Chicken Satay Skewers

Ingredients:

Satay Sauce:

• 1 garlic clove, peeled
• 2cm fresh ginger, peeled
• 2 tbsn soy sauce or coconut aminos
• 1 red chilli de seeded
• Zest of 2 limes and juice of 1 lime
• Bunch of fresh coriander
• 3tbsn crunchy peanut butter or sunflower butter

Water to thin it out or coconut cream is good too.

Directions:

4 skinless, deboned chicken breasts (try to get nice fat and plump ones)

Combine the satay ingredients in a food processor and whizz until a thick paste is formed. Add a bit of water until the sauce is spooning consistency.

Pour half of the sauce into a bowl and set aside.

Pour the other half into a roasting tray.

Slice the chicken breasts into big chunks and skewer onto wooden skewers. (soak the wooden skewers for a few minutes before skewering the chicken). Place the chicken skewers into the roasting tray and coat in the satay sauce. Grill/roast the skewers until the chicken is cooked and they are golden.

Primal Banana Crepes

Primal Banana Crepes

• 2 Whole Eggs
• 2 Egg Whites
• 1 Medium Banana
• 1 tsp Cinnamon
• Pinch of salt

Put all ingredients into a blender and blend until all the banana is blended in. Have pan on a really low heat, melt a little butter and fry in small batches, they will be thin and delicate but the end result is well worth it. Flip once but be careful as they will probably break much like mine has in this picture. Or fry much smaller pancakes but you’ll just be there for longer, you have to be patient that they don’t cook too fast and burn, becasue banana is sweet it will burn like sugar does. Once ready drizzle lemon juice over, roll up and eat like you would a normal crepe.
Simple and delicious, such a treat.

Happy 2012! I'm Back :)

Happy 2012 Everyone!!! Well I'm back into the swing of things finding my rhythmn and routine.  Taking time off is lovely but it's pretty hard to get the motivation to start work again, especially since I work for myself, it's a lot harder. 

I'm very pleased with myself that I didn't pick up an ice cream habit while away on holiday nor did I pile on pounds :) I had a few minor flucuations with water weight etc but happy to say I'm still hovering in the 68's so that's an achievement compared to last year.  I recall I gained a fair few pounds and they are never as easy to take off as they are to put on.  I'm also really pleased with the way I handled the indulgences.  I was able to just hold back a little, normally I tend to go nuts, I think ah I've fallen off now to hell with it and eat everything in sight! This time I was so proud of myself that I would maybe have a naughty lunch but then I would do a primal dinner or vice versa, or just because I had a non primal pudding the night before did not mean I also needed to have that for breakfast which is how I usually roll when I'm indulging.  So the skinny girl in me won this time!

A great way to start the new year was to recieve the updated and expanded edition of The Primal Blueprint! Featuring in the success stories section are some amazing stoies, all up there are 6 and I am blown away that I am one of them.  I still can't believe I'm in the book, it seems like not that long ago that I was starting my journey reading the 2009 edition, crazy how much it affected my life. I'm pretty excited about this and it's a sure fire way to help keep me motivated to keep the weight off.  Just another thing to add to my list of why I'll never be fat again.

My braces are going well and my teeth are starting to move which is super exciting.  I've wanted braces since I was a kid and it's wonderful that I finally get to straighten my teeth which I've always felt self conscious about. 

I met up with my old boss over the holidays and I don't see him often as he lives in Australia now.  He remembers the old me, fat, depressed, always sick and hating my job!  He couldn't stop commenting on how amazing I look, happy I seem and how well my business is doing! It's a really nice reminder of my hard work and the transformation on my life in general.  Suffice to say I walked away feeling very very happy that I'm no longer that person nor in that situation. 

Anyway on to food which is far more important! As you all know how much of a foodie I am here's some of my recent eats, of course there's some there that aren't as primal, it was Christmas! Enjoy :)

First is the Christmas indulgence food!

10.5kgs of Ham!!!

My mum's famous Christmas Pudding

Mum's famous Tiramisu

Chocolate Truffles

Christmas Eve Spread with friends in Auckland, homemade sweet n sour pork, ribs, homemade lasagne, sweet potato salad and feta salad

Desert of Triffle, ambrosia, chocolate dipped strawberries

The rest is mostly primal with a little 20%! We just bought a deep fryer so I was testing it out ;) I use beef tallow and the food tastes amazing, the crumbing is a gluten free crumb fairly low in carbs made from Potato and Rice.  The last picture is a meal my husband made me out of the Jamie's 30 minute meals, it's satay chicken skewers and it's delicious, yes there are noodles there but I can't expect him to know how to make a primal alternative, he's just starting out making meals so I think he did well :)

 Raw Salmon on greens, deep fried calamari and prawns with japanese mayo

 Deep fried prawns, surimi, edamame and japanese mayo

 Kumara chips, calamari and japanese mayo

 Battered snapper, deep fried pumpkin and fresh aparagus with japanese mayo

 Out to dinner at my favourite japanese resturant - Tuna tataki

 Satay Chicken skewers with a homemade sauce, noodle, cashew coriander salad with greens

Christmas Season Tips!

Hi everyone, this will be my last post for 2011, I'm off on holiday tomorrow and probably won't be back blogging until mid January. It's been one fantastic year and I'm surprised all the time how many readers I have and I do hope you stick around for next year.

