primal | Say Yes to Salad

4 November, 201328 October, 2015

Paleo/Primal Crock Pot Chili {Recipe} & An Easy Pizza

The last weekend in October Bobby and I went down to NJ to visit my family. My dad sent us back with a late birthday present of CSA meat. Of course I forgot to snap a picture of the delicious chili that I made with it, but here is the simple recipe – based on this primal chili from The Grok Pot (my dad’s suggestion).

Paleo/Primal Crock Pot Chili

Ingredients

1 pound grass fed organic ground beef
1 onion, chopped
1/2 cup leftover pasta sauce
1 14 oz. can chopped tomatoes (I try to make sure I get mine from Eden foods or other organic companies that don’t have BPA in the cans)
~1 cup leftover veggies (from Chinese food the night before) (optional)
1-2 tiny Thai peppers (optional; you can just add more chili flakes if you don’t have hot peppers)
3 cloves of garlic, mashed and chopped (I use the pre-chopped garlic you get in a jar – sort of cheating but easy!)

Spices

1/2 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon cumin
chili flakes
salt and pepper, to taste (1/2 teaspoon salt to start)

Directions

Throw everything in the crockpot and mix a little; heat all day on low OR at high for 4-5 hours.
If you want, you can start to cook the beef and onions to brown them before you put everything into the crockpot. This brings out the flavor a bit more.

We had ours on top of white rice (rice cooker) and topped with shredded cheddar cheese. We also had a salad on the side.

This was a perfectly satisfying meal – and so far we have managed to make it into 3 meals. Once it was the main, the 2nd time was with leftover homemade pizza, and I just had some with a fried egg for breakfast.

Speaking of that pizza…

pizza

I cooked up some pork belly (more CSA meat) and then sauteed turnip greens and scallions in the leftover fat. Slapped some pasta sauce on a premade crust, then topped it with fresh mozzarella, the greens, raw peppers, and the pork – then baked it til done.

Delicious! The side salad is baby mustard greens, raw turnips, and radishes, simply dressed with olive oil and black mission fig balsamic vinegar + salt & pepper.

And as for pregnancy updates – I’m feeling great. I’ll get into details more soon! Just wanted to share these 2 delicious meals this morning.

What have you been eating lately? How is fall treating you?

Loved the extra hour we got this weekend. If only we always needed one less hour of sleep or had an extra hour in the day 😉

20 March, 201325 November, 2014

{Macrobiotic March} Some Macrobiotic Meals (at home and out!)

Those of you who have been following my blog since the beginning may have noticed the shift from eating at home often (probably 5 nights a week) to eating out… a lot. The shift happened slowly over time as I transitioned from my first job in CA, to freelancing in CA (part time), to working full time again when we moved to NYC, to working more and more! I’m not complaining about work. My career is going better than I could have ever dreamed. I love my job and I love my coworkers. I am challenged every day with real problems that I can solve.

BUT – with working so much, I just don’t make the time to cook at home. While I am sure I could make the time, it’s not a priority for me right now.

So I try to find healthy options for eating out.

Keeping with the theme of Macrobiotic March, here are some of my favorite macro meals I have eaten (out) lately. And one macro meal that I made.

A few weeks ago I got lunch with an internet friend (we go back years now) at a vegetarian restaurant in midtown called Zen Palate. The lunch and the company were great. This is what I ordered:

The dish is called Shredded Melody. It’s shredded soy protein stir-fried with celery, carrots, zucchini and pine nuts in a light garlic sauce. It came with a brown and red rice mix and 2 spring rolls. I ate most at the restuarant and had the leftovers at my desk a few hours later.

Another night, after dinner at Souen, Bobby and I shared the Cocoa Creamy Parfait: cocoa mousse with vanilla soy cream and granola.

Really delicious. I do prefer their scones though…

Another night I got takeout from Souen because I was in a rush. I had this meal after a vigorous yoga class at Pure:

Takeout Macro Plate: an ideal blance of steamed greens (collards usually), vegetables (carrots, broccoli), brown rice, beans (chickpeas here – my favorite), and hijiki seaweed.

