Primal Challenge Day 3 plus steak fajita and tomatillo salsa recipes

weight: 135 lbs (no change)

breakfast: none


lunch:
*leftover beer-marinated steak
*salad - escarole, radicchio, endive, carrot, celery, cucumber, balsamic vinegar, extra virgin olive oil and ground cherries - I've never had ground cherries before but I got them in my CSA and had no idea what to do with them so I threw them in the salad. They were good! Kinda tomatillo-y.
*roasted unsalted almonds
*mug of black tea

snack: none


dinner:
*beef fajita strips
*avocado tossed with sea salt and lime juice
*spicy tomatillo salsa
*sliced tomato with sea salt, black pepper, and exra virgin olive oil

dessert: none

For the fajitas I mostly used this recipe for the marinade: http://www.texascooking.com/recipes/fajitamar1.htm, but I added a jalapeno and a handful of cilantro and a splash of triple sec. I marinated 1.5 lbs skirt steak in it all afternoon, then patted it dry and seared it in a cast iron skillet for 5 minutes on each side. While the meat rested, I poured the leftover marinade back into the pan and let it bubble down a little as I scraped the bottom. Then I sliced the steak and tossed it back in the pan and heated it in the reduced marinade for about 2 minutes. It was great!

I also made some spicy tomatillo salsa because I needed to use up some tomatillos that we got in our CSA. I used this recipe from Rick Bayless: http://topchefs.chef2chef.net/recipes/rbayless/roasted-tomatillo-salsa.htm It is really killer! Super spicy and a great flavor. I think I followed it exactly, for once.

I've been having tomatoes as side dishes a lot because we get them in our CSA and cooked tomatoes give me heartburn.

exercise:
Went to the county parks and recreation website and found a public pool. Paid $8 and swam a few laps then soaked up some sun. Yay vitamin D! Also, I suck at swimming and found it unreasonably exhausting. I could only do 1 full lap without stopping. After that I had to stop halfway across the pool each time. Even so I only managed 4.5 laps. Well you gotta start somewhere, right?

Also I walked 1.5 miles. My butt is sore today from all the walking I did yesterday. Shrink butt, shrink!

Primal Challenge Day 2

I think I'm going to do most measurements weekly rather than daily, but I will track my weight daily.

weight: 135 lbs (-1.4)

breakfast: none


lunch:
salad - escarole, radicchio, endive, carrots, celery, cucumbers, bacon, balsamic vinegar, extra virgin olive oil
topped with leftover steak from last night's dinner
roasted unsalted almonds
primal limeade - water, lime juice, stevia


snack:
chai - coconut chai teabag, heavy cream, stevia
homemade beef jerky
1 oz cheddar cheese


dinner:
barbecue skillet - onions and cabbage browned in ghee, kielbasa, chicken, pinch of bbq rub, 2T of bbq sauce, topped with shredded cheddar


dessert:
baked raspberries and peaches topped with grated dark chocolate and mint leaves; I used a 6oz container of raspberries and 1 peach for 2 people

exercise:
4.3 miles of strenuous walking, part of it uphill. Really got my heart rate up and the sweat was pouring off me!

Primal Challenge Day 1

Age: 26
Height: 5 feet 7 inches
Weight: 136.4 lbs
Waist at narrowest point: 27 in
Waist at navel: 30.5 in
Hips: 36 in

Breakfast:
none


Lunch:
Large salad - butter lettuce, radicchio, carrot, celery, squid, bacon, balsamic vinegar, extra virgin olive oil
cherries
roasted unsalted almonds
primal lemonade - water, lemon juice, stevia


Snack:
Homemade beef jerky (this batch didn't turn out very well or I'd give you the recipe)


Dinner:
Beer marinated flap steak
Cucumber salad with parsley, mint, extra virgin olive oil and rice vinegar
Sliced tomato with salt, pepper and extra virgin olive oil


Dessert:
87% dark chocolate
peppermint/lemongrass/ginger tea

Exercise:
bodyweight workout that I modified from Son of Grok that I did for 7 minutes - 5 pushups, wall sit for 10 seconds, 20 jumping jacks, 5 stand ups, rest 30 seconds
walked about 1.5 miles

So, you may have noticed that sneaky little word in my big lunch salad...squid?! Well I was at Whole Foods yesterday and as usual I walked by the seafood counter on my way to the butcher case. I usually give it a desultory glance and move on. Yesterday, I noticed a pretty little pile of meat and tentacles at a shockingly low price and I felt a kind of madness steal over me. Before I knew what was happening I found myself telling the fish guy to give me half a pound of squid. I've never bought or cooked squid before in my life. I ended up broiling it, but I think I must have cooked it too long because it got a little rubbery. It was fine tossed in my salad though since I drowned it out with bacon and balsamic vinegar. :)

The steak recipe I used for dinner is reallllllly good. The marinade does include beer though, so if wheat=death for you it might not be your cup of tea.

