Buttered Chicken

I traveled to the Big City recently and was introduced to buttered chicken, a spicy, tomato based Indian dish served with naan and rice. The restaurant was a hole in the wall of a strip mall with an unassuming name and room for maybe fifteen people. But it was clean and smelled of spices and tea and staff didn't speak a word of English but that offered no hindrance to the experience and this tiny establishment has easily entered my top five favorite places-to-eat.

Not having a lot of experience with Indian food, I went with the aforementioned buttered chicken which was suggested as a good introduction for a westernized pallet. What followed was one of those glorious moments of discovery that should define life and living. The dish was an exploration of flavors delivered with a smooth texture of flavored cream over jasmine rice. One can assume that one knows what one likes. One can think that boundaries of flavor have been explored. But one good dish can implode your expectations of what cooking can achieve.

Well, now we have a problem. The Big City, of course, is not short on restaurants but is about an hour away and my Small Town thinks that the Chinese buffet with it's Americanized deep fried imitations of nothing Chinese is fancy foreign style eating. There is one Thai restaurant that is very good but the menu is limited to, well, Thai. There are some sushi options cropping up and a couple of very expensive restaurants where the fancy folk gather for superiority contests but there are no hole-in-the-wall ethnic eateries offering exotic tastes and unique culinary experiences.

So I'm on my own for the most part if I want to explore these new horizons. I decided to start with buttered chicken since I know what one version of it tasted like and therefore had a "target" to shoot for. When I go back to the Big City, the goal will be to try a new dish and see if it's worth trying to replicate and so on.

But first: Buttered Chicken.

A quick search for recipes and a conclusion is quickly reached: Buttered chicken is to India as chili is to Texas. Every family has their own recipe and their's is the only one that tastes right. Second conclusion: It's not a simple dish. There are steps involved. It's not hard by any means but it is involved. Once again the comparison can be made to Texas chili.

But it's very doable. But as far as recipes, the variations are mind numbing. I settled on a slow cooker variation that featured coconut milk and yogurt and the first batch came out edible but no where close to my target. I was missing the actual masala though and trying to substitute with what spices I had. However, I would caution against short cutting the ingredients and that may be the most challenging part of the dish is tracking down the masalas. Masala is a mixture of spices that can vary from region to region and family to family. You can find recipes to make your own but the list of spices involved is intimidating and expensive. I made a side venture during one of my trips to the Big City to an Indian market and the clerk was very helpful in pointing out the best brands for what I was trying to achieve ("My wife uses this brand and I married her because of her cooking.")

Next attempt, I ditched the slow cooker and went back my cast iron skillet. My instincts were telling me that my comparison to Texas chili were spot on and this required low, slow heat and a can of Ro-Tel. I still liked the ingredient list from the slow cooker recipe, I just wanted to manage the cooking of the ingredients in their own time as opposed to cooking them all at once.  So the chicken went in, then the tomato paste and small can of Ro-Tel, Spices and the yogurt were next and then I let it simmer on medium-low heat for about forty minutes. Then I added the can of coconut milk and brought it back up to heat and it was done. Total cook time was about an hour which is long for me. I stirred and tasted and tested like an Italian grandmother and added curry and masala as I thought it needed it.

In the end the flavors were spot on and I can see potential for getting creative. The RoTel, although not traditional, adds a bit of heat but if you want to punch it up a bit, add more of the garam masala. I used more chicken that the recipe called for but it was fine. 

But, of course you need naan, which is the traditional Indian flatbread. But I still avoid gluten when possible and so the search began for a gluten free alternative. I found the solution here:  Three ingredient paleo naan. Note that I've substituted the coconut milk for almond milk and it works fine. I also tried rice flour in place of the almond meal and it works but you need to cook the bread longer. 

