My Favorite Smoothie

Hi guys,

How is the week going so far?? Well mine just keeps getting better and better.

So last night I felt pretty good about myself catching up on all the laundry. When your husband is an engineer by day and magician by night, and you have two little girls who like to change clothes every hour, you end up with a LOT of laundry. I was making a huge dent in the enormous pile when I started switching a load from the washer to the dryer. I see stuff falling off the clothes and I thought, "oh my, the girls must have gotten glitter in here somehow." Then I realized it wasn't glitter, it looked more like ice. So I thought...."oh no! The washer must be broken. How did ice get in here?!" I'm a genius....I know! Come to find out, it was all the water absorbent gel from the inside of a pull up. Yep. That's right. It was never ending and it would not come off. So after a total of 4 hours rinsing and re-rinsing clothes, wiping and re-wiping out the washer along with rinsing and re-rinsing the washer.....the horrible nightmare is over. I thought to myself this morning after I could finally sit back and laugh about it (scratch that, not there yet... After I could sit back and not be quite as angry about it) "look on the bright side.....At least it was a new, clean pull up........ It could have been worse.....MUCH worse."

Another thing I did this morning after finishing cleaning up that mess was make my FAVORITE smoothie. I crave this thing and could possibly survive on this alone and be perfectly happy. Look at this beautiful, tasty thing.....

This is what I use for it. Keep in mind, smoothies are so versatile and you can switch up stuff however you want. 

Paleo Mommy's Spinach, Blueberry Smoothie

1-2 cups of washed baby spinach

1 cup of frozen bluberries

3 ice cubes

1 Tablespoon of almond or cashew butter

1 Tablespoon of coconut manna (optional)

1 teaspoon of unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2-1 cup of unsweetened almond or coconut milk

This with a side of protein (usually a hard boiled egg for me) and it is a good meal. This monster keeps me full for at the very least 4 hours. 

Asian Spaghetti Squash

So if you read my blog yesterday you know I sent my oldest daughter to church with her dress on backwards. Well today I find out I send my youngest daughter out with her coat inside out. What is going on with me?!?! Anyway, here is a recipe for ya'll who love spaghetti squash. I hope you like it.

Asian Spaghetti Squash
serves appx 4

1 medium pre-roasted spaghetti squash
4 slices of bacon, thinly diced
1/2 teaspoon of sesame oil
1 small onion, minced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 teaspoon of red pepper flakes
2 Tablespoons of coconut aminos
4 fried eggs

In a large pan over medium heat brown up the bacon
Remove from pan and add sesame oil, onion, garlic and pepper flakes
Cook until onions are translucent
Add coconut aminos, squash and bacon (reserving a little bacon for garnish)
Cook until squash is warmed through and all the ingredient are incorporated
Top each portion with a fried egg and garnish with crispy bacon crumbles and red pepper flakes

What the heck do you feed your kids for lunch everyday?!?!

That is a question I have gotten quite often. I will tell ya...it is not always easy. Right now I'm trying to blog about how to feed your kids healthy paleo meals and I really should be asking you guys how to properly dress my child. We just got home from church and I realized that her dress was on backwards all morning throughout church and during lunch out  at a restaurant with friends. Wow, where was MY head at this morning?

Anyway..... listen....I know....I get it mom's...It is super easy to grab some cereal, some granola bars, something prepackaged and quick to thrown down for your kids. I understand, I'm just here to offer some alternatives. Now, don't think I've got it all figured out. My kids aren't 100% paleo. When they eat at home, this is what I feed them. When they go to birthday parties...they eat cake. If you are a mom who feeds your child 100% paleo....Congratulations and good for you, I'm just not there yet. :) That being said....Let's get this started.....

If you have been around Paleo Mommy any length of time at all you know how much I stress the importance of preparation. Same goes with quick easy lunches at my house. I get home from the store and the first thing that happens is boil a dozen eggs.

Next make up some meat for the breakfast and lunch...this weeks I needed some sausage balls.

Prep veggies and fruit for easy grab and go snack and for meals.

