Picnic Salad

Probably the easiest "recipe" you'll ever find.

1 Cucumber, peeled and sliced
1 Tomato, diced
1 Bell Pepper, diced
1 Onion, diced
Salt & Pepper, to taste

Mix all veggies together in a bowl with salt & pepper. Place in the refrigerator for 20-30 minutes. The veggies will release some water creating their own "dressing", so stir it all up before serving!

This salad is so fresh & simple and you can grab the ingredients for a few dollars at the farmers market.

Tip of the Day

Save small glass containers such as herb/seasoning containers
and baby food jars to store single servings of dressing for salads!

This week's menu is simple and requires very little cooking. We're having a lot of salads.

I bought iceberg lettuce, organic spring mix and organic baby spinach for the greens.

We've chopped up radishes, bell pepper, red onion, cucumbers & tomatoes for veggie toppings.

And we've got taco seasoned ground beef, tuna mixed with homemade mayo, nitrate-free ham cold cuts from the farm,  grilled or buffalo chicken & hard boiled eggs for protein.

And most importantly, we've got dressings!  I've made a fresh batch of ranch dressing and bottled them in baby food jars and glass herb jars. I've also got a bottle of Tessamae's Italian Dressing!  

Chicken Bacon Ranch Zoodle Salad

Are you looking for an alternative to the typical summer cold pasta salad?  Well, have I got the perfect recipe for you!  This one is simple and fairly easy to make.  I like it best the next day, so it's perfect to make it ahead of time and then carry it to your next picnic or family gathering.  

Ingredients:

1lb Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts

1/2 TBSP Homemade Ranch Seasoning* 

1 TBSP Butter

4-6 slices of cooked & crumbled Bacon

5-6 cups Zoodles (I used 3 large zucchini) 

1/4 Cup diced Red Bell Pepper 

1/4 Cup diced Red Onion

1/4 Cup Homemade Mayo* 

Salt & Pepper (to taste)

Directions:

Cut chicken up into bite-sized chunks. Heat butter in pan and add chicken and ranch seasoning to pan.  Cook until chicken is no longer pink. I put my chicken in a bowl in the fridge while I finished the rest of the recipe. While the chicken is cooling, you can start boiling a large pot of water and create your zoodles by using a spiralzer or julienne peeler. I salt the water and the zoodles. Once the water is boiling, toss the zoodles in and put a lid on it. It will only take 3-5 minutes for your zoodles to soften up, so keep checking them. As soon as you can easily cut one with a fork, put them in a colander in the sink and run cold water over them. While they are draining, you can cook and crumble your bacon and cut your onions & peppers. Squeeze all of the excess  water from the zoodles and put them in large bowl. Mix in the chicken, bacon, peppers, onion and mayo. Add salt & pepper to taste. As I said, this dish tastes great after the flavors have blended in the fridge for a few hours (or overnight).  

*I always have mayo & ranch seasoning made and on-hand.

Ranch Buffalo Chicken Spinach Salad

I had a sudden burst of creativity last night and created a new dish.  It's really a combination of parts some of my other favorite dishes that I put together.  It turned out really well.  I call it Ranch Buffalo Chicken Spinach Salad.

Ingredients

3-4 Boneless/Skinless Chicken Breasts (I had about half a bag left which is apprx. 24oz)

Ranch Seasoning (I didn't measure, but I'm guessing I used about 2 TBSP)

3 TBSP of Butter (or ghee)

1/2 Cup Frank's Red Hot Original Sauce

Directions

If you don't already have a jar of this amazing homemade ranch seasoning by Living Low Carb One Day at a Time, you should totally make a big batch of it first!  I use it quite often.  It's delicious.  My favorite recipe is these Buffalo Chicken Meatballs.

