It's Done

We ripped the bandaid off.  I am normally pretty good at deployments but this one has hit me really hard.  Which is why I've been laying low on the internet for the past few days.  All I wanted to do today is stay on the couch hiding under a blanket.  Thankfully, I didn't do that.  I went to the gym, red and puffy eyed, and got my butt kicked by my trainer.  Then I went to a playdate and to Target.  The kids were angels and I was fueled on coffee and endorphins.  It couldn't have been a much better day and I really needed it!

Breakfast:

Paleo pancake, sun butter, banana, and salted cinnamon coconut chips.  One of the best flavor combinations ever.

Gym:  A killer leg workout with my trainer plus 30 minutes walking on the treadmill on an incline.

Lunch:

Leftover cabbage rolls.  For this I used Ally's slow cooker cabbage roll recipe.  The only thing I did differently was added a cup of sautéed riced cauliflower instead of the brown rice.  It was delicious!  Mine didn't turn out as pretty as hers.

Dinner:

What do they call the taco flavored hamburger helper?  Nacho?  Taco?  Fiesta?  Ehh let's call this one taco hamburger helper because it tastes just like the insides of a taco.


Taco Hamburger Helper

1lb ground beef
4 cups peppers chopped (it ended up being 3 peppers)
1/2 cup onion
1 teaspoon coconut oil
1 garlic clove minced
1 tablespoon taco seasoning*
1/2 cup of tomato sauce
Boston lettuce for wrapping

Sauté the peppers and onions in the coconut oil until they are soft. Add the garlic and cook until the garlic is fragrant. Add the beef and season with taco seasoning. Cook until the beef is cooked all the way through.  Add the tomato sauce and let simmer for 10 minutes.  Store in a container in the fridge or wrap up in lettuce leaves.  Make sure to garnish with avocado because I didn't and I really missed it!



*I make my own taco seasoning and you should too!


It tastes just like the packets of taco seasoning.


What do you do to get yourself out of a funky mood?

An Easy Dinner

Here is literally everything thing I put in my mouth today.  It was a good consistent day of eating and picture taking.

Breakfast: 6AM

Coffee, cod liver/butter oil blend, green smoothie.  That smoothie was so green.  Just SFH whey, kale, spinach, water, and a splash of almond milk.  No banana!  It was actually just fine.

I've been loving coconut milk in my coffee lately.  I'm trying to get rid of the almond milk.  Store bought almond milk has a bunch of crap in it.  If you were on instagram this weekend you saw how I store my coconut milk...

In a salad dressing jar.  It pours so easily!

Gym: 9AM  An hour of pilates, 30 minutes of weights (back today!), and 30 minutes walking on the treadmill.  Crazy day at the gym but I've gotta get this last bit of body fat off.

Snack: 11:30AM

Right after the gym my trainer said I should have a carb and a protein.  So a small sweet potato and canned tuna.

Lunch: 1:30PM

Leftover turkey tacos (just turkey burger, peppers, onions, tomato sauce, and taco seasoning).  I basically deconstructed taco lettuce wraps.  The boston lettuce was on the bottom with a bunch of turkey taco meat on the top.  Plus homemade guacamole on the top (avocado, lime, tomato, and garlic salt).

Dinner: 6:00PM

A hot plate consisting of ground pork, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower rice, coconut aminos, ginger and garlic.  This kind of dinner is so easy you guys.  It doesn't need a recipe.  Just pick a theme for seasoning (mexican, asian, italian...), pick a protein, and pick some veggies.  Cook it all in the same pan.  Paleo couldn't get much easier.

What is the easiest thing you make?

RECIPE: Paleo Bacon Brussels Sprouts

This is one of my favorite side dishes.  It's simple, flavorful, and looks kind of fancy!


Bacon Brussels Sprouts

1lb of brussels sprouts stems trimmed and halved
3 strips of good bacon diced
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 garlic clove minced
1 cup of chicken stock
Salt

Cook the bacon in a sauté pan until crispy and then remove it from the pan.  Cook the onion in the leftover bacon grease until soft.  Then add the garlic and brussels sprouts.  Let the brussels sprouts cook until they just start to get soft.  Then deglaze the pan with the chicken stock scraping up all of those lovely bacon bits.  Put the lid on a let simmer for about 20 minutes or until the brussels sprouts are tender.  Garnish with the bacon and salt before serving.

