Category: Paleo

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness, Paleo, Uncategorized

Serendipitous Recipe Failure – Take 2

heather

I wrote this post last night (or at least a version of this post), but the internet, WordPress, or my laptop decided to mess with me, and the post disappeared into the ether.  It did not put me in an amicable state for sleeping.  I’m trying to not let things get to me as much (“Let It Go, Heather,” is my internal mantra), but I have to say, that annoyed the hell out of me. It’s so much easier to be serene when you don’t have PMS.

ANYWAY, I had two recipe reviews that I wanted to share with you.

I wanted to try my hand at these Homemade Fruit Snacks.  Who doesn’t need a little grass-fed gelatin in their diet??  I knew I was off to a rough start when I hit Step 6, and had no paste form.  It was pure liquid, not paste at all. I dumped the liquid, assuming I had mis-measured and started anew, only to achieve the same results.  I went ahead and added the remaining ingredients and put the batch in the fridge over night, hoping for some refrigerator magic to happen.

I was sorely disappointed.  It was all still just pure liquid.  No gellin’ whatsoever going on.  Instead of tossing all these expensive ingredients (grass-fed gelatin, frozen berries, raw honey), I poured the contents of the dish into two 12 oz Ball jars and put them in the fridge.  Last night when I got home from yoga, I had a delicious sorbet waiting for me!  I scooched a home-made coozie on the jar so my digits wouldn’t freeze and went at it with a fork, slicing off chunks of sweet berry mixture.  It is pretty damn tasty, and Tim agrees.  I want to get some of these cute, small Ball jars.  I think they would be perfect for little desserts like this and also for freezing pesto.  I have a HUGE basil plant that I need to strip for pesto.

The other recipe I made was this Cauliflower Rice recipe.  I’ve written about this recipe before. It’s super delicious and easy as is, but this time I got a little experimental.  I added some onions, green onion, garlic, and tomatoes.  I cooked the batch in our Nesco, so that I wouldn’t have to turn on the oven (it’s super hot here in Iowa right now).  I had to stir it frequently so that the rice on the edges wouldn’t burn.  It turned out super tasty!!  It tasted like Spanish rice. I love cauliflower. It’s so versatile.  Those cruciferous veggies are the bomb.

And that’s my update. I have a few new recipes on the agenda to try this week, so I’ll have another update soon.

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness, Paleo

Salmon Burgers and ICE CREAM!!

heather

I’ve tried two new recipes of note this week.

Berry Pancake – This is a recipe from Primal Blueprint Quick & Easy Meals.  It has intrigued me ever since I bought the cookbook 2 years ago, but I just now took the plunge and made it for breakfast on Sunday.  Basically you  heat up berries with copious amounts of butter.  Then you whip up some egg whites and fold in the whisked egg yolks.  You pour this eggy batter on top of the hot berries and bake the whole mess.  When it’s done, you flip the pan upside down, with a plate over it (no small feat when you are cooking with a 40 ton cast iron pan), and voila!  Berry Pancake!  I have to say, this is not my favorite recipe.  I think I should have used only non-seedy berries.  The egg crust/souffle turned out really tasty however.  I think I’m going to try this recipe again, but make it more savory instead of sweet – saute some broccoli with garlic and add the egg crust to that.

Asian Salmon Burger with Homemade Pickled Ginger – If you like salmon and/or ginger AT ALL, make this recipe post haste.  It is deeeelicious.  I could easily eat all 6 of these burgers by myself; they are THAT tasty.  I did have to make a few substitutions/alterations, however.  First of all, I ran out of honey, so I used maple syrup in the pickled ginger.  I also only had about 1/2 a cup of rice vinegar, so I topped off the cup with white wine vinegar.  Also, fresh salmon is prohibitively expensive (and last time we bought fresh salmon at HyVee it smelled reallly fishy), so we used the frozen keta fillets from Target (on sale for $9.99 right now).  I ran short on shitake mushrooms, so I rounded out the dozen with some baby bellas.  Oh, and lastly, I have no coconut aminos (I can’t find them anywhere in the QC!), so I used tamari instead.

