The theme of my week has been hurry up and “make do.” We had a little winter storm here in North Carolina last week. For those of you in parts of the world that are used to lots and lots of snow, this was definitely a little storm. But it doesn’t take much to cripple us down South. In our defense, we usually get more ice than snow and ice is a more dangerous beast than snow, in most cases.

We received about an inch of sleet and freezing rain and then snow on top of that. I did get to the grocery before the bad weather struck, but I didn’t make it to my desired store so my list was only partially checked off. I always have some meat and broth in the freezer, canned fish in the pantry and generally a decent stash of fruits and vegetables lying around. The veggies are pretty slim pickens by the end of the week though. Interestingly, the produce section was pretty wiped clean when I made my last ditch shopping trip. Having some food in the freezer and pantry enables me to make something, just not necessarily what I would prefer to cook up.

Meal 1: What I had planned was tuna “noodle” casserole with spaghetti squash. Couldn’t find a spaghetti squash during my pre-storm shopping trip, but I do have tons of sweet potatoes from my garden. I used white Hannah sweet potatoes* for the starch as these are less sweet than traditional sweet potatoes. I had canned tuna in the pantry, onions and lots of broth in the freezer. This is not a very colorful dish, meaning I needed to add some veggie nutrition on the side. I had a bag of green beans in the freezer, so after a quick sauté, dinner was done. This recipe didn’t turn out perfectly, so I’m not going to post it yet. I’m working on it though and it will be here soon.

*21 Day Sugar Detox note: the sweet potatoes made this dish very decidedly not acceptable for the detox, but again, I was working with what was available. And sweet potatoes are a real, whole food, so in the grand scheme of things, this was not a bad substitution.

Meal 2: Scrambled eggs (with added greens for me), bacon, oranges and grapefruit and gluten free toast (no fruit or toast for me). My daughter was in a play this week and my husband was the videographer for all the performances, which meant quick and easy dinners were necessary.

Meal 3: Ground beef stroganoff. Traditional stroganoff uses sour cream, which adds a rich, tanginess, but most of us following a Paleo-type diet cannot or should not eat dairy. I skimmed the thick cream from the top of a can of coconut milk, mixed in the juice of half a lemon and that made my sour cream substitute. This whole meal came together in 35 minutes and my meat was frozen to start. Best of all – it was delicious! I served this over mashed cauliflower with a salad on the side. None of us particularly like mashed cauliflower, but cauliflower is what I had and it’s good for us. I only put this on the menu once a month or so and we all just live with it. 🙂

We are making a real concerted effort around here to cook more affordably. Now that I can eat eggs, my world has opened up. I know that those of you very strictly following the autoimmune protocol cannot eat eggs and I’m sorry. My goal here is to share my real journey and this is my reality right now. I will still be making lots of AIP-friendly meals, but not all will fit that bill. I hope each and every one of you can also add more foods to your diet in the future.

Meal 4: pumpkin pancakes, sausage, sautéed greens and fruit salad. The 21DSD pancakes use butternut squash, which I did not have. I did have lots of canned pumpkin left over from Thanksgiving pumpkin pie plans that were not fulfilled. Fortunately, for my sugar detox plans, pumpkin contains half as many carbs as butternut squash (8 grams per cup vs. 16). When we first started eating paleo, we had pancakes and bacon for dinner at least once a week. It was my way of making this big change palatable for the entire family. As I moved into AIP cooking, we got away from this, but now that eggs are back, pancakes are as well. Hallelujah! Everyone was so happy last night at dinner. My son, who is an e-x-t-r-e-m-e-l-y slow eater, finished his dinner before any of the rest of us. That is a humongous testimonial to the yumminess of these pancakes.

And a treat this week: cinnamon rolls! Well, sort of cinnamon rolls. My intention was rolls, but the dough had other plans. See my post with all the details.

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Now for the part I’ve been dreading the most: my 21 DSD update. I had the best of intentions….the best laid plans….and all that jazz. BUT…I most certainly have “failed” at following the detox to the letter. However, the whole exercise has not been for naught.

