Tea-Berry Paleo Popsicles

Can a person get too old to want a popsicle on a July afternoon?

I surely hope not.

Here's a lightening-fast recipe (loosely based on the Eades' Paleolithic Punch from Protein Power LifePlan) that I whipped up over the weekend and have been enjoying ever since. Using herbal tea in place of water adds depth of flavor; adding half-cup of coconut milk to the blend makes for a creamy option.

Feel free to use whatever berries you like. I like tartness in food as much as in personalities, so I used a fair number of cranberries and raspberries along with the blueberries. A cherry-strawberry-blueberry blend would be much sweeter.

Tea-Berry Paleo Popsicles

1/2 cup frozen raspberries
1/2 cup frozen cranberries
1 cup frozen blueberries
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups iced herbal tea (I used Lemon Zinger)

Blend all ingredients together, using as much tea as necessary to make a thick, icy concoction. Pour into popsicle molds and freeze at least 6 hours. Makes 8 popsicles (using standard 1/2-cup molds).

Savory Egg Muffins

Egg muffins: The ultimate in primal breakfast to go! I found this version particularly tasty, but feel free to substitute any variety of meats, vegetables, and seasonings. Leave out the cheese if you prefer; replace it with a couple tablespoons of coconut milk or cream.

If you like them cold, great. Prefer hot? 1 minute in the microwave is perfect for 2 muffins. Serve alone or with a side of fresh berries, greens, or sliced tomato and avocado.

Tip from a friend: Baking these in silicone baking cups (like cupcake papers, only reusable) virtually eliminates clean-up. The silicone cups make the muffins a little smaller, obviously, because they take up room in the muffin tin, but they stick to nothing and make the muffins even easier to eat on the fly.

Savory Egg Muffins

1/3 lb hot Italian sausage
1/2 cup diced yellow onion
1/2 cup diced red bell pepper
2 Tbs minced jalipeno, with seeds
9 eggs (more or less, depending on size)
1 cup pepper jack cheese, shredded
1 1/2 tsp oregano, dried (or 3 Tbs fresh)

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Cook Italian sausage, onion, bell pepper, and jalipeno in a skillet over medium heat until sausage is done and vegetables are al dente. Meanwhile, scramble eggs in a bowl and whisk in the cheese and oregano. Divide sausage mixture among 12 muffin cups, either greased or lined with silicone baking cups. Pour egg and cheese mixture over sausage mixture, filling muffin cups to just over 3/4 capacity. Bake 25 minutes or until muffins are lightly browned and centers are set. Enjoy hot and refrigerate extras, covered, for up to a week. Makes 1 dozen muffins.

Tuesday Tallies: Primal Menus and Movement

Once again, here's my infrequent answer to the frequently asked questions, "What do you eat?" and "How do you work out?" (Click here to view more Tuesday Tallies.)

Monday's Food as Fuel

Breakfast -- Omelet with onion, cheddar, and spinach. Sliced tomato and avocado. Coffee.

Lunch -- Lamb burger (with *gasp* bun, at a restaurant), Asian slaw, and beer.

Dinner -- Cold chicken thigh. Roasted zucchini. Blueberries with coconut cream.

Monday's Workout

One hell of a climb straight up the ski slopes at Baldy, for lunch at the restaurant at the top. (By the way, this counts among my best dates ever.)


Wednesday's Food as Fuel

Breakfast -- Two egg and sausage muffins (mini-frittatas baked in muffin cups, not Egg McMuffins!), sliced tomato and avocado, cilantro garnish. Coffee.

Lunch -- Big ass salad with organic greens from my garden, tuna, green onion, olive oil and lemon juice. Spearmint iced tea.

Dinner -- Bunless burger with spicy mustard. Zucchini and carrots sauteed with garlic and butter.

Wednesday's Workout

4x rotation of backsquats, pullups, weighted HLRs, and bench presses.

Friday's Food as Fuel

Breakfast: Big ass salad with the last of my garden greens, roasted red pepper, green olives, garden peas, tuna, fresh basil, olive oil and lemon juice.

Lunch: 2 savory egg muffins and half a cup of blueberries.

Dinner: Cold chicken thigh. Beet greens, carrot, and garlic sauteed in bacon grease. Small sweet potato. Red wine and 99% chocolate.

Friday's Workout

Had planned for bodyweight/gymnastics, but decided to skip it after a stressful week.

Saturday's Food as Fuel

Breakfast: 2 scrambled eggs with fresh herbs, onion, and peppers. Bacon. Sliced tomato and avocado.

