All the Things

Just another day in Colorado

Wow, it’s been a while. So much has happened! Here goes…graduated with my MBA, went on a South American bender adventure, got a strict pull-up (what what!!!), ran a five mile race, cut out caffeine, decided to move to Denver, visited three new boxes, tested out a paleo food service, started back on caffeine, watched the entire Breaking Bad series, went on a Christmas cookie binge, got slightly better at double unders, and got some awesome shoes on clearance.

I think that’s everything. Did you catch that I’m moving to Denver? Yup! We are packing it up and heading west in a matter of weeks. Don’t tell everybody though, my husband hasn’t told his job yet. Wife fail. There are so many things to look forward to out west. A new job for me, 300 days of sunshine, learning to ski. I’m nervous about finding a new CrossFit though. I seriously love CF Aspire. It’s irreplaceable, but I’m hopeful I will find something that’s close.

Relaxing with my little bestie - love her

We are heading into the second week of a 30 Day Challenge. And I say WE because my husband is doing it with me! It’s a first for us and it’s completely awesome. Having him along for the ride helped me to stay strong and positive in the first week. And last night he talked me out of cheating with a glass of wine. Best husband ever. Puke, I know.

I did a gigantic cook-up Sunday because I flubbed last week and didn’t make enough food. I made up for it this week by cooking approximately a million things. And now it’s all lovely and portioned out in my fridge. This makes me ridiculously happy. I don’t know why. And I’m not questioning it.

This stack of food brings me joy

Anyway…I don’t have a recipe to share. Just wanted to check in. I’ve missed it here. I kinda like spewing things out into cyberspace.

The Cooking Tip that Saved My (Fingers) Life

Ever tried to shred chicken with forks? Don’t, it sucks. Invariably, when I decide to attempt shredding by hand, I wind up sitting at my kitchen table with burned fingers, a half-torn pile of bird, and a deep sense of regret.

A few weeks ago during a visit to Maryland with some friends, the talk turned to food. As we discussed various forms of shredded meat (this is totally normal), I began bemoaning the process of shredded poultry. That’s when my beautiful, brilliant, perfect friend uttered five words that changed my life forever:

“I use the KitchenAid."

I begged her to tell me more. The explanation took about 30 seconds. It goes something like this: put cooked chicken in the Kitchen Aid and turn it on. The end.

Seems too good to be true, but it really works. I tried it last weekend with a huge batch and it came out perfect. I prepared the chicken by boiling because I wanted to make broth at the same time, but I think baking on low could work too.

Super Simple Shredded Chicken

• 4 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts (or as much as you like) 
• 1 onion, peeled and quartered 
• 4 garlic cloves 
• half a bunch fresh parsley (or 2 T dried) 
• 2 bay leaves 
• 1 T salt 
• 1 tsp pepper

Shredded chicken heaven.

While these are the spices and flavorings I chose, you could really flavor it any way you like – or even none at all. It's basically as much work as you want to put into it.) First put all the non-chicken ingredients in a large stockpot. Then drop in the whole chicken breasts and covered the whole thing in water. Put the pot on a medium high heat; when it starts to boil turn it down to a simmer and let cook for 30 minutes.

After it's done cooking, turn off the heat. You can pull it out right away, but it was really hot (duh) so I let it sit for another 30 mins on the stove to cool a bit. Then I picked up each piece of chicken with tongs and put it in the kitchen aid mixing bowl. I used the paddle attachment and turned it on the lowest setting and watched the magic happen. It took about a minute to create perfectly shredded chicken goodness. Life changed.

I used this good stuff all week with various sauces and sides; it was awesome. I couldn't find a great paleo BBQ sauce so I ended up throwing a bunch of stuff together to make due. Maybe I'll make it again and actually measure the ingredients so I can share.

Do you have a good sauce recipe? Would love to hear it!

PS If you knew about this trick and didn’t tell me, we are no longer friends.

PPS Unless you have a good BBQ sauce recipe for me, then we're cool.

