Recovering from E.D.C.

Just got back to Phoenix from the weekend in Vegas. I drove back with just my brother and his friend. Ryan ended up flying back last night so he wouldn't miss work today, although there was much debate whether he should "miss" his flight or not. He decided to be responsible. The joy of adulthood.

Anyway, on the drive back this morning, the two boys were passed out HARD! I guess three 7pm-5:30am nights at the EDC will do it to ya. Oh the joy of being young.

a rough night but the pork helped

Last night was a little on the rough side.

From the point AFTER we had a fabulous dinner (recipe below) to the moment we went to sleep. I had a church event I was originally planning on attending but in lieu of buying a new car, I had to skip out to go see a car we were interested in. On our drive out, the seller canceled on us last minute. DOH! From that point on, I was a 'little' cranky the rest of the night. To my defense, and yes I will try and defend my irritable behavior, the night before I got 2 1/2 hours of sleep. Seriously, no exaggeration. (Watch, I'll prove it by telling you times) I didn't go to bed until 1am that night and when the hubby got up at 3:30 for work, I never fell back asleep. Let's just say, last night around 7pm I was doing everything I could to keep those eyelids open. It probably worked out that I didn't make the pool party. I would have been the one sleeping on the raft in the pool and everyone would be poking me to see if I was breathing....

Well, today, the hubby and I are taking off to Vegas with my little brother and his friend. My lil bro just graduated from high school and he's going to a three-day music festival. You can imagine my parents weren't the most thrilled about him going to Vegas for a senior trip, which is why Ryan and I tagging along. We aren't going to the music festival, we're just there to make sure they stay alive for the weekend. We're taking off this afternoon and we'll just be enjoying the"cooler" 90 degree weather by the pool and I will be doing some shopping :)

Before the lack of sleep had the worst of me last night, we did have a stellar dinner. We actually sat down together, TV off, and talked about our day and plans for the weekend. We've always been really good at eating dinner together at the table but have slacked these past few months. We've never had TV before but now watching the news and talking about how crazy people are during dinner has become the norm.

Anyway, I think, no wait, I know, this is the first time we've made pork chops. Almost 4 years of being married and we've never cooked pork chops. But, i got a killer deal on them yesterday (99cents/lb) so we'll be eating quite a bit of pork in the next few months.

Here's last nights dinner. :)

Paleo Almond and Herb Crusted Pork Chops and Roasted Carrots

recipes via easy paleo

Paleo Almond and Herb Crusted Pork Chops

4 pork chops

1/2 cup of almond meal

3 tbs italian seasonings

sea salt and pepper

Spread a little coconut oil on the chops.

Mix seasonings together and spread on a plate.

Firmly pack almond herb mixture to chops and set aside for 10 minutes

or coating will slip off during cooking.

Bake at 375 for about 40 minutes or internal temp reaches 160.

Make sure to flip chops around the 30 minute mark.

*i needed more than the 1/2 cup almond meal because our chops were big! We also ended up frying them in a pan with some coconut oil so if you're not able to bake them, you can easily do the stove top method. :)

Roasted Carrots

carrots

oil

cilantro, finely chopped

sea salt and pepper

garlic, minced

Either use prepackaged baby carrots or small full carrots. I found these small skinny full carrots that were so cute, i just could chop them up into smaller pieces.

Lightly coat with olive oil or coconut oil.

Bake at 400 degrees for 20.

While baking, add finely chopped cilantro, garlic, salt/pepper, and just enough oil to make a little glaze you can pour of carrots.

Remove from oven and pour mixture over carrots.

Bake for another 5 minutes.

EVERYONE HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!!!

Paleo Orange Dark Chocolate Chip Scones

The other night Ryan and I were talking about memories we have from elementary school. He's certain that he remembers nothing before 7th grade but I remember a lot-a lot.  I told him story after story laughing at myself and how my personality back then still reflects who I am today. "Okay girls. If I let you use my jump rope for double dutch at recess today, here are some rules you're going to have to follow." Ryan did pipe in  saying, "Yeah, that sounds like you."  Have you ever told someone a story about yourself and you're laughing at something you did but the other person listening isn't laughing. I get that a lot. I usually follow my story with, "I crack myself up." And it's true. I really do. And if I don't make anyone else laugh besides myself then I'm okay with that. Ohhh sweet sweet memories.

