Life Changing Bag O'Goodness

I am all about convenience, which is a funny thing to say when eating Paleo...because let's all be honest. Paleo isn't the easiest way to eat. It takes time, dedication, and a whole hell of a lot of will power. Hence the reason why I absolutely cannot keep items in my house that I will be temped by. And hence the reason why I must, absolutely must, have convenient items ready to go in moments of crisis/starvation. This new product from Trader Joe's is just that. It's so versatile and so quick that I have now added it to my "buy one every week list." You can eat it as a salad or cook it up.

This past week I have implemented a one meat, two veggie rule for all our dinners. I was becoming increasingly frustrated with providing a fairly decent portion of meat and veggie and the kids scarfing that down and then wanting more food, but never wanting more meat or veggies. I recognize my "problem" with my kids eating a ton of healthy foods in one meal isn't really a problem since most parents struggle to get their kids to eat anything besides PB&J and there is a large population who don't even have enough food period. But for me it is frustrating to have to add at least two or three more items to a meal to fill them up. And there began the one meat, two veggie model. Thankfully, my kids do like a variety of veggies so for example to the right is a cauliflower gratin that is incredibly tasty and easy and some of the TJ Cruciferous Crunch sauteed in bacon grease with some freeze dried shallots and salt. This paired with a dill tilapia to round out the meal. After this they both asked for more of the sauteed greens and then had a pear to finish up. Here's to more veggies than a vegetarian!

Balsamic Glazed Drumsticks

I love easy. Any time I see a recipe that involves minimal prep and minimal attention will make me interested in it. This recipe for Balsamic Glazed Drumsticks meets all those qualities. The only changes to the recipe I made were to use coconut aminos instead of tamari and I threw in some of my new favorite freeze dried shallots. This will be on the regular rotation for sure. I paired it with some peas and fried cabbage.

This weekend I also threw together some coconut white vinegar, melted coconut oil, ginger, garlic powder and salt. I used that as a marinade for salmon and then dumped it all in a pan and baked it until cooked to medium doneness. I used the shaved Brussel sprouts from TJ's to complete the meal.

We did go out to eat twice over the weekend and while I made pretty good choices for my main meal by choosing all gluten free options the consistent area I falter in is dessert, I love me some sweets. I am amazed at how miserable I feel after eating non-Paleo foods. I don't know why, it happens consistently every time I eat something that isn't on "the plan," which just further motivates me. So motivation I have for the next few weeks.

Valentine's Brunch

This morning we had the joy to spend several hours with some of our besties at their house for a "family" brunch. We split up the chore of cooking and she covered this incredible tasty egg casserole from Health-Bent and bacon. We like our meat so she double the sausage and it turned out amazing! So flavorful and perfect after spending the morning at hot yoga together! I threw together some my favorite sweet potato pancakes (also from Health-Bent) and this time I actually made the maple, pecan butter (I used clarified butter instead of coconut butter). It was so tasty. I didn't need additional maple syrup. Threw some berries on the plate and called it good!!

Since we ate a late breakfast/lunch we ended up being pretty hungry mid afternoon too so we swung by our favorite, non-Paleo pizza place for our "special" Valentine treat. The little salad lover (our youngest) and I split a salad to start and then I had one piece of the best deep dish in St. Louis.....and I've been paying for it ever since. My tummy has been protesting since and I'm sipping on a cup of healing bone broth!

If I do eat I'll be eating left overs from last night. I made the most amazing fried chicken-ish dinner ever. I tell you what, that Nomnompaleo knows what she's doing. I made her cracklin' chicken and it was worth the insane amount of clean up required after all the grease splattering. This very much tasted like fried chicken without the floury breading. This will be made again for sure!!!

Two New Meals in One Day!

