hungry. Lately, when I get hungry, lately as in… the healthier I get, and harder I work/the stronger I get, when I get hungry it feels as if I need to eat IMMEDIATELY. This is the worst, if you don’t have anything on your food plan available.

Today after work I came home and put the spaghetti squash in the oven and pre-mixed the Sunshine Sauce for the Pad Thai. Turned off the oven just before the squash was cooked, and headed out to WOD and Strongman. Nicely, when I got home tonight, there was still some to do, but not quite as much, and the task and time to prep something good to eat did not seem too arduous. Being able to prep pre-WOD is not a luxury I usually enjoy, but when I can, it’s a nice indulgence.

Warm-Up:

Run 400m

30 Spiderman Lunges

20 Inchworms

Then… “Barbell Smash” On Calves

WOD:

I. 3 rounds for time:

30 Double Unders

10 Front Squats (155/100)

10 Burpees

Completed: in 7:09. Front squat at 65lbs. This was a lung burner. Seems like a while since I’ve done one of these. Not sure though. Had a head cold since the weekend and just now coming out of a fog. It’s uncomfortable not feeling 100%, because you just want to go, but sometimes your body just says, no.

Then onto Strongman. Stones over bar @ 90lbs. Keg press and carry at 57lbs. Perth is coming. Perth is coming.

Nutty Blueberry Protein Balls

– from Primal Blueprint

4 Dates, pits removed

Cup of Walnuts

1/2 cup macadamia nuts

2 tablespoons coconut oil

1/2 cup fresh or defrosted blueberries

1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

1/4 cup shredded dark chocolate

Pulverize dates in a food processor until paste forms. Add walnuts and mac nuts, and blend until very finely chopped. While blade is still running drizzle coconut oil, stopping when oil is blended. Scrape the batter into a bowl and stir in blueberries, coconut and chocolate.

Roll into rounded balls and pop into your mouth!

Paleo Choc chip cookies

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Been craving sweets. So while I didn’t follow through with the pancake this morning (because what I was really after was a means to eat butter and maple syrup), the craving has not subsided. Alas, enter the recipe above, a trip to Honest Weight, and $40 in ingredients later, errrrr…voila!

I’m not a baker. So I just didn’t have the ingredients on hand, like $10 Almond meal, or equally spendy Mac Oil, dark Choc chips, or Algave. I also spent some time in the ‘gluten free’ section reading the ingredients of the approx. 87 different types of gluten free flour. Wow. Holy good golly, had no idea. Gluten free flour is made from all sorts of combinations of different things, like soy, corn, and rice.

The cookies are pretty good. I’d share some, but…

Domenica Mattina

Today is the first day I have ever made a frittata. Not sure where the elusive frittata has been all my life, but I’m happy to post the results. Voila! C’est fantastique! And so simple. If you do not have a cast iron skillet, which I did not, you can find one HERE. Honestly, I thought something so natural and good, and made in the USA, would be more expensive. I opted for the smaller 8″ size, which works perfectly.

Turns out, Frittata is actually Italian. Questo è fantastic! Those crazy Italians. “The Italian word frittata derives from fritto, the past participle of “to fry” (friggere),[1] and was originally a general term for cooking eggs in askillet, anywhere on the spectrum from fried egg, through conventional omelette, to an Italian version of the Spanish tortilla de patatas, made with pasta instead of fried potato. Outside Italy, frittata was seen as equivalent to “omelette” until at least the mid-1950s.”

Ingredients in this particular Dimanche Frittata: in a mixing bowl, eggs, diced tomatoes, spinach, splash of heavy cream, crumbled goat cheese. Pour the scramble into the skillet and let it come to a quick boil on the stove top, then into the oven for about 5-6 minutes on 425. Before adding the spinach to the scramble, it was cooked in left over bacon grease from the Domenica Mattina BACONE! Oh la la. Oliver loves Sundays.