More Paleo for Dummies

So I last left you at Tuesday dinner. Here are a few more quick & easy meal ideas...

Wednesday

Breakfast - bacon, scrambled eggs, kumara & avocado

This is really easy, and a fairly standard breakfast for us when we have time to cook it.

Heat the oven to 200-220 degrees, slice kumara thinly (I use a mandolin), then spread out on a baking tray covered with baking paper. Spray kumara with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, then cook until crispy (turning with a fish slice a few times). Depending on how much kumara you are cooking, this will probably take around half an hour.

Whilst the kumara is cooking, partly cook your bacon in a large frypan (mostly just to get some bacon fat off it to cook your eggs in!), then transition this to a baking dish and place in the oven until crispy.

Crack eggs into a jug, add salt, pepper, and any other desired seasonings (e.g., onion flakes, garlic salt, mixed herbs) then beat with a fork. Just before kumara and bacon are ready, pour eggs into a heated frypan and stir with a non-stick spatula until cooked. Serve with bacon and kumara, with some avocado on the side.

Thursday

Breakfast - paleo muesli

I don't always feel like a cooked breakfast in the mornings, so this is a great alternative!

In a bowl, combine some chopped nuts, seeds, and desiccated coconut (I keep a container of nut and seed mix in the cupboard ready to go. The current one consists of chopped almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts and cashews, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, flaxseed, and desiccated coconut).

Add a couple of spoonfuls of protein powder (I use Vital Protein - www.vitalhealthnz.co.nz), a handful of blueberries (fresh or frozen), a few spoonfuls of unsweetened applesauce and a drop of pure vanilla extract. Pour over some coconut cream (I also add some water, otherwise it's too rich for me) and combine.

On Friday morning, I made this with almond milk instead of the coconut milk and water - it was just as good, if not better!

Friday

Dinner - Steak with balsamic beetroot & tomato salad

For the salad:

Chop 1 fresh beetroot into cubes and roast in a baking dish for approximately 1 hour at 180 degrees celcius (I roasted mine in a spoonful of duck fat).

In a separate bowl, combine 2 diced tomatoes, 1/4C extra virgin olive oil, 1/8C balsamic vinegar, and salt & pepper to taste.

Finely chop a handful of fresh basil.

When beetroot has cooled a little, add beetroot, basil, and some lightly toasted some chopped almonds (optional) to the tomato mixture and combine.

For the steak:

Season steak well with salt and pepper.

Heat pan/BBQ (I cook my steak on a cast iron grill pan, or on the barbecue). Place steak in pan and cook on both sides, turning only once. Cooking time depends on the thickness of your steak and how well you like it cooked!

Sunday

Dinner - pepper crusted tuna steaks with wasabi mayonnaise, fresh asparagus, and kumara mash

(I forgot to take photos of the preparation - sorry!)

To make the mayonnaise, I followed this recipe here from one of my favourite paleo blogs - The Clothes Make the Girl. I've made this recipe several times, and it's produced amazing mayonnaise every single time! This time, I didn't have any lemons, so I used 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar instead. I also cut the mustard powder, because I wanted to make wasabi mayonnaise - instead, I added a teaspoon of fresh wasabi (not the horrible stuff you buy in the tube...have you ever read the ingredient list on that?!), and stirred more into the final product until I got the flavour I wanted.

For the tuna steaks, grind a whole lot of black pepper and add some salt to it. Place the tuna steaks into the ground pepper to coat. Heat a fry pan (I used my cast iron grill pan again) then cook tuna over medium heat for 3-4 minutes on each side. Tuna should still be pink (i.e., rare) in the middle.

I started the asparagus off on the grill pan, but then realised that it was going to take too long like that, so transfered it to a steamer!

For the kumara, chop kumara and boil until soft. Mash, then add salt, pepper, and a couple of spoonfuls of the wasabi mayonnaise in it's original form (i.e., before you add the extra wasabi at the end!), and beat with a fork until creamy.

