Travel and Paleo? Not fun AT ALL

This past week I traveled to a conference. Fabulous, right? Travel? Awesome? No. Try maintaining a Paleo diet while traveling or going to a function. Note: I'm not complaining, I'm simply noting the lack of "alternatives."

Start at the airport. McDonald's. Dunkin' Donuts. Popeye's Chicken. Starbucks. Oh, remember, we're eating breakfast. "Do you have anything that's gluten free?" Weird looks. Nobody did. So I was glad I had eaten before I left and had brought Paleo-friendly snacks for the airport(s) and plane(s).

Arrive in Florida. Ask the folks at the front desk for food suggestions (because the conference doesn't start until tomorrow). I'm starving. It's dinner time. I hadn't had a "meal" all day. "Oh, and I can't eat bread or pasta." Concierge furrows his brow. Exactly. "Go down the street and over the bridge. There's a health food type restaurant called Dig. They'll have something you can eat and it's good." Okey dokey. Well, Dig's holding a fundraiser for some wildlife something or other. It's packed and there's no food to be found. Moving on. So I found a pizza place that serves...salad. *Sigh* I got a buffalo chicken salad. Meh. With no travel plastic fork or knife. Who does that? Anyway.

Breakfast the day the conference starts (at 3 p.m.). I wasn't paying $16 for an omlett at the hotel, so I walked. And walked. Breakfast sandwiches. Nope. More breakfast sandwiches. Pastries. Bagels. Seriously?! So I went to Starbucks and got a turkey bacon and egg sandwich and didn't eat the English muffin. Wheee (said sarcastically).

At lunch time I went downstairs in the hotel to find something before the conference started because who knows what they'd serve. I ran into one of the conference planners, Kate, that I knew and she bought me lunch. Score! Salad. Boo.

Conference snacks - cookies. No fruit to be found. So I asked Kate for some loose fruit, you know some apples and bananas to put on the table. Hopefully I'm not the only one who would enjoy them? In the middle of the first presentation Tom, another conference planner, brings me a large bowl of cut up melon and fruit and a fork. Um...well, I...OK. No apples. No bananas. Kate was frustrated for me.

For dinner we all went out together to an awesome restaurant on the beach. They actually had something I could eat on the pre-planned menu, so I was psyched. I ate all of that damn fish. They actually had created "pasta" out of zucchini using a julienne peeler which I had so wanted to try. It was yummy. Definitely asking for one of those for Mother's Day.

Conference breakfast - guess. Bagels, breads, muffins, oh my! Kate and I arrived at breakfast at the same time and she watched me eyeball the table. "You can't eat any of this," she sighed. And we couldn't find a human to get me even a hard boiled egg. So I cheated. First time in a month, I had a bagel. Eeeee! But it was yummy (shhhh). On to lunch - cold cut sandwiches and potato salad. I'll have some cold cuts...and some fruit.

Now I am in no way bitching. Don't get me wrong. But I was talking to Kate before we left and she said, "I never realized how much unhealthy stuff we offer at these things. I need to work on that." Indeed. And invite me back next time so I can check your progress!

Things Not to Do While Eating Paleo

We've been eating the "Paleo plan" or "diet" or whatever you choose to call it (it's not a diet, it's a way of thinking about food, but I won't get on my soapbox) for almost a month. I know that somewhere out there ("beneath the pale moonlight...") there's someone wondering about Paleo and what to avoid while doing it. Well, here's what I've learned so far.

Avoid missing meals
If you've ever had the "low blood sugar blahs" then this is 500x worse. At least at our house it's like someone's Bringing Cranky Back in full swing. Your frontal lobe of your brain which controls good decision making, tact, and what facial expressions to make just doesn't work well on no food. So carry snacks and listen to your body (as opposed to a clock that says it's lunch time).

Don't forget prep time
Take into account prep time for meals. Many of us came to eat Paleo from The Fast Food Nation. "We are hungry and want it now!" Well, it doesn't work that way when you're using real and fresh ingredients my friend. There is nothing (except maybe veggies) frozen here. So plan on prepping and cooking for at least 30 minutes if not more. Again, keep snacks for while you wait. We like beef jerky and celery with almond butter (instead of peanut butter). Also, if you want you can chop up often used foods (like onions and garlic) ahead of time to cut some of the prep time. We keep them in the fridge in storage bags and just take out what we need.

Don't expect it to be cheap
Starting a Paleo pantry can be expensive especially if you come from The Fast Food Nation. There are spices, types of flour (see the next section), and meat to be purchased. Lots of meat. And vegetables. Lots of vegetables. And a food processor would be super helpful (we just got ours today and it roooocks!).

