Birthday dinner, day 30.

Tonight we celebrated my birthday and Alex's birthday (Ryan's brother-in-law) with Ryan's family.  I'm so lucky to have not just one supportive family, but two.  As chronicled here, my parents have made us more than one completely paleo bbq, and tonight Ryan's parents did the same.  I brought a veggie platter with my homemade paleo zucchini hummus.

Lindy marinated beef in evoo, fresh sage and fresh rosemary (which was a delicious combo), then made kabobs.

Tom bbq'd them.

Here is my dinner plate.

And dessert was...grapes!

Yep, another great birthday celebration.  I even got some awesome (and much needed) presents: new workout clothes!  I'm a pretty lucky girl :)

Lunch, day 30!

Day 30!!!  I can't believe it.  Today for lunch I had more leftovers.  I guess that's a lesson learned: don't make too much shredded chicken, you won't be able to eat it all.

I couldn't help myself, so I had some berries for dessert.

Because I'm still sore and tired from some unmentionable workouts earlier this week (ahem, 200m lunges), I decided not to do Jackie this afternoon at crossfit.  Instead I warmed up with everyone and counted for some very amazing crossfitters.  It was pure awesomeness watching my "teammates" break their personal records that were set just 30 days ago.  I'm looking forward to my opportunity to break my personal record tomorrow!!!

Coconut Shrimp!

Last Saturday we bought a pound of wild shrimp at the farmer's market, thinking that we'd have lots of opportunities to cook them.  But, with all of the birthday celebrations, we just haven't had time.  This afternoon I decided that the shrimp needed to be cooked TODAY, so I went searching for an easy shrimp recipe.  And I found a great one!  This was a perfect way to add extra fat (fuel) to such a low fat/low calorie meat.  Coconut shrimp and roasted asparagus, yum!

Lunch, day 29.

I'm not a runner.  I've never liked running.  In fact, I would even say that my hatred for running initially fueled my desire to swim, then to play water polo.  Running is not my thing.  Today the workout at crossfit was: running.

4 minute jog, 1.5 minute walk
3 minute jog, 1 minute walk
2 minute jog, 30 second walk
3 minute jog, 1 minute walk
4 minute jog

I know this seems like a super easy workout for most people, but this is exactly the kind of wod I dread the most.  And guess what?  I did the whole thing.  Nearly 2 miles, and I survived.  Pretty impressive, I think.

For lunch I heated up leftover shredded chicken, added half an avocado and a handful of grape tomatos.  Voila! Deconstructed chicken tacos (I don't need no stinkin' tortilla!).

With a side of roasted green beans.

Two meals + two workouts = day 28.

This morning I wasn't feeling hungry, so I decided to wait until I was.  Around 10:30 I foraged for breakfast.

After breakfast I went over to the lovely Kaysha's house to swim in her pool.  Swimming used to be something I felt really confident about, but these days I just feel slow.  After swimming a measly thousand yards, I retired to a lounge chair.  I know it'll get easier with time, but it's hard not to be discouraged by not being able to swim like I used to.  

It may have just been a measly thousand yards, but I was exhausted.  I didn't feel hungry, only tired, so I relaxed around the house and took a little nap before heading out to crossfit.   Crossfit was fun today, we did bench press and gymnastics movements.  I'm constantly amazed by the strong women in our gym, which is just another great part of the CFI experience.  

After crossfit I headed home to make dinner.  Because Ryan is working late tonight, I only had myself to worry about, so I whipped up a quick salad with shredded chicken on top.

Yum.

Eats, day 27.

I can't believe the 30 day challenge is almost over.  I really can't believe I'm 29 already.  Where did the time go?  Life goes by so fast (you only want to do what you think is right), it's amazing.

Today I went shopping after crossfit (200m of lunges with 55# on my back!), and brought home lots of veggies.  I was feeling inspired by the vibrant colors, so I made myself a zucchini hummus plate.

It was lovely, but it did have one major flaw: no meat!  It was getting late in the afternoon and I had dinner plans, so I didn't bother to cook anything to eat with this.  That was a mistake because a few hours after eating this, I was hungry again!  Thankfully, a plum and a few almonds solved that problem.  Then it was off to dinner with my wonderful friend Caroline.  I had a chicken skewer and salad at Panini Grill in Aliso Viejo.  Yum!

And she gave me an awesome birthday present!

I can't wait to try some new recipes :)

A (mostly) paleo birthday.

After our pancake feast this morning, we packed up and headed to the beach.  It was beautiful there, and we got many opportunities to play with our new, fancy camera.  After my shoulders had been toasted thoroughly (through spf 45 AND a beach umbrella, thankyouverymuch), we headed home to get ready for dinner.  Ryan made reservations at Orange Hill, a fancy restaurant overlooking all of Orange County.  It was wonderful!

We started our dining experience out on the patio where we enjoyed an appetizer of beef skewers.

Once we were seated inside, Ryan ordered a non-paleo wedge salad with a fried bleu cheese ball on top.  I won't lie, it looked fantastic.

