Race Week and Biscuits & Gravy

It’s officially race week for the Sprouts-PHX Mesa Half Marathon and I am excited to race my third half marathon this weekend. It has been a crazy last few weeks with a household of sick kiddos and husband. I think we finally are on the mend and I am praying I do NOT get it! So I have increased my bone broth and L-glutamine intake.

Speaking of bone broth…Do you incorporate it to your everyday life? Bone broth is rich in minerals and aids in boosting the immune system and supports digestion. It is great during this time of year when sickness tends to go around. Bone broth also supports joints and for this athletic momma and it is exactly what I need. You can read more about the benefits of bone broth on Chris Kresser Benefits of Bone Broth here.

One of Rob’s favorite meals is biscuits & gravy, and lately it has been sounding good. Back in the day we would pick up those no good for you country gravy packets. Well not anymore! A mixture of coconut milk and bone broth makes a creamy gravy that is simply delicious! I hope you enjoy and comment below if you make it.

BISCUITS & GRAVY

Ingredients 

• 1.5lbs of ground turkey (I get the organic ground turkey from Costco)
• 1 can of full fat coconut milk (shake before using)
• 8oz bone broth
• 3tbsp of tapioca starch or arrowroot starch
• 1tsp Ground fennel seed
• 1tsp Ground sage
• 1/4 tsp Cayenne pepper
• Cracked Pepper to taste
• Salt to taste
• Olive Oil
• Immersion Blender

1. Season your Ground Turkey with fennel, sage, salt, and pepper. Cook until turkey is done. Strain and set aside.
2. With leftover grease add a little more olive oil to pan until have about 1tbsp of oil. Add 3Tbsp of tapioca starch to pan and whisk. Should make dry and some gel like substance. Add a little bone broth and continue whisking until gel forms.
3. Slowly add in coconut milk about 1/4 cup at a time. Continue to whisk and mix until all the coconut milk is added. Then slowly add in the remainder of the bone broth while whisking. The gravy should now be a little thick. You may have some gel clumps still and that is ok. Add in few dashes sage and fennel. Add in the cayenne pepper and salt/pepper to taste.
4. Pour gravy into a bowl and use an immersion blender to blend. This will take care of any gel like clumps you may left and leave you with a creamy smooth gravy!
5. Add cooked Turkey to gravy mixture and mix until combined.
6. Serve warm over biscuits (I like making Namaste Foods Drop Biscuits)

If you want to try making your own bone broth I recommend using Against All Grain Bone Broth Recipe. We use her recipe often to make bone broth, but when I run out I sometimes pick up Pacific Foods Organic Bone Broth.

5 Ingredient Breakfast Casserole

Switching up my normal breakfast routine and throwing in a breakfast casserole. It also makes for great leftovers during the week if I get lucky enough.  The kiddos tend to gobble this up and only save maybe 3 servings. This 5 ingredient breakfast is super easy to make and of course some good ol’ Franks Red Hot on top to make it complete!

 

Ingredients:

1. 4 Russet Potatoes – Spiralized
2. 6 Eggs
3. Raw Milk Cheese
4. 1 lb cooked ground pork ( seasoned with salt/pepper, garlic, and ground fennel seed)
5. Optional -crumble cooked bacon on top

Step by Step

• Spray 13X12 glass dish with EVOO
• Spiralize the russet potatoes, cut strings in half, and set aside
• Cook the ground pork and season with salt/pepper, garlic, and fennel seed.
• Layer 3 shredded potatoes on bottom of pan
• Shred some raw milk cheese on top
• Layer cooked pork on top of potatoes
• Layer last shredded potato on top of pork
• Mix 6 eggs and raw milk cheese together
• Pour egg mixture on top of last potato
• If using bacon add on top of egg mixture
• Cover with parchment paper and cook in oven at 350 degrees for 55 minutes
• Remove parchment paper and cooke for another 5-10 minutes
• Serve warm! Don’t forget to add some Frank’s Red Hot.

** I have also used organic ground turkey in place of the ground pork

 

Gobble up and Enjoy!

