Mint-seared Lamb Steak

11 Feb

I’ve been jonesing for some lamb lately, but have stayed out of my favorite Persian restaurants (Afghan House, Kabul, Chelokebabi).  I don’t trust myself not to say “just this once” yet another time and order my favorite form of lamb,  qabili pullaw.  Chunks of boneless lamb so tender they fall apart, buried in a mound of rice with carrot strips and raisins.  Not even remotely Paleo-ok but darn, so goooood.

However, I was determined to enjoy some lamb, even though my other favorite way is simmered in copious quantities of Crossewell-Black Mint Sauce, full of sugar.  Go go gadget recipe invention time!

Mint, lemongrass, thyme in a pan with macadamia nut oil

I started with a frypan splashed with a little macadamia nut oil, into which is I strewed a generous amount of dried spearmint, kind of a super-pinch of thumb and all four fingers.  I added a small pinch of lemongrass and ditto of thyme.

When that was bubbling, I dropped in the lamb steak and pressed it into the pan to become thoroughly coated on one side.  I let that side sizzle on medium heat enough to attach the herbs, probably 2 – 3 minutes but don’t quote me.  Until the top side started showing a little blood in the creases.    Then I flipped it over with a fork and lowered the heat.

I let the lamb steak cook the rest of the way on the second side, as I wanted it rather rare inside (yum).  Note that this will leave the marrow still fairly raw and bloody, so if you plan to eat the marrow, I’d advise cutting out the marrow bone and cooking it separately or freezing it for soup stock.

The lamb and mint, with sweet notes from the thyme and lemongrass, was smelling fantastic.  There was still something missing, though, that vinegar tang.  I removed the now-done steak from the pan and set it aside on a plate.  I poured in 2 – 3 Tablespoons of apple cider vinegar, and deglazed the pan with it, swirling until the mixture bubbled furiously.  I might have reduced it further, but it was smelling PERFECT and making me really hungry.  Note that I didn’t need a spatula for deglazing, as I never let the lamb get brown or grilled so it did not stick to the pan.  Plus, I adore my Circulon and it’s so easy to clean.

Fabulous barely begins to describe it.  I dug in with gusto, ate about half and put the other half away.  An unexpected bonus was that the mint-vinegar combo meant that the Squeaky Four-Foots turned up their noses as a proffered morsel, leaving me to eat my lunch in peace.  It just doesn’t get better than that!

If I were organized or doing this for a real dinner instead of a hasty housecleaning-break lunch, I’d likely pair it with the cauliflower ‘mashed potatoes’ that I’ve seen on various blogs.  I would likely dial the garlic way back since with mint sauce it might be jangly.  I’d also reduce the mint sauce more so it would be thick rather than brothy (tasty broth though!).  Finish off with a salad of chickweed, young romaine, nasturtium leaves and blossoms and pomegrante nibs, either not dressed or lightly tossed with a crunchy salt and some interesting oil (pumpkinseed, perhaps; hmm adding pumpkin seeds to this would also be good).

Until next time!  The somewhat, ok rather, naughty Paleo-shirker who ate BREAD with dinner and a blueberry muffin and croissant at a coffee shop has redeemed herself… for now.  Keep the faith!

 

Rich, Dark Morning Beverage

4 Feb

Since I’ve started eating mostly Paleo, I have lost my interest in coffee. This mild-sounding statement provokes a jaw-drop from friends who know me well. Often my breakfast is a fruit and coconut-millk smoothie and a hardboiled egg or two. No more coffee and oatmeal.

Days like today, though, I miss having a hot beverage, as my breakfast is cold grilled chicken and a banana. Tea doesn’t quite cut it, although I happily drink regular and non-caffeine iced tea all day.

I turned to my favorite non-coffee substitute, Cafix, which is a beverage used in many vegan establishments. It’s ground beetroot, chicory root, and some roasted grains. Hmm. Grains.

My next experiment was with mesquite powder. Dark, complex, vaguely sweet, but somehow lacking body, even with coconut milk. What to do?

Aha! Now I add a teaspoon of raw cacao powder to my heaping tablespoon of mesquite powder, and a dash of coconut milk once it’s mixed with hot water. This is not yet perfect, still needs a “bite” to it and frequent stirring to keep the mesquite fully in solution.

I’ll try plain raw cacao powder next time and see what that’s like with the coconut milk. What’s your hot morning go-to drink?

