Soup is On!

Let’s be honest, the colder the weather gets the more I crave a bowl of soup. Not just any soup, but a soup that will fill me up and keep me warm throughout the day. When I get a craving for soup I typically empty out my fridge into a pot, throw in some pasta or rice and have a few crackers on the side. Those days are gone and let me tell you why.

In previous blogs, from my Kona or Bust series, I wrote a lot about working with my Health Coach, Krystal Say, and the food combining rules she was asking me to follow. If you didn’t get a chance to read about it I’ll give you a quick refresher. Carbs and proteins should not mix. Each are digested differently and when sitting in your stomach together you’re left feeling overly full and bloated. To give you a point of reference, think about how you felt post Thanksgiving dinner and everything thing you consumed. There you have it; food combining at it’s finest. There are exceptions to the rules and not all carbs are created the same but in an attempt to continue treating my body well and encourage continued recovery from Kona I’m sticking with it. Hence, the days of chicken noodle soup, homemade turkey & rice after Thanksgiving, and beef & bean chili for Sunday Football are gone.

If you can believe me I really don’t miss the recipes I grew up with. I see the world of food differently now. I have to resourcefully tweak recipes to eat the way I want to eat. In my search for a hearty and filling chicken soup I pulled out a cookbook I received for Christmas several years ago, New England Soup Factory Cookbook by Marjorie Druker and Clara Silverstein. I sorted through a delicious plethora of recipes and settled on one, Caribbean Chicken Soup with Coconut.

Why? Simple I like chicken and I like coconut. Ginger is an anti-inflammatory and aids in digestion, so why not. The recipe calls for lots of vegetables and room to be creative.

I made a few adjustments along the way and was rewarded for all 30 minutes of my hard work. Seriously, once I started chopping and dropping veg, broth, and chicken into the pot I was surprised at how quickly it came together. You’ll notice I put a few ingredients in bold. These are the items I tweaked. I also took the liberty of adding a few items just to give it an added nutritional kick.

• I used olive oil instead of canola. You could also use coconut oil.
• Instead of celery I got adventurous and tried celery root. I’m glad I did.
• The red bell pepper didn’t make it into my shopping cart, despite being on my list so I left it out.
• I added turnip for extra bulk. Yes, I know.  Food combining. If I’m going to food combine I’d rather it be with starchy vegetables and protein rather than grains.
• The homemade chicken stock was very quickly, and easily, replace with packaged organic chicken stock. I mean really; who has the time to make homemade chicken stock?
• I also subbed out the cilantro for several big handfuls of baby spinach. Greens are good and I always need to get more into my diet. 
• Topping the soup with half an avocado gives it an additional "filling" element.
• The biggest piece of advice I can give about this recipe is that it serves a small army! If you don’t have a small army kicking around the house half the recipe and you’ll still be able to feed the whole family.

I hope you enjoy the soup as much as I did. Please let me know any of your own tweaks. I’d love to hear them.

SK

Caribbean Chicken Soup with Coconut

Serves 10-12

3 Tbps canola oil

5 cloves garlic, minced

2 Tbps peeled and minced fresh ginger

1 large Spanish onion, peeled and diced

2 ribs celery, diced

4 carrots, peeled and diced

1 large red bell pepper

2 cups chopped cooked chicken meat

1 ½ cups whole corn kernels

1 cup shredded coconut

12 cups homemade chicken stock

Juice & zest of 3 limes

1 can (14 ½ oz coconut milk)

2 teaspoons ground coriander

½ tsp allspice

8 dashes hot sauce

1 bunch chopped fresh cilantro

Kosher salt & pepper to taste

In a stockpot over medium-high heat add the oil, garlic, ginger, onion, garlic, celery, carrots, and red pepper. Sauté for 5 minutes. Add the chicken, corn, coconut, and stock. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer for 30 minutes. Add the lime juice and zest, coconut milk, coriander, allspice, hot sauce, cilantro, salt, and pepper. Simmer an additional 5 minutes.

