Spicy cabbage...

In my quest to find new tastes and new culinary inspiration, to go where no paleolithic eater has gone before, I returned to the red cabbage I had with mango and sweet gingerjuice before but from a different angle: what if the cabbage weren't sweet but spicy?
So I spent half an hour cutting my vegetables (note to self: buy a kitchen machine that cuts your vegatables for you). I had one red cabbage, cut up, two leeks, cut in rings, 150 grams of small mushrooms, cut in half, two red paprika's, cut in pieces, and approximately 250 grams of chicken in little slices. So I stir fried the chicken, added the mushrooms, added the cabbage until it got softer and added the leeks and the paprika's. Finally I added approximately two and a half teaspoon of sambal (grind red peppers) and some sweet chilisauce, and a drip of japanese soy sauce.
This was enough for three meals, but I had already bought dinner for wednesday, so I had two large portions and kept the rest for today.
The hot, spicy sambal went well with the red cabbage, I thought.

More vegetables...

Okay...

Last week I again tried something new.
I had a large broccoli in pieces, 250 grams of 'snijboontjes' (a kind of beanpods, not really 'paleo-approved', but the actual beans are a small part of the pods.), mushrooms in quarters, a paprika (red) in bits and 200 grams of chicken, all stir fried with sweet chilisauce, my ingredient of choice... MMMMMM.... I had two dinners with this this week.
For breakfast this week I had a quarter of a melon (great stuff), half a cucumber, a banana, a nectarine (kind of peach), and some nuts. Also a great breakfast, but I will leave the banana next time because of the sugars in it.

Johan

The chicken or the egg?

This is chicken with broccoli, courgette (aka the amazing zucchini) and some spices - garlic and mustard seed.

Orange

A simple breakfast followed by a very satisfying lunch:
Chicken and nectarine with stir fried broccoli, paprika and muschrooms with some sweet Ketjap.

Fit for a Hobbit

I decided I could teach Jamie Oliver a thing or two about nudity. The stir fried chicken, courgette and mushrooms have no seasoning whatsoever. And the flavour could have tempted a gourmet who had just devoured a horse, as dessert.

All this was laid on a bed of my never ending pile of iceberg lettuce (now I know why they compare the thing to a mountain) and tucked in under a blanket of paprika and radish. Since I wanted to give Jamie a break in a seriously unfair fight, I squirted on some curry. Yeah, baby!

But the sheer size of that plate! It's inhumane! I worked hard but it got the better of me. In my defence, I had been snacking during the afternoon. A bit of emotional eating actually. Carrots, nuts, grapes, cherries - I had been studying hard and hit a wall, so I resorted to one of my stress-relief tactics - munching. Still, I hadn't eaten that much. Man, was that plate a pile. I'll have the rest for breakfast. Or lunch. Thank goodness I actually forgot to add the double-slam -bang ingredient - mixed nuts... wow, that could have gotten ugly.

You know, it's funny. My mom, who is a wizard in the kitchen - an exceptionally creative cook - complained that with this new starch-free eating style of mine it would be almost impossible to whip up a decent meal. I think I need to show her this blog. People somehow associate healthy with difficult. I really don't know why. It's never been so easy for me to cook good food. I don't even have to plan it. I just buy fresh ingredients and throw them all together. What's the big deal? Try ordering a Big Mac without the tomato. That can be tricky. Getting yourself a half decent frozen pizza, now that's tough. And getting it to taste good is so close to impossible you could see the pores with your eyes shut. This, this is a piece of cake (without the cake).

My friends, especially the female ones, sometimes ask me why I don't have a girl friend. It's simple. I'm old fashioned - I want a woman who can outcook me!
For marriage proposals, use the comment function below. Please include picture.

Need I say more?

Lunch was delicious. Stir fried chicken and - you guessed it - my favourite veggy with ground paprika, mustard seed and salt.

The salad is iceberg lettuce (there's no end to the thing, it seems like I'm not even putting a dent in the amount I cut from that one head - I'll have to have more tonight) with a tomato, half a red onion - seriously, who would call this beautiful purple red? - extra vierge olive oil, balsamico vinegar and a mix of black, green, red and white pepper.