Monday

Dinner - one-pot mince & veges (like the one-pot pasta my Mum used to make, but without the pasta!)

I didn't take photos of the prep for this one, because I wasn't even planning on posting it! I was originally going to make meatballs, but I was tired & couldn't really be bothered cooking, so I just wanted something I could throw together. Then I remembered that that's just the sort of thing I'm supposed to be posting!

Heat a spoonful of oil or fat in a large saucepan (I used duck fat again). Add a large clove of crushed garlic and cook, stirring constantly, for a minute or two. Add beef mince to the pan and cook until browned. Throw in some chopped vegetables (mine involved broccoli, yellow capsicum, & courgette). I then added a pot of tomatoes that I'd stewed up previously and put in the freezer, but a couple of tins of tomatoes would also do. Season with salt, pepper, onion flakes (I would have used fresh onion, but we didn't have any), and mixed herbs; stir; and simmer until vegetables are soft.

I felt like it still needed some more flavour after all this, so I also added in a bit of chili powder, some smoked paprika, a couple of capfuls of apple cider vinegar, and a glug of pomegranate molasses. Sorry it's not more specific, but that's how I roll!

ps: if you want to get hold of Vital Protein or Vital Greens, you can either order some through me, or go to the website and use the code PP2060C at checkout to get a 15% discount

It’s not you, it’s me

Last week, I wrote about the fatigue I’ve been struggling with recently (which has, by the way, definitely improved since I took action & made a change). The extreme tiredness impacted my work, my mood, and my social life, but nowhere did I feel it more than in my training. Metcons, in particular, were a battle. I had to fight to make myself go in the first place, and then I had to fight for every rep and every breath. Many, many times, I wanted to stop – to throw the towel in and tap out; many, many times, I fought tears as I struggled to keep going. I wasn’t keeping up with the people I used to keep up with, and it was hard to watch them improving while I felt like my fitness was going backwards. Each metcon like this made it that much harder to go to the next one.

Then, last week, a friend posted this photo on Facebook:

(on sale here)

It was a timely reminder that in the midst of a WoD, it’s about me, not the others working out alongside me. I have had (and will have) my times of improvement, and they will have theirs. The important thing is to be there, consistently putting in the work. Sometimes I might feel like I’m not winning...but how can I be losing when it’s just me against myself? At the end of the day, I’m still there; I’m still pushing through… I’m still choosing not to be defeated.

Lamb moussaka

Meat sauce

Olive oil
1kg lamb mince
1 onion, diced
2 large garlic cloves, crushed/chopped finely
1 tin tomatoes
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp ground coriander
½ tsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp pomegranate molasses
Salt & pepper

In a large saucepan, heat olive oil, then fry garlic and onion until soft. Add lamb mince & cook, stirring often to separate, until browned. Stir in all remaining ingredients, bring to the boil, and simmer for 10-15 minutes.

Vegetable layers

2 eggplants
4 courgettes
Olive oil

Remove tops and ends from eggplants and courgettes, then slice thinly, lengthwise. Heat olive oil in a frypan and cook vegetable slices until browned on each side. You will need to do a few at a time to ensure they are flat against the base of the frypan. The eggplant soaks up a lot of oil, so add more as needed.

Faux white sauce
1 cauliflower
1/4 tsp paprika
Dash of olive oil
Salt & pepper

Steam cauliflower. Transfer cooked cauliflower to a bowl then use stick blender to ‘mash’ it. Add paprika, olive oil, & salt and pepper, and whip with a fork.

Putting it all together

Line the bottom of a lasagne or other large baking dish with the eggplant slices, then create another layer of eggplant slices in the other direction (so they criss cross).

Spoon half the meat sauce over eggplant. Layer courgette slices over meat sauce. Spoon over the other half of the meat sauce, then top with the cauliflower mash.

