Today for breakfast I had almond blueberry pancakes with scrambled eggs and orange juice. The pancakes weren’t anything special but since we can use a tad of maple syrup it made life much more wonderful.
Almond Blueberry Paleo Pancakes
I didn’t much feel like having lunch but I did have a snack of a pumpkin apple muffin and a deviled egg. (See Day 2 for the recipes)
Dinner was baked salmon topped with tomatoes, dill and garlic, steamed carrots and a spinach tangerine avocado pine nut salad (whew! that’s a mouthful) with an orange vinaigrette. This was very delicious and filling! Yum!
Baked Salmon
So far, I have not missed the gluten or sugar in my diet. Although thoughts of hot chocolate pop in my head every now and again. (smiling)Â
While I was driving around doing errands, a thought crossed my mind. “What a beautiful crisp sunny day. Maybe I should buy myself a hot chocolate.” Uh, no. Hot chocolate is not allowed on this diet because of the sugar content. Grrr …
Oh but back to day 3. Okay, so, today for breakfast I had the same turkey mixture as yesterday with a pumpkin and apple muffin and some grapes. (See Day 2 for recipes) It was nice to have leftovers so no additional work had to be done.
I got home quite late for lunch so ate 1.5 deviled eggs and some sunflower seeds. (Again, no pics because I have the pics and recipe on Day 2.)
Now here comes dinner — beef brisket with sweet potato (made with coconut milk) and stir fried mushrooms (with carrots and sauteed onions).
Beef brisket with mashed sweet potato and carrot salad
I don’t believe I’ve ever had beef brisket before. For some reason I thought it would be more tender but my husband said it came out exactly like it was supposed to (it’s not beef stew, ya know?)
After day 3 I’m still not having major cravings for bread or sweet “things.”
So here we are on day two of this new diet and although the first day was only dinner, today there were 3 meals that can be considered paleolithic.
For breakfast, I had a turkey, hmmm, what to call it? The ground turkey basically had added spices to it and then left in the refrigerator so that all I had to do was  cook it through. It was pretty simple and very filling. I had one over easy egg and a banana with it also. (Again, the recipe was tweaked so if  you don’t like turkey you can use something else.)
Paleolithic Breakfast, Ground turkey with spices, one egg over easy and a banana
Lunch was easier since I normally don’t have a large lunch anyway (I like to have popcorn but corn is not allowed on this diet). So, I decided to have a homemade pumpkin and apple muffin with pistachio nuts (normally they should be unsalted but I have to finish these off) and an orange. I also had a 1/2 glass of almond milk.
I have to say, this muffin was very very moist. I could eat them every morning!
We are allowed snacks on this diet (the muffin could be considered a snack). But I had one deviled egg for a snack before dinner (that’s half an egg) since I wasn’t starving to death.
Deviled Eggs
The diet prefers you use homemade mayonnaise or none at all, but the recipe called for 2 tablespoons mayonnaise and that’s what was used.
Lastly was dinner which was sauteed orange chicken with ginger. This came out really really moist! We also had caramelized onions with broccoli on the side. And I just had to have another pumpin and apple muffin.
Paleolithic Dinner, Sauteed Orange Chicken with Ginger
Overall, it was a splendid day! No starvation or hunger pangs yet. I did (for a teensy weensy moment) crave some bread to have with the chicken but the feeling was fleeting. Â (laughing)
Yesterday I wrote about trialling a paleolithic diet for a couple of weeks. On this diet, one has to eat very little salt. That isn’t too big of a deal for me since for many years I’ve used low salt due to having had hypertension.
Salt
But an article was forwarded to me recently regarding salt intake. It was written on June 12th of this year and I found it rather interesting as it says:
“…the evidence from studies published over the past two years actually suggests that restricting how much salt we eat can increase our likelihood of dying prematurely.”
Whoa! That would be a 360° turn around from what we have been told for so many years.
Read the article if you have a chance and let me know what you think. The author cites studies from the 1970’s and more recently.