We paired the burgers with a green salad and some leftover homemade mayo I made for chipotle coleslaw a few days ago.  Wow – everything turned out super good.  We LOVED the pickled ginger.  I can’t believe it’s that easy to make.

So after that super healthy, nutrient-dense, primal meal, we are going out for…….

ICE CREAM!!!

I can’t help it.  My hormones are demanding some creamy, sweet Whiteys, and I’m powerless to deny them.

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness, Paleo, Uncategorized

Gross Looking Food that is Great for You (aka Indian Delhi Saag)

heather

That title just kind of gave away my whole post.

I figured I should try some new recipes this week since for the past 2 weeks I’ve just been recycling tried and true favorites (these were the recipes I used to the build the 21-Day Challenge meal plans for my friends).

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I started using PaleoTrack to track my food during the challenge.  The creator of the site wrote a post about some common diet deficiencies he’s identified using the data logged by his users.  He goes on the list foods you can/should eat to remedy the deficiencies.  My personal experience mirrors what he is seeing on a macro level.  My vitamin levels are usually great, but I really struggle to get the RDA of minerals.  This has been a very eye-opening experience for me.  You just assume that if you eat a lot of whole foods, fruits, veggies, meat, etc., you will be getting pretty much everything you need.  Nooooope.  You have to be methodical.  So I made on the recipes he suggested, Indian Delhi Saag.

I have to say, it turned out looking absolutely disgusting.  For proof look at my Instagram feed to the right.  But!  BUT!  It tasted really good!  Tim was very trepidatious about it.  He thought it smelled like a tobacco shop.  Granted, he is not a huge cumin fan, and this has 2 tsp of cumin seed and 1 tsp of ground cumin.  It’s very cuminy. It also has a lot of turmeric.  My white stove is now plastered with streaks of neon yellow.  I will be keeping this recipe in the roster fo sho.  Although, I’m going to make Tim smell my breath tomorrow morning and see if I smell super funky from all the spices.  This thing has a sh!t-ton of spices.  I’m now plumb out of coriander and turmeric.

So now we’re all loaded up on vitamins and minerals – thank you Marc of PaleoTrack!

I do not know what you *should* pair with Indian Delhi Saag, so I complicated my evening by trying another brand new recipe – this one for Poached Salmon with Green Herb Sauce.  We accidentally bought skinless frozen salmon at Target, and when Tim grilled it, it was very dry.  I though poaching it might yield better results.  It was very meh, however.  I’m not linking to the recipe because I found it in some magazine.  You’re not missing anything, believe me.  The salmon still came out dry.  I kind of doused it with the Saag, and that livened it up.

My coworker who is doing the 21-Day Challenge with me is having a primal party at her house on Saturday.  I’m still finalizing what I’m going to make – maybe a cucumber salad, kale chips, and sweet potato muffins. If you have any bonkers good paleo recipes, let me know!

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness, Paleo, Uncategorized

Day 8 and Other Miscellaney

heather

It’s Day 8 of the challenge, and I’m happy to say I’m down 2 pounds.  Who knows if it’s the diet or if it’s hormones.  Hormones are such a wild card.  Either way, I’m taking it!

It’s been a positive experience so far.  Using PaleoTrack has helped me become more aware of eating for nutrition instead of soley based on taste/convenience.  I’ve realized that unless I eat A LOT of greens (especially kale), it’s really hard to meet the RDA for minerals.  And unless I eat salmon regularly, my omega 6 to omega 3 ratios are waaay out of wack.  And, holy cow!  I can’t believe how many carbs are in grapes!!

Why the random grape comment, you ask?  Let me tell you.  We ran the Bix 7 (a local, hilly, 7-mile road race with about 18,000 participants) on Saturday.  This is the 3rd year we’ve done this quintessential Quad Cities event.  In the past 2 years, we’ve celebrated our efforts with beers at Great River Brewery and then pizza at Harris.  No such celebration this year!! Instead, after the race, I made my way through the throngs of people scarfing down the free Little Debbies, Twinkies, Cheetos, granola bars, and Michelob Ultra to the one tent waaaaay in the back that was handing out grapes.  I met up with the Timmy Tee there, who finished about 15 minutes before me, and had a couple of handfuls of grapes – about 1.5 cups, I think.  Guess how many carbs that is.  Guess!  You’ll never guess – it’s 41!!  When you are trying to stay below 100 for a whole day, that is troublesome!!  Oh, well, at least I did a 7 mile, SUPER HOT, super hilly, super crowded road race to compensate for the stupid sugary grapes.

