Home Made Almond Milk

A few weeks ago, I saw a picture on Instagram of cold brew coffee and homemade almond milk. I wish I remembered exactly which picture, but it was a beautiful picture and really made me want to drink it.  It was also in the middle of the Whole Life Challenge and I'd drank nothing water, coffee and the occasional tea for about 4 weeks, so that added to the temptation. And it must have been quite a good picture, because it was pretty cold here in Seattle.

So, for the next few days, my Google searches were about how to make almond milk.  It is surprisingly easy!  And aside from some inactive soaking time, it is really quick.

All you need is a nut milk bag, available on Amazon for $7-10 and something to soak the nuts in.  It's basically a really fine mesh filter bag.

There are lots of almond milk recipes on the internet; they seem to vary in how much water you add to the nut milk after soaking and what kind of sweetener if any.  My wife's aunt changes out the water while the nuts are soaking. Some people use a food processor and some use a blender. But basically, its the same.

I've only tried sweetening my almond milk with honey and stevia and though I'm not a fan of stevia, the stevia was a better choice. But most of it, I drank unsweetened. It was nice to bring a small container to work and have that with my breakfast.

But best of all, its clean - no fake stuff, no chemical additives. Just nuts and water. Because it doesn't have the additives, it needs to be shaken before drinking and might not be as thick as commercial almond milk.  On my next batch, I'm going to try to add some coconut milk. It might add some sweetness and give it a thicker mouth feel.

On the downside, its not cheaper than the commercial stuff, at least for me to make it. With my nut supply and water ratio, it costs me about double what I can pay in the grocery store.  I get just over a pint with 1 cup of nuts and I don't have a cheaper nut supply than Costco. My wife's aunt, she has almond trees in her yard. It'll be pretty low cost for her. This is the trade off for eating clean though. Having raw nuts does give you some flexibility though, I was roasting nuts with all kinds of different seasonings and making milk. You can't do that with your container of roasted nuts!

Homemade Almond Milk
makes about 2 cups

Ingredients
1 cup raw almonds
water to cover nuts while soaking
2 cups water for blending
Something to sweeten the milk, optional. This could be stevia, honey, maple syrup, vanilla extract or ...

Directions

1. Put the nuts in a container, cover with water and let soak for 24 - 48 hours. Change the water occasionally. The nuts will swell some. The longer you soak, the creamier the milk will be.
2. After soaking, drain the nuts and place the nuts in a blender with 2 cups of fresh water.
3. Blend the heck out of the nuts on the blender's highest speed. You want everything to be a relatively homogeneous slurry. It'll take a few minutes.
4. Filter the nut milk through the nut milk bag into a container.  Squeeze the bag and get as much of the milk out as you can.  This is your finished product.  Some bags are designed to hang and let gravity do the work, but this part only takes a few minutes of squeezing.
5. Mix in your sweetener, if you choose to be a little sweeter.
6. Store your milk, covered, in the refrigerator. I'm told it will keep for a week, but I've never had enough to last that long!

My Whole Life Challenge Experience

This weekend ends the Whole Life Challenge, an 8 week challenge to help make some positive lifestyle changes and provide a framework for some accountability. My CrossFit box, Cascade CrossFit, along with many others started this shortly after the beginning of the year and pushed our way through until now.

All in all, it was a good experience. I stick to a pretty clean, paleo lifestyle and do CrossFit regularly, so the workout and mobility daily challenge wasn't that tough. I played by the advanced nutrition rules, which were really, really strict - no sweetener other than Stevia and the anti-caking agents in lots of spices were excluded, too.

But the things I liked the best from this challenge were the Life Style Challenges.  The early ones were slam dunks, too: drink half your body weight in ounces in water and  get at least 7 hours of sleep a night. I know what it takes for me to be effective and stick to a pretty good schedule; in fact, my kids poke fun of me for having a bed time. After starting CrossFit, I carry a water bottle with me everywhere I go, so that was easy.

But then it started changing up a bit.  We had to practice mindfulness for 10 minutes a day. I had meditated as part of a Hapkido class when I was a kid, but never had done it as an adult.  And it was awesome.  Ten minutes of time to clear my mind just wasn't enough. It helped me deal with a bunch of external stresses in my life.

The challenge changed to 10 minutes of meaningful reading. I would regularly read before going to bed to help draw my day to a close, but nothing that I would call meaningful. A good friend of mine had given me Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties , by Ajahn Brahm a few years ago and after the meditation, reading his Buddhist tales seemed to follow well. And again, it was well timed. Several of the parables had direct connection to my life right now.

The challenge started with a benchmark workout. You can do any workout as long as you can score it. We did Rankel at the start and after the challenge, 20 minutes As Many Rounds As Possible 6 225 pound dead lifts, 7 burpee pullups, 10 53 pound kettlebell swings and a 200 meter run. After the challenge, I got 17 more reps, almost a full round more.

At the beginning of the challenge, I would eat Lara Bars before and after working out. To help control costs, I started making my own Awesome Bars. This is something that I know I'll keep up with, I enjoy cooking and making my own food. I also have made almond milk from raw almonds, twice (more to come on my blog for that later).

It was a good experience. I can make a commitment to some pretty strict rules and live with them. I learned more about meditating and its something I want to continue. I learned how much I have going through my head and recognize the benefits of the clarity that mindfulness provides.  I learned how to make some nutritious and clean snacks.

