Greens are better with bacon

Running uphill is not fun. It's worse than normal running. But I keep forcing myself to join the people-who-like-to-run-that's-so-weird on weekends for hill running and stair climbing, on the slim chance that it makes the flat running seem less horrendous. It might just be plain old torture, but either way my calves will look fabulous!

But you know what makes running better and most certainly improves swiss chard? Bacon. The other day I realized, as I often do, that I forgot to take meat out of the freezer to thaw. It was suggested I have bacon. I didn't feel like eggs, and I had some fresh swiss chard from Nick's house, so I made this instead.

 

It was awesome.

I've made versions of this before (chard with bacon and potatoes, chard with apples) but with this particular iteration I do think I trumped myself. It's because I put the apples and the bacon together, and added cider vinegar to cover up the lameness of greens. I was just about to write something about the balance on the palette of the sweet, salt, and acid but I stopped myself because who the heck says that? Someone who's been watching too much Masterchef, that's who.

Apple Bacon Swiss Chard

Ingredients

• 1 head swiss chard of any colour
• 1 apple, chopped
• 1 package bacon
• ~2 tablespoons cider vinegar
• garlic powder to taste

1. chop your bacon roughly into 1 inch pieces. This is actually a bit easier if your bacon is still slightly frozen
2. Cook your bacon! To the crispiness of your preference. I personally like my bacon nearly carcinogenic. Floppy bacon is just disgusting.
3. While the bacon is cooking, peel and chop your apple and prepare the chard. I chop up the stems like celery, and tear up the leaves into bite-sized pieces.
4. Set the bacon aside and drain some of the fat, leaving enough to cook your greens in.
5. Toss the apple into the pan and saute for a couple of minutes (and garlic too if you like). Rinse the chard in a strainer and add to the pan without drying completely (so the chard has some water to steam in). I added a bit of garlic powder here. The bacon was salty enough that it didn't need more salt.
6. Add the vinegar and stir the chard until it cooks down enough to put a lid on it.
7. Let it steam, stirring occasionally, until the chard stems are your desired tenderness. If it looks too soggy leave the lid off. I find the time differs depending on the freshness of the chard, how much stem there was, etc., but I saute it for around 10 minutes. Do lots of taste tests because that's a guesstimate!
8. Once cooked, top it all with the bacon and enjoy!

For the record, yes, I ate half a package of bacon for dinner, and the other half for lunch the next day. I am not ashamed.

Crispy Chicken Tenders with Dijon Dipping Sauce

I strive for alliteration in my titles, can you tell?

I have been neglecting my posting. Life is full! But that's no excuse because people need to eat, and they need paleo recipes to do so! Good thing I'm not the only paleo blogger in town or we'd all be starving  :D I do have a long list of posts in mind, and I shall endeavor to get cracking with the actual writing of them down. So, without further ado, here's one that I've made at least 5 times since taking the picture of the first try and vowing that they were delicious enough to warrant a post. Chicken Nuggets! With Dipping Sauce!! Chicken is just so boring on it's own. It needs help. Help your chicken out.

  

Crispy Chicken Tenders with Dijon Dipping Sauce

I make mine coated in almond and coconut flour. I think they would be fine with just one or the other. A word of caution about the mustard. I made it once with a mustard that had some serious nasal clearing properties, and it was a bit much. Possibly horseradish? Anyway, pre-test your mustard is all I have to say.

 

Ingredients

Tenders

• 2 boneless chicken breasts
• ~ two handfuls of almond and/or coconut flour (I use roughly one each)
• seasonings, to taste (I use sea salt, pepper, and a bit of garlic powder)
• 1 egg

Dipping Sauce

• Two parts mustard (I use French's Original Dijon with Chardonay, pictured on the right...it's lovely, and I think it's paleo but for the Chardonay. You purists will just have to make your own mustard)
• One part honey
• 1/2 part olive oil
• ground ginger, to taste
• sea salt, to taste

1. Heat some olive oil in a pan. I use a bit more than normal so that my tenders are nice and crispy!
2. Get your batter ready. Mix flour and seasonings in a bowl, and beat an egg in a second bowl.
3. Slice your chicken in nugget sized pieces.
4. Coat each nugget in egg and then the flour mixture and toss in the pan (hmm..I just wondered for the first time if it wouldn't be sensible to mix the egg into the flour to make a batter, and then toss the chicken in it to coat.....gonna try that next time....)
5. Cook until crispy on both sides. Mine are done by the time I make the dipping sauce and tend to my side dish. I always crack open the thickest nugget just to be sure.
6. For the sauce, just stir everything together, taste it, and add whatever you think it needs to be worthy of your nuggets.
7. Dip and consume!

I would have loved these as a kid...SO much better than McD's.

Conclusions from Wheat Month: only butter tarts are worth it

Wheat Month is done, thank goodness. For those of you who didn't read this post, I ate wheat every meal for the month of July in order to have a proper celiac test. I'm still waiting on the results of the test, but after eating gluten more frequently than I ever have before, I know for sure that I will be living a wheat free life from now on. Here's some things I noticed during wheat month that have contributed to this conclusion.

It seems to have made me allergic to working out. During wheat month, whenever I worked out I would get these tiny blisters all over my stomach. They were itchy and would go away a few hours later. There could be a confounding variable (heat rash?) but it never happened before, and hasn't happened since dispite lots of hot days. Who wants to eat something that gives them a rash?

Wheat makes me squishy. I didn't look much different to others (I gained <10 lbs), but I felt softer and less lean. And apparently my wheat weight all went to my thighs because my shorts got a bit tight (and my backsquat didn't go up eough to account for that!). To be fair, the wheat is not entirely to blame. I also ate a lot more sugar during wheat month becuase I was allowing myself to have every delicious thing that I could think of in case I never ate it again. I probably got half of my wheat from dessert, and I'd do it again.

Wheat destroys my will power. I don't know what it is about wheat. It's not addictive to me in the sense that I don't have sudden uncontrolable cravings. But, I did find that once I started I couldn't stop, if it was in front of me I'd eat it (the pre-dinner bread basket syndrome). I often have fairly good self control, but I would find myself eating another slice of bread or another cookie, even if I was full and didn't really want it. This resulted in guilt. When I did my first paleo challenge I finally stopped associating guilt with food after years of considering it to be the enemy. With paleo, I never felt bad about what I was eating. I'd eat as much as I wanted, and I'd stop when I was no longer hungry. The lack of guilt, and the feeling of control, are totally worth giving up wheat.

Wheat makes me slower. I'm a terrible runner to begin with, but when I was on wheat I was extra wheezy, requiring breaks even on a 400 m run. It was like my first week at CrossFit all over again.

Wheat makes me lazy. I had become used to making my own paleo bread, snacks, and treats, and enjoyed knowing exactly what I was consuming. During wheat month I was much more inclined to buy processed food than to make it for myself.

Wheat products don't taste as good anymore. Overall, I think I needed that horrible binge, where I was forcing myself to eat what products even when I didn't feel like eating them. I've long since believed that you don't need wheat in your life and that you can do quite well without it, but this convinced me that I don't really want it anymore. If you've gone wheat free and have been so for a few months, but still find yourself badly craving some of your favourites (dreaming about pizza?), I suggest you actually give them a try again. You might find that they'er not half as tasty as you remember, and that you actually prefer the more flavourful paleo alternative (and that they make you feel like poo). I ate A LOT of those former favourites during wheat month, none of them were worth it.

Except butter tarts. I will cheat once annually on butter tarts.

