Monthly Archives: November 2009

End of weekend eats, baby handstands, and a Monday of lettuce wraps…

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Sunday: Breakfast was leftover steak and eggs.  Lunch was salami, pickles, peppers, leftover sweet potatoes, and homemade coleslaw of shredded green cabbage, chopped apple, sunflower seeds, mayo, lemon juice, and pepper.  We ran errands all afternoon and ended up at La Salsa before hitting Trader Joe’s.  Besides getting crappy food, eating out with Rowan (the 2 year old) is near to impossible.  The picture of Rowan is our future CrossFitter attempting a handstand on the table… I blame John – he is a little Fragoso for sure… I ordered the Fire Roasted bowl with no rice or beans and it was OK.  Had a bunch of veggies but not enough chicken but I survived.  John also got a bowl and the boys had nachos and corn tortilla quesadillas.  Monday: back to eating really well – weekends can be difficult. Coby made us pancetta and eggs.  Lunch was Thai inspired lettuce wraps.  I mixed almond butter with a touch of Tamari (wheat free soy sauce), a bunch of sesame oil, a tiny tiny tiny bit of honey, and a few drops of hot chili oil.  I smeared this mixture onto iceburg lettuce leaves and topped with turkey lunch meat, chopped up leftover grilled bell peppers, broccolli slaw, and slivered almonds.  Super yum.  Dinner was philly no-cheesesteaks.  I threw into a big pot a bunch of grassfed sliced up tri tip, and a bag of frozen bell peppers and onions from TJ’s and added garlic powder, sea salt, pepper, topatillo sauce, and a little chicken stock and later the boys ate the meat wrapped in lettuce.  I also pressure cooked artichokes. 

Finding balance….or not!

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A couple of years ago when I started getting serious about this whole Paleo/CrossFit thing, I remember venting to Robb Wolf and I said to him, “You know Robb, I’m just trying to figure out how to achieve some balance in my life.”  His response was, “No, I don’t know, because I don’t even know what the F*@# balance is!”   This one statement by Robb did more for me then any amount of time I could have spent with a psychologist.  This one statement yanked me out of my own damn head where I was pitifully stuck trying to achieve “balance.”  That very evening, I sat down and thought about what ”balance” really is.  I came to the conclusion that balancing is difficult.  I have never attempted to walk a tightrope but I have spent a fair amount of time on a balance beam (my worst gymnastic skill) and many of you know how much work and practice it takes to hold a handstand.  Being firmly on the ground is much dang easier.  So, with that said, I immediately threw out the idea of achieving balance and instead, took a giant leap off my proverbial tightrope and landed on solid ground.  I was trying so hard to achieve balance because I was afraid that somehow, if I couldn’t do it all, I would be missing out on something great, or really important.  And doing it all meant compromising my health, not just with my food, but with all the other choices that we are constantly faced with.  I was stressing SO much about eating Paleo – stressing to the point that I would MAKE it a point to leave aside one day a week that I wasn’t eating Paleo and I would eat a bunch of crap and feel insanely guilty and disgustingly ill.  I was also doing way too much, and ultimately, trying to find balance was slowly killing me.  Life is too short to live on a tightrope, so I jumped off and instead of achieving balance, I found life.  Fast forward two years later, I eat Paleo, and now and then I’ll eat some nachos.  This is not scheduled.  It just happens now and then, and I know if I eat gluten or too much sugar I will feel awful, and it will likely kill me, so I don’t.  Once I stopped worrying, fretting, and reaching for some sort of balance in this crazy nutso life, it stopped being hard.  I stopped freaking out about losing the rest of the weight, and then I lost the rest of the weight.  I sleep better – maybe not more because if you know the rest of the Fragoso clan, it’s not really possible to get to bed on time, but when I do lay my head on the pillow, my brain shuts off and I really sleep.   I no longer care about balance.  I am who I am, I eat Paleo, I am a CrossFit trainer, and I am PASSOINATE about seeing other folks achieve healthiness, happiness, and finding their way off the damn tightrope.  So, the moral of the story is: know who you are, what you can achieve, set your goals, but don’t make yourself crazy. You CAN CHOOSE to live your life on solid ground.   Life is hard enough as it is, don’t make what’s supposed to make you healthy the hardest part…

Weekend eats…and giant pancakes

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So, on Wednesday, during Rowan’s 2 year check up, I was bragging to Rowan’s pediatrician about how healthy we all have been and have somehow avoided being sick, except for the fact that I was in the midst of fighting a cold, and of course when I picked up Jaden two short days later on Friday, he was feverish and exhausted. So yes, we got sick, BUT – I honestly believe that it could be so much worse. I have heard frightening tales of weeks of the flu and trips to the ER and I think we’ll have this thing licked by tomorrow… I hope…

