Brown Bagging It.

With everyone on a tight budget, we're seeing more brown bag lunches these days. Every weekend I take some time to cook several dishes for the week. A breakfast casserole for easy re-heating in the morning, and some baked chicken for Adam to take for lunch each day.

Chicken for the Week:
1 Bag of frozen chicken breasts-thawed
Steak Seasoning
Salt & Pepper
Worcestershire Sauce
Soy Sauce
Dijon Mustard-about a Tablespoon
Minced Garlic-about a Tablespoon
Red Wine Vinegar
Balsamic Vinegar
Place chicken breasts in a greased baking dish. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and steak seasoning.
In a glass measuring cup put equal parts of each sauce until you reach 1/2 cup. Just eyeball it, don't worry about exact measurements!
Pour the sauce over the chicken.Bake at 375º for 40 minutes

You have chicken for 5 days. If you brown bag your lunch you could save $50 a week!
More from my paleo kitchen soon!

Chili Rellenos Redo...

...complete with pictures, and meat!

1 lb. steak, cubed
4 large Poblano Peppers
1 each red and yellow pepper, kiced
3 T. corn, peanut, or vegetable oil
1 red onion, chopped
1 Jalapeno, seeded and chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 15 oz. can fire roasted diced tomatoes, well drained
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
salt and pepper
1 lime
1 Cup of Monterrey Jack cheese, grated.

Preheat Broiler
Place poblanos under broiler and char evenly all over. 15 minutes ( I forgot to photograph the poblanos)While peppers are working, heat 3T. oil in a skillet over high heat. When the oil smokes or ripples add onion, peppers, and jalapenos until vegetables char at edges and onion are tender, 4 to 5 minutes. Add in sliced steak and brown, about 4 more minutes. Reduce heat to medium-high and add in garlic, tomatoes and season with cumin oregano, salt and pepper. Cook another minute or two and turn pan off.Sprinkle 1 lime juice over the mixture.
Split the charred peppers open with small sharp knife then scoop out seeds with small spoon. Place peppers in shallow baking dish and stuff each split pepper with lots of the mixture, top each with cheese and place back under broiler to melt and char the cheese.
This dish is great to make and eat on for a few days, they heat up well in the microwave!

Beef Spare Ribs-Grass Fed :)

It's a rainy Thursday here. The dogs don't even want to get up to go "potty". My house is a disaster. Every single room has a mess. Every. Single. Room.
I work from home so I am in the mess 24/7. I try to barricade myself into my office and not look. The new year has been so busy I can't believe January is over, or that somehow December is over! Oh well, I will get to my mess soon and then start to build up a new one!

Last night we had Beef Spare Ribs from the crock pot. It was the easiest thing I could manage. Meat from the freezer thrown in the crock pot. We ate it in between nightly activities, standing at the counter. I could barely get a picture in before we devoured them-they were that good!

Season up the ribs on each side with a good steak seasoning. I also threw on some of Dixie's Spice Blend. A gift from a neighbor.Place the ribs into the crock pot and put about one inch of water in the bottom. Drop in two garlic cloves.
Cook on high for the first 4 hours then low for the remaining. Ours cooked for a total of 6 hours and were fall off the bone good. If you are not going to be home, start the crock pot on high then before you leave switch it to low and let them cook all day.
After they are done, if you have more time, slather them with some paleo BBQ sauce (that means it has no sugar) and throw on the grill for a good crispy outside.We did not have sides for this meal we simply scarfed down the meat and ran out the door.
Enjoy! More from my paleo kitchen soon!

Meatball Soup

and we're back... with paleo friendly meatball soup. Good for these cold days we're having. Whip up a batch and eat on it for a couple meals.

Ingredients:
3 T. olive oil
1 medium onion, minced
3 celery stalks, thinly sliced
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 (14.5 oz.) can crushed tomatoes, with juice
1 box beef broth
2 teaspoons oregano
3 Tablespoons of basil
1 teaspoon each salt & pepper
1 egg
1 lb. ground beef
1 cup Parmesan cheese
2 Tablespoons of steak seasoning
1/4 cup flax seed meal
3 cups baby spinach


Directions:
Heat 3 T. olive oil in dutch oven or soup pot.
Add in onion and celery, and cook until soft, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and cook 1 minute. Add crushed tomatoes and their juices, beef broth, 1 teaspoon oregano, 2 teaspoons basil, and 1/2 t. salt. Bring to a simmer.

While the soup simmers make the meatballs. In a bowl combine ground beef, egg, 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, flax seed meal, 1 teaspoon oregano, 1/2 t. salt and 1 t. pepper, and steak seasoning. Mix with your hands until well combined.
Divide into tablespoons and roll into smooth firm balls. As you work gently drop the meatballs into the soup.

Add in 1/4 cup Parmesan, spinach and remaining basil and simmer for 20 minutes until meat is cooked through.
Sprinkle with Parmesan and serve.

I'll get a picture sometime soon, just a little behind this week. Enjoy!

The Animals I LOVE...

