And now for something completely different....

So this is completely unrelated to fitness or nutrition but I just couldn't resist because mussels are so awesome.

I'm a mathy by trade who accidentally ended up working in the field of biology. So the best part of my job is I get to constantly learn new things about neat-o critters. It's like when you're watching David Attenborough in Planet Earth and he's all excited about the Tibetan Fox with the square head, or in Life, there's that Pebble Toad that throws itself down cliffsides like a bouncy ball. Oh! Or that fungus that infects insects so that they go mental and crawl to the highest spot they can so, that when their head explodes with fungus spores it will infect more of the colony, but if the other ants see the infected ant acting strangely they carry him away forthwith so his exploding spore head won't destroy them all. If you haven't watched David Attenborough narrate a BBC special about the awesome things nature comes up with, go do that now. Start with the birds of paradise, whose mating dances are even more hillarious than some humans I know.

Back? So, mussels. Not as cool as the crazy-making fungus, but still neat. I'm not talking about the dreaded zebra mussel, I'm talking about all of the native mussels who have been ousted from the Great Lakes by zebra mussels, many of which are endangered. These guys have a parasitic phase as larvae where they hang out on a fish host for a few weeks before they metamorphose into juvenile mussels, being ever so handily dispersed to wherever the host fish has swam in that time.

But how do they got onto the fish? I'm glad you asked! Some mussels just spew thir larvae into the water and hope for the best, but the cool ones have lures that look like fish food that they wave around, spewing the larvae (called glochidia!) when the fish gets near. EDIT: just found an awesome youtube video of some lures

Picture stolen from Dr. Zanatta's website.

The SUPER AWESOME BADASS mussels take it a step futher and actually grab onto the fish's head for maximum glochidia attachage.

But the real reason I was compelled to share all of this is because of the mussel species I'm currently modelling, the Mudpuppy mussel. It uses the Mudpuppy as a host (you don't say!), which of course I had to look up because we did not cover this in any of my math courses, nor was it mentioned in my one undergraduate biology course.

And I found this:

Picture stolen from this lady

If a reindeer with a dragon great grandmother mated with a puppy and had a mutant amphibian child, this is what it would look like. I want one.

If you came here looking for a recipe, this mussel dish looks tasty, although I haven't tried it. Just don't eat my endangered mussels please, you'll mess up my numbers :P

Tim Lim's Tasty Every Time Burgers. And a Bowl of Vegetables.

Tim made these most excellent burgers for a Paleo potluck last summer. Actually, he prepared the beef for the burgers, which somehow never got cooked over the course of the party. Those of us who deemed ourselves too full of wine to go home benefited enormously from this lapse the next morning. Burgers, salsa and scrambled eggs: Breakfast of Champions, I tell you.

Imagine my happiness to discover that these gourmet delicacies are super simple! This is now my standard burger recipe, and it's all thanks to Tim Lim. He told me I didn't have to give him credit, but it's too late, Tim. You're in the title now, and there's nothing you can do about it. :)

I topped this particular burger with my first attempt at guacamole. It is only very lightly spiced, and therefore would not be Tim Lim approved. I ate it with my standby bowl of vegetables.

Tim Lim's Tasty Every Time Burgers

Ingredients
1 or 2 eggs per lb of beef
hot sauce (I use tabasco)
Wheat free Tamari (a fermented soy sauce that Mark's Daily Apple says is ok...some people use coconut aminos instead but I have yet to try them)
salt and pepper to taste

Squish it all together (you know you want to use your hands) and grill/fry. Top with salsa, guacamole, mustard...all that good non-bun stuff. When I next have my planning hat on, I intend to try portabello mushrooms as a bun....

Not-as-hot-as-Tim's Guacamole

Ingredients
1 ripe avocado
1 small tomato
a bit of hot sauce
lime and/or lemon juice
salt and pepper

1. Extract your avacado from its casing and smoosh it all up with a fork.
2. Dice the tomato and add it in.
3. Add a few shakes of hot sauce, several more shakes of lime juice, and some salt and pepper until it tastes good.
(I added a bit of cumin. Don't do that, it wasn't good, I had to drown the cumin flavour with more lime)

Bowl of Vegetables

Ingredients
Vegetables
Oil and Balsamic vinegar

I realized very early on in the Paleo challenge that I get really bored of chewing on lettuce, and that I was using the lettuce more as a vehicle for all the more substantial stuff. So one day, I just left the lettuce out. I felt so free! This is an extra easy side when you come home from a WOD and can't imagine mustering the effort to cook a vegetable to go with your slab of meat.

