Sunny side up luncheon

First of all, I would like to announce that I am really back.  :-) Having taken a month off paleo and suffered the consequences (mostly, a marked decrease in energy), I've gone back just a few days ago. Not surprisingly, I feel great. No longer exhausted, I am able to accomplish more with my day, often finding myself still full of energy at bed time and choosing to relax or work.

Today I wanted to share my lunch recipe.  Well, it's not really a recipe - it's a "I am hungry, pantry is empty, too broke to go shopping and too busy to cook" lunch approach.

Do you like your eggs sunny side up? That's what I grew up with.  Nothing compares as far as I am concerned. Though if you are of the scrambled persuasion, it works just as well.

To make your mouth water, I have captured a tiny video clip of the eggs sizzling in the pan. A still just doesn't do the same!

Heat up oil in the pan
Throw in fresh salsa (the kind you can buy in a plastic tub in a grocery store)
Cook on high till it sizzles
Break a few eggs
Reduce heat to medium/med-lo and cook till your heart says, it's time.

If you are in the habit of saving some bacon for garnish, throw that on top. DELICIOUS!

On again off again

It's been a really long time.  There are fairly good reasons for it.  If've been away from blogging generally as I have been working near full-time (as full time as having two kids allows!  Not real close!) on a business venture I started with my husband.

But there is another, a more important reason. I had to make a choice - the same choice all of us face when we wander off the beaten path and make choices that are fundamentally different to those of our peers. Do I keep pushing paleo, creating conflict at home, discomfort out, and eye-rolling by friends and relatives? The eye-rolling is easy. Much of what I do tends to produce that reaction in some.  :-) The out stuff is pretty straight-forward to.  I just did not find it difficult to find good amazing food anywhere I was, save McDonald's, which is just disgusting whichever way you look at it!  The conflict at home, however, was what caused me to choose the other way...

I am now in a very very comfortable lifestyle of having someone else primarily responsible for our meals and the past problems I had with my live-in mother-in-law have diminished dramatically.  She feels like she has a place in our home, she is taking care of and feeding us, and she is happy. I went from cooking separate meals from hers, to supplementing what she cooked with something of my own, to picking and choosing what I eat that's "ok", to eventually relaxing and having what was being served and tasted good. Worth it? Very likely.  I am so busy, and meals just kind of show up! I still pick the healthier options: avoid pasta, eat only "real" bread, always with a lot of butter, focus on the meat, but I do not do meal preparation any more.

It's been going really great as not one, but two concerns have been taken off my shoulder: cooking and fighting with Granny. :-)  Hey, that's nothing to sniff at.

There is only one problem: I AM EXHAUSTED! And therein comes a new dilemma: is peaceful and exhausted better than healthy and full of energy?  I have not come to an answer yet, but I am exploring the possibilities...

That's it for now... I will come back infrequently and post updates.  I seriously have no idea what they are going to be like.  Thanks for hanging around!

Losing weight by eating fat

Boy, it has been a long time since I got to blog here. My life has taken me into a whirlwind of a tornado and, not surprisingly, the things that I do for myself are the first to go. Still, I have been having internal conversations with CaveKitchen, creating a monologue of posts inside my head. It has helped, kept me company, been my unspoken companion during a challenging time.

I am here now to pay it back. Thanks to those who made comments and started following me on NetworkedBlogs, giving me little nudges to quit being a stranger.

Throughout this time the topic that has been most on my mind is FAT. Fat, fat and more fat. A long time ago I wrote about the importance of adding fat to one's meals and shared some tips for doing so. Today I would like to share what focusing on fat has done for me.

One of the common complaints I see about Paleo is hunger. Switching to paleo leaves a lot of people constantly craving food. I gained 10 lbs in the first two weeks of trying it and sought advice about what to do. Reducing sugar, not surprisingly, turned out to be an important step. But I had not mastered paleo, nor reaped one of its biggest benefits till I focused on fat.

Today, I usually eat one meal per day, often supplementing it with a light breakfast, small snack or nothing at all. The most astounding result is - I don't think about food. I am not raiding the refrigerator to see what I can find, plainly forgetting my favorite habit - munching - in favor of focusing on values in my life.

Every now and then I get on a scale and I am not surprised to see the numbers going down as I see improvements in my body, the fit of my jeans and a general feeling of well-being.

So what's the deal? Basically, fat calories satiate you like nothing else. They do not cause an insulin spike, which leads to a crash later in the day. When hungry, I no longer feel light-headed, or craving food.  I just feel... well... hungry - no other side effects. Because I have to rely on Granny (my mother-in-law) to do most of the cooking, I have to make sure I add enough fat to the meal to retain the peace the freedom from cravings brings. Bacon, butter, avocados, coconut are staples that I add liberally to the dried out and often flavorless meals that lean meat creates. On those days that I get lazy and forget to do what is required, I become aware of the sudden need to stock up on fruit, unexpected contemplation of a quick fix a bagel would bring. I always keep several packages of uncured bacon Trader Joe's offers to put those cravings to rest. (If you haven't seen my post on perfect bacon - you should look; this easy method of preparing bacon has changed my life!)

When I have a good meal, I know it, as the satiation sets in, bringing a burst of energy that radiates like heat all over my body. On those days, I know, I won't be tempted to watch TV instead of working late at night, have bed time conflicts with kids or become depressed about having taken on too many things. On such nights, I just am - caught up in the joy of living, pursuing my productive endeavors and enjoying life.

Bacon wrapped smokies

I discovered this recipe a while ago and have made it twice.  It's fun to make with kids, fun to eat, makes great left-overs and works for lunch boxes.

Ingredients:

1 package of Lil' smokies (little tiny sausages from the grocery store)
1 lb bacon
1 tbs or so of brown sugar (you can try honey)

This would undoubtedly work without the brown sugar.  However, it cuts the intense flavor of sausages and that amount won't kill you, really! It doesn't really taste sweet, just a little hint of carmel-something. Of course, if you want to be strict, use honey instead.  Should do just as well. Come to think of it, I will do so next time!

The process:

Cut bacon in thirds. Wrap each individual sausage into a strip of bacon and slide the result onto a skewer. Arrange skewers on a baking pan and sprinkle with brown sugar. You will complete 6-8 skewers.  Stick 'em in the oven at 350 for 40 minutes or so. For extra crispiness, increase the temperature to 400F for the last five minutes.  Yum!

Cooking plans for the week

I am now pretty much over all the emotional turmoil associated with the lost pregnancy.  It really sucks that I am technically still carrying a fetus, so I still have to think about it all, and wait for a miscarriage, but I have, for the most part moved on. And the most important part to emotional recovery is: FOOD.  I can't tell you how many times I've lived through the vicious cycle: too depressed to cook, too malnourished to cheer up.  :-)

Thankfully, I found my stride pretty quickly this time. And here are some exciting plans for the week - I'll blog about the flips & flops as they happen:

• Paleo bread - YES! I am going to try this faxseed bread recipe, as soon as my flaxseed meal arrives from amazon.
• Honey-mustard rosemary pork roast. That one is marinading right now, waiting for dinner tonight!

Some tried-and-true favorites:

• Paleo muffins - I make those a lot as not only do they provide variety in breakfast, but they are also a wonderful topper for the kids' lunchboxes.
• Bacon, bacon and more bacon.  (Did you read about how I bake it, so it's quick and easy to make a bunch?) My favorite things to do with it: plain-old breakfast and garnish for soup, particularly the kids' favorite: tomato soup.  