After the race, we collected our phones from the car and then went back into the fray.  Since beer and pizza is off limits until August 9th, I filled my craving for something special by going to Red Band Coffee and getting a huge decaf (no heavy cream this time:().  While there we ran into a couple of friends and proceeded to chat for the next 90 minutes while Tim and our friend had a couple of beers at Great River.  In retrospect, perhaps standing for 90 minutes after running 7 miles was not a wise choice.

Oh man, I was soooo sore after that stupid run!  It took me 2 minutes longer this year than last year.  What is eerie is that Tim dropped 2 minutes from his time.  At the triathlon, I gained 8 minutes, and he lost 8 minutes.  Yin and yang, mange, yin and yang.  Anyway, all day long our knees were killing us – super achey.  I finally remembered to use the foam roller on my IT bands, and BAM, I was back in business.  They need to have stack and stacks of foam rollers at the end of these races.

Today to limber up our limbs we took what was supposed to be an easy bike ride.  However, we encountered a wiley wind that made our trip home quite the workout.  Even though it was more exercise than I wanted or needed, I’m really glad we went out. The weather today is super odd – it feels like a fall day by the ocean instead of an Iowan mid-summer Sunday.  I love it.  We have all the windows open and occasionally gusts are lifting up every sheet of paper in the house while also cooling down our hot kitchen.

Yes, it’s July, and I’ve been baking!  I have been craving a paleo treat since I’m not really supposed to have one.  🙂  Plus, I found this recipe on the CivilizedCaveman site:  Pumpkin Cinnamon Muffins with Pumpkin Frosting.  Also, we are doing a wellness challenge at work, and I wanted to bring in a healthy-ish treat to encourage my team.  Well, I messed up the recipe from the get-go. I put the coconut milk in the fridge overnight as instructed, but instead of just scooping out the solidified milk, I mixed up the whole can and used some of that for the frosting.  There is no way that concoction is ever going to be frosting consistency.  But I tried a little bit of it out of curiosity.  OMG.  It tastes just like eggnog.  It’s deeeeelicious!!  Tim agrees and says it would probably be bonkers good with some rum.  Now I just need to figure out how to keep it good until I can have rum again…

And the muffins?  Well, I do believe I have underbaked them.  Tim and I just split one (watching those carbs, you know), and it is waaaay too mushy.  I’ll need to put them back in the oven and firm them up a bit.  Right now the oven is occupied with a chicken that promises (by the delightful smells wafting out of the oven) to be ultra tasty, so we’ll have to wait a bit.  Hopefully they will turn out OK.  Trying new recipes can be so frustrating!!  But how else can you find new, good stuff to make?

Oh, speaking of screwing stuff up – you remember the water kefir grains that I thought I killed?  They are alive and well!!  I took the advice of the super helpful staff at Cultures for Health and put them in spring water mixed with sucanat sugar.  The first batch was very lackluster, but they are slowing regaining their vigor.  I have two batches of the second ferment going right now.  It’s turning out fizzy and not sweet at all.  We love the flavor.  So much cheaper than buying kombucha!!  It’s helping to ease my transition into alcohol -ree evenings.  It is so boring to come home and just drink water all night!!  Drinking a cup of fizzy water kefir is an event!  Weeeeoooo!

And that’s my update for the week.  Some successes.  Some failures. Yin and yang, mange, yin and yang.

 

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness, Paleo

Day 5 of 21 Day Challenge Reboot

heather

As I mentioned, two of my coworkers and I are doing the 21 Day Challenge together.  My friend want to lose some weight and get healthier, and I want to reboot myself.  My 80/20 has been slip, slip, slipping, and I’ve added about 3 lbs as a result.  I want to get back to my fighting weight so my clothes fit better.