Next, you need to cut your chicken up into bite-sized pieces and sprinkle that ranch seasoning all over it.  Put about 3T of butter (or ghee) in a large skillet and heat on medium heat.  Add the chicken pieces to the pan and toss to coat in the butter.  Cook until the chicken is just cooked through.  There will be a lot of buttery liquid in the pan, like this: 

Now turn the heat down a little (med-low) and add a 1/2 cup of Frank's Red Hot** to the pan.  Let it come to a simmer and continue to simmer, stirring occasionally for about 10 minutes.  The chicken will become more tender and the flavors will blend well.  I then took some fresh raw spinach and filled a plate up with it.  I topped it with about half of the chicken mixture (being sure to include some of that juice) and a few dollops of my homemade paleo ranch dressing.

**Note: be sure to check the labels on whatever hot sauce you decide to use.  The Franks Red Hot Original is Whole30 compliant, but the Franks Red Hot Buffalo Wing Sauce is not :(

Progress & Whole30 V4.0

Hey y'all!  Guess what?!  I'm doing another Whole30!  This is my fourth one.  After reading Primal Body-Primal Mind by Nora Gedgaudas, I've decided the Hubs and I should approach this Whole30 with her suggestions in mind.  That means that we are skipping the sweet potatoes and fruit this time around in an attempt to really find the elusive ketosis.  I am a little nervous about being so low carb and doing CrossFit, but I won't know how it works until I try it.  The key here is to eat PLENTY OF FAT (for fuel) and a moderate amount of protein.  

Here I've been pushing myself lately to eat a lot of protein...  

I think with my activity level (CF 3-4 times per week plus other things like running, rock wall climbing...etc) I am safe to still eat around 100g of protein a day.  As long as I am eating a TON of fat too.

My goal is to see my abs when this over.  I've gotten stronger and leaner, but just need to remove that little layer of fat.  It's ON!  

I thought this would be a good time to take progress pictures too.  I had taken some when I first started CrossFit in November 2012 and hadn't taken any since.  My husband took them for me and I looked at them immediately said "I look the same!  Nothing has changed!"  Later I used my PicStitch app to put the old pictures next to the new ones and I could really see a difference then!  The biggest differences I noticed were in my posture and my thighs!  I'm really sorry, as much as I want to show them off, I'm too nervous to post pictures of myself in tiny shorts and and a sports bra all over the interwebs... Y'all will have to trust me that my progress has been good.  I plan to take the same pictures again in 30 days.  I can't wait!  

Oh yeah, I'm also tracking my food on My Fitness Pal.  I know that tracking during a Whole30 is a no-no, but I've done 3 of them without tracking and feel pretty confident that it won't effect how I eat.  Also, I want to be sure to keep my carbs are low enough and that I am eating enough fat.  And I'm a curious person, so I want DATA.

So, here's my menu for week 1:

1) Cabbage Goulash

2) Waldorf Tuna Salad *obviously there's a litte fruit in here, but it's less than half an apple/svg.

3) Skillet Taco Pie w/homemade guacamole

4) Whole Roasted Chicken 

5) Hard Boiled Eggs/Egg Salad

6) Smoked Sausage w/Kraut (I just fry up a little uncured smoked pork sausage from the farm with some Bubbie's Kraut) 

7) Stir-fry/fajitas 

Catching up...

There's been a lot going on in the last week and half and I haven't even had time to share it all!  

On November 18th I participated in a 3-1/2 hour CrossFit Fundamentals class.  I'm hooked!  I went back the very next day and did a WOD that was spending 30 minutes determining your one rep max deadlift. I had never done a deadlift before, so I had no idea what to expect.  I started with 95lbs (you are only lifting the bar from the floor to a straight standing position, mostly using your lower back muscles and hips to move the weight, allowing for much heavier lifts).  I then tried 115, 135, 145 and finally 155 pounds!  I was proud as a peacock to have lifted that much on my first night!  

My friend Billie & I after we totally
ROCKED the Turkey Day 5k

That was only the beginning of what was to become an incredible week of accomplishments for me!  I had been planning on running the Turkey Day 5k on Thanksgiving morning for the 2nd year in a row and while I had been pretty excited about it, in the weeks leading up to it I felt very unprepared and not ready.  There were over 800 runners!  What a rush!  I was convinced this was going to be one of my worst 5k races.  Last year I finished it in over 35 minutes.  That's about what I expected this year.  You can imagine my shock and astonishment when I finished in 30:06!  That's over 2-1/2 minutes faster than my record.  Also, it was the first time that I have ever ran the entire time.  NO walking!  My next 5k will be under 30 minutes and I will bring home a trophy before the heat of summer in 2013 stops me from running.  Mark my words.

