Lunchbox #70

Today, my preschooler's lunch featured (clockwise):

• A banana
• Kerrygold Dubliner cheese
• Baby carrots
• Blueberries (formerly frozen) mixed with organic whole milk yoghurt and a couple of drops of liquid whole leaf stevia

~

Lunchbox #69

Today, my preschooler's lunch featured (clockwise):

• Pork carnitas, mango salsa, spaghetti squash
• Tiny container with some dried cranberries (dessert, pretty much)
• Half a banana
• A Clementine

~

Lunchbox #68

Today, my preschooler's lunch featured (clockwise):

• Onion and cheese omelette, cut into pieces
• Baby carrots
• Remaining mango salsa, on top of some guacamole
• Banana yoghurt - A blend of sunbutter, whole milk yoghurt, and a banana

~

Menu Plan

Here's the menu plan for this week. We are trying to make it through 'til Friday with what's left in the fridge...I might need to get a little more creative. :) Definitely lots and lots of eggs and...pork. I had the "brilliant" idea of making 10 lb. of pork loin roast in the crock pot on Sunday, slow cooked in mango salsa. Delicious, yes, but entirely too much. So, sorry for the lack of variety, but budget and practicality demand it this week! ;)

Monday:
Breakfast - Fruit and eggs for my girls, for me - hot buttered chai - recipe to come soon
Lunch - Leftover pork roast with strawberries on salad greens
Dinner - Various and sundry leftovers

Tuesday:
Breakfast - Same as Monday
Lunch - Leftover pork roast with salsa
Dinner - Eggs, in some format

Wednesday:
Breakfast - Smoothies
Lunch - The last vestiges of the pork with added mango salsa, no joke!
Dinner - Onion and cheese quiche

Thursday:
Breakfast - Mashed boiled eggs with Kerrygold
Lunch - Maybe fasting for me
Dinner - My inlaws are bringing Chipotle! Steak salad for me. Best. In-laws. EVER.

Friday:
Breakfast - Whole milk yoghurt with raspberry extract and liquid stevia
Lunch - Fried eggs and potatoes
Dinner - Whatever I've rustled up at the grocery store that day :)

Lunchbox #67

Today, we went to a friend's house for a lunchtime playdate. My preschooler's lunch featured (clockwise):

• Spaghetti squash noodles with leftover pork carnitas
• Cantaloupe and strawberries
• Whole milk yoghurt drizzled with honey
• Mixed greens salad with cherry tomatoes and mango salsa

~

Submit Your Links and Lunchboxes to The Real Food Lunchbox Carnival!

Woo hoo! The time has come for you to submit links to your blog post from the past week featuring a meal/(s) or snack/(s) that you packed for yourself or your loved ones. The linky will be open from right now through 3 p.m. Sunday afternoon (giving y'all a little extra time since I'm late getting this up...). Now's the time to get your linking up groove on!

Also, in case of technical difficulties, please bear with me AND shoot me an email - this carnival series is my first time using this linky partner, so I'm not certain of what to expect.

A reminder of The Real Food Lunchbox Carnival Guidelines:

• 

  Voila! The Real Food Lunchbox Carnival logo.
  Please be sure that when you add it,
  it links back to this carnival's label page!

  Feature The Real Food Lunchbox Carnival logo in your post  - and your logo should link back to that the Real Food Lunchbox Carnival label page, so that your readers can come to read the rest of the carnival for fresh inspiration, too!
  
  Grab the logo JPG right now if you like for your posts. It's available on Flickr; click the logo on the right and you will be able to pick up embeddable HTML under the "Share" tab.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Please link to your individual packed meal's post using a permalink, NOT a link to your blog's home page.
  
  
• One linked post submitted per blog per week.
  
  
• The packed/assembled meal or snack that you've chosen to link/feature for this carnival should be primal / paleo friendly. To simplify: no grains or refined sugars should take the spotlight in your linked/featured post, please!
  
  
• No recipes-only posts, please. The goal is to showcase how you've put together your packed meals and snacks! If a recipe is involved but still shows the end product of your packed/assembled meal or snack, that is OK.
  
  
• Your packed/assembled meal can be breakfast, lunch, dinner, or even a snack.
  
  
• When you link, please use this format to tell us what you've packed, and who you are!
  Subject (Blogger or Blog Name)
  
  
  Sample Format (as far as I know these blogs are fictitious):
  
  Chicken with Sweet Potato Fries and Dip! (Cro-Magnon)
  Grain-Free Breakfast Burrito On the Go (Grokerella)
  Paleo PB&J (Cave Kid at Heart)
  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
These are just tips, not mandatory:

• A picture or pictures help your readers' frame of reference bigtime. A list of foods is kind of dry, but a close up or a few of your packed meal or snack is much likelier to capture readers' imagination. Plus, you get to add the picture's thumbnail to the linky below.
  
