Tried and True Recipes I

Ok I realize that Bear and I have not updated ANYTHING in too too long. Since then, many a thing has happened (I'm now a practicing dermatology PA, we bought a house, and oh yea, had a BABY!).

   

Happy Birthday Violet! 9/18/13

5 months

Well we shall (hopefully) get to all of that soon, but for now it's time to post some recipes that we quite enjoy. Since the birth of this little babe, our goal has been to find easy hands-off recipes so that we can spend more time as a family and less time on food prep, etc.  Posting them here just makes it an easy place to access them, and I'm all about making things easy these days :)

HOPEFULLY, I'll sort of be able to keep these updated, with adaptations, pictures, and such.

40 Freezer/Crock Pot Meals

(Plus 4 side dishes)

Pork

Asian BBQ Pork

Sweet and Sour Pork

Mexican Pork Chops

Broccoli with Spicy Italian Sausage

Crockpot Burritos (pile over pork chops)

Pulled Pork

Hunter’s Stew

Ginger Pork

Ginger Cranberry Pork Roast

Apple Pie Pork Chops

Pork and Peppers

BBQ Ribs

Chinese Pork Salad

Seafood

Shrimp with Spicy Garlic Sauce

Grilled Cilantro Lime Whitefish

Cilantro Lime Shrimp

Zesty Seafood Chowder

Curry Fried Fish

Barbeque Shrimp

Beef/Lamb

Cheeseburger Casserole

Spaghetti a la Bear

Cummings Meatloaf

Carne Asada

Italian Meatballs

Sweet Lamb Curry

Orange Beef Stew

Meatballs

Mongolian Beef

Beef Enchiladas

Pepper Steak

Brisket

Brisket Tacos

Beef Tips with Mushrooms Sauce

Eggplant Parmesan

Chicken

Chicken Curry

Tin Can Chili

Coconut Thai Chicken

Chicken Pot Pie

Breakfast

Lagniappe Casserole

Overnight Oatmeal

Bacon and Gruyere Casserole

Sides

Mashed Cauliflower

Curried Spaghetti Squash

Mashed Sweet Potatoes

Swiss Chard

A year's report

January 2011 - January 2012 Progress Report - Barrett

I have the luxury of working for a company that provides all its employees/spouses with a yearly "Biometric Screening."  Every one gets the standard, height, weight, umbilicus circumference and basic blood work done.  I am pretty excited to show the differences in my 2011 numbers vs my current numbers.  Some changes are were positive while others we not.  However, I did anticipate these changes both ways.  The main difference this year vs last is that I am sleeping more, eating an ancestral diet and focusing on more strength instead of "beat me into the ground" high intensity workouts.

Positive Changes:
Weight - 218lbs (2011), 198lbs (2012)
Umbilicus Circumference - 35'' (2011), 30'' (2012)
HDL - 55 (2011), 71 (2012)
Blood Sugar - 87 (2011), 78 (2012)
Blood Pressure - 122/78 (2011), 115/72 (2012)

No changes in basic blood chemistry, including TRIGS - 66

Negative/Questionable Changes:
LDL - 160 (2011), 250 (2012)

So what does this all mean?  I don't completely know.  Most everything improved or stayed the same, with the exception of LDL.  However, I went into the biometric screening fully aware to see an increase in my "cholesterol" numbers.  Mostly due to the fact that I was eating 70% of my calories from fat, 20% from protein, and 10% from carbs.

I hope to explore more into what this can mean and how it may help/hurt my health.  Surly my ancestors of Northern Europe didn't eat may carbs during the winter and maybe we are meant to have higher numbers this time of year to deal with the cold harsh weather?  Just a thought, maybe I'm wrong.

The neat thing about all of this is that we can explore further to see what kinds of eating may affect my biochemistry.  As the days get longer, plants become more abundant, and as plant become a larger staple in our diet I will have a decreased need for dietary fat.  Hopefully I will see a different blood chemistry this mid summer. 

I also intend to study the anthropological diets of my Northern Europe ancestry to gather more insight how I am wired to eat.

A Note on Coffee:
Hilary and I made it 21 days with out coffee or any caffeine.  Honestly, it wasn't as hard as I initially thought.  I think the ease of it had something to do with our switch to a ketogenic diet at the same time.  Perhaps our bodies were able to make due without the influx of caffeine due to our ketogenic nature.

We also found out that we really missed having a warm beverage in the morning.  This lead us to find several alternatives that we still rotate through.
1.  Ginger Tea - Brewed from fresh ginger root.
2. Bone Broth - You know you made it right when you have to use a knife to scoop it out of the jar in the fridge.
3. Teeccino - Roasted organic carob, organic chicory, organic dandelion root, and organic ramon nuts.  Not quite the same as coffee but pretty darn close.  Pairs great when you blend it with cinnamon, coconut oil and butter.  I do stress that you must try this in your daily cup of joe.  Please note that it works best when blended in a blender in order to homogenize the fats.

During the weekdays we rotate through the above mentioned, and on the weekends (Friday, Sat and Sunday) we drink coffee.

Hello 2012!

Happy New Year!

As the New Year typically means new resolutions, we thought we'd share ours with you...

Finding a Tribe
Abraham Maslow identified "human belonging" as one of the five basic needs of humans.  A tribe, pack, team, mob, family or posse all share common interests and values and show genuine appreciation and care for each other.  We found it difficult in the past few years to really be a part of any one group.  Society in general uses food as a tool to get together, and as we've changed our diet, it has made get-togethers a little more difficult.  And with Hilary being in school, she felt like she did not have the energy or time to be out late on the weekends with friends, and we together lacked the finances to go out with friends for dinner-dates, happy hour, sporting events, etc.

