Homegrown and Handmade
If you feel like salivating over amazing Paleo food porn, you need to go check out Popular Paleo’s recipes! They are beautiful and delicious.
I was so excited when Popular Paleo asked me to do a guest post on “The Best Thing I Ever Ate“. I have ate some amazing, Paleo food the last 2 years…but I have a few favorites!
Click here to go to my guest post on Popular Paleo and find out what my favorite Paleo recipes are!
Oh yes…this has got to be the easiest dessert I have ever made! And I don’t know about you, but I sometimes miss having good, creamy ice cream. I do splurge on ice cream on occasion, but then feel bloated and terrible for a few hours.
In walks this ONE Ingredient Ice Cream that is Paleo-friendly and doesn’t even require me to have an ice cream maker! All you need is frozen bananas. I would have never dreamed that bananas could be so creamy!
Ingredients:
Frozen Bananas
Directions:
Ingredients:
Directions:
***I have added a new “Printer Friendly” button on the bottom of each post so that you can print off my recipes. It gives you the option of removing pictures when you click on it!
And by the way, I’m back on the blogging sphere. Thought this would be a good comeback! Much love!!
I’m breaking my summer blogging sabbatical because I’m feeling very emotional tonight and feel like writing. My son turns 2 tomorrow and my emotions are a whirlwind because of that. I’m not sure why…well, I have a few ideas why. First, he is my baby and 2 marks the end of “babyhood”. Second, as we draw closer to his birthday, we draw closer to the anniversary of my sister’s death.
I asked God so many times why He would take my sister from me at the time I had a newborn baby. It was nearly impossible for me to care for my kids while grieving the loss of my sister and without my husband (who was incredible through it all), I’m pretty sure I would not have endured it.
A friend of mine who also went through a intensely tough storm said it perfectly when she said that she felt like she was living a life of parallels with her newborn. I, too, have felt plagued with the same feelings. It has been 2 years of parallels…2 years of life and 2 years of death. At many times I felt so confused as to how I was supposed to embrace this precious new life that God had given me, while being broken and hurt over the life that I had loss in my sister.
I felt God whisper to me many times that out of death comes life.
He knew before my son, Frankie, was even conceived that my beautiful sister would pass away from this earth around the same time as my son’s birth. There was a purpose to these parallels and what is so beautiful is that I am only beginning to see it.
Frankie brings me so much joy that it is almost unbearable. The first year of his life I dealt with guilt over so many things…our broken breastfeeding relationship…laughing at him when I should be grieving…and, most of all, feeling as if the beginning of his beautiful life was overshadowed by my sister’s tragic death.
Frankie is my rainbow baby. He was conceived shortly after a miscarriage that my husband and I had. He was my promise to God that followed a very difficult season of our lives.
Frankie is my rainbow baby that followed a very difficult storm…a storm that raged so hard that it shook the foundation of my faith and brought me to my knees in desperation. God knew I would need Frankie. God knew what exact moment I would need him. He was there with me and there was a reason for it all.
Frankie suckled at my breast 10 minutes after I found my sister. I held him and gave life to him when death was surrounding me. And in the darkest hours, in the blackness of the night, Frankie was there next to me, wrapped in my body and warmth, reminding me that out of death came a much needed significant life.
When I look at Frankie, I think of the promise God gave Noah. He will always calm the storm.
So, today, and always, I celebrate my Frankie!
Happy Birthday sweet boy!
I get quite a few emails from different companies and organizations who want support or advertisement for their products and causes. Cameron, from BuyingPoultry.com, emailed me about support for their cause. After checking out their website and reading about what they are doing, I couldn’t help but help out an awesome organization! I think what Buying Poultry is doing is great and I know all of you will too!
Do you find yourself asking what labels like free-range, organic, and cage-free really mean? Do you wonder if that “vegetarian fed” chicken is worth the extra cost or if those “natural, cage-free” eggs are better than “free-range”?
More and more people have recognized that today’s meat industry took a wrong turn when it replaced farms with factories.
Take the chicken, turkey, and egg industries, for example. We’ve all seen images of sick, drugged birds crammed into towers of cages. We know that these systems produce an inferior product at great expense to animals and the environment. But many of us feel paralyzed because we simply don’t know how to tell the good eggs from the bad.
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone! In grocery stores across the country, consumers simply don’t have enough information about the food they buy to make the right choices for their families. That’s about to change.
Enter BuyingPoultry.com: A reliable and easy-to-use digital guide for shoppers who want to find the chicken, turkey, and egg products that meet their personal standards of welfare and sustainability. The site will also provide information about the best plant-based alternatives and where to find them.
Today we’re less connected to our food than ever before. BuyingPoultry.com is a response to this new reality. In previous eras of human history, everyone knew where the animals they ate came from and how those animals lived. And previous generations didn’t have to face hordes of marketers bent on deceiving well-meaning people with clever labels and images.
In sum, early humans would have known a great deal about the animals they ate. This knowledge has been lost to us and it means we often buy animal products—especially poultry products—that aren’t healthy and that don’t reflect our values.
Did you know that ninety-nine percent of all chickens and turkeys are raised on factory farms? You’re probably already among those who sense that factory farms contribute to antibiotic resistance, create toxic pollution, and cause animals to suffer, but are you aware that the poultry raised on factory farms actually has more fat and less protein than the birds that our grandmothers (let alone our early ancestors) ate?
BuyingPoultry.com will empower you to buy poultry with real knowledge of what you are getting.
BuyingPoultry.com will offer information from leading experts about where our food comes from, identify the best products in your area, and make it easy to submit feedback to companies about the kinds of food you’re looking for. Armed with this powerful set of tools, we’ll be one step closer to finding the food we want in the places we shop most.
