Grilled Lemon Chicken

Just made the most delicious Lemon Chicken on the grill last night.  Here it is:http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/grilled-lemon-chicken-recipe/index.html

Dinner Idea

 Here is a really easy and really tasty dinner.  I just threw some chicken breast in my Dutch Oven, poured in about 1 inch depth of coconut aminos, added another couple handfuls of whole garlic cloves, some ground pepper and baked it at 375 for about 35 minutes.  The garlic was nice and soft, some were caramelized and all were nicely roasted.  Served the Chicken with my Fried Cauliflower "Rice" and the roasted garlic.  The juice from the pan was great spooned over the "rice" and chicken.  

Easy and delicious all in one!

Kale Chips

I just remade my Kale chips, this time with olive oil instead of coconut oil (although cooking with Olive Oil is not recommended as it increases the Omega 6 level), it sure tastes better.  And I tried making them with Lacinato Kale instead and it was great, in fact, I like it better.  Give it a try if you haven't already, and as I mention in the recipe go easy on the sea salt, it's easy to over do it.

http://budgetpaleo.blogspot.com/2011/03/kale-chips.html

oh, and I baked this batch at 400 degrees, it seemed to work well for the Lacinato but not for the curly leaf.

Fish Oil

A reminder that Whole 9 has modified their fish oil calculator to reflect a change both them and Robb have made.  They are now suggesting lower doses, using a higher dose only in times of acute inflammation and then lowering it for maintenance.  Anyway, please visit their site and enter your specifics, don't forget to enter the information on the right.  You will find that information on your bottle of fish oil, they are not all the same amount so this part is important.
http://whole9life.com/2011/03/fish-oil-calculator-revised/

My favorite Sale Item this week.....

Prairie Grove Farms Uncured Bacon, either Applewood Smoked or Peppered is only $2.49 per 12 ounces at the Grocery outlet!  The bacon I have been suggesting (2 pound package of Beelers from Eureka Natural Foods, runs .38 cents per ounce this is only .20 cents per ounce)  I bought some of each to try, the grocery outlet has been carrying more and more nitrate free, organic meat products, so check it out.  A lot of the packages are only like 4-6 sausages so to small for our family but might be perfect for some of you single people.

Mahi Mahi Lettuce Wraps

This recipe was inspired by a recipe from Epcot Catering/FoodNetwork

Mahi Mahi Lettuce Wraps

1 TBSP paprika

1 TBSP ground cumin

1 TBSP granulated garlic

1 TBSP onion powder

1 TBSP Sea Salt

1/4 TBSP red pepper flakes

1/4  TBSP Cayenne Pepper

1/2 TBSP dill seed

1/2 TBSP ground black Pepper

1/2 cup coconut Aminos

2 pounds wild caught Mahi Mahi

1/4 cup olive oil

Shredded Cabbage
Shredded Carrots
Romaine or butter/bib lettuce leaves for wrapping
Faux Thai Peanut Sauce recipe: http://budgetpaleo.blogspot.com/2011/03/thai-faux-peanut-sauce.html

In a small bowl combine all of your spices and mix well.  Then set aside.  Place your fish in a glass baking dish and brush with soy sauce.  Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour, then remove from refrigerator and brush with oil.  Then Sprinkle the fish with the dry rub, you may have some leftover, just season to your liking.  While this sits for 15 minutes, light your gas grill or preheat your oven.  I prefer to use the grill.  Make a foil kind of plate on your grill to cook the fish on, we usually layer several layers of foil and roll up the edges to make a well in the middle.  Then cook until the fish is flaking easily, and remove from heat.  Serve in romaine or butter lettuce leaves with shredded cabbage, carrots, and whatever else you might like.  Everyone here voted hands down it was delicious topped with my Faux Thai "peanut" sauce.  But if you prefer you may top it with Pico de Gallo, as it is in this picture. 

Spices ready to be mixed

Spice rub

Shredded cabbage

Fish marinating in Coconut Aminos

Fish in final step after spice rub.