So this year, Hilary and I are committing ourselves to finding our tribe, as individuals as well as a couple.  We plan on dedicating more time to making new friends and growing relationships with old friends.


Perfecting Our Nutrition
I do have to say that we both already have a pretty damn good diet!  Both us of have learned so much in the last year about the biochemistry of nutrition and how it relates to health and disease.  One interesting thing we have researched into is how diets were different over various parts of the world (higher carb in certain Papua New Ginea tribes, low-carb high-protein in certain tribes Africa), and how diets were different over various times of the year as well.  Although it may not be the case anymore (you can find winter squash in the summer, and summer squash in the winter...), food supplies should wax and wane over the year.

Hilary and I are planning on eating as local and as seasonal as possible.  We already get our weekly vegetable and fruits from a local Arizona farmer found here and get our pasture raised beef and pork from a Wickenburg farm found here as well as our eggs from the farmers market down the road.  But since we started eating an ancestral diet we both find that we still rely too much on foods only found at the normal grocery store.  This often causes us to eat out of our local season and may impact both our health and the environments health. 

To kick it off both of us are starting the first 30 days eating a ketogenic diet.  This will not only emphasis our Caucasian ancestry as related to diet for this time of year but will allow us to only eat food from our local sources mentioned above.  Additionally, we are both going on a coffee holiday (I resisted a bit to this idea) so that our bodies can re-regulate what natural hormonal balance and blood sugar control we have.  We are also going to boycott buying food at the grocery store.  I can't speak for Hilary, but I will also be tracking my weight and circumference measurements and will probably post them in February to see if this will impact me in anyway.

Edit Our Life

Check out this link!  We plan on cutting back on our unnecesary posestions.

Merry Christmas

This Christmas was nice and mellow for us, so we'll keep this pretty simple.  We had great times with both the Reznick and Cummings families over the extended weekend.  Of note, we tried making a gluten-free pierogi for Wigilia, and it was pretty awful.  Guess next year we'll have to try harder, and start playing with recipes BEFORE the day they need to be made.  We probably ate one too many dark chocolates over the weekend, and are looking forward to cleaning up our diet again in the New Year.  We have a few things that we have reasearched and want to experiment with ourselves, so onward we go!

Perhaps we can learn best from others.  My cousin, Tim,  passed this video on to me and I wanted to pass it along to everyone else.  I recommend only watching it when you have time to pay attention.  It is about 18 minutes long, but well worth the time. 

Dr. Terry Wahls - Minding Your Mitochondria

Thanksgiving - Part 2

Thanksgiving was a hit!  It was a day full of wonderful food and family.  Here are some highlights from the big day...

Cooking cranberry sauce

Preparing the bread-free stuffing (subbing with cauliflower).  Recipe al la Mark Sisson found here

Frying the turkey in grass fed beef tallow!

Me carving the traditional roasted turkey.  Tony carving the fried turkey in the background.

Bacon wrapped fried turkey - Heaven!

A beautiful day for an outside meal.  Thank you AZ weather!

Primal Plate - Clockwise, sweet potato casserole, turkey (fried and roasted), bread-less stuffing, salad with strawberry dressing, bacon seared Brussels sprouts, and cranberry sauce

Pumpkin Cheesecake & Pumpkin Pie with a gluten free, nut crust al la Alexi!

A big thanks to both of our families for coming together, bringing amazing food, and spending the Holiday with us!  My favorite part of the feast had to be the sweet potato casserole.  Hilary's was the stuffing.

Thanksgiving - Part 1

This year's Thanksgiving is going to be a potluck!  We will be joined both by Hilary's and my family, at our house.  This is our second year having both families together (last year it was at Alexi's house), but the first major family gathering since we've gone Paleo.  Of course, not everyone has embraced the lifestyle as fully as we have, but (with our encouragement) it appears that 80-90% of the food will be REAL food! (REAL=food that does not come in a can/box/bag).

Since Hil and I volunteered to host this year, and we have the pickiest eating habits, we are taking on a few extra dishes for the potluck.  We are gearing up for the big day, spreading our prep-work out over the week.  Today (Sunday), after a jaunt up Camelback with the pups, we stopped by the Ahwatukee Farmer's Market to pick up our order of 20 lbs. suet from one of our favorite meat farmers, Circle Key.  What for you ask?  For a fried turkey of course!  Turkeys are usually fried in peanut oil because of the high smoke point, but it is highly processed and oxidizes too easily, and actually pretty unhealthy.  Beef tallow, both inexpensive in price and a Paleo alternative, seemed like an appropriate choice.  We plan on having a traditional turkey as well, but since there were SO many votes for a fried turkey (which will be cooked by Tricia and Tony), we thought we could at least help Paleo-ize it.  Anyway, I started rendering the beef tallow out of suet, although I didn't realize it would be such an intensive process!   It will take a day and a half rendering the 20+ pounds down to a usable form to fry the turkey.

I first had to cut 20 lbs. suet into small pieces.

I then put it in a food processor and chopped it into even tinier pieces.

Finally I cooked it at a 250 degrees for 2 hours in the oven.  The hamburger looking things at the top is the leftover grisle.

I will be storing the tallow in the large frying pot until we use it on Thursday.  I will let you know how it tuns out.