Life Choices and Healthy Eating

It is summer break and with that comes easier meals for me and NO more school lunches to pack! We get to enjoy the outdoors, lots of time at the pool, and of course books in hand.   I am really am liking The Rhythm of Life -Living Every Day with Passion & Purpose by Matthew Kelly. It is a great easy read. If you haven’t read this book, I strongly urge you do!

When I look at the life I have, I realize I have been given life. The Lord has given me the ability to make choices in my life with the hopes of course that I will choose to follow him. I have lived in the past of negative thinking – why did this happen, why am I not where I want to be, if I only had this I would be happy, the list can go on and on. Over the last year or so I have been doing a lot of reflections on life. How I live each day, really is MY CHOICE. I can choose to be happy, or choose to be sad. I can choose to exercise, or choose not to. I can choose to eat healthy, or eat junk. I can choose to manage my money or let my money manage me. I can choose to love myself, or tear myself apart. I can choose to pray and go to church, or choose to stay home (or go to an event) etc.

Lets take eating healthy for an example. When talking with other people in my life, one thing I hear about is I want to make better food choices. Then next comes the long list of excuses as to why it is so hard or why they can’t do it. Really when it comes down to it, it is YOUR CHOICE to CHANGE! Only you can decide to take the steps in the choices you make. So okay you know you want to eat healthier. Now how are you going to get there? What goals and steps are you going to take to get to making better food choices? What resources are available to help you get to where you want to be?

I personally am a dive on in kind of gal, but not everyone is like that. Also every situation I may not be able to just dive all in and need to take steps. So create small goals to accomplish your one big goal of eating healthier. Maybe first is clean out your fridge and pantry of the unhealthy foods. Next you commit to only buying healthy foods when going grocery shopping. Start with buying more fruits and veggies and less processed food.  Maybe you start researching healthier meals to make and make a list of meals you would like to try. Another option is take meals you like already and substitute in healthier alternatives. For instance, instead of pasta noodles, you make zucchini noodles. Then  maybe you start to meal plan. You can start with just a couple of meals a week and then build up to a weeks worth of meals. Some people discuss the cost factor of eating healthier. This could then turn into a goal of setting a budget for weekly meals. Maybe limit the amount of times you go out to eat and instead bring your meals with you. I can always make adjustments in my budget, but when it comes down to it the cost really isn’t that huge. This is just a thought process to get you started. This same concept applies for all aspects in your life. I can tell you that you will hit barriers (ups and downs) along the way. Again, it is your choice to continue through, pick yourself back up and continue forward on this journey called life!  Keep in mind though, you never have to do it alone!

My goal here is to share pieces of my life in hope to inspire others or give them the encouragement they need to keep going on whatever journey they are on. So with that, comes in summertime meal planning. I still continue to meal plan, but it isn’t necessarily as strict as it is during the school year. I have a master snack list that I list on my board my kiddos can choose from twice a day instead of me planning them out each day. The snacks that need to be prepared I will meal prep so they are ready to go when they choose to have them during the week.

Week to week the snack list really does not change. Maybe one or two things I may switch out. This is my master snack plan for this week:

• Banana Muffins
• Rice Rolls with Sunbutter
• Fresh Fruit
• Fresh Raw Veggies
• Apples with sunbutter and toppings (mini Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips, Shredded coconut, chopped nuts)
• Ants on a log
• Lemon Coconut Protein Balls -Link out to the recipe here.
• Plantain Chips and Guac
• Sunbutter Balls
• Banana chips
• Larabars
• Trail Mix (raw nuts with dried fruit)

 

Breakfast for the week still stays the same as it does during the school year.

• Fluffy Paleo Pancakes – find recipe here. Seriously the best pancakes hands down!
• Daily morning breakfast -Sausage/Eggs/Potatoes. I blogged about it here.

 

Lunches during the week are leftovers from our dinner the night before. Making it easy peasy!

Dinners: I plan 5-6 main dinners and then will have at least 1 leftover night to clean out the fridge before the next round of meals. This ensure we are eating up what we brought and reduces the amount of food waste. You will always know when it is grocery time in my house because my fridge is almost bare. Each dinner will have salad available. Here is my meals I planned for the coming week:

• Tuna cakes and Sweet Potatoes
• Ginger Lime Meatballs and cauliflower rice. I use turkey instead of pork for the meatballs. You can find the recipe here.
• Chicken Salad Lettuce Boats with raw veggies. Recipe coming this week so check back!
• Grilled chicken and grilled veggies (zucchini, mushrooms, and carrots)
• Taco Night
• Asian Zoodle Bowls

Now to update my grocery list in Wunderlist, and off to the store I go.

