Crackeroni and Cheese

I'll be honest: for me, the elbow macaroni in macaroni and cheese had, in the past, really just served as a vector for the melted cheesy goodness. Tonight, craving that same warm cheesy goodness, I took one look at the yellow squash in my fridge, and tossed caution to the wind. This was a hit with my preschooler, so I packed some in her lunchbox for tomorrow. (My husband still had the steak and salad written up in the menu plan.)

You could cook the squash even less if you are looking for a more "al dente" texture - the below recipe, which comes together in about 10 minutes, results in very tender pieces.

Oh, and adding bacon? Resulted in the crack-like addictive taste.

Crackeroni and Cheese
Serves 2 very generously

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons butter (I used salted Kerrygold)
2 small yellow squashes, diced into thin 1 inch long slices (about elbow macaroni size)
1" wedge brie, trimmed of rind, cubed into small 1/2" pieces
1/4 c. crumbled gorgonzola
2 tablespoons crumbled bacon (= 2-4 cooked strips' worth, depending on your desired baconishness)

Directions:
Melt butter on medium high heat, and add squash. Sautee for 5 minutes, or until squash pieces start to turn translucent. Stir in pieces of brie and crumbled gorgonzola, and stir vigorously until cheese is well-melted throughout. Add bacon pieces and serve immediately.

Menu Plan

We're fortunate to enjoy some leftovers from this past weekend spent with my inlaws. Got in some good Primal laws fulfillment - lots of walking, time in the sun on the beach (after which, a little sunscreen application), playing and relaxing with family.

My ankle is still swollen and, if moved the wrong direction, twinges with pain, though walking normally is stiff but relatively pain free. I'll keep with weights only work these next few weeks (no sprinting) - mostly arms, maybe some slow squats or lunges. Not risking anything, though - following Mark's advice to take it easy when injured lest ye reinjure!

Monday:
Breakfast - Boiled eggs, bananas for the girls
Lunch - Creamy tarragon asparagus soup (recipe hopefully to come), leftover brussels sprouts
Dinner - Steak slices on salad greens with gorgonzola, and balsamic vinaigrette, sliced melon

Tuesday:
Breakfast - Fried eggs, cubed melon for the girls
Lunch - Broiled brie and a salad
Dinner - Sauteed butter-glazed shrimp and summer squash, "big-ass" salads

Wednesday:
Breakfast - Custards
Lunch - Leftover shrimp on salads
Dinner - Bacon summer squash quiche (recipe hopefully to come), baby carrots

Thursday:
Breakfast - Fruit smoothies
Lunch - Leftover quiche
Dinner - Crock pot chili with ground grass-fed beef, queso fresco to top, salads

Friday:
Breakfast - Fat guacamole devils
Lunch - Leftover chili
Dinner - Roast whole chicken, salads

Ideas for This Week's Preschool Lunch Menu:
Lunchbox #3: Thin strips of grilled steak, dipping sauce, baby carrots, custard
Lunchbox #4: Shrimp cocktail (or something like it), sliced raw green pepper, whole milk yoghurt mixed with blueberries
Lunchbox #5: Bacon summer squash quiche, Joyful Abode's grain-free granola bars

Coconut Curry Chicken & Spinach Soup

When that nip in the air starts to come back, I get really excited. I love cold weather, and I love cold weather comfort foods. This fall will prove a new challenge as I try to Primalize some of my longstanding fall/winter treats, but I'm up for it.

Soups, though, aren't that hard to conquer in terms of Primalizing. This one is super simple, warming, and comes together in less than 15 minutes. Great for a nourishing lunch!

Coconut Curry Chicken & Spinach Soup
Serves 4

Ingredients:
2 c. small pieces of leftover roasted chicken
2 c. organic baby spinach
1 can coconut milk
2 tbsp. coconut oil

Warming spices, any/all to your liking:
garlic powder
onion powder
ginger
nutmeg
cardamom
curry powder
turmeric
cumin

Directions:
Melt oil in medium-sized pot on medium. Add spices to your liking and let them simmer in the oil for a minute or two. Add chicken pieces, and stir to coat with oil and spices. Add coconut milk, and stir to combine. Let simmer for just a few minutes so that flavors blend and the coconut milk is warmed through. Just 3-5 minutes before serving, add the baby spinach. Serve while spinach is bright green and just barely wilted for maximum flavor.

