Public Service Announcement

Ok, listen up y’all – this is a really, really, really important announcement.

I AM SORRY

That’s right, this is a public apology. I am sorry - very sorry.

As I was typing out the recipe for my paleo pumpkin pie, I had a horrifying realisation. It suddenly occurred to me that there's been a bit of a theme running through my blog of late; that many of my posts are ‘sweet treats’; and that if you stumbled across The Secret Diary of a Kitchen Ninja, you could quite conceivably be convinced that we eat this kind of food all the time, and that it’s ok to do so.

That evening, it dawned on me that I may have unintentionally been misleading you all – fueling a false belief that as long as it’s paleo, it’s good for you.

Well folks, I hate to break it to you, but that’s not true. Treats are still treats, even if they’re ‘cleaner’ than their Neolithic counterparts. These paleo treats are usually sweetened (even if it is done using fruit, honey, or pure maple syrup, rather than refined sugar) and high in carbohydrates. They are not bad for you as such, but they should be occasional treats, eaten in small quantites…not whipped up every night and eaten in batch-loads!

Believe it or not, we don’t actually eat this kind of food very frequently. I guess I post the recipes because they seems more ‘special’ to me than the dishes I throw together every day. I don’t make them often, so they seem more exciting, and more likely to appeal to all of you. I need to change this.

This is the sort of food you should be eating every day;

the sort of food that fuels your body and your training.

This is real food:

From now on, I will endeavour to post more recipes for this kind of food, and just treat you, the readers, (and maybe myself!) to the occasional sweet treat.

A love affair with food

Historically, my relationship with food has closely resembled a love affair - passion, excitement, indulgence...and the ensuing guilt. At times, food, or more specifically the emotions associated with food, has consumed me (and there I was thinking it was supposed to be the other way around?!).

But I'm on a mission to change that.

I've started by choosing a more appropriate, more reliable love interest (thank you, primal diet). I'm working on my commitment - trying to stay faithful to this new love; trying to reduce incidences of infidelity. And I'm investing quality time in the relationship. Bear & I have started doing an early CrossFit session on a Saturday, so that we can then spend the morning wandering around a farmers' market, finding fresh, organic, quality food for the week; and exploring the wonders (and meat specials!) of Nosh or Farros. With good ingredients on hand, I get even more pleasure from creating healthy, tasty, nourishing food. And I find myself spending more time cooking for enjoyment, rather than just because we need it.

Slowly, but surely, my relationship with food is improving. The passion and excitement are still there (and every now and then, so is the indulgence!), but the guilt is starting to fade into the background. At least, until those reckless moments of infidelity!

Next step is to reduce the frequency of those unsatisfying moments of weakness. And maybe replace them with something like this...

Avocado & lime sorbet (or Avocado, lime & pistachio tarts!)

Sorbet
4 ripe avocados
Juice and zest of 2-3 limes
1/2 tsp crushed chili (chili powder would probably be better, but I didn't have any!)
~2 tsp ground vanilla
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp honey
1/2C pistachio kernels, chopped

Put all ingredients except the pistachios into a food processor and blend until combined. Stir in the pistachios (or you could add them into the food processor & just blend briefly).

Put mixture into the freezer for about 30 minutes. Remove and blend again. Repeat a couple more times, to get a creamier sorbet. (An icecream maker would probably be an awesome addition to my kitchen toys!)

This was really yummy, but I decided it might also be good as a pie filling. So I defrosted some of the sorbet and made it into...

Avocado, lime, & pistachio tarts

For the filling:
About 1/3 of the sorbet mixture (defrosted, if you froze it first)
3 eggs
~1/3 C coconut cream

Beat eggs and coconut cream together. Gently fold sorbet mixture into the egg/coconut cream mix.

For the base:
200g pistachio kernels
10 dates
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp macadamia butter (or other nut butter)
Cold water

Put all ingredients except for the water into a food processor & combine. Remove mixture and place in a bowl. Mix in a small amount of cold water, so that it becomes a sticky-ish 'dough'. Refrigerate if you have time.

To make the tarts, take spoonfuls of the 'dough' and press into a muffin tin to create the bases (I put enough in so that the base went about halfway up the side). Spoon filling into each, then bake at 180 degrees for approximately 20 minutes, or until filling is set.

Cool for a few minutes in the tin, then remove onto a wire rack to cool.

If I'd had extra limes, I would have served this topped with lime zest. As it was, I just served them with a delicious 2007 Shingle Peak Late Harvest Riesling instead! ;-)

These also work well as mini tarts...

It’s not freak food

Since going primal, I’ve become fairly used to hearing phrases like…

“I have no idea what to cook for you now”

or…

“I don’t think [insert name here] would like it if I started serving him/her primal meals”

and most commonly…

“But what do you eat?!”

Well guess what people, you’ll never believe it…it’s kinda crazy, I know…but we eat food! Real food!! It’s nothing special, nothing particularly weird, just real food that doesn’t happen to include grains or sugars. It may be labelled ‘primal’, ‘paleo’, or even ‘caveman’…but it’s not freak food!

I was having a conversation with a friend last week who was concerned about how her partner might respond if she served up a primal meal. So I told her not to tell him it was primal. After all, it’s just normal food. If you don’t make a big deal of the fact that there are no grains or sugars, most people probably won’t even notice! In fact, a lot of you probably eat grain-free meals quite regularly…you just don’t call them primal.

