The Struggle

The Struggle is real.

That is, the struggle to not only maintain a paleo-vegan lifestyle, but to also maintain a blog about it when you're only home for a few evenings a week. The last you heard from me was opening week of Les Misérables, which has consumed my life ever since (though in the best way possible). The first few days after the show opened were occupied by catching up on sleep and cleaning up around the apartment, then before I knew it, it was back for the second weekend of performances. Between grabbing what I could while on the road, eating with the cast before and after shows, and not having any time (or money) for grocery shopping, I've not exactly been behaving...

But enough with the excuses. I've fallen off the wagon, but I'm getting back on ASAP. We close the show this weekend (I am NOT looking forward to the final bow), so next week will involve a trip to the grocery store where I can pick up the things to try some AWESOME new recipes I've found. Additionally, I started a new fitness challenge yesterday that my friend Nick shared with me: the 10,000 Squats and 2,500 Push-Ups Challenge.

10,000 squats and 2,500 push-ups over 31 days!

Next week, I also plan to restart the weight training plan I discussed in my Memorial Day post. Then, next Saturday, August 10th, is the Color Me Rad 5K that I'm running in Knoxville (followed by my LONG awaited haircut at Frank's Barbershop!). To say the least, I'm definitely reinvesting as much in my physical activity as I am in getting back on my nutritional game. I've noticed that even though I've been getting a decent amount of sleep at night, I struggle with waking up in the morning and still feel exhausted. Of course the show has something to do with that, but I have zero doubt that the less-than-healthy things I've been putting into my body are the primary culprits.

August is going to be a really awesome month, and I'll have lots more free time to work on more content for here on the blog, as well as on Facebook and Twitter. Until next time, here are some photos of the cast and I from the production courtesy of Dr. Gregg Perry:

Production head shot

"Red and Black"/"Do You Hear The People Sing"

"One Day More"

Lastly, a photo with my castmate Josh. We did Rent together back in 2010 and took the first photo backstage. We knew we needed to recreate the moment for this show as well. It's also a good look at the change in myself over the past 3 years.

Rent (2010) to Les Misérables (2013)

 
Much love to you all,

Jon

Miserable

Miserable. That pretty much sums up the past week or so in multiple ways, though not necessarily how you might think.

The first of which is the fact that I've had some sort of allergy/sinus/cold mess for the past several days and it has truly made me miserable in just about every sense of the word. Because of it, I have actually had some unscheduled cheat days, because sometimes when you're sick, you just need those certain comfort foods (I submit to the jury exhibit A: hot and sour soup). I've been treating and medicating just about every way I know how because of the second connotation of miserable...

Yes, friends, this Friday, July 19th, the much-anticipated production of Les Misérables that I'm involved in will officially be open. This production aims high and will raise the bar for on-stage talent, technical and scenic design, and overall experience for the audiences of our region.

If you're not familiar with the musical, the recent film starring Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway, or the original 1862 novel by Victor Hugo, here's a rough, pieced together description from a few various sources:

Set in early 19th-century France, it is the story of Jean Valjean and his quest for redemption after serving nineteen years in jail for having stolen a loaf of bread for his starving sister's child. Valjean decides to break his parole and start his life anew after a kindly bishop inspires him to, but he is relentlessly tracked down by a police inspector named Javert. Along the way, Valjean and a slew of characters are swept into a revolutionary period in France, where a group of young idealists make their last stand at a street barricade. Les Misérables tells an enthralling story of broken dreams and unrequited love, passion, sacrifice and redemption - a timeless testament to the survival of the human spirit.

Sounds pretty epic, right?? Well it definitely is. Here are some of my castmates (and possibly me) to tell you a bit more...

For anyone interested in coming to see us on stage, you can visit Encore Theatrical Company's website at www.etcplays.org for tickets.

