Friday, September 24, 2010

Chocolate mousse

So today is the day after my first cross fit lesson, and I am barely able to walk. I am so sore all over but it's in that great way where you actually feel like your body might be getting better for it. I have an easy run planned tomorrow, so hopefully that will help loosen up the muscles.

I had a friend over today so I decided to try making chocolate mousse from avocado. I just used 2 very ripe avocados and blended them together with chocolate (The amount probably depend on the person, I like it a bit bitter, so I used enough to make it very dark), juice from an orange (optional) and enough water to give it a smooth and creamy texture. Once again I used sweetener but honey should be just as good if you like a more natural source. The final result was absolutely fantastic, definitely something you could serve for people without them knowing how it was made, because face it chocolate mouse made with avocado just sound a bit too strange.

I served it with some sour apples and the picture definitely doesn't do this justice.


Also a few days ago I mentioned that I love cutting an apple into pieces and eating it topped with ice cold light coconut milk, and a little sweetener. So here is a picture of this. Somehow this just reminds me of summer. I have also used bananas, blueberries, strawberries and whatever else I have in the fridge, pretty much everything goes.


Enjoy!!!

Thursday, September 23, 2010

CrossFit

So I went to my first crossfit training session today. It was only an intro thing, but incredibly tough. I can see why people love it so much. You definitely feel like you have done the good deed of the day afterwards. So now I guess the plan is to do this 2-3 times a week instead of normal strength training, hopefully this will help build a stronger base for when the season begins next January. Speaking of base building, I definitely need to start looking into a off season program of some sorts. I will try getting back on track next week with the following ground rules: 2-3 runs with emphasis on short and intense, bike 1-2 times, swim 1-2 times and crossfit 2-3 times. We'll see how it goes next week.

Just to have some kind of recollection the WOD was:
1min - Burpees (absolutely hate those already)
2min - Roowing
3min - Kettlebell swings
4min - Air squats
5min - Jumping rope

So today after the workout I wasn't really that hungry so I decided to skip dinner and then just have something delicious later in the evening. So I cut two bananas into pieces and fried them in coconut oil, coconut flour and a little pure cocoa. Also I added a few drops of sweetener to sharpen the chocolate taste.



Very delicious and easy.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Coconut chicken

As promished yesterday here is some pictures of the coconut chicken. They are really easy to make, just dip pieces of chicken in a half n half mixture of almond and coconut flour and then bake them at 350F (180C) for approximately 20 minutes. They work great as a finger food to bring to work as a snack.



So yesterday I did IMF until dinner and then I had som chicken curry with cauliflower rice. The curry is just everything from the fridge chopped up and cooked in coconut oil, curry and then when everything is soft and tasty you ad the coconut cream and let it simmer for 10-15 minutes. This is one of my "clean up the fridge" dishes. For a dessert I had an apple cut into pieces and then topped with some ice cold coconut milk (no picture). Very tasty.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Planning ahead

So this weekend I got to thinking about how to make this way of living as easy (and cheap) as possible. As my headline says it's all about planning ahead.

Meal Plans:
As I have mentioned earlier I have a subscription to www.paleoplan.com which does a lot of this for me. They send me a weekly meal plan and shopping list. But even if you don't feel like paying for this the idea is still great. Sit down on Sunday and plan what your going to eat for the next week. I would suggest planning the dinners and then just bringing left overs for lunch the next day. That way you won't end up with a lot of leftovers, and also there is no additional prepping for next days lunch.
Also If you make the plan yourself take into consideration what your vegetable situation is, and plan a few things to clean out your fridge.

So having made a plan to last the week your pretty much good to go, until something gets in the way (and it always does). In that case it's great to know what the fast food options in you neighbourhood is. I know a few great places where I can get a delicious salad, an oven roasted chicken or if everything else fails a frozen primal/paleo approved dinner. If you know your options your much less likely to just go for the wrong solution.

Preparation:
I'm not a big morning person, and therefore always end up prioritising 15 minutes of sleep instead of making the usual scrambled eggs. Therefore I will spend a little time Sunday to make a batch of omelette muffins or breakfast muffins (See previous posts). That way I can pretty much just roll out of bed and go straight to work, and then just eat breakfast when I get hungry.

Sunday I will also rice a cauliflower so that it's ready to for stir fry rice or pizza. Chop a bunch of mushrooms, onions, red peppers etc and store them in zip lock bags for a quick breakfast (if I get up in time), snack or to make the dinner preparation easier.

Since my work place have a fruit arrangement I normally just eat a few pieces as snacks during the day. But I'll normally have some trail mix at my desk just in case I get a bit hungry. Also I very often bring a few pieces of coconut chicken (I'll show some pictures in my next post), or some other meat if I have a run planned after work or something else that requires me not being hungry. Also since I found the whole cauliflower pizza thing, I often make the crust into small loafs and bring them as snacks.