I am seriously hoping, the pork roast turns out.  I tend to get a lot of meals out of roasts!  My best lunchbox solution is a roast/tomatoes salad.  Tomatoes create just the right amount of dressing for the cold meat. I sometimes add bell peppers or other favorites, and the tupperwear seems to come back licked every time.

An update: paleo pregnancy

I have not been able to post or do very much else in the last few weeks. Bad news on the pregnancy, see ParentingIs for the story. Bottom line, there is no heart beat, but I have not given up completely yet. Tomorrow is my appointment with my old and trusted obgyn. The weeks leading up to the bad news were extremely emotionally volatile (I tend to go insane in the first trimester) and I've been struggling.

I also have to admit, I have not done very well in Paleo in recent weeks.  Not badly, either. However, I've noticed time and again that it's not about what you avoid eating, but what you do have on the table.  Too many meals consisting primarily of dairy, or hot dogs, or even just vegetables, will drain you of energy, grains or no grains.  I am pretty sure that I am past the worst of it, though and am ready to face the world again.  Today, I enlisted granny in helping create a meal around a ham, one of my favorite lazy feast recipes.

A few observations on pregnancy and nausea are in order:

• I am pretty sure, that nausea is reduced with proper paleo. It is important not to overeat protein, though, as your body will quickly announce - no more! Stick with high fat meals with a reasonable portion of meat, but with lots of vegetable options. The more you have to choose from, the more likely, something will hit the spot.
• Weight gain is reduced when, unlike my first pregnancy in which I gained sixty lbs, half eating watermellon, what you are eating is directly involved in building the baby: healthy fat, protein, large variety of veggies.
• Variety is a must. You are foregoing a lot of fortification the government puts into wheat products: folic acid, magnesium and more. I have been trying to keep at least a dozen vegetable options in the fridge at any given time.  (See my Pantry page for a long list of vegetable option ideas.)
• Snacking is not a symptom of pregnancy. It is a symptom of your body demanding the right nutrients! Which, in turn, a symptom of pregnancy, of course.  Eat good healthy meals, and snacking is not so much of an issue.
• Prenatal vitamins can make you nauseous. Take them at bed time! But do take them. There is so little known about paleo pregnancy, be on the safe side and stick with your doctor's advice.

Obviously, take this with a grain of salt.  These are the things I have observed, thought about, deduced. I admit to complete ignorance with the possible exception of awareness of my own body. So, compare notes and figure out what feels right!

Cooking oils

Having written a small post on the dangers of improper choice of frying oils, I dug a bit deeper, then couldn't stop until I felt I got my head around the cooking oil pantry.


There are several factors when considering an oil:

1. Omega 6 / Omega 3 ratio - always watch out for that.  You won't get to your Omega 3 quota from your frying oils anyway, but we could at least stay away from things like Safflower: 75% PUFA (poly-unsaturated fatty acid), almost all omega 6.
2. PUFA's (were you paying attention? Poly-unsa) become rancid at high heat (see is frying bad for you? for a pretty good answer on the subject), generating trans-fat right in your pan. Yuck!  So minimize the total amount of PUFA's and pay attention to the smoke point.
3. As a corollary, look for an oil with a high amount of saturated and mono-unsaturated fat. Those are your friends.
4. Last but not least: The source of the oil needs to be examined for nutritional value/toxins.  Ever eaten a cottonseed?  No, really! It is not intended for food!

Great.  Now, let's look at that smoke point, using this wikipedia data as a base.

First thing to note: terms like virgin and unrefined sound great and will probably yield more flavor (and likely preserve more of the nutritional value), but they are the enemy of high heat cooking.  Save those for salad dressings.

Next, our friends: saturated fat-based oils:

• Ghee seems to be the winner. Clarified butter, it is devoid of the solids that cause all the burning problems with butter, its enviable (by other oils, I presume!) smoke point is at 482F. You just can't go wrong with ghee.  Check the label for purity and you are ready to roll.
• Lard has a substantial range based on its clarity, from 360 to as high as 420. Look for lard produced via the wet rendering process and avoid the stuff from the supermarket, opting in favor of small high quality operations.  Your grass-fed producer is likely your top choice.  Did you know, lard was used to produce French Fries for the first half of this century?  I am tempted!
• Avocado oil (I've never heard of it till now!) is a win all around.  520F should be enough to satisfy almost any cooking need.  The only oil that comes close is the nutritionally crooken safflower. Does it taste good?  Have you tried it?
• Coconut oil.  The refined kind goes as high as 450F.  The virgin is only good for 350F.  So be a little careful there. 

Note this guide when frying something in a pan: 

                 450-500° high
                 375-400° medium-high
                 325-350° medium
                 275-300° medium-low
                 225-250° low

This means, don't let your virgin coconut oil in a pan that will go above medium heat.  

The only oil I use outside of this family is olive oil.  Its smoke point has a wide range based on the clarity of the oil: 375 for extra-virgin to 468 for extra light. It has a healthy nutritional profile and even boasts tiny amounts of Omega 3's if you enjoy conversations with your conscience.

Still, there is no longer a need for rancid vegetable oils to make your sweet potato fries.

The next step for me is to try them out and decide which tastes better for what purpose.  My money is on ghee.  After all, what adds flavor to food quite like butter?

I included the links to amazon for these oils.  I have the olive oil on a regular subscription, have ordered the coconut oil in the past - and avocado is on the way!
        

Grass fed: beef with taste

I don't know what's wrong with me the last few days - I can't stop blogging...  OK, I have opened a third food package I received from USA Wellness Meat.  I've already expressed my delight with their hot dogs, wrote about the nice eye of round roast the whole family enjoyed and here comes

Forget-the-spices chili

I was so upset, so worked up over personal problems, even the thought of cooking made me cry.  I looked up a recipe for chili.  Broke into tears.  I thought about what Granny does with ground beef.  Considered murder-suicide.  Finally, I figured, I'll just start throwing sh*t at the pan and something will stick.

I placed 1 lb of 75% fat ground beef into the pan and got it browning.  After a few minutes, I tasted the rendered fat.  Hey, it's not so bad!  Didn't have that oily thing going on.  Tasted more like, well, meat broth.  Cool.  Keep going.

Found a can of Italian tomatoes.  Never a bad idea.

Oh, I've got some zucchini squash.  I tasted a slice raw.  Not bad!  I should consider using it in a salad.  Sliced it up and threw it in.

5 minutes later I figured, I should consider spices.  I tasted it.  It was quite good!  I had another spoonful. Couldn't think of anything to add... Habitually, I thew a pinch of salt.

Should I add onions?  Nah, it tastes great.  So I let it reduce for another ten minutes - and there we have it!  Forget-the-spices chili.

Don't try this at home   - unless you have great ground beef.  My conclusion isn't that zucchini makes chili.  It's that this ground beef is amazing!

P.S. I don't get paid by those guys - I just love them.  :-)

[UPDATE: kids loved it.  They cleared pretty substantial portions and asked for more!]

Lunch box in a panic

Today I was running late.  The kids were eating breakfast cereal with daddy. They are still occasionally eating cereal for several reasons.  First, I am moving slowly in converting them to the primal lifestyle; don't want to push it too hard.  Second, I would like to avoid gluten intolerance which, as I understand, can result from removing gluten entirely from one's diet.  (If you have thoughts about that, I would really appreciate them!)

Anyway, what do I get them for lunch?  Still tired from late night of writing code, having had no breakfast of my own, I am opening and closing refrigerator doors. NOTHING.  Well, it's never nothing.  Just nothing inspiring.  The best I could do was leftover roast, which would be rather boring without gravy and not quite tender enough to eat cold, I thought as I tasted a piece.  Oh well!  It's the best I can do.

