What exactly do you eat?

I think one of the most intimidating things is when I run into people who read this, mainly because the pressure to "be fit" is suddenly 10 fold. Also, I'm still debating which is a more awkward opening statement to me "so how's crossfit going?", which seems harmless but then I have the whole thought of "WHAT CAN'T YOU TELL I LOOK GREAT?" thing running through my head, or "wow how much weight have you lost??" which brings up the "WAS I REALLY THAT FAT BEFORE?". It's really a no win proposition, but I am thankful for each and every one of you that puts up with this thing and hope to make it entertaining (what that means is there is a 100% chance that my blog will turn into some pop culture analysis humor at the topwith a workout sprinkled in at the bottom, I'm sure of it).

Since today was an off day, I've decided I'm going to start the process of answering my favorite question: "umm so what exactly do you eat?"

Tonight I faced my first group situation at a dinner party where I had to make choices that the rest of the group didn't understand. The menu consisted of mainly italian fare, lasagna and make your own pizzas, some stromboli, all of which is strictly off limits while I'm attempting to rid my body of gluten. I got a lot of people asking me how tempted I was to eat the pizza, and I can honestly say I wasn't at all. I didn't believe the books I read and other people I've talked to who assured me the cravings would pass, but I now understand that they absolutely pass. I don't crave bread anymore, the pizza didn't look appetizing at all (though I'm certain it was delicious to other people, thats not a knock on Wes dinner party skills), even though nobody believed me that I wasn't sooooooooo tempted by it. If you really want to tempt me (everyone is now paying attention I'm sure), then you gotta pull out the desserts. If I'm going to cheat, I want to cheat with cheese and or a warm brownie with ice cream (or something of that nature). Thankfully I knew the menu coming in and prepared this dish at home:

Its a dish called Puerto Rican Beef, and the recipe is adapted from everydaypaleo.com (basically I used her exact recipe just left out the olives, but it does allow me to say fancy things like "I adapted this recipe")

First I went to central market and found some grass fed beef. I could go into a huge long rant (some people at dinner heard it, I know, I'm turning into THAT guy) about the advantages of grass fed beef versus grain fed beef, but I'll save that for later. Basically grass fed beef is much healthier for you, also bought some spices (ground cumin and turmeric), bell peppers, onions, and kale. In one pan I sauteed the onions and the peppers until they were deliciously caramelized , while browning the beef in another pan. Once the beef was browned I dumped the onion / pepper mix into the beef pot, added the spices and then added the kale, continuing cooking until the kale leaves were wilted. EverydayPaleo recommends serving with mashed sweet potato, which I declined to make (however sweet potatoes are very good).

This recipe is tasty, and I keeps well in the fridge allowing me to make a whole lot at once, then eat it gradually over the next 3 or 4 meals (making it cost effective at the same time). I'll try to keep an accurate count of the money I spend on food (other than rent, its my highest expense and its not even close) to show how cheap cooking for yourself can be (and it doesn't have to be ramen noodles or pb&j). Also anyone that reads this and is interested in cooking up a storm, I really enjoy cooking and making new recipes so come on over and lets get cookin.