Paleo Nachos

Something really eff'd up happens when you begin to restrict certain elements from your diet: you start craving crap that you never even cared for before.  Does this happen to anyone else?  Is it just me?

You tell yourself "no sugar, no dairy, no grains, no fake carbs? NO PROB."  Then out of nowhere your mind flips its shit, turns on this evil food switch, and you automatically crave those items that are completely off-limits.  For me, it was nachos.  Nachos!?  No idea why.  Perhaps it's the fact that it is currently baseball season. I had this mental image of me sitting at Dodger Stadium holding a giant basket of stale nacho chips smothered with that creepy artificially colored cheese-wannabe stuff.  My brain convinced me that it tasted delicious.  I needed that experience.  Had to stuff my face with junk food.

Now that you think I'm a glutton, I'll go ahead and share how I solved this problem.  Allow me to redeem myself?

Step 1: Pork Carnitas

Throw the following into your slow cooker:

- 1.5 to 2 lbs pork shoulder, seasoned generously (we use a Latin dry rub)

- 2 sliced onions

- 2 sliced tomatoes

- a couple crushed garlic cloves

- handful of chopped cilantro

Set it & forget it.  

We usually leave our slow cooker running overnight for a good 7 hours.  You can't really go wrong with slow cooker pork.  The fat just melts off and cooks everything in the pot with it.  Sometimes we'll throw in any old veggies we find inside of our fridge with the pork.  Anything goes.

Step 2: Plantain Chips

Make sure to use plantains that are not super ripe.  The greener, the move savory they will be.  The brown, ripe plantains will be sweet.  We used a mandoline to get nice, thin slices.

Fill the bottom of your pot with about an inch of olive oil.  Once the olive oil gets hot, start throwing in the plantain slices.  Try to not let the chips overlap much inside of the oil.  Fry them for about 3 minutes per side, or until they are toasted to your liking.  

Work in batches.  Keeping an eye on the chips to make sure they don't burn is probably the most labor-intensive part of this dish.  When they are finished frying, throw them into a colander to dry out.

The chips can be made ahead by 1 or 2 days.  We made a ton of these and were eating them for two days straight.  Just keep them in the fridge.

Step 3: Assemble!

Gather your plantain chips.  Toss them with a pinch of salt.  

Place the chips on your plate.  Smother them with the carnitas.  If you get a lot of carnitas juice over the chips, they may become a bit soggy.  But they will still be goooood.

We made this guacamole to use as the creamy element.  Trust me, we didn't miss the cheese one bit.

Whole Life Challenge

One of my favorite aspects of my gym is the community.  Together we suffer through workouts, we learn new skills, we watch each other get stronger.  In the end, we encourage each other to be healthier humans.  A huge part of that, of course, is diet.  A large number of our gym events focus on food: potlucks, BBQs, lectures.  One of our most recent events is the Whole Life Challenge.

If you know me, you know I'm always up for a challenge.  In this 8 week program, we are challenged to improve the way we eat and make changes that will improve our lifestyles.  The fun part is that a lot of fellow gym-goers signed up, so we are all in this together.  It's also a friendly competition, providing that much more incentive for us to stay on track.

For the most part, Felipe and I make an effort to maintain a clean diet.  Cutting out processed foods as part of the challenge was not too big of a change for us.  The real kickers are:

1. Eliminating sugar.  This includes honey, agave, maple.  All of which I tend to indulge in when craving sweets.  
2. No cheating!  As much as I sincerely enjoy clean eating, I allow myself an indulgence every so often.  Friday night cocktails, a croissant with my coffee, dark chocolate after dinner.  For the duration of the challenge, though, any nutrition cheat will cost us points.  :(

So far, we're two weeks into the challenge.  I'm happy to report that it's going pretty great!  Well, with one exception: three days in Seattle last weekend.  It was too difficult to resist a night of cocktails and delicious dinners with friends that we hadn't seen in years.  SO, we definitely lost all of our nutrition points for those 3 days.  The positive thing is that we came back motivated and determined to stay on track until November.

I wanted to use this blog as a way to document some of my favorite meals during my challenge, and maybe share a recipe or two.  Here goes nothing!

A couple of some quick dishes that we made early on in the challenge:

Apple Salad with Walnuts + Lime

This plate was inspired by Bon Appetit.  We made the recipe "whole life challenge" friendly by removing the dairy and replacing breadcrumbs with toasted coconut shreds.
Shredded coconut >> breadcrumbs, btw.  Coconut wins.  Always.

Carrot and Beet Slaw

An excellent slaw also inspired by Bon Appetit.  The shredding feature of my food processor made this dish SO easy.  Shred a few raw carrots, julienne some roasted beets.  Add herbs, seasoning, raisins, pistachio.  Toss with vinegar.  Couldn't stop eating this.

New

What up blog world.  Is anyone still out there?  Do I still have followers?  No?  Didn't think so.

Let me just say that I truly miss blogging.  Enough so that I'm going to attempt to give it another go.  The thing is, my little outlet in the interwebs has been so terribly neglected.  I'm not quite sure how to jump back into this thing.  Slowly?  Gently?  

It's not that I'm lacking inspiration to post.  I've got plenty to share: new adventures, fun experiences, sweet photos from the streets of LA, stories about getting into trouble in some corner of the world.  But just thinking about backtracking to post about all that shit is overwhelming.  So let's just focus on the present.  K?

More to come.  Peace.

Hubs & I.  August 2013. 

By the way, I really sort of despise the layout of this blog.  Hearts?  Crumbled notebook paper!  Really!?  WTF.  This needs to change.  This will change.