Paleo Coleslaw (with a kick!)

Hey everybody! The weather is starting to cool off and everyone is getting into their fall recipes and I'm over here making summer salads! I never really cared for coleslaw and the only one I've ever REALLY liked was the jalapeno slaw at Chili's.  I don't even know if they still have it and I honestly can't remember what it tasted like, but I've been craving coleslaw lately and I got to thinking about that slaw at Chili's with jalapeno in it, and then this happened:

Ingredients:

14 or 16oz. package of coleslaw mix (or you can shred your own cabbage & carrots)

1/2 - 1 Jalapeno Pepper, seeded and chopped

1 tsp Fennel Seed

1 Cup Paleo Mayo

1 tsp Vinegar

1/2 tsp Lime Juce

1/2 tsp Garlic Powder

1/2 tsp Salt

1/2 tsp Pepper

Directions:

In a large bowl, toss the slaw mix with the jalapeno and fennel seed. In a smaller bowl, mix the remaining ingredients to make the sauce. Pour the sauce over the slaw mix and blend everything together well. Place in the refrigerator for a while to allow the flavors to blend.  

Oh yeah, and Whole30 5.0 week 1 is in the books!  

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.

My New Obsession

My latest obsession is ZOODLES! See how my first attempt with them turned out below (and stay tuned for some more experimentation with zoodles coming soon!).

I've been dying to try making zoodles since spaghetti squash is out of season in the summer.  I didn't discover the previous link before my first zoodle experience so, mine were a little watery. I might try the salt, sit & squeeze method next time!

I didn't want to invest in a fancy spiralizer until I knew if was even going to like this stuff. So, I ordered a Pampered Chef Julienne Peeler and gave it a whirl!  I was pleased with how easy it was to peel the zucchini using this peeler.  I don't see a need for fancier one (yet!).  

I was recently disturbed by own willingness to pay over $5 for a jar of spaghetti sauce at Kroger that was sugar (and offensive oil) free. I did decide that I need to can my own sauce this year. 

Anyway, I was pretty pumped when I found this brand at Walmart for a little over $3. You can see it has a good, clean ingredient list!

So... here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

4-6 Zucchini 

1lb Grass-fed Ground Beef or Italian Sausage

1 Jar of Sugar-free Spaghetti Sauce

Onions, chopped

Garlic, sliced or minced

Directions:

Turn the zucchini into "noodles" using your julienne peeler and place in a glass bowl.  I salted mine and then started a pot of boiling water.  Once the water is boiling, pour it over the zucchini in the bowl and let it sit for about 5 minutes (to soften the zucchini).  You may want to try this method.  While I was waiting for the water to boil, I cooked my ground beef with some onion and garlic and then added the sauce and let it simmer.  After draining the water off of the zoodles, I topped them with the meat sauce an promptly stuffed my face!  I also had this left-over for lunch the next day and it was just as good reheated.

Pizza!

Boy, it's been a while, eh?  Sorry for the long absence.  I've been busy, busy, busy!  

So... I haven't had pizza in over a year and I really miss it.  I don't miss a lot of the foods that I no longer eat, but I do miss pizza!  I even make pizza inspired bowls when I go to Ghengis Grill (pepperoni & other meats with peppers, onions, spinach, garlic...etc. and I use the tomato based sauce).  Yes, I know there are ton of "gluten-free pizza crust recipes" out there.  I'm really not interested in those.  

I found this recipe for Primal Eggplant Pizza from The Domestic Man, I really wanted to try it.  Yeah, I know dairy isn't paleo (it's primal!), but I thought a small amount of high-quality cheese might not hurt me (it didn't).  

So, I bought a nice looking eggplant from the farmers market and then picked up my favorite toppings:
Italian Sausage (from my fave farm!)
Pizza Sauce
Mozzarella Cheese
Shredded Parmesan Cheese
Pepperoni



You'll also need some olive oil and salt & pepper.  You can include any toppings you like.



As the recipe indicates, you want to slice your eggplant and then salt both sides of the slices.  These need to sit for 30 minutes.  You'll see the moisture drawing out of them. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 425.  

I cooked my Italian sausage while this was going on.

After 30 minutes, rinse your eggplant slices and pat them dry with a paper towel.  Then brush both sides of the slices with olive oil and add salt & pepper (I just liberally added the S&P, didn't measure).  I put them on my cooling rack over my baking sheet and stuck them in the oven.  It took closer to 10 minutes for mine to start to brown.

Then I added the sauce and toppings and cheese (I tried to go light on the cheese) and baked them again until the cheese was bubbly and the pepperoni was starting to crisp.

Overall, this recipe really hit the spot!  I like that the "crust" is made of a vegetable (vs. a bunch of nut flours...etc.). 

Attitude

This is short post about CrossFit.  While it's not technically paleo related, it's all combined in my life, so there.  

Since I started CrossFit (about 7 months ago), I've been noticing things.  Things like how many people look at what I do at CF and say "I could NEVER do that" or "I wouldn't make it past the first rep."  This doesn't just apply to CF either.  I notice many things in life that invoke this type of response lately.

