What’s For Breakfast? Hot & Cold Salad – Scrambled Eggs

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I don’t know what it is about eggs, but I’ve been on a huge kick with them over the past week or so. Maybe it’s the increased training I’ve been doing in pursuit of my training goals? If so, then it would make sense that my body would be asking for increased protein intake, to help the body repair muscle damage from my training. I’ve been having a great couple of weeks so far, and my training is feeling fantastic!
Maybe it’s a summer thing? I’m not sure… But I’ve been all-over eggs! And recently even that hasn’t been enough. I’ve started to supplement my breakfast eggs with some smoked salmon! I know, I know. I’m going back to the increased training. See, running is no new thing to me, and even speed training shouldn’t increase my body’s protein needs so dramatically. But I’ve been doing more heavy things too; I’ve hit the gym at least once per week, which is a bit more often than I used to do. I’ve also been doing more push ups, sit ups, and pull ups than I used to do – 2-3 times per week now, where once per week was common for me previously. Anyway, my body has been celebrating my protein intake. And I’ve been giving it what it wants!

The Breakfast Hot & Cold Salad; What you’ll need:

  • The Hot:
  • 4 Eggs
  • Ham, chopped
  • Zuccini, chopped
  • Leeks, Sliced
  • Ginger, finely chopped
  • The Cold:
  • Leafy Greens (I used Arugula for this meal, but usually Spring Mix)
  • Cucumber, chopped
  • Sun-Dried Tomato Halves

First, add the chopped zucchini to a pan with some coconut oil and turn the heat on high, while you chop and add the other ingredients. As the pan heats up, and the zucchini, and whatever else you’ve added begins to sizzle, turn the heat down to medium, or about 5 out of 10 while you finish chopping and adding the remainder of the ingredients. I like this a lot with the ham – there’s something delicious about cooked ham in eggs. Perhaps it’s part of why bacon and eggs go so well together? A question for another time, perhaps…

Once the Hot portion is cooking, you can turn your attention to prepping the Cold portion of the salad. We’ve all made a salad before, but I’ve got a few hints and tricks on this one. I really like the extra flavor that a sun-dried tomato adds to a dish. And that flavor is only increased by heating them up a bit. The trick is this: keep the sun-dried tomatoes out of the salad until the end of your prep, so that you can have them closest to the hot portion of your meal. The flavor will be much better as the sun-dried tomato soaks in the heat from the hot portion of the salad!

With the Cold portion done, turn your attention back to the Hot portion. These vegetables (and the ham) should be ready for the eggs after no more than 5 minutes, or so, of cook time. If your prep of the Cold salad took that long or longer, you can stir it, and add the eggs immediately. I’ve mentioned my preference for mixing the eggs in the pan, but that’s just my style. If you prefer to mix the eggs ahead of time, that’s fine too. Mix the eggs in thoroughly, stirring the eggs constantly until they’re fully scrambled.

Serving

As I mentioned above, there is a trick to the order of the salad. Add the greens first, along with the cucumber. If you’re going to add other green ingredients, like avocado or green onions, add these at this point as well. The “Cold” portion of the salad should be well mixed, though you’re leaving out the sun-dried tomatoes for now. Next, add the eggs. Spread them across the top of the salad, like I have in my picture. I find that eating them this way is actually more enjoyable for me than fully mixing them before eating. Last, add the sun-dried tomatoes. These are technically a “Cold” portion of the salad. But as I have mentioned, these are best when they’re heated up slightly, and the best way to do that is by having them right on top of the steaming hot eggs!

Questions:

  • What’s your favorite summer breakfast?
  • Is it a different breakfast than your winter breakfast?
  • Have you noticed any changes in your dietary urges recently? Like me needing more protein?
  • Why do you think your needs are changing? OR, if they’re not, why not?

Workout and Diet

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Day 9 of my 90-day challenge.

Today’s Workout

  • Morning Workout:
  • 1 Mile
  • Evening Workout:
  • None
  • Total Mileage: 1 Miles
  • Weekly Total: 7 Miles

Today’s Diet:

  • Breakfast:
  • Smoked Salmon
  • Scrambled “Salad” Eggs
  • Eggs, Celery, Mushrooms, Carrots, Turmeric, Black Pepper, Cumin
  • Morning Snack:
  • 1 oz 100% Baker’s Chocolate
  • 1 tablespoon Coconut Oil
  • Lunch: Salad
  • Arugula
  • Rosemary ham
  • Avocado
  • Green Onion
  • Olive Oil
  • Afternoon Snack:
  • 1 tablespoon Coconut Oil
  • 1 ounce Bakers Chocolate (pure cocoa)
  • Dinner:
  • Roast ham
  • 2 apple chicken sausages
  • 1 cup olives
  • 1 prune
  • 1 oz chocolate

No workout today – movie night.