I have made spaghetti squash in the crock pot three or four times now and I think I finally have a consistency that I am happy with. I cooked this one on high for 3 hours and it was just perfect. I used it to make a spaghetti squash casserole from My Heart Beats and it was so good. Like as in the four of us at the whole recipe for lunch. The night before I did everything up until baking it and that was so nice! I love having stuff prepped and ready to go!

The second recipe was for Moroccan Meatballs from The Clothes That Make the Girl. These were super easy to whip up and ended up being so flavorful. I do think next time I won't cook them as long because they were slightly dry. Maybe I'll put them in after the sauce has boiled down some. I did make some cauliflower couscous to sop up the delicious sauce and while it wasn't the kids favorite (so surprised that this is the one thing they don't like much...) it added some more substance to the dish!

Both will be added to my list of ones I'll make again!

Post Serendipity Day

Sugar makes me feel almost drunk...that's right, it's quite the buzz when ingested in large quantities. And by large I mean a regular scoop in a chocolate dipped cone. That's right, there was no resisting the joy of serendipity...I'm not sure what I was thinking when I thought I would just eat a kids scoop in a bowl. It was everything I dreamed it would be. It was totally worth it. Here are the things I noticed after eating it:

• I really did feel that "sugar high"
• I really did crash hard! 
• I slept horrible. The hubs is refusing to attribute it to the sugar, but I'm not so sure. I have been sleeping like a rock these past 5 weeks and last night I woke up no less than 4 times
• I have been sluggish all day today
• I have wanted sugar most of the day
• I am really crabby today...who knows if that's related, but I'm going to blame it on the sugar!!!

Today I had an almond milk latte today with a swirl of honey in it. It was super sweet and I think I would've been fine without the honey but it was so amazing with it! Onward to real food eating for a while!

IT'S SERENDIPITY DAY

It's finally here...the day I've been anticipating for 32 days. I have had the option to eat non-paleo foods since finishing my Whole30, but I've saved myself for this evening. I even took the kids to the movies and smelled the delicious popcorn, I have opened the bag containing the left over salty-caramel dark chocolate bar from TJ's for just a sniff, and I have been tempted by gooey brownies sitting at work...but I've persevered and it's all be worth it because today is "Serendipity Day." This morning I received a text from my husband that contained this picture:

In case you can't see it...the first post on Serendipity's Facebook page states that they're closed tonight...I originally was furious...I've waited a LONG time to eat this amazing, perfectly balanced salty caramel ice cream. Then I wondered why I didn't see this on Serendipity's page when I was perusing Facebook this morning so I pulled up there page and noticed it wasn't on there...and that's when I looked closer, the post below (that the date isn't strategically cut off on) says Dec 12, 2013. I am not surprised he tried to ruffle my feathers, but I am surprised he went to so much trouble to do it! 

The last two days I've tried three new recipes that I have been VERY impressed by. 

1.) Crispy Grain Free Waffles from Health Starts in the Kitchen.  I used 1/8 cup of Palm sugar instead of the 1/4 and it was plenty sweet for me sans maple syrup and for sure plenty sweet with the syrup for the kids/hubs. I may try no sugar next time to see how those go. I also used canned coconut milk, but I am wondering if she meant to use the boxed kind. My batter was not thin AT ALL. It was way more thick so I added more canned coconut milk. They turned out delicious and super crispy. I would warn you to liberally butter your waffle iron. I don't have a fancy ceramic one (but yes, now I'm lusting after one...) and my first batch stuck pretty bad, but once I added more butter the remaining waffles had no problems. The kids tried them cold and still liked them so this was their special Friday lunch for today.

2.) Paleo Chicken Nuggets from Our Savory Life The only sub I did with this was taking out the "heavy cream" and replacing it with canned coconut milk...oh and I didn't use an egg because there wasn't one left out of the 7 dozen I bought a week ago...These were SOOO good. The boy kept saying, "mom these are better than McDonald's" so I'm going to consider this a win. I chopped up my chicken the night before which was a huge time saver. I also mixed up my spice mixture the night before so that was already taken care of. I only had about 45 min to marinate my chicken in the pickle juice (you read that right...) so I would like to see how marinating longer would change the flavor! Make sure you have some bacon grease for these, it makes them that much better. I paired this with roasted broccoli and it was a great meal that was on the table in 30 min after we got home. 