Back BuyingPoultry.com on Kickstarter before June 28th and help us provide the information consumers need to make informed choices. Together we can change the way our nation eats and farms.
BuyingPoultry.com is a project of Farm Forward, a nonprofit advocacy and consulting group driven to transform the way our nation eats and farms. We use a wide range of innovative strategies to promote conscientious food choices, reduce farmed animal suffering, and advance sustainable agriculture.
I asked a friend of mine, who happens to be a very good, experienced blogger, if she ever feels like just deleting her whole blog and giving it up. I’m not sure why, but these feelings have crossed my mind, daily, the past few months. I drudgingly find a little piece of inspiration and then try to hurry and write it down. I love writing, I love expressing myself, I love sharing recipes, and I love helping others who are changing their lives over to a healthier lifestyle. So, I’ve been confused about these conflicting emotions.
Why would I feel like this?
I am stretched too thin. I homeschool, I admin a Facebook Paleo group (1,500 members), I recently started a Meetup group that is growing really fast, I admin another Facebook group, I have my personal Facebook page AND my Paleo Facebook page…I spend hours blogging, answering blog comments, Facebook comments, and emails. I feel so attached to my computer and it really makes me sad. I didn’t want my life to become so techy. In fact, I got rid of my iPhone for this purpose. I can’t even keep up with everything in the social media world. I suck at Twitter and Pinterest…and can’t even fathom adding in Instagram.
I am insecure. Not only do I have all these things to keep up with, but I also feel the need to check out other Paleo blogs, follow them, like them, comment on them…it’s overwhelming. I never intended to grow much. But, now I feel the pressure to grow more, or as fast as other Paleo blogs. I feel the urge to create delicious recipes like his blog or her blog.
I never intended for this to be *just* a Paleo blog. I am Paleo. The Paleo Mama is Paleo but that is not all I am. I am earthy, natural, silly, honest, raw, and fun. I love to be outside and I dream of farming and living a simple life; I am a kid at heart. I feel limited right now but this will be changing in the future.
I care more about being involved in my family, then being involved in social media. This is no hit on ANY other bloggers or mothers who blog. Please don’t misunderstand me. If you know me, you know that I hate social media. It takes me days to respond to text messages sometimes…which is why I prefer a old fashion phone call! But, I constantly am feeling the pull between interacting with my kids and interacting with my followers. It’s stressful sometimes!
There’s just too little time and too much to do on this beautiful earth. I’d rather take the kids to the Springs then sit down and blog. It is summer here in Florida and I am a stay-at-home-mom to two beautiful children. My son is almost 2 and my daughter is 4. These early days are fast and fleeting. I want to be fully involved…fully there.
So, after much prayer and consideration, I am going to be take a summer sabbatical from blogging. I’ll still be here in small aspects…however, I feel like I need this time away from the computer and the chains of social media. I have a few commitments that I won’t neglect, like posting a review for Beyond Bacon and a few guest posts I agreed to do. I will be semi-active on my Facebook page and my blog will, definitely, NOT be going anywhere.
Here are some great Paleo blogs to follow:
I pray that this time away will bring even more inspiration when summer is over! Thank you for your love you have showed me and your support over the past year! May you be richly blessed this summer!
Until we meet again…
I hope you are enjoying these weekly meal plans. They should be making your life a little easier in the kitchen. I know the challenges of switching to Paleo. It can seem very overwhelming, at first. I try to pick out easy meals to make that are also favorable with kids.
The dinners I picked out this week should fit your budget and make your taste-buds very happy! You have the option of making the meal #1 in the crock pot and, also, I included a meal-on-the-fly in case you find yourself too busy to cook. Just prep them beforehand and grab them when running out the door!
**Bookmark this page to reference it throughout the week**
Meal #1 (optional crock pot meal) : Thyme Roast Chicken with Roasted Root Veggies – This recipe is so simple yet so delish! Throw the chicken in the crock pot if you choose and cook on low for 6-8 hours.
Meal #2 : Balsamic Chicken and Oven Roasted Brussel Sprouts – I rave about this dish to everyone! It’s also *that* dish that I make to impress. It’s the most tasty chicken I have ever had!!! Don’t skip the brussel spouts because you don’t like them OR think your kids won’t eat them. Mine LOVE brussel sprouts! We call them Monster Eggs and pretend we need to eat them before the monster hatches!
Meal #3 : Butternut Squash Lasagna – I just love this dish and I also love that it has veggies already in the dish, so no extra side is needed!
Meal #4 : Salmon with Cherry Tomato Salsa and Asparagus – we make ourselves eat a seafood dish or two every week. It’s good to give kids a taste for fish early in life. Both my kids (4 and 1) devour fish. I will say, they do not like Ahi Tuna, but Salmon, Tilapia and Shrimp don’t last long in our house!
Meal #5: Dinner-on-the-Fly: Meat & Spinach Muffins with a Mason Jar Salad : These muffins have been a long-standing favorite among my family. They are easy to make and so delicious. These are great to eat for breakfast, lunch, or dinner!
The Mason Jar Salad that my friend, Dusti, guest-posted about has been a LIFESAVER for me! It’s a genius way of making salads and they really do keep for up to a week! I included the ingredients in the shopping list to get your started on making your first mason jar salads! You can omit this if you do not want to make it and just throw a salad together for this meal instead.
Hope you enjoy this week of healthy, Paleo eating!
***Per Your Requests*** (and because I love you all!)
Breakfast Ideas: If you are stuck and not sure what to make for breakfast, or just getting tired of eggs and bacon, check out my Pinterest page here (for egg-y dishes) and here (for non-egg).
Need snack ideas? Check out this board on my Pinterest page and this one also.