My standard vegetables to have on had for this purpose are:
Bell Peppers
Cucumber
Radishes
Mushrooms

I dice up the veggies, top with some grated beats, and dress with ground pepper, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. I don't even mix the dressing together before I add it, because I'm kind of lazy, but it all works out.

Tangy Orange Chicken

I stole the idea for this sauce from Ashley B's thanksgiving cranberry sauce. Mine is more orange and less cranberry so the effect is totally different. It's just the right amount of tart and sweet, and satisfies the craving for orange chicken from Manchu Wok. Crazy thought....would lemon juice instead of orange juice somehow make me some lemon chicken? I miss lemon chicken. Filing that idea for later.

The dish pictured below is the second iteration of this recipe, tried with pork instead of chicken. There weren't any fresh cranberries so I used dried. It was still tasty (although not quite as awesome), and slightly less paleo for the sugar in the dried fruit. Alas. I ate it with roasted sweet potato chips, which is my favourite side dish, and is good for when you're a bit too hungry to be totally satisfied by meat and greens. The first time I also made kale, which would have made the picture less ORANGE, but I was lazy this time. And I didn't have any Kale.

Orange Chicken

Ingredients
~1/2 can of orange juice concentrate, unsweetened (I'm quite sure actual orange juice or freshly squeezed oranges would be as good if not better)
- cranberries (fresh if you can, dried works too)
- 1 or 2 apples, peeled and diced
- boneless chicken breasts (or porkchops)

1. Heat the orange juice (diluted with equal parts water), cranberries, and diced apple in a pan that's large enough for your meat to fit in as well, and let simmer.
2. Sear the chicken in some olive oil in a separate pan. I have no idea if this is necessary, but I did this with the intention of keeping the juices in. The chicken was very juicy, perhaps the searing was responsible.
3. Add the chicken to the pan with the sauce and cover. I flipped the chicken repeatedly to cook both sides and to keep the top from drying out.

The time needed will depend on how thick your meat is. The chicken took probably 30 minutes or so, and the thinner porkchops were quicker. You're done when the meat is cooked, and the apples and cranberries are all squishy. The first time, the sauce reduced too much before the chicken was done, so I added more water as needed. The second time the pork cooked before the sauce was reduced, so I will reduce the sauce a bit more before adding the pork next time.

Roasted Sweet Potato Chips

1. Thinly slice a sweet potato. You can peel it but I never bother (although I do remove any sprouting roots or funky looking spots!).
2. Spread out on a cookie tray, and drizzle with a little bit of olive oil.
3. Season with sea salt and cracked pepper. Sometimes I also use garlic powder, and once I even used ginger!
4. Bake for about 20 minutes, flipping half way. If the potatoes are cooked but still too squishy, broil for a few minutes to crisp. I bake them until the thinnest parts start to burn.

Internet ingredient search says: Sausage and Kale Soup!

Today I had planned sausage for dinner with a side of kale, but didn't feel like eating them in the usual way. The internet suggested I make soup, and happily I took google's advice because it was delicious! I've never made soup before so I am disproportionately pleased with myself :D The recipe below is an amalgamation of various internet suggestions.

Sausage and Kale Soup

Ingredients
4 sausages, any kind
1 bunch of kale
1 onion
1 or more tomatoes
a bit of ginger, for fun
about 4 cups of water
sea salt and ground pepper
paprika, cumin, chili powder

other vegetables that I will consider adding next time: turnip, brocolli, cauliflower, carrot, leek....

1. Brown the sausages. I used Tomato and Basil Chicken sausages from VG Meats. They were tasty, but my favourite is their fennel sausages. Check out this place (in Stoney Creek) for awesome, well priced, hormone free meats, and grass fed (!) beef.
2. Set the sausage aside, dice the onions, and saute in some oil (I used my big wok).
3. I added a splash of red wine here.
4. When the onions are translucent, add a diced tomato (I think I'll add more next time) and the ginger (optional)
5. Slice the sausage and toss back into the wok. At this point I realized I had misplaced my chicken stock, which is what the internet recipes all called for next. Not to be discouraged, I decided to just add a bunch of water, spice the crap out of the thing, and hope for the best.
6. Add water, I think I used about 4 cups, but I kept adding throughout to make sure all of the contents were covered.
7. Season with lots of sea salt and ground pepper, some garlic salt, and my usual three spices (lots of paprika, a bit of chili powder, and a pinch of cumin). I think the salt/pepper/paprika was the important flavour here.
8. Let that simmer (I left the lid on) for about 15 minutes.
9. In the meantime, cut the kale from its stems and coarsely chop
10. Add the kale to the wok.