Friday Grok-Friendly Recipe Hunt - Weelicious

This may be the start of a new feature here at Primal Kitchen - the Friday Grok-Friendly Recipe Hunt. It is a hunt, analogous to Grok sizing up his newest environs to see what looks tasty and edible.

Though Catherine McCord isn't paleo / primal, she is all about real-ingredient clean eating. My Grok-Friendly Recipe Hunt this week turned up McCord's blog weelicious.com. She notes in her "About" page:

"When I had my kids, Kenya and Chloe, I realized that I wanted them to be exposed to seasonal, organic food that’s as pure as possible. I want them to know that food shouldn’t have to be pumped with sugar, salt and preservatives to be delicious."

What can I say? I like her style. :) Here are some paleo / primal friendly recipes that I turned up in just a short time while browsing her site. I will definitely be trying some of these out in the near future. Try her gluten free tags page for some ideas, too.

• Spinach Ricotta Bites (ooo definitely an idea for my preschooler's lunchboxes)
• Carrot Chips (ditto on the lunchboxes!)
• Mango pops (I'd probably use unsweetened coconut milk or almond milk instead of rice milk)
• Homemade Strawberr-Wee Fruit Leather
• Avocado (with lime juice and salt)
• Sun-Dried Tomato Cream Cheese Spread (I'd totally eat with celery or carrots)
• Kale Chips

Lunchbox #2

 

Today's lunch featured (clockwise):

• Chicken salad (Last night's dinner - chicken baked with garam masala and coconut oil - cooled, diced, tossed with crème fraiche...YUM.)
  Note: I actually had my preschooler try several bites of this to make sure that she enjoyed it so that I knew that she would be familiar with it when she opened her lunchbox.
• About 3 tablespoons of trail mix: Pepitas (pumpkin seeds), raisins, hazlenuts, pecans, walnuts, pistachios
• Two dark chocolate covered almonds (same container as the trail mix)
• Crudités - yellow squash, carrots, green peppers
• Apple slices, with almond butter for dipping in the mini blue container

Lunch Box #1

As you can see, today's lunch for my preschooler doesn't exactly match what was listed in the menu plan:

Actually, my menu plan is more a general idea of what ingredients we'll be using up - a good way for me to know what meats, seafood, fruits, and veggies I'll be purchasing and preparing for our family over the week. Sometimes I get the menu 100% for all three meals in one day - other days (many other days) it's more like a facsimile of what was planned. So in the words of the inimitable Captain Barbosa: "...more like, guidelines."

Documenting a preschooler's lunch is definitely the kind of culinary navel-gazing that could send readers into a snorefest, except I have this nagging suspicion that there are others out there who are also trying to give their kids packed lunches that feature real food - and could maybe use some of my ideas in their own quotidien lunchbox making (?). I'm sniffing out other primal / paleo blogs in the hopes of some that feature lunchbox prep, too. Comment if you know of any!

Today's lunch for my preschooler featured (clockwise):

• Organic halved cherry tomatoes and cubed rBGH-free mozzarella
• Chopped macadamia nuts, dates, and a piece of dark chocolate (yes, nuts are allowed at her preschool!! woo hoo!)
• Cucumbers slices, halved with a garlic organic whole milk yoghurt dip
• Strawberries and nectarines, cubed

This accompanied by a stainless steel canteen of (drumroll) fresh cold water.

Workout of the Week - 'Not'

This morning, in the excitement and rush to get out the door for my daughter's first day of preschool, I managed to royally twist my ankle on our front step - one of those seeing-stars kind of pain. Great. So now my ankle is swollen and tender. Guess no Workout of the Week this week. :-\ I will do some arm work and watch my carbs in the meantime until the pain and swelling are gone. Phooey!

What to Do With All This Ground Beef?

My mom is now my patron saint of grass-finished ground beef acquisition; she did an evening run to the Whole Foods near her house on Friday and acquired a LOT of the on sale grass-finished ground beef at $3.99/lb., just for our family. She convinced the butcher to make some more for her as the bin was almost empty when she arrived. I will be making some eggplant lasagna in the near future for sure. :) THANKS, Mom!

