Category: Paleo Primal
Paleo / Primal On the Go. Grand Rapids 01142014
January 16, 2014
One of the things I’m plan on being very conscious of in 2014 is the choices I make around food and fitness, more fully live the “paleo lifestyle” of what I eat, how I sleep, lifting heavy things, managing stress. A key to this is making better and more mindful choices as I travel. Recently, a Facebook friend asked how I manage paleo eating while traveling. From that question, I realized I could force myself accountable on my trips via this blog. I would not only make better decisions, and might help others as they tackle the same decisions and choices.
My plan to is capture what I eat and drink along with how I handle (or avoid) activity, fitness and workouts while I travel. As you read these posts keep a couple of things in mind. First and foremost, I am not, nor ever will be 100% paleo compliant. I routinely use heavy cream in my coffee and enjoy butter. At home I stick to grassfed dairy. On the road this is difficult. I avoid all vegetable oils at home, sticking to butter, ghee, olive oil, tons of coconut oil, palm oil, and bacon grease in cooking. I make homemade olive oil mayo and all salad dressings. On the road, I eat out and while I do attempt to avoid inflammation causing vegetable oils (soybean, canola, peanut, etc.), they are an inevitable part of my diet. I refuse to lose sleep over this.
Oh, and I work for a beer company and love beer. So you’ll see beer and ciders. I’ve found if I avoid all other gluten, I don’t have any real effects outside of some temporary bloat. I understand that beer is not paleo or primal, and can be a major problem for those who are more gluten sensitive.
That said, here’s my most recent trip – a one nighter to Grand Rapids.
Had a nearly 3 hour layover at O’Hare. With exception of the time spent eating, I typically spend my airport time walking around the terminals, right up until boarding time. Podcasts and Pacing is how I put it.
As my instagram followers saw, O’Hare is one of my least favorite airports to fly through – both for the number of cancelled flights I seem to get and for the general airport amenities and food options. For lunch here I went with a Gyro “sandwich ” – telling them to skip the pita, and I added a side of veggies. Ate just the meat and a bit of the tzatzaki along with the veggies.
Meet up with co-workers for a pre dinner drink, and enjoyed a Crispin Cider. How nice that the lobby bar’s blue glow matched the label.
Dinner was a NY Strip with some veggies – asparagus, carrots and mushrooms. Skipped the starches and any alcohol, instead drank San Pellegrino.
Back in the room, I ate the turn down “dream bar” along with an orange from the concierge lounge (forgot to shoot the orange). The turndown bar is the smaller version pictured below. This is JW Marriot’s new specialty turndown item. I’m kinda meh on it. Has oats, chia, berries and dark chocolate. I’d so much rather just have a small square of dark chocolate.
Some stats for the day…according to my Fitbit tracker, I’d walked 13,726 steps/6 miles and burned nearly 2900 calories on this day. I had done a 30 minute “Body Pump” workout in the morning, but that was only around 200 calories of that. Walking as much as possible in my day is important. Airports and airport wait times are great for this!
The following morning I had my typical concierge lounge breakfast. Scrambled eggs, bacon and some berries. My coffee had half and half.
Lunch was with a client and the account team. I ordered the restaurant’s chicken salad, and asked for it on greens versus a sandwich or wrap. Not olive oil mayo, but whatever.
Late afternoon, early evening was back in an airport. This time a 2 1/2 layover in Cleveland. I like how they encourage travelers to walk. And walk I did, hitting all terminals at least once (A, B,C, and D) and a couple of them multiple times. I paced around my gate as boarding got close, but never did sit down, except while eating dinner. (Yes, I check my bag, just easier on the walking, but do wear a laptop backpack.)
Dinner was at the airport’s version of Chipotle/Qdoba. A bowl with double meat (pork and chicken), a small amount of white rice and black beans (yes, I know, not paleo) , lettuce, pico de gallo and hot salsa. Water to drink.
On my flights, I do not eat the peanuts, pretzels or other snacks. Thankfully, I’m not a real snacker. I always drink Club Soda as my beverage choice.
Fitbit stats for that day – despite sitting in 6 hours of meetings, 14,848 steps/ 6.49 miles walked, 2774 calories burned. Compare this to Monday which was an office day 6132 steps and 2249 calories burned. Airport walking. Do it!!!
Whole30 Week 1- whole lotta cooking going on
January 9, 2012
Tuesday night I made Braised Chicken Breasts with 40 cloves Garlic, a Rachael Ray recipe, leftovers were my dinner on Thursday. To make the recipe 100% Whole 30 compliant, I used ghee instead of butter and de-glazed the pan with chicken stock rather than Marsala. Still very, very yummy, However, I do believe the Marsala adds a richness to this dish, and will use Marsala in future. My kiddo was excited to see me starting to cook the “chicken with the crunchy skin”. If you make it, brown them well, and make sure the stock/braising liquid stays below the crispy skin.