• I did succeed in eating fewer sweets this week than I had been eating.
• I realized how many paleo treats and gluten free products I had started consuming – Canyon Bakehouse Bread, anyone? This is my newest indulgence. Finally, there is a gluten free bread that tastes good and does not contain canola oil or any of the other industrial seed oils. This does not mean it should be eaten every day.
• Doing any sort of detox is so much more mental than physical for me. Telling myself that I CANNOT have chocolate, stevia, fruit, sweet potatoes, paleo cookies, etc. etc. is mentally and emotionally hard to accept.
• I’ve been reading about the Whole30 program, where basically you only eat real, whole foods for 30 days. The two programs are extremely similar. BUT, in my head, Whole30 tells me TO eat certain things. There are less DON’TS and more DOS. This is absolutely splitting hairs, but I’m figuring out what works for me and that is the whole point after all.
• 3 weeks or 4 weeks is really not long enough to effect a lasting change anyway and lasting change is what we’re after. I’m not going to lose 15 pounds in 3 or 4 weeks, but in that amount of time, I could start the process of getting some good habits in place and getting some bad ones out of here.
• When I eat more vegetables and healthy meats, I crave more of those same foods. When I eat more sweets and junk, even if it’s paleo junk, I crave more junk. Why this works, I don’t know, but it does. I love all of Diane Sanfilippo’s books and love her podcast, Balanced Bites. If you don’t listen already, tune in on iTunes. Her most recent podcast was all about gut health and touched on this topic of needing more than a handful of weeks to make a lasting change. Please check it out.

So there’s my week. Some successes (quick, easy and delicious meals), some failures (21 DSD), but I’m going to keep chugging along. I’m not beating myself up over this. Nor am I telling myself I’m the best cook and blogger ever because I got a good meal on the table in under an hour. Case in point, today has been a perfect diet day, no sugar, no junk, good balance of protein, fat and carbs. I got a good workout in and I cleaned my bathroom. But I’ll be traveling soon, which will mean restaurant food and that will not be ideal. I’m going to do the best I can and be ok with that.

I hope you don’t take all this to mean that I am settling and going back to sweets everyday, because I’m not. I am most certainly dedicated to doing some sort of detox, be it 21 DSD, Whole30 or something else entirely. It will be good for me and for the rest of us. I’m going to do my darnedest to get my husband on board. Heaven help us, he loves his sweets.

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“Haven’t I commanded you? Strength! Courage! Don’t be timid; don’t get discouraged. God, your God is with you every step you take.” Joshua 1:9 (MSG)

Thanksgiving and Christmas are now fond memories. The sugar high of birthday cake and girls’ weekend are sadly in the past. Now I’m ready to move on. Sort of. I enjoyed each bit of sweet treat that passed my lips, but I’ve found myself wanting needing something sweet after every meal and sometimes between meals.

Some people are not susceptible to the addictive qualities of sugar and some of us are. Unfortunately, I fall into the latter category. I’ve known this about myself for a long time. As I follow a Paleo diet, the sugar I’m eating is either naturally occurring in fruits and vegetables or from naturally sweet foods like maple syrup and honey. Yes, this is better than refined sugar, but it’s still sugar and I want more of it than I should have.

A little over a year ago, I gave my first 21 Day Sugar Detox (21 DSD) a try. My husband and son were away at Scout camp so with just my daughter and I at home, it was easier to eat this more limited diet. It was not easy, but I was making it. I can honestly say that I had reached the point where I had lost my appetite for sweets. I had actually lost my appetite altogether. It was hard to get enough calories in. Hard to believe, I know.

I think it was about day 10 when my husband came home. He was very kind and happy to see me, but he eventually said, in a very hesitant way, “You smell kind of strange.” I was horrified! I had bathed while he was gone! I brush my teeth often! How can I smell funny? Well, I sort of noticed this myself. I think. As hard as it was to hear, I was thankful for his honesty. Detoxing is removing toxins from your body. And toxins do not smell roses and lilacs.

Then I got sick. I’m not sure what it was, but something gave me food poisoning or I got a stomach bug and I absolutely had to eat something. Meat and vegetables would not set well. I needed carbs. I remember going to Wendy’s and having a baked potato with bacon and “cheese” and a small burger with the bun. That was back in the days when I would eat a little gluten on rare occasions.

I started to feel better after getting some nourishment in my body, but my detox was over. I had survived long enough to see the value in breaking my addiction to sugar. The idea of trying again has crossed my mind many times since then, but I’ve always found an excuse not to do it.

Until this past weekend. I was talking about it with a friend, really in an off-handed way, and she piped up, “I’ll do it with you.” Well, ok! It is amazing what a little accountability will do.

I had intended to start yesterday, but she could not and I still had one piece of birthday cake in the refrigerator. So I took her one day delay in stride and gobbled down that birthday cake.

Day one is almost over and I’m doing ok. I’m going to chronicle for you here how it’s going. I see this as another form of accountability. Ideally, I would have chosen a time with no trips or special occasions coming up, but that never happens. Three weeks isn’t long, but it certainly can seem long at times. I know there will be eating out and at least one weekend away, but I will do my best.