Unfortunately that's all I really have to share with you this week. Sorry there's not much in the way of food, but I've barely been home at all and definitely haven't had time to cook, especially with the way I've been feeling. But, I'll have a few days off from the theatre next week, so hopefully I'll be back with more things to share after I've had a trip to the grocery store. Until then...

Much love to you all,

Jon

Barbecue Sauce! ...And Expanded Social Media Presence

Happy Mid-Week!!

I'm so glad to see you all back here this week for another installment of ThePaleoVeg. This is another post that I actually started writing and intended to post on Tuesday, but time got away from me so I had to finish it today. Hence, please forgive any anachronisms.

I've continued receiving some great feedback from readers old and new about the content and layout of the blog, as well as some responses to my challenge for submission of dishes for me to attempt to paleo-veganize. I hope you're following me on Twitter (if not, find me @ThePaleoVeg right now and click "Follow"). I have, however, noticed a trend that more and more of my blog traffic is being directed from one particular source. I'd been considering expanding to this platform for a while now, so this week I decided to make the jump. You now have yet another way to keep up with everything that's going on during the week between blog posts: ThePaleoVeg is now officially <drum roll> on Facebook!

Head over to facebook.com/ThePaleoVeg and click "Like" to stay up to date on juicy tidbits of information, leave comments, ask questions, share your own recipes and food photos, figure out where I'm going to be eating/running/etc. (considering possibly doing some meet-ups in the future), and whatever other musings and news stories that pop into my head on a daily basis. The blog itself and Twitter have been great ways to share my adventure, but Facebook seemed to be the next logical step in expanding the reach of my content to a wider array of people...and let's be real, most of us are on Facebook for way more time each day than we'd care to admit.

I consulted with my friend Sarah, who founded the What I Vegan blog and is also active on Twitter and Facebook, and I asked her if it was difficult to juggle all of the various platforms and keep content unique. She said she enjoyed having the Facebook page to be able to share much of the content that she wouldn't necessarily put into her blog posts, which I can definitely understand. I've linked to her pages before, but here are the various ways you can find her content to read, like, and follow:

Blog: http://whativegan.wordpress.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WhatIVegan
Twitter: https://twitter.com/what_i_vegan

Any other bloggers out there who've been able to boost their traffic and content via an expanded social media presence?

As for what I've been up to since we last met, I've been neck deep in rehearsals for Les Misérables at Encore Theatrical Company (and loving every minute of it), and I also enjoyed a WONDERFUL 4th of July holiday! I spent the evening at my friend Frannie's house (where I also spent part of Memorial Day weekend), and y'all...there was SO much incredible food there! All of it was vegan, but there were even some great paleo options for me to have as well! I gorged myself on gazpacho salad, killed spinach (it's a Southern thing), garlicky mushrooms, and a rocking paleo-vegan potato soup (recall that I am of the potato-eating paleo-ers). We had a great night celebrating the freedoms we enjoy with wonderful friends and capped it off with sparklers and fireworks.

My sparkler, framed by the actual Johnson City fireworks

Naturally, I had to wear my red, white, and blue

Because of the aforementioned rehearsals, I've not really had much time to cook, so I've been living mostly off of hazelnut butter, mixed nuts, the last of my tomato soup from last week's blog, and grabbing salads here and there. Monday on my lunch break, though, I was struck with a wild hair (hare?) to make barbecue sauce. Bear in mind that I only have an hour for lunch, so it would have to be quick, and I also needed something to eat it with...ya know, cause most folks use their lunch breaks to actually eat. I did a quick search for paleo barbecue sauces online to get some ideas, but as you can imagine, there are about as many different styles and recipes for barbecue sauce as there are fish in the ocean. Given the region I grew up in, this should have come as no surprise. So, I just decided to do my own thing with flavors I thought would go well together. The result was a sweet, slightly tangy sauce with a spicy kick that melds the things I love most about both northeast Tennessee (sweet, smokey, tomato based) and Carolina style sauces (mustard or vinegar based).

