Paleo Aloo Gobi

This is one of those recipes we turn to pretty often because of its simplicity. It is incredibly delicious for how easy it is to make. I'm not much of a believer that a recipe has to be complicated in order to be great, but sometimes I'm still surprised by how easy it can be to make great food. Some of my favourite recipes are actually very basic and this one is no exception.

I took these pictures a long time ago, but we just made this recipe again this week and it reminded me of how great it is. You can find the recipe on Juli's blog, paleomg.

She might just be a genius. I know these photos make it look a bit on the complicated side, but it's really not. It's just some spices, coconut milk, chicken, cauliflower, and sweet potatoes. Simmer and enjoy. Your whole house will smell incredible too! (That is, if you enjoy curry and garlic I guess.)

We're out at the lake this weekend for N's birthday and May long so this is a pretty short post. I took some great pictures for the recipes I made over the weekend so I hope to find the time to share them this week. They were well worth the time spent over the stove.

The only thing missing from this final shot here is the cilantro. I don't know how I dropped the ball on that one, but of course it happened when I decided to pull out my DSLR and actually take photos. How come it always happens that way?

Hope everyone is having a great long weekend! Try this recipe. I swear it's well worth it!

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Greek Style Salad

I literally brushed dust off my laptop when I grabbed it tonight. Lately I've been doing lots of things that don't really involve being on my computer.

Two weeks ago, my CrossFit boxed suddenly closed. I had some free passes I was using so I've spent the last couple weeks trying to decide what to do with myself. I'm seriously addicted to CrossFit. I'm also playing soccer and will be training for a half marathon though so I definitely can't justify the cost of joining a new box on top of both of these commitments. I finally made the decision today to sign up for a weekly outdoor CrossFit class. It's run by CrossFit Calgary and is in the park a few minutes walk from my house. It starts tonight and I'm pretty excited about it.

The weather in Calgary has been fantastic, so I've been spending a lot less time inside on my computer and a lot more enjoying the outdoors. We've been getting back into running more and bought a Frisbee this weekend for sunny days in the park. I even got a mild sunburn on Saturday, which is pretty rare for me!

Work has been busy too. I spent most of last week down at geoConvention talking to clients about our software. It was lots of long days in heels, but I actually really enjoyed it. It's nice to get out and talk to clients, put names to faces, and not be glued to my computer for a few days.

On to the point of this post, I guess! Greek Salad is one of my very favourite salads. Unfortunately, one of the best parts of it is the feta cheese. This month we were making a solid effort to eat Paleo at home so feta was out. I don't even have any in the fridge right now, which is pretty shocking. Olives are the other delicious piece of the puzzle though, if you ask me. I took a really simple idea from Balanced Bites and edited my Greek Salad recipe a bit. I don't even know if this counts as a recipe.

Greek Style Salad

In a large salad bowl. combine cucumber, grape tomatoes, and pitted olives. Season with salt, pepper, and oregano. Drizzle with olive oil. 

Easy, Simple, and Delicious. 

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Weekend Wears

Even though I am more than tall enough and most of my friends are on the shorter side, I love heels. I feel so much more put together when I wear heels so I tend to wear them almost every day at work. So when it comes time to hit the Farmer's Market on the weekend, I'm all about the comfy flats. Moccasins are currently my favourite. Not only are they the comfiest shoes I own, but they are adorable too! Thank you for being so awesome, Minnetonka.

I linked to that website and now I really want another pair of moccasins. Maybe in white for summer?

Life has been busy lately despite our lack of drinking and partying. Our office is undergoing renovations and I'm working on getting new manuals ready for when they are finished. It's going to be a pretty busy couple months. I also have the opportunity to attend more events in my new role. It's exciting to be able to put names to the faces of so many of the clients I'd spoken to on the Help Desk. 

N's mom brought me back this awesome yellow coach purse from the States and I've been wearing it at every chance I get. I just love it. It seems totally perfect for spring and is a nice change from my usual black, brown, or blue.

I'm pretty excited for the coming weekend. Cirque de Soleil's Amaluna is in Calgary right now and N and I are going with my family on Saturday night. I've heard it's incredible! We also plan to grab dinner all together before the show. Everyone knows how much I love going for dinner, so it should be a pretty great weekend!

Hope everyone has a great weekend! Follow @whoalansi

April in Instagram

While other places can bet that spring will actually begin in March, we're not so lucky in Calgary. Spring definitely does not begin until much later for us. Sometimes it doesn't even show up much in April. That was the case this year. We had a few warmer days, but we also had more snowfall than I was anticipating.

