Anyhoo, here are two of the exercise routines that I have done lately. I realise that I’ve come a long way strength wise when I think back to August and how few real push-ups I could do; I tend to set my routine limit at 10 in a row but I would hazard a guess that I can do about 15 in a row now (sure beats the original 5 ). The first routine comes from Peanut Butter Fingers.

Routine 1
50 star jumps (jumping jacks)
20 alternate lunges
10 tuck jumps
20 squats
60 seconds high knees
10 squat jumps
10 burpees
60 side jump lunges (my own variation because I don’t have a skipping rope)
20 seconds mountain climbers (I just did 60)
25 push-ups (I did these from my knees hehe)
60 second plank

I did the second routine 3 times this morning and finished the 3 rounds in about 16 minutes. I was somewhat sluggish when I did it because it’s rather chilly here – the grass was completely frosted bbbrrrrrr.

Routine 2
12 burpees
20 prisoner jump lunges
80 mountain climbers
50 mini squats

I also haven’t been stretching before exercises for the last couple of weeks – I’ve had no ill effects either! Hmmmm… Has anyone else given up stretching before exercising?

I’ve just had a great weekend away with my best friend. I tried to primalise the weekend as much as possible so here go the photos

The first night was a bonfire night. We had a BBQ… I’ve only got a photo of the first plate of food that I ate *sheepish*. A couple more sausages, chicken nibbles, and steak ensued…

After the yummy BBQ dinner everyone headed outside to enjoy two bonfires. I did have some gluten-free toasted marshmallows but I think I’m going to try and recreate some sugar free ones because they weren’t too good on the old system. I had lots of fun creating some primal proses – what a shame the Mark’s Daily Apple competition for Grokposes has been and gone.

‘Twas I in the first photo

The photo that started it all off – friends goofing around gave me the idea

Fun times

I think I managed to make it a fairly primal evening . Has anyone else managed to do this while out having fun? Would love to hear your experiences.

I’m not sure how well pork goes in this dish and perhaps the cut of pork I used wasn’t the best (chicken or fish would be better) but I did quite like it. It was the first time I’d ever had coconut milk! When I decided I wanted to try it (while in Argentina) I could not for the life of me get ahold of it grrrrr . I have some coconut milk left-over so I think coconut pancakes for breakfast and a chicken, chili, lime, and coconut soup is on the cards tomorrow .

I’m afraid I don’t know the exact measurements I used but I would guess
half a cup of coconut milk
2 tsps chili and lime seasoning
teaspoon fish oil
clove of garlic
some diced ginger

I seared the pork pieces in sesame oil first and then simmered it in the above ingredients. I garnished it with diced red peppers (needed some veggies in there ).

I think I would put more seasoning in next time and perhaps more fish sauce. I wasn’t sure how much I’d like it so I went with the less-is-more approach this time round . The sauce left-over at the end would have been great as a soup on its own.

If anyone has any yummy coconut milk recipes they’d like to share then I’m all ears.

I’ve just arrived back from holiday. I plan to make a few posts about different aspects of my holiday around parts of Argentina and I’ll start off with my favourite

Chocolate

I spent some days in Bariloche which is the chocolate capital of Argentina. It’s also other things but we’re sticking with chocolate for now . I would say that every block of the main street has at least 4 chocolate shops so I made it my mission to collect as many samples as I could on the first day. I have since divided them between my partner and I and am trying to eat only two little pieces a day. I can’t not eat them! but I don’t want to leave aside my primal principles hence the daily ration. I also mentioned, of course, that I found some 80% and 90% cacao chocolate but that’ll have to wait a little or I might end up rolling home .

Not too shabby considering you get one piece of chocolate per shop… I kept collecting on the other days I was there of course hehe.

I fell in love with a chocolate shop called Rapa Nui. I found a wee café attached to the outside of the shop itself and it was just amazing. Totally not for the Primal folks though as sugar and grains ran amok but I indulged and took advantage of the 80/20 principle . I paid for it later though d’oh. I ate some fresh raspberries which were dipped in white chocolate and then milk chocolate. You can see from this photo what they were like (heaven)

I also ate some little sweet pastry things with my family. The one I ate (with the 3 little raspberries on top) was kind of like a little french tart.

Here are some more of their displays

Cupcakes!

I’ll see if I can create these cupcakes primal style.

Hope you’re all well! Enjoy the eye candy .

I’ve had a lot of success with regards to talking to my family about eating flour and other high carbs. I hope to be able to help my Mum and Gran more than anything as they both suffer joint pains from being overweight :S.

It’s nearly 5pm on Wednesday afternoon - I’ve just spent the day running around the chocolate shops in Buenos Aires. In addition to buying I’ve been collecting chocolate samples from each and every shop (there are like 4 on each block lol). I just bought myself an 80% and 90% cacao bar which I’m excited to try. I’ll post pictures of all these later when I get back to the city where I’ve been living.

In the meantime, however, you may enjoy this

I made an apple and cinnamon cake for my Gran’s birthday – I get to celebrate her birthday with her about 5 days late but it’s better than nothing.

Apple and Cinnamon Cake

3/4 granny smith apple made into apple puree

1 cup coconut flour

6 tbsp butter

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

15 drops of stevia

2 eggs

1 tbsp lemon juice

I also had a ocuple of tbsps of cream cheese which I threw into the mix

Mix all the wet ingredients except the lemon juice together and then add the dry ingredients to the wet. Add the lemon juice last and combine well. Cook at 350ºF for about 25-30 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Top with apple slice from the remaining 1/4 apple.

