So over the last few days I have learned of more and more people enjoying a Paleo lifestyle and surviving:) I just learned of an amazing women in the Bend area. She has helped me understand the medical side of some of my children's troubles. Cassie Kremer and her husband, Jason-the Wellness Doctor, have some really great tips and recipes on their website. I have been working on our menu for the week and several of their recipes have made my list. If you live in the Bend area, be sure to visit them. If you don't, then definitly check out the website for the recipes and other tips!!
http://www.bendwellnessdoctor.com/be-well-recipes-1/
December 31, 2011
Some food
I thought I would share some of the food we have been eating the last couple days. Keep in mind, I am merely a home cook, so no comments about the lack of perfection! LOL
Sweet potato fries cooked in butter and coconut oil
Turkey leftovers and pork sausage. The "dip" is honey with cayenne (thanks Bethany for the idea) my hubby loved this "dip".
This is delicious. It's steamed califlower that I pureed with a smidge of coconut milk and butter. It's sooooo wonderful!! Our whole family loves it!
The meat of two of our four turkeys. I roasted these and took the meat off the bone to freeze for later use. I shared our turkey story here.
This is what was left of the two turkeys. I am making more stock from them later this week. For now they are stored in the fridge.
This is the turkey stock I made from the two turkeys that are soaking in brine. Looks so yummy and smelled amazing too.
The finished stock. I let these cool completely and put them in the freezer. Stock is great to add to lots of meals. Plus it is my go-to when I want to make soup if any of us are feeling under the weather. Just add whatever veggies you have they may be on their way to being not so edible and poof! a nutritious delicious soup. I love to toss in kale, celery, carrots, ect.
This was breakfast today. I wanted to change up our normal egg breakfast so I got the recipe from Sarah at http://www.everydaypaleo.com/. I didn't put the sausage into them, but we did have links with it. I also added leftover broccoli from a couple nights ago. The kiddos loved their "orange pancakes", as they called them.
This looks so delicious to the eyes. It smelled wonderful too. I put some roasted green and red peppers, celery and some sweet peppers in the pan, added some stock and leftover chicken quarters to warm up. Then I took the chicken out and pureed my "soup", adding some coconut milk to even it out. The verdict, it was awful. It tasted overwhelmingly of green pepper and was extremely bitter. I dumped the soup and the kids at the chicken with some pickles and oranges for lunch instead. I guess every experiment can't be successful, right?!
Sweet potato fries cooked in butter and coconut oil
Turkey leftovers and pork sausage. The "dip" is honey with cayenne (thanks Bethany for the idea) my hubby loved this "dip".
This is delicious. It's steamed califlower that I pureed with a smidge of coconut milk and butter. It's sooooo wonderful!! Our whole family loves it!
The meat of two of our four turkeys. I roasted these and took the meat off the bone to freeze for later use. I shared our turkey story here.
This is what was left of the two turkeys. I am making more stock from them later this week. For now they are stored in the fridge.
This is the turkey stock I made from the two turkeys that are soaking in brine. Looks so yummy and smelled amazing too.
The finished stock. I let these cool completely and put them in the freezer. Stock is great to add to lots of meals. Plus it is my go-to when I want to make soup if any of us are feeling under the weather. Just add whatever veggies you have they may be on their way to being not so edible and poof! a nutritious delicious soup. I love to toss in kale, celery, carrots, ect.
This was breakfast today. I wanted to change up our normal egg breakfast so I got the recipe from Sarah at http://www.everydaypaleo.com/. I didn't put the sausage into them, but we did have links with it. I also added leftover broccoli from a couple nights ago. The kiddos loved their "orange pancakes", as they called them.
This looks so delicious to the eyes. It smelled wonderful too. I put some roasted green and red peppers, celery and some sweet peppers in the pan, added some stock and leftover chicken quarters to warm up. Then I took the chicken out and pureed my "soup", adding some coconut milk to even it out. The verdict, it was awful. It tasted overwhelmingly of green pepper and was extremely bitter. I dumped the soup and the kids at the chicken with some pickles and oranges for lunch instead. I guess every experiment can't be successful, right?!
