I'm posting this for those of you that have never made an exotic/Indian/coconut milk dish. I want to hopefully show you how easy it is, and then this can serve as a springboard for you to experiment and go to town on your next new flavor dishes. So here's is a super easy recipe to try.

All you need to make this Chicken curry are the following ingredients, that can all be found in any supermarket.

2 packages of fresh chicken tenderloins

1 can of coconut milk

curry powder

fresh cilantro

Coconut oil

Onion

Garlic

Saute chopped garlic in coconut oil, next add the chicken (pre-cut into bite sized pieces) and stir well. Once you see no more pink on the meat, add about 1/3 cup of curry powder and half a large sliced onion, mix all together. Add about 3/4 of a can of coconut milk. Turn heat to low, cover and let simmer for 20-25 minutes. Remove from heat and sprinkle 1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro all over. Serve.

(if you want to kick it up one authentic notch, add 2 kefir lime leaves, if you have access to them and toss them in right when you start cooking)

Side note for Jay, this was my second helping ;-)

Home made bolognese;

I bought a lot of fresh tomatoes at the farmers market and fresh basil.

On very low heat in some evoo, chopped plum tomato, lots of garlic and fresh basil.

Sauteed a pound of grass fed ground beef in some more garlic and added that to the above. A large splash of red wine, some fresh ground pepper. Simmer on low for about 2-3 hours. The steam coming off the pot, doesn't make for a good picture, but you get the idea ;-)

"Love is the great miracle cure. Loving ourselves works miracles in our lives.”

Louise Hay

A big appetite and a satisfying meal

I have not experienced this in a while, but after eating an omelet for breakfast and not eating the remainder of the day, by 6:30 pm I was absolutely ravished!!!! Not an IF day, but my food intake has not been very much the last few days, so this might have been "compounded hunger". Has this happened to any of you?

I had bought some fresh local grouper at the farmers market on Saturday and I marinated it over night. Marinade; garlic, onion, rice vinegar, splash of soy sauce, pepper en ketjap manis (a sweet soy sauce). The Ketjap is not strictly paleo/primal as it does have sugar, but for marinating and grilling purposes, I think it's OK. (sauces would be a different story)

Next I made a big bowl of sliced and diced veggies; onion, zucchini, yellow squash, yellow pepper, smashed garlic cloves, a jalapeno, fresh basil and japanese egg plant. Sprinkle with paprika, oregano, a dash of white wine. Drizzle with evoo and mix well.

Then just toss it all in the grill basket. These little baskets are fantastic.

Here's the fish;

This little fish holder also works great for grilling sliced onion and pineapple.

A salad of red leaf lettuce, romaine, cucumber, tomato, spring onion and grandma's dressing made the meal complete. I also had nice glass of red wine.

"The vision that you glorify in your mind, the ideal that you enthrone

in your heart-this you will build your life by, this you will become"

James Allen; As a Man Thinketh

One of my favorite fishing spots. I didn't catch anything........but he sure did.

Turkey meatballs;

I like ground turkey. It's versatile and makes for a good change from the grass fed ground beef. I don't however like ground turkey breast. It has no flavor at all.

Chop up some onion, grab your spices of choice, (may I suggest some mustard seed powder as part of your mix) add one egg, mix well and shape some balls. I like to cook them on very very low heat in extra virgin olive oil. It takes a little longer this way, but the flavor that the oil imparts is amazing. And from most quality information off all of our favorite blogs out there, you shouldn't really heat evoo anyway.

These turkey balls are also great for leftover snacks. Or for breakfast. Yesterday I sauteed some spring onion and tomato, added diced up meatballs and had that with 3 fried eggs. Tiny little bit of my hot sauce.

"Still we know now, we never see smoke with out fire, and everyone you see has a hearts desire"

Bob Marley

Left over soup.......

With the farmers market available to me this time of year, I must confess that I sometimes end up with a fridge so chock full of greens that I can't always get to eating everything.
A beautiful head of organic bok choy looked at me sadly yesterday and said "what about me?"
In comes left over soup........


