Cauliflower Ham Bake

So I decided to try a few cauliflower recipes to expand my low carb horzions and on the second try I found this little gem! This bake reminds me of augratin potatos or scalloped potatoes. I ended up eating this with my toy salsa and it was excellent! I hope you enjoy it as well!

A note: I used a 1 pound ham steak which was about 1/3 the price per pound as the other ham AND just the right size when chopped into cubes.
Ingredients:

2 lbs cauliflower
2 lbs ham
8 oz cheddar cheese
1 cup heavy cream
2 eggs beaten

Start by breaking the cauliflower up into manageable floret size. Think broccoli florets. steaming/boiling the cauliflower. I enjoy steaming as it is easy and has little mess but whatever you want to do is fine here. The cauliflower does not have to be completely steamed as it will continue to cook when baking. Next, mash up the cauliflower slightly. Think macaroni size, maybe a little bigger, seems to be the best texture. Beat the eggs and mix with the cream. Mix everything together and put in a baking dish.

If your cauliflower is still hot cook on 375 for 30 minutes - I like to add some cheese on top at the end and give it five minutes to melt, this is up to you.

If you let the cauliflower cool down cook on 375 for 45 minutes.

Enjoy!

Awesome Chorizo, Pico and Jack Scarmble

Just had an amazing scramble that Emily came up with and wanted to jot this down as it was SO tasty!

Ingredients:

3 eggs (beated)

Chorizo, about 2 ounces

1/8 cup Pico De gallo (or your favorite salsa)

Monterey Jack Cheese (shredded or 1/4" squares are the best)

This is super simple. Put the chorizo in your egg pan and brown it. Add eggs and cook until almost done. When almost done stir in cheese until melted. If using squares try to let them melt but not mix in too much, they will act like little flavor crystals. Mix in pico and serve.

You can also top the scramble with your favorite salsa/pico rather than mixing in. This scramble was so easy and tasty I had to share it!

Beef Taco Soup

1/2 cup chopped onion
2 cloves garlic minced
1 Pound ground beef
1 tbsp cumin
1 tsp chili powder
few dashes of tabasco
8 oz cream cheese
1 10 oz can of Rotel (drained)
1 4 oz can of diced green chilis
1 14 oz can of chicken or beef broth (I prefer chicken but beef is great as well.)
1/2 cup heavy cream
A few dashes of salt and pepper

Brown ground beef in large pot, add in diced onion and minced garlic. After ground beef is browned drain off liquid and add cumin and chili powder. Mix in well and add cream cheese (it helps to soften up the cream cheese in the microwave first). Mix the cream cheese in until it is evenly distributed and add all other ingredients. Cook until warm. Serve with some shredded cheddar cheese on top and add a dollop of sour cream as well.

BJJ Journal - 5//19/2011

Today during the day it was jut me Morgan, and Donna. Donna is a blue belt, Morgan is my 3-stripe brown belt head instructor.

We covered the standing guard pass. Basically the move involves grabbing your opponents lapels and standing one foot at a time (think Sumo style). From here you anticipate their legs opening behind your back at which point you want to squat over their legs almost like a stack. One important detail is to keep your head up and not lean over.

Once their legs have broken you need to stay heavy. Control the leg and if needed slide the leg downward while keeping your bod weight on your opponent. use your body and keep pressure on them while you pass and try not to let them get to their knees. End in good solid side control with good pressure on your opponent.

BJJ Journal - 5/5/2011

So this is my first Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) entry. It will be much like my Judo Journal only the topic is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

Today I did a lunchtime class. It was me, Nate, Ray, and our instructor Morgan. Morgan is a 2 stripe brown belt I am currently a 3 stripe white, Ray is a 2 stripe white, and Nate is in his second class so no stripes yet.

At this point I am training for my first BJJ tournament on Saturday so Morgan was nice enough to help me work on some things, mainly what to do when I have pulled half guard.

The first thing we drilled from half guard is correct posture. I do not want my back flat on the mat, ever, and especially not when using half guard. This means my body is always to one side.

The next very important step is to get the under hook. This means that if my arm is on the outside of my opponents arm (think over the shoulder) I need to change to have my arm under his arm (like hugging under the arm pit). To achieve this I need to move my arm inside and under my opponent placing my hand in front of me on the ground (remember, i am on my side so my hand would be in front of my body.). Next I need to work my hand back out and under his arm. This can be tied in with the next part of the escape to make some space.

