I is back!
Most people mourn the end of summer vacation, but I was high-fiving other parents after Henry and I dropped the Double-Os off at school. It’s not exactly a prison break, but those few hours of freedom each weekday during the school year keep me sane.
With the kids getting their brains stuffed with math and whatever, I’m finally able to commit to a twice-weekly schedule at CrossFit Palo Alto, so that’s where I hung out (and slogged through “Helen”) on my first kid-free morning. I didn’t eat too much before class – just a small handful of almonds and a scrambled egg while I packed the kids’ lunches.
Post-workout, I ate half a baked sweet potato and a few roast beef and veggie roll-ups.
When I checked my trusty defrost bowl in the fridge, I realized that a pastured chicken was almost past its prime. I decided to season it and dump it in the slow cooker to make chicken and gravy for dinner.
One of the big take-home messages from attending AHS was that I really need to add more organ meats into our diets. My two favorite speakers, Mat Lalonde and Denise Minger, both stressed that organ meats are much more nutrient dense than…well, just about anything else. As a result, I’ve been sneaking liver into our family’s suppers this week and today was no exception. Right before I programmed the slow cooker, I plopped in a couple of lobes of chicken livers into the pot.
At lunchtime, I reheated a few leftover chard-wrapped braised beef shank and cauliflower “rice” bundles that we served at a recent dinner party…
…and ate it with some leftover roasted vegetables. Sorry, gang – there’s no recipe for the chard bundles (yet!) because I just threw them together last weekend during my camera-free blogging vacation.
Then, it was time to go punch and kick at the wushu studio. By the time the boys and I came home from kung fu fighting, our scrawny chicken was ready to be devoured.
Only a few steps left before our meal was ready: I blitzed the onions, cooking liquid, and hepatic material to make a smooth, rich, nutrient-fortified gravy…
…and quickly sautéed two packages of Trader Joe’s Power to the Greens in butter with a few splashes of Red Boat Fish Sauce. I plated the chicken, greens, and a handful of leftover roasted beets, and dinner was served.
The gravy went over great with the kids (Big-O, unprompted: “This is awesome gravy!”) and I’m thrilled I’ve got a big container of it stashed in the freezer.
Don’t be scared, but I’m about to go crazy with organ meats, I tell ya.
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