Grocery list

Goose is not doing the wellness diet with me, but he is wanting to follow his Blood Type's list of foods.  Since we are two different blood types, I thought well this will SUCK for us eating...do I make him one meal while I eat another?  I then laughed and said, "don't be silly, you won't make TWO dinners at night...PSH!"  So I thought the best thing to do was to write down every single "allowed" and "neutral" food (which is still allowed, it just won't hurt you nor will it benefit you) on both our lists.  I then cross referenced them to see what foods we would have in common.  Turns out, more than I thought.

I thought, wouldn't it be nice if I could shop for us off of what we DO have in common instead?  Well yes, but that's a lot of memorization, and I don't do well on test day.  I'd get to the grocery store and forget everything I memorized!


*idea bulb*

Back in the saddle. Again.

Man, things have been CRAY around here.  I have been so incredibly busy but now I am back and ready to blog!  It's been a very busy summer and my workouts and super clean eating all but halted.  Basically I failed my workout challenge I gave myself.  We were living back and forth between the old house and the hotel.  I did pretty well the first couple weeks at the hotel with the workouts, doing some swimming and taking advantage of the gym but then things got so hectic (and the chromebook broke down again, had to get it replaced) that I just had to stop.  Even though we had a kitchenette in the little hotel room, and we went to the farmers market on the regular, we still went out to eat a lot.  And we craved ice cream.  To say that I was knocked off my routine is an understatement.  Now that we are into our new house, and things have settled into a normal routine, I am jumping right back into our lifestyle.

30 day challenge

We blew that one right out of the water!  We did our 30 day paleo eating challenge, and lemme tell you...it was so easy a caveman could do it!  *slaps knee*  Okay, maybe it was the transitioning period we had going into it, maybe it was that we were mostly on that mindset as it were.  I don't think there was a day where we were like "I want pizza" or "I need cheese!", it just kinda went seamless.

Day one, I went through all our sauces and spices, and condiments since it was the last thing in our kitchen to purge.  Anything that had fake flavor, msg, wheat (no matter how they tried to disguise it), rice, added colors or preservatives, or dairy went into a bag and into the basement.  We've since thrown it all out knowing we can live without it.  We instead use herbs from our garden, spices that were just that...spices, sea salt, pepper, evoo, coconut oil, pork fat, ACV, liquid aminos and white balsamic vinegar.  The flavor of the actual food is allowed to really shine without disguising it with "fake flavors".  We still to try to buy as much of our meat we could from the market, but sometimes just had to do with "store bought" and that is okay.  It's how we've been living for months already.  Nothing else really changed except we got smarter about looking for hiding items listed above and didn't buy those.  Oh, and no more rice, pasta, bread, potatoes, or beans.  No problem. *shrugs*

As for what we ate, I was amazed at some of the things we had.  Let's start with breakfast.  I mean how can you have a bad day when you start it off with a fat filet and a veggie omelet?  Or how about "paleo breakfast burritos" for a nice change?  Maybe you want something totally different like cereal?  Well, how about "paleo granola"?  I have tried several variations, but most always have a base of this one.  Every day I had eggs and meat in one way or another.  I figured out the very first week that for my body; if I ate the combo of steak, eggs, and a veggie that I would stay full until dinner time and not even think about food or hunger.  So whaddya know, for me breakfast really is the most important meal!  And to think I had gone SO MANY years without it.  Most mornings we either had a pork chop or bacon with either fried or scrambled eggs because it's just easy.  As we got farther into the month I experimented from probably my favorite website so far: paleomg.com .  She has some of THE coolest breakfast ideas!  I made a meat crust quiche that we couldn't stay out of, and just tonight I prepped a "mexican hash egg bake" for breakfast this week.

Lunch was usually a handful of granola for Goose, or a piece of fruit for myself, if I even thought about it.  Dinner time was Goose's culinary godlike abilities time to shine.  We did some experimenting with sauces.  He ended up  throwing some different flavors together and came up with a very delicious Asian Stir Fry sauce with a tahini base.  I do love tahini.  We liked the flavor so much we've repeated it three times.  We also pulled some great mexican dishes together, paleo style.  We did attempt to make a paleo tortilla for fajitas, but I think for the time it took to make them, it wasn't totally worth my time so I'd rather just eat the fajitas without the tortilla.  Carnitas were also amazing!  Of course steaks for dinner! On those nights I would usually save my steak for the next morning and put it towards my breakfast.