Happy Paleo Cooking! Happy New Year!! Don't forget that you can choose to eat healthy and not feel guilty about turning down the "holiday" food, because you deserve it!!!
December 30, 2011
Great deals
John and I did some light grocery shopping yesterday. While we were shopping we noticed that the store still had several turkeys left from the holidays at a low price of 58 cents a pound. Now, they weren't organic or even labeled all-natural, but they were MSG and Gluten Free...no extra additives in them.
We snatched up four of them with each costing about $6. Four turkeys for $24 is pretty awesome! We decided to pop them in our deep freezer and use them for meals for the next couple months....when can you ever buy meat so inexpensively??!!
It was a perfect plan...until, I realized we had left them overnight to defrost on top of the chest freezer...we are going to be baking at least two and hopefully smoking 2 - then we will portion the meat and freeze it for later use.
It wasn't a perfect plan....but it will work out regardless :) Go check your grocery stores and stock up!
We snatched up four of them with each costing about $6. Four turkeys for $24 is pretty awesome! We decided to pop them in our deep freezer and use them for meals for the next couple months....when can you ever buy meat so inexpensively??!!
It was a perfect plan...until, I realized we had left them overnight to defrost on top of the chest freezer...we are going to be baking at least two and hopefully smoking 2 - then we will portion the meat and freeze it for later use.
It wasn't a perfect plan....but it will work out regardless :) Go check your grocery stores and stock up!
December 29, 2011
A Good Challenge
Tonight I was just looking through some Paleo Challenge sites and came across this site: Whole9Life. It explains Paleo very blatantly, but it's very good.
Then I cruised over to this one: TheClothesMake the Girl. She is awesome and she has a FREE sample download of her latest book Well Fed. I quickly downloaded my copy and I already want to try several things.
Happy Eating!
Then I cruised over to this one: TheClothesMake the Girl. She is awesome and she has a FREE sample download of her latest book Well Fed. I quickly downloaded my copy and I already want to try several things.
Happy Eating!
December 28, 2011
A New and Fabulous Journey
Like many people we know, John and I have struggled with finding a healthy and easy way to lose weight and keep it off. We have tried some crazy things: the cabbage soup diet when we were first married, the salad only diet, the starvation diet(ugh) and recently we even did the hCg diet. The hCg diet was very difficult. The calories were a mere 500 and the restrictions on the foods you could eat was crazy...don't mix veggies, don't use oils, don't do this don't do that...it was enough to make you go bonkers. But, the results were there, I lost over 24 lbs in 24 days. If you ignored the lack of energy and irritability is caused then it really wasn't so bad...right? The problem was, once I was off the diet, I didn't know what I should or shouldn't eat. I was so hungry by then that I ate more than I probably should have and put the starches and rices back into my diet.
At my best, in a matter of six months I had lost a little more than 30 lbs. I was pretty happy. I could fit into my super skinny jeans-which I had never, ever worn and I like the way I looked. The problem, my husband lost his job and with the circumstances surrounding it, I because something I thought I wasn't ....a stress-eater.
Let's not forget that during all this time, I was mom to four awesome kiddos, housekeeper and a full-time college student...just to name a few. By the end of the summer and nearly eight months from the time the hubby had lost his job, I was back up 35+ lbs. I couldn't even get my skinny jeans past my thighs at that point. It was sickening.
Let me just add in one more minor detail: during those eight months, my husband got a temporary job at a tire shop, he lost 30 lbs in the first month alone...I wanted to strangle him for a)being a man who could lost weight by skipping out on dessert once a week and b)having a job that demanded him to "come running" 12 hours a day for his customers.
In the middle of all of this mayhem, we had fallen off our gluten-free wagon and I was noticing some major changes in our oldest son's health. He complained of headaches and body/bone aches almost daily, he was doing sub par in school and he whined constantly-he is almost 8 years old.
I started doing research and decided, after realizing this was my fault and sobbing for an hour, that is was time to eliminate the gluten from the kids diet.
Two weeks into our return to a GF house, and my son is staring at my husband's large hunk of sourdough bread and butter at the dinner table and declares, "It's not really fair that you and mom get to eat that wheat bread in front of us all the time." Crap.
