Paleo Andouille Sausage & LSU Baseball

Going on the paleo way of eating hasn't been too bad on Jesse and I so far. We've found great recipes to help ease the change. Granted we finally had a kitchen fail last night with chili verde out of Everyday Paleo cookbook, way off the mark of delicious. But I found a great recipe to alter to help with lunches and dinner: Andouille Sausage.... the Stephen way ;-)

Most store-bought sausage has sugar in them, which as everyone knows, is not allowed on the paleo diet. This also is a great way for me to get Jesse to eat sausage. She claims that if she can see what goes into the sausage she is more likely to eat it, knowing there isn't a lot of extra fats or leftover random meats thrown in to make it. So I made my own twist, instead of using pork for this sausage, I used Buffalo and lean ground beef from Whole Foods. I will say that the sausage is delicious and has great flavor, but some might think its a little dry since the fats aren't there to make them juicy. But I'd rather kinda dry and delicious and being able to eat it on paleo. By the way, one major need for this, a meat grinder. So my twist is listed below:

Stephen's Homemade Buffalo & Beef Andouille Sausage

Makes 16 links

Nutritional Facts (per 1 serving):

185g Calories, 4g Fat, 35mg Cholesterol, 911mg Sodium, 5g Potassium, 1g Carbs, 0g Fiber, 

0g Sugars, 32g Protein, 2% Vitamin A, 0.1% Vitamin C, 0.1% Calcium, 8% Iron

                                                                      Ingredients:

                                                                      2.5 lbs Buffalo Stew Meat

2 lbs 95/5 Lean Ground Beef

3 Tbsp Minced Garlic

2 Tbsp Sea Salt

1 tsp Ground Black Pepper

1 tsp Cayenne Pepper

1 tsp Chili Pepper

1/8 tsp Mace

1/8 tsp Allspice

1/2 tsp Dried Thyme

1 Tbsp Paprika

1/4 tsp Ground Bay Leaf (roughly 1.5)

1/4 tsp Sage

3 Tbsp Liquid Smoke

1 Sutter Home Merlot Individual Serve (roughly 6 oz)

2 hog casings

As you can see, we sautéed up some red & yellow bell peppers as well as some onions. It makes a great and quick lunch or dinner.

Since Jesse had to attend graduation at her college, per requirements for being faculty, I decided to head out to the LSU vs. UNO game with my buddy Ben. I got a little bored during the third inning when LSU was already leading 8-0. So I pulled out my handy, dandy iPhone with the Panorama app and got a great view of Alex Box Stadium. I'll probably take this again during Friday's game since there will be an addition above the press box and on the scoreboard with the additional naming of the field after legendary LSU baseball coach, Skip Bertman. Skip by far led the resurgence of LSU baseball and turned the program into the powerhouse it is today. They've won 6 NCAA National Championships since the 1991 season. Only 3 teams have 6 or more championships; LSU, USC, and Texas. Not only did Skip have a hand in the baseball program and the building of the new Alex Box Stadium, but he was also the athletic director when LSU won it's 2nd and 3rd National Championships in football, and the men's and women's basketball teams were making it to the the Final Four round of the NCAA Basketball Tournament.

Anyways, good days are ahead in both sports and in life. Jesse and I will keep you up to date on any new adventures we might have. Until next time, take it easy and find a good pattern to enjoy life by eating healthy, exercising regularly, and traveling a little to relax.

Paleo Food Blog: Day 1

Stephen and I have decided to begin eating Paleo. I'm sure most of you know this, but Paleo basically eliminates food from our modern diets that cavemen wouldn't have eaten, namely dairy, grains, and soy. The diet focuses instead on eating meat, vegetables, fruit, nuts, and seeds.

I've decided to complete food blogs for the first 30 days of the "diet": The 30-Day Reset.

Breakfast: 6:30 AM
Two hard-boiled eggs
Cara Cara orange

Lunch: 12:00 PM
Mashed tuna & avocado with lemon juice & lemon pepper served over chopped tomato
Hard-boiled egg
Trail Mix (made by Stephen: raw almonds, walnuts, pecans, and raisins)

Dinner: 9:30 PM (yes, way too late)
Paleo Shepherd's Pie

All in all, day one was a success! I was hungry before meals, but I was never ravenous or tempted to grab something between meals (though snacking on Paleo-approved foods certainly wouldn't have been a bad thing!). Meals were delicious--the Paleo Shepherd's Pie is definitely worth repeating!