Wednesday and Thursday I was at the mercy of restaurants, hotel food, meeting catering and stashes of food I either brought or obtained while on a business trip. This reliance on what I have available is where I’ve had problems with compliance in paleo/primal eating (and when I was doing traditional calorie counting). Okay, maybe less reliance on what was available so much as a built in excuse to stray from the plan. This trip, this month, I am teaching myself that lack of compliance is neither necessary nor an option. One thing I did fail at was taking pictures…but I was 100% compliance. I am discovering that by first asking about gluten-free options, and also telling the server I am dairy intolerant gets me to a good starting point with menu options. I can edit from there. Thursday’s lunch was a Primal Pac I’d stashed in my backpack, Wednesday a working meeting lunch where I just calmly and quietly removed all the bread and cheese from the catered sandwich lunch. And I did raid the concierge lounge for some late night munchies…enjoyed after a walk around downtown Chicago.
All and well a good first week.
#BeefFest
December 29, 2011
A holiday tradition of mine is enjoying a standing rib roast with the immediate family on Christmas Eve. I made my first one 14 years ago. While I’ve had several significant life changes in that time, I’ve followed the same basic method each year since. If memory serves, the original recipe was from epicurious. However, I’ve long since stopped referring to a recipe and made it my own. It’s easy peasy to do, even if it does take some advance prep wok for best flavor.
The beauty of this recipe is that there are no exact portions needed. Really don’t think it’s possible to mess this one up.
Garlic/Horseradish/Rosemary Beef Rib Roast.
Ingredients
Standing Beef Rib roast (I typically use a 3-4 bone roast)
3-5 heads of garlic
Ground horseradish
Fresh rosemary
Extra virgin olive oil
Coarse Sea Salt& Fresh ground Pepper
Beef Broth (optional)
Meat Thermometer
This year I had a 6.5 lb, 4 rib roast. My butcher cuts the meat from the bone for ease of serving, but then ties it all back together for flavor. I’ve found the flavors of this recipe are consistently great with a regular high quality rib roast, so no longer pay the extra for a Prime Rib roast. In the future I would pay extra for grass fed/ grass finished if I could get locally. Buy the roast a day or so ahead to allow time for thepaste to infuse the flavors.
At least 24 hours ahead peel the garlic….the more the better in my mind. As with recipes calling for bacon, you can never have too much! This year I used 4 full heads and a bit of a leftover 5th head. Place them in a small oven safe dish, cover with EVOO and roast in a 300 degree oven for 25-30 minutes.
Remove and allow to cool.This year I roasted the garlic the evening of the 22nd. Stored in fridge overnight and made the paste the following day after work.
When cool pull out your food processor, dump roasted garlic and olive oil, about half a jar of horseradish (1/3 cup?), leaves from 2-3 sprigs of rosemary, and a healthy does of fresh ground pepper and pinch of sea salt. Puree into a paste.
Place roast on rack, bones down. I stab the top a few times to make pockets to push some of the puree into. Then I get my hands dirty (after washing them well of course), and rub the puree all over the top and sides of the roast. Cover loosely (I stick blunted toothpicks in to hold foil off rub paste.), and into the fridge for 12-24 hours. This year I had the paste on for the full 24 hours.
Remove from fridge 30-45 minutes prior to roasting to bring up to a room temperature and take some of the chill off. Pour beef broth into the base of the pan to catch the drippings (water works, too but broth tastier, for a final au jus or gravy)
Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees. Place roast in 450 degree oven for 20 minutes to sear and crust the paste. If you are like me and tend to forget things, set a timer NOW. At end of 20 minutes, turn oven to 325, loosely tent the roast. Insert a thermometer into middle and roast to your desired temp. We like medium rare (Mom likes medium well, so she gets end with some extra cooking in pan). On my thermometer this is around 140 degrees.
This always takes longer than I expect. I think it was 2 1/2 hours this year. Maybe tad longer.
Allow roast to rest for 15-20 minutes. This is the prefect time to relax w/ Ketel-One-up-olives.Especially if your Mom is visiting and likes to cook down the pan drippings as an au jus or gravy (add flour or not, your choice, moving forward we’ll skip the flour, for paleo / gluten free goodness)
Slice and enjoy.
Paleo / Primal or not…..
December 10, 2011
Sometimes a girl needs a bit of dessert. One square of 86% cocoa organic dark chocolate and a few fresh berries hits the spot!
Herbed roast turkey breast
December 8, 2011
Last night’s Paleo/Primal goodness was one of my fav go to recipes – Rachel Ray’s Herbed Turkey Breast (without pan gravy- since I’m trying to be paleo/primal, I’ll skip that part).Luckily we still haven’t had a hard enough freeze to make the sage and parsley in the garden unusable. Grabbed handfuls of each. Pulled out my trusty lemon zester. (there’s a story behind my love of this tool…someday I might share).
Hardest part of the recipe for me is de-boning the turkey breast. Knife skills I do not possess. Nor knowledge of butchering technique. I know you can buy boneless turkey breasts – but they usually also are skinless, and you need the skin in this recipe. I have had my local market butcher de-bone, but I like to use the carcass for broth. So I hack away.
Once deboned, the herb, onion, olive oil and lemon zest paste is tucked under the skin before roasting. A couple of bay leaves are tucked below, and a bit of bay butter drizzled on top.