So far the challenge is going pretty well!  My friends have lost 8 lbs and 5 lbs, respectively. I’ve lost ZERO pounds.  I’m super happy for my friends – they say they have been sleeping better, and they enjoy not being miserable and bloated after every meal.  I think that feeling so much better after just a few days of eating differently has really opened their eyes.  They are full of questions and good meal ideas and helpful websites!

One of the sites they found is Paleotrack.  It’s kind of like MyFitnessPal, but it’s tailored more for the paleo client.  For example, it doesn’t encourage you to eat more carbs and less fat. It also doesn’t tell me I will weigh 2 more pounds in a week if I continue to eat this way. 😛  The site also provides the vitamin/mineral/macro nutrient ratios for your foods. It’s very helpful information.  My friends especially like the way the site rates how closely your eating habits fall within the primal/paleo spectrum.  If you do well, you get “Strict Primal!” written in green on your journal page.  It also tells you if you are sugar free/grain free/legume free.  The colors are incentivizing.  And yes, I do believe that’s a word.  We all want to be GREEN!

The site is so cool that I emailed the site creator, who quickly responded with a thanks for using his site and some encouragement for our primal quest.  We also briefly discussed how quickly the 80/20 rule can get you into trouble.  Hearing that from another primal enthusiast has really made me consider how I will eat, once this challenge is over.  I think I’ll need to restrict my “cheats” to just one evening a week; otherwise, I just start to fall of the cliff.

I still feel a little off the cliff, actually, even though I’ve been eating pretty clean since Sunday.  I’ve avoided grains and cheese overall, but it’s been an odd week in that I’ve done some work traveling, and we’ve had company, two things that mean I’ve eaten out every day this week for at least one meal.  While I try to get quality food (salads, burger w/ no bun, etc.), you never know what chemicals are put into/onto the food, or what fillers are added.  I’m wondering if that’s why I haven’t lost any poundage yet.  Or, as Tim says, since I have such a small percentage to use, and I already ate PRETTY well, the weight won’t come off that fast for me.

I’ll keep at it for a few more weeks, until the challenge is over.  I’ll see how I feel, not just how much weight I lose, and move forward with a game plan at that point.

That’s my update so far.  Wish us all luck!  I’m doing the Bix 7 (a local 7 mile hilly run) on Saturday, and I don’t get any beer afterwards.  WAAAAAAHHHHH!  Oh, and after this run, I’m going to focus more on walking/weights/sprints and see if not doing long runs at a high heart rates helps get me back in my old shape.

Good luck with your ventures this week!

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness, Paleo

Catch Up Weekend and Primal Challenge Reboot

heather

The Timimimy Tee had to work all this weekend driving bus for the John Deere Classic.  That meant that I had the opportunity to catch up on some long outstanding chores.  Basically we haven’t been home for a full weekend since before the triathlon, so things were starting to pile up.  So what did I do, you ask?  Well, here, let me tell you: I went to the Farmer’s Market, Aldis, HyVee, took several long walks, vacuumed and dusted the whole upstairs, vacuumed most of the basement and moved Lucent’s litter box so that we don’t constantly have to walk over litter particles to get to the washer and dryer and workout area, attempted to rehab my water kefir grains by putting them in a sucanat/spring water solution, sprouted and roasted almonds, cut up all the veggies from the Farmer’s Market, weeded our front garden bed, did 3 weeks of meal planning for the primal challenge (more to come on that below), returned a long overdue email, finished a humongous crocheted blanket for a friend, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand…RELAXED.  On Sunday afternoon I sat outside and read for probably 3 hours. I got a little bit of a sunburn, but it was so beautiful out there that I couldn’t bring myself to go inside.

OK.  Now for some details.  First of all, I’m kind of excited about Aldis!  I stopped on a whim, hoping they would have spring water for the kefir and for the sauerkraut Tim is going to make.  They only had individually wrapped bottled water (which seems odd for a discount store!), but I found some other great deals.  Avocados were only 79 cents (1/2 the HyVee price), Rainier cherries were only 2.99.  They had nitrate-free bacon for 3.89 and mineral water for 1.49.  I’m so jazzed!!