Sauteed half an onion in some evoo (low heat), then added a sliced up head of bok choy.
After that cooked together for a bit I added about 2 cups of chicken broth. Brought it to a boil and than added the remainder of fresh arugula I had in the fridge. Simmered for about 10 minutes and then pureed it in the food processor. When serving add a dollop of sour cream or a splash of heavy cream. The 2 flavors combine very very well. As to spices, I added some oregano, paprika, Italian herb seasoning and thyme before the broth started boiling.

































I tried.......I finished it to quickly. ;-)


Low acid tomatoes? Well they are yellow, and I'm not sure why they call them low acid. They have a nice mellow taste. Maybe an added selling feature. They abound at the farmers market.
Avocado, yellow tomato, spring onion,evoo, splash of lemon juice and some fresh ground pepper.


















Enjoy the day!

Don't know what to call this post, post ;-)

First things first, is he cute or what??

What does a little Dutch boy know about "Texas Chili"???

Well, nothing really but stay with me here. ;-)

I had REAL chili in Texas one time, and the experience never left me. Unlike the chili I knew, this was not ground beef, with beans and the usual flavors. From what I remember they called it "Texas Red". It was more like a stew, consisting of incredibly soft/fall apart meat with a spicy flavor. So here we go;

3 pounds of lean chuck cut into small small cubes. 2 jalapeno peppers, 2 ancho peppers, 2 tbsp cumin, 1-2 teasp. cayenne pepper, 2 tbsp garlic powder, 1 teasp oregano. Char the peppers and peel them. With a hand blender or food processor puree them with some water. Saute the beef in fat (I used bacon grease and butter). Next add the pepper puree and boil everything with some water for about 20 minutes. (about 1/3 cup). Now add the spices, mix well and let simmer for about an hour. Remove from heat and put in the fridge. When fat hardens, remove it from the chili. Now it's ready to heat up when you're ready for some authentic chili. (bring it to a boil when you heat it up) Serve with chopped onion. You could add a dollop of sour cream and shredded cheese.

Here's something for all of you that might like hot sauce.

This is so easy to make and the taste far surpasses any hot sauce you might buy in a store. go ahead and challenge that if you like ;-) I'll hold mine up against any out there.

In some water puree a habanero, serano and a red pepper (don't know the name of this one but it's not a chili pepper and it's not all that spicy). Next take some evoo, and on low to medium heat, warm the pepper puree. Let warm for about 7-10 minutes. Turn off heat and add 1 tbsp of dijon mustard and a dash of sea salt. Caution!!!!!!! This stuff is HOT.

MAKE it a great week everyone.

Exercises and the wonderful world of left overs

Once again thanks to Chris , a while back I was introduced to someone I wasn't aware off. Mr. Steve Maxwell.
Take a look at his blog. The last post about the greatest exercise machine of all is a must read.
It's a nice way to put yourself through a quick evaluation. How do you stack up???
Due to flexibility issues (I'm working on them, trust me) I can't yet pull off a quality one legged pistol. I fared real well on the rest of the exercises.
My only input to his article is that you can get even better results in my opinion if you add additional weight to body exercises. Nothing like weighted dips or weighted pull ups etc.

I'll post the picture from the crock pot meal here;

Meat and sausage, couple of carrots and cantaloupe.

Like I said in the previous post, tossed it all in the crock pot the night before. So nice easy breakfast.

Here a great left over meal;

Romaine lettuce, left over crock pot meat (which I shredded/sliced for easy use.) Half an avocado with drizzle of evoo. Cantaloupe and a few blueberries.

This morning I used some of the meat together with two eggs. Again some avocado and olive oil as a side.

Have a great weekend everyone!!!!

Smile, be happy and enjoy!

Crockpot and Links

Last night before going to bed, I got the crockpot going. Garlic cloves, evoo, carrots, remaining 2 pounds of the beef chuck shoulder clod, turkey sausage and a Black Hawk stout.
Woke up to a wonderful smelling house this morning and breakfast was ready.
Blogger won't let me upload pics at the moment, so pic to follow.

New links;
Lately I've been reading Cave Cooking. I wanted to share it with you and have put a link on the right. The writing skills are just superb!!!! Witty and smart. Take a looksie if you have the time.