... Six hours later I picked them up from school. I looked into their lunch boxes. Not a scrap!  "What happened to your lunch?"  I asked.  "We ate ALL OF IT!" said Alex proudly.  "Mommy, thank you so much for the salad!" added his two-year-old sister.

And here is how it happened:

Salad

• Two 1/4 in slices of roast cut into bite-size pieces
• 1 whole tomato chopped small (about the same as the roast)
• Grated cheddar cheese sprinkled on top till you couldn't see what's under it

Sides

• Salted soy beans in a little ziplock bag
• Apple slices sprinkled with lemon juice, the best apple preservative

I guess, the tomatoes worked out to generate the perfect dressing for the beef roast and cheese - well, you know, it's cheese.  :-)  I am still working to figure out "good" cheese that tastes like cheddar.  But for now, it's the old grocery store variety.  

Still, Mommy 1, Lunch Monsters 0.

Is fried food bad for you?

I keep hearing "fried food is bad, you should stew it instead." Both of my parents believe it, and it is a common enough perception among the older generations.

I always argued that the only reason it is considered bad is, the amount of fat you introduce because you need the grease.  In response I heard a variety of things from the crust that forms on the food being unhealthy to... Oh well, I don't even remember any more.  It didn't make that much sense anyway.

OK, I am with you on french fries and any other junk food notorious for using hydrogenated oils in the frying process.  Another reason, frying is bad has to do with Omega 6/Omega 3 ratios.  Vegetable oils are mostly Omega 6.  The AMA recommends staying at 4:1. Lower is better.  Corn oil is 40:1.  How do you like that??

There is a much more important reason to avoid improperly fried foods.  I found a great answer at, of all places, Yahoo Answers!  What do you know?  :-)

Oils contains unsaturated fatty acids. You see, the normal form of the double bond of this fatty acids is on the "cis" form. When altered (e.g. :due to high temperature when cooking) , it undergoes isomerism and change into "trans" form. This form of fatty acid is due to catalytic hydrogenation of oils. These are found in food such as cookies, candies, and fried foods (espcially french fries). When ingested by humans, "trans" fatty acids do not accumulate in our body, thus it circualtes all through out in the blood and can be vulnerable to lipid peroxidation. 

Lipid peroxidation can cause free radicals which are harmful to our cells. These free-radicals can damage our tissues, which may cause cancer, inflammatory diseases, atherosclerosis, aging, and other cardiovascualr diseases. 

That's why it is advisable to use oils w/ high saturated fatty acids when cooking because it contains less double bonds, thus less conversion of "cis" to :trans" fatty acid double bonds. Furthermore, once you have already used the oil in frying or cooking, you should already disregard it and use another if trying to cook another set of food.

So, it's not just the evil food companies that create trans-fats!  You are doing the deed right there in your kitchen!  Now you know.  When frying use ghee, coconut oil, butter or another source of animal fat.  (I advise against using butter at high heat as it burns really easily due to the solids present in it, which are removed by the process of clarifying it and creating ghee.)

Roast your beef

Are you a big roast beef eater? Is pot roast regularly on your menu?  If you come from an old-fashioned family in the North-East,  the answer is almost certainly yes. For the rest of us, those menu items take some getting used to.

It's been a struggle for me and Granny to find something we could both agree on. After months of experimentation, we still don't agree on anything - but I learned quite a bit about roasting beef in the process.

Lesson 1.  Meat cooked in a covered pot, submerged in fluid will usually come out dry.  Counter-intuitive, right?  So often, I see this yummy-looking dish, all covered in au jus, obviously succulently moist, only to choke on the first piece.  So if you like your meat moist, avoid roasting it in a pot.  Meat exposed to air, such as a proper beef roast, will lock in the moisture.

Lesson 2. You can never put too many spices on the outside of the roast.  By the time it comes out of the of the oven, the spices will have penetrated the meat and there is a lot of meat compared to surface area!  I am yet to decide I have put enough spices on.

Lesson 3. To add the most flavor to the beef, melt some butter and mix the spices with it, rubbing the buttery mixture over your meat.  This will help it penetrate, add the buttery taste and goodness.

Lesson 4. The best gravy is made with real flour: no getting around it.  But there are alternatives.  My favorite idea goes like this:  remove drippings from the pan.  Add some red wine.  Cook it off, scraping the the bits (double points: now you won't have to scrub it in the sink!)  Add to drippings.  To thicken, use some tapioca powder or arrowroot.  Or else, just cook off what you've got. Add fun spices.  (Kitchen bouquet is great for gravy taste and color.)

Lesson 5. There is more than one way to roast your beef!  Here comes a very unusual recipe:

Eye of Round Beef Roast

Eye of Roast is a very lean cut of meat, which makes for excellent smooth roast beef.  (You may need to add some fat to this meal.)

Ingredients
1 Eye of Round Roast (I got mine at US Wellness, but Costco will do in a pinch.)
3 tbs melted butter
2 tsp favorite herbs: herbs de provence is a great mix
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
2 tsp salt (I told you! It has a long way to penetrate!)
2 tsp pepper (or much much more)

Preparation
Preheat the oven to 450F.
Lovingly rub the roast on all sides. (The claims that the roast cares have not been validated, but I do enjoy the connection we make!) Place roast in the oven. Do not line with foil - you will want to make the gravy out of drippings.

Cooking
Place the roast in the oven, set timer to 20 minutes.  Turn off the oven. Do not open as it needs to retain the heat.  Keep it in the oven for 20 minutes per lb of roast.  Thus, the total cooking time for a 3 lb roast is 80 minutes.  (No calculus required.)

The roast is very tender and just a little pink across.  Mine measured a temperature of 140F in the center, which is about perfect.  If you decide, you wish to cook it longer, set the oven to it lowest setting and check again every ten minutes till the right meat temperature is achieved.

I found this recipe on cooks.com. There are some very nice reviews there as well!  My gravy usually contains flour - it's one of the places I simplify paleo as I don't really have any gluten problems. Scroll up to Lesson 4 to make paleo-compliant gravy.  Enjoy!

[Kid Reviews: mixed, but ok.  The little one ate four slices - more than me.  The big one said it wasn't great, but ate the single-slice portion on his plate.]

Scientific establishment divided

It has been almost a year since I came across this weird idea: animal fat is good; grains are bad; sugar is poison. These three phrases pretty much describe Paleo principles to a T.

I have slowly been discovering that I am not part of a weird fringe culture. I have been surprised over and over again that some of the smartest people I know eat the same way I do; it no longer surprises me to find out that another family in my kids' school is following the same principles. I am getting used to the idea of Primal Blueprint text showing up in the featured section of Borders.

Today I have learned that the mainstream science is beginning its slow and cumbersome turn.  The New York Times is literally asking "What if it's all been a Big Fat Lie?"

Now a small but growing minority of establishment researchers have come to take seriously what the low-carb-diet doctors have been saying all along. Walter Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, may be the most visible proponent of testing this heretic hypothesis. Willett is the de facto spokesman of the longest-running, most comprehensive diet and health studies ever performed, which have already cost upward of $100 million and include data on nearly 300,000 individuals. Those data, says Willett, clearly contradict the low-fat-is-good-health message ''and the idea that all fat is bad for you; the exclusive focus on adverse effects of fat may have contributed to the obesity epidemic.''

This situation is putting medical science in a rather awkward position.

If the members of the American medical establishment were to have a collective find-yourself-standing-naked-in-Times-Square-type nightmare, this might be it.

Bottom line, many of the key mainstream medical scientists are acknowledging that it is the recommendations of their colleagues over the last thirty years, manifested in the low-fat high-carb grain-heavy food pyramid is what's responsible for the obesity epidemic.