I also got this dessert the same night…

A Macrobiotic Scone – the cranberry orange version.

Sometimes I do cook at home. One night I made this healthy fried rice variation:

Homemade macrobiotic fried rice with Trader Joe’s Healthy 8 Veggie Mix, Brussels sprouts, sesame seeds, and some teriyaki sauce. Steamed kabocha on the side, and yes I had seconds. I think this was another post-yoga meal.

Another night Bobby and I went to Hu Kitchen, a new paleo restaurant near his office. Hu Kitchen is on 5th Ave between 13th and 14th streets (right near Souen). Hu says, ‘For us, getting back to eating like humans means eating foods we would find in nature or foods minimally processed using only basic, mechanical methods.‘

I got The Herbivore: 3 veggie sides of the day. I picked creamed cauliflower with coconut milk, roasted butternut squash, and sauteed greens. That little brown thing you see is grain-free bread. All of it – absolutely amazing. I could have licked the plate. It’s a little pricey – this dish was $10 and it was not that big. We ended up getting a paleo dessert, too (chocolate chia pudding) but the picture didn’t come out well. It looked like ass so you will just have to trust me that it tasted delicious.

SO – that’s what I have been eating lately. I actually have some more macro meals but I will save them for another time. I have to get to work!

Couple other things I wanted to mention:

I have accidentally been pescetarian this month except for 1 meal (a pasta dish this weekend).
I have had diet soda only 2 times this month. (!) One day that I had it, later on I found myself at the cafe downstairs buying a cookie – the only time I was craving sugar in a few weeks. Coincidence? I don’t think so. I think diet soda makes you crave sweets.
Bobby and I are planning on doing vegetarian April! (Vegetarian = pescetarian for us.)
Elise @ Hungry Hungry Hippie had a macrobiotic-inspired meal the other day. MMM kale.
Heather made those yummy cookies I linked to last week.

Have you had any delicious macrobiotic meals lately? Are you a diet soda person? Do you eat meat and/or fish, or are you vegetarian or vegan?

13 February, 20112 December, 2014

Big Fat Video Links – Weekend Link Love

I watched 3 really interesting videos in the last 3 days. The first was a documentary on Hulu called Fat Head. Here’s the summary:

Have you seen the news stories about the obesity epidemic? Did you see Super Size Me? Then guess what? … You’ve been fed a load of bologna.

Comedian (and former health writer) Tom Naughton replies to the blame-McDonald’s crowd by losing weight on a fat-laden fast-food diet while demonstrating that nearly everything we’ve been told about obesity and healthy eating is wrong. Along with some delicious parody of Super Size Me, Naughton serves up plenty of no-bologna facts that will stun most viewers, such as: The obesity “epidemic” has been wildly exaggerated by the CDC. People the government classifies as “overweight” have longer lifespans than people classified as “normal weight.” Having low cholesterol is unhealthy. Lowfat diets can lead to depression and type II diabetes. Saturated fat doesn’t cause heart disease — but sugars, starches and processed vegetable oils do.

Fat Head Video Link Here.

The second was a talk/lecture by Gary Taubes (author of Good Calories, Bad Calories – now I must read this book) called Big Fat Lies. He has a second book that just came out entitled Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It, which may be more appealing – it’s less scientific and includes explanations designed for lay-people.

The last video I watched was called Sugar: The Bitter Truth. It became somewhat of an internet sensation back in 2009 but I guess I missed it. It’s a 1.5 hour lecture on why fructose is a toxin. (I’m sold.) The lecturer is a doctor by the name of Robert H. Lustig.

If you have some time (each video is over an hour) I highly recommend them. The gist of all of them is that the obesity epidemic is caused, not by fat/saturated fat/meat, but by too much sugar and too many carbohydrates. My take on them:

Fat Head

The first link (Fat Head) “proves” that a high-fat diet is good for you. Um, duh. Tom Naughton’s high-fat diet consists of a lot of meat; I am still kind of undecided on the meat issue. Two more of his points are that 1) grains are doing a lot of damage (he does go into detail but I don’t want to right now) and 2) processed vegetable oils (corn oil, soybean oil, etc… – and not just he partially hydrogenated trans fat ones) are also killing us. Humans are not used to eating either of those things.

