Sunny side up luncheon

First of all, I would like to announce that I am really back.  :-) Having taken a month off paleo and suffered the consequences (mostly, a marked decrease in energy), I've gone back just a few days ago. Not surprisingly, I feel great. No longer exhausted, I am able to accomplish more with my day, often finding myself still full of energy at bed time and choosing to relax or work.

Today I wanted to share my lunch recipe.  Well, it's not really a recipe - it's a "I am hungry, pantry is empty, too broke to go shopping and too busy to cook" lunch approach.

Do you like your eggs sunny side up? That's what I grew up with.  Nothing compares as far as I am concerned. Though if you are of the scrambled persuasion, it works just as well.

To make your mouth water, I have captured a tiny video clip of the eggs sizzling in the pan. A still just doesn't do the same!

Heat up oil in the pan
Throw in fresh salsa (the kind you can buy in a plastic tub in a grocery store)
Cook on high till it sizzles
Break a few eggs
Reduce heat to medium/med-lo and cook till your heart says, it's time.

If you are in the habit of saving some bacon for garnish, throw that on top. DELICIOUS!

On again off again

It's been a really long time.  There are fairly good reasons for it.  If've been away from blogging generally as I have been working near full-time (as full time as having two kids allows!  Not real close!) on a business venture I started with my husband.

But there is another, a more important reason. I had to make a choice - the same choice all of us face when we wander off the beaten path and make choices that are fundamentally different to those of our peers. Do I keep pushing paleo, creating conflict at home, discomfort out, and eye-rolling by friends and relatives? The eye-rolling is easy. Much of what I do tends to produce that reaction in some.  :-) The out stuff is pretty straight-forward to.  I just did not find it difficult to find good amazing food anywhere I was, save McDonald's, which is just disgusting whichever way you look at it!  The conflict at home, however, was what caused me to choose the other way...

I am now in a very very comfortable lifestyle of having someone else primarily responsible for our meals and the past problems I had with my live-in mother-in-law have diminished dramatically.  She feels like she has a place in our home, she is taking care of and feeding us, and she is happy. I went from cooking separate meals from hers, to supplementing what she cooked with something of my own, to picking and choosing what I eat that's "ok", to eventually relaxing and having what was being served and tasted good. Worth it? Very likely.  I am so busy, and meals just kind of show up! I still pick the healthier options: avoid pasta, eat only "real" bread, always with a lot of butter, focus on the meat, but I do not do meal preparation any more.

It's been going really great as not one, but two concerns have been taken off my shoulder: cooking and fighting with Granny. :-)  Hey, that's nothing to sniff at.

There is only one problem: I AM EXHAUSTED! And therein comes a new dilemma: is peaceful and exhausted better than healthy and full of energy?  I have not come to an answer yet, but I am exploring the possibilities...

That's it for now... I will come back infrequently and post updates.  I seriously have no idea what they are going to be like.  Thanks for hanging around!

Losing weight by eating fat

Boy, it has been a long time since I got to blog here. My life has taken me into a whirlwind of a tornado and, not surprisingly, the things that I do for myself are the first to go. Still, I have been having internal conversations with CaveKitchen, creating a monologue of posts inside my head. It has helped, kept me company, been my unspoken companion during a challenging time.

I am here now to pay it back. Thanks to those who made comments and started following me on NetworkedBlogs, giving me little nudges to quit being a stranger.

Throughout this time the topic that has been most on my mind is FAT. Fat, fat and more fat. A long time ago I wrote about the importance of adding fat to one's meals and shared some tips for doing so. Today I would like to share what focusing on fat has done for me.

One of the common complaints I see about Paleo is hunger. Switching to paleo leaves a lot of people constantly craving food. I gained 10 lbs in the first two weeks of trying it and sought advice about what to do. Reducing sugar, not surprisingly, turned out to be an important step. But I had not mastered paleo, nor reaped one of its biggest benefits till I focused on fat.