Enjoy!

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.

Review of Otto’s Naturals Cassava Flour

One of Rob’s favorite filipino dishes is Sio Pao. We have not enjoyed these in over 4 years. Sio Pao is a filipino dish which means steamed buns. The fillings for Sio Pao can be endless. We like them usually with Pork Adobo, hard boiled egg and onions. I have also made them as a breakfast option with bacon and eggs. One things I learned about myself as I have been testing this recipe round and round is I don’t have the patience of a baker. I love to cook, but baking is a different story! I honestly thought it can’t be that hard. Then again I haven’t baked much since going gluten-free/paleo.

When I was given the opportunity to try out Otto’s Naturals Cassava Flour, I knew just what I wanted to bake/steam. You guessed it, Sio Pao! Cassava, or Yuca, is a root vegetable. According to Otto’s Naturals Cassava Flour differs from others on the market because

“Otto’s Cassava Flour is thoroughly peeled, dried, and ground into wonderfully consistent, delicious flour that you can count on cup after cup. “

Otto’s Cassava Flour is said to be equivalent to using wheat flour 1:1 in most cases. It is also gluten-free, grain-free, nut-free, and paleo certified. Finally a win for me when baking/cooking kiddos lunches that need to be nut-free. We are a peanut free household since my daughter is allergic to peanuts. Baking with this has brought back many memories of cooking with traditional flours. Even the smell and texture reminds me of traditional baking flours.

When working with this flour, for me, I noticed I needed a little more liquid. That is honestly the only problem I ran into. Otto’s Naturals Cassava Flour is seriously a game changer. You will not be disappointed. Sticker price may be a shocker to some. When I  really when I look at it, I spend more money per pound on almond flour then I would on this flour. So if I had to choose, this would be my first pick. I feel I can get more use out of this flour then out of the almond flour.

That being said, I tried some amazing recipes. First one was tortilla wraps from Fork & Beans. You can find the recipe here.

Also Otto’s NY Style Pizza crust by Alana on her website Planks, Love & Guacamole. You can find the recipe here. Paleo, gluten-free pizza never tasted so good! We made ours on the Traeger and it turned out AMAZING.

 

I then made my own Paleo Banana Pancakes using Otto’s Naturals Cassava Flour. You can find the recipe on this blog here.

Used the Cassava Flour also in my Chicken and Broccoli Stir-Fry. You can find the recipe on my blog here.

Finally our favorite dish Sio Pao was born. This really brought back memories and was delicious as ever. Tasted just like the original Sio Pao I remember! You can find the recipe on my blog here.

I am hooked! So much so that I purchased the 5lb bag they just came out with.

I was also truly impressed with their outstanding customer service and quick deliveries. They also offer free shipping on all domestic orders on there website currently (no code needed). So what are you waiting for? Go grab a bag and get to cooking!

 

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!

Meals for the Week-UGH

My wonderful world of menu planning for the week to come has approached. I have totally been unmotivated to write up my menu. Even the thoughts about shopping and cooking, and I just want to tap out!  Seriously, I would love to have someone come plan my menu, shop, and do all my cooking this week. Now that seems like a dream come true to me! Since that is not going to happen, I guess it is to the board I go to plan out my next six days of meals.  The only way I keep my sanity, plus I am picky!

With a crazy week in store, I am making it easy on myself. Really there is nothing wrong with having the same breakfast every morning. I planned out to do breakfast casserole Saturday and Sunday, but I plan to just stay with hash casserole. With my fridge already maxed out, it will be easier to make as I go instead of trying to find more room for leftovers at this point. Breakfast these next six days will be eggs and potatoes. I will add in either ham, kolbassa sausage, or bacon to the morning mix. Also since going shopping today, I switched my granola to Larabars instead. Kind of bummed out that Trader Joe’s changed their cashews to being made in facility with wheat, eggs, soy, etc. So now those are out of the question. The importance of reading labels even when you pretty much get the same things over and over. Without further ado here is what my next six days will look like…

