From the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU!

Thank you to anyone that ever took the time to read my attempt at a little blog.

I’m not much of a writer, and I sure never made it easy on any of you reading, to keep up with my incoherent thoughts  patterns and grammar mistakes.

I hope that over the years, you found some useful recipes and thoughts/ideas here.

If even one of those, put a quick smile on someones face and/or  made their day a bit better if only for a second, I’m pleased and grateful.

And for the last time…

BE HAPPY!!

As I mentioned yesterday, life on the road brings along a few challenges if you have a regular routine of prepping your own food and exercising. With some planning and tricks of the trade, you don’t have to give in to fast food and a treadmill while away from home.

For the exercise part, I’d like to refer you to the experts. One of those experts I think is Steve Maxwell. Take a look through his site and  if you are not familiar, this post, gives you a good feel for his personality and approach. His most recent blog post is quite good. I’ve followed his stuff for years, and he’s the real deal. Opinionated yes, but he backs it up. 

When you’re on the road, breakfast is usually one of your easiest options for the day. Even though I don’t eat breakfast at home very often, I do when I’m on the road. It’s probably the easiest meal of the day to eat relatively clean and it’s available right in your hotel or very likely within walking distance from where you are staying.  3 or 4 hard boiled eggs is a nice easy way to start your day and easy to gather.

Lunch: I try and make this my biggest meal of the day when I’m on the road. This can be tricky, because a big meal mid-day could turn you into a mellow mushroom, rob you of your “zing” for the day and potentially make the remainder of the day a struggle. So be smart about what you eat. I like to go with a massive protein meal accompanied by some chopped/sliced tomato or a salad. The heavy protein meal will not cause that dreaded after lunch brain fog and blah feeling.

I will take some pictures of my cooler and supplies when I pack Sunday. Perhaps there will be a few helpful tips that you can incorporate into your travel.

Sundays I usually have the grill going for a couple of hours and I grill different cuts of meat and veggies. I take a bunch for the road, and I leave the fridge full with grilled goodies for my beautiful wife and the kidlets.

These guys can eat (sorry for the poor picture quality in this post)

The advantage of having a big lunch is that dinner becomes less important and can now consist of small quantities of home made grub. Making the good stuff last all week is key for me. Here’s two sample dinners from the week.

Here’s grilled chicken sausage from home. I simply cut up a few cherry tomatoes and 2 cloves of garlic and warmed it up together in the microwave. I had one slice of sprouted ezekiel bread. YES, bread I also cut up some cucumber and half an avocado and tossed it in with the rest.

The other day I did NOT get the big lunch I normally shoot for, so was a little hungrier for dinner.

If you can summon your inner will power at the end of a hard day, you can make a stop at a fast food joint and like me just get a plain baked potato. Don’t go there if you are having cravings, cause just like myself, you might end up with french fries instead of the baked potato .

Not sure if you can see in the crappy picture, but besides from chicken sausage, I had some burger in there also.

A baked potato certainly does the trick when you’re hungry.

If you’ve been on the road this week…safe travels home and enjoy your loved ones. Kiss them and hug them like crazy and laugh a lot.

Be Happy.

Well….

I guess I’m not totally to blame as I don’t really ever use the microwave, but it’s true, eggs like to do the funky cold medina if you stick them in the microwave. As Jim Carey would say: holy hell!

Life on the road requires a little more discipline if you want to keep to your way of eating and exercising. So yes, my little  travel cooler had some yummy eggs in there and wanting a few for breakfast I used the microwave in my hotel room.

I’m glad the warm scrambled egg didn’t hurt my eye as it hurled it slimy self at great velocity right at it. What was cool, was the new look of  my chest hair, covered in what resembled some form of yellow decoration. Yes, some fit males still have hair on their chest…shocker right?.

 The one egg that survived the heating process, tasted like garbage. Strange what the nuker does to eggs.

Life on the road, maybe that will be the topic of the next few posts. Tips and tricks of the trade. Where to eat, food costs, exercise options, how to stay sane despite your hotels walls caving in on you

Be Happy

Chris Highcock posted this wonderful video

I can tell you that a few years ago (5), I saw a huge change in my attention span. My Crackberry had slowly hijacked my mind and focus. Even though I have become an Apple guy, which offers yet more distractions, I have made a very conscious effort over the last years to take back control.

