Neolithic man would eat a cupcake

It's always stressful trying to train on the road. The running part is easy enough (Did you bring sneakers? Get after it!) but the swimming requires more planning. I was down in Riverside for work a few weeks ago and struggled to maintain my training schedule. I found a master's swim team, but learned they wanted their monthly rate ($55) should I want to join them for one workout.

This is how I feel about asking someone to pay $55 for one swim

Next up: Public pool with open swim. I discovered that UC Riverside has a pool, open from 11-2, but UC Riverside's campus doesn't seem to allow visitor parking until after 4pm. Or perhaps the magic parking lot is well hidden. Either way, well played UC Riverside, there's no riffraff clogging up your open swim lanes. There was a local municipal pool, but it appeared closed to the public. Or perhaps, open to the public only once a month on the full moon. Who knows. They didn't have a sign or a front desk.

This isn't a fancy blog. We have no skilled artists. Apologies.

Bordering on desperation, and knowing I needed to train not-the-run that day, I remembered that my friend Nate just recently opened a CrossFit gym in Riverside. I know nothing more about Crossfit than a few choice jokes about sweaty boxes, but my husband swore it would be an amazing workout, I couldn't find a pool, and so off I went to CrossFit Kratos.

I learned many things during that workout. First, I can't do squats. I thought I could do squats. Apparently liz squats are to real squats what an apple is to a tire iron. Second, a 7 minute segment of wall balls alternating with burpees had me wishing that I had decided to do a 3000 yard swim workout in the hotel's 7 yard pool. And third, if you are ever in Riverside, need a workout that's not-the-run, and it's not a full moon, you should go to CrossFit Kratos. Because Nate is amazing. 

Photo deliberately fuzzy so you can't see how gross and worked I was from Nate's training 

Lest you think this is all just an advertisement for a gym....I'm taking the long way to my point. Which is that I have always associated CrossFit with the Paleo diet. And I don't like the Paleo diet. I get encouraging people to remove processed food and refined sugars from their diet as much as possible. But legumes, grains and dairy?

Neolithic man was a hunting, gathering wanderer. The neolithic period started to advance towards more awesome periods like the bronze age right about when neolithic man started feasting on early wild cereal grains, initially obtained through bartering, and farming them to sustain that tasty feeding habit. Cutting the modern processed food culture out of your life is a good idea. But there's no need to go the extra step against the evolutionary development path of your species.

The backbone of your diet should be lean meat, vegetables, fruits and nuts. But there's nothing wrong with tossing in some tasty flavor enhancements of high quality if you can get them. And this leads me to my below recipe, which is Paleo in that it highlights meat and vegetables, and not Paleo in that it allows for the addition of things like wine, butter, tomato paste and a little bit of flour.

Beef Stew

Hardware: Dutch Oven (or a regular soup pot that is oven safe), Spatula, medium size mixing bowl

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp butter 
• 1/4 cup flour (gluten free or regular) 
• 1 tsp salt 
• 1 tsp pepper 
• 3 tbsp tomato paste (you could process a half cup of sun dried tomatoes in your food processor if you wanted instead)
• 3 tbsp honey
• 1 Red Onion (chopped)
• 1 Fennel (bulb chopped, fronds minced)
• 4 cloves garlic (minced)
• 2 carrots (cut on the diagonal)
• .25 lb mushrooms (whatever kind you like, cut into manageable bites)
• 1 - 1.5 lb stew meat (beef or lamb) 
• 2 cups Beef or Veal Stock 
• .5 - 1 cup black coffee (i use whatever is leftover from the morning)
• .5 - 1 cup Red Wine (if you didn't drink all of it last night, I don't know your drinking habits)
• 1 8oz can diced tomatoes in juice (or, 4 small tomatoes diced with all their juice)

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350
2. Put the dutch oven on a burner on medium low. Melt the butter in the dutch oven 
3. While the butter is melting, put the flour in the mixing bowl and add the stew meat, tossing to coat in the flour. 
4. When the butter comes up to temp, start browning the meat in the butter in batches. When browned on all sides, remove to a dish while you work through all the meat. If you need to, add more butter to keep the saute process going. 
5. When all the meat has been browned and removed to a dish, add the onion, fennel, garlic, carrot, salt and pepper to the dutch oven and saute until the red onion is translucent and all the brown bits are off the bottom of the dutch oven. 
6. Add in the tomato paste and saute with the veggies for about 2 minutes. 
7. Add the stock, coffee, wine and tomatoes to the party. Mix well.
8. Mix in the honey. 
9. Bring the mixture to a simmer and then add back in the meat, making sure that it is submerged. If it isn't, add water to the mix until it is. 
10. Once the meat is in, put the lid on the dutch oven and put it in the real oven. Set the timer for 2 hours. 
11. At the two hour mark, give a stir to the stew to make sure it isn't sticking to the bottom of the dutch oven. Add the mushrooms in at this point. 
12. Reset the timer for an additional 30 minutes 
13. At this point, your stew is done. If you think it isn't thick enough, let it go for additional half hour increments in the oven until it reaches the thickness you want. 
14. Makes 6-8 servings

.