This is basic endocrinology, Ludwig [a researcher at Harvard Medical School who runs the pediatric obesity clinic at Children's Hospital Boston]  says, which is the study of hormones, and it is still considered radical because the low-fat dietary wisdom emerged in the 1960's from researchers almost exclusively concerned with the effect of fat on cholesterol and heart disease. At the time, Endocrinology 101 was still underdeveloped, and so it was ignored. Now that this science is becoming clear, it has to fight a quarter century of anti-fat prejudice.

So there you have it. When fat first got the bad rap, we didn't know about good fats and bad fats, we were happily producing hydrogenated oils and suddenly realized this might correlate to problems.  The technology and science are more sophisticated today. It is becoming easier to see that eating healthy fats and avoiding high carbs leads to better health - but it will take a generational turn-over in scientist before it becomes the mainstream thought.

Oh, did I say carbs?  Another interesting article by the same journalist relating to sugar: Is Sugar Toxic?  Another medical researcher, Robert Lustig, published a video presentation in which he did not admonish people against overinduging in sugar - but unabashedly used the words "toxic" and "poison" alongside sugar 13 times in his ninety minute lecture. If you read the article, you will learn:

• triglycerates (fat in the blood) are not caused by fat consumption. Instead, they are caused by excessive sugar rushing to the liver, particularly in liquid form (soft drinks)
• that the beginning of the diabetes epidemic coincided with the development of the soft drink & candy industry (1890-1920)
• that there has been a lot of research that suggested that sugar, not fat, was to blame for bad cholesterol, heart desease, and other problems commonly blamed on high fat diets

And here is how you get diabetes:

You secrete insulin in response to the foods you eat — particularly the carbohydrates — to keep blood sugar in control after a meal. When your cells are resistant to insulin, your body (your pancreas, to be precise) responds to rising blood sugar by pumping out more and more insulin. Eventually the pancreas can no longer keep up with the demand or it gives in to what diabetologists call “pancreatic exhaustion.” Now your blood sugar will rise out of control, and you’ve got diabetes.

But wait!

Not everyone with insulin resistance becomes diabetic; some continue to secrete enough insulin to overcome their cells’ resistance to the hormone. But having chronically elevated insulin levels has harmful effects of its own — heart disease, for one. A result is higher triglyceride levels and blood pressure, lower levels of HDL cholesterol (the “good cholesterol”), further worsening the insulin resistance — this is metabolic syndrome.

 OK, seriously, why are you still reading this post? Hopefully, I have convinced you of three things:

• There are real medical science authorities that are willing to back up the most controversial wacky ideas behind the Paleo lifestyle
• That there are some amazing resources you can follow to learn more about it
• That the notions about sugar & fat you grew up with can and should be questioned

Please leave a comment if I have failed...

Mushroom soup thumbs down

So a scientist winds up in a scientist concentration camp in the middle of the desert.  Escape seems impossible: barbed wire, guards, desert for miles.  Despite the obstacles, he lives and dreams of his desperate move. His closest comrade in the prison is his confidant. Over the years, he offers him advice, support and encouragement. 

Finally, he makes his break! After days of wandering through the desert, he is brought back, barely alive, to the camp. His comrade says, "Yea, I figured..." The guy is surprised.  "What do you mean?" "Many of us have tried the same; none succeeded." "Why didn't you tell me, it was impossible?!" the guy asks.  "Well, you know, who publishes negative results?"

Sound familiar? All these recipes around the internet you've just been dying to try. Then you do, taking pictures for your blog, hoping you'll have something to share... And flop. You wind up eating a can of soup in place of the elaborate dinner you spent half the evening preparing, clean up the mess and hope to forget the whole thing... Or do you share disasters, too? Well, at the risk of being a critic, I have decided to start publishing my negative results.  Perhaps it'll be helpful to myself to find a pattern of what works and what doesn't. Perhaps it'll help others.

Yesterday, I tried the Paleo Plan cream of mushroom soup.  Interestingly, no cream.  For the creaminess, it uses avocado - neat idea.  The recipe is not a complete flop. But there is a major problem. Every spoonful tastes like something is missing. The flavors are simply out of balance.

It uses grapefruit juice, giving it nice citrusy flavor, but it is not counteracted with anything, leaving it with this floating citrusy avocadoyee sensation. I would experiment with the following to ground it:

• coconut milk or, if you do dairy regular cream
• sautéing mushrooms in bacon and garnishing with bacon bits
• grain-free starch thickener, such as arrowroot or tapioca powder
• chicken broth or soup base

Those might settle the flavor some, bringing it back down to earth.

Though personally, since I like my dairy, I will go with a real cream-of-mushroom approach next time.

Fortunately, I had a lot of chicken legs & thighs to enjoy for dinner, and they made an excellent entree for the next day's lunch box. 

Have you tried cream-of- soups? Do share your favorite as I'd like to figure out something I can make batches of and freeze.

Scallops are coming for dinner

Today was an unqualified success! What you see on the left is Alex's best attempt and posing next to his picnic of strawberries, whipped cream and shaved chocolate. I created the latter in the blender, just to add to the festiveness of the occasion.

We got home and I threw some shrimp in the pot, rounding out the meal that started with veggie chips & seaweed snacks earlier in the afternoon.

Lunch box

Tomorrow for school, I will send some of those veggie chips with them.  They are not the best as they use safflower oil.  However, the concept is neat: various root veggies used in place of potatoes.  Our favorite turned out to be beets. Could I fry those in coconut oil? I need to try!

The veggie salad I described today shall make its first appearance in a lunch box tomorrow! Shrimp takes main stage; throw in remaining strawberries and we've got lunch!

Dinner

I shall attempt bacon wrapped scallops and cream of mushroom soup. I might make both in time for lunch and have dinner be informal, starting with an after-school snack, just like today.

Today's lunchbox

As my desire to do well and my inspiration increase, I would like to commit to blog more often and about more everyday things our lives are made of, here and at ParentingIs.. .  Before I begin:

          I got a Pink Line!  We did it!

Today's lunchbox.

My goals was variety, inspired by my own thoughts about Paleo for kids and a fellow blogger's piece of wisdom:

Pack lunches every day with some of their favorites. Even if these lunches are a little less than ideal, don’t worry about it. Sending them with foods that they don’t enjoy will only intensify cravings and bring attention to the difference between their lunch and the yummy junk food lunches at school. But if they are satisfied with their lunches then they can keep focused on their friends at lunch time and not on their friend’s lunches.

Appetizer:  carrots & cauliflower with ranch dip - our favorite staple appetizer.  I use these tiny little 2 oz saucers I managed to buy in bulk, similar to salsa cups at Mexican restaraunts, so it's easy to send any kind of dip along.

Entree:  my excellent lamb recipe - leftovers from the other night.  The kids love the tender texture of lamb, the sweetness of the pineapple and the variety of flavors contained in the recipe.

Desert:  blackberries (whatever managed to get home from Costco - most of the box was gone by the time we were at the cash register!)

After school snack.

Today we are going to swim school, which is always a challenge: those damn vending machines!!!  The only way to beat them is to compete with them.  What I have with me needs to be at least as good, so I could use the power of my personality and love to convince them to forego the atrocity.

First, I analyze the appeal of the vending machine: sweet tooth, starch, convenient snackables, attractive packaging.  Now, I make the plan to outpace the enemy...

• Sweet potato chips from Trader Joe's. Perhaps not an A+ from the health perspective - but they are yummy, starchy, convenient, snacky.
• Strawberries - even vending machine snacks shouldn't be able to compete with the sweet appeal.
• Can of whipped cream.  Why?  It's simple.  Whipped cream is fun to squirt, fun to eat, and looks  amazing on top of strawberries.
• Final idea: shredded chocolate.  Don't know if I can pull that off... But if I do, we are seriously having a picknick of all picknicks!