Every time my beautiful wife and I take a walk through one of our local trails or parks, I realize how incredibly good it feels to just unplug and let nature do its thing to me. The sun, the trees, the animals…they work me real good. Like an internal massage if you will. When life gets a bit crazy, make sure you get outside.

A mint julep in honor of that horse race in May on Saturday.

In case your curious on the menu for the evening….

Cowboy burgers.

Chop some red onion (3 fat slices) and jalapeno (2 slices for normal heat, on your own after that). Add a small handful of cheddar cheese (or your choice/preference). For 12 ounces of meat this is perfect. Two 6 ounce Cowboy burgers on the grill. YUM!

As to unplugging….

I DON’T count music as part of that mix. So yes, the phone does come along for music, but that’s all….. not even the time gets looked at.

Be Happy, a little naughty and Smile a lot.

Like SO:

The art of keeping things simple.

Even at the highest levels, the person handling a complicated task (usually) breaks it down to single manageable simple step. That’s how it’s done, by the fore most experts in any given field.

Want expert? We all know Keith Norris right? (those of you that don’t click the link please)

Keith plays in the upper sphere of physical culture/strength and conditioning. If you ever look at the videos he shares, you will see him “working it” one simple step at a time.

Good guy, Primal expert and innovator Mark Sisson does a fantastic job breaking complicated matters into simple to understand one step at time explantions.

Robb Wolf I believe did a fantastic job with his first book. He took the one step at a time approach and explained in simple detail what the “paleo framework” was all about, plus simple to understand physiology to back up his statments.

Of course we can nitpick all three experts on their given topics of expertise.  The “science” is simply to all encompassing to try and contain it all in a nice package, one size fits all. It simply doesn’t exist and therefore, there will always be a market for “the next best thing”.

But I like simplicity and one step at a time approaches (I said I like! I didn’t say I’m always the best at doing it)

What can we learn from these three experts? Simple, their basics

THEIR one step at a time protocols. Look at Keith (talks the talk and WALKS the walk)

Hard work plus a love for S&C  is what got Keith there. It’s not simple to keep those workouts going week in week out for years with intensity. Look how he simply uses his white board and follows his work out for the day. Simple nes’t pas? How many of you out there that have been lifitng/exercising for years still keep a note book? Point taken right?

Mark Sisson:  are some of his viewpoints from a few years ago changing? Of course they are! Confusing? Yes some of it is. But don’t get caught up whether he thinks Resistant Starch (RS) is real or that you happen to think that chia seeds are not paleo. Take from it all his simplicity. His one step at a time approach. YUP, his BIG ASS SALAD is a good place to start. 3 to 4 times a week make yourself a huge BIG ASS SALAD with nothing but the freshest veggies and yummy fats and meat/chix/fish/etc. Nothing complicated, simple. But the succes is in the consistent effort over time. How many of you out there eats one of those salads 3 to 4 times a week? Be honest now. See?

Mr. Robb Wolf, how he helped me in my understanding of so many “complicated” physiological and biological matters.

His straight forward engaging explantions are shining examples of this “simplicity” I’m talking about. As with Mr. Mark Sisson, obviously Mr. Wolf’s ideas and concepts are continously evolving. Again don’t worry about too much about methylation and epigenetics, but focus on what you can take away NOW. Instead of beer and wine, have you tried on a regualr basis drinking just one NorCal margerita? After all these years, have you incorporated one of his simple 30 day meal plans? When was the last time you truly cleaned out your pantry? And lastly how many of us really shut down tv and electronics a full hour before bed???? I promise you, that if you have trouble sleeping or are trying to get better sleep, this SIMPLE measure will make a remarkable difference in your life. Nothing complicated, nothing esoteric, just to be washed, rinsed and repeated…..forever.

So here a one step at a time simple dinner. Slice  cooked chicken (mine was grilled and chilled) and heat in a bit of chicken stock and sliced onion. Boil some white rice. Broil/grill/saute a few asparagus with salt. Simple.

I think of my beautiful wife all the time.

Keeping things simple and uncomplicated is part of her highly intelligent make-up.

Talking about make up…

She inspires me. She’s an expert at breaking things down to their simplest form.

To me, it reflects in her beauty.

It’s a beautiful universe, enjoy and……BE HAPPY.

In my little shed in the back yard, one smart mommy sparrow built herself a nice little protected nest in the bag of some of my bbq tools:

It’s nice to see life/nature so real in front of your own eyes. It does a person good…

So instead of a more exposed nest, the mommy sparrow figured she would negate some of the risk of having a nest. Perhaps a bit more out of the way of the neighborhood cats and other threats.