Would I do it again? I don't think so. I'm coming from a pretty good starting point and have been making great progress with my strength and fitness. In the last 8 days, I've had 3 PRs (CrossFit Open 14.2, Overhead Squat max weight and the re-test of Rankel). Some of that is due to the challenge and some of that is due to the lifestyle I've already implemented.

If you're a person who likes to compete against others, do things for points and need to implement some healthy lifestyle changes, the Whole Life Challenge is a really good thing. The community is helpful and supportive and the guys that run it are involved. What really matters is what you take from the challenge and how you go on living your life.

Did you compete in the Whole Life Challenge? What did you think? What habits are going to stick?

I did not receive compensation for this post; however, I was given a free entry into the challenge. I wasn't actually even asked to write this post, but its all my honest opinion. Get out there, challenge yourself and see what happens.

Snoqualmie Ice Cream Scoop Shop is Back

I got to spend Wednesday evening at the Pre-Grand Opening event for the Snoqualmie Ice Cream scoop shop and let me tell you it was awesome.  Their ice cream on its own is already great and they've added boozy milkshakes, new sundaes and flatbreads to their menu. If you're lucky enough to live in the Seattle area, you should go check out their new scoop shop some time.

Snoqualmie Ice Cream is a super-premium ice cream made here in Washington, with real ingredients. They grow a lot of their own fruit and have 400 chickens on their property.  From their scoop shop, you can see into one of their test kitchens. I was impressed, the ingredients on their shelves looked just like the ingredients in my pantry; real food not processed, industrial flavorings. Check out the picture below and count how many you have in your pantry!

We got to try little samplers of every shake on the menu board in the first picture and they were all really good. My favorite was the Espresso Chocolate Stout milk shake, but the Candied Bourbon Sundae was right behind.  And when they weren't bringing around samples or flat breads, we got to taste ice cream!  Now that is a great Wednesday night dinner, if you ask me!

Eating ice cream is a way to replenish your glycogen stores, right? We were out of sweet potatoes at home, so I needed to get my carbs somehow. Even if it wasn't paleo.  Yeah, so I cheated that night. I lost the day's nutrition points for the Whole Life Challenge.

But it was worth it.  Lavender ice cream, with its fragrant taste. Bourbon ice cream made with Maker's Mark. Basil ice cream. My tastes run towards savory, but the Salted Caramel and Mukilteo Mudd are delicous too!

If getting to Maltby, Washington (which they should probably rename to Malty) to the scoop shop isn't hoing to happen, you can find Snoqualmie Ice Cream in stores in the Western states. If you don't live in a Western state, maybe you should move.

This was not a compensated post and I was entirely sober when i wrote this; the sugar and alcohol had worn off. It is all my own opinion and tastes. Enjoy your treats.

Dinner with Chef and Story Teller Russell Lowell

Thursday night, I was invited to dinner with Chef Russell Lowell at his restaurant, Russell's.  Dinner with a great North West chef at the Best Independent Restaurant winner of the Washington Wine Awards? In a rustic, yet elegant former barn?  I'm in. You don't have to ask twice.



The restaurant is comfortable, yet elegant at the same time. Beautiful place settings and not too crowded would make it a great dinner for prom or anniversary or a nice business dinner.  I was looking forward to the dinner, because everything looked great from the New Bedford Sea Scallops in beurre blanc to the Seared Duck. I'm participating in the Whole Life Challenge and I decided that this was going to be worth the points lost.



Dinner was filled with fun conversations with Meeghan Black (yes, from Gardening with Ciscoe) and T'Chani Hill and local wine maker Kevin Lantz (and yes, his Viogner was served at dinner). I lucked out and the perfectly seared scallops were served as the appetizer and followed by a wonderful, beet salad special. Goat cheese, candied walnuts and a delightful vinaigrette topped off peppery arugula and beets. Definitely worth the cheats.



I've always been afraid to buy duck and prepare it, I think I'm fearful of messing up the investment, so when we got our choice from the menu for dinner, the seared duck was an easy choice.  The duck was served with a savory roasted shallot glace, perfectly complimenting the duck.  Heather ordered the rack of lamb, which we rarely make at home, because I think its too gamey. She shared a taste of the nicely crusted, but still red on the inside lamb, and if every lamb tasted that good, you could make a lamb believer out of me.   Chef Russell supports Washington farms and vine yards and this lamb came from Eastern Washington - far better than the Australian lamb I've had before.

Chef Russell got up and spoke during dinner. I'm beginning to really enjoy listening to chefs speak, because they always have some of the most interesting tales to tell. And Chef Russell has definitely got a personality!

I enjoy sitting at breakfast on Sundays, reading a cookbook, both for inspiration and for the beautiful photography. Chef Russell has a cookbook coming out in May and it's going to be one of those read it for the stories as well as the recipes.  I can't retell the story he told (I wouldn't do it justice) us from the book, but it involves Hollywood celebrities, pugilism close calls, road kill, funeral wakes and great white sharks.  If you've got an experience that involves all of those, you've got to put it in a book.  I look forward to getting my hands on it when it comes out.

