Coriander & Black Pepper Halibut Cheeks

Dinner tonight was Halibut Cheeks. I love cheeks...so good, like the flank steak of the sea, and surprisingly hard to overcook for seafood. I think most people who like scallops would love halibut cheeks. I coated these in a simple mix of cracked black pepper and cracked coriander seed, then pan seared them in a tiny bit of olive oil.

While the cheeks were cooking, I sauteed up a huge batch of warm Asain slaw. Basically this is a saute of shredded green cabbage and fine julienne carrots, tossed in a hot wok with a bit of olive oil. I cooked the cabbage and carrots until just crisp-tender and finished with a handful of cilantro and sliced green onions. I splashed in some fish sauce for salt and honestly that was all it needed. The cabbage was sweet and crunchy. I went back for thirds and so did Nick. So good.

I plated my just mounding the cabbage on a plate and arranging 4 or 5 cheeks on top of the cabbage. I drizzled mine all over with Siracha, but that's because I put Siracha on almost everything. Nice went sans-spicy and that was great too...the cheeks had plenty of flavor from the spice rub.

Simple, delicious and ready in less than 12 minutes.

Moroccan Veggie Stew

So I've been reading Clean Eating Magazine, the sister publication to Oxygen magazine. Clean Eating has some yummy stuff. Usually I modify to reduce the land-based-animal protein component, but the recipes are a great source of inspiration.

Tonight I made this Moroccan Veggie stew from the most recent issue....the picture in the magazine showed all these gorgeous vegetables, snuggled up in an almost clear broth that was highlighted with brilliant green cilantro. Yeah, mine didn't turn out like that.

The sweet potato dissolved by the time the carrot and onion were nice and tender, so I had a thick stew with barely discernible chunks of veggies. There was no broth to speak of. There was also no cilantro, and hence no gorgeous green highlights. But you know what? It didn't matter. This was good! Like, one-week-out-from-pictures-be-damned-I'm-having-more good.



To be fair to the Clean Eating people, I didn't exactly follow the recipe in a strict scene, so perhaps if you do your stew will be more visually appealing. I added the veggies I had in amounts that seemed reasonable: fennel, sweet potato, onion, kohlrabi, garlic carrot and zucchini, and added both prunes and raisins into the mix. I skipped the puree step because I didn't have any liquid to speak of; I just had the sweet potato mash. I also skipped the fish, because today wasn't a training day and I just didn't feel the need to thaw fish.

Instead of the recommended couscous, I served mine on brown rice (which I had already made), and topped it with a dollop of sambal for heat and a wedge of lime. The acid from the lime elevated the whole thing, although it may have taken the flavor profile in a vaguely Thai-ish direction. If I were to leave out the dried fruit and chickpeas, and add in some coconut milk and fish sauce, this stew would be very similar to a Thai Root Veg Stew I have made many times.

Clean Eating May/June 2009:
Couscous with Seven Vegetables

1 tablespoon olive oil
3 cloves garlic
1 tbsp Moroccan spice blend (or combine cinnamon, ginger, tumeric, black pepper, allspice, cuman and coriander)
1 large sweet potato, peeled and large-diced
2 small turnips, peeled and large-diced
1 medium zucchini, large diced
2 carrots, large diced
1/4 head cabbage, cut into 1-inch pieces
1/2 red bell pepper, cut into 1-inch pieces
1/2 cup green beans, cut in thirds
1/2 to 1 tsp. Harissa or chili sauce
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1/4 cup raisins
3/4 cup chickpeas, pre-cooked or canned, rinsed and drained
16 oz. white fish (tilapia, haddock or sole), cut into chunks*
1 1/2 cup whole wheat couscous
1/2 cup cilantro, chopped

Heat oil in large stockpot over medium heat. Cook garlic and spice mix until brown, then add next five ingredients. Add enough water to just cover vegetables. Cover and cook 25-30 minutes, until vegetables are soft but not fully cooked. Add pepper, beans, Harissa and salt. Cook another 10 to 15 minutes, until tender.

Ladle out 3 cups of broth and vegetables (1 1/2 cups of each). Puree in blender until thick. Add back to stew.

Mix in raisins (prunes were awesome) and chickpeas. Bring to a simmer over medium heat and place fish on top of mixture (don't mix in, because fish will beak up.) Cook, covered, for 10 to 15 minutes or until fish flakes easilly with a fork. Fish will steam on top.