I started with a base of tomato paste (one 6 oz can), then filled the can back up halfway with balsamic vinegar (about 3 oz). To fill the remainder of the can I used (approximately): 
1 and 1/2 tablespoons of maple syrup (the real stuff please)
1 tbsp of dijon mustard
1 tbsp of juice from a jar of pickled jalapeños
1 tbsp of sriracha
2 tsp of coconut aminos

The liquid components of my sauce

I put all of this in a small sauce pan along with the tomato paste, then began to add the spices. As far as these go, add as much or as little as you like, depending on your personal preference, and feel free to experiment with flavors:
Kosher salt
Garlic salt (or garlic powder. If using garlic salt, adjust your kosher salt accordingly)
Freshly ground black pepper
Chili powder
Cumin

The spices for my sauce (garlic salt far right, kosher salt front and center)

This isn't something that needs to cook for hours on end. Just place it over low to medium-low heat for about 15 to 20 minutes to cook a bit of the raw vinegar flavor of the balsamic out and to let all of the flavors come together. You'll want to stir it every few minutes or so since the natural sugars in the tomato paste and maple syrup will begin to caramelize a bit (this is a good thing), but you don't want it to get clumpy and burn. If you do notice that your sauce starts to thicken and tighten up a bit too much, just throw in a small splash of something like vegetable stock or water to thin it back down a bit. I placed this on the back burner to keep an eye on it, then started preparing something for it to go on.

Tangy goodness in a bowl

Last weekend at The Fresh Market I picked up some awesome looking portobello mushroom caps. I'd thought of maybe using them as burgers for July 4th, but that wound up not happening. I decided to use one of these as the vehicle for my sauce.

Two of my gorgeous portobello caps

When working with any kind of mushroom that's not already been washed, take a dry or slightly damp towel and just wipe away any excess dirt that you see. Don't run your mushrooms under water to clean them! For the same reason that mushrooms are able to absorb so much flavor, they'll also absorb a lot of water and will be soggy when you cook them. For larger mushrooms like portobellos, you'll also want to cut away any tough woody stems, and perhaps even use a spoon to scrape away the gills on the underside of the cap as they can sometimes have a less than pleasing texture to some people. Once my mushroom was cleaned, I chopped it into roughly bite-sized pieces then tossed them in a pre-heated pan with a bit of minced garlic, some crushed red pepper flakes, and just enough grape seed oil to get things sizzling a bit. The smell of mushrooms sauteeing with garlic is one of my absolute favorite kitchen aromas!

By this time, my sauce was doing quite nicely, so I transferred it to a bowl for storage, but I didn't wash out the sauce pot it had been cooking in. Instead, I tossed my mushroom bites in to mingle with the sauce that had clung to the sides of the pot and added a couple tablespoons of sauce from my bowl so they could really get coated thoroughly. Once they were happily married together, it was time to serve. I didn't really make enough to warrant dirtying a whole plate, so I opted for the next logical vessel: a martini glass...that's normal, right? These would work great as an appetizer, side dish, or as a quick little snack/light lunch.

I don't always eat my lunch from a martini glass...though maybe I should?

Close-up of the barbecue mushroom magic

For Tuesday's lunch, I decided to take it a step further. I cleaned and prepped another of the portobello caps as before, only this time I left it whole. I then cooked it on both sides in a bit of garlic, oil, and chili flakes, adding a bit of salt and pepper, then sat it aside on a plate.

Freshly sauteed and seasoned portobello cap

In the same pan, with a tiny bit more oil, I placed some chopped canned artichoke hearts (about 6 or 7 pieces), allowed those to heat through a bit, then threw in a small palmful (roughly 1/3 c) of chopped walnuts. Then I put in a couple of spoonfuls of my barbecue sauce, and finally tossed in about 2 tablespoons of my raw shelled hemp seeds.

