Dining Out!

So it's been a while since I've blogged and many of you have been asking me about updating. I really am going to try to be a better blogger! All I can say is that it's HARD to work 11 - 12 hour days on top of a 2 hour round trip commute and make it to the gym, every little league game, and the grocery store all while being a fun wife and step mom and appropriately grooming oneself. This brings me to dining out...which CAN be done in a paleo friendly way! If you have an arsenal of ideas, there is no excuse for eating a hot dog at the baseball park.

Salads are an obvious choice, but they come with the dressing dilemma. I'm not going to tell you I don't like ranch dressing. I LOVE it. I was born and raised in Texas, so it's kind of in my blood. That said, I usually save it for cheat days. If you load your salad with all kinds of other paleo friendly items, you really don't need dressing. If you're ordering a salad and realize there is nothing left after you've removed the cheese, croutons, and dressing, look at the other entree salads or items on the menu. Chances are you can steal ingredients from those and add them to what you're ordering. Don't be afraid to customize your order - you're paying for it! Note: I usually try to eat the meat first, that way I'm not overloading on carbs and leaving protein on my plate.

Example 1: LaMadeline Wild Field Salad with chicken, sans dressing and cheese, add strawberries and chopped pecans

Example 2: Zoe's Kitchen Chicken Chicken Kabobs, no rice, double salad! If you strip the kabobs onto your salad, you get the oil and spices from the chicken and cherry tomatoes as dressing.

Example 3: BJ's Brewhouse Seared Ahi Salad, no crispy wontons or onion strings. If you pick up a piece of peppered tuna or avocado with every forkful of lettuce, you forget about the rice wine vinegar dressing sitting next to you. 

 Another great choice is a burger, sans cheese, mayo, ketchup and obviously the bun. You can order a burger anywhere, and again, you can pile on the paleo friendly items for flavor! Some items you may want to add to your burger are:

Bacon 

Tomato

Lettuce

Avocado

Fried Egg

Sauteed Onions 

Sauteed Mushrooms 

Artichoke Hearts

Sun Dried Tomatoes 

Yellow Mustard

This is one of my favorites, from Cafe Express. The California Burger (I get mine with turkey) has artichokes, avocado, and sun dried tomatoes, and it is G-O-O-D! I usually order mine with sweet potato fries. I can't help myself. I know, bad example.

How about mexican food? Staying on track is easy if you ask the waiter not to bring chips and forego the queso. If you're like me, it is SO painful to sit and watch everyone eat chips and queso, especially when you're starving. One way to remedy this is to order as soon as you sit down. We pretty much always order fajitas, sans tortillas and use the guacamole, salsa, and onions for extra flava. Yes, flava. 

Now - on to chinese food. This is hard, because I loooove chinese food. Have any of you had the crab puff at Kappa in Pearland? It is amazing. However, it's deep fried and full of sugar. So...the best thing to order, in my opinion, is steamed chicken or shrimp with vegetables and no mystery sauce. In place of the mystery sauce, Ryan and I order sides of table mustard to add spice and flavor. Warning; a little goes a long way! 

 

Note: It's always a good idea to eat with a Shape Magazine sitting on the table.

I'll leave you with a few other random examples. 

Saltgrass - Brazos Chicken (sun dried tomatoes and {optional} goat cheese, sub the mashed potatoes with a baked sweet potato or steamed veggies (ask for NO butter on the veggies) 

Escalante's - Mexico City Salad sans dressing, ordered with the larger portion of broiled salmon

Cracker Barrel - Eggs n' Meat (for breakfast)

Any sushi place - sashimi with lots and lots of wasabi

Update: after posting this, I went to Jason's Deli for lunch and ordered the following: Amy's Turkey O - no bread, cheese, or onions, *double meat*, sub veggies for chips. Granted, by doubling the sliced turkey you're adding sodium, but by taking away the sodium from the cheese and bread I'm thinking it remains a superior choice. It was actually really good! I dipped my fork in stone ground mustard for a little seasoning.

Happy Ordering, Friends!

A Few Snack Ideas

If I don't eat every 2 hours I get SO panicked. In order to keep up with consistent and intense workouts, I feel it necessary to "refuel" often. My regularly scheduled snacks look a little like this...

Pre-portioned pistachios - say that 5 times fast. These handy little packets are great because they keep me from eating 200 pistachios at once.

 

Larabars! We buy Larabars in bulk when they go on sale at Kroger for $1.00 each (normally $1.50). Last time we stocked up on Larabars Ryan bought 91 (yes, ninety one) at once. They are DELICIOUS, all natural, and grain-free. My favorite flavors are:

Lemon Bar

Peanut Butter and Jelly

Coconut Cream Pie

Carrot Cake

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip

Ginger Snap (tastes like Christmas)

Some of my favorites contain peanuts...whatever. I eat green beans too, which are technically off limits. Again, whatever - personal choice.