Here are the links to the recipes for convenience: 

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/slow-cooker-butter-chicken/

http://myheartbeets.com/paleo-naan-indian-bread/

The Flat Bread Solution

Western cooking is full of bread which makes it the instant challenge of any low carb/paleoish diet but there are substitutes and in some case the substitutes are better than the missing breads.

Take, for instance, this Pumpkin Paleo Flatbread recipe I found when I was looking for a replacement for corn tortillas. Corn is a grain so it's not paleo approved but it's better than a flour tortilla in a pinch. But I've been looking for a viable alternative for some time and I think I've found it.

Baking flour-free usually involves using a nut based flour substitute such as almond (which is crazy expensive) or something like tapioca flour (which is much more budget friendly). We will avoid the usual arguments about whether or not any kind of baking is paleo since I don't really do a strict paleo diet. I avoid sugar and wheat and so any way I can substitute and get to visit old favorites I'm all for.

So I need tortillas for things such as fish tacos and pulled pork and the stated recipe works perfect and can adapt to different ingredients. Basically you can replace the pumpkin with different starches such as baked sweet potato. I also used a generic gluten-free flour instead of straight tapioca and it seemed to work fine. They come out with a little bit of stretch and are very durable, more durable than corn tortillas by a long shot.

There is also dessert possibilities. Run the batter a little thin and the texture gets very much like crepes. So some sauteed fruit with some honey wrapped up and topped with goat cheese and more honey becomes a savory dessert. I'm pretty sure you could add some baking soda and powder and you should have gluten-free pancakes.

The next experiment involves using the sweet potato version with the pulled pork but I can see make a batch of these every Sunday to keep through the week to supplement lunches and such.

Here is the link to the recipe for convenience: Pumpkin Paleo Flatbread

In a Different Kind of Pickle

I haven't talked much about the garden this year because, well, it's still a bit painful to consider. Between late freezes, multiple re-plantings and the abundance of grasshoppers, the yield was less than spectacular. I especially missed out on the cucumbers which, of course, I planted extra since my experiments with refrigerator pickles last year met with some success. But no cucumbers this year.

But I ran across zucchinis at the market and I remembered that Alton Brown had mentioned that you could pickle pretty much anything and a quick search yielded this recipe for Zuni Style Zucchini Pickles. Sounds interesting other than the full cup of sugar for the recipe but the mustard and the turmeric were sound choices rather than using traditional pickling spice mixes. The mixes are fine but you get caged to a certain flavor profile and really can't make too many adjustments. But still the full cup of refined sugar is difficult to justify. I think that one of Alton Brown's recipes has at most a quarter cup of sugar for the bread and butter version.

Then I discovered coconut sugar and although it's a bit more expensive, it's not like I'm going to make pickles all the time. One good batch and you have jars of pickles in the fridge for a while. So the expense might be worth it especially if I cut the amount used back a little. A brine really can be messed with in terms of ingredients as long as your liquid to salt ratio stays somewhat the same and even that can fluctuate a bit.

But what about coconut sugar? Does it taste like coconut? I'm not a fan really unless copious amounts of chocolate are involved.  Fortunately, just like most coconut cooking oils, the flavor was not to be found. Coconut sugar tastes like sugar and this brandmeasures one for one. As far how it affects the diet I'll just have to experiment and see. But if it works out then this could be the solution for some holiday treats and eats. Especially for peanut butter cookies. But dessert is still dessert and resides in the realms of moderation and one has to be careful with any kind of sucrose or glucose in terms of how it can affect your health. Just because it's not white, refined sugar from sugar cane does not mean it's fine to eat it by the spoon full. It still can and will affect your insulin levels, your metabolism and energy levels. But for the occasional treat and as an ingredient in recipes, I'm betting coconut sugar is a better option that the white, refined stuff.

So I tried the Zuni recipe matching it pretty closely, cutting back on the sugar and adding jalapenos and onions and it worked very well. Very hot, very sweet and the zucchinis taste just like pickles. Pretty awesome although I could cut back the sugar even more and it would be fine.