Sweet Potato Chili Fries

I stole this recipe from PaleOMG, although I suppose since I'm telling you this it's sharing, not stealing? Anyway, I made these tonight and they are delicious. What they lack in the crispiness of real fries they make up for in flavour.

EDIT: did you know there are sweet potatos that aren't bright orange?? I got some various brands of sweet potato from the farmers market this week, and some were purple, while some were red on the outside and white inside! These non orange sorts seemed to crisp much better (sometimes the orange ones are a bit soggy).

They don't even have any gluten in them which, since it's Wheat Month, is actually a problem right now. Which brings me to the real reason Wheat Month is going to make me fat, aside from the wheat. It's because my thought process, when I'm allowed to run about consuming wheat products at my leisure, goes like this: "Hm....what shall I have for dinner? I know, paleOMG's chili fries. Oh shoot, there's no gluten in those...." at which point I wandered around the grocery store looking for a gluten product worth consuming and left with a box of President's Choice Decadent Peanut Butter Icecream Sandwiches. I won't tell you how delicious they were because that would be mean.

NOTE: Nick points out I did not have to buy junk food to get my gluten, I could have thickened my chili with flour like a normal person. Touche. I'll remember that.....once the cookies are gone....

paleOMG's Sweet Potato Chili Fries

I did mine slightly differently than Juli (i.e., I did less work because I'm lazy). Also she somehow has sweet potatoes that aren't bright orange....dunno where to get those.

Ingredients

• One large sweet potato. Pick one that's stout and round not long and warped for optimum fry size
• Ground beef or sausage
• 2-3 tomatoes, diced
• seasonings to taste (salt, pepper, paprika, chili powder, garlic/onion powder, a dash of cayenne pepper)
• half a sliced avacado

1.  Start browning your ground beef or sausage
2. Slice your potato into fries (cut in half and quarters lengthwise, etc, until you have somewhat even fry sized strips.
3. Dust the fries lightly with olive oil. If you put too much they won't crisp.
4. Salt the fries and bake on ~400 until squishy (cooked) and then broil for a few minutes (to crisp) until your smoke detector tells you they're done.
5. Meanwhile, add diced tomatoes to the meat and season. Simmer until the tomatoes are all juiced and the chili starts to thicken again.
6. Make a nest with your fries and plop the chili in the middle. Serve with a sliced avocado to cut the heat of the cayenne and get some tasty fats.

Wheat Month

So, as I have mentioned to some of you, I'm gonna eat wheat for a month.

I'm doing this because my blood test for celiac's, which I took before I had given up wheat entirely, was inconclusive. The blood test looks for two antibodies which are present if you're celiac (and if you've been eating gluten). I was negative for the one that almost always comes with celiac disease, but positive for the one that usually but not always means you have celiac disease. As a result, the only way to know for sure is to have an endoscopy done, which looks for damage in the gut. Therefore, in order for the test to work correctly, I must damage my gut. Fun! No one knows exactly how much damage is required to avoid having a false negative test result (and if I'm going to go through this I'd rather be on the safe side!), but my doctor recommended that, since I've been almost completely gluten free, I should eat gluten for a month. At every meal.


People who follow the paleo lifestyle have asked me why I'm bothering with the test if I intend to be wheat free for life anyway. To be clear, I do intend to be wheat-free for life, regardless of the test results. I like myself better, physically, emotionally, mentally, when I'm not eating wheat. The strictness with which I adhere to this standard, however, will depend on these test results. I will always be wheat free in my home. I haven't purchased a glutenous product since before Christmas when I began the challenge (until today). There are two reasons I'm testing. The first is because if I have celiacs, I can't "cheat", and the second reason is related: convenience when eating out. If I have celiac's, I need to be more diligent in asking the server about every sauce, every burger (does it have filler?), every marinade (soya sauce?) or any number of other common menue items where wheat hides (like batter on sweet potato fries, be careful of this one!). If I don't have it, I will continue to order my burger without a bun and hope that there's no breadcrumbs lurking inside the patty. And I will continue to have a few of my mom's awesome tarts at christmas.

The effect that wheat has on me is not as instant, direct, or debilitating as it is for some. I don't get nauseous, start itching, get bloated, or have to run to the washroom immediately. My "symptoms" are more subtle. I feel less lean ("squishier"), slower, a little more tired, weaker, generally icky and all around less badass.

I also potentially do not absorb iron when eating wheat. I tested at the lowest possible healthy level before the challenge. After not eating wheat for 10 weeks (and not changing my intake of meat or leafy greens), my iron count went from 16 to 55, well within the healthy range. Iron=energy and alertness, which I like. I also was B12 deficient, although I took supplements for that right away (B12 is important for mental function!) so it's unclear whether it would have gone up on its own. My research suggests that deficiencies in these things can both be a symptom of celiacs, assuming you're getting enough in your diet, and my doctor agreed.

Anyway, I'm eating wheat for a month, for better or worse.  I went to the grocery store this week because I realized if I was going to eat wheat in every meal I should probably have some on hand. I ventured into the inner aisles and, honestly, I couldn't find a single thing that I actually wanted to buy. I craved none of it. I finally settled on some of those rainforest crisps (gourmet crackers) for snacks, and a box of granola to add to my paleo cereal or greek yogurt for my breakfast gluten serving.

I decided that if I'm going to eat wheat, it had better be the good shit. I'm not going to just load up on lame crackers and wonderbread. So I made up a wish list, which probably includes far too many pastries, of all the things I want to have during this month, just in case I can never have them again. Grilled cheese from the Bean Bar, butter tarts, bagels from Locke St, shortbread, mom's biscuits, Nick's mom's arugula pizza, oreos.....yup, I'm gonna get temporarily fat. Which will not only be unattractive, but annoying, because I just had to buy a whole bunch of new shorts for the summer because last year's pairs all just fall completely off...

I suspect that by the end of wheat month I'm going to be very glad to be returning to paleo...the thought of having to eat wheat at EVERY meal is a bit daunting and kind of grosses me out. I've just begun eating wheat again and already I've noticed some undesirable qualities. I bought some fresh egg bread from the Dundas Market today becuase it used to be my favourite. When I ate it, it was definitely delicious, but didn't give that emotional satisfaction that I was expecting (and recalled having in the past). It was kind of hard to make myself eat the whole piece, actually. But then, somehow, five minutes later I was in the kitchen getting another piece. I have no idea why, I just needed more. It was a very strange feeling, and I was left with the familiar post wheat-binge guilt.

Since going paleo I'm rarely besieged by uncontrollable cravings except the odd occasion when a particularly wonderful dessert or the smell of something freshly baked is near. And I definitely haven't felt guilty about eating anything since I stopped eating wheat. In fact, I eat whatever I want (except wheat) and as much as I want, including fat, without ever feeling like I've over eaten (except if I have wheat). Funny, that. I welcome returning to paleo for the feeling of control over my own food intake and the feeling of satisfaction without guilt of overeating.

Also, I really enjoyed the removal of the layer that was covering my abs. Probably they'll go away for a little while. See you soon, abs.


I've taken a reverse before photo and some waist measurements that I will be comparing as we go along so stay tuned. And if you have any glutenous things around the house that you want to get rid of without wasting them, I'll probably take them off your hands ;)

Cocoa Coconut Paleo Peanut Butter Cups

I love Reece Peanut Butter Cups. A lot. They were probably my favourite candy bar, and I admit to occasonally still consuming them in a bowl icecream from Coldstone Creamery. They're just so good, and really, what's a little peanut butter (and extra sugar and dairy), right?