...first and foremost are Jackie and Cooper. Until the real thing comes along these two are my children.
Adam adopted Cooper from the Lee County Humane Society, in Auburn Alabama. Adam and his roommate Doug went down just "to look" and came home with this little guy. He's the one with the huge ears on top of Hooch. He was found on the side of the road in Auburn and Adam just could not resist. We've had cooper for almost 4 years now. He is our "high maintenance child". He get's anxiety which means he shakes and whines. We think he might have some Basenji in him and that breed is known to whine. Cooper has lots of energy, he's always up for going on a walk and he loves to sleep on either the couch or our bed, both of which are rare treats. But that does not stop him from putting his front paws up on our bed and trying to persuade us to let him up! He is very protective, he must make several swipes of the backyard throughout the day (unless it's cold) to make sure everything is in order.Once we had Cooper a year we decided to look for a second dog. For those of you who don't know me personally I am a big advocate of this. Dogs are pack animals and want constant love and attention and humans cannot provide that for them. With two dogs together they find constant companionship and are not ever lonely and afraid if you have to leave them for extended periods of time. Just imagine being locked in a cage alone for 10 hours a day... then imagine if your best friend was there with you, it would make it much more enjoyable and warm!

We found Jackie through Pit Prints, a local Pit Bull rescue organization. Adam is very passionate about the mis-treatment of this breed and wanted to support by giving a pit bull a loving healthy home. Jackie has returned that love and then some! We adopted her in March and fostered her brother-who we named Kelso. For the week we had them both the party never stopped around here. I was chasing two puppies in two different directions, it was wild. Kelso was placed in a home and we quickly fell in love with our new baby Jackie. She has a really spunky personality that demands attention when she wants it and avoids it when she doesn't. When she was cold in the winter she would sit next to this heating vent.She loves Cooper more than anything in the world but if he's getting attention she bumps him out of the way for some love! We call her "fat head" for obvious reasons and she can bang into anything without flinching. She is fiercely loyal and obedient both characteristics of her breed.Nothing like a cold beer on a hot day of tailgating.I have no idea how she finds this comfortable but on a car ride she will scoot her head to the center console to be as near us as possible.Jackie loves car rides and loves to look out the window during the day.
If you have reservations about the Pit Bull breed I encourage you to look at Jackie and Cooper as examples of a dogs who were raised right and have never so much as growled at another human. They sit patiently on the floor with small children and let them pull at their ears endlessly. Pit Bulls love humans, love attention and only want to please their owners.Here is our Christmas Card from this year that never got mailed!
The dogs first beach experience at Fort DeSoto Park in Tampa.

Here is one last animal-FRANK! We started feeding some kittens from next door a few months ago. We named this little guy Frank and his sister who looked like his twin Beans! Frank has found a permanent home with my parents out in Lawrenceville where he has 5 acres to roam and explore. I just love this picture. This cat is very vocal when he wants food or love. Now he is grown and if you open my parents front door Frank comes running down the driveway for some attention.

I am an animal lover all the way through. Thanks for reading about my babies and if you are interested in getting a pet I encourage you to look at adoption first!
I have a new Paleolithic recipe in the works so we'll get back on track soon!

Starting A New Year

I'm here faithful blog readers. December has by far been our busiest month and I have not had time to try out any new recipes to blog about!
I thought I would give you a little year in review. I have really enjoyed going through this years pictures and my dayplanner to remember all the fun times we've had. I am very blessed to have such good friends and family!

January Adam took helicopter flying lessons.February we celebrated Adam's 26th birthday and started planning our Kitchen renovation.March we went to the Billy Joel-Elton John concert to celebrate my mom's birthday.

April brought more kitchen renovations and a trip to Steeplechase with the Magnolia Arms girls.

May we completed our kitchen renovations and took a trip to Panama City to celebrate our friends wedding with a joint bachelor/bachelorette weekend.

June Doug and Pam tied the knot in Auburn and we joined Crossfit Peachtree

July we took a trip to Melbourne Florida, where Adam is from.

August we took a trip to NYC and the Hamptons with the Mag Arms to visit the Suzer.
We also celebrated Crawford and Christin's American wedding.

September we traveled to Charlotte for Adam's crossfit certification.

October took us to Muss & Turner's to celebrate the crossfit certification

November we traveled to Jacksonville for the FL/UGA game.

December was by FAR our busiest month!
I traveled to NYC to help Suzanne set up her new apartment
We both traveled to Charlotte to celebrate Jon's graduation with his MBA from Wake Forrest
Christmas took us to Auburn for a day and our two other families visited us here at our home.
We then traveled to the Blue Ridge Mountains to ring in the new year with some friends.
Looking back I have been able to do so much this year. Spend time with friends and family and travel to SO many places, this year one of my resolutions is to take more time at home (not on big projects) and take fewer trips! It has been one busy year.

It snowed last night and I carefully drove Adam to Marta this morning for his 3rd day at his new job with CTS. Here is one of my favorite snow pics from last year. Here is my tough pit bull Jackie in her first snow experience. My dogs are such sissys who love their warm comfy crate!