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