Artichoke hearts before slicing/chopping

Artichokes cooking with chopped walnuts

After the addition of the barbecue sauce and hemp seeds

Once again, if the sauce starts to thicken too much or burn, throw in a little water or vegetables stock. When this mixture was heated through, I heaped it on top of my portobello to create a lovely...well, I'm not sure what you'd call it. But it was rich and tangy and spicy and satisfying and full of protein and, most importantly, delicious!

I still have no idea what to call this, but golly it tasted good!

That about wraps things up for this week. Remember, find my Facebook page, give it a Like, and tell your friends to do the same! Until next time...

Much love to you all,

Jon

Hi! Bye! (a quick update)

Good afternoon friends!

I've only got time (and brainpower) for a quick update today. First thing's first. I'm sure many people are wondering what happened to all 10 pounds of weight I picked back up during my cheat week. Well, I weighed myself this past Saturday morning, and saw 178, which meant that I'd actually dropped it all back off, plus an extra two pounds! I know most of this was water, and I could tell a huge difference in the way I'd felt this past week versus the week before in that I didn't feel bloated or miserable. l also went back to my spin class for the first time in about 3 weeks. There was no mistaking that I'd been absent, because it was much tougher than normal; or maybe Tyler, our instructor, just REALLY wanted us to feel it for the rest of the day. Regardless, I won't be missing class anytime soon if I can help it.

Finding time for workouts or even chores like laundry, housecleaning, or grocery shopping has become somewhat difficult lately. Since rehearsals for Les Misérables are in full swing, my schedule most weekdays goes something like:

Wake up
Shower and get ready for work
Work 8:00a-5:00p
Drive an hour to rehearsal
Rehearsal 6:30-10:00ish
Drive an hour home
Go to bed
Repeat the next day

"Meals" are interspersed where possible. That being said, I did have this past Saturday free and clear, so I Tweeted to my friend Sarah (cause that's how we roll) to ask if she'd want to meet up for a walk/lunch outing like we had been doing previously. We walked a couple of miles, then went to EarthFare in Johnson City for one of my favorite lunches on the planet which I've written about plenty of times in the past, their salad bar.

EarthFare salad bar goodness with avocado vinaigrette

After that I went and picked up a few other items that I needed from there. We also visited The Fresh Market since I had some 10% off coupons. Sarah and I always manage to get blissfully lost in that store, but fortunately, we both emerged without spending too much money. The theme of my particular purchases seemed to be snacking.

That term can have a very negative connotation in the nutrition communities, specifically when it is associated with mindless inhalation of fatty or highly sugared, artificially flavored, empty calories which are devoid of any trace of nutrients. However, for those of us that have tightly packed schedules, healthy snacks on the go can be the saving grace that ensure we are receiving the energy we need to keep moving and so that our bodies don't shut down on us. Obviously fresh fruits and vegetables are the ideal snacks, but if you just read labels, you can find some great packaged snacks that are easy to take with you and require zero preparation. Here's what I picked up:

"Snacking" doesn't have to be a bad word!

From Terra Chips: Two flavors (Spiced and BBQ) of sweet potato chips. These are some of the BEST tasting chips I've ever consumed in my life. Seriously, ever. And with only around 150 calories per serving, they are a great way to satisfy a quick salty craving without wrecking your daily calorie/carb intake.

From Manitoba Harvest: Hemp Hearts raw shelled hemp seeds. I love the flavored roasted hemp seeds made by Ziggy Marley's Hemp Rules, but I wanted something that could be a bit more versatile in the kitchen (read as "more neutrally flavored"). I saw this brand at EarthFare, and when I noticed that a 6oz package of Marley's was around $8 and I could get a whole pound of Hemp Hearts for under $15, I figured I'd give them a try. They are, like I'd hoped, very mildly flavored with only a slight hint of nuttiness, and since they're shelled and raw, then are very soft and almost have the consistency of a very fine cooked rice (more on this later). The best part: from a 3 tablespoon serving you get 10g of protein at 13g of fat (11.5 of which is poly and monounsaturated) and 3g of carbs, practically all of which is fiber. If you're not eating hemp, you need to start. Yesterday.

