"Krebinetter" with carrot stew

So since it's still cold outside the comfort food just keeps being fantastic. In my world comfort food has a lot to do with the things I grew up eating, meaning old fashioned danish dishes (and of course the whole being hot and all). If you have read through some of my recipes already you have figured out that ground pork is used fairly regularly, it is cheap, low fat (if you want that), and when prepared correctly i tastes absolutely fantastic. So I'm trying to convert a bunch of my favorite danish recipes into Paleo versions, making my mother so very proud (or so I hope).
Todays dinner was "Krebinetter" (no idea what to translate that into so give the pronunciation a try) with carrot stew. To feed four people (or two for dinner and lunch the next day) you need:

"Krebinetter"
0.5 lb ground pork
5 tbsp almond flour
3 tbsp ground parmesan (optional)
1 egg
salt and pepper
Butter or olive oil

Carrot stew:
6 medium carrots (shredded)
2 leeds (cut in small pieces)
2 cups of white cabbage (shredded) (optional)
2 cans of coconut milk
1 tsp ground nutmeg
2 cubes of chicken broth
Butter or olive oil

In a large pot fry the carrots, leeds and cabbage in butter for 4-5 minutes and take the pot of the heat. In a different pot add the coconut milk nutmeg, and chicken broth and let it all simmer for 15-20 minutes. Add the vegetables to the sauce and let it simmer another 5 minutes.
While the sauce simmers make 4-6 hamburgers out of the ground pork. Dip the hamburgers in egg and then in a mixture of almond flour, parmesan, salt and pepper. Fry the hamburgers over medium heat in butter or olive oil for 8-10 minutes on each side. Serve "krebinetter" on top of the stew.

New England Chuck Roast

So I guess I kinda owe a few post since I really haven't done any new cooking lately. So taday I pulled out the crockpot and made New England Chuck Roast with Broccoli Ala Madrid. I'm really new to the whole roast thing, so the meat that I bought was not really that great, resulting in a not so tender chuck roast. It still tasted great, but I'll definitely buy a better roast next time I try this. Also I think I'll use vegetable broth instead of water since the vegetables in the dish became very bland. So this was definitely a do over. Here is a picture non the less. Today I also made my own meal plan (See under meal plans) with all the recipes I have been wanting to try, so hopefully there will be a few more posts this week than I managed last week. I still love paleoplan, but a lot of the recipes shows up rather often so I really wanted to try some of my own stuff.

Went for another great run in the snow today (still counts even though the roads are pretty much clear now) and topped it off by making a snow angel on my way back, sometimes it is just great to act like your 5, good for the spirit...

Winter = Comfort Foods

So the first snow just hit Denmark, and as always the entire country is in panic, or at least it gives everyone a common theme to complain about. And of course it is cold, everything gets soaked and the roads are terrible but it is also the perfect excuse to stay in, cuttle up on the couch and stay there all weekend (or something like that). So since I had decided to be all lazy and not go to the grocery store I decided to raid the fridge and make a bowl of soup. Inspired by the recipe for creamy pork tenderloin I just emptied the fridge and this is the result:

250g Mushroom
2 leeks
1.5 C White Cabbage
4 chicken sausages
2 cans of coconut milk
2 cubes of chicken broth
Butter or olive oil

In a large pot fry the mushrooms, leeks, cabbage and sausages in butter or olive oil. When the mushrooms starts getting soft add the coconut milk and the chicken broth and let the whole thing simmer for 10-15 minutes (or until the you get the desired thickness). Thats it, serve and enjoy. It might look strange but it tastes really really good, and you can pretty much add whatever kind of vegetable or meat you like. Crispy bacon would probably have been delicious or dry fried ham, I just happened to have some left over sausages in the fridge.

So even though the weather tells you to stay indoor and be cosy and warm, the newly fallen snow is my favorite running environment. I get all giddy when the first snow falls (just ask my running partner and all my friends who think I'm insane). Everything just becomes quiet, the air is more fresh, you pretty much have the streets to yourself, and no matter what time of day it is it is bright outside instead of gray boring. So when people start immigrating into the gym to use the treadmills to avoid the cold weather I do the opposite and run as often as I can. So if you are one of the people out there thinking that this is not running weather just give it a try, it might surprise you.

Spicy pork chops with oven baked greens

So time is just absolutely flying by and I havnt been too great at posting. The main reason is that I have been waiting a lot of oldie but goldies so nothing new and exciting on the dinner front. But yesterday I got my act together and made something new, once again from www.paleoplan.com. The plan was to make spicy breaded pork chops with roast squash and red onions. I am going home to my parents for the weekend so I just added some red and yellow peppers to clean out the fridge. Very delicious, seems like most things get better if you dip them in almonds or wrap them in bacon. That should be a rule to live by.