So … I guess you’re wondering what a paleolithic diet is, eh? Here’s what Wiki has to say about it:
“The Paleolithic diet consists of foods that can be hunted and fished, such as meat, and seafood, and can be gathered, such as eggs, insects, fruit, nuts, seeds, vegetables, mushrooms, herbs and spices.”
No grains, legumes (e.g. beans and peanuts), dairy products (eggs are okay though), salt, nor refined sugar or processed oils are allowed.
Now the “why” of this sudden diet. Well, our son recently came to visit and he’s always playing around with different recipes and researched this particular diet and offered to cook for us. And guess what we said? Â “Why not?” Â So, he’ll be cooking for us every day and I’ll be posting pictures (and hopefully links to the recipes) of what we’ll be eating.
This diet will be quite different for me. I grew up eating a Puerto Rican diet which pretty much consisted of chicken, rice, beans and corn. That was the “poor” Puerto Rican diet. We did eat other things but that was our staple.
Then, when I became a Seventh-day Adventist as a young adult, I became vegetarian for 20 years or so. Later, when the children were grown, it came a little more difficult to be a vegetarian since my husband prefers some meat so I became a semi-vegetarian (I know, I know there’s no such thing but it’s a point of reference, i.e. some days we’d eat meat and other days we wouldn’t).
My son has tweaked some of the recipes a little so use your own creativity. Not being able to eat gluten means no bread, cereal, farina, etc. And no sugar … well, there goes my hot chocolate for a little while.
I’ll let you know how things go. The first day’s meal was dinner since we had to shop for the ingredients earlier in the day. And here it is …
This meal was great! The tuna didn’t taste like tuna to me but more like an actual steak (not as chewy though). The olive relish was also delicious as this diet is supposed to be low in sodium and the olives gave it some salt flavor. The carrot and squash stir fry and the asparagus with ginger were equally good.
First meal on a paleolithic diet was a success!
Have any of you ever been on this diet? If so, I’d be interested in how you liked it.
I tried — I really did try (okay okay, I only tried once) — to use gluten free pasta.
Why, you ask? Well, the chiropractor I go to told me that there are a lot of people who have problems with gluten and he thought I should try a gluten free diet for awhile. So the first thing I did when I left his office was head to a natural food store and buy myself some gluten free pasta.
The pasta I chose was made by Bionaturae.
Bionaturae Gluten Free Penne Rigate
It looks friendly enough, right?
I boiled it per the directions on the package but before I strained it, I tasted it. Ugh! It tasted quite hard still so I allowed it to boil 2 extra minutes. Uh, no … still tasted gritty and “funny.” So I let it boil 2 more minutes and tasted it again. (I had a gut feeling that dinner was going to be late …) Nope! So I boiled it two more minutes. And ya know what? It still didn’t taste good so I did what any normal gray haired Puerto Rican would do … I threw it out and grabbed a bag of “regular” pasta, boiled it and served it instead.
Whew! I’m glad I had some real stuff in my cupboard. The gluten free pasta looks harmless enough, it just didn’t taste very good … to me.
Gluten free pasta
I’m not saying I won’t try it again but am wondering if there’s anyone who knows of a better gluten free pasta I can try. Or, is it just a matter of getting used to the taste and texture?
Well, the old year went out with quite a bang in our family. A medical emergency caused me to take stock in what life is all about — people not things.
I pray all of you will have a wonderful new year filled with blessings overflowing (they are there you just have to open your eyes to notice them).
This year I’m hoping to spend more time learning how to eat healthier both physically and spiritually.
Right now, I’m still a tad bit tired from the three days spent at the hospital so I’m sharing a post about the new year that a friend of mine wrote. I hope you enjoy it and will be posting more soon. Blessings to you all!
I haven’t been posting lately as the holidays not only crept up on me but overtook me completely. As such, yesterday was Christmas for my immediate family. Yes, I know it was the 27th and typically Christmas is celebrated on the 25th of December but we were visiting the extended family and put ours on hold (if there’s such a thing as putting Christmas on hold).