Here are some veggie strips, washed peeled and cut. Some grapes, blueberries and apples washed and ready to go, pre-made graNOla, pre-made chicken salad, washed and shredded lettuce, prepped strawberries (not washed until ready to eat) and not pictured is the eggs and sausage balls which will be used for lunches and for breakfasts. Here is the menu for the week, I even gave you our breakfasts.....see how much I love you guys?!?! :)

Monday:

Breakfast- egg, bacon, bluberries

Lunch- chicken salad on lettuce, graNOla, strawberries

Tuesday:

Breakfast- NOatmeal with cinnamon and blueberries

Lunch- hardboiled eggs filled with tuna salad, apples and hazelnut butter with cocoa powder, and pickle

Wednesday:

Breakfast- Coconut yogurt with graNOla and strawberries

Lunch- Leftover spaghetti (zucchini noodles topped with sausage balls and sauce) and asparagus

Thursday:

Breakfast- NOatmeal again 

Lunch- ham roll ups with mustard and pepper strips, coconut yogurt, and blueberries

Friday:

Breakfast- Banana bread with strawberries

Lunch- Pick out what you want day- they chose hard boiled egg, sausage, pistachios, grapes, and pepper sticks.

You're eating WHAT???

I have to tell ya....before Paleo there was no way I was eating or drinking some of the things that I do now. And there are still some things that other paleo people eat and drink that I think....."I am NEVER eating THAT!" Today I will be sharing the top 5 things I would've NEVER eaten before paleo, but now is a staple in my diet.

1. Brussel Sprouts - I hated them...or so I thought. I tried them in a salad and I tried them in a slaw, but it was so nasty to me that I said...NEVER AGAIN! That was, until I tried Everyday Paleo's version of roasted brussel sprouts with bacon...Ummm...they were DA BOMB! And now I don't even need the bacon..GASP!! I know, I know..... but I still love them just roasted in some olive oil, salt, pepper, thyme and rosemary. And you wouldn't believe it, but I even crave brussel sprouts now.

2. Kombucha - I hate tea. Like, literally, it makes me gag. So the thought of me drinking fermented tea with weird looking scum floating in it seemed never likely. But I love the stuff and I can actually tell a difference in the way I digest food when I drink it.....floating scummy stuff and all. I don't get it all the time cause it is pretty pricey, and I haven't gotten to the point where I'm willing to try to make it myself yet. :)

3. Bone broth - Never heard of it before paleo. And I never used my left over bones from cooking for anything except the trash. Now I look at those bones like they are gold. And the weirder the bones the better. I mean what makes a better broth that some chicken feet and ox tail? haha! Speaking of bone broth I have found this company that delivers real bone broth straight to your door. Check them out at Real Bone Broth. This is a pic from their site.

4. Winter Squash - I never even knew how to get those things open much less how to cook them. I wasn't a big veggie person before paleo so I would usually skip the produce section all together on grocery trips. I didn't even know what these little things that would come out in the fall were. But fall is now my favorite time of year (food wise) and it is due in large part to winter squash. Roast them, puree them in a soup, stuff them with some spicy sausage....anyway you cook 'em... I'll eat 'em!

5. Coconut Oil - Coconut oil, because that just sounds weird and I'm sure it tastes weird too, but it is used ALL the time now in my house, and not just for cooking.

So what are your top 5 thing you never thought you would love before paleo?



Moving on....last night I was thinking about the spicy cashew chicken that I usually get at Thai Garden and I thought...let's try to make this a soup. And here is what came of that....

