Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving.  I had such an awesome day with my family.  I am so thankful for the many blessings in my life.  I have a wonderful husband who I truly believe would do anything for his family.  His strength, warmth and unwavering devotion to his family is one of a kind and I am thankful everyday that I have him in my life he is my rock and has always been there for me.  My 3 children trying at times are simply amazing.  Each child is unique in their own way.  My boys are thoughtful, loving, sensitive and have the best intentions at heart.  My daughter is truly the sweetest little girl I have ever met.  The bond that her and I have is indescribable and I am thankful everyday for her. 

Thanksgiving was a busy day for us.  I was only cooking for the 5 of us but wow, when you are preparing a feast there seems to be a ton of work to do.  I had great anxiety about cooking the turkey.  In past years, I have always made a huge Mexican feast and boycotted the traditional spread, the thought of dry turkey did not appeal to me.  My husband suggested that this year we do a traditional Thanksgiving since both the older kids were learning about that in school.  I agreed so long as I could find an organic free range turkey to buy. 

Sure enough, I was able to find one.  Branigan Farms in Woodland, CA www.braniganturkey.com offered fresh free range turkeys and I was able to order them from my local butcher shop.  I ordered the smallest they offered which is a 14 lb; more than enough to feed a family of 5 with ample left overs. 

So this was the meal plan:

Turkey
Stuffing*
Veggies*
Cranberry Sauce*
Pumpkin Pie*

I am happy to say that I managed to pull this off 100% paleo.  With the help of www.everydaypaleo.com I made a pretty fabulous dinner if I do say so myself.  Please check out this website, this is a go to for me quite often for at the very least a little paleo inspiration.

For the turkey, I decided to create this recipe myself. 

1 cup organic butter, unsalted room temperature
Fresh thyme, oregano, rosemary
Rubbed Sage (fresh was  my first choice but when I shopped the day before turkey day they were all out)
Sea Salt & Pepper
Carrots
Onions
Celery

Mince all the fresh herbs and add to butter with the sage.  Sorry I don't have any exact measurements, I eyeballed it and used my nose to determine when I had enough herbs to the mix.  Maybe around 1-2 tbsp of each.

I rinsed and dried the bird this is very important so the butter will stick to the skin.  Roughly chop the veggies and add to the bottom of a large roasting pan.  Place bird directly on top of the veggies breast side down, rub the skin with the butter mixture, make sure you get in the nook and crannies of the leg and wing area, flip bird over with breast side up.  Gently separate the breast skin and rub a generous amount of butter underneath.  Apply remaining butter to the rest of the bird.  I used the entire amount, I went with the philosophy if a little is good a lot will be better.  Place turkey in oven uncovered overnight.  I had read somewhere that this was a good way of drying out the skin so when is roasts you achieve that golden crispy skin.

I figured 15 min/lb some websites say 20 min/lb others say 12 min/lb.  Cook covered at 400° for 20 min than reduce the temp to 325°for the remaining time or until 175°.  Place a thermometer in the thickest portion of the thigh being careful not tough a bone.  Most recipes will say to cook until 180° but I was counting on the remaining 5° to happen while the bird rested before carving.  ***During the last 1/2 hr of cooking remove the foil so the skin can brown and get crispy. 

I used the pan dripping for a "gravy" which wasn't all that necessary there was plenty of flavor in the turkey meat itself.

Stock:

I had planned all along that I was going to try and make homemade stock out of the carcass.

Carrots, Onions, Celery, remaining fresh herbs, around 12-16 cups of water.  I placed this all in a large pot and simmered for 2 hours.  Strain and place in freezer safe containers.  I as able to get about 10 cups of stock.

Spaghetti and Meatballs

What you will need:
 Meatballs:
1 lb mild Italian sausage (gluten free) remove casings
1 lb grassfed beef
1/2 purple onion minced
3 cloves of garlic minced
2 tbsp fresh parsley finely chopped
1 tbsp fresh sage finely chopped
1-2 tbsp coconut oil

Spaghetti:
1 lb meat (if using; I prefer a meat sauce for my spaghetti)
4 cloves finely chopped garlic
1/2 purple onion finely chopped
2-3 tsp dried basil
2-3 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp finely chopped fresh sage
1/2 tsp organic honey
2 cans organic diced tomato's

1 spaghetti squash

Preheat oven to 400°.  Heat oil in large pan over med to med low heat.  Add onions and sweat onions until translucent around 10 minutes.  Once onions turn translucent add garlic and saute for another few minutes, take care not to brown or burn the garlic, you are only trying to lightly soften it.  Add parsley and sage cook for another minute.  Add mixture to a large mixing bowl and set aside to cool.  Once mixture is cook, add sausage and ground beef.  Mix thoroughly, I use my hands just to ensure the all ingredients are well blended.  Form into meatball shape, I prefer them to be about golf ball size and this usually gives me about 2 dozen.  Tip:  Wet your hands in cold water, the meat mixture will stick to them less and meatballs will for easier.
Place meatballs in an ungreased 16" x 9" pan and bake for 30 minutes.  Adjust the time depending on the size of meatballs made.