I digress. The point is, I discovered a way to satisfy the PB cup craving (or rather, a lovely lady named Deborah discovered it, and I discovered her recipe, and now I'm sharing it with you!) without completely falling off the paleo wagon. If you want to be strictly paleo, you can use almond butter instead of peanut butter. These delightful treats are just as tasty as the original, in my opinion, and far less sugary. For reference, the original has 12 grams of carbs per cup (11 from sugar) while these have roughly 6.6 grams of carbs (< 2 from honey and the rest from cocoa, nut butter, and coconut butter...all good things!). MMmmmm healthy fats.

Cocoa Coconut Paleo Peanut (or Almond) Butter Cups
Original recipe from Deborah at blueravenwellness.com

WARNING: This is NOT ideal for a summer picnic as the coconut butter will melt. I made them on a fairly warm day and had to keep them in the fridge before serving, and they still melted in people's hands.

SUGAR NOTE: I thought these were delightful as is, but the chocolate comes out tasting like 80-85% dark chocolate, so if you're making these for kids probably I'd add a bit more honey.

EXTRA NOTE: Carrie doesn't like peanut butter and suggested caramel might be just the thing to put in the center instead. I think this is a fine idea!

¼ cup almond butter [or peanut butter if you're a Paleo slacker like I am]

4 teaspoons honey or maple syrup, divided

3 tablespoons coconut oil

½ cup coconut butter or coconut cream [I get this stuff at Goodness Me but it isn't cheap. Deborah has a note on making your own more cheaply on her site but I haven't a proper food processor so I bought mine.]

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Pinch of sea salt [I used 3-4 grinds of my mill per batch]

6 tablespoons cocoa powder

 

12 mini muffin papers

1 mini muffin tin

 

1. In a small bowl, mix the nut butter with 1 teaspoon honey or maple syrup. 

2. In a small saucepan melt the coconut oil over low heat, then add the coconut butter. Gently warm the coconut butter until it can be stirred into the coconut oil.
3. When coconut butter and coconut oil are well combined, add vanilla, remaining honey or maple syrup and a pinch of sea salt. Stir well.
4. Add cocoa powder. Remove from heat. 

 

5. Line each muffin tin with a mini-muffin paper. While it is still warm, place 1 ½ teaspoons of the coconut chocolate mixture in each paper. With the damp tip of your index finger, spread the chocolate mixture out to the sides of the muffin paper. [My mixture was much more liquidy than this and could be plain old poured]

 

5b. I had to put mine in the fridge at this point for about 20 min to solidify enough that the nut butter wouldn't sink!

 

6. Place a scant teaspoon of the nut butter in the center of each muffin paper. 

 

7. Place teaspoons full of chocolate mixture on top of almond butter. With the damp tip of your index finger, spread chocolate out so it covers the almond butter and connects with the edge of the chocolate bottom. [Again, mine was still warm enough to be poured]

8. Cool at room temperature [if you have very powerful air conditioning, or if it's winter and otherwise put in the fridge to cool until ready to serve].

9. Share with someone so you don't eat them all!

Not so boring Breaded Zucchini

I've been on a bit of a Zucchini kick lately, trying to come up with ways to make the otherwise rather bland vegetable that are more exciting than roasting **note, I considerd calling the post "Zucchini Warriors" as a shoutout to one of my favourite childhood authors, Grodan Korman, but I figured the sample size of those who would get it was small....but just know, I thought about it.

First up in the "zucchini isn't boring" series is courtesy of Nick, who suggested "why don't you bread it in some of your almond stuff." He's so smart. If I'd had parmesan and tomato sauce at the time I likely would have gone even further and made Zucchini Parmesan. But I didn't. Add that to the "pending dinners" list.

"Breaded" Zucchini
These are an excellent way to get some good, filling fats into your meal while excitifying your veggies!

Ingredients

• zucchini
• handful of almond flour
• 1 egg
• salt, pepper, and herbs if you want (I used a bit of oregano)
• olive or coconut oil

1. Slice the zucchini with the slices as even in thickness as possible
2. Heat your pan with olive oil or coconut oil
3. Whisk the egg in a bowl
4. Put the almond flour in another bowl and stir in seasonings
5. Dip the zucchini slices in the egg and then in the flour mixture (both sides)
6. Fry until the almond flour starts to brown and then flip, less than 5 minutes each side I'd say. Watch the almond doesn't burn. The zucchini doesn't take long to cook so you're just getting the batter to your desired toastiness.
7. Serve plain or with tomato sauce (and parmesan if that's your scene)

Option: Try with eggplant? I feel like eggplant is more complicated though and requires some sort of salting process so probably ask the internet before trying that....

Double Baked Chocolate Chip Cookies

I know it may appear as though I've been a total slacker in the writing department, but I promise that just isn't so! I've been spending my evenings interviewing top athletes competing in the CrossFit Games Canada East Regionals and writing up their profiles (in return for actual monies!!). It's supercool to be involved and to have the chance to give some much deserved recognition to amazing athletes like the slo-mo muscleup queen Brit Holmberg. Regionals are in Toronto May 11-13 and I highly recommend checking it out, it's going to be quite a spectacle of incredible strength and stamina including 100 lb dumbell snatches with One Arm. In.Sane. I'll be the one in the MEDIA shirt standing at the finish line with a tub of icecream ;)

To make up for my absence of late, I offer you COOKIES! If you're wondering why there are only two on the plate instead of the 30 that I made, it's because I ate the rest (well, I shared the rest at a potluck, but probably ate more than my share) before realizing with two left that I should probably take a picture and consider ermeging from my blogging hibernation.

Double Baked Chocolate Chip Cookies

These are a modification of Elana's chocolate chip cookies (notice that there were only 3 on the plate in her photo!). I subbed coconut oil for grapeseed oil in her recipe, which gives them a nice coconut flavour (you could do clarified butter instead), and I subbed honey for agave (next time I'm trying coconut sugar, I just forgot it existed this time).

Ingredients

• 2 ½ cups blanched almond flour
• ½ teaspoon celtic sea salt
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ cup coconut oil (melted)
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• ½ cup honey (I use raw! But not as much as called for, roughly 1/3 cup)
• 1 cup chocolate chips (I used half enjoy life chocolate chips, and half chopped up dark chocolate bar)
  

1. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl
2. Stir together wet ingredients in a smaller bowl
3. Mix wet ingredients into dry
4. Form 1-inch balls and press onto a parchment paperlined baking sheet
5. Bake at 350° for 7-10 minutes
6. Cool and serve

ATTENTION: YOU ARE NOT DONE!

7. This is the most important part and turns the normal sogginess of almond flour cookies into proper cookie crispiness. Once the cookies are mostly cooled, stick them back in the oven for another 3 minutes or so. Watch them closely so they don't burn, and take them out when they start to get dark edges like in the picture. You may have a row of cookies that are already browned (if your oven is like mine, it'll be the back row). Leave these ones out.

If you're skeptical about the last part, consider the difference between toasted nuts and non-toasted. Exactly.

Learning to love your leafy greens

Chicken thighs with kale

Holy crap I love kale. But before I get to the leafy greens...

I went to a stats course this week for work, and lunch was provided. I made the mistake of checking "gluten free" as a dietary restriction when I registered, and was presented with a platter of "sanwiches" made with gluten free bread. It. Is. Terrible. It has the taste and texture of styrofoam, the stuff doesn't even bend. If you've been scared away from trying to make your own paleo bread because of a traumatic experience with this sort of stuff, I urge you to give it a try. The recipes from Elana's Pantry are much, much better.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the gluten free sandwiches were also vegetarian. Us paleo folk ended up ravaging the regular sandwiches and gutting them for their protein-filled innards. Next time, I'm going to click "other" and ask them to bring me a plate of meat.