Which got me to thinking. Lunches are still a challenge. I can throw some rice noodles in one of my lidded ceramic pots

and eat simple but the addition of vegetables would always be welcome. But cooking and long term storage will always be a problem unless you pickle some squash and zucchini in various mixes and have them in the fridge to add to noodles and broth as needed.  In this case I think I would drop the sugar content down to a quarter cup and maybe add garlic or even experiment with other ingredients. Add some pickle juice to the broth and you might get close to a hot and sour soup.

And as usual, one experiment is going to lead to a list of projects.  Pottery-wise, I want to look at making spring lidded crocks for pickles. Sounds challenging and fun.

And it is a worthy experiment if it makes lunches more interesting. There is enough wiggle room for some variety to stave off boredom.

For convenience, here is the link to the Zuni Style recipe and below is the video from the master himself. I think I've said before that if you want to know how to cook, watch Alton Brown:

Can't Beat Free

I am pretty steady on the diet these days but it's still challenging at times.  I'm always on the hunt for new ideas and new ways to do the diet better but sifting through all the info out there is impossible. So I have to rely on the occasional article or a recommended recipe but even then it's hit and miss and what I really want is ideas that I can take and twist to my own designs.

I found this site which keeps track of the free books for the Kindle and, under the cooking category, I found quite a collection of books on paleo and cleaner living. Now, the diet is a modified paleo system which means that some of the better ideas come from  paleo cookbooks. But full sized cookbooks are (pun alert) hard to digest and pulling the good stuff out is time consuming. The good thing about most of these little ebooks is that they are short, concise and to the point.

For instance, I found  Simple Gluten Free & Paleo Bread: Fast, Sumptuous and Guilt-Free Baking Recipes and got it downloaded before they took it off the free list (it's still available for loan to Prime members. Note that the free books are apparently a promotional thing so they may not be free forever). Anyway I got it downloaded and gave it a read. Very concise. Very to the point. Still a lot of good info. The recipes are simple and the ingredients are not too outrageous although the first basic recipe uses 2 cups of blanched almond flour and that stuff is expensive But if you were looking for bread and wanted to stick to gluten-free, it looks like a great way to go. I'll have to wait for the next paycheck to try it out and report back though.

I would normally suggest avoiding any sort of bread-like food to avoid any psychological triggers but I've have a beef stew recipe that begs for bread and I've been craving beef stew.

The site has a quite a few books to peruse and it changes daily. Lots of smoothie and juice books, I noticed, and quite a few covering everything from desserts to slow cookers. There are other categories, as well. The cooking category was the one that caught my attention and filled up my Kindle first.

Here is the link again for convenience:  http://centslessbooks.com/cooking-food-and-wine.html


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Soup of the Day: Faux Gumbo

Cooking gumbo can be a long and tedious process but it's well worth it if you have the time and energy. I have had the real deal, deep in the heart of Louisiana, cooked by a grandmother who spent the morning in markets and with road side vendors gathering ingredients and then the rest of the day cooking. I have made it myself using the ingredients I could find and Alton Brown's technique for a painless roux. But it does take all a good chunk of a day to do it right.

I have to ask, though, is it a soup or is it a stew? Interestingly enough, even Wikipedia isn't conclusive and I don't really think it matters. Gumbo morphs to its environment and available ingredients and may even take on the personality of the cook. It's magical stuff and really not that difficult to make. Time consuming, yes. Difficult, no.

But I don't have a lot of time to cook in the middle of the day.  I have about forty five minutes to get everything diced, sliced and boiling in the pot. That's why this recipe is Faux Gumbo. It's missing a roux, filet or okra. But almost everything else is there and you can get a rich mixture of flavors in a very short amount of time.