  
• Make it fun! Add some discussion in your post as to the meal's contents, or even explore whether the meal was a hit or a miss. (Yes, lunchbox fails are very much welcomed and even celebrated! Lessons learned make for great commiserative reading and fyi.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 ♥ Thanks so much for submitting a link! It makes my heart sing. :) ♥

Let me know if you have questions, comments, suggestions for the carnival! You can also email me at primalkitchen at gmail dot com.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lunchbox #66

Today, my preschooler's lunch featured (clockwise):

• Baby carrots with a cheese dip
• Whole milk organic yoghurt with honey drizzled on top
• Half a banana
• Egg salad

~

Celebrating Special Occasions While Sticking To Your Low-Carb Weight Loss Goals

Though special occasions are often reserved as perfect times to let loose and indulge a little, it would appear that I have a dilemma - a good kind of dilemma. Special occasions come too frequently!

Using a fairly loose definition, see how many special occasions fit into a year for our family:

• Celebrating local relatives' birthdays, including my own family's birthdays: 10 parties/year
  
• Celebrating the birthday parties of my daughters' friends, and local family friends: 10 parties/year (at least!)
  
• Celebrating New Year's, the Super Bowl, Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas Eve/Christmas Day: 12 parties/year
  
• Anniversaries, Mother's Day, Father's Day: 6 get-togethers/year
  

I could go on and on tallying up the ways that we could celebrate, but guess what? The above alone adds up to 38 parties or get-togethers in a year. If I were to take each of these special events as license to exercise my 80/20 rule...well...I'd be doing so approximately 3 out of every month's 4 weeks throughout the year!

Here I want to emphasize that without a doubt it is a wonderful thing - an enormous blessing - to be able to rejoice in so many milestones and special occasions. The excuse to gather and celebrate with friends and family is priceless.

However...none of these celebrations come without lots. and. lots. of. FOOD. Deary me - the cakes, the cookies, the sweets! Of course many do also come with delicious primal / paleo-friendly party fare like steaks (grilled in the summer, yum!), nuts, veggie trays, and so on.

But here's the reality for me (and I'm betting for many of you!): My body reacts to sugar like a recreational drug user suddenly encountering another high. Simply put: I cannot eat such a significant amount of cake and ice cream (or pie, or crumble, or...well...you get the idea) on average three times per month. What's the big deal? some might rightly ask; It's such a small proportion of your overall food intake, and you can be disciplined the rest of the time.

Well, yes, and no. Objectively, it is a relatively small amount, having a carb spike once per week or so. But there are reverberations from that one sugary indulgence. For one, I personally cannot indulge in much of something so sweet and not immediately develop immense sugar cravings that will last for days afterward. Also, horking down a bunch of sugar can compromise my immune system for more than 24 hours. And, folks? I have a four-year-old in preschool, who also accompanies her one-year-old sister to the church nursery every Sunday. In other words, our household has regular and persistent pathogen exposure. I need every bit of immune strength I can muster, because if there's anything worse than a household of sick kids, it's a household with sick kids and a sick mom, amirite?

So here's how I tend to handle celebratory occasions:

• Skip it. Simple - enjoy other foods present (and if you're low-carbing, go for cheese, nuts, coffee with half & half, etc.), or fast altogether.
  
  
• Enjoy a very small amount. If you consider this an occasion worth the cheat, eat one or two bites, very slowly, and then back away from the cake. I probably personally wouldn't do this with a gluten-based cake (wouldn't want to risk the digestive reaction) unless social circumstances all but dictated it, but I did it this way at my daughter's 4th birthday party -- she had a gluten-free marshmallow cake that we had special-ordered.
  
  
• Offer to make or buy a treat to bring. You could dig into any of the myriad paleo / primal friendly dessert recipes on the blogosphere. Most of them may not be low-carb, but you know what the ingredients are and can indulge knowing that you won't suffer as huge of a blood sugar surge that a trans-fat-iced Costco cake would give you. Even better? Bring some very dark chocolate, or a bowl of fresh berries and some unsweetened (or stevia-sweetened) whipped cream - all delicious and fairly low-carb!
  

How do you deal with your frequent special occasions while keeping on track for your weight loss goals?