So I haven't posted in a while, because I've been occupied writing profiles for the CrossFit Games mainsite! It is MUCH harder to write about someone else and try to accurately convey their thoughts; I'm used to writing about myself, and spewing my stream of concoiusness, uncensored. But it's been a neat experience so far,  I've had the chance to talk to some pretty neat-o crossfitters. I'll probably post some sort of sum up of the Games Open at some point when I'm feeling more profound.

Pecan and coconut crusted tilapia with chard and bacon

In the meantime, all this nice weather and growing green stuff has reminded me that I've yet to share my trials and errors with the fickle task of making leafy greens taste good. And so, I present to you....

Greens. I used to hate them with a burning passion (except lettuce, which I now think is a bit of a snore. Except arugula...arugula is a badass lettuce). But now, I eat some sort of leafy green probably twice/week, and since I've sort of figured out the preparation process, I actually enjoy them! So this is a compliation of my process with various tips and options based on the green of choice.

I will preface with a link of why leafy greens are worth learning to love

Oh So Good Leafy Greens
It took me 2 or 3 tries with each kind of green to make them actually tasty and not just edible.  Probably you'll just have to give it a try yourself, and probably it will be too squishy or too tough or otherwise not quite right the first time, but here's a place to start. If you don't love them right away, don't give up. I had to force myself through several iterations of greens at first, but now I actually look forward to them!

1. Pick a green! Kale is my most favouritest. I also often make collard greens and sometimes chard. Chard is more bitter than the rest, and requires bacon to help with that (Nick's mom's idea!).
2. Heat up your pan with olive and/or coconut oil (for kale or collards). Chard option: chop up a package of bacon and fry up the pieces until crispy. Set aside the bacon and leave enough fat for your chard.
3. Meanwhile, tear the leaves from the stems (kale or collard) or chop up the whole thing (chard) into a strainer and rinse. Don't shake off too much water, the water will help steam the greens.
4. Dump the greens into the pan. It will seem like they won't fit, just pile them in anyway.
5. Stir (or really it's more of a toss) the leaves to coat with oil. When they've cooked down enough that you can fit the lid on the pan, put the lid on. Let steam for 2 or 3 minutes.
6. Add stuff. For kale and collards I add raisins and sesame seeds, and a little bit of sesame oil. I also sometimes put a bit of salt and garlic powder, depending on my mood and the saltiness/garlicness of the rest of my meal. For chard I put the bacon back in (I leave some of the bacon out for breakfasts the rest of the week!), and add garlic powder.
7. Assess your greens. They will turn bright green as they start to cook, then get darker. After I've added stuff, I check how squishy they look. If they look a bit too squishy (too much water) I leave the lid off, and if they look a bit dry I leave it on to keep in the moisture. Cook some more.
8. Taste for doneness as you go along, stirring regularly. Kale and collards will take 10-15 minutes for the whole process. Chard takes longer.

Sausage and roasted sweet potato chips with collard greens

Tips
1. All greens are better fresh. If you leave them in the fridge for too long before cooking they will end up chewy.
2. Don't try to eat the stems of kale. The stems of chard are good though and get a bit mushy like rhubarb.
3. Sometimes I let the kale overcook and it ends up kind of crispy like kale chips.
4. The raisins really balance the flavour, I think, and steaming them with the greens makes them all plump. You can also add pinenuts or almond slivers, among other things (as a garnish, so they don't get soggy).
(5. Sometimes, when feeling indulgent, I fry some diced potatoes to add back in with the chard and bacon. But don't tell the person who write's this blog, as it would be a bit contradictory, given the title)

Lessons from the games open: On disappointment and (not) meeting goals

WOD 3:
18 minutes of
15 boxjumps (24", 20")
12 pushpress (115/75 lbs)
9 toes to bar.

I finished the rather gruelling 18 minutes not feeling terribly happy, and very disappointed with my score. I went in expecting that I should be able to get at least 6 rounds, and was pushing myself to hit 7. Alas, the workout contained toes to bar......my conquered nemisis from last year came back to haunt me, and I found myself failing to complete reps (within an inch of the bar!) many (many, many) times in a row. I wasted at leats a minute trying to get one rep, and ended up 9 toes to bar short of 6 rounds. Displeased. And as I spoke to others who had completed the workout, it seemed like more of us were disappointed than were satisfied. So, I'm writing this post in an effort to turn the whole debacle into something positive, and hopefully by the end I'll have reminded myself of what's really important.

Sometimes there's an obvious explanation for why you haven't met your goal. Insufficient sleep/food/water/recovery, for instance. Sometimes you're just not feeling strong that day, and sometimes the atmosphere isn't right. But what do you do when all of these things seem to be lined up properly and you still don't manage what you expected of yourself? Here's some things I've been pondering:

Was your goal reasonable for you?
More specifically, did you set your goal based on where you are now in your training, and what you should reasonably be able to accomplish, or did you set your goal based on someone else's goal or score. Comparing myself to someone else is something I struggle with a lot. While I do find it motivating during a daily WOD to pick someone near to my level to "race" (it keeps me from slacking), it's easy to find yourself becoming frustrated when you don't beat that person. This frustration can prevent you from recognizing whatever improvements you've made since last time. Maybe you knocked a minute off of your fran time, or maybe you just completed 2 extra reps without putting down the bar. Either way, as long as you're beating your previous self, you've achieved something.

Look at the bigger picture
First of all, I'm grateful that I am able to compete. There are many of our members dealing with injuries and unable to do even that, which is certainly more frustrating than me missing 9 toes to bar. Second, if you find yourself comparing yourself to someone else, consider that it's much more satisfying (and productive!) to compare yourself to you. How far have you come? Look back in your journal (if you don't keep one, go get one right now, and start using it!) and remind yourself of where you were last year, last month, or even just last week. While I was disappointed with my score, everyone else's reaction was "That's awesome, you couldn't do toes to bar at all last year, and you just did 5 rounds of them!" And they were completely right. I've achieved a million and one goals over the last year, most of which I had never even thought to set for myself because they seemed so unatainable (I never even fathomed that I'd be one of those people whose thighs don't rub together when they walk. Seriously cool).

Don't define yourself in terms of what you aren't
I often catch myself referring to all of the things I can't do, or didn't do, and I often hear others speak of themselves in this way as well. Whenever this happens I try to remind myself of what I can do (as per the previous point), and think of everything else as things I just haven't mastered yet. Which brings us to the next point...

Learn from your weaknesses
One thing that can be said about the open is that it reveals your weaknesses. You can't skip going that day because you don't like burpees, and you can't "just pretend" you did the rep properly. Instead of being discouraged, make a list of stuff you suck at, and practice it. Do something measurable now, and test yourself again in a month to hold yourself accountable. I learned from this workout that I need to practice not putting down / letting go of the bar so often. That and I need to link toes to bar....they're obnoxiously slow with that extra swing in between...

Remember why you're actually here
At the end of the day, I do crossfit to feel good, to improve my health, and to look good naked (let's be honest). I love crossfit because it helps me achieve all these things while atually having fun (once the WOD is over, at least!) with really cool people. When I was feeling disappointed this weekend my manfriend reminded me that I'd appealed to you all to sign up for the games, regardless of skill or fitness level, to have fun, and to challenge yourself to achieve new things. Sulking about my score is not fun. So I'm going to stop doing that. I plan for WODs 4 and 5 to worry a little less, to allow myself to enjoy the experience, and try my best to compare myself to me only.

