Practical Paleo - the book and the 'art of'...

Last week I got a copy of 'Practical Paleo' by Diane Sanfilippo.  I just love it.  It's full of colour and inspiration and very simple and easy explanations for why I do what I do with food and eating.  Get on it.

Coincidentally, last week I also fell face-first into a pile of icecream.  I think it was a whole bunch of stress spilling out around the edges, coupled with my despair about a new injury that was stuffing about with my training goals.

But a bunch of icecream didn't actually make me feel better.  De-stressing and simplifying my life a little bit and getting on to a treatment plan for my knee did. 

One of the best parts of going Paleo, in my opinion, is getting creative - or 'the art' of preparing delicious and healthy food.  Being a busy mum, student and partner means that I need to be practical too.

So, inspired by the book and my re-committment to Paleo, I couldn't stop cooking today! I somehow managed to pump out a weeks worth of food around about 10 committments and still get a bit of sunshine on my skin with the kiddies! (very important for Vitamin D requirements you know...)...

So - here's how my day looked...

I started by preparing tonight's dinner first thing this morning (as I ate a breakfast of grain-free muesli - shredded coconut, almonds, sunflower seeds, cinnamon, dried apricot, strawbs and banana with a dash of full fat milk).

Anyone who thinks Paleo is all about meat should know that it's actually got lots more to do with vegetables...

 I chopped up some parsnips, celery, shallots and carrots and cooked them in a bit of duck fat.

 Then browned the shanks in the same fat...

 Into the slow cooker with some tinned tomato, a splash of red wine, salt and pepper and fresh thyme...

 Six hours later.... a quick check before dishing up after 10 deliciously slow hours... meat melted off the bone.

So that was a cheap and easy meal - 'meat on bones' like Osso Bucco and Shanks tend to be cheaper cuts but leech loads of calcium and nutrients into the dish.  The juices merge in a lovely rich sauce and the vegetables are quick, cheap and easy to prepare.  I would estimate that this meal was around $7-8 per person and it balances the body's requirements for carbohydrates, fats and protein. I bought the shanks from Gippsland Pasture Fed - delivered straight to our door.  They deliver this weekend in metro Melbourne so get your order in soon!

I also made rissoles for the kids.  Paddy calls these 'pizzas'.  Here he is inspecting the mix which consists of 500g pork mince, chives, oregano, garlic and onion powder, mustard, one egg and enough almond flour to bind the mix.  I cooked it in the bacon grease I saved from burning a batch of nitrate-free bacon on Fathers Day.

 These babies move quickly in our place! The kids knocked off two and three a piece!  Added some fresh strawberries and banana and they got lots of nutrients in their dinner tonight.

I also cooked a batch of chinese 5-spice chicken drummies.  These re-heat beautifully or can be eaten cold.  I coated 2kgs of drummies in a mixture of paprika, salt, pepper and 5 spice mix. Then I cooked the drummies in bit of last weeks drummy-fat and chucked them in the oven on 180 degrees for 35 minutes.  They crisp up very well this way. Tomorrow night I will make a batch of shredded savoy cabbage to go with the drummies which I will sautee with some organic butter, chicken stock and kaiser fleish.

I also made a snack of preservative and gluten-free beef sausages (also from Gippsland Pasture Fed) and split green olives - cooked in the fat from the rissoles. Mark and I shared this as a snack this afternoon.  

I made a batch of apple streusel muffins from Practical Paleo - but I will talk about those and other sweet treats in my next post - probably in a couple of days!  

I'm off to get some active recovery after a lovely painful osteo treatment that's setting me back onto my CrossFit choo-choo train this week!