He was totally right. How fair was it that we could wave our crusty, buttery bread in front of their faces every meal? I felt horrible. John and I talked to our son and then talked later and ultimately decided he was right. Besides, what would it hurt for us to go GF too? It could only help us feel better too, right?
Well, that was only the beginning of things. I sent out a Facebook request to all my GF friends for some ideas for some new recipes I could try.
The response was awesome. I started looking into them and one friend had sent me a link to Everyday Paleo, by Sarah Fragoso. The first thing I thought was, holy cow, that woman is obsessed with herself, she is totally ripped! I ignored the details and moved on.
But for about two weeks after that the word Paleo kept popping in my brain. I wanted to know what this Paleo was...how did it work? Did it work? So I read a lot of blogs and information over the next few weeks. Then I decided, ok, I need to hear from a real person if this is really going to work. So, once again, I put it out there on Facebook.
I was amazed! There were people I knew who had all positive things to say about it. Then I got connected with an amazing woman, Bethany, who shared her story with me. I was blown away with how at peace I was about this potential change.
I shared my findings with John and we prayed about what we should do. I know that may sound crazy to some people, but God is the only way we do things around here. He makes all things possible, so if we were going to be successful at this, it was going to be because it was His will for us.
Ultimately, John and I decided that we needed to at least try this Paleo thing for ourselves. I got some very good starting pointers and encouragement from Bethany and we were off!
The first thing I did was pray over my kitchen and then clean out anything and everything that was not on the list of Paleo-approved foods. This was one of the scariest things I have ever done. We are not in a great place financially right now, it has been very uncomfortable lately, but God has continued to provide. I took three large boxes of pantry foods down to the church that day and gave them to the homeless ministry.
When I came home I opened the cupboard and wanted to cry. There were a couple of cans of organic tomatoes and some dried fruit and nuts....that's it. Then I opened my refrigerator, there were a few apples, oranges and some pickles...maybe a condiment or two. I looked at John and we nervously laughed about our cupboards being bare, but inside I wanted to bawl my eyes out. We hadn't even really started and I was already scared to death!
I sucked it up and looked for a list of groceries on the Paleo Diet Lifestyle site and we went to the store together. Once all the fresh fruit and veggies were in the fridge and the nuts and few canned things were on the shelves I felt better. Now to cook...what to cook?
I used the same website for some meal ideas as well as PaleoParents for more good ideas(this one is great for ideas for the kids too). The first week was difficult, but once we got past our cravings for wheat and dairy, ect, we were fine. Plus, the end of the first week I got a phone call from our son's teacher praising him and how well he had done learning a new math concept in class that day. I was so excited, but I found myself thinking-could this be a coincidence? John was claiming it a victory and so I decided to as well...God is the miracle worker, right?!!
By the second week I was wearing jeans I hadn't worn in months, sleeping better than I had in months and just feeling better all around. Our youngest daughter has always had dark circles under her eyes and they had begun to fade too. We have all been doing so well and I attribute it to God's wisdom and leading us to Paleo!
I am looking forward to sharing more and more about this journey. I am not going to make a new blog right now for it. I think I will share our journey through the holidays and Paleo next...it can be done people!
At my best, in a matter of six months I had lost a little more than 30 lbs. I was pretty happy. I could fit into my super skinny jeans-which I had never, ever worn and I like the way I looked. The problem, my husband lost his job and with the circumstances surrounding it, I because something I thought I wasn't ....a stress-eater.
Let's not forget that during all this time, I was mom to four awesome kiddos, housekeeper and a full-time college student...just to name a few. By the end of the summer and nearly eight months from the time the hubby had lost his job, I was back up 35+ lbs. I couldn't even get my skinny jeans past my thighs at that point. It was sickening.
Let me just add in one more minor detail: during those eight months, my husband got a temporary job at a tire shop, he lost 30 lbs in the first month alone...I wanted to strangle him for a)being a man who could lost weight by skipping out on dessert once a week and b)having a job that demanded him to "come running" 12 hours a day for his customers.