Sunday GAMES WOD day at our gym is an electric atmosphere full of effort, achievement, and unconditional support from all of our peers. I'm super excited for all of the milestones that I see my friends achieving (in particular, I can now pass my "first toes to bar during the games" crown to Carrie!). It would be a shame to miss out on the excitement over a few missed reps. After all, it's just a workout!

Super simple "cream" of mushroom soup (with Chicken!)

As a brief aside before the food part, I don't have anything particularly wise to say about games wod #2. I do however wish to point out all of the most excellent efforts that went on at my gym. The plethora of people getting new max snatches under pressure was amazing. This was just the reason I was encouraging everyone to participate! so many people ended up surpassing their own expectations and, as usual, the support from everyone was outstanding. The atmosphere on games day is my favourite thing about the whole process :) Now if only someone could give me a cure for my compulsion to check the leaderboard constantly. Also, if someone could maybe go back in time and tell me to go to olympic lifting classes a bit more regularly so I could do a 100 lb snatch that would be super.

So food.

My mom used to make this tasty dish where she threw rice, porkchops, and cream of mushroom soup in a casserole dish in the oven. I had a craving for it last week and decided to try my own version. I didn't have a recipe so there was a large risk of wasting a can of coconut milk and two chicken breasts, not to mention being left without edible dinner, but it turned out splendidly. The coconut milk as a substitute for cream was not too coconutty, as I'd feared it might be, and the mushroom flavour was lovely.

"Cream" of mushroom soup with Chicken (and possibly "rice")

The prep for this is really quick, but you do have to leave it in the oven for a while. If I'd had more prep time I would have added cauliflower rice to the casserole but I was in a hurry.

Ingredients
2 chicken breasts, boneless/skinless (I think porkchops would also be yummy)
1 can coconut milk (and equal part water)
lots of mushrooms (I used cremini)
green pepper (or red, or some other vegetable you think might taste good)
salt and pepper to taste
garlic and onion powder, also to taste
green onions (would have added them if I'd had any)
cauliflower, riced (optional)

1. In a casserole dish, mix the coconut milk and water (less or more water depending how thick you like your soup). Use a dish of a size that the chicken/chops will be covered by liquid.
2. Chop up the mushrooms and green peppers and add to the casserole
3. Season with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder. Stir it up and add the chicken breasts.
4. If you want "rice", mulch up your cauliflower and add it too. I haven't made the dish with the cauliflower rice before, so I'm not sure about how much to add to keep the liquid ratio optimal. I think it would taste lovely though. Let me know if you try it!
5. Bake at about 350 for 30-40 minutes depending how thick your meat pieces are.
6. I think some green onions would garnish the dish nicely, but I had none.

Lessons from the games open: Strategy, pacing, and intensity

Dear Brain,
The workout is over, please stop dreaming of burpees. Seriously, it's done.

For anyone who doesn't know, the first workout of the Crossfit Games Open was burpees. For 7 minutes. I have never thought so much about burpee technique. This morning while I dozed before my alarm I was still dreaming about the stupid things, and today I tried to do one in the warmup and had to actually talk myself into it.

People were complaining that the first workout was too boring or simple etc. etc. I actually thought it was perfect. Everyone can do a burpee, so everyone can get a score, and it's a pure, simple test of endurance with a side of will power.

I did my burpees on Friday. I was aiming for at least 80, with a bonus goal of 90. I had it all worked out how many I needed to have at the end of each minute (12 or 13 per min to get 84 or 91 respectively). I had a chart in chalk on the floor in front of me and everything. After the first minute I had done more than I needed (15) so I paced myself a bit, ending up with, in each minute, 15, 14, 11, 11, 12, 11, 13 = 87. I was pretty pleased, but felt like I wasn't quite as exhausted as everyone else and probably could have pushed harder. The fact that I was immediately willing to do it again confirmed this. So, to repeat the strategy or to try something new?

In the interest of science, I decided to try again on Sunday and dispense with the pacing strategy. This time, I turned away from the clock, I didn't let my judge tell me how many I'd done, and I went balls out as fast as I could. This time: 16, 12, 13, 11, 11, 13 = 96 (!)

For a bit of background, I'm a pace it sort of person. I'm willing to use all the gas in the tank when there's a team win on the line, but normally I'm not in the business of having to puke/cry at the end. I really didn't know what was going to happen if I just went as fast as possible for the whole time. But, obviously, it worked! Notice that my last 3 minutes were almost identical in each trial. This suggests to me that a person's "tired" burpee pace (ie, the pace you settle in to for the second half) is the same no matter how hard you work in the first half, so you might as well get as many done in the beginning as possible. Coach Jen tried to tell me this, of course, but sometimes one has to experience these things first hand to believe it. This was really an eye opener for me, not only because pacing did not help me, but because I found I could get through it without taking a break. No wandering around in a circle, no sips of water, just keep moving. There are obviously exceptions to this: heavy lifting requries concentration, and sometimes you just plain max out. Also, the lenght of time matters...I don't think I could have kept going at that pace for 10 minutes, say. But for bodyweight movements it's balls out from now on. (Side: Why are all the good phrases to do with male body parts? I suppose tits out just sounds too crass...)

Experimental conclusion: Intensity > pacing (9 extra burpees = 3624 spots in the ranking. There are a LOT of people in the middle of the pack!)

Side conclusions:
1. Not eating for 4 hours beforehand effectively eliminates the desire to puke afterward. Noted.
2. I do not need a sip of water nearly as often as I think I do. I will not dry up and crumble like overdone cookies.


Oh, speaking of ranking and numbers. Last year a fellow stats nerd/crossfitter, who also happens to be called J Young, kept a blog where he analyzed data extracted from the leaderboard (age, weight, height, gender). He was looking for biases in age and body type, and has some really cool data to show that the open last year was actualy quite fair; those nearest to the "ideal" BMI, which was the easiest metric to compare across body types, scored similarly regardless of height and weight. Various advantages for small and large people sort of balanced out in the end. I badly want to play with the data from this year, but I have no idea how to write the code to scrape the data from the website (my friend assures me it's too tedious to bother). Fortunately, some other fellow nerds are already on the job, and plan to make it available, because math nerds are such helpful folk. So, soon I will have NUBMERS and then I can do MATHS on the NUMBERS and answer all of your burning questions (and make some pretty pictures too!) Mmmmm data, I am very excited.

Check out his statistical summary from last year

IMPORTANT PS!! Thanks SO much to everyone who was cheering, you kept me going just that bit faster. What an electric atmosphere with amazing people. Can't wait for next week!

Paleo Chinese food SUCCESS! Lemon chicken and Mushroom fried rice

My apartment is right next to a chinese food restaurant. And this place serves Seriously Good Chinese food. If it were gross, I could ignore it, but try having to walk past the smell of Seriously Good Chinese food wafting at you every time you come home, and then having to go inside and cook something for yourself that probably won't be quite so Seriously Good. This is after convincing yourself to pass by the Seriously Good Burrito place that's in between my apartment and where I park my car.

Because of this, I have been attempting to make my own lemon chicken since I moved here. And not some healthy smealthy lemon and rosemary seasoned grilled chicken breat with a side of steamed green beans. I'm talking about the kind with the weird, gelatinous, gloopy sauce that you just know is full of who knows what but is still somehow the most appealing thing ever dispite its weird gloopy nature. Well folks, after some disasters whereby I misunderstood the properties of arrowroot powder, I have succeeded, and it is glorious, because not only did I manage to make credible lemon chicken that made Ashley go "Tastes like Chinese food!", but I also made almost-actually-fools-you Mushroom Fried "Rice" to eat with it. You're welcome.