Taken from New England Soup Factory Cookbook by Marjorie Druker & Clara Silverstein

Make The Time

Hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving and some good eats!  It's here: we’ve finally reached the holiday season. With Thanksgiving now over, we begin that non-stop, hectic "race" to Christmas. As we get into this crazy time of year our schedules can get a bit overwhelming, but that is NO excuse to miss workouts and eat like crap. This is the time of year where so many people drop off with their exercise programs and diets. WHY?! Why give up all the results you’ve EARNED? Whether you’ve been working towards your goals for a few weeks, months, or even years - this isn't a time to use lack of time as an excuse to throw all of that out the door. 

Don’t let the holiday season be an excuse! That's lazy. A workout only requires around one hour a day. There are 24 hours in a day which adds up to 168 hours a week. There’s simply NO excuse as to why you can’t take 3-5 of those 168 hours a week to get in a workout. You'll thank yourself for doing it. 

Need additional motivation? Come and talk with me. We'll get you set up. 

- SW 

Happy Thanksgiving

In the midst of shopping for my next blog I realized time was escaping me and my plan was quickly sliding in the direction of Plan B. I was once an obsessive planner, to the point of having a back up plan for a back up plan. As of late, not so much. Chalk it up to a new job, new hours, a dog that requires walking at un-godly hours, and of course finding time to keep myself as healthy as the rest of you. It’s funny how priorities shift once you’ve meet one life’s goal (finishing the Ironman) and move onto the next (establishing myself permanently at CPC).

Plan A was to provide you with a killer Thanksgiving Dessert that was delicious and semi guilt-free. The deliciousness will have to wait until later in the week. Instead, I’ll provide you with the recipe if you are looking for a new post Turkey treat. I’ll also say, that I am eagerly looking forward to trying this recipe.

Crustless Carmel Apple Pie – Found at my new favorite food blog lemonsandbasil.com

http://lemonsandbasil.com/crustless-caramel-apple-pie/

Plan B was honestly an accident. I hadn’t thought about what I would blog about until I started considering what I would have for breakfast Monday morning. Overnight oats have come back into my morning rotation. They are a great way for me to limit the amount of processed grains I eat now that I’m not training for an Ironman, but also give me a satisfied feel to start my morning. Overnight oats are great, but as it gets cold I want something warm. Standing in front of my eyes fixed on the  tube of steel cut oats. Wondering to myself how I could find a way to cook these without having a stare at a simmering pot for 45 minutes it hit me…SLOW COOKER! I pulled my trusty crock-pot out of the cabinet and darted to my computer to find a recipe. Let’s be honest I may have great ideas but I am not the type to throw stuff into a pot and hope for the best.

My search didn’t take me long to find a recipe for Pumpkin Pecan Steel Cut Oats in the slow cooker. The recipe contained items I had in the pantry, thanks to the recipe for the crustless caramel apple pie above. It also had a Thanksgiving feel to it because of the pumpkin. Come on, who doesn’t like pumpkin!?  Warm creamy oats mixed with pecans and pumpkin pie spice. Winner! Added bonus, toss everything into slow-cooker before going to bed and breakfast is ready when you wake up, or in my case when I get back from walking the D.O.G.

I should mention that I didn’t follow the recipe exactly. As much as my perfectionism can consume me, there are times when I feel like a different ingredient might do the trick. Due to the size of my crock pot and Pyrex bowls neither would work together. Instead I melted coconut oil and spread it around the inner portion of the crock to prevent sticking. I also took the liberty of subbing out the brown sugar for my Dad’s own Maple Syrup. I mean really, can you go wrong with using family made Grade A Maple Syrup? I don’t think so.

I found this wonderful pumpkiny deliciousness at the food blog, Kitchen Treaty. Enjoy it on your own or with friends and family on Thanksgiving morning.

http://www.kitchentreaty.com/crock-pot-overnight-pumpkin-pecan-steel-cut-oatmeal/

Speaking of Thanksgiving, don’t forget to give thanks for all that you have in your life. I had a whirlwind of highs and lows this year but have become a firm believer that things happen for a reason an am thankful for all that has come my way. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

SK

The Incredible Edible Egg

I like eggs.