In the middle of all of this mayhem, we had fallen off our gluten-free wagon and I was noticing some major changes in our oldest son's health. He complained of headaches and body/bone aches almost daily, he was doing sub par in school and he whined constantly-he is almost 8 years old.
I started doing research and decided, after realizing this was my fault and sobbing for an hour, that is was time to eliminate the gluten from the kids diet.
Two weeks into our return to a GF house, and my son is staring at my husband's large hunk of sourdough bread and butter at the dinner table and declares, "It's not really fair that you and mom get to eat that wheat bread in front of us all the time." Crap.
He was totally right. How fair was it that we could wave our crusty, buttery bread in front of their faces every meal? I felt horrible. John and I talked to our son and then talked later and ultimately decided he was right. Besides, what would it hurt for us to go GF too? It could only help us feel better too, right?
Well, that was only the beginning of things. I sent out a Facebook request to all my GF friends for some ideas for some new recipes I could try.
The response was awesome. I started looking into them and one friend had sent me a link to Everyday Paleo, by Sarah Fragoso. The first thing I thought was, holy cow, that woman is obsessed with herself, she is totally ripped! I ignored the details and moved on.
But for about two weeks after that the word Paleo kept popping in my brain. I wanted to know what this Paleo was...how did it work? Did it work? So I read a lot of blogs and information over the next few weeks. Then I decided, ok, I need to hear from a real person if this is really going to work. So, once again, I put it out there on Facebook.
I was amazed! There were people I knew who had all positive things to say about it. Then I got connected with an amazing woman, Bethany, who shared her story with me. I was blown away with how at peace I was about this potential change.
I shared my findings with John and we prayed about what we should do. I know that may sound crazy to some people, but God is the only way we do things around here. He makes all things possible, so if we were going to be successful at this, it was going to be because it was His will for us.
Ultimately, John and I decided that we needed to at least try this Paleo thing for ourselves. I got some very good starting pointers and encouragement from Bethany and we were off!
The first thing I did was pray over my kitchen and then clean out anything and everything that was not on the list of Paleo-approved foods. This was one of the scariest things I have ever done. We are not in a great place financially right now, it has been very uncomfortable lately, but God has continued to provide. I took three large boxes of pantry foods down to the church that day and gave them to the homeless ministry.
When I came home I opened the cupboard and wanted to cry. There were a couple of cans of organic tomatoes and some dried fruit and nuts....that's it. Then I opened my refrigerator, there were a few apples, oranges and some pickles...maybe a condiment or two. I looked at John and we nervously laughed about our cupboards being bare, but inside I wanted to bawl my eyes out. We hadn't even really started and I was already scared to death!
I sucked it up and looked for a list of groceries on the Paleo Diet Lifestyle site and we went to the store together. Once all the fresh fruit and veggies were in the fridge and the nuts and few canned things were on the shelves I felt better. Now to cook...what to cook?
I used the same website for some meal ideas as well as PaleoParents for more good ideas(this one is great for ideas for the kids too). The first week was difficult, but once we got past our cravings for wheat and dairy, ect, we were fine. Plus, the end of the first week I got a phone call from our son's teacher praising him and how well he had done learning a new math concept in class that day. I was so excited, but I found myself thinking-could this be a coincidence? John was claiming it a victory and so I decided to as well...God is the miracle worker, right?!!
By the second week I was wearing jeans I hadn't worn in months, sleeping better than I had in months and just feeling better all around. Our youngest daughter has always had dark circles under her eyes and they had begun to fade too. We have all been doing so well and I attribute it to God's wisdom and leading us to Paleo!
I am looking forward to sharing more and more about this journey. I am not going to make a new blog right now for it. I think I will share our journey through the holidays and Paleo next...it can be done people!
December 6, 2011
My hero
If anyone knows my husband, they know that he is one of the nicest, kindest, gracious men on the planet. I am amazed daily with his commitment to God, family and friends. He is always takes the extra step to do what is right, honest and good. I am so proud to live my life with him, raising our children and being the each other's best friend. I love you John and I am so glad you chose me to be with you forever. XOXOXO
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