Custard & Crossfit

Let's talk about pumpkin custard. And Crossfit. They're two very different things that both happened to me today.

Crossfit is hard. Seriously. And the funny thing? I feel like it's even more of a mental challenge than physical some days. Today we worked on back squats, which is one of the things I struggle with the most so far. It can be super frustrating when I want so badly to improve quickly, but the lower half of my body just doesn't want to do what I want it to do. I made some baby-steps of progress, and even though I left feeling really weepy and defeated today, I'm determined to go back tomorrow and make a little more progress. 

Know what's not hard? Making Nom Nom Paleo's pumpkin custard. Not hard at all, I promise. I pinky-promise. I got home from Crossfit feeling crappy and defeated and needed a win, so I grabbed a few ingredients and threw together a tasty paleo-friendly dessert. Wanna make some?

Start by pre-heating the oven to 325 degrees. While that's heating up, shake up a can of coconut milk, then heat up 1 1/4 cups of the coconut milk on the stove until it's just warmed. Don't let it boil!

While that's warming up, grab a medium sized bowl, and crack in four eggs along with 1/2 cup of grade B maple syrup. Whisk the eggs and syrup together until well combined. I use my fancy old-fashioned hand mixer that I'm obsessed with. It makes me feel like Donna Reed.

Once the coconut milk has warmed up, add it into the egg and syrup mixture very slowly. Just put it in a few tablespoons at a time, otherwise you'll end up cooking the eggs (and you don't want that...yet).

Mix together until well combined.

Next, add in 3/4 cup of pumpkin puree, as well as 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract, and 1/4 teaspoon of kosher salt. Mix until well combined, and until you can't see any more lumps of pumpkin floating around in there.

Grab your kettle, fill it with water, and bring to a boil.

Divide your pumpkin mixture into 4 large ramekins (I like to use my turkey baster for this - it makes it a little bit less messy). Lay a clean dish towel in the bottom of a large deep baking dish. Place your ramekins in the dish on top of the towels, and pour boiled water into the dish until the ramekins are about halfway submerged in the water. Place the baking dish in the oven, and bake for 30-50 minutes (or until the custards are set, and a knife inserted into the middle comes out clean). Carefully remove the ramekins from the baking dish, and place them on a cooling rack. 

Now what? You can top them with a dollop of whipped coconut cream and a sprinkle of nutmeg. You could also sprinkle it with toasted coconut, or with a little drizzle of extra maple syrup. And if you decided to eat one with some fruit for breakfast? I wouldn't judge....

Pumpkin Custards (from Nom Nom Paleo)

1 1/4 cups coconut milk

4 eggs

1/2 cup grade B maple syrup

3/4 cup pumpkin puree

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Gather 4 medium-sized ramekins, and place them in a deep baking dish lined with a clean dish towel. At this time, bring a kettle or a large pot of water to a boil. 

Heat the coconut milk on the stove in a small pot until just warmed (not boiling). While the milk is warming up, whisk together the eggs and maple syrup in a medium sized bowl. Once the milk is warmed, add it to the egg mixture a few tablespoons at a time (not too quickly, or the eggs will start to cook!). Once combined, add in the remainder of the ingredients. Fill the ramekins with the pumpkin mixture leaving about 1/2 inch of space at the top. Place the filled ramekins in the baking dish, and pour the boiling water until the water level is about halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Bake for 30-50 minutes (it varies for me, I just bake it in 15 minute increments until a knife inserted into the middle comes out clean). 

These will keep in the fridge for a day or two, so they're perfect for making ahead if you're having people over and want an impressive dessert. They're also perfect if you want pumpkin custard 4 times. 

Enjoy!

Diana Sauce

OK - my husband is super sweet. Let's just get that out of the way to begin with. I have been making this paleo-mayo-based everything-sauce for a few months now, and we're both big fans. He loves it so much that he's affectionately named it "Diana Sauce". When there's a big batch of Diana Sauce in the fridge, times are good. When we've run out (and I haven't gotten around to making up a new batch), it makes for a pretty sad Kevin. I try to make a point of whipping up a batch at least once a week - we eat it with fresh chopped veggies, with meatballs, with chicken, and it makes a dang good salad dressing, too. I even chopped up a honeycrisp apple and dipped it this stuff, and it was a winning combination. Chop up some tomatoes and cucumbers and dress them with a spoonful of this stuff. You can't go wrong, I promise. 

The base of this sauce is a staple - Paleo mayonnaise. I use Melissa Joulwan's recipe for paleo mayo, and it's never steered me wrong yet. A couple things: 

1) Melissa will tell you that you have to drizzle the olive oil in slowly. She is right. Listen to her. If you get lazy and dump it in, it either won't work, or won't work out as well as you want it to. Trust. 

2) Let those eggs come to room temperature before you get going. I promise this is for the best. I just crack my eggs into my food processor and set the oven timer for 45 minutes for good measure. 