Today, I usually eat one meal per day, often supplementing it with a light breakfast, small snack or nothing at all. The most astounding result is - I don't think about food. I am not raiding the refrigerator to see what I can find, plainly forgetting my favorite habit - munching - in favor of focusing on values in my life.

Every now and then I get on a scale and I am not surprised to see the numbers going down as I see improvements in my body, the fit of my jeans and a general feeling of well-being.

So what's the deal? Basically, fat calories satiate you like nothing else. They do not cause an insulin spike, which leads to a crash later in the day. When hungry, I no longer feel light-headed, or craving food.  I just feel... well... hungry - no other side effects. Because I have to rely on Granny (my mother-in-law) to do most of the cooking, I have to make sure I add enough fat to the meal to retain the peace the freedom from cravings brings. Bacon, butter, avocados, coconut are staples that I add liberally to the dried out and often flavorless meals that lean meat creates. On those days that I get lazy and forget to do what is required, I become aware of the sudden need to stock up on fruit, unexpected contemplation of a quick fix a bagel would bring. I always keep several packages of uncured bacon Trader Joe's offers to put those cravings to rest. (If you haven't seen my post on perfect bacon - you should look; this easy method of preparing bacon has changed my life!)

When I have a good meal, I know it, as the satiation sets in, bringing a burst of energy that radiates like heat all over my body. On those days, I know, I won't be tempted to watch TV instead of working late at night, have bed time conflicts with kids or become depressed about having taken on too many things. On such nights, I just am - caught up in the joy of living, pursuing my productive endeavors and enjoying life.

Bacon wrapped smokies

I discovered this recipe a while ago and have made it twice.  It's fun to make with kids, fun to eat, makes great left-overs and works for lunch boxes.

Ingredients:

1 package of Lil' smokies (little tiny sausages from the grocery store)
1 lb bacon
1 tbs or so of brown sugar (you can try honey)

This would undoubtedly work without the brown sugar.  However, it cuts the intense flavor of sausages and that amount won't kill you, really! It doesn't really taste sweet, just a little hint of carmel-something. Of course, if you want to be strict, use honey instead.  Should do just as well. Come to think of it, I will do so next time!

The process:

Cut bacon in thirds. Wrap each individual sausage into a strip of bacon and slide the result onto a skewer. Arrange skewers on a baking pan and sprinkle with brown sugar. You will complete 6-8 skewers.  Stick 'em in the oven at 350 for 40 minutes or so. For extra crispiness, increase the temperature to 400F for the last five minutes.  Yum!

Cooking plans for the week

I am now pretty much over all the emotional turmoil associated with the lost pregnancy.  It really sucks that I am technically still carrying a fetus, so I still have to think about it all, and wait for a miscarriage, but I have, for the most part moved on. And the most important part to emotional recovery is: FOOD.  I can't tell you how many times I've lived through the vicious cycle: too depressed to cook, too malnourished to cheer up.  :-)

Thankfully, I found my stride pretty quickly this time. And here are some exciting plans for the week - I'll blog about the flips & flops as they happen:

• Paleo bread - YES! I am going to try this faxseed bread recipe, as soon as my flaxseed meal arrives from amazon.
• Honey-mustard rosemary pork roast. That one is marinading right now, waiting for dinner tonight!

Some tried-and-true favorites:

• Paleo muffins - I make those a lot as not only do they provide variety in breakfast, but they are also a wonderful topper for the kids' lunchboxes.
• Bacon, bacon and more bacon.  (Did you read about how I bake it, so it's quick and easy to make a bunch?) My favorite things to do with it: plain-old breakfast and garnish for soup, particularly the kids' favorite: tomato soup.  

I am seriously hoping, the pork roast turns out.  I tend to get a lot of meals out of roasts!  My best lunchbox solution is a roast/tomatoes salad.  Tomatoes create just the right amount of dressing for the cold meat. I sometimes add bell peppers or other favorites, and the tupperwear seems to come back licked every time.