Guacamole To-Go

What do you do when you have half of an avocado left-over from breakfast? And how do you keep it from going all brown and gross? Easy peasy. Let's make some guacamole.

Guacamole To-Go

1/2 avocado with pit

5 drops lime juice

sprinkle each of

 -garlic salt

 -pepper

 -cumin

 -cayenne pepper

 -chili powder

Cut your avocado in half, use the half without the pit for something else. Rub the lime juice over the other half of the avocado. Then, sprinkle the spices/salt over the flesh. (Keeping the pit will keep a bit more surface area from being exposed to oxygen and turning brown. Lime juice helps, too.) And that's it. Store in a Ziploc bag, trying to get as much air out of the bag as possible. Then eat later.

The photo above shows the avocado 6 hours after I prepped it. Still looks nice and green to me.

21DSD Day 11 - Prosciutto on a Burger? Yummmm

First off: Hell yes! Half-way through! 11 days down. 10 more to go. And I managed to go all of today at work without snacking. Amazing!

In sad news, it was one of my friends last days at work with my company. He's switching to a different company a couple miles down the road where he can hang out with two of our other friends. I'm happy for him, but super sad that he's leaving my cubicle bay. Who will I talk to about awesome cooking knives, or Paleo, or working out, or things like the Engineer's Guide to Cats (http://youtu.be/mHXBL6bzAR4)? So, we may have taken a sanity break from work last Saturday (yes, work on a Saturday) to watch a little bit of cat yodeling... don't judge.

Anyways, back to 21DSD... I lasted 48 hours without any nuts. And it was glorious. But, when hunger starts calling, and you're at a restaurant where everything on the menu would need serious tweaking to make it 21DSD-friendly, then sometimes you cave in and eat the handy nuts. And that I did. I ate pistachios. I admit it. And I can tell you that within a few minutes of eating them, my stomach started grumbling at me. Bad sign? Please don't tell me that my body doesn't like pistachios. They're so yummy! We'll see what happens after a week without nuts when I try them again.

It's probably is a better idea to go off of nuts next week anyways. I'm celebrating the long weekend with some friends and there will be roughly 8 hours where I won't have access to a fridge, a store, or a stove, so I need something to sustain me, that's preferably not a sandwich that I have to eat the insides out of. I'm thinking that nuts may suffice for part of that. I'm still trying to figure out for sure what I'm going to bring with me. Carrots and celery are definitely on the menu, and I just chopped up quite a bit of those tonight in preparation. I'll keep you posted on what I end up eating.

Anyways, here's one of the ways that I tossed together toppings for a 21DSD-friendly burger (man, I really wish that I could have continued the "t" alliteration there)... 

Guacamole - Prosciutto Burger

So, this is simple. Grill, fry, or broil your ground beef. Then top with guacamole, tomato, mini-bell pepper slices, and a slice of prosciutto. Wrap with iceberg lettuce (I find iceberg is the best for wrapping). Then open that gaping hole in your face, and insert burger. Chew. Swallow. Repeat. 

And yep, I got fancy and added prosciutto to my burger. Just keepin' it classy, y'all. Try to contain your jealousy... jk. Go out and get the makings yourself. Then you can enjoy the yumminess, too!

CrossFit

Last Friday night I went out with some friends. While we were at the bar, my buddy BJ convinced me to attend CrossFit with him the following morning. I've expressed interest in attending a few times over the last year and he's invited me multiple times; this was the first time I accepted. I was excited about going on Friday night, but when Saturday morning rolled around, I was nervous. I know that there was no reason to be nervous, but I was apprehensive because I wasn't sure if I'd be able to handle the workout. I had heard about so many CrossFit workouts that seemed impossible to me because I hadn't tried any of them. We did the "Fran" workout on Saturday which consisted of thrusters (squats with an overhead press) and pull-ups. I didn't add any weights to the bar and I did an assisted pull-up, and found the workout much easier than I expected. Don't get me wrong, my arms and legs were burning afterward, but I know that I could have increased the intensity of the workout with more weights and would have been able to handle it.

Based on that one class, I could definitely see myself doing CrossFit regularly. This past Saturday made me realize how much I miss doing working out with people. I miss teams. I should join a team of some sort. Doing P90X alone at home holds absolutely no appeal now. I've been running instead lately. I really need to join a team. I'm just waiting until AFTER I take the FE (Fundamentals of Engineering) Exam, so I can actually study a bit.

My post CrossFit breakfast: Open-faced Omelet

2 eggs

1 tsp oregano

1 tsp parsley

1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1 sausage link

3 Tbls guacamole

5 cherry tomatoes

Brown the sides of the sausage over medium heat. Once browned, cut the sausage into pieces and brown the flat sides. While the sausage is cooking, whisk the eggs with the spices. After both sides of the sausage slices have been browned, reduce heat to medium-low, then add in the eggs. Once the eggs have cooked, slide onto plate and add guacamole/salsa/Paleo ketchup/whatever you want. I used hatch chile guacamole with some cherry tomatoes.

Guacamole

I bought a car today! I've been researching for the past few months and finally went in to the dealership. I stuck with Mazda. I'm excited and relieved that the whole buying process is complete! After all the excitement I wanted something easy to make.

Lazy Guacamole
1 avocado, mashed
2 tsp lime juice
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp chili powder
2 tsp garlic salt
1/2 tsp pepper, freshly ground

Take all of the ingredients and mix. Enjoy. There are also alternatives which include tomato chucks or onions, but I was worn out after spending 3 hours at the dealership buying my car. Thus, my super lazy avocado-only guacamole. I served it with some ground beef that I seasoned with the following:

Taco Ground Beef
1 lb local grass-fed ground beef
1 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tsp cumin
2 tsp paprika
2 tsp oregano
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp garlic salt
1 tsp pepper, freshly ground


I hope y'all had as exciting of a day as me!