Fight Back Fridays

The name behind the recipe: Master loves Rock & Roll - which means he loves Ted Nugent. The Nuge, while being a phenomenal musician, is a little too conservative for my tastes so i tease Master about listening to him so much. Whenever He listens to Ted's song "Great White Buffalo", i sing "Free Tiny Buffalo"....Which is a joke from the book "Steal This Book" by Abbie Hoffman. Abby is/was about as far to the Left of Ted as possible. (while i never got to meet Abbie, i did spend a lot of time hanging out with Yippies during the early 80's.)


So, what does this have to do with food? i'm getting to that! i've been trying to eat better and one of the ways to do that is to eat grass fed/grass finished meats. Cows (and buffalos!) are grass eaters, not grain eaters. The way we raise cattle in feed lots, eating grain, produces unhealthy animals. Eating grass, the way they were intended to, produces healthier meat with a fatty acid balance that is much better for us. So, i made a curry with my first foray in to buffalo.
Free Tiny Buffalo Curry
1 TBS COCONUT OIL
16 OZ GROUND BUFFALO
2 YELLOW ONIONS, DICED
2 CLOVES GARLIC, SMASHED
FRESH GINGER, PEELED, DICED FINE (i used about 2 TBS.)
1 heaping tsp Garam Masala
1/2 tsp Turmeric
Fresh ground black pepper, to taste
Fish Sauce, to taste (If you don't have this, you could probably use Tamari or soy sauce or just salt. But it's really best with the fish sauce)
2 Red or Yellow bell peppers, diced
2 zucchini, diced
A big handful of cherry or grape tomatoes
1 cup coconut milk (not low fat, get the real kind, not sweetened.)

Melt coconut oil to pan, over medium-high heat saute the buffalo, breaking it up as it cooks. When it's about halfway cooked, add in diced onions, ginger, garlic. Keep it moving so you don't burn the garlic....After the onions become translucent, add the garam masala and the turmeric and black pepper. Stir that around and mix it in well. (Note - turmeric will stain your wooden spoons bright yellow. You are warned.) Add in the diced peppers & zucchini & tomatoes - sauté for a few more minutes then add in the coconut milk. Bring to a simmer for about 15 minutes. Give it a taste and add fish sauce. i used about a tablespoon. Simmer for a few more minutes and get ready to feast.
Serve over rice, if you're eating grains or if you're being all "primal/paleo" you could serve this over "riced cauliflower". (i'm not putting a link for that, you can google it yourself. And for all you cauliflower haters out there - Even Master eats this and He was not a fan of the cauliflower. Give it a try!)

i made this again last night using bone-in chicken thighs, it came out great. i'm also pretty sure if you added a squeeze of lime and a handful of cilantro and chopped scallions you'd be in for an even bigger blast of deliciousness.
So, that's my grass fed, healthy fat, lots of veggies included recipe for today.
Fight back and reclaim real food!

753 lbs

Short post today. Master & i both did 753 lb leg presses yesterday. :-)
i did a set of 20 reps, i have no idea what He did.... i nearly lost my mind laughing because there was a guy riding a stationary bike a few feet away from me and he was hooting and hollering as i was lifting. *grin* It's nice to have fans!

We also added these "floor wipers" to our routine. Let's just say that i am very aware of every muscle in my core today. Very aware.

LiLu continued....

The good news is she's recovering from the surgery like the champion that she is.
The bad news is that due to the size of the tumor, they didn't take it all out. Instead they did a really big biopsy and sent to out for grading. If it's a stage 3....not good. If it's a 1 or 2, then we can take it from there. To be honest, since it's so large....the prognosis isn't very good at all. Which is really hard to believe since she's so darn feisty. No sign of illness, no slowing down, no sluggishness.

In the mean time, she wears her E-collar when i'm not home, she can't hang out with Taybor when i'm not around to stop all of her shenanagans. (even all stitched up as she is, she's still being provocative and humping Taybor all the time.) (that's my girl!) We'll find out the biopsy results sometime next week. Here's a picture of a cheese and peanut butter and amoxicillin bomb that she gets to eat 4x a day.

Fight Back Fridays

This was the original post i had planned for today, before we got the not-so-good news about Miss Lilu.

So, in the continuing saga of seeking good health and just generally being a foodie nerd, i've been doing a bunch of stuff that i haven't written about here. After all, this isn't a food blog, right? Well, no. However, after sitting in on Bootpig's class at South Plains on "Service Upgrades", i've come to realize that there is so much more to service & Mastery/slavery than just the daily "drama" of submission. Of course, i always knew that but never felt it was appropriate to write about. Who wants to hear about how my baking homemade sourdough dropped my Master's triglyceride levels? Oh...wait. You do want to hear about that? So, maybe this is a food blog after all?