Now, lets talk about the sweets.  Sometimes a girl needs a glass of wine or a piece of chocolate, amirite?  Have no fear! I was not deprived of my two favorite things.  I just had to savor them in severe moderation.  I made my own chocolate (a process that can't be easier, and so settling knowing what's actually in it) and stored it in the freezer...you know, for the times I just need to fix my sweet tooth.  Eventually I forgot that it was in there.  I did make a couple desserts that I will most definitely do again and I found chia seed pudding.  Wow, where has it been all my life?  I should have tried out coconut milk long ago...yum!  I made the original version the first time, and put some into a big fruit salad (which didn't last a full 24 hours, fyi) and just yesterday I whipped up a chocolate version that will be divine over the strawberries in my fridge.  For me, I think knowing that these treats are in my freezer and are super healthy (calorie dense, yes but still), makes it easier to not crave them.  I just have a small morsel on occasion, and I'm satiated.

On February 1, we celebrated our 30 days with blue cheese atop our steaks for dinner.  But as far as sticking to strictly paleo, we will.  Every now and then we will have a little cheese, or a bit of potato if we want but really, we are stuck this way.  :)  It was so much fun finding out how some of these super tasty meals were so healthy for us.  For Goose's birthday (today) I surprised him with chorizo and mozz stuffed, bacon wrapped poppers and I nearly died at how wonderful this concoction ended up being!  I have said several times this month, "I can't believe THAT'S PALEO!"  Giving up rice, grains, potatoes, beans, and processed foods may not be for everyone but in this house it's the perfect way to go.  I mean, how bad can it be to be able to enjoy a steak for breakfast?  And any lifestyle that promotes bacon, is a real winner in my book!

As far as our health, I know Goose's BP has dropped significantly along with his weight.  Lucky jerk :) I also have dropped a few pounds but its very slow going, since I'm really close to where I want to be anyway.

red, green, lean

The bottles aren't mine, I SWEAR!
This isn't even Saturday, either!
The apples and tomatoes are being divas and asked not to be photo'd. 

Lately I have been working reaaaaaal hard on getting my diet squared away.  When I say diet, I don't mean "Oh, let me starve and not eat anything at all so I can lose weight.", I mean my regular foods.  With the current workout I am doing, I need to eat a lot of proteins and junk so I can't just eat less and call it good.  However, it feels like I am holding onto the extra carbs and I decided to do some digging and figure things out.  How can I cut carbs from an already low-carb plan?  Where is the extra sugar coming from?

Cravings

We went to the market yesterday.  I didn't take photos because one of the tiny humans had an emergency allergy issue and used my curtains as a snot rag/food napkin the other day and my pretty backdrop is currently in the dryer.  Gotta love washable things.  I don't think I ever want fancy enough curtains that I can't just toss in the washer.  I like to be lazy.  Trust me though, I got a lot of green!  Two bags of lettuce, honey (as if Goose needed a fourth jar of honey!), green onions, one tomato (yes one.  Skeptical Goose didn't know if he'd like greenhouse grown maters) and bison rib eye steaks.  I then took him right over to my latest find, Nature Girls.  It's a small local health foods store.  Not like Whole Foods, but good enough for us not lucky enough to be near one or Trader Joe's.  I had wanted Goose to check out the meat prices because I mostly suck at it.  There, we ended up with some kale, shitake mushrooms, cheese, and the little gem I found, Frozen Kefir.  Several times I heard him say "ooooh we need to come back for THAT!" I was too busy trying to show him all the things, and he was just focused on the mushrooms and tomatoes and safflower oil.

We were actually out shopping for an HDMI cable if you can believe that but I am good at saying, "oh we just should stop here since it's on the way", and before you know it I have drug  you all over the place shopping for things you didn't have on your list.  *points to self* IMPULSE BUYER!  Since he had to see if there was such a cable at Walmart, I ended up with an okay batch of asparagus too.  By the end of it all, we had to go to three different stores for the HDMI cable, and Goose wildly proclaimed that we were going all over the place back and forth across town.  "Making a star all over the town of Rolla", he said.  Whatever. Quality time!

My Saturday mornings have meaning again!

YAY! The Farmer's Market is back in business!  I have been looking forward to it ever since we started shopping there last summer.  It got pretty bad, we were buying ALL THE THINGS it seemed.  Walmart sacks full of tomatoes, and cardboard boxes full of sweet onions every.single.weekend.  It's really become a staple in our house these days.  I just love knowing my food is local and clean and fresh, now that I am better educated.  Here's what we got this day!

Ooooh! So pretty!