Vending machines - beware!

Adjustments to dinner

Dinner tonight is cubed steak.  This is not too bad, except that it is likely to be a completely lean cut of meat, insufficiently filling unless you are planning to eat a mountain.  Not only is that unhealthy (too much protein is not a good thing, especially not for kids or pregnant mommies!) but I found, it is boring on the palate and very unsatisfying.

I guess, I need to make dinner more fun:

• Bacon garnish (see the second of five ways to add fat to a meal).  This means, I better pick up some uncured bacon at TJ's today!
• Vegetable salad.  Our favorite: tomato, cauliflower, bell pepper with olive oil/lemon juice/cumin dressing.  The key there: chop veggies into tiny pieces, so you can enjoy multiple flavors in every bite.
• Roast carrots.  Oh, yeah, that's another easy favorite:  toss carrots with olive (or better coconut) oil, salt, pepper & favorite herbs, stick in the oven at 400F for 25 minutes.  Out come roast carrots!

Time to execute.

Paleo for kids

I have been inspired and motivated to cook creatively recently.  After reading about the dangers of protein to kids at the PerfectHealthDiet, I understood why I have been struggling in feeding my kids meat. I was already coming to the conclusion that there need to be a variety of vegetables on the tables for kids to choose from in order to have a happy and peaceful family meal.  Now I understand why.

In brief, breast milk is composed of 7% of protein. Increasing protein to even as much as 9% in formula leads to problems.  Cordain recommends limiting protein to no more than 20-25% of caloric intake for pregnant women.

So how much is exactly right for kids? There isn't enough evidence to suggest a specific number, but it is clear that they should not eat any more than they are willing and happy to do. This means, no brow-beating them into finishing their meat or clearing their plate. Presented with healthy options, they should naturally gravitate toward a good balance. This means, plenty of dishes to choose from at every meal and lots of choices among different types of calories: protein, fat, carbohydrates.

Truthfully, it's not so hard to do.  I often start meals with a veggie dip appetizer:  A ranch dip with carrots, cauliflower, celery.  (While I normally buy the ranch dip at the store, having run out I was delighted with this incredibly easy home-made ranch alternative. If made for kids, wait to add garlic & onion powder, adding a little at a time to taste.  Otherwise it's deliciously spicy for adult palate, but I had to quadruple the recipe to get it back to tolerable for kids!)

I often slice tomatoes and bell peppers to serve on the side of any meal. They are our family favorites!

A cup of tomato soup or home-made beef/chicken stock garnished with bacon bits & cheese is a very popular option.

Salads are time-consuming, but these easy veggifiers create a splendid-looking table and guarantee that they won't leave hungry. In the meantime I am also increasing the amount of fat present in all of our meals, using the tips I worked out earlier for myself.

Finally, I am beginning to experiment with super-energy deserts.

In a food processor, mix heavy cream or coconut milk with any frozen fruit or berry and you have instant ice cream. The whole family can work together to prepare - then to enjoy. I like adding shredded coconut to mine, but the texture is too much for the kids. For them, melted dark chocolate does so much more! Making ice cream right on the dinner table with a food processor is a fun after-dinner activity and eating it right after is a tasty bonus.

US Wellness Hot Dogs

Dear US Wellness Meats,

Hot dogs as displayed
on grasslandbeef.com

I would like to share with you the wonderful experience I just had with your product.  After a lot of deliberation, many abandoned shopping carts across various sites, I finally screwed up my courage to order grassfed meat from your site: grasslandbeef.com. I emailed you citing my friends' high praise of your product and asking for a discount. I promptly received a code for 15% off on new orders.  Thanks for that!

The meat arrived soon as was rock-solid-frozen. After some time, I got a hold of the modest package of your sugar-free all-ingredients-listed hot dogs. I wasn't sure, buying hot dogs was such a good idea - but as it was my first time I went for a sampler - so there they were: grass-fed beef hot dogs flavored with onion, garlic, paprika and beet juice! I was rushed and did not have time to prepare them in any fancy way. Threw them in a pot, chopped them up and served to my kids & myself with ketchup.

My goodness! It was not just the best hot dog experience of my life - it was one of the better meat experiences period. I generally have two problems with hot dogs: one is never sure what's inside of them - and one's tummy is never really sure whether anything really landed there. It seems, they fail to fill me the way "real" meat does. Not this time! The hot dogs were wonderfully tasty - and one and a half hot dogs actually filled me up.  I felt the kind of warm energetic feeling I get after a good hearty meaty meal.  My kids cleared their plates, too.  That's always a bonus!  And this time, I didn't feel guilty about serving them hot dogs instead of food.  :-)

"Alex," I said to my four-year-old son, "These are the healthiest hot dogs you have ever eaten. They are made from super-healthy cows, have no sugar and nothing at all bad for your body in them."  "I know!" Alex explaimed, excited for the opportunity to share his expertise, "They must have lots of Omega3!"

Go Alex, and Go US Wellness Meats!

Five ways to add fat to your meal

Just in case you are new here, you might be wondering, "ADD FAT??"  Yes, Add Healthy Fat! This means:

•  saturated fat, the storage medium for pure energy employed by animals and humans alike. It is stable, easily accessible and, if you are trying to lose weight, represents the most filling calories you will encounter.  (In other words, replace 500 calories in sugar with 400 calories in fat - you'll be less hungry, avoid those cravings and lose weight. In other words, skip the 500 calorie Jamba Juice and enjoy10 pieces of bacon (40 calories each) - which of those will leave you feeling full?
• Omega 3 fat, available in grass-fed meat, fish oil, macademia nuts.

For more information on relative health value of fats (yes, some fats are actually bad!) see the definitive guide to fats.  A long time ago, when I was first getting started with paleo, I did a bit of digging on saturated fat and found that there is little evidence all the hatred is based on.

Sharing meals with family members who have not been convinced by the paleo argument, I am forced to find extra nutrition to add to meals,  which have been purposefully deprived of it.  Here are my tricks:

1. Home-made beef stock.  In Russia, the quality of the broth was judged by marbling one could see on the surface.  Real broth, not made from a box, will boast beautiful golden marble-lines on its surface.  Preparing it is super-easy:
   
   Buy soup bones at the grocery store, usually sold at $1-$1.50 a lb, optionally get additional bony meat or organ meat.  Place 3 lbs in a crockpot with two cups of water and your favorite spices. Remove the bones.  Strain.  Keep the meat for a future meal.
   
   You will wind up with the richest broth you have ever seen.  Freeze Add it to a lean soup. Thicken it with tapioca or arrowroot powder and use it as gravy for a lean meal.
   
   
2. Rendered bacon or salt pork. Remember bacon bits, that stuff apparently made out of cardboard and vaguely resembling bacon you get on top of salads? What you should do to create flavorful rich bacon to go on top of almost any meal: salad, mashed potatoes (I do sweet potatoes or mashed cauliflower), lean meat dishes, even steak sauce.
   
   Cut bacon into 1/4 inch strips. Stir-fry in a pan until bacon is somewhat crispy and golden-brown. You don't have to get those as crispy as you might a full piece of bacon as with a greater total surface area, less worry about bubbles that never reach the pan, etc, you get far more crispiness even while preserving much of the body that would be absent in a crumbly-crisp piece of bacon.
   