Wholly Granola – On the Run

Wow where has the time gone. This summer has been keeping me busy, so my blog post have been a little more spaced out for now. With summer off and running and vacations on the agenda I like to share one of my favorite granola recipes. We use this in place of buying store bought cereal. When we travel I tend to pack the majority of my food. This is cost effective for my family and provides us with good clean eating food always on hand. Traveling back home is almost a 24 hour road trip. Therefore, I need to have meal ready to go and easy to prepare on the road. Breakfast then is yogurt topped with this homemade granola, mixed fresher fruit, and banana muffins. This makes it easy to eat in the car and something the whole family enjoys. My kiddos can tolerate organic whole milk yogurt or even greek yogurt. I could tolerate dairy in small quantities, but due to recently finding out I have MTHFR (Methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase) I have decided to go completely dairy-free except for the occasional goat milk items.  I will be sharing more of my story at a later date. For now lets get down to some granola making business!

Grab your mixture of nuts and start chopping away.

Now add in the rest of the dry ingredients: ground flax seed, shredded coconut, raisins, dried blueberries, cinnamon, and himalayan salt. Then stir!

Combined wet ingredients and then warm in saucepan just until melted. I picked this pineapple juice at Trader Joes.

Pour wet ingredients into the dry nut mixture and stir until evenly coated. Make sure the “granola” nut mixture is really coated.

Line pan with parchment paper and heat oven to 300 degrees. Cook for about 45-60 minutes staring every 10 minutes or so. Oh and your house will smell amazingly!

Just before going into the oven.

Granola is done when most of the moisture is gone and nuts start to brown. Let cool and ENJOY!

Out of the oven

 

Granola- Paleo Style

Dry Mixture

• 1 1/4 cup of raw pecans
• 1 1/2 cup raw walnuts
• 1 1/4 cup raw almonds
• 10 oz bag macadamia nuts
• 1/3 c ground flax seed
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1 cup cup dried blueberries
• 1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
• sprinkle of himalayan salt
• 1 heaping tsp of cinnamon

Liquid Mixture

• 1/3 cup pineapple juice
• 3 Tbsp unrefined coconut oil
• 3 Tbsp raw honey
• 1 tsp vanilla

(Can use any variation of nuts you prefer. I also like to add in brazil nuts into the mix too)

(Can also add or substitute different dried fruit)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees
2. The nuts that need to be chopped up use a hand chopper to chop. I have tried using a food processor, but don’t like it because it chops them too fine for me. Chop nuts until you have a granola like consistency. I buy some of my nuts in pieces so I don’t have to chop them ahead of time.
3. Add in the dry fruit and shredded coconut to the mix nuts
4. Add in himalayan salt and cinnamon to nut mixture and stir.
5. In a small pot melt and mix together the coconut oil, honey, pineapple juice, vanilla, cocoa powder, salt and cinnamon.
6. Add the liquid mixture to the fruit/nut mixture and coat the “granola” really well.
7. Place granola on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake for 45 – 60 minutes. Check and stir every 10 minutes until done. * Key here to cook on low heat and slowly as to not burn the nuts and coconut.
8. Let cool and store in airtight container.

It is great to serve with almond milk as a “cereal” or served with yogurt as a topping. This is the yogurt I enjoyed with my granola for breakfast!  As I am thinking of it, I bet this would taste amazing in my Acai Bowl. 

Sunday Morning Breakfast

Sunday mornings remind me of my time with my own family growing up. It was a day dedicated to our Lord and family time together. Mass together as a family, a morning drive, and even sometimes a breakfast out together. I strive for the same tradition in my family. It is usually a warm breakfast, church, and family time. The family time could be a drive, hike, games, or outdoor fun just depends on what we are in the mood to do.