I'm still loving the whole CrossFit thing, although so far I'm only going twice a week due to severe soreness afterwards. I am trying to figure out how I can incorporate these workouts into my triathlon program, but luckily that is not a concern until February when the real training begins. Talking about training I just bought a home trainer. So right now I have my road bike standing in front of my tv in my 16 square meter living room - a bit crowded but hey what do I need all that room for anyways... Unfortunately I have just found out that my bicycle repair skills are just as bad as I thought, meaning that the last time I fixed my flat tire I didn't do such a great job, resulting in a rather bumpy ride. Good thing I have can take the thing home and get my dad to fix it and I can start training next week... So there will be an update next week...

What the ....

So this is just going to be a quick post since I found this both funny and sad. I was in the gym for my crossfit workout Monday and noticed a note hanging in the lounging area:

For the early risers - the gym will serve free breakfast bread every Friday from 7-9.30.

It is just so funny that you see a note like this at your gym, but it's actually even more sad that this is how they try to get people to go to the gym. Just needed to get that out there.

On a side note Mondays workout was:
8 min of:
7 pushups (done on one leg due to bad knee ;-))
7 Ball squats (or what ever they are called)

Bonus Tabata:
8 rounds:
Ball throws
Sit ups
Rowing

And I'm still sore today

Creamy Pork Tenderloin

Ahhh doesn't that title just make you wan't to keep reading. Just like the one of the essential laws of cooking is that bacon makes everything better, and should be defined as a the perfect spice, cream sauce especially including mushrooms is a way to make a simple dish taste like something really fancy. The great great thing is that even though the conventional wisdom food police (impressive name) would probably knock down your door for making cream sauce they will have no jurisdiction in the Paleo world when the heavy cream is replaced by coconut milk.

Well that was quite an introduction to the dish. This is originally from www.paleodiet.com but since my mom used to serve pork tenderloin in creamy mushroom sauce I decided to go in that direction instead. Instead of adding only chicken broth to the sauce I added 1 cup of chicken broth and let that simmer for 5 minutes and then I added app. 1/2 cup of coconut milk to the sauce. Then I let it simmer another 10 minutes. So so delicious, and definitely a dish I would serve to impress my friends when they come for dinner...

You can always make more sauce by upping the broth or the coconut milk and then perhaps serve it with cauliflower rice. Also if you want a thicker sauce add some arrowroot as a thickener.

So after a long period of not feeling great I'm trying to get back on track with my workouts. So tonight I went for a fartleg run of 9.5km run. It is getting really really cold and dark outside which makes it a bit more difficult to get out from under the covers, but once I'm outside I absolutely love running in the cold. The air is so much fresher and my entire body seem to function better when it's close to zero degrees Celsius outside. Please find me a place to live where it is only cold when I have to go running - the rest of the time 20-25 degrees would be highly appreciated. So todays run was great up until the point where I tripped over an invisible stone on the ground and crashed onto the pavement. Now 30 minutes later (had to finish the planned run of course) I have to most beautifully colored knee to show for it - very much looking forward to waring shorts to CrossFit tomorrow evening - totally bad ass!!!

Winning people over...

So I had a friend over for dinner last night and decided to serve one of my all time favourites meatballs in curry - Paleo style! I had talked to her before hand and had promised to make a serving of rice for her since the thought of cauliflower rice did not sound appealing to her at all. So I made the dish, with a very large serving of rice (I really had no idea that 2 dl would make such a big batch - not a big rice cooker), a large serving of cauliflower rice and then oven baked hokkaido pumpkins.

Well she is a very polite person so she decided to give the cauliflower rice a try, and surprise surprise today I have a pot full of cooked rice and no cauliflower. So even though she is probably not going to be eating paleo from now on she could definitely see how great it was that instead of "empty" rice she had just eating a large amount of greens without really noticing...