Lunchbox #65

Today, my preschooler's lunch featured (clockwise):

• Dark chocolate dipped strawberries
• Fresh blueberries
• Kerrygold Dubliner
• Baby carrots

~

Menu Plan

Here we go, here we go! :)

Monday:
Breakfast - Chicken cooked overnight from the crockpot
Lunch - Queso omelette with guacamole
Dinner - More leftover chicken with broth, baby carrots

Tuesday:
Breakfast - Bacon, eggs (plus blueberries for my girls)
Lunch - Salmon with mixed greens
Dinner - Chicken brats with butter cream sauce, asparagus

Wednesday:
Breakfast - Ham and cheese quiche
Lunch - Fasting perhaps, or creamed coffee
Dinner - Pork sausage with Trader Joe's vodka sauce and spaghetti squash

Thursday:
Breakfast - Mashed boiled eggs
Lunch - Banana cream protein smoothie (I get around carby bananas by using banana extract instead)
Dinner - Braised beef short ribs, coconut lime veggie stir fry

Friday:
Breakfast - Whole fat yoghurt sweetened with liquid whole leaf stevia
Lunch - Leftover short ribs
Dinner - Leftovers, or maybe going out

Charmed Inspiration

Nicely matches my itty bitty sample from Crisco..

I have met so many cool and colorful personalities in the online primal / paleo world. One such gal, whom I've mentioned before, is now in maintenance after 6 years spent dropping 111+ lb. - and she is a working mother, to boot!

She didn't do it all as a paleo eater - but she went paleo to drop the last few body fat percentage points, and now she is a ripped triathlete!

I am always so impressed by her dedication, her persistence, her sheer chutzpah.

She's given me a lot of advice (at my request!) about exercise and food journaling, which has been so helpful. One day on PaleoHacks she mentioned that she had a kettlebell necklace. I, of course, being obsessed with charm jewelry, added a comment to that thread asking where she found such a piece of jewelry. She had found them on Etsy for a steal - and had actually bought quite a few with friends in mind over the holidays.

Long story short, just a short time later, I was opening my mailbox to find a small envelope containing not one, but FOUR of these adorable teeny tiny pewter kettlebell charms, which are smaller - about the size of a pencil's eraser. I soon came to the conviction that I wouldn't wear any of them until I met some mini weight loss goals - which I then proceeded to set for myself.

Last week I hit the first minigoal - 1/4 of the way through my overarching goal! I was so stoked to put on my single bitty bell. It's a great reminder to me of this gal's surprising, touching gesture of support - and that if she did accomplished her truly huge (pun not really intended) feat, then my more modest feat can be tackled, too!

Submit Your Links and Lunchboxes to The Real Food Lunchbox Carnival!

I am so excited about this! The time has come for you to submit links to your blog post from the past week featuring a meal/(s) or snack/(s) that you packed for yourself or your loved ones. The linky will be open from 12:01 Friday morning until 11:59 p.m. Saturday night, so link up!

Also, in case of technical difficulties, please bear with me AND shoot me an email - this carnival is my first time using this linky partner, so I'm not certain of what to expect.

A reminder of The Real Food Lunchbox Carnival Guidelines:

• 

  Voila! The Real Food Lunchbox Carnival logo.
  Please be sure that when you add it,
  it links back to this carnival's label page!

  Feature The Real Food Lunchbox Carnival logo in your post  - and your logo should link back to that the Real Food Lunchbox Carnival label page, so that your readers can come to read the rest of the carnival for fresh inspiration, too!
  
  Grab the logo JPG right now if you like for your posts. It's available on Flickr; click the logo on the right and you will be able to pick up embeddable HTML under the "Share" tab.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Please link to your individual packed meal's post using a permalink, NOT a link to your blog's home page.
  
  
• One linked post submitted per blog per week.
  
  
• The packed/assembled meal or snack that you've chosen to link/feature for this carnival should be primal / paleo friendly. To simplify: no grains or refined sugars should take the spotlight in your linked/featured post, please!
  
  
• No recipes-only posts, please. The goal is to showcase how you've put together your packed meals and snacks! If a recipe is involved but still shows the end product of your packed/assembled meal or snack, that is OK.
  
  
• Your packed/assembled meal can be breakfast, lunch, dinner, or even a snack.
  
  
• When you link, please use this format to tell us what you've packed, and who you are!
  Subject (Blogger or Blog Name)
  
  
  Sample Format (as far as I know these blogs are fictitious):
  
  Chicken with Sweet Potato Fries and Dip! (Cro-Magnon)
  Grain-Free Breakfast Burrito On the Go (Grokerella)
  Paleo PB&J (Cave Kid at Heart)
  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
These are just tips, not mandatory:

• A picture or pictures help your readers' frame of reference bigtime. A list of foods is kind of dry, but a close up or a few of your packed meal or snack is much likelier to capture readers' imagination. Plus, you get to add the picture's thumbnail to the linky below.
  
