Primal Journal **Greensprout** page 175

**Greensprout** · 01-13-2013, 12:42 PM

Been having a rather productive day in the kitchen, and having fun with it.

Thus far:
a likely failed mayo, I added a touch of coconut oil and threw it in the fridge to see if it thickens up at all
coconut cilantro pesto
guacamole
carrot salsa (from the new sauces cookbook, it's nice, and should go well with the carnitas)
roasted grass fed beef bones, which are now in the slow cooker for my next batch of broth
shredded the pork butt, now sitting in the oven in all it's lovely juices working on crisping up for carnitas
lamb liver is thawing for a pate.

Whew.

Have considered a workout, but may just continue puttering for today. Laundry also on the go. And hubby wants to go to a movie tonight, for Django Unchained. Son #1 saw it last week, says it's in his top 10 list of all movies.

**Greensprout** · 01-14-2013, 07:06 AM

The mayo was a definite fail. Not sure why, it usually turns out so nice. Ah well. The carnitas were really good, and a hit with all my boys. I wouldn't call the pork "amazing", but it was good. Had it in romaine lettuce wraps with guacamole, salsa, and the cilantro pesto, with a side of the carrot salsa/slaw. Plenty left for tonight's dinner as well. Yesterday's eats were pretty random until dinner, a nibble here and there as I was working in the kitchen, plus a big mug of bone broth.

As I was chopping up the slightly frozen lamb liver for pate, I had a weird thought about tossing back a few frozen, raw chunks, haha, but couldn't bring myself to go there. The pate turned out very well, some went into the freezer and the rest will be lunch fare for the week.

I have a ton of stuff to get done today, so better get to work! I've been distracted of late, and need to get focused.

**Siobhan** · 01-14-2013, 06:26 PM

I am impressed that it would even cross your mind to down frozen raw liver chunks! I need to get over my liver aversion. I like it fine in pate, but I never seem to just fry it up, which is stupid of me.

**Greensprout** · 01-14-2013, 07:55 PM

My memories of liver as a child are those of fried shoeleathery stuff that my brother and I liberally slathered in ketchup to hide the taste. Hadn't tried it in years until last summer. I'm not too keen on it, my first attempt at beef liver was edible, but not enjoyable, the lamb is milder. I've fried it up twice, and it was okay. Pate works well. I'm using the recipe from the first PB cookbook. I also tried bacon wrapped chicken livers last year, and they weren't bad. Of course, nobody else in the house is remotely interested, so I'm totally on my own here with baby steps into the odd bits. Granted, I used to always use all the turkey giblets diced and sauteed in my stuffing, when I used to make that, and everyone liked it.

Had some reasonable productivity today. That's the issue with doing a desk job working on projects. Tedious, and easy to ger distracted. We have a push to get a big equipment manual off to the publisher, so time to buckle down.

We also had a "field trip" this afternoon, a visit to the home base of the new helicopter air ambulance service. This type of air ambulance is new to the province, and staffed with critical care nurses and paramedics. Very cool stuff. We may have the opportunity to do some simulation training with them and potentially even some ride alongs. That would be fantastic.

Son #1's buddy tuned 18 today, so when we got home from work, there were 4 boys in my garage smoking a celebratory cigar. Funny.

Eats:
coffee
bone broth
L: lamb pate on celery, dill pickles
D: carnita salad. Just as nice today.
chocolate banana mug cake shared with hubby, topped with a tsp of tart cherry & toasted almond compote. I needed a bit of something more, and this hit the spot for sure. And a glass of wine.

I'm going to Vancouver for a week early next month for trauma training. Looking forward to it, I went to university there, and I miss the west coast very much. Hubby and I are thinking that's where we will move when we're done with the military, as soon as 5 or 6 years from now. Not into the city, but somewhere on the coast. Mountains, ocean, and mild climate. What's not to like? And as I learned when going to school there, you can get used to the rain in the winter, when the alternative could be what we have here, which is long, frigid and snowy.

**Greensprout** · 01-15-2013, 05:31 PM

My pate tasted even better today for some reason. I did add some cream cheese, which is always a great pairing.

A colleague whom I had joked about with about chocolate when I sent her on an overseas mission just before Christmas sent me a lovely bar of German chocolate. It was delivered to me today. 100g bar of German hazelnut milk chocolate. I opened it after lunch to have a nibble, as I was wanting something more to eat. Lo and behold, it seems the entire bar vanished. It was awfully good, regardless. Can I justify that as a carb feeding as it was post workout?

Probably not.

A good lifting session at the gym before lunch. Assisted pullups, bench press (upped weight), squats (upped weight), overhead press, planks, kettlebell deadlifts, pushups. It felt good. I plan to repeat at the end of the week, which will be 3 weeks of 2 LHT sessions, which is on target with my plan.

Haven't been doing as well on the sleep front during the week, has been typically just under 7 hours, some nights a tad less. That's also related to not cutting back on screen time as planned. I'll get there yet.

Eats:
coffee
bone broth, green tea
L: lamb liver pate with cream cheese on celery, dill pickles
German chocolate
D: roasted chicken breast, steamed asparagus with butter, buttered rice.

**Greensprout** · 01-15-2013, 07:35 PM

I had rave reviews from all 3 of my boys on the carnitas. I had a text from son #2 this morning saying "hey, you guys ate all the pork"... he was looking for it for breakfast. I think I'd better buy another pork butt this weekend. The last one was 5 lbs, made for dinner on Sunday, and the last tiny bit was taken by hubby for today's lunch. I had only 2 not large servings myself. Maybe 7 lbs for the next one??

**Greensprout** · 01-16-2013, 08:07 PM

A painful 90 minute teleconference this afternoon. Ugh. Fortunately, it doesn't look like I'll have to participate on that committee in the future, one can only hope. This started over lunch time, as most of the people were in another time zone, so gym had to wait until the end of the day. Did a 2 mile fast treadmill walk. My legs are feeling stiff from yesterday's lifting.

The drive to work today was incredibly icy, the radio was reporting dozens of accidents all over the city. I was quite late getting in. Going home was not much better, passed 2 accidents in the first 5 minutes after leaving the office. We're back into the deep freeze, today had windchills in the mid -30s all day. Nasty.

Eats:
coffee
bone broth
green tea
L: lamb liver pate & cream cheese on celery, dill pickles
8 almonds
D: chicken breast with coconut cilantro pesto, buttered squash, roasted brussel sprouts in bacon fat. I ate a ton of the brussel sprouts, they were just so good. Crispy veggie candy.
a hard cider.

**Siobhan** · 01-16-2013, 08:48 PM

I love brussels sprouts cooked that way. And what I wouldn't give for a hard cider right now...I'm at work. Tomorrow night for sure.

We're having quite a storm. It was forecast to be nothing and it has turned out to be quite a blizzard. My tires are great, however. I'm glad I coughed up the money for them.

**winencandy** · 01-17-2013, 05:28 PM