Still Alive

WOAH! WHERE HAVE I BEEN? Three days without posting! tisk tisk

As an apology here is a quick recipe for an AMAAAAAZZZZINNGGGG nectarine compote I made the other day. MMmmmmmmMmm 🙂 PUT THIS ON YOUR PROTEIN PANCAKES!

Ingredients:

• 3 nectarines
• 1 tsp of truvia sweetener (or whatever kind of sweetener you want)
• 1 tsp cinnamon

Method: Boil down until mushy. Put on everything you want to be delicious.
Anyway, I’m here, I’m alive and I’m well (well not really, I’ve actually been sick … meh). Food log and diet had been really good, until I got my period and decided I should eat all the ice cream in the grocery store. So… for the first time since I started my 10 week challenge… no gold star on my calendar. I mean… I didn’t go too crazy so there is a possibility that I stayed below my calories, but I kinda doubt it since I wasn’t counting. Whatever. Back on the boat. 2 “bad” days out of 30 isn’t bad!

In other dietary discipline news. I have been sober for over 90 days. Nearly 100 WOAHHHH WHAT THE FUCK?! Never thought this would happen. Very proud of myself.

In training news, my back off week was good, but my lower back is still KILLING ME. I’m taking this as a sign from God that I shouldn’t be training on a linear progression and I’m going back on the CUBE Method which was working for me before. I realize my programming ADD is out of control right now, but oh well. I’ve gotta do what I’ve gotta do to figure out what works and what doesn’t. My back seemed to bother me on the CUBE and I was making progress, so I’m going to go back to that. I just can’t deal with feeling like I’m going to get injured every time I get under the bar. ::sigh::

Hurt back aside though, my training was fun yesterday. I just fucked around and  finished off my back off week with some push presses (which I PR’d at 100#s) My arms are still stupidly weak, but it’s nice to know I can get 100#s over my head officially. Back to never doing that ever 😉

 

 

Fruity Chocolate Protein Muffins

I’ve definitely been on a “baking with protein powder” kick lately. It’s really all I want to do anymore. Today I made some protein muffins and threw in all the random fruit laying around my apartment and they were AMAZING. Moist and gooey with drippy blueberry goodness.

Makes 12 muffins.

Ingredients:

• 2 scoops chocolate whey protein powder
• 2 tbsp coconut flour
• 1 tbsp almond flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 3 packets stevia sweetener 
• 1 tbsp coco powder
• 2 eggs
• 3 egg whites
• 1 apple (grated with a cheese grater) 
• 1/4 cup blueberries
• 1/4 cup raspberries
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 tsp olive oil

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl until smooth. Pour batter into greased or lined cupcake pan.  Bake for about 10-15 minutes or until the muffins have risen and a toothpick comes out clean.

Macros:

Entire Recipe:

682 Calories

• 23.4g of Fat (35%)
• 77.6g of Protein (45%)
• 43.8g of Carbs (25%)

Individual Muffin:

56 Calories

• 2g Fat
• 6.5g Protein
• 3.6g Carbs

Pumpkin Walnut Protein Pancakes

While I used to be really against paleo pancakes, so much in fact that I coined the term “Paleo Pancake Syndrome” (which is turning really unhealthy foods into just as unhealthy paleo ‘alternatives’). I decided that I wanted some fucking pancakes today and I gave in and made some. BUT, I put a lot of effort into making sure that the macros were something I am proud to be consuming. With 12grams of protein in EACH pancake, you can’t really go wrong. Colorful starch, healthy fats from nuts and eggs, and TONS of protein. If you aren’t OK with whey protein powder… I’d suggest you don’t make these, because it is a major ingredient. Overall, these rocked and I will probably be making them again.

Also. These are perfect for fall! It felt absolutely wonderful to sit down to a big pile of these as a cool breeze blew through the changing leaves outside and into my open kitchen window.