And on the kefir grains.  So, yeah, I though for sure I had killed them. I got a couple of good, fizzy batches out of them, and then they just stopped working.  They didn’t smell like kefir (didn’t smell like anything, in point of fact).  I emailed Cultures for Health, and they sent me back some great tips.  They recommended using sucanat (unrefined cane sugar that still has minerals left in it) and all spring water.  Previously I was usually Domino sugar and just boiling our Brita-filtered water to remove the chlorine.  Evidently the rest of the chemicals in tap water are harmful to the grains as well.  I had also ran out of mineral drops, so I had stopped using those too.  The person who emailed me said you CAN resurrect the grains, so I’m giving it the old college try.

And, finally, the Primal Challenge.  A couple of workmates and I are going to embark on the 21 Day Total Body Transformation on July 20th.  My friends want to lose some weight, and I want to lose about 3 pounds and do a reset to get closer to 90/10 instead of 70/30 .  I spent an hour Saturday culling through my recipes.  I put together 3 weeks of meal plans (containing mostly just general ideas for breakfast and lunch, and then 4 distinct recipes w/ sides for supper), along with copies of the associated recipes.  I also pulled out additional recipes for them to use, if they don’t like my suggestions.  I reordered the 21 Day Total Body Transformation.  I lent it to my brother probably 2 years ago and haven’t seen it since.  I’m so glad I bought it again. It’s a very concise, helpful guide to the primal lifestyle and contains reminders that I really needed to read again.  I’m really looking forward to seeing how this turns out!!

That’s the weekend, now its back to work and back to training for the Bix 7, which is NEXT WEEKEND.  ACCK!!

 

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness, Paleo

Brick #2 (aka why I’m exhausted)

heather

Saturday we did our second brick to prepare for the triathlon on 6/14.  We biked 16 miles along the Duck Creek Bike Path, and then we ran 3.1 miles in Crow Creek Park.  The bike ride was pretty easy-peasy, but the running, Oh Boy!  My legs felt like lead for about the first mile, and I had to walk up the first big hill (it’s called The Incinerator for a reason).  Tim encouraged me though, and we powered through for the full run.  We spent the rest of the weekend taking it fairly easy, trying to give our bodies a rest.

And that’s why I’ve pretty much decided that I’m not doing triathlons any more.  I just think that this amount of exercise is too stressful for my body.  All day long on Saturday my stomach was messed up, and since I wasn’t eating anything out of the ordinary, I’m pinning it on the exercise.  Also, these triathlons get to be expensive, primarily due to the swimming portion.  It necessitates a gym membership and for me, at least, a wet-suit rental.  We did swim for free tonight in Lake G, but as they say, there is no such thing as a free lunch.  Lake G is the quintessential redneck “watering hole.”  It was full of scantily clad, scantily toothed, heavily tattooed folk drinking lots o’ beer and Gatorade.  It’s quite the scene, and not in a good way.

Despite the training schedule, I did try a few new recipes this week.

Garlic Roasted Broccoli – This broccoli is deeeeeelicious!  So good, in point of fact, that I grew impatient with Tim not eating his while he was chatting and ate the rest of his serving off his plate.  I love roasted veggies.  Tim is a big steamed veggie fan, but I think his tastes are wrong on this one.  Roasted (doused in olive oil and garlic) is the only way to go.

Sweet Potato Chips – This recipe turned out OK.  They were tasty, but I had a hard time getting them to be crispy, which is an essential feature of “chips.”   I baked them for about 10 minutes longer than the recipe said, but still only a few burnt-looking ones got crispy.  Any thoughts on what I am doing wrong?

Coriander And Cumin-Rubbed Pork Chops – This was another recipe that I found in the free Allrecipes magazine that appeared in my mail box.  This recipe is a definite keeper – it produced a very tender, juicy, flavorful pork chop.  Speaking of which, we’re going to have to order another pig so that we can make more tasty, tender, juicy, flavorful pork chops.

