Victory Cheat

Though today was really about the food at our house, I will give a quick summary of our day since I know that the grandmas enjoy hearing about the kids.  Austin brought his loom to school today as promised.  He stood at the front of the classroom and demonstrated how to make a bracelet.  He gave the finished product to his teacher. Suck up! He was really upset because he forgot to show everyone the sample he brought.  However, he was beyond thrilled that he was able to show his whole class something he loves so much; and for that, I will be forever grateful to his teacher. Peyton had dance class today.  There is nothing quite like watching four year olds try to tap to Mambo #5. Her recital is in June, and let me tell you, there is A LOT of work to be done.  We get a CD with the recital music next week so we can practice at home.  I cannot wait.  I think it will be hysterical.  Brayden spent the day bouncing away in his jumperoo and smiling. My sweet, five month old baby boy hardly napped today but was still as smiley as ever.  I am so incredibly fortunate to have these three amazing kids who make me laugh and smile and scream everyday. 

I got on the dreaded scale this morning, and it said 126.0. Woohooo! I lost 2.2lbs while eating bacon, avocado, olive oil, etc.  I never felt hungry and though I certainly craved some processed foods, for the most part, I really didn't want to actually eat them.  In celebration of my victory, I decided to make my first "real" Paleo cheat.  I found a recipe in a magazine for flourless chocolate cake and with the exception of the 2/3 cup of sugar everything else was Paleo friendly.  Since the dessert seemed fancy, I wanted to make a real meal to go with it.  Meaning, I wanted to make something from scratch. I remembered that I bought grass fed ground beef yesterday, so I put spaghetti and meatballs on the menu for tonight. I used a Paleo recipe for the meatballs, but made my mom's famous sauce.

I crave my mother's spaghetti and meatballs at least six times a year, and it is almost always the meal I request for my birthday dinner.  It is also the meal Austin requests for his birthday dinner.  Unfortunately, I could not make mom's meatballs because they have both bread and cheese in them, but her sauce is Paleo approved.  My sauce never tastes as good as hers' though because her recipe literally says A LOT of basil.  Well, what does that mean?  A lot to me may not be a lot to her or vice versa.  I always get nervous making it for this reason.  I actually only had to call her once today and that was just to ask if the sauce needed to be covered while simmering, which it does. 

So without further adieu...my day of eating.

Breakfast: I was bad and only had coffee again which is why I was ready for lunch by 10:00am.  I really need to be better about this. 

Lunch: I had the leftover chicken soup at 10:00am, and it was fabulous.  I think the flavors melded even more.  I cannot wait to have a whole chicken again, so I have a reason to make stock and this soup.

Dinner: I started the sauce at 1:30pm because it needs to simmer for 3 hours.  This sauce recipe is crazy easy. You open cans and measure out spices...the end.  It maybe takes five minutes to prepare.  Then you just simmer it covered and stir it very often to keep all the spices from sinking to the bottom and burning.  The meatballs were very easy too. I mixed them together around 2:00pm and put the bowl in the fridge so that the flavors would meld.  About 30 minutes before eating, I rolled them into balls and fried them in oil about 4 minutes a side. I then salted them lightly while draining them on paper towels and put them in the sauce to finish cooking.   I made garlic bread and noodles for Paul and the kids, roasted broccoli for all of us, and salads for Paul and I.  The kitchen was a disaster, but the food looked and smelled so good that I didn't care.  I strongly suggest that instead of buying store bought sauce you make a batch of this sauce. I'm telling you, it is awesome and one batch makes a ton!  It freezes very easily and still tastes just as good after defrosting it.

Cathi's Famous Sauce

2 lg cans of whole tomatoes

1 lg can tomato puree

1 lg can tomato sauce

1 can tomato paste

2T oregano

2T parsley flakes

A LOT of garlic powder

A LOT of basil

 

 * Mix all ingredients in a large pot and simmer covered for 3 hrs while stirring often. I do suggest buying all of the same brand tomatoes as some brands vary in taste. 

 

Here is the finished product after we ate dinner, so there is a lot gone. However, I would guess we still have enough for 2-3 more meals. 

 

Here is a picture of the packaging for the grass fed beef from Mariano's. It was actually pretty reasonably priced. It was $5.99 for the package.

 

Meatball Recipe

1lb ground beef, grass fed preferred

1/2 teas salt

1/4 teas black pepper

1 teas dried basil

1 teas dried oregano

2-3 garlic cloves, minced

* Mix all ingredients together and let meld for at least an hour. Fry meatballs and finish in sauce or immediately drop into sauce and let cook for 10-15 minutes.

 

My dinner: Salad, roasted broccoli, 4 meatballs and a vat of sauce to use for dipping.  I needed to refill my sauce bowl.  If it was socially acceptable, I would drink the sauce. That's how good it is. 

 

What the kids ate for dinner tonight:

Austin

1. Dinner time 5:30pm: 4 meatballs, noodles with sauce, 2 pieces of garlic bread, a large helping of broccoli and a glass of milk. Comments: " You are the best cooker ever, Mom." " I want to eat this everyday." He also told me that he couldn't help but eat fast and want a lot because it all tasted so good.
2. 6:15pm: Half of a flourless chocolate cake with some strawberry Greek frozen yogurt.
3. 6:25pm: 2 more meatballs with sauce and another piece of garlic bread

Peyton:

1. Dinner time: 1 meatball, noodles with sauce, broccoli, 1/2 piece garlic bread and a glass of milk.  Comment: "Mommy, these noodles with sauce are sooo yummy!"
2. 6:15pm: Same as Austin from above. Comment:" Mommy, you are the best mommy ever because you make this cake and let us eat it." I also got a hug.
3. 6:25pm: more noodles sans sauce. The sauce would have slowed her down. She just wanted to shove noodles into her mouth by the fistfuls. Note: They were whole grain noodles.

I guess the kids enjoyed the meal tonight too. My bet is that if I would have let them, they would have kept on eating. I may make this every night from now on based on the accolades my children gave me tonight. Austin's main concern was that if he didn't eat it it would go to waste. Once I informed him that we'll have it for lunch tomorrow, he seemed very relieved.

 

Snacks/dessert: I had a Dove dark chocolate from the bank today.  I sucked on it, and it lasted a long time! Then, tonight I indulged in a half of a flourless cake.  It was so incredibly good but also so incredibly rich. It had the consistency of a truffle.  I felt so fancy eating it. I left the other half on the counter to eat later with some coffee, but my wonderful husband, who does the dishes every night, threw it away thinking I was finished.  I am not complaining though. 1. He does the dishes. 2. I have three more cakes in a container on my counter.  I most likely will have another half at some point tonight. As much as I enjoyed it, I did miss some sort of ice cream to go with it to balance out the richness of the cake.  I think a vanilla bean ice cream would be life changing with this cake.  If you want to stay as Paleo as possible heavy whipping cream is allowed on the 80/20 lifestyle plan, so you could make a whip cream to top it instead of ice cream.

 

It was actually really easy to make and took about 10 minutes total to prep and only 15 minutes to bake.  The "cheat" with this recipe is that it calls for 2/3 cup of sugar. I only added 1/3 cup and thought it was still plenty sweet.  When I make this again I may try to substitute honey for the sugar. Though they tasted good, they did not photograph well at all. I think ice cream and some chocolate sauce would make it much more presentable. 

This is a whole cake. I could only eat half of this due to it's richness.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed my day of fabulous eating.  Tomorrow I think I might try a homemade tomato soup, or we may just eat leftovers.  Either way, I am sure it will be a day filled with adventure and good food.

XOXO