Mayonnaise Burgers

My Homemade Mayo

Yesterday I made homemade mayonnaise using the recipe Kathleen posted on Ocean Full of Lemons.  It’s a simple recipe consisting mostly of olive oil, apple cider vinegar, eggs, and mustard.  My mayonnaise came out a bit yellower and a bit runnier than hers, but it was delicious nonetheless.  However I soon realized that I had a lot of mayonnaise to use up and thus… mayonnaise burgers were born.

After learning more about meat and nutrition I decided to cook these burgers over a lower heat, for a longer period of time, and covered them with a lid during the process.  This cooking method paired with the half-cup of mayonnaise mixed into the beef resulted in some incredibly moist burgers, cooked to perfection.  Enjoy!

Calf’s Liver with Bacon & Spinach

So last week Cat, from Things My Belly Likes, posted The Creative Kitchen Challenge in which she challenged all of her followers to cook one thing that scared them every day for a week.  That was a bit ambitious for me; but I appreciated the challenge nevertheless.  So I scaled it down a bit and decided to cook one thing that scared me for one day… and I chose LIVER.

I keep hearing about how awesome liver is.  Mark’s Daily Apple, Deep Nutrition, and other blogs like KatieDid say it is a nutritional powerhouse.  When a body has an excess of protein, sugar, vitamins, and minerals it is stored in the liver.  This means a healthy liver is chock full of vitamins A, B, and C, as well as folate, niacin, pantothenic acid, and magnesium.

So over the weekend I went to the local Amish Market and bought myself a half pound of baby beef liver.  After I got home and started looking up recipes, I realized I should have bought some onions to go with it.  But instead I decided to improvise with a little bacon instead (shocker!).  Thanks to epicurious for the inspiration.

5 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Meat & Nutrition

If you’re like me, you hate a steak that is overcooked.  But did you know ordering a steak well-done affects more than just the meat’s flavor?  The way you cook meat has the ability to ruin or protect the nutrients it contains.

Last week I started reading Deep Nutrition, a book written by Catherine Shanahan, MD and Luke Shanahan, MFA.  In their book they talk about how the food you eat affects your entire body, inside and out, as well as your children… and your children’s children.

So far I’m only about a third of the way through it, but it has already taught an incredible amount… about meat.  Here are 5 things I didn’t know, and 5 things you probably didn’t know either.

Going Minimalist 2.0

“Becoming Minimalist: because the best things in life aren’t things!”

-Becoming Minimalist

This week I stumbled upon Becoming Minimalist, a website dedicated to helping people become a minimalist.  One of their articles I particularly liked was, “Benefits of Minimalism.”

In this article they mentioned 28 different benefits of being a minimalist.  A few of my favorites were:

• Finding work you love
• Less stress
• Easier souvenir shopping (haha)

But I encourage you to check out the article yourself to read the rest.

Oil Cleansing Method: All-Natural Face Wash

Since I’ve gone Primal, many aspects of my life have changed for the better. The most notable being my digestion, my body composition, and my overall mental well-being. One aspect I have continued to struggle with, however, is my skin.

Prior to going Primal I was on antibiotic acne medication. For the year or so that I took this medication, I had near-perfect skin. Yet, things that seem too good to be true often are. While researching Primal nutrition I started to understand how much damage antibiotics can do to your body, especially when taking them daily.

Specifically, antibiotics:

• Kill off your good bacteria in the process of killing the bad. Now I know why I used to be so infection-prone…
• Cause antibiotic resistance. So in the future if I needed to take antibiotics for a life-threatening illness, they would be less effective since I had taken them so long for acne.

New Year’s Resolutions: Apr. Progress

“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.”

-Zig Zigler

The more New Year’s Resolutions progress posts I make, the more thankful I am that I’ve committed myself to making them.  Motivation is easy to create, but hard to maintain.  And without these posts I’m sure I would have forgotten about these resolutions months ago.  When it comes to achieving your goals, even the small ones, I’ve learned that holding yourself accountable is incredibly important.  That being said, here is another month of my personal progress

wearing accessories!

Goal 1: Be a Bette Dresser (specifically: buy an outfit I can wear to church and/or work)

• I did it!  Last weekend I dragged my friends out to Nordstrom Rack and was able to find not one, but two outfits I can wear to work and/or church.  And the best part was I got it all for under $140… not bad if you ask me!
• Next month: Get my new work pants tailored, acquire an iron, and find a dress I can wear to my friend’s wedding in June.

Sun-Dried Tomato & Goat Cheese Burgers

There’s just something about a burger that’s hard not to love.  They’re filling, they’re delicious, and cavemen would argue – they’re even nutritious.  And speaking from experience, burgers are even harder not to love when they’re filled with sun-dried tomatoes and warm, creamy goat cheese.  Try these out when you’re looking to jazz up the traditional burger a little bit.  Trust me, they are amazing.

No-Phone Challenge Results

I’m proud to say that I successfully completed my “No-Phone Challenge.”  I lasted an entire week without a cell or landline phone, which meant no phone calls and no text messages, and even managed not to become a recluse in the process.  I was still able to hang out with friends, plan my mom’s birthday, and was more productive in my studies than I’ve possibly been all semester.  Instead of feeling restricted, I actually felt a sense of freedom.

photocredit: understandingshyness.com

During this past week I also finished reading Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, by Robert M. Sapolsky.  Sapolsky is a professor at Stanford University who explains how stress causes and intensifies all sorts of ailments, diseases, and psychological conditions.  Basically his book explains how are bodies react to stress similarly to how a zebra’s body would react to stress.  The problem is that zebras are usually stressed in short bursts, for instance when they are being attacked by a lion.  However modern-day humans undergo chronic stress, for instance when they are stuck in traffic, when they are worried about paying the mortgage, or when they worry that their spouse is cheating on them.  These chronic stressors lead to illnesses such as depression, ulcers, heart disease, etc… illnesses that zebras never develop.

No-Phone Challenge

About two weeks ago I started reading Surviving Off Off-Grid by Michael Bunker.  Michael Bunker is a self-described “plain” person who lives completely off-grid, meaning he lives his life without the use of electric power and most other alternative energy sources.  It’s a fascinating read that is somewhere between ideological and a how-to book.  He basically makes the case that modern day culture has turned people into slaves to technology.  And while his views are certainly extreme, I find his way of life intriguing and lately I’ve been wondering if I could ever come close to pulling it off myself…

Then last week David Kanigan shared a clip of Sherri Turkle’s TED Talk on his blog.  Sherri gave an excellent presentation on how technology is allowing all of us to stay more connected, yet is making all of us more alone.  She basically makes the case that constant texting is preventing people from truly living in the moment.  We are becoming so busy connecting with people that are not with us, that we are forgetting to connect with the people right next to us… and ourselves…

How to Start Lifting Weights

After my post on Primal Workout Websites last week, my awesome co-worker, Earlene, told me she wanted to lift weights… but she didn’t know where to begin.  I tried to give her some simple advice… but that’s a little harder than it sounds.  After all people write entire books and devote entire careers to solving this problem.  But as someone who successfully self-taught herself how-to lift weights, I thought I’d share my 2 cents on how to get started

photo credit: www.stronglola.com