And dessert... I cheated for sure. I was torn between the creme brulee and the chocolate gateau. Winemaker Kevin Lantz, who eats frequently at Russells' strongly recommended the gateau, so I went with that.  Rich, dark chocolate cake, still gooey and molten on the inside, was served with creme Anglaise and a berry coulis. I was in heaven.

It was a wonderful evening, with new friends, great food and excellent stories.

Special thanks go to Heather for letting me use her photographs and to Karie Engels for putting this all together. I was not compensated for this post, but I got a wonderful dinner and night out. Everything I write is, as always, my own opinion. And if you've got something great, I'd be happy to check it out and write about it too!

Making Sunday Breakfasts Special

Five days a week, I eat breakfast at my office. I do prepare my food in advance, so I've got something good to eat, but almost everyday, its at my desk. And by doing my food prep, I eat the same thing all week long.  So, on the weekends, and especially Sunday, because I have more time, I try to make those breakfasts special.

Typically, on Sunday, I'll read a cookbook as I eat my breakfast and enjoy my espresso.  Today, while there was no reading, I still found a way to make breakfast special.  As a crossfitter, I eat a lot of sweet potatoes and most of the breakfasts I make include them in some form.  And today, I found a new way to eat them.  I made paleo biscuits!

I split my biscuits in two and served them with some sauteed spinach and poached eggs. I've really gotten into poached eggs of late, but that is a topic for another post.

PaleoOMG's recipe for Shrimp and Jalapeno Sweet Potato biscuits was my inspiration. I had neither shrimp nor jalapenos, so I just left them out, and to fill the gap, I added some onion powder.  And to top it all off, they're Whole Life Challenge compliant (even for the Advanced nutrition challenge).  What, you thought I was going to top it with jam? Maybe bacon jam, once I figure out the right way to make that paleo.

The recipe is pretty quick and easy to make, they don't really take longer than making baking powder biscuits. I did microwave my sweet potato instead of cooking it in the oven, that sped things along.

I'll definitely be making these again and want to try the original recipe, but it was great to have biscuits in the morning with breakfast.

Ingredients
1 largish sweet potato, mashed
3 eggs, beaten
3 T bacon fat
3 T coconut flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp salt

Instructions

1. Pre-heat your oven to 375.
2. In a medium sized mixing bowl, mix the eggs into the sweet potato and then mix in the fat.
3. Add the dry ingredients and mix until combined.
4. Use an ice cream scoop and drop the batter on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper.
5. Bake for 22-25 minutes and then eat them.

Makes about 8 drop biscuits.  Which probably isn't enough.

Dates Warmed in Olive Oil with Sea Salt

I'm participating in the Whole Life Challenge and because I chose the advanced nutrition rules, my occasional dark chocolate for dessert is out.  But dates are a wonderful, wholesome, sweet snack and can make a delightful dessert.

A co-worker mentioned that he ate this at a Seattle restaurant and he and his wife made them when they were on a Whole 30 challenge.  I had a 2 pound box of dates from Costco and a sampler of Oregon Olive Mill oil, so I decided to make them myself.  Its not hard, only takes a few minutes and really showcases the ingredients. For this recipe, use the best quality oil and salt that you have, it will really make everything pop.

Oregon Olive Mill grows olives in the Willamette Valley on a fourth generation farm.  They harvest their own olives and them mill them in their own mill.  They have 13,000 trees that grow 3 varieties of olives making a top quality extra virgin olive oil.  Each variety yields an oil with a different taste, mouth feel and importantly, an after taste.   For this recipe, I used the Tuscan Extra Virgin Olive oil, because it had the most robust taste.

I used San Juan Island Sea Salt, a local Pacific North-West manufacturer of sea salt from our very own Salish Sea.  I got a sample of this salt at the International Food Blogger's Conference and it is a favorite of mine.   The salt has a brighter, crisper flavor than the french sea salts and is in much finer crystals than the Tibetan pink salt.  When I'm finishing something and want to taste the salt, this is the one I use.

I think that having a tasting party of olive oils, salts, wine, whisky or chocolate would be a pretty cool thing to do. Not all at once, but maybe a series of parties. Hmm, ideas...

Dates Warmed in Olive Oil with Sea Salt
less than 10 minutes

Ingredients

1-1/2 Tablespoon of your best olive oil
3 - 4 dates, pitted
Sea salt, fine grained, best quality

1. Warm the olive oil in a small pan, over medium heat. You don't want the oil to get warm like you'd cook meat with it, but just warm.
2. Put the pitted dates in the olive oil and gently roll them in the olive oil.  Do this until the dates are warmed through, 3 or 4 minutes.
3. Once the dates are warmed, put them on a plate and give them a generous sprinkle of sea salt.
4. Serve and enjoy!

Disclaimer: Other than the sampler of the Oregon Mill Olive Oil, I was not compensated for this post. The opinion and recipe are my own.  And if I wasn't paleo, I'd be dipping bread in this oil and just eating it that way. It's that good.

Food Fun This Week

This has probably been the most foodie week since I went to the International Food Bloggers Conference in September. It was awesome, I got to meet Michelle Tam from Nom Nom Paleo, met the awesome marketing crew from Tessemae's and got to try food from some cool food trucks at a Yelp party!



 On Sunday, I went to the book signing for Michelle Tam's book, Food for Humans. Her blog is one that was really helpful in my transition to eating Paleo. On top of having delicious, healthy recipes, she's got a great personality which comes out in her writing. And she also went to Cal, we were there at the same time, but she graduated a year before me!

