Basil Coconut Curry Chicken

One of my favorite recipe websites is the fantastic Simply Recipes run by the amazing Elise Bauer (no relation to Jack). I love her site because it's essentially an online index of her family's homemade recipes. And they value "real food". An exerpt from her website describes her take on food as such:

" The recipes shown here use mostly whole food ingredients and only occasionally a few things from cans or prepared foods. We believe in a varied, healthy diet, using real butter, real cream, eggs, lots of green vegetables, and protein from meat, fish, beans, and cheese."

This is, of course, very similar to the primal eating lifestyle concept, minus the beans and cheese. So, she gets mad respect from me. More people need to eat real food. Anyway, on to tonight's adaptation....


Tonight I modified one of her yummy creations, Basil Chicken in Coconut Curry Sauce, to fit my Paleo-friendly preferences. I chose this recipe because I love anything with coconut, and anything that only invovles using one pan to make an entire meal. Can I get an amen for less dishes to wash? The results = yummy. And super E approved. He was turning his bowl upside down after he was done searching for any remaining remnants of our delicious meal. Below is the recipe as I prepared it:

Ingredients

• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/4 teaspoon turmeric

• 1 lb skinless, boneless chicken thighs

• 1 large red onion, chopped (about 1 cup)
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 jalapeño peppers, seeded and minced (I did not include these so E could eat it, although normally I would love anything with a kick)
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 14-oz can coconut milk
• 2 teaspoons coconut flour
• 2 Tbsp basil leaves
• 1 Tbsp ground ginger

• shredded cabbage (pre-made bag for making cole slaw)

Method

1 In a small bowl, mix together the salt, ground coriander, cumin, ground cloves, black pepper, chili powder, and turmeric. Set aside.

2 Rinse chicken, pat dry. Cut into 1-inch pieces. Put into a bowl and sprinkle the spice mix over all the pieces. Coat well and let sit in the refrigerator for 1 to 2 hours.

3 In a large skillet heat 1 Tbsp oil on medium high heat. Add the onions and jalapeños and cook for 3 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute more. Remove the onions, peppers and garlic from the pan and put into a medium sized bowl. Set aside. Use the same pan for the next step.

4 Add 1 Tbsp oil to the skillet and heat on medium high heat. Add one half of the chicken pieces, spreading them out on the pan so they are not crowded. Brown for a few minutes on each side. When the chicken pieces are cooked through, and no pink remains, remove from pan, add to the bowl with the onions. Cook the second batch of chicken pieces the same way. Remove from pan, add to bowl with onions.

5 Add the coconut milk to the skillet. Add the coconut flour. Cook on medium heat and stir till thick and bubbly. Add chicken mixture, basil, and ginger. Cook 2 minutes more to cook through.

Serve over cabbage or pre-made cole slaw.

I wish I had gotten a picture of it after I was done cooking, but bay-bay was hungry. At least I got a cell phone pic of E digging in.

Instead I will share a super cute pic of my little man from today, sporting his new BMX shirt and wanna-be ChuckT's. I can't believe how big he looks in this pic! He is such a funny kid, he makes me laugh every day!

 If you try this recipe or any of Elise's fabulous family creations, let me know!

A Little Experimentation of My Own

So, I had a follow up appointment with a doctor here in Franklin at Vanderbilt Bone & Joint in regards to my little stress fracture in my foot. And the verdict wasn't what I was hoping for. He said all my bone regrowth looks great, but the fact that I am still having some discomfort when performing certain activities concerned him. I could choose to follow his advice based on this one visit, or go get an MRI and be certain. I chose not to mess with the MRI. I really hate having to go to the doc. Seems like such a waste of time. ANYWAY....doc said no running until May. LAME. But I can do a lot of walking. If I can do that and my regular CrossFit workouts without discomfort, then I can start running before May. Considering my CF training involves lots of heavy weight, box jumping and jump roping, I'm not sure it's the best thing for my foot. But I. CAN'T. GIVE. UP. CROSSFIT.  It's like, one thing that I'm decent at. Not Games decent, but decent as in putting up respectable times using prescribed weight (sometimes more than Rx'd).