Trying to think up some other ground beef recipes to apply - anybody with suggestions for primal ground beef recipes? Meatloaf didn't really fly at our dinner table a while back, though I'm open to recipes for primal mini meatballs, say for a primal adaptation of wedding soup?

Menu Plan - Labor Day Edition

Like many on the Twittersphere under hash tag #SPC2010 (as in: September Primal Challenge!), I experimented with some intermittent fasting last week a couple of times by skipping breakfast. (Just me; the rest of my family ate breakfast!) It is shocking to realize how steady your tummy can be if you're not OD'ing on sugar or carbs all the time - both fasts, I was able to keep myself busy without that distracting, violent urge to locate a Fiber One bar stat - the urge that enslaved my days in my life before Grok. When your body is used to burning ingested fat for fuel, making the switch to burning stored body fat while fasting is hardly a blip on the radar.

I have read on many blogs that folks experience the best metabolic boost when they work out just at the end of a fast - and then fasting an hour or two more. So if I have an early dinner and wait until midday the next day to eat - while getting in a morning workout - I'm supposedly maxing the effects of the fast. Hope to test this out a bit more in the future.

ALSO - this week marks the start of packing lunches for preschool! More coverage to come.

Tuesday:
Workout - Workout of the Week - though I may switch this with Wednesday's workout if needed
Breakfast - Eggs scrambled with butter, add honeydew melon (on sale this week at Giant) for the girls
Lunch - Leftover crock pot ribs from Monday, baby carrots
Dinner - Leftover browned ground beef with salsa and organic sour cream over salad

Wednesday:
Workout - Tabata sprints
Breakfast - Whole milk yoghurt / blueberry smoothies, add bananas for the girls
Lunch - Veggie omelettes
Dinner - Masala chicken thighs, salads

Thursday:
Workout - Rest/play day
Breakfast - Mashed boiled eggs, add bananas for the girls
Lunch - Guacamole curried chicken salad on greens (recipe to come, hopefully)
Dinner - Snow crab clusters, with butter for dipping, and a salad

Friday:
Workout - Kettlebellin'
Breakfast - Apple slices with almond butter, cottage cheese
Lunch - Out with relatives
Dinner - Crock pot ribs with family, salads

Planned preschool lunch ideas:
Lunch #1: Guacamole curried chicken salad, baby carrots, apple, nuts (if permitted by the preschool), and maybe a little piece of dark chocolate. :)
Lunch #2: Hard boiled eggs, cubed honeydew melon and strawberries, cottage cheese, summer squash sticks with yoghurt dip.

Naming the Kettlebell

I did my third kettlebell workout this morning. In addition to the 6 minute tabata-style basic double-handed swings, I did some bicep curls, and some rows on each arm.

I'm starting to grow fond of my bell. I've the inclination to do with the bell what I do with inanimate objects that routinely improve my quality of life: give it (him/her?) a name. For example, my college vehicle, a Ford Focus, was Jerry. My beloved Canon SLR is Miriam. My 1970s-era workhorse crockpot is named Betsy, and my crockpot gifted to me only last year is named Suze.

I'm thinking "Veronica". :)


G7 Stories - Veronica Garza from G7 Athletics on Vimeo.

Shrimp, Sausage, and Summer Squash Casserole

Earlier this week, I gave a whirl to doing Mark's listed recipe from last Saturday: Shrimp, Sausage, and Summer Squash Casserole. A few adaptations (since it seems I can't resist tinkering) were made.

Here's the casserole pre-oven time.

