I love cheese

What??  Cheese isn't Paleo!  Hold up Paleo Police!  I love cheese, but cheese generally doesn't love me.  How do I know?  My face tells me so- the pimples do to be exact.  It's true, once I stopped eating dairy in general my face cleared up.  Every once in a while doesn't hurt- but I can tell when I have gone overboard.  This morning was a cheese day.  In other words, I added two slices of provolone to my eggs.  So delicious!

Pictured above is spinach and chopped onions sautéed in bacon grease.  I then added three eggs to the pan and scrambled them right there in the pan while they cooked.  Once cooked I turned off the heat and added two slices of yummy provolone. Mixed it all up until the cheese was melted and incorporated into the eggs and veggies.  Yum!  Even better would have been some whole cream added to the eggs but I didn't have any.  My good friend showed me how to make eggs like this.  It is delicious, trust me.

Favorite cookbook

Do you have a favorite Paleo cookbook? I do!  It is Well Fed .  Hands down it has the most delicious recipes.  Last night I made the pad Thai recipe.  It was time consuming as I doubled the recipe and also did not prepare very well for it (should have made the sunshine sauce in advance, though I did grill the chicken the night before.). But it was all well worth it.  My kids even loved it!

Next time I plan on adding a little fish sauce to make the flavor more authentic. The lime juice and fresh cilantro added a nice touch as well.

I decided that I am going to cook my way through the book.  I have made quite a few of the dishes, but I am going to try all of them now.  You know, like that girl who did the blog about cooking all of the recipes in the Art of French Cooking.  Except these recipes are much easier and no one is going to make a movie out  of my experiences.

There is a Well Fed 2 book out as well!  Alas, I do not own it yet.  Yet.

Oh- I couldn't find any sun butter without sugar or nasty canola oil added to it, so I made my own.  It was easy, just time consuming.  I only added salt and EVOO.  It is really yummy. I will make my own from now on.  :)

On another note, have you ever tried pumpkin seed butter?  Sounds yummy right?  WRONG!  I paid $18 for a jar and it was foul.  I know we were expecting pumpkin pie, but it didn't even taste like yummy roasted pumpkin seeds.  Don't buy it!

Take a chance eggs

What do you do when there's not much in the fridge?  You take a chance and create something new!

My ingredients:

Two eggs

Ground turkey

Butternut squash

Homemade Paleo mayo

Salt

Garam masala spice

Chopped sundried tomatoes

Pre-cooked chopped onions

Bacon grease

I cooked the ground turkey in a little bacon grease and seasoned with salt and garam masala (no idea how this would turn out.). Set aside.

Cooked the frozen butternut squash on the stove.  While that was cooking I scrambled the eggs in a little bit of bacon grease and added the onions (they had been sautéed in- wait for it- bacon grease! ) When it was almost done cooking I threw in the ground turkey and sundried tomatoes.  Then I scooped it on a plate next to the butternut squash and drizzled it with the mayo.  Omg it was good!!

Tasteful Tuesday

I took the kids to the San Diego Zoo yesterday.  I LOVE that zoo.  I practically grew up there.  My daughter thought I was just partial to my zoo because I grew up in San Diego.  After all, we have been to zoos all over- including Tokyo, Singapore, Washington DC and Seattle.  After our visit yesterday she conceded with me.  It is IS the best freakin' zoo there is.

Why the zoo story?  Well it was a last minute trip which means I broke up with my Whole 30-ish. I will be back at it tomorrow.  I would say today but this evening I had pizza.  Whoops.  By the way, my stomach wasn't happy with me this morning.  It really is necessary for me to follow a Paleo lifestyle because if I don't I pay for it!

This morning I did start the day off right with my sweet potato and yam fries topped with two sunny side up eggs and homemade mayo. Very TAsty Tuesday indeed! 

Breffis and sweet potatoes or yams?

Know what I discovered upon moving (back) to California?  

Yams and sweet potatoes are not the same thing!  What I had been calling sweet potatoes and the East coast grocery stores called that as well were actually YAMS!  I really thought they were one in the same.  