Her husband, Henry, was there too and it was really cool to learn how they went about their publishing experience. By his reports, they did it wrong, but they made a pretty awesome book out of it!



Tuesday, I went to dinner with a few other local food bloggers and the marketing team from Tessemae's. This was quite exciting, because Tessemae's is all about sauces and dressings made with real, clean ingredients, which fit in perfectly with my lifestyle.  I do a lot of label reading and when you can find a brand that you trust and tastes awesome, it's a realy nice thing.

We got about 6 bottles of dressing and I've been using it in my tuna salad and I'm looking forward to hot wings at our Super Bowl watching party. Go Hawks!



Thursday night was the Yelp Holiday Hangover Party in a really cool space in Pioneer Square.  I blew out my Whole Life Challenge nutrition points and enjoyed Theo Chocolates, Ezells Fried Chicken and street tacos from Contigo. It was so worth it.




This wasn't a normal week for me, but it was a good one!  What did you eat this week?

Make Your Own Lara Bars

Because I'm participating in the Whole Life Challenge, I bought a package of dates earlier this week.  Dates are a handy quick snack and great if you want something sweet. I enjoy eating the dates straight, wrapped in prosciutto, or as an ingredient in my paleo protein shakes. I also picked up a box of Lara Bars which I enjoy as well.

Having a bounty of dates, I decided to try making my own Lara Bars.  And because I can never find the Cappuccino Lara Bar, that was the flavor I decided to take on.

They were pretty simple to make and this way you can make your own flavor combinations.  I could have used some cocoa to make this a mocha Lara Bar.  Another alternative I'd like to try would be with some unsweetened coconut and maybe chocolate (once the WLC is done).

What flavors do you think would be good to try?

Ingredients
12 dates, seeded
about 1/2 cup pecans and roasted almonds - about equal in quantity to the dates
1 tablespoon of finely ground coffee beans

1. Cut the dates into small pieces and pulse in the small bowl of a food processor until they are smaller. Yes, I know how silly of an instruction that sounds.
2. Add the nuts and continue to pulse the dates and nuts.   The dates will become stickier and pickup the nuts and the nuts will get to a chopped consistency.
3. Add the ground coffee and pulse it a little more.  It will probably form some balls in the food processor bowl.
4. Dump the mixture into another bowl and further mix it with your hands.  When its well mixed, roll it into a ball.
   
5. Place the ball between two sheets of parchment paper and press into a bar like shape.  I used my hands to form a rectangle and then used a rolling pin to help flatten it (Thanks to Nom Nom Paleo for that set of instructions).
   
6. Cut the bar into individual serving pieces.
7. Wrap in your parchment paper so they don't stick together and store in the refrigerator.

Starting the Whole Life Challenge

My CrossFit box is doing the Whole Life Challenge, an 8 week challenge in making life style changes. It started Saturday and I'm now heading into the first work week. I don't think that this is going to be a big deal, because my strict paleo challenge (posts here, here and here) at the beginning of last year helped cement some good practices.

I eat pretty clean and cheat rarely.  My only exceptions to paleo eating on a regular basis are all to support working out - a Clif Bar before 6AM CrossFit and a protein shake afterwards.

Unfortunately, these two exceptions don't fly in the Whole Life Challenge.  I can eat a date or two on the way to CrossFit, but I've got to work on some substitute for the protein shake.  I'm pretty lean and need to build muscle mass.  So, for these first few days, I'm just going to take the hit and lose the nutrition points.

Heather and I went to the store today and really, really looked at labels.  There is added sugar in so many things!  Almost all of the dried fruit had added sugar, which seems kind of silly, given how sweet fruit is to start.  Even the uncured bacon, no nitrates used, has sugar in it.  Without bacon, this challenge might get a little harder.  Not.

I've made bacon before in my smoker, and given that its winter time and cooler here, my smoker might stay cool enough for making bacon and not cooking the pork belly.  I'll take a stab at making WLC compliant sriracha sauce during this challenge.  I'll try making some Lara bars too, since I found a big box of dates at Costco.

So, stay tuned and watch this blog for updates.  I'll cook some good food and see how this challenge goes!

Did you make any fitness resolutions or are you participating in some kind of challenge?


Note:  Because my wife Heather has a pretty big blog, she convinced the Whole Life Challenge people to give her 2 entries to the Challenge.  I got one of them and though they didn't ask me to write anything, I'll be sharing my experiences in my words.

Paleo Salted Caramel Chocolate Bacon Bark

I think that every word in that title is awesome. Any one of those in a dessert is great and if you combine them, its like multiplying awesomness.  At my CrossFit box's holiday party, they were going to have a paleo recipe contest.  When I read this recipe on Civilized Caveman's blog, I knew it was the one I was going to make.

George, from Civilized Caveman, got a copy of The Paleo Chocolate Lover's Cookbook, and he shared the recipe on his blog.  My local library has 16 copies and one is on hold for me. I'm waiting with bated breath.

All in all, its pretty easy to make, but it does take some time to allow the chocolate and caramel to cool.  When I made a larger, second batch, I actually took advantage of the unusually cold weather we were having in Seattle to cool my caramel on the back porch!