Ingredients

• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 4 eggs
• 4 egg whites
• 1/2 cup milk (sub coconut milk)
• 2 tbsp melted butter (in the batter)
• 3 scoops whey protein (I used double chocolate flavor, but use whatever makes you happy)
• 1/2 cup ground almonds (1 handful of almonds in a coffee grinder will do the trick)
• 2 tsp coconut flour
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• Chopped Walnuts
• Oil/Butter for the pan

Method

Mix all the ingredients except the chopped walnuts and the oil together in a large bowl until smooth. Heat a skillet to medium heat and add oil or butter to it. Once it’s hot go ahead and ladle the batter into the pan as you would normal pancakes. Sprinkle the chopped walnuts on top.  Then, you can pretty much cook these just like normal pancakes. Once they bubble up and look sturdy, go ahead and flip them. I found 2 minutes on the first side and 1 minute on the second to be about right.

Serve with butter and maple syrup if you’re feelin the sugar rush 🙂

This recipe makes twelve 4″ pancakes.
Each pancake = 135 Calories. 12g protein. 9g fat. 4g carbs.  (Yesssss!)

Note: Because these pancakes are gluten free they won’t stick together as well as normal pancakes (though, I think the whey protein helps these hold them together a bit better than some other paleo pancakes I’ve attempted). Because of this, I recommend making smaller pancakes than you might normally. I made mine 3-4 inches in diameter and they cooked/flipped very nicely. Had I gone for a 6″ pancake, I think it would have been a messy situation. 

Yucca Home Fries

If you didn’t know already, I’m from New Jersey (and I’m damn proud of it). In every town in New Jersey, there’s a very special place that all the locals go for Sunday brunch. It’s clad in chrome & neon lights. It has a bar, but not a liquor license. It’s menu is about 15 pages long and includes foods from all around the world. It’s the happiest place on earth. It’s, THE DINER! In Jersey we absolutely love our diners — We love them SO MUCH in fact that it’s actually required (by law!  Seriously. Not making this up.) that we spend the entirety of ages 17-21 living in a booth in the local diner. This law was implemented to help us deal with the weirdness of living in Jersey during the “Old enough to drive, but too young to drink” phase of life. It has been extremely successful in keeping kids out of trouble.

❤ My old diner — The Silver Coin, Hammonton, NJ ::sigh::

Now, you may be wondering “What would you do at a diner that long?”. Well, LOTS! You hang out with your friends. You play music on the weird little juke box thing. You smoke cigarettes, drink coffee, and you eat shitloads of home fries through all hours of the night!! This is all very important for the psychological development of the NJ teenager and the wellbeing of the state of New Jersey, but as you may imagine, this rock-n-roll lifestyle is not healthy for the body and can not go on forever (unfortunately). Eventually, all good New Jersey kids need to get a job, quit smoking and move out of the diner. If they don’t move out and quit smoking, they will be doomed to a life of employment at that very same diner, serving home fries to the next generation of asshole Jersey teenagers, well past the age of retirement. A sad, but all too common fate.

After we grow up and move out of the diner however, we often miss the home fries. Many of us will actually live our adult lives in the same town just so that we can continue to return to the diner every Sunday for brunch… until we are 85 years old and literally can’t get out of bed for the homefries anymore. But others, like myself, may need to move out of town to fulfill our dreams… leaving us far far away from our beloved diner.

Don’t worry though, I actually live right next door to a diner here in Brooklyn, so I still get my fair share of real authentic home fries! That said however, I try not to eat TOO many white potatoes and have recently found the perfect solution to this problem…. YUCCA HOME FRIES!

Pretty fuckin’ good!

Ingredients

• 1 large yucca, peeled and chopped into 1/2″ thick pieces
• 1tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground pepper
• 1 tsp paprika
• water for boiling
• olive oil for frying
• 1 onion chopped
• 2 cloves garlic pressed
• 1 tbsp chopped green onion for garnish

Method

Put the chopped yucca, salt, pepper, and paprika, into a pot and cover with water. Put the pot on the stove on high and bring the water to a low boil. Cover and boil for 15-20 minutes or until the yucca is soft. Drain the water out and set the boiled yucca aside.

In a skillet, heat the olive oil to medium high. Add the onion & garlic and cook until browned. Add the yucca and cover to let the bottom brown. After 5 minutes or so, flip it all over and brown the other side of the yucca. Flip and brown until it’s browned to a point that makes you nostalgic for New Jersey.

Garnish with green onions & serve with ketchup, eggs. sausage. bacon and a shitty cup of coffee. Try to resist the urge to pick up smoking again 😉