Next I need to get up on my elbow on posted up on my hand. Also remember that if I am unable to get the under hook I can start working to get up on my elbow/hand and often times this will open the door to let my hand sneak under for the under hook.

Once in this position there are options. I can either pull my head out and go to my knees or I can pull my opponent onto his back and let his weight pull me up into side control. Which way to go depends mostly on what he is giving me.

If he is staying low on me I want to slip my head out. It is important that I leave my same side hook in as I come up. Basically I use my under hook to pull my head through and then I sit up and I am already in a great harness position.

The other option is if my opponent is up high on me. This means that his center of gravity is closer to my torso than my hips. If so I can grab with my under hook and pull him toward his back. I will let his arm stay behind my head so that when he starts to roll over he takes me with him. On the way up I want to slip my hook out and I am in a great position for side control, knee on stomach, and possibly even mount.

We trained a few variations as well. One was the same as the other two up until you are posted out on your hand. The move involved shooting an arm under your opponents knee (the knee furthest from you) and basically do the last variation I discussed only while lifting and controlling the leg as well.

I rolled around with both Nate and Ray and was able to pull these off while rolling and it felt great. I really appreciate Morgan working with me on what I feel is a great big hole in my game. I worked a lot on side control escapes a few weeks back and while I am far from perfect at it I at least feel like I have some idea of what I am doing when put in side control and when I pull half guard.

Basically, the top game is the easy part, I just don't want to get stuck on bottom so I have been working it every chance I get!

Thanks to everyone for helping me get ready for my first tournament!

Judo Journal - 4/27/2011

Today I did a lunchtime class. Sensei Keith instructed. Others in attendance were Nate, Jim, and Andrew.

We practiced a combo from Kouchi Gari to Ouchi Gari to Osoto gari. We also worked on Kesa Gatame and escapes from Kesa Gatame

I have been working on the replacement step in between Kouchi and Ouchi Gari to really close the distance and allow my big reap to go deep enough. I am also working on kazushi and feel that I am not able to ever get proper kazushi. I also discovered that Judo guys don't tend to like to take the back when I do a Drop Seoinagi and I plan on using this move in my next tournament to get it to the ground if I feel like the other guy is much better than me on the feet.

Do not attempt Osoto Gari on big guys or they will do it to you. I learned this from Andrew today during randori. Andrew is a very tall guy and I went for Osoto Gari on him and he ended up doing it to me. I landed cleanly on my back for ippon. I feel that when I am going to Kouchi and Ouchi gari I cannot close the gap but that I can with Osoto Gari but then I get thrown. I also feel like my attempts to get my opponents balance off are not really doing anything. I need to work with sensei to see what I am doing wrong. I mean I am trying to get the kazuhi but every time I try to get the "crunch" on someone I get stopped and nothing comes of it.

Sensei also opened up arm bars today. Up to this point in Judo Keith has said "NO arm bars unless he taught them to us." Today he said that I could start going for them. Whether this was just for this class or from here on out is yet to be seen. As for getting an arm bar today I did not but I did get to see just how well my arm bar defense is against Andrew. He was going for the arm bar Keith had showed him earlier and it was very easy to defend. I stacked him and took his back and we stood up after I could not sink in a choke.

I also noticed that the only reason Jim isn't throwing me all of the time is that I out weigh him by quite a bit. I am pretty sure if we were at the same weight he would give me flying lessons.

Basically, standing up in Judo I feel like a fish out of water and when it goes to the ground I feel like the shark. I am loving what I am learning even though the learning is slow. I am excited for class next Monday and tomorrow Nate and I start a daytime BJJ class at my school Mile High Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. Now Nate will get an idea of why I do so well once the match is on the ground.

My first Judo Journal Entry

So I have been doing Judo for about 2 months now and am loving it. I am learning all of the stand up and throws that seem to be missing from my Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu training and my BJJ training really helps a lot when it goes to the ground in Judo. At this time I am a white belt and have already competed in my first tournament but that is a different post.

My Sensei Keith mentioned that it would be a good idea to start jotting down little notes on my Judo to help in my learning and I am going to give it a shot. This will probably pour over into BJJ as well as I have been thinking about blogging about something similar to this for some time.