I had the mahi mahi with extra veggies instead of mashed potatoes, which was lovely.

Ryan had the chef's special surf n' turf - a filet mignon with four shrimp scampi.  He also ordered it with extra veggies and no potatoes.

It was a beautiful and romantic setting for my birthday celebration.

After we turned down the dessert menu, our extremely kind waiter brought this.

And we ate it.  I'm trying not to feel bad about it, after all, Mrs. Capps said I could have a non-paleo treat today.  It was pretty good, but not great.  Not the best thing I've ever had, by any stretch of the imagination.  This was a good reminder that the foods I'm passing up aren't actually as good as I remember them to be.  That being said, it was nice to have a birthday treat.  Over all, a pretty fantastic birthday.

Birthday Brunch

This morning I got a great present!  A Nikon D3100 SLR camera!  Now, to learn how to use it...

I also got a lovely offer: Ryan said he'd make coconut flour pancakes for brunch.  I helped from the living room (by giving step by step instructions), and only went into the kitchen a few times to check on the progress.  The result was fantastic!

We had both blueberry and strawberry PALEO pancakes.  Yum!

On the eve of 29...

My birthday eve started bright and early with a trip to the farmer's market.  We haven't been in two weeks (due to other Saturday morning events), so I was eager to get my fill of fresh grass fed beef, eggs, fruit and produce.  When we got home Ryan whipped up breakfast: an onion and bell pepper omelet, bacon, and a side of avocado.

It was huge, I couldn't finish it all.  I think my stomach is starting to tell me when I've had enough to eat.  It took (almost) 29 years to learn this fantastic communication skill, and I hope that my stomach continues to communicate as well as it did today.  Because breakfast was later than normal, we skipped lunch and waited until dinner to eat again.

We had dinner plans with my parents to celebrate my birthday.  It is longstanding Cozad tradition to celebrate my birthday at the Cheesecake Factory in Redondo Beach.  Who am I to break tradition?  I ate NO bread, I didn't order my favorite item on the menu (chinese chicken salad - oh so good), and I didn't even eat my teeny birthday sundae after everyone sang to me.  I felt (and sort of still feel) like I deserve an award for this.  It was more challenging than I expected, and I felt kind of slighted to not have cheesecake on my birthday.  But a 30 day challenge is just that: challenging.  I'm almost done, and I'm not going to start cheating (myself) now.

That's right, folks.  I ordered the Cobb salad with no bleu cheese.  It was no chinese chicken salad, but I ate half of it and was satisfied.  Ryan, on the other hand, glared at me endlessly for "making" him order something paleo, rather than the shrimp scampi that he wanted.  He got a ribeye and broccoli.

Even though I knew I couldn't eat the dessert that I was awarded for celebrating my birthday with the Cheesecake Factory family, I still like it when everyone sings to me and I get to blow out a candle.

My dad, however, had no problem taking care of the sundae...

It was a great birthday celebration - look at all of the kitchen cooking goodies I got!

A chopper, veggie produce bags, a bendy cutting board, a scrubber/colander, and an awesome peeler/julienne slicer!  Two of the produce bags even came stuffed with fresh veggies from my mom's (organic) garden.  I guess that means I need to step it up and try some new recipes.

So far the birthday has been a success (though it hasn't officially happened yet).  Tomorrow: more celebrating!

Empty Fridge!

Friday seems to be the day when our fridge goes from: "Yeah, we have food!" to "Um, I can maybe make dinner, but I hope you're not that hungry...".  Tonight's dinner was no different.  Baked chicken breasts with blasted broccoli.  Boring, but it got the job done.

Tomorrow morning we're going to farmer's market.  I can almost taste the fresh berries now...

Lunch, day 24.

Today's WOD was called Filthy Fifty.  It was as hard as it sounds.  50 reps of 10 movements - I finished in just under 35 minutes.  In fact, this workout was so hard that it took me two hours post WOD to recover enough to make myself lunch.  Instead of using my go-to title for made up meals (crap I pulled out of the fridge), I'm going to call this something fancy: a deconstructed turkey sandwich.

I need a nap.

Summer fun :)

Today I got up with a fun plan for the day: to hang out with one of my college teammates and her family!  I had a quick breakfast of a hard boiled egg, half an avocado and a few strawberries.

Then I headed out to see the fantastic four (the Hedgpeth family).  We picked up Flame Broiler for lunch - I had a chicken veggie bowl.

After lunch we played at a family water park in La Mirada.  It was so much fun!

Ali and I took Luke in the lazy river and he demonstrated his amazing underwater skills.

After family fun day, I headed to crossfit where I did not one, but one and a half WODs!  Yay me!  Luckily I didn't have to do much for dinner because I put a grass fed brisket in the slow cooker this morning.  When we got home from crossfit I plopped some coconut oil in a pan and cooked up a handful of green beans and we had dinner!

BBQ Buffalo Balls!