With two kids in tow, off to the three stores I went. Since Trader Joe’s is the furthest away I start with that one. I pack a cooler so I can keep things cold as we go; especially in the hotter months. Next stop I hit was Costco. Costco is where I get the majority of my meats/protein. Today it was Kolbassa sausage, organic ground turkey, organic chicken breast, pork belly, and eggs. Final stop was Sprouts for just a few odds and ins, like mini enjoy life chocolate chips.  I already had a few veggies at home including our salad so I didn’t have to buy those this time around. Also Nick Sicks we typically have on hand, although our stash is in need of a restock!  We buy our Nick Sticks online here. They are 100% grass-fed beef and free-range turkey. Simply made with real ingredients.  I buy organic when it’s available and also when my budget allows. For the most part I can get what I need!  So after $288.42 later here is what I walked away with.

Mastering Hard Boiled Eggs

I enjoy a great hard boiled egg. They are great on salads, in lunches, stuffed with tuna, topped with hot sauce, or even with just himalayan salt. I have tried over the years to make an ideal hard boiled egg. I think I have tried it all, including baking them. I remember when I was in my younger years, if the hard boiled egg wasn’t completely cooked (almost green yolk) I wouldn’t touch it. Wow has my food adventures grown!

Here is my favorite way to cook my Hard Boiled Eggs:

Add a single layer of eggs to a sauce pan. Fill the pan with water until it is about an inch over the eggs.

Bring water to a boil and boil for only 1 minute.

Remove from heat and cover with lid. Set a timer for 9 minutes. Get a bowl and fill with some ice and cold water and set aside.

When the 9 minutes is up transfer the eggs immediately to the cold water ice bath.

Let them cool down. Peel and serve, or store in refrigerator.

Enjoy!

Saturday Hike and Menu Planning

One thing I absolutely enjoy about where I live is hiking. Seriously could hike for hours.  Saturday mornings, when time permits, I enjoy going on an early morning hike. It is even better when my friend(s) can join me. Love the fresh air, beautiful views, and great conversations! So this morning I was able to enjoy almost 5 miles of hiking with a great friend. So beautiful watching the sunrise over the mountains.

 

Today also calls for some menu planning and food prep for the week. As you can see my fridge is pretty much bare. I finished up the eggs and veggies and made omelets this morning for breakfast. So typically this is what my fridge looks like before I menu prep. One great thing about menu planning is you go through all the food you bought. My freezer is usually empty because most of my groceries I buy are fresh. I do keep frozen organic green beans for emergency veggies. I also buy my almond flour in bulk and freeze them until I need them. The rest is just ice packs. I am looking forward to the day when I can go buy myself a nice large double door refrigerator with the freezer on the bottom because this refrigerator isn’t large enough and gets crammed full after I meal prep for the week.

 

So my menu is prepared in my excel document and listed up on my menu board in the kitchen. The list is put into Wunderlist for me (or should I say Rob) to go grocery shopping!  Now to clean up the kitchen from lunch and get to preparing meals for the week. My older girls will be in charge of preparing what is needed for snacks this week along with giving instructions to their brother on where he can help them out. Love getting them all involved, plus it helps me speed along the process. So my music will be jamming and we will be dancing as we make our way around the kitchen!

Keep it simple…Keep it clean. Enjoy the food you eat!

My menu

Busy weekend doing some testing on a new recipe that I haven’t had since I went paleo. Super excited to be sharing it with you all soon. Just have a few more finishing tweaks! So with the restricted amount of time I just put together a quick 5 day meal plan (M-F). Here is what we are having.

Breakfast:

1. Quiona-kiddos & egg and sausage.
2. Paleo waffle sandwiches
3. Egg & sausage hash
4. Egg & sausage hash
5. Paleo Pancakes and Eggs

Kiddos Snacks:

1. Yogurt & banana chips
2. Paleo pumpkin muffins & celery sticks (Sunbutter, coconut flakes)
3. Apples with Sunbutter balls- recipe here.
4. Paleo pumpkin muffins & fruit
5. Crunchy rice rolls with Sunbutter ball & yogurt

School Lunch: * Rob and I usually have a fresh salad or previous nights leftovers.

