Popcorn

Last night at work was popcorn night, bags of freshly popped popcorn are brought to the desks and everyone gets so excited and snatches up their bag.  This used to include me.  This was the second time since switching to Paleo that popcorn night has occurred.  The first time wasn't long after I started Paleo and the popcorn smelled so yummy.  Last night they dropped the popcorn off, stacking all the bags at the end of my desk, people started opening the bags and something was different.  The smell hit my nose and it was awful.  It smelled really bad to me.  Did it always smell like that?  I even mentioned it to the co-worker next to me.  It must have been fine because everyone was digging in as usual but it was stinky to me. Today I thought of this clip from Nacho Libre, which pretty much sums up how I felt about it last night.

SERENITY NOW!!!!

I feel like Frank Costanza when it comes to my computers.  Sometimes they really perturb me.  I've been having issues with connectivity with my main laptop.  It, of course, is the one that I have my pictures and editing program on.  My old crusty laptop, which was suppose to give out 2 years ago according to the Geek Squad, is still plugging along but I'm not able to connect any external devices to it.  So I'm sort of stuck with not being able to get pictures uploaded to my blog.  My sister did tell me I could use her computer so this weekend I will transfer some pics to a jump drive and use her computer to blog some dinner pics and a recipe or two.  Serenity now, insanity later.

Things have been going pretty well for me on the Paleo front.  I continue to lose weight and people are starting to notice.  I've lost that slab of fat above my butt that big folks have.  So now I've got a ba-donka instead of a ba-donka-donk.  I've noticed my gut isn't as distended as it once was.  These things are pretty exciting for me.  I've been digging out my summer clothes and decided that I'm not packing any of my winter clothing up.  I'm going to bag it up and dump it in those yellow bins they have around town for clothing collection.  I'm not planning on wearing those clothes this winter so no need to summer them in my plastic containers.  I'm not really looking forward to the money I'm going to have to shell out to get new clothes though.  Perhaps I'll go to the thrift store and see if I can pick up some inexpensive duds. 

I have to say that I did a bang up job grocery shopping yesterday.  I actually looked up the store ads online and did a price comparison so I could decide were I was going to buy my meats.  I still wasn't able to the good stuff but at least I didn't have to pay very much for the stuff I did get.  For instance, a 10 pound bag of chicken leg quarters for $3.90!  I got a couple.  I also got a pork tenderloin and ground beef as well as a few other things at a different store and save $20 on my total bill.  So it was a good day and I declared it a success. 

Oh, talking about my grocery shopping reminded me of this little dude.  At one of the stores I frequent they have a poster near the check out lanes that has a wailing child depicted on it.  I'm pretty sure it's the same kid in the above picture.  I wasn't able to find the poster online but I found this pic and I think it's the same kid.  At any rate the caption on the poster says "Don't you wish there were no candy aisles".  I have no idea what the poster is actually for but I see that poster and every time I think yep, we'd be better off if there were no candy aisle.  As a matter of fact, we'd be better off with no center aisles.  No more wailing children, throwing temper tantrums because their Moms or Dads won't get them the candy they want or worse yet when they do give in to their demands.  It reminds me of the crazy lady that went berserk in the cupcake shop or the guy that lost it at taco bell because they raised the price on his burrito.  We need some posters that have crazed adults under the caption "don't you wish there were no fast food restaurants".

Dinner Pics

Just wanted to put a few dinner pics up.  I need to do better about this but I usually cook in the evening and when I get done I just want to eat a be done with the day.  Recently I've been thinking a lot about the quality of foods that I've been buying.  I wish I were able to afford grass fed meats, game meats and organic veggies but the truth is I can't.  I am on a very, very limited budget and the organic/grass fed products are about double the price of traditional grocery fare.  I've got to make my funds go as far a possible.  I live very sparingly so there really is no way to make cuts in order to pay for better food.  I do work in a few items such as nitrate free bacon.  I am hoping to hunt for some game meat this year starting with turkey this spring.  I'm also pretty excited about my parents buying chicks this spring which means farm fresh eggs and maybe some fryers for butchering.  This will all help reduce the grocery bill while adding quality meat/eggs to the table.  I know that I spend a lot less on food because I no longer eat take out and I don't eat near the quantity that I previously did.