Don't expect to find recipe ingredients at your local market
Unless you live in Awesome Land (and I don't even know where that is), you may not find all that you're looking for at one store. For example, I found almond butter, coconut flour, and almond flour at H.E.B. The almond flour was $12.99 for a 1 lb bag. No joke. I found 1 lb bags of almond meal (just fine thank you) at Trader Joe's for...wait for it...$3.99 each. I had to go to Whole Foods for cashew butter. Still haven't found clarified butter (ghee) anywhere. I only found flaxseed meal at Trader Joe's. So it's kind of a crap shoot as to where you'll find what you need (and then what you'll pay for it). So there's more planning involved. You can't just run to Wal-mart to get your shiznit.

Don't forget lunch
Daddy and I both work outside of the house and are at work for lunch time. It can be hard to put together something for lunch. Again, it takes pre-planning (damn that pre-planning). Leftovers from the night before are an obvious one, but eating Paleo typically makes one not feel full for as long as other foods do, so we end up eating the leftovers later most nights. A lot of times I just cruise the fridge and throw a bunch of stuff in a cold bag and go. But you have to make sure when you're shopping that there's portable things that don't require large amounts of cooking at work. Tricky tricky. In a pinch there's always a salad at a fast food place, but I've even had experiences where I open a salad and I'm thinking, "There's stupid tortilla chips on my salad!" Try picking those out during a lunch meeting. Super professional (with the cape on and all).

I'm sure there's more and I'll post them when I think of (or experience) them. What have your experiences been?

Meal Planning - I hate you but I need you

Every week I sit down at the computer to come up with the list of things we'll have for dinner for the week because I hate the daily question, "What's for dinner?" It became such a nasty joke at my house that we'd try to see who could ask it first, and the person who had to answer had to come up with something. Not fun.

So I started meal planning. Saturday or Sunday I'll sit down at my computer and go through recipes looking for what looks good for the week. I'll write down a list of the days (this week it was Sunday through Sunday). Then on the bottom of the paper on the left I'll write the meats I need to buy, and on the right I'll write down the vegetables. I'll make a separate list of spices on another page and check to make sure we already have those (and add those to the list under the meats if we don't). Then I shop. Once I finish shopping I post the list on the fridge so there's no question as to "What's for dinner?"

So what's for dinner this week?

Sunday: Ultimate Paleo Chili - Daddy asked for chili and told his best friend there would be chili Sunday. So there will be chili. Plus it will be good for leftovers for lunch for the week.
Monday: Chicken Burgers - these look so yummy.
Tuesday: Zesty Ranch pork chops with brussel sprouts - we already have some pork chops in the freezer, so this will work out well. And I'm starting a love affair with brussel sprouts. Shh, don't tell Daddy.
Wednesday: Chicken sausage with bacon - easy meal because Wednesday's kind of our crazy day.
Thursday: Caveman strong pizza crust - Thursdays are pizza day, always has been. When we started eating Paleo we started trying a new crust each week (until we find one that we love forever and ever). Still searching.
Friday: Stuffed green peppers - no recipe, but I'll replace the rice with cauliflower rice and we'll use ground beef and tomatoes.
Saturday: Easy chicken dinner - Saturday and dinner always gets lazy around here, so this will be easy.
Sunday: Bacon chicken bowl - again, easy because dinners on the weekends are kind of an afterthought after everyone gets up from their naps and we're like, "Oh crap, it's five already."

Most of the recipes came from PaleOMG this week. If you haven't checked out her website, DO IT. Awesomeness. And she has a cookbook coming out. Score!

Link me to your favorite meal. I'll add it to the rotation for next week.

In the Kitchen Together

For the past five years, dinner at The House has been I buy it, Mike prepares it, we eat. Most of the time it was frozen or something easy. I buy chicken, he adds stuff to it (such as spices and whatnot), and we eat. When we opted to do the Paleo diet I looked for recipes, cleared them with him, and bought the stuff, but when it came time to cook I realized there was a lot more to it than just, you know, take it out of the freezer, take it out of the box, and put it in the stove (bad me and frozen pizza). So rather than cook alone (I had the recipes on my phone so I was now "The Cooker"), I called Mike in, showed him what we were making, and set him to cutting or doing something.


Our kitchen isn't that big. So we're sometimes in each other's ways. And we cook differently. I follow recipes. He cooks to taste (which he imagines in his head, which I can't do). He's creative about cooking - he can throw something together from available stuff. If I don't have a recipe I make something I've always made (not just a throw together meal). So imagine these two people in the kitchen together, trying to reach one goal (a meal). Yeah. It's been...a challenge. There we go.

