February: A Month In Review

It’s that time again! Here’s my update on my new years resolution, as well as how our month went overall.

This month my daughter turned 1. Yes, 1. I can hardly believe it myself! It feels like time has flown by this past year, but then there are also certainly moments where it’s felt like it’s been dragging. Anyhow, we had her party, which was so fun to plan! (I am such a planner I have realized) In terms of the paleo diet however .. lets just say, there was A LOT of cupcakes, icing, cake and treats. I gave myself full permission to just enjoy the celebration, and the food, especially since I spent a good chunk of time making it all. More about that in this blog post to come.

 

cake “smash” cuteness

not to took my own horn, but don’t these look awesome?!

 

We had been suspecting my daughter had an egg allergy and potentially dairy too, but had to wait until she was 1 to get a referral to the allergist. Well, we had the appointment last week and she definitely has allergies to egg, dairy, and a number of other things. Poor girl. the good news is that if they’re not super severe she will likely outgrow them by the time she’s 4-5 years old. We will go in to a lab to get blood drawn for more detailed results, and to see which proteins she’s allergic to (that’s my understanding of it anyways). Hopefully this will tell us that she can have eggs in things that are baked, that would make things a bit easier.  In the mean time they gave us an epi pen. We now have a confirmation of our suspicions, which is nice, and we can make sure she’s got food that is safe for her. Time to revamp the menu, it actually works out well that we’re doing paleo right now.

In other news, I went to go get my Louisiana drivers license this month. In true DMV style we waited for-e-ver. We were then told that in order to get a license I need to do 14 hours of driver training, and then take the drivers test before I could get my license… even though I have a perfect record and have been driving for 11 years. *groan* Exactly what I want to do with all my free time. (this statement is dripping in sarcasm). SO, looks like I’ll be doing that again sometime soon. Maybe if I ask if I can bring Margaret along for ‘in car’ they’ll cut the lessons short? Hmm…

Overall, I did probably about the same at keeping to the diet as I did in January. Sadly I have yet to get a day planner for meal planning, and I totally failed at recording what I was eating. I am kind of particular so I was wanting to get the perfect day planner. I can now see that I just need to pick one that has a daily layout, forget all the little details  and just “git ‘er done!” One productive thing I DID do was finally order a paleo cookbook that I have been wanting for awhile, you can find it here. It should be here tomorrow, I am SO pumped!! I will most definitely be posting all the tasty things I try from it so follow my blog for future updates. Oh, and I did lose a little bit more weight! Although it was only a few pounds i now weigh in at less than I did when I got pregnant with my daughter – little victory, hooray! I have heard that when it comes to weight loss it’s 80% your diet, and 20% physical activity. I’m not sure if this is 100% accurate, but considering my physical activity level hasn’t changed and I have still managed to lose the weight I have been stuck at for so long I am inclined to say it’s true.

I don’t think I took as many photos as last month, but here’s a sneak peak at some of the top yummy’s (plus some I didn’t take photos of) that I’ll share soon!

 

Margaret enjoyed the stuffed peppers!

honey siracha pulled chicken over a baked sweet potato

over easy eggs with sauted veggies

bacon wrapped burger w/ sweet potato fries

sausage stuffed peppers

over easy eggs atop sauted veggies, take 2

ground beef stufffed peppers

 

HELLO MARCH: Next thing for me. Hitting up amazon and ordering a day-planner! This coming month I will be traveling to the land of poutine, all dressed chips, maple syrup, Tim Hortons, sour cherry blasters and endless snacks; Canada – YAY!! (Regardless of the tasty food, I really am going to see my family, I swear).  I plan on taking advantage of the time to indulge in a few of my Canadian favourites, but hopefully thing’s don’t get too crazy! I am not looking forward to detoxing from the grain and sugar, they’re so addicting to me. Also, I have been wanting to try to get to daily mass in the mornings when Josh doesn’t work. Of course the one time I made it there mass was canceled – fail. haha. I need to try agin. I shall add it to the schedule, writing it in the planner!

Good luck with your resolutions, keep it up! To amazon I go…
– Em

January’s Yummy things

In my last post I promised to update with the recipes for some of those absolutely delicious looking pictures I shared. Well, it would seem I am pretty awful about actually posting in a timely manner. So, as promised here are a few of the recipes that I found online.