It doesn't get easier than this and it doesn't get very much tastier either. I love this troglodyte food.

Brunner

This salad was supposed to be brunch. But it was way too much. The gargantuan size of the plate makes it look more reasonable, but there was no end to it. I ate half of everything, a very satisfying meal, and left the rest for dinner tonight.

It was half an iceberg lettuce, about 250 g of veal liver and about 150 g of chicken breast stir fried in olive oil with some Ketjap Asin and a bit of salt, two tomatoes, half a melon, green as well as black olives with selectively applied dressings of extra vierge olive oil, balsamico vinegar and lemon juice.

As a snack in the afternoon I had a few carrots and a handfull of white grapes.

I won't at all regret having the rest tonight. Desert will be a handfull of white grapes and a handfull of cherries.

For those who like to count their calories:
100 g veal liver: 185 kcal
100 g chicken breast: 158 kcal

The rest of the ingredients were listed in silly and unuseful quantities on the website I got this info from - things like a slice for melon and a bowl for cherries or grams for iceberg lettuce. But I estimate the total of the day (including the snacks) to be below 1400 kcal. I don't care because I don't count, but basically it means caloriewise I ate about three quarters of what a male adult should. Of course that is uninteresting compared to the fact that my food today was very nutrient dense and tasty. That's what counts.

White and Yellow...

My friend Cornell is not the only one eating like a cave-man. Allthough he is much more creative cook than I am, he asked me to put up my meals. I fear they will serve to highlight Cornells creations as culinary highpoints, but so be it. My meals are simpler and besides paleolithically approved aiming for a low caloric intake. It's hard to eat much more than a thousand kilocalories if you only eat fruits, vegs, a bit of meat and some nuts...

So what did I have today?

For breakfast I had some pineapple (prepackaged at the supermarket), two tangerines, one banana and a couple of strawberries.

For lunch I had 250 grams or so (half a package) of carrots and some dried mango (also bought at the supermarket)

In between I had two apples.

For dinner I had half a cauliflower (medium sized) in bits, half of a yellow paprika cut up and half of a chickenfilet (also cut in pieces). This all stir fried with some currypowder, pepper and a bit of ketjap and chili sauce. Truly a yellow and white meal! Actually I stir fried the whole cauliflower, the whole paprika and the whole chickenfilet, but I'll leave the rest for tomorrow.
In all, only 850 kcal today so far...

Wonder Wok

Lunch! Stir fried chicken breast, courgette, paprika and my favourite green - asparagus. After this mornings rant about the blandness of dutch cuisine and the lack of proper use of spices (such a waste, after all those centuries of growing rich trading them across the globe)
I thought I should set the right example. So I added ground garlic, chili pepper, paprika, musterd seed, ginger and just a little salt. Perfectly suitable as a nice dinner too.

And maybe not in the picture, but I also ate a few hazelnuts and some pistachios, a few carrots and three apples during the afternoon. I'm skipping dinner to give my metabolic pathways a break. Time for repair and maintenance. That's what your cells do when you let your insulin levels drop by not eating for a while - when the levels are high, e.g. because you've been eating empty calories, you store fat. So contrary to popular dutch belief potatoes do make you fat. Especially if you eat them on a daily basis. In fact, the people I know who like potatoes the most and eat them most often are in fact the people who have the most problems with their weight. So beware the pomme de terre...

Nutty Chicken

For my breakfast this morning I had a handful of mixed nuts with the leftovers of yesterdays chicken. Also the leftover halves of yesterday's melon and cucumber and a few carrots.

Scholarly Cabbage

Dinner:
Half a chicken on a bed of stir fried broccoli, red onion and cauliflower with just a little bit of Ketjap Asin (try savoury soy sauce if you can't get that).

A simple salad of tomato and cucumber.

And don't forget what Mark Twain once said about cauliflower:
"Cauliflower is nothing but a cabbage with a college education."