Wednesday, February 10, 2010

rice-less adobo

A few weeks ago I had this mad craving for chicken adobo, so I made some. I did a slight variation of my dad's recipe by adding some coconut milk for thickness and sweetness. Coconut milk also helps to mellow out the obscene amounts of vinegar and soy sauce. (Note: I cut the soy sauce slightly to honor the parameters of paleo/primal.) In college, I discovered the wonder of coconut milk in adobo when I was trying to salvage an overcooked (a.k.a. burnt) batch of pork adobo. It was the greatest discovery I had ever made!

Thing is, adobo MUST be eaten with rice because it mellows out the flavors. Since I was in challenge mode, I needed to find an alternative. At the MDA seminar in December, I met a nutritionist who told me that when finding alternatives to heavy carbs, you have to understand that alternatives are not replacements. There's no sense in trying to trick yourself that fake noodles are going to be like the real thing because they simply aren't. This was my mentality when finding a rice alternative for the adobo. Instead of rice, I ate the adobo with sunchokes and roasted carrots.

The final verdict? Well, carrots and sunchokes are definitely not rice. But it does lighten the the feel of adobo while adding new flavor dimensions to it. Yes, I'd definitely have adobo this way again:)

Today's Small Victories
1) I've been swamped lately. Keeping up with cooking has been challenging, but I've been managing. Taco filling made with grass fed ground beef sure does go a long way!

2) Though breakfast has been challenging, I'm holding on with smoothies. Not the best, but it's something.

Warm-up
Three rounds of:
Row 250 meters
10 OH squats with dowel
10 push-ups

Stretching, prep for WOD

CrossFit One World WOD: Freddy's Revenge
Complete 5 rounds for time of 5 shoulder to overhead in any manner (83#)/10 burpees.

Joanne's Final Time - 10:22

Notes (to myself) about this workout: I don't get to take Cheryl's classes much. Tonight she filled in for Eric. I LOVE her classes because her warm-ups are comprehensive. I liked tonight's WOD. It was challenging, but also gave me the chance to really work on a heavy push press. I lifted 83#, but Cheryl said that the next time I do this, I need to bump up to at least 95#. This is what I like about training with both Cheryl and Eric. They're both weightlifting pros and can gage what your max is. Usually, I underestimate what I can lift. These two are really helpful at gaging what my limits are - even when I'm in complete disbelief!

As for burpees... they still suck!

2 comments:

Animae said...

Your adobo sounds delicious! I'll have to try it some time. Lately I've been adding eggplant to my adobo and that has help cut the need for rice. Still, it's not the same. My mom still disapproves of the fact that we don't always have rice on hand. And G's mom sends us rice whenever she can. My mom also doesn't get why we gave up our rice cooker. Oh well. Keep up the challenge! You're awesome!

j-ro said...

Eggplant sounds great! I'm definitely going to do that next time. You also reminded me that I need to whip up a batch of torta! That is excellent paleo food!

Yeah. My mom has a slight issue with me not eating rice as much as I used to. But she also understands it's a health issue and she's been noticing that I've dropped weight. This makes her happy.

I still have my rice cooker because I use it to make hard boiled eggs, balut (don't judge!) and other stuff. Also, I keep rice (and tortillas in the freezer) around for guests.

Thanks Mae. I'm counting down because the challenge ends TOMORROW!