While fish is cooking, boil 1 1/2 cup water. Remove from heat, add couscous and cover. Set aside for 5 minutes. Fluff with fork. To serve, place 1/2 cup couscous in bowl. Pour 1 cup vegetable-fish mixture over top and sprinkle with 1 tbsp. cilantro.

Per 1/2 cup couscous and 1 cup stew, including 2 oz fish:
Calories: 260
Fat: 3.5 g
Carbs: 40 g
Fiber: 8 g
Sugars: 10 g
Protein: 19 g
Sodium: 310 mg
Cholesterol: 35 mg

* I love almost all seafood, even crazy stuff like pickled herring and eel (unagi...yummmm) but to me tilapia is the least pleasant fish around. Every instance I've eaten tilapia it's tasted like dirt, literally. I know it's the "loaves and fishes" fish, I know it's a relatively responsible seafood choice (apparently growing tilapia is much less harmful than farmed salmon aquaculture) but to me it's the boneless, skinless chicken breast of the sea (and sadly that's not a complement).

When a super healthy food is so devoid of flavor (or worse, has a slight bottom-feeder flavor) that only wrapping it in bacon and sauteing the whole package in butter could possibly make it palatable, what is the point? But perhaps I am being too harsh on tilapia. Maybe the several times I've eaten the fish were not representative. Is anyone out there a tilapia fan? Or have other people noticed the muddy flavor thing too?

Shrimp with Tomato, Olive and Lentil

Mise en Place meal. Tossed together some frozen shrimp, the beluga lentils I cooked up yesterday (I have been craving lentils!), and some of the Tomato-Olive Salsa I've been enjoying for a while now. Splashed on some sherry vinegar to give it that French marinated lentil salad flavor I was looking for, and dug in. Easy post-workout lunch in about 6 minutes.

Chocolate Cherry Almond Energy Bites

In a food processor, blend the hell out of the following:

300 gm raw oats
200 gm dried cherries
100 gm raisins
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
200 gm almond butter (or raw almonds; if using raw almonds process first to a smooth consistency)

Add enough water to just moisten and bring the dough together in a ball...I used about 1/4 cup.

Portion into 50 gm disks, squares or bar shapes as desired. I got 17 disks.

Bake disks at 300 degrees on a parchment lined sheetpan for 20 minutes, until dry and firm but not biscotti hard. Store in airtight container.

Nutrition info per 50 gm Energy Bite
192 calories
7.6 gm fat
4.6 gm protein
30 gm carb
3.7 gm fiber

So yeah, these are Energy Bites, not Diet Bites. They are dense but therefore easily portable. As healthy, relatively yummy cookie analogs go, they will be great for situations like yesterday: post-bike ride/post-spin followed immediately by a weight workout/WOD. And I like that I know exactly what's in them.

Smoked Salmon Pasta with Red Peppers & Broccoli

Another Mise en Place meal: just threw the cooked whole wheat pasta and roasted broccoli in a skillet. Added in some of the store bought fire-roasted peppers I've been loving lately, and finished with a hunk of smoked salmon for some protein and salt and deliciousness. The whole thing reheated in maybe 5 minutes, and the addition of a little pepper brine and spicy red pepper flakes gave it an arrabiata feeling that totally worked for me.

Grill-Smoked Steelhead with Pineapple Salsa

This is one of those Mise en Place meals: the brown rice was cooked, the green beans were cooked, the pineapple salsa was made....so all I had to do when a nice day presented itself was throw the steelhead on the outdoor bbq. Spiced the fish up a bit by throwing several handfuls of alder chips right on the briquettes and covering for a hybrid-grill smoke effect that I love. Didn't bother to soak the chips or anything (that would require planning), and since this was a high-heat cook where the smoke was just a flavoring agent, not the primary method of heat transfer to the food, that worked just fine.

Yum!

Seared Halibut with Romesco Sauce

Yum! Yum! Yum! Dinner was so great tonight. Pan Seared Halibut with Romesco Sauce and Green Beans. Romesco is made with roasted peppers and tomatoes and almonds and olive oil and is simply divine. But all that roasting takes awhile, and I needed my sauce fast. Luckilly, I picked up an enormous jar of Greek fire roasted red peppers at Costco the other day, and I was able to whip up this sauce in less than 5 minutes. It turned out so great I could have eaten it up with a spoon. Okay, who am I kidding? I DID eat it up with a spoon.