So food this weekend has been kind of random, until tonight when John cooked us an awesome meal. But yesterday was decent with leftover’s from Thursday night for breakfast, and for lunch I made a salmon salad: diced up leftover salmon patty, mixed with two chopped hard boiled eggs, two dill pickles, mayo, sunflower seeds, red wine vinager, dill, and pepper. By dinner time I had a sick 6 year old, a tired 2 year old, and 14 year old who volunteered to make breakfast for dinner. John was late at the office so Coby whipped up some gluten free pancakes from a mix from TJ’s, added blueberries, and he made his Paul Bunyan style. Not paleo, but it worked and what’s a kids life without pancakes (gluten free of course) every now and then.
John later brought home a turkey breast from Raley’s and a caesar salad which of course we threw out the croutons, as much as I would like to, this girl can’t live on pancakes for dinner, I gotta have my meat!!

Today for breakfast we had carnitas from TJ’s scrambled with eggs and frozen bell peppers and onion mix. We ate a late breakfast so kind of just snacked for lunch on salami and coleslaw. Dinner was awesome. John grilled rib-eye with a spice rub from Raley’s which is pictured. He also grilled bell peppers and I made my favorite sweet potatoes: pressure cook 4-5 peeled sweet potatoes for 14 minutes, melt a stick of organic butter, mix with mashed up potatoes along with a cup of applesauce, a bunch of cinnamon, a few shakes of dried ginger, and a small drizzle of honey. I don’t make these very often or I would live off of them…these are a weekend treat for sure…

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Don’t be afraid – it’s only a fish taco!

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Breakfast today was leftover beef stew from last night, hard-boiled eggs, and avocado.  Lunch was salmon patties from Costco – heat for 3 min on each side in a skillet with olive oil.  I made “fish tacos” out of the patties with romaine lettuce leaves, diced tomatoes, broccoli slaw, a little mayo, and some hot sauce.  Rowan looks scared of the taco, but he chowed them down, despite his initial fears!  : )  For dinner I threw a bag of brussel sprouts in the microwave for 4 minutes, chopped them in quarters, chopped a package of bacon, and sauteed all together with already cooked chicken from TJ’s, vegetable blend, bell peppers and onions, pepper, a little sea salt, and a little chicken broth.

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Our Food 11/04

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Monday morning I made Karina’s sweet potato hash.  I grated two sweet potatoes and cooked with crumbled pork sausage and butter until the sausage was brown and crisp and the potatoes were soft and starting to crisp up.  I seasoned it all with cinnamon and ground ginger.  Lunch that day was quick and easy: sliced ham, cherry tomatoes, artichoke hearts, carrots and celery, and steamed broccoli. Breakfast yesterday and today was the leftover sweet potato hash.  Lunch today was coleslaw: shredded green cabbage, sliced turkey lunch meat, chopped apple, sunflower seeds, lemon juice (fresh squeezed by Rowan), a little mayo, olive oil, and ground black pepper.  We also had hard boiled eggs with tomatoes and avocado.  I made dinner in the Crockpot as usual… I used stew meat, a mix from Trader Joe’s of already chopped turnips, yams, and butternut squash, the chopped up carrot, onion, and celery mix from TJ’s, a can of tomato bisque soup, a little chicken broth, sea salt, pepper, garlic powder, a pinch of cayenne, and basil.  About 10 minutes to prep, cooked all day on low, yummy goodness for dinner

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Paleo Party for 10

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It was a Paleo Party!  On Halloween evening we fed a party of 10 – 6 adults and 4 kids – an amazing paleo feast.  John grilled sirloin and hamburgers seasoned with sea salt, pepper, and a grill seasoning mix from Trader Joe’s (find with the rest of the spices across from the nuts).  He also grilled chicken legs seasoned with a little sea salt, pepper, and fresh lemon juice, as well as bell peppers and eggplant basted with olive oil.  The salad was a lettuce mix from the farmers market, chopped apples, sundried tomatoes, slivered almonds, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and topped with crumbled goat cheese.  I made a butternut squash “mash”.  I pressure cooked the squash for 12 minutes mashed it with organic butter, sea salt, cinnamon, and a pinch of ground ginger.  We also served cold shrimp with lemon and cocktail sauce.  Our not-so-paleo visiting family didn’t even look around for the missing french bread!  Mission accomplished. : )

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