Bake at 180 degrees celsius for 20 minutes, or until top is slightly browned and sauce is bubbling.

Note: this is super tasty, but not very pretty – it goes a bit sloppy when you serve it – so maybe don’t cook this if you’re being judged on presentation!

Spicy meatballs with sunflower butter sauce

This was the first meal I cooked for Bear. He stuck around, so it can’t have been too bad…


Meatballs
500g beef mince (although pork or lamb mince would also work)
1 egg
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 red chilli, finely chopped
1 tbsp grated ginger
¼ cup chopped fresh coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
Salt & pepper

Sauce
¼ cup sunflower butter (you can get this at Huckleberry Farms, or Ceres Wholefoods)
1 cup coconut cream
½ cup water
1 red chilli, finely chopped


For the sauce
Put all ingredients into a saucepan and heat, stirring frequently, until boiling.


For the meatballs
Combine all ingredients in a bowl.

Shape into meatballs.

Brown meatballs in a frypan. Add sauce to meatballs. Stir, cover, and simmer 10 mins or until meatballs cooked through.

Serve over chopped red cabbage.

Notes:
Last time I did this, I used cauliflower rice which was great, but cauliflowers are now $6 each!! We had half a red cabbage that needed using up, so I figured I’d try using that. It was also really good!

I also used a casserole dish last time, but that’s currently packed in a box somewhere! It was probably slightly better than done in the frypan. Brown the meatballs in the dish on the stovetop, add the sauce, cover & bake at 150 degrees for 15-20 mins (I think!).

How to kill your boyfriend in two easy steps...

What sort of a ninja would I be if I didn't have at least one post about killing? So here's my first 'death' post...

You've all heard of 'Death by 10 metres', right? [If you haven't, quickly check out this link, and then you will have] Well, last night, Bear experienced 'Death by Lettuce'. Step 1: try to make up 5 blocks of carbs using mostly lettuce, some tomato, & a carrot. Step 2: eat it, for time.

Seriously, it was a lot of salad. What looked like a pretty reasonable amount for a 2 block meal (mine), suddenly became a Hero Workout as a 5 block meal. True story.

Honestly, I thought we'd be up half the night. 'Can we go to bed now?', 'No, I'm still eating salad'...'How about now?', 'Nope, still going...'. Thankfully, we weren't. Like the trooper that he is, Bear ploughed through it and called time at 19 minutes and 56 seconds...just squeezing in before the 20 minute time cap. Shot baby - you're a star.

Ok, seriously now...we are trying to keep meals reasonably simple this week while we get our heads around Zone, which meant naked burgers and salad for dinner last night. I wasn't going to post the recipe, because it's not really a recipe and it's not anything mindblowing, but then I figured it might be a quick, simple option for some of you when you're short on time or inspiration [it was also Measuring Fail II, in that I reverted to my old self & completely forgot to measure anything…sorry! I’ll try harder next time]. So here it is...

Quick & easy naked burgers

700g beef mince

1 egg (to bind)

Ground cumin

Ground coriander

Dried thyme

Dried oregano

Dried parsley

Hot sauce (I used Kaitaia Fire, but Tabasco or similar would also be good)

[Basically, the ingredients were dictated by what I found in Bear’s cupboard. You could use different herbs & spices, although I do recommend you keep the cumin (if you like cumin)…it gives it a nice flavour]

Mix the egg and herbs/spices into the mince with a fork (or your hands, if you like getting dirty).

Divide the mixture into 14 even portions  and form each one into a burger pattie (each pattie is approximately 1 block protein).

Cook in a frypan or on a barbecue - you shouldn't need to add additional fat. Time depends on how well done you like them and the thickness of the patties, but you're probably looking at around 4 or 5 minutes on each side.

Serve with salad...or maybe something else, if you're not game to attempt 'Death by Lettuce'. And babe, we'll find a better way of making up your carb blocks tonight, I promise!