I can't take full credit for these recipes. I went searching for a recipe for chicken fried rice and found this wonderful entry at Paleo Effect. I modified their rice recipe a tad, and adapted their General Tso's Chicken recipe for the lemon chicken. Their wonderful guidance was what I was missing in my attempts to make sauce thickened with arrowroot. Previously, I was trying to make the sauce and then add the arrowroot near the end. Don't do that, everything goes sloooooop and blobs up into jello-like lemon clumps instead of sauce. And it's not as tasty as jello...

Lemon Chicken

Ingredients
2 chicken breasts, chopped into bitesized pieces

Batter:
2 tablespoons arrowroot
one egg
salt (the recipe called for coconut aminos, which is a soya sauce substitute, but darned if I know where to find these, other than ordering them)

Sauce:
2 tablespoons arrowroot
1 tablespoon honey
3 tablespoons coconut sugar (or more honey?)
~2/3 cup lemon juice
1/8 teaspooon ground ginger
1 tablespoon vinegar
salt (or coconut aminos) and garlic powder to taste

1. Stir up the chicken cubes with the batter, and fry in some oil (I used olive) until cooked and set aside.
2. Whisk the sauce ingredients together and pour into the hot pan. Stir for a couple of seconds and it will start to thicken right away (when it starts to boil I think?).
3. Add the chicken back in and stir the gloopy goodness all together.

Paleo Mushroom Fried "Rice"
This is a tasty stand-alone version of the plain cauliflower rice I normally make for stiring in with curries and other such runny sauce things. The oil combination isn't important, except for the sesame oil, which gives it the Chinese food vibe.

Ingredients
1/2 head cauliflower (makes enough for 2-3 servings)
lots of cremini mushrooms (or whatever sort you like)
sesame oil
coconut and/or olive oil
garlic/onion powder
salt to taste (or coconut aminos if you have them) and pepper

1. Chop mushrooms fairly small and sauté in some olive oil with garlic and onion powder and sea salt.
2. In the meantime, mulch up your cauliflower (I have a hand crank food processor, or use an electric one. There are also things called "ricers", apparently, or if you don't mind a mess you can just chop it up but there will be cauliflower everywhere, fair warning).
3. Add the "rice" in with the mushrooms once they're good and sautéd. Add a generous helping of sesame oil, and I also added some coconut oil for extra moisture. Add more salt and pepper if needed. I like salt.
4. Stir intermitently and fry until it's the desired tenderness. The original recipe also added a beaten egg and stirred that in but I left it out.

Serve together with the lemon chicken! Or apart, however you feel about these things.

I plan to try this next with orange juice on the chicken instead of lemon, stay tuned!

Creamy chicken avocado alfredo

I'm newly obsessed with the song "A Warrior's Call", by a Danish band called Volbeat. I've never heard of them before, but apparently they've been around since 2000 (says Wikipedia). Every time this song comes on the radio I feel a strong urge to get to the gym and lift/throw heavy things. My friend points out that while he wouldn't have thought of it on his own, it seems somehow fitting that the perfect crossfit anthem would be by a Scandinavian metal band. I'm going to have to add it to the request list for the Games workouts.

In other news, avocados are super! So versatile. When it was suggested to me that one could use them as a base for a creamy pasta sauce, I was sceptical, but it turned out to be delicious! The avocado somehow simulates the creaminess of a proper alfredo, it's marvelous. I cobbled together several internet-searched recipes and ended up with this pesto-alfredo hybrid. I ate mine over zucchini noodles but I think it would go well with spaghetti squash as well. Oh! OR perhaps as a cold salad with cucumbers and cherry tomatos...must try that.

Creamy chicken avocado alfredo
All of the sauce ingredients are to taste. I fail at measuring stuff. For the pesto I used my hand crank processor, which worked well. An electric one would have made it all smoother but I think I like the texture. This made enough for 2 meals.

Ingredients

2 chicken breasts
Garlic/onion powder, salt and pepper, and olive oil for the chicken
3 small zucchinis (or enough for two servings of noodles) (or spaghetti squash)

For the sauce:
1 ripe avocado
a small handful of fresh spinach
basil (I would have used fresh but I only had dried)
a good squirt of lemon juice (2-3 tablespoons, roughly?)
a smaller squirt of lime juice
olive oil (maybe a tablespoon)
some crushed walnuts for texture (about 2 tablespoons)
1 clove of garlic, chopped or minced
salt to taste

1. Chop chicken into bite-sized pieces. Season with salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic, etc, and saute in some olive oil.
2. If you're making zucchini noodles, boil some water, and cook them for about a minute and drain. I normally just let my sauce cook them, but this sauce isn't heated.
3. Meanwile, dump all of the pesto/alfredo ingredients into a food processor and blend well. I may have accidentally knocked some parmesan cheese in there as well...
4. Toss the sauce with the chicken and noodles and enjoy!

Warning: the internet says not to heat the avocado sauce, so if you made enough for leftovers, set aside your sauce separately and reheat the chicken/noodles on their own.

Stuff I've baked that tastes good

Last weekend, my sister made me THE BEST paleo birthday cake OF ALL TIME. This is not an exaggeration. In light of this confectionary wonder, I've decided to share some recipes for paleo baked goods that I've tried and that have actually turned out (wonder of wonders!) Actually, I suspect that paleo baking is actually easier than regular baking; it seems to be less of a science, and more "stir stuff together and stick it in the oven". The toughest part is finding some of the strange paleo ingredients that I'd never heard of before (I still don't know what coconut palm shortening is).

Anyway, here is the German Chocolate Cake Jess made me (from Elana's Pantry), after we ate some of it. It has coconut pecan frosting. You heard me. coconut. pecan. Frigging amazing.

Jess said she had a lot of trouble with the consistency of the frosting (too drippy) and so the weight of the top layer squished out the filling. The corrective process involved mom holding the top layer up while Jess stuffed the filling back in and pasted the whole thing with a layer of chocolate icing. Ashley says this surgical process can be avoided by first building a "dam" of icing around the edge of your bottom layer before putting the filling and the top layer on. I don't care how it happened, I just know it was delicious. The chocolate cake is as fluffy and moist as it looks. And then I proceeded to eat one of mom's very not paleo made from scratch biscuits. It was totally worth it. I have no regrets.

Coconut Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
I've also made these really yummy Coconut Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins from Multiply Delicious. They're a super tasty snack and actually taste like real muffins. Although when I said this to Ashley, she suggested that we don't really know what real muffins taste like anymore. Valid point, but I've decided that it doesn't matter, so long as in my mind this is how muffins taste now. And that taste is delicious.

Ingredients
6 eggs
1/3 cup coconut milk
1 tablespoons maple syrup (optional)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup coconut oil, melted
3/4 cup coconut flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 3 bananas)
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips, plus additional for sprinkling on tops of muffin

Preheat oven to 400. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners.

In a large bowl, combine eggs, coconut milk, maple syrup, sea salt, and vanilla extract. Whisk to combine and set aside.

Sift coconut flour (I never actually sift, because I'm lazy, and I don't have a sifter), baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon into the wet ingredients. Whisk vigorously until no lumps remain. Stir in melted coconut oil until well combined. Fold in banana and chocolate chips until incorporated (exactly how many words are there for "stir"?).

Using a large ice cream scoop (or a spoon??), add one level scoop to each muffin cup. Sprinkle each muffin with a few additional chocolate chips. Bake muffins for 15 to 18 minutes or until muffins are golden and spring back when pressed gently. Once baked, cool for 10 minutes.