Even eating out is pretty easy once you get your head around it. Sure, you may need to ask them to hold the bread or the potatoes, but countless people have dietary requirements that mean modifications of some dishes. Isn’t that kind of service what we’re paying for when we eat out?!

I do have to admit though, one thing that I find requires a little more ‘thinking outside the square’ is nibbles (or appetisers). First thing we usually think of is cheese and crackers…or bread and dips…or if you’re really fancy, blini (little pikelet things) with elaborate toppings…primal fail! But don’t despair, there are actually plenty of other options if you just get a little creative. We went to a friend’s place for dinner last night, and of course, I was asked to take snacks! So I did guacamole with vegetable sticks, and a sweet/spicy Cajun nut mix…

Cajun Nut Mix

Cajun spice (from Annabel Langbein)

5 tbsp paprika

5 tbsp ground cumin

3 tbsp garlic powder

1 ½ tbsp each of chilli powder, brown sugar, salt (obviously I left out the sugar)

2 ½ tsp chopped dry rosemary

Place all ingredients into a bowl/pot/jar and combine.

Nuts

6 cups raw nuts/seeds (I used cashews, almonds, walnuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds)

7 tbsp cajun spice mix (this makes it quite spicy – use less if you prefer it mild)

½ C olive oil

¼ C pure maple syrup

Combine nuts/seeds, cajun spice, oil and maple syrup.

Spread mix out on baking trays. I lined them with baking paper first to reduce the clean-up!

Roast at 200 degrees celcius until dry (approx 20 mins), stirring occasionally. If you are using fan bake, they probably won’t need as long.

Be careful – because of the maple syrup and the oil, these go from being underdone to overdone in a very short space of time! I learnt the hard way…any chance blackened cajun nut mix might catch on?!

Guacamole

2 avocados

1/2 red chilli (chilli flakes or powder also work)

juice of 2 limes

1 small red onion

1 tomato

lots of fresh coriander

salt & pepper

Mash or blend avocados, chilli and lime juice. Because it was there, I used the Magic Bullet (seriously, could they not have put a bit more thought into the name? I thought the thing was a vibrator the first time I heard someone talking about it!), but mashing works just as well.

Blend or finely chop onion, tomato and coriander. Again, I used the Bullet, but if you like your guacamole chunky, stick with a knife.

Combine avocado mix and the tomato mix, and season to taste.

And a huge thank you to D for an amazing dinner last night, and for accommodating our dietary choices so well. Homemade gluten-free hoisin sauce - that's really going the extra mile!

And you are...??

So I guess I should start with a bit of an introduction. After all, it's not everyday you meet a kitchen ninja...we're a pretty rare breed.

I'm Lana. I'm a 31 year-old female, living in New Zealand, and currently trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. Boring, boring, boring. Here's the good stuff...

I like to workout. And by workout, I mean really workout. I do this thing called CrossFit...you may have heard of it...

What is CrossFit?

I only started CrossFit in October 2010, but although I'm still pretty new to it, I'm well and truly addicted. As well as CrossFit, I like to kick and punch things...or people...I don't discriminate. Although I do try to channel those aggressive tendencies for sole use in taekwon-do...or when something goes wrong in the kitchen.

I also love food. A lot. You know those people who say they forgot to eat? Yeah...I'll never be one of them. I mean seriously, you forgot to eat? Did your brain block out the smells of other people's lunches wafting down the corridor, or the sounds of your stomach growling louder than a bear suffering from honey withdrawal? WHO FORGETS TO EAT??

Ok sorry, rant over. Now the thing with loving food but also loving training, is that you need to figure it out so that your nutrition supports (or even better, optimises) your training. Which is where paleo/primal eating comes in...

A little bit of an intro to the caveman diet

This kind of eating is new(ish) to me. 'New' in that I've only been following it closely for a few months, but 'ish' in that I've been mostly wheat free for over a year (food intolerance) and didn't have a huge amount of other grains or sugars in my diet before CrossFit. But it's still new. And it's still fun. And it's made a huge difference to my body composition, to my energy levels, and to my training. So I'm going with it. Luckily, I also like to experiment in the kitchen, which is why I've been encouraged (persuaded/coerced/whatever you want to call it) to start this blog.

Anyway,  speaking of bears (we were, remember?)...I have this amazing boyfriend (yes I know, the connection is seeming tenuous at best right now), who we will refer to as Bear because he's big, he's hairy, he sleeps a lot and he eats a lot (seeing the connection now?!). He also has a fiendish sweet tooth, so yesterday we embarked on a fortnight of sugar-free eating. That is, no refined sugars, and fruit limited to post work-out nutrition. As of today, we're also going 'Zone' to see if it provides us with additional training benefits.

I'm excited about this! I usually 'freestyle' in the kitchen, adding stuff until it tastes good. Measuring is new for me...I've always kind of felt that it interferes with my creative processes! But freestyling doesn't help you guys much, it won't help us with our 'zoning', and it annoys the hell out of my mum when she asks for the recipe for something! So I'm going to give it a shot.

Bear (excuse the pun) with me as I experiment with primal, with zone, with blogging, and with measuring…