Recipe of the Week: Fouscous Cauliflower - plus bonus!

I love it when you figure out a new way to cook an old favorite.  In this case: cauliflower.  During the winter months Thor and I eat curry-roasted cauliflower like it's our job. Between the two of us we can put down an entire head of cauliflower as a side at dinner if we don't reign ourselves in. It's that good. Buuut - even favorites can get a little routine, so I was intrigued when I came across a recipe that used cauliflower as a replacement for rice.   The recipe is from the website The Clothes Make the Girl (rapidly becoming my go-to site for reading/researching Paleo-friendly recipes) - and it's called Fouscous Cauliflower.  Basically it's a rice pilaf without the rice and it is two things that I crave in a recipe: 1) delicious, and 2) mindlessly easy.

Next days lunch - fouscous and green beans. Yum!

The bonus recipe of the week isn't really a true-recipe. I just made it up to use up some ingredients in my fridge: basil-arugula pesto without cheese. Yuuuum!  So good in eggs, or mixed into dressing.  Here's what I blended together:

• 2 cups mixed basil and arugula
• a handful of toasted walnuts
• 6 roasted garlic cloves
• sea salt
• enough olive oil to make a paste

Whole 30 - The First Week

Hello!  I thought I would give a quick update on my first week of the Whole 30.  I was hoping to upload some photos to go with this, but I can't make my iPhone talk to the computer right now - and you all know how patient I am with technology!

So - so far, so good. My first week was fairly easy - I was very pleasantly surprised!  The biggest challenge for me so far is replacing cooking grains with protein.  We already ate a fair amount of vegetables, but adding more meat protein in (instead of relying on beans, tofu and quinoa) has been an effort. The fun part is that this has motivated me to try new recipes for the first time in ages - it is nice to get out of a rut!

Highlights of the First Week

• Went from eating eggs on toast to eggs on yams for breakfast. Delicious! I think this is a keeper - it's so tasty with avocados too
• After two mornings of black coffee (still yuck!) switching to coconut milk in my coffee was sweeeet heavenly delight (previously a major yuck in my book)
• Survived fresh baked bread and butter served at knitting night (by 'survived' I mean I didn't eat any! I made a leek/yam/butternut squash soup that I could eat, and served olives and grapes as snacks).
• Made homemade mayonaise for the first time - so it was dairy-free. Tasty recipe here
• Went to TWO dinner parties over the weekend and didn't slip once:
• Saturday I was able to eat the main dish they were serving - a delicious chicken/veggie stir-fry. I just brought my own coconut aminos to flavor with.
• The menu for Sunday wasn't going to work for me (lasagna, caesar salad, and whipped cream and fruit).  So I brought my own dinner with me: stuffed peppers, and a delicious asparagus-basil salad.  Both hits - I'll make them again!
• AND - I seem to be sleeping again!  Whether this is a case of the diet change working, or a placebo effect I don't care. I love sleeping through the night!

Happy 6th Anniversary!

Sunday was Thor & I's sixth anniversary - fun!  We went to dinner on Saturday night so that we could watch the season three premiere of Downton Abbey on Sunday night (dorks!).   Dinner was lovely - we went to Le Pigeon - which never disappoints. We had two amazing appetizers (citrus poached prawns with celery root and apples, and sunchoke carpaccio with beets, huckleberries and horseradish), Thor had rabbit for dinner, and I had delicious hazelnut crusted scallops.  Yum! We topped it off with some foie gras profiteroles - so rich, yet perfectly balanced between savory and sweet.  It was a great meal to send me off into my 30-days challenge.

Sunday we weren't sure what we were going to do - but after getting up and puttering around making breakfast we decided to, you guessed it, go mountain biking for our anniversary! It has been so cold here that pretty much all the trails are snowed in except for an area down near Salem called Black Rock - it is mostly a free ride area, but Thor and I have been having a great time playing around down there so off we headed.  We were watching Seneca for the weekend so she came with us - piglet Laea stayed home because she is old and can't keep up running with the bikes anymore.  The highlight of the day was that I rode my first step-down! (which is basically just a drop in the trail).  Thor is always great and helps me work on problems and new skills out on the trail - so he was good about helping me break down what I needed to do in order to get off the drop and land successfully.   Hooray!  Anyhow - it was a great way to spend the day together doing something we both love, and then we came home for a low-key dinner at home followed by Downton Abbey. Perfect, perfect.