Mahi Mahi after being cooked on the grill.

Mahi Mahi Lettuce Wrap ready to eat.

Chinese Chicken Salad

 This is a bit time consuming, but worth the effort!  It is soooo good!

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
3 cups of chicken broth
1 1/2-2 tsp horseradish
1 tsp. hot mustard powder
2 TBSP Sesame Oil
2 TBSP sesame seeds, toasted
1/3 to 1 head (depending on the size of yours) iceberg lettuce, shredded
1/2 cup roasted almonds, finely chopped,( I roast mine with a little coconut oil in a skillet, stove top)


Boil the chicken breast in broth until the chicken is done, about 15-20 minutes.  Remove the chicken from the broth and set aside. Reduce your broth down to 1/3 cup over med-high heat (you can just let it boil away if you'd like).   While that is happening, shred your chicken into small bite size pieces and set aside.  When your broth has reached 1/3 cup remove from heat and  add the horseradish, hot mustard powder, sesame oil, and sesame seeds, mixing well.  Allow it to cool slightly, and just before serving combine the lettuce, chicken, dressing and nuts.  I find it usually needs a little shake of sea salt to finish it off. ,mix, serve and enjoy!  Delicious alternative to traditional  Chinese Chicken Salad.

Thai Faux "Peanut Sauce"

 
In a small bowl combine the following:

1/4 cup creamy almond butter

1/4 cup Sunflower Seed butter (make sure it's the kind that is not sweetened)

1/3 cup water

1/4 cup coconut Aminos

2 TBSP Fresh Ginger Minced

3 garlic cloves, pressed through a garlic press

1 heaping tsp of curry powder

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

Use as a sauce for whatever you like.  

We used it on Oriental Lemon Chicken and Mahi Mahi wraps, recipes for both will be coming in the next few days.  Very flavorful and delicious!

Kale Chips

Kale is the most nutrient dense vegetable you can eat, so any way you can add it to your diet is beneficial.  This way is not only beneficial but fun too!

1 large bunch of curly leaf Kale

1 1/2 TBSP Coconut Oil Melted

sea salt to taste

Curly leaf Kale

Start by tearing your kale off the stalks into about 2 inch pieces until you have about 4 cups.  Placing them in a salad spinner, wash them thoroughly and dry well.  Then place them in a large freezer size ziploc bag, melt 1 1/2 tablespoon coconut oil and pour over the kale.  Zip your bag shut and shake well to coat, dump your kale out onto a baking sheet and sprinkle with sea salt ( be careful not to over salt them!), go easy with the salt.  

Kale with oil and salt ready to bake.

Stir, spread out evenly and bake at 350 degrees for about 10-15 minutes watching closely near the end.  Cool and enjoy.

Dinner doesn't always have to be complicated!

Look good?  

It  tasted good, and was super quick and easy to throw together! 

Some nights are like that, a kind of whatever you have around or whatever you can grab night.  I had 1 precooked chicken breast (cooked in salt and pepper), so I chopped it up, threw some Herdez Salsa Verde on there microwaved it for a few minutes, while stir frying my frozen veggies.  For the veggies, threw some coconut oil in the pan, threw in a bag of frozen stir fry mix, stir fried for a few minutes, added some seasoning, pepper and some Coconut Aminos and called it good, then mixed the two together and ate! 

It was so yummy and it only took a matter of minutes to make a healthy meal.  Be creative with what you have around, you don't always need a recipe to have a delicious dinner. 

In fact some of my "creations" have been the biggest successes!

Food, food and more food.

