Sunday Funday...

     Sunday again... that means more planning, more batch cooking, and more blogging. Keeping it super simple this week on the food thing: Breakfast as usual, lunches will be mostly leftovers (as there always seems to be some of those around!),and two tasty recipes that we will alternate between. Crockpot Chicken Tikka Masala, and Dawn's friend Melinda gave us a recipe for a deconstructed stuffed cabbage that we made a huge batch of!
     For the cabbage we used one head of green cabbage chopped into bite-sized pieces, one large yellow onion diced, 3 cups canned crushed tomato, 2lbs ground beef, and 2lbs ground turkey. We seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic, tamari, and a small amount of steak seasoning. (The recipe called for Worcestershire sauce but I didn't have any, so used the steak seasoning instead. Super simple: brown onions, add the meat, brown that, add the cabbage, sautee to your liking, add tamari, add tomatoes, season to taste. YUM! (This yielded 8 large dinner sized portions) No pics this week because I'm not sure if anyone is even looking at this enough to take the pics! (comments are helpful).
     Chicken tikka masala is from an online paleo crockpot recipe (http://popularpaleo.com/2013/03/20/slow-cooker-chicken-tikka-masala/). It's slow cooking as we speak. I made a couple adjustments to this one for our preferences. Dawn is not a fan of chicken thighs (which I love haha) so we used boneless skinless breasts cut into small chunks. Also, the only food she will says she will absolutely not eat in any form is coconut, so we substituted the coconut milk for a bit of sour cream that was left in the fridge that I thinned out a bit with some almond milk. We'll see how my lactose intolerance handles that one!
     On the snack side of things, Dawn likes greek yogurt a lot, so we get a big ol' box of it at Costco which lasts her a few weeks, but I'm finding that my stomach is even having trouble with the pricey non-dairy yogurts these days, so I'm trying a new treat this week that our Crossfit coach gave us for a simple paleo chocolate mousse that keeps the sugar low and helps to work in the healthy fats: 1 can whole fat coconut milk (chilled, then liquid part removed), 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder, and optional 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract. Whip this combination with a hand mixer (I will be using my kitchenaid stand mixer) until it reaches the thick fluffy mousse-like consistency and store in an airtight container. Other snacks we will be having this week: 100 calorie packs of almonds, an apple a day, and my new found favorite- sugar snap peas!
    It's not even noon yet, but everything is done for the week and put into the mass of tupperwares that take over the freezer every Sunday. Now the oven is self-cleaning (smoky stinky grossness thanks to bacon splatter) and we are getting geared up to go for a hike with an amazingly inspiring healthy friend! (Yes Ginger... that means you!)

     Please leave a comment or some indication that this thing is reaching someone out there so we know where to go with it or if we should write more or less often, or even at all. Thanks!
     -Jamie