A Fine Hash

Posted by Nate on Jan 19th, 2010 | 1 comment

Breakfast can be one of the most difficult meals to accomplish grain-free. This is primarily due to the central grain component in most morning meals (oatmeal, toast, bagel, etc.) Everyone loves the smell of a sweet cinnamonny breakfast item, as do I. Try this one out. It reminds me of apple pie.
Chicken and Apple Hash
2 lbs. ground chicken or turkey
3-4 chopped apples
2-3 cups acorn or butternut squash cubed and par boiled
2 Tbl. cinammon
1 tsp. allspice
sea salt to taste
2 Tbl. coconut oil
1 Tbl. dried chopped onion
chicken broth
In a deep sauté pan cook chicken until no longer pink. Add chopped apple, onion, and spices. Simmer covered Add chicken broth as needed to prevent from sticking. Once apples are soft add squash and some chicken broth and simmer until all items are soft allowing fluid to cook off. You may mash ingedients or leave it chunky.Top with chopped pecans or other nuts.

Simple Green Curry

Posted by Nate on Jan 16th, 2010 | 4 comments

Coconut is a staple in any paleo diet and nothing goes better with coconut milk than curry. Here is a simple green curry that is fast and convenient.

Simply Green Curry
1 can full-fat coconut milk
5-7 chicken thighs(1 package boneless skinless)
2 zucchini sliced
3 heads baby bok choy leaves
1 small yellow onion sliced
1 tsp. green curry paste
juice of 1 lime
3 cups broccoli heads
butternut squash or sweet potato cubes par-boiled (optional)
chicken broth
Using deep sauté pan add chicken, onion, curry paste, and coconut milk. Covet and simmer until chicken is cooked and easily separated. Add chicken broth as needed to prevent from sticking. Once chicken is done add chopped veggies and lime juice. Steam veggies until broccoli is tender and bright green. You may add cooked squash or sweet potato/ yams is you want more carbs. Top with chopped cilantro.

Kale and Apple Salad

Posted by Nate on Jan 13th, 2010 | 1 comment

Seasonal local and nutritious!

Eating seasonal veggies is a paleo-diet given. Lauren and I get a weekly delivery box from Farm Fresh to You. The home  delivery is full of seasonal local organic produce. The variety that comes in the box is a nice deviation from the typical broccoli and carrot routine that you find in your grocery cart. We had dinosaur kale, leeks, and apples in the box this week. The salad followed.

Dinosaur Kale and Fuji Apple Salad served with Flank Steak in a Warm Leek and Dijon Dressing

2 heads dinosaur kale sliced into 1/2″ strips

chicken broth

Large leek or 2 small sliced into 1/4″rings and washed

1# grilled flank steak with your choice of rubs

1 Fuji apple sliced into 1″ pieces

1/3 c. olive oil

1 tsp. Dijon mustard

1/4 tsp crushed white pepper

3 Tbl. lemon juice

1/3 C. sweet Vermouth

1 tsp. sea salt

2 Tbl. crushed pecans

Start the dressing first. In saucepan add leeks and salt to oil over medium heat. Once leeks soften mix-in mustard, pepper and lemon juice. Add Vermouth to mixture and simmer till creamy and delicious. Set aside dressing. In deepish stock pan use about 3/4c. chicken stock to lightly steam kale. Once kale has yielded a deep green hue remove from stove and rinse in colander under cold running water. Slice flank steak and mix with apples, kale, and dressing in large mixing bowl. Plate salad. Top with crushed pecan pieces. Enjoy.

Now With More Video…

Posted by josh on Jan 3rd, 2010 | 2 comments

Both MMAHITFIT and American River CrossFit got some video upgrades over the weekend. MMAHITFIT just tossed up a windfall of new instructional Brazilian Jiu Jitsu videos courtesy of our resident uber instructor, Chad, with a promise of much more to come. Check them out. ARCFit Cyborg (and super nice guy), Bomba, is featured prominently throughout, making the whole BJJ thing look ridiculously easy.

Also, you can now view the collected works of American River CrossFit anthologized nicely on a single page. No more searching through thousands of posts to find Gina give Sean the beating of his life. Just flip through a few videos and you’re there.

New Year’s Reminders

Posted by Nate on Dec 31st, 2009 | 2 comments

Yesterday Lauren and I embarked on a run. Normally we are not distance runners by any means. Although, we have had our bouts of endurance sports in the past. Lauren and I hadn’t run more that a couple of hundred meters in the last few months. Because we are out of town we figured that we had been shirking the 5ks more than we should so we would do a small run as our WOD. We have both been focusing primarily on strength training and have let our metcon slip a little (or so I thought.) Lauren and I have also been experience some sort of training funk that I can explain as stress, fatigue, seasonal depression, or whatever the f… it is.

We started our run out of her father’s front door. Her father lives in Thousand Oaks, CA which is considerably hillier than Sacramento. The run started with an slow uphill grade that became progressively steeper eventually becoming the highest point in the city, as I would later find out. The first thing that struck me as I plodded up this hill was that I wasn’t stopping. This was not expected because I hadn’t been running. The second thing that struck me is that I couldn’t seem to locate the street that we were suppose to turn on to complete the 3.6 mile loop. Well we crested the hill and I explained to Lauren the path that we were suppose to be running and she rolled her eyes at me and said “that turn is at the bottom of the hill.” We had inadvertently ran the tallest hill around. We had come so far in one direction that we might as well make it a loop.

This loop brought us across hill and dale about 4 miles from dad’s house. Well we started running back uphill along  2 mile stretch of road.  We started talking about the experience amazed that we even had wind to speak. We came up with some obvious revelations that reminded us of why we do CrossFit.

The first realization is that CrossFit works. There is no way in hell that someone other than a Navy SEAL would be able to just tear off on a hilly 8 mile run without having trained for it. Not only were we able to run this far, but we were moving at decent clip. Although CrossFit seems difficult sometimes there is a reason to do it.

Realization number two. CrossFit IS hard. I think we get so used to coming into the box and blowing our WOD that we get used to the exertion. We forget that we are already so much better off than people that our doing something else or nothing at all. We need to keep in mind that this is a serious training modality and that there is a damn good reason for felling beat down if we don’t rest enough.

The third realization comes in the form of general physical preparedness. Yesterday it was a run, but at anytime it could be climbing  wall, lifting a heavy object, or helping someone off the ground. The mixed modality training that we do gives us the ability to function more productively in our everyday lives. At the end of the day, whatever we have been hoping to achieve, this is the long-term benefit from training across broad time and modal domains.

Well the run was done and we are sore for sure. We our happy we went and did the long loop, but we probably wont do it again for quite some time. It gives us a reason to celebrate this New Years Eve and it gives us a handful of resolutions and goals for the New Year. I hope you all enjoy the day and we will see you at the box when we return.