Paleo Lessons: Week 10

Be aware of how your fridge works. Specifically, the best places to store certain foods to keep them from spoiling. In my minifridge (that I could probably live out of if need be), I forgot that the cooling parts are at the top, near the pretend freezer. Anything I store on the top shelf, just below the freezer, runs the risk of becoming frozen. Like my romaine and zucchini. Romaine is not happy when it is frozen.

It is possible to make healthier versions of your favorite. Last week Abbs made this incredible, amazing fish sticks that actually tasted like really good (albeit way healthier) fish sticks. My favorite thing to get at Chinese buffets is the coconut chicken (so creamy, so coconuty, so gooooood....), so I Googled "paleo coconut chicken" on a whim. The top result was for coconut chicken tenders, and it looked so good that I'm planning on making it next week (move out week and recovery week).

If you're craving carbs, look at your diet again. For some strange and unknown reason, I started craving oatmeal and bagels last week, but didn't realize what it meant until this week. While the oatmeal made some sense, I haven't craved bagels since before I started eating Paleo. Right now, I suspect my body is asking for more carbs (sorta duh, I know) and maybe more fat. It's the beginning of race season for my team, and I'm doing 3 races between now and the end of September. Carbs help athletes recover from races and hard workouts, I believe, and fat would help keep me full between meals. For me, this means learning to make salad dressings. I tried it a few weeks ago, and it tasted so bad even thinking about trying again made me cringe.

Paleo Blues - Keep Your Head Up

Sometimes, with all the conflicting information and personal views out there on the wild place known as the Internet, it's very discouraging to try to eat healthy. There's the 80/20 rule that Mark Sission goes by and Primal Blueprint Fitness, which involves lifting heavy things a couple times a week, moving slowly for long periods of time quite often, and moving fast for a short period of time once a week. There's people who swear by the Whole9 and their Whole30 program. There's people who say dairy is just as bad a grains. There's people who say Paleo desserts are just as evil as the real thing because of your emotional response to that kind of food. It got to the point last week where I almost gave up on fruit because it contains carbs and a banana (the food I like to eat after dinner for "dessert") has approximately 100g of carbs in it and that's about your daily "allowance" of carbs as a Paleo-er.

It makes me want to give up and either go back to the way I had been eating (because I was actually doing pretty well relative to most everyone else I know) or to just eat salad and eggs for the rest of my life (because there's all sorts of ups and downs to every single kind of fruit and every single species of meat). Either choice involved never reading a nutrition/food blog/book/article/magazine/email/any-form-of-written-communication-that-has-to-do-with-food-except-recipes ever again.

Ok, there, you're probably saying. Calm down now. It's not that bad.

You're right, it's not. (Have I mentioned that life is a little crazy right now?) But when the buzz of mostly non-important details starts to get to you, keep this in mind:

1. Women and men have different types of bodies. Women have more fat deposits because, for childbearing - immediate or down the line, these fat deposits are very important. (See this article for more details.)
2. Because of #1, intermittent fasting affects men and women differently. See the same article listed above, I think. (I read a couple of articles yesterday on the topic and I believe it's covered in that article. If not, leave me a comment and I'll look it up and post it.)
3. Carbs aren't the devil. I'm pausing before saying the human body needs some carbs because of all the fully fat-adapted athletes I've read about, but carbs aren't the devil. Or even evil. Carbs are a macronutrient. As a topic, they should be neutral. It's too much or too little carbs/protein/fats that becomes iffy, but... (see next line)
4. Your macronutrient ratios depend on your body, your body's chemistry, and your body's metabolism. And your gender might have something to do with it too. Stefani over at Paleo for Women actually recommends women consume 100-200g of carbohydrates per day, especially those breastfeeding or athletes. (Cue a calming of my banana-induced too-many-carbs-in-one-day freak-out.)
5. I digest dairy well, so milk isn't the devil for me either. I enjoy Greek yogurt on an almost daily basis and have had no adverse reactions.
6. Eating natural foods, organic or conventionally grown, grass-fed or not, is definitely healthier than eating pre-processed, pre-packaged items found in the frozen dinner section of the grocery store. Nit-pick about the details all you want, I'm going to go make myself some beef burgers with peach chutney, eat them wrapped in lettuce leaves, and polish off 1 potato's worth of homemade baked sweet potato fries dipped in cinnamony Greek yogurt. I'm eating whole, less processed foods, and it makes me feel good. Maybe I'll even throw some bacon in with that burger and have a small almond flour brownie afterward (although I'm probably full by this point so maybe not). Have an issue with Paleo desserts? More for me. And, yes, they are a treat for me, too, not an everyday thing.