I have been allowing myself a limited amount of dairy from time to time. Although, I have officially cut it out for good this past week after having a reaction to it. So I have been on the look out for something that I can still enjoy that is cold and refreshing. I have been wanting to try an acai bowl for some time now because they just look delicious. I think of of acai bowl as a thick smoothie that has endless toppings. This weekend I made Rob and I one, and I can just say I am hook ( the kiddos had our normal smoothies). I made one and split it in 2 for us. It was just enough and hit the spot. It is a little rich in taste but refreshing at the same time. I am sharing how I made mine with you all today!

Lets start with my warm breakfast of sausage, scrambled eggs, and potatoes. I sliced up some Aidells chicken and apples sausages I picked up from Costco this weekend. Giving myself a break (break on the budget too)  from the organic Kiolbassa sausage I was getting. This is a clean, healthy alternative for me.

I sliced up some sweet potatoes and scrambled our favorite eggs we get from Costco.

Served it up with fresh cherries and blueberries. Made a delicious fruit and greens smoothies for the kiddos.

Then I dove in and made an acai bowl for Rob and I .

Acai Bowl

Ingredients

• 1 packet of Sambazon Acai Berry Original Blend superfruit pack.
• 1/2 packet of Organic Fresh Start smoothie blend (blueberry, strawberry, raspberry, kale, and spinach) – I used the other half in the kiddos smoothies.
• 1 scoop of Dr. Mercola Organic Greens
• 2 Tbsp of Coconut Oil
• 1/4 cup of vanilla almond milk (or any other non-dairy milk)
• 1/2 banana – saved other half to cut up for toppings

Semi thaw Acai berry pack under warm running water just to break it up. Place in blender and blend it up.

Throw in the rest of the ingredients and blend until smooth. It will be a little thick since I am making a bowl and not a smoothie. If you want a smoothie then add in 1/2 cup non-dairy milk instead of 1/4.

Separate into 2 bowls and top with your desired toppings! I topped mine with shredded coconut, chia seeds, sliced bananas, and pecans. Rob added 3 Enjoy Life mini chocolate chips just because! Seriously so YUMMY!

Enjoyed a great breakfast and day with my family.

 

Weekly Menu for May 21-27

It is that time again to plan for weekly meals and grocery shop. Right now my meal plans are running Saturday thru Friday with the following Saturday being my grocery shopping day and meal prep. It worked out perfect for me this week!

I have been dedicating myself to a new goal of waking up early (5am) and getting my workout in and daily prayer. So far it has been a great goal for me. I am enjoying my workouts with the hubby as well as some time to spend in prayer before the day gets busy. I love the feeling of accomplishment and the ability to dive into my day. It has helped with my sleep quality too. The weekends are no different. I was up and ready to go. I did my menu planning the day before so I just had to plug in my groceries into my Wunderlist App and away I went. If you haven’t check out this app yet you really should!

I took one of my older daughters with me this morning. She was a great helper. I really enjoy getting my kiddos involved in planning, shopping, preparing of our food. We rocked it; 3 stores in 2 1/2 hours! Really shorter than that since Trader Joes is at about 30 minutes in just driving one way. Van full of great clean, wholesome food! Oh and plus couldn’t forget the Traeger pellets so we can smoke the brisket we picked up.  

We unloaded the van when we got home, grabbed a quick snack and got to work. Here is our menu for the week.

My older girls were in charge of preparing and making all snacks. This menu that included Mini Banana Muffins, Jello (Against All Grain), Sunbutter Balls, and Chocolate Avocado Pudding (Delighted Momma). I included the links for the recipes I use.

There you have it, happy menu planning or feel free to use mine! I am ready to get this week start. Remember keep it simple…Keep it clean.

What’s for Breakfast?!?

Breakfast is one meal that I never have a hard time planning. My breakfast consists of pretty much the same thing every day.  This makes it easy on me for planning and gives the kiddos a great meal to start the day. I like to be able to serve them a warm breakfast every morning! If I am ever in a pinch for time I will warm up leftovers from the night before. No need to feel like you always have to have traditional breakfast food for breakfast.

I buy the majority of my meats from Costco. It is a cost savings for me since we cook large quantities at a time for a family of 7 and growing kiddos with endless pits. If you are looking for a great resource for paleo and/or gluten free goodies to get from Costco, Paleo Parents have provided a great shopping list of ideas.  You can check it out here and tuck it away for future reference!