Sounds delicious, huh?  My dinner date for the evening rescheduled for Monday, so I had to figure out something for dinner.  Continuing on with the uninspired cooking, I started dinner with a pound of ground buffalo and broccoli.  I really didn't have a clear direction to go in, but I somehow settled on blasted broccoli (a staple) and buffalo meatballs.  The problem I have with meatballs is that I need ketchup or barbecue sauce to make them palatable to me.  So, paleo BBQ sauce was born.

Recipe: 

1 6oz. can of organic tomato paste

1 cup of chicken stock or water

3 cloves of garlic

1/2 an onion

2 tbs dijon mustard

2 tbs apple cider vinegar

1 tbs EVOO

1 tbs chili powder

1 tbs worcestershire sauce

1tsp salt

Optional: 2 tbs. agave syrup (do not add until after the 30 day challenge)

Directions:

Chop the onion garlic as small as possible (I used a teeny food processor/chopper, which worked great).  Then measure and add all of the ingredients to a saucepan over medium heat.  Use a whisk to fully mix everything together.  Once bubbling, turn down heat and simmer on low for 30 minutes.

At this point, I had browned the buffalo meatballs, and just dropped them directly into the sauce to finish cooking.  It came out great, if I do say so myself.  

Lunch, day 22.

Immediately after finishing today's (killer) WOD, I raced out to meet my good friend Sandy for lunch.   Lucky for Sandy, I brought a fresh t-shirt to change into.

We usually pick Chipotle because they have really great paleo options AND their meat is naturally raised and produced.  Carnitas salad with pico de gallo and guacamole.  Yum!

Foodz, day 21.

I don't know what's wrong with me, but I've been feeling uninspired when it comes to cooking lately.  Good thing I have a lunch date AND a dinner date for tomorrow.  I'm not cooking again till Thursday!  This is what I came up with for lunch: a carne asada, egg and tomato scramble with a side of avocado.  

After gymnastics day at crossfit I was feeling even more uninspired about dinner, but then I remembered that I had an early birthday present waiting at home!

Isn't she pretty?

I've been wanting a food processor for a LONG time, and my dreams have finally come true.  I was determined to hold out until our wedding to have one, but who am I to turn down an early birthday present?  With this lovely tool and a head of cauliflower, I made rice.

I cooked up some chicken and steamed a few veggies to go along with it, and dinner was had:

Halibut!

Ryan came home from work a little early today, so I put him right to work on dinner (won't I be a great wife?).  When we bar-be-que I usually request that Ryan cook more than one thing, which I'll later package for easy and quick meals.  Today was no acception.   He cooked carne asada, pork tenderloin chops and wild caught halibut.

The halibut was the main attraction for dinner tonight, the other two were cooled, chopped into pieces and packed in the fridge.  While Ryan was cooking away outside, I prepped our veggie: green beans.  I know, not paleo!  Technically green beans are a legume, which is NOT ALLOWED.  But wait, I had my reasons.  Reason 1: I was looking for asparagus, but Costco was out.  Reason 2: green beans are unlike most beans; they can be eaten raw and they contain very little lectin (the most offensive part of beans).  Reason 3: Robb Wolf and Mark Sisson agree that green beans are okay.  So, I roasted green beans (which were delicious), and we had dinner!

Yum :)

Lunch, day 20.

On my way home from crossfit this afternoon I stopped off at Whole Foods for a nice piece of fish for dinner (and two pounds of ground buffalo for later in the week).  I walked through their cooked food section in search of something I could stuff in my face for lunch, but didn't find anything that 1) looked good enough, or 2) wasn't over $15.  I paid for my groceries and left Whole Foods.

Out of the corner of my eye I spotted In-N-Out and thought, "Meat?  Yes.  Veggies?  Yes.  I can eat this!".  I ordered a triple meat, no cheese, no spread, extra tomato and grilled onion protein style burger.  Sounds complicated, but it was so simple and delicious, I can't even tell you.  When I got home, I added avocado slices and ended up with this.

The best part?  It was $3.53.  No joke, I had this amazingly delectable and quick lunch for less than four dollars.  See?  Proof!

Father's day: part 2.

Last night brought many hours of sleep, which I needed after our long day of paintball.  When we got up, I reheated the leftover eggplant parmesan for breakfast.  Don't judge, it was an easy meal!  Once we got cleaned up and dressed, we headed out to my parents' house for father's day, part 2.  My parents have been really supportive about our decision to eat paleo.  My mom even made this lovely and refreshing "mocktail" for me!  Ice, pellegrino and fruit, oh my!

My dad was stationed at the barbecue, and cooked our whole meal.  Best father's day lunch ever?  I think so!

New York strip steak, grilled tomato and grilled asparagus.  It was delicious, and a great way to celebrate one of my dad's many skills.

My dad and me :)

Someone must have mentioned to my body that today was the day to rest, because I was ready for a nap as soon as we got home.  When I woke up from my nap I was feeling a little groggy, so Ryan made dinner!

Chicken breast with organic rub aside steamed broccoli and carrots.  All in all, a great father's day.