Want some more unbelievable writing and well researched information?
Take a look at At Darwin's Table. This is a fantastic blog with great food pictures and recipes for us paleo/primal eaters. What I really like about this blog, is some of the different scientific angles and thoughts he brings up. Bottom line GREAT stuff.

Have a wonderful day everyone!!

Beef & Stout

Thanks to Chris and this recent post about beer marinade. I decided to try something new.

I bought a large cut of grassfed beef chuck shoulder clod. (very cheap, even grassfed)

It's almost a 3 pound hunk of beef. I cut of a slice of about a pound and submerged it for a day in a nice stout beer. Came home and went to work;

Cut the beef into bite sized cubes. Slice up one large onion. Cut up 3 plum tomatoes. Slice up about 2 large hand fulls of green cabbage. I used nappa cabbage, as it was all I had.

In bacon grease (you do all save your bacon grease right????) fry up the onion. Remove the onion when done, add some more bacon grease and fry up the beef. Now add the onion, tomato and the cabbage. Stirred it all together and I gave it a few splashes of Worcester sauce. I poured in the left over stout got it all nice and hot, then turned down the heat to very low and let it all simmer for about 2 hours.

Easy to do and the reward was a very very tasty meal. The stout really worked it's magic and turned a tough cut of meat into melt in your mouth goodness. In case your curious, I used a "Black Hawk Stout"

"Be careful about reading health books........you may die of a misprint"

Mark Twain

Working out in a fasted state

Just finished up a small weekend tennis tournament.
Yours truly won both the men's singles and the men's doubles.
I'm sure most of you read Keith's amazing blog. He talks often about working out in a fasted state. I've found that playing tennis in a fasted/ somewhat hungry state has me playing at my best. I started my first match Friday afternoon at 5. Last meal was breakfast around 11:30. That consisted of a piece of grilled fish with veggies. This was a fairly large portion.

I did not eat after the 2 hour match, nor the rest of the evening.

The next morning, my first match was at 9. I was done around 11. Now I was starting to get hungry. By 11:30 I was sitting outside a local Spanish tapas restaurant. I think they looked at me a little funny as I proceeded to order the whole left side of the menu ;-)

Well, not exactly but this is what I had. Gamba's a la plancha. Whole shrimp sauteed in olive oil and spices. (about 12-15 medium sized shrimp, heads and all), Sausage in some type of olive oil.

A plate of imported serano ham, chorizo and pork loin. and last but not least white anchovies in garlic sauce. After the meal I took my picnic blanket and laid in the grass in the park, in the sun

for a nice snooze. Later that afternoon I played my next match. I didn't eat again until the following morning early. I had a bacon and onion omelet. Then a few hours after that played my last match of the weekend.

Have any of you ever tried something like this?
Breakfast this morning was at my desk.
Plum tomato, little bit of onion, one and half an avocado and three boiled eggs. Drizzle of evoo and some fresh cracked pepper.

















Next post coming up for my friend SOG. "Grandma's Salad Dressing"

Another day in the life of Feel Good Eating and....LIVER

Two pictures, it just looked and tasted sooooo good ;-)

What a way to eat breakfast after an early morning work out.

Half an avocado with some smoke salmon loin, scallion and extra virgin olive oil. Some slices of smoked salmon loin. Cantaloupe slices. A boiled egg with a dash of paprika. Spinach leaves. And fish liver (cod liver). my dad just came back State side from Holland and brought me a few tins.

I love love love fish liver. I can't seem to find it here. Except for in some Japanese sushi restaurants. The Japanese call it "ankimo" it's monk fish liver and is just decadent.

Now this liver thing brings me to a question and would love some feedback from all of you.

I was having a "foodie" conversation with a co-worker and during our talk, liver came up.

She then said she didn't understand why anyone would eat liver as you are consuming all the toxins that the animal processed. My usual gift of gab suddenly left me and I just didn't know what to say. What would you retort with? And of course; do you like liver?

Have a wonderful weekend and as my virtual friend Jay would say CHOW ON!