Scrambled eggs, hard boiled eggs, fried eggs, poached eggs, omelets, and the list could go on.

In the crazy day-to-day approach that I take, despite my best attempts to be more organized, I find myself never having a fridge full of food prepped for consumption at the end of a long day. I do, however, always have EGGS! One of my favorite go-to’s at the end of the day is scrambled eggs with spinach and cheddar cheese, with avocado on the side. It’s simple and nutritious.

Eggs are an easy and convenient source of protein. In fact, eggs are considered to be a gold-standard protein source. One large egg has only 70 calories, 0 carbohydrates, 6g of protein, and only 5g of fat. Some might scoff at the eating of the whole egg, yolk and all, because of the amount of cholesterol contained within. I’ll let you in on a little secret, egg cholesterol isn’t going to cause heart disease. Lack of exercise and poor dietary habits (ie. processed foods!) have a much larger impact.  One large egg has 185mg of cholesterol. The daily intake is recommended at 300mg/day. If you restrict the rest of the crap you eat throughout the day and enjoy a few eggs for breakfast …or dinner, you should be fine! Eggs are much too delicious and nutritious not to be eaten!

Below is a quick recipe of what I created the other night, Vegetable Hash with Eggs and grated Cheddar Cheese. I got the idea from a food blog I was searching through and immediately knew I could throw my entire refrigerator in a frying pan and make it happen.

Prep: Empty refrigerator onto counter. Use whatever you’ve got! I used roasted butternut squash, white sweet potato, roasted beets, red onions, orange and red peppers, and swiss chard.  Chop everything into similar bite size chunks.

Cook: Heat up a few tablespoons of olive or coconut oil over medium high heat to fry up the veggies. I was lucky and had a few vegetables already prepared and waiting for me which cut down on cook time. I’m all about cutting down cook time. Once all vegetables are soft to touch with crispy edges make a small plate and package the rest for another day.

Using the same pan plop a small scoop of olive or coconut oil to fry the eggs in. If I had time and was much more patient I would spend the time to pouch a few eggs. Instead I fried the eggs sunny side up to still allow for the gooey blend of egg yolk and everything else. Before placing the eggs on top of the hash I grated some cheddar cheese over top and freshly ground pepper.

 Eat & Enjoy!

Interested in learning more about eggs? The recipe that I took the liberty to tweak? 

Check out these links.

http://www.incredibleegg.org

http://lemonsandbasil.com/root-vegetable-hash-with-eggs-and-aged-cheddar/

Enjoy,

SK

Spaghetti Squash Soup

I know I know, I've never really heard of it either, but in response to a spaghetti squash dilemma this is what I came up with as a solution.  I thought it was pretty good.

What I did:
I took a smaller sized squash, cut it in half, scooped out the innards, and roasted it in the oven at 350 about 35-45 minutes.  While the squash was in the oven I took a small onion and a clove of garlic chopped them up and sautéed them on a low heat in some olive oil.  I did it on low heat to try to cook them as much as possible without actually browning or crisping them up, the technical name for it is called sweating.  Food for thought.
After everything was done cooking I combined it all into a pot and added a quart of vegetable stock and let everything simmer for about ten minutes.  From here you have a couple of options, I used a hand-held immersion blender so I was able to blend everything right in the pot (be careful if you do this not to use a non-stick pan, you will scratch it and end up with Teflon in your soup), if you don't have an immersion then a traditional blender works just fine.  Just be careful with a traditional blender not to burn yourself or make a crazy mess.
Once everything is blended up you can put it back into the pot to simmer for a little while longer.  Now, here is where you can pretty much go nuts. Taste the soup and see what you think, odds are it might be a little bland and the addition of salt and pepper may be needed.  What I did was added the S&P but then added some sage, a small "splash" of balsamic, and then when I put it in the bowl to serve I grated some romano cheese over the top.  It was good, actually looking forward to eating the left overs tonight. You can totally get creative with this soup, spaghetti squash doesn't have a huge or distinct flavor so you can put in whatever herbs or spices you like and make it your own.  Have fun!

