Spicy Citrus Coconut Chicken

I started out thinking I would make a creamy mushroom sauce for my chicken. But then I remembered I had some clementines threatening to shrivel, and no body wants to waste a good clementine (don't you hate when you pick one up that looks great on one side, just to find that it's covered in blue mold on the underside and threatening to contaminate the rest of the basket with its grossness?). So, I ditched the mushrooms, kept the creamy sauce part, and came up with this delightful concoction, if I do say so myself. It looks a little bland in colour because by the time I remembered about the red peppers I had planned to add, everything else was all ready. Also, I forgot the ginger, and felt the whole thing was slightly lacking, but I added it to my leftovers, and happily my lunch the next day was more complete. Ginger is always a good idea. Like bacon. Except bacon jelly beans, seriously, don't do it.

Spicy Citrus Coconut Chicken (with Cauliflower Rice)
This made 3 meals for me

Ingredients
1 can coconut milk
2 large chicken breasts
~ 3 tablespoons lime juice
~ 6 clementines (4 juiced, 2 for garnish)
~ 2 teaspoons chili flakes (more or less depending on your level of spiciness)
fresh ginger
a pinch of cumin (if you like that sort of thing)
1/2 head of cauliflower
leaks or onion
other veggies? (red bell peppers or snap peas, mayhaps?)

1. Sear the chicken breasts on both sides in olive/coconut oil for a couple of minutes and set aside.
2. Chop and saute the onion or leaks briefly. Also saute sliced peppers here, like I forgot to do.
3. Add coconut milk, ginger, lime juice, clementine juice, cumin (optional), salt to taste, and chili flakes. I recommend adding a small amount of the chili flakes at a time and taste testing, because the hotness seems to intensify as you go along. I put a bit too much for my liking.
4. Put the lid on and let simmer while you "rice the cauliflower" in your handy dandy hand crank food processor, or your electric one if you're one of those fancy folk.
5. I added my cauliflower to the sauce at this point to let it cook. Ashley tried this recipe after smelling my leftovers, and cooked hers a bit separately first with some chicken broth, then added it to the sauce at the end. Either way, the point is to get your cauliflower cooked somehow, so long as it ends up in the sauce at the end, because I've decided it's better that way.
6. Slice the chicken into bite sized pieces and add back into the sauce to finish cooking.
7. Add some clementine wedges, if you please, and serve! Ashley also added orange juice to her sauce concoction, by the way, and something else but I don't remember what....hm....oh well!

New Year's Life Resolution: Sign up for the CrossFit Games Open

Or, more generally, come up with something that you think is probably too hard for you. Then try to do it anyway.

The first round of the Games will start in a month. Five weeks, five workouts, ANYONE can do it, and I am devoting this entire post to convincing you to sign up and compete. There are three main categories of responses to that statement.

1. I have no idea what you're talking about.
2. Duh, obviously, I'm already registered.
3. Don't be ridiculous Jen, I'm nowhere near that level yet.

If you're number 1, probably we haven't spoken lately, or you got here through google. Well, keep googling, the internet will tell you all about it! Then come back.
If you're number 2, you don't need convincing, so.....I guess that's all the advice I have for today :D

If you're number 3, and if you're like I was one year ago when coach Jen told me I should sign up to compete in the CrossFit Games Open, you're thinking there's no way. You're not fit enough, you rarely if ever do the workout prescribed, you never come close to the folks on the leaderboard, and when you begin the day's workout you expect to take at least 5 minutes longer than the slowest person on the board so far (I was consistently slowest for probably a year, don't fret, as long as you're working hard you're making progress, even if it doesn't seem like it. You'll notice all of a sudden one day).

But Jen didn't seem concerned about any of these things and so, somehow, she convinced me (something about contributing to the team score, although I wasn't totally convinced my score was worth contributing!). So, with no idea whether or not I'd be able to complete any or all of the workouts, I signed up, and set the lofty goal of getting to the end without being disqualified (i.e., get at least 1 rep in each workout). At the risk of spoiling the story, I will tell you that I did manage this goal, and ended up achieving far more than I ever would have without the motivation of competition. And, unexpectedly, it was actually fun! Convinced yet? No? Perhaps some details will help.