  
• Make it fun! Add some discussion in your post as to the meal's contents, or even explore whether the meal was a hit or a miss. (Yes, lunchbox fails are very much welcomed and even celebrated! Lessons learned make for great commiserative reading and fyi.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 ♥ Thanks so much for submitting a link! It makes my heart sing. :) ♥

Let me know if you have questions, comments, suggestions for the carnival! You can also email me at primalkitchen at gmail dot com.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lunchbox #64

Today, my preschooler's lunch featured (clockwise):

• Shredded leftover roast beef
• Kerrygold Dubliner
• Chocolate banana pudding
• Baby carrots

~

Reminder: Real Food Lunchbox Carnival Open Friday and Saturday, So Post Your Packed Meals and Link Up!

A quick reminder: I'm going to post this coming weekend's edition of the Real Food Lunchbox Carnival tomorrow morning, and the linky widget in that post will be open for link submissions from 12:01 a.m. Friday through 11:59 p.m. Saturday night.

If you packed a paleo or primal meal or snack this week (main consideration: no grains or refined sugars showcased, please!), copy your post's permalink and add it via the linky widget so that readers can peruse the links over the weekend for packed meals and snacks inspiration! What a great way to introduce readers to your blog and spark new ideas about portable paleo / primal foods. :)

For more info about the Real Food Lunchbox Carnival, including the logo and guidelines about drafting your packed meal post, click here.

Lunchbox #63

Today, my preschooler's lunch featured (clockwise):

• A bacon omelette, looks kinda like pizza here!
• Baby carrots
• Honey straw (~1 tsp. honey, tucked in with the pink fork on the right)
• Sliced cheddar

~

Menu Plan - Stock Up on Target Organic Cage-Free Eggs @$2.99/Dozen Through Saturday!

Well...I'd been waiting for my husband to hit the Trader Joe's just a few minutes from his office - was supposed to happen today! Then I would have finally been ready to menu plan knowing exactly what's in our kitchen. But, it just didn't happen, and TJ's is now set for tomorrow. Boy, do I wish we had a Trader Joe's right here in our town, but for now I'll take one close to my husband's office!

That said, we did stop by our local Target today for some eggs, cheese, frozen blueberries, and heavy cream - enough to fudge through the rest of tomorrow until my sweetie arrives back home with a trunk full of Trader Joe's.

Excerpted from this week's Target ad.

This week, Target's organic cage free eggs are on sale @ $2.99/dozen (usually $3.74/dozen). This sale price, which seems to happen every 4-6 weeks, is the best price for a dozen commercial organic cage free eggs that I've found - even better than the ones at Sam's Club, which price out at around $3.30-$3.50/dozen. This price is good through Saturday 19 March in most areas, I'm guessing. So, if you don't mind sourcing your eggs from Target, keep an eye out in the fresh groceries to see if the price $2.99/dozen - in which case you might find yourself like me, cart stocked full of eggs, looking like I'm dead set on breaking the Guinness World Record for world's biggest omelette.

You may recall that I've been documenting my food intake over at fatsecret.com since March 1 in a bid to get a realistic knowledge since of my carb and calorie intake. I'm happy to say that as of this morning, the scale is reading 12 lb. lighter since then! Woo HOO! Some of that was definitely water weight, but I am finally glad to be back in that groove where sugar is not the center of my universe. It takes me about two weeks to finally physiologically get to that point, but it's a relief to be there again, with the slow, steady energy and no blood sugar crashing.

I've also been doing some introspective journaling since the beginning of the month - using Beth Moore's Get Out of That Pit: A 40-Day Devotional Journal - a companion to her book Get Out of That Pit: Straight Talk about God's Deliverance, which I read first. The journalling is helping to ground me, and had been especially useful in the evenings those first few days of March in terms of focusing me on my priorities and motives when I was trying to shake afternoon/evening sugar cravings (which...not so coincidentally, perhaps...seem to strike when my toddler is melting down just before her bedtime...). I can't wait to see what the rest of March brings in my journaling and weight loss!

If you're interested in FatSecret, you should come on over and join a bunch of us (41 and counting!) who are doing the:

Primal / Paleo 3 Months Til Summer Challenge!