But upon visiting the local grocery store I found two bins- one with sweet potatoes and the other with yams.  The yams have more color. If you look at the picture of my sweet potato fries you will see they almost look like regular ole' Idaho white potatoes (they have paprika on them hence the color.) But they are not.  And I think they are a little sweeter than yams.  Very yummy in either case.

My breffis (breakfast) (as we jokingly call it in our house), consists of leftover sweet potato fries and a chicken thigh.  I topped the chicken with two sunny side up eggs and added a good measure of homemade mayo on the side.

Here's to making it a great day. :)

Apples are yummy and yes I am back (again)

Haven't blogged in a while, blah blah, two moves, major life changes, new state (California!!). You know, life happens.

I am on day eight of my Whole 30-ish.  I hate Whole 30 because it restricts from eating out or doing anything unplanned.  But I needs it!  Seriously, I was looking and feeling like a big pile of stinky doo doo.  My eating was just too far off track. Let me tell you I feel a world better and even look better after just eight days.

So Whole 30-ish.  The "ish" means I went out to eat (twice so far), and ate as clean as possible- but I don't know if the bacon had sugar in it (probably) and the cranberries in my salad did for sure.  I did my best.  I am not considering it a cheat because then I think I need to let loose and eat crap.  

Oh- the apple.  I was still hungry after my brunch of chicken salad with an avocado so I grabbed an apple on my way to run errands.  That Apple was delicious.  

Know what I love the best about eating clean?  That eating something as simple and fresh like an apple is so rewarding and delicious.  Get all of the toxic sugar and fake sugar out of your body and your taste buds can appreciate nature's real desserts.

Seriously, it was a damn good apple.  (That's Apollo doing his "look at my soft white bellay come pet me" pose.)

Now go eat an apple.

How Nancy Got Her Groove Back...

I just realized I didn't post for all of March.  That makes a little sad seeing how I started off the year so well.  So goes life, huh?

So to recap from my last post- I announced my two year CrossFit anniversary, posted a yummy recipe and then I fell off the face of the Earth.  Seriously, I fell into a big FUNK.  I had participated in my first ever CrossFit competition in the beginning of March.  It was fun, I seriously enjoyed myself.  Plus, I got to see some old friends, so a good time was had all around.  But...

When it was all said and done I placed like 15 out of 18 in the scaled devision.  And while I was glad not to be last and proud of myself for competing- it wore at me a little by little.  Eventually I just felt flat out depressed about that and everything.  See- I was comparing myself to others.  I was comparing myself- someone who had never ever ever been athletic whatsoever, someone who is quite uncoordinated, to those who are younger, and are natural athletes.  I was feeling bad because these people who have been doing CrossFit for at least half the time that I have- and they were passing me up.  I felt and do still at times, feel, frustrated at how hard I have had to work to get to where I am.  And I am not where I wanted to be at this point!  So you go ahead and put two and two together.... Yep
It was a PITY PARTY.

This is the first place I have even talked about this.  This is a confession, folks.  This is very hard for me to write, very.

So my question is- am I expecting too much from myself- someone who is pushing 40, who HAS made great progress compared to where she was before, and someone who was never athletic to begin with?  Or have I given up too easily?  Do I just need to put on my big girl panties and toughen the EFF up??  Do I just need to work harder and be more consistent?

Probably a little of both sides.

Anyhoo, I am back at it again.  I picked myself up off the floor, wiped my tears, and hit the gym.

But do you want to know what is really inspiring me to go at it, and go harder?  My husband.  He finally started CrossFitting with me.  I have been bugging him forever to go.  And he finally did it.  He drank the Kool-Aid (Paleo of course.)

I can't tell you how excited I was for him to join me.  Maybe with his permission he will let me post before and after pics.  He is going to do his first Whole 30 with me next month.  This is going to be epic.

So now, I have to set that example.  Yeah maybe I suck sometimes, but as long as I am giving it my all then who cares?

I don't know if I have posted this before- but I found this on Facebook and thought it hit the mark:

I think I need more bacon....