Marc

How many meals # 2

Here's a rather light but very tasty and satisfying dinner. I had 3 meals yesterday, breakfast and lunch were normal size and dinner (see below) smaller

3 little lamb chops. Sprinkled with just a little paprika, chili powder and sea salt. Then a thin slice of butter on the meaty part of the chop. Under the broiler (not too close to the heating coil) at 500 for about 7-10 minutes

Add a few pieces of romaine,cucumber and spinach leaves. Then 3 or 4 thin slices of drunken goat cheese (the Spanish sure make yummy foods). A drizzle of evoo and you have a gourmet little combo of flavors.

I know the cheese is not strictly paleo. But I think an every now and then taste of goat cheese is just fine.

In case your curious about my other meals yesterday;

breakfast was 2 fried eggs and some sliced smoked salmon loin and scallion.

Lunch; left over beef kabobs and nappa cabbage salad, a few black berries. Snack was small handful of macadamia nuts.

"If you think you can or you think you can't.....either way you're right"

HF.

How many meals a day do you eat?

I sometimes think back on the days when I religiously ate 6 meals a day.

You know, to REALLY kick my metabolism into overdrive and of course to become huge lifting weights hours a day. What a hassle that was! The sheer anxiety I used to get when oh g'd forbid I missed a meal and would loose all that muscle mass that I worked for so hard.

As Forest Gump said "stupid is as stupid does"

In contrast here's yesterday;

Worked out in a fasted state in the morning (7:30 am) for about 15 minutes and walked my dog for about 30 minutes. Around 1:30 pm I left my office and went to Whole Foods to grab some lunch. So my first meal of the day arrived a little before 2 pm. I ate some lettuce, spinach leaves, turkey, meat, onion, garlic, and evoo. Per the scale at Whole Foods, I ate about a pound of food. (Side note, I'm really not much of a Whole Foods fan, but the salad/food bar is a saviour at times when I'm short on time or unprepared with my office food container.)

At 6:00pm I met a co-worker at the new gym he now belongs to, and joined him for a workout.

He's been intrigued for a long time by my work outs, and asked if I could show him my short Routine. So I did. We did the following; pull up ladders. I did one, he did one. I did two, he did two. All the way up to five and then back down again. We did 2 sets. Strict pull ups, all the way down. As he was breathing heavy, he said; I don't get it, I can do 10 of those normally with out being too tired. Well we just did 50 pull ups.

Then incline dumbell presses. 15, 8 and 4. Next seated dumbell shoulder presses for 15,8 and 4.

Then some seated one legged presses, again for 15, 8 and 4. Then we did planks. 5 reps of respectively; 30 seconds, 45, seconds, 60 seconds, 90 seconds, 45 seconds. Then we walked outside for 15 minutes swinging our arms and talking. I was home by 7 and made a little feats to reward myself and....I was HUNGRY ;-)

Ribs and kobe beef kabobs (both were ready in the fridge to be put on the grill) I rubbed a little butter on the kebabs as they were grilling.

This is easy,delicious and refreshing;

Nappa cabbage salad.

Shred the cabbage, add some scallion, a few slices of a mild spicy pepper (don't know the name)

pistachios, toasted sesame oil, rice vinegar, soy sauce and a heaping spoon of vegenaise. (I didn't have any home made mayo left)

I'll have some left overs for breakfast or lunch.

So how many meals a day do you eat? Is it pretty random? Sometimes 4, sometimes 1?

Hit me up with you typical eating day.

ENJOY and SMILE.

Simple and calm

Here a few examples of simple and calm............

Keep it simple.

Saute some grass fed ground beef in plenty butter with a good dash of paprika and ground pepper. A little "kirby cucumber" , red leaf lettuce and some left over guacamole.

Total prep time 5 minutes.

Here's a simple version of a classic. (Spinach salad with warm bacon dressing.)

I took two large hand fulls of spinach, 4 slices diced bacon mixed with some evoo and mustard. A few scallions and cucumber. Delicious and very filling. (you can use any mustard)

Thought you might enjoy this shot I took on the beach yesterday;

Simplicity......look how perfectly still, simple and calm.

Standing at the waters edge will calm any one's frazzled nerves

Even though he's hunting for food, look how calm this little guy is;

Have a wonderful week!