You don't have to be low-carb to join - just working on your own goals for getting back to nourishing real-food basics in order to lose weight or gain muscle. If you're hankering for renew your commitment to improved body composition, for health, or for a purely vain objective of looking better for shorts weather before the end of June, come on over, join the challenge, and say, "Hi!" There will be lots of commiseration waiting for you. :) The challenge officially starts on Monday, March 21, so you have lots of time to establish a free FatSecret account (...and get to know all of its fun bells and whistles like the food diary, the weigh-in chart, the journal, the create-your-own-recipe, the exercise journal, etc.! It's really fabulous if you want to geek out on data, and there is a range of privacy settings so you can chose how much of your own info you share!)

Here's how the menu's shaping up this week:

Monday:
Breakfast - Bacon and fried eggs
Lunch - This and that; leftovers, leftover bacon, peanut butter
Dinner - Baked chicken wings and asparagus
Workout plan - Rest day

Tuesday:
Breakfast - Organic whole milk yoghurt (I sometimes sweeten mine with a few drops of liquid whole leaf stevia and add a teensy bit of raspberry extract - BAM! It's so much better than Yoplait, I promise!)
Lunch - Leftover chicken wings for me
Dinner - We hit up our local favorite burger chain (a regional one) - a double bacon cheeseburger for me with mushrooms, onions, lettuce, and sliced tomatoes, sans bun
Workout plan - Walking at the local park pushing my toddler in the jogging stroller

Wednesday:
Breakfast - Cheese omelette
Lunch - Cocktail shrimp (thawed) with gingered carrots sauteed in butter
Dinner - Pot roast with carrots and potatoes (I'll be skipping the potatoes)
Workout plan - Kettlebell swings

Thursday:
Breakfast - Warmed blueberries with vanilla, cinnamon, and cream (this is for the girls...for me it might be mashed boiled eggs)
Lunch - Leftover pot roast and veggies
Dinner - I'm going to put a placeholder here...because I'm not really sure what animal protein/produce combo will result from my husband's TJ's trip!
Workout plan - More gorgeous spring weather! Another walk outside, methinks.

Friday:
Breakfast - Bacon, slices of cheese
Lunch - Blueberry protein smoothies
Dinner - Another placeholder here! The fridge is about as bare as it gets in terms of animal protein and veggies. Thankful for eggs, though - my faithful standby! ;-)
Workout plan - Rest day

Disclosure: This post contains an Amazon affiliate link. Thanks for supporting Primal Kitchen at no additional cost to you!

Lunchbox #62

Today, my preschooler's lunch featured (clockwise):

• Organic whole milk yoghurt swirled with organic apple/blueberries baby food puree
• Cocktail shrimp with reduced sugar ketchup
• Baby carrots
• A couple of leftover baked chicken wing drumsticks - they were sure tasty, but they look kinda gnarly here!

~

Is Ron Swanson of NBC's Parks and Recreation Secretly Primal / Paleo?

I am slowly beginning to suspect that one of my current favorite TV characters, Ron Swanson, is secretly primal or paleo. Evidence:

"The Ron Swanson Pyramid of Greatness"

Key paleo or potentially paleo concepts:

• Skim milk: Avoid it
• Skim milk: That's right. It's on here twice. Avoid it.
• Living in the woods: Live off the land.
• Property Rights: They exist. Don't let them be taken away from you.
• Cow Protein, Pig Protein, Chicken Protein, Romantic Love, Deer Protein
• B.O. Cultivating a manly musk puts your opponents on notice.
• YOU. You are your biggest ally.
• Self-reliance. Trust yourself.
• Capitalism. God's way of determining who is smart, and who is poor.
• Intensity: Give 100%. 110% is impossible. Only idiots recommend that.
• Discipline: The ability to repeat a boring thing over and over again.
• Greatness itself. The best revenge.

Not-so-paleo concepts on the pyramid:

• Fish (Sport only) {C'mon Ron! Get your Omega-3s!}
• Buffets. Wherever available. Choose quantity over quality.

Here is some more proof of Ron's primal / paleo tendencies:

Quotes:

When they are headed to Ron's favorite steakhouse:

Ron: When I'm done eating a Mulligan's meal, for weeks afterwards, there are flecks of meat in my mustache. And I refuse to clean it because every now and then a piece of meat will fall into my mouth.

The "time capsule" episode:

Ron: I am submitting this menu from a Pawnee institution, J.J.'s Diner. Home of the world's best breakfast dish: The Four Horsemeals of the Eggporkalypse.

The telethon episode:

Ron: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Don't teach a man to fish, and you feed yourself. He's a grown man. Fishing's not that hard.

From "Summer Catalog":

Leslie: Why would anybody ever eat anything besides breakfast food?
Ron: People are idiots, Leslie.