Now – I like meat, and I would eat it, but I am morally opposed to the way meat is produced in our country, and I can’t bring myself to eat it anymore. If meat were truly ethically raised? I’m still unsure nowadays. I’m getting off topic, but my takeaway from this one – fat is good. Eat more of it. Eat veggies too, though. It may be possible to have a semi-healthful fast food diet, but it’s probably better to just be more primal.

Mmm… bacon and eggs and butter.

Personal side notes:

My “Bring on the Fat” post from last year (one year ago – to the day). Sadly I didn’t keep up with this as much as I’d have liked. Now that I’m a veggie I need to get my animal fat from butter, ghee, eggs (with yolk), and dairy (goat’s and sheep’s milk yogurts are my faves; regular ol’ organic whole cow’s milk for my coffee). Since I went veggie I have been eating too many carbs and not enough fats.
The Great Fat Animal Experiment. This was from a year and 3 days ago; it was an intro to my passion for animal fat. I still do love animal fat; again, I’m just going to try to get it from non-meat sources.
Way back in July 2009 (4 days before I got engaged… can’t believe I am married now!) was one of the first times I started trying to eat more fat. I didn’t really follow through, at least not to the extent that I should have. I have come a long way since then.

Big Fat Lies

The second link (Big Fat Lies) discusses the matter of why people are getting fat; is it simply that we eat too much and sit on our asses? Gary Taubes seems to think that it’s because we have too much insulin (I’m leaning towards agreeing with him, but I think the reason we have too much insulin is because we… eat too much). He basically says that we aren’t getting fat because we’re eating more; we’re eating more because we’re getting fat. He debunks Ancel Keys’ Lipid Hypothesis/Seven Countries Study which states that:

Saturated fat increases cholesterol. (If A then B.)
High cholesterol associated with heart disease. (B associated with C.)
Saturated fat must cause heart disease! (If A then C.)

What a load of bologna! Ugh, too much to say about this horrible study, will post about this later (if I don’t remind me). I tend to agree with Taubes’ conclusions, but I think that there are a lot of people out there who do simply “eat too much” for probably mental reasons. It’s not just hormones that are making us fat. We have issues that also make us eat too much which starts the vicious cycle of greedy fat cells –> eat more –> greedier fat cells –> eat even more –> also be lazy because we’re too fat.

Sugar: The Bitter Truth

The last link, Sugar: The Bitter Truth, Robert H. Lustig discusses how fructose is metabolized in the body. It turns out that fructose is very similar to ethanol, which is a toxin. He also debunks the Seven Countries Study (though for different reasons than Taubes does). He’s not a low-carb advocate (unlike the other two); he thinks we just have to eat the right carbs, which does not include sugar at all. His diet prescriptions for his patients (mostly kids) are (this is around the 1:10 mark):

Only beverages should be water and milk
Eat carbs with fiber (ex: fruit is fructose but has fiber built in)
Wait 20 minutes for second portions
If you’re gonna stare at a screen (tv/video games) you have to do equal amounts of activity (playing outside)

His prescriptions are probably easier and more reasonable to follow than what Taubes thinks we should do (low-carb, lots of meat); they’re also probably more sustainable (we can’t all live on steak due to overpopulation). I’m still on the fence about carbs though. I love ’em, but they make me feel like shit. Maybe I’m just more sensitive than some people; my husband could probably live on just carbs and get along fine. (Though he did lose 10 pounds in the last month from being vegetarian – 10 pounds he did not need to lose and he is worried about. He’s practically as skinny as I am.)

What are your thoughts? On grains? On carbs? On sugar? On fructose? On saturated fats? On animal fats? On “healthy” fats? On a low-fat diet? On a low-carb diet? On Tom Naughton/Gary Taubes/Robert Lustig?

Or, if you wanna stop with the heavy topics…

What are you doing for Valentine’s Day?

Bobby got us reservations as a restaurant we haven’t been to yet but that I hear great things about.