Here's the ingredient list:

3 to 6 tblspns of olive oil (any oil really or even butter. Olive oil works best for me though.)
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 red onion, diced
1 white onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
3 stalks of celery, chopped
2 roma tomatoes, seeded and diced (could use a 10 oz can of Rotel instead)
1 jalapeno (control seeds for heat)
Maybe a sprig of fresh rosemary and/or parsley if available.
Several dashes of Cajun seasoning
2 pounds of beef sausage, sliced thinly (I look for gluten free varieties)
1 pound of small shrimp (100 ct)
2 quarts of broth, (vegetable, chicken or beef)
A thickener of some sort which we'll discuss later.

Now any discussion of gumbo should include the "holy trinity" of Cajun cooking which is onions, bell peppers and celery. Best I can tell, as long as you have those three ingredients in the pot you're doing fine.  Add any kind of meat or vegetables and some broth along with a thickener and you should be making gumbo.

Over medium heat, combine the olive oil, onions, garlic, jalapeno, sausage, rosemary, parsley and a dash or two of the Cajun seasoning.  Let that cook, stirring occasionally while you finishing prepping the rest of the ingredients although having it all prepped before you start makes things easier. Of course, it makes you look like one of those stupid cooking shows. But it does speed things along.

Add the bell peppers and the celery after the onions cook down a bit. Waiting to add them preserves a little bit of their color and texture.  In other words, your not going to cook everything to death. Let this go for a minute or two so that the flavors start to combine and then add the broth and bring it up to a simmer.

I've used this flavor of bouillon the last couple of times I've made this and it works very well but any beef, chicken or vegetable broth will work fine.

At this point, start tasting and add dashes of the Cajun seasoning until you like it. Or could just use salt or even pepper. Don't over do it. There are a lot of flavors available here and ramping up the heat may drowned most of them out.

Let it boil for a minute or two and get the tomatoes and the shrimp ready.  I use frozen, cooked shrimp that I let thaw according to the instructions on the package. But first, we must thicken.


For true gumbo, your thickening options consist of filet and okra and roux. Note that filet and okra are normally not used together but you can if you want. Filet is normally added at the very end of the cooking process and then the gumbo thickens as it sits. Okra needs to cook with the gumbo to provide it's thickening effects. We really don't have time for that in this version and we already cut out the roux so it looks like we have resort to less popular means of thickening.


Adding body to a stew or soup can be as simple as adding cornstarch that's been dissolved in cold water. The more cornstarch you use, the thicker the broth. About a teaspoon of cornstarch per cup of broth is usually going to make a pretty thick soup so I usually back off of that and work up to the thickness I want. Also with cornstarch, the longer it simmers the thicker it will get.

You can also cut out the thickening all together. All the flavors are there and the thinner soup will still work well over rice.

After you have reached your desired level of thickness, add the tomatoes and the shrimp. Let the gumbo come back to a boil and then kill the heat.  Immediately. Do not let it cook any longer. The tomatoes will be fine and the shrimp is already cooked so all it needs is heat. If you continue to cook, the shrimp will turn to rubber and tomatoes will dissolve. Just take it off the heat and serve immediately in bowls with rice.

Is it gumbo? It tastes like gumbo and the pot goes empty quick in a crowd which is the sure sign of a good gumbo. It's hearty, filling and boasts a myriad of flavors that will induce cravings if you go too long without it. Cooking time: about an hour or less depending on your knife skills (mine suck). I still like the roux-based traditional dish properly thickened with filet but I do believe this faux gumbo will do in a pinch.

Soup and Simplicity

You really can't get more basic than soup and, through a unique set of circumstances, I've found myself exploring the creative possibilities of a stock pot and a variety of ingredients almost on a daily basis. I've also come to realize the true value of even a rudimentary knowledge of cooking. Being able to look at a pantry of ingredients and making the most of what you have is a skill that will become very important in the coming years.

