Chipotle Avocado Chicken Unwhich

Been slackin' on the blog posts....I've been busy and it has been a nice lesson on why I started this blog to begin with. Making food and lifestyle choices easy and quick. I have a bunch of recipes for the next month and wanted to get this one up before it gets too cold. I love eating sandwiches this way and it allows my wife and I to eat burgers and chicken all the time w/o the bun.

Chipotle Avocado Chicken Unwich

2 chicken breasts
1 avocado
2 slices of provolone (if you like)
1 head of lettuce
1 roma tomato (sliced)
1/4 white onion sliced
1 tsp of chipotle mustard

Marinate the chicken breasts in the mustard for at least 10 minutes (30 is better) and grill em. Remove the outside layers of the lettuce and keep the pieces big...layer them 3 deep. Put your chicken breast in the middle of the lettuce (add cheese now if that is your thing). Top with onion and tomato and a squirt of the mustard. wrap the chicken up so you can hold it (you may want to let it cool for a minute).

It takes practice to eat and fold the unwhich so have patience and bring napkins if you are not into shirt-plates. These are really good and this one is not as messy as a burger unwhich. We sided this one with steamed green beans.

Nociose Salad

French for Cobb Salad

* Prep Time: 20 min
* Cook Time: 10 min
* Servings: 2

* Ingredients:
* 4-6 new red potatoes
* 2 roma tomatoes
* 2 Tbsp capers
* 1 cup of fresh green beans (french cut)
* one 8 oz tuna steak
* 1/2 a head of lettuce (shredded or ripped to bite size)
* 2 hard boiled eggs
* 1/2 red onion
* 1/2 cup of olive oil
* salt and pepper
* 1/4 cup olives (whole might be better...I had sliced)
* 1/3 cup of lemon juice
* 1 Tblsp oregano
* 2 Tblsp basil
* 1 Tblsp thyme


Directions:
I usually like less work when I cook but after getting done I will definitely do this again. Read the whole recipe once through to make sure you get the timing right with all the food you are cooking. Doing some of it before hand may be a good idea like the eggs and beans.

Start a pot of water to boil (2 if you haven't boiled the eggs) and cook the potatoes (5-10 minutes after boil). I always just stick a fork in them and when the fork slides easily...let them cook for one more minute and pull them. Set them aside and cover with some of the vinaigrette that you made up while they were cookin' (see below). Keep the water, bring to a boil again and toss the green beans in there. 5-8 minutes till bright green and still crisp. Pull and quickly rinse with cold water.

If you needed to cook the eggs use the other pot you put on. Eggs and cold water. Bring to a boil for 1 minute then turn off the burner and let them sit in the hot water for 10-11 minutes. Pull them and peel them. Cut into quarters and set aside.

Fix the vinaigrette.
Take the lemon juice, olive oil, basil, oregano and thyme and mix it up. Add a little salt and pepper to taste. Set aside for use.

Take the lettuce and toss in some of the vinaigrette and plate the lettuce like in the picture. Cut the tomatoes into quarters or eighths and plate along the edge of the lettuce. plate the eggs. plate the olives. plate the green beans. Slice the onions and plate them.

Fire up the grill to cook the tuna steak. I used the toaster oven, set in on broil and gave it about 10 minutes. Should be slightly pink on the inside. cut in half and toss with some dressing.

plate the potatoes and tuna steak. sprinkle the capers over the whole salad.

Eat!

Making Healthy Food Easily, Cheaply and Quickly

I have been busy posting recipe after recipe without putting any implementation steps in how to do it quickly or effectively. I like easy and fast! Get a mandolin first off it will save you a ton of time, just watch the fingers! Secondly, cook and shop in bulk. This saves money and more importantly time.

We like to buy all of the chicken for the week and all of the vegetables for lunches at once. Grill all of the chicken at once and portion it out in lunch containers for the week on Sunday or Monday. We often eat leftovers from the previous dinner for lunch so just filling in the gaps during the week with 2 more chicken breasts usually works. We grill ours with a little salt, pepper and EVOO. Sometimes I throw on some italian seasoning.

We love zucchini and squash and it is real easy to slice it up on the mandolin with half an onion in a little EVOO and saute it. I just throw it on top of the chicken in the lunch containers and I'm all set for the week.

Add a small baggy of pistachios or almonds for a snack and lunch is done for the week. Easy, fast, delicious and super healthy!

Spaghetti Squash and Meatballs

Can't tell the difference from regular spaghetti!

• Prep Time: 10 min
• Cook Time: 60 min
• Servings: 4

• Ingredients:
• 1 can of organic garden tomato sauce (Hy-Vee Brand)
• 1 carrot
• 1 large spaghetti squash
• 1 lb of grass fed lean ground beef
• 1/4 white onion
• 1 tbsp spicy pizza seasoning
• 1 stalk of celery
• 3 cloves of garlic
• slice black olives

Directions:
Sometimes you just want spaghetti...so have this!

preheat oven to 400 degrees. fill a shallow baking pan 1 inch full of water, cut squash in half length wise and scoop out the seeds (keep 'em if you like and roast 'em with salt and pepper). Put the squash face down in the water and bake for 45 minutes.

While cooking (I wait until about 20 minutes left), brown ground beef in little meat balls over med-high in a 12 inch pan, add chopped onions, minced garlic, chopped carrots, chopped celery and pizza seasoning. Reduce heat, add tomato sauce and simmer.