1. Hard boiled eggs, tuna cakes, salad, pickles, and fruit
2. Monday night leftovers
3. Chicken, veggies, & fruit
4. Paleo coconut flour pancakes sandwiches, fruit, and veggies
5. Thursday night leftovers

After school snack:

1. Paleo Sio Pao & fruit
2. Exploding Apples (Sunbutter, raisins, & shredded coconut flakes)
3. Paleo zucchini muffins & smoothie
4. Candied walnuts & celery
5. Paleo zucchini muffins & smoothies

Dinner:

1. Baked potato bar – Mexican style
2. Cauliflower “fried rice” with chicken
3. Tex-Mex – sweet potato style
4. Buffalo chicken & sweet potatoes
5. Leftover night!

That is it for me this week. Should be an easy meal prep, allows me to be able to prep during the week too!

Enjoy the journey & Keep it simple!

Oh the Menu Planning

So I have been attempting to menu plan for the last 2 days now. It is 9:30pm on a Friday night and I finally got it done. Planning out a menu for the week is vital to my sanity. With 7 mouths to feed, and crazy schedules I could’t imagine trying to figure out meals on top of it each day. I think I would lose my mind. So in comes my handy-dandy white board. I was hoping today at nap time I would get this board filled in and grocery list made on Wunderlist. One child napped and one didn’t so my board was still empty when the rest of the kiddos came home from school today. If you have kiddos you know how the routine goes. Walk through the door and they have the stories from the day to tell! Plus can’t forget to have the snack ready because by golly they are “starving” and can’t function until they have something to snack on. So it is snack and stories at the table. Believe me there are times when I just want to finish what I am doing, but I try my best to let that go and give them my full attention when they walk through the door. I do miss them and want to hear all about the exciting or not so exciting day they had.

So after dinner it was back to the drawing board. I love getting my kiddos input of what they want for the week so I take suggestions, and a lot of them usually make it somewhere in the week. I have recently started keeping my menus in a spreadsheet. This way it gives me ideas to fall back on when I can’t think what I want to make, or if I want to have something (such as the eggplant dip) that I haven’t had in a long time. I do my best to keep my menu simple. There are times where we will have the same thing for breakfast all week long, and there is nothing wrong with that at all. Most days what we have for dinner is for lunch the following day. Therefore, we eliminate food waste and leftovers get eaten up; plus it makes putting lunches together a breeze. My board then hangs up inside my pantry door. This way every one knows what is on the menu that day. Furthermore, the older girls like to help throw lunches together once they are ready for the morning. Having the menu visible makes it easy for them to gather the food for their lunchbots. So this is our menu for the first 5 days. At the bottom of the board I added food I know I am getting that is on sale, and food that I need to prep for snacks during the week.

When we first made diet changes 4 years ago some of the food on here my kiddos would not have touched. But 4 years of steady clean eating meals, it is normal every day food for them. So if you are making diet changes, especially with your kiddos be patient and stay consistent. You will also eventually get in a grove and figure what works best for you and your family. Keep it simple, and don’t over do it. Maybe only try 1 new recipe a week or every 2 weeks. Take some of your family favorites and tweak them with healthier alternatives. Keep your proteins simple. Try to use similar proteins during the week so you are not buying multiple  cuts of meat.  This is one key point I have to remember because buying 5 different types of key proteins a week can make it harder to prep or even more expensive.  Keep coming back this week to my blog, as I will be sharing some of these recipes! If you would like a copy of this menu comment below and I will send it to you.  Happy Menu Planning!

Easter Celebration

What a great weekend I had celebrating Easter with my husband’s side of the family. We started our morning off with sunrise mass, followed by Easter baskets, and an egg hunt for my crew.

I love hosting guests at my house and it is even better when it is family! The most important thing about hosting is I am in charge of the food. This is a great opportunity for me since I like to keep my meals healthy and clean as possible. This feast we served 9 adults and 7 children (5 of those 7 are mine!)  I am also learning not to sweat the small stuff. So this year I gave the okay for Reddi wip as a better alternative to cool whip.  I would usually use Coconut Cream from the top of a full fat can of coconut milk, but I have learned to allow a select few things on a very limited basis.

Since we are a gluten free family, our Easter dinner was made the same. My husband and I did some prep worked the night before to help with keeping the day as stress free and easy as possible.  We first made the seasoning for the the uncured bone-in ham that we got from Trader Joes. You may find the herb salt recipe here. We did tweak the herb salt recipe a bit to our own tasting. Instead of 1 cup of salt we used 1/4 cup of pink himalayan salt.  You can then use some EVOO and some leftover seasoning in a dish to dip your ham into later.

