Friday, 31 January 2014

Tuesday, 28 January 2014

Kosher Paleo Pizza

I just drooled everywhere typing that title.

One of the trickiest things I've had to work around since I was told I have a gluten allergy is my love for pizza, especially homemade pizza. Homemade pizza was one of my absolute favourite things to make at home. Yes, fresh pizza dough and the whole bit.

Check out this beautiful pizza, 100% homemade (aka so not Paleo)

Now, you might notice something funny looking on this pizza. Where's the cheese? I'm going to tell you a little secret, I hate cheese. Sometimes my husband doesn't know why he married me, many of my friends were unsure how our relationship could continue knowing this tidbit of information, and most are just absolutely repulsed by the fact that I hate cheese.

This was always fun for my husband and I to make on a Saturday night and watch the hockey game. (And by watch the hockey game I really mean: I'm knitting and he's watching). I always felt terrible about not making pizza once we realized I was gluten intolerant. I did continue to provide my husband with lots of gluten filled foods even if I couldn't eat them, but I couldn't bring myself to make the pizza dough anymore. The pizza dough I used to make was a time consuming process, and by that I simply mean waiting for the dough to rise.

But then our lives got a lot better when NoPainPaleo's BJ posted a recipe for Paleo Pizza and brought it over to our place. I knew that this was going to be our new go-to pizza recipe that would meet my dietary needs AND taste great. I was so thrilled that my husband liked this, because gluten free items aren't usually as good. But if he likes it and tells me to make this again - I know I'm good!

I need to go to school and learn how to make a circle (a little different with this dough) but look at this Kosher Paleo Pizza.

Recipe after the jump!

Saturday, 25 January 2014

Monday, 20 January 2014

Sunday, 19 January 2014

Chocolate Pudding

Last night was the Crossfit Vortex's First Annual Paleo Cook-Off at our place, and it was a huge hit. I'll post a follow up with some photos shortly, but big thanks to all who came out, brought food, shared a drink, cleaned up my kitchen - you are all welcome again in a heart beat. Love being a part of this community.

Like most women, I enjoy chocolate. A lot. If you were to put two types of desserts in front of me, and one had chocolate and the other without - I'd go with the chocolate one hands down. I wouldn't even ask what it is. I'd probably just eat it. One of my very good friend's last night brought over her paleo recipe books, I was flipping through them tonight and I found a recipe called "Moo-less Chocolate Mousse". I adapted it, and I call it: Chocolate Pudding. Original. 

Paleo Chocolate Pudding


Adapted from Practical Paleo

Ingredients:
- 2 medium ripe avocados
- 1 ripe banana
- 3 Tablespoons coconut milk 
- 2 Tablespoons maple syrup
- 1/4 cup cocoa powder
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1. Put all the ingredients in a food processor and run until smooth.

Depending on your taste and consistency preference, you could add more maple syrup to make it sweeter. I would taste test it first before doing so. You could also probably add an additional tablespoon of milk, but I wouldn't do too much more than that.  

White Fish Patties & Partner WOD

White Fish Patties with Lemon-Chili Mayo


Adapted from Canadian Living
Ingredients:
- 1 rib celery
- 2 green onions
- 450g halibut (or other white fish)
- 3/4 cup of coconut flour/almond flour (or paleo flour of choice)
- 1 egg
- 2 tsp Dijon mustard
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 1 Tbsp oil

Lemon-Chili Mayo
Adapted from Paleonick
- 1 egg
- 1 yolk
- 1 clove garlic
- 1/2 lemon, juiced
- drizzle of oil
- 1/2 tsp chill powder

1) In food processor, pulse together celery, green onion and parsley until finely chopped. Scrape bowl.

2) Add fish, pulse until fine but not pureed. Put mixture into another bowl and add flour, egg, mustard and pepper. Make into small patties.

3) Heat pan, add oil. Fry for 10 minutes, 5 minutes on each side.

4) I also like to then throw it in oven for a few minutes at 375F just for fun.

5) Mayo. Add all ingredients into the food processor and blend!


Saturday Surprise Partner WOD (aka Kristi's Crazy Kreation) after the jump!