KALE

Don't be alarmed, it shrinks

While I let everything simmer I attempted to address the disaster zone in my kitchen. By the time I'd finished my dishes the kale had been simmering for about 25 minutes. I think 15 would have been fine, just taste it to see if it's wilted to your satisfaction. The longer it simmers, says the internet, the mellower its flavour. I also added more spices part way through so be sure to taste your broth as you go along.

Serve! (My batch made enough for two meals)
I hope you have a ladle for this part. Having never made soup, and having previously had roomates who owned ladles, I did not. Being rather afraid of trying to pour from the giant wok directly into a bowl, I stood in my kitchen for a full minute, panicked that I would never figure out how to eat my dinner, before I came to my senses and realized that ladels aren't the only scoop shaped containers. I used a mug, and have updated my shopping list accordingly.

Lemon Cranberry Cabbage Salad

Pictured here alongside my Kentucky Fried Haddock, this is my go-to paleo potluck dish. It's got a certain tang to it that I love, and it always seems to go over well. I've put it in rotation as one of my regular side dishes, although I use "rotation" losely because once you buy the cabbage, and if you live alone like I do, you end up eating cabbage salad for about a week straight, after which it takes a while for you to desire cabbage again...I'm really selling this one aren't I...I swear it's delicious. Sorry again about the vague measurement system, but really it's all to taste. Some day I'll put the stuff in a spoon before I put it in the salad so I can report proper ratios.

Lemon Cranberry Cabbage Salad

Ingredients
Chopped cabbage
Lemon juice (a lot)
Cider vinigar (some)
Olive oil (just a little)
Salt and pepper to taste
Dried cranberries
Seeds of some description for texture(I usually use flax and sunflower)

Mix all of the above together in a bowl. Let it sit for a minute or two, then taste test your cider to vinigar ratio. Add extra dressing ingredients as needed. Be sure to let the juices soak in before taste testing. Sometimes by the time I get the ratio right I end up with too much juice pooled at the bottom, in which case i just drain it off (otherwise you'll end up with some seriously lemony bites at the end).

I've also tried it with currents instead of cranberries, which is also yummy and less sugary, but also less flavourful. Which reminds me, be warned that the dried cranberries usually have sugar in them, so not strictly paleo. I hear legends of dried cranberries sweetened with apple juice at Whole Foods, but as I rarely have occasion to venture to Oakville I have not investigated these claims.

WARNING: The salad does not keep well, so don't make leftovers (or don't make it too far in advance of your potluck!). There's some sort of weird slimey-fication process that makes it much less excellent the next day. It's pretty quick to make though, so I often whip up a container in the morning to take to work for lunch.

Banana Macaroon Pie

I've hated bananas for as long as I can remember. The texture really grosses me out (and also Mom says I had some sort of banana related incident as a child). But since bananas are a very convenient snack (they come in their own container!), and work so well in smoothies, I decided to give them another try. As I'm finding with many things that I've previously resisted due to unpleasant texture (like broccoli...it's fuzzy...) if you disguise it at first, you can make it edible (often with bacon), and eventually you even get used to it. Recently, I've embraced the banana, and it has become a part of my new favourite dessert:

Banana Sundae(ish)

Sliced banana (1/2 to 1 whole, hunger dependent), drizzled with almond butter and a bit of honey, and sprinkled with cocoa nibs.

The day after inventing this banana camouflage (and just one week into the 10 week paleo challenge), I was confronted with an invitation to a birthday dinner involving double chocolate cake. Keeping in mind my "plan to not cheat" motto I decided to make my own dessert to bring along. My manfriend suggested I make something to share, and proposed that I make my banana sundae into a pie to "make it look less healthy so that other people will try it". Google found me this recipe, which I modified (ditched the strawberries and replaced the crust with something chocolatey) to create the masterpiece below.

Banana Macaroon Pie

Crust
3/4 cup blanched almond flour
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut, toasted
1/4 cup cocoa
1/4 cup coconut oil, melted over low heat
1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Filling
2 ripe bananas

1 tbsp lemon juice

½ tsp vanilla extract

3 eggs, beaten

2/3 c. coconut milk
honey and cocoa nibs for the top


The crust is modified from Elana's Gluten-free Almond Flour cookbook. Her crusts are all variations on a theme. I adjusted her coconut pie crust to make it chocolatey, although I think I would put a bit more coconut/almond flour and a bit less cocoa next time.
1. Combine dry ingredients in one bowl, whisk the wet in another bowl, and stir the wet into the dry.
2. Press into a 9 1/2" pie pan.
3.(?) I then baked it at 350 for 10 minutes (without the filling), but realized afterward that this was probably unnecessary; Alana's crust recipe was for a pie with chilled filling (and thus needed separate baking), and the original banana pie recipe did not pre-bake the crust. Thus, the top edges were a little crispy, so I'll try without pre-baking next time (there's nothing in it that really needs baking anyway).