Anyway, i've decided to participate in Fight Back Fridays with Food Renegade. i'll be sharing more of my food adventures and....experiments. (yes, some do  go awry. Yes, i am talking about the cauliflower kimchee.) (Not to mention the kombucha tea. Blargh.)

So, Master has had issues with crazy high triglyceride counts. His diet is fairly good, but definitely heavy on commercial breads. After His last crazy blood test, He threw out all the bread in the house. i was sad... after all, i like bread. i started doing some research in to what could be driving up the triglycerides. We all know commercial white bread isn't all that good for you. We've come to learn that there are certain chemicals in grains that are not so good for you, unless the grain is soaked beforehand. So...how do i soak flour before i make bread? That sounded like a huge "Little house on the Prairie" sort of challenge. i'm all for food adventure but i wasn't really willing to take on the task of milling all my own flour. Back to the research.... Ah Ha! Sourdough! The flour is soaked and fermented (which brings out even more benefits, nutritionally speaking) i've got a system down that enables me to make 2 loaves of sourdough bread with less than 10 minutes of work. Yes, there's the fermenting time, but that hardly counts, as i am not doing anything. i get it started on Thursday night, i mix it Friday morning, bake it in the evening and we have bread to last for the week. After doing this for a year, Master has had nothing but amazing blood tests. Yup, He eats the bread and it's not wreaking havoc with the triglycerides. Even if i make it with white flour. Really.

Is that worth 10 minutes of work on my part? Yup.
Is that SERVICE that a slave can provide for  Master? Yup.
(it's not just the good tasting bread, it's the fact that just maybe i am extending His life in a delicious way.)
i was intending on doing photos to show the process but i honestly got derailed with the news about LiLu. Perhaps next week......

LiLu....Oy....

So.... it turns out that that "don't worry, it's just a cyst" thing on my LiLu's leg is actually a Mast cell tumor. Yeah. Not good at all. i feel like a terrible dog mother for not insisting that the vet test it back when it was smaller. She's headed in for surgery on Tuesday morning. i'm really not happy about this at all. With this type of tumor, they really need to take a wide area of flesh around it to make sure they got it all. However, it's on her leg so they can't do that. (Unless they take off her leg, but let's not go there yet.....)
i'll be spending a good portion of the weekend trying to dig out her crate since she's going to be confined for at least a week after the surgery. *sigh*

RIP Pete Steele....

Pete was a good guy, whenever i had the chance to interact with him he was nothing but a gentleman to me. When his band, Type-O Negative, was starting to take off, he'd still take time to talk to "the little people" (and, yes, i mean that literally, since he was a mighty 6'7" hunk of man) i enjoyed talking about music and tattoos with him. He will be missed. A lot.

silly fan-girl & heavy lifts

So, in my silly fan girl news... my favorite body builder came through for me and sent both Master and me an autographed photo each. Super cool!
In my weight lifting news - i *did* move my weights up on my leg press, so i ended up doing 728 last week and then this past Sunday, Master plopped on some more weight so i am now up to a 738 leg press, 2 sets of 20 reps each. i've always had strong legs but this is making me super proud of my strength! whoo hooo!
Also, my weight is still dropping. It's slow, less than a pound per week. However, considering that i've been beating my head against a wall for the last couple of years to lose anything at all, despite going to the gym regularly - it's a blessed relief. So, drum roll please...here's what i've started taking as a supplement. Creatine monohydrate. Yup, the same creatine that bodybuilders take to get bigger. i'm not telling anyone to take it. All i am saying is that i am seeing some results from it. A little more energy, a little less exhaustion, a moderate amount of weight loss. Coupled with hard workouts, walking, a clean diet... it's so easy! (not) But i will not be dissuaded, discouraged, or disheartened.

Times flies.... what's new? Still leg pressing 708 lbs. This Sunday (Easter) will be the day that i move up the weight, if all goes well. Master & i will take inventory on my knees, etc and then see if it's really time to move up the weight. :-) Wheeee!
i sent a fan-girl email to my favorite body builder and got a reply. i am such a dork.
i started taking some minerals, herbs and other supplements this month and Lo & Behold, after well over 2 years of struggle, got rid of a pound. No kidding! i'm afraid to say it out loud..... if i keep progressing, however slow, then i'll post what i'm taking but until then, i'm keeping it under my hat. i'm not pushing anyones products until it's proven itself to me.
What else is new? Someone near and dear to me finally "came out" 2 weeks ago. (no, not Ricky Martin!)  i'm not saying who, because i don't think they want to make this in to general knowledge... but i'm super proud of them!
That's my update for now. i gotta wrap up my work here and then head out for my 3 day weekend!
Happy Happy Happy!