Eat Your (Creamy and Awesome) Veggies

I usually make a recipe more than once before writing about it, but this week I concocted something I couldn't wait to share. It was inspired by National Eat the Frozen Things in Your House Week (it's real, trust me and don't google it).

What started with a couple bags of boring frozen veggies turned into a really good side dish. I would say it reminded me of mac and cheese, but then your expectations would be crazy high. So instead I will just say that it's creamy, spicy, veggie, goodness.

Basically it's mashed vegetables with spices and coconut milk. My husband offered up some wisdom about possible names for the dish while he was chowing down. It went something like this....

Husband: You should call this Squash-cauli-fake-potato-awesomeness

Me: Why?

Husband: Cause it's like cheesy mashed potatoes without the calories.

Me: There are still calories.

Husband: Bummer. Can't you lie? I mean it's just a blog.

Me: (sigh)

So, with that said, I give you Squash-cauli-fake-potato-awesomeness...

Squash-cauli-fake-potato-awesomeness

1T bacon fat
1 T butter
1 20 ounce bag frozen diced squash
1 16 ounce bag frozen cauliflower
3-4 cloves garlic
1 1/2 tsp Ras Al Hanout
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 can coconut milk


Put a medium-sized thick pot on the stove and turn to medium-high (I used a le cruset pan that I bought at a yard sale for $10, tra la la). While it's heating, mince your garlic. Throw in the bacon fat and butter into the pot along with the garlic. Dump the frozen bag of squash and the bag of cauliflower on top and mix (I whacked the veggies on the uncounted to break them up first). Stir to combine and then put a top on the pot to speed up defrosting it all.

Wait about five minutes and remove the top to give it another stir. As it's defrosting, throw in all the spices and mix it all together. As you mix, the squash will breakdown into creaminess and the cauliflower will break into smaller chunks too. When it's defrosted, pour in the coconut milk and let the whole thing bubble together to bring out all the flavors. Then try not to eat it all at once!

Editor’s note: This post took approximately 20 mins to write and 2 hours to post. So, that wasn’t frustrating at all! Anyone with good tips on working photos/spacing on blogger (especially when posting from iPad) will be rewarded with a spice mix from me.

Fat Bottomed Pineapple

The other day I posted on Facebook about grilling pineapple and got lots of enthusiastic responses. Apparently there’s a large contingent of people who want to know more about grilled fruit, which makes me pretty happy about my group of friends.

Because I got a number of questions surrounding the mechanics of pineapple grilling, I took some time this weekend to map it out. This means I got had to make and eat more grilled pineapple – poor, poor me.

Grilled Pineapple

·         1 fresh pineapple

Turn your grill to medium heat. 

Pineapple Carnage



To “butcher” the pineapple, lay it on its side and cut off the top and bottom, making sure you have a flat surface on each end that is all yellow and free of skin. Flip the pineapple back up to the now-flat bottom. Sidebar: “fat bottomed girls” just started playing in my head – I like this recipe more now.

Grip pineapple with one hand to steady the fruit, then take your knife and cut a strip of skin off the pineapple from top-to-bottom. Continue cutting around the fruit until you have what looks like a big hunk of pineapple.

Take the hunk and lay it on its side, then cut it into 1/2-3/4 inch slices. Drop the slices onto the hot grill. You will think that a pineapple will grill fast. You will be wrong. The longer the fruit grills, the juicer it becomes – totally counterintuitive, but trust me on this one. I’m intentionally typing a lot in this paragraph to help take up some of the long grilling time. You’re welcome.

Grill on one side for 15 minutes or until you can see a visible char on the fruit. Flip and grill about 10 minutes on the other side. Remove from grill and enjoy the juicy, caramelized pineapple goodness.

Cheaters Chicken Salad



I made this random collage to distract you
from the fact that I didn't take any photos
of the chicken salad - whups.