So, with that in mind, I am making a few adjustments to my training and lifestyle for a while. Yesterday was kind of a bum day for me. One of those days where you kind of pout and throw a pity party and bemoan how lame you are. Yeah, that was my day yesterday. Then I read this totally motivating post from fellow CrossFitter and Paleo eating machine, Melissa Joulwan. She linked up a great article from Mark Sisson of Mark's Daily Apple entitled 17 Reason's You're Not Losing Weight. And not that I'm all crazy thinking I'm so overweight, but I'm still not where I'd like to be. So I decided to implement a few changes and see how it affects my body composition. After reading Mel's list I was inspired to start my own. Starting today, I'm adding the following "experiments":

1) Walking- crazy, right? But getting 3-5 hours per week of low-level activity (only 55-75% of max heart rate) is a super awesome fat burning activity. And since I can't run right now, this is a great time to see how walking can benefit me. My goal is at least 3 hrs per week, and with the weather warming up, should be totally do-able...now, if I could only overcome my fear of those evil red wasps that lurk all over this neighborhood! If you see a girl walking around Westhaven in a beekeeper hat, it's me.

2) Core Work daily- Obviously things aren't quite the same in the core area as they were about 2 yrs ago before I was with child. This is one of my biggest complaints. That even though I have lost most of my baby weight, I have this mushy grody belly skin. And I know the only thing that can fix it is diet and core work. Or a surgical procedure, but that is like cheating, right? So, I have to commit to daily core work, even if it's only 10-15 minutes.

3) Intermittent Fasting- I had heard some chatter about the topic but never really investigated it. Until now. I am intrigued with the idea and curious as to how it will affect my metabolism. You can read more about it here if you wish. But essentially it is the practicie of periodic elimination of meals for several hours. Different people will practice it in different ways, some skip one or two meals, some do a 12-hour fast, some a 24-hour fast. There's no wrong way to practice IF. It is very flexible. If you are new to the practice, it is recommended that you start off slow. I plan on taking this approach by picking a day to eliminate one meal and see how I feel. If it goes well, I will elimante two meals the next time. I hope to work up to a weekly 24-hour fast period, with flexibility. Keep the body guessing!

4) Whole30 Round Two- Yes, I said it. I embarked upon my second attempt at TheWhole30 starting today. Wish me luck!!!! The one exception is I AM allowing myself red wine. Yesssss :) It's great at reducing stress, which can also be a barrier in weight loss (increased levels of cortisol).

So, this is my list. Please ask me how I'm doing! It will help keep me accountable. Also, I'd love to hear any "experiments" or changes you'd like to do or have done for yourself that you were really stoked with.

Testing, Testing

There have been a couple of things recently which have really tested my faith. Although they haven't happened to me directly, they have happened to dear, close friends whom I really love. There are not words in the English language to express the feelings of pain and anguish I have for these people who I love. It's the kind of feeling that only tears can express.

I have always been of the school of thought that life just happens. And that includes bad, tough stuff sometimes. And what's important is our reaction to those bad things that happen. Do we become stronger, or do we let it beat us? I've always had the attitude that your life is not what happens to you, it's how you respond to it. But in the past few months, it's been harder for me to say it and mean it.

Reading the book of Job has made it harder for me in some ways. In the first two chapters God asks Satan to consider His servant Job and how blameless he is. Satan counters by saying it's only because God has protected Job his entire life. Then God gives Satan permission to bring calamity upon him. He loses everything he has, including all his children. Then he is plagued with sores from head to toe. He literally curses the day he was born, but never curses or blames God.

So, there are two ways to look at this. When I first studied this, I focused on the fact that God chose Job to demonstrate how faithful man could be. What an honor to know that God would consider me worthy to demonstrate my love and faithfulness for Him. Can you imagine God saying, "Have you considered my servant, ________?" (fill in your name) Pretty humbling and amazing.

But then bad things happen to my friends, to the people I love. And I am sad and angry. I hurt for them. And although I have not cursed God, I have questioned Him. God, why did you choose my friends to demonstrate how faithful man can be? Why did you give Satan permission to harm them? I know that God's plans are higher and better than ours. I know that in so many ways he can use our trials to help others. But it's just hard for me to think about Him being able to watch some of these terrible things happen, knowing He could have prevented them. But I imagine he felt the same way watching His Son crucified, knowing he was blameless as well.

There's just hard stuff sometimes and there aren't answers. I know my last few posts have been somber, but that's life.