Some Favorites and a Real Life Confession

Because we have an entire family of good eaters, we have all been able to enjoy this food transition.  We already ate mostly whole foods, I already made pretty much everything from scratch, so it was more of a transition of the ingredients I was allowing myself to use, and enjoying a little less variety in our meals.  Still, we have had a few things that I will make again and again, regardless of our dietary stipulations.

Paleo Meatballs


Ridiculously versatile, we ate them with a sauce made from pan drippings and balsamic vinegar, in marinara over spaghetti squash "noodles", and then took the rest to snack on while walking around the Safari Park yesterday.  They are easy to make in bulk and freeze well.

Recipe

• 3 lbs of ground pork and beef (I used a 50/50 mix we get from a local farm, but any combination should work)
• 3 eggs or flax eggs (I used the later)
• 2 cups of finely chopped baby spinach
• 1 tsp each of the following:
• salt
• black pepper
• garlic powder
• onion powder
• ½ tsp of nutmeg

Gently roll into 1-1 ½ inch balls, don't smash them together, just roll them enough so they stay together. Brown over med-high heat in batches, in a skillet or frying pan. They take approximately 3-4 min per side, but this will vary with size, skillet, and stove. Try to turn them only once so they get a good crust on each side. The seasonings are very flexible, feel free to use any combination that suits you, I do recommend seasoning heavily though, especially if you intend to eat them without sauce.


Leftover Chicken Taco Salad

This is about as complicated as it sounds!:) I made chicken strips for dinner and had a few leftover, so the next day for lunch I chopped them up and heated the pieces with some canned black beans in a skillet and sprinkled some cumin, garlic powder, salt, and pepper over the top. In another pan I sautéed some  sliced onions and jalapeños in some bacon grease for those who wanted it. Once the chicken was warmed through, I turned off the heat, and squeezed a lime over all of it.  I put chopped lettuce, tomato, and avocado in everyone's bowls, squeezed more lime over that, then topped with the chicken mixture. Done! Everyone had seconds and asked when we could have it again.


Confession

In the midst of real life, even through the best meal plans and food prep, things fall through, and that's okay! Yesterday, like I mentioned above, we went to the Safari Park. We ate a huge breakfast of eggs, sausage, potatoes, and fried apples. We brought meatballs, trail mix, peaches, and plenty of water. Despite all this, when we were ready to go home around 1:30, we were all famished. Home was about 30 mins away and we were all worn out, so we made an executive decision to eat out.  We chose Mexican food so that we could avoid still avoid gluten and sugar easily. It was refreshing and delicious, and we don't regret it one bit.

We talked about the fact that while we are still doing this clean-eating thing, we weren't going to be slaves to it. Also, now that we are close to the 2 week point, we will be relaxing the rules slowly, allowing some grains, starting with non-gmo corn, and some natural sugars like maple syrup and raw honey.

As a side note, we also did a few non-dairy days this week, and there were only some minor differences we noticed.  I think we determined that raw milk is by far the most digestible dairy product we consume, followed closely by yogurt and butter, but there is a large difference between those and cheese, so we will only indulge in that occasionally, and in the most natural forms possible.