Pumpkin Kiss Cookies – I’ve been wanting to try these for awhile and finally got around to it on Sunday.  I was making Tim chocolate chip cookies, so I knew I would have to make a treat for me too; otherwise, I would eat all the damn cookies.  These turned out just OK.  I should have followed the recipe more closely and used 2 teaspoons of batter per cookie.  Instead I used my normal cookie scoop, which is probably closer to 2 T.  The cookies ended up super moist and spongy.  I like the flavor, but the texture doesn’t do it for me.  Next time I will make them smaller, and I bet they will turn out perfectly.

Health & Fitness, Paleo

Makin Bacon

heather

It’s Memorial Day, which calls for something special on the breakfast table in the Longoria household. Typically breakfast consists of steel cut oats for Tim and eggs and veggies for me.  But today we had PANCAKES! and JALAPENO BACON!

I’ve tried at least 5 paleo pancake recipes and have yet to fall in love with any of them.  They always get burnt on the outside and mushy on the inside.  The flavor is usually OK, but the presentation is absolutely horrid.  Today’s venture was no different. I tried these protein pancakes from paleomg.com.  I didn’t have the protein powder she recommended, so I used our Trader Joe’s hemp protein powder.  Which is dark green.  Yep – I made dark green pancakes for breakfast.  They were actually pretty tasty. I still had the same issue with them not cooking right, but I think that’s more my fault than the recipe’s fault.

We also tried some new bacon from HyVee (we were forced to because they were out of our normal bacon).  It’s jalapeno bacon!  Since my stove top was full of pans of pancakes and scramby eggs, I decided to try the whole baking bacon thing again.  We tried it once, and the bacon didn’t get crispy, but I keep hearing people say how awesome it is, so I figured I would give it another go. I followed the instructions here.  It turned out PERFECT and oh so easy.  You put the bacon on a foil-lined sheet and cook it for 15-20 minutes in a 400 degree oven.  It turned out crispy, delicious, and very jalapenoey.  If you take a look at my Instagram feed to the right, you can see a pic of the bacon and pancakes.

And now breakfast is done, Tim is doing the dishes, and I’m trying to figure out what all from the list of things I want to get done today I can actually do:  put down mulch, plant garlic and dill, clean the house, do the laundry, plan meals & go grocery shopping, do a 3 mile run, work on a watercolor painting for the bedroom, watch some of the Criterium, update the checkbook, take a bath, lay in the sun, and I’m sure I am forgetting something.  I need every weekend to be a 3-day weekend!!

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness, Paleo

Breakfast for Supper and Other Happy Things

heather

Wow.  What a busy weekend.  It’s nice to DO stuff on the weekends because you’re living life, experiencing things, putting yourself out there, etc.  BUT by DOING stuff on the weekends, you make the weekends go by way too fast.  Next thing you know it’s Monday morning at 5:54AM, and you have to be to work in 2 hours.  BLURG!!

The busy weekend started out with a  bang on Friday night.  We met up with some friends in LeClaire, IA at the Crane & Pelican.  Well, first we went to the Wide River Winery to check out their live music and their wine.  It’s a small joint inside (24 people max capacity!), and because of the unseasonably chilly weather, the 2-person band was playing inside.  It was loud, but everyone was very relaxed and was having a good time.  The bartender was very friendly and informative.  They can’t actually sell glasses of wine for you to drink there, but they CAN sell you a $6 glass that comes with 5 complimentary tastings.  You can also buy a bottle and drink it there.  It was a scene straight out of Gilmore Girls, to be honest with you.  Even thought I was not a huge fan of the wine, I really enjoyed the 30 minutes we spent there, and now I kind of want to move to LeClaire…

After our tastings we walked up to the Crane & Pelican, which is a restaurant in an old house on a hill overlooking the river.  The building was very interesting, the staff was very friendly, and the food was very delicious.  The menu was reasonably priced for the type of food they serve (locally sourced), and the drinks were actually on the cheap side!  My steak was a little undercooked, but overall we had a great experience and will definitely go back.

