Lamb Chops with Spicy Cilantro Relish & A Review of PULP: Organic Acai Bowls & Smoothies

I'm eating beef jerky right now and Elle is staring at me salivating. I think that's hilarious. The me eating jerky part, not Elle begging. That's standard. A month ago I wouldn't be caught dead eating jerky. A month ago I also couldn't do a prescribed workout. Which I just did. For the first time. HOORAY! I'm absolutely tickled pink about this. Especially since I legit thought I was going to die after downing several paleo pancakes (recipe soon...to. die. for.) and then looking at the WOD. Somewhat miraculously though I shaved time off my mile and did the prescribed workout. These pancakes must give the consumer supernatural abilities. We'll get to those later on this week.

Oh and before we did the WOD I went to the bathroom and someone was like goin' to get rid of those pancakes? And brilliant Emily decides to respond, no I just wanna empty everything out before doin' burpees. Clarification: I was not going to poo myself. I have a tendency to pee when I get excited and hop up and down so I was ensuring that my bladder was relatively empty. Instead I came off as a gross weirdo. What else is new. Not that peeing yourself is any better...

Before I get to today's recipe I want to review a wondrous treat I was able to consume yesterday on my ride back to Blacksburg. As you may or may not know I'm a locavore. That means I only eat local, sustainably produced meat and, for the large majority of my purchases, in-season vegetables and I support local business ventures rather than huge corporate conglomerates. Sure I go to Whole Foods on the reg when I'm at home and Kroger when I must down here in Blacksburg, but I mainly go to locally owned stores. Buy Local. Eat Local. Live Local. I'm pretty sure that's Blacksburg's motto, but don't quote me on it.

Yesterday my tummy was growing quite ravenous as I was driving down the incredibly long and boring Interstate 81. I decided to stop in Harrisonburg, VA - home of James Madison University and a sh*t-load of chickens. There I had the privilege of eating the most amazing blended concoction ever. Within the open doors of the Shenandoah Bicycle Company a breeze flutters magically over their side project PULP: Organic Acai Bowls & Smoothies. This place is the monkey's bananas. I don't know if that's an actual saying but for now it is. I'll let their menu explain a little:

DO YOU SEE THOSE TOPPINGS??? DO YOU. Good. Because I'd get every one of them if I had enough money in da bank. But wait! This week is the Taste of Downtown festival or something in Harrisonburg and so you can buy 2 for the price of one! The guy at the counter was so nice and he clearly didn't know I could consume 2 easily so he let me buy one for half off instead. I seriously thought about going back after I downed mine in 3.4 milliseconds to get another but stopped myself for...well I'm not sure what reason.

In my bowl I got: Acai pulp base, Banana, Coconut Milk, Almond Butter, and Shredded Coconut.

WEgoiheglkashoqhoIEGHWO ohmygod. It was amazing. They blend all the ingredients together and sprinkle the coconut on top. Acai has this crazy chocolatey taste so it pairs amazingly with nut butters and - you guessed it - chocolate. The coconut milk balanced the flavors of the almond butter, banana, and acai so nicely. My experience at PULP was amazing. Great customer service. Great atmosphere. Ingenious idea. And amazing product.

Elle enjoyed licking the bowl clean for me. There wasn't much left in there. I tried to stick my face down in it to get as much as I could - it was that good - but my snout isn't long like hers. Damnit evolution. Give me a long snout for licking the inside of bowls. I'm sure my burpees, pushups, wall-facing squats, etc. would really enjoy a long snout smacking the ground/wall every time I completed a rep. All the more reason not to go down so low, right??? Nope. Fail.

That brings up a really silly mental image. Do people with ginormous noses smack their shnozz against the ground when they do pushups and stuff? One of the coaches yesterday told us we should be able to lick the wall when doing squats facing the wall. Hah, not without a thick coating of almond butter and dark chocolate syrup, coachy. C'mon meow.

Ok ONE more thing before I get to the recipe, I promise. So the other day I went to put on Pandora in the car. Mark and I share the same account because we listen to similar music so you can imagine my surprise when I go to the stations list and I see this:

See it? A couple down? Yup. Slut Radio. WTF is that sh*t? Of course I immediately text Mark and I'm all like what the heck bro, what're you doin' listenin' to Slut Radio. That ain't cool yo. He plays the whole, what're you talking about? card and tries to act like it was ME that was listening to Slut Radio. Honestly, neither of us has any clue how it got on there. Someone must be hacking my Pandora account and telling me to get my groove on. No thanks, mystery hacker. I'm good with my Hard Rock Strength Training station and Dillon Francis Radio. GET SWOLE. I'm embarrassing.