What’s For Dinner? Bacon and Scallops

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Bacon Scallops with Avocado

Reminder: I am a published Chef now! Find the e-book, with tons of great recipes from many of the best Paleo chefs out there including me, here.

Walking from the ferry to work this morning, I was the only person I saw wearing a suit, or a tie. I think this is the first morning that I have not noticed a single other person wearing either a suit or tie – typically there are an abundance of both! I’m not sure if this means that summer is officially here? Maybe that’s a good measure, right? At least, as good as any. From now on, I will declare that “Summer has arrived” on the first day that I don’t notice another person wearing a suit or tie.
Or maybe not. I’m going to guess that today was a fluke. There must have been a guy wearing a suit who ducked in to the coffee shop just before I turned the corner. And despite that I didn’t look behind me, the next person, in lock step behind me, was obviously wearing a tie. Or a suit. Or both a suit and a tie! So, if my rule is that Summer starts when I don’t see a suit or tie, then Summer may never start at all… And we can’t have that.

Ok, so that’s not my new rule. But it was bizarre. To be perfectly honest, people wearing a suit, with a tie, like I do are the exception rather than the rule, even on the most crisp of fall days, just before the first snow. But while they’re the minority, it’s a minority by a small margin where I go to work. It’s not uncommon for me to see 40% of the men wearing a suit and tie, and a good 25% of the women wearing a suit (skirt suit or pants-suit). So, back to the food. That was just my little story for the day.

Bacon Scallops; What you’ll need:

  • 1/2 lb Premium Bacon (see my Bacon Project page for more on premium bacon)
  • 1/2 lb Wild Caught Scallops (frozen)
  • 1 large Avocado
  • Fresh ground Black Pepper

Serves: 2
Prep and Cook time: 25 minutes

Put the bacon in a pan on medium-high (5 out of 10) and cover. Cook the bacon for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally and leaving it covered in between. This recipe will work well for either full-length slices, or if you prefer to cut your slices down in size a bit. I like my slices to be half-length; but that’s just a matter of preference. This recipe is a new level of delicious! I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed eating this for dinner, and I will DEFINITELY be making this again, and soon!

After about 5 minutes of cooking, add the scallops to the pan. I’ve mentioned previously that I prefer my seafood frozen. A lot of the higher quality commercial fishing boats these days will freeze their “frozen stock” of fish right there on the boat, which means that the product you have in your freezer may be the freshest fish you can get. In fact, depending on what kinds of fish you’re buying, and where you live, this could be a more fresh than would be available right at the docks where the commercial boats are unloading their catch. So I use a lot of frozen seafood, since, as I said, it’s fresh that way.
If you have access to quality fresh seafood, then you’ll want to modify this recipe for scallops that are not frozen. I design my recipes to include the thawing process; so there’s no need to prep your food by thawing it out. This is generally true for all of my meals, but particularly for my seafood. This also has a lot to do with why I slow-cook a majority of my meals: the thawing process can incorporate a hot marinade that way. It’s delicious!

Since we’re using frozen scallops, the water in the scallops will be released in to the pan. Once you notice the pan filling with the scallop water, uncover the pan and let the water cook off. The flavor is quite nice once it’s had a chance to cook down, especially in the bacon fat. And if you’re using a truly premium bacon, one which would pass the UPC Bacon Project muster, then you have nothing to worry about when it comes to the health aspects of the bacon fat you’re using. In fact, it could be as healthy, if not more healthy than coconut oil. And in this case, it’s definitely more delicious!
Cook the scallops and bacon together, in the same pan, until the scallops are light brown on both sides. You’ll know when to pay more attention to the pan once most of the scallop water has cooked off, and the sound in the pan goes from boiling to sizzling. You’ll want to be flipping the scallops and stirring the bacon regularly at that point, paying close attention to the cooking process. Scallops are delicate, so getting them “just right” requires attention and care. Once you’ve got it, you’ll love it!

Questions:

  • Who has the Fat Burning Chef e-book yet?
  • What is your favorite recipe in the book? And no, you don’t get bonus points for choosing my recipes – only pick your favorites. If that is mine, I’ll be delighted, but be truthful!
  • Which of the chefs in the book were you already familiar with?
  • Which of the new-to-you chefs have you been haunting since discovering them?

BaconScallops

Workout and Diet

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Day 8 of my 90-day challenge.