So to those of you still willing to try some more Danish dishes here is the recipe (this one tastes much better than what my picture shows):

Meat Balls:
½ lb ground pork
1 diced onion
2 teaspoons salt
½ cup coconut milk
½ cup almond flour
1 egg
Pepper

Sauce:
1 diced onion
1 teaspoon olive oil
3-4 teaspoons of curry (depending on how strong you like it)
1 tablespoon fresh ginger
Arrowroot (if you like a thick sauce)
1 cup coconut milk
1 cube of chicken broth

Bring 5 cups of water with 2 teaspoons of salt to boil. While the water is heating up combine all the ingredients for the meat balls into a bowl and mix well. Shape the meat into meatballs using a tablespoon or teaspoon, and let them boil in the water for app 5 minutes or until they move to the surface of the water. Remove the finished meatballs from the water. Pour the rest of the water into a can for use in the sauce later. Now fry the onions together with curry and olive oil in the pot. Add the water from the meat balls, the chicken broth and the ginger, and let it boil for 5 minutes. Add the coconut milk and thicken with arrow root until you reach the right consistency. Add the meatballs to the sauce and let it it simmer for a few minutes. Serve with cauliflower rice.

The other night I made almond crusted salmon from www.paleoplan.com. I guess you can pretty much encrust any kinda fish in almonds or something like it to make it taste fantastic. This would also be a great dish to serve when having compagny over since it looks very nice as well. I served it with asparagus and tomatoes since that was all I had.

Steamed plaice rolls

So it has been a little while since my last post which is because I haven't been doing much of anything. My knee has been hurting the last few days so I decided to cut out the running until it gets better. Also due to some really bad food choices in the weekend I was not feeling good at all the first few days of the week. That just shows how important it is to eat the right things, and how badly your body reacts to a big cheat day/days.

But I was right back on track Monday just eating a bunch of my favorite dishes and not really trying anything new, so now I am feeling great again. I absolutely love fish and seafood so I had that for lunch and dinner today. Lunch was half an avocado filled with shrimp and sprinkled with wheat free soy sauce and lemon. So easy and very delicious.

For dinner (and lunch tomorrow) I made steamed plaice rolls with carrots, parsnip and leek and a side of baked green beans.
To make the fish dish (2-3 servings) you need:

250 g of plaice fillets (App 0.5 pound)
2-3 carrots
2 parsnips
1 leek
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1-2 dl vegetable broth (App 0.5-1 cup)
Thyme, salt and pepper

Cut the fillets in half down the middle, season them with salt and pepper and roll them into small rolls. Cut all the vegetables into sticks and fry them in a the olive oil in a large pan for 3-5minutes. Reduce to low heat, add the broth and the thyme and place the rolls on top of the vegetables. Let them steam under lid for 8-10 minutes or until the fish is tender. With food ike this who needs pasta!!!

Almond Plaice fillets

So the fact that I have a blog showing food and recipes is actually rather surprising to the people who know me, and also to myself if I have to admit it. I have never really liked to cook, I hated trying to many new things with regards to food since I had absolutely no idea how to combine things unless I had a recipe to follow. So to me this whole paleo thing has not only been great because my body functions best on this type of food, but I have really come to enjoy cooking, just in case you were thinking the opposite. I think it is fantastic to have some food I used to love, and then just trying with a few paleo friendly substitutes to make something similar, and then ending up with something that tastes even better.

So after tonights CrossFit workout I made Plaice fillets dipped in ground almonds with roasted green beans and oven baked hokkaido pumpkin. I just dipped the fillets in egg and then in ground almonds seasoned with salt, and then I fried them in coconut oil for a few minutes on each side. This was so delicious and ten times better than when they are dipped in bread crumps which is the normal. Give it a try you won't regret it...

So my workout plans haven'tbeen going to great, somehow life has a tendency to get in the way. But I made it to CrossFit this evening for an amazing workout. The WOW was 10 rounds of:
15 deadlifts with 30kg
15 push ups (still on my knees)

Afterwards we had a bonus tabata workout:
4 rounds of 4 different shoulder excercises with a 5 kg weight plate.

Definitely very busted after that, but in that great way where you feel like your actually doing something right.

Pumpkin season

So now pumpkin is finally in season, and I absolutely love oven baked pumpkin. I know it's a very starchy vegetable, but hey as long as I am not eating grains and other stuff that is bad for my, I am going to eat my pumpkin while I can. Also it is really great post workout food and since I just got home from a great CrossFit workout it might actually make recovery a little easier.

I could easily just inhale an entire pumpkin (mind you they are not that big) and call it dinner, but I figured it would be a good idea to balance it out with some protein and other vegetables. So I made some sloppy joes to go along with it. I pretty much followed the recipe but since I had no tomato sauce I used a can of salsa and a can of tomatoes, which resulted in some rather spicy but great sloppy joes. The sloppy joes that I remember was served inside a bun, so I just baked some portobello mushrooms and used them instead of the bread. The hokkaido pumpkin was just cut into small pieces without the shell and then baked at 200C until they started to get dark edges.

