Wascally Wabbit Stew

Lunch today is my version of Alpine Rabbit Stew from fxcuisine.com.

I found a small butcher shop relatively close to home that has an interesting variety of meats including many grass-fed options at very reasonable prices. One of my many scores from my initial visit was what was left of a fuzzy wuzzy little rabbit. I've eaten rabbit a few times before but this was my first attempt at cooking it myself. Unfortunately, it came pre-cleaned and didn't include any of the organ meats, so I wasn't able to use the liver and try as I might, I couldn't find any juniper berries. I also substituted shallots for the onion, but aside from those small tweaks, I remained pretty faithful to the original recipe (which included a small pad of butter, so not quite 100% paleo). The end result was a very edible stew full of tender, fall off the bone meat which was very enjoyable and that even my hyper-picky four year old had no problem eating.
The flavor of the meat was pretty nondescript and had the texture similar to that of dark-meat chicken. A very palatable foray into slightly more exotic meats for the more wary carnivore. The next time, I think I will wrap my bouquet of herbs in cheesecloth because the rosemary leaves quickly came loos from their stems leaving me regularly picking them out of my mouth. Over-all a successful and enjoyable meal.

I work in an office and one of the hardest parts about keeping paleo for me is breakfast. There are very few options for quick paleo-friendly breakfast restaurants in my area which means that I pretty well need to plan ahead and have something ready to go for me the night before or plan on fasting until lunch. Of course there are a million places to get bagels, waffles, oatmeal, biscuits and gravy and so on, but finding real food is a struggle. One of my quick breakfast hacks is microwaved eggs with marinara or salsa. My office has a full-sized fridge and a microwave available, so I just keep a half dozen eggs on hand at all times and can keep a jar or two of sauce in my desk drawer. While its hardly gourmet, it keeps me on track when I don't have time to pack something from home. The trick is to make sure you don't over cook the eggs. Microwaved eggs are never good, but they can be passable. But be careful, if they are even a tiny bit overcooked, you might as well be eating sulfur-flavored rubber. I heat the sauce separately and then add. Viola.

Rising Like Phoenix

Well I had a colossal meltdown over the weekend. My family had a big party for all of the Autumn birthdays in our group of friends and family, and I did a great job of avoiding all temptation for about the first 2 hours...then it all came crashing down. Stupid birthday cake tempting me like that...one innocent bite turned out to be not so innocent after all and I relapsed like a Lindsay Lohan on her first day out of rehab. From there, my will was broken and I began a rampage that would see me devour 2 large pieces of cake, several sub sandwiches (including the bread), hand-fulls of sugary candies, corn chips, taco dip a can of beer and who knows what else. The results were plain and I was bloated and miserable for the rest of the evening and into the next day.
I have since regrouped and am fully back in paleo mode, though I think I may resent my 30 days of strict paleo clock over. As my jiu jitsu instructor says, "why do we fall like lambs? So we can rise up like lions!"
In the meantime, I am eagerly awaiting my copy of Robb Wolf's The Paleo Solution book from Amazon.com, which I pre-ordered months ago and has yet to ship (grumble). Having been an avid listener of Robb's podcast for months, I am eager to see what kind of new and interesting insights and additions he will bring to the paleosphere.

Quick and Easy Breakfast

Pecans, mixed berries and coconut milk. Quick and easy to throw together at work. Yummy.

Checking In

I don't have much time to write, but I wanted to check in briefly. I continue to maintain a strict paleo diet without too many struggles. My wife is understanding so far, which makes it much easier to maintain. I did have my first overt fail on day 6, where, due to lack of available thawed meat and not wanting to cook, we got pho for dinner. As fails go, it certainly could have been worse, but it is still not ideal. To add insult to injury, it was probably the worst pho I've ever had. Oh well, that is what I get for cheating. Lesson learned. Onward to Superior health, performance and sexiness!

Day 2

I've decided that trying to keep a running tally of everything that I eat on this blog is going to be a much to tedious exercise, so I'm just going to post about highlights and lowlights I think. I was able to maintain a paleo diet for two whole days in a row. I did have a glass of wine at a happy hour after work to celebrate one of my co-workers leaving for law school, so that was a bit of a fail, but as fails go, it could have been worse.

I did lower body at the gym, but was really just too low on energy to do anything to intense. I've read that there can be a bit of a lull in energy as you Begin to transition your diet since its now using different fuel sources than its used too, and I suspect that my be part of the problem. I did some light squats and deadlifts, but only a couple of sets each and a few other random things, but I did not push myself. I suppose that was for the best since when I had finished my workout, I came to find that the gym didn't have any towels available at that moment since they were all in the laundry. Grumble.

Oh well, on to day 3!

Day 1- In the Beginning

Getting off to a bad start in the sleep department. Wifey and I stayed up until after midnight watching some stockpiled episodes of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations. That show alwayss makes me want to drink for some reason and given that this was my last night of indulgance for a while, we shared a couple of bottles of wine. I woke up at 5:45 AM, slightly hung-over. So I probably logged around 5 hours of actual sleep.

Food

Breakfast
2 eggs with taco meat thrown into the microwave at work and a banana.

Lunch
Finished off the lamb curry and added a whole green pepper.

Dinner
Small portion of roast beef and macadamia nuts. Ate very late, around 10 PM, because friend called me with a spare ticket to the Seattle Sounders game. Suffice to say, there weren't that many paleo options available at the game.

Exercise
Took a 30 minute walk at lunch


Snack
a couple of carrots