So when we 1st kicked this lifestyle change over I was REALLY craving some snack food. If you don’t know me in real life, I LOVE snacks; especially chips. So I found this recipe for Spinach and Artichoke did. YES PLEASE! I love it because I also learned that I can make cashew butter really easily. Not being able to have peanut butter anymore made my heart cry a little bit.

Spinach and artichoke dip w/ sweet potato ‘chips’

Spinach & Artichoke dip:

• 2 (14oz) cans artichoke hearts, chopped
• 16oz frozen spinach (I used fresh and it turned out great so I would say either is fine)
• 1 cup cashews, roasted and unsalted
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• ½ teaspoon black pepper
• ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

Get the instructions here. There’s also an option to add goat cheese if you want. I found it amazing even without.

We cut up and pan fried some sweet potatoes in an attempt to make sweet potato chips. They were definitely not a ‘potato chip’, missing the thin crunch, but they were delicious (kudos to the hubby for taking care of that part of the snack!)

 

One of my other favourites from the month was this bacon wrapped, citrus tangy, pork tenderloin. I think I just drooled a little bit. I mean it’s bacon wrapped, so you automatically know it’s going to be amazing!

Yes, It was as good as it looks!

Ingredients you will need:

For the sauce

• 2 cups orange juice (I had no store bought orange juice so I literally squeezed the orange, maybe didn’t quite get 2 cups, more like 1.5 but it turned out great)
• ½ cup coconut aminos
• 1 heaping tablespoon honey (I had no honey so I substituted maple syrup – so Canadian, eh?!)
• ¼ teaspoon fish sauce
• zest of ½ an orange (about ½ tablespoon of zest)
• ½ teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1 teaspoon chili powder

For the tenderloin

• 1-1½ pound pork tenderloin
• ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
• ½ teaspoon garlic powder
• ¼ teaspoon smoked paprika
• ⅛ teaspoon cinnamon
• ½-3/4 pound bacon (about 7-8 strips of bacon)

Get the baking directions here. Seriously. SO delicious!! Just look at the picture again…drooling yet? Do yourself (and your family) a favour and put this on the dinner menu this week, you will not regret it!

 

I would be doing you a huge disservice if I didn’t share about these burgers. It’s like a Mexican burger but instead of actual cheese sauce it’s a ‘sneaky-paleo-delicious sauce’, top with caramelized onions. HELLO flavour. Just because you are eating a caveman diet doesn’t mean you need to be eating bland, straight up caveman food.

these are the burgers! ❤ ❤

Ingredients:

For the burger itself

• 1 lb buffalo (or ground beef)
• 1 (6oz) can of green chiles
• ½ teaspoon paprika
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon black pepper
• ½ teaspoon chipotle red pepper (or chili powder, that’s what I used )

For the toppings–

• 1 package mushrooms (I didn’t have any so I didn’t use them)
• 1 red onion, thinly sliced
• ½ 14oz jar of roasted peppers, sliced (I just used this for the sauce)
• 2-3 tablespoons coconut oil
• ¼ teaspoon chipotle red pepper or chili powder
• ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
• salt and pepper, to taste

For the Avocado Roasted Red Pepper sauce–

• 2 avocados (All the avocados at my store weren’t ready yet so I bought some plane guacamole and used that. it was perfect!)
• ½ 14oz jar of roasted peppers, sliced
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• ½ teaspoon black pepper
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ½ lemon, juiced

Get the directions here. I served the burger with tomatoes, and brussel sprouts another time. I also kept the sauce in my magic bullet container in the fridge and continued using it during the week, SO tasty!

 

The final piece I will leave because I LOVE them and they’re super easy to make is fried plantains. Plantains unlike bananas are actually good when the peel has black on it, so if you shop for some don’t think they’re all too old and pass them up.

Fried plantains are seriously SO tasty! Buy some!

Ingredients

• Plantains.

Directions don’t get much simpler than this. Heat some coconut oil in a pan, slice up your plantains, and them to the hot oil and let them fry. Flip them once they start to get brown on the pan side (or once they’re however dark, or light you want them). I usually sprinkle then with a very little bit of sea salt, I have also tried used a very small amount of cinnamon before. Both ways are good but typically I have them with eggs for breakfast so I prefer the salt. My daughter just turned 1 and she LOVES them too. Grab 1 or 2 next time you are at the store and give them a try 🙂

Bon Appetit!

 

If you try any let me know how they are,
and if you have any recipes that I must try link them in the comments!

 

Paleo Newyears Resolution – 1 down 11 to go.