Speaking of.....I had one tonight. Around 11:30pm when I decided to get out of bed to go bake something. If you saw how empty our fridge was, you would rush to the grocery store and buy us everything out of sheer sympathy. I had few responsibilities being a stay-at-home wife these past few months, one of which is grocery shopping, and I've been slacking big time. My slacking has led me to go ahead and get a job. If I'm not going to have our small apartment clean, fridge stocked, and dinner ready, I might as well be helping pay the bills.

Back to my flashback memory. I came across this Paleo recipe and just so happened to have 2 nearly unedible oranges in the fridge and so this recipe helped rescue them. I have zero to little patience so as soon as these babies were out of the oven I dove right in. Now that I've started baking a little more, I've started talking out loud to myself. Creepy right? Moving on though, after I took my first bite I said something along these lines, "Mmmm.....ahhh..hot hot hot...mmm that's good....hot oooh hot......those are really good...ha-ha-hot." Anyway, that delicious bite brought me back to Christmas as a child. One thing we would always get in our stocking, and still do, are those chocolate oranges. They are the coolest!!!! You get to smash them on the ground to break it apart before eating. And there's little bits of toffee and the orange chocolate melts in your mouth......i'm literally drooling. Well, these scones are the baked goods of those. And if you want to see for yourself, here's the recipe I got from Elanas Pantry.

Orange Dark Chocolate Chip Scones

2 cups blanched almond flour

3/4 teaspon baking soda

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips (I used 1/4 and chopped them up)

1 tbs orange zest (I'll put more in next time)

1 egg

3 tbs agave nectar

In large bowl combine flour, baking soda, chips and zest.

In smaller bowl combine egg and agave.

Combine two bowls and knead with hands if necessary to combine all ingredients into dough.

Place on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

Form dough into circle, 1/2 in. thick*

Cut dough like pizza into 8 slices

Bake 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes. I waited till they were dark golden brown.

*It helped placing a separate sheet of parchment on top and using a rolling pin to flatten dough. But take it off to cut dough and cook.

counting my many blessings

I had the opportunity today to volunteer with a dear friend and her coworkers at the soup kitchen. It wasn't my first time, but the times I have been are few and far inbetween. But I wanted to write my feelings to help motivate myself to make the effort to volunteer more.

There is nothing more rewarding than giving to those who are in need. I looked at their faces and wondered what circumstances brought them to this point in their life? This is someone's child living on the streets. Have you ever stopped and seriously considered how your life would be with no home, no job, no car. I stopped and thought what I would do, where I would go.

The work that is accomplished through donations and volunteers is remarkable. We fed over 1500 people today, breakfast and lunch. To see that these people are taken care of for three meals a day and that everything is run by volunteers, clothes that are handed out- donated, and the food served was prepared and donated as well.....completely humbling. I'm so grateful for the blessings in my life and know that because I have been blessed, I need to give back to others. It's a blessing in itself serving those in need.

There's always one person who expresses so much gratitutde, it makes donating your time worth it. There was one guy who, as I handed him his fork, reached out to shake my hand and with a warm smile, said thank you for everything you are doing. After he finished eating, he came back again to share his gratitude. I don't know his name, I don't know his story, and I don't know where he will be sleeping tonight, but I do know that sacrificing a few hours of my time, touched at least one person's life.  

flying cat....

I saw this on the morning news.... i could NOT.....STOP.....LAUGHING!

I'm not a cat person but this cat, I like.

Paleo Banana-nut waffles

Last night we had dinner around 6. We then drove around the entire city of Phoenix looking at cars. We're in the market and car shopping here during the summer is rough. Every car with ice cold AC looks very appealing. Around 9pm though, i was hit with a craving. What was I craving? I wanted bread and a lot of it. More specifically, I wanted waffles. I haven't dusted off the ol' waffle maker since we've moved down. I had Ryan get it for me out of the black hole. ( a.k.a the very top shelf in our kitchen cupboard above the sink. ) It just so happens to be my grandma's old waffle maker that's heart shaped. So sentimental and fitting for this dish because it made my heart happy eating them.


recipe via Joyful Abode

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups almond flour
• 5 eggs (mine were on the small side, so 4 large ones may be fine)
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 ripe bananas, mashed (the more ripe they are, the sweeter the waffles will be)
• 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (i doubled this since I had no pumpkin spice)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• Chopped pecans (optional)

Method:

