This seems like the place to share all my feelings… being my blog and all… But I’m not ready. Instead I’m just going to give you this link. Please help if you can. Pray if you can’t.
Tag Archives: autoimmune
Whole 30 Weekending
I occasionally enjoy reading other blogs. One of my favorites (although my husband doesn’t understand the appeal) is The Bloggess. And the other day I went into my kitchen to find this beautiful practical joke from my husband. I love that man.
It’s been sunny here in Washington. We decided to make the most of our 3 day weekend. Friday we went to the dentist to get K’s cap put back on her tooth. Then we went up north to run a few errands and had lunch at Famous Dave’s. You can make this Whole30 by ordering what I did… The Cedar Plank Salmon (no sauce) with steamed broccoli and grilled pineapple. Just make sure not to get any bbq or honey. 😉 My middle son tore into his hunk of bone-in chicken like a real caveman.
Picture above is Saturday’s “brunch.” Scrambled eggs with tarragon, smoked salmon and red onion. This was good. The kids really enjoyed it. Saturday we went out for a paleo picnic at the park. I brought more smoked salmon, mesquite smoked turkey, grapes, strawberries, raspberries, baby carrots, hummus, and the kids picked out their own drinks. VitaCoco (coconut water) in pineapple and lemonade flavors. Pictured below is an example of Whole30 stir-fry, in case you aren’t planning a picnic. Don’t use soy sauce. Because I haven’t dropped into Whole Foods for coconut aminos, I made this using thai fish sauce and balsamic vinegar. Sounds weird, but believe me. Top it with a little homemade chili garlic sauce and you wont even know the difference!
After our picnic, we went to the mall and let the kids drive around on one of the “zoomers” that they rent out at a kiosk inside. They chose the dinosaur and had an absolute blast for the next 30 minutes. And we finished up the day by grocery shopping. And I’m pretty excited to make a few of the things I’ve got saved to my Pinterest boards. Strawberry banana granola bars, apple pie trail mix, fruit snacks… We didn’t pick up any processed goodies for the kids this month. I’m considering making the kids some paleo themed shirts. I’ve got some great ideas. I’ll post them up when I’m done, and of course, because I’m nice, I’ll be willing to make and ship some to anyone who is interested at cost. Because profit is lame. 😉
Sunday morning we went to church. Which we do every week. It was Palm Sunday and our church was having baptisms. Pastor Kevin preached on The  Bystander Effect as part of his There Is More series. It was a good one. K decided to get baptised, and now I plan to sit down with her during our Bible lessons and make sure she truly understands the importance of her life decision. At only 7, it seems like a 50/50 chance she only did it because she knows Jesus did. After church, our goal was to have a relaxing day in. Our water heater, however, had other plans. And the stupid bottom rusted out at water shot out from anywhere it could possibly escape and has flooded my laundry room. I’m still waiting for a call from  the people who are supposed to replace it. Thankfully, this happened right after I had finished all my husband’s work laundry, and washed the dishes before dinner. The dinner dishes will just have to be done with boiled water (after I’m done with this post.) And I wanted to share one of the AMAZING paleo dinner discoveries I’ve had. Even my kids loved it. Bacon Beef Butternut Squash from The Civilized Caveman. I like this so much, I’m going to post the recipe right here with the modifications I made. DON’T use the cheap packaged bacon. It’ll be too greasy. Grab it from the butcher. Or a Applegate bacon will work. It’s usually reasonably priced at Fred Meyer.
Ingredients
- 1 butternut squash, cut in half
- 1 pound ground beef
- 6 slices of bacon
- 2 small onions, sliced 1 reserved
- 1 stalk celery, diced
- salt
- pepper
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 2 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit
- Cut squash in half and scrape out the seeds
- Place face down in a pyrex dish with 1/2 inch of hot water and cook for 30 minutes
- While its in the oven, cook the bacon in a pan until crispy, set aside and leave the bacon fat in the pan
- Add 2 of the sliced onions and celery to the pan and then add the beef
- Season with salt and pepper to taste and your cinnamon
- Continue stirring until the beef is finished, remove from heat and place in a bowl
- Remove the squash from the oven, when you can handle it scrape out some of the guts, leaving ~1/4 inch of squash, add squash to bowl with meat
- Crumble your bacon and add that to the bowl as well
- Mix well and then stuff your squashes with the beef mixture and place back in the 350 degree oven for 20 minutes
- While your squash are baking, add your reserved onion to your sauté pan (drained, add 1 TBS olive oil… or keep just 1 TBS of animal fat) and cook them over low heat with your balsamic to caramelize them
- Remove squash from oven, top with caramelized onions and Enjoy!
Raw
In addition to my usual household chores, I’ve spent a chunk of my morning researching raw milk. My SIL shared an article on the health benefits of raw milk. And it got me looking into local sources and prices. I’m pretty sure in the process I stumbled across my neighbor’s blog… apparently having written a post on the subject a couple years ago. Not that I know my neighbors. I live in the ghetto and tend to avoid people anyway because of my crippling social anxiety and awkwardness. Something I’m pretty sure is well masked by my cheerful, extroverted nature over the computer. I may not be cheerful. I might be sarcastic. But I think I’m nice, and I guess that’s what really matters. Anyway, I talked to my SIL about it a bit and think I might try convincing my husband that it’s worth working a trip to Tenino into the budget to get raw milk for drinking, and still using the store bought stuff for cooking. There are some local farms and stores that offer it, but $10-11 a gallon for a family of 5 is a bit much. Considering we’re making it just within our budget (if that) most months on just our usual food expenses. I’ve been sneaking us away from eating ANY processed foods (organic or gluten free included) and from grains. And since the higher the quality your meat and veggies, the more they cost, and our family is growing (the individuals, not the size of our family) our costs have, predictably, increased some.
Today I am wearing my new bra, to test out its comfort for all day wear, before doing a comprehensive review of it. Sneak peak of the review: I love this bra. Although my kids are kind of surprised to see me about the house in street clothes. I’m one of those stay at home moms who spends 90% of her days at home in pajamas. I’m a shut in. What difference does it make? Haha. I know Fly Lady would disagree, from what I’ve heard from friends. But it works for me. Especially since my wardrobe is pretty small. What if I waste a good outfit on a day I do nothing and can’t use it on the weekend?
Oh, back to the raw milk thing… Apparently there is a coffee shop in Port Townsend that serves raw milk by the glass for drinking, and in their cappuccinos and lattes. Mr. Music and I were just talking about maybe day tripping to PT soon with the kidlets anyway. You know where I’m totally going when we do. Since my littles (especially A) love Grandma’s raw goat milk, I’m pretty sure raw cow’s milk will seem like a real treat.
K’s cellcept FINALLY came in the mail yesterday. We switched to using a mail order pharmacy. It’s about the most annoying process in the entire world. And I’m pretty sure it’s staffed by morons. But it’s finally sorted out. I’m going to stick it out for now… but if they have problems with refills, we’re going back to driving to Seattle once a month. Because this is just ridiculous. Anyway, the cellcept. It came in a powder instead of a liquid. My husband informs me that shipping liquid medications has different regulations and they probably chose to do this because it’s cheaper. I’m ok with that, although I was surprised. The problem is the instructions. “Pour approximately 94ml of water into a graduated cylinder…” Â Wait…. What? Who honestly keeps a graduated cylinder around? So I had to convert ml to oz to tbs before I could mix them. Overall, I’m just thankful it arrived just as we’d run out of the other bottle.
Music Notes 