3.) Spicy Sausage and Sweet Potato Soup from Peace, Love, and Low Carb I love having close friends to enjoy life with and thankfully some of our best friends also eat Paleo and share recipes with us all the time. This is one of those and I am so glad we found it. I put this in the crock pot last night so when I got up before the sun this morning it was ready to go. I hadn't planned on it, but when I was getting my lunch out to leave for work I realized I had nothing packed for breakfast so a few ladles of soup later I was ready to go. I got lots of weird looks for eating soup for breakfast, but with a temp of 7 degrees when I got to work it was a great warm way to start the day. It'll be dinner tonight too. I would suggest to make sure you pay attention to the "drain excess grease off sausage" step. I did not and it's a little greasy. I am hoping after sitting in the fridge all day I can scrape some of it off the top before we eat it. 

Enjoy! 

Whole30 Day 30

Well that was uneventful. I guess that's a good thing, but in reality it didn't even cross my mind that I was actually done with what turned out to be my "loosest" Whole30 ever. Some thoughts on how this one went:

1.) I could totally eat this way all the time. What I mean by that is that I wasn't a crazy freak about not eating bacon; . I drank once (which is a HUGE improvement from the bottle of wine per night the hubs and I used to consume pre-Paleo) and is completely manageable; I survived without any Paleo "treats." I also survived without a significant amount of Paleo "subs."

2.) I started feeling better a lot later this time. I believe this is primarily related to how poorly I was eating the weeks prior to starting this one. I do think I didn't have as many problems switching to fat metabolism when working out like I did the first two times, but any changes in my body fat percentage seemed much later this time too. Which I know isn't the point, but it sure is a nice benefit!

3.) I feel like towards the end I finally got a good grasp on my intake/output ratio to mange the afternoon starving that was happening early on in my Whole30.

4.) This will continue. I have really evaluated the things that I missed. And in no particular order they are: sweetened almond milk lattes (either rosemary brown sugar or honey almond) from my favorite coffee shop and ice cream. That's it. That's not to say I won't have an occasional Paleo pancake, muffin, or non-Paleo treat but if I can make it through a Mexican restaurant with fresh chips and salsa, Super Bowl Sunday with pizza, and a party at a bar with AMAZING bar food then I think I'm on the right track. As for my favorite lattes and ice cream...Thankfully, I can ask for half (or maybe a quarter) of the sugary substance that goes into the lattes, but I am going to definitely reduce the number of them I am drinking..my body and my bank account will thank me! And for my favorite ice cream place I am sure I will be satisfied with a small kids size scoop in a cup instead of the biggest one available in a chocolate dipped waffle cone, we shall see on Friday! I don't want to be unreasonable and "that crazy lady," but I do want to value my body and know that I can enjoy an occasional treat without destroying all the healing and health benefits I have reached so far.

I plan on continuing to document what I'm eating. I will also keep posting new recipes that I have tried and any helpful hints.

So, for the last day meals! Breakfast was the usual meat/eggs/avocado. For lunch I had a big salad with mixed greens, tuna, kalamata olives, artichoke hearts, grape tomatoes and some balsamic vinaigrette. Dinner was loaded bacon burger soup. And it was okay, nothing great. I won't make it again. It seemed very bland compared to so many other Paleo meals that are bursting with flavor. I was leery of the pickles in soup but they were probably the tastiest part! I did roast butternut squash in coconut oil to go with it and that, as always, was delicious. It is so time consuming to dice up those guys into little cubes, but I love how crispy they get on the outside and gooey on the inside. And I since I didn't even realize it was over I didn't celebrate with anything "special"....I'm saving myself for Salty Caramel ice cream....