Preparation.

I've been pretty bad lately about being prepared for dinner at night. That's probably the biggest barrier to sticking with eating this way for me. Ryan and I are busy, we like to get home from work and go do something. Whether we are working outside, running errands, or playing with Ansley, we are always going. Therefore, when it's 7:00 and dinner is not ready, we run out to get something. I will say that our eating out has gotten "healthier" but it's still not great. We don't eat fast food, and we usually eat barbecue or go somewhere and get meat and veggies. The problem with that is we are not in control of what goes into making our food. We might be getting meat and veggies, but do we REALLY know what's in there? Nope.

So this morning, I got up and had a random thought, of "I don't have anything planned for dinner. What can I do?" Instead of just saying that I would figure it out later, I found some thawed meat in the fridge, some marinade in the pantry and voila! I have marinating chicken ready for the grill tonight!

It's all about being prepared! Paleo is easy to do, because all you really need to make a meal is some meat and veggies. It's just having the foresight to actually THAW the meat before you need to cook it.

Yum Yum.

I've been stocking up on yummy grass-fed meat from Yonder Way Farm and I tend to buy cuts of meat and I'm not quite sure what to do with them or how to cook them. So I end up eating all my ground beef, but then I'm left with other cuts. Hence, my culinary adventure last night!

I bought some beef round steak. Not too hard, it's pretty easy to cook. But I've always cooked beef round steak as cubed steak. One of my favorite meals growing up was cube steak with gravy! Trying to stay away from the flour, I wasn't sure how to make "cube steak" without dredging the meat in flour and frying in a skillet. So, to Google I go!!!

I found a recipe for "paleo" cube steak and it was fantastic! Instead of using flour, I made a bread crumb like mixture from almonds, herbs and spices. There are a couple changes I would make, but overall it got the seal of approval from Ryan and Ansley. I believe Ryan's exact words were "This has a REALLY good flavor!" Win!

On a side note, I made some rice last night to go with our meat and veggies ( I know, I know). It looked good in my pantry, so I decided to make some. I just wanted to say that I was QUITE disappointed in the the taste (or lack of) of the rice. Now I know why I don't make it anymore! Compared to the flavor of the broccoli and the meat, the rice tasted like cardboard. Even after I added butter, salt and pepper. Thank you paleo for at least showing me that food with color have great flavor!

Here's the recipe:
Paleo Cube Steak

Beef Round Steak
Almonds
Various Herbs and Spices ( I used Oregano, Basil, Italian Seasoning, Garlic Salt)
Splash of olive oil
Grapeseed Oil (to cook in)

Mix the almonds, herbs and spices and a splash or two of olive oil in a food processor until it's the consistency of breadcrumbs. The recipe said a 1/4 cup of almonds, but maybe I had A LOT of meat, because I had to make like 3 "batches" of crumbs. So I would just eyeball it :) Coat the meat with the mixture.

Heat up a few tablespoons of grapeseed oil in a skillet on med-high heat. Cook the meat for about 3-5 minutes on each side. Remove from skillet and let rest for 3 minutes before eating.

The only issue I had with this recipe was that my almond crumbs didn't stick very well to my meat once it hit the skillet. Next time I might dredge the meat in some oil or egg to get it to stick better. I'm also thinking that because it was grass-fed meat, I may need to cook it on lower heat next time.

Happy eating!

Effort.

I making a concerted effort here :) Jamie said that my last post made me sound like I'm depressed. On the contrary! I just get a little disappointed that I can't stick to my guns when it comes to food. I can't seem to figure out what that one thing is that totally turns me off from the bread and sugar.

I'm making some chicken salad tomorrow to try to give me some more options for lunch during the work week. But I find that I REALLY want something crunchy (i.e. a cracker) to put my chicken salad on. I've done celery, and it's okay. So I found a recipe for Grain Free Crackers, weird, right? They are in the oven right now, so I'll let you know how they are. I found these on a Caveman Food Blog. Here's a quick run down of the recipe.

1 cup almond flour
1 egg white
1 pinch salt

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Mix the ingredients together until they form a paste. Put the dough on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Put another piece of parchment paper on top and use a rolling pin to roll the dough out VERY thin. Remove the top sheet of parchment paper. Bake for 10 min and check the crackers. You want to cook them until they are "golden" brown. If they get too much color then you get the burnt nut taste and that's no bueno.

So I'll let you know how they taste, I'm not sure how easy it will be to give up Ritz crackers with my chicken salad!

Carb Attack

Well, sister you are not the only one. I have not been making the best decisions either. It hasn't been too may sweets just eating a sandwich here and there, or munching on goldfish. Just "smaller" bad decisions. I am not doing this everyday but just not making the greatest decisions. I can feel it too! I do feel a little better at my workouts, I think eating the egg before helps since I have something in my stomach. I just need to make and prepare my meals a head of time. It has been mostly lunch, I get lazy when I have to pack my lunch for school so I grab the easiest choice...ie...sandwich, chips, cereal...pretty much everything I am trying to avoid! Life goes on and it is a daily battle! I will WIN!!! I will come over Beth and do some hypnosis on you! It'll be fun!

Struggle.

I'm not gonna lie. It's a struggle to eat healthy right now. For some reason I can't say no to anything! Oh, there are good decisions made here and there, but nothing consistent. The funny thing is that my body is telling me to eat better! The more crap I eat, the worse I feel! It's the mind...I need some kind of Jedi-mind trick to keep me from making myself miserable. Each week I go to the store, stock up on lots of good foods (veggies, meat, etc) and the next week I usually throw most of it away because it's gone bad.

Need a change in attitude here!