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.

What the heck do you eat for breakfast?

Breakfast was the hardest meal for me when I started eating Paleo. As I mentioned in my very first post, I've had a bagel with peanut butter (or sometimes cream cheese) every morning of my entire life. Occasionally I'd branch out and have toast.

My new workday routine breakfast consists of 2 eggs (fried or scrambled in coconut oil), and a bowl of "cereal" (I think I got the idea from coach Jen). And some fish oil. If you need more vegetables in your life (who doesn't?), I've also started having a handful of spinach which I saute for a minute after the eggs are done. Sometimes I have salsa with scrambled eggs, and sometimes I add paprika or ground pepper. This whole routine takes no longer to prepare than my old breakfast, and I pack my lunch while my eggs are frying.

Pardon the cat.

On the weekend, I often make paleo pancakes or waffles. Both of these (receipes posted below) are big hits with non-paleo folk as well. I think the pancakes are better than the "regular kind" because I don't feel like I have to douse them in butter and syrup to enjoy them. The waffles are surprisingly spongey and every bit as delicious as the non-paleo kind. Bonus: they've got protein powder and 3 eggs apiece so they have 5 blocks of potein and will actually keep you full until lunch!

Paleo Protein Waffles

From "Giving Up Grains". This makes 2 waffles. I made the whole batch, ate 3/4 of one waffle, and heated up the rest in the toaster oven to supplement my breakfast for the rest of the week!

Ingredients
1/4 cup coconut flour
2 scoops of vanilla protein powder
6 eggs
2 tbs honey
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbs natural organic apple sauce (do not leave this out or they will be very dry!)
4 tbs ghee, melted (I use coconut oil)

Heat up your waffle iron. If you don't have one, it's totally worth buying! Whisk everything together. I melted the coconut oil first, but make sure you wait for it to cool because the first time I did not and it started to cook my eggs when I poured it in! The batter is a bit lumpy and strange in consistency, but I promise this does not affect deliciousness. My iron has an automatic shut off when it's done, but it's about 5 minutes. As topping I heat up some frozen berries in a saucepan with a bit of honey.


Paleo "Cereal"

You can put all sorts of things in this but here's a list of what I often add.

A spoonfull of berries, frozen (and then thawed) in the winter, fresh in the summer
Sliced banana
1/2 scoop of protein powder
A handful of coconut (toasted in the toaster oven!)
Walnuts (also toasted)
chia seeds
flax seeds

Then I mix the whole thing up with either almond milk (unsweetened!) or coconut milk beverage. Both are much cheaper at costco than at any grocery store I've seen.


Paleo Pancakes

I'm not sure where I found this recipe originally, perhaps Mark's Daily Apple blog.

Ingredients (per person)
1 ripe (or frozen) banana
BIG scoop of almond butter
1 egg
Cinnamon to taste
(you can add almond flour to thicken the batter, and I've also added a bit of protein powder).

Thaw the banana, if it's frozen, and smash it up. Whisk everything together. Fry in ghee or coconut oil. I find they take much longer than ordinary pancakes, so don't put them on too high or the outside will burn before the inside is cooked enough. Serve with berries (or syrup, if you like that sort of thing), and some blueberry breakfast sausage (way better than they sound) from Beach Road Meats on Locke St.


Egg Muffins

If you need something quick for hurried mornings, I sometimes make up some egg muffins ahead of time on the weekend. There are a million versions on the interweb (like here), but in short, you wisk up your eggs, add whatever you want in terms of finely chopped veggies (peppers, onions, spinach, etc) and meat (precooked: ham, sausage, etc), and bake in muffin tins on about 350 for 20-30 minutes. They tend to deflate a little like a souffle, but they're tasty (think mini quiche!) and can be kept in the freezer, then heated up in the toaster oven or microwave once you get to work!