Five Favorites Friday: Beauty Products

This is a rare post.  I'm not sure if I like blogs that talk about everything.  You know the ones that include food, kids, meals, recipes, exercises, style...  I've tried to be really clear through my posts on the meaning or purpose of this blog.  It always goes in one direction and rarely veers from that norm.

Today I'm veering.  I have been buying these products for years and I thought it would be fun to share a few of my favorite things with you.  You would think since I'm all about whole foods and going green that the products I use would be pretty natural.  I found that not only are natural products expensive they never work as well.

1- Suave dry shampoo.  This stuff smells good and lets me wash my hair every other day.  Plus it's cheap!


2- C. Booth vanilla butter lotion.  I have used this almost everyday for like three years.  It smells amazing and is not greasy at all.  People always ask me what I smell like because of this stuff.  They say I smell like cookies!


3-  Moroccan Oil.  The best stuff ever ever for my hair!  It makes it so soft and it smells incredible!  It's a tad on the expensive side but to me it's totally worth it.


4- Lavender oil.  I learned this one from a yoga class I took.  During savasana the instructor would come around the room and rub lavender oil on your temples.  I do this every night to myself.  I rub just one drop in my hands and then rub my temples and forehead right before I go to bed.  Sounds silly but it really is soothing.  Even my kids love it when I do it to them.


5-  I sweat like a boy at the gym.  No the cookie lotion doesn't cover up armpit stank.  I searched forever for the right deodorant.  I finally tried the Secret Outlast.  I have it in regular and clear.  T-shirt and tank top.  It works so well!  


What are your five favorite beauty products?

Thursday Things

I'm loving this Thursday things thing... Who came up with it?  It might be boring for some of you but I actually love reading other peoples "things".  It's just a nice change of pace from the food...  

Here are some things...

• If you are on instagram (which you should be because it's the most fun thing ever) you saw that my chickens are out of control

They have really made themselves at home.  They love bread (and they probably should because it's Rudi's and it's delicious) and they love to eat it in my lap.  One of them has consistently been laying an egg a day.  They get what they want.  Bread in my lap for a fresh egg.  Deal.  See... out of control.  

• Katy is doing a 28-Day Blog Challenge for February.  I'm really excited about this!

• Lindsay over at Cotter Crunch shared Lindsay's post on blog commenting etiquette:  Basics of Blog Comment Etiquette.  It's a really great read and I totally agree with all of it.

• I read another great article this week that described my paleo experience exactly:  Transitioning to Paleo.  My transition to paleo was actually pretty easy but I did have the "fatphobia" where you aren't replacing your carbs with enough fat.  It's a good article because I think all of us paleoers can relate to it.

• I have a confession. I reuse my Starbucks cups for my morning coffee.

Isn't that terrible!  I swear something about that damn cup makes coffee taste better.  I think it's time I get one of the ceramic tumblers.

Do you participate in blog post trends like WIAW?  If so, why? 

Back To It

Breakfast:

We had a doctor's appointment for LB at 7am this morning... an hour a way.  We were all up way earlier than anyone wanted to be.  I made a green smoothie at 5am.  It had SFH grass fed whey chocolate powder, spinach, banana, and almond milk.  Plus coffee with coconut milk to go!

Gym:  I did an hour of body combat and then worked legs for a little bit.  I did extensions, curls, lunges, and leg presses.

Snack:

My snack was packed at 5am when I made my smoothie.  Coconut water and carrots.

Lunch:

I used up all the leftovers in the fridge.  Plain spaghetti squash, salt and vinegar cabbage, ground pork, riced cauliflower, and a quarter of an avocado.  It was actually really good!

Dinner:
I can't share with you what I ate for dinner tonight because it's a recipe post but I'll share what we had last night.

