I’ve been vegetarian for approximately 36 hours.
Ended tonight with a small piece of salmon. But, this is this month ‘s challenge … One vegetarian dinner a week. Harder than you think for this protein-packing gal. Need to start checking out some recipes.
Skill: Press – Wendler cycle 2 week 1
10 rounds, 15 min cap:
5 pike pushups
5 thrusters (40#)
10 ring rows / bent over rows (40#)
Then, 50 double-unders
I did more like 15 DUs and 125 singles.
More training posts to come, thanks to a gym challenge I’m tasked to complete this month.
No pictures, but recently I’ve done a few reruns for dinner. Here is a tally, with notes.
Beef stroganoff. Last time it was a hit. This time I was off my game. Not enough wine, forgot the Worcestershire sauce, not as spectacular. I will win the next round.
Moroccan chicken thighs. I love this dish. A swirl of nut butter at the end of cooking creates a great final touch. I didn’t have enough chicken, and had too many chickpeas. Need to swap the ratios next time.
Chicken stew with biscuits. Except that I didn’t make the biscuits. Husband said no thanks. So it was just so so. Just dinner. Biscuits might have helped this one.
So there you go.
April is birthday month! Some things I did this month that I categorize as ‘I’m doing it because it’s my birthday’:
Now. That last one. I got this fancy cake mix from the fancy store. Based on the box, here’s what I was thinking my cake would look like:
I didn’t realize the trouble I was in until I attempted to invert these cakes. But, seriously. It’s me. I should have known that This wasn’t going to work out.
The thing is … It was a really great cake mx. Even if the cake didn’t look good, I couldn’t just toss it out. That’s when genius husband suggested using a glas to cookie cutter out a few smaller layers and creating a mini cake.
Great idea! So I started cutting out layers, then got a little cocky. Four layers later I realized I would not be able to frost the sucker. There was already plenty of frosting in between the layers. So, I shrugged my shoulders and called it a day.
I present to you … The chocolate cake outburst:
There is a part three to this story as well. I haven’t uploaded the photos, though. You’ll just have to stay tuned.
“you know, they’re not real”
We have borrowed from the library a few variations of ‘The Gingerbread Boy’ and the most recent reading gave me a hankering for some out of season gingerbread cookies. I am not a huge fan of the story (Gingerbread Boy is a little too cocky for my taste) but the cookies were delightful. Soft and chewy.
Some pirates and dino cookies also made it to the cookie sheet.
I still have some lingering Paleo-type ingredients in the pantry (coconut flour, oil, etc), so decided to make some birthday treats for my crossfit class tomorrow. I opted for these Paleo pumpkin muffins, and am unsure if I’ll bring them to class. They smelled great while baking, but did not taste as sweet as I like. I actually think it’s because when I smell those pumpkin spice scents … the nutmeg, the cinnamon, the cloves … I’m reminded of those moist, sweet pumpkin muffins I used to make using butter, brown sugar and flour. Or a nice, rich pumpkin pie. Mmmm … pumpkin pie. Or pumpkin bread. Pumpkin cheesecake. Drooling now.
These muffins aren’t bad, they’re just Paleo. Sometimes you picture one thing and if the end result does quite live up to the image in your head, it’s not perfect, then there is that slight disappointment.
It didn’t help that I made these in mini-muffin tins and forgot to convert the time-in-oven until probably a minute too late.
Pumpkin Spice Muffins, paleo-style
From this this recipe for Purely Paleo Pumpkin Spice Muffins (but, if you’re using baking power and soda, is it really “purely paleo”? I’m not judging. I’m not even doing Paleo anymore! Wait til you see my next baking post!). The one sub I made was using melted coconut oil for the olive oil, and combining the honey w/agave syrup instead of maple (maybe I should have kept the maple).
UPDATE: I think these taste better the next day. Though not good enough that I didn’t bring them to class this morning. They also taste better slathered with jam or nut butter. That is all.
This was a last-minute decision. Saturday night I decided, why not a slow-cooker ham? So at like eight on Sunday morning we went to the store to gather the ingredients. It didn’t help that I was riffing off a recipe that used a different kind of ham. I cooked it on low for 8 hours and it ham (a fully cooked smoked ham) was just warmed through, not piping hot or anything. Still, it was a tasty ham, especially as it’s not something we do all that often. I also made this elaborate green bean casserole using cream cheese, bacon and sauteed onions, among other things. The green beans were not fully cooked, either, though I like them crunchy.
It was a decent meal, but i’ll have to figure out that ham thing. Next time I think I’ll go on high for the first hour and low for the next 7. Unfortunatley I wasn’t at home for the first hour so it wouldn’t have worked.
Happy Easter
Also, we ate ham pretty much for the next seven days. 2.5 lbs of ham is a LOT of ham.
Scenes from a Chinese-Irish-Italian Kitchen. For St Pattys Day we go all out:
Final Meal: Corned Beef & Cabbage with vegetables, and a slice of Irish Soda Bread
Corned beef and cabbage and other root vegetables. Slow cooker goodness. The beef was a fancy sort that did not come with “seasonings” so I mixed up my own, a combination of mustard seed, fennel seeds, crushed bay leaves, cumin, etc etc. The Irish Soda Bread, baked the night before, is courtesy of a mix this time (Sticky Fingers Bakeries). It came with caraway seeds and raisins. Didn’t expect the raisins, which was ok by me, only not a big hit with the husband and child.
And for dessert. Hadn’t been here for a while, so figured we’d drop in for some Irish fun:
Pot o’ gold at the end of that rainbow
Guinness Stout, a special that shows up just a couple times a year
Happy St. Patrick’s Day. See, even the Chinese can make it sorta Irish-y
mini coconut cupcakes.
Pantry is still filled with various paleo ingredients, so what else are you going to do? Last night I made a half-batch of those tasty no-bake paleo cookies. For the gems in the pic above I used coconut flour, oil and flakes to make these little sweet minis. The green specks you see are the non-paleo funfetti goodness I included at the request of the kiddo.
These were moist and tasty. A small batch meant we didn’t over do it.
modernized version of a traditional treat
Late post. This is a Chinese New Year tradition. Yes, the Lunar New Year was in February. i also have a St Pattys Day post in my Drafts folder so sue me! I could tell you about Nian Gao, or you could Bing it yourself. Maybe when I’m not typing from the iPad I’ll expand on the history but by then wouldn’t you have already clicked the nice link I provided?
I had to delay making this until my Paleo Challenge was complete. I love the texture of sticky, glutinous rice flour in desserts (think Mochi, sesame seed/ red bean dim sum desserts) but rarely use it for everyday baking (though since I now have an extra bag hanging in the pantry there may be something in my future). The updated version of a New Years cake was slightly modified. I used coconut oil because I had it, and less sugar because I didn’t have enough of it The oil made no diff to me, but it really wasn’t sweet enough. Which is funny to say as I am a fan of lightly sweetened treats, and often reduce the amount f sugar in recipes.
The kid enjoyed it, the husband did not, and, frankly never has. I’ll have to find a New Years treat we can all enjoy next year.
Recipe (includes many more Chinese New Year recipes and a quick historical lesson).