Romesco Sauce in a Hurry:

This makes A LOT, like over 20 servings. Which is okay with me cause it'll last and I'm putting it on everything for the forseeable future. Feel free to halve or quarter the recipe.
Makes about 1100 grams. 1650 calories for the whole recipe. 75 calories per 50 gram serving.

3 cloves garlic
250 gm raw almonds
1/4 peeled red onion
800 gm roasted red pepper, drained
1-2 tablespoons smoked paprika, or to taste
1-4 tablespoons red wine vinegar, or to taste
salt, to taste

For peppers, I used one huge 36 oz jar I found at Costco...Tassos brand, roasted then lightly pickled. After draining, this jar yielded 800 grams of peppers, which is why this recipe is so huge. I was quite happy with the quality of this brand, which is more than I can say for most of the jarred or canned peppers I've tried. In fact, I liked this product and this recipe so much I went back and bought 2 more jars!



Combine garlic, almonds and onion in a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Pulse until everything is well chopped and the almonds are just starting to look slightly creamy. Add in the peppers and continue to pulse until the whole mixture is well combined and about the texture of hummus. Season to taste with smoked paprika (I used a lot), salt and vinegar, pulsing a few more times to combine. If your peppers were packed in vinegar, as mine were, you may not need any vinegar at all. If they were water packed, or you roasted them yourself (go, you!) then a few tablespoons ought to do ya'.

Here's your finished product:

I'm 30 Today!

4/1: 157.0
4/2: 155.0
4/3: 155.2
4/4: 154.6
4/5: 154.8
4/6: 154.2
4/7: 153.2
4/8: 154.8
4/9: 152.6
4/10: 151.2
4/11: 153.2
4/12: 152.2
4/13: 152.2
4/14: 152.4
4/15: 153.2
4/16: 152.2
4/17: 152.0
4/18: 151.8
4/19: 152.0
4/20: 152.0
4/21: 152.0
4/22: 152.6
4/23: 151.4
4/24: 151.4
4/25: 151.6
4/26: 151.8
4/27: 151.6
4/28: 152.6
4/29: 153.6
4/30: 151.2
5/01: 149.6
5/02: 150.0
5/03: 151.4
5/04: 149.4
5/05: 150.0
5/06: 149.8

What a great day! I feel great to start my 30s in the best shape of my life! Yesterday was so affirming that the hard workouts and tight, clean workouts really got me where I wanted to go and then some.

Though yesterday was a rest day and I've joked about doing a Filthy 30 for my birthday, I took today off and just spent time with my favorite people. My mom took me out shopping during the day, and we had lunch (I had the roasted vegetable salad with seared salmon) and just enjoyed hanging out together. I also picked out a birthday top that I think will be pretty versatile when we travel next month and a few basic cami's.

After I picked Bella up from school, we headed south to pick up Nick and then all of us went out to dinner at Tamarind Tree, where Nick and I systematically ate as much as possible. It was so great...everything was delicious.

We had:
Tamarind Tree Rolls (2 orders)
Mango Salad with Prawn
Turmeric Rice Cakes (adored these!)
Crispy Catfish
Sauteed Chayote

Bella also had:
Chicken Satay
Coconut Ice Cream

Best. Dinner. Ever. We spent 2 hours enjoying languid course after languid course. Bella was a total trooper, and made it very easy for us to enjoy our meal. Everything was delish...totally worth every calorie, fat gram and carb. I could not have asked for a better birthday dinner!

Curried Ahi & Caramelized Pineapple Salad

There's not really a recipe for this meal...more like a concept.

Get a pan hot. Rub really good ahi with some curry spice mix. Sear ahi on all sides for about 2 minutes, until outside is crusty but inside is still raw and cool. Remove ahi and let rest. Add chunked fresh pineapple to hot pan...sear all over. While pineapple is in pan, slice ahi into 1/4" thick slices.

Toss salad greens with dressing of choice or olive oil and salt. Top greens with sliced ahi, caramelized pineapple and avocado.