Todays CrossFit workout was 3 rounds of:
800m run
20 clean squats (15kg)
20 burpees (hate hate hate those)

We had 26 minutes and I didn't make the last 3 burpees in that time frame, so plenty of reason to keep at it.

Danish Meat Loaf

I love meatloaf, especially the danish version. I might have something to do with the fact that everything tastes better with a little bacon on top, who nows. The danish word "forloren hare" roughly translates to mock hare which I remember being really confused about growing up since no hare was harmed making this dish. I made a few modifications to fit the paleo standards, and I hate to say this but it is so much better than the one my mom makes (sorry if you read this mom):

500g ground pork
1 egg
4 tablespoons almond flour
2 dl coconut milk
1 onion finely cut
200g sliced mushrooms
Butter or olive oil
4-5 slices of bacon
Salt & Pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Mix ground pork, egg, almond flour, coconut milk and onion in a bowl and season with salt and pepper. Leave the mixture in the fridge for app 15minutes. In the meantime fry the mushrooms in butter until the get soft and then mix them into the meat batter. Shape mixture into a loaf in an ungreased baking pan, and top it off with bacon (see picture). Bake for app 1 hour. There might be "soup" surrounding the loaf which you can just throw away or freeze for later use as stock in a real soup.

Almost back to normal!!!

So back to the small war zone that used to be my apartment. One more day and I should be back to normal, meaning running water and not having my toilet standing in the middle of my kitchen (unplugged just in case you were wondering) until the bathroom is ready to be used. So today I actually got to cook real food, after having spent hours cleaning my kitchen to make it usable.

Tonights dinner was danish meat loaf served with a thai winter salad consisting of white cabbage, apple, orange and coconut cream with a little sweetener. Very delicious.

So if you feel like trying something different here is a few ideas.
The last couple of days the weather have been absolutely fantastic. Unfortunately due to a fight between me and my contacts I have had a very sore and light sensitive right eye. Fortunately this is also pretty much back to normal meaning I no longer scare the living ... out of the people I pass. So today I went for an easy 9.5 km run around the lake in my neighborhood and enjoyed the sunlight and tried to overlook the fact that the temperatures in no way matched the rest of the surroundings.

Back to being a lazy kid

So as I mentioned in my last post I am visiting my parents this week. It is amazing how you get home and immediately become a lazy teenager again. My parents have one of those magic households where the clothes wash themselves, the fridge refills by itself and dinner miraculously appear on the table at night... Needless to say I am not doing much cooking at all, which is the reason for the lack of posts. Just before leaving I got the Primal Blueprint cookbook by mail, and I am really looking forward to trying out some of the dishes. It is filled with pictures, and I really love cookbooks where you can pretty much eat the pages, so something to look forward to.

I haven't been to great with the exercise part of my plan, but did do 3 crossfit sessions, 2 runs and one long walk with my friend, so thats okay. Today I had a great run, it was one of those early autumn days where the sun is shining and the temperature is almost warm. We have a small forest nearby so I had a great hill workout and then a small Crossfit session afterwards. Since I'm back home I don't really track my intake, but I'll try to at least post my meals the following week, as well as my workouts, other than that I am just going to enjoy being spoiled a bit without feeling the least bit guilty.

Taco Salad

So tonight I once again went to a intro crossfit lesson, and once again it was really great. I think I'll go to the normal one Thursday to see how it really is. We did a lot of introduction to new exercises and the 2 small circuit consisting of 4 rounds of:

10 Air squats
5 overhead pushes
5 box jumps
3 pull ups
10 sit ups

Afterwards we did 2 rounds of 8*8 of different bar lifts.

I'm pretty sure I'll be able to feel my upper body tomorrow, but the leg part of it was pretty easy today so that should be okay.

When I god home it was great to have pretty much all I needed to make a quick taco salad, which is just a green salad topped with taco seasoned meat, guacamole and salsa. Very easy, simple and delicious. I ate it cold, but it is just as good when the meat is still hot.

At the moment they are fixing the the toilets and the water in my building which means I have no running water. This is both good and bad. The bad thing is that I have to buy water for the cooking/drinking the next few days, which I of course forgot, and also I can't just go for a run since there is no shower. The good thing is that it forces me to go to the gym and it gives me an opportunity to stay a few days at my parents.

I'll be going home on Thursday and working from there until sometime next week. It is always great to go home but I really have to be on my toes with the food choices I make since my parents have a kitchen full of all kinds of things that I really should not eat if I wanna keep feeling good.