Overall, I think day 1 has been a success. :)

Coconutty Fruit Salad

I've been enjoying coconut lately (as you can see from my coconut milk ice cream!), and I came up with this yummy application the other day. I hardly eat fruit at all in the winter since everything is out of season but apples and pears, so when summer comes around I like to have a little fun. I've used a specialty ingredient in this fruit salad, which is coconut butter. It's just like any other nut butter in that it's the whole nut ground up into a paste. The kind I get is Artisana raw coconut butter, which is ground at low temperatures and supposedly retains all the coconutness of the coconut (you know, enzymes, vitamins, fiber, etc). I don't even know if any other companies make coconut butter. Anyway, if you can't find this stuff, I would substitute some unsweetened shredded coconut and maybe a few tablespoons of coconut milk (or even better, if you get the kind of coconut milk that separates in the can into a thick cream and a runny liquid, use only the thick cream).



COCONUTTY FRUIT SALAD

ingredients:
2 heaping cups mixed fruit (pictured is a heaping 1/2 cup each of blueberries, strawberries, red grapes and pineapple)
2 T raw coconut butter
1/4 cup toasted almonds

Cut your fruit any way you want it. Roughly chop the almonds. Gently warm the coconut butter until it becomes runny, then immediately toss with the fruit and nuts. The coldness of the fruit will make the coconut butter harden back up and stick to it like a shell. Dig in and enjoy! I've had this as breakfast, snack, and dinner side dish in the past few weeks. :)

One Local Summer - Week Four

One of the nice things about blogging on my own schedule is that I can wait until I have something good to show you before posting about it. Since I'm not posting on my on schedule with this One Local Summer thing, this week you get to see some of my blah food.



I guess it doesn't look too bad, but it was just meh. We had green onion burgers made with ground beef from Smith Meadows Farms, lots of green onions from our CSA and held together with an egg from our CSA. On the side was a little slaw made with kohlrabi and basil from our CSA and a touch of extra virgin olive oil and vinegar. We also had some lovely golden zucchini from Red Rake Farm with some more CSA basil, sauteed up with a little lard that I rendered from Polyface pork fat. Nothing was bad exactly, but there is nothing here I would make again.

The golden zucchini I got from Red Rake Farm were so pretty. The guy told me that the day before they had been about an inch or two long and they literally quadrupled in size overnight!



I hope he has some more next week so that I can find something yummier to do with them. :) In the mean time, check out what other Southern folks are getting up to this summer at last week's roundup.

One Local Summer - Week Three

This week for One Local Summer I had a near miss that turned into a delicious hit! I love making great tasting food that's from local producers and also healthy and paleo - gluten and dairy free.



The star of dinner tonight was a roasted chicken from Polyface Farms. I rinsed and dried the chicken and then generously salted and peppered it inside and out. The outside I wrapped in bacon from EcoFriendly Foods and the inside I stuffed with two of the season's first peaches from Westmoreland Berry Farm. Into the oven at 425 for 30 minutes, then I reduced the heat to 350 and roasted it for an additional hour.

The plan was to end up with delicious bacon-wrapped chicken and some roasty peach chunks. My oven had other plans!

Now, I've made bacon wrapped chicken before and it's always turned out, but this time for some reason the bacon shriveled to itty bitty bacon cinders and became inedible. So not only did I have burned bacon, but I had flabby chicken skin. Erg. I removed the peaches from the chicken and noticed they were not roasty at all either. My plans had been foiled, but I thought there had to be some way to salvage this food. After a moment's pondering I set the bacon cinders aside and carved the chicken into two leg quarters, two breasts, and two wings. I put the chicken pieces on a foil lined baking sheet and put them back in the oven to turn the flabby skin crispy. What to do with the peaches...aha! Gravy!

To make the gravy, I took the peaches from the chicken cavity and heated them in a small saucepan with a good spoonful of drippings from the roasting pan and 1/4 cup sweet white wine from Rose Bank Winery along with a pinch of salt and about 1 inch of cinnamon stick. I put the heat to low, covered it, and let it simmer while I went to work on the veggie sides. I don't know if Rose Bank Winery can be considered local to northern Virginia, but we used to live about 3 minutes away from this winery and we bought a whole case of the wine that we're still working on! So it was local to us at one point. :)

To get our leafy greens in for the day I made some braised kale from Pleasant Fields Farm. First I sauteed some baby onions from our CSA in the chicken/bacon drippings, then added the kale and a little water, covered, and let it braise for about 15 minutes.