Parsnip-Carrot Curry Fry

1 Feb

Was putting parsnips in soup the other day, and tasted a raw bit.  Mmmm, sweet and tasty!!  The idea of doing a slaw with parsnips took root (ha ha!) in my mind.   Last night I used the shredder blade in the cuisinart to shred 4 parsnips and 3 carrots.  The result was tasty but not quite what I was craving.

Aha! To the frying pan, Batgirl! And the results were AWESOME.  Spouse and I had big helpings.  I am having a little bowl with breakfast.  He took some with his broccoli for lunch at work.

Parsnip-Carrot Curry Fry

Shred finely:

  • 4 large parsnips (Fresh n Easy pack)
  • 3 medium to large carrots (Mt View Farmers’ Market)
    • aim for a 4 parts parsnip to 3 parts carrot by volume

In a deep frying pan over medium heat, combine and stir until blended and sizzling:

  • 3 tablespoons of organic non-toasted sesame oil
  • 4 tablespoons of pasture-fed butter
  • 1 tablespoon whole yellow (brown) mustard seed
  • 1 – 2 tablespoons light curry
    • I used a Whole Foods blend called “Ras al Hanout”

Dump in the shredded parsnip and carrot mix, and gently stir until the mixture is no longer crunchy… or leave partly crunchy if you prefer it that way!  Taste is naturally sweet, may need a little salt depending on your curry blend.  The mustard seeds provide a nice little crunch now and then.  Enjoy!

 

On Food, Stress, and Good Examples

25 Jan

Stressy work day plus exhaustion equals bad food day.  We won’t even talk about the Snickers Ice Cream Bar… oh, wait, we just did.

At least I came home and had good food choices, including the last of the steamed broccoli and kabocha from this weekend, and the other 8oz of grass-fed hamburger patty with a little slather of BBQ sauce on top.  I realized that I had no clue what to eat tomorrow or the next day, and resolved to go forth and look for recipes.

My first stop was Nom Nom Paleo, very local and discovered accidentally while searching for grass-fed meat sources that attend the Mountain View Farmers’ Market.  The intrepid Nom’er did a series on doing the 30-day strict diet challenge, and I figured she must have included some good recipes there, as well as inspiring combinations of goodies.  I was right!

I found the recipe browsing so inspiring that I had to get up and make food even though it was already 9pm.  By the time I was done chopping and assembling, I had a pair of projects going:

 

Chicken stock bone broth from a Costco rotisserie chicken carcass I had tossed into the freezer, with whole garlic cloves, parsnip, carrot, onion, and celery.  Hey! I forgot the celery! Just got up and put it in, thanks for waiting.  I also tossed in a couple of chunks of dried savory pepper, Turkish Alma and Pasillo Baijo, and a bay leaf, with some savory, rosemary, sage, and marjoram.  All but the bay leaf are home grown by yours truly!  I used a whole Meyer lemon as the acidity source, as we had one sitting on the counter pouting after one of Mike’s co-workers gave him some.  BTW, the string has been removed.  It was frozen under the wing, and I had to let the carcass thaw before I could remove it!

I use whole chunks of root veggie, and quartered onion.  That way I can strain the broth through a colander afterwards, pick out the veggies, and chop them up to put in the soup.  I pull the big chunks of meat off the carcass and set aside in the fridge, as they’ll be tough and stringy if they simmer for hours in the broth. Be sure to pull out the gelled bits of roasty broth and add those, yum.  I find the seasoned chicken too salty if I add any salt to the broth, so I don’t.  Next time it will be all chicken breastbones and thigh bones from grass-fed or organic or both, but for now why waste that chicken carcass?

Pan-roasted vegetables: sweet potato, parsnip, carrot, onion, tossed in half macadamia-nut oil and half EVOO, sprinkled with a Tuscan salt mixture from Whole Foods.  The picture is from when they first went in, and I just stirred them at the halfway point.  The kitchen is starting to smell awesome, and soon the little deaf cat will come and meow loudly, hoping for some goodies.  Sorry, little cat, but here’s a dry cat treat. You’ll get some nice broth tomorrow when it’s done!

Living, Loving, Learning

24 Jan

Had a truly intense 3 days at a leadership/growth seminar in San Jose CA, going from 10am to almost midnight every day.  Spent today cocooned and processing, punctuated by a wonderful walk with friends on the Stevens Creek Trail and a Mostly Paleo huge dinner out at Sweet Tomatoes.   Managed to stay on-diet for all but the final seminar day, when exhaustion and carb craving caught up with me and I chose to order lasagna at dinner on Sunday night.  It wasn’t even very good lasagna– sadness!  Note to self: when selling one’s soul for carbs, get a better price.