1. Plug in/preheat your waffle iron.
2. Mix everything else together, except for the coconut oil and pecans.
3. Once the waffle iron is warm, spray with olive oil
4. Drop a blob of batter into the center of each waffle-spot.
5. Optional – sprinkle some or all of them with chopped pecans.
6. Make sure you wait for them to be COMPLETELY done before opening. Usually there is a light indicator or something. If you open before they're done....oh it's a mess. Trust me.
7. Take the waffles out and eat them. I sliced banana on top, put on crushed pecans and used a little agave for my syrup. :)

 

Chicken Tomato coleslaw

On our trip to Cali, I made a few paleo meals to take along in our cooler for the beach. I prepared this and made enough for two lunches and it was filling, convenient, and tasty! This is something I would have eaten regardless of doing paleo for the next month so double win for me. hehe :)

Shredded chicken

1/4 Cabbage

2 Tomatoes

1 cucumber

1/2 avocado, sliced

1/4 yellow onion

Cilantro

juice of 1 lemon and olive oil

Black pepper and sea salt

Chop up all the ingredients, add cilantro, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper to taste. Better the day after so juices marinate.

purple! my favorite!

blue suede shoes

purple suede sandals

Went to Gap.

Found these PURPLE sandals.

Painted me toes.

Now I can't stop staring at my feet.

Avo-cocoa mousse

Here's a Paleo dessert I found that sounded so flippin weird and gross that I actually had to make it and try it out. Doesn't that chocolate mousse like yummy? Of course it does. Would you believe it's an avocado??? Well it is. I wouldn't lie to you. Here's the recipe.

Ingredients:

2 ripe avocados, the meat scooped out of the shell

3 tablespoons honey or agave (more or less to taste.)

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (i'll put a little less in next time)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

pinch of salt

Instructions:Use a blender or food processor to blend the avocados until smooth. Add the rest of the ingredients and blend again until everything is combined. Add more or less honey/agave according to your taste. Chill for at least 2 hours before serving. I sliced some bananas and layered the mousse inbetween and sprinkled with coconut flakes. Pretty much satisfied my sweet tooth mouth! :)

Paleo Muffins two-ways

Same basic muffin recipe, two different ways. :)

These look especially good because of the muffin cups right? I got them from Michael's for $1 which was probably the cheapest thing I bought there. I've never been huge into crafts until recently and having a Michael's close by has 1.) created a new category to budget for and 2.) turned me into a little girl at a candy store.... but instead of candy it's paint, and stickers, and paper, and ribbon and magic!

 Anyway, pretty happy with these muffin cups but let's get onto the recipes. I found a recipe off of this blog and altered some ingredients to MY liking. Because in my world, it's all about what I like. HA!

Paleo Blueberry Muffins

2 1/2 cups almond flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp sea salt

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce (i used 3/4 cup)

1/4 cup raw honey

1 tbs vanilla extract

1/2 cup blueberries

3 large eggs beaten well (i used 2 eggs)

350 degrees.

Mix dry ingredients well.

Add beaten eggs, honey, vanilla, applesauce, and blueberries.

Grease muffin pan with olive oil spray. Bake 30-40 minutes.

After they were already in the oven, I realized I had some lemons I could have used to make Blueberry Lemon Muffins..... Doh! Next time. Now I have an excuse to make these again. So moist and perfect for breakfast. Or, if you're like me, whenever you are craving a baked goodie.

The nice thing about muffins, you can get ca-razy (as far as the cooking world is concerned) and change the add-ins. I found a recipe that for carrot muffins and made them 2 weeks ago. I didn't care for them and ended up giving them to my parents to eat. I wouldn't feed them to my husband but for someone reason I thought feeding them to my parents was ok. Ha. You can imagine how shocked I was when MY DAD asked me to bake him some more soon. (Jaw dropped).

YES! I'd love to! BUT!....

If I was going to make them again, I wanted to try and adjust the recipe so they tasted better by my standards. Like I mentioned before, it's all about what I like. I can't bake something I don't think tastes good..... that's just..... well.....awkward.  

Who would have thunk adding something as little as would make the difference. :) WOO HOO! Now eating a vegetable in my muffin doesn't seem unfathomable.

Paleo Cinnamon Applesauce and Carrot Muffins

2 1/2 cups almond flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp sea salt

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce (i used 3/4 cup)

1/4 cup raw honey

1 tbs vanilla extract

1/2 cup shredded carrots

3 large eggs beaten well (i used 2 eggs)

350 degrees.

Mix dry ingredients well.

Add beaten eggs, honey, vanilla, applesauce, and shredded carrots.

Grease muffin pan with olive oil spray. Bake 30-40 minutes.