To add some freshness to the meal, I made a quick cucumber salad using crispy little Persian cucumbers from Toigo Orchards. They are so snappy and delicious! I tossed them with some chopped orange mint from Red Rake Farm, a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, and a splash of rice vinegar. Red Rake Farm is one of my favorite stands at the Arlington Farmer's Market. It's all organic and their produce looks more "real" to me than some of the other places for some reason. And the owner, Peter, is always ready with a smile and story. Much nicer than shopping at a grocery store!



Once the veggies were ready, the chicken skin was crispy and the peaches were nice and broken down for the gravy, and dinner was served! I think everything tied together very nicely - the crispy chicken skin with the sweet warm peach gravy, the tender kale, and the cool fresh cucumbers. My husband even ate the bacon cinders and said they kind of tasted like pork rinds. Success!

Meal idea: broiled pesto shrimp

This post is more of a meal idea than an actual recipe. It's really quick to put together and have a dinner in minutes! The basic premise is to thaw out some frozen raw shrimp, toss them in pesto, and broil them for 3 minutes (or until they turn pink). That's it! You're done! For pesto, I usually just throw whatever herb we have that looks good into a food processor along with whatever nuts I have. Tonight I had a big bunch of parsley, so I threw that in there with a handful of walnuts and a few green onions for bite, lemon zest and juice and a pinch of red pepper flakes for kick, and extra virgin olive oil to thin it to the right consistency. If you really like pesto, you can make a lot at once and freeze it in an ice cube tray, then pop the cubes out and store in a baggie - this way you can grab both the shrimp and the pesto from the freezer at the same time and make this even more of a convenience meal.

I had some extra pesto tonight so I chopped up some zucchini and yellow summer squash, tossed them in the extra pesto, and broiled them too. We also had a fennel salad on the side. Just thinly slice a fennel bulb and dress with extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice. You can add some minced parsley, fennel fronds, or lemon zest if you want to get a little bit fancy.

Taco Salad and Homemade Taco Seasoning

Taco night is one of my favorite nights. :) I love setting out all the different fixins in their little bowls and letting everyone go down the line and construct their own. Since I have yet to find a paleo version of a tortilla, I usually just do taco salad now. Big bed of lettuce, big scoop of taco meat, and then pile on the condiments. Cheese, sour cream and refried beans are out, so instead I set out things like guacamole, chopped tomatoes, chopped scallions, salsa, hot sauce, lime wedges, chopped cilantro, olives, even crumbled bacon (is there anything that doesn't go with bacon?).

The most problematic element in this equation is the taco meat. Those little premade packets of taco seasoning that you can get at the store are full of fillers and salt. Luckily, it's dead easy to make your own.



TACO SEASONING

ingredients:
2 T chili powder
1-1/2 T cumin
1-1/2 T paprika
1 T onion powder
1 T garlic powder
2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

Just put everything in a container and shake to combine! To make taco meat, mix 3 T of the mixture with 1 lb of ground meat and salt to taste. Just brown the meat, add the seasonings and 1/4 cup of water, and simmer for 5 minutes.

Recipe is adapted from 500 Low Carb Recipes by Dana Carpender.

Strawberry Vinaigrette

Drive-by posting today. I had a very busy, yet fun, weekend getting together with my old high school crew who I hadn't seen in years. Getting back on track this week starting out with this interesting Strawberry Vinaigrette salad dressing I made today. It's so good it's making me look forward to salad this week!



I don't know if the picture does it justice, but it is super thick and creamy and it's a vivid pink color. I found the recipe here: http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/soupsandsalads/r/strawberryvinag.htm

Tahini Mustard Salad Dressing

I pack my husband's lunch every day, and about 99% of the time it includes a salad. Usually I just throw together some extra virgin olive oil with whatever vinegar looks good, but sometimes I like to change it up a little. This tahini mustard dressing is one of his favorites. It's super thick and creamy, but 100% dairy-free! The dressing is very versatile too. As well as using it for dressing salad greens, it's great as a substitute for mayonnaise in chicken/tuna salad or cole slaw. It's also delicious as a marinade for grilled or broiled chicken. It will keep for at least a week in the fridge, but it never lasts that long around here.



ingredients:
1/2 cup tahini
3/4 cup water
1/2-3/4 tsp sea salt
3 T apple cider vinegar or 1/4 cup lemon juice
2 T prepared mustard, any kind
2 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder

Just dump everything in a food processor and let it rip for a few seconds to combine. It will be very runny initially, but it will firm up significantly in the refrigerator. Enjoy!