Anyway, here are some food pics of some recent dishes.  First up is a meal pic of grilled salmon, brussel sprouts and swiss chard.  I wasn't real keen on the chard but that may have been due to the preparation.  I had found a recipe that called for some lemon juice but I think it made it to sour/bitter for my liking.  I might try chard in the future but right now I'm in love with collard greens.

Here are some pork chops that I dusted with coconut flour.  They were pretty tasty.

This is mashed cauliflower that I added a little bit of coconut milk to in order to gain a little creaminess.  They were delicious with the chops and some collard greens.

Tonight I cooked some Italian sausage up then added onions and peppers to the skillet until they were soft and starting to caramelize.  Then I added a little organic sugar free mushroom pasta sauce that I found in the health market section of Hy-Vee.  I served this atop some spaghetti squash and thought it was absolutely scrumptious!!

Before I go, I wanted to share a couple of links that I stumbled across during the past week that will make hunting and gathering recipes more enjoyable.  As you know, I'm always checking TasteSpotting for veggie and meat recipes that I can tweak or use for inspiration.  Sometimes looking at all those cupcakes, cookies and pasta pics makes me miss the old days.  Well, not anymore!  I've discovered a couple of sites that are TasteSpotting-esque but for Paleo chefs!!!  They are called The Foodee and Chowstalker.  Now I can gaze at food pics all day long and feel good about it!!!  Yippeee!

The Non-Pyramid Scheme

I've got a recruit!!!!  It's been almost a week since I learned that my Mom is taking the Paleo plunge for 30 days.  I'm so excited.  I call my Mom every day and ask her how she's feeling.  I'm really pleased that she is giving it a whirl because I'm sure she will be satisfied with the results.  It's hard to see people in poor health knowing what I know now.  I just wish I could convince them all.  More importantly, I wish our government and medical community would do something different about the status quo.  Shouldn't it be obvious that the current approach isn't working?  Even before I switched to Paleo I was aware that the way Americans were eating was wrong.  I was having weight issues and got to the point that I wanted to change myself.  I joined Watchers Watchers and for the first time in my life I had to think about what I was eating and I was also involved in preparing my meals.  My Mom, ever the supporter, helped me out and encouraged me in only the way a mom could.  It was about this time that I really thought about what I was eating.  Mainly because it didn't make sense to me to retool the foods I always ate with low fat ingredients.  I still wanted to overeat those foods plus I developed cravings for the real thing that caused me fall off the wagon.  I also didn't like how pre-packaged ingredients were fine on Weight Watchers, just make sure you stay within your points.  (I think WW has retooled their program numerous times since I was a member so I don't know how WW is today.)  At any rate, I was thinking about what I was eating, what I had eaten in the past and what I wanted to eat and live like in the future.  I wasn't satisfied with the information that the establishment was giving to overweight people in their efforts to eat healthy.

I thought that fresh ingredients would be best.  I didn't like all the preservatives and in my opinion I felt like Americans were unhealthier since eating more packaged foods.  I sort of marked time with my generation, born in the 70's, as the group where weight started to increase.  It seemed to me that we were more active than the kids after our group and that we were still more likely to eat a traditional dinner at the table that Mom prepared but we were getting more packaged stuff.  Somehow, I stumbled onto the Mediterranean Diet Cookbook (Nancy Harmon-Jenkins) and was really excited because this was all about fresh ingredients.  I really learned how to cook with that book.  I was happy that I was learning a healthier way to prepare foods but I still hadn't changed my lifestyle.  While perusing the dietary cookbook section, I came across Paleo and I knew what I needed to do....implementing it proved to be a little bit tough for me.  I continued on with Mediterranean dishes and discovered that I really loved to cook. Eventually, I branched away from Mediterranean foods and I began to make all kinds of stuff which progressed more towards comfort foods the longer I honed my culinary skills.  I had began to dabble in baking, which I had always hated, in order to satisfy a burgeoning sweet tooth.   All this time I kept Paleo in the back of mind until finally I found the key to success.

Now that I've got the first recruit in my non-pyramid scheme I'm dreaming of my own little tribe!  It's certainly helps to have others to talk to about Paleo so I hope you'll join up too.