One Day

I don't know about you, but I have 1 child who is super picky about what he eats. It drives us crazy. There have been many tears trying to get him to eat stuff at the table, and that's just from my husband and I! The most frustrating thing is that he will very rarely even TRY something. This is frustrating beyond belief, as you can well imagine. In any case, he doesn't get any special meals and often goes to bed having only eaten applesauce, or a slice of bread. BUT! This kid will eat pancakes! And, in fact, all 3 kids will eat them!!! That's a big score right there, amiright???? Pancakes is one of my most favorite breakfast foods to eat. I think I could easily eat pancakes every day. When I had to stop eating grains I was so discouraged. My favorite thing to eat in the mornings, or for brunch, or at a restaurant I could no longer eat. I sent myself on a mission to find pancakes I could eat. After about 5 years I do believe I have found the right recipe. The thing w...

Today is Labor Day in the US of A! Being away from any and all family we weren't entirely sure how we would celebrate. However, a family from church (who we've become friends) are going to join us at our house today for a picnic, although I'm guessing we'll eat inside as we have nothing to eat on outside! My husband is going to marinade and grill a roast, we'll have French fries, baked beans, a salad and dessert. I wanted to share my baked beans recipe with you. I LOVE baked beans. It's something I have always loved to eat, however, when my eating had to change I found that all canned baked beans come full of ingredients like high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, soy, cornstarch, wheat, etc. Folks, baked beans are NOT hard to make, and there is not reason to have all these crazy ingredients in them! In reality, these are simply fillers anyway. I was on the search for a baked bean recipe that I could make from scratch. A friend of mine passed one to me. I hav...

There are several ways in which to eat "Paleo." This diet is also commonly called the "Caveman Diet," which means you only eat what cavemen ate, or what we think they ate...Some people are very strict and don't do any starches or dairy, ONLY eating meat, fruit and veggies. We are a bit looser with it in our house. We have dairy (in moderation as dairy seems to have adverse effects on all 5 of us), and we eat potatoes/sweet potatoes as well as some beans (kidney, garbanzo, etc). We are OK with this. It works for us. It might not work for you. In any case, it's Monday and I have promised meal ideas! Oh, and sometimes I might not do meals...I might just do 1 dish, or side, or dessert. I'm leaving my options open. We love meat in our home. Sorry, no vegetarians here! In fact, when we lived in OH we would buy sides of beef every year. We still have a freezer full right now. We also eat a lot of chicken, because I can get it cheaply (and good quality) at Ald...

I'm trying to bring more order to my blog in attempts to help me remember the things I enjoy writing about, to help me come up with ideas each day and well, I'm a textbook Type A person and it just seems the thing to do. Mondays I hope to use to post some of our favorite meals, recipes, etc. Most of what I post will be GRAIN FREE , GLUTEN FREE , and  PALEO . I have a lot of dietary allergies and sensitivities, so as a family we tend to eat differently than most. I'm not going to go into my story again about why we eat this way. Nor do I think it's for everyone. In fact, in our family of 5 I'm the strictest because I NEED to be, but David and the kids are way more flexible. Also, please know we don't eat this way because we want to be part of a fad. We are about as far from "fad-followers" as you can get! HA! This is what we know is best for MY body and digestive track, and we find it's helpful for the rest of the family too. ANYWAY! All that to say...

I was having a discussion with my good friend about being on time. She said, "You are about my only friend who is always on time, or early. I just don't understand how you do that!" And, I gave her my ways, the things we do in our family to be on time. It was perplexing to me to think this was even something unfathomable to another person. I mean, it's just not hard. To me, anyway. That night I was thinking about it and realized she does something that I find unfathomable. She, and most of my other friends, can eat 1 or 2 pieces of chocolate, or 1 brownie (or a bite of brownie) and be fully satisfied. I. Can. Not. Do. This. I do not understand how a person does this! How can't your chocolate craving be satisfied until the bag of Hershey Kisses is gone, or the XL candy bar is devoured, or the pan of brownies is eaten? I do not understand. And, because of this not understanding, I am over 200 lbs and find myself needing to lose weight. I think this is why God ...

Change. It's hard. It's uncomfortable. It can be painful. It's rarely fun or looked forward to. Sometimes change is unexpected (like a death), other times it's expected and you have time to prepare (such as a new job). But, what about the changes you KNOW you need to make and you keep putting off? Well, my husband and I have been putting off change for a long time. We are fat. We are overweight. We are miserable. We must change. There's no other way around it. If we want to live a healthier and better life we must lose weight. We can't keep living the way we are.  A friend of ours introduced us to a weight loss program back before Christmas, I think. July of this year came and my husband said, "If you don't mind, I think I'm going to do it." Mind? Of course not!!!!! I don't mind at all!!!! He ordered his food and began his process of change. He's lost 35 lbs since he started the end of July!!  On the left is David's before ...

I am always trying to to find yummy, filling, and HEALTHY snacks for the kids. It's a tall order, as any mom can attest to. I mean, for like 1000 days they only want pretzels so you stock up and suddenly they don't want pretzels anymore. My kids like smoothies, but let's face it, making fruit and green smoothies gets costly. Especially when they want fruit for breakfast, lunch and supper! So, for something fun I decided to make them a chocolate "milkshake," which they excitedly said, "CHOCOLATE SMOOTHIES!!!!!" And, I think that's a much better description. They are easy to make and with the exception of the chia seeds and hemp seeds you more than likely have all the ingredients in the kitchen already. The chia and hemp seeds aren't hard to find either. I add them to add protein, omega-3s, fiber, and a lot of other healthy factors. My kids aren't dumb and if I were to hand them some chia or hemp seeds to just munch on they would quickly turn u...

In our family we eat a bit differently then a lot of people. I can't eat grain, soy or dairy, at all, and my husband and kids are, at the very least, gluten and dairy free. We don't eat a lot of grain in our house, and I have had to become more creative. I mean, even the ingredients I put into our meals have to be void of any kind of grain (like cornstarch, corn syrup, soy anything, etc). You'd be amazed the things that are hidden in common foods. We do a lot of shopping at Costco and have found some really great foods that are safe for me (us) to eat! One of those things is a really yummy kielbasa. You might be saying, "well, duh,"  but trust me, processed meat is REALLY hard to find w/out a bunch of additives in it! One day I'll do a post on the different things our family eats that are "clean" and without a bunch of added junk. It can get boring just grilling up kielbasa and eating it so I came up with this. I'm sure it's not overly origin...