Thursday, 16 January 2014

Tuesday, 14 January 2014

Vegetable Kale Soup Recipe & WOD

Before the recipe, I wanted to quickly share something. 5 days ago the coaches at the gym wanted to know some of our goals for 2014, which I shared them. But I also shared 2 goals of what I wanted to do in 30 days. Today, I crushed both of them.

I did my first Toe to Bar (3 in total). And I did 5 pull ups assisted with the black band. Now it's time to move to the very last assistance band, the red band. I love progress.

Vegetable Kale Soup


Now, before we get started let me be honest with you. I added quinoa to this soup. You can easily not add quinoa to the soup to make it 100% paleo, unless you are going for your 20% cheat. I think the quinoa also added a nice flavour to it.

Adapted from Canadian Living Magazine

Ingredients
2 teaspoon olive oil (or your preferred paleo oil)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium size onion, minced
1 cup thinly sliced cremini mushrooms
1 sweet potato, peeled and diced
2 cups vegetable broth (preferably homemade if you can)
3 cups water
1/2 cup quinoa (omit for Paleo)
1/2 tsp pepper
2 cups kale, thinly sliced

1) In a large pot, heat oil over medium heat; toss in onion and garlic, stirring occasionally until softened, about 5 minutes.

2) Add mushrooms; cook, stirring occasionally until begins to soften, about 4 minutes. Stir in sweet potato, 3 cups water, broth, quinoa and pepper. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium, cooking until quinoa is tender, about 10-12 minutes.

3) Stir in kale, cook until tender, about 4 minutes. 


Information about today's WOD at Crossfit Vortex after the jump!

Monday, 13 January 2014

Sunday, 12 January 2014

The Omelette that didn't quite make it

I hate breakfast.

Breakfast and I have had a long complicated relationship. One of those reasons may be that I don't wake up early enough to eat breakfast, I usually wake up for work with enough time to do a 5 minute face and be out the door. I don't eat breakfast mainly because I feel pretty nauseous after it. It doesn't matter what food it is, it just usually doesn't agree. I know they say breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but I've seem to get pretty far in life and I'm doing a-ok. When I wake up, I never feel hungry - so I don't force myself to eat.

Instead, I prefer eating either later in the morning or especially after a WOD. That's right, I WOD on an empty stomach. The one time I did eat before the WOD I thought I was going to spew all over the gym. 

But today I decided to make breakfast. An omelette. I'm also not kidding when I say, I brought the plate to the kitchen counter to eat it, and I was no longer hungry. I ate my apple for the sake of just eating a little something. (If my mother was reading this, [I should probably tell her about my blog] she'd probably would want picture proof that I ate an apple). 

So my breakfast omelette (at this point better described as scrambled eggs) is hanging out in the fridge waiting for me to heat it up later when I'm actually hungry enough to eat it. I very rarely buy salami, it's a special treat every now and then in our household. Some of my fondest memories of salami would definitely be (in no particular order):

- Salami sandwiches as my grandmother's.

- The sheer joy of opening my lunch at elementary school and finding a salami sandwich. This one ranks as high as days when we found chocolate milk in our lunch. 

- After a surgery, my mom made me a salami sandwiches with all dressed chips (I may have been loopy on drugs, but there are things you don't forget.) Oh wait, I realize why I didn't forget. I took a picture of this glorious lunch that I may or may not have thrown up after in August of 2008:

- Catching on how my dad did it, quietly take the salami out of the fridge, cut a slice or two and eat it.  

- Salami and Eggs. 'Nuff said. 

The Breakfast Omelette


Recipe and WOD after the jump!

Friday, 10 January 2014

Paleo Challenge WOD: Day 2

Kristi was right calling this one a "doozy". It was. Also lucky me, I was the only 7am'er to show today.