Wraps

So today I needed to use the last of the riced cauliflower and since I have been eating a lot of pizza lately I figured it was time to try something new. So I made a mix of 3 eggs and 100g riced cauliflower and made 2 "pancakes" out of it. They were pretty thick but thin enough that I could make a normal wrap out of them adding a little ham, guacamole, salad and salsa. This tasted absolutely fantastic, so ended up making another batch to bring to work tomorrow (had to rice a new cauliflower head so now I'm pretty much back where I started). I was planning on making a taco salad for dinner tomorrow evening, so I just prepared the meat today and used it in the wraps as well. This also makes the preparation almost zero when I get back from CrossFit tomorrow night.

Today is the first day of feeling good again after having been sick with a sore throat and fever that last week or so. So to celebrate this I went for a small run in the evening. It was only 6km of easy running since I didn't want to push it, but definitely great to get the body moving. Hopefully I'll be back on top of the world in no time.

CrockPot Pork Loin

So I finally got to try my new Crockpot. I have been sick the last few days so this was an easy way to make dinner without doing much preparation. I found the original recipe in www.paleoplan.com but ended up changing it up to fit what ever I had in my fridge. Just combined the pork loin with 2 cans of tomatoes, a whole zucchini, 3 carrots, 2 garlic cloves, salt, pepper and basil. Then let it cook at low heat for 7 hours. I served it together with cauliflower rice. Definitely very good. The meat was really tender and the sauce was great, but next time I'll definitely use a pork tenderloin or some other cut without the fat on top. Just seems like such a waste not to make it the danish way with crisp pork crackling. I still have half a roast left so I'll give it a try next weekend.

Also I have decided to start logging in my meal and stats on a separate page as well as the weekly workout plan. The food log is mostly to get an idea of how much I actually eat in day since the amounts easily creep up on me. Also as I have mentioned earlier I need to get back on track with the training to make sure that I am ready for the upcoming triathlon season, and actually publishing my plans means I am somewhat accountable. We will see how it goes.

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!!!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Gingery Broccoli & Beef

So back from vacational eating which definitely did not go as planned. All the bad food just kinda threw itself at my every time I entered my parents kitchen making it very very difficult to escape. But whats done is done so yesterday I got back on track by pretty much never entering the evil kitchen between breakfast and dinner. My parents actually make it really easy to eat primal since they always make some great meat, lots of vegetables, a salad and then potatoes or bread on the side, so the bad eating is all on me. Today I went home to my own apartment and the first thing I did was to go grocery shopping to fill up the fridge with vegetables, fruit and meat. Now I'm seriously armed to do this whole primal challenge thing. Speaking off apparently Marks Daily Apple is having a challenge starting September 7th (I thought it was august) so even though I have made a head start, I might actually sign up on the site, just to be a bit more accountable...

Today has been okay as far as the eating thing goes, I have been doing okay, though probably a bit too heavy on the fruit and almonds. I'll definitely try to limit that in the next few days. For dinner today I made Gingery Broccoli & Beef. It is funny how a vegetable that I never really cared for can become a favorite just because you start preparing it differently.

I had prepared to go for a short sprint workout this evening, to get more primal stuff into my workout schedule but I didn't feel to great this evening so just stayed inside relaxing. I'll try to get the run done in the morning before work to get a great start to the day.

Vacation

So once again it has been a while since my last post, but at the moment I am vacationing in my home town visiting my parents and all my friends. So this week has been nothing close to normal eating, and I can definitely feel the difference. I did make one of the paleoplan recipes yesterday and it turned out very very delicious. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of it so I guess you'll just have to take my word for it. This coconut chicken is definitely something I would serve for dinner company. The cocunut taste from the crusting is very subtle but still gives it an asian feel. I made my recipy in the oven instead of the frying pan, and that turned out really well. I guess it could be made without the coconut flour if your not a fan of that taste - I'll probably try that as well.

My vacation is done on Sunday so Monday everything should be back to normal by monday. My plan is to do a paleo/primal challenge for 30 days from monday. I will be eating somewhat strict paleo with one cheat meal per week (which as my september looks right now will probably be spend on cocktails - better cheat well if I plan to cheat). I have been planning to try doing a more primal kinda workout for a while but since I had to do long training runs/bike rides/swims as a part of my training it really wasn't possible - until now. I must admit though that I absolutely hate walking so I will probably still do one or two 10km runs during the week, but if I'm doing them alone I'll try to do a more sprint based fartleg workout. I guess biking is seen as moving at a slow pase, and since it's about time I got back on the bike - some easy rides would probably be a great. Other than that I am planning to do strength training 2-3 times a week, and perhaps one or two yoga sesions to stretch and strengthen my back.