Countdown to 30: 2 Days to Go

4/1: 157.0
4/2: 155.0
4/3: 155.2
4/4: 154.6
4/5: 154.8
4/6: 154.2
4/7: 153.2
4/8: 154.8
4/9: 152.6
4/10: 151.2
4/11: 153.2
4/12: 152.2
4/13: 152.2
4/14: 152.4
4/15: 153.2
4/16: 152.2
4/17: 152.0
4/18: 151.8
4/19: 152.0
4/20: 152.0
4/21: 152.0
4/22: 152.6
4/23: 151.4
4/24: 151.4
4/25: 151.6
4/26: 151.8
4/27: 151.6
4/28: 152.6
4/29: 153.6
4/30: 151.2
5/01: 149.6
5/02: 150.0
5/03: 151.4

Sunday has become family day at the gym. Nick comes with me and works on whatever form stuff he's mastering (past several weeks it's been deadlifts and bench presses) then does cardio (usually walk or jog outside) while I get my Crossfit on. I really like that he joins in, even though he's not into fitness in quite the same way I am. It's cool to share what I'm learning with him, and to hang out.

So I was expecting that we would do the same strength based thing today, but Nick was game to give a WOD a try. I was planning on Tabata Something Else, which was the WOD I missed when I took Friday off.

So, brief explanation: a "Tabata" is thusly named because it is a high intensity training method developed by Dr. Izumi Tabata, who discovered that a 4 minute workout, cycling between 20 second of work and 10 seconds of rest for 8 rounds, could produce amazing strength and endurance gains in already trained athletes. A 4 minute workout sounds pretty weak....until you do your first Tabata. Then you get it.

So "Tabata Something Else" is 4 back-to-back, 4 minute Tabata's. The first cycle is pull-ups, second is push ups, third is sit-ups, forth is squats. There is no rest between cycles, so the whole workout is 16 minutes long. The first minute isn't so bad but the last 15 are a bitch. Your score is the total number of reps you get, total across all cycles.

Nick seriously maned up and joined me for Tabata Something Else. He timed me, then I timed him. Alas I have misplaced our score sheet, but I think I was around 370 and Nick was around 210. I do remember I held a remarkably constant rate on sit-ups (10 on almost all rounds) and squats (17 across all but a few where I slipped to 16 - but upped it to 19 on the last one despite the burning in my quads). Pull-ups and push-ups were, no surprise, the weak links. I was disappointed with how quickly fatigued I got on the upper body stuff, but then again 150, 45# dumbbell swings yesterday was bound to take something out of me. I was also having some grip issues. Here's why:


Yes, this is the sight that greeted me after my workout when I pulled the band-aids off my pinkies. Remember how I blistered, then tore, the skin on both pinkies doing the aforementioned dumbbell swings? Well, they had not responded particularly well to being "protected" under a bandage for 24 hours. Truly nasty. They look much better now that they've had a chance to breathe--less necrotic. I think I was attempting my pull-ups with 80% of my fingers and doing the classy British tea-drinker pinkie-in-the-air thing with my wounded digits. You wouldn't think two little pinkies would make that much of a difference in grip strength, but I believe they do.

Dinner last night was delish, and plated up nice enough for a pic:



Ponzu-Maple Glazed Coho with Brown Rice and Spring (ish) Veggies

Day of Meals

This is how I eat. Mostly plant based/vegan meals supplemented with the very occasional bit of meat and the frequent hunk of seafood. Today I'm really enjoying my "break" day, so I'm indulging in a bit more grain-based and legume foods than I have been lately, but I'm not going crazy with portions.

Over the past several weeks, most of my calories have come from vegetables, fruit and fish. I plan on reintroducing more legumes and grain products as I wrap up the 5 pounds 5 week challenge, but as they are the most calorically dense of the vegetarian energy sources, I've cut back on them a bit during the challenge. I do also wonder if there's something to the "Paleo" thing and maybe one of the contributing factors to my feel-good-ness lately has been the relative lack of grain and legumes. I'll definitely be keeping an eye on that and how I feel as I reintroduce those foods.

I started my day as I always start my day: soy latte in bed. Thanks, Nick, for bringing me a latte in bed almost every morning for the past 5 years or more.

Then I had breakfast:


Bob's Red Mill 7 grain hot cereal with raisins, apples, cinnamon, pecans & soy milk. A tiny drizzle of maple syrup finished it off nicely for under 400 calories. Also ate a big bowl (300 gms) of pineapple and a small portion (50 gm) of sockeye salmon. Big, yummy breakfast.

A little later I snacked on some blanched green beans and split a banana with Bella.

Next was lunch:


I call this Antipasto Pasta because I take whatever jarred antipasto-type pantry staples I have on hand - sun dried tomatoes, beans, olives, artichokes, roasted peppers, etc. - and toss it all together with a bit of whole wheat pasta and a lot of vegetables for a lean and filling meal.