   
3. Coconut! Yes, it's the greatest source of pick-me-up one can have in a diet. Unlike caffeine, it does not leave me jittery, but makes a real difference in what I can accomplish in my day
   
   Add coconut cream or milk to curries, sauces, gravies. Try substituting dairy milk & cream for coconut. Despite similarly hated fat content, coconut just seems to do more for my body than cream can hope for. I am starting to suspect that perhaps non-dairy paleo crowd isn't far off from the truth.
   
   Sprinkle shredded coconut, raw or roasted, on top of any meal that can benefit from a little crunch in its texture. It's particularly good in place of granola on your yogurt. And on those days when you absolutely must have chocolate, make an instant mounds of joy (with much less sugar) by melting the chocolate with shredded coconut.  Or, to skip the mess and make a coconut/chocolate sandwich.
   
   
4. Avocado/ Guacamole. Personally, I think avocado is boring.  It's ok chopped up in salads, but does little for most meals.  Guacamole, on the other hand, is hard.  But it works as a great side/sauce/dip for a lot of different meals, from steak & roast to veggies or crock pot creations. Here is a simplified version that works quite well:
   
   Mash an avocado with a fork. To peel an avocado, cut it into quarters, around the pit, then pull the corners of the peels down, while popping the meat up.  Add several drops of lemon juice, plenty of cumin, salt & pepper. This will do in a pinch, though throwing in chopped onions & tomatoes will go all the way.
   
   
5. Ghee.  What's that?  Clarified butter. It is healthier, a much better grease that tolerates higher
   temperatures and lasts longer and it happens to have greater saturated fat content than butter (you get it by separating the oil from everything else butter contains).  Rub ghee on your steak prior to placing it in a pan; add it to gravies in place of butter, use it to cook or heat up left-overs.  (Oh, and while we are at it - despite everyone being afraid of the fat content in ghee, some studies have shown it actually reduces cholesterol, according to this wikipedia article on ghee).

Each one of these things makes a difference between a meal that leaves me feeling ok and one after which I feel I can fly.

Poo-less hair: troubleshooting

I have been keeping my hair clean without the use of shampoo for about nine months now.  Soon after, I described the basic idea behind poo-less hair and my initial report. I was very excited: my hair became stronger, thicker, held its shape better and for the first time in my life since early childhood I was dandruff-free. As a result, I decided to grow my hair long.  This was significant as I had given up on the idea of long hair years ago, because it was just too fine and brittle and refused to get better despite all the salon products.

A few months later, I started doubting myself as things took a turn for the worse.  The primary symptom: it just didn't look or feel clean. I began getting itchy scalp again and did not like the limp oily dirty hair I saw in the mirror. Because I was doing something so "weird", I began questioning my premises. Thankfully, I had the sense to stop engaging in self-doubt (hardly ever productive) and started experimenting.

My main discovery was, getting the long thick hair I had developed clean, required more than getting it wet. Discarding shampoos, conditioners and the lengthy process of applying them was liberating. After a while, I got into the habit of sticking my head under the running shower and jumping out. This was not working and I created a hair cleaning routine I would like to share today.

1. Get your hair thoroughly wet. The more hair, the more time this will take.
2. Scrub, scratch and massage the hair.  We go through this automatically when applying shampoo. Without it, it's easy to forget.
3. Repeat the process several separate times over the course of the shower, allowing water to soak in-between.
4. Occasionally, baking soda is great for removing impurities.  I get some on the palm of my hand, then on my fingertips and massage it into the scalp, rinsing immediately. This will also remove any smells, such as chlorine.
5. End the shower with cold water.  Sounds scary? You'll be amazed at how wonderful your body feels after the shock. Not you?  Fine. Don't subject your whole body to it - just the hair. That doesn't even feel cold, particularly in a hot steamy bathroom at the end of a shower.
6. Towel-dry your hair thoroughly, massaging vigorously. You want the scalp to get nourishment from a rush of blood caused by the vigorous rubbing.
7. After toweling off the rest of your body, come back to the hair.  Thick hair absorbs more water. By the time you get back to it, it's wet all over again!
8. Brush several times, flipping hair in different directions.
9. Run hands through the drying hair, flip it, brush it again over the course of the morning.  (You are running around getting dressed and making coffee anyway - just stop by the vanity mirror 2-3 times to brush it again.) The purpose here is to prevent hair from drying flat. The result is beautiful voluminous hair like I personally have never seen on my head.
10. Go back to your shower and look at the drain. No hair! Surprised? I know I was.

Another tip: find a good hairstylist who cuts with your natural hair in mind.  Explain that you do not use hair products and need a haircut that complements your natural style. If at that point they ask you to look at the book - run. The stylist needs to respond immediately with ideas. You'll be happier if you ask that he does not style your hair at the end, but has you wait till it air-dries. Then you'll be able to see what it looks like.  A hairstylist that suggests that or responds positively is the right person.  As your hair gets thicker as a result of eliminating soap, it will be harder and harder to control where it goes. So haircut really begins to matter.

And a few points of interest. Women in Uzbekistan wear their hair in dozens of braids. I think, forty is standard.The ability to have full braids is vital to a woman's beauty. All of them wash hair with sour milk.  My father was evacuated from Leningrad as a boy and spent two years there.  He said, their hair was the fullest and most beautiful he had ever seen on a woman - but it wreaked of buttermilk!  If you want to try this approach without the nasty smell, use baking soda afterward - and you are in great shape!

My grandmother washed her hair in egg. I personally never tried it and it doesn't sound appealing. But who knows - may be there is something to it.

A vinegar solutions is great for eliminating dandruff-causing bacteria. Don't forget that baking soda if you spend time with humans!

My mother used to try to get my hair healthier with henna. I am not sure it worked, but henna is a natural hair dye if you think you look good as a redhead. It will not damage your hair, but give it a golden tint.

A cooking evening

I just got back from the park with kids, and am getting ready for a big cooking stretch.  I bought two coconut and would like to learn to make my own coconut milk. I finally found home-made coconut milk recipe that did not start with shredded coconut and filed it away.

I had set aside almost half of my lamb when I made lamb chops the other day (they are gone - I couldn't stop eating them!) and it's seriously time to make lamb stew. But before I do any of it, I need to feed the kids. Today has to be quick and easy: Tomato soup (Trader Joe's) with grated cheese, bacon and boiled eggs (see my perfect bacon recipe for a no-fuss bacon preparation).  Celery on the side.  While we are on the topic, I wanted to mention the joys of sunflower seed butter. It tastes so close to peanut butter, my kids did not need transition time, and we are finally off the peanuts! It goes wonderfully with everything peanut butter does.  Our favorites are: sunflower seed apple sandwiches (use apple in place of bread; glue them together with sunflower seed butter) and sunflower butter-filled bell pepper slices.  Gotta be careful with that - while sunflower seeds are better than peanuts, they are full of Omega 6 fatty acids and low on Omega 3. In other words, bad fat profile.  So this is a reasonable sometimes snack.

Dinner went great. Lily (2.5) had a great time peeling boiled eggs. Bacon is always a hit - and the tomato soup a nice medium. Dark 72% chocolate is standard desert in this house. I can't believe, I got my kids used to it!  

Now the kids are in bed and I am finishing up this entry, while eating the lamb stew I prepared somewhere in-between dinner, bath and bed time. Guess what!  It's quite wonderful! This is my second adult experience with lamb and I am finding several things:

• Do not judge lamb by what they do to it at steak restaurants. That stuff is inedible!
• Lamb is so tender! It seems to melt in your mouth.
• It has enough flavor of its own that it does not come out bland (my usual complaint with beef).