-MS

You Are What You Eat

I’m baaaack!

This time I’m writing about food; anything and everything having to do with food; all from my point of view. No, I am not a nutritionist, or health coach. I don’t have any formal culinary training. As you may be aware I spent the last 20 weeks training for an Ironman and working with a Health Coach to turn my body into an efficiently fueled machine.  Inside those 20 weeks I learned how to become a REAL FOOD fueled athlete. I learned to look at food in a way that I had never seen it before. It’s my goal with this blog to provide you with insight into my REAL FOOD world.

Eating REAL starts with good decision making at the grocery store. For as much as I enjoy grocery shopping swinging by Fresh Acres at the end of a long day just isn’t as fun when the clock is ticking down to closing time. When the pressure is on and the fridge is empty you've got to have Go To Items that will provide you with high quality nutrition that requires little, to no prep. When zipping around the store be sure to pay close attention to where your produce is coming from and the ingredients within packaged items. I try to buy organic when possible, but if cost doesn’t allow I go for a similar local product. Any pre-packaged items I toss into the cart will have as few ingredients as possible. Less ingredients equals less processing. Low-fat, reduced fat, low calorie items are left on the shelf where they belong. Any product claiming the above have been processed and treated and ultimately turned even less healthy than they started.

Below is my time crunched, go to, shopping list. I’ve had plenty of time to tweak it over the last 20 weeks and know what works best for me and what doesn’t. Think about what’s on your list. What are your Go To Items? How do they compare to what I buy? 

Happy Shopping!

SK 

SK’s GO TO’s

·      Local Apples (Macouns)

·      Bananas

·      Avocados

·      Spinach

·      Baby Carrots

·      Cottage Cheese 4%

·      Hummus

·      Olives – green & black

·      Siggis Yogurt - Coconut, Peach, & Pumpkin are my favorites

·      Cabot Extra Sharp Cheddar Cheese

·      Cage Free or Organic Eggs (price dependent)

·      Sliced Deli meat – Not the best choice, but it’s quick time is limited

·      Quart of High Lawn Farm Whole Milk – Local or Organic

·      Almond or Coconut Milk – Organic or NON-GMO, No Soy Blends

·      Whole Grain Brown Rice Blend

·      Bulk Walnuts & Cashews

·      PEANUT or ALMOND BUTTER (Earth Balance Coconut Blend, Whole Foods 365 Brand, Justin’s Maple Almond Butter, or whatever else I’ve grabbed. Skippy stays on the shelf.)

It’s A Long Way to the Top…

It’s been approximately 3.5 weeks since I completed the Ironman. In that time I’ve rested, acquired a lingering head and chest cold, and putzed around with no exercise plan in place. I’ve been congratulated almost everyday I’ve walked into CPC and asked what’s next!? My response has been the same with a shrug of my shoulders a “Who knows look”.

The reality is up until a few days ago I didn’t have an idea of what was next. I didn’t want to give it much thought. My body and brain were not in any rush to start a regular workout routine. I wanted to enjoy going out for a casual run again before I started to think about another race and weeks…months…of training. Throughout my weeks of blogging for Kona I made mention that I couldn’t wait to get back to the place where I once was before I started training for the Ironman. That “place” is the weight room, boot camp, tearing through the woods at 6am on a Saturday morning for ROTC.

I’ve missed that “place” and the camaraderie that you develop when you’re side by side with someone face down after a killer set of burpees, toes to bars, and squat thrusters. Training for an Ironman is lonely. There’s nothing lonely about being yelled at to go faster or to move more weight. However, with the change over of energy systems, movement patterns, and training environments comes a physical state that challenges even the most “fit” individual. I put “fit” into quotations because fitness is  relative. I just completed the Ironman World Championship, arguably one of the most challenging endurance events in the world, but yet I dread stepping back into the world that I’ve missed so much.