Lunch: Spinach salad with chicken (dark meat), green onion, boiled beetroot, oil and vinegar. Handful of cherries. Iced herbal tea.

Dinner: Chile verde with sour cream and cilantro. Blueberries with coconut milk. 99% chocolate.

Saturday's Workout

Long day of farm work (horse training, miscellaneous repairs, chores, and duck wrangling). 4x rotation of heavy lunges, weighted situps, deadlifts, and military presses.

Sunday's Food as Fuel

Breakfast: 2 savory egg muffins. Baked apple with warm spices and coconut milk. Coffee.

Lunch: Spinach salad with chicken, boiled beets and carrots, tomato, garden peas, avocado, olive oil and vinegar. Iced herbal tea.

Dinner: Chile verde with sour cream. Berry-tea paleo popsicle.

Sunday's Workout

Another long farm day. Even longer, actually. Long enough that a formal workout was rendered quite unnecessary.

Notes:

Although I normally include 4 or more 16-hour IFs in my weekly routine, I've temporally laid off them out of respect for my current stress levels. As Robb Wolf says, IFing is for people who have everything else dialed in -- not people who are dealing with too much stress, lack of sleep, high training levels, injury, etc. I'll go back to it when work settles down a bit.

The highly observant among you may have noticed that I've cut back on my nut consumption. I don't have any known issues with nuts, but my new Carlson's fish oil adds about 400 calories to my daily intake. So, I can clearly afford to nix my usual 1/4 cup of nuts from my salads. Extra O-3's instead of extra O-6's? Yes, please.

Also, I'm making a concerted effort (again) to bump up my carb intake for extra energy. Summer days on the farm are very long and active, especially when combined with the mental/emotional stress of my job, plus formal workouts, and I find that I run better when I take in at least 85g/carbs daily. Up to 125 (!!!) seems to work well.

I've become so accustomed to keeping carbs low that I have to actually pay attention to eating extra (by trading them in for a bit of protein and fat; note my moderately reduced meat intake). I have to remember that anything under 150g or so is still waaaaaay less than the damaging quantity of carbohydrate consumed by most westerners. Also, I'm choosing high-quality, paleo carbohydrates rather than harmful ones like grains and legumes. Carbs are not evil! They have their place; I need to give it to them.

Grokking on...

Project Pooless: Week One

There are two basic methods of shifting to a shampoo-free lifestyle:

1. Cold turkey, or
2. Baby steps.

Normally, I'm the cold turkey type. I like to do my homework, make a decision, then act without further hesitation. This time, however, the need to look decent at the office requires me to take the baby steps route.

So, here's how Week One looked:

Saturday -- No poo. Just a good, hot-water rinse after a day of sweat and dust among the horses. Next morning, my hair was reasonably manageable, if a little greasier than usual.

Sunday -- Poo. Hey, I was off to see Ironman and didn't want to subject him to the slimier side of my experiment. Yet.

Monday -- Poo. Date day. See above.

Tuesday -- Poo again. I didn't want to, but wasn't willing to risk an experiment just before heading to the office.

Wednesday -- No poo! I telecommuted and was therefore free to test what I've come to call the Salad Treatment. I "washed" my hair with baking soda and "conditioned" it with apple cider vinegar.

Details:

I scrubbed about 2 Tbs of dry baking soda into my hair, focusing on roots rather than ends, and rinsed it out. This is not supposed to remove grease, but simply neutralize any odors. (I later learned that most people make a paste by mixing the soda with water, or else dissolve it in up to a cup of water, either of which is probably easier than trying to work dry soda down to your scalp!)

To condition, I diluted about 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar with 3/4 cup of water in a large, plastic cup. Into this I dipped the ends of my long hair, then tilted my head to allow the vinegar concoction to run through the rest of my hair while taking care not to get it in my eyes. I left the vinegar in my hair for several minutes while shaving, then rinsed thoroughly.

I was pleasantly surprised by the clean look and smooth, slightly heavier-but-fuller-than-usual texture of my hair post Salad Treatment. The only downside was a faint vinegar odor that lingered even after drying (everyone says the smell goes away with the moisture, but that didn't work for me!) Furthermore, when my hair was re-wetted with sweat later in the day, the vinegar smell increased. It wasn't overwhelming, but I'll be interested to see what Ironman thinks!

Thursday -- Poo. Office again.

Friday -- Salad Treatment. AND office. Encouraged by Wednesday's success, I once again applied baking soda and vinegar (not at the same time!) with very satisfactory results.

Saturday -- Egg wash.