It’s a little crumbly but this cake beats the kiwifruit one I created a couple of weeks ago hands down! We enjoyed it the first and second day .

I realise I have been somewhat absent this week with regards to posts and unfortunately more of the same is to come . I am moving home just before the end of this month and, tomorrow, my family are arriving to Argentina and we are going travelling (big yay!) around Buenos Aires and Bariloche (first photo). I have spent this week organising myself for the move home to New Zealand by throwing out junk that I’ve accumlated here and going to the Police Station to get my Criminal Record (or lack thereof) etc. etc.

Seeing as Argentina is not so… I would say Primal friendly but that’s a lie because Asados are the best! Seeing as Argentina is not so gluten-free friendly, I’ve also been organising myself with regards to food/snacks.

Here are the yummy Primal Snacks I’ve got for myself.

Nuts and dried fruits

I have here a dried fruit mix of blueberries and apricots and a nut mix of pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts, cashew nuts, brazil nuts, and almonds.

I also made some sesame seed crackers out of almond meal and coconut flour.

And some primal bars made out of almond and pecan meal and held together with prunes. I also added in some chocolate pieces, blueberries, and apricots.

I’ve just exercised the last 4 days in a row because tomorrow is a travelling day (and hence rest day). I took it somewhat easy today though by doing sprints and then a mixture of mini squats, push ups, and knee lift planks. I also fasted this morning… sort of. I didn’t eat a meal per sé but I spent the morning cooking so crumbs and batter and dried fruit were consumed hehe.

Anyhoo, that about wraps up this post. I have to go and make dinner, take a photo of it, and send it to Mark Sisson at Mark’s Daily Apple. I hope my luck continues!

Today’s the first day of The Primal Blueprint 30-day Challenge which is being run by Mark Sisson of Mark’s Daily Apple.

Over $10,000 of prizes are up for grabs; anything you can imagine relating to the primal lifestyle…  including a cow! I think this is a fantastic idea.

I am a newbie to the Primal way of life so I didn’t participate in the competition run last year but I hope to make up for that this year. Unfortunately it will be a little difficult for me to enter as many competitions as I like as I’m travelling for half of September starting this Friday. Ah wells, I can’t complain because I’m going to be visiting some beautiful places in Argentina – more on that later.

Did anyone participate in this competition last year? Which ones did you enter?

Ok, so one thing that I have missed a lot, since cutting out grains from my diet, is pizza. I have been searching for a pizza crust recipe that doesn’t contain flour for a while now and not had much success.

I tried a coconut crust, once, but it was a disaster. You can’t see from this photo but the base was really soggy and it had to be eaten with a knife and fork. It tasted good but I wanted one that I could hold in my hand.

So I kept searching and came across this recipe for a pie crust from Comfy Belly. I made some substitutions and voilá! Primal Pizza a la Kate was born!!

I made this pizza twice earlier on in the week and once again tonight lol. Here is what I came up with:

Primal Pizza Base
1 cup coconut “flour”
1/2 cup almonds
1/2 cup toasted peanuts (I didn’t have enough almonds so I made the rest of the cup up with peanuts)
1 cup of grated parmesan cheese (I topped the cup up with grated pategras cheese as I didn’t have enough parmesan)
2 eggs
1 tbsp Olive Oil
1/8 each of oregano and basil
pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 350ºF or 160ºC (or thereabouts). Chop the almonds, peanuts, and coconut in the food processor. Add in the oregano, basil, salt and the lightly beaten eggs and olive oil to the dry ingredients and stir to combine. Cook for 15 minutes. Take the pizza out of the oven, add your favourite toppings, and return it to the oven for a further 5 minutes.

It wasn’t a huge pizza base – I could have made it larger by making the base thinner. It was really, really filling though: my partner and I ate half the pizza each but I could have done with eating only 3 pieces (and he could have done with eating 5 lol). I topped the pizza with mozzarella cheese, pategras cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, and a mix of fiambres. Fiambres are a different kinds of meats that Argentineans use for picadas. Picadas are a kind of antipasto platter. So I had bacon, salami, and some other random assortments of pork meat (I’m not sure what their translations are to English). The base was also crunchy which is always a plus.

The peanuts might seem weird in a pizza base but for me (and my partner) it was a huge success. I’m sooooo happy about that because 1) I can now enjoy eating pizzas with my partner (who has a slight penchant for them ) and 2) it was less expensive than buying a pizza. I also left the cup of cheese out the last two times I made the pizza – it was just as yummy. In fact, I didn’t even notice the difference.

Enjoy!

Mmmmm a healthy nutella (hiding under the strawberries) – who would’ve thought it?

I cannot claim fame to this recipe – it comes courtesy of Gillian Fritzsche from last year’s competition at Mark’s Daily Apple.

It didn’t turned out as well for me but that could be because the food processor I have is old and I may have put too much oil in there. It was yummy though and I couldn’t have come up with a more perfect healthy primal nutella myself .

Let me know how yours turns out .

I’ve just found out that an earthquake of 7.2 on the Richter Scaler has hit 30km from the city where my family lives in Christchurch, New Zealand.

I could only get in touch with my Gran, but she tells me that everyone is safe and sound. There is a lot of damage to buildings etc. but so far no deaths have been reported. A few people have broken bones and bruises, another has serious cuts from broken glass, and another was injured by a falling chimney. I’m so thankful nothing worse has happened especially when you think that this earthquake nearly equals the magnitude of the earthquakes in Chile and Haiti. Fun fact – I was woken up by the earthquake in Chile and I live bang smack in the middle of Argentina.

I hope that the news doesn’t change. My thoughts and love are with all New Zealanders right now.