WOD 1: 10 min AMRAP of 30 DU, 15 power snatch (75/55)
I could just barely do both of these things, so that was fine, but this workout was challenging in a different way for me because I was out of town the whole week. Not one to give up my $10 registration fee so easily, I found a gym near where I was (CrossFit AI in Calgary), asked if I could come on by, and showed up terrified that they would expect some sort of hotshot out of town competitor and be sorely disappointed. On the contrary, everyone there was very welcoming, and they shouted encouragement, as I sputtered and wheezed, just as they did for their own members. I even had a complete stranger sharing with me his story as a newbie to crossfit, and how he was looking forward to graduating from lady pushups to real pushups! It was great to see that wherever you go there will be a great community of crossfitters.

WOD 2: 15 min AMRAP of 9 deadlifts (155/100), 12 pushups, and 15 boxjumps
I hate boxjumps. So much. And at this point I was still doing lady pushups, so it must have been painful for my judge to watch me have to rest in between every try at a real pushup. But, again, I could do all of these things, and something about the knowledge of having to write my score on the internet for all to see made me push myself harder than I ever have. That was the closest I've come to puking since the great "Barbara"-wod-too-close-to-green-beans-snack incident. Word to the wise: get up early to eat your breakfast, and ensure digestion before you begin. There's nothing worse than having to slow down for fear of hurling.

WOD 3: 5 minute AMRAP of squatclean and jerks (155/110)
Uh Oh. This was the first real hurdle to my goal of not being disqualified. I'd been at an 85 lb wall on cleans for months. So, I had a week to get to 110. Nobigdeal. By some miracle, and with the help of some excellent coaching from coach Jen (push off through your heels!), and some advice from Brit ("Srsly Jen, just walk up to the bar and pick it up", which is surprisingly good advice as it turns out), I actually managed to pick up the thing! Getting it over my head was another miserable matter that didn't happen for several more months, but fortunately the clean part was worth 1 point so (phewf!) I was still in the game.

WOD 4: 10 minute AMRAP of 60 bar facing burpees (and hops), 30 overhead squats (120/90), 10 muscle ups
So, obviously I couldn't do a muscle up (still can't, all in good time). I therefore did 60 leisurely burpees before attempting the squats, which were probably 20 lbs over my previous max. I managed to do a few squats at that weight in practice, but after the burpees I was too tired and kept toppling over. So my score was not stellar, but PR's during practice still count, so add one more to the list of PR's!

WOD 5: 20 minute AMRAP of 5 power cleans (145/100), 10 toes to bar, 15 wallballs.
Ok, so I'd figured out the clean part (see wod 3), but I hadn't managed a toes to bar. Come wod time, I took probably 3 minutes to get 5 successful cleans. Then, I spent 17 minutes practicing toes to bar, and in that time, I got two. Plus about 100 failed attempts. But darn it, I'd actually done one! By the end of those 17 minutes, a little cheering squad had formed. They groaned with disappointment every time I missed, and when I finally got one we were so excited you would have thought I'd just won the whole competition. This is what I love most about CrossFit, everyone helps you celebrate your achievements no matter how small.

WOD 6: 7 minute AMRAP of thrusters (100/65) and chest to bar pullups
Chest to bar. Really? Sigh. While the thursters were no problem (well, they were still pretty tough, but doable), I hadn't ever done a chest to bar. Once again, I spent the rest of my 7 minutes trying, and I even got a couple with a strange hybrid kipping pullup and donkey kick thing.

End result: NOT DISQUALIFIED, and I even didn't finish last! (I was 4th last in the Canada East, but that's not counting all of the people who dropped out :P)

Anywho, so there's my recap. That was really long. If you're still reading, my appologies, IOU some minutes. But hopefully anyone who is feeling shy about signing up will see that there's nothing to lose and a crud ton to gain. If I'd continued with my attitude of "I won't do well, therefore I shant bother", I would have missed out on FOUR PR's, not to mention the incredible experience of competition in a friendly, encouraging atmosphere. Everyone was pushing me to try harder, but I never once felt like would be disappointing anyone if I didn't manage to complete a move.

So if you sign up, I personally promise to start a cheering squad for whatever move you find toughest. And even if something comes up that you've never done, and you work towards it for the week and still don't get it, big whoop. You'll certainly be futher ahead than you were before you tried.

I saw an appropriate mantra on Modern Paleo Warfare: "No matter how slow you're going, you're still lapping everyone on the couch."