Spicy Cashew Chicken Soup

Ingredients

1 1/2 T of olive oil

1/2 t of sesame oil (if you don't have sesame oil, just use 2T of olive oil)

1/2 yellow onion thinly sliced or 3 shallots thinly sliced (I like the shallots)

4 cloves of garlic, minced

1/2 - 1 inch piece of ginger, peeled and grated (depending on how much you like ginger)

1/4 teaspoon of red pepper flakes

1 small container of white mushrooms, sliced

2 cooked chicken breasts, shredded ( I used some left over rotisserie chicken)

4 cups of chicken stock

1 zucchini, peeled and julienned with a julienne peeler or cut with a knife into long noodle like strands

2 bunches of baby bok choy, cut into thin strips, could substitute one bunch of kale cut into thin strips if baby bok choy can't be found

1/2 cup of cashew butter

1 cup of water, hot

garnish - chopped cashews, and red pepper flakes


- Over medium heat, in a soup pot. heat the olive oil and sesame oil.
- Once oil is hot add your onion, garlic, ginger, red pepper flakes, and mushrooms. You made need a bit more oil, add if necessary.
- Cook until onions are soft and mushroom cook down and get some color.
- Add in your cooked, shredded chicken and mix. Cook until chicken gets heated through.
- Add in your 4 cups of stock and bring to a boil.
- Once boiling add zuchini and bok choy or kale. Let this come up to a boil then turn the heat down to simmer.
- Let the mixture simmer for about 15 minutes or until the veg is cooked.
- In a seperate bowl mix the 1 cup of hot water with your cashew butter and start to get it melted. Then add that mixture to your soup. Make sure you mix thouroughly to get all the cashew butter melted into the soup.
- Serve and garnish with chopped cashews and red pepper flakes.

If you would like more liquid in your soup feel free to add more water or stock to your liking.

I'm actually eating this for breakfast as I type and I still love it!! haha! I'm thinking of swiping some of the spicy thai seasoning off the table at Thai Garden for the next time I make this and use that instead of the red pepper flakes. YUMMMMM!! I'm telling ya, if you don't like spice, I wouldn't suggest you NOT make this recipe. In my humble opinion the spice is necessary!! :)

Have a great day!!

Super simple and SUPER yummy one pan oven roasted chicken and veg!!

Guys, Let me tell you......this is an awesome recipe!! I was watching Cooks Illustrated one night on PBS and this recipe was on. I can't really remember the exact measurements (no worries my measurements were still awesome!) and I changed an ingredient or two to make it Paleo. The whole family dug this meal and my 5 year old went on and on and on about how awesome the chicken was. So lets get started.

Now if you don't really like handling chicken too much you can just buy 2 bone in chicken breasts, 2 bone in chicken thighs and two chicken legs. Or you can save a heck of a lot of money and just buy a whole bird. That way you have some awesome stuff to make bone broth with later!! yum!

Let me give you the low down on how to cut up a chicken. This was not easy for me tonight since my knife was totally dull. Fixed that problem and the hubs already ordered a sharpener online! :)

First things first, cut off the wings. We aren't gonna use this in the recipe so save them for some bone broth.

Flip the bird over and cut out the back bone. I find this easier with kitchen scissors.

Now that the back bone is out, the only thing left holding the leg to the breast is skin so cut the leg and thighs right off.

Now we want to separate the leg from the thigh so flip it over and you will find a line of fat. Cut right on that line and you will find the joint to cut through.

Next use your knife to cut right down the center of the breast bone. This'll take a bit of muscle. 

Now, I didn't get a pic of this but you are gonna CUT EACH SIDE IN HALF AGAIN. So you will end up with four pieces out of these two breasts. Kinda cut toward the fat end of the breast a bit so they will cook evenly. 

You will end up with 8 pieces of chicken....2 legs, 2 thighs, 4 pieces of breast. I have them on paper towels and I will pat the top of the chicken as well so they are dry and will crisp up nice for me. 

Now that you know how to cut up a bird you can make this recipe.

What you need:

8 pieces of chicken cut up as I've shown you

1 yellow onion, cut in wedges

2 cups of brussel sprouts, halved

2 cups of sweet potatoes, cubed

2 cups of carrots, cubed

1 tsp of thyme

1 tsp of rosemary

6 cloves of garlic, minced

1 Tbs of olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

For the herb butter

2 Tbs of ghee, melted

2 tsp of thyme

1 tsp of rosemary

Salt and pepper

Run your knife through all the herbs so they are nice and fine.