So far it's been easy to cook, obedient and yummy.  The stew is not too overpowering, requiring no side dish (though it would be amazing with some form of cauliflower). It has very good filling fat in it. After the meal, I feel ready to take on the world (I have described this feeling of high-energy satiety only when eating beef in the past in why I stuck with paleo). This seems do to it to a greater extent.

I am now officially a fan of lamb.  It's getting late and I have a lot of work ahead of me.  I won't post the recipe here - please go to paleo mama  to try it. Perhaps I'll repost it some other time, with pictures!

Excellent lamb

I bought a leg of lamb at Costco for $5/lb.  The price was right, but what do you do with lamb?  While I pondered the question, the lamb sat in the freezer. Months went by. Eventually, I decided I wanted my freezer back. Still, what do you do with lamb?

Growing up in Russia, I knew that lamb could be tasty. However, each time I tried ordering it at an American restaurant, even at nice steakhouses, I was very disappointed. Well, no guts, no glory, right?  I did what anyone in my position would do: type "easy lamb" into google - and wolla - it came back with what turned out to be the best lamb recipe I have ever had! Not to mention the easiest. And if you think, you don't like lamb, do try this approach. I would be very surprised if you liked steak, but walked away unhappy from this slightly Mediterranean and totally excellent lamb.

Ingredients

You need 4-5 lamb chops. I sliced leg of lamb despite Granny's objections that one doesn't make chops out of the leg.  I said, "Well, it's lamb - and I am chopping it!"
3 tbs butter
1 can of pineapple chunks (the big kind - 1 lb 4 oz)
1 bell pepper chopped up
1 tbs of wheat-free tamari (the Paleo-friendly soy sauce)

The equipment
A large frying pan with a lid.

The cooking
Melt the butter in a large pan.
Place the chops on the pan. Brown on one side. Use medium-high heat to get a nice carmelized crust.
Turn over the lamb. Add pineapple with juice, bell pepper, soy sauce. Cover and simmer on low for an hour.

The review.
The lamb is extremely tender, but not watery like meat comes out of a crockpot. Its texture is more like an extremely tender roast.  The sauce does not taste sweet. Somehow, the flavor of the lamb combines with the pineapple and bell pepper to create something new. You do have to like canned pineapple to enjoy it. But this is one of my sweet successes. I tried something new and highly dangerous - and I've got a great meal! Even Granny who got me very grumpy earlier with her comments about lamb, my cooking and all that - had to admit, this was quite eatable.

Please come tell me your impressions if you make it!  I am dying to find out.

Enjoy!

Crossfit is hard!

The crossfit culture is growing like mad. If you google crossfit near your home in any major city, you are likely to find a half a dozen gyms to choose from within a twenty minute drive. I have encountered so many wonderful articles and resources about Crossfit experiences: Crossift is fun for all personality types. You are never too old to do crossfit; crossfit pregnancy and more.

Hear, hear! I love it too.  But today I'd like tell a story.  It is a dedicated to a friend who told me why she liked my blog when I was feeling down.  She said, "I just like to hear about how real people are making their lifestyle work. Paleo is not simple. Cooking is tough and takes a lot of time. Crossfit is hard."  So it is. It is one of the greatest joys in my life and a singular challenge.

It is 6 am. I open my eyes and it hurts. My ears too. Oh! I recognize the trumpet sound behind enemy lines to be a custom ring tone on my iphone. I know, if I press snooze, it'll be the end of me. I snatch the phone, slide the bar and fall out of bed. Several minutes later, I am stumbling around the kitchen trying to make a cup of coffee.  I know, I should pay attention.  Yesterday, I had made hot water failing to put any coffee in the coffee maker.  A couple days before, I almost burnt the pot by doing the opposite - baking the grounds with no water... This time, I know I will prevail...  Two splenda... Enough cream to drown a tiny gerbil.  Mmmmm! I think I can face my day...


Then a familiar anxiety comes over me.  In a half an hour, I will have arrived at Crossfit 310, my new beloved crossfit gym. It'll be hard.  Really hard.  There are days when I collapse at the end of a WOD. (What's a WOD?  The thing crossfit trainers call a series of exercises intended to give you a near-death experience without doing any permanent damage.  It stands for Workout Of the Day. Doesn't sound nearly as scary as WOD though, does it?) I become slightly afraid. Excited too, but definitely scared. My old trainer Max used to say, "You should always be a little afraid of the workout." Thanks, Max! I am.


On the way I listen to Cultivating the Virtues, a parenting podcast that causes me to think about that, which I do best and I relax.  Walking into the gym, I feel confident.  I've done it before - and I can do it again! 


5 pullups
10 pushups
15 box jumps
20 squats


3 times... And that's just the wam-up.  I try the box jump to make sure I know what I am doing.  This is a new gym for me and the equipment is slightly different.  The big box looks...well... big!  I take a deep breath - and my feet stay on the ground.  I am terrified!  Nah, with all my might I take off and land - right on top of the box! Victory!!!


After the WOD we do strength training with bench presses.  At the end I run. I am not a big runner.  Cardio is actually my limiting factor.  As I start running, I realize I am too exhausted to think about it.  I just run.  I don't pout, don't even wonder whether I can make it.  After 300 meters, I realize that I am running neither slowly, conserving strength, nor fast, decreasing the time... I am just running.  And it's not hard any more.  It just is.  I experience some kind of an elation as I realize, I could run for a long time now: it's just a way of existence...


I am vaguely aware as Kris, the trainer, gives me a high five.  I walk back inside the gym and collapse on the floor.  Some people are talking. Some listening to music.  Everyone is recuperating from overcoming the challenge. I lay flat, face down, feeling my body and nothing else. After a while, I get up. With some surprise, I realize that my legs are taking me where I want to go. My hands pick up my belonging.  My brain and mouth are cooperating at the friendly good-byes.  Now I am in the car, with silence as my companion.  I did it! I made it! And I will do it again...

Perfect bacon every time

Surprisingly, I am still doing great with my paleo. I am sick, overworked, overcommitted, don't have time to blog - but eating great and loving it!  Big changes.  I am continuing with the ideas of simplifying paleo diet: finding quick and easy goto recipes, learning the fast way to cook big meals, taking advantage of leftovers.

Today, I want to share the latest discovery, which has taken our breakfast to the next level: perfect bacon! A fellow paleo mommy wrote, "The one downsdie to feeding your baby bacon: Greasy little paws after breakfast!"  I decided, she was right and I needed to find a bacon recipe that does not take so much time and effort.  And I did! From now on, bacon is easy enough, we can have it on school mornings!

I started with a baked bacon recipe. The idea is brilliant: instead of laboring with a fork over a hot pan of sizzling bacon, put it in the oven, set the timer and walk away. After some experimentation, I came up with several important principles:

• There are two phases to baking bacon: the rendering of the fat and the crisping
• The rendering should take about ten minutes at a temperature of or below 300 F.
• The crisping takes under 5 minutes at  400 F.
• The crisping time is critical and depends on the thickness of the bacon, your particular oven and your preferences with respect to crispiness.

This principles generate a couple methods, each useful for its own circumstances.

Step 1.  Lay it out.

Line the baking sheet with foil to avoid Lay the bacon strips on a baking sheet. Put the sheet in the oven.  (Multiple sheets simultaneously are ok for a lot of bacon!)

Step 2. The baking.

Set the temperature to 400F. Timer to 15 minutes.  Walk away. Come back and peek - wait till it looks as crispy as you like it!  Record the total time for future reference. Done.

Modification A.  Warm oven.  

If you are using an already warm oven, don't despair.

Set the temp to 300 F, timer to 10 minutes.  Come back, set temperature to 400F, timer to five minutes.  After that watch it till it's done.