I think that covers most of it for now. Remember, the body you have is the only one you get. Treat it right, but don't be afraid to treat yourself well, too. It's not worth stretching your budget to its breaking point just to get organic and grass-fed everything. It's not worth stressing out about the details when you're already eating healthier than the vast majority of America's population. And hey, if long distance running (or triathlon-ing, in my case) is more your thing than body-building (or vice-versa), ok. It's all up to you. But don't be afraid of your food or your exercise.

I will also add that I think I still need to do some evaluating of my life, eating habits, relationships with food, and relationships with other people that include food.

Cinnamon Maple Syrup Dip

This is intended to go with the Homemade Crabby Sweets, but it's also just a good dip. I'd make it for carrots, maybe even celery, too. That's how Super A and I tested it while we were waiting for the fries to be done. I made a double batch and brought the leftovers to work this week for my carrots.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup plain Greek yogurt
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 1 tsp cinnamon

Mix all ingredients until well combined and serve! Note: don't make it in the container the yogurt came in, it will most likely overflow.

*** I will be trying this again with less maple syrup. Stay tuned!

Homemade Crabby Sweets

This summer, I was introduced to Crabby Sweets. Normally, I'm not a fan of sweet potato fries. I don't know what it was about these - maybe the Old Bay, maybe the maple-syrupy dipping sauce, maybe my tastebuds are changing that much - but they were delicious. Abbs, sweetheart that she is, made some a few weeks ago (sans maple syrup dip). She and our friend who was over for dinner passed after a few fries, so guess who ate most of the bowl? Yup. No regrets, they were fantastic.

Ingredients:

• 3 large sweet potatoes
• Old Bay seasoning
• coconut oil or other cooking fat, melted (don't use olive oil for this one!)
• salt, if desired

Heat the oven to 450 F and line a baking sheet with aluminum foil (for much easier clean-up).

Peel the skins off your sweet potatoes. Despite what people think, the skins actually hold a lot of anti-nutrients, so you don't really want to eat them. Besides, this is easier than scrubbing them. Cut them up lengthwise, like fries. Or alternately you can make potato wedges, it's up to you. But stick to one or the other, and aim for similarly sized pieces or they won't cook through properly.

In a bowl, combine your potato sticks, melted cooking fat, and spices. Yes, this involves getting your hands dirty. When the oil and spices evenly coat each fry, put them on your baking sheet in a single layer and stick it in the oven. Let them cook for 15 minutes, then flip them over and cook for another 15 minutes. If you want crispier fries, I suggest (but haven't tried!) putting them on the top shelf and turn the oven to broil for the last few minutes.

Yumyumyum! We only cooked them for 20 minutes on one side, but Super A cut them really thinly so they were nice and soft, well cooked but still held their form. I have to say, they were pretty amazing (and cost less than $7.50 - what I'd normally pay on the boardwalk)!

Spaghetti Squash and Meatballs

Last year was the first time I was introduced to spaghetti squash. It's like magic - a vegetable that, when cooked and "attacked" with a fork, turns out looking like one of my favorite but definitely not Paleo foods. I had one hiding in my fridge, as well as some tomato sauce and ground beef, so the solution was obvious: made spaghetti and meatballs.