Bacon, spinach, and
mushroom casserole

But we have found some things that we both liked, and I want to share those with you. All of these came from Quick Paleo Meals at Paleo Diet Lifestyle. First up, bacon, spinach, and mushroom casserole. First off, my brain says this isn't a casserole because it doesn't fit my brain's criteria for a casserole. But whatever you call it, it has a good taste. I personally would prefer the bacon crispy (as I always do), but it had a good taste and we liked it. Mike took the leftovers and made an omelet with them. The recipe calls for a casserole dish that you cook everything in on the stove but we just used a regular saute pan. One nice thing about this is it's a one pan deal - no other pans or lots of cleanup required.


Moving on. Liver and onions. You can tell me as long as you want that liver's good for you. And that's great. And Mike likes it. The idea of it, the taste of it, and everything about it just don't sit right with me. But at the beginning of this Paleo journey I said I'd try everything once (but not brains, Sarah). I tried it. I don't like it. I'm done. Will I have it again? *Rolls eyes and sighs* If Mike asks for it, sure. It's easy. It's pretty inexpensive. I don't know about your grocery store, but my grocery store had 1 container of liver (that I bought for $2.50). Moving away. From liver.

Paleo pork chops
with apples and onions

Pork chops with apples and onions. Yeah. This is good. I've talked to a lot of people about different Paleo pork chop recipes and I was pretty happy with this one. The apples and onions give it a good flavor and again, it's pretty easy and quick. The cutting up of the apples and onions took the longest time honestly. I may start cutting up gads of stuff at a time so that cooking will be easier. I should have eaten two of these but Mike had two, I gave one to Silas (who refused to eat it), and we only had 4. I did eat his leftovers the next morning for breakfast...

Canned salmon salad

Cold salmon salad you say? Sure. For lunch one day we made canned salmon salad. We halved the recipe because it was just the two of us eating lunch, and we still had leftovers. We used lettuce wraps to make little "sandwiches" rather than just put it on a bed of lettuce as a salad. Quick and easy (aside from the cutting, again). I will definitely make this again and may even make some up to bring to work. Mike says he thinks it would be tasty with celery rather than cucumbers as well.

Paleo Chicken Fajitas

Last up was Paleo Chicken Fajitas. We had these for dinner one night when a family friend was over. He enjoyed them as well (in a tortilla, no lettuce wraps for him). Definitely tasty and "one skillet easy." We'll definitely keep this around because it's quick and something good to serve if folks who don't follow the Paleo diet have dinner with us.


So what would we like to try? I'm really interested in some sort of pizza type thing. But I think the crust would involve a lot of work so I'm kind of waiting for next week when I can have a leisurely time of making it (kids at school, Mike at work). Do you have go-to lunch and dinner ideas? Share in the comments!

Paleo Breakfasting

I've spent the last week trying different Paleo breakfast ideas, trying to find things that are tasty and portable for when I start back to work on the 14th. I know myself - if I can't find breakfast I'll just say forget it and stop at McDonald's or something.

Chocobanana smoothie,
 yum!

So what have we tried so far (besides the raspberry muffins)? Mike made me a chocolate and banana smoothie which was pretty tasty. I think I could easily get the ingredients ready the night before then blend them in the morning.

Next up - hard-boiled eggs. I've been anti-hard-boiled eggs for so many years I was loathe to try it but it's super easy. Boil water, put the shelled eggs in, let them cook 15 minutes or so, and let them cool. We left them in the water overnight and it was super easy to peel them in the morning. I cut them in half and added salt and paprika shakes. Yum. I was surprised and glad I tried them.

Caveman Crunch - this
won't last long in this house...

Finally - Caveman Crunch granola. Very easy to make once you find all the ingredients. I cooked it for 20 minutes then took it out and shuffled it and cooked it another 10. It turned out perfect. I also used agave instead of honey.

These are all great options, tasty and easy. What easy Paleo breakfasts have you found?

C25K week 1 Day 3 - New Shoes!

Today was my final day of week 1 of C25K. My day was slightly busy (drop the boys at school, shower, go to vocal therapy, come home and make lunch, pick boys up at 4:30) so I worried I wouldn't find a good time to complete my run. In the morning it was 41 and raining which was less than ideal.

New chooze!

After vocal therapy Mike and I made lunch (Paleo salmon salad, super yum) and then I thought well crap, aren't I supposed to wait to exercise after food (yes, 3-4 hours for digestion after a 600-calorie or more meal says a runner's forum), so I took a nap and ran after we picked the boys up. One nice benefit was that my new trainers arrived while I was napping. Sweet!

Day three was pretty easy I have to say. Not, like, so easy I'd just do it all day every day, but when my run portion finished I thought, "I could keep going." I didn't, but that makes me think that I'm ready for next week where the amount of time spent walking and running swap (so 60 seconds walking and 90 seconds running). Since I was doing lots of "short runs," I wore my new shoes today and they felt good. I think I need to wear slightly thicker socks though.

