Temptations

Today I felt tempted by sugary treats, chocolate and cheese all day.  Not because I was around it either, I was just having mad cravings.  Today was also not the most invigorating workout because I had to do it in the evening (I am a morning person), and it was a tough workout for the arms.  I am tall and gangly and have trouble with the arm exercises!! 

Glad to say I resisted temptation.  I finished the workout (and pushed myself as hard as I could the whole time).  Not every day in paleo land is glorious, but I have to say I am feeling a lot better right now than I would if I gave into a chocolate craving.  

For supper tonight: shrimp fried with butter, garlic powder and oregano; spinach fried with olive oil, garlic and squeezed lemon; a carrot....and I'll prob have some tea soon. 

I have to recommend Good Earth Sweet and Spicy tea.  It is very tasty, and one tea bag goes a long way.  If you haven't tried it, do.  I bought some when I was in the U.S. at H.E.B. but I think some stores in Canada are starting to sell it because of it's popularity.  

Hope you enjoyed your eats today  :)

May 3 and 4

So far this Paleo thing has been great- filled with delicious food.  I must say, it makes a huge difference to have a roommate following the same nutrition plan, and working together to have food prepared.  Today I was out canoeing for most of the day, in the city, but with  a bunch of students and no accessible bathroom.  I did not drink very much water because I didn't want to feel uncomfortable, or have to run to the bathroom more than the kids!  Now I am dehydrated which makes me want to eat, but I was able to eat enough to feel satisfied, and ignore the nagging feeling of wanting to eat more.  

Now to the fun part- what I did eat.  Any guesses on breakfast?  If you have no idea refer to past posts, or I'll give you a hint (b and e).  

For Lunch yesterday and today I had 

pork loin.  We slow cooked it with gluten free chicken broth, onions, carrots, bacon, oregano and basil over night and each had it for a couple of lunches.  The pork turned out tender, and overall it was pretty tasty.

Last night for supper here's what we had going:

We had some eggs boiling so they would be ready for breakfast the next day, and snacks for G.  We also had our salmon frying with some lemon dill dip mix and olive oil.  

Then we sprinkled lemon juice on top and ate it with some steamed cauliflower (and spices).  No, I did not eat that huge piece of salmon, even though it was tasty.  I ate half or just over (now I have some lunch for tomorrow).

Now for tonight's supper.  Goulash/Tommish Bommish.  Preparation for this involves cleaning some veggies out of your fridge.  As the meat was cooking G cut up celery, red pepper, carrots, and cauliflower out of the fridge. 

The meat began frying with garlic.  When the meat was cooked I added tomato paste and stewed tomatoes.  Then the rest of the veggies to steam, and some beloved Red Hot sauce.

 It hit the spot.  

I don't think I am going to report every day, rather just the days I am feeling inspired and have time or else this blog is just going to be continually boring, and get to be a chore.  

Thanks for checking in.  Cooking is easy and rewarding, everyone should do it!  No, seriously, just try it. 

Day 2 of Paleo

My intention was, and still is, to blog every night about what I eat during the day, specifically while doing the Paleo challenge.  However, my photos are not uploading right now, so I'm going to call it a night, and give a double dose of hearty food goodness tomorrow. 

Nightskis

Going Paleo

So today we started the Paleo Challenge.  What is this you say?  It is a nutrition competition where we track what we eat every day for one month.  Acceptable foods include meat, nuts, seeds, vegetables and some fruit.  It is not a diet!!!  However, I expect to look trim by the end :)  I'll show you a couple things I ate today and you can decide if it looks like a diet. 

Pre-workout: almonds

Breakfast

If that's a diet I don't see anything wrong with it!  But, it's not a diet.

Snack: 1/2 mango

No pictures from lunch, but I had meatballs, snap peas and pistachios.   

Here is the step-by-step of our supper prep: 

Supper

First, chopped up some veg..

including snap peas, carrots and yellow bell pepper.

To start the cooking we fried olive oil, garlic, ginger and Patak's hot curry paste for a couple minutes and then added the chunks of salmon to cook for one min.

Starting to look good, eh?

Next we added coconut milk and veg and cooked for 2 mins.

Then, tadaa!  A delicious supper.

Now that's good food, no scrimping here. 

Price wise the total meal cost was about $6 each and we ate a fair bit.  We used about $5 of salmon each, so it wasn't the cheapest meal, but it was good to switch things up!  

You may think this Paleo challenge isn't looking too bad... it really isn't- as long as you can block out the passerby eating ice cream, avoid eating fresh baked bread at Grandma's house, resist putting cheese on anything and stay completely sober for one month.

Wish me luck!

Btw, I will try to update this blog daily so you can see how I do on the challenge, my good days and bad.  If you are curious about this paleo diet, check out the May 2nd blog post at CrossfitBrio titled "The Paleo Challenge Starts Today."



successful day

Studying for finals can be a drab and stressful time but, I had a good day anyway- a solid day at that.  Here is a play-by-play (well, not exactly, but the high points will be included):

G and I went and worked our butts off at Crossfit.

Ate a delicious breakfast of fruit salad (leftover from potluck last night), fried bacon, and boiled eggs.  Yum!!

Then I did some studying, until it was time for another meal :).  Can you tell what the highlights of my day are yet?  ha.  I am a definite food lover!  Here's what I made..

Ingredients: garlic, ginger, onion, carrots, green bell pepper, yellow bell pepper, broccoli, shrimp, hoisin sauce and sweet Thai chili sauce- cleaning out the fridge.  I would recommend leaving out the sweet Thai chili sauce and using hot sauce instead, it was a little too sweet for my liking. 

