Cauliflower Fried Rice = Awesometown

So...I've been looking for some new, awesome Paleo recipes and when I saw this initially I was very intrigued.  Then a girl I know that is a Paleo eater mentioned that she makes it so I thought I'd give it a whirl.  I super love fried rice but it's a big no-no on Paleo (and for my blood sugar and waistline.)  There's a ton of recipes out there and this is the one I set out to make from Nom Nom Paleo.   It looks awesome and I even bought all the ingredients (except for coconut aminos only because I didn't have time to stop at Whole Foods or Trader Joes.)  But when I went to make it last night I was really craving a very traditional, greasy Chinese food restaurant-type of fried rice so I kinda made my own.  Below is what I came up with.

**Note:  I had all intentions of taking pics but as I got into it, Emma decided to have a meltdown because I told her I wouldn't take her to Build-A-Bear this weekend.  So I was flustered, missed the pan on the stove a few times and basically my kitchen was a hot mess and I didn't want that in the pics. : )

Ingredients:
One package thin sliced pork - I then sliced it into strips
About 3/4 of a head of cauliflower (or approximately 3.5 cups once you chop it)
Green onions, about 3, sliced (white part and a bit of the green)
1/2 c. thinly sliced mushrooms
2 eggs
Soy sauce (about a tsp or however much you like)
Fish sauce (about a tsp, I just drizzled it over the rice)
1 TBSP minced garlic
1 TBSP EVOO
Minced ginger (actually, I grated mine with a microplane, about a tsp, but use more or less depending on how much you like the taste of ginger)

Using a blender (I used my Vitamix and did it in small batches), food processor or just a knife, chop up the cauliflower until it's rice-like consistency.  Scramble the two eggs and set aside.  Heat the olive oil and then sauté the minced garlic for a minute or so.  Add the sliced pork and cook until done.  Toss in the green onions and mushrooms, sauté until mushrooms are almost, but not quite, done.  Then add the cauliflower and cook approximately 5 minutes.  You want it have the consistency of cooked rice so I just kept testing it until I liked the texture.   Toss in the fish sauce, soy sauce, ginger and egg when you think the rice has about a minute left.

That's it!

You can do so much with this - add peas and carrots like they do at some Asian restaurants.  Use shrimp, chicken or no meat at all.   You can even get fancy like the above recipe (which I still intent to try.)  Let me know what you try!

Oh and you know that sinful white shrimp sauce you get at Japanese restaurants?  I fully intend to try and make a Paleo-friendly version of that because as a friend of mine said today, rice is just a vehicle to get that in my mouth!

Getting my grub on

Picking up from my last post, I wanted to share what a day's worth of food looks like for me since this is something I've gotten asked this week.  I tend to eat the same thing for breakfast, snacks and lunches for a week (dinner varies) and then move to different breakfasts/snacks/lunches the next week.  This makes grocery shopping easier (and easier on the wallet!)  Please keep in mind, I'm only going on DAY FIVE of this lifestyle change so I have limited experience besides that and the ridiculous amount of research I've done.

**Note:  I've actually lost 3 pounds this week with no cravings and I haven't been hungry!  What the what?! : )

Wednesday

Breakfast:  scrambled eggs with chopped tomatoes, fresh basil and a small amount of goat cheese

Snack:  raw almonds and some blackberries

Lunch:  small salad with lemon juice and olive oil and a Primal Hawaiian pizza (this was delish!)  I made sure the pasta sauce I bought had no soybean oil, etc. in it and the cheese I used was full fat/grass-fed

Snack:  Half of an apple with almond butter

Dinner:  Rotisserie chicken (bought already made at Whole Foods) and caprese salad

Thursday

Breakfast:  smoothie made with strawberries, ice, half a banana

Snack:  raw almonds and blackberries

Lunch:  big ass salad (spring mix/spinach, mushrooms, green and yellow peppers, tomatoes and chicken) with EVOO and lemon juice

Snack:  half an apple with almond butter

Dinner:  breakfast for dinner!  Scrambled eggs with chopped tomatoes, fresh basil and a small amount of goat cheese, two pieces of nitrate free bacon

Primal time

It's been a looong time since I've blogged so I'm not even going to attempt to catch everyone up on what's been going on in our lives since March.  I'll just start fresh.  On Monday of this week I started the Primal Blueprint diet (a variation of Paleo and even the Maker's Diet.)  I've been interested in Paleo for a while but never thought I could do it.   While I'm pretty thin, there's some areas I'd like to trim down but I'm not really looking to lose weight.  If you know anything about me, you know that I battle with stomach problems.  I also fight fatigue and low energy quite a bit.   Paleo/Primal is supposed to virtually eliminate all of these things.