I won't lie; Stephen and I are sitting on the couch watching Dance Moms (yeah, he's definitely a keeper for that one!), and I would like something a little sweet for "dessert." Maybe I'll go grab a few raisins :)

Paleo Shepherd's Pie
*Original recipe can be found here, but I've written my modified version below

Ingredients
1 pound ground meat (we used extra lean ground turkey)
1 carrot, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
Button mushrooms, chopped (for me, not Stephen!)
1 head of cauliflower, cut into florets
1 egg
1/2 cup + splash chicken stock
Fresh Rosemary
Dried Herbs de Provence
Dried Italian Seasoning (I used these two dried herb blends because I didn't have fresh thyme and sage as the original recipe called for)
S&P

Directions
Saute carrots, onion, garlic, and mushroom in EVOO until veggies begin to soften. Add ground meat and cook thoroughly. Turn off heat and add 1/2 cup chicken broth to deglaze the pan. Add salt, pepper, half of fresh rosemary and small amount of dried herb blends. Place into casserole dish, ramekins, etc.

Meanwhile, boil cauliflower florets until soft. In a mixing bowl, whisk egg and splash of chicken stock. Add cauliflower, rest of rosemary, and small amount of dried italian seasoning. Mash to desired consistency--ideally like mashed potatoes. Spread over meat mixture in casserole dish.

Bake at 350 for 10 minutes, then broil for 10 minutes.

Weekend Highlights & This Week's Menu: Paint Us with ..... COLOR!!!

We started out our Saturday morning around 8 am, yes way too early for me. We prepped all of our clothing with official race bibs and grabbed the wristbands for the iPhones and headphones. We headed out the door and to downtown Baton Rouge. Once we found parking not too far from the start/finish area, we parked and decided to take this pre-race photo. Yup, we are nice and white. I'm sorry that between our pale skin, white clothing, and white buildings that all you see is our hair and sunglasses ;-P

So we set out to get ready and enjoy the day. We followed the trail of the building vibrations until we found the start/finish area, where a girl was leading Zumba on stage. Jesse definitely was feeling the way the girl mixed up the dance moves and added different quarks to the same dances she already uses. I'd say that if Jesse had a choice, she'd re-enroll at Anytime Fitness to take Zumba from her.

Jesse and I had minor goals for the 5K, but the main one was to have a fun time together and finish our first 5K together. We wanted to push ourselves hard, but not over do it. We wanted to have fun, but not slack off where we didn't break a sweat. We wanted to try and be under the 45 minute mark for the 5K. Ok, so you're probably thinking 45 minutes is kind of a long time frame. I admit that I want to better myself even more, but our best 5K mark in exercising previously on open streets is around 46-48 minutes. So 45 would be our goal and if we did better than we'd be ecstatic.

After about 30 minutes, they started letting people gather at the starting line to begin the race at 10 am. Jesse and I over thought things and were under the notion that serious runners (24 min/5K) are at the beginning of the race and the walkers and fun runners are towards the back. So we line up in the middle of the pack. There were 9,000 runners signed up to run/walk in the event. After each wave was sent out, our wave finally left the starting line at 10:45 am. Our thoughts were to walk about 1/4 mile and let the real runners from our pack clear out and then jog ourselves. Nope, not even a chance. Like with anything else, those plans quickly flew out the window. We walked about 5 steps and realized the wave wanted to run, even though runners to the left and walkers to the right, the whole street was running.

We started a jog and before we knew it we were weaving between the slower runners in our wave and the walkers from the previous waves. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a judgmental S.O.B. who doesn't like/want kids, a stick in the mud, or anything like that, but people in a 5K run walking in the middle of a two lane street with the father and mother split apart holding the hands of a 1 1/2 year old waddling his way down the street about to get trampled by a pack of people doesn't seem to be needed. I'm all for teaching kids the value of exercise and being active at an early age, but just push the kid in a stroller as you walk or run, or leave them at the starting line so they don't get hurt by other runners. Sorry, that rant is over.