Breakfast hash is what I make in the mornings.

1. Sausage/Bacon/Pork (or any meat of choosing)
2. Scrambled Eggs
3. Coconut Oil
4. Sweet Potatoes or Russet Potatoes
5. Avocado Oil ( I get the Chosen Food brand from Costco or here)
6. Fruit
7. Salad or Broccoli slaw-Optional

First I start with cooking the sweet potatoes. Sometimes I will use rustic potatoes or a combination as not all my kiddos favor sweet potatoes. I grab the organic bags of sweet or rustic potatoes from Trader Joe’s. Trader Joe’s has a great organic line that is reasonably priced. I cube up the potatoes and heat up a cast-iron pan. Add avocado oil to pan and toss in the potatoes. Fry up until done.

As the sweet potatoes are finishing I start to cook the Kiolbassa sausage. This is the kind I get from Costco. Sometimes I will get organic ground turkey and make my own sausage using Diane’s (from Practical Paleo) italian sausage blend recipe. 

Next crack the eggs and scramble them up in some coconut oil. Chino Valley Ranchers is a local farmer that supplies organic free range eggs to my local Costco.  I urge you to check your local Costco to see what they carry, and be sure to price compare. Even though I have to buy these by the dozen they are cheaper per dozen compared to the Costco organic eggs plus these are free range chickens!  These are reasonably priced usually at $2.79/dozen. Sometimes they may be a little cheaper. 

Serve the food up in dishes and add a fruit of choosing if you like. I added blackberries for this breakfast. Also I usually offer broccoli slaw or a mixed salad to go with every meal even breakfast.

 

Quick and healthy breakfast to make. Keeping it simple every morning.

Enjoy!

Saturday Morning Breakfast

A free weekend with no plan events…YES! So today calls for cleaning the house, catching up on the laundry, and cleaning out the garage. My kiddos love when they hear the words “spring cleaning your rooms”…NOT. Windows are open, sun is shinning, feeling the breeze. Now just hoping I will get a lot done today.

Family breakfast around the table is my cup of tea. Love family conversation. Reminds me of when I was growing up and the stories we told (oh burping contest) at the dinner table. It brings a smile to my face every time. I am so blessed to be able to share this same tradition with my children. Rob and I even love sharing stories about their aunts and uncles. The infamous question on how Rob and I met. Although my stories are probably not as good as my Dad’s, I still enjoy their laughter.  Don’t get me wrong, time around the table is not always smiles and laughter. We do have the occasional yelling, screaming, crying, arguing, bickering, etc. The joys of having a beautiful and loving family.

Today’s breakfast included scrambled eggs, potatoes, baby portobello mushrooms, and kiolbassa. I also gave the kiddos an orange with their breakfast this morning (not pictured). The Kiolbassa we get from Costco. One downside to Costco is they don’t always carry it, or the same brand. This is the new brand they are now carrying. It is $2 more and one less sausage. So unless they carry the other brand, this will now become a once in awhile thing and I will go back to making my own ground sausage for awhile. Chino Valley Ranchers is a local to me, but they are carried at Costco. These are organic, free range eggs which can be very expensive to buy. I can buy these for $2.79/dozen at Costco. Costco also carries 18 pack of organic eggs also, but if you do the price comparison it is cheaper to buy these; always look at the cost per dozen.

I started off with making the potatoes on the stove with some avocado oil and fried them up. Added a little bit of himalayan salt and done. While the potatoes cooked, I cut up the Kiolbassa. After the potatoes were done I put them in dish and, I threw the Kiolbassa into the same pan with no oil as the Kiolbassa will produce its own while cooking. Once the Kiolbassa was done I put them in a dish, and threw in the mushrooms with the grease from the Kiolbassa. I dished out the mushrooms to a plate and added a little bit more avocado oil and made the eggs. So I used 1 pan for all 4 foods, making less of a clean up for me!

Enjoy your morning and a healthy, wholesome breakfast.