And making the most of what you have is what soup is all about.  I start all soups pretty much the same way and then vary the finish with what I have on hand or what I'm try to achieve. Coat the bottom of a pain with oil (olive, sesame or butter) and dump in an onion (red, white or green) and start it over medium heat (that's 5 on a number dialed).  There's some potential in your combinations even here and your decisions largely depend on taste. Olive oil is healthy and flavors vegetables well.  Sesame has a nutty, asian flair that also works with potatoes. Butter has a horrible reputation but adds a richness that's hard to replicate otherwise.

The choice of onion gets interesting as well. Reds have some heat and green onions taste, well, green.  White onions are your workhorse, general purpose onion and good for about anything that an onion is good for.

So a little bit of oil and the onion of your choice cooking over medium heat.  Call it sauteing or sweating or whatever but the goal is to break down the onion and other ingredients just enough to release the flavors.  Onions usually take the longest so you always start them first. You can add other ingredients to the cooking onions as you finishing slicing, dicing or grating keeping in mind that you don't want to cook everything to death.  Most recipes suggest cooking the vegetables until tender or translucent.

So let's do a beef stew.  Get the onions going and add a pound of beef stew meat. If you have mushrooms, a cup or so should go in now (chopped or not)  I add a couple of shakes of cajun seasoning at this point and then brown the meat. If you have fresh parsley and rosemary handy, add a sprig or two of parsley and chop up a twig's worth of rosemary and toss it in.  The meat will make it's own gravy of sorts and if you want to get fancy you can add a cup of red wine and let it reduce by half (which means boiling away the liquid until only half remains.)

While the meat and onions and wine simmer away, slice up a pound of potatoes (golden yukons are my personal favorite or the little red ones work well), about three carrots (or have a bag of baby carrots handy) and about three stalks of celery.

Now, with all this chopping and slicing, try to keep everything a uniform thickness.  This ensures that everything cooks evenly.  I tend to toss the carrots, celery into the meat and onions to let the flavors mix  for a minute or two and then add beef broth, about two quarts.  Your can use cans, cartons or bouillon cubes and water.  Bring it up to a boil, reduce to a simmer (That's 3 on a numbered dial) and add the potatoes. Cook until everything is tender and salt (carefully) to taste.

That's a basic beef stew.  You can add to or take away ingredients due to availability or a whim and you'll still have beef stew.  Want chicken soup?  Switch out the beef for chicken and the red wine for white and maybe the potatoes for cooked rice and you have chicken soup.  Want it thicker or with more body? Add about six or seven teaspoons of cornstarch to a cup of cold water and mix thoroughly before added slowly to the soup towards the end of cooking. From this point on, the longer it cooks, the thicker it will get.

Want to make it creamy?  At the very end, add a quarter to half cup of cream or half and half and bring it back to a simmer. This works especially well with the chicken soup.  Go extra heavy on the mushrooms and you have cream of mushroom soup. Drop the cream and add extra rice, sausage and maybe a can of Rotel and you are really close to a jambalaya.

Or keep it really simple and fast:  Cut up half an onion, add two or so cups of broth and throw in some rice noodles . Eight to twelve minutes later you have lunch and it's not ramen.  You could even cook the base  ingredients at home and make the broth in the microwave at work.  The noodles get soft by soaking, not boiling so it makes for very convenient, fast food. Fast as in fast. Not fast as in fast food.

The possibilities are literally endless.  Crank up your knowledge of spices, work on your flavor combinations and don't be afraid to experiment and you'll soon have a recipe box worthy of passing on to children.

Week Three

I must apologize for my lack of updates but work blew up on me and that, along with some extracurricular projects, kept me running for the past week. I've stuck to the program though with relative ease and I'm still happy with the results.

It's not hard to live this way either but I've noticed that choices have to made consciously and sometimes it takes more planning than I'm sure some would care for.

But I have to say that I am learning to not hate cooking. It's still not something I look forward to but I have enough meals on my menu that I can cook with confidence and improvise when I need to.

