Turkey and Sausage Meatloaf

Hola everyone. Meatloaf has been on my mind this past week. When I get back on the wagon I always seem to forget how to stock my fridge. I end up eating 1 piece of fish and some veggies and I wonder why I'm STARVING 2 hours later. So I've gone to the paleo podcasts for some advise. Robb Wolf is like numero uno for paleo advise but I can only take so much of his blog. It's like listening to an hour long bro fest at a Slayer concert at times but it has some really good info. I can only handle it if I've just listened to dubstep or backsquated like 250#. Which is never so I listen to it after over stimulizing my nervous system with dubstep.

The podcast I have been obsessed with is Sarah Fragosa and Jason Seib's podcast 'Paleo Lifestyle and Fitness Podcast'. I just bought Jason's book  on Amazon because I can't get enough of the podcast. Their advise is simple and it really makes me feel like I can stay on the paleo wagon. They give advise like "hey if you really like meatloaf and sweet potatoes...eat meatloaf and sweet potatoes". I don't have to have 7 gourmet paleo dinners planned out every week. If I really love ground beef (which I frickin do!) eat some ground beef! There whole thing is if it is easy and tasty they would rather have you eat that then eat some crap squeaky chicken and steamed broccoli and then binge on a pint of coconut ice cream and paleo cookies 3 hours later.

Which leads me into "paleo" and "gluten free" paleo food. Just because something says "paleo" or "gluten free" doesn't mean it's a free for all. I'm talking about all the paleo cinnamon rolls and paleo brownie recipes I drool over on the google machine. I mean, don't get me wrong. I have a loaf of gluten free bread in the fridge and 2 half eaten boxes of gluten free chocolate cookies on my counter. This stuff isn't diet food and a fix for my hunger. Sugar is sugar no matter what you call it. Eating paleo donuts is not considered eating good paleo. It's fun but keep it in check folks. Let me tell you a story..or continue my story from my previous post.

I went to whole foods last week and ate a half box of gluten free cookies and 4 chocolate haystacks. Don't know what those are? Go to whole foods. They are amazing.

Did I feel awesome after eating my whole foods  "gluten free" binge? No. Absolutely not.

I didn't feel awesome because I didn't eat paleo. I just ate a crap ton of stupid sugar and rice flour. Sure it's better than gluten, but it's still sugar. AND If you didn't know already, sugar and gluten make me feel cRaZy inside. My chest tightens, my tongue feels like it's lifting weights. I don't get it...I just know I'm trying to balance my crap out. So for now, I'm going to hold off buying "paleo" food in packages even though it has the gluten free stamp on it. Instead I'm going to fill up on food I know I LOVE. Like Meatloaf. Check out my awesome recipe. It makes a ton so you can eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for a couple of days. heaven.

Turkey and Sausage Meatloaf
Preheat oven to 325

Ingredients:
- 2 tbls of coconut oil (for saute pan and to coat the casserole dish)

- 3 onion (saute until soft)
- 1 can of tomato sauce
- 1 tbls of dried rosemary
- 1 tbls of dried thyme
- 1 tbls of salt
- 1 tsp of pepper
- splash of worcestershire sauce
- 1/2 cup of chicken stock

- 2 pounds of ground turkey
- 6 hot Italian sausage links

- 3 eggs
- 1/3 cup of coconut flour

In saute pan heat 1 tbls of coconut oil and add the following ingredients
- 3 onion (saute until soft)

Add following ingredients to sauteed onions
- 1 can of tomato sauce
- 1 tbls of dried rosemary
- 1 tbls of dried thyme
- 1 tbls of salt
- 1 tsp of pepper
- splash of worcestershire sauce
- 1/2 cup of chicken stock

Simmer until slightly thick.
Turn off the heat and let mixture come to room temp.

Meanwhile...

In a large mixing bowl add:
- 2 pounds of ground turkey
- 6 hot Italian sausage links
Squish together with your paws until both meats are combined
Now add:
- 3 eggs
- 1/3 cup of coconut flour

Once the tomato and onion mixture has cooled off. Add mixture in with the meat, eggs, and coconut flour.
Combine everything together in one bowl.

Grease a large casserole dish with 1 tbls of coconut oil
Transfer the raw meatloaf mixture into the casserole dish

Bake meatloaf on 325 for about 1hr 20 min (or until internal temp reaches 160 degrees)


Before baking:

After baking:

Meatloaf on day 3 w/ added tomato sauce (recipe coming soon):

Lunchtime Fish

Yay it's Friday!! I don't know what I'm going to do this weekend but I hope it has something to do with being outside. Even though it's summer pretty much every day in Florida it still feels like spring right now. I want to go to the beach and run around outside like a crazy person. The weather is so freakin nice. Sorry for all my friends still dealing with snow. What's up with that? Blizzards in April? Super weird. Start your prep kit for the apocalypse.