Despite the humbling level of soreness, fatigue, and lack of strength that I will experience it’s time to hit the reset button and start getting back on track. I’ve rested long enough. So, the question of what’s next can be simply answered with one word…ROUTINE.

I will be getting back to the weight room, boot camp, all of the other crazy things I do ROUTINELY. I need to work on building back the strength that I sacrificed to be a lean cardiovascular machine, while still trying to maintain a portion of the endurance I built (mental & physical) to pursue future long distance goals. Patience is a virtue and one I will have to instill throughout the next few months.  

I will also get back to routinely blogging every Monday. I enjoyed it even if only a handful of people read my posts. What will I blog about? I’m thinking FOOD! NO, I’m not stealing Mike’s thunder. Everybody sees food and fueling differently so consider my upcoming Monday blogs to be my take on FOOD or anything that relates.   

Change and routine take time. The next few weeks and months will not be an easy transition for me. I feel more like a newbie and relating to my clients more than ever as they start their own journey of change and routine.

Simply put, It’s a Long Way to the Top, but once you reach the figurative TOP you know the time and effort…and inevitable discomfort…will have been worth it!

SK

Chicken Parm

Chicken parm was a pretty tough one for me to really get crazy creative with seeing as how if you change it too much then you don't really have chicken parm anymore.  I through in a couple changes that I thought were a little different but would keep the best parts of CP.

As always you aren't really going to get a typical/formal recipe from this guy

The Chicken
What I did here was started with a couple of boneless skinless breasts and sliced them so that I got about 3 thin cutlets from each breast.  I took the cutlets and pounded them out a little be to keep them from drying out and getting tough.  As far as the breading is concerned this is where I got a little creative.  I took plain bread crumbs about 1-2 cups and seasoned it with a little pepper, you can use any other seasonings you'd like though.  To the BC I added about 3/4-1 cup of finely grated romano cheese and mixed it to combine everything pretty evenly.
To coat the chicken I used the typical dry, wet, dry method, meaning you cover the chicken first in the breadcrumb mixture, then into an egg wash (a couple beaten eggs with a little milk or water added), back into the breadcrumbs.  That's it, that will give the chicken a nice tasty breading that won't be too thick.  Put the chicken on a wire rack over a cookie sheet and back in the oven at 350 for about 15-20minutes or until they are starting to brown around the edges.  Cooking time may vary a little depending on how thick the chicken is.  Just before taking out put a slice or two of fresh mozzarella on top and let it melt a bit over the top, and can try grating it too to get a little different result.

The Sauce
I really don't like to get too fancy with marinara or tomato sauce.  All I did for this one was used about a can and a half (large cans) of crushed tomatoes, threw in a handful of fresh grape tomatoes (cut into quarters), along with some seasonings (basil, oregano, salt, pepper).  Let it cook for a little while and you're all set to go, pretty easy.

The Pasta
Boil your favorite type of pasta, to your desired doneness and hold to the side until everything else is done.

The Build
What I did for this one (as pictured below) was took the pasta and added sauce to it until I got a good ratio of pasta to sauce, I don't think pasta dripping and sauce but I also don't like pasta that has so little sauce that it may as well just be plain pasta.  I plated some of the pasta set one of the chicken cutlets on top and then topped that with a little extra sauce.  That's all folk!

The Bonus
Also pictured was a side salad that I had made to go with the chicken which was really pretty simple and basic but also delicious.  I had some left over roasted beets so I sliced up some of those and put them over some mixed greens.  I added to that some granted carrot, a few sliced calamata olives, and goat cheese crumbles, and topped with just a simple vinaigrette of olive oil, balsamic, and a mix of seasonings.

That's it, hope you guys enjoy it if you try it out.  I'll be back soon with another one.

-MS