I’m pretty sure though the mommy bird didn’t worry about it as she went about building her little nest.  No! Worry is something WE like to do and keep ourselves unecessarily busy with.

Like that little sparrow, all we can do is negate the risks of daily life to the best of our ability and then…. LET GO and LIVE!

Enjoy your life…let worry fly right out of your window and tell it not to come back.

Be Happy

I watched another  (if you are not making eggs his way…make sure you watch that video) great little cooking demo by Mr. Gordon Ramsey, ( less than 3 minutes long).Pay close attention as the “recipe” is a nice blue print for all sorts of experimentation. I actually made his recipe not with halibut but with chicken the other day and it was superb. SUPERB…..that even sounded a little Ramsey-esque.

So really. Use a base of fresh herbs or spices and mix with yogurt.

This a cilantro, mint and garlic yogurt marinade:

In a food processor combine large handful of cilantro, small handful of fresh mint. One garlic clove, salt to taste and 1-2 table sopons of fresh lemon juice.

Simple mixture of fresh cilantro (coriander), mint, 1 clove of garlic and 1-2 tablespoons of lemon juice. Now add yogurt:

Now some chicken thighs. Sprinkle them with some curry powder: (or your spices of choice)

Now cover them with your yogurt marinade in a containeerr or zip lock bag and in the fridge for 4 hours or longer.

You don’t need a grill to make these, you can easily use a cast iron pan or skillet. Watch the heat, and let them cook slowly in your pan. About 15 minutes each side.

Good stuff, simple to prepare and huge on flavor.

Be Happy and Enjoy the Day

A gift my beautiful wife gave me this past Valentines day:

I have been using these flavored salts with much success. They are all flavored with a different spicy pepper, from jalapeno to ghost pepper. They are huge on taste in a very simple way. Delicious sprinkled on some avocado, tomato or potato. Of course excellent on grilled and roasted meats too.

Interestingly…

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK50958/

You can make your own flavored salts very easily, take a look:

 http://www.marthastewart.com/918773/good-thing-how-make-flavored-salts

You can really “spice” up your food nicely with this little cooking “hack”.

Be Happy, smile a lot and think good thoughts.

Yes, cheap. More and more, I’m seeing packaged free range organic chicken legs. My speculation is that for the more well heeled crowd able to afford the very expensive free range organic chicken, the dark meat/legs are not as popular a cut as the tasteless breast. (there’s plenty of organic chicken around now, but organic and free range not so much.)

Also many people still seem to believe that the white meat is the “healthy” part of the chicken.

Anywho, keep your eyes peeled for it in the markets, it’s priced way below normal prices for this product. The state of “commercial” chicken is beyond sad and I rarely eat it. Because pasture chicken is so expensive, I don’t eat all that much chicken anymore.

This was pretty straightforward:

Smoked honey spiced chicken legs and cabbage, sweet onion, potato and bacon mash.

Take a breath, smile, slow down…Be Happy.

It could be I think.Frittata seems to be one of these dishes you make a few times and than you forget about it for a while. Well, that seems the way it works for me anyway.

Had some left over roasted veggies (zucchini, carrots) and shredded pork feelgoodeating style. (recipe needed? Hit me up in the comments)

Cast iron pan works so nicely for this, maybe it just looks nice in that black pan who knows, but grab a pan that  can handle the oven.

You will need:

8 eggs (beaten)

1 pat of butter or fat of your choice

1/4 cup red onion

1/4 cup diced tomato

3 small slices of spicy pepper (chopped)

1/2- 1 cup of left over meat (chicken, turkey, meat, shredded pork, ham etc etc)

1/2 cup veggies (spinach, left over veggies, broccoli, squash etc etc)

1/4 cup crumbled goat cheese

Let’s prep:

Pre heat oven to 350

Warm up butter in your pan and saute onion and pepper. Watch the heat, when getting translucent add your veggies.

Saute together for a minute or 2. Now add your meat and combine well for about a minute. Now add your 8 eggs (beaten).

Mix together well and sprinkle your tomato on top. Next crumble your goat cheese evenly over the top. Not too much cheese.

In the oven for about 20-30 minutes. It’s done when the top starts to brown a bit.

(NO salt & pepper or spices needed for this one, you’ll see)

I sprinkled chopped fresh chives on top. Filling tasty and easy.

Fresh out of the oven:

Make it a great day and BE HAPPY!