From Justin's: Justin's Chocolate Hazelnut Butter. Their website says it best - "Do you eat cake frosting for breakfast? I didn't think so. Neither do I. Yet some chocolate hazelnut butters have more sugar than cake frosting. Really. You can check. I'll wait...see." It's the truth. One of the most popular chocolate hazelnut spreads on the planet, Nutella, has 3 times the sugar of Justin's! A 2 tablespoon serving of Justin's contains 180 calories, 7g of sugar, and 4g of protein. Compare that to an equal serving size of Nutella which contains 200 calories, 21g of sugar, and only 2g of protein. Not to mention, Nutella is neither paleo nor vegan as it contains dairy (skim milk and whey), soy lecithin, and artificial vanilla flavor. Justin's is kosher, gluten free, dairy free, vegan, and GMO free. I think the choice is clear the next time you're in that aisle of the store. However, if this is not convincing enough, from my personal perspective, Justin's Chocolate Hazelnut Butter tastes exactly like the icing on a chocolate glazed Krispy Kreme doughnut. Boom. (And no, I am not a compensated endorser for Justin's; it just tastes that freakin amazing)

Lastly, from The Fresh Market I grabbed a couple containers of roasted, salted pumpkin seeds as well as a snack mix that contained only sunflower seeds, almonds, raisins, and cashews. Both items contain great sources of protein, and can be easily tossed in my bag to take with me to the theatre for a snack during rehearsal, or to grab a handful of in the brief time I spend at my apartment.

Since cooking an actual meal for myself each night would mean that I'd have to cut into my sleep time, and since food from most restaurants is expensive and monotonous when/if I can find anything on the menu that I can have, I knew I needed to once again make something that I could cook once, but enjoy for several days. So on Sunday night, I dug into the cabinets, got out the crock pot, and embarked on another soup adventure. This week's feature: tomato.

A while back I'd purchased several cans of whole tomatoes and a can of herbed diced tomatoes with the intentions of possibly making either pasta sauce or soup. I put 4 cans of whole tomatoes (with liquid) plus one can of the herbed diced tomatoes (I think it was basil and oregano or something like that. Just see what your store has) into the crock pot.

After that, I added one roasted red pepper (from a jar) and a heaping fork-full of jarred pickled jalapeños.

Then came the herbs and spices. I used kosher salt, black pepper, cumin, chili powder, curry powder, crushed red pepper flakes, dried basil, and dried oregano. I also tossed in some minced garlic, about 1/4 cup of white wine, about 3/4 cup of vegetable stock, a few dashes of coconut aminos, about 1 1/2 tsp of Sriracha (remember, I like things hot), and about 1 tsp of dijon mustard.

I set my crock pot on high, poured a glass of wine, then relaxed on my couch for a bit until everything started to get nice and bubbly. Then I got out my immersion blender and pureed everything until it was nice and smooth. Even the whole tomatoes blended up perfectly.

I poured some out into a mug and topped it with a teaspoon each of my raw shelled hemp seeds and my roasted pumpkin seeds to add a crunchy element and to round out the dish with some protein.

This is what rainy night comfort looks like

In other blog news, ThePaleoVeg has now received over 1,000 pageviews worldwide (and no, I don't count my own) and I'll hopefully be submitting some posts for possible inclusion in the weekly Paleo Rodeo from Modern Paleo over at blog.modernpaleo.com. Since joining their Paleo Bloggers groups, I've received some great comments and interest in the sustainability of a paleo-vegan lifestyle. So if anyone from that group is reading this as their first post here today, welcome, and I'd love to hear your feedback either in the comments here or on Twitter @ThePaleoVeg.

That's all I can think of to post today, but I look forward to seeing everyone back here next week!

Much love to you all,

Jon