Congratulations! You have just created the best bacon that has ever resided on your breakfast table, and you can repeat this success every time.  Always be careful when buying a different kind of bacon. Everything depends on the thickness of your slices! And don't forget to come back a little early when you get a new oven or move.

I am thrilled with my results - not the bacon - my husband's pleased face.  He is the pickiest bacon eater and we've had perfect bacon for a whole week!

Paleo mommy success!

After many attempts, I finally made a yogurt flavor rivals store-bought vanilla and strawberry that are my son's favorites. And I am not telling!

No, really, I am telling.  :-)  If I weren't telling, this wouldn't be a blog but one of those add-filled splash pages.  Only no ads.

I mixed my full-fat Creamline Village plain yogurt from Trader Joe's with honey. Not only is honey better than whatever they are likely stuffing vanilla yogurt with, but here I have complete control. Switching over to honey yogurt means, I can gradually reduce honey or even replace it with other flavors.  (Lily has been eating yogurt with palm sugar for a long time - but Alex stuck with the flavored alternatives till now.)

This is just one in my many attempts to trick my non-paleo family into eating healthy and natural.  While I am on the topic, here are some principles I have developed:

• To avoid snacking, feed them early! Kids snack all day because they are hungry.  Stuffing their tummies before they think of it keeps the ice cream away.  I had no idea just how hungry they were after school till I started  making an after-school meal.  I am planning on having dinner ready at 3:30 pm and a healthy snack at 6 instead of the more typical vice-versa.
• Always offer a healthy desert after a meal: strawberries with whipped cream, fruit, meringues, dark chocolate.  Just discovered something to try: paleo cupcakes. If you are lucky, they'll think they are getting something special and won't go looking for cookies. I think, it's generally valuable if kids recognize that their parents value things that are valuable to them! 
• No forbidden fruit. If they want a bagel (and daddy loves bagels, so they will!) they get a bagel. The conflict involved isn't worth it.  If their friends are going for ice cream, we are coming - no guilt, no shame.
• Create replacements.  We just discovered that sun flower seed butter is just as yummy as peanut butter and now we have it in the house. Also, apple/seed butter sandwiches are even better than peanut butter bagels! 
• If they are used to sugar, give them healthy sweetness.  Palm sugar is great; so is honey, maple syrup, stevia. So, I am slowly learning to replace store-bought sweet options with home-made sweet better options.  :-)
• If they are not used to a lot of meat, always have lots of vegetable options for them to choose from. I sometimes say, "Alex, you have 1-2-3..-7 dishes to choose from! Surely, you can find something you like!"  With pressure gone, he is slowly turning into a meat eater. I am thrilled!
• Relax! Stressing about it will make things worse.  It'll create conflict inside the family, turn your kids into picky eaters and will cause you to consider giving up the whole thing.  That's what happened to me.  Since I allowed myself to go easy - things have been great! 

It hasn't been long since I failed at paleo.  Surprisingly, I am finding it fun and easy this time. Part of my success, I know, has been due to the abundance of paleo mommy blogs.  Here are some I have discovered lately:   Wellness Mama with lots of kid-tested recipe, Whitney at the Paleo Child who posts her child's lunch boxes, Anita at Paleo On a Budget who made me realize, fresh ingredients are out there.  I would like to put together a paleo kids resource page as there are seem to be so few out there and we need each other! Please leave me a comment with your blog url if you should go on it!

Honey Mustard chicken nuggets

For the paleo kids!

Actual chicken nuggets
 from this recipe

I've always been disappointed with the almond meal solution when it comes to chicken nuggets.  First of all, almond meal is very dry, often generating nuggets I feel like choking on.  Second, it does not coat evenly and they come out looking kind of scruffy. Finally, they just don't have the right color: dull biege instead of the golden I am used to.

This time, I tried something different and the result was incredible! If you don't believe me, just look at the picture taken as they came out (they are a little paler than in the picture - but the even look it what amazed me). This recipe is for 1 lb of chicken. Quadruple and freeze after cooking for a perfect lunchbox option.

Step 1. The marinade.

1/2 water, 1/4 cup warm honey, 1/4 cup grey poupon mustard, 1 lb chicken. The marinade works very fast and you can leave them there for fifteen minutes. You will be surprised to see that the chicken is turning white as the acid works to cook the outside right in the marinade! The liquid is reduced dramatically as it penetrates the chicken.

Step 2. The coating.

1 cup almond flour; 1/2 tsp dry mustard + optional spices to taste (I like garlic powder, ginger root, palm sugar). Coat the chicken, a few at a time - I saw a much more even coat than when using almond flour alone.

Step 3. The baking.

Line the sheet with foil to reduce cleanup. I did 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes. Check on them after fifteen minutes. You'll see brown circles forming around the nuggets. When that first happens, it's time for them to come out. Wait a few minutes more - and they are stuck to the bottom!

The nuggets have a vague hint of honey and mustard, barely noticeable. The chicken is sooth and tender, not too dry.  I loved them as much as the kids.  I also made honey mustard sauce by mixing mustard & honey 2:1 for myself. Kids ate them with ketchup. Yum!

Pepper Steak

Here is a go-to quick pepper steak recipe that has been a staple for my family long before paleo and how I adapted it.

Spaghetti:

... squash, that is. Normally, this recipe is served over pasta and rice. Spaghetti squash does quite well - and I don't like eating pepper steak without something to break up the flavor.

Before you start, stick your spaghetti squash in the oven. I prefer baking it sliced in half, rind side up. (I'll also fry it in butter at the end, stay with me.)

Ingredients:

• 1lb flank or chuck steak, cut into strips. 
• 1/2 cup or so worcheshire sauce
• 1 tbsp cooking oil (I like coconut, of course!)
• 1 can mexican tomatoes
• 2 cans beef broth
• 1 bell pepper, diced into strips
• 1 onion, chopped

Cooking:

Heat up the oil. Drown in it worcheshire sauce and cook for 2 min over medium-high heat. The sauce will begin to carmelize, which is what we are going for. Throw in half the onion and cook another 2 minutes.  Add the steak. Brown till... well... it's brown, 5 min or so.

Pour the broth & tomatoes (with the juice) over it. Cover and simmer 10-15 minutes. Uncover and give it another half an hour, allowing the fluid to evaporate, leaving the meat with plenty of au jus.  

Now is the time to get spaghetti out of your spaghetti squash, throw some butter in the pan and fry it for 5-10 minutes. This will prevent it from being quite so watery. I thought, frying was a substantial improvement!

Throw in remaining onion and pepper, toss with the meat, cook 2 more minutes and serve.

 This recipe is festive enough, it's as good for entertaining as it is for a family meal. It is pretty successful with the kids: it does have a kick from the mexican tomatoes, but without being too spicy. The spaghetti squash was voted down as my family is not used to it - but I enjoyed it. Still, it has unusual texture, so be cautious with picky eaters!

Getting pregnant again!

A while ago, I had announced, this blog was going to be about the paleo pregnancy.  Unfortunately, this idea was short-lived as I lost the pregnancy at twenty weeks of gestation due to a developmental problem: water in the brain, chest cavity and abdomen.  Apparently, the baby had a hole and leaked! I know, I can laugh about it now - but only because yesterday my husband and I have finally decided to try to conceive again!

From LadyZona.com
(I want to look like her!)

Boy, am I committed to doing everything right! There is no evidence, I did something wrong, but it's important to me to increase the odds that I conceive fast and carry the pregnancy if there is any hope. So bottom line, I am getting back to the topics of paleo pregnancy, conception, nutrition and exercise.

The next topic I need to get answers for is optimal prenatal vitamins. Hopefully, next time I post, there will be info!