This version was thrown together with whole wheat spaghetti, kidney beans, marinated artichokes, pepperoncini + a splash of the pepperoncini vinegar, garlic-stuffed green olives and lots of baby spinach. I sauteed it all until the pasta was hot through and the spinach was wilted. It was seriously delicious and really filling for 330 calories. Also had an orange and another soy latte. (I really am enjoying my day off and indulging a bit!)

Dinner? No clue - still full from lunch! But it'll be easy, thrown together with whatever mise en place I have in the fridge.

Update: got hungry again after lunch and had a HUGE bowl of pineapple - killed off my prepared pineapple - probably 600 gms of pineapple.

Then, an hour or two after the pineapple binge, I put together dinner:

It was a vegetable-shrimp stir fry with asparagus, sweet potato, roasted mushrooms and a bit of brown rice. Everything got tossed together in the wok with a touch of oyster sauce and topped with Asian chili sauce.

If it seems like I eat all day long, I do! One of the "tricks" to keeping your metabolism fired up in general, and to weight loss specifically, is to eat small meals throughout the day. When I'm really on target I eat 5-6, meals daily, each around 300-500 calories. Usually 2 meals (lunch and dinner) are on the high end of this scale and the rest are towards the lower end. As my lunch meal today demonstrates, you can cram a lot of great food into 300ish calories if you try. When I'm not trying to actually cut body fat, I'll let all my meals drift up to the higher end of the range, and may even start eating more "normally" - ie, three large meals with minimal snacks. But I definitely feel best when I'm spreading smaller meals throughout the day.

Countdown to 30: 20 Days to Go

4/1: 157.0
4/2: 155.0
4/3: 155.2
4/4: 154.6
4/5: 154.8
4/6: 154.2
4/7: 153.2
4/8: 154.8
4/9: 152.6
4/10: 151.2
4/11: 153.2
4/12: 152.2
4/13: 152.2
4/14: 152.4
4/15: 153.2
4/16: 152.2

Moving average on weight has been dead flat for several days. At this point I can only continue to eat clean, train hard and see what happens. Honestly, I'm not willing to drop my caloric intake below about 1800 with the way I'm training (I'm not giving up muscle if I can possibly help it), so I'll just have to see what consistency does for me over the next 20 days.

Spent the AM with K-Lo, but we didn't work out at all! We barely even talked about fitness, actually. Shocking! It was nice to hang out and see her.

So, did an afternoon Hero WOD, "Danny" named after a California SWAT team member who was killed in the line of duty. The guy Officer Danny and was going in to get when he was killed was (allegedly) a scumbag who has already been imprisioned for assault with a deadly weapon, jumped parole, killed another few cops earlier that day, and was wanted for the rape of a 12 year old. So as one would expect, the workout in Officer Danny's honor was a brutal ass-kicker.

Complete as many rounds in 20 minutes as you can of:
24 inch Box Jump, 30 reps
115 pound Push Press, 20 reps
30 Pull-ups

Alison did this one with me and we both scaled like nobodies buisness (because 20, 115-pound push-jerks might be possible for me over the course of a day, but push-presses? Not yet!)

Alison got 4 rounds + 13 box jumps. She scaled to 12" on the box jumps, 30# on the push presses for her 1st round and 20# thereafter, and subbed 55# and 45# lat pull-downs for pull-ups. Nice work!

I was 3 rounds + 30 box jumps, 20 presses and 6 pull-ups. 24 pull-ups shy of four rounds. I scaled to an 18" box, and still managed to bash the shit out of my shin when I jumped into instead of onto the box on round one, rep 6 of box jumps. Completeing the rest of the jumps was a bit tingly and awkward after that. Used 60# for the presses, and broke the pull-ups into 10 sets of 3 for each round, but did them all unassisited.

My blood blister from the 120 pull-ups/120 dips workout had popped the night before and I used nail glue to tack the skin back together. Saddly, the nail glue did not hold out against the rotational stress of the push-press and pull-ups and long about round 2 the tender baby skin under the blister was being dealt the full force of the motions. Between the bashed up shin and the ripped off blister, this workout was painful in a non-muscular or cardiovascular way.

I'm not trying to winger: it's a fu@king Hero WOD, so I tried to toughen up and push through. Did what I could. RIP, Officer Danny.