When the timer goes off remove squash and scoop out inside (it will be hot so you can wait a minute or two). Pay attention and scoop with the grain which is NOT length wise to get spaghetti like consistency.

Plate the squash, add the sauce and meat balls. I topped with the squash seeds (which I covered in garlic salt and pizza seasoning) instead of Parmesan cheese. Top with the olives if you like.

Real tasty, Laura ate 2 helpings and already packed a lunch for tomorrow! She said she could not tell the difference between real noodles and this (she is not Paleo and really picky)

Beef Tongue Tacos and Jicama

Don't let the title fool you...these are awesome and inexpensive. I had these down in Mexico 3 years ago and when I found a place that had grass-fed beef tongue I grabbed it and have been waiting to try it out. In most of the world beef tongue is normal food, my grandparents who went through the depression fixed it like a roast and it was delicious that way too.

Laura was less excited as she saw the pre-cooked tongue and was grossed out. She opted for shredded chicken which I grilled special for her. (more beef for me!). You can use a lean roast if you are grossed out or can't find a tongue.

Beef Tongue Tacos

So good and tender

• Prep Time: 10 min
• Cook Time: 240 min
• Servings: 4

• Ingredients:
• 1 onion
• 6 cloves of garlic
• 1 Beef Tongue (you can sub a lean roast)
• 5 roma tomatoes
• corn tortillas
• salt and pepper
• 5 serrano peppers

Directions:
Cut up half the onion into slices and throw with the beef tongue in a crock pot. Dice up 5 cloves of garlic and put that in the crock pot too. cover the tongue with water and set on low for 8 hours.

Take the tongue out and remove the 'skin'. I know it looks funky. Shred the meat with 2 forks.

Take the tomatoes and peppers and saute them on med-high heat until you have seared/cooked all sides and throw them in a blender with the remaining clove of garlic. flash blend until slightly chunky...be sure to put the lid on the blender.

dice the remaining onion and saute until slightly translucent. Add your tomato mixture and heat over low for 5 or 6 minutes to reduce it down just a bit.

remove the rest of the cooked onions from the crock pot and put in with the shredded meat.

Warm up your tortillas for a few minutes to get them nice and soft . Load up a tortilla (i use two at a time to stop breakage) with some meat and onion mix and spoon on some of the tomato mixture.

I also cut up some jicama and splashed some lime and added a dash of cayenne pepper to it to eat on the side...real good if you refrigerate the jicama first to get it nice and crispy.

Salmon Salad

Salmon Salad

Awesome salad - we're having it again this week!

• Prep Time: 10 min
• Cook Time: 7 min
• Servings: 4

• Ingredients:
• 1 large carrot
• 6 oz of plain greek yogurt
• 2 stalks of celery
• 8 oz of salmon (we broiled some but you can do canned if you want)
• 1 med. white onion
• leaf lettuce
• 1 tomato
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• some dill
• some paprika

Directions:
Cook the salmon if you want to used broiled, we did ours in a toaster oven with a little olive oil about 6 min. you will want it flaky. I have also done this with a 5oz salmon steak and used 3oz of smoked salmon pack (sunkist or whatever brand) gave it a nice smokey flavor.

while the salmon is cookin' dice the onion, and celery and shred the carrots. I am lazy and I have a slap chop so I slap chop all of the stuff!

Mix the greek yogurt (don't do vanilla by accident so read your labels) the slap chop mix you just made and the lemon juice together.

Either slice the tomatoes or cut into chunks (i like chunks) and set aside.

Rip off a few large pieces of lettuce to make a 'sandwich' with and set aside.

Add some dill and paprika to the yogurt veggie mix and fold in the salmon to the mix.

Lay out 1 or two big pieces of lettuce and dish a nice scoop of the salad into the lettuce, add some tomatoes. Roll the lettuce like a burrito and don't be afraid to add more pieces of lettuce to hold this together...the tighter the better. Grab a napkin because this is probably gonna be messy (you will get better the more you make).

I took the picture after we ate (these are going for lunch the next day) so I will try to post a finished product. We bought a cucumber to dice and add on top this week...it's gonna be awesome!

The Basic Premise

The basic theme here at this blog is simple health tips and lifestyle rules to live by to promote health, longevity and performance. I always have a bias toward performance however (my competitive nature) but it is not necessary as a primary goal. The older I get the more I tend to be interested in the first two goals as the real goal (or goals) with performance being an added bonus.

My basic premise is that we are eating, moving and thinking in a way this is in-congruent with the way that we are designed. We were not designed for high-calorie, low nutrient density foods (processed and agricultural foods) but instead designed for nutrient dense natural foods (think more along the foods that your grandma made you eat before dessert).

We jump on crazy fad diets, exercise regimes and distorted ways of looking at things because as a culture we have strayed from the basics. We require natural whole foods that don't contain anti-nutrients and toxins. We require movement and exercise that mimics the movement we would do in nature. We absolutely require the culture that reinforces core values of small groups in a tight knit community (less then 150 people). The community does not mean your geographical location, it can be social groups but it must be supportive to you and you must actively contribute to the group or groups.

I could try to reinvent this stuff but that would be silly so I have included some of my favorite explainations of this concept from different bloggers and authors that I admire.


Theory to Practice

Mov Nat

The Paleodiet

The Whole 9

Art Devany

Nathaniel Branden

and ya gotta listen to the podcast here Robb Wolf