Just a few suggestions, hope it helps.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Easy Breakfast muffins

So today I was craving something sweet for breakfast instead of the usual egg stir fry. So I decided to try making muffins using what I had in the kitchen, the recipe is as follows (6 muffins):

Preheat oven to 350 (180C)

Mix together

1 mashed banana
2 eggs
1 cup almond flower (2dl)
2 medium/large shredded carrots
1 tea spoon baking soda
2 table spoons cinnamon (I loooooove cinnamon so I use rather large quantities of it)
A few drop of sweetener depending on how sweet you like it (could use honey to make it more paleo but didn't have that)

Put into muffin cups and bake for app 20 minutes. I did some calculations on these and each muffin has: 144 calories, 6g protein, 8g carbohydrate and 9g fat. These definitely tasted great. Next time I might try to add some raisins, or walnuts, or a shredded apple - there is so many possibilities.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Coconut salmon

So Mark just had a post about the carb count, and I guess it would be a great idea to try to track it for a few days to see how much I actually eat due to fruit etc. So the next couple of days I will try to post my carb count, and work at keeping it under 100g.
Today I had company and made this really great dish with salmon and coconut milk. I made this with a friend of mine a few days ago, and it is definitely a great dish to serve to show how great the food on this "diet" is. I modified it a bit by adding mushrooms to the sauce and then I made zucchini pasta and green beans to make it a more full meal.



Tonight I was actually going to go for a short run, but the weather is really crappy, so I will use this as an opportunity to get to bed early and actually get close to 8 hours of sleep - another ground stone in the Primal Blueprint lifestyle.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Cauliflower Pizza (Blomkålspizza for Ann's skyld)

So I was talking to a colleague of mine about food she could make for her daughter who is allergic to gluten and kinda envious of the stuff the other kids bring for lunch. So since I absolutely love pizza I figured this was the time to kill to birds, or whatever the saying is, and try out the cauliflower pizza. I followed a recipe I found on line but to cut a little back on the calories and the fat I only used half the amount og cheese, and that turned out great.

The recipe is rather simple:
2.5 dl cauliflower (riced)
1 dl cheese (I used low fat 11%)
1 egg
Oregano

For those who doesn't know how to make cauliflower rice here you go: just cut the cauliflower head into smaller pieces, heat them in the microwave for a few minutes and then grate them using a food processor or a cheese grater (I think it's called - råkostjern).

For the pizza crust preheat the oven to 225C. Mix the cauliflower, cheese and egg in a bowl and spread the "dough" out in on a piece of baking paper. Sprinkle with oregano and bake the crust for app 15 minutes or until it turns golden. Take out the crust and put your favorite topping on top. I used salsa instead of pizza sauce, a little cheese, mushrooms, ham and onions on this one. Bake the pizza for another 5 minutes under grill until the cheese has melted. Bon Appetit



The result is surprisingly good, the crust is stiff enough to eat by hand and even taste great without topping as a bread stick. I tried doing some calculations and by making the crust like this the whole thing is something like 250 calories. If you compare this to the type og crust you normally buy and just put toppings on they are app 700-800 calories. So this is definitely a much better choice.

Friday, September 10, 2010

Sushi!!!

So today my local store had sushi stuff on sale so I just had to try making it almost paleo style. The recipe is pretty simpel, and since I'm not a sushi chef probably all wrong but here it comes.

Boil and mash one cauliflower head in salted water and mash it with a TS of butter. Add a bit of rice vinegar until you get that sweet sushi rice taste, and put it in the fridge until it gets cold. Take 1 piece of toasted nori and place it on a sushi mat covered in plastic film. Add the "rice" to the nori in a thin layer leaving out app 2cm in the top for closing. Add your choice of filling I used salmon and avocado in these, but anything pretty much goes. When your done rolling the seal the film tightly around the roll place it in your freezer for 10 min to make the cutting easier. Voila.
You can find tons of guides on how to do the rolling online just google it. They tasted really great, so this is definitely not the last time I'll try this, next time I'll probably use some more interesting filling, but didn't want to waste it if it didn't work with the cauliflower. One small head would make app 18 rolls (3 nori pieces).

Cauliflower Sushi!

A few days ago I made Red Snapper Azteca. only I used whatever white fish was available at the grocery store.



The same evening I got a new toy. In Denmark we have two really funny TV-chefs that have an ongoing competition concerning who has the most electrical tools, and I'm seriously giving them a run for their money. My biggest problem is that I have like 2 square meters of kitchen, so the many things I can't live without are kinda crowding the space (funny how the same thing goes for shoes and clothes). Anyway I got me a crockpot (slow cooker) which I had to buy from the UK since no danish stores have something like this. So now I am really looking forward to trying it out next week.

Wednesday, September 08, 2010

Primal Blueprint 30day challenge

So it's been a while since my last post but life just seem to get in the way. As I mentioned last week I am doing the primal blueprint 30 day challenge which started Monday. I actually meant to start a week early and that also went pretty well until I got hit by a car biking home from the movies Saturday (probably not a primal kinda guy ;-)) So even though nothing happened Saturday and Sunday was spend feeling like I had been hit by a mammoth and feeling pretty sorry for my self.

So after a weekend of not so clean eating I got back on track Monday ready to do the challenge. So far it is going pretty well, the eating part is so easy as long as you plan ahead and do the shopping to last a few nights. Due to soreness and stiffness I haven't done any exercise, but today I feel so much better so I'm looking forward to a nice and easy run this evening.

Yesterday I did IMF and then I had Pepper steak with salsa salad . The combination of the warm meat and bell pepper combined with the cold shredded carrots was very interesting and surprisingly good, and any salsa kind of salad is so mych better than just a green side salad. Lunch today will be the left overs from yesterday, nice and easy.



I am definitely very psyched to continue this challenge and apologise to all the friends that I'm driving crazy talking about this.