Well, here’s my followup to my new years resolution post. Check it out here if you haven’t read it yet. Okay. So this Paleo/caveman diet has been good, but rocky (he, he). The 1st day my husband opened for work so when he was coming home he text me saying he brought home food.

So, that was how we started. We cleared out our pantry, fridge, and freezer of all things non-paleo, which left them essentially completely bare. It was kind of nice to start from scratch, and we donated all of the items that could be donated to the food bank. Pope Francis would say “Wasting food is like stealing from the poor”. Never throw away food that could be donated when you have a food bank in your area. Most grocery stores take donations for the food banks (it’s easy to drop your things off that way). Win – Win!

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** I am only keeping the baking supplies because I knew I would have a birthday party to bake for in February & the cereal is for the baby.

One of the purposes of this resolution was so I could grow in self control. While I would say I am growing in it, it is more of a slow gradual growth. We went on a trip to California for a friends wedding mid month. I knew before we left that we were going to be breaking paleo, although when the options were there I would try to stick to paleo. We made our own trailmix for on the plane and for during our travels. (6 hr drive to dallas Lovefield airport – yuck! But worth it to fly southwest and it cost us nearly 1/2 the amount it would to fly from our home airport). When we were there we bought some tuna snack packs and chicken breast. We baked them to take on the go when we needed, and we made eggs for breakfast. Hmm… The more I am typing the more I am realizing we actually didn’t do as badly as I thought while we were out there – YAY!! Coming home it was hard to get back onto being full time paleo again, and we definitely had a number of non-paleo meals (pizza buffet after Church one Sunday! I confess, I am so human! lol) I would say over all this month we probably adhered to the diet rules about 75% of the time. Not fantastic, but certainly better than we had been doing before.

For the first half of the month I kept a log of what I ate each day. It wasn’t like calorie counting or anything, just a list of what I ate and when I ate it. This REALLY helped me to stay on top of things. For me personally having something I can see and record helps me to follow through (ie: daily prayer & keeping a prayer journal, thank you blog post!) After just a few days I have to say, I honestly felt good! I felt like I looked better, and had (to my surprise) a lot of energy. I eagerly hopped on the scale … and realized I hadn’t lost anything. Thankfully that was not discouraging, because, I felt good and loosing weight wasn’t the overall goal (just a nice perk). After going to California and having ‘regular’ food again, I felt bloated a lot. I think my stomach was enjoying being grain free. I LOVE pastries so that’s a bit sad, but also encouraging! With the month said and done I have lost 5 lbs (which is really nice), and managed to eat Paleo about 75% of the time. Small victories. But I will celebrate them!

This month I have my daughter’s 1st Birthday Party! (I’m not sure how that’s possible already!) So I know I’ll have at least one day of making cake… and eating it too, but I am fine with that. Life is to be lived and enjoyed, and so I will  🙂

I found some great websites and recipes this month. Here’s a few pics from a couple meals below. SEE, eating Paleo does not have to be plane and boring. These burgers with the caramelized onions and avocado roasted red pepper sauce were AH-MAZING!

Spinach and artichoke dip w/ sweet potato ‘chips’

some sweet potato hash

Topped with some eggs – delish!

these are the burgers! ❤ ❤

turns out I DO like brussel sprouts

Yes, It was as good as it looks!

Fried plantains are seriously SO tasty! Buy some!

t-t-t-t-tasty, tasty

breakfast, eggs with veggies and fried plantain

My daughter even tried her 1st burger, and LOVED it!

YYYYUUUMMM!

I’ll make another post this week with the recipes for these images, so stay tuned! Hope your new years resolutions are going well! Celebrate your small victories and don’t be discouraged when you trip up.

This month I am going to try to menu plan better for the week to avoid needing to ‘grab something’ while we are out, because I had nothing in mind/thawed for dinner. It turns out paleo ‘fast food’ is nearly impossible to find. I think planning AND getting back on to writing what I’m eating will help. Time to get a daytimer – EEE! (Choleric-giddiness at this thought!)

Peace and blessings y’all!

Making a New Years Resolution You Can Keep

It’s that time of year again! The Christmas festivities [and meals] are over. Now onto the next ‘day of celebration’, New Years. With a new year comes joy, hope, optimism, ‘permission’ to start a new, and gym discounts for everybody who signs up for a year!

I always feel kind of intimidated at the thought of making a new years resolution; Like I need to make it a really good one, chose the best resolution I can make! … but, what if I can’t keep it?!