Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness

21 Day Challenge Update with Recipe Reviews

So, hmm, The Challenge. I’m embarrassed to admit that I was derailed by a rough day at work earlier last week.  It was the kind of day that could only be fixed by happy hour drinks with the hubby.  Unfortunately, that drink pretty much broke the seal.  I didn’t fall completely off the strict primal wagon, but I may have had Cheetos and Idaho nachos and maybe another drink or two.  *Sigh*  But, today is a new day, and I’m a newly resolved Heather. I only have 5 days left, and I know I can do that.

Looking on the bright side, eating junk after eating very clean for 10 days helped me identify a few things.  1.  Alcohol, even just 1 or 2 drinks, often gives me a headache and makes me sleepy and  2.  White potatoes, while delicious, puff me up something fierce.  I was down 3 lbs, but now I’m back up 3 lbs.  Damn you, white potatoes!!! 3.  I have a problem with self-control. I can’t give in even a little or I’m a goner.

Over the past week I’ve tried a few new recipes.

Zucchini Fritters:  I subbed nutritional yeast for the parmesan.  These were tasty (even heated up the next day in the broiler), but I don’t think they were good enough for the amount of work.

Spicy Nacho Kale Chips:  We’ve been eating kale chips almost every other night, and this recipe is partially why.  These are super good, yet so easy.

Cauliflower Rice:  This is another recipe that is super good, yet super easy. Unlike this cauliflower recipe: Spicy Ginger-Lime Cauliflower Rice.  This recipe involves a lot of chopping, a lot of sauteeing in stages, and lots and lots of dirty dishes. You should see my kitchen right now.  I made it with Asian Pork Meatballs, and it was a perfect pairing.  The flavor is unusual and good, but not worth the effort, in my opinion.

And now you’re up-to-date on my food week.  As far as exercise goes, I did a sprint workout on Saturday, with 6 all-out 15 second sprints.  On Sunday I did 30 minutes of yoga, and then Tim and I tried stand-up paddle boarding for the first time.  We were on the river for an hour.  It looks so easy, but my quads are SO sore today!!

And that’s it for now!  Hope you are having a great day!

 

 

 

 

Cooking/Recipes

Porky Pasta

Hellloooooooo!  It’s Tuesday morning, and I have to go back to work today.  Bah!  Blurg! Tim had the day off yesterday, so I took it off as well and used some of the free time to do some experimental cooking.  My basil was going nuts, so I decided to make some pesto using this recipe.  It’s incredibly easy to make, especially with a food processor.  I left out the Parmesan to make the recipe more paleo, and neither Tim nor I noticed it was missing. I baked a spaghetti squash in the Nesco Roaster, shredded it up, topped it with some ground pork and then poured a sizable helping of pesto over the whole mess.  I stirred it well, added some salt and pepper, and wow.  Delicious.  Tim has named this recipe, “Porky Pasta,” which I think is funny.  I think this would taste great with some sauteed veggies (zucchini?) as well.  The recipe makes A LOT of pesto, so I poured the remainder into ice cube trays, covered each cube with a little olive oil, then pressed saran wrap into the cups and froze the tray.  This morning I’ll pop the cubes out and put them in a freezer bag.  Each cube should be about 2 T of pesto.  I’ve never frozen pesto before, so hopefully this works out well.  Pesto is too expensive to waste!!

I also tried a new Health-Bent recipe, Barbacoa Meatballs with Guac.  This was another insanely easy recipe.  You mix up an assortment of spices, add it to the meatballs, bake them, and you’re done.  The “guac” is a very simple recipe – avocado and lime juice and s&p.  The meatballs did turn out a little dry, but we found that drizzling them with olive oil took care of that problem.

And there you go – two easy recipes to try.  Hope you have a great Tuesday!