Chicken No Noodle Soup:  I put a couple chicken quarters and a chicken breast in the slow cooker with some water.  I cooked it on low for about four hours.  Then I strained the broth, pulled the meat off the quarters, and chopped the chicken breast.  I put the meat and broth back in the slow cooker along with carrots, onion, celery, thyme, salt, and pepper.

Not everything needs a recipe.  That's the beautiful thing about paleo.  Just throw some stuff together and it always tastes good!

Do you use recipes or just wing it?

Weekend Vacay

If you are on instagram you probably saw that we weren't home this weekend! The hubs and I took the kiddos to an indoor water park on Sunday.

My husband and I have reached a point in paleo where if we eat grains or dairy it makes us sick.  A few bites of rice or a cracker here or there is fine and an occasional splash of cream in my coffee is alright.  If we eat a portion of grain or dairy we feel nauseous and almost hungover.  It is definitely not worth any type of splurge.  It is a good thing but can be a little challenging.  Especially when we go out of town.  Normally, we all eat whatever we want (kids included).  It physically could not happen this time though!  Thankfully our hotel had a mini kitchen so we stopped at Whole Foods on our way out of town.


The kitchen was well equipped to cook just about anything.  The husband decided on sliders while we were at the grocery store.


We got a pound of grass fed beef, bacon, butter lettuce, pickles, grainy mustard, unsweetened ketchup, and some strawberries.


We also picked up the kids a pizza!


If you can tolerate cheese this pizza is amazing.  It's SO good!  It's the kids favorite frozen pizza and it's a little funny that it's gluten free.


The kids didn't really care what they were eating.  They had a blast eating on the hotel floor watching Cinderella.


We spent Sunday splashing in the water.




Then on Monday we went to the Ripley's aquarium.


My kids are at an awesome age.


They listen pretty well...


And they are learning so much!




How do you eat on vacation?

• Back to food posts tomorrow!

RECIPE: Paleo Italian Meatballs

I've tried so many different paleo Italian meatballs. No offense or anything but none of them were very good.  One of the kids favorite meals is spaghetti and meatballs and it is something that can easily be paleo-ized... If you have a good meatball recipe.


The other night I decided to just adapt our favorite meatball recipe to paleo.


I nailed it.


Paleo Italian Meatballs
(Adapted from Meatball Nirvana at Allrecipes.com)

1 pound grass fed beef (ground pork would probably be awesome!)
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 cup onion minced (I grate mine!)
1 small garlic cloved minced
1 1/2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
3/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1 beaten egg
1/2 cup almond flour

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.  Mix all of the ingredients together in a large bowl.  I form the mixture into two inch meatballs but you can make smaller ones or bigger ones.  Just adjust the bake time.  Put the little guys on the baking sheet and bake for about 20 minutes.


I make them ahead of time and then about an hour before dinner I put them in a pot of pasta sauce and reheat them on low.  It makes the sauce taste so good!


Rao's Marinara Sauce is paleo and it's delicious!


They are amazing served over spaghetti squash!

Five Favorites Friday: Paleo Meals

These are meals I could eat everyday and as you can probably tell I almost do!

1- Paleo Pancakes

That was a no brainer huh.


I eat paleo pancakes a lot but my favorite way is the almond flour recipe, topped with banana, sunflower seed butter, and salted cinnamon coconut chips.  Plus a side of bacon and cup of coffee.  

2- Hot Plates

I got this idea from Well Fed.  It basically just a bunch of stuff thrown together in a pan.  I eat these for lunch and dinner A LOT.  Sometimes even for breakfast!  It usually starts with "hamburger helper" and then I add whatever veggies I have in the fridge.


My favorite hot plate combo is ground pork with leftover salt and vinegar cabbage.

3- Slider Lettuce Wraps

Beef...

or pork... It doesn't matter!


4- Pulled pork and Salt and Vinegar Cabbage

Pulled pork and salt and vinegar cabbage should get married.  I'd go to their wedding...

5- Paleo Pad Thai

This is probably a no brainer too.  We eat this about once a week.

Leftovers are great with a fried egg on top!


What are your five favorite meals?