Paleo Plantain Chips for Your Superbowl Party

Martha Stewart's Plantain Chips

The Superbowl is one of the hardest days of the year to stay 100% paleo.  Superbowl snacks are breaded and fried, cheesy, beany dips and chips and crunchies.  Well, have no fear!  I finally found a chip that would stand up to the crunch and saltiness of real potato chips!!  

I made plantain chips yesterday. I wish I had taken the time to look up how to make them a long time ago, since they ended up being so much easier than I thought they would be.  They also ended up being as crunchy as the ones I buy from the store.  The ones from the store are good in a pinch, I get mine from Whole Foods, but they are fried in canola oil.  I don't have any pictures of the chips I made to show you today, because I ate them as they were coming out of the oven to "test their doneness" and then I promptly ate the rest with regular old salsa because I was so excited about how crunchy and yummy they were.  The recipe I tweaked was Martha Stewart's Baked Plantain Chips.  I don't use vegetable oil anymore, so I substituted olive oil in.  My chips actually came out looking a lot like the picture except for the shape.  Some of mine came out in that nice long cut, but a lot of mine came out in a wonky circle-ish type of shape.  I probably just need more practice with the mandolin.

Ingredients:
2-3 Tbs of Olive Oil or Coconut Oil
2 Green Plantains (one of mine was starting to ripen and it was much harder to slice and took longer to bake)  Apparently you can also use green bananas, but I cannot attest to this.  I have not tried it.
Salt
Optional seasonings- whatever flavors you love on chips.  Some ideas might include garlic powder, onion powder, pepper, cayenne powder.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.  (Optional- preheat to 350 and cook longer, I am going to try that next time)  Use a knife to peel your plantain.  Pour oil and seasonings into a bowl and stir a little.  Use a mandolin or a sharp knife to make very thin slices (the thinnest setting is maybe too thin.  It worked, but burnt around the edges easily.  Maybe go one setting up.)  of your plantain on an angle and toss them into the bowl with the oil.  I used my hands to toss then around and then spread them around on a cookie sheet.  I like to cover my sheet with aluminum foil first, but if you have parchment paper that is probably a healthier option.  They do crisp up and stick slightly to the bottom, so it's nice to be able to pull the sheet off the chip instead of trying to scrape the chip off of the pan.  My chips were very thin and only took 8 minutes to be crispy.  Some of the thicker ones and the ones in the very middle had to go back in for about 3 minutes.  At 400 degrees you need to keep checking on them, because you want to catch them when they are brown on the edges, but not turning black yet.  At 350 Martha says to cook them for 30-35 minutes, but I would check on your first batch often to see what the timing in your oven would be.  In my oven, at 350 my chips would be burnt at 30 minutes.  

And voila!  You now have an crunchy vehicle for your favorite Superbowl paleo dips, like this Mango Salsa, this Ranch Dressing or this Tuna Dip.  Enjoy the game!!

Paleo Coconut Milk, Chia Seed, and Fruit "Pudding"

For the new year a few of my friends and family and I are focusing on nutrition.  I am doing a paleo challenge through my Crossfit box.  The general guidelines for me, at level 8 (in this challenge there are 10 levels- check out the crossfit page or contact them for more info) include eliminating all refined and added sugar , eliminating grains/gluten and soy, legumes, beans and lentils, dairy, rice, alcohol, starchy vegetables and vegetable oils.  I've done this before, so it's not too hard anymore.  I haven't quite gotten to the point where I don't, at times, get an urge for something sweet.  So this is my recipe taken from many different recipes I found online.  It is not totally original, it is just the simplest form of the recipe.  No honey, no agave, no maple syrup or stevia.

Ingredients:

3-5 frozen (or fresh) strawberries (or any other fruit of choice, pineapple was also yummy)

1 can of full fat coconut milk.  Look for a can with no more than coconut milk and maybe guar gum.  If you can find with nothing but coconut milk, that is best.

1.5 tbs of chia seeds.  I found these at the bulk bin at Whole Foods out here.  They also have them at Down to Earth here in Kailua.

A jar with a lid (or tupperware or something you can shake)

My ingredients

Pour the coconut milk into the jar.  You might have some left over, you do not want to fill the jar all the way up to the top.  Leave some room for the fruit and chia seeds.

Take about 1-1.5 tbs of chia seeds and grind them up. I used my coffee grinder and it worked great. You can put them in whole, it also works, but it doesn't get as pudding-y as I like. I forgot to take a picture of this. 

Cut up strawberries or whatever fruit you're using into small pieces. I left mine kind of big, because I like to have a full fruit bite, but you might decide to make them smaller.

  Then add the fruit and chia seeds to the coconut milk.

Close the lid and shake it up!  Of course, you could also add chia seeds, fruit, and coconut milk to a blender and have a smoothie, but I like it chunky.  Leave it to sit for 2 hours, either on the counter or in the fridge.  If you put it in the fridge, it's best to let it warm up a bit before eating.  This is a very pared down, very basic version of this recipe, some people choose to add other ingredients.  You could add honey or stevia, you could add chocolate chips or other fruit.  It is a really great base for lots of things.  But if you love it like this, as I do, let it sit, warm up for a few and eat with spoon!

Have you made this before?  Do you have some good recipe ideas?  Other possible additions to this that you would recommend (or not)?  Comment below!

