February 13, 2022
Author: cochrancj
I am an American expat who loves to explore the world through the plate and is always curious to learn more.
February 12, 2022
February 11, 2022
Air Fried Pepper Chicken
This recipe is enchanting. Not 100% what I had envisioned (no sichuan peppercorns or deep fried taste), but gone in seconds.
Note: I ran out of cornstarch about halfway through making this chicken and had to finish the rest without it. It was also delicious.
gluten-free, paleo
Air Fried Pepper Chicken
500g chicken breast, cut into bite sized pieces
2 Tbsp. soy sauce or coconut aminos
1 inch ginger, grated
2 Tbsp. rice vinegar
1 c. cornstarch or arrowroot powder
2 eggs, beaten
Generous shake salt & pepper
Oil for spritzing
Sauce
2 Tbsp. butter
2 tsp. Togarishi seasoning
2-4 tsp. sambal olek
Generous shake black pepper
Cut your chicken into bite sized pieces. Grate the ginger and add ginger, soy and rice vinegar to the chicken. Marinate :30 or overnight.
When you’re ready to cook, cut a piece of baking paper to cover the bottom of your air fryer basket. Preheat the air fryer for 3 minutes.
While your fryer is warming, set up a dredging station – 1 plate of cornstarch seasoned with salt & pepper and 1 shallow bowl of beaten egg.
Dredge the chicken chunks in cornstarch, egg, and back into cornstarch. Add to the preheated and lined air fryer basket in a single layer with a little room around each piece (you will need to do this in multiple batches).
Spritz with a little oil and air fry 8 minutes, flipping and re-oiling if necessary halfway through.
Continue on with the rest of the chicken.
While the chicken cooks, combine the butter (melted), togarishi and sambal in a small bowl; hit with a generous amount of black pepper.
To serve, toss the fried chicken with the sauce.
Serves 4
February 10, 2022
February 9, 2022
High Protein Meal Planning – Week 5
My plan for this new year is to focus on hitting my protein macro for this new weight first (I’ve found that carbs, fat & calories tend to work themselves out if I’m doing what I need to do here). My old macro was 70g a day; this new macro is 80. I think I can do it while keeping the parts of my current diet that are working for me (light breakfasts namely) if I eat decent portions of something protein rich for lunch and dinner & plan ahead with meaty snacks.
More info on what I’m doing and why.
The goal: 80g of protein a day; explore this brave new air fryer world.
Breakfast
M-Sat: Green smoothie with chia seeds and vanilla keto collagen powder
Sunday: Protein cereal with turmeric almond milk
Lunch
Monday: 2 beef kielbasa dogs with potatoes
Tuesday: 2 beef kielbasa dogs with the rest of the potatoes and 2 scrambled eggs
Wednesday: 1/2 can of chili tuna & 2 hard boiled eggs in a salad with cucumber scoops
Thursday: Treated myself to ramen while out and about
Friday: 100g chicken burger patty & sweet + sticky sweet potatoes
Saturday: Non-vegetarian South Indian thali – I ate about 1/3 of it with 1 piece of wheat paratha
Sunday: 100g chicken burger patty and the rest of the sweet potatoes
Dinner
Monday: 150g burger patty & zucchini
Tuesday: 150g burger patty with half an avocado in a tortilla & a side of grapes
Wednesday: Protein cookie bites because I forgot how filling tuna salad can be
Thursday: A protein bar because I was only a little hungry since lunch was large
Friday: 100g chicken burger patty
Saturday: Skipped – I was too full still from lunch
Sunday: Celebrated DH’s birthday with a killer steak & sushi night out – 100% worth it
Snacks
Saturday I had 2/3 of an order of fries while out with DH as a post-lunch snack
What I learned: I thought this week was more of a fail than it actually was. I felt like I didn’t eat real food all week – and it looks like I only relied on protein junk food twice. Not too bad, though more than I would like. Toward the end of the week, it was hard to want and sit down and eat just protein – hence the thali and the extra burger patties. I can pretty much always do ground meat in burger form.
Overall, I learned that 150g of protein isn’t all the meat in the world – and providing my brain doesn’t kick up with a meat aversion, it’s totally doable. I feel like especially after adding in my morning smoothie with green vegetable insurance, my body was starting to run better (for the most part; I had a bloat week and a couple random days with stabby stabby). It’s the end of the month, and I’m not sure if I’ll be continuing on, modifying slightly, or will launch into tackling how to work plant based proteins in more without killing my GI system. That’s kind of where I want to head, but man it’s difficult when you have a delicate Princess system.
February 8, 2022
February 7, 2022
February 6, 2022
Gastography 