My Cocktail Tonight

I guess the Primal Enchiladas weren’t popular with the masses. Only 7 comments! Oh well.. you win some, you lose some.

During my recent “lets get serious” post, a lot of people talked about struggling to stay primal due to consumption of alcohol. Being a health blogger, I can’t straight up condone the heavy consumption of booze but hey… lets all be honest with ourselves. Booze is nice.

While only shown to be healthy is very small quantities (so I wont make that argument yet again here), booze can just plain be fun. It can be relaxing, it can loosen you up and it can enhance a good time. I myself drink booze fairly regularly and occasionally heavily.

Part of the danger of booze is that whole “loosens you up” part. You drink a little.. then you drink a lot… then you start the munchies… then you “head for the border” at the local taco bell at 2:00 in the morning. Until you can get in the habit of being Primally responsible while partying it is always good to go in with a game plan.

Here are some game plan tactics:
1. Know your drink.
Know what you are going to be drinking and stick to only that for the whole night.
2. Carry emergency reserves.
Have primal snacks like nuts or pork rinds with you. Whether in the car, your purse or jacket pocket having snacks like this will help you from straying to the tortilla chips or loaded potato skins. You just need something to hold you over until you get home and can heat up some primal left overs. If you are going to a party, bring the vegetable tray or bowl of nuts. If you have something primal there, you will be less likely to crack.
3. Have food waiting for you at home.
No drunky wants to cook anything more complicated than a frozen pizza (which usually gets left in the oven and burnt anyways). Whether it be leftovers or a purpose prepped meal, make sure you have something easy to grub when you get home and late night taco bell or dollar menus cheesburgers wont seem like quite as much of a necessity.

Now lets cover the drink choices. Everyone knows from the USDA approved food pyramid that alcohol can basically be broken into three basic booze groups (maybe I should have studied harder in high school?).

1. Wine
Wine is delicious, it is sofisticated and it can be quite enjoyable. Wine has even been shown to be healthy in small quantities (darn I just said it didn’t I?). Wine however can be very hard to drink in mass quantities even though it can be done (just ask roger de rok or me). When drunk in mass quantities, wine also has the tendency to roll over in the morning, look at you lovingly… and then kick you right in the temple. Hangover city. Wine is very calorie intensive as well and if drunk in large quantities frequently does have the ability to sabotage your gains.

2. Hard liquor
This is the primal party animal secret weapon and party piece. Toss the sugar filled mixers to the side and take a page from the alcoholics handbook. Find a strong, hard, un-fooferated liquor (at least 80 proof) that you can stand on the rocks and drink to your hearts content. When I want to get my swerve on this is where I go. My poison of choice is a glass of top shelf vodka on the rocks with lime. Roger de Rok’s personal favorite is a gin on the rocks with lime (bleh). You may have to start with sipping but once you adapt to the flavor of your booze of choice, you will be able to put it back no problem. Even though hard liquor is not exactly “primal per say” you can through it back almost limitlessly with next to no calories and virtually no guilt.

3. Beer
Beer is just bad m’kay. We have this belief as Americans that beer is just… well American. The big three beer companies have spent billions.. yes billions of dollars ingraining in us the importance of beer. From High School parties to College to middle aged bars we are taught that beer is the drink of choice. A beer here and there wont kill you but beer is a sure fire way to sabotage all of your progress. There is a reason that they call it a “beer gut”. Beer is light on alcohol, heavy on calories and heavy on grain. Many beers still have the stuff floating in it for goodness sake. There is always light beer but it is flavorless, over filling and well… crappy. Beer can leave you feeling bloated and crappy and leave you actually physically bloated and crappy. Get over your beer addiction. Once you start enjoying fine wines and well crafted hard liquors, you really wont miss the stuff. Some studies have shown that a single glass of beer can give health benefits so if you are going to drink a beer, have a glass of the good stuff you really enjoy (a finely crafted, dark, hard stout would my choice but I don’t even crave that anymore).

Now that you are armed with a game plan and a primally wisened selection of booze… get out there and partay!

I will be traveling on business starting tomorrow so forgive me if I cannot get to emails until the weekend.

Enchiladas Dressed

Alright, it is about time I put this recipe up. I think it still has room for improvement which is why I have held off on posting it but I have not gotten around to developing that yet so here it is in its current yummy state. Those of you that are adventurous can play around with it. I think that adding some organic sour cream to the beef before baking would make it even better as creamy enchiladas but have not yet tried it. This is an enchilada plate and not “rolled” enchiladas which are what you may be familiar with.

Primal Enchiladas:
Ingredients:
Crust option 1: (This is my favorite. It sounds a little odd but its delicious).
- Eggs
- Ground coconut

Crust option two:
- Eggs
- Shredded zucchini

Other ingredients:
Beef (grass fed preferably)
- Onions (white, yellow or red. Pick your favorite. I prefer white in my enchilades)
- Green Chile (if you have it available which I know that those that aren’t New Mexican natives often dont).
- Salsa ( make my own special for enchiladas that is heavy on tomato paste)
- Shredded Cheese (I like a mixture of mozzarella, pepper jack and cheddar)

Toppings:
- Shredded Lettuce
- Organic sour cream
- Guacamole or avocado

Directions:
1. In a baking dish we will first create our crust.
Crust option one.
- Make some SoG coconut griddle cakes and line the bottom of your baking dish with them. Fill in the in-between spots with some egg.

OR

Crust option 2.
- Mix shredded zucchini with egg and line the bottom of the pan.

2. Season and brown your ground been in a skillet. I recommend a lot of garlic and spicy seasonings.
3. pour your browned beef on top of your crust.
4. Top your beef with chopped onion, green chile (if you have it of course) and a layer of salsa.
5. Top with your shredded cheeses.
6. Bake in the oven at 350 degrees until a slight crust starts to form on the top of the cheese. About 30 minutes to 45 minutes.
7. Serve on a plate and top with shredded lettuce, organic sour cream and guacamole or avocado slices. delicious.

For my next recipe, I am working on an idea I have for Primal goat cheese manacotti. I know.. awesome right?!?!?

It is confession time.

I have been slacking. I could make a million excuses (which I have), but fact of the matter is that I have been lazy. I have not fallen of the primal wagon per say but I have not been doing everything I could/should.

I have been eating healthy, but not with my same primal intensity and attention to detail fitting to the SoG and I have only been averaging one, yes one 30 minute workout a week. This has been going on for the past 3 months now since I left for work travel.

The result is that I am not out of shape (its is hard to get out of shape even when slacking and living primal), but I am not in the shape or the health that I truly want to be in and that I know I can be in.

It is time for a resolution of sorts. Time to get back to what makes me the SoG… not the Slack-o-G. So here, I say to you… I am going to get Primal. I am going to get dirty, hardcore and happy Primal and I want you to join me.

If you are interested, post your own confessional if you have one and post your dedication to the most important cause their is… your own health and well being. Not doing everything you know you could/should? For the next 4 weeks lets dedicated ourselves to kicking our own buts in gear. You could call this a challenge of sorts but I am not going to bait you with crappy prizes. Our rewards will be our results.

Here is how I am going to help:

1. You may notice 2 new tabs at the top of the page. Back when I actually had more time I started putting together some fitness plans. I almost completed the first of these but never got around to adding the polish and posting. I will make this available over the next couple days… polished or not. I have also had enough interest in an SoG cookbook that I am going to start putting one together… for free. I don’t have an ETA on the cookbook yet but it will be a mash-up of basic Primal cooking advice, my favorite recipes and some new recipes.

2. Email me. If you fall off the wagon, feel free to email me your woes and I will be happy to help you get back on track. Need some help or advice? Or do you just have an inspirational post for yourself or your primal compadres that you would like to see me post? E-mail me. SoG@sonofgrok.com

To kick this off right, Wednesday will be official Primal Enchiladas day. I really promise this time…

Now I better get to work on the Fitness Programs and Cookbooks!

I am not sure what is meant to be lean on these things.

Lean in that the portions are so small?
Lean in taste and flavor?
Lean as in lean forward as your gut drags you around?

Whatever the reason, the Lean Cuisine name makes it sell. It is crazy how well these things sell.

I brown bag my lunch most days. I bring an insulated lunch bag with an ice pack to keep my lunch cold. It isn’t that we don’t have a fridge at work…. Its just that there is no room in it. The fridge AND the freezer are literally packed to the brim with Lean Cuisines. This is not an exaggeration… they are completely full with the little cardboard boxes. With the exception of an occasional egg-o waffle box or Marie Calendar pot pie, 90% of these cardboard boxes say “Lean Cuisine”. It is crazy.

Now I am not going to lie. There have been times in my life where I lived off little freezer boxes. Michellina’s and the generic cheapies were sometimes all I at 3 meals per day. They were cheap and easy to make. They were VERY cheap and VERY easy to throw in the microwave.

Occasionally when they were on sale I got the Lean Cuisines too. You know what? They were terrible! I think I once ate the cardboard box that it was in on accident because it indeed did taste as good as the meal. That and it doesn’t really matter how many of these gross little meals I ate, I was inevitably still starving afterwards.

Now on to the speed and convenience of Lean Cuisines. The simplicity of opening the box and tossing it in the microwave is completely negated at my work. Come lunch time, there is actually a line the forms at the microwave. People queue their food up and actually tell each other “Your turn” as they retrieve their heated plasticy cardboard contraptions. Considering that each meal takes 3-5 minutes or so to heat up, it can easily be 20-30 minutes before it is your frozen cuisines “turn” to get fried. Me? I whip out my lunch bag and dive into some delicious egg salad, nuts, pork rinds, veggies. No wait… instant delicious gratification.

Ugh and the smell of these things. It doesn’t even smell like food. During the Lean Cuisine Queue at lunch, an awful aroma fills the office. It is funny because sometimes I do bring leftovers that need reheated. Once I heat up my meatloaf etc., I usually get quite a few people coming by my desk asking what that “Delicious smell” is and also frequently get told “did you bring enough for me?” Funny, though Lean Cuisine appears to be bountiful enough for all, no one really seems to enjoy eating it.

Ever since going primal and cooking for myself, I cannot stand going to restaurants.

Usually by the time I drive to a restaurant, get seated, order, wait for my order, eat, wait for the check and pay… I could have whipped up an amazing meal and enjoyed myself more in the process.

Then there is the issue of food quality. Cooks at 90% of restaurants really don’t give a damn about how much effort they put into your meal. Its just the facts. They are pressed for time, limited to crappy ingredients and most of them are paid like poop. I realized something interesting the other day when I had to go to a business meeting over lunch at a restaurant. How often have you gone out to eat with someone and heard the question asked “How is yours?” How often has the response been “Its ok” or “its alright” or its “so so”? This just isn’t something that has happened to me since not eating out anymore. The food is always excellent or phenomenal and if it isn’t… its my own darn fault.

Then there is the issue of cost. A meal at a half decent restaurant for just the wife and I always seems to put me back at least $30. I can cook whatever I want, grass fed, top shelf and organic for way less than that! I always leave a restaurant feeling a little like I just got robbed.

Kind of tying in with that is the issue of service. How often do you really get good service anymore. Admitted I do get better service when traveling than I do here locally (you other Albuquerque locals can probably vouch for this as well) but you just don’t get decent service anymore. It seems tipping has become a given requirement now and no one feels that they should have to work for it. I am not kidding… the last 3 times I have gone to a restaurant, I have had to stand up, track down my waiter/waitress and demand a refill on my water. When I get good service, I am a generous 20% tipper but it seems that never happens anymore. It is a “gratuity”… it iss meant as a gracious gesture for me to show my gratitude for being taken well care of during my meal. A lot of restaurants these days have even started automatically adding the gratuity to your bill for you thereby deciding for you exactly how much gratitude you posses for your meal.

And then there is… you know what? Never mind. I am just getting myself aggravated. 

Alright, it has been a while so I thought I would pop in and address some of the rumors floating around.

- No, I am not dead.
- No, I did not get trampled by a mastodon.
- No, I did not shed human life and go to the woods to live with the wolves.
- No, I did not leave my wife and run away with Rick Martin…
- I didn’t give up primal.
- I didn’t give up blogging
- And I didn’t give up on all of you!

I have simply been very very busy. A month of travelling for work in November turned into a month of a ton of extra work in December which turned into a ton of work in January from making corrections for fallout from work in December.

Yes, I have received everyone’s emails. No, I am not trying to be a jerk and ignore them. It is my intention to go back all the way to November and start responding to them.

I am also somewhat suffering from blog topicitus. Primal is pretty simple and honestly… there are really only so many ways that you can say the exact same thing. I wont say any names but some of the other “major” primal blogs have really gotten in the habit of reposting the exact same information with a new shiny wrapper… and you know what? I am not about that.

I don’t want to say that I don’t have ANY content for you… I really do. In fact I have been sitting on the Primal Enchilada recipe for quite a while now just because I haven’t had a chance to post it.

Anyways, I am going to try to start getting to those emails and getting some posts up as soon as possible.

Hello… remember me?

Yeah, I know that I have not posted in a couple weeks and I apologize for that. I work in benefits and we are coming up on that wonderful time of year known as “open enrollment”. I have been extremely busy setting up the 2010 year benefit plans before this years open enrollment.

Well tomorrow starts open enrollment and I will be traveling all over the country for pretty much the next 3 weeks straight to facilitate, present and assist in the open enrollment process. My next 3 weeks will pretty much consist of 16 hours days flying, driving and working.

I do plan on doing it all primal. This will be my longest, busiest and most stressful trip to try to pull off primally to date.

Anyways, this also means a 3-4 week hiatus for the blog starting out. When I come back, we should be primed for a nice SoG thanksgiving post and maybe some primal travel tips that I pick up along the way.

We will see you then!

First off: Congrats to Roger De Rok! He has broken the 100# weigh loss mark in just over 10 months!