So after John Spivey brought it up to me on our way back from Florida last week I dove into articles, blogs and books and decided to give it a go.  I  won't go into the details on these diets because a) I don't have time, b) it's too scientific and c) there's plenty of information out there already.  One thing I will note up front is that many people that follow Paleo are evolutionists and I certainly am NOT an evolutionist.  I'm a whole-hearted Jesus lovin', God-created-this-earth-and-everything-in-it kinda girl.  I've done the research on this and both Primal and Paleo follow a "Biblically correct" way of eating.   I do NOT want any comments on this aspect, just needed to get that out there.  : )  If anyone has questions about this Primal/Paleo lifestyle, though, I'm happy to answer.

In a nutshell, these are things I'm NOT eating:

Grains (no bread, pasta, etc.)
Legumes (beans, peanuts, soybeans, peas)
Sugar
Vegetable oils/hydrogenated/partially-hydrogentated oils
Limited dairy
Artificial sweeteners (except Stevia since it's plant-derived)
Limited salt

Here's the things I DO eat:

Meat (all variations but I try to eat organic, cage free, grass-fed varieties)
Eggs (cage free)
All non-starchy vegetables (with the exception of sweet potato on a rare occassion)
Fruits (primarily apples, berries)
Nuts (no peanuts though)
Limited dairy (full fat, raw, fermented, grass-fed varieties)
Healthy fats/oils:  avocado, real (pastured) butter, coconut/coconut oil/coconut milk, macadamia nut oil, other healthy oils and fats

Paleo is strict about dairy while Primal is "neutral."  Primal says to do what your body can tolerate, but limit dairy and make sure you're eating/consuming high quality, high fat dairy when you do eat it.   I've gotten quite a few questions about what I can eat, what a daily intake of food looks like for me, what's been the hardest to give up, etc. so I'm going to try and answer those questions:

Can you have condiments and salad dressing?
Well, yes and no.  I can eat plain mustard (I check the ingredients though) but no ketchup (has sugar) and no mayo.  Mayo is SUPER hard for me to give up so I've been researching recipes to make my own mayo with eggs and healthy oils.  I'll update when I find a good one!  I'll probably do the same for ketchup.  This week I've been putting EVOO and fresh lemon juice on my salads and I super love it.  Most salad dressings have sugar, all kinds of preservatives and unhealthy oils so those are essentially off limits.  I may look around and see if I can find something store-bought but for now, it's my simple EVOO/lemon concoction.

What has been the hardest to give up?
Probably grains.  I don't really crave sugar/sweets and honestly this week, I haven't really graved carbs either.  I've been completely satisfied. They say that's what happens, especially when you have some healthy fats in your diet!  The other thing that's hard (maybe even harder than grains) is limited salt.   I'm a salt whore.

What about Emma?  Does she eat this way too?
Not really.  When I cook, yes she's eating Paleo/Primal and I cook a lot but I don't expect a 10 year old to understand the science behind this lifestyle.  Plus, she's at her dad's some and I have no control over what she eats there.  So I definitely keep standard American diet (SAD)  food in my house for her.  My philosophy is I do the best I can to provide her with as healthy a diet as possible and that's about it!

What does a typical day of food look like for you?
This blog post has gotten a bit long so I'll save this for another one, check back soon!

Biking Days Over??

My mountain biking days may be over.  : (  For the first time in my life I have poison oak on my legs and it's spreading.  It's definitely not a really bad case of it but it's enough.   I'm itching so bad I want to claw myself to death.  I've definitely bruised my legs from scratching so hard.  I don't know if there's something you can put on your legs to prevent getting it but if there's not I think I'll give up biking.  As much as I love it and get a rush from it, it's so not worth this.  Perhaps I'm a wimp but I can live with that....just can't live with poison oak!