Today’s Workout

  • Morning Workout:
  • 1 Mile
  • Evening Workout: Sprints
  • 2 miles warm-up
  • 2 miles cool-down
  • 3 800s (2:30 goal pace; +22, +32, +46) It was humid, muggy, and I felt it! This was a slow speed workout…
  • 400 cool-down jogging between each 800; 1200 total
  • 1 set: Push ups, cross-over mountain climbers, outside-arms mountain climbers
  • Total Mileage: 6 Miles
  • Weekly Total: 6 Miles

Today’s Diet:

  • Breakfast:
  • Scrambled “Salad” Eggs
  • Eggs, Celery, Mushrooms
  • Morning Snack:
  • 1 oz 100% Baker’s Chocolate
  • 1 tablespoon Coconut Oil
  • Lunch: Salad
  • Arugula
  • Rosemary ham
  • Zucchini
  • Cucumber
  • Green Onion
  • Carrot
  • Mushroom
  • Afternoon Snack:
  • 1 tablespoon Coconut Oil
  • 1 ounce Bakers Chocolate (pure cocoa)
  • Dinner:
  • Home-made chicken soup
  • Bone-broth
  • Vegetable stock (no grains or beans)
  • Chicken
  • Vegetables (celery, carrot, mushroom, sweet potato)
  • Apple
  • ginger, salt, pepper

I was carrying a little bit of extra weight during the run (yes, that’s a BM, for those of you who are wondering. In addition, it was hot and muggy. Those two things definitely conspired to affect my performance. It’s bad enough running with a BM cramp, and holding it back. I don’t recommend sprinting with that. It’s not fun.

Despite the challenges, I did the workout, and while I’m not excited by my performance, I am not embarrassed either. It turned out to be a great workout, probably because of the challenges I faced!

As you can see, though, I didn’t have the energy left to do any strength. I’ll have to try and make it up today at some point. Also, I likely won’t take both Saturday and Sunday off this week either. So that’s at least 1 more day for some strength training to be fit in.

What’s For Breakfast? Sweet Potato Eggs

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As a quick reminder: I was published last week!!! The recipe book that I was published in is a compilation of many of the best of Paleo’s chef-bloggers, and I am honored to be counted as one of their members! I’ve been through the recipes in the book, and likely will feature some of them here on this blog. As for my recipes in the book, they are some of my finest work, all entirely UPC home creations, and will be the same simple delightful foods that you all have come to expect from me! I highly recommend picking up a copy, as soon as possible, and working your way through this book. As I said above, it is filled, front to back, with some of the best work of the best chef-bloggers the Paleo world has to offer, and it’s just too good a book to miss out on!
Pick up your copy here.

I’ll be running a reminder of the Fat-Burning Chef recipe book all week, and then I’ll move on from it. I cannot recommend it highly enough, but for those of you who already have it, I will continue on with my regularly scheduled program.I was able to run to the ferry again this morning. The summer heat has held off, strangely, in favor of one of the wettest Junes on record, already the 6th wettest in NJ. And it’s the 17th. Is it possible that another rainstorm will push this year over the edge, and close the gap between being 6th and being 1st? Yes it is. Probable, maybe not – there’s a reason the top years have held their spots, though the record is held by 2003 right now, which isn’t that long ago… Perhaps we’ll see a new record this year after all! And if that means I can keep running to the ferry, then I’ll be just fine with that!

Sweet Potato Eggs, What you’ll need:

  • 1 large Sweet Potato, diced (Organic, of course)
  • 1 inch Ginger, diced
  • 3-4 Crimini Mushrooms, diced
  • 3 tablespoons Coconut Oil
  • 4 Eggs
  • Arugula for the salad bedding

Serves: 2
Prep and Cook time: 25 minutes

Add the sweet potato and 1 tablespoon of coconut oil to a pan on high. You’ll want to dice the sweet potato as finely as you can stand before adding it to the pan. The finer you dice it, the better the flavor and texture of the eggs will be. This recipe will work with large chunks of sweet potato, but it will end up eating more like home-fries than an omelet or scrambled eggs. As soon as the pan is sizzling, turn the heat down to medium-low, or about 3 out of 10. We want to cook the potato, but not to burn it.

While the potato is cooking, start dicing the ginger and mushrooms. These can be added to the pan as they’re finished, and in no particular order. As with the mushrooms, get these as small as your patience permits, but there is no need to be concerned with getting them microscopic. Just well diced is going to be fine – smaller pieces are more easily bound by the eggs, so whether you’re making omelets or scrambled, they will taste the best if you manage to get them cut down to fairly well diced pieces.

Add the second tablespoon of coconut oil after the ingredients are all in the pan, and stir the potato regularly, especially as you add the mushroom and ginger to the pan. As the potato starts to show the signs of being cooked, go ahead and add the eggs right on top of the potatoes, ginger, and mushrooms. As I have mentioned plenty of times before, I prefer to crack the eggs directly in to the pan when I’m making scrambled eggs. I’ve never really narrowed down why I like to do it that way, but that’s my preference. What that means is that I often spend the first 30-60 seconds of cooking spicing my eggs with the salt and pepper that I will be adding.