So we quickly learned that running at a constant pace in direct lines wasn't going to happen. I found myself weaving every 5 steps trying to avoid people or if there was no where to go, coming to a complete stop so that after an opening I could walk around them and start jogging again. Jesse and I had an amazing split for our first mile, 11:31 min. After running through the blue color station, we came upon the yellow color station which started to spell trouble for us. I tended to run through the middle of the color stations while Jesse ran towards the outside. At the yellow station, Jesse had a nice amount of yellow colored cornstarch hit her in the face, getting in her eye/contacts. As she cleaned her face off some and washed the contact, I cleaned her sunglasses as yellow was caked on the front and back of the right lenses. Right past the yellow station we heard my MapMyRun app tell me that our 2 mile pace was 25:35 minutes. We gave each other a high five and pushed on.

Jesse ran into a friend from Project Purr after we passed the pink station. And then the purple station drew trouble for myself. I decided to try and end the race with a little color on my shirt instead of a starch white T-shirt. I headed into the purple station on the outside and as I has hit in the face with purple, a runner in front of me crossed toward the middle while kicking my shin and I had another layer of purple hit me, ending up in my eye. So after I cleaned my eye up, Jesse and I were headed to the finish line.

After dodging a group of men standing in the road, a dumpster on the side of the road blocking runners (including us), and a runner pushing a wheelchair almost into people, Jesse and I crossed the finish line to finish our first 5K together with a total time of 41:49 minutes and 3.16 miles ran. We blow our goal our the water in my opinion since we hadn't been running that type of distance in roughly a month or two.

We pushed our way to grab a bottle of water and cool down and ran into a friend of mine who I grew up playing soccer and baseball on a travel team and locally. He and his wife finished a few minutes behind us. After explaining who Keith was to Jesse, we started walking over to the finish area for the celebration color throw, as seen below.

Jesse and I thought the signage they had displayed around the start/finish area was pretty catchy, so we took some pictures with them, as seen below.

And as anyone can tell you, when you come to Baton Rouge from outside of Baton Rouge, all you hear about is LSU from them. So in the traditional manner, The Color Run wanted to have a celebration color throw in purple/gold for LSU. (Saw that coming) But unforeseen, a few people mixed in some green and made it a little more like Mardi Gras!

Apparently Jesse and I wanted to inhale paint toxins in different formats this weekend. On Saturday we have paint thrown on us and on Sunday, we are brushing paint on a canvas at Painting with Pinot. The event was a fundraiser for the non-profit Jesse participates with, Project Purr. So like any cat lovers they are, the only painting involving cats was the one chosen for us all to paint. Jesse and I enjoyed spending time together and getting back in the mood to start our artistic sides back up, since we both used to paint some when we had more time on our hands.

Marco de Marco de Marc, yup, I call him that. Or we call him Banshee when he terrorizes the apartment. But usually we just call him Marco, as sweet and cuddly as he is. He wanted to play in the bag, even though we were trying to empty it, so Marco was picked up and seemed quite alright with it.

With our first 5K behind us, we both know that where we are now is good, but not anywhere's close to where we want to be. So we've been kicking back and forth between low carb and eating clean. Both seem to work for a lot of people, but the more and more Jesse and I kicked the idea around and by the time we got to Barnes & Nobles, we had talked about eating Paleo. The idea is scary for what we are giving up, but exciting with the expected results from the thought of getting where we want to be. We both agreed that we can do this together and not let the other off the hook. Our plan is to get where we want to be and either stay with it or stay with it and introduce minor things like lentils back into the equation for Jesse. Since we had dinner arrangements with my parents and already had a crockpot dinner cooked for Monday & Tuesday, we are starting Paleo on Wednesday, no excuses.

This week's menu:

Monday: Crockpot Spaghetti

Tuesday: Leftovers

Wednesday: Buffalo & Chicken Kabobs

Thursday: Bacon Wrapped Filets covered with Bleu Cheese

Friday: TBA

Saturday: TBA