Details: Egg, unlike the Salad Treatment, is supposed to remove some oil from the hair without being as harsh as shampoo. I tried it after another dusty, sweaty day in the round corral. While I wasn't in love with the eggy smell, I found the farm-fresh white and yolk easy to work through my hair. I let it sit a minute, then rinsed very thoroughly with COOL water (no need to poach a snack while showering). I followed up with vinegar for conditioning, then braided my wet hair instead of blow-drying. Interestingly, it was the eggy smell that followed me this time, more than the vinegar. Maybe it was mental. Either way, it was subtle. Next time, I might try adding a few drops of lavender extract to the egg.

Sunday -- No poo. Hot water only. Next morning, my hair was a bit greasier than normal (too greasy for me to trust to a Salad Treatment before going to work.) But, it was not nearly as oily as I'd have predicted.

Monday -- Poo. I tried following the wash with a vinegar conditioning treatment, but that was insufficient and I ended up applying a bit of leave-in conditioner before blow-drying.

All things considered, this is going better than I expected! Stay tuned...

Duck Hunt! (Hoo boy, do we know how to have fun!)

Remember when Duck Hunt was just an Nintendo game? It's your lucky day! Duck Hunt is now available in real life, right here at In the Night Farm.

[No animals were harmed in the making of this game.]

You see, when Ironman and I brought home our box of fuzzy ducklings, there were a couple things we didn't know. First, ducklings eat three times their own weight every 24 hours (or at least they seem to, judging by the feed bill). Second, Khaki Campbells and Rouens are not flightless. The breeder pamphlets say they are, but I assure you, it's a lie.

Just ask me how I know.

What's that?

Okay, I'll tell you: Because I've seen them do it!

A couple weeks ago, when I went to Chicago and left Ironman in charge of the farm, he came around the corner to the fenced (but not roofed) duck yard and startled up a couple of Rouens. One lingered nearby and he nabbed it, but the other was last seen on a wobbly flightpath into an oncoming thunderstorm.

Tonight, I did the same thing. Came around the corner, and up went a Khaki Campbell. She flew northward over the horse paddocks and disappeared. Well crap, I thought. Those buggers are worth their weight in gold, after all they've eaten! Better keep them locked in their indoor pen until we can get a roof on the yard.

I resigned myself to the loss of yet another member of the poultry brigade (it's been a rough year for chickens, too), collected the eggs and mail, paused to inspect the garden, and climbed wearily up the to the main level of my farmhouse.

...and I heard a duck. Quacking. From beyond the horse pens.

Well, what did I have to lose? I trotted back down the stairs and through the pasture, circling around behind a patch of weeds at which all the horses were staring curiously. Sure enough, there was little Khaki, a female, panting and obviously distressed by the unintended separation from her flock.

I approached slowly, sure my chances of catching her were close to nil, and was surprised to get within 6 feet before she panicked. She blundered against a nearby fence, flapping and squawking, the managed to slip through.

Dang it! I hurried around to the sheep pens, where there's a spot of fence strong enough to climb over without tearing down the wire or getting zapped with electricity, and caught up with Khaki near the stallion paddocks. She didn't seem to want to fly, but watched me warily, waddling away and occasionally skimming along with her wings outstretched and flapping if I got too close.

Right then. Nice and easy does the trick. Feeling like a large and unwieldy sheepdog, I herded her carefully up the path toward the gate, wondering what on earth I'd do if I managed to get her through. The fences seemed to guide her, but a long stretch of open land lies between the paddocks and the poultry housing.

As it turned out, that was one bridge I didn't need to cross. Khaki waddled right past the gate and into the round corral I use for training horses. I managed to direct her to the uphill side, where the panels are set into the hill and the earth shored back with planks to make a solid wall about as high as Khaki's upraised head.

Still unwilling -- or too unfit? -- to do so, Khaki scrambled back and forth as I weaved to stay ahead of her, repeatedly blocking her path as though she were a fractious filly. In the back of my mind, I couldn't help wondering how hard the neighbors were laughing.

Slowly, slowly I crept nearer. Near enough to...

GRAB!

Missed. Blast! Khaki slipped through my hands and scuttled away -- but blessedly, she didn't fly.

On my second try, I got her. Pinned her wings right to her sides and gathered her against my chest, where she rested without a struggle, peering up at me with a shiny, button eye. She sleeps safely now amid her flock.

Maybe I should add duck wrangling to my resume. I think I will. Who wants to work for an employer without a sense of humor?

Besides, cool I am not, but if you're in the market for a renaissance woman, I've gotcha covered.