Recipe adapted from The Garden of Eating by Rachel Albert-Matesz.

Greens Series - Day 1 - Relaxed Kale Salad

Welcome to my first blog series! This week I am going to focus on greens. Greens are one of the most nutritious things you can eat, packed with vitamins and minerals and even protein and fiber. Everyone knows they should probably eat more of them, but it's hard when you only know one or two ways to prepare them. That is where this series comes in. Each day this week I'm going to prepare a different recipe for various green leafy things, exploring many different varieties as well as cooking techniques.

First up we have an unusual raw kale preparation. It's called "Relaxed" Kale Salad because the action of massaging the kale with a little salt and extra virgin olive oil wilts down the tough raw kale leaves significantly and makes them tender enough to eat without cooking. The original recipe can be found here: http://freshtopia.net/vlog/?p=97 There is a video about the salad at the link that is pretty cute. I usually use regular green curly kale in this, but I also like using red curly kale, which gives it a nice color. I've never tried using lacinato (dino) kale for this, so if you give that a try let me know how it works out!


Relaxed Kale Salad

ingredients:
salad:
1 bunch of kale
1-1/2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
1/4 tsp sea salt
1 tart crisp apple, such as gala or fuji
1/4 cup roughly chopped walnuts

dressing:
2 T balsamic vinegar
2 T extra virgin olive oil
1/2 T (1-1/2 tsp) raw honey
1/2 T (1-1/2 tsp) brown or Dijon mustard

Remove the stems from the kale and give it a rough chop. Put the kale in a large mixing bowl and drizzle with the olive oil and salt. Massage the kale with your hands for 5-7 minutes until it wilts down significantly and becomes tender.

I started with a bowl of kale that looked like this:


And after massaging I ended up with this:


Roughly chop the apple and walnuts and add to the greens. Whisk all the dressing ingredients together and pour over the salad. Toss to distribute. You can eat it right away, but it will also keep in the fridge for at least a day or two. The kale is more than sturdy enough to hold the dressing for that long and the flavor can even improve with time. The only thing to watch out for if you want to hold it in the fridge is that the some of the apples can become a little mealy.



I've enjoyed this salad immensely ever since I started making it two years ago. I hope you'll give it a try!

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Posts in the Greens Series:
Relaxed Kale Salad
Spinach Pesto
Baby Bok Choy with Ginger
Broiled Kale
Southern Style Collards

Lamb Meatballs with Tahini Dipping Sauce and Cucumber Salad

serves 2

lamb meatballs:
1 lb ground lamb
1 small eggplant
1 egg
1.5 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp sea salt

Cover a small baking pan with foil and roast the eggplant for 1-1.5 hours at 375 degrees, or until the eggplant is soft. Remove from the oven, peel, and mash with a fork. Set the flesh in a strainer and let the liquid drain off.

Combine the mashed eggplant, lamb, egg, oregano, and sea salt in a large bowl. It will be pretty goopy. Form mixture into meatballs. I like to use a tablespoon measure - if made with heaping tablespoons you should get about 26 meatballs.

Heat a skillet over medium heat. If you use a nonstick skillet, no fat is necessary as the lamb will render out enough. If your skillet is not nonstick, you might want to grease it. Fry the meatballs on three sides until they are nicely browned.

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tahini dipping sauce:
1/2 cup tahini
1/3 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup water
1 clove garlic
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp ground cumin
handful of fresh cilantro or parsley or both

Toss everything in a food processor and let it rip til it's smooth. It's better to make this at least an hour in advance to let the flavors meld (I make the sauce after I stick the eggplant in the oven and then pull it out of the fridge at serving time).

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cucumber salad:
1/2 a large English hothouse cucumber
sea salt
red wine vinegar
extra virgin olive oil

Score the cucumber with a fork and then slice it into thin rounds.

Put the cucumber slices into a strainer or colander and sprinkle with sea salt. Put something heavy on top and let it drain while everything else cooks.

Right before serving, squeeze out all the remaining water and drizzle on some red wine vinegar and extra virgin olive oil.

Celery-Apple Slaw

This is a really nice simple side dish that goes well with any grilled meat.

All quantities are to taste:
celery, cut into matchsticks
apple, cut into matchsticks
parsley, minced
lemon juice
extra virgin olive oil
sea salt

Just toss everything together. This is also great if you add in some thinly sliced fennel bulb and then use minced fennel fronds instead of parsley.

Mixed Greens Salad with Smoked Trout and Cantaloupe

This is just a meal photo, not really a recipe per se. The salad is "spring mix" lettuce, celery, walnuts, and flaked smoked trout. It is dressed with lemon juice and olive oil. Side of cantaloupe wedges.