Lamb Chops with Spicy Cilantro Relish
Yields about 4 servings. Maybe less if you're like me.

Mmmm lamb chops. Not to be confused
with the popular children's TV show. 

Lamb:

• 1/2 tablespoon EVOO
• 1 teaspoon grated Lemon Rind
• 1/2 teaspoon ground Cumin
• Olive Oil Cooking Spray
• 1 (1 1/2 pound) French Cut Rack of Lamb (8 ribs), trimmed
• Sea Salt and Fresh Ground Pepper, to taste

Cilantro Relish: 

• 1 cup finely chopped Red Onion
• 1 Jalepeno pepper, finely chopped (seeded if you don't like the spicy goodness)
• 3/4 cup chopped Fresh Cilantro
• 1 tablespoon fresh Lemon Juice
• 2 teaspoons EVOO
• 1/4 teaspoon Sea Salt

Lamb Directions: 
1. Preheat oven to 400*
2. Combine first 3 ingredients for the lamb. Mix well.
3. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Coat with EVOO cooking spray. Sprinkle lamb with 1/4 teaspoon salt and pepper. (See note below) Add lamb to pan - cook 2 minutes on each side. Spread oil, lemon rind, and cumin mixture over the lamb.
4. Move lamb to a baking pan if you don't have an ovenproof skillet. Place pan in the oven and bake for 15 minutes or until a meat thermometer registers 138*. Remove lamb from the pan and let stand 8 minutes. Cut into chops (see note below).


Cilantro Relish Directions: 
1. Heat a skillet over medium-high heat. I used the same skillet I cooked my lamb in to get some of those flavors incorporated in. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add onion and jalapeno, saute 5 minutes.
2. Combine onion mixutre, cilantro, and the remaining ingredients in a medium bowl. Serve alongside the lamb chops and enjoy!

**Note: the lamb I purchased from Ayrshire Farm was already pre-cut into chops. This is no problem for the recipe. I just lumped them back together and cooked them the same way I'd have cooked it if it were all one big chunk of lamb. Also a budget buy would be to purchase less expensive loin chops in place of rack of lamb!

I served mine alongside simple roasted brussels sprouts. Each serving should have 2 chops. I unfortunately only purchased 5 and so I only had one on my plate. Lamb is small too so you may want to consider plating it with something more filling. Mark was still hungry post-meal, but he eats like 6000 calories a day. Must be nice.

Nutty Roasted Broccoli & PandaPaws

My apologies for the lack of post-age yesterday. Turns out that sickness had not run its course. Thursday night I tossed and turned for hours before finally falling asleep. I had a splitting headache, my throat was dry and crackly, and my feet kept getting hot despite having the fan on full blast and my window cracked open. I. Hate. Hot. Feet. I hate hot body parts when I'm trying to sleep, actually. Which is why I keep my room like an icebox. And probably why I'm sick in the first place. Whatever. Both Thursday and Friday were absolutely gorgeous here though. After my run with Elle, I organized a ginormous 3" binder full of consent forms and other papers I've been using to organize data. The 3" binder filled up pretty quickly, so it looks like I'll have to go bigger at some point. We did this outside though and I was in shorts and a sweatshirt. It was glooorious. My feet are really cute too, I know, you don't have to tell me twice. Bleh.

Because I'm a lone wolf in this whole Paleo-eating excursion, I had 19 meatballs to crush (17 when you factor in the ones I gave to Smells) in 2 days before I was willing to make anything else that could potentially go bad in our ginormous clusterf*ck of a fridge. Seriously, it's like play tetris in there. I want my own fridge built into some secret room so. bad. And a freezer. And a huge kitchen that's clean and pretty and has top-of-the-line appliances and cooking gear. Mom, can I move back home please? I digress (all the damn time), so I've been eating meatballs for like breakfast lunch and dinner so I don't have much to share. But I do have some awesome side dishes and the beautiful weather we had allowed Smells, Cecil (Allyson's dog, also called Sienna and a bunch of other names), Allyson, Anissa, and me to go for some adventures. Yay!