Anyways, back to Friday. So far today I made some awesome fish and asparagus for lunch. "You have a kitchen at work?!" You may ask...no not really. I decided it was a great idea to smell up my apt at 7:30 in the morning by cooking some fish to take to work. The cats totally loved it. They were meowing all over the place looking for fish...those stupid kittehs.

Fish turned out pretty good....and dry. I only overcooked it by like 5 minutes but whatever. The seasonings were perfect. I'll have to redo the recipe later and actually learn how to cook fish. Nobody likes super dry fish...or chicken. Ugh squeaky chicken.

Anyways...

I went to Whole Foods last night and decided to buy every gluten free bread and cookie in the store. Not sure how this one will go. I doubt I'll feel any less crazy eating a half box of gluten free cookies then I do eating a serving of pasta. But whatever. Life's a journey and I wanted a cookie...or a box of cookies. I'll let you know how it goes.

Lunchtime Fish
Fish of choice (idk what kind...it's white)
Sprinkle of chili powder
Sprinkle of cumin
Salt/pepper

6 stalks of asparagus chopped in 3rds

Season both sides of your fish with seasonings and cook in a pan with some OO or coconut oil. Make sure you don't overcook it. I obviously did, so I'm not going to tell you how long to cook it for. Also it depends on the fish. Mine was white and that's all I remember. Wow I'm super observant.

Hi my name's Jen and I'm in a baaad mood

So this is a common phrase used among my coworkers. Usually you say it with an old hag voice mocking whoever is in a bad mood. Today, my name was used. I'm in a total bad mood and I'm owning up to it.

Hi my name is Jen and I'm in a baaaad mood.

I ate a half of a piece of pizza and had 3 glasses of wine last night. So I'm blaming it on that. Why did I do that to myself? Addiction...thats what. Or habit. I just felt so good yesterday so I was like "sure I'll eat some gluten and have a jug of wine",

I need to rethink how I treat myself when I'm feeling good (or bad in some cases). I shouldn't be like "hey let's treat my body to a feast of gluten and wine because I've been feeling awesome!" That crap isn't going to keep me feeling awesome, ugh. Lame

So here's what I did to make myself feel better:
Take a B12
Drink 3 liters of water
Eat 1 pack of Justin's Almond Butter
Eat 1 piece of beef jerky
Take 2 tylenol

... and eat this awesome lunch. Sorry no recipe. Charlie made it a couple of days ago. Something with pork chops, pears, and vinegar. I also threw a chunk of tomato in because nutrients are good when you make poor, stupid choices the night before.

Whatever, tomorrow will be a better day full of veggies and gluten free everything! Also, maybe I'll only have 1 glass of wine instead of 3. on second thought maybe not. Bad life choices.

Baby Poop Soup

During my minor/major gluten freak out on Monday I decided to make the ultimate veggie soup. I thought to myself, what will give me the most amount of nutrients in 1 meal that I don't have to really chew. If you didn't know I'm an incredibly lazy eater and hate chewing my food. It hurts my jaw...and teeth....
Anywho...so I decided to make soup.

I got the recipe idea from Bethany Hamilton's blog. If you don't know who Bethany Hamilton is you need to wake up and instagram her. She's like the coolest one armed surfer out there...well probably the only one armed surfer out there but who's counting? She's a total health nut and likes to post a lot of gluten free recipes on her fan site. Don't be shy and go to her site. You kinda feel like an obsessed 12 year old wannabe surfer girl from Kansas but who cares. Life's too short to worry about that crap.

The soup kind of looks like baby poop (hence the recipe title) but it's real good and makes you feel healthy and stuff. So here's the recipe breakdown:

Baby Poop Soup
1 head broccoli
1 block frozen spinach
4 cloves of garlic
1/2 onion
Handful of fresh cilantro (no need to chop)
1 jalapeño diced (seeds removed)
2 tbls of vinegar of your choice (I used red wine vinegar cuz it was closest to me)
Splash of worcester sauce
Salt/Pepper to taste
6 cups chicken stock
1 cup coconut milk

Boil it all together til soft
Blend the mixture.
Sprinkle with scallions and sliced almonds

"The Gluten Made Me Do It"

Hi everyone! Sorry for disappearing for like 2 months. I've been off eating gluten and feeling like poo. It started off with a cookