Single White/Asian Female, Can Cook? or What is Crossfit or My Paleo Challenge

So I began a personal challenge this month. It began on 02-22-12. I decided that I am eating clean, ie. Paleo, until Easter. What is Paleo you ask? Let me explain. No, let me sum up. The Paleolithic diet or Caveman diet allows the following foods: meats (protiens), vegetables, fruits, seeds and nuts. So it follows that that it does not allow the following things: grains of any kind, dairy of any kind, no alcohol of any kind or sugar of any kind. To look at it another way, nothing processed. There are levels of Paleo or several camps about what is allowed and what is not. Some allow honey, sweet potatoes, and wine. For my challenge, I am not including those things.

Where did this idea come from, you ask? Well, I do Crossfit. I have been a Crossfitter for one year now. What is Crossfit, you ask? Well it is a fitness movement. Some call it the sport of fitness. So then, what is fitness? Fitness is increased work capacity across broad time and modal domains. And Crossfit, put very simply, is constantly varied functional movements executed at high intensity. To be more specific, there are ten pillars of Crossfit:

Cardio Respiratory Endurance: the abilty of cardivascular/respiratory systems to gather, process and deliver oxygen.
Strength: the ability of a muscular unit, or combination of muscular units, to apply force.
Stamina: the ability of body systems to process, deliver, store and utilize energy.
Flexibility: the ability to maximize the range of motion at a given joint.
Power: the ability of a muscular unit, or combination of muscular units, to apply maximum force in a minimum time.
Speed: the ability to minimize the time cycle of a repeated movement.
Coordination: the ability to combine several distinct movement patterns into a singular distinct movement.
Accuracy: the ability to control movement in a given direction or at a given intensity.
Agility: the ability to minimize transition time from one movement to pattern to another.
Balance: the ability to control the placement of the body's center of gravity in relation to it's support base.

So I am doing Paleo because I drank the Koolaid at the Crossfit gym I go to, so to speak. Many of those who do Crossfit, also eat Paleo. Not as a "diet" but because eating this way is good for you for many reasons I will not go into here. If you want further information on Paleo here is the link to an excellent and mercifully short article on it: http://www.fitbomb.com/p/why-i-eat-paleo.html. If you want the down and dirty details on the subject, a good book is "The Paleo Solution" by Robb Wolf.

I first took on a Paleo challange last year at my gym for 30 days. And it was a challange. I was rather new to the Paleo diet and also had never given up, outright, such wonders as grains, dairy, alcohol, and sugar. You know, bread with butter, cheese, my vodka and pineapple juice, and desserts. But nothing was as difficult for this Japanese American girl as white rice and potatoes. Go figure. This led me to be very strict and succeed but it was rather boring. Sauteed tilapia with broccoli and lots of eggs. After that experience I continued to eat Paleo about 70% of the time and it made me appreciate the food choices I make several times everyday as well as my choices on where to get my food and where my food came from. I also began to eat mainly grass fed beef, free range chicken, and locally grown produce whenever possible. I really embraced locally grown food and ethically raised protien sources.

On this round of clean Paleo eating I am on a mission. No more boring eating. Just because I am eating Paleo doesn't mean I am bound to eating the same things all of the time. I may be eating like a caveman but that doesn't mean I am one. We have come a long way baby. We have, as a human race, cultivated creativity in the kitchen and I don't plan on throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.

I have been getting several Paleo cookbooks, both downloadable and printed, and have also been doing some dreaming. There are so many Paleo recipe sites on the web and Paleo recipe books in the store. OK, maybe not many but several. I have prepared several recipes that sounded good as well as some desserts. Yes, you read it right, desserts. Sweetened with fruit only and good. But my favorite by far was my success from last night. I just decided that I wanted Indian food. So I asked what could be Paleo friendly? Tandoori Chicken of course. If you know Indian cooking or food in general you know it is almost always prepared with yogurt. Tandoori Chicken is no exception. So my next obstacle, what to use to replace the yogurt in the recipe? This proved to be insurmountable. The yogurt in the marinade serves to tenderize the meat. Nothing can replace it except soy yogurt and soy is also not allowed on Paleo. There is such a thing as coconut yogurt which would be allowed but I did not have any and wanted to cook this immediately. Since I have never been one to give up on something I want I decided to use coconut milk. I just followed the spirit of the traditional indian recipe.

The result? Magic. I was speechless. And not only because my mouth was full of chicken. You see, I am not much of a cook. In fact I am no cook. I can cook a few things well. I make a mean Pot Roast. I make a great beef and brocolli stir fry. However, I have never been one to cook on a regular basis or to experiment in the kitchen. Maybe due to being single and not feeling cooking for one and the fact that I have never been successful at adding a pinch of this and that and coming up pleased in the kitchen. Yesterday my eyes were forever opened to the possibilities of being a cook. I have always been an eater. I love food and I'm rather picky about it. So to realize that I can tweak a recipe and come out smelling like a rose? Priceless. Don't get me wrong. I can follow a recipe. This was a whole new level of wonder. Experimentation. Success.

So here is my recipe for Paleo Baked Tandoori Chicken:
Ingredients: one whole chicken cut into breasts, thighs, legs, wings, etc; two cans of lite coconut milk; 1/2 finely chopped onion; 2 cloves of finely chopped garlic cloves; 2-3 teaspoons of garum masala (spice blend); and 2-3 tablespoons of Tandoori Spice (spice blend from Penzy's Spices).
Directions: A day before or at least six hours before cooking mix onion, garlic, and spices into the coconut milk and put chicken into resulting marinade and refrigerate. When completed put chicken and all of marinade into a baking dish and bake at 350 degrees for two hours.
Cooks note: Due to my own tastes I will in the future use only dark meat for this recipe. Also, added the marinade to the bake as it makes it's own gravy and it is to die for.

Side dish recipe I tweaked: Cauliflower "Rice:"
Ingredients: one whole cauliflower and grapeseed oil.
Directions: Cut the cauliflower into smaller pieces and put into food processor until it is a rice like consistency. Put the cauliflower into a sautee pan with grapeseed oil and sautee for about ten minutes or until slightly broken down but not mushy.
Cooks note: I'm sure some may want to add other spices to this but I wanted something similar to white rice, not dirty rice. Experiment.

More to follow, hopefully, on my Paleo Challenge, Crossfit, Paleo Cooking, and my views on life in general. Happy personal revelations to you! Peace!