After that, Alison and I talked about going straight into the Crossfit Endurance cardio WOD (1 minute ladder) and opted to go get ice cream instead. Yeah, that's right, ice cream! So we both had a child's scoop of the dairy free, fat free strawberry sorbet (140 calories for 4 oz) and it was both delicious and non-diet-breaking. Bella, who had also sustained injury that day (scraped knee and nose - recess can be brutal) was the motivation behind our medicinal ice cream break. She opted for mint chocolate chip in a sugar cone.

Clean Eating with Mise en Place

How does one eat clean, healthy food almost all of the time? Is it massive will power? Do clean eaters deny themselves every craving, sticking to a routine of boiled chicken breasts and bean sprouts until they are skinny? Universally, no. Even the most dedicated health nut, low on blood sugar and half-faint from hunger is going to be tempted by the short-term energy promise of the pastry case.

The way you eat quality, clean food almost all the time is to make the eating of that food unbelievably easy. And the way you do that is planning and preparation. How easy would it be to eat clean delicious food if this kind of thing was in your fridge all the time?


As a professional chef I learned the importance of what's called mise en place, which basically means having all your food prepared and ready to go when your restaurant service starts. In a restaurant kitchen that might mean having the garlic and onions pre-chopped, having the butter at room temperature, pre-blanching or roasting the vegetables as appropriate, making the stock reductions and bases for sauces, having the chicken and fish and meat cut into the right filets or steaks for service, etc. Mise en place is the reason why a restaurant kitchen can deliver a meal to you in 12 minutes that would take anyone, start to finish, 2 hours. Everything is ready to go when the cook needs it.

You can practically guarantee clean eating success for yourself if you take the concept of mise en place and embrace it for your home kitchen. Yes, this means you need to take an hour once or twice a week and get your prep work done.

When you get home with cart loads full of clean-eating fruits, veggies, meat (if you eat it), etc. take the time to turn your ingredients into your mise en place. Cut a pineapple into chunks, throw it in a tupperware and get it in the fridge. Make a batch of brown rice. Blanch or roast veggies. Put together a large salad. Make some hummus. In an hour you can turn several bags of groceries into components that will in turn become clean eating meals or snacks in a matter of minutes (sometimes seconds). And when you are hungry, the minutes you don't have to spend making food are the times you won't give in to the pastry case or drive-thru temptation.

Here's how you do it:
Preheat your oven to 450. Get a big pot of water boiling. If you have a rice cooker, break it out. Put brown rice or quinoa in the rice cooker. While the oven and water are heating, wash and chop veggies. Do a lot. As long as you are cutting up 1 head of broccoli, cut up 3.

Toss the "hard" veggies - broccoli, cauliflower, fennel, carrots, sweet potato, etc - with a little bit of olive oil and some salt and/or spices. Curry is great on roasted cauliflower, smoked paprika is dynamite on sweet potato. Place them on parchment or foil-lined sheet pans (keep the different veggies seperate because they'll all cook in different times).

When the oven is ready, stick the hard veggies in the oven and roast until tender and golden brown. Broccoli usually takes 12-15 minutes, sweet potato can take 40 depending on how big your pieces are. If you run out of sheet pans or oven space, just set the remainder aside. You can cycle a lot of veggies through an oven in an hour. Set a timer or several so you don't forget them in there.

For the "soft" veggies, I like to blanch, or cook then for just a minute or so in boiling water. Rinse and trim up your green beans, snap peas, asparagus (asparagus is equally delish roasted), etc. When your water is really boiling, add in your veggies. Do this one veggie at a time because, again, they cook at different rates. The soft veggies should take 90 seconds-2 minutes, max. Don't overcook! Pull them out with a big strainer and transfer them to another sheet pan to cool. Don't pour them out into a strainer in the sink, because then you have to refill your pot with water and bring it up to the boil again for the next veggie. Takes too much time and wastes energy. Just keep the water boiling and cycle through your veggies.

By the time you've finished cooking all your soft veggies your first batch of hard veggies will proabably be ready to come out of the oven. Just set the tray aside and let the veggies cool. If you need the sheet pan for another batch of roasted veggies, pull the veggies on their foil or parchment liner off the pan and let that cool on the counter. Re-line your pan, add more prepped veggies and you're ready to go!

Your water is still boiling but your soft veggies are all blanched. Throw some whole wheat pasta (if you don't eat wheat, an alterna-grain pasta is fine, or just skip this step) in the boiling water. Set a timer! You've got a lot of things working at this point...timers will help keep your pasta al dente. Err on the side of undercooking - the pasta will get reheated anyway. When it's done, drain well in a collander, toss with the lightest coat of olive oil, transfer to a container or big plastic bag and cool in the fridge.