We didn’t stay out too late because on Saturday we were registered for the Beer & Bacon 5K at Sunderbruch Park.  We headed out there on our bikes at 8:45. It was a gorgeous, slightly chilly day.  We met up with about 100 other runners, got our free beer mug and “5K…ish” sticker, and milled around, waiting for the race to start.  At the last minute, Tim decided to run the 10K instead!

The 10Kers got a 5 minute head-start, and then they let us 5Kers head out.  The route took an immediately left off the paved path, onto a steep, long, never-ending hill.  By the time I reached the top of the hill, I was ready to turn around and head back down to get a beer.  I powered through, though, and was rewarded by one of the funnest runs I’ve ever done.  Don’t get me wrong, trail running is TOUGH, but it was so beautiful in the trees, and the hills/stumps/roots kept your mind focused on the running.  It was so much fun.  I can’t wait to do another trail run.  The only down side, from my perspective, is that the trails are so narrow that you can’t pass anyone, and no one can pass you.

After the race, we partook of the even’s namesake treats (beer & bacon), then rode down to Great River, then rode home, and then crashed.  Oh, and we ate pizza for supper.  Pee I Zee Zee Aye!!!  Ugh.

On Sunday I had a shower in Swisher, IA that Tim was kind enough to drive me to.  It was at 1PM, so the driving and shower took up most of our Sunday.  We did get home in time for me to try a new recipe, however:  Sausage & Sweets Breakfast Bowl.  This was a very easy recipe, and it turned out quite tasty.  I even used some new salt that my friend got me from Galena – Vermont Maple Sea Salt. It went with this dish perfectly.

To accompany the breakfast bowl, I made kale chips from this recipe.  They are so tasty!

And that’s our weekend update.  Hopefully you had a great weekend and were able to get outside and enjoy the sunshine!

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness, Paleo

Slow Cooker Mediocrity

heather

I made another recipe in the Nesco today:  Slow Cooker Paleo Chicken with Parsnip Puree.  As with many of the slow cooker recipes I’ve tried, this one turned out fairly bland and uninteresting.  Again, perhaps I did not make this correctly (mine did NOT turn out looking as tasty at the picture in the blog post), but this turned out very tan tasting – very mild and uninteresting without a lot of flavor.  Tim liked the chicken, but to me the dish had that distinctive “slow cooker” taste to it.  I don’t think I would make this again.

To compensate for my lackluster supper, I went out for drinks with my coworkers and succumbed to the allure of the chips and queso at Kelley’s.  I was finally back down to the weight/size that I feel comfortable at, and then I go and chock myself full of processed cheese, msg, and all around crispy, cheesy tastiness.  Oh Heather, when will you learn?

I did do *something* proactive for my health today though.  I keep reading about the dangers of nut eating, and I eat a prodigious amount of almonds.  So I finally took the plunge and am in the process of properly preparing my nuts (he he).  I soaked them over night with a tablespoon of sea salt, and now they are roasting in the Nesco at about 175.  They’ve been roasting for about 11 hours, and they aren’t quite crispy yet, but even so they are already insanely delicious.  I can’t even describe the flavor.  I’m hooked. Next card party at the Longorias will definitely be accompanied by some freshly soaked and roasted nuts.  Tasty AND good for you.  You just can’t beat that.

I have no new recipes on the agenda for tomorrow.  Instead we are trying out a restaurant in LeClaire, the Crane & Pelican.  We may also check out the local winery tasting lounge and catch some live music.  Perhaps the Longorias will stay out past 8PM on this Friday night.  Weeeeeoooo!

We can’t stay out too late, though, because on Saturday morning we have to bike out to Sunderbruch park for the Beer & Bacon 5K.  We’ve never run the trails at Sunderbruch, so this promises to be an adventure.  I follow the group that runs out there every Monday, and they seem like really fun, positive, gorgeous people, so I’m looking forward to meeting them, eating some bacon, and drinking some free Great River beer.  Look forward to me complaining about drinking beer on Sunday.  You’ve been forewarned.  🙂

And with that, I’m off!