Paleo Testing WOD - Day 2 at Crossfit Vortex

WOD
10 AMRAP: Ladder (3, 6, 9, 12 etc...):

Wall Ball (20/14)
Burpee Over Bar

Rest 2 minutes

2 AMRAP:

Clean and Jerk (155/105)

My performance:
15 plus 4 Wall Balls (12lbs)
6 rounds of Clean and Jerk (65lbs)


Today I opted to go with the lighter ball. My reasoning behind this is due to my strong dislike for Wall Balls, and it is something I do want to get better at. I wanted to see whether or not physically I could do as many unbroken WBs as possible. I've struggled with them before and I wasn't sure if it was a mental or physical game. So my goal was to do 9 WBs in a row. I definitely shocked myself when I completed 15 WBs without taking a break.

Also, it's much harder to C&Js when you have literally exerted yourself to exhaustion!

Thursday, 9 January 2014

The Paleo Challenge has begun & Roasted Garlic Chicken with Veggies Recipe

Let the Paleo challenge begin! Today is the first day of the Paleo challenge, and it has been an exciting start. This morning we started off with getting our body measurements done. I'm actually quite pleased with where I am at, I've managed to either maintain what I lost from the last Paleo challenge and in some areas, good gains like bicep growth! After measurements, we started warming up for our first round of strength testing

WOD at Crossfit Vortex

Mobility WOD
Player's Choice

Pre-WOD
Agility Drills

WOD
Paleo Strength Test
15 minutes to find 1 round max Thruster (must be able to clean the weight)

Work on your GOAT for the remaining time. (Goat basically refers to work on something that you aren't so great at.)

Well big day for me! I PR'd for the Clean and Thruster, 85lbs. Then I went on to work on my GOAT (which is currently pull-ups) and had big gains too. When I started working on my GOAT about 20 some days ago I started working on it using a green band. Then I moved to a combination of a purple and black band, then purple and red. Then this morning I noticed purple and red was too easy. So I tried purple, and still I could do that. Now I'm pulling up just using this little black band...I don't know how much weight it is supporting but I think I'm getting close to unassisted pull ups.

Today's Recipe, I call it:

Roasted Garlic Chicken with Vegetables

 
Recipe after the jump!

Tuesday, 7 January 2014

Recipes & WODs

I also will be posting the WODs at Crossfit Vortex that I do that goes along with the Paleo challenge. The challenge technically begins on Thursday, but I feel like sharing anyway.

Today was overall a good day for me, I had to take it easy after last night's WOD. It is so tempting to want to push yourself to do more, because you know you are capable in doing so. Now this is just one of the many areas that Crossfit does better than normal gyms: Coaching. You receive constant coaching and support, and it is their job to make sure that you are being safe through out all of the movements. By nature, Crossfit can become competitive - and I don't really mean competing with others. In fact, I really don't pay much attention to how much others are doing in the gym. I truly mean that you may be competitive with yourself. Everyday I go, I always hope that I can do better than the day before. It doesn't always happen, but the drive is certainly there. So without Kristi telling me that I have to go light today, who knows what kind of trouble I could have gotten myself into. Looking back, I'm glad she told me to go light so I can recovery fully for Paleo testing!

But I'm pretty sure I complained through the entire WOD because I wanted to lift some heavy things.

WOD at Crossfit Vortex

Pre-WOD
2 Power Snatch (heavy) EMOM 8 mins.

WOD
3 Rounds of (with 12 min cap):
10 Push Jerk (135/95) (I did 45)
20 Toe to Bar
50 Double Under

Completed 2 Rounds and 20 Toe to Bar in 12:00

In addition, I hit a Personal Awesome (also known as Personal Record or PR) for number of Double Unders in a row: 25!


Monday, 6 January 2014

Beef Stew


Beef Stew. More accurately, my mother's beef stew. You can't go wrong with it. Here are the following reasons:
1) It tastes so good
2) LEFTOVERS
3) Freezes well

I'm a busy person, I do a lot of things. I work, I go to school, I like to stay active and I also like to have a social life. Therefore recipes that can be adapted to make bigger portions and can be easily frozen? Sign me up.