Leslie: Well, don't be such a baby. I cooked you some bacon for a trail snack.
Ron: I ate it already.
Leslie: What?
Ron: I could smell it in your purse before I even parked my car. And now it's gone and I hate everything.

From "Woman of the Year":

Ron: Come on Leslie, you know I'm not sexist. I love powerful women.
Leslie: You do attend a shocking number of WNBA games.

From the episode "Sweetums":

Ron, on individual liberty: The whole point of this country is if you want to eat garbage, balloon up to 600 pounds and die of a heart attack at 43, you can! You are free to do so. To me, that's beautiful.

From "Tom's Divorce":

Los, Steffi!

Ron: Strippers do nothing for me. I like a strong, salt of the Earth, self-possessed woman at the top of her field. Your Steffi Grafs, your Sheryl Swoopeses, but I will take a free breakfast buffet anytime, anyplace.

Ron: This seems like none of our business.
Leslie: Be supportive, OK? Don't be all like, "No. I don't want to. I am a guy and I like fire, and playing hockey and eating meat. No, no says I."
April: That was a really good Ron.
Leslie: Thank you.

From "The Practice Date":

Ron: I've established a scientifically perfect, ten-point scale of human beauty. Wendy is a 7.4, which is way too high for Tom, who is a 3.8. 10 is tennis legend Steffi Graf.

And finally:

What do you think? Is Ron Swanson secretly primal or paleo?


ETA: Ron visits health food store Grain 'n' Simple and its sample kiosk for vegan bacon.

Lunchbox #61

Today, my preschooler's lunch featured (clockwise):

• Leftover steak pieces with reduced sugar ketchup to dip
• Baby carrots
• Almonds and raisins
• Watermelon

~

Lunchbox #60

Today, my preschooler's lunch featured (clockwise):

• Spaghetti squash with grass fed ground beef and Trader Joe's vodka sauce
• Fresh strawberries
• Unsweetened whipped cream, with a bit of vanilla extract

~

Strawberries with Mascarpone and Cacao Nibs

Om nom nom.

That is all. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming. :)



P.S. - Doesn't everything look a little more special and taste a little more delicious when served in cut glass or crystal? I think so.















~

Lunchbox #59

Today, my preschooler's lunch featured (clockwise):

• Bacon
• Banana
• Carrots
• Cubed chicken breast (leftover from the night before)
• Cubed home fries (leftover from the night before)

Menu Plan, and Tweaks on Food Journalling

I am loving FatSecret.com as a food journalling tool! Tracking my intake was a huge eye opener, and after a week at very low carb I can tell how I need to tweak my portions to achieve realistic deficits while keeping fat and protein at a premium, to maintain some level of ketosis and also satiation. My next goal for this week is to preplan and document the intake the evening before (Last week I was documenting after the fact). Hopefully this way I can better stagger my calories throughout the day and achieve more accurate fat/protein/carb ratios.

If you are on FatSecret or decide to give it a go, you can check out the Primal / Paleo 3 Months Til Summer Challenge! It starts in a couple of weeks and will be a gathering place for those striving for cleaner grain-free sugar-free eating and better workouts as the warm weather approaches. If you see me on there be sure to say hi! :)

I am enjoying my husband doing the grocery shopping, I must say. Our fridge is now full of tons of full fat dairy, animal protein, and produce. *Does the happy dance.*

So - here's what's planned for the menu and workouts this week:

Monday:
Breakfast - Bacon gorgonzola omelette, whole milk yoghurt with raspberry extract
Lunch - Bacon, steamed brocolli with butter
Dinner - Garlic roast chicken with carrots
Workout - Kettlebell swings

Tuesday:
Breakfast - Bacon, smoothie
Lunch - Leftover chicken and carrots, remade as a creamy soup
Dinner - Trader Joe's vodka sauce with seasoned TJ's grass fed ground beef, over spaghetti squash
Workout - Lap swim at the community pool

Wednesday:
Breakfast - Fried eggs, iced coffee
Lunch - TJ's wild turbot filets with asparagus and a cream and butter sauce
Dinner - Roast beef with veggies
Workout - Kettlebell swings

Thursday:
Breakfast - Bacon and asparagus quiche
Lunch - Lamb chops
Dinner - Coconut crusted shrimp, minus the unsweetened coconut, which I'm out of at the moment
Workout - Rest day

Friday:
Breakfast - Quartered strawberries topped with mascarpone and cacao nibs
Lunch - Leftovers, whatever they might be
Dinner - Porterhouses, on the stove if weather doesn't permit, but hoping for grilling weather! ;-D Salads on the side
Workout - Turkish getups with the kettlebell

Preschool Lunch Ideas:
Lunchbox #59 - Leftover broccoli, chicken, and carrots
Lunchbox #60 - Leftover spaghetti squash bolognese, apple slices
Lunchbox #61 - Leftover roast beef, whole milk yoghurt with honey

Coming This Friday, March 11 through Saturday, March 12: The Real Food Lunchbox Carnival!