I turn the heat up to high after spicing the eggs, so that the pan is heating up while I’m mixing the eggs and filling together. And the rest is just scrambled eggs. You all know how to do this, right? Not quite… Here’s one final trick that I use when making scrambled eggs. Just as the eggs start to “take their shape,” I add the final tablespoon of coconut oil to the pan. You don’t want to do this too early, or the oil will just be absorbed and used up by the eggs. This is perfect to be done near the end of the cooking process, when the eggs are mostly done, and you’re still waiting for the perfect coloring. I like my eggs well-done, so I like them lightly browned on the outside. And this last little bit of coconut oil is as much for taste and texture as it is for the cooking. It makes the final product delicious!

Questions:

  • Do you prefer your flavored (like those above, with ingredients added) eggs scrambled, or as an omelet? It’s obvious what my answer is… My wife prefers her eggs as an omelet. Oh, and “Frittata” is not an acceptable answer here! That’s a separate dish entirely.
  • Which ingredients are your favorite additives?
  • Do you prefer to cook your eggs in bacon fat, butter, coconut oil, or olive oil? And why?

Workout and Diet

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Days 6&7 of my 90-day challenge.

Saturday:

Today’s Workout

  • Workout:
  • None – Rest days!!
  • I did walk quite a bit, and did some light bicycling on Sunday; but I consider this weekend to have been 2 days off in a row.
  • Total Mileage: 0 Miles
  • Weekly Total: 24.5 Miles

Today’s Diet:

    • Breakfast:
    • Slab Bacon
    • Eggs
    • Morning Snack:
    • Nothing
    • Lunch:
    • Nothing
    • Afternoon Snack:
    • 2 Apricots
    • 4 Prunes
    • Dinner:
    • Seafood mix
    • Guacamole
    • Cucumber chips
    • After Dinner Snack:
    • 1 oz 70% Dark Chocolate

Sunday:

Today’s Workout:

  • Nothing!

Today’s Diet:

  • Breakfast:
  • Sweet Potato Eggs
  • Arugula
  • Morning Snack:
  • Nothing
  • Lunch:
  • Bacon
  • Scallops
  • Avocado
  • Afternoon Snack:
  • 1 Plum
  • 1 Apricot
  • Dinner:
  • 2 medium bowls home-made chicken soup
  • After Dinner:
  • 1 oz 70% Dark Chocolate

I needed a couple of days of recovery. I had a great week last week, but was exhausted by the workouts, and really needed to let my body recover and prepare for next week. I am now ready, energized, and excited for another week of speed training, strength training, and some endurance to round things out! Depending on how I feel this week, I may do a third day of speed training. I expect that I will at the very least increase the speed distance I do, having 2 workouts last week at 1.5 miles in total distance per workout; perhaps this week I’ll get to 2 miles in total distance.

That would be 4 800s, instead of the 3 that I did this week. Or 8 400s, instead of the 6 that I did this week. Also, if I get a third workout in, that would likely be a shorter workout, like a 200s workout; and it would 16 of them to be a 2-mile workout. That will be tough!!

Fat-Burning Chef E-Book

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If you’re wondering if this is a review, don’t worry. It’s definitely not. Why? Because it is completely inappropriate for a contributing author to review their own book. That’s right, I am a contributing author for the new Fat Burning Chef book!! When you check out the Authors section, you’ll find me under Lucas Root, Urban Paleo Chef, with the familiar red-shirt picture which my wife has grown to hate.
What?? You ask. When did this happen? Well, I put up a post about how excited I was that this was happening back in May some time. If you all can remember that far back, though, then you really need a new hobby! And fortunately, I have just the thing: get the Fat Burning Chef E-Book, and cook every single recipe in there!

Purchase Here

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This is an amazing book, which I have had my hands on for just about a week, and I am unbelievably excited about it! There are over 100 different recipes in the book, with a wide range of meals, foods covered, and contributing authors. There are recipes from some of the most famous Paleo authors, as well as some of the newer kids on the scene like me. And every single recipe in there is drool-worthy!

Here are the content sections that you can expect to find in the book:

  • Decadent Desserts
  • Beef Entrees
  • Pork Entrees
  • Poultry Entrees
  • Seafood Entrees
  • Breakfast
  • Sides & Snacks
  • Appetizers
  • Soups
  • and Stocking The Kitchen bonus section!

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And just to give you all a sneak peek at the contributors:

Wait, did I just see my name in that list? Yeah, yeah, you all already know that I’m there… But it’s still great to see it! Trust me, the fun has not worn off for me yet!


And finally: an offer! This week only:

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  • The E-Book is on sale for $27
  • If you make the purchase this week, you could even win an iPad in the Fat Burning Chef giveaway drawing!
Don’t miss out on this great line-up and wonderful resource, BUY FAT-BURNING CHEF today!