I'll let you all know how it goes.

Chicken Mediterranean

So the last few days have been rather quiet, due to yet another visitor - hopefully everything will get back to normal once the summer is over. Anyway I made Grilled Chicken Mediterranean with roasted asparagus for dinner Saturday night. I really like finding new ways to cook chicken, since the normal grilled chicken is rather bland in the long run, and this was definitely an easy version.

Saturday night I went for cocktails with a friend, nothing paleo about that, but really really delicious and definitely good for the soul (or the first few were anyway - after that it probably got a bit blurry). So normally I would end up eating a fallafel or kebab on the way home since drinking kinda brings up the "I need bad food with tons of salt" in me, but instead I made it all the way home and then had my left over lunch for very early breakfast. Always good to eat something before crashing after a night like that, makes the next day a lot easier...

Good things comes to those who wait

So yesterday after my evening run I had planned to make paleo beef stew. But since I really didn't feel like eating at all, which is rather common after a run I decided not to force it and just eat something light later if I felt like it. But since the meat was already thawed and ready to use I kinda had to make the dish anyhow since I absolutely hate throwing away food.

So I prepped all the ingredients, threw them into the pot and let it simmer for a few hours until I had to go to bed. So when I warmed it up again this evening and served it with paleo rice (cauliflower) it was absolutely delicious. The meat was so tender that it almost fell apart and the wine/tomato flawor was just delish. As I have mentioned before I'm a rather impatient cook, but I'm definitely learning a thing or two about giving the food the time it needs. Since I'm not really a wine drinker (give me a mojito anytime) i froze the leftover wine into ice cubes to be used in dishes in the future. That way the fishes won't get drunk on my behalf. I made enough stew to last me through dinner tonight as well as lunch and dinner tomorrow.

For desert I had some unsweetened applesauce with coconut flour on top, very simple and very fresh tasting. Another great dessert that I also got from paleoplan.com is frozen blueberries with almond butter. The recipe actually calls for normal blueberries, but since it is summer the frozen version makes it an almost ice cream like treat. Unfortunately the berries I bought wasn't that sweet, but I fixed this by adding a few drops of sweatener (even though that probably isn't allowed).

Today's exercise was a 30min strength training routine carried out in the safety of mu own home. This way the only one looking was my cat and she doesn't make fun of me - that I know about anyway.

Cacao Nip Pork Chops

So my tattoo excuse doesn't really count anymore since it's not that sore anymore, so I'm back to working out like normal - or almost. I can't go to the pool or in the lake due to bleaching and infection, so I'm stuck with biking and running for now. I eased into it all with a 30min yoga workout today and it definitely felt a lot better than it looked - I'm really not the graceful swan kinda type. Also today was another day of IMF which went without any problems what so ever. It's amazing how you can go a whole day and not be hungry, but it is probably a consequence of the steep decline in training hours that has followed my back problems.

For dinner I had cacao nip pork chops with green beans. But I ended up with a rather different variation I think. Since it's still summer in Denmark butternut squash is non existent in the danish stores, so the salad thing that was to be served with the pork chops got canceled. Instead I spiced up the green beans by adding carrots, red onions and cherry tomatoes to get more vegetables into the dish. Also I kinda missed the "nip" part of cacao nip so just used normal cacao as a spice. All in all it tasted great. This is the great thing about something like paleoplan.com - you get all these different recipes and if you have an open mind you will taste some great food that you wouldn't have thought of othervise.

Next time I'll follow the recipe and see what the difference is.

Cool Looking Breakfast

So this morning I had baked eggs in bacon rings. This is by far one of the coolest looking breakfasts I have ever made, and it really bumbed me out that I was only serving them for me. Next time I have friends sleeping over this will definitely be on the menu. I just roasted some red bell pebbers as a vegetable side dish. When they are roasted to the point where they begin to get black spots they will become very sweet and delicious.

Intermittend Fasting day

So after some great days with friends from back home (and their small bundle of joy) not really thinking to much of food and exercise it is time to get back to reality. This has been hindered a little by the fact that I ended their visit by getting a tattoo on the hip, making the whole running thing a bit difficult until I can wear running tights again :-). But hey I needed my friend to hold my hand.

So yesterday I went for a long walk which definitely doesn't suit my temper, but I guess it was better than nothing. Should have been out walking today as well, but it has been pouring down all day, so just stayed inside relaxing on the couch underneath a warm blanket - life is good.