Why Knee Pain was Such a Blessing

Knee Brace like mine

I am a self-help book, life coach fanatic.  I listen to and read Martha Beck, Tony Robbins, Deepak Chopra, Iyanla Vanzant, and Mark Sisson (although he wouldn't call himself a life coach) to name just a few.  I've come to learn a very important lesson.  Listen to your body.  Today I was listening to Martha Beck's Follow Your North Star, and a lesson that jumped out at me (among many others) was that your body is the best tool you have to tell you whether or not you're on the right track.  You always have it with you and it gives you such detailed information if you listen to it.  And although feeling ill or in pain might not feel like a blessing, your body is trying to tell you something.  And if you listen, your life might change for the better.  I had an "Ah ha" moment when she discussing this.  For some reason recently my knee has been giving me slight twinges of pain.  It's okay because I know that my poor choices in diet, although they are getting better are bringing on some old pain from an injury a few years ago.  So when I was listening to the audio book, the knee twinge was happening and it brought me back to when I hurt it.  I ran two half-marathons in my life.  The first was with Myia, and since paddling was getting super competitive we decided to make running our major choice of exercise.  We did a great job of slowly building up to higher mileage and I think 10 miles was my longest before the half-marathon.  Those runs felt amazing, I always felt super energized afterwards and my body felt great.  I was also skinny and not having any knee pain at that point in my life.  My plantar fasciitis was also in remission at this point.  I ran the half-marathon, but I think I started off too fast, probably it was the excitement of the crowd of people and it being a race.  So I think I ran the first half and started to walk and then did a walk/jog to the end.  Not too bad.
The next year (or the year after?) Ananda and I did the half-marathon, same course in Kailua.  This time I had run a few times, but definitely didn't train like I had for the first one.  I hadn't felt like it.  I was still paddling, so I was exercising, getting in good cardio, just not running.  That year the half-marathon felt great! I obviously didn't win it or come anywhere near the top 25% of runners, but I ran the whole thing at a reasonable pace.  Of course at about mile 10 my knee started to hurt and I "ran through it" like us athletes are wont to do.  Needless to say, my knee never fully recovered.  A combination of not running enough and not stretching enough (try ever) really put stress on my knee.  I would start running again to get back into shape then every time my knee would hurt I would stop again.  I started to regain weight.  I went to a podiatrist who had no concept of sports injuries and told me I would never run again.  So I didn't for a good 6 months.  I rested, I swam and hiked some, I wore a knee brace and I searched the internet.  I finally figured out that I had a common injury among runners that we get when we overtrain with running.  Our muscles in the legs get super tight and if we don't stretch them out enough (or at all) it ultimately pulls at the tendon's hold on our knee.  Now I know about it, but it never totally goes away.
So why is this a blessing?  I would have told you to shut the hell up if you had told me it was a blessing in disguise or some such nonsense at the time.  I might have used some expletives and most likely would have flipped you the bird.  Today though I realized that it ultimately has changed how I exercise.  And how EFFICIENT at exercising I have become.  The first exercise I got into that didn't hurt my knee was kickboxing with Master Smith at Smith Taekwondo in Kaneohe.  That was freaking awesome!  Those workouts were some of the best in my life!  I tried to get all of my friends and my mom to try it out.  I was in super good shape, muscular but not bulky and so strong!  And I only went twice a week.  2 hours a week and I was super fit!  The only problem and ultimately why I changed sports is that I didn't actually want to get in the ring with people and fight.  I had absolutely no desire for it, I only wanted to workout for fun, but I felt like I was being steered in that direction.  Next I tried Taekwondo at the YMCA.  That was super fun, but it wasn't competitive enough.  I started to not look forward to going to the workouts and started to gain weight.  It wasn't as efficient.  I went to two 2 hour classes, but I didn't get as much out of it.  I got my orange belt and quit.  But I was on the right track.  Right now I'm doing Crossfit.  I'm not married to it, but it's hitting me on all levels of motivation, efficiency and fun!
If I hadn't hurt my knee I would have continued to depend on running as my main source of exercise.  It kept me skinny basically and gave me enough of a cardio workout, but it took so much time!  I felt like I had to run all the time to stay in shape.  And my knee wouldn't allow me to do that anymore.  My knee being hurt led me to figure out how to gain the most benefits from exercise without working out forever.  It also led me to Mark Sisson's Primal Blueprint and his theories on how much you need to exercise.  I don't follow anyone on faith alone, I have experimented and have found that it's true.  Lift Heavy Things twice a week, Sprint once a week and as much as possible throughout the week, Move Slowly.  Also throw in Play whenever possible.  So much more fun and I spend way less time "working out" then I ever did.  I feel like I'm having a good time.  Even if I'm not looking forward to Crossfit cause I'm tired or cranky or it's early in the morning it's such a short workout that I can just tell myself to get it over with.  (Afterwords I'm always in a good mood and energetic, but it gets me going to look at how short the workout is.)
Conclusion:  My knee told me I was doing the wrong thing for my body.  I was overusing one form of movement.  I needed to find more efficient exercises.  It led me to less time working out and more time having fun.  (It now also tells me "no seriously, cut the grains out of your diet")

What is your body telling you?  Will you listen with patience and love instead of judgment?  Could be the best thing you ever do for yourself.