It has been a few weeks now of intuitive eating with non structured meal timing. Things are getting a little easier, I miss the security of being told when to eat and how much that I had with my zone blocks but I see now that in the long run it was only to my detriment that I clung so tightly to the notion of a magic ratio of macro nutrients. 40/30/30. That was the world according to Zone, 30% protein, 40% carb, 30% fat all wrapped up in a tidy bundle of blocks allotted to you daily. I had 12 in the beginning. It all amounted to 84 grams of protein, 108 grams of carbs, and 18 grams of fat. That's it, that's all, even after heavy WOD days or Murph, 8 hour day or 12 hour day, didn't matter. I told myself I was not hungry when I was, blamed my "carb" craving on insulin ( even if all I wanted was more veggies or a frackin sweet potato) and if I lost myself for a moment and had extra coconut butter I would mope to myself for defying my blocks. In the beginning the insulin control and the adequate nutrition was great, when it became not enough though as I built lean body mass and increased my activity level I could not let go of my " rx" of blocks. This is not a Zone bashing post, I think its great for people who need it, for those of us paleo inclined CrossFitters, it doesn't fit, Zone doesn't think so either which is why they dropped the block method from their site. I spent years ignoring what my body said and now I find it hard to trust the right signals. now there is Cortisol to consider which either makes you overly hungry for salt, fat and sugar or not hungry at all in the most crucial meal times ( in my case morning and post WOD) which only sets you up for failure causing more stress to your body. I find I have to choke down breakfast because if i don't, I end up totally behind for the day and I start the decline process that will end with me crashing and sleeping all day faster than we can say deep fried Twinkies. Training in a hypo caloric state, which I had become accustomed to, is the biggest Cortisol trigger of them all and skipping a WOD is like asking for a limb! My point here is that simply listening to your body sometimes can be tricky if you have ignored it long enough, mistreated it for awhile or are over thinking whats best. It feels like a handicap now having spent so much time weighing and measuring and restricting in the name of performance and body composition, neither of which are satisfactory to me at the moment so square one here I am...I learned alot of insulin and its role in metabolic derangement and disease but somewhere along the path I picked up a derangement of another sort where it became okay to try manipulate biology for an ideal of myself, well, biology spoke up and told me to take a flying leap by shutting me down almost a year ago this month. I share this with you in hopes of making a difference in the way you will think of food, what your goals are and how you go about achieving them through your nutrition. We are not smarter than our bodies, we cant out think being hungry or make ice cream healthy, we can however try to listen and learn to ask why, to make an effort not to be vain and realize that sometimes doing the right thing means letting go, eating more ( of the right stuff) and stop making excuses for all of it. Fall off, get back up and try it again. I went back to those blocks so many times it would make Ike and Tina the picture of domestic bliss. Many of you have the tools you need to succeed, you just need more practice in using them. Like your snatch or hspu, practice makes perfect and one of these days well all be winners.
Meredith

Special Deal!

So Delicious Unsweetened Coconut Milk in the carton is on sale at the Co-op for 2.29 right now! Stock up!

Deals of the week

I have some GREAT deals to pass along to you this week!

Eureka Natural Foods:

Nutiva Coconut Manna (Creamy coconut) 15 oz. $5.49 (this is a $4.40 savings!! I stocked up!)

So Delicious Coconut Milk  1/2 gallon from the dairy case $3.39 ($2.00 savings) See Nick's post, the Co-op has it for $1 less, $2.29 per 1/2 gallon!

Coconut Aminos $5.39 ($1.06 savings, it is cheaper to buy in bulk from the Co-op I just wanted to save a trip)

Maranatha Sunflower Butter $3.59 ($1.06 savings)

Costco:

Organic Omega 3 eggs are in stock!  $4.99 per 18 pack

Coastal Range Organics Individually wrapped and frozen boneless/skinless chicken Breasts $13.49 for 3.5 pounds or $3.85 per pound for Organic, Vegetarian Fed, Free Range Chicken

Grocery Outlet:

Hormel uncured hard Salami $1.99 for 7 oz.

Cookies???!!!!