So, notes from class on 4/25/11 (yesterday).

We worked on reviewing all of the throws that we (Nate and I, we started together) have learned in our short time on the mat. I will comment on a few of the throws:

Seoinagi or "shoulder Throw."

This is the first technique we were taught after learning a lot of Ukemi (breakfalls.) The animation to the left shows the movement in this move. There are many variations depending on left handed or right handed grips, one or 2 arms, dropping to the knees and so on. I only know two versions, the normal right handed grip version and the drop seoinagi which involves dropping to the knees. I tried this move in my first tournament.

Kouchi Gari or "Small inside reap."

This is a great technique and while so far I have not had a lot of success with it I can see a lot of value in it. At this point my teacher has shown how to use kouchi gari as a setup for other throws including the next throw I am going to talk about and that is Ouchi gari (Large inner reap).

Ouchi Gari or "big inside reap."

This is the first real throw I ever landed in randori. As stated above, my sensei has shown some great combos that involve moving from a Kosoto Gari into Osoto Gari that I really try and work in every class. I will go over some of the nuances of each throw and little details at a later point but for know I am really working on learning what each throw is and what they are called.

Osoto gari or "big inside reap."

This is a great throw and one that I have known for a very long time. Long story short, I have known my sensei, Keith, since my childhood. He lived next door and I was friends with his kids. I have memories of him teaching his kids Judo in the backyard and him even teaching me a little bit as well. This is the throw he showed with me and it stuck with me my entire life. Now that I am doing Judo this really is a throw that I go for and one of the few I have landed successfully on my training partners in randori.

So those are a few of the throws that I have been taught up to this point. I am still working a lot on the terminology and even more importantly, the technique. I by no means have mastered any of these throws but I have a beginners understanding of how each is supposed to work and my journey will be to perfect these and all of the other throws.

There are so many small nuances and details in each throw. From the setup to the actual technique, there is so much to be learned. I just wanted to get this journal started. It will probably be filled with pages of cryptic seemingly useless tidbits of information but as I gather this information and piece it together I hope to improve my Judo game more and more.

Quick and Easy Baked Chicken Recipe

This is a quick and easy baked chicken recipe that I use all the time. This is for either quartered or 1/8th pieces of chicken. I like to use this when cooking legs/thighs.

Ingredients:

Chicken (1/4 pieces or 1/8ths)

Olive Oil

Salt and Pepper

Optional:

Rosemary (Dried or fresh)

Garlic Powder

Instructions:

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.

Take a baking sheet and coat it with olive oil. Coat the chicken with olive oil as well and salt and pepper both sides. Place chicken on baking sheet and place baking sheet on center rack in oven.

Optional: I like to sprinkle some rosemary and garlic powder on the chicken before I put it in the over but this is not required.

Let the chicken cook at 400 degrees for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes turn the oven down to 350 degrees and cook another 15 minutes or so. If you are cooking a lot of chicken you may need more time. The internal temperature of the chicken should be 165 for drumsticks and 170 for thighs. You can also test doneness by poking the chicken with a fork. If the juices that come out are pink the chicken needs more time, if they are clear the chicken is done.

Optional: If the chicken is not browning enough you can turn the broiler on for the last 5 minutes of cooking.

My mom's "Toy" salsa

I actually named it "Toy Salsa" after the first time she made it because it was not super spicy and it was kind of like a "Toy" compared to "Real" salsa. The truth is that this is an incredibly tasty salsa.

Ingredients:

1 fat can of tomatoes (chopped, whole, whatever, but NOT sauce, juice, paste or flavored)

1 Bunch Cilantro-chop the stems off before unbanding it, (there will be some stemmy stuff left, that’s OK, your new machine will pulverize that $hit!

1/3 cup frozen hot diced green chiles (at your local Wally World)***

2 cloves of garlic, or many shakes of garlic powder-NOT garlic salt***

1 teaspoon of salt***

1 teaspoon sugar or shot of honey

1 Chunk of onion (white or yellow), about the size of a miniature golf ball (never seen one? me either, get creative)

Run everything but the tomatoes through the food processor, it will smell super good! Add the tomatoes and zap it again, if you like it chunkier, start with whole tomatoes and use the "pulse" function to get it the texture you like.