And after baking:

Notes:

• I added about 3 handfuls of kale, ripped up into smaller bites, right at the end of the "pot cooking" phase. I also added just a little bit of blackstrap molasses and a tiny drizzle of balsamic vinegar, which added a depth of flavor.
• This was very tasty. My 3.5-year-old pronounced it "Very yummy," so I could definitely give this a go again some time. I thought that it actually tasted even better the day after, cold from the fridge (and this saves the microwave from rubberizing the shrimp in your leftovers).
• Mine was a big soggier than what I had envisioned. I suppose this could be remedied by crisping the bacon seperately, removing, sauteeing the squash in the rendered fat, and then adding the bacon back in on top at the last minute. (?) Suggestions, anyone?
• I used a whole pound of shrimp, a whole pound of sausage, and 12 oz. of uncured bacon - which was cut into little pieces with my kitchen shears to cook faster. This produced a massive dish of casserole - enough to feed us easily for two meals.
• Since my sausage was (horrors!) conventional, I precooked it and drained the fat, allowing the uncured no antibiotic no hormone bacon's fat to take center stage. (Yes, I realize still excess Omega-6's from grain-fed pork, but what am I to do with no pastured or fully organic pork products sold by my nearest grocery store?) From our current stage in life, there's still probably going to be a lot of conventionally raised animals - it's a budget thing and a logistics thing; I simply haven't yet found access to quality, affordable pastured animal products. So, with any conventionally raised meats we eat, I'll usually be trimming or draining the not-really-that-great-for-us fat (it's usually too Omega-6 heavy due to being grain-raised). With any grass-fed/pastured stuff we can find, we'll eat it up! This reminds me: I should really find us a quality fish oil to offset our excess Omega-6 consumption stat.

Mashed Boiled Eggs

The idea for these came to me by a 11/16/2009 comment by Danish (I think) commenter Budzinksi left on Dr. Harris' PaNu site . The basic idea: boil eggs. Mash'em with butter and salt, he said. Mmm! This was a winner with my husband and preschooler. Here's how I tackled it:

Mashed Hard-Boiled Eggs
*aka*
"Alas, Poor Yolk! I knew him well."
Serves 1

Ingredients
Four eggs
2 tablespoons butter, or to taste (I used salted Kerrygold)
Pepper (I used freshly ground)

Directions
Boil eggs in a rolling boil for 15 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and plunge immediately into bowl of ice water (this turns your yolks the pretty yellow instead of sulfuric grey). Shell the eggs while they are still warm, place in a bowl, mash with butter, garnish with pepper, and serve. This goes well alongside the parsnip hashbrowns.

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Whole Foods Has Grass-Finished Ground Beef at $3.99/lb., Friday, September 3 Only!

Whole Foods has a notice on its website that the store is doing $3.99/lb. GRASS-FINISHED (woo!) ground beef on Friday, September 03, 2010 only. A Whole Foods employee verifies in the comments section that this grass-fed beef is indeed grass-FINISHED beef. Remember, "Grass-fed and grass-finished are not synonymous."

Since Trader Joe's (my nearest grass-fed source, 45 minutes away) sells grass-finished ground beef at $5.99/lb., this looks like a pretty good deal.

Jump on it!

Workout of the Week

Man, I am turning out to be quite a wienie on these Workouts of the Week. This week's workout, which Mark deviously calls "Easy as 1-2-3":

1 pullup (or adaptation, based on your level of fitness)
2 pushups
3 full squats (getting your hips below your knees' standing level)

...as many times as you can, in 20 minutes. Mark noted in the comments that a very fit male should be able to do around 50 cycles of this (!!) in that time frame.

Me? 20 cycles after 16:10, at which point I stopped before I passed out underneath the pullup bar, leaving my 3.5 year old and 8 month old to fend for themselves on a public playground. I was sweating like an iced tea in the sun on the Fourth of July. My palms are slighly worse for wear - not blistered, but definitely victims of friction.

I have never - that I can recall - done a full body unassisted pullup in my life, even during my years of swimming in high school swim team. So - if Primal Blueprint Fitness ever gets me to a point of doing one Grade A genuine pullup, I might literally burst into tears of joy. But getting there requires both strength building and weight loss. For now, I'm doing Mark's suggested adaptation of "from one foot propped below, then pulled up as high as possible".

All this said, if you don't have a pullup bar at your disposal, check out one of your local playgrounds - odds are very good that even if there's no "official" pullup bar, there are enough high-up horizontal poles to serve the purpose. Go early in the morning for a vacated playground and lowest temps, but bring a towel in case you need to wipe the morning dew off the bars. Also carefully test the bar for sturdiness with respect to your body weight.