3) Use light olive oil, and use my super-secret-awesome tip for drizzling that oil. If you're anything like me, you'll get frustrated trying to drizzle olive oil from your weird measuring cups that insist on not providing an even stream. Go into the deep recesses of your kitchen drawer and bust out your turkey baster. Odds are, like me, you use it like once a year at best. It's been reborn as an olive-oil-mayo assistant! Use that to do a nice teeny tiny stream of olive oil into your mayo. 

For this recipe, you'll want to double Melissa's mayo recipe. That's the mayo up there. It looks even more beautiful and creamy in person. Resist the urge to stop at this point and chop up a cucumber and eat the whole bowl by itself.

Keep that mayo in your food processor/blender, and add in the following ingredients: 

1 tsp hot sauce (I like Tapatio)

1 tsp chopped chives

1 1/2 tsp smoked paprika

1/3 tsp cayenne pepper

3 tbsp dijon mustard (or spicy brown mustard - so good!)

1 tbsp white wine vinegar

1 tbsp lemon juice

3 scallions (green onions) chopped into a few pieces

1 large bunch of parsley, with most of the stems removed

Toss all of it into the food processor/blender with the mayo, and blitz away!

Ooh, pretty....it tastes so creamy and zingy and fresh with all the parsley and spices. If you can handle the heat, toss in double the cayenne, and double the hot sauce. 

Now get to dippin'. Got some leftover chicken in the fridge? Chop it up and dip it in some Diana Sauce. While I was making my sauce, I had a big triple-batch of greek meatballs baking away in the oven, and for lunch, they snuggled up to some fresh cucumber slices and everything got a nice dollop of creamy Diana Sauce. I would be remiss if I didn't tell you how good some fresh-baked sweet potato fries are if you dip them in this stuff. So good.

Diana Sauce: 

Double batch of Melissa Joulwan's Paleo Mayo (yeilds about 3 cups of mayo)

1 tsp hot sauce (I like Tapatio)

1 tsp chopped chives

1 1/2 tsp smoked paprika

1/3 tsp cayenne pepper

3 tbsp dijon mustard (or spicy brown mustard - so good!)

1 tbsp white wine vinegar

1 tbsp lemon juice

3 scallions (green onions) chopped into a few pieces

1 large bunch of parsley, with most of the stems removed

Once you've finished putting your Paleo Mayo together, leave it in the blender or food processor, and add in the hot sauce, chives, paprika, pepper, mustard, white wine vinegar, lemon juice, scallions, and parsley. Blend until well combined, and the veggies and scallions have been chopped up and mixed in well. 

Proceed to dip everything into the sauce. 

The expiration date for the sauce will be the same date as the expiration date on the eggs you used for the mayo. Odds are, though, it won't last that long!

New Directions

No, I promise this isn't a post about Glee. I watched that show back in the early days, and I recently caught a promo of a newer episode and was genuinely like "uh, so now they're all in New York, and somehow that guy from American Idol is part of it now....?". Yeah.

Anyway.

This is a post about goals. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know that last August I started a pretty challenging (but super rewarding) journey toward losing a bunch of the weight that I'd inadvertently gained over the past 10-ish years. I talk a lot about my progress here. I love eating Paleo, and I definitely have no plans to give it up any time soon, but I think it's safe to say that the past couple of weeks have really changed the direction I'm going in. Every day since August 3rd, 2013 was mostly about getting 'skinny' again. Getting back the body I had when I was in high school and could still get away with eating a plate of poutine and a cream-cheese bagel for lunch on the regular, and not end up looking like the blueberry girl from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. And don't get me wrong, losing weight for the purpose of getting to a healthy weight is a totally legitimate goal, and I'm so so so thankful for the progress I've made so far.

In a lot of ways, I'm pretty proud of myself for the progress I've made so far. But as I got closer and closer to my 'goal weight' (the arbitrary number I had in my mind of the weight that I 'wanted' to be), I started to wonder what the point was. Sure, I could go out and get myself a smaller cuter swimsuit than the ones I wore last summer, but who cares? I definitely started to feel the pull of a new challenge. Today was the start of my third week at Crossfit North Cobb, and I loved every minute of having my butt kicked by today's WOD. Sure, there were a few minutes where I was struggling, but those moments of digging deep and pushing myself continue to feel incredible, and I can't wait to go back again tomorrow.

So all in all, it's nice to feel 'thin' again, but I'm ready to feel strong.

Crossfit: First Week's Reflections

So it's a week today since I started Crossfit, and I never thought I'd have so much to say about it. 

After the first WOD (workout of the day) I honestly got in my car feeling more exhausted and sore than I can ever remember feeling in my life. Part of me felt really defeated - how had I let myself get this out of shape? After a week, though, it's starting to get really exciting to see the little bits of progress that I'm making. I feel so much stronger, and I feel like I have so much more strength and perseverance than I ever thought I did. Know what's the best feeling? Getting to the point in the workout when I feel like I don't have enough energy to even fall back onto the ground, then taking a few deep breaths, summoning up some additional strength, and punching out a few more reps. Sometimes I feel like my brain is getting as much of a workout as my body. 