Overall success has been awesome, more energy, more alertness, sleeping easier at night, and 60 – 80 percent reduction in the amount of junk in my sinuses when I wake up in the morning.  Sweet!  When I shopped tonight, I picked up more of the coconut milk and almond milk, this time the unsweetened versions.  I just

I’m catching up on reading the zillions of tabs I opened a few days ago when I started on my Paleo journey.  I’m finding a lot of truly awesome material at Being Primal, especially the sidebar articles.  I also have some requests awaiting me at my local library, namely The Paleo Diet 2nd edition and one of the Paleo cookbooks.  Look forward to book reviews here soon!

Today’s Noms

19 Jan

Very very very late at work preparing to be gone tomorrow.  Very hard-charging day having to microfocus on some boring but precise updates to systems and spreadsheets, so too much chocolate.  One day at a time!

Breakfast, Standing in the Kitchen

  • smoothie (zomg, fabulous!)
    • 12 oz FnE organic coconut milk
    • handful of cashews
    • handful of frozen wild blueberries
    • banana
    • 2 T of Nutiva Natural freeze-dried pomegranete powder
  • organic Red Delicious apple (at my desk)

Lunch at My Desk

  • salad
    • 1 c roasted brussel sprouts
    • 1 hardboiled egg
    • 1/2 c sliced grilled chicken breast
    • 2 Tb grilled corn
    • 2 Tb grilled yellow summer squash
    • 2 Tb sliced almonds
    • 2 – 3 Tb dijon mustard dressing
  • office Sumatra coffee w/FnE almond milk
  • persimmon

Afternoon Sanity

  • 4 Dove chocolate squares
  • 8 oz water
  • 16 oz pot of fruit tea:
    • hot water
    • 1/2 c dried Blenheim apricots (sulfured)
    • 1 Tb dried Bing cherries
    • organic jasmine pearl tea

Dinner at My Desk

  • TJ’s turkey meatballs in TJ’s sauce with organic spinach (leftover from yesterday)
  • 4 chocolate Dove squares
  • 4 oz almond milk with hot water

Baby, We Were Born to Run!

19 Jan

At my current weight, I don’t think I’ll be *running* anytime soon, but I will surely be walking more and more.  My goal is to take a sunny weekend walk for an hour every weekend, at minimum.  The weekend before last, success.  Last weekend, not so much. It was sunny but I wasn’t showing up for it.  This weekend I’ll be in a 3-day seminar Fri/Sat/Sun with limited breaks.  I’m hoping to use at least 10 – 15 minutes of our 45 minute lunch break to walk, if the weather cooperates.  If it doesn’t, I might circle around in the huge parking garage downstairs just to keep moving.

I would love to do more walking in my Vibram “five-finger” shoes, the kind that your toes go into.  I find them hard to put on since I have some minor neuropathy in my feet, so I don’t get tactile cues about whether my toes are going in the right place, and have to kind of herd them in by hand.  I got the low “ballet shoe” type rather than the full-foot “KSO” (Keep Stuff Out) variety, and I worry about rocks or twigs or ticks or excuses (d’oh!) getting caught in them.

I’ve seen a number of studies, primarily from China but also some Western studies, about how walking on a cobbled stone surface barefoot can improve motor abilities in humans, especially in senior citizens who are having balance difficulties. Something about the stimulation of the foot nerves and muscles by uneven textures and pressures can “wake up” our motor system and tune it up.

So the whole barefoot or near-barefoot running thing makes good sense to me. Reading some descriptions of the new generation of ultra-expensive pseudo-barefoot running shoes, they stress that they allow full flexion of the foot, as well as transverse flexion, to better allow the sole to adapt to uneven ground. YMMV for sure!

Bruce Springsteen was right, we were born to run.  Running is something that humans are incredibly well-adapted to do, and is why we finally found it useful to get rid of all that body hair. It’s how we managed to get all that protein that helped us level up to a bigger brain, using a technique called “persistence hunting”. A lone human hunter can cut a gazelle out of a herd and pursue it until it drops from heat exhaustion, while the human’s sweat pours down his or her largely-hairless skin, providing efficient cooling. Cheetahs and gazelles are both sprinters, but humans are endurance runners, burning fat below the aerobic curve and able to “go turbo” above it by switching to burning glucose for short bursts.  According to the fossil record, about 1.8 million years went by between when humans started to “get modern” and when we invented atlatls and spears and bows-n-arrows and the like.