Shopping is an interesting experience as well. The hunt for good ingredients can be fun if you let it. It appears to be communal in nature, a time honored tradition of those in the know.

Interesting incident: I was digging through the jalapenos at the local big box and when I three little ladies suddenly surrounded me and began digging through the jalapenos almost as if I wasn't there. But one of them grabbed the peppers in my hand and before I could protest she replaced them with three more she had selected. She held my original peppers up to my face and squeezed it between her thumb and forefinger, explaining something in rapid-fire Spanish.

Unfortunately, I don't speak Spanish and that's unfortunate since she was obviously explaining how to select good peppers. And the peppers she selected were sweet, flavorful and hot. So I need to know what she said or I need someone to tell me how to select good peppers.

Food and food preparation has become somewhat of an adventure. I would point out that humans once spent the majority of their time concerned about where their next meal would come from. Today, if we spend more than an hour on prep and cooking we think we're wasting time. I have endeavored to slow down while I eat and have succeeded somewhat but I think I may slow down even more and enjoy the gathering, the prepping and the cooking as well as the consumption.

I haven't checked the blood pressure this week but I can tell that my mindset continues to improve. My priorities are shifting a bit and I think I'll let them shift and see how things go.

Day Fourteen

Messed up today.

Had a gathering and the marshmallow covered brownies were the temptation and I succumbed. It was the sugar rush from hell though and every time I slip and then have to sit and suffer I tend to slip less and less.

The quantity of food seems to be dropping more and more.

This is the end of week two and the weigh-in results are another five pounds. Blood pressure is 138/108 on average which is still better but not good enough.

The workout plan should kick in tomorrow but no promises. I'm still on the fence as far what to do. Leaning toward push-ups but there is still the matter of when.

I'm leaning toward push-ups since they are the best overall workout for the time invested. But there still is the issue of finding time.

Here is an interesting site that talks about push-ups and their benefits.

Day Thirteen

I've had a acrid taste in my mouth for a couple of days and wondered what it could be since the diet has been pretty consistent with the occasional deviation (The occasional diet soda is still a challenge to be overcome). It has been suggested that the acrid taste may be heavy metals purging from my system which triggered a memory of a week long fast from several years ago. Self-induced, of course. Along around day four, I remember that acrid taste. So the system is purging.

Cool.

Day Twelve

I need to do the research on vitamins and their pro's and con's. The most common con seems to be that they go right through you. But then why do I feel better when I take them?

Could be psychosomatic. Or some of the minerals in the common multivitamin may have beneficial effects.

The consensus on the internet appears to be that you should get your vitamins from good food and not a pill. But no diet is perfect. So why not supplement?

This needs a more in depth research but I'm buried in projects right now.

Day Eleven

I had forgotten about omelets. The low carb crowd use them as the go-to meal in a pinch and with my schedule getting crazy as of late, I turned to them quite a bit myself. Fast, easy and a good solid protein.

I discovered a fruit cup at a restaurant downtown and it was a nice change. Cheap too.

Day Ten

I'm building another kickwheel and took today off to work on it. For lunch I got a salad from one of the sandwich shop chains. The dressing was too sweet though. I ate around it but it's amazing how cutting the sugar affects you sense of taste.

The wheel looks good. I'll post pictures when it gets a bit closer to done.

Had a diet soft drink today, mid afternoon. It was mostly a caffine craving, I think but I was still kicking myself over it.

But it was just one. Ok, maybe two.

It was a long, hard day and I was dragging a bit.

Day Nine

I told myself I'd have two weeks of stairs and then I would worry about working out but I can already see that time will be issue. As in my schedule is very full and finding 30 minutes to an hour to squeeze into a meaningful workout may be a challenge.

Monday night is one of my pottery nights at the studio so I'm stuck out. I brought trail mix from work though and will snack through it although I may have to consider packing a lunch and a dinner on nights such as this.

Day Eight

Well there goes my last guilty pleasure food-wise.