Being St. Patrick's Day and having 2 extra kids this morning I thought I would make it even more fun by making a "treat".  So we made these:
http://www.primal-palate.com/2010/12/chocolate-chip-cookies.html from Food Lovers Primal Palate.  
Mmmmm...chocolate chip cookies!  They were a  hit with the 6,4,3 and 11/2 year old!  I did substitute honey for the maple syrup because I didn't have any in the house, and they were still great.  It was fun to see them enjoying a "treat" and knowing it really was still pretty good for them.  Put a smile on their face and mine.

Chocolate Dessert Revisited

Today I made a big batch of "pudding"  for the kids, I combined 6 mashed bananas, a couple huge spoonfuls of almonds butter (the more the better!), some vanilla and lot's of cocoa powder in my food processor.  Processed till nice and smooth and then microwaved for a couple of minutes stirring often, don't skip this step it's what gives it that  pudding consistency.  The kids love it, I made a huge batch so they can pack it in their lunches tomorrow, it's really good with a sprinkle of shredded coconut too!

Link to : Chocolate Dessert

Spicy Orange Crock-pot Chicken With Baby Carrots

This is a very quick and easy recipe for a whole chicken.  I came up with this using ingredients I had on hand, hope you enjoy it.

1 whole chicken (about 4-5 pounds)
1 tsp granulated garlic 
1 Tablespoon Kirkland Organic No Salt Seasoning
1 tsp sea salt
1 Tablespoon Chipotle Powder
3 oranges sliced 
 Baby carrots


Combine spices and salt in small bowl and set aside.  Rinse and pat dry your chicken, then place it in your crock pot and rub mixture all over the chicken and be sure to sprinkle some in the cavity too!  Surround it with the oranges, squeezing a couple slices over the whole chicken and shoving some in the cavity.  Grab a couple handfuls of baby carrots and throw those in the pot too.  Cook on low for about 5 hours (depending on your crock pot.  Delicious and easy!

Wok

Costco has a great deal on a WOK right now, Nordic Ware large Wok for $12.97 (it was around $25.00 originally I guess) and they are $30 at Target.  So if you need one, now would be a great time to get one!  Just had to pass on that deal.

Shepherds Pie

 This recipe makes a huge Shepherds Pie as I am feeding a family of 9 

( I would suggest halving the recipe for a family of 4-6)

Ingredients for Meat portion of Pie:

4 pounds grass fed ground beef
2 yellow onions, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
4 stalks celery, chopped
1 pound green beans (cut into smaller peices or broken if they are frozen)
4 carrots, diced
2/3 cup beef broth
1 15 ounce can tomato sauce
1 1/2 TBSP Kirkland Signature No Salt Seasoning (my new favorite seasoning!), or more, to taste
1 tsp basil, or to taste
pepper and salt to taste

meat mixture simmering

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  In a large skillet brown your ground beef, onion, garlic and celery, cooking until the beef is browned.  Then drain off the fat and liquid from your beef (you can save it for later use if you would like).  Add your broth, tomato sauce, carrots, green beans and seasonings.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about 20 minutes or until your veggies are tender and ready.

While that is simmering is a great time to prep and make your cauliflower mash.

After your meat mix is done, then pour it into a casserole dish or large pan of you choice and top with your mashed cauliflower ( I sprinkled mine with paprika for looks, but it's not necessary).  Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes and then turn the heat up to broil and broil until the top is nicely browned.  Remove from the oven, allow to cool slightly, serve and enjoy.

Ready for the oven.

*Note:  you could easily up the veggie amount on this, however, since it's topped with cauliflower I tried to keep the carb content down a bit.

Mashed Cauliflower, if you have a recipe you like for mashed Cauliflower you can just use that.
This is just a suggestion:

3 heads of cauliflower florets removed 
Beef Broth
4 roasted garlic cloves (optional) (really easy to make homemade)
Sea Salt and pepper to taste

Steam  your Cauliflower until it's nice and soft, then just throw it into the bowl on your Food Processor, along with a little beef broth, salt and pepper (and garlic if you'd like).  Hit the button and puree until it's your desired consistency.  Delish!