 

I made our favorite Jello Recipe from Against All Grain. It is an easy to make 2 ingredient recipe. I always double the recipe for my crew since there is a lot of us. This is also great for school lunches and snacks.  You may find Danielle Walker’s recipe here.  This is one of our number one go to recipes often in my household. We always use Great Lakes Unflavored Gelatin in the recipe.

 

 

 

 

Raw veggies are a must.  They are quick and easy to snack on throughout the day. I mix up a ranch mix usually only when I am entertaining.  Otherwise on a normal day to day basis we don’t use a dip for our raw veggies. I have learned to read labels pretty well over the years.  So it is always important to check the labels to be sure nothing extra is added in.  Even when it may be say it is organic. For our dip we used Organic Full Fat Sour Cream with almost 2 TBSP (depending on your taste) of chopped onion.  Then to taste add in parsley, garlic, pepper and pink himalayan salt.  Easy to make yourself without all the extra crap they put into pre-made ranch mixes in the stores.

 

 

I have been craving cheesecake lately and wanted to find a good recipe to try. I don’t tolerate dairy very well when I have too much of it.  So I finally found a goat’s milk recipe. Let me tell you, this is to die for!  I had no leftovers and even my own children were swarming over it. This recipe only called for 4 ingredients and is made with soft goat milk cheese. It is also dairy free and refined sugar free.  Once you get to know me, you will realize if something calls for sugar in it, I only will use coconut sugar or maple syrup.  So this was exactly what I was looking for. We topped ours with fresh strawberries. Check out Love Yourself Green for this delicious recipe. Read her notes about the honey in the recipe. When I made ours I also only used 1/2 cup of raw unfiltered honey.

     I am a lover of all things chocolate so I must have some chocolate for my get togethers. If you haven’t check out The Spunky Coconut you should.  She is a great resource for some gluten free/dairy free/paleo recipes including this Chocolate Pie that Nom Nom Paleo posted from her The Paleo Chocolate Lover’s Cookbook.  The only thing I substituted was Alter Eco Dark Mint Organic Chocolate since my oldest daughter loves mint.  I also made it in my cast iron pan. It was the first time I used the mint chocolate and it tasted divine.

 

Now it was time to hit the bed and get roughly 5 hours sleep before waking up at 5am for 6am mass. Having all this prepped and ready to go made my Easter morning go so smoothly.

     As soon as we got home from mass, Rob scored the ham, seasoned it with the seasoning we made the day before, and put it on the Traeger to smoke for roughly 2 hours and then cook for an additional hour at a higher temp. We let it sit for a bit, and then carved right before serving. I do really love my Traeger, and it does make prepping protein during the week a breeze.

 

 

Then about a little over an hour before dinner I made the scalloped baked potatoes. I cut did up the the Raw Milk Cheese and Kerrygold Butter the day before also. I covered my baking pan with parchment paper (makes cleaning up easier). Now just needed to slice up the potatoes and place the butter and cheese in-between the slices alternating every other one. Drizzled some avocado oil on top and himalayan salt. Placed in over at 400 degrees for a little over an hour.  Pulled it out of the oven poured some Strauss Farms half & half (because grabbed the wrong bottle at the store. Should have been heaving whipping cream) and sprinkled with more raw milk cheese on top. Placed back into oven for about 15 minutes. Then served with sour cream and chives. The potatoes were big so we totally had to cut them up and shared them instead of eating a full one.

About 15 minutes before chowing down on this heavenly meal I made grilled asparagus. Just drizzled very little avocado oil, sprinkled some himalayan salt and pepper, and tossed.  Place on the grill until ready. Now on to prepare the mussels. Steamed and then served with melted butter, splash white wine, red onion, minced garlic, diced up tomatoes, and added back in the liquid from the pan that I steamed the mussels in.

 

 

Finally the finishing touches of the mixed kale salad served with Tessemaes Balsamic Dressing. (Side note I am loving all of Tesseames dressing from there Whole30 pack. A great paleo friendly dressing). Pulled out the fresh fruit and jello. Not picture because I forgot to take one is the raw veggie tray with carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes, and homemade ranch dip.

It was an intense two days of cooking. But there is no better way to spend a holy day, like Easter, than surrounded by good food and family. Remember prepping food is the key that unlocks the door to keeping your SANITY!  Enjoy my friends.