Ingredients:

• 1 spaghetti squash or 3-4 zucchini
• 1 lb ground beef
• tomato sauce
• spices

Prepare your noodles. For the spaghetti squash, I actually made it in the microwave. Cut it in half longways, scoop out the seeds, and coat the edges and inside with cooking fat of your choice. Lay the squash open side down in a glass container or microwave safe dish. Cook for 5 minutes in the microwave on high, rotate dish and squash halves, and cook for at least 3 more minutes. Test with fork and cook more as needed. 

Meanwhile, add your spices to your beef (I used oregano, basil, a generic spice mix, salt, pepper, and garlic powder). Mix well. Abbs suggested adding an egg, but it's optional. Heat a frying pan on the stove and add cooking fat. Form the beef into balls and put in pan. Let cook, making sure they don't burn. Flip as needed. Cooking time will differ depending on how big you made your meatballs. When the meatballs are cooked, add your tomato sauce to the pan (to warm the sauce). Turn the heat down to simmer.

When everything is ready, run your fork through the squash to make spaghetti strands. Since there were only two of us, we used the squash halves as bowls. Put your meatballs and sauce on top and serve!

Dear Reader: Love Your Body

Dear members of the human race: Please read this article. It's an apology from a person who used to work in for a diet-food company to all of her clients. She thought, at first, that she was helping her clients, and she realized more and more that eating 1,200 calories a day is certainly not enough food. Especially not if that person was running 5 times a week. Or breastfeeding. Or a teenager on a high school sports team. You need more than that.

People need to hear that they are beautiful. Not just their face, or their eyes, or there hair. Not just their soul or mind, although those are important to hear, too. They need to hear that their bodies are beautiful. Your body is strong. Your body endures. Your legs are strong enough to carry you anywhere you want to walk, your arms can lift something heavy or hug a friend. Your body provides for you, so that when a deadline comes up and you can't make a meal, you don't immediately starve. Your body is a work of art just the way it is.

Race Season 2013: Recap 1

I have 4 races between August 17 and September 28. They're every other weekend, and three of them are for the conference my triathlon team is in. For those, I'm racing solo (as usual) but this past weekend I did a relay with Abbs and another girl from our team.

Abbs swam, I biked, and our third girl ran. It was a sprint, so we went as hard as we could, given we're all new to the sport. My goal was to beat Super A on the bike leg of the race. Abbs made it into the transition before he did, we swapped over the timing chip, and off I went. Breathe, mount the bike without falling, and go. Get through the twisty part of the course without wiping out and make it to the causeway. So far, so good. Was only passed by one woman doing a relay, although there were a lot of guys who blew past. Not worried, they were competitors, and guys. They're supposed to be passing a newbie like me.

Then I hit the bridges. I was being careful, but I still need to get more used to shifting, so I lost time going up and, more often than I'd like to admit, used the downhills a bit for recovery. A little before the turnaround (halfway point), I hear someone coming up behind me. I scoot over a little, and look over.

"You're doing good, you've got this!" Super A says as he passes me.

Grr. I kept pretty close behind him, but lost time on the bridges again and lost sight of him completely when a pack came up on me from both sides. Lost more time on the twisty turny part of the course, and sort of launched myself off my bike at the dismount (didn't crash, didn't fall, didn't land on any one). Made it to transition, got the timing chip swapped over, and started working on catching my breath. He passed me. Super A passed me. I was only a minute and thirty seconds or so behind him when I got in to transition, but that was a minute and thirty seconds I had hoped I would be at least neck and neck with him, if not ahead of him. Later, I realized that he has a year more of racing and at least two years more of being an athlete in running and swimming. I think I'll take what I can get.

Abbs, the other girl, and I ended up taking second in women's relay. Super A got 5th in men's for his age group, which at this race meant that he made it to the podium. So proud of him and us!