I'm hoping for many spring days in May though. I'm more than ready to put my tights and winter coats away until November. (Who am I kidding, it'll snow in October for sure!)

This month was full of cooking, baking, and hanging out at home watching Netflix. We just got Netflix and literally watched Seasons 2-4 of Prison Break in about a week.

Early this month, we decided to go back to strict Paleo and take time off drinking so we were pretty anti-social. We've slipped up a few times though.We're doing it more so for our budget than for health-reasons, so I've definitely had some wine at work events and so has N. We're continuing with this until his birthday on May long and then after that I hope to continue with saving money by not going out for dinners and drinks so often. We're great at packing a lunch every day, but the minute friends suggest beers at the pub down the street we're on it like white on rice.

Alright, enough talk about Paleo and on to this month's Instagram recap.

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1. At the first sign of warmer weather, we hit up Village Ice Cream (before this Paleo month) for a delicious treat. If you've never had Village's Salted Caramel Ice Cream, stop what you're doing and get over there now. I'm serious.
2. We enjoyed a delicious potluck with friends. I love nights like this. Catching up with friends and eating delicious food are two of my favourite pastimes.
3. Flames games with the boy! We were lucky enough to be able to take advantage of my parents tickets a few times this year. Hockey is so great up close!
4. One of our slip ups for a friend's birthday: Centurion and CPU pizza. I felt awesome the next day, but it was a fun night anyway.
5. All dressed up in work colours for an event. I love dresses for work.
6. Fitness Friday is still going strong. I'm so excited about it. A friend of mine from Montreal was even inspired to start it at her office!
7. Another little cheat. Friday night walk to Boogies for milkshakes and hanging out on the ridge in Crescent Heights. This is one of my favourite places in our neighbourhood!
8. We decided to check out Wreck City on the final night. It was a really cool event. We got to hang out in this infinite pot room, crawl through forests, and cross over lava. My inner tomboy was in heaven!
9. Since we haven't been going out much or drinking, I've been baking a ton. This was my second batch of Paleo Banana Bread. It's so easy to make that I'm pretty sure it will become a staple in our house. Not to mention, Banana Bread French Toast is a great weekend brunch. God, I love brunch.

Hope everyone else had a great April! Bring on spring, May! I painted my toes the other day so I'm so ready for sandals and peep toes!

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Spicy Sweet Pasta Sauce

I'm obsessed. Seriously obsessed.

Two words: Yam Pasta. I don't know how I never thought of this before, but ever since discovering this recipe on George's website, it's all I've wanted to make. Thank you, George! You're a genius!

The beginning of a delicious pasta sauce.

The first night we made it, we decided to try it with a tomato sauce. We're both big fans of spicy chorizo so we decided to make a pasta sauce with some chorizo in it. Since it's become a weekly favourite, I thought I'd share it with everyone. It's one of the simplest sauces we make so I'm not even sure it's officially a recipe, but I think it's delicious so give it a try!

Cooking up some delicious chorizo sausage.

Tomato Sauce:

Ingredients

·         1 can of tomato paste

·         Chorizo sausage

·         1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

·         1 tablespoon cinnamon

·         1 tablespoon coconut milk

·         A pinch of nutmeg

·         Salt and Pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Cut chorizo into bite-sized pieces

2. Cook chorizo in skillet

3. Once cooked, add chorizo and other ingredients to a pot

4. Cook on medium heat until warmed

5. Add to sweet potato noodles

Cutting up some chorizo.

We've since made this a couple times. Usually we've done it with Yam Noodles, but the time I managed to remember to take photos, I had it with spaghetti squash. Both are awesome, but I highly recommend the Yam Noodles.

Chorizo and Sauce.

 Enjoy! 

Delicious Paleo Pasta

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Weekend Wears

Last weekend was full of food: farmer's market, baking, cooking, and eating. It snowed on Sunday so we when we weren't wrapped in a blanket, watching Prison Break on Netflix, we were cooking. Well, mostly I was cooking. Our kitchen isn't really made for two.

It was a typical snowy spring day when we took these pictures - the beginning of the weekend snow storm. I bundled up in my favourite boots, a comfy sweater, leggings, and my leather jacket. Uncharacteristically monochromatic of me. 

Our next few weekends will probably look a lot this this: cooking, baking, eating, and hanging out at the Farmer's Market. I'm sure I'll add in some CrossFit, running, and time with family and friends as well. Sometimes it's nice to have a low key weekend. 