My daughter helped me with these photos. The film strip doesn't do them justice.

Don't worry that the recipe has warnings to wear gloves, the coconut milk and sugar don't seem to get as hot as non-paleo caramel's cream and sugar, but do use a large enough pan.  I made a single batch in a 2 quart sauce pan and it does bubble up.  Do clear a bit of space in your fridge so that you can fit your chocolate to cool on a flat space.

Reading the recipe on my borrowed tablet on a Belkin Tablet Chef Stand!

Also, give it plenty of time to cook.  My first batch, I cooked a little hotter than my second batch and it came out much more like a sticky caramel candy, but it was harder to drizzle over the top of the chocolate.  My second batch, I simmered longer, but at a lower temperature, and it was a thick caramel sauce.

You'll see in one of my pictures, I wasn't using parchment paper, but some plastic wrap.  Make sure whatever layer you use covers the sides of your pan, don't just use a Silpat. The chocolate will leak under and stick to the pan and you won't get nice bark.

Bacon, bacon, bacon!

I also had one not-really-a-problem problem.  Both times, I had too much bacon.  I mean, too much bacon for my candy, but between my kids and I, we ate it right up.  Some problems, like high sales rates, are good problems to have.

The Paleo Salted Caramel Chocolate Bacon Bark was a hit at the party, even among the people that weren't all that into sweet and savory combined into one.  Alas, it was not the winning recipe of the night; that honor went to a Korean BBQ chicken recipe.  I'll admit it, it was really great chicken, cooked perfectly, with just the right amount of smokiness from the grill.

If you make it, let me know how it goes!

Paleo Sriracha Chicken Thighs

Yesterday for dinner, my 11 year old son and I made Sriracha Chicken Thighs.  I had seen this Orange Sriracha Chicken recipe on one of my favorite paleo recipe websites, Nom Nom Paleo, but didn't have half of the ingredients.  But I had a fresh orange and sriracha sauce so I decided to make something loosely based upon her recipe. And I had a hungry helper.

Heather takes the best pictures of food. http://instagram.com/p/hXHPF9zXjd/

We made a simple, dual purpose sauce and marinade and baked the chicken.  Pretty easy and he got to continue to play Xbox during the time it took to warm up the oven and cook the chicken.

A few notes about this recipe.  Firstly, I used the convection setting on our oven. That contributed to the nicely browned and mostly crisp, chicken skin.  I cooked it skin side up first, then flipped it, and flipped it back again to finish it.  When the skin side was down, the skin got a little soggy and didn't quite crisp up the same when I finished it skin side up. So, start it skin side down or don't flip it at all.

Secondly, I used the marinade as part of my glaze.  I've been taught that this is not a good thing to do, because the marinade picks up beasties from the meat.  I figured that I was going to reduce the marinade that it would cook/kill them and I added a little water so that it would stay at a higher heat a little longer while reducing.  If that makes you uncomfortable, make more sauce than I show below and keep them separate.

I hadn't planned on turning this dinner into a post, but the comments on some of the photos were encouraging me to post a recipe, so here goes. Thanks for the encouragement!

Sriracha Chicken Thighs

10 minutes preparation, 20 - 30 minutes marination, 40 minutes cooking

Ingredients

Juice of one orange
Big squeeze of Sriracha, maybe a tablespoon or so
About 1/4 cup of finely diced red onion
About 1/2 teaspoon salt
Big teaspoon of honey
10 chicken thighs, skin on
Sesame seeds
Small amount of chopped parsley

1. Turn on your oven to 400 degrees on Convection bake.  
2. Prepare the sauce. Combine the orange juice, sriracha sauce, onion and salt and stir until combined.  Taste it and add some honey to take the edge off.  Or don't taste it and just add the honey, then taste it to see if its not too hot.
3. Put the chicken thighs in a big ziploc bag with about half of the sauce to marinade. Let it marinate until your oven is up to temperature or you've played a few games of Call of Duty multiplayer.
4. Line a rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil, maybe two of them depending upon the size of your thighs (the chicken thighs, silly). 
5. Remove the thighs from the bag and arrange them on the baking sheets, skin side down. Give them some space so that they'll brown and not steam each other. Save the marinade for reduction, if you're going to do that.  Put them in the oven for 20 minutes. You'll flip them at that point.
6. While the chicken is cooking, reduce the sauce in a small saucepan over pretty high heat.  If you're using saved marinade, add a little water, a little less than a 1/4 cup, so that it can boil for longer.  When the marinade part has reduced, add the remaining sauce and reduce it again.  Once it has been reduced, remove the sauce from heat and wait for the chickens. The sauce shouldn't be runny, but not as thick as a jam.
7. After cooking the thighs for 20 minutes, flip them skin side up and cook them for another 15 minutes.  This should result in nicely browned skin.
8. After the 15 minutes or when the chicken is pretty much cooked and the skin is nice and crisp, spread the sauce on your thighs (still the chicken thighs), on the skin side. Put them back in the oven for about 5 minutes to kind of turn the sauce into a glaze.
9. When they're done or you're ready to eat, put the chicken thighs on a serving dish and sprinkle with the parsley and sesame seeds.
10. Eat and enjoy!

Try it and let me know how it goes!

Bring your tablet into the kitchen with a Tablet Chef Stand

I enjoy cooking and I enjoy technology.  Probably the only thing better than combing the two is cooking while hiking.  But I digress a little.