I have a couple of recent pics of my food and one of me with my braces, yep looking like a teenager! So since I can't chew big consumptions of meat because of these braces I've been trying other things apart from soup. The other night I had 2 pieces of fresh Snapper and a dozen scallops all fried in butter and topped with homemade hollandaise, it was pure heaven as I hadn't eaten something I could sink my teeth into for 2 weeks! Then I ventured into mince and cooked myself some Nachos without the chips, just so damn good and surprisingly almost as good as without the corn chips! I'm told that after a month you can chew much easier again and boy am I hanging out for that :)

This next month the indulgent Christmas and New Years season is upon us and it's inevitable I'm going to cave, however I'm going to do my very best to not pick up an ice cream habit while I'm away and continue to stay as primal as possible, the indulging I do always comes with a price of weight gain and it takes some serious discipline to get those added kilos off again, so I thought I would give you guys a few tips to help you all keep the indulgences to a minimum over this season:

Don’t beat yourself up!

Chances are you are not going to be a primal purist, not many of us are and all of the strict primal eaters I know of do fail once in a while, it’s completely normal and nothing to feel guilty of, we live in a world full of indulgence non primal food and there are always going to be situations where you want to have something that’s not on your primal to do list. If you end up caving and having it don’t feel bad about it, the negative reaction will be worse for you than the added calories you’ve just ingested, move on and try again, we can’t all be perfect.

Plan ahead!

Try and plan your meals, it’s a sure fire way to stay on track, allow yourself a few treats and stick with it. Winging it isn’t for everyone and you will feel better for knowing at the end of the day you stuck with it. Rotate your tried and true recipes and always make some primal treats to have for when you are feeling vunerable, especially when you are going to a potluck dinner, take along something that everyone will enjoy, there are tons of primal recipes out there so get googling!

Just because it’s free!

I’m terrible with this one and especially if you are having financial struggles this one is for you, we all go to Christmas events or a friend’s house and they have the spread of a lifetime and once more it’s free delicious food right?! We somehow justify it to ourselves that these are free calories and that stuffing our face full of crap won’t really matter, but it will make it that much harder to get back on track! Enjoy the small portions of the delicious treats and carry on with your primal eats, you’ll thank yourself in the long run.

Be happy and merry!

Enjoy your life now, yes losing weight does increase your happiness somewhat but waiting to live life until you’ve just dropped that little bit of extra weight isn’t going to help you with that goal. Be happy, be grateful for all the wonderful things in your life, we all have imperfections and that’s what makes us so loveable. We are meant to fail, enjoy junkfood and make mistakes, we are all human remember!

Thank you to all my faithful readers and I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and New Years, may 2012 be a grokin year!!

If you have any tips you'd like to add or just want to wish me a merry christmas please feel free to comment!

Soup Recipes

Hey Guys!! So sorry for the lack of posts, I've been pretty occupied with a ton of work, it's my busiest time of year which I'm sure is the same for most of you.  Also I have recently had braces put on my teeth so the kind of food I've been eating isn't all that inspiring.  My two favourite things that I've been eating is Cream of Mushroom soup and Creamy Bacon, onion and cheese soup. 

I need to get used to soup which genearally I'm not a big fan of because it never keeps me full but these ones sure do and of course they need to be homemae.  I'm going to be wearing my braces for 12-14 months, so for the next year or so I can see that I'm going to be making a lot of soup.  I can't really bite down on much which is very frustrating and I'm missing steak like crazy!

Other than that I'm doing really well, my weight is hovering in the 68's at the moment so I'm happy with that.  So for anyone that is interested in my soup recipes here they are below, I know that Flour and Milk aren't primal but to make soup I feel you really need that base to thicken them.



Cream of Mushroom Soup

• 3 cups of chopped up Portabello Mushrooms
• 1 stalk spring onion
• 1 Tbsp fresh Thyme
• 2 Tbsps Butter
• 1 Tbsp All purpose Flour (or use Potato starch)
• 3/4 Cup Milk
• 1 Cup Chicken Stock
• 1/4 Cup Cream
• Salt & Pepper

Directions

1. Melt 1 Tbsp of butter and S&P in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Mix in the flour until smooth and cook until golden, this doesn't take long, the flour needs to be cooked or else you will taste it.  Gradually stir in the milk and cook until thick and bubbly. Add chicken stock until the thickness that you would like.
2. Cook the Mushrooms, spring onion, thyme and 1 Tbsp butter in a covered microwave proof dish, that way the mushrooms create plenty of juice.  Add cooked ingredients to your creamy sauce.  Either blend to create a smooth soup or leave chunky, add the cream at the end.

Serves 2


Creamy Bacon, Onion and Cheese Soup

4 pieces of Bacon
1/2 onion
3 oz Cheese
3/4 Cup Milk
1 Tbsp Butter
1 Tbsp Flour (or use Potato starch)
1 Cup Chicken Stock
1/2 tsp dijon mustard
1 tsp Worchestchire Sauce
Capful of White wine
1/4 tsp curry powder
1/4 tsp paprika
Pepper (no salt, already enough)

Directions

1. Saute the chopped up Bacon and onion in a little butter until cooked then put aside.                   
2. Melt 1 Tbsp of butter in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Mix in the flour until smooth and cook until golden, this doesn't take long, the flour needs to be cooked or else you will taste it. Add all sesonings and then gradually stir in the milk and cook until thick and bubbly. Add chicken stock until the thickness that you would like.
3. Add the bacon and onion mixture, either blend it all up in a blender or leave chunky.
4. Add the cheese once the soup has come off the heat and stir until melted.

Serves 1