On to Week 2!

Raspberry Almond Muffin Recipe Review

As I've written before, I'm a breakfast person. And it needs to be portable. Once we started eating paleo I started looking around for recipes for breakfast-y stuff. The first one I found was posted by the Civilized Caveman Cooking blog. I scoured San Antonio for the ingredients and made us some raspberry almond muffins one night so we could have them for breakfast in the morning. Mike had to try one because he said it had a crack down the side. These are definitely Daddy approved. He's eaten three of them since I made them.

Daddy says, "They'll eat" as
he has another...

Having never had "paleo muffins" or anything that had coconut flour as opposed to "regular" flour, I wasn't sure what to expect. The outcome tasted grain-y-er than what I'm used to in terms of muffins (non-paleo muffins) but they had good flavor and sponge-y-ness. I definitely recommend them! Although I had to cook mine a bit longer than 18 minutes (perhaps user error, maybe stove issues, who knows, but I added an extra 7 minutes and they passed the toothpick test). I will definitely make them again, but I think I may substitute some almond flour for some of the coconut flour. And I'll carry a toothpick - raspberries get stuck in my teeth!

What good breakfast recipes have you found? Share!

Paleo Me

Healthy eating, everyone thinks, "I should try that" right? It's true. Most of us make resolutions (which is where we start having a problem, more on that next) to eat healthier every New Year's Eve. That's nice and all, but what happens usually? You eat better for a few days, have a bad day, eat crappy food, and then say to yourself, "Oops, I failed, I'm all done trying this healthy eating thing." And it's back to fast food and pizza and Ramen Noodles (or is that just me?).

My non-Paleo child says no to steak.

The most effective way to make a long-term change is to integrate the new view of yourself (as a healthy eater) into your identity. If you don't, it's very easy to "slip up" and not get back on the healthy wagon (reminds me of the cheese wagon wheel guy from old cheese commercials). But if you think of yourself as a healthy eater, you're more likely to "fix" it if you have a bad eating day. The same is true for any long-term identity change (exercising, quitting smoking, etc.).

For the past few months I've been watching my friends in a certain Facebook group eat the Paleolithic (or Paleo) diet and seen them post about the benefits. Weight loss, feeling more energy, decreased skin problems...hm. So a month or so ago I did some research and Daddy and I decided that we would eat at least 1 paleo dinner per week. So we've been doing that. But we weren't 100% bought in. If we were, we'd have changed our whole day of eating, not just one dinner per week. Last week I sat down with some websites and looked at a) staples of a paleo kitchen, b) easy/quick meals without "crazy" ingredients that we couldn't find at our local market, and c) breakfast ideas of paleo eating that I could make beforehand so that I could "grab and go" when I start back to work on January 14.

Daddy cooking the steak

One thing I learned - the ideas that we have about what foods are for what meals are pretty funny. Think about it. Eggs are mostly for breakfast, veggies aren't really for breakfast...these are all things that I thought before I started looking around. But what I realized is that, yeah, you can pretty much eat whatever you want (in terms of type of food) for any meal and/or snack. Pair protein with a veggie, and you have a meal pretty much.

One hang up for me was thinking about the things I enjoy and how I couldn't have them. For example, Thursday night at our house is pizza night. If whole grains aren't so hot, then frozen pizza? No bueno. But wait, Mr. Google tells me there's paleo pizza?! For real?! So ok, we can have pizza night. Sweet.

So it's time for The House to think about their food differently. I will say that I will offer Silas (now 32 months or almost 3) what we're eating but also have his "likes" on hand because I've seen him deny a perfectly tasty steak. And Sage, well, he's still on pureed solids (sounds like an oxymoron) which actually makes him a vegetarian (ha!).

My paprika-covered eggs. Mmm.

On Tuesday, the first night of our full-time venture, we made steak and eggs for dinner. Daddy was surprised that "that" could "just" be dinner. The recipe I had read (a recipe? really?) said to put paprika on the eggs so I did and Daddy just about had a heart attack (I grew up meat and potatoes, no spices), but it was good. Yes, I'd do it again. Silas ate the eggs. He denied the steak. Wednesday morning for breakfast I had an apple, some scrambled eggs, some avocado slices, and some tomato slices. I worried that I would feel unfull or that it would get to like 10 a.m. and I'd be starving, but not so much. I'm still searching out muffin-type recipes for when I go back to work, but I could easily breakfast out of the fridge as long as the fridge had fruits and veggies (and some protein) until I go back to work. I've found a few recipes and will share my experiences with those here when I get a chance.

Do you have favorite paleo recipes? I'd love to see them. Link them here or post them to the Facebook group.