These things make me sad.  I wonder "did I ever have that attitude?".  Yep, I'm pretty sure I did.  I didn't think I'd ever run a 5k in under 30 minutes or I would ever jump on a God-forsaken wooden box.  Ever.  

So... this explains that "all CrossFitters think they are elite" thing that I hear people talk about.  I don't think I'm elite.  I just have a different attitude now about what I CAN do.  To be honest, while new things (hello hand stands!) still scare the sh*t out of me, there is really nothing that I am not at least willing to TRY to do. And usually, I find that I CAN do them.  I just never tried before.

If I never get another thing out of CrossFit, at least I have gotten rid of that "I can't" attitude.  

Posing for photos, post WOD

Quick story about my first rope climbing experience:

It was a Friday morning (just over a week ago) and I was super excited about the crazy workout that was posted.  What made it even better is that two of the ladies that I had been missing working out with in the evenings were there!  I had never attempted to climb a rope before (not even in school that I can remember).  So, in practice, I was the first one to try it and I only made it about halfway up.  I decided to do the scaled version for the workout (start out lying on the floor and pull yourself to standing, using the rope).  If you were doing the scaled version, you had to do 5 reps to everyone else's 1.  OUCH.  By the end of the workout, my hands were KILLING me!  The last set had only 1 rope climb and I was determined not to have to do it 5 times, so I got on that rope and climbed to the top!  It's pretty typical of me to do my best work in the last set or minutes of the WOD.  I always seem to save the best for last :)

Hocus Pocus Let's all FOCUS!

This title comes from an old co-worker.  We used to say this after he told us all the story about his kindergarten teacher using that phrase to get the class under control.  

I've changed my focus.

Lately, I've been really focused on nutrition and Whole30 and fat loss.  Now that summer is here and I feel pretty good about nutrition, I want to change my focus to performance.  I want to really commit to CrossFit at least 4 days a week and give it my all and see some performance gains and PRs.  I plan to eat in a way that fuels these goals using the guidelines outlined here by Eat To Perform.  Here is another good article from ETP that explains why it's better to eat for performance than to eat for weight (or fat) loss.

According to the ETP calculator, I should be eating 2,258 calories per day.  This might shock some people for a 5'2" tall 130lb female to be eating that much, but trust me, I have very little problem meeting this goal! I've been doing it for quite a while, actually.  I will shoot for 100g of carbs per day.  I usually under eat on the carbs, but have been consciously adding more sweet potato and fruit to increase this.  I will try to eat at least 130g of protein (1g per pound of body weight) and the rest will be fat (apprx. 150 grams).  

I will occasionally use My Fitness Pal to make sure my numbers are where they need to be, but I hope to get to a point where I am intuitively eating to fuel my performance.  

Also, for the summer I am not weighing myself (until sometime after Labor Day).  I look forward to this summer and all it will bring!  What are you focused on right now?  

Paleo/Whole30 Marinade (Stir-fry Recipe)

I got a little creative in the kitchen again on Sunday.  I didn't do as well planning my menu and shopping list last week as I normally do.  Since we'll be out of town this weekend, I had to buy enough meat for 2 weeks (I buy my meat on Saturday mornings at the farmers market).  I couldn't seem to find the time to make a menu for one week, let alone two!  So... I just ordered a bunch of random stuff from the farmer and created a menu for this week using what I had.  

I bought some minutes steaks because they came in a package deal and I decided they would be great for stir fry (easy!).  I wanted to make a good flavorful stir fry and I had just scored this little gem at Vitamin Shoppe:

Marinade needs to include some oil (for moisture), an acid (to tenderize) and, of course flavor!

Ingredients

1Tbsp Avocado Oil (olive oil would probably work fine)

1tsp Apple Cider Vinegar

1/2tsp Pink Himalayan Sea Salt (any sea salt would probably be fine here)

1tsp Coconut Aminos

1/4tsp Crushed Red Pepper Flakes (more if you like it HOT!)

1/2tsp White Pepper (I think black pepper would be ok)

1 Garlic Clove minced

1 package of Minute Steaks (mine was just under 1lb)

Directions

Cut minute steak up into bite sized chunks and place in a glass or ceramic container that has a lid.  Mix all other ingredients together in a glass bowl and pour over the meat.  Toss and mix the meat to coat it in the marinade really well.  

Cover and place the marinaded meat in the fridge for 2-24 hours (I left it in there for about 3 hours).  In the meantime, you can chop your stir-fry veggies if needed.  I used a combination of fresh veggies and a bag of frozen.  When you're ready to cook the stir-fry, heat your wok to medium-high heat and add a little oil (any fat of choice) to the pan.  Then throw the marinaded meat in there and continue to stir it while it cooks.  When the meat is almost cooked through, remove it from the pan using a slotted spoon (it will continue to cook a little after it's removed and you'll also be putting it back in the pan at the end, so it can be medium-rare here).  Now put your veggies in the hot pan with the fat that's left from cooking the meat.  Continue to stir-fry the veggies until they are done (I like mine tender-crisp).  Then add the meat back in and toss it all around in the pan for a minute.  Serve immediately or portion out for future lunches and dinners for the week.