It was a blast, and we all crashed hard that night. Can't wait until the next race - an Oly(mpic) distance at a lake. Apparently the course is hilly (think trial by fire), but the swag is good and the post-race has lots of food. I'm excited for the race itself, but those are nice benefits. I still have PF (exacerbated by someone leaving a race packet in the car and me having to run back to get it before transition closed), but I have some workouts now to help with it and get me back into running. Keeping my fingers crossed, but I doubt I'll finish in less than 3:30 (that's hours and minutes).

Paleo Lessons: Week 9

Oops, I lost track of how many weeks it's been since I started Paleo. I thought it was week 11. That seems like a good thing to me, actually.

Try new foods. Even if they're scary, hard to pronounce, or you don't know what they are. Went with Super A and Abbs to a gluten free Mediterranean place for lunch on Friday and didn't know what I was doing when I ordered, so I asked the gal behind the counter for recommendations. I ended up with steak, feta, carrots, and cauliflower in a gluten free wrap with a lemon sauce and a balsamic sauce on the side. It was amazing and I can't wait to go back.

Before a race, banana pancakes are the perfect food. I made some for a race on Saturday, they were devoured, and now I'm all set to make them before the next race, too. The race went well, look for a post soon.

Listen to your body. If you can't keep your eyes open, get some sleep. If you're so sore that standing up or sitting down causes you pain, go easy or take the day off. You'll feel so much better the next day, and your body will perform better than if you had forced a hard workout on yourself. It's not worth it.

Eat when you're hungry, don't when you're not. If you're trying to loose body fat, try to avoid nuts and fruit. If you're trying to stay fuller for longer, eat more fat. This is something I know I need to work on. Salad dressing makes me nervous though. Maybe I'll compromise a bit.

Empty jars are your friends. So is bacon and bacon grease.

Slow Cooker Chili

Alright, here's one of the recipes I keep talking about but not actually posting: the slow cooker chili recipe.

I don't know about you, but the homemade chili I'm used to eating is full of beans. It's delicious, except for the whole "beans being legumes and legumes not being Paleo" thing. I wanted a recipe that I could whip together in the morning before a long days of work and classes and enjoy when I got back that night, ready for an easy "no-prep" meal. Preferably a warm one well suited to fall and the strangely chilly weather we're having here (no complaints, I like it). The original recipe is Melissa's from Clothes Make the Girl. She has instructions on how to make the chili on the stove, but that won't help me. On a whim, I pulled out my slow cooker (a nice, sturdy, old thing that I love) and used it for the first time. The prep work consisted only of adding everything to the pot, clearing a space for it on the counter, and writing a note so no one would accidentally burn themselves or unplug it.

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons oil (coconut, EVOO, your choice)
• 2 onions, diced (medium-large are best)
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tsp dried oregano leaves
• 1 tbsp red chili pepper
• 1 tbsp ground cumin
• 1.5 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1tsp salt
• 6 oz tomato paste
• 14.5 oz fire-roasted chopped tomatoes
• 1 cup broth (use beef for the best results, but I used chicken)
• 1 cup water (possibly less, need to test again, when in doubt use a little bit more)
• 2 lb ground beef

Combine all the seasonings in a small bowl and mix. Dice the onions (Abbs taught me how to do this without loosing a finger) and put them in the bottom of your slow cooker. Add the tomatoes, the tomato paste, the meat, and the seasonings.

Mix it all together (using your hands works best). Add the broth and water. 

Turn the slow cooker on to medium heat (make sure at least medium if using raw meat like I did) and let it cook for 8+ hours. I think mine sat for closer to 9 or 10 and came out fine.

Notes:

The original recipe Melissa wrote calls for twice the amount of red pepper and cumin. I'm not that used to eating spicy foods, so it was too hot for me. I still need to test the halved amounts of chili pepper and cumin to see what the heat is like. Also, it freezes well, and it's pretty good in a breakfast omelet.

In other news...

I haven't made any of the new recipes yet, and I still need to write up the one for the chili, but I'd rather give it another go before I post it to see if I can get it to be a little less spicy.  Last night was zucchini carbonara night. Abbs was really impressed at how easy it was to make. She's keeping track of what meals we make for during classes, I think, so she knows what's good and easy and quick. Tomorrow I'm making damn fine chicken again (another classic), and tonight she's making turkey burgers I believe. So much yummy food.