Pasta, prawns and veggies cooling off after a batch of mise en place cooking:


Now it's time to move onto fruit. Wash your hands, knife, cutting board and fruit. Start chopping it into pieces that work for you. Bigger hunks are easier, and less surface area means the fruit will last longer, so that's what I go for. Chop up a pineapple or two, wash and dry (very well) some strawberries, then cut the tops off. Peel and cube a melon: watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew...whatever floats your boat. Wash grapes, dry (again, very well) and cut into small clusters. Grapes keep better with the stem attached, so unless I'm eating them right away I don't pull the stem off. As you finish with the fruit, transfer it to clean containers and stick in the fridge.


So now your fruit is in the fridge. Your pasta has been strained. Tons of roasted and blanched veggies are cooled and ready to go in the fridge. Rice or quinoa is coming out of the rice cooker. Your refrigerator is starting to look like the deli section of a super healthy gourmet market.


And later on when you really need a good quick meal, these components can be turned into an easy lunch or dinner in about 3 minutes. Like this:



Or this:


And your preparation will be worth it. An hour of your time will be payed back, in pounds you don't gain, guilt you don't feel, and money you don't spend on convenience food you shouldn't eat.

Countdown to 30: 21 Days to Go

4/1: 157.0
4/2: 155.0
4/3: 155.2
4/4: 154.6
4/5: 154.8
4/6: 154.2
4/7: 153.2
4/8: 154.8
4/9: 152.6
4/10: 151.2
4/11: 153.2
4/12: 152.2
4/13: 152.2
4/14: 152.4
4/15: 153.2

Yesterday was a rest day. Played with the Bella in the park and cleaned the car, but that was about as physical as it got. I've been on a very slight uptick the past two days and while I'm not deeply worried about it, I am aware that I have only three weeks left and there isn't a lot of margin for error.

Today I am heading off to the gym for some crossfittin' as soon as I post this picture of my delish lunch: quinoa pilaf with cherry tomato, kalamata olives, red onion and shrimp. It was fantastic, super easy & a big ol' bowl full of food for only 320 calories.

Update
Afternoon Workout: At the gym I combined the Crossfit Football WOD of 3/13 with today's Main Site WOD, "Helen," and got this:
Front Squat 5 x 5 - 3 sets @ 105; 2 sets @ 115
Push Press 5 x 5 @ 75, 80, 85, 90, 95

Then:
3 Rounds for Time
400 Meter Run (treadmill, 1% grade, 8.0 mph on the first round, 7.0 mph on rounds 2 & 3)
35# Swings, 21 Reps
12 Push-ups (Pull-ups were Rx, and I would have preferred them, but I really don't want to pop the mother of all blood blisters.)
11:17

PM Workout
Blasted out a second mad workout with Alison, who is turning into a total badass. People at the gym were staring at us. Go Alison! We did a weight modified Crossfit Hero workout....tough shiznit.

"DT" Five rounds for time of:
155 pound Deadlift, 12 reps
155 pound Hang power clean, 9 reps
155 pound Push jerk, 6 reps

I did a 70# option, which I have to say was plenty by the end, and Alison (since she is just learning the moves) did 30# and did an awesome job of it.

After I went on and on and on to Alison about the importance of jumping the weight up in the hang power cleans, I got (very kindly) schooled by a fellow crossfitter at the gym with an awesome beard for reverse curling the weight in the hang clean. Damn it! Rip told me every time I did that, Jesus kills a little baby! Awesome Beard gave me some great pointers about keeping my chest open in the jump to get an explosive pull...I'm sure I was hunching over which killed the upward momentum of the weight as I jumped, so this is a great visual for me and I am super excited to practice my hang power cleans now.

Also, Awesome Beard and his crossfitting buddy who eats burpees for breakfast both told me I really needed to get deeper in the catch...and they are totally right. There's something about that motion: it's just a bit scary. I think working on my front squats will give me a lot more confidence in that front catch position. Yippee, I love these tips! That's just another great thing about the crossfit community...the sense of community, and a lot of knowledge to tap into. We really do all want each other to get faster, stronger, more proficient. Anyway, thank you Awesome Beard and Burpee for Breakfast Guy. Get some, go again!