I'm a recipe clipper. I read several newspaper's cooking columns, I subscribe to Sunset magazine, a bunch of cooking newsletters and I follow some awesome cooking blogs. I've got 1,232 notes in my Recipe Notebook in Evernote, my largest notebook.

Almost always, I read the recipe I'm following on my phone.  I have a 3 inch ring binder with recipes printed out, but many times, I just go back to the website on my phone.

My phone usually has coconut oil smears and spices in the case.  I've even learned that drips of water (yes, dangerous) are read as a finger touch on my phone's screen.

I was given a Belkin Tablet Chef Stand + Stylus to use in the kitchen and an tablet to try out with it. It's pretty awesome, it holds the device two ways and the stylus helps keep my messy fingers off the phone. And to make it even better, it all wipes clean, maintaining its shiny finish.

It's great having my recipe from some of my favorite Paleo cooking blogs, like Nom Nom Paleo and PaleoOMG on a big, easily readable device, angled so that I can best see it while cooking.  An internet connected device is a great cooking tool, it ranks up there with my Santuko knife.

Paloe Pumpkin Pie Granola Parfaits from PaleOMG.

Another one of my foodie passions is coffee. I recently purchased an Aeropress and attended a workshop at Caffe Vita for different methods to brew coffee. There is a lot of science to the art of brewing, but brew time is an important factor.  My phone has become my kitchen timer and the stand works great for that!

Using my phone as a kitchen timer.

And with the right recipe, I'll even eat squash! 

Recipe clipped from a magazine photograph.

And if any of Santa's Elves are reading this, that Galaxy Note 8 in the pictures was a loaner. I don't actually have a tablet but AT&T offers $100 off any tablet with two-year service agreement. Hint, hint!

What are your favorite online recipe websites or cooking apps?

Disclaimer: While I've got to return the Galaxy Note Tablet, the stand was mine to keep for reviewing it in this post.  I think its pretty cool and wouldn't have written about it if I didn't really think that was cool.

Farm Fresh Brussels Sprouts

Fresh on the stalks. Did you know they grew this way?

I received some Brussels Sprouts from Farmstr and turned them into Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Capers and Lemony Browned Butter, a recipe I found on the Seattle Times All You Can Eat Blog.  Farmstr, a Seattle startup that connects local farmers and consumers.  It helps support sustainable farming and putting farm fresh food on people's table at reasonable prices.  When they offered my wife a box of Brussels, I was all over that as I love Brussels Sprouts. In fact, it got me into a Brussels Sprouts mood, so this is a two-fer of Brussels Sprouts.

I met Janelle, the Farmstr CEO, in front of my office in South Lake Union.  She drove there in an old half-ton Ford pick up truck, with the box of Brussels Sprouts in the back.  We were having a great chat about the benefits of paleo eating and what Farmstr had to offer and generally how cool the whole process was when the cops decided that they didn't like how she had parked and cut our exchange short.

That's how Farmstr works (minus the cops); farmers setup drop-off points and people reserve their eggs, grass fed beef or whatever is in season.  These sprouts came from Stanwood because the farmer's original, commercial buyer wanted Brussels in their store earlier than anticipated, so they needed a buyer once they were ripe.  And I lucked out.

One of the easiest way to cook Brussels Sprouts is roasting them.  Season, toss with your favorite oil and throw them in the oven.  You don't even have to turn them mid-way through, but it helps.

Brussels sprouts this way taste great, but they taste even better with a bit of acid. This recipe did it with both lemons and capers.  While the Brussels sprouts roasted, I browned some butter added capers and lemon juice and BOOM, insta-sauce.

I made meatloaf muffins and some pan fried sweet potatoes to accompany the Brussels Sprouts and had a nice, paleo meal for my family. With locally produced vegetables, from a farmer that I could actually meet and a farm I could actually visit, no less.

I had Brussels Sprouts on my mind.  After eating meatloaf with roasted Brussels Sprouts Friday night, I had planned Saturday's dinner to use more sprouts.  I had some delicata squash, a pork loin and was going to cream the Brussels Sprouts, but figure out how to do it Paleo.

But life got in the way and my daughter's swim meet went rather late.  Then Heather roasted some sprouts with sausage and used the last of the Farmstr sprouts.  I wasn't going to be stopped, though.  I got some sprouts at my grocery store, which cost $0.20 per pound more than the fresh sprouts from Stanwood, Washington.

I found this recipe on Saveur Magazine, Creamed Brussels Sprouts, and decided to give it a go.  The recipe calls for cream (hence the name), which alas is not paleo.  But coconut milk is!  So, I replaced the cream and sugar with a whole can of full fat coconut milk, and it worked great!

How do you like to eat Brussels Sprouts? Let me know in the comments.  I haven't even mentioned how good they are with bacon or better yet, pancetta.  If I had more sprouts, that would be my next way to prepare them.

Read more about Farmstr on their FAQ and if you're around Seattle, check out what they have to offer and if you like Brussels Sprouts, get some!

I wasn't compensated for this post, other than some Brussels Sprouts and its all my opinion.  I think Community Supported Agriculture is pretty cool and eating, clean, real food is good for you.

