Just when I was feeling accomplished…
The farmer’s market was closed today, but the wonderful lady that I buy my meat from was kind enough to take my order by phone and deliver! How cool is that? I was nearly out of ground beef and the puppies have to eat. And I know it sounds crazy, but I can’t bring myself to feed them anything I wouldn’t eat. So only grass-fed/pastured for my four-legged children! The beef liver is much cheaper (and chock full of nutrients!) so I take a pound each of liver (and today it was on special buy-one-get-one-free!) and ground beef and mix it together for my furry babies. At least the puppies love it. I’ve finally gotten my chihuahua to eat mostly paleo, but she turns her nose up at raw food. I ask you, Queen Bianca, where is the wolf within?
“I am a higher being, you simpering human. Now roast me some sausages and feed them to me with those ridiculous looking digits on your paws.”
And sausages were on the menu today since I was making the homemade Jambalaya recipe from Robb Wolf’s “The Paleo Solution”. It was indescribably good! The recipe makes a ton so I’ll be getting at least five meals out of it. I saved a couple of bowls in the fridge for this week and froze the rest. I also put a hunk of ham in the crock pot to cook all day. It should be ready…oh, right about now. I’ll be having some slices of that deliciousness with eggs around lunchtime tomorrow.
Andouille sausage and spicy shrimp – what’s not to love?!
So I spent the day peeling, chopping, prepping, and cooking and was feeling pretty darned good about what I had managed to get done. I even fit in a little snow “workout” by hauling the christmas tree back to the shed along with the many boxes of doodads necessary to trim the thing. I broke a little sweat and only fell once. I did end up with snow in the pocket of my sweater, but managed to retrieve my phone before any damage was done. This should have been my warning sign – sharp curve ahead. Word to the wise – when you’re feeling ahead of the game – STOP! I’ve never been able to do this. I may have a slow starter, but once in motion I am unstoppable. Well, until I head over the cliff, of course. The cliff always wins.
So after all that hard work, I sat down at my computer and thought I would relax and mess around online. My mistake was saying to myself, “Hm, maybe I should change the layout of my blog.” I’ve spent the last two hours trying to fix everything. Ugh. But hey, at least I got a post in! “Silver lining” – check.
Catching Up
I’m sure the one person who follows my blog (Hi Annie!) is wondering where the heck I’ve been. Well between the holidays, the bizarre episode of Bell’s Palsy (which for me includes violent heartburn and severe insomnia due to the prednisone), and the two new puppies I brought home, I haven’t had much time to think, much less blog.
That’s Molly on the left and Apollo on the right. Is it just me, or does Molly have Amy Winehouse eyes?
I’ve been trying to think of a way to relay all of the information I’ve collected about Paleo since I started researching it and it finally occurred to me that instead of trying to rephrase what all those other articles said it might be a darn smart idea to simply collate all of those various articles into a collection rightch heah. It won’t be comprehensive by any means, but I’ve read a number of articles on various topics such as oils and fats, cholestorol, nuts, gluten, dairy, etc. that were (and continue to be) helpful to me on my Paleo journey. And since I’m hoping that this will be a stopping place for newbies, those same articles might be helpful to them as well. So the articles collection is in the works.
As for my own Paleo diet, I’m not having any difficulty. In fact, just yesterday I noted on Twitter that oddly enough, being Paleo is the easiest thing in my life right now. I fail to blog, not because I’m eating things I shouldn’t, but rather because I’m a simple girl and I tend to eat simple foods and they’re not the kind of things you take pics of and post. You’d get tired of seeing baked leg quarters, hamburgers, spaghetti meat, shrimp stir fry, and crock pot pork loin. When you’re a single mom it’s gotta be fast and easy, or ready when you get home (ala crock pot!) On the odd occasion when I make something special it’s usually gone before I can snap a pic and share. But here’s a pic from the first meatza I made. YUM.
Anything this work intensive is a rare treat – as is the raw milk cheese.
I will try to do better with the pics. I did make a recipe from Robb Wolf’s The Paleo Solution book tonight that was VERY good. If you have the book (and why wouldn’t you?!) it’s the Paleo Chicken Alfredo recipe on page 253. Just a tip or two: if you’re using pastured chicken like I did you might need to bump up the oil since you’re making the sauce from the pan drippings. Also I used coconut oil rather than olive oil and I still didn’t have enough liquid at the end and had to thin it with coconut milk. I also thought the 2 tsp of tarragon was a little much, but that might just be me. Definitely worth a repeat!
The one advantage to the prednisone drive I’m experiencing right now is I get a lot of housework done. While I was making tonight’s dinner I got a load of laundry done, the dishwasher unloaded and reloaded, the floor swept and mopped, and tomorrow’s dinner started! I hacked up my first whole chicken this morning and threw it in the crock pot (minus the breasts which I used tonight) for a chicken stew for tomorrow. It was ready when I got home today so I removed the bones then tossed in a bunch of chopped veggies. I’ll drop the crock pot bowl back in the warmer in the morning and dinner will be ready when I get home, baybay!
If today’s post seems a little disjointed, it’s probably the prednisone. Or the insomnia. Or the puppies who are already eating me out of house and home. I’ve learned, however, that if I stuff their little bellies with lots of lovely raw, grass-fed beef and pastured eggs that they will sleep through the night. Even if I’m not. :p
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