Thor - riding a stepdown on Bonzai.  Veeeery fuzzy.

My first step-down! This is the same drop as Thor is riding in the picture above, but even fuzzier!  We are going to work on our photography skillz.

Me coming over the top of a wood feature following Seneca - she is such a little charger!

My baby.

On the uptrail - we tried to catch a picture of the fog in the trees - but it started to blow out just as we were taking the picture. Typical!

Dirty butts! These Endura shorts are the best! Thank you Ralph and Aunt Susanna - these are so amazing for biking in the Oregon wet winter conditions - can't believe we rode so long without them.

Six years later!  Maybe we credit Uncle Fred for our shared mountain biking interest for taking us mountain biking in Phoenix 2-days before our wedding  (or blame him for our single-minded mountain biking obsession??! :) Which is it?)

I Am Doing the Whole 30 Challenge

I am doing the Whole 30 Challenge.  Inspired by cousin Erica last summer I have been toying with the idea of doing the challenge, but couldn't settle on a good 30-day stretch when I would be setting myself up for success (first my 100-miler, then 2-week backcountry trip to Canada, then birthday, then holidays, etc. etc.).   I've since decided that doing the challenge after our anniversary, but before Valentines day - at a time of year when there are no bike races - gives me the best window for embarking on a journey like this for the first time (no need to make it harder for myself than it is already going to be!)

I am primarily interested in seeing if changing the way I eat affects my sleep.  My sleep quality has been so poor these last few years, and in addition I have had a lot of digestion issues that I am curious to see how (if) they change throughout the course of the month. 

This is going to be a BIG challenge for me - anyone who knows me knows I LOVE to eat, and I hate saying no to things - my eating discipline is not great. BUT - Thor is on board and is committed to helping me remember what I've committed to.     Essentially the challenge is to spend 30-days eating good, 'real' foods (meats, veggies, fruits, healthy fats (avacado, olive, and coconut oil) while cutting out foods that may have a negative impact on my digestive system, or generate an inflammatory response in the body (alcohol, sugar, legumes, grains, dairy). 

January 7th - February 5th. This is the challenge. If you see me during this time or hang out with me - please support me in staying on track.

www.whole9life.com

A Vibrant Addition to our Parkstrip

We've had an empty space at the east end of our parkstrip for awhile that I haven't known what to do with - and today, while on a run with Adele, I figured it out!  We passed this intriguing looking shrub with no leaves, but absolutely covered in little bright violet berries - great winter color!   So immediately upon getting home I trotted over to the Portland Nursery with mom and picked one up.  It's a Callicarpa bodinieri 'Profusion' - or Profusion Beauty Berry.     I planted it today too (maybe not optimal given that it is 30-degrees outside...but it was outside at the nursery so I'm choosing to believe it will be fine).

Image from www.plant-pictures.net

Pre Christmas Snowshoeing.

William, Adele and I all had Friday off of work so we decided to head up to Mt. Hood to get in a day of snowshoeing before we headed our separate ways for Christmas: w&a to Maui, and myself to the Oregon coast. snowshoeing was great! tons of fresh, fluffy snow - and we were even able to wear Sookie out a bit.

It's the Holiday Season - Felted Santas!!!

In preparation for the holiday season our knitting group abandoned the needles for a bit and turned to felting to create some unique holiday decorations!   Making the felted santas was a total hit, and everyone left with a totally different looking little 'gnome' of a santa for their house. It was amazing to see how they came together from the raw materials.   Creating the actual shape of the santa out of natural roving took the longest (about 2.5 hours to felt the raw ball into a semi-firm conical shape) - then it was about another 1.5-2 hrs after that to cover the cone in red felt and add the face.  Good times! I expect the group will elect to do another felted project next year too.