I usually allow myself one piece of fruit a day. I love an apple with almond butter. I find it's best to either buy the pre-portioned packets and use half {see above} or measure a tablespoon of almond butter. I get a little carried away otherwise. Seeing a trend here?

Carrots dipped in guacamole...not near as good as with a tortilla chip, *sigh*. But - you do get the crunch factor and this snack provides just enough good fat, in my humble/non-expert opinion. I love Whole Foods spicy guacamole from the produce section.


I will post again when I mix up my snack game. For now, these are working for me!

Apple Banana Cookies

I have a friend who can eat apples, but gets sick every time she eats baked apples. True story. Heyyy Corina! 

These were definitely good, but I think next time I'll cut out 2 of the eggs and add 1/2 a cup of raw honey for a little extra sweetness. The "batter" was sweet but the baked version - not as much.

The recipe is from CIVILIZED CAVEMAN. I use a ton of his recipes and they're all great. 

Apple Banana Cookies 

Ingredients:

• 1 Cup Chopped Red Apples, skin on
• 1 Banana
• 1 Cup Raw Almonds
• 1 Cup Macadamia Nuts
• 1 Cup Shredded Coconut Unsweetened
• 2 Tbsp Cinnamon
• 2 Tsp Vanilla
• 2 Tsp Coconut Oil (Melted)
• 3 Eggs (I recommend cutting 2 of these out in lieu of 1/2 a cup of raw honey)

Process:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 Degrees
2. Place your almonds and macadamia nuts in your food processor and pulse until they are mixed together and in small chunks
3. Place them in your mixing bowl
4. Next add your apples and banana to your food processor and mix well
5. Transfer that to your mixing bowl with your nuts
6. Now add in your coconut, cinnamon, vanilla, coconut oil, and eggs and mix well using a hand mixer or if your feeling strong use some of that old fashion elbow grease
7. Using a cookie scoop, form your cookie balls on your parchment paper lined cookie sheet
8. Once your sheet is full, flatten your balls into cookie shapes
9. Place in your preheated oven and bake for 15-20 minutes or until the bottom of your cookies are nice and lightly brown
10. Enjoy

A few little technique notes:

 

If you don't have a mini-chopper I definitely recommend buying one. This one was about $10 at Walmart.  I use it all the time because I am far too lazy to actually chop things.

Basically you lazy chop everything and throw it into a bowl. Then blend with a hand mixer - or mix with a big spoon if you need a little arm workout. 

I made little piles on my silicon-lined baking sheet then flattened the piles with my spoon.

{Finished Product}

They are kind of like a snack bar, but packed with good fat and protein, and obviously no grain or added sugar is involved. They're a little carb-happy for me for post-lunch eating, but they will be great as a mid-morning snack. Clearly I'm ob-sessed with hyphens.

The link to the recipe is RIGHT HERE.
If you try these with the raw honey, let me know!

Xo,
Alyssa

The grocery store dilemma.

One of the super fun parts about eating whole/non-processed foods is cost. I can do about as much damage in Whole Foods as I can at Neimans. The way I avoid sending us to the poor house is by meal planning. Sunday night (or Monday morning) I plan 3 to 4 weeknight meals and I go to Whole Foods at lunch on Monday. This way I'm able to avoid the Sunday night crowd and I don't buy more than I need - AKA no wasted $8.99 bunch of "live" basil.

Did you know that Whole Foods provides free (obviously nothing in WF is really free) little ice bags upon check out and will gladly ice down your groceries for you? I have gotten so used to grocery shopping at lunch and icing down my meat/cold goods that even if I'm at Kroger or HEB I buy a bag of ReddyIce and pour it into my insulated bag.

Which brings me to my insulated bag - which the checkout guy at Whole Foods told me was the "best he'd seen - and he sees them all the time." I got it for Christmas and it lives in my car along with piles of sweaty workout clothes and jewelry and shoes...okay you get it.

This one is made by "Picnic Time". 

I'm usually making this WF trip about 12:30 and my groceries stay cold in this thing until I get home after CrossFit at 7:00. So, the whole gym or g-store debacle is no longer a debacle. You can do both! Like I said I plan 3 - 4 weeknight meals in case we end up eating out. If I need another weeknight meal I'll either swing back by WF or it's breakfast for dinner, which the kids LOVE and think is so fun. Easy peasy. 

Xo,

Alyssa