I think I've mentioned earlier that right now I have plantar fasciitis (PF) and am avoiding running. It's been going on 2 months since the last time I ran, and although I'm antsy to get back to it, I'm also finding that I actually do enjoy biking and swimming. Yay! There's a challenge going on at the pool where each length (25 yards) counts as a mile, and they want to see who can swim the farthest away from the pool. I got roped into it by someone else from the tri team, and we roped in someone else, with all of us hoping to get to Hawaii. Hawaii is nearly 5000 miles away from here. Right now I think I'm hovering around 1300 miles (respectable!) with a little over a half a month to make it the rest of the way (not happening, I'd like to maintain my status as second place holder though). My average biking speed has increased, too, I think, which is also exciting. There's a race this weekend that I'm doing as a relay, and I'll be doing the bike leg. It's only a sprint, so it should be pretty easy.

Paleo Lessons: Week 8

Week 8? How on earth is this week 8 already? It seems like much longer and much less than that at the same time.

Here's what I've learned in the past seven days:

You will on occasion buy too much food. It's somewhat inevitable. It'll happen. And some of it will go bad before you get a chance to use it (like an entire package of butternut squash did over last weekend when I was away grr...). The upside is, when you make your food, you'll have options. Abbs, my newest cooking buddy, and I didn't coordinate as well as we could have, and we ended up with an extra zucchini and some panchetta that we didn't quite have plans for. So Wednesday night when I made cauliflower pizza, we ended up throwing the panchetta on top (a very good idea). Thursday, when she made green beans with coconut chips, it turned into a stir-fry and in went the zucchini!

Read up on spices before you use them. I used to think I had 8 year old taste buds when it came to spicey food. It's something I have to remind Super A of on a quasi-regular basis. I made slow cooker chili this week and it called for a variety of spices I didn't own and didn't know how to use. So I followed the recipe, and it ended up a bit hotter than I normally would like (cue runny nose). It was good though, and not too hot for me to enjoy. Then Abbs made soup. I don't know what kind of soup it was or what she put in it, but it was spicy! I let it sit for a while, thinking that if the temperature cooled down I'd be able to eat it without feeling like my throat was on fire. Oh nay nay. She and I figured out later that the spiciness actually got stronger the longer it sat. I gave up halfway through my bowl and went back to the chili. Now I've decided I have 6 year old taste buds, and that I really need to know what the spices are going to do to the dish before I add them.

It is easier to cook with a buddy. I already knew this from cooking with Super A, but it's that valuable of a lesson. If you're already making x-amount of food, double (or triple) it, and you get multiple meals for the same amount of work. By sharing those meals with a buddy, it means you don't have to do the clean up (at least in my kitchen) for that meal, and your friend will probably make dinner the next night. It's twice the food for half the work. (Eh, don't do the math on that, I'm not entirely sure myself). It also means you might find yourself eating foods you wouldn't normally choose. With Super A, I eat tomatoes and avocado on my salad. With Abbs, I eat (as previously mentioned) spicier food than normal. Whatever you make probably tastes better, too, if you're trying to impress someone (be it friend or more-than-a friend). It also might mean a night of leftovers - the already cooked kind of leftovers, not the "what the heck can I make out of an eggplant and three sausages" kind of leftovers.

I think that's about it for this week (that's it? That's a lot!), so I hope you have a good weekend! I know I plan to!

Upcoming Recipes

I know, the posts and recipes have been sparse lately. That's due partially to me working longer hours to build up enough for a "day off" so I can go see my family and partially because I have a new co-chef buddy, Abbs. She's been exploring Costa Rica for the past few weeks and just decided to go Paleo. The place where she's staying until the fall doesn't have a very good kitchen, so we're buddying up and using mine.