Baked Eggs in Avocados

A few weeks back was my 17th wedding anniversary.  Though our anniversary fell on Saturday, I planned on taking Friday off so I could spend some time with my wife (try it, its way better than working).  The night before, my wife got this text message from her sister.  It served as the inspiration for our anniversary breakfast the next day.

Baking eggs in an avocado is pretty simple. Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees and put an egg into the hollow of an avocado.  Depending upon the size of your egg and the size of the avocado seed, you might need to scoop some extra avocado out.  I didn't do that and lost quite a bit of egg white in the over flow.  But then you get to eat some avocado early, as a preview of whats to come.

Season with salt and pepper and bake the avocado for 20 to 25 minutes. I think that baked eggs are really good, but they take longer to cook than you think.  When it's done drizzle with your favorite hot sauce, I like the sriracha because its thicker and holds its shape.

The texture of the avocado didn't really change with baking, as sometimes warm mushy things can be weird to eat. With some bacon and coffee (and the obligatory glass of water), it makes a great breakfast! 

You can use an avocado as a little bowl for all kinds of things.  I sometimes will make tuna salad and fill the avocado.  Let me know what kinds of things you like to put in your avocados!

Enjoy!

HDMX Jam Classic Speaker Review

I remember getting my first radio. It was the one from my Dad's workshop, with blobs of plaster dripped on it and a rather out of place replacement power knob. But it started my enjoyment of music.

My second was a boom box. I split the purchase with my parents. It was pretty cool, with detachable speakers and a tape deck. I could record music off the radio to listen to whenever I wanted. I started buying music, my first cassette was a Joan Jett and the Blackhearts album.

When I graduated from high school, I bought a pretty nice Denon receiver, CD changer.  It came to me with college and yes, my room mate and I had two 100+ watt stereos in our small dorm room.

A few years after getting out of the army, I upgraded my receiver and added as sub-woofer to the mix. This receiver was 5.1, so we stepped up to the world of surround sound on our DVD player.

I enjoy my music and listening to it in the best possible way; I've replaced my iPhone ear buds with some some noise-isolating Klipsch headphones.

I've never really gotten into listening to music on my phone, the built-in speakers just don't do justice for the music. But as more music is available with services like Pandora and Spotify, I'm beginning to listen to music on my phone.  It's been nice, as I read at night in bed, my phone is there charging and I listen to some music.

AT&T generously provided my wife with a HMDX Jam Classic bluetooth speaker, which means I get to play with it too.

The small, rechargeable speaker connects to my phone via bluetooth and does have a mini-stereo jack so I can use my iPod, too.  No wires necessary makes it pretty convenient; I just walk in my room, turn on the speaker and it automatically connects.

I only read for about 30 minutes a night and I charge every other week or so.  The user's guide indicates that it has 4 hour battery life, and do I think that the battery would last for a day at the beach or for a picnic.

The sound quality is good, considering the size of the speakers.  I can't turn it up to 11, but it does get pretty loud. I enjoy music that has a good deal of bass, and though this speaker won't vibrate my pants, its a huge improvement over my phone's built in speaker.

Its a great speaker for a kid's room, they're bright and colorful and could pair it to a computer, phone or any other bluetooth capable device. Maybe it'll get your kid started on a path towards being an audiophile.

Just so you know, I wasn't compensated for this post, unless I get to keep the speakers, as they were really given to Heather to review. The post embodies my honest opinion.

Cooking with swag

Having recently attended the 2013 International Food Blogger's Conference, we came home with a great deal of swag, particularly small sized samples of gourmet and healthy food.  You might have seen Heather's picture of our counter.  Being local, which meant we drove home each night, many companies would push us to take their extras. And we sure did, didn't we?


Last weekend, with the onset of fall in the Pacific Northwest, I decided to make Pumpkin Spice Almond Butter Muffins, which I saw posted on Hybrid Athlete.  Not only were the muffins paleo and had fall flavors, the recipe called for ingredients which I had received as swag at the conference.

The honey, vanilla and cinnamon were all conference swag.

Manuka Doctor Honey - Manuka honey from New Zealand with supposed health benefits.  But what is really awesome about it is the flavor and consistency.  It's thick, not like runny corn syrup honey with a nice floral taste.  While I've cooked with it some, I've probably eaten just as much straight from a spoon.

Lagrima Vanilla - Lagrima Vanilla is a local, boutique vanilla producer. The vanilla is smooth, without that bite that comes from most commercial vanilla. They use Ugandan beans and manufacture just a few cities north of me. I hope to check out their production facility someday and share that adventure on my blog.

Yen Bai Cinnamon - Sahale Snacks has scoured the earth and found the best tasting cinnamon in the forests of Viet Nam.  It has a much brighter flavor than other cinnamons I've tasted, with spicy bite more like red hots.

The muffins were a nice treat to welcome fall. My kids snatched up four before I even had a chance to eat any. Luckily, I was able to save some for my breakfasts at work - the idea was to make breakfast for the week, but alas, after my kids, there were only enough for two breakfasts (with some nice leftover frittata).

Using a few tips I got during the food photography sessions with Andrew Scrivani (just go watch his blog for a few minutes), I took this picture for your enjoyment!


Eat clean and stay fit!