Spaghetti Sauce:

Brown meat over med high heat.  I used ground turkey which required me to add some fat to the pan so I used my favorite coconut oil.  If I use beef I omit the oil.  Once a good carmilization starts to happen add the garlic and onion be sure to stir frequently so the garlic doesn't burn.  Once the meat is cooked add the herbs and combine.  As far as the tomatoes go, my family and I like the sauce to not have large tomato chunks so I use my handy dandy immersion blender to puree the tomatoes before adding.  Add the 2 cans sauce and all.  Now depending on how tomatoy (is that a word?) you like the sauce, you may need to add a bit of water to thin it out.  Be careful not to add too much because as the sauce simmers it will thin out a bit.  I simmer my sauce as long as it takes for the completion of the rest of the meal.  After the sauce begins to simmer I add the honey, this seems to mellow the tomato flavor.

Squash:

Cut the spaghetti squash in half lengthwise.  Grease the bottom of a glass baking dish with coconut oil.  I also grease the bottom and inside of the squash with the coconut oil and place cut side down in baking dish.  Bake at 375° for 40-45 minutes. You know when it's done when the the shell of the squash is soft.

This is always a great go to dinner for my family, it take a little extra prep work but it's well worth it.  And the leftovers are fantastic!  Enjoy!!

So here is was 11:50 am and I was preparing to make my kids some lunch when it hit me.  I have to cook dinner tonight (like every night) but what the heck am I going to make?  We had just finished the leftovers of the pork shoulder roast so that was out.  No ideas yet as I was turning circles in my kitchen wondering what I could do.  I did see that the clean dishes needed to be put away so I started to do that.  I grabbed the lid the the crockpot and it hit me like a ton of bricks.  Not the lid my dinner idea!  I'll make some soup.  I started taking a mental inventory of what groceries I had on hand to accoplish this little task and here is what I came up with:


4 chicken breasts (I used frozen ones-next time I willl use some bone in chicken thighs, the dark meat pieces tend to come out better in the crock pot)
1 purple onion finely chopped
4 garlic cloves minced
1 can organic diced tomatoes
1 zuccinni chopped
3/4 bag petite carrots which was probably around 3 cups of carrots.
2 medium sized sweet peppers chopped I used 1 yellow & 1 orange
1 can organic diced tomatoes
2 cups gluten free chicken stock preferrably low sodium
2 tsp dried basil
2 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp thyme
1 1/2 tsp paprika
fresh ground pepper
1 bay leaf
sea salt to taste
1-2 tbsp chopped Italian parsley

Place onions and garlic in crock pot first.  Chicken next followed by the herbs.  Veggies next and finally the canned tomatoes and stock.  Since my chicken was frozen solid and it being already noon I was concerned about it not being done in time for dinner.  I cooked my concoction on high for 3-4 hours then turned it to low to finish out the cooking time.  About an hour before serving I added a very small amount of sea salt.  Just before serving I shredded the chicken breasts into medium to large sized pieces and added some fresh chopped Italian parsley.  Enjoy!

I'm too healthy to be injured...or am I???

This is me screaming out of sheer frustration.  I've injured my back.  It sucks, I can't work out, it kills me to stand and cook, it kills me to sit.  I actually hurt it about 4 weeks ago and I just didn't allow it to get better.  As soon as it was feeling somewhat functional, I went back to the gym and tried to resume my workout routine.  Sunday night, my husband told me that if I tried to go back to the gym he would physically restrain me until it was better.  So I finally gave in and called the doctor.  He was nice enough to tell me that I had a severe back strain (duh) and I needed to rest it and take pain medication and muscle relaxants/antinflammatories.

I have 3 children all 3 were born by c-section.  My oldest was born severely premature and I was actually in labor for 3 days and didn't know it.  By the time it was discovered I was in labor I was about 7cm dilated.  Why am I telling you this???  No pain meds folks after my c-sections other than ibuprofen.  I have a very high tolerance to pain and to now be told I need to take this stuff so I can heal frustrates me to no end.  My diet has really been laxed, and I keep finding myself "cheating" on Halloween candy.  I attribute this cheating to the increased pain I've been experiencing over the last week.  No more "cheats" for me, I hate taking pain medication, I will give 110% to clean eating, increase my fish oil  and take the medication like a good patient but I'm really hoping that with good clean food I won't have to take the medication for very long.

Being injured sucks, and being in pain sucks even more.  Hopefully this will give me the ability to devote more time to get creative in the kitchen again.  Stay tuned!