Toasty Paleo beverages for some not so toasty weather

So winter happened this week! I LOVE SNOW!!! Except on my car, I don't like it there. Or in my parking space, which is on the street, because if I go to the trouble of shoveling it out, someone else will certainly steal it before I get home >:| But I do love snow, especially for skiing or snowman building. Did anyone else ever make forts using bricks made of the ice layer that formed on top of fluffy snow? You know, the kind where it's a foot of fluff underneath but super cruncy on top, so when you walk you make giant crators of broken ice, and your foot sinks all the way down so you have to lift your feet super high and it takes forever to get to school? No? Well then. At any rate, I've been waiting for some cold weather to try out some toasty hot paleo beverages.

Paleo hot chocolate is super easy and super scrumptious! In the picture is a carton of coconut milk beverage, but I much preferred it with almond milk (unsweetened). Paired with a bowl of fresh raspberries it was a perfect dessert. I also just recently (as in, this minute) discovered chai tea latte with almond milk. I have a chai spice mix, but the internet is abound with recipes to make your own, or I suspect you could just plop a chai tea bag or two in your heated milk.

Paleo Hot Cocoa

1. Heat almond milk in a saucepan on the stove. I'm not sure if it will boil over all of a sudden like cow milk does, but as I'm not willing to find out, I stirred regularly. The internet says you can heat it in the microwave on low in 30 second intervals, stirring in between. I haven't got a microwave so you'll have to take the internet's word for it.
2a. Whisk in some cocoa until chocolatey enough, and stir in a spoonful of honey until it's de-bittered enough. I got my honey (raw unpasturized) from the Hamilton Market.
OR
2b. Stir in a square or two of dark chocolate until melted.
OR
2c. Try a chai latte recipe or any other hot beverage and tell me how it goes :) I just had a thought: toasted coconut in a teaball to add the flavour to the hot cocoa without making it lumpy. Must try.

3. Here's a recipe for coconut milk whipped cream to put on top. There's also a recipe for homemade paleo marshmallows from the Urban Poser but I haven't mustered up the ambition to try either yet. Let me know how it goes if you do!


PS to anyone from my elementary school, remember when we used to be allowed to slip and slide on the icerink that always formed in the drain ditch, before old-grouchy-man-whose-name-I-don't-remember came along and threw salt on it? What a party pooper.

Banana Curry Chicken on Cauliflower Rice

You know what's awesome? Cauliflower rice. You know what else is awesome? Kitchen gadgets that can chop the cauliflower without it flying all over the kitchen. The first time I made the stuff I tried just chopping it, with the result that I had to actually sweep the floor afterward. I also tried grating on the mandoline, but cauliflower is too structurally unsound and, again, ended up all over the kitchen.

BUT THEN for Christmas mum got me a hand crank food processor thinger, in which the cauliflower was contained while I mulched it into rice format. AMAZING! Also, much cheaper than the fancy electric food processors.

Cauliflower rice is a really excellent substitute vessel for your meats and sauces. The texture is similar to rice, and it soaks up sauce flavours nicely so that the cauliflower taste is not overpowering (which is good, because I happen to think cauliflower is gross). It's also easy to make, albeit quite messy without the proper tools (thanks mom!!). I've tried it with a few different curries. I hadn't ever made curry in my previous life so I'm still trying to find a recipe that tastes as good as my favourite Indian restaurant (next time, I'm trying something with pineapple!). This recipe is the best one I've found so far, and was pretty darn tasty. Original recipe here.

Banana Curry Chicken

Ingredients
Sliced veggies (bell pepper, carrots, zuccini, etc)
Chicken breasts
Sea salt and fresh ground black pepper, to taste
1 large banana, peeled
1/2 cup light coconut milk
2 large scallions, sliced
1 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground cayenne pepper
1 tbsp grated fresh ginger
Fresh chopped cilantro, for garnish

1. Preheat oven to 425ºF. Place sliced vegetables and a chicken breast on a piece of foil. Season chicken with salt and black pepper.
2. In a blender (or with a fork), add banana, coconut milk, scallions, curry powder, turmeric, cinnamon, cayenne pepper and ginger and process (smoosh) until smooth. Pour banana-coconut milk mixture over each chicken breast, dividing evenly. Seal foil packets, place on a rimmed baking sheet and cook in oven for 22 to 25 minutes. Set aside to cool for a few minutes before opening. (NOTE: I had to cook mine much longer, perhaps they were thicker).

Cauliflower Rice

Mulch up some cauliflower until it's the size of rice grains. As per the discussion above, I recommend some sort of food processor. I haven't tried the blender but it might do. Heat a generous amount of coconut oil in a pan. Stir in the cauliflower to cover with oil. Cook with a lid on medium-low, stiring occasionally, until the cauliflower is the desired squishiness. I do mine for 15 minutes or so.