After the race we had Thanksgiving lunch with some of Husband's family.  I had deviled eggs, veggies with homemade ranch, turkey, potatoes & gravy, sweet potatoes, fruit salad, cranberries and even a paleo cake that his Aunt made for us!  

I have since done 2 more WODs at my local box (CrossFit Jackson) and I felt a sense of accomplishment after each one like never before!  Husband has been CrossFitting since April and since he works 3rd shift, he attends the 7pm class (would be the equivalent of me going at 6am).  Since April, I have been making dinner while he's gone to the gym and when he would get home (after 8pm most times), I would either have already eaten dinner or we would eat together.  He really wants me to workout with him at 7pm, so I had to figure out how to make and eat dinner in that time frame.  Since this is the first week we are trying that schedule, I spent time this weekend cooking up a ton of food so that all of our meals would be ready to heat & eat.  Here's what I made:

Paleo Blueberry Muffins

Chicken Salad (with homemade mayo, grapes, salt & pepper)

Buffalo Chicken Salad

Steak & Chicken Fajitas

Spicy Pulled Pork (I skip the sauce) Served with green beans

Smoked Beef Brisket with steamed broccoli

Beef/Venison Cabbage Soup  

I also made 10 hard boiled eggs and baked a cookie sheet full of bacon.

We are nearly out of boiled eggs and the bacon is gone, so tonight I will fry up a pound of pastured pork sausage together with a dozen eggs and portion it out in the fridge for the rest of the week.  We like to heat it up and top it with Frog Ranch Salsa.

These Blueberry Muffins by PaleOMG were pretty good!  However, an entire cup of almond butter is a lot of money and when I think of it that way, they weren't good enough to warrant that kind of spending for a dozen muffins.  Also, if I were to make them again, I would put an entire cup of blueberries in them because you can never have too many blueberries in your blueberry muffins.

The recipe says it makes 8-10 muffins, but I easily filled all 12 muffin cups.  Also, it didn't say how far to fill the cups.  As you can see, I filled mine about 3/4 full.

Recipe Roundup

I've tried 2 new recipes this week and invented a 3rd one!  

I've been wanting to try greens for some time now, but I had a feeling that the traditional southern way of boiling vegetables to death would turn me off.  So, instead I used a great recipe by Whole Life Eating called Pork Loin Chops with Collard Greens.  I actually liked it!  It was best when I took a bite of greens with a bite of the pork.  Husband resisted even trying them and then when he finally did he said they were "disgusting".  I still plan to make them once-a-weekish for myself.  The health benefits are too good to ignore (calcium, folate...etc).

My next new recipe was this Crockpot Ropa Vieja & Cuban Style Rice by PaleOMG.  I left the capers out because I didn't know what they were!  This recipe was good.  Husband wasn't thrilled with the texture of the cauliflower "rice", but overall he liked it.  

Then came my masterpiece!  Strawberry (banana) Ice Cream!  This recipe was inspired by the Banana Ice Cream that we had already been enjoying from time to time.  I simply put frozen sliced bananas, frozen (fresh) strawberries and full-fat canned coconut milk (chilled) in  my new food processor and blended it all together! When I do this again, I will cut the strawberries in half prior to freezing.  Being whole, they required a bit of coaxing with a wooden spoon in between processing.  I left out the cinnamon & nutmeg from the original banana ice cream recipe and I think that was a good decision.  Now I'm dying to try this Cinnamon Sweet Potato Ice Cream from PaleOMG.  We MUST get an ice cream maker!