There’s a great article about some folks attempting to prove this by example in modern times. I won’t say whether they do or not, you’ll have to read for yourself!  A bunch of marathon runners arrange a meetup in the SouthWest, with a guide and a hunting license, and try to run down a Pronghorn antelope.

Speaking of running, I need to run along to beddie-bye.  Maybe I can run in my dreams and get some inspiration so I can do it in real life within the next year.  Gotta walk before I run, though!

Lunch, Snacks, Dinner

18 Jan
  • Sumatra office coffee w/hot water and FnE organic almond milk
  • banana that I forgot to count yesterday
  • 2 Dove dark chocolate squares
  • 1/4 c dried plums
  • salad with dijon dressing
    • 1/2 c spinach
    • sliced almonds (just a sprinkle)
    • 1/4 c steamed broccoli
    • 1/4 c grilled cauliflower
    • 1/4 c grilled eggplant (in retrospect, oops, nightshade!)
    • 1/4 c grilled whole kernel corn
    • 1.5 hardboiled eggs
    • 1/4 c battered fried chicken nuggets, unfortunately tossed in sweet sauce: out of plain chicken slices
  • organic jasmine pearl green tea w/FnE organic almond milk
  • persimmon
  • 1/4 c dried sulfured Blenheim apricots in green tea and water
  • 8 oz Fresh n Easy “creamy carrot” soup w/hot water added
  • organic Hass avocado
  • “Kind” almond & apricot fruit bar (wups, has glucose and a a little puffed rice in it)
    • The Kind bar gets a #fail rating from me, as it was waaaaay sweet, had very few almonds, and I felt tired and grouchy about an hour after eating it.  Bzzzt! Managed to rally and do my errands anyway.

Good grief, I’ve been eating all this stuff, yet I’m still hungry!  Gonna try cooking up some substantial goodies tonight that I can nom on.

Challenge:  I have a 3-day seminar coming up Friday thru Sunday, 10am – midnight, with a 15 minute break every 3 hours, 45 minute lunch break, and a 90 minute dinner break.  Gotta figure out what to bring with me as the typical things I’d bring are no longer ok: cheese sticks, tuna n cracker packs (sweetened tuna), pudding cups.   Maybe steam a kabocha squash and a bunch of broccoli, ziplocs of nuts n dried fruits, lunch break I can snag tuna or chicken salad at the sammich shop across the way… on Friday, it’s closed on the weekends, right I remember this from last time.  “Weeee shalll oooovercoommme….”  Will figure it all out I’m sure.

Dinner update:

  • 12 oz container of Fresh and Easy “sweet potato crab bisque”; fabulous! too bad it has several naughty ingredients, notably sugar in the “crab base” in the ingredients
  • Trader Joe’s turkey meatballs simmered with (wups, soy and breadcrumbs!)
  • organic frozen chopped spinach in
  • Trader Giotto’s organic marinara sauce (wups, sugar!)
  • handful of raw cashews
  • 12 oz fizzy lime water
  • 4 oz Fresh and Easy brand organic coconut milk (sweetened)

Breakfast Shake

18 Jan
  • 12 oz Fresh-n-Easy brand coconut milk (like, in a carton, in the refrigerated section; sweetened)
  • handful of raw cashews
  • banana (are these ok.. need to read up, I always reach for a banana into a smoothie)
  • heaping teaspoon Nutiva Natural freeze-dried pomegranete powder

Verdict: OMG delicious.  Considering I often wake up in a prehistoric state (crawling up onto land wondering what the heck I’m doing here), I was happy that I could think of the ingredients and use the VitaMix without cutting myself.  A good portent for the day, perhaps. Nonetheless, I see 3×5 cards in my kitchen future.  Written with big letters and small words.

Waking more up while writing this, I realize I forgot protein powder.  Then again, the stuff I have (Whole Foods 365) is whey based, and we’re avoiding dairy.  Hmm.  More reading.  After work, though, or during lunch hour. Bye!

Dinner

17 Jan
  • 2 – 3 oz of ranch flavor kale chips (unimpressed!)
  • 3ish oz raw whole cashews (nom!)
  • 4ish oz Safeway deli chicken salad (chicken, some celery, some mayo, mostly chicken)
  • tablespoon of organic raisins
  • 3 slices (about an inch) of Pinot Grigio dry sausage from Cost Plus
  • 1/4 c of dried prunes

Really craving muffins or something like them, bought blueberries today.  Think I’ll make a barley and almond meal kind of scone or something.  Or maybe be strong and smoothie them, though they are fresh, not frozen.

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