Paleo Gingerbread Cookies
I made these at Christmas for our paleo cookie exchange and they were a big hit. Or at least, everyone said so, and I don't think they were lying. Zoey the dog tried to swallow a Christmas tree cookie whole, if that's any evidence. On a side note, when I went to buy molassas, I had no idea what the difference was between the regular kind and "fancy" molasses. Apparently fancy is better. I did not buy the fancy, but it still worked. This recipe is pasted from Modern Paleo Warfare but came from the book Make it Paleo.

Ingredients

1/2 a cup of molasses or maple syrup
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
3 tbsp palm shortening
1tbsp coconut milk
3 cups blanched almond flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon (I added more)
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda

Preheat the oven to 350F.
Heat the molasses in a sauce pan then add the maple syrup, palm shortening and coconut milk to the sauce pan. Stir, then remove from heat (My second batch of cookies burned in less time than the first took to bake, and I think it may be that I heated my molasses too long here?). Mix the dry stuff together then into the wet stuff until it looks like fully blended batter. Stick the dough into the fridge for about 20 mins (I left it a bit longer) then roll it out to about a quarter inch thickness. The dough cut with cookie cutters surprisingly well and didn't fall apart during transfer. Bake on parchment paper or cookie sheet.

Paleo Buttercream Icing
I found this recipe here at "The Label Says Paleo". It went well on the cookies, although I added way more coconut sugar than suggested. It piped well though (with my dollar store icing bag!), but needed to go into the fridge to harden.

Whisk in a bowl:

1/2 c. coconut butter
1/4 c. coconut milk
1/8 c. palm sugar
sprinkle of arrowroot powder

Feel free to play around with these measurements to your liking. Whisk for awhile–at least 5 solid minutes–but even if the icing is lumpy, it’ll taste good. I added red or green food colouring to be festive, and it worked nicely.

Spicy Citrus Coconut Chicken

I started out thinking I would make a creamy mushroom sauce for my chicken. But then I remembered I had some clementines threatening to shrivel, and no body wants to waste a good clementine (don't you hate when you pick one up that looks great on one side, just to find that it's covered in blue mold on the underside and threatening to contaminate the rest of the basket with its grossness?). So, I ditched the mushrooms, kept the creamy sauce part, and came up with this delightful concoction, if I do say so myself. It looks a little bland in colour because by the time I remembered about the red peppers I had planned to add, everything else was all ready. Also, I forgot the ginger, and felt the whole thing was slightly lacking, but I added it to my leftovers, and happily my lunch the next day was more complete. Ginger is always a good idea. Like bacon. Except bacon jelly beans, seriously, don't do it.

Spicy Citrus Coconut Chicken (with Cauliflower Rice)
This made 3 meals for me

Ingredients
1 can coconut milk
2 large chicken breasts
~ 3 tablespoons lime juice
~ 6 clementines (4 juiced, 2 for garnish)
~ 2 teaspoons chili flakes (more or less depending on your level of spiciness)
fresh ginger
a pinch of cumin (if you like that sort of thing)
1/2 head of cauliflower
leaks or onion
other veggies? (red bell peppers or snap peas, mayhaps?)

1. Sear the chicken breasts on both sides in olive/coconut oil for a couple of minutes and set aside.
2. Chop and saute the onion or leaks briefly. Also saute sliced peppers here, like I forgot to do.
3. Add coconut milk, ginger, lime juice, clementine juice, cumin (optional), salt to taste, and chili flakes. I recommend adding a small amount of the chili flakes at a time and taste testing, because the hotness seems to intensify as you go along. I put a bit too much for my liking.
4. Put the lid on and let simmer while you "rice the cauliflower" in your handy dandy hand crank food processor, or your electric one if you're one of those fancy folk.
5. I added my cauliflower to the sauce at this point to let it cook. Ashley tried this recipe after smelling my leftovers, and cooked hers a bit separately first with some chicken broth, then added it to the sauce at the end. Either way, the point is to get your cauliflower cooked somehow, so long as it ends up in the sauce at the end, because I've decided it's better that way.
6. Slice the chicken into bite sized pieces and add back into the sauce to finish cooking.
7. Add some clementine wedges, if you please, and serve! Ashley also added orange juice to her sauce concoction, by the way, and something else but I don't remember what....hm....oh well!

New Year's Life Resolution: Sign up for the CrossFit Games Open

Or, more generally, come up with something that you think is probably too hard for you. Then try to do it anyway.

The first round of the Games will start in a month. Five weeks, five workouts, ANYONE can do it, and I am devoting this entire post to convincing you to sign up and compete. There are three main categories of responses to that statement.

1. I have no idea what you're talking about.
2. Duh, obviously, I'm already registered.
3. Don't be ridiculous Jen, I'm nowhere near that level yet.

If you're number 1, probably we haven't spoken lately, or you got here through google. Well, keep googling, the internet will tell you all about it! Then come back.
If you're number 2, you don't need convincing, so.....I guess that's all the advice I have for today :D

If you're number 3, and if you're like I was one year ago when coach Jen told me I should sign up to compete in the CrossFit Games Open, you're thinking there's no way. You're not fit enough, you rarely if ever do the workout prescribed, you never come close to the folks on the leaderboard, and when you begin the day's workout you expect to take at least 5 minutes longer than the slowest person on the board so far (I was consistently slowest for probably a year, don't fret, as long as you're working hard you're making progress, even if it doesn't seem like it. You'll notice all of a sudden one day).

But Jen didn't seem concerned about any of these things and so, somehow, she convinced me (something about contributing to the team score, although I wasn't totally convinced my score was worth contributing!). So, with no idea whether or not I'd be able to complete any or all of the workouts, I signed up, and set the lofty goal of getting to the end without being disqualified (i.e., get at least 1 rep in each workout). At the risk of spoiling the story, I will tell you that I did manage this goal, and ended up achieving far more than I ever would have without the motivation of competition. And, unexpectedly, it was actually fun! Convinced yet? No? Perhaps some details will help.

WOD 1: 10 min AMRAP of 30 DU, 15 power snatch (75/55)
I could just barely do both of these things, so that was fine, but this workout was challenging in a different way for me because I was out of town the whole week. Not one to give up my $10 registration fee so easily, I found a gym near where I was (CrossFit AI in Calgary), asked if I could come on by, and showed up terrified that they would expect some sort of hotshot out of town competitor and be sorely disappointed. On the contrary, everyone there was very welcoming, and they shouted encouragement, as I sputtered and wheezed, just as they did for their own members. I even had a complete stranger sharing with me his story as a newbie to crossfit, and how he was looking forward to graduating from lady pushups to real pushups! It was great to see that wherever you go there will be a great community of crossfitters.

WOD 2: 15 min AMRAP of 9 deadlifts (155/100), 12 pushups, and 15 boxjumps
I hate boxjumps. So much. And at this point I was still doing lady pushups, so it must have been painful for my judge to watch me have to rest in between every try at a real pushup. But, again, I could do all of these things, and something about the knowledge of having to write my score on the internet for all to see made me push myself harder than I ever have. That was the closest I've come to puking since the great "Barbara"-wod-too-close-to-green-beans-snack incident. Word to the wise: get up early to eat your breakfast, and ensure digestion before you begin. There's nothing worse than having to slow down for fear of hurling.

