Week 69: Playing Catch Up!

Well, I totally missed posting last week's menu with my post-Thanksgiving craziness.  My SIL came into town to visit her sister (who had pre-eclampsia and delivered a preemie a few weeks ago) with my niece, so we had a little time with my sweet niece, Josephine (Zach calls her 'JosePine' and I love it).  The 'no-menu' weeks are always a challenge, but we did almost totally Paleo meals all week despite the chaos.

Now this picture is not a Paleo meal, but I made these right before Thanksgiving and I was thrilled with this pita bread recipe!  It was the easiest bread I've made and the kids devoured this stuff as it came out of the oven.  I cooked it in the oven on a cookie sheet turned upside down and they only take a few minutes to puff up and cook!  Pita bread was a really fun recipe to make with the kids, so give it a try if you like pita bread.  They are SO much better than anything you get in the store!

Week 69 Menu

Sunday - Rotisserie chicken, broccoli (from our garden)
Monday - Mexican beef (or lettuce wraps), roasted cauliflower, guacamole

Tuesday - Spaghetti with meat sauce, green beans, zucchini noodles

Wednesday - Leftovers
Thursday - Thai basil shrimp, cabbage, red peppers, white rice

Friday - Grilled steaks, spring mix salad, grilled asparagus

Saturday - Roasted salmon with normandy vegetables

Happy cooking!

Sarah

Week 64: Dairy is Not My Friend!

I've been browsing through pinterest over the last few days looking for interesting recipe ideas, but I'm literally blown away by the amount of recipes that have dairy as the main ingredient.  I know how most people feel about their milk, cheese, yogurt and ice cream, but it was really causing both my hubby and I pain and suffering to ingest dairy!  I am not completely dairy-free, but my husband has an allergy to milk protein, so I steer clear from it as much as possible.  I would say that I am on a low-lactose diet and it definitely agrees with me.

Zach helping put the frozen broccoli in the steamer! Broccoli is an awesome source of calcium!

It's a shame she doesn't love her broccoli!  LOL!  This girl has been eating broccoli for dessert since she was a toddler!

In my case, I seem to have trouble with milk, yogurt, ice cream and sometimes cheese.  I had an issue with lactose as an infant, so my mom never really pushed me to drink milk as a child.  I found that when I did drink milk, a milk shake or ice cream, I would suffer with severe sinus headaches within an hour of my meal (I especially noticed this around the time when I stopped eating dairy with my husband for the Paleo diet)!  It was awful!  Milk products also made any cold symptoms I had so much worse (as far as nasal drainage and coughing), so it wasn't a big deal to minimize my dairy intake.  However, I still use milk in baking and I find that I don't have any issues when milk is baked into my food.

Love this stuff!  It's not high in protein, but it is a great milk substitute in our house!

I think that, for most people, the answer lies in moderation.  Most people would not even correlate a sinus headache with a dairy intolerance, but I can tell you that there was a huge connection in my world.  Here's an article about dairy allergies: link.  For those of you who don't struggle with any health issues as a result of heavily processed food, you are so lucky!  Check out this story of a couple changed by the Paleo diet: http://bit.ly/OHfRPU

Week 64 Menu

Sunday - Chili with Chimichurri, salad, broccoli
Monday - Grilled pizzas (red sauce & pesto with no cheese for paleo man)

Tuesday -  Leftovers

Wednesday - Mexican beef, rice, black beans, seared zucchini
Thursday - Baked chicken legs, green beans, asparagus

Friday - Pork sirloin roast, cauliflower, potatoes and carrots

Saturday - Out to dinner?

Thanks for letting me get that out!  Now, I would be so excited to see some menus this week!  Have a wonderful week, everyone!

Sarah

Week 57: Grilled Pizza!

Grilled pizza has always been in the back of my mind since I saw a show on The Food Network years ago demonstrating how the whole thing works.  So, today was my sweet Emilie's 6th birthday and she adamantly begged to have homemade pizza for dinner.  I tried to explain to her that our oven is broken, but that really doesn't mean much to a 6-year-old birthday girl!

This is the photo before it went on the grill.  We ate it so fast that I didn't get any pictures after it came off the grill!  ;)

Wow!  I can't say enough amazing things about grilled pizza!  It tastes just like it does cooked in a stone oven!  It was just the perfect crispness on the crust and perfectly browned.  Each bite was heavenly!  Alain and both felt like we were tasting pizza perfection!  We're such food geeks!  We've made our own pizzas before, but only in the oven and they were always good, but this just really took it up a notch.  The kids made their own pizza and Alain and I made ours (side 1-pesto, pulled pork, artichokes mushrooms, and buffalo mozzarella; side 2-red sauce, sausage, mushrooms, buffalo mozzarella and basil).

Emilie's 6th Birthday!

Week 57 Menu

Sunday - Homemade pizzas

Monday - Mexican beef, black beans, white rice

Tuesday - Leftovers

Wednesday - Thai basil shrimp, cabbage, green beans

Thursday - Chicken stir-fry, broccoli, white rice

Friday - Grilled salmon, pan seared asparagus

Saturday - Out to dinner

I'm hopeful that the oven will be fixed this week!  I was cooking this weekend and I heard this awful "POP" sound come out of the oven and it looked like there was a fire inside!  I quickly turned off the oven and took out the food, but the heating coil on the bottom seems to be damaged.  So, I tried to keep our menu out of the oven this week!  

Happy cooking!

Sarah

Week 53: Last Week of School!

This is always a strange week for me because I'm excited for the change in routine that summer brings, but I'm also a bit resistant to the change in the schedule I've established over the last 9 months!  Overall, I think I'm more excited for the change than anything, but I feel this rush to get as much done as possible while the girls are in school all day!  Since I grow to be a greater procrastinator each year, that makes every year a little bit more difficult.  Is that why time seems to fly faster each year?

All of the kiddos (Annabelle, Emilie and Zach in front of our cul-de-sac garden)

I'm not sure if I've mentioned our cul-de-sac garden yet on this blog, but we have started hosting the community garden in our cul-de-sac every Spring and it's SO awesome!  Alain is really the gardener in the family.  I kill every plant that's given to me, so my hubby always takes care of any plants that are given to me as gifts.  Anyway, we have 5 houses in our cul-de-sac and everyone contributes to the garden each year.  Each year we try a few new things, but this year we have tomatoes, basil, jalapeños, zucchini, radishes, green beans and I'm not sure if that's all, but it sounds like a lot to me.  We all share the harvest and it's a great project that brings us all together!

Oh, he's so cute!  Love that little man of mine!

The last two weeks of school are crazy busy around this house.  There's a few parties this week at school and swim team started last week, so we've been out practicing every night with the girls!  It's fun, but I'm looking forward to swim team practice in the mornings after school is out so that we'll have the rest of the day free to play!  

Weekly Menu #53:

Sunday - Roasted chicken legs, corn on the cob, broccoli

Monday - Thai shrimp with basil, cabbage, white rice (didn't get to this last 2 weeks, so I'm really craving it this week)

Tuesday - Mexican beef tacos, black beans, white rice leftovers (this is crock pot meal, so I'm hoping this will be easy while I'm packing the night before we leave to go out of town)

Wednesday - Leftovers

Thursday - out of town

Friday - out of town

Saturday - out of town

Have a great week!  Let's see your menus now!  I'm out of town this weekend, so menu probably won't be going out until late next week!

Sarah