Then I ran (actually biked) some errands with G- to the dry cleaners and accountant.  Still a little chilly out in Saskatchewan, but the snow is off the trails so we are good to go!

I'll admit, I was pretty tuckered out once we got home.  Had a nap- for a little longer than I'd hoped!

There you have it, the highlights of my day.  In case you are curious, this is what I had for supper:

Leftovers :)

And yes, my day did end with studying.  Two finals down, three to go!

treat - remorse = exceeding expectations

Quite often when I "treat" myself I am happy with my decision...for about three months until buyers remorse sticks it to me.  I look at my bank account and then start back tracking on things I spent money on that were not needs and so regret presents itself.  Been there?

Well, one way that I treat myself is by purchasing colourful, delicious and easy to cook food.  When cooking at home you can always avoid buyers remorse by tracking the cost of the food, evaluating how much a meal actually cost.  Then, compare it to what you could buy from a vending machine, convenience store, fast food or sit down restaurant and you are always feeling very good about your purchase. 

I know that some people are reading this and thinking colourful, delicious and easy: Kraft Dinner! 
That is not what I had in mind (that would only lead to a different kind of remorse). 

Here's an example of what I'm talking about.  Today it took me 4 minutes to prepare my meal (and I am not an efficient person), and 15 minutes for it to cook.  Last night I took a trout fillet out of the freezer (still from my collection of high quality meats) and let it thaw in the fridge over night.  

To prepare I put some olive oil in the pan, placed the fillet on it with some butter and a little dash of Montreal Steak Spice then put the pan in the oven at 350 for 15 minutes.  In the meantime I rinsed some broccoli and broke it up into a microwavable dish- put it in the microwave for two minutes.  Done!  

 That my friends is a feel good meal!  These pictures are of my half eaten meal.  I cook the trout with the skin on but I don't eat it, just personal preference. 

Total cost/serving: $3.75
Total prep time: 4mins
Total cook time: 15mins
Taste: pleasant 
Level of feel good quality (outcome): exceeding expectations

veggie delighted again

I haven't been interested in eating veggies lately so I started looking up recipes to get inspired because eating them raw and plain just wasn't working anymore.  I found a delicious looking recipe out of Jamie's Food Revolution cookbook but, it had one unfamiliar ingredient: parsnips. 

Feeling a little adventurous we went forward with another food experiment.  This one turned out much better than the kumquats!  Parsnips are the carrot shaped veggies shown below that are the same colour as the potatoes.  They ended up being impressively scrumptious.  Yummm. 

In this second picture you get a little peak at the beautiful beef (round) roast we had with our veggies.  I would be lying if I claimed that I chose the veggies before I noticed the roast recipe.  (thank you Jamie!)  By the way, this is still local meat that I am eating until my freezer empties of the good stuff and I have to start buying lower quality meats (budget decision). 

One part of the recipes that I found interesting was that I wasn't supposed to peel the garlic before cooking it.  I thought I could partly follow directions by just cutting off the hard bottom so it would be easier to eat.  Wrong!  The garlic ended up drying out, and as you can see on the right hand side of this bottom picture it turned brown and nasty.  So, when it says do not peal the garlic, do NOT peal the garlic.  

Back to loving veggies.  A little olive oil, rosemary and cooking time is all I needed :)

2 priorities, 1 compromise

So after one day of self-loathing due to my bank account I realized I need to make more sacrifices than I currently am.  In the past (such as a few days ago..) buying local produce and local meat would be a no-brainer.  It lacks the chemicals that other produce carries, and supports local producers.  However, student loans and a line of credit do not support such prime food choices. 

I was stressing about it all day, so in order to help myself make a reasonable decision I watched four episodes of "Till Debt Do Us Part" on SLICE.  I realized that because I have no income right now, I need to sacrifice something.  This is hard for me because I make decisions based on health first, but today I had to give myself a reality check.  Stressing over money is not healthy, so I am backtracking to more affordable meat and fresh produce until I can bring more money in.  

Therefore my two priorities here are debt control and healthy eating.  My compromise is to continue buying quality cuts of meat, and fresh produce but at affordable prices.  I will ultimately work back up to buying only from local producers as my level of income and debt reduction increases, which may take more than a few years, but is worth the effort.  

Ahh, decisions.  It's so relieving when one is finally made ;) 

Present

Thank you Crossfit for kicking my ass this week.  Now I don't have to try to keep my mind in the present, it just naturally happens because I am thinking about how my lungs are tired, by body is sore, and I am feeling so much better!


I am looking forward to future spontaneous adventures now that I will be in good enough shape to crush it!  

Kumquat Experimentation

This week one of my adventures started at the grocery store where I purchased four kumquats to try for the first time.  Kumquats are unique citrus fruits because the outer peel is sweet, and the inner is bitter.  These pictures explain our experimentation, and the overall experience quite concisely.  

Perhaps kumquats are better put to use in a recipe- an experiment for another time. 

Celiac vs. Cookies

As a person with celiac disease I cannot eat wheat flour or anything with gluten and feel great afterward.  Cookies are my greatest temptation and destroyer.  When eating at other people's places I can usually stay strong for at least one day or two.  Last time I was good for 1.5 days and then it went downhill fast.  One cookie, two cookie, three cookie, floor.  It is a slippery slope once I crack.  Now it will be a slow trek back to healthy choices and feeling good. 


The worst part is when they aren't that good.  Dam cookies.  Hope I learn..