Day Three - Chicken Stir-Fry and a Question

Happy Monday!  Too much enthusiasm for a Monday morning?  Sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays.  (I couldn't help myself.)  How was everyone's weekend?  Did you hit up the Farmer's Markets that are back?  I stopped by the Fledging Crow stand on saturday and picked up some mustard greens, baby kale, and a giant bunch of scallions.  They have the best veggies!

 Today's recipe is a veggie rich one that is for those busy days when you don't have a lot of time to cook.


Chicken Stir-Fry with Cauliflower Rice

Ingredients

-2 to 3 chicken breasts
-2 packages of frozen mixed veggies (I like Pepper and Onions, and Sugar Snap Stir-Fry Mix.  Just make sure it's sauce-less i.e. just veggies.)
-1 Tbsp. olive oil
-1 tsp. sesame oil
-1 tsp. Chinese five spice
-1 Tbsp. fresh minced garlic
-1 tsp. sesame seeds

-1-4 dashes of hot sauce (depending on preference)
-crushed red pepper (depending on preference)
-1/2 tsp. ground dried ginger
-1 tsp. fresh basil paste or 1/2 tsp dried basil
-1/2 head of cauliflower
-1 Tbsp coconut oil

Husband Friendly Ingredients
-1 to 2 tsp of soy sauce
-Rice

Directions

1.  In morning throw raw chicken breasts in slow-cooker on low for 8 hours.  (I like to do a whole huge package of chicken breasts so that I have cooked chicken on hand.)
2.  Saute frozen veggies in frying pan, spooning off excess water.
3.  Remove chicken breasts from slow-cooker and chop to bite sized pieces.  Add to veggie mix.
4.  Make cauliflower rice using coconut oil.  Follow this awesome tutorial.
5.  Mix up oils and spices in a bowl then add to the veggies and chicken.  (Play with the seasonings and see what you like best, we like it spicy!).  Stir till all veggies and chicken are coated in sauce.
6. Serve veggies and chicken on top of cauliflower rice.

Husband Friendly Directions

1.  Make up rice according to directions.
2.  Add soy sauce to his bowl of stir-fry.

Makes 4 servings at roughly $12 (taking partial costs of spices and oils into consideration) making it $3/serving.

So now for the thought of the day.  I was flipping through a website the other day and came across an article titled "Can you accept your body and still want to lose weight?".  In the video she says "I feel like I love myself/Wish I was a completely different person".  This cracked me up because I have definitely thought that before and felt like a total oxymoron.  (See what I did there.)  The question got me thinking though: Can you love who you are and still want to improve yourself?  To put the initial question in a different manner: Can you accept your natural intelligence level and still want to further your education?  Most people would say yes but that to further your education depends upon your skills.  Simply put not everyone can be a MD but they could be a really skilled plumber, builder, care giver, mechanic, salesperson, etc.  So using my logical progression I reword the initial question to:  Can you accept the natural body you have and still strive to improve it?  Personally I believe yes.  It's taken me a long time to face the fact that I will never be a size small because my body structure is simply not built that way.  However I can feed myself well and exercise to put a nice healthy body over my solid frame.

What do you think?