I'll be back soon with more recipes and updates, but for now I'll leave you with this little bit of workout motivation that I heard on the radio the other day, and decided to turn into an illustration: 

Happy Tuesday, y'all!

Jalapeno Lime Chicken

So, I finally went to Crossfit for the first time yesterday. My super awesome and super strong friend Lauren took me to her box, and it was one of the hardest (and most fun) things I've done in a long time. I left with some pretty weak arms, and some pretty awesome bruises on my collarbones from pounding out a bunch of.....I think they were called shoulder presses? I also left feeling pretty accomplished, though. At the beginning when Justin told me I'd be doing three sets of 10 shoulder presses with three sets of 10 kettlebell swings in between in under 8 minutes, I'm pretty sure I gave him a look that said "you know I have all the upper body strength of a premature kitten, right?", but with a lot of tiny breaks, I managed to bust out the whole thing, and it felt pretty incredible! Know what felt even more incredible? The fact that I had prepped dinner earlier in the day, and all that was left was coming home and tossing some chicken on the grill. Yeah. That felt pretty good. 

This chicken packs a punch, not unlike a Crossfit workout. It'll also leave you feeling hot, maybe even a teeny bit sweaty, which is also not unlike a Crossfit workout. Let's get started!

Grab a lime, zest it, juice it, and toss it all into your

blender or food processor along with 1/2 of a small red onion.

Grab yourself three scallions (with the little root ends cut off) and 1/2 cup each of

fresh basil and fresh mint, and toss them in the food processor along with your onion, 

lime juice, and zest.

Cut one large (or two small) jalapeno peppers in half. Remove the ribs
and seeds, and toss it in the food processor with the rest.

Add in 1/2 teaspoon of cracked black pepper, 2 cloves of minced garlic, 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt, and 1 teaspoon of sriracha sauce.

Pulse all the ingredients until they resemble a thin
sort of salsa. It's going to be spicy. Don't do what I did and
try to get a good sniff of the mixture as soon as it's
done mixing, or you'll end up crying off most of
your mascara like I did. I'm so smooth. 

Grab your chicken (I used bone-in skin-on chicken thighs: they're inexpensive,
and grill up nice and moist!) and slather only 1/2 of the jalapeno lime sauce onto the
skin of the chicken. Cover the chicken and let it sit in the fridge for at least 2 hours,

or up to 12 hours. 

Grill the chicken on medium heat for about 15 minutes, or until cooked through.
Alternately, bake the chicken in a 375 degree oven for about 20 minutes, or until
the chicken is cooked through (this will depend largely on the size and thickness
of the chicken)

Serve it up with a side of your choice - I did it with some perfectly baked
sweet potato fries! Serve the rest of your jalapeno lime sauce alongside the
chicken as a dipping sauce!

Recipe:

Ingredients:

4 bone-in skin-on chicken thighs

1 large jalapeno pepper

1/2 small red onion

2 cloves minced garlic

1/2 teaspoon Sriracha sauce

1/2 cup fresh mint

1/2 cup fresh basil

1/2 teaspoon cracked black pepper

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Blitz all ingredients in a food processor or blender until it resembles a thin salsa. Set aside half of the mixture for later. Rub the other half of the mixture into the chicken thighs, and allow the meat to rest in the fridge and marinate for at least 2 hours, or up to 12 hours. Grill the chicken on medium heat, and once it's cooked through, serve the chicken with the remainder of the jalapeno lime sauce on the side for dipping. 

For the non-spicy Lauren-ified version, omit the jalapeno peppers and sriracha sauce, and put in the whole red onion instead of just half!

Happy Grilling, everyone!

I Love Bagna Cauda!

Put an Egg On It

Does anyone else watch Portlandia? It's a crazy funny little show with Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, and Kevin and I watch it all the time. Remember the episode with "Put a Bird On It?"

Interestingly enough, this segues nicely into one of my most favorite Paleo mantras. When I'm trying to throw together a meal in a short window of time, what do I do? Put an egg on it. Got a couple of leftover roasted sweet potatoes in the fridge? Put an egg on it. Trying to figure out what's for breakfast? Grab that leftover broccoli bagna cauda, warm it up in the oven, and get crackin'. Seriously. Eggs are the easiest quickest protein to have on hand if you're eating paleo. I have yet to meet a person who doesn't like eggs in one form or another. Like em' sunny side up or over easy? Toss that egg on top of just about anything and let that creamy yolk spill out. Like em' scrambled? Toss in some leftover protein, and whatever veggies you have kicking around in the fridge, and voila! Instant meal! So next time you're struggling to come up with something to eat, remember my mantra, and PUT AN EGG ON IT!

Have a great Thursday, everyone!