Preheat oven to 475 degrees. Yes I know that's hot!! :)

First, make an herb butter to brush on top of the chicken. To make this just melt the two TBS of ghee and add the 2 tsp of thyme and 1 tsp of rosemary.  Add a good pinch of salt and some pepper. Set aside for later.

Chop all of your veggies so they are all in good size chunks and all approximately the same size so they cook evenly. 

Place the veg and garlic in a large mixing bowl and top with olive oil and 1 tsp of thyme and 1 tsp of rosemary. I chopped these very fine before putting them with the veggies. Add a good pinch of salt and pepper. Mix it all together to coat all the veg with the oil and herbs. Add more oil if needed.

Next pour all the veg onto a baking sheet and make sure you place the brussel sprouts in the middle so they will be less likely to burn.

Place your chicken pieces on top of the veg. Since the breast tend to cook quicker place those in the center on top of the sprouts and the rest of the chicken around that.

Now brush your chicken pieces with the herb butter.

Place in the over for 35-40 minutes. And enjoy!

Happy New Year!

Ah, the New Year! There's just something about a fresh start, a clean slate, a new year of new possibilities, that makes us so optimistic.  That being said, how many of us start out with this new attitude and by Feb 1st we are looking for our new fresh start and clean slate again? I know I have. This year, aside from striving to be the person God created me to be and live as healthy as possible, I have a new and VERY big goal. To write a cookbook! It is a scary and exciting thought, but that is what I would love to do. It is my dream. Sometimes it is scary to put your dreams out there for all the dream haters to smash and dash them! haha! But there it is....My dream is to write a cookbook. Don't get me wrong I have a lot to learn and a ways to go but I'm reading everything I can get my hands on about the subject. We shall see what happens!

So what about you guys? What are your goals and dreams for 2013? Don't be afraid to share them!! :) I am testing some recipes right now and have 3 more that I have down on paper to try next week. I will post one of them for you guys on the blog. Thank you all for your support and I hope to meet a lot more people here at Paleo Mommy in 2013. Have a wonderful New Years Day!!

The Importance of Preparation!

Hi Guys!
How is the Christmas Season treating you so far? I think I have got ALL of the shopping done. Kinda makes me sad cause I love buying gifts. Maybe I should be a professional shopper!?!? Anyway, there are LOTS of parties and get togethers that are happening around this time of year. And that is what brought me to this post.

If your goal is to stay paleo throughout the season then you must be prepared. I have heard many people complaining about getting desperate and reaching for the bread or the cheetos cause they were hungry and there was nothing else in the house. After further questions we come to find out there always IS something else in the house but it is EASIER to grab the already prepared stuff, like the bread and cheetos. And I completely agree!! It agree that it IS easier to grab stuff that is already prepared! That is why I suggest that keeping prepped paleo food is uber important!

Now we can talk about preparedness in the sense of meal planning first. For example, pick a day and prepped your food for the week, or at least most of it. I have a example of one afternoon this week that I prepped for 3 meals. It went something like this......

Made lunch.... Roast Chicken, oven roasted asparagus, and salad

When I finished lunch, and while the girls were still finishing theirs, I prepped another meal from the leftover chicken. I picked off all the chicken, chopped up some poblano and red peppers, onion, garlic, ginger, and mushrooms and placed them in a bowl to do a stir fry.

Wrapped it with plastic wrap and stuck it in the fridge for later use.

Then I prepped another meal.....cleaned and trimmed a pound of brussel sprouts while 3 strips of bacon were cooking on the stove. Placed the sprouts in a baking dish with some olive oil, salt, pepper and thyme, and chopped and added the bacon when it was done. Wrapped it in plastic wrap and that goes in the fridge too.

After that, I prepped the chuck roast that was to be cooked in the crock pot. I seared my roast on all sides in the same pan that the bacon cooked in. While that was getting a good crust on it, I sliced an onion and a couple of cloves of garlic and threw them into my crock pot insert. I placed the roast on top when it was finished, hit it with some salt and pepper, placed the top on and stuck it in the fridge.