So since I new I couldn't run today I figured it was a good day to practice intermittent fasting. I have done this before and really like how it makes me feel, so as long as my training schedule doesn't interfere with this I am going incorporate this into my week.

I stopped eating yesterday at 6pm and then went 24 hours without eating until today at 6pm. I really haven't been hungry today, I guess the whole "doing nothing all day" might influence that. At 6pm I had Paleo meat loaf with roasted green beans.

In Denmark we normally make a variant of this dish by using ground pork and then wrapping it in bacon instead of topping it with barbecue sauce. Definitely two very different dishes, but both tastes really great. In the meal loaf I used coconot milk insted of almond milk since the latter is rather difficult to find in the danish stores.

So apparently stretching isn't for wimps...

So last week I got some rather crappy news. I went to my physiotherapist because my bag was making a fuss again, and apparently I should have been listening to the yelling a lot sooner. So the muscles in my bag are getting even more cramped up and I can't even go 40km on the bike without it hurting. So the triathlon is on hold for now, and so is the long bike rides until I get this sorted out. At least I can still run and swim, so it's not all rainy clouds. Speaking of I went for a 10km run this morning in pouring rain - which was great (yes I'm weird like that).

I'm still trying to eat paleo which will hopefully get a lot easier now when my training amount decreases. I havn't uploaded anything new the last few days but that because I have been eating a lot of the same things as I have already shown, and also just easy food that doesn't require much preparation.

But yesterday I had Zucchini and Beef-Mince which doesn't look like much but tasted great and was really easy and fast to make. Next time I make it I would probably add some more vegetables to spice it up a little.

Today I had Curry chicken for dinner which took a bit of preparation since you pretty much make the rice yourself, but it was totally worth it. I think it is so great that you can find substitutes for pasta, rice and potatoes - and by doing, at the same time you get a lot of vegetables. For those who are wondering by making the rice yourself I just meand chop up the cauliflower in the food processor and the frying it in a pan. I fried the "rice" in curry to spice the dish up even more, and next time I'll probably add an apple to the mix since curry and apple go great together.

So next week I'll have yet another visit from some great friends (hey they might be reading this) so the whole paleo will be depending on the food available where we go to eat and what they are up for. So I probably wont post again for a few days...

Getting back on track...

So it's been a while since my last post due to a family visit from my "not the least bit paleo" parents. Always great to see them, but it means that I kinda put the training and eating part on hold for the weekend.

So Monday I was determined to get back on track in every way - never be determined to do anything that is pretty much the same as hybris and the world will punish you for it ;-). Messed up my alarm clock Monday and got up way too late for my morning workout, so just had to go straight to work. Was still dead tired when I got home so I figured I would take a nap before the evening workout, woke up 4 hour later just in time for my bedtime pretty much... So the only thing I trained yesterday was my ability to sleep, which I'm pretty sure won't be a requirement on race day...

As for the diet part it actually went ok, but not like I had planned. Had gotten my act together Sunday evening and made omelet muffins to last a few days and also lunch to last a few days.

So my lunch yesterday (and today) was no potato salad with chicken breast which was incredibly easy to make and really delicious. My mom brought fresh tomatoes and cucumber from her green house which was the icing on the cake.

Yesterday I had almond pancakes as a pre workout meal, which then ended up being my dinner since I slept through both the workout and my dinner. I had some sugar free syrup with them, which is definitely not paleo, but hey a girls gotta live a little. They were definitely very good, and I'm sure they would be great as fuel on the days where I have a very long workout and would normally eat oatmeal to make sure I get enough energy.

Being followed by rain clouds...

So today was a very long day, another twice a day of workout fun. Got up at 5am to bike 30km to the pool. Got a bit lost on the way - should definitely not be allowed to leave the house without satellite surveillance - so was a bit late and only had time for a 2km swim. After the swim I had a 10km ride to work, and the I had a 30km ride home at the end of the work day. Pretty much had blue skies to the left, right and behind me, while the ones above me weren't that nice. So had some very fun 20 km in pouring rain.

I didn't eat until I got to work, which was no problem at all since my body was pretty much still asleep and not really going into morning mode. At work I had a omelet muffin and two bananas for breakfast. Then 2 pieces of fruit before lunch where I had the leftovers from yesterday. After lunch I had some trail mix and that kept me going until I got home. My pre workout meal was one more omelet and a banana. For dinner today the plan said chili and roasted beans, which was pretty fantastic considering how cold I was after the bike ride. I normally don't have the patience to let my chili cook for very long, but since the recipe called for an hour of simmering I figured I should actually try following it. Great choise, this is definitely the best chili I have ever made, even though that might not really say much. The roasted beans are the same as I made a few days ago, but they are so good and so easy to make that they will definitely show up as a side very often.