*I have to apologize for the fact I didn't get any pictures of this dished up, it was devoured and given a thumbs up by everyone.  I got it on the table and ran out the door to the 6:30 workout at the box, and by the time I got home the kids had polished it off, not even a crumb left! *

Fresh and hot from the oven, ready to eat.

Deals of the week

Did my grocery shopping yesterday, here is what I found.

GROCERY OUTLET:

Simply Good Chicken Sausage, sun-dried tomato and basil (12 oz package) $3.49

Woodstock farms Organic Applesauce (flavors are: Blueberry, mango, raspberry) 24 oz.  $1.69

Gertie's Artichoke Tapenade 19.4 oz $3.99

Frozen Peaches 2 pound bag for $1.99

Alessi Pasta Sauce, FraDiavolo (good for seafood ) 24 oz $2.49


EUREKA NATURAL FOODS:

 Rocky jr. Natural Chicken, Vegetarian Fed, NO antibiotics or growth stimulants, Whole Chicken Fryers are just $0.99 per pound

Unsweetened So Delicious Coconut milk from the cooler, half gallon. $3.29

Coconut Water Amy and Brian $1.39 per can

Back Home!

Meredith and I are back from our weekend of Nutrition training!  What an awesome weekend!  We got to meet  and talk with so many people!  We met Robb Wolf and Sarah Fragoso (Everyday Paleo and NorCal trainer) and had some very helpful conversations with them (oh, and Melissa and Dallas Hartwig, Whole 9) regarding training and nutrition.  

We are moving the Box tomorrow so it's crazy busy, but one little tidbit I will throw out there is to make sure you are getting lot's of protein (nearly 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight).  And a warning not to start your day out with fruit, it sets you up for sugar cravings all day!  Instead eat your eggs and bacon or leftovers from last night.

There will be a ton more information in the next couple of weeks, look for some Our Thoughts articles.

Bargains of the Week

I didn't do my complete grocery shopping this week because I am going to be out of town this weekend (for 3 days).  Meredith, Katie Berrey and I will be attending a Robb Wolf, Paleo Solutions Seminar and a Whole 9 Seminar, we are very excited about all the information we will be gaining this weekend.  And we look forward to bringing it home to share with our clients and fellow Crossfit Eureka members. 

Any how here are a couple of deals for those celebrating the end of their Whole 30, some yummy treats!

North Coast Co-Op

Lara Bars all flavors $0.99 (these are normally about $1.69 each, so it's a big savings)

Luna and Larry's Coconut Bliss Ice Cream $3.99 ( a savings of $2.56 each)  Time to stock the freezer!

So delicious coffee Creamer original flavor $2.19 ( reg $2.69)

Eureka Natural Foods

As always their 80% grass fed beef is only $2.29 per pound and you don't have to buy 10 pounds to get that price like you do at the Co-op.  Co-op  charges more per pound and you have to buy 10 pounds).


Fuji Organic Apples $1.19 per pound

Braeburn Organic Apples $0.89 per pound


Coconut Water is on sale for $1.29 per can

Fried Apples

I made Sarah Fragoso's Fried Apples this morning, so simple but delicious.  The kids put them on top of paleo pancakes and I made an egg white crepe of sorts to wrap mine and topped it with applesauce.  I am going to tinker with the crepe recipe and then post it on here later.  Enjoy, it's it fun tasty treat!

Everyday Paleo's Fried Apples

3-4 small organic apples, thinly sliced
2 TBSP coconut oil
1/4 cup raisins
1/2 TBSP Cinnamon
2 TBSP Full Fat Coconut milk (I actually added a tad more)


Peel, core and slice your apples.  Melt your coconut oil in a medium skillet over med heat, add the apples and saute for 5 minutes or until the apples start to soften.  Add the raisins and cook 2-3 minutes.  Add cinnamon and mix well, then add the coconut milk and mix again.  Serve warm.  Serves 4


http://everydaypaleo.com/2011/02/25/sausage-n-cabbage-noodles-with-fried-apples/