Real Food

Yesterday was a whirlwind of cooking that felt like it lasted all day, but in reality only took a few hours.  We are at the point of snippy-ness in our Whole30 (no, that isn't actually a thing in their book) and both the hubby and I were constantly throwing snide remarks back and forth.  At one point I even labeled a seasoning we made “Jerk aka Kyle Seasoning.” Yes, we can get immature, but at the end of the day we had made chili, ground meat and spinach “muffins”, paleo ketchup and mayo, and dinner for the night of chicken burgers with butter lettuce “buns” and sautéed asparagus. Please note that all the mentioned recipes besides the chicken burgers come from Well Fed or Well Fed 2.  Both are amazing cookbooks helping us on our journey and teaching us to get creative in the kitchen!

Scotch eggs with sauteed green beans and mashed cauliflower (a Well Fed dish from last week, but delicious).

The home stretch of our cooking journey last night.

The remnants of the ground beef and spinach muffins.  I used some of the leftovers with my eggs this morning!

A horrible shot of the "muffins" that will be snacks this week. My man is a big dude and seems to need food all the time!

Along with cranking out a bunch of meals for both dinner and lunch this week, we did our traditional grocery shopping outing.  Now, I know you’re thinking “shopping on a weekend is not the brightest idea, especially at Costco,” but Saturdays are usually the only days we both have off from work and also when we are actually running low on food.  Yesterday was a bit different than most excursions to the scary land of Costco on a Saturday.  We got up early to get there closer to when they opened.  Okay, so it wasn't early being that we got there around 10:30, but you can’t believe how different it is before the late risers get there!

Not only is it less crowded, but people move faster than turtle pace and their carts are full of nutritious items as opposed to the chocolate covered almonds, 24 packs of pop/soda,  frozen chicken nuggets, etc. that we normally see piled high later on a Saturday.  This got me wondering if healthier people have more energy (which the book claims) and therefore easily make it to Costco earlier in the day and then buy nutritious items as opposed to the processed crap that is usually falling over the brim of the cart.  Now, I haven’t done a scientific study, but maybe there is a correlation here. 

Here's our Costco cart filled with organic eggs, raspberries, organic chicken stock, wild canned salmon, organic ground beef, avocados, organic spinach, cauliflower, garlic, lamb leg, and pepper.

And part of our Good Food Store purchase.  We get the majority of veggies that aren't organic at Costco at the Good Food Store.

The point being is that it feels so good to only have meats, fruits and veggies in your cart and to see others with the same thoughts/routines.  I plan on going early to Costco from this point on! Luckily our bill this week was half of what it was last week, because we weren't stocking up on things such as avocado oil, coconut oil, almond flour, etc. that usually last at least a month. Also what’s different this week is that we ordered grass fed meat online from US Wellness Meats as suggested by the Well Fed cookbooks.  If you are what you eat, then I don’t want to be a hormone and E. Coli ridden steak or an inhumanely treated chicken breast! 

I’ll let you know what we think of the meat, especially the beef bacon free of nitrates/nitrites and no extra sugar additives such as honey, high fructose corn syrup, and even evaporated cane juice.  The hubby is definitely excited to have some bacon with his breakfasts!

Other than prepping a ton of food for the week, we are going swing dancing tonight at the Missoula Winery.  The Ed Norton big band plays there every second Sunday of the month.  It’s going to be a blast!

Until next time…