4. Mix bananas, lemon juice, and vanilla extract either in a food processor or by hand (you’ll need to mash the bananas first if you mix by hand). Then gently mix in coconut milk and eggs.
3. Pour banana filling into pie crust.
4. Bake at 180 C for 35 minutes, or until set in center. Let pie cool.
5. Drizzle honey and sprinkle cocoa nibs on top (or stick with the strawberries and blueberries suggested in the original recipe).

Note: other people actually ate it, and took a second slice for later!

Plan to Cheat (or Not to Cheat)

Most of the year I keep my treats to a minimum: the storebought stuff isn't worth it, and home made stuff is infrequent enough that indulgences don't get out of hand. But from Thanksgiving until the guilt sets in somewhere around January 3rd, Festivus plates o' plenty abound, and while it's one thing to simply avoid having these things in your house, it's quite another to resist the plethora of tasties that show up in the lunchroom, or get passed around at parties. There are two contrasting strategies that I have found work best (for me) for resisting temptations.

1. Planning to NOT cheat

If you're heading to a function where you know you will be tempted, make a paleo treat to bring along and share (option: hide a couple of paleo brownies in your purse, and don't share).

One week into the 10 week challenge I was invited to a birthday dinner for my manfriend's brother. Knowing I wouldn't want to cheat so soon, he warned me that his mom was making double chocolate cake. So, I baked a Banana Macaroon Pie to take with me, and found I didn't even miss the cake! Option: Hire Ashley to make you her They-actually-taste-like-real-brownies Paleo Brownies, which is what I plan to do for my family Christmas shindig in a few weeks.

2. Planning to cheat

I know this is counterintuitive, but what's the point in all of the burpees and overhead walking lunges if you don't enjoy life a little too! And besides, I find that if I'm constantly trying to resist cravings, I'll try to fill them with semi-healthy and unsatisfying substitutes, and end up eating more than if I'd just eaten the small piece of chocolate I wanted in the first place!

To control the frequency of these indulgences, I try to plan my extra special treats ahead of time; if I know I've got a trip to the Bean Bar coming up in two weeks, it's much easier to stay on track in the meantime. Last weekend, for instance, we went on a Taste the Season wine tour in Niagara on the Lake, where wine was paired with not-so-paleo foods (zero paleo challenge points for me that day... and I would do it again!). Having allowed myself to partake guilt free, it was easy to eat well leading up to the tour, and I feel confident that I will be able to remain wheat-free all the way until Christmas (where my mom's stuffing and my sister's apple crisp await!). If you still need some convincing, Mark's Daily Apple fully supports a little wine and dark chocolate!


While these strategies are somewhat opposing, the common thread is to plan ahead. Decide before you get to the party whether you will cheat or not. Mind you, it doesn't always work (I had a bit of an indiscretion at a Halloween party with a bag of All Dressed chips), but the success rate is certainly higher than if you try to make rational decisions when the gingerbread man is looking at you seductively with a "come hither" expression. That reminds me, these are on my "to try" list.

Anyone else have tricks to share for resisting those glutenous delights?

EDIT:
As I was writing this, Mark (of the Daily Apple) was writing this about "gateway foods" that tempt us during the holidays. There's even a link at the bottom to a post on how to politely decline a dessert!

"With the holidays coming, I always suggest folks think about how they’re going to enjoy it Primally – especially if this is your first holiday season since going Primal. Think about each event and how you’ll handle it – what you’ll eat and what you won’t."

Kentucky Fried Haddock

Today something awesome happened. I accidentally discovered the secret recipe for KFC's chicken batter (ish).

This is awesome because once every year or so I crave that flavour so badly that I forget how horrid the meal makes me feel, and I stop at KFC. And then I feel horrid, and spend another year gagging at the thought of repeating the process.

But no more, friends! The most excellent discovery began when I found this recipe last week when I was having a childhood craving for Shake 'n Bake. I successfully shaked and baked my porkchop, although I didn't have the fancy "Nature's Seasons" spice, and the salt and pepper alone wasn't quite enough. Also, just to note, I did not grid my own almond flour, I went to the bulk store and bought a bag that someone else had already ground for me. I'm really not quite there yet...