Between the two of us, we've made some really delicious recipes this past week. Unfortunately, I haven't had time to write them up and post them for the reasons mentioned above. Don't worry though, I'm working on it. Be on the lookout for a slow-cooker chili, a chocolate cake based off of fruit, a meal that includes mahi mahi and veggie stir fry, and possibly a soup.

Cranberry Salad with Chicken

Note the title. This is not a recipe for chicken salad, but rather salad with chicken in it.

Ingredients:

• Romaine lettuce, spinach, or your preferred salad greens
• Dried cranberries
• Flax seeds
• Chicken (cooked)
• Salt
• Pepper
• Cheese (optional)

Rinse the salad greens and tear into appropriately sized pieces. Add chicken and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Add flax seeds and dried cranberries and cheese. Enjoy!

Butternut Squash Noatmeal

Ah, oatmeal. That good ol' stick to your ribs, totally not Paleo breakfast food. Best made by a parent on a stove on a cold Saturday morning, complete with hot chocolate and snow outside. Also highly enjoyed by children when it's the instant oatmeal with sugar eggs that dissolve into dinosaurs when hot water is added.

Instant oatmeal. I shudder slightly at those words (despite consuming plenty of it myself in the past). Society, you're doing it wrong.

Last week I started thinking about how delicious oatmeal is and that it's one of those meals I still miss occasionally. So when I went to the grocery store, I had to get some butternut squash. I know what you're thinking - those two things have nothing in common, what are you talking about, Jenna? I'm talking about noatmeal!

I first saw the idea on Mark's Daily Apple. His recipe calls for a banana, 3 eggs, a couple handfuls of nuts, nut butter, and a food processor. That sounds like a lot of work for someone who's looking for a quick and easy meal in the morning (and doesn't particularly want eggs - not blasphemy, it happens to the best of us). I liked the idea though, so I kept looking around. Most of the recipes called for bananas. I love bananas. Sounds perfect, right? Well, Super A just told me that bananas have something like 27 grams of carbs per 100 grams, and I know they're packed with sugar - a lot of recipes that call for bananas say adding more sugar is optional. Plus I like my sweet treats at the end of the day, which usually involve a mashed banana. Plus I'm trying to get more veggies as part of my daily food intake. Pumpkin noatmeal sounds good, but they don't have pumpkins (canned or regular) at my Trader Joe's yet.

But they have butternut squash. Already cut up butternut squash. Easy to cook butternut squash chunks.

It probably would have cooked quicker if I had cut the cubes smaller, but it worked pretty well. I sauteed my squash chunks in a frying pan over low-low medium heat for (accidentally) an hour. I believe they're supposed to be done after about 15 minutes, but I was cleaning up some stuff and forgot. Luckily they didn't burn, the heat was low enough. I dumped the chunks into a container, mashed them up, and put them in the fridge for the night. Cooking the squash is the main prep needed for this recipe.

Ingredients*:

• 1 cup butternut squash, cooked and mashed
• 1 cup almond milk
• 2 "shakes" (1-2 tbsp) almond flour
• 2 eggs
• Handful of chopped walnuts
• Cinnamon (I used lots)

Put the squash, almond milk, and nuts/nut flour into a saucepan on medium heat and stir until combined and warm. Add the egg and stir until mixture is uniform and cooked (3-5 minutes). Remove from heat and add cinnamon and more nuts if desired. I sprinkled my noatmeal with cinnamon, stirred it in, and then sprinkled it again.

It's good hot (like regular oatmeal) or chilled in the fridge for a while (like pumpkin pie). Enjoy!

*This recipe could easily be halved or doubled. The amounts listed were sufficient to fill me up completely for a couple of hours. Also, I don't actually know exactly how much I used of each ingredient as I didn't measure. (Come on, when you're running around in the morning would you measure, or just say "Hmmm, this looks like a good amount of that" and move on?) This is more of a guideline, adjust as needed. Start with less almond milk and add if it looks too dry. With the cinnamon it was sweet enough that I didn't feel the need to add honey.