Paleo Cookies for Cavemen

My wife was lucky enough to get a sampling of Caveman Cookies and I was lucky enough to get to eat them.  We've been on a journey, changing the way we eat and workout, following the Paleo lifestyle.  Treats have changed as well.  Caveman Cookies are a gluten-free, all natural paleo cookie treat. 

The cookies were sweet and chewy, with subtle flavors. I was partial to the New World Cookie, with pumpkin and cranberries and the little bit of spice in the Rain Forest cookie.  Sadly, they don't have a chocolate chip cookie (made with dark chocolate to keep it paleo). Yet.  They've since added a hazelnut and carob based cookie which would be pretty nice to try.

These cookies are not crisp cookies, but soft and chewy. That's not something that everybody goes for, but I'm a chewy cookie kind of guy. A nice, chewy molasses cookie.

These are great cookies to keep around as snacks. I have two still in my messenger back, waiting for when I need a paleo treat.  But, keep in mind, its a paleo treat. That doesn't make it the same as a cookie with wheat flour, sugar and butter.  Save those for your cheat days and grab a Caveman cookie on the day that you want to be good, but still treat your self.

Disclosure: I received no compensation for this post, other than cookies. I'll do a lot for cookies (like donate blood), but it'll still be ethical and honest.

Changing a timer switch with Dad

"Hey, do you want to get electrocuted," I yelled up the stairs.

Slightly interested, Kid 3 came down the stairs. I knew how to lure in an 11 year old.

"Let's do some electrical work. You always get electrocuted when you do electrical work."

I had to swap out the timer for the whole house fan.  It hasn't worked all summer and since summer is almost over (I actually hope it sticks around for a while), I really needed to get it changed.  It would  be a simple job, pull out the old one, wire cap the new one in and BOOM, the whole house fan would be on a timer.

He had a slight look of chagrin. "Okay, we can do it together, and it's best to turn off the electricity when you do electrical work."

So, he and I went out to the garage, I turned off the furnace circuit and he verified it (team work!) was off and we got started.  He removed the old face plate and loosened the switch from the box. I showed him to check for any contacts before pulling out the switch, but he pulled it out.

I removed the old wire caps and showed him how to put on new ones.  He got the wires spliced together and then screwed everything back in again.

Now we have a working timer on the whole house fan and he knows a bit about electrical work.

And I didn't even make a shock sound as he touched some bare piece of metal.

International Food Blogger's Conference 2013

Later this month, I'm going to take a day off from work. Yep, a vacation day. I've been looking forward to this one for a while. The third weekend of September, Seattle is hosting the International Food Blogger's Conference. It's going to be three days of tasting, learning blog techniques and meeting other foodies!


The breakout sessions look to be pretty interesting.  I'm particularly looking forward to several of them. 

As my family has made the transition to living Paleo and eating clean, I've been taking many food photos on Instagram. I've been working on my food presentation because food that looks good tastes better.  Andrew Scrivani, from the New York Times, will be giving a food photography presentation. It looks to be pretty interesting and many people on the internet are excited about it too!

I'm a geek and a geek that likes to cook.  I've read about Sous Vide and how you can make a DIY sous vide cooker.  Combining science (and geeky science) with cooking is just awesome.  Scott Heimedinger is going to lead a breakout session on "everything you've ever wanted to know about cooking sous vide at home."  His title is Director of Applied Research at Modernist Cuisine, how cool is that? I'm hoping to learn a lot about this technique (and maybe hoping for some really cool swag like a sous vide machine).

I blog to keep my writing skills up, which does pay off.  But there will be a few breakout sessions on how to make your blog more effective and make a bigger impact.  I'm a fan of continual learning and self-improvement, so these sessions have made my list.  And when the presentation is made by a writer for the New York Times, I'm sure I can learn a thing or two (or three or four).

Through out all this, I'm looking forward to eating samples from interacting with brands I already know and love like Dry Soda, LaraBar, Chipotle and Bob's Red Mill.  It'll be neat to learn about Northern Divine, a caviar producer in British Columbia!

We're going to get to taste some of the great local Seattle food scene with tastings and even a dinner with a sampling menu from some excellent Seattle restaurants.  Send me to Cupcake Royale for dinner, please!

I hope I didn't make you drool on your keyboard, but you've got to agree, it looks like its going to be a fun few days.

If you're going to be at IFBC, let me know in the comments, maybe follow me on Twitter or add me to your IFBC list. I've got my IFBC list and I'd be happy to add you to it! I look forward to meeting other bloggers who love food like I do!

Row, row, row your boat

I'm pretty proud of my wife.

Yesterday, one of the workouts for the CrossFit games was to row a half-marathon. Yes, 13.1 mile or 21,097 meters.  A crazy distance. I would describe it as mind-numbing, as well as what it would do to your body parts.

Hearing about this workout and with her love of rowing, she decided that she was going to do the half-marathon row.  She started trying to convince me on Twitter that I should do it too.  And while I'm not opposed to doing it, I wasn't ready to do it yesterday afternoon.  I had already committed to my daughter to return her library and my overdue ones. Pretty important stuff, wouldn't you say?

When I got home from work, no one was there. I assumed that she had started her slog. So, I grabbed some protein powder and after returning the library books was on my way to Cascade CrossFit to cheer her on.

Go figure. She was so fast, she had already finished when I left the library.  One hour, 49 minutes.  Only 5 minutes behind the games competitors.  Pretty cool, isn't she?