On my list to make this weekend/next week: 

Meatballs

Marinara Sauce

Spaghetti Squash

Sauteed Shrimp

T-bones

Buffalo Wings

Sweet Tater Fries/Mashed sweet taters

Smoky Country Style Ribs

Crock Pot Lemon Pepper Chicken

Watermelon & Cucumber Salad                                                     

Whole30 v2.0

I know y'all (all 2 of you) missed me while I was gone!  Our vacation was wonderful and we had a great time visiting family & friends that we hadn't seen in years!  We off-roaded a little bit, but definitely ate/drank better than we normally would have.  I had a few bites of some sweet treats and some alcoholic beverages and Husband had a lot of alcoholic beverages, which caused his joints to start aching again after a month of feeling much better!  So, today we start our Whole30 v2.0.  We are putting our own spin on this one.  It will be the same as our first except that Husband plans to continue using his pre-workout mix and we agreed to use bacon (nitrate/nitrite free from the farmer's market).  We're both looking forward to feeling our best again and we have some friends joining us for this one :)

Several friends and family members inquired about our dietary changes while we were in Wisconsin.  It was great to have everyone wanting more information and being interested in trying it themselves!  I've already sent The Book to my mother and a good friend.  My chiropractor has my copy right now and I'm thinking of buying myself a second copy.

I got my bloodwork results back (post-Whole30).  There wasn't a whole lot that needed improving, but here's a direct quote from Doctor: "Your numbers would be hard to improve on" .  That made me smile.  I plan to take his advice and try some probiotics.

When we came home from vacation, I immediately headed to the farmers market and the grocery store.  I made a batch of mayo and a batch of ranch dressing/dip.  I made a large batch of chicken salad (using homemade mayo, chicken breasts, green grapes, pecans and S&P).  Then on Sunday I made Crockpot Cabbage Rolls, Chicken soup (with my homemade bone broth!) and deviled eggs.  I burned up our blender before vacation, so I bought a food processor at Walmart for $29.99.  It came with a 2-year warranty, so I figure if it burns up in 2 years, I get it replaced.  If not, it was worth the money!

Here's a recipe that I found in a magazine. I apologize for the crappy picture quality, but I thought this looked like a fun, fresh salad to make!

Eating Real Food Rocks! & Whole30 Day 5- 8 Journal

"Eating real food rocks!" is part of a text I sent to my fellow Whole30ers last night while eating my version of the amazing Buffalo Chicken Salad from this Whole9 blog post.  I used a different mayo base for my ranch, left the onions off the salad and opted for fresh romaine lettuce rather than iceberg.  Also, fyi I used Franks Red Hot Sauce.  The ingredients list looked fine to me and I absolutely love the love the flavor of Franks!  I totally forgot to take a picture, but trust me, it was AH-mazing and I'll be making it again.  It was really easy to make too!  

So here's my food/mood diary for days 5-8:


Day 5 ~ Friday, July 13


Up at 6am.  Went to bed at 6:30pm last night!  Was in a lot of pain and didn't sleep real well until after 11:00, but woke feeling pretty well rested.

7:15 - 2 Eggs scrambled and fried in coconut oil, sauteed (in clarified butter) cabbage, peppermint tea
8:15 - Chai Tea
12:30 - chicken breast with mayo, Salad w/lettuce, tomato, green pepper, onion, banana peppers & ranch dressing
I tried to eat more at lunch (I only ate half of my chicken and about 2/3 of my salad), but I just couldn't!  Judging by comments on the forum and Husband's experience this week, this is pretty normal.  I'm just trying to be sure that I have a healthy balance of carbs/fat/protein.  
7:00 - Shrimp stir fried in ghee with onion & peppers, sweet potato fries (with EVOO)

Day 6 ~ Saturday, July 14
Up at 6:00.  Enjoyed the amazing homemade cappuccino from the Whole9 Forum with 2 eggs fried in coconut oil and sauteed cabbage.
11:30 - took a nap
2:30 - had another cappuccino.  I realize this is an odd schedule, but Husband works 3rd shift and I work 1st, so we tend to blend our schedules together on the weekends.
3:40 - Chili & half a banana
6:00 - Chef Salad w/ ranch dressing & HB eggs
7:00 - Almonds & Water @ movie theater
10:00 - banana ice cream