Whenever I'm ready put the crockpot on I just added 1/2 cup of stock and a couple tbs of steak sauce to the roast and let it go for 8 hours. And the brussel sprouts just went in the oven on 400 for about 30-40 minutes, mixing them around every so often.

Do you remember that stir fry that is sitting in the fridge? I popped that into a pan with some sesame oil, coconut aminos, salt and pepper, and red pepper flakes.  It was delish and it was my breakfast AND  lunch that day. I topped it with some guac at lunch time just to change it up a bit.

Meal time prep is pretty simple and so helpful on the weekdays when you are busy and want to avoid the drive through. I have a previous post about this as well the goes into more detail. Check it out!

Now what about snacks? How can I just grab something quick to snack on and avoid the doritos!!?! My first suggestion would be to rid your house of the doritos but I totally understand that that isn't reality all the time.....other people live in your house too! :) Same here! :) But my next suggestion would be......you guessed it....PREP!!!

Here is a list of things that you can have ready for you to grab and snack on. Use little baggies and and keep them in individual serving in your fridge or pantry for even easier access.

hard boiled eggs
veggie strips and guac (I use the wholly guacamole single serving packs for ease of use)
jerky
nuts (make sure you eat only your serving of these....it can get out of control..trust me...I know)
egg cupcakes
individual containers of soup
premade paleo muffins or bread divided into servings (need a recipe?? Here is one )
Deli meat, meatballs, or chicken breast divided into servings

Please, please, please prepare....it will make things so much easier and healthier. This is absolutely what I care about most........My desire is for you to be the healthiest YOU that YOU can be!!  I'm just letting you know what has cause me to slip in the past, and how I fixed it, so maybe we can avoid you all going through the same thing!

Now on to some fun stuff!! Santa is visiting us all in a couple of weeks. Now we all know Santa LOVES him some cookies...who doesn't? Well my favorite cookie is NO-Bake cookies. My Mama used to make them every Christmas! Ya know the cookies with 2 cups of sugar... 1 cup of peanut butter and 3 cups of oats.... Yeah, those are the ones. Well I was on a search for a paleo version and I made my own. They were good but I didn't add enough ingredients so I googled and found fastpaleo.com's version. Luckily it was all the ingredients I was already using I just needed different amounts.... I really liked these...my kids did, and my HUSBAND AS WELL!! (Anytime my husband like anything paleo it makes me really happy!!)  I have a few suggestions for these though.... Here is the recipe from fastpaleo.com

1/3 cup honey
1/3 cup of coconut oil or butter
1 1/2 tablespoon of cocoa or cacao powder
1/3 cup of almond butter
1 teaspoon of vanilla
2 cups of unsweetened shredded coconut

place honey, fat and powder in a medium sauce pan over medium high heat
bring mixture to a boil, let it boil for 1 minute, then immediately remove from heat
stir in almond butter and vanilla until incorporated
mix in coconut
drop cookies on wax paper and place in the fridge until set.

the author said you can store them in the fridge or at room temp and that they like the texture out of the fridge.


Ok, this is a great recipe! I would advise however to use the coconut oil instead of the butter, the flavor and texture are great. And I also prefer them IN the fridge. There is a huge difference in the way they tasted last night and the way they tasted this morning. I LOVED them this morning after being in the fridge over night. It reminded me of those samoa girl scout cookies!!! <3<3<3 Another thing I would recommend playing with is the nut butters. I'm thinking about trying a macadamia nut butter instead. Sounds fairly awesome to me!! :) SO, I'm thinking that Santa WILL NOT be disappointed when he comes to my house and has these cookies waiting for him! Actually, I'm fairly certain he will be thrilled!! :)

Well, that's it for today! I hope you guys have a wonderful Christmas! May the Lord bless you in the coming year! If you haven't done so already head over to Paleo Mommy on facebook and give me a "like". I put recipes, pics, and updates over there way more often than on the blog. I'm working on getting a website, so hopefully that will be awesome! Remember to PREPARE and keep it healthy this holiday season!! <3