Today, I decided to try the recipe again, this time "breading" (really, it's "almonding") my haddock. And when I tasted it, I could have sworn I was eating KFC....except with fish instead of chicken, obviously. But I expect it would work just as well on chicken or pork. Seriously, if you, like me, suffer from occasional inappropriate KFC cravings, you have to try this. Look, I was so excited I took a picture of my partially devoured meal.

...I really need a better camera, other paleo recipe blogs have much more professional looking visual aids.

Anyway, I ate it with my Lemon Cranberry Cabbage Salad (also pictured) that is my go-to paleo potluck dish, and which is in my side dish rotation along with "Salad Without the Lettuce" (or: a Big Bowl of Veggies).

Kentucky Fried insert meat (Paleo KFC)

Ingredients
Almond flour
1 whisked egg
Sea salt and pepper (I think I used 6-8 cranks of the grinder each)
A pinch of cumin
several shakes of chili powder
Haddock, or any sort of meat (I think)

(sorry about the imprecise measurements, I just sort of guess how much will taste good...)

1. Mix up the flour, salt/pepper, cumin, and chili powder in a soup bowl type dish that your meat can fit in.
2. Whisk the egg in a similar dish.
3. Dip your meat in the egg to coat on both sides, and then coat in the batter mixture.
4. Pan fry in some olive oil. I cooked the haddock (both sides) until it fell apart when I tried to flip it.

There's something delicious in your fridge

(....or, notes on being more creative in the kitchen)

I was not a creative cook. But, along the way, I've collected some tricks for mixing it up a bit.

1. Consider signing up for a weekly box of fresh veggies.

I think this is what helped me start to be more creative. My roomate at the time and I signed up for Plan B Organics (yes, the name is unfortunate). It's a community supported agriculture program where you basically buy shares in a farm. You commit up front to pay for all of your veggies for the season, and you get locally grown, organic deliciousness delivered to your nearest depot weekly (or bi weekly). This results in a forced creativity, becuase you have to figure out something to do with what you get before it goes bad! Which leads to number 2.

2. Google an ingredient

In a veggie box last summer I got Rhubarb, which I'd never cooked before. The only things I'd ever had rhubarb in were pies, and I wasn't quite at the point of baking pies yet. I googled rhubarb recipes on the The Foodee, which posts a paleo meal every day, and found "Pork chops with cherry rhubarb chutney". I subbed dried cranberries for the cherries, because that's what was in my cupboard. Subbing things leads us to number 3.

3. Change an old recipe

My friend Caitlin came to visit and I hadn't planned dinner for us. I had in my fridge 1/2 bag of fresh cranberries, and recalled that Ashley had made a delicious cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving with orange juice and apples. So we picked up the missing ingredients, some chicken, and some veggies for a side, and managed to make a delicious Orange Chicken dinner.

4. Look in the fridge

If I'm super organized I look in the fridge BEFORE I leave the house, find a recipe, and pick up all the necessary ingredients on the way home. I am often not organized. I got home last night to find all I had to eat was a spaghetti squash and some ground beef. By itself, that would have been a bit boring, but with a little bit of simmering and spices, it was just as delicious as any spaghetti with meat sauce I've ever had. In fact, it was so flavourful that I didn't miss my usual parmesan.

5. Simmering and Spices

This, I have found, drastically improves any sauce or meat dish. If you're more into planning than I am, you probably do the marinade thing. But in lieu of this, don't be afraid of spices. Spices dressed up my Spaghetti(squash) and Meat Sauce, and you can also make a pretty tasty rub for your fish with paprika, chili powder, garlic powder, salt/pepper, and cumin (my favourite), or whatever you want. Plus, spices are super packed with minerals and stuff that we need (like iron). Bonus!

6. Sometimes experiments go bad

...and then you have mediocre dinner, and mediocre leftovers for lunch the next day. Bummer. But "real" chefs try recipes dozens of times before it's perfect, so that makes me feel better. I started with the low expectation of making something that "doesn't suck". But I'm finding that the failed experiments are much less frequent than the "pretty yummy" and "delcious" ones, and they're rarely inedible.

Once I made one or two yummy dishes I started to consider myself to be "someone who can cook", and that sort of gave me the mental permission to be more creative and daring, which lead to more delicious things. Unless you burn everything you touch, you can cook by definition, so dont' be afraid to try something new!