I've cut back on diet soft drinks as much as I've cut back on coffee but after several recent articles like the one linked above, I can't justify any soft drinks whatsoever. I even found an article that stated that the carbonation can lead to calcium depletion.

So soft drinks are out.

But anyway, Sunday is soup day. Four cans of low-sodium chicken broth, a bit of water, 2 cans of chicken and an assortment of onions, carrots and celery, spice according to your mood. Let it simmer for around thirty minutes and then cook up a 1/2 cup of rice and add it to the soup.

It makes enough to feed us on Sunday with enough left over that I can take it for lunch for a couple of days.

Still enthusiastic about this venture. But it's only a week in.

Day Seven: Weigh In

I didn't post any numbers at the start of all this since I decided to go with pounds lost as opposed to a target weight. I do have target numbers for my blood pressure which started out high. I check it using the automated machines in the pharmacy at the local big boxes. I usually just take the average since I'm in there more than a few times a week.

My blood pressure was averaging in the low end of the high range according to the little chart on the machine. On Day Seven, I'm in the upper end of normal. I'll check it again throughout the week but I think the stairs are to blame for that improvement.

I've lost 9 pounds this first week. I think I mentioned that I'm not losing as fast as I have before which could be due to age or the fact that I have not gone hardcore paleo. But I happy with this progress and I still say I'll stay the course.

The jeans are a bit loose and I've noticed a increase in energy throughout the day. My mental state seems a bit clearer as well almost as if a fog is lifting off my brain. All good signs as far as I'm concerned.

The challenges for the coming week are to incorporate a more intensive workout routine into the day. I may have to play that one by ear since I have a lot of extra projects going on right now.

So what about holidays?

Halloween is probably my favorite holiday for a lots of reasons but it is loaded with temptations.

And what should I do about the loads of candy and other goodness that the Kid will bring in not to mention the candy that I'll buy to hand out to trick-or-treaters? Or for that matter what about all the other random holidays throughout the year?

I think I'll just enjoy the holidays and then return to the schedule the next day. That should be the strength of this program, the routine and the simplicity.

Having lived through through the holiday, I can say that I did not partake as much as I thought I would. I had a few pieces of candy and found them too sweet. I made a pumpkin pie with a popular sugar substitute and found it lacking. The next day I had a bit of a sugar hangover and the carb cravings returned but I stuck my normal eating patterns, even upped the protein to compensate for the cravings and lived through it easily.

The next holiday is Thanksgiving and I should be fine. Most of the food is not far off the diet anyway and I'll work on a pumpkin pie recipe that doesn't use the sugar substitutes. Maybe honey or I just may use sugar and deal with the hangover. The recipe only called for 3/4 cup for the entire recipe.

I think the key is returning to your established eating patterns as soon as you can but otherwise enjoy the holiday but be aware of how the foods you're eating will make you feel.

Day Six

Dinner today was broiled chicken with creamed spinach and potatoes.

This has to be the best way to fix chicken hands down. I covered the chicken breasts with olive oil, a little bit of kosher salt and a good bit of pepper and then put them on the middle rack of the oven.

You have to have a thermometer for this one to poke into the largest chicken breast. Start checking at around 20 minutes and pull when they get to 170 degrees. Carry-over will take them to 180 degrees which is the recommended target temperature for chicken.

Tender and juicy, not to sound like a commercial or anything.

I used dairy for the creamed spinach and I'll not apologize because it was good. I sweated green onions in olive oil and then added two cans of drained spinach. I heated up about three quarters cup of condensed milk in the microwave and added it to the spinach and let it simmer, stirring a lot to keep it from burning. There was a bit of mozarella cheese in the fridge and I add just a heavy pinch. Very nice. Fresh spinach would have been better but the canned stuff worked just fine.