The Organic Pocketbook: A Struggle Survived

You've heard of debtors prison. Even if it still exists somewhere in the world, I will never go there. I was reared to be responsible with money. Very, very responsible. If a fool and his money are soon parted, count me among the wisest folk you'll ever meet. For me, a major spending spree runs about $150.00 and involves durable goods. I'm positively allergic to debt.

My dad once told me that money is choices. For me, like many women, it is also security. In my case, this means not only my own security, but also that of the 40 of so critters that depend on me for everything from fencing to feed.

I'm telling you this so you can understand what it cost me to go grocery shopping today. Normally one of my favorite activities, today's shopping trip made my stomach literally ache with indecision.

There sat organic avocados, $1.89 apiece. Beside them, conventional for $.78. Organic tomatoes, $1.99/lb. Conventional, as low as $.89. Cherries, $1.99 for a pound of organic, or the same price for two pounds of conventional. Baby spinach, $4.99 or $3.50? Zucchini, $1.29 or less than a dollar?

But I said I would do it, and if there's one thing I hate more than irresponsibility with money, it's irresponsibility with words. Integrity is doing what you said you would, even when no one is watching. Even when it hurts.

And so, despite sufficient stress that I'm considering downing an extra teaspoon of fish oil before bed, I checked out of the store with $23.86 worth of produce. Even though my garden is currently languishing between early crops (greens, peas, rhubarb) and later ones (tomatoes, squash, peppers, beans), that should last me a week.

So, let's multiply that up to about $100 per month for produce. Huh. Not so bad, actually. My former food budget was $200 per month. (Yes, it's possible. I live alone and cook virtually all my meals.) $100 for produce is steeper than my comfort zone -- I need to spare funds for meat and a few extras, like coconut milk and nuts! -- but it's not outside the realm of reality.

Because I'm not really that crazy about money. My bedroom walls, alas, are not stuffed full of hoarded cash. I'm quite content to spend money on priorities: my horses, my farm, adventure, knowledge, and certain people.

Including myself, I suppose. My health. My choice not to slowly poison my cells with daily doses of pesticides and genetically modified mystery plants.

If money is choices, there aren't many more secure than that.
____________________________________

Hungry for more? You might also like A Tale of Oregon Elk: On Food and Gratitude.

All In: Taking Primal to the Next Level

About this time last year, I was beginning to accept that grains and legumes should not be counted among healthful foods. I'd added fish to my flegan diet in order to support an intense workout schedule. And I read a lot.

By August, I understood. Primal/paleo made sense, I'd applied it, and it was working. I'd long since nixed alcohol except for the occasional social event, I hadn't consumed an appreciable quantity of processed food for years, and refined sugars rarely passed my lips. To those auspicious beginnings, I added grain- and legume-free eating, shifted up to 70% of my daily caloric intake to healthful fats, and increased my focus on getting adequate sunlight and sleep.

I've since added in some judiciously researched supplements (magnesium, CoQ10, alpha-lipoic acid, Vitamins E and C, and fish oil). I've become more strategic in balancing my formal workouts with the rigors of summertime on the farm, and 14-16 hour intermittent fasts are a near-daily habit.

So, I'm ten months in and pretty well on track. Right? Well, that depends who you ask. Sure, I eat and exercise more effectively than the vast majority of westerners (and I have the lipid profile to prove it), but there's no denying that more that can be done.

So, for at least a month, here's what I'm going to try:

1. Going Grassfed. The only excuse not to is money. Maybe it's a good excuse, and maybe not. I'm determined to find out.

2. Going Organic. See above. Hopefully, I can apply sufficient savvy to make this affordable.

3. Going with Better Fish Oil. Enough with the Costco capsules. My bottles of lemon-flavored Carlson's just arrived from the Vitamin Shoppe, and they aren't half bad. Four teaspoons a day surely beats 20 gelcaps. (Yes, 20. See Robb Wolf's fish oil calculator for details.)

4. Going Pooless. This is a scary one. I have both a professional job and long, somewhat fine hair that's subjected to plenty of sweat and dirt -- facts that seem incompatible with shampoo-free living. But, I hear it can be done, and my early experiments have been (mostly) positive. Stay tuned.

5. Going Shoeless. Well, sort of. The much-lauded Vibram Five Fingers aren't an option for me, thanks to my severe bunions. So, I'm in the market for a pair or two of soft-soled moccasins. I doubt I'll be wearing them with business suits or among the horses, but for indoor wear and dog walking, they'll be a big step closer to barefoot.

So. Some little things, some big things. Some things that will certainly be sustainable, some that might not. All I can do is try it and find out.

Anyone care to join me?