I think I’m supposed to start this entry by apologizing for not posting for a long time. Then I should ramble on about how hectic and exciting my life has been (blah blah blah). Finally, I'm probably supposed to promise to be a more diligent blogger. Can we skip all that mess and talk about food? Awesome, thanks!  

I took a pretty simplistic view to cooking this week. Lots of meat + veggies + salsa. I did one old standard my hubby likes too – chicken salad. It’s good for him because he’s on the road a lot for his job. And since most of my cooking needs to be eaten hot, he often has some less desirable lunch options (Read: hoagies/pizza/various Wawa items).

 My chicken salad, like most of my cooking, is simple. In my early days, I would grill chicken, cool it and then dice it up. Then I discovered the Whole Foods rotisserie chicken and my life got waaaaay easier. I like the balanced flavors of this recipe…it’s creamy, a little sweet, and still savory.  



Cheaters Chicken Salad

•  1 rotisserie chicken
• 1 medium-large bunch celery
•  1 large red onion
• 1 medium green apple
• Lemon juice
• ½ cup raisins
• 1/2 cup walnuts
• 1-1.5 cups paleo mayo
• Salt and pepper to taste

Slice the celery bunch (all at one time) into ¼ inch strips – doing the whole bunch at once saves a lot of time, which is good because I’m lazy. Throw in a large bowl. Then chop your red onion into a small dice and toss on top of the celery. Do the same with the apple, but toss it in lemon juice before you add it to the large bowl. Throw in the raisins. Coarsely chop the walnuts and add them to the bowl as well.



Strip the chicken from the bone in large chunks, keeping the skin if you like to have it in your chicken salad (I do, natch). Once you have the large chunks, tear it into smaller pieces and add it to the rest of the yummy goodness. At this point, it’s time to get everything mixed together. I stick my hands in the bowl and toss it until everything it’s incorporated. Sprinkle with you preferred amount of salt and pepper and repeat the hand toss. Finally, plop on your mayo and mix it up (I switch to using a spoon once the mayo goes in). Adjust the salt and pepper if needed. This recipe yields between 6-8 servings depending on your (or your husband's) hunger level.

Meatball Overload

I am about to say something I never thought possible: I have eaten too many meatballs. In the search to perfect the recipe, I made many batches. I had meatball taste tests. I had meatballs for breakfast. I shared them with friends. In short, I consumed many balls of meat.

One thing to chop.

The reason this recipe took so long is that I was trying to find a low-maintenance ball. Hee. The original recipe had so many things to chop that by the time I got to rolling them I was over the whole thing. And while I like fresh ingredients (paleo, duh), I always pair my meatballs with greens or another veg so I’m not terribly concerned about getting only fresh stuff into ball themselves. So, finally after mentioning it a few times here, I’m happy to reveal this recipe for Easy Ballz. You only have to chop on ingredient. It's actually fairly underwhelming. Sorry about that. 

Easy Meatballz

·         2 pounds ground beef

Chopped

·         1/2 cup dried minced onion (I use penzey’s)

·         1/2 cup almond flour (ground up almonds)

·         1 whole bunch flat leaf parsley (this is what you have to chop)

·         2 eggs

·         1.5 T salt

·         1.5 T garlic power

First off, mince the whole bunch of parsley. Make it small. My rule of thumb is that once you think you’re done, chop it five more times. I

Action Shot

have a stand mixer, so I literally just throw everything together in the order it’s listed and let the mixer do the hard work. Before I realized I could use the mixer, I just mushed it all together with my hands. That was kinda fun. Once it’s combined, I use a small ice cream scoop to ball up the meatballs. Line them on a baking sheet and cook at 350 for about 30 minutes. You can also grill them. Or cook them on the stove on medium heat. Eat in moderation.

Can You Grill a Meatball?

Hell yes you can. Evidence:   

 

All done. (And partially eaten removed.)

I’ve been experimenting with a new recipe. These were yum. I need to make them one more time to tweak the spicing and then I’ll share. I put these bad boys over a bed of spinach and pour sauce on top. It makes a good lunch because the spinach wilts when it heats up.