Tomorrow is Halloween and so we get to discuss what to do about holidays. It's also Day Seven so I'll weigh in and see what I've lost. I know I've lost something due to the fact that my jeans are a bit loose at the hips. Practically had to hold them up while I was doing the stairs today.

Day Five

Today's observations include a further reduction in cravings and an increase in energy levels. I'm taking two steps at a time on the stairs and it's still kicking my butt but in a good way. When I do two steps, it's harder on the legs and I can feel it pull in the abs as well.

I've also naturally reduced my coffee intake. By naturally I mean that I didn't have to think about it. Suddenly I was down to two cups and that just seemed to be enough. That's down from at least five spread across the course of a morning.

I got stuck out and went with a grilled chicken wrap from a fast foot joint for dinner. Had a meeting to go to and there were refeshments and none of it was on the diet. To be honest, I nibbled on a pretzel stick and had a cheese puff but that was it. Neither tasted very good. Too salty.

I'm not losing weight as fast as I did when I went hardcore paleo but I'm past Day Five and I am losing weight so I'll stay the course.

Day Four

One of the more serious challenges I've faced is getting stuck out and having to try and decide what to eat that doesn't completely kill the diet. Wraps of various sorts from various sources should be ok and more than a few of the fast food joints have low-carb options but I'm wary of those. The best thing to do is swing through the grocery store and grab a snack of fruit or a package of tuna that will hold you off until you get home. The very best thing to do is not get caught out without trail mix or fruit.

I'm still looking for something sweet in the morning to go with the coffee. It needs to be fruit but that can get boring. At one time I would chop up a banana, drizzle honey over it and sprinkle it with chopped nuts. I may have to go back to that as an occasional treat.

So what about honey?

It's nature's own sweetener and it has it's advantages. The Paleos like it in moderation and I would have t agree. As long as I don't coat everything in honey, it should be great for the occasional treat or ingredient for cooking. But it's a bit cost prohibitive as well due to the recent plight of the honey bees.

Here is an interesting site that offers a comparison between honey and sugar.

And speaking of honey, tonights dinner is Jalopeno Honey Soy Chicken.

This is another quick one. Dice around three green onions, two stalks of celery, one jalopeno (seeds or not). Bell peppers are a nice addition to this is well. Sweat the vegetables and mix a 1/2 cup of honey with 1/4 cup of soy sauce. If you happen to have some sesame oil, add just a touch. Pour the honey soy mix over the sweating vegetables and bring to a simmer. Add about two teaspoons of corn starch to the mix if you want it to thicken up a bit. Let it cook for about fifteen minutes.

Add two cans of chicken, drained and mix well. Turn off heat and let sit for five minutes. That will heat up the chicken.

Serve over brown rice.

Another great addition is fresh broccoli. Cut it up small and add it at end of the simmering and let it go about two minutes longer. The broccoli will turn a dark green and you should test for tenderness. Then add the chicken.

Very satisfying meal.

The soy sauce is heavily processed and full of salt but it's only a quarter cup. Should be fine.

Day Three

Today was much easier as far as the cravings. They're still there but the edge of desperation is gone. Also I skipped lunch due to a busy day at work and survived fine by leaning heavy on the trail mix.

Dinner was baked fish again with corn and potatoes.

Which, speaking of, the corn has to go. It's hard to describe but I can tell it's hurting more than helping. I'm sure a nutritionist can tell you why and I'm sure it has something to due with the sugar content (they do make corn syrup out of corn) but all I know is that I'm craving it and its not the good kind of craving. I crave it like I crave bread pudding or a candy bar.

So it's out.

Another interesting point is that I got to top of seven flights of stairs and didn't have to lie on the floor of the garage to catch my breath and get my vision to clear. I just had to stand there and hold on to the nearest car and catch my breath and allow my vision to clear.

I did not realize I was this out of shape. I used to be a runner and enjoyed it. But this is pathetic.

I'll stick to the plan. Two weeks of stairs and then I may start running again.