Apologies to everyone for the lack of posts. I have been fighting a nasty nasty flu (and not the variety that oinks).

This is the first time that I have really been sick since I have gone Primal and it has been a bit humbling.

A lot of Primal sites talk about the fact that eating Primally can boost your immune system. I do believe this is completely true and I have largely been extremely healthy and have avoided most of “whatever is going around” for the past year. This boosted primal immunity armor is not impermeable as I have recently learned,

You CAN still get sick. There are a couple things that could have been affecting my immunity slightly. For example, money has been very tight lately. This has led to me not taking my fish oil and multi-vitamin as regularly as I normally do. I also have not been eating grass-fed and have been reduced to eating standard beef for a while. All these things may have been impacting my immune system negatively but you know what… I think I would have still gotten sick anyways.

Grok may not have been as flu and cold stricken and bed ridden as we are nowadays but he DID still get sick. So while your primal immunity armor may be strong, remember it is not unstoppable and you should still be careful when something is “going around”.

Yummy Waffles

I was perusing through my kitchen cabinets the other day when I came upon a waffle iron. Of course I immediately got a huge craving and decided that I had to create some Primal Waffles.

Here is what I came up with and it will definitely not disappoint. These were quite good. It has been long enough since I had a “normal” waffle so it is hard for me to compare but I would say that these are easily as good if not better!

Old… OLD World Waffles

Ingredients:
- 8oz Organic Cream Cheese
- 1 cup almond flour
- 1 half cup shredded coconut.
- 4 eggs
- 1-2 teaspoons vanilla
- dash of cinnamon

Waffle Syrup:
- Fruit! Any you like but I have found that frozen strawberries that are put in the microwave and then chopped and mashed makes a great natural syrup!

Directions:
1. Pulse half cup of shredded coconut in a food processor or blender until you have a kind of coconut flour. (some people may remember this from some of my other recipes) This makes a great coconut flour that is full fat and less dry than pre-made almond flour which is usually de-fatted.
2. In a mixer or mixing bowl, combine all ingredients and mix well to create a batter.
3. Cook your batter on the waffle iron. If you dont have a waffle iron, you could probably make them pancake style in a pan on the stove.
4. Enjoy them how you like them! We did some organic butter and the heated frozen strawberry natural syrup.

Came out perfect!

Cavemen Cookies from the Cavemen Bakery

Last week I received in the mail a beautiful bag of these Cavemen Cookies from the Cavemen Bakery.

I know… I know… cool name right?

It gets better… this is the slogan on the bag “Just like your great, great, great, great, great… grandmother used to make!”

Anyways, they are available from the online store and are available in select deli’s and store’s around the NYC area (hear that you crazy black box crossfitters?). They claim to be a paleo friendly cookie for the masses. I know that I have featured my own “Caveman Cookies” here on the site but these are actually very different

So how do they add up? Here is the skinny on them:

Taste:
The taste is great! Way… way… WAY to sweet for me and my sensitive palette but aside from that they are quite good. They remind me of a cross between a ginger snap and an oatmeal cookie.

Texture:
This is the best part of these cookies. They are so soft and chewy that I have to wonder exactly how they managed to do it (ok, actually I know… it’s the honey and raisins but shhhhhhh). If you could think of the best possible cookie texture to have… this would be them.

Presentation:
From the packaging to the product, these look great. They are done in such a way that they would make great gifts in the bag or you could take them out of the bag for a party or the like and no one would be the wiser.

Ingredients:
There are no chemicals and the ingredients are almost completely benign which is a nice thing. Almond flour, nuts, raisins, ginger and nutmeg are all pretty darn safe. The only thing I don’t really like about the ingredients is the honey. I am of the opinion that refined sugar is refined sugar whether it is refined by man or by bee’s albeit the bee method is probably more natural. There is plenty of honey in these cookies too, you can tell from the taste and the texture. Still it is a far better option than the typical cookie floating out there.

Nutrition:
The nutrition info is easily available right on the website which is commendable.
Per 2 cookies it is:
Fat: 7g (Sat: 0.5g, Poly: 3g, Mono: 3.5g
Chol: 0
Sod: 0
Carbs: 15g
Fiber: 1g
Sugar:13g
Protein: 3g
Yeah a little high in sugar for 2 cookies… so eat only 1!

Conclusions:
These taste awesome and truly are a worthy investment. I wouldn’t make a habit of packing them back but one here and there is definitely a reasonable treat. Also as I said, these would make an excellent gift! I have bantered back and forth a little in email with the owner of the Cavemen Bakery and I can assure you that she has the right motives and intentions. This means that not only can you enjoy eating a yummy cookie but you can also feel good about supporting a good business.

You can order Cavemen Cookies from the Cavemen Bakery online at:
www.cavemencookies.com