sweet peas and other things » the family behind sweet pea photography

Guess what we got to eat today????

Sundays are always busy days for us, since we’re usually serving at church services in the morning (Sky playing guitar in praise band, and Allyson singing or doing dramas), so breakfasts usually fall by the wayside… especially because the main breakfasty-item at church is donuts…But that just means that we try to make up for that weak meal with a super-tasty lunch and supper!

Breakfast : 1/2 apple, yogurt, coffee, water

Lunch : Mustard-Lime Chicken and grilled avocados (delicious!), fruit salad (strawberries, bananas, grapes, kiwi, peach yogurt, and sliced almonds), a handful of broccoli with hummus, water

Snack : a glass of water and two mini Apricot-Lemon muffins (my recipe is below, and it’s based on this recipe from elanaspantry.com — I didn’t want to use cranberries because they only ones we had in the house were Craisins, which are loaded with sugar)… and I also licked the delicious batter off the spoon, and bowl, and mixer from these super-yummy Sunflower-Seed-Butter Brownies (again, recipe is below, based on this recipe from elanaspantry.com)

Dinner : milk, spinach salad with feta and balsamic vinegar, and AWESOME Paleo Pizza (recipe below is from CrossFitChron.blogspot.com, with our adjustments… and it is FANTASTIC!! Way better than anything you can buy at the store, and probably even better than our usual homemade wheat-crust pizza.  The crust was perfect – just the right amount of crunch – and I wanted to have a third slice, but decided against it because I’m going to go to the Mo tonight!)

Bedtime snack : will probably be a Sun-butter brownie and a glass of milk!

Apricot-Lemon muffins

2 cups blanched almond flour
½ teaspoon celtic sea salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup dried apricots, chopped
½ cup melted butter
3 eggs
1/4 cup agave nectar
1/4 cup honey
2 Tbsp. lemon juice

Mix dry ingredients together, including apricots. Mix wet ingredients together and add to dry ingredients. Bake at 350* for 25-30 minutes. Makes 12 muffins.

Sunflower Butter Brownies

1 (16) ounce jar Trader Joe’s sunflower seed butter
2 eggs
1 cup agave nectar
1/4 cup honey
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
½ cup cocoa powder
½ teaspoon celtic sea salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 squares baking chocolate (unsweetened cocoa)

Mix sun butter, agave, honey, vanilla, eggs. Mix together cocoa powder, sea salt, and baking soda; add to wet mixture. Chop up baking chocolate and fold into batter. Spread batter in greased 9×13 pan (it will be REALLY thick). Bake at 325* for 35-40 mins. (or I put them in the oven after I made the muffins, and it was still around 350*… so I just baked them for 25 mins.)

Paleo Pizza

Crust:
1 cup almond flour
1/4 cup chopped pecans
3 egg whites

Sauce:
1 small can tomato paste
1 Tbsp. olive oil
Oregano and garlic salt to taste

Toppings:
Italian sausage
Green olives
Calamata olives
Grilled chicken
Provolone cheese (we were out of mozzarella)
Oregano and Garlic salt to taste

Mix together crust ingredients and spread on a cookie sheet, about 1/4 inch thick. Bake at 350* for 10 minutes. Then spread sauce and toppings over crust and bake for an additional 10-15 minutes.

Since we’re in the second half of this month-long (or longer?) diet, and I’m continuing to get questions from people about it, I thought I’d offer a quick refresher.  As I mentioned in my first post about our diet this month, I’m calling it a paleo* (with an asterisk) adventure because we’re doing an adapted paleo diet. The strict paleo diet includes only meat, nuts, most fruits/veggies (and excludes dairy as well as many other foods like legumes, grains, sugars, various oils, etc.).  Our family is simply attempting to eliminate grains and sugars from our diet.

If you click on the links within my posts, it takes you to the recipes that I’m using as a starting point for the foods (like the almond-flour chocolate chip cookies) we’re eating, which you will see are mostly sugar-free (I’m using agave nectar instead of sugar, but am also starting to try substituting honey instead of agave in recipes), grain-free (usually made with almond flour), and sometimes dairy-free as well.  Again, if the recipe link DOES include any of the no-no ingredients, I have substituted agave nectar or honey for the sugar, almond flour for the grain flour, unsweetened 100% cocoa for the chocolate, and other non-grain, non-sugar substitutes.  If you have questions about recipes, how we feel on this diet, or anything else – please ask! I might not know all the answers from a strict paleo perspective, but I can certainly answer from our experience!  Okay… on to today…

Breakfast : one egg omelet with parmesan and some of the leftover almond-crusted tilapia from last night, one banana, a small fruit salad (strawberries, pineapple, apple), water, and coffee

Lunch : one meat and cheese roll-up (5 slices ham, 1 slice provolone), 5 big strawberries, about 1 c. snap peas with hummus, water, 3 almond-flour chocolate chip cookies

Snack : one almond-flour chocolate chip cookie

Dinner : one jalapeno polish sausage (no bun of course), fruit salad (strawberries, bananas, kiwi, blueberries, yogurt), lots of snap peas and carrots with hummus, water, 3 almond-flour chocolate chip cookies for dessert.  This was the first dinner in a while that I missed being able to just throw a Tombstone pizza in the oven and be done with it… It was a long day, and that sounded so easy and yummy, but thankfully I didn’t have any pizza in the freezer to tempt me!  So I decided that tomorrow we’re going to make paleo pizza for supper!

Bedtime snack : will probably be a few more almond-flour chocolate chip cookies, and a glass of milk…

Oh, and today was also grocery shopping day!!  I was excited to hear about a 10-for-10 sale on strawberries at Meijer, so Eden and I stopped there first thing this morning… and then I was doubly-excited to see the 10-for-10 was also get the 11th one free AND mix-and-match with avocados!  So I got…

8 pints of strawberries
3 avocados
2 bunches of bananas
fresh cilantro
3 roma tomatoes
green onions
green grapes
3 kiwi
2 bags of broccoli
1 bag baby spinach
2 bags baby carrots
3 plums
1 bag granny smith apples
1 big bag of sliced almonds
honey
2 gallons milk (whole and skim)
yellow mustard
lime juice
2 containers of hummus
1 jar shredded parmesan
1 pkg. sliced provolone
vanilla extract
sour cream
12 cups light generic yogurt
8 cups light activia yogurt
2 pkg. dried apricots
2 bags of frozen chicken breasts
1 pkg. frozen salmon
1 family-size pkg. pork chops
1 family-size pkg. ham lunch meat
18 eggs

Total : about $130

Breakfast : a tasty omelet (one egg, a splash of milk, salt & pepper, 1/2 avocado, 5 sliced calamata olives, feta cheese), one zucchini-blueberry muffin, 1 c. milk

Lunch : one jalapeno polish sausage with guacamole (1/2 avocado + seasoning salt), 5 big strawberries, a handful of sugar snap peas with hummus, a glass of milk

Dinner : this Mustard Lime Chicken (AWESOME), spinach fruit salad (baby spinach, strawberries, kiwi, cuties, sliced almonds, this dressing), water

Bedtime snack : 1 c. cottage cheese with some blueberries, water

Oh, and my 25 pounds of almond flour arrived today, all in one big bag in a box.  I got it here, and the bulk price was about 40% less than the 5-lb.-bag price (and this is pretty pricey stuff to begin with) that it was definitely worth spending the time bagging it myself.  So I spent part of the morning separating it out into gallon-sized ziplock bags, and put all but one bag in the freezer for storage. That means tomorrow I get to bake some more cookies!