So after our little technique chat/recovery time Alison and I hit up the Crossfit Endurance 90 Second Ladder WOD from 4/14...
90 on / 60 off
90 on/ 45 off
90 on / 30 off
90 on / 15 off - this sucked pretty hard right here
90 on / 30 off
90 on / 45 off
90 on / DONE!

This workout was pretty tough. I think Alison would agree that those last few 90 second sprints felt like they lasted about 10 minutes each. Still, we both pushed through and put in a good showing. I ran most of the WOD at 7.0, bumping up to 7.5 & 8.0 durring the final minute and 30 seconds, respectively. I think next time I should really go for 7.5 the whole time.

I really am loving these intense sprint interval workouts on the treadmill. I feel like I can really feel my form improving and I'm not killing it for long enough for the pose running technique to fall apart on me. It's a good feeling, given my pretty much lifelong hatred of running.

Anyway, quick after workout snack and I'm off to bed! Thanks for the workout Alison!

Countdown to 30: 23 Days to Go

4/1: 157.0
4/2: 155.0
4/3: 155.2
4/4: 154.6
4/5: 154.8
4/6: 154.2
4/7: 153.2
4/8: 154.8
4/9: 152.6
4/10: 151.2
4/11: 153.2
4/12: 152.2
4/13: 152.2

AM Workout: Spin Class...focused on hills. Great class, as usual.

PM Workout: Kept it pretty mellow - I'm showing my friend Alison the Crossfit Ropes and she's just starting out so we did a "Filthy 50" style workout, but scaled in reps & actions. She did great!

18 Box Jumps
18 Push-ups
36 Walking Lunges (18 Left-Right pairs)
18 Sit-Ups
18 Supermans (some guy at the gym jumped onto the back extension station 14 seconds before we were going to talk it, so we modified on the fly)
18 Air Squats
18 Burpees

I came in around 6:30, not particularly pushing it, but still feeling that I'm at the end of a 4-day training cycle. Alison did great, pushing through the suck of those final burpees and came in at 7:16.

I also have to comment on the delish dinner I had tonight. I really wanted....you know...a big dinner. I wanted that sit-down-get-full feeling that you just don't get when eating small meals 6 times a day. But I'm not about to blow my training or goals on crap food, so I put together a fantastic but really clean meal that worked on all levels: clean, yummy, healthy, super easy, family friendly....and did I mention yummy?

We started with a mixed greens salad with strawberries, avocado and red onion and dressed it with a super light apple cider vinaigrette sweetened with dark agave. Nick skipped the avo and added Danish Blue to his salad, which would be excellent as well. Even Bella got in on the salad action, enjoying everything but the vegetables. She basically had a bowl of blue cheese, avocado and strawberries.


Then we had baked herbed Copper River Coho. The salmon was previously frozen and not rich and wonderfully fatty like a king or sockeye, but it was very moist and mild, with good texture and a great price point. I served that with salt-roasted green beans & brown rice and shoved myself away from the table wonderfully full and happy.

Homemade, No-Bake Energy Bars

So my kiddo wanted to make cookies, but it was FAR too hot to turn on the oven if I wasn't getting paid for it. Besides, what she really wanted was to eat cookies, and I'm not all about the eating of cookies for entertainment purposes. So we broke out the food processor and all the random bags of dried fruit from Costco that I am compelled to buy, and we just went crazy, blending things up until we had a bowl of homemade energy bar-stuff.



When we were done, adding and adjusting a bit at a time, we had two recipes that were quick, cheap (well, cheaper than $1.50 commercial bars anyway), shelf stable and pretty tasty. These are definitely high-fiber, low protein, though, so if you are not accustomed to a--ahem--high fiber diet you might not want to eat a whole lot of them at once.

Here's the recipes:

Chocolate Cherry No-Bake Energy Bars
10 oz. dried plums
5 oz. dried cherries
6 oz. whole uncooked oats
4 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
2 oz. Nutella

Apri-Coco No-Bake Energy Bars
10 oz. dried apricots
6 oz. dried plums
6 oz. whole uncooked oats
4 oz. shredded, unsweetened coconut
2 oz. almond butter

For either recipe: process ingredients in a food processor to a uniform puree. It will be very thick. When mixture forms a ball, it is probably ready. Press mixture into a sheetpan and smooth to make the mixture as uniform in thickness as possible. Slice into 2 oz. bars (I got about 16 bars out of each recipe) and wrap each bar individually in plastic wrap.