Once again I have made enough to have for lunch and dinner tomorrow, making the day a bit easier.

Monday tiredness

So didn't post anything yesterday because I didn't cook anything at all. I had so much work that needed to be done by Monday so I just ate whatever leftover I could find in the fridge. I still got two small workouts in which was great, a 30 min yoga dvd that is seriously kicking my ass and a 7km run in a nice and easy pase. I'm trying out the whole yoga thing to see if it will help with my back problems. I have even gone to such drastic measures as to start stretching after a workout, which my patience was never really up to before.

Today was a twice a day'er, meaning I took the bike to work and home again. I pretty much just stumble out of bed and into my biking gear and then I do the 30km drive on an empty stomach. I really don't have a problem with doing morning workouts on an empty stomach since I'm normally out so early that I'm not really hungry yet.
After the workout I eat an banana and some chicken pretty much straight of the bike to aid in restitution. The rest of the day an apple, an orange, a salad with chicken and some trail mix to keep the energy going, and then a banana an hour before my bike ride home. This was fine to keep me going through the 50km hill workout that was planned. After the workout I had a banana to get e few carbohydrates in while making dinner: Chez Lorraine's Baked Salmon with a side salad made of spinach, tomatoes, avocado, unions and apple with a homemade oil/vinegar dressing. Made a double portion to bring to work tomorrow.

While the salmon was in the oven I made a batch of omelet muffins to bring for breakfast on the days where I'm training early in the morning and going straight to work afterward.

So right now I'm going to enjoy a few hours on the couch with a very good conscience.

Weekend

So this ended up being my day of from training due to a bunch of work. Most of the day went well still but had fell into the sugar craving in the evening and had an ice cream. Nothing to do about that now but to get right back on track tomorrow. So I guess I managed almost 4 days on track - damn my lack of a spine - but from tomorrow I'm going to beat that - that's the goal.

Anyway still had some great dishes during the day.
Breakfast was sausage stir fry which was a really quick and easy recipe that will come in handy during the week.

Lunch/dinner was paleo style chicken alfredo with roasted green beans. I use squash instead of the noodles mentioned - mostly because I had absolutely no idea what they were but also I actually really like using squash as a substitue since it tastes great and gives me an extra dose of greens. The picture might not look all that inviting, but I guarantee you it was so so good. I'm already looking foreward to having it for lunch tomorrow.

Try it out folks!!!

Fridays results

So this is definitely going to be the last post today, but I figured I should post how the day had gone.

Breakfast: Omelet Muffin (picture at a later time)
Snack: Pear + plum
Lunch: Spicy tuna salad with Chinese style broccoli (picture below)
Excercise: Run 11km
Snack: Banana + chicken lunch meat
Dinner: At a friends - chicken plus a salad and then fruit for dessert with a little chocolate

This was my lunch at work today. Had made the salad Wednesday night and ate it for dinner yesterday and the lunch today. The broccoli are just mixed with 1 tablespoon olive oil, 2 tablespoons soya sauce, 2 minced garlic gloves, a few drops of fish sauce and a tablespoon of citrus juice. I often make a small batch of these and store them in the fridge for easy snacking since they are really great cold as well as hot. Wednesday night I also made 3 servings of the omelet muffin since they are great as a breakfast on the days that I'm in a hurry or have to train early and eat breakfast at work afterward.

Had a really tough run due to the heat, but even though I felt crappy and slow I still ran faster than I normally do. Don't know why but this is a tendency I have noticed a few times in hot weather.

So this was day 3 on this diet, and so far I really don't miss my carbs or sugar, normally this would be the day where I would give in and buy an ice cream since it would be all I could think about. Also my workouts are not suffering but I guess it might be to early to say anything about that. Lets see if tomorrow will bring suffering!

A small taste of whats in store

So as promised in the post before I'll try to post what I eat without being completely meticulous. Since I have already done two days of eating like this by following a meal plan from www.paleoplan.com. I'm trying out their sample week to see how easy it is to incorporate when using the metric system, and since the sample week is made for February the dishes might be a bit wintry. I will just show you a few dishes.

At breakfast one day I had a shrimp omelet with avocado/tomato salsa and asparagus.

For dinner I had a steak with pineapple salsa and leftover salsa from breakfast.

Well just some inspiration for you guys out there!