My Beef Stew (adapted from my Mom's recipe)

2 Tablespoons Olive Oil (or any other Paleo suitable oil)
2 pounds stewing beef
1 package sliced white mushrooms
1 package sliced cremini mushrooms
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped green pepper
1 cup sliced celery
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 8 ounce can crushed tomatoes
1/8 teaspoon thyme
2 Tablespoons chopped parsley
1/2 teaspoon pepper (or more to suit your taste)
1 Tablespoon beef/vegetable broth (I use homemade vegetable broth, will be posted later)
1 bay leaf
2-3 cups water

In dutch oven, heat oil. Cut beef into cubes and brown well in oil on all sides. Remove beef and set aside. I also take the time to wash out all the fat from pot, you can choose not to if you want. I will leave a little left behind just to make sure that my vegetables will not stick to the pot. Add onion, green pepper, mushrooms, celery and garlic to the pot. Saute until tender - 8 to 10 minutes. Add beef back to the pot. Add in all the remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer covered for 1 1/4 hours.

While you are waiting, get 4 carrots and cut into halves and pull out 6 white pearl onions. Then feel free to do your laundry, maybe a tabata exercise, read a book - whatever works.

Add carrots and white pearl onions after 1 1/4 hours. Cook for 1 hour longer or until tender. You can skim the fat off if you choose (I do!).  Once cooled, you can put as much of the stew into ziplock containers or bags to be frozen.

WOD at Crossfit Vortex

 Pre-WOD
Push Jerk
3-3-3-3-3
*Work up to 3 round max.
Max for today: 85lbs. I could have done more but I lost my footing on one of the jerks and I bothered my back a bit so I called it quits.

WOD
50 Barbell Walking Lunge (45)
50 Target Burpees
50 Barbell Walking Lunge (45)

Time: 13:03
After I bothered my back I decided to go lighter for the lunges, but trust me they were still hard! The good news is I'm feeling 100% now so it's all good!

Welcome Post

Welcome to Make it Count: Paleo Kitchen

The blog has been created to help out fellow Crossfitters realize that the Paleo Challenge is more than do-able. It can also be more than just a diet, it can be a lifestyle. I'll be sharing some of my favourite Paleo recipes on this blog.

What is Paleo?
Instead of me taking this time to explain it, I'll let this website explain everything for me.

Crossfit & Paleo
My box (Crossfit Vortex) will put on Paleo challenges a few times a year. Measurements in body composition, strength and conditioning is done on the first two days of the challenge. Then, we commit to eating "clean" for the 30 days. At the end of the 30 days, we will have the same measurement process.

When I first got started with Crossfit, I tried out the Paleo challenge. I was incredibly shocked that not only the changes I had with my body, but also how I physically felt. When I started Crossfit at this point, I was only going twice a week. Cutting out refined sugar had a huge effect on my mood and energy levels. Even after the challenge, I committed myself to cutting out refined sugars as much as possible. More conscious about what I was picking up at the grocery store, cutting out calorie wasters (pop, juice) and more.

I'm excited to be participating in my second paleo challenge. I've become more committed to going to Crossfit, where I can be found at my box either at 7am or 7:30pm during the work week and usually on Saturday's. On average I am now working out 4-5 times a week at Crossfit Vortex along with running. Now since I have many of the fundamentals under my belt, I am interested to see my progress.

The Food
One part that makes this a lot easier for me is that I developed a gluten allergy in late 2013. I also strongly believe in the Paleo 80/20 rule. You will still get 99% of the benefits of the paleo diet providing that you are committed to it 80% of the time. Which leaves a 20% cheat. The cheat is good when you are in situations that may arise or when you are out for dinner. Even when you are out for dinner you can make some Paleo choices - but you don't have to kill yourself over it. If you choose to order a hamburger, you could go all out and just eat the bun as your cheat - or if you really wanted to, ask for no bun.  It's way easier to ask for no bun if you are gluten intolerant like myself. One die hard cheat for me is my coffee, I throughly enjoy my skim milk/non fat milk in my coffee.

It's also not THAT hard to stick to a paleo diet. It might be if you like to eat out often and don't prepare a lot of food at home. You need to be committed to changing up your pantry and fridge for a while, no sense keeping foods around that might tempt you. You also need to be committed to preparing food for yourself and others. I hope my blog will help others realize that Paleo isn't all that bad and you won't go hungry.