Another lovely recipe from Deb…. yum!!!

I could live off Beef, Brussels Sprouts and Sweet Potatoes… add in an Avocado and I am in HEAVEN!

When I was a little kid, something turned me off of Brussels Sprouts. I have no idea what it was – I honestly couldn’t tell you what they tasted like. I just knew I did not like them, so I never ate them.
A few weeks ago, Deb and I were talking and she was RAVING about a brussels sprout recipe. I couldn’t knock it, I had never tried it. I figured, if she loved it so much, I should give it a shot.

Well – I have burned through about 15 bags of Trader Joe’s Brussels Sprouts since that time. I can easily eat an entire bag in one sitting. No joke.
The secret is in how you make it – because steamed brussels sprouts are not fun… but pan seared or baked is a whole different story – and add some bacon…. oh my.

Here is Deb’s favorite recipe. If you get the chance this week – check it out… don’t get mad at me if you get hooked – I never knew I loved brussels so much!

http://nomnompaleo.com/post/1670459416/roasted-brussels-sprouts-and-bacon

(Picture above from nomnompaleo.com)

By the way – Monday, we are kicking off a Double Under Challenge in the gym!!!
Guys vs. Girls
Come in early, stay late, count every DU in your WOD, add it up… who will be the champion?????

WOD –

Open Gym

Another Waffle/Pancake recipe:

Coconut Cream Bananas 2 tbsp coconut oil, or organic butter 2 tbsp palm sugar or maple syrup 2 ripe bananas, sliced 1/2 cup coconut milk 2 tsp vanilla toasted pecans for garnish In a medium non-stick skillet melt coconut oil or butter over medium heat. Add to the skillet the palm sugar and let cook for a minute stirring a few times. Add in the bananas and let cook for a few minutes. Add in coconut milk and vanilla and bring to a boil. Remove from heat immediately. You don’t want to cook this for too long as the bananas will start to break up. This should only take 5 minutes total.

Thank you Nikki!

Primal Blueprint Recipe: Coconut Pancakes/Waffles from Adam Kayce on Vimeo.

Many people seemed interested in the Coconut Pancake/Waffle recipe. Here is a great video explaining how to make them!!!

It’s the age old question that’s been debated since, well, since there were chickens… or eggs…?

Chicken is a great source of lean protein at about 8g per ounce, and it’s very versatile. You can bake, broil, BBQ, roast, poach and saute’ it. The Colonel knew what he was doing when he made chicken his business. But all that aside, the egg is where it’s really at.

Eggs have gotten “beat up” (ha ha!) in the news lately with the huge egg recall and you may have been avoiding eggs as if they were contaminated with salmonella- (Yikes! That’s gross, not funny!), but eggs contain the best kind of protein that you can put in your body and your body is not only made up of protein, but with all that work you’re doing at Body & Fuel, you need quality protein in large quantities to build new muscle and repair the muscle you’re working. Eggs have a ton of health benefits besides being an eggcelent source of protein (I just can’t stop!) and they are super easy to incorporate into your diet. They’re quick & easy and best of all, you can hard boil a dozen and take them wherever you go.

As great as eggs are, not all eggs are created equally. We joke that we are what we eat, AND that we are what what we eat eats… follow that one? The egg is a perfect example of this. If you feed a chicken grains that they were not designed to eat, they will still lay an egg. That egg is still edible, right? But compare that egg to one that was produced by a chicken that roams free, eating bugs, slugs and other things found out in the open and, really the choice is an easy one.

In addition to what they deliver nutritionally, free-range eggs just taste so much better than the egg-factory egg. Just two weeks ago, I was out of town for a week, in a situation where I had prepared a week’s worth of food to bring with because there wasn’t going to be a lot of “good” food available. The first breakfast, I was excited to see hard boiled eggs on the buffet table, but my excitement quickly waned when I tasted one. I have been spoiled with free-range eggs from my friend’s ranch in Aurora for about 6 months now and I can honestly say that I couldn’t finish the egg-factory egg.

I’ll leave you with something to ponder… I tend to have strange food thoughts, and here’s one I’ve been thinking of every since seeing Food Inc. …  Stress is not good for us, right? I think we’ve all heard about how it’s important to manage and minimize the stress in our lives. Stress has been linked to a ton of ailments and diseases that we’d all rather not have. So, while watching Food Inc, I thought about the stress hormones that must be flowing through all of those chickens as they are crammed into unspeakable living conditions.  Do those stress hormones show up in the meat that we are eating or in the eggs that are being laid? It’s weird, but it seems like it would almost be a given. Thoughts like this can keep me up at night!

So, rather than take the chance that I am becoming a stressed out egg, I’m quite happy becoming a free-range egg. I’ve met the chickens who produce the eggs I eat. They have  happy chicken lives, and as a bonus, while all my neighbors are on an egg hiatus, I’m happily eating my omlettes and pumpkin pancakes!

~Shawn

WOD:
30 Wall Balls 20/14

30 Squat Snatches 75/55