Yes, that's right, I am going to be starting and hosting a weekly blog carnival - on primal / paleo lunchboxes! My goal in hosting this carnival is to encourage bloggers to share posts they made showcasing meals they've packed in the past week. My hope is that this will inspire commentary and new approaches to packing meals made from natural, whole foods.


Here are The Real Food Lunchbox Carnival Guidelines:

• 

  Voila! The Real Food Lunchbox Carnival logo.
  Please be sure that when you add it,
  it links back to this carnival's label page!

  Feature The Real Food Lunchbox Carnival logo in your post  - and your logo should link back to that the Real Food Lunchbox Carnival label page, so that your readers can come to read the rest of the carnival for fresh inspiration, too!
  
  Grab the logo JPG right now if you like for your posts. It's available on Flickr; click the logo on the right and you will be able to pick up embeddable HTML under the "Share" tab.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• One linked post submitted per blog per week.
  
  
• The packed meal or snack that you've chosen to link/feature for this carnival should be primal / paleo friendly. To simplify: no grains or refined sugars should take the spotlight in your linked/featured post, please!
  
  
• No recipes-only posts, please. The goal is to showcase how you've put together your packed meals and snacks! If a recipe is involved but still shows the end product of your packed meal or snack, that is OK.
  
  
• Your packed meal can be breakfast, lunch, dinner, or even a snack.
  
  

The first carnival will be in one week - the opportunity to link will be announced in a new post Friday, March 11, and remain open though Saturday, March 12. Hopefully knowing that will give you some spark as you go about planning and packing your meal or your family's meals this next week!

I can't wait to see what is packed in your lunchbox. :)

Let me know if you have questions, comments, suggestions for the carnival! You can also email me at primalkitchen at gmail dot com.

Ways to Get Your Kids Outside (and Keep'Em Busy Once They're Out!)

My eldest daughter turned 4 earlier this year, and with her birthday came a whole lot of fun outside-oriented birthday gifts! Boy have we been getting excited about using them. Which brings me to a follow-up to my recent post about us planning a Dirty-Kneed Grass-Stained Spring and Summer. Your kids don't need to already be super athletes to conquer a day outdoors - just interested in having fun. You only need a little bit of inspiration and some inexpensive tools to draw them outside.

Presenting:

10 Ways to Get You Kids Outside (and Keep'Em Busy Once They're Out!)

1. Turn off the TV (and the video games) during the day. Sounds simple, but it's true! If these aren't an option, the outdoors suddenly become a lot more interesting.
   
2. Explore nature up close. Get yourself a basic magnifying glass - or a bug-inspecting box. There are some bug boxes at Target in the dollar section right now! Encourage your kids to look for flowers, bugs, butterflies, and whatever else can fit in the box. Just remember to let the critters out at the end of the exploring. :-)
   
3. Create sidewalk art. Sidewalk chalk is such a cheap option for sparking imagination in the sunshine. You can get a very large box of varied colors for less than $5. There are also sidewalk paints available, too, these days in the art supplies aisle at Wal-Mart and Target. Challenge your kids - to draw a map of their neighborhood, or to see how large they can write their names, or to create new and fun creatures. For me, the quickest way to draw them in with chalk is to just start doodling yourself!
   
4. Blow bubbles. Ooooohhh, bubbles are the ticket. You can either get a few - one for each person, or a large bottle. These are a cheap option, too, because the large bottle of bubbles is around three and a half bucks at Target. Even better? If you have a crowd of kids hoping to pop bubbles, or you want to do lots of running and frolicking with your kids, get yourself a bubble machine. We got one for $12 at Target, which runs on AA batteries - best $12 I ever spent on a toy. With a jillion bubbles being blown every minute, have a contest with your kids to see who can pop the most - nice Tabata training if you can get it. :)
   
5. Bike. My oldest has already blown through three sizes of bikes - now she's already on a 16" wheeler with training wheels. (How do they grow so fast?!) Biking is another fun way to get some fresh air - and some exercise. Even if your kids are just racing each other up and down the street, they're getting some much needed outdoor time.
   