Next year I want to stay home and celebrate our own traditions. It’s nice to see extended family over the holidays but it feels like we are always the ones sacrificing our time to run hither and thither to some family event that takes us hours away from home.
What did I have under the tree this year? Well, I got a new Brothers sewing machine. This is an experiment on my part as I did not grow up sewing much. However, there are curtains that need hemming and “simple” new curtains that I hear can be made easily so I put the sewing machine on my list. We’ll see how that project goes.
I also received a nice purple sweater, a faux fur vest that’s reversible, a new cookbook called “The New Way to Cook Light” (yeah!), a Hamilton Beach hand blender and a  Timex heart rate monitor (more on this another day but think healthy!). In addition, one of my son’s gave my husband and I a 3 night stay at a resort in northern Minnesota. Ooooo ….  (lol)  I figure we can use that closer to March when it’s not as nippy outside.
I won’t have much time to check out all of my gifts until the new year starts as I have end of year paperwork to work on. You know the kind — moving old files to the basement and starting new files …
Then I have to put away all the Christmas ornaments and take down the tree.
One thing I like to do is go through the cards that I received during the holidays and reply to the people who shared their joys and sorrows with me in letters. I also cut out the front of most cards and use them as labels for next year’s gifts — an elderly friend of mine taught me that “trick” many years ago. “Why buy labels when you have these pretty cards to use?” she told me. (Funny thing is, I think she was my age when she shared that with me … so why use the word elderly? hehe)
Today will be a ho hum day of laundry, snow shoveling (we received a couple more inches of snow), cleaning the fireplace and regular cleaning. Ho hum.
Next year I hope to have some new recipes to share from my new cookbook. But I have to get to work now … duty calls!
Our family from Fargo recently came to visit for a belated Thanksgiving dinner that our son was preparing and they arrived bearing Christmas gifts.
A quick glimpse at an unwrapped box showed a bird on the side. Â Hmmm … The box was whisked away to the basement though. Ah well, guess I have to wait to see what the surprise is.
When I woke up the next morning, the box was sitting on the kitchen counter. For those who don’t know, when I wrap gifts I wrap them in boxes that are much larger than the gift inside or in a shoe box with something other than shoes inside. I like surprising people although it seems like most people know I try to trick them so it’s not as much fun anymore.
This box actually had — a bird feeder! My mother-in-law bought it for me and my husband. She always picks out appropriate gifts. Here’s a picture of it under our Christmas tree …
Wingscapes Bird Feeder
Oh, what’s that you say? You can’t see it very well? Well, here’s a closer view …
Wingscapes Bird Feeder
It sure is purr-ty, no? Besides the beauty it has, it also has a timer so you can train your birds to feed when you are around to see them. AND it’s squirrel proof. Yeah!
Here’s a picture of the box it came in … See the birds on the bottom of the box? That’s what I saw when the box was whisked in.
Yes, I know Christmas isn’t here yet but I like to enjoy the last week before Christmas without all the hustle and bustle that the rest of the days seem to embrace.
This year we purchased a different kind of Christmas tree — a white pine. It’s needles are longer and the color of the tree is a deep deep green. Very pretty. When we bought our tree a couple of weeks ago we were told that it is more “delicate” than the fir trees as the branches are a lot thinner. Sure enough, I had to use my smaller ornaments on this tree but did manage to place a few larger ornaments towards the middle of the tree where the branches were just a tad thicker.
White Pine Christmas Tree
The tree drinks a LOT of water. Every morning I pour three 16 ounce glasses of water in the tree stand. I had asked a friend of mine if this is normal (he’s 80 years old and has been around the block a few times) and he told me I was worrying about it too much. He said that he and his wife used to buy live trees 3 weeks before Christmas and they never watered them.
Oh — well, I guess I am worrying about nothing. It’s time to put my feet up, sit back and just enjoy the season, eh?
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