Day 7 ~ Sunday, July 15
Up at 6:00.  35 min Cross training workout at 6:30.
7:20 - Cappuccino
8:15 - Eggs fried in clarified butter, eggplant fried in coconut oil, sausage
I was in the kitchen cooking and prepping until 9:00am and then again from 10am until 1pm and again later in the evening.  I "tasted" and snacked here and there while I was cooking.
4:00 - took dogs for 20 minute walk
5:00 - Chicken and veggies from crockpot


Day 8 ~ Monday, July 16
Up at 5:00 am, feeling like a million bucks! :)

6:00am - "Cappuccino", 2 deviled egg halves, steamed carrots, grapes, citrus water
only ate about half of the food on my plate despite being very hungry when I sat down to eat
7:20 - 20 minute power walk
9:30 - Chai Tea on ice
11:00 - chicken salad
12:00 - Apple Pie Larabar
I know I should have had veggies at lunch, but I just didn't.  Lame excuse: I had no ranch dressing to dip the raw veggies that brought to work in.  Still feeling pretty good after noon, but my energy isn't as high as it was this morning.
6:00 - 2 deviled egg halves
6:45 - Buffalo Chicken Salad
Craved and thought about making the banana ice cream before bed, but thought better of it.  Sugar dragon speaking?

Turkey Burgers with Creamed Cucumbers

I sort of made this recipe on accident about 2 weeks ago and didn't get a picture, so here it is!  I start by making my grandmother's Creamed Cucumbers recipe.

CREAMED CUCUMBERS
Ingredients:

2-4 cucumbers (depending on size and how big of a batch you want to make)
Mayonnaise (I use Hellman's, but you can experiment with paleo mayonnaise)
Salt & Pepper
Vinegar
Sugar Substitute (my grandmother always used just a pinch of sugar, I used Stevia in the Raw)

                                                                Directions:
Peel and slice the cucumbers (thinner slices are better!).  Put about half the slices in a bowl and generously shake salt on them, then put the rest in and salt them some more.  Give them a stir and put them in the fridge for a while to allow the juices to run out (I put them in the fridge while I made the turkey burger patties).  Take them out of the fridge and drain the juice off of them.  I also take a paper towel and mop some of the juice up that way.  If you don't get the juice off, they will be runny rather than creamy.  Add some mayonnaise to the bowl (I don't measure, but start with about 1/8c.)  Add about 1/2t of vinegar and 1/2 packet of Stevia.  Mix it all together and then determine if more mayo needs to be added.  It should be creamy and all cucumbers covered in the dressing.  Add some salt and pepper and put them back in the fridge until dinner is ready!  These make a great side dish to any summer grill meal, but I thought they were AMAZING atop my turkey burger!

For the turkey burgers, I used 1lb of 85/15 ground turkey.  I added some garlic powder, S&P and Italian Seasoning and mixed it all up.  I then formed 4 patties out of it.  I grilled the turkey burgers and when they were just about done, I put a slice of provolone cheese on each one and let it melt (you can skip the cheese if you are non-dairy).  Then I placed a slice of tomato on top and spooned some of the creamed cucumbers on top of that!  YUM-O!

Salmon on the grill!

I bought a one pound slab of fresh wild-caught salmon at the farmer's market on Friday.  It smelled so amazing, I couldn't wait to grill it up!  I found this recipe from The Food Lovers Kitchen.  It's simple and tasty.  I cheated a little and used lemon juice out of a bottle because I was out of lemons, but it turned out good and next time, I'll be sure to have lemons on hand!

Marinading...

Grilling...

I also made this simple, fresh salad to go along with it:

1 Cucumber, peeled and sliced
1 Tomato, diced
1 Bell Pepper, diced
Onion, diced (I use about 1/2 cup)

Mix it all together in a bowl with generous amounts of salt & pepper.  It will start to make it's own juice, so stir it all up before serving!