Here’s what I ate today:

• Breakfast was two slices of thick-cut bacon, one egg scrambled and half a green apple (my only sugar allowed)
• Mid-morning snack prior to working out: two more slices of bacon
• Lunch: one of my AIP tortillas, Boars’ Head low sodium chicken and coleslaw with vinegarette dressing (the tortilla was probably not allowed)
• lots and lots of water
• black coffee (Yes, I am drinking coffee again – occasionally. I had some extensive allergy testing that told me coffee is ok!!! I will write more about this after I meet with my functional medicine doctor and understand better what is going on.)
• Dinner: cauliflower soup (basically chicken broth, cauliflower and sausage)

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One goal I am really focused on for this blog is bringing you great tasting recipes that do not take a long time to prepare. I love to cook and have been doing it for a long time. I rarely follow recipes and just quickly throw things together. Part of the reason I cook this way is that following a recipe takes a lot longer than winging it.

At the end of the day, we’re all tired and few of us have the luxury of time and energy to prepare something involved. This week I have two recipes for you that are low maintenance.

Salisbury Steak with Mushroom Sauce is quick and hearty. Steam or saute a green vegetable or throw together a quick salad, add a baked sweet potato or some rice and you have a balanced meal.

Baked Chicken Thighs with Citrus Glaze is super easy and one of my kids’ favorite meals! This one takes a little longer, but it’s all passive oven time. The prep is extremely quick. As a matter of fact, I’m typing this now while the chicken bakes. I’ll get up in a minute to saute some squash and mushrooms and dinner will be done. If you’re always pinched for time, buy boneless thighs because they will cook much faster. I like the bones though because I can save them to make broth later.

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If you’re interested in completing the 21 Day Sugar Detox along with me, leave a comment. I’d love to have more buddies struggling through this alongside me!

One more recipe went up on the blog in the past week. It was the last of my Christmas goodies. If you’re doing the 21 DSD, close your eyes now. Fudge Bars are a Christmas tradition in my family. They are so rich and gooey and chocolatey. I have lots more I could say about them, but I won’t because I am TRYING NOT TO EAT SUGAR! If you aren’t on a new year’s diet or the 21 DSD or an elimination diet or some other form of torture, then hop over and check out that recipe.

That’s it for this week. As I said before, my goal is to give you more quick and easy recipes. If you have time over the weekend, whip up a batch of AIP tortillas. Having those in your fridge will give you the ability to make all kinds of quick meals throughout the week.

I’d love to hear from you and get to know you. If there are recipes you’d like me to try to paleo-fy or specific food intolerances you’re having a hard time working around, please let me know in the comments and I’ll see what I can come up with. I’d love to help you create some healthier meals that can not only nourish, but heal your body as well.

 

The kids and I had more of a break this holiday season than we typically do. This meant that I got all my Christmas presents wrapped before Christmas Eve. It meant that we had lots of time for cozy reading on the sofa and it meant movies with popcorn in the middle of the afternoon. It was heavenly!

When we found ourselves with about 20 minutes to spare and my throat was sore from all the reading, we watched an old cooking show. Netflix has been a God-send in a lot of ways, but one thing I’m especially enjoying now are the old Food Network shows. We just watched Throwdown with Bobby Flay and the kids thought it was a hoot.

On a long ago trip to New York City with a dear friend, I ate at one of Bobby’s restaurants, so I consider him a personal friend. 🙂 This particular throwdown involved a Cuban pork shoulder roasted in a special box/oven/contraption. He marinated the meat in orange and lime juices and served it with fried plantains, beans and rice. Fried plantains are the paleo eater’s best friend when you need something salty and crunchy. They are a little bit of a process to make, but can be done in 15-20 minutes and are so so worth it!

The kids and I decided that we just had to make Bobby’s Cuban meal. I went to the grocery store  in search of pork shoulder. The mainstream groceries didn’t have this cut. Whole Foods had it, but it was a huge piece of meat and would have cost me $50. So I decided to go with two pork tenderloins. Still expensive in my book, at about $12 each, but with the added benefit of having much less fat to deal with and a much shorter cooking time.

We don’t do legumes in this house so we’re having green beans, blanched and sauted with shallots and bacon, along with some leftover rice from stir-fry night. And of course, those yummy fried plantains. I’ve posted each of these recipes separately:

• fried plantains
• green beans with shallots
• Cuban pork roast

We wanted a little more green with this meal so added a salad of fresh greens with a quick vinaigrette.

This is certainly not a meal I would have come up with on my own, so thank you Bobby Flay!

I hope you all enjoy this meal as much as we did. It was a great autoimmune protocol-friendly meal to start the new year.

P.S. The leftover pork was awesome shredded and used to make tacos!

Second P.S. If you have broth, always cook your rice in broth instead of water. #1 it adds flavor. #2 it adds nutrients. Win, win!