6. Wash the car. This is a great one for older kids who can be responsible with a soapy sponge - and amounts to free labor! One way make this a little more fun-sounding is by allowing them to blast their tunes of choice from the car's sound system. Don't forget to wear your "ruinable" clothes in case a water fight breaks out, which brings me to the next item:
   
7. Sprinklers. Is there anything more wholesome and fun than a good run through the sprinklers? For the most environmentally-friendly version of this, do the sprinkler run in a later, cooler part of the day (so that your water doesn't evaporate as quickly and gives the plants a long-lasting drink), and don't do this if your neighborhood or region is especially dry and trying to conserve water.
   
8. Tackle a playground. Though this is great any time of day, I've found that hitting a playground first thing after breakfast is a great way to kick things off. Not only are the playgrounds a lot less crowded, but my kids are at their most energetic right at this time and ready to burn up that energy in the cooler morning temps. If you're doing a morning run and it's a particularly dewy morning, it can be good to bring a couple of towels with you to wipe down wet slides and swings.
   
9. Toss a frisbee or ball. This can be intense (a la Ultimate Frisbee), or a casual back-and-forth. Great for involving a dog if you have one! If you have a cat you'd like to involve...uh...well...good luck. :)
   
10. Skate. Get out the roller skates or roller blades, and hit up a paved neighborhood trail. Be sure to be considerate to your fellow pedestrians!
    
    Bonus way!
    
11. Read outside. If you have kids willing to chill for a good book, then this is a good option for a wind down activity. Hit up your own book stash, or go get some new reads at the library. Claim yourself a spot at a local park, on your own porch, on a hammock -- wherever you're comfortable. Bring some bottles of water and whatever else you'll need to settle in - folding chairs, pillows, etc.

How do YOU keep your kids busy outside all day long?

Lunchbox #58

Today, my preschooler's lunch featured (clockwise):

• Boiled eggs
• Wasabi asparagus
• Apple slices
• Peanut butter (no sugar or oils added, just peanuts and salt)

Lunchbox #57

Today, my preschooler's lunch featured (clockwise):

• Baby carrots
• Cauliflour
• Almonds
• Sugar snap peas
• Clementines
• Wild Alaskan Sockeye Salmon

~

Menu Plan

We're trying something new this month: my husband is doing all of the grocery shopping. I'm curious to see how it works out; the main determination is to see whether he can lower our grocery spending without my non-core impulse purchases (read: raw honey, almond butter, etc.) piling on extra costs.

Which, you know what? Is not a bad thing. I need less of the impulse purchases and more "core foods" low-carb meals that keep me from craving carby snacks. More beef. More butter and cream. More eggs and bacon. More nonstarchy veggies.

I've also decided today to start food journaling in earnest. Even if I'm 100% primal / lacto-paleo compliant in terms of what I'm eating, calories are indeed still a part of the equation, and after being inspired by one paleo friend who is a fantastic weight loss success story (and who lost 111+ lb. over six years with the help of strict food journalling) - and AndreAnna, who is courageously redoubling her efforts this month after a winter plateau - I want to scrutinize my own numbers more closely. I think that my satiation switch is somehow broken, so relying on my subjective feeling of "full" seems to be futile, at least at this point. The fact that I'm still nursing my 14-month old certainly doesn't abet my appetite at this point either. Therefore, to make things as objective and clear-cut as possible, journalling food intake and charting weigh-ins over time is a great way for me to geek out data-wise on my intake and draw some useful conclusions from there.

Wednesday:

Breakfast - Smoothies for my girls; I may fast

Lunch - Eggs fried in butter

Dinner - Miso salmon with broccoli

Workout - Supposed to be gorgeous, so taking my littlest out in the jogging stroller for some sunshine and fresh air

Thursday:

Breakfast - Mashed boiled eggs

Lunch - Leftover salmon with butter-sauteed wasabi asparagus

Dinner - Beef pot roast; sweet potatoes for my girls

Workout - Kettlebell swings

Friday:

Breakfast - Leftover sweet potatoes for the girls, warmed with butter and cinnamon, fasting for me

Lunch - Omelettes

Dinner - Butterflied pan-sauteed shrimp (with garlic and coconut oil) and veggie

Workout - Rest day

Preschool Lunch Ideas:

Lunchbox #56: Honeydew melon, blueberries, broccoli, sugar snap peas, sliced leftover beef

Lunchbox #57: Sweet potatoes, Clementine, apple slices with peanut butter

Lunchbox #58: Leftover salmon, almonds, apple blueberry sauce

Lunchbox #56

Today, my preschooler's lunch featured (clockwise):

• Sugar snap peas and broccoli, with ranch for dipping
• Fresh blueberries
• Cubed honeydew melon
• Sliced pieces of leftover beef roast with reduced-sugar ketchup