WOD 3: 5 minute AMRAP of squatclean and jerks (155/110)
Uh Oh. This was the first real hurdle to my goal of not being disqualified. I'd been at an 85 lb wall on cleans for months. So, I had a week to get to 110. Nobigdeal. By some miracle, and with the help of some excellent coaching from coach Jen (push off through your heels!), and some advice from Brit ("Srsly Jen, just walk up to the bar and pick it up", which is surprisingly good advice as it turns out), I actually managed to pick up the thing! Getting it over my head was another miserable matter that didn't happen for several more months, but fortunately the clean part was worth 1 point so (phewf!) I was still in the game.

WOD 4: 10 minute AMRAP of 60 bar facing burpees (and hops), 30 overhead squats (120/90), 10 muscle ups
So, obviously I couldn't do a muscle up (still can't, all in good time). I therefore did 60 leisurely burpees before attempting the squats, which were probably 20 lbs over my previous max. I managed to do a few squats at that weight in practice, but after the burpees I was too tired and kept toppling over. So my score was not stellar, but PR's during practice still count, so add one more to the list of PR's!

WOD 5: 20 minute AMRAP of 5 power cleans (145/100), 10 toes to bar, 15 wallballs.
Ok, so I'd figured out the clean part (see wod 3), but I hadn't managed a toes to bar. Come wod time, I took probably 3 minutes to get 5 successful cleans. Then, I spent 17 minutes practicing toes to bar, and in that time, I got two. Plus about 100 failed attempts. But darn it, I'd actually done one! By the end of those 17 minutes, a little cheering squad had formed. They groaned with disappointment every time I missed, and when I finally got one we were so excited you would have thought I'd just won the whole competition. This is what I love most about CrossFit, everyone helps you celebrate your achievements no matter how small.

WOD 6: 7 minute AMRAP of thrusters (100/65) and chest to bar pullups
Chest to bar. Really? Sigh. While the thursters were no problem (well, they were still pretty tough, but doable), I hadn't ever done a chest to bar. Once again, I spent the rest of my 7 minutes trying, and I even got a couple with a strange hybrid kipping pullup and donkey kick thing.

End result: NOT DISQUALIFIED, and I even didn't finish last! (I was 4th last in the Canada East, but that's not counting all of the people who dropped out :P)

Anywho, so there's my recap. That was really long. If you're still reading, my appologies, IOU some minutes. But hopefully anyone who is feeling shy about signing up will see that there's nothing to lose and a crud ton to gain. If I'd continued with my attitude of "I won't do well, therefore I shant bother", I would have missed out on FOUR PR's, not to mention the incredible experience of competition in a friendly, encouraging atmosphere. Everyone was pushing me to try harder, but I never once felt like would be disappointing anyone if I didn't manage to complete a move.

So if you sign up, I personally promise to start a cheering squad for whatever move you find toughest. And even if something comes up that you've never done, and you work towards it for the week and still don't get it, big whoop. You'll certainly be futher ahead than you were before you tried.

I saw an appropriate mantra on Modern Paleo Warfare: "No matter how slow you're going, you're still lapping everyone on the couch."

Toasty Paleo beverages for some not so toasty weather

So winter happened this week! I LOVE SNOW!!! Except on my car, I don't like it there. Or in my parking space, which is on the street, because if I go to the trouble of shoveling it out, someone else will certainly steal it before I get home >:| But I do love snow, especially for skiing or snowman building. Did anyone else ever make forts using bricks made of the ice layer that formed on top of fluffy snow? You know, the kind where it's a foot of fluff underneath but super cruncy on top, so when you walk you make giant crators of broken ice, and your foot sinks all the way down so you have to lift your feet super high and it takes forever to get to school? No? Well then. At any rate, I've been waiting for some cold weather to try out some toasty hot paleo beverages.

Paleo hot chocolate is super easy and super scrumptious! In the picture is a carton of coconut milk beverage, but I much preferred it with almond milk (unsweetened). Paired with a bowl of fresh raspberries it was a perfect dessert. I also just recently (as in, this minute) discovered chai tea latte with almond milk. I have a chai spice mix, but the internet is abound with recipes to make your own, or I suspect you could just plop a chai tea bag or two in your heated milk.

Paleo Hot Cocoa

1. Heat almond milk in a saucepan on the stove. I'm not sure if it will boil over all of a sudden like cow milk does, but as I'm not willing to find out, I stirred regularly. The internet says you can heat it in the microwave on low in 30 second intervals, stirring in between. I haven't got a microwave so you'll have to take the internet's word for it.
2a. Whisk in some cocoa until chocolatey enough, and stir in a spoonful of honey until it's de-bittered enough. I got my honey (raw unpasturized) from the Hamilton Market.
OR
2b. Stir in a square or two of dark chocolate until melted.
OR
2c. Try a chai latte recipe or any other hot beverage and tell me how it goes :) I just had a thought: toasted coconut in a teaball to add the flavour to the hot cocoa without making it lumpy. Must try.

3. Here's a recipe for coconut milk whipped cream to put on top. There's also a recipe for homemade paleo marshmallows from the Urban Poser but I haven't mustered up the ambition to try either yet. Let me know how it goes if you do!


PS to anyone from my elementary school, remember when we used to be allowed to slip and slide on the icerink that always formed in the drain ditch, before old-grouchy-man-whose-name-I-don't-remember came along and threw salt on it? What a party pooper.

Banana Curry Chicken on Cauliflower Rice

You know what's awesome? Cauliflower rice. You know what else is awesome? Kitchen gadgets that can chop the cauliflower without it flying all over the kitchen. The first time I made the stuff I tried just chopping it, with the result that I had to actually sweep the floor afterward. I also tried grating on the mandoline, but cauliflower is too structurally unsound and, again, ended up all over the kitchen.

BUT THEN for Christmas mum got me a hand crank food processor thinger, in which the cauliflower was contained while I mulched it into rice format. AMAZING! Also, much cheaper than the fancy electric food processors.

Cauliflower rice is a really excellent substitute vessel for your meats and sauces. The texture is similar to rice, and it soaks up sauce flavours nicely so that the cauliflower taste is not overpowering (which is good, because I happen to think cauliflower is gross). It's also easy to make, albeit quite messy without the proper tools (thanks mom!!). I've tried it with a few different curries. I hadn't ever made curry in my previous life so I'm still trying to find a recipe that tastes as good as my favourite Indian restaurant (next time, I'm trying something with pineapple!). This recipe is the best one I've found so far, and was pretty darn tasty. Original recipe here.

Banana Curry Chicken

Ingredients
Sliced veggies (bell pepper, carrots, zuccini, etc)
Chicken breasts
Sea salt and fresh ground black pepper, to taste
1 large banana, peeled
1/2 cup light coconut milk
2 large scallions, sliced
1 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground cayenne pepper
1 tbsp grated fresh ginger
Fresh chopped cilantro, for garnish

1. Preheat oven to 425ºF. Place sliced vegetables and a chicken breast on a piece of foil. Season chicken with salt and black pepper.
2. In a blender (or with a fork), add banana, coconut milk, scallions, curry powder, turmeric, cinnamon, cayenne pepper and ginger and process (smoosh) until smooth. Pour banana-coconut milk mixture over each chicken breast, dividing evenly. Seal foil packets, place on a rimmed baking sheet and cook in oven for 22 to 25 minutes. Set aside to cool for a few minutes before opening. (NOTE: I had to cook mine much longer, perhaps they were thicker).

Cauliflower Rice

Mulch up some cauliflower until it's the size of rice grains. As per the discussion above, I recommend some sort of food processor. I haven't tried the blender but it might do. Heat a generous amount of coconut oil in a pan. Stir in the cauliflower to cover with oil. Cook with a lid on medium-low, stiring occasionally, until the cauliflower is the desired squishiness. I do mine for 15 minutes or so.