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....