This "Nutty Roasted Broccoli" is the product of one of my many "I just don't wanna make another boring roasted vegetable" moments. What is awesome on roasted vegetables? Parmesan cheese. But I'm sticking to the little-to-no dairy guideline for this whole 40 day challenge thing, so that was a no. The next best thing in my mind was obviously nuts. The answer is always nuts. What would you like to eat? Nuts. What would you like to snack on? Nuts. What would you like to crush in your mouth? Nuts. What's your favorite thing about the opposite sex? Nut-waitaminute ew! Their ability to eat with the same voracity as me, obviously. Ok so the answer may not always be nuts. But you get the point. I'm really dependent on pine nuts as my go-to flavor enhancer for things. They're amazing, but some people don't like the taste as much as I do. I never even toast them when it calls for toasted pine nuts. They taste amaze without any toastiness. Made that word up. So I decided to broaden my nutty horizons and use Macadamia nuts. Also to honor the fact that in a month or so I will be in Hawaii, HULA! The Macadamia nuts I have are unfortunately salted. Costco you fail on the raw nut selection. But that's ok, because I don't salt the broccoli before I roast it, so I think I break even.

"Nutty Roasted Broccoli"

• 2 large heads of broccoli, cut into florets
• 3-4 garlic cloves, sliced 
• Olive oil (I used 1 tbsp, you can use more, I'm still somewhat oil-averse)
• Freshly ground pepper, to taste
• 1/2 cup Macadamia nuts

1. Preheat oven to 425*

2. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil, spray lightly with olive oil, spread broccoli florets out on the pan so that they're in a single layer.

3. Add garlic slices to the pan, evenly distributed amongst the broccoli, toss with 1tbsp olive oil (or more) and course ground pepper. Redistribute the broccoli evenly. 

4. Roast for about 15-18 minutes.

While the broccoli is roasting...

5. Take the Macadamia nuts and grind into coarse, crushed pieces either with a mortar and pestle or in a plastic bag w/ a rolling pin. Or hammer. Or textbook. Get creative. The only reason I have a mortar and pestle is because my lovely sister knows how much I love guacamole and got me one for Christmas :)
6. When the broccoli has been roasting for 15-18 minutes, remove, sprinkle with the Macadamia nut crumbs, and stick back in the oven for 5 more minutes. That's it!

Pretty easy, huh? The Macadamia nuts give the broccoli a nice nutty, crunchy flavor and they taste really good toasted like that!

I'm starting to think that my night's sleep could have drastically been improved had my cuddle partner learned to share a bed. Look at that. She think's she's so cute and then she kicks me. Hard. Elle has violent dreams. Probably where she's chasing Blair (my cat), squirrels, lasers, ballies, squeaky toys, light reflections on walls...the list goes on. We are far too similar, that pup and me. Both neurotic, both weird, both antisocial at dog parks/large social gatherings, but we really like ya when we're in more intimate settings!

Elle does have a couple girlfriends though. She really likes Allyson's dog Sienna/Cecil/SiSi. So we go on puppy dates. Yesterday was absolutely beautiful so we went to Pandapas Pond in the Jefferson National Forest. I like calling it Panda-Paws, because that's just so much cuter that Pandapas.

Eleanor and Cecil getting dirty and having a freaking
grand ol' time together. Gotta love pups having fun.




Elle seriously thought she was going to be able to
catch one of those geese below too.
They were pissed.
She probably would get her ass kicked by a goose.

They wanted to play with the geese so badly. By the time we were done with our little excursion they were sooooo dirty. Elle's fur absorbs dirt and mud like it's nobody's business. The interior of my car now looks like it was smeared with poop. Thankfully it doesn't smell like that. I will be getting a full car wash at some point. My wheels are soopa dirty too. Bianca (car) is such a rugged individual.

Elle got a full puppy wash. Good. Lord. It was like pulling teeth from a T-Rex. I don't have a hose outside my house so I had to bathe her. Literally. In my bath tub. She HATES baths so much. And I hate giving her baths. Then I blew her dry with my hair-dryer. She loved that part even more.

That picture to the right? My friday night. Plus A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas. And blackberry glazed salmon, roasted sweet potatoes, and asparagus from Gillie's. Minus the 4-pack mini bottles of wine, which I never got to. Some day. Gotta love being sick. Since I missed out on yesterday's WOD and because classes are cancelled today I'm going to do yesterdays which was 7 minutes of straight burpees. We're starting to do the CrossFit Games Open WODs, which you can find here. Obviously I'm in no state to ever qualify in the near future. But you gotta start somewhere. So with 7 minutes of burpees, I shall start. May or may not post tomorrow depending on whether or not I survive. Chow!