I got N a nice new winter jacket for his birthday and it arrived really early. I just couldn't wait to give it to him though so I did last week. I ordered it from Bridge and Burn and it's even more beautiful than I expected it to be. Of course, I had to snap a photo too. 

Doesn't he look nice? Yeah, I thought so too!

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Boston

I've gone back and forth all week about whether I was going to write anything about what happened at the Boston Marathon this week. I'm sure I don't have anything to say that hasn't already been said. I'm also sure that there are plenty of people who will have said it much better, but I decided tonight that I'd thought about it enough to warrant posting something.

This tragedy hit home for me in a few different ways. I know that there are people who experience these types of things every year, every month, maybe even every week. I'm fortunate enough to live in a country where this isn't my reality. For this, I am truly grateful.

Boston is a wonderful city. My roommate and I did a road trip after I graduated from the University of McGill and one of the stops was Boston. I have nothing but fond memories of the city and its people. My thoughts and prayers go out to them, their families, and their friends.

As a runner, I was shaken by the news on Monday. Boston is an iconic event. I have nothing but respect and admiration for those who endeavour to run it. I've qualified for Boston in my dreams although I have no intentions of ever running a Marathon in reality. For me, it's the marathon. The one I'd love to run if I ever managed to qualify for it.

I can only imagine how awful it must have been for those who were there. I've run enough half marathons to know that the last mile is usually the most painful. By that point, I'm just trying to keep moving forward. Imagine getting turned away after having run 41 km of the Boston Marathon - to not officially finish the race. In my mind, those people are all finishers. And the ones who continued on to give blood at a nearby hospital are incredible heroes. I am in awe of their strength.

Even more terrifying is imagining coming down the home stretch as an explosion goes off. Or watching for your husband, wife, father, mother to finish the race and instead finding yourself in the midst of a fatal attack.

I've always associated running with the feeling of freedom. When I abandon it, it's always willing to accept me back. It doesn't judge me. It doesn't cost me anything. It gives me time to unplug. Running gives me so much. And being a runner means being part of a community - a wonderful, welcoming, friendly community.  It's one of the most inclusive clubs I've ever belonged to - it doesn't matter if you're fast or slow, if you run barefoot or with orthotics. All that matters is that you're doing it.

And that might just be the worst part about this tragedy. I don't want tragedy to taint Boston, or even worse, running in general.

Wednesday at lunch, I laced up my shoes and went for a short run by the river. There was nothing spectacular about it aside from the fact that I got out and did it. I hope that others continue to do the same. I love running and I hope to never have someone try to take it away from me. Follow @whoalansi

Meal Prep Monday

I've talked before about how important and helpful I find meal planning and prep. These tools are one of the only reasons I even come close to sticking to both a budget and a lifestyle. N and I have been following the Primal Blueprint since the end of our month of Paleo in December. The Primal Blueprint is very similar to Paleo except more lenient in terms of dairy, rice, wine, and beer.

Veggies for the week

This month we've decided to do 30 days of Paleo while also cutting out drinking. Not only does it save us some money (no cheese, no alcohol!), but I also feel a lot better cutting these things out. What's a month, anyway?

We honestly didn't get off to the best start with this challenge, but we're back on track now. Sometimes I find myself looking at others and thinking they never have setbacks. I know this isn't true though so I don't want to come across as one of those people who never falls short. I do. Frequently. But I try to keep it in perspective. There's no point in dwelling on a few beers or a couple french fries you shouldn't have eaten.

Cutting up colourful peppers for snacks

One of the best ways we've found to be successful in our day to day lives is to prepare snacks in advance. This doesn't always happen Monday, but usually early in the week. (Meal Prep Monday just sounds better than Meal Prep Sunday or Tuesday). I find it easiest to do everything for the week at once, so I'll cook up any bacon we plan to eat for breakfasts, cut up veggies for snacks, make egg bites, or bake muffins. I'm lazy so this works for me.

Breakfast for the week: Bacon Acorn Squash Patties 

It's so easy to get stuck in a rut so I'm more than grateful for websites like Civilized Caveman and PaleOMG and books like Practical Paleo. I would probably end up eating the same thing every week if it weren't for these awesomely talented and creative people!

Bacon Beef Butternut Squash

Yup, we eat a lot of bacon. 

All of these sources have inspired me to be more creative and taught me how delicious life can be, even without my beloved grains. We tried a ridiculously good pasta recipe with George's Sweet Potato Pasta and our own sauce creation. I'll try and get some decent pictures of that one next time since it's one of my new favourites and it's ridiculously simple!

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