Sweet Moments

Two things hit me last night.  I knew both of them before and think about this a lot but it really hit me in the face last night:  there's nothing sweeter in this world than a sleeping child and a child's belly laugh.  Emma and I were in my bed last night watching each other draw pictures with our eyes closed.  When one of us would produce a snowman with his eyes on his belly and his arms completely detached from it's body, Emma would laugh so hard her face would turn red, she'd gasp for breath and let out an occasional snort.  There's something about hearing that deep belly laugh that makes me immensely happy.

Once we were done, she dozed off in my bed.  It may sound creepy but those of you that are moms (or dads) will understand, I just lied there staring at her.  Her eyes closed, slow, steady breathing, occasional mouth twitch....precious.  I literally could have sat there and stared at her for hours.  But I didn't - I picked her up (all 54 pounds of limp, dead weight!) and deposited her in her own bed and tucked that sweet girl in.  Man I love that kid.

Yes, that dirty brownish blob is Puppy.  He's baaaaaaack.

Darn Bike

So I went mountain biking on Monday evening for the first time in a few months.   It’s just been way too hot lately and I’ve also had this bike storage issue, which has just been resolved this week.  Every time I hit the trails on my bike when it’s been a while (even a few weeks), I’m shocked at how difficult it is.   I went to Horizons park, which I’ve never been to before and there was A LOT of hills.   Not only that, but it had rained the day before so it was a bit muddy.  I think I dropped more f-bombs on that bike excursion that I have in a year.   Very un-ladylike.   Actually, there was nothing ladylike about me that day.  I was literally drenched in sweat and covered in mud when I was done.   When I got home and took my clothes off to shower, there was mud and dirt all over the floor – I even had it in my hair – not sure how that happened.   Gross.

I work out a lot.  I run, strength train with a personal trainer, etc and it still kicked my ass.  When I would stop for a break (which I don’t typically have to do but since it’s a been a while, it was a necessity), I could feel the blood pulsating in my head and I thought I might have an aneurism.    I don’t even want to know what my heart rate was.

Even though I got tangled up in a few branches, ran off the trail, slung mud all over myself and even completely crashed and landed in a pile of bushes, I still didn’t think I had gotten injured.   But by the next morning I had already developed a nice big bruise on the back of my right leg.  I still think that’s pretty freaking good.   I have a few scratches here and there but they’re very minor.  I also wore padded biking shorts for the first time ever but my butt is still massively sore.   I’m sure people wonder what’s wrong with me when they see me sit down so gingerly.   Ouch.  Maybe I need a donut.

Ugly words

I caught the tail end of something on the radio while driving yesterday.  It was a newly published list of the 10 grossest words in the English language.  I can’t remember hardly any of them and my late night Googling didn’t produce the same list I heard, although I did find several other gross word lists.  The only two I can remember from the radio were “wolverine” (whaaaaa??) and “panties” (I concur).

There are a lot of words I don’t really like.  They're not necessarily all "gross", but they're just ugly words that I personally don't like.   Below are a few of them, with a bit of commentary:

1 – panties - it’s okay for little girls and, well, certain adults can get away with it but in general I don’t like the word.  It’s not “gross” but I just don’t like it.

2 – vegetable - it’s the “table” part that I don’t like…it embarrasses me to say this word.   I have to say that while I may hate the word, I love, love, love to eat them.

3 – pork - as in the meat, people.

4 – discharge - that’s just disgusting and I found it hard to even type.

5 – “stick of gum” – okay, that isn’t a word but a phrase I guess….but I hate it.  If you want gum from me (which I rarely ever have), just ask for gum, not a “stick of gum”.  Please.

6 – moist – commentary shouldn’t be required here.

7 – tank top – I know, this is about as weird as not liking the word “vegetable”.  I avoid saying “tank top” whenever possible.  I’ll shorten it to “tank” but that’s still pushing it.  I’m ready for Fall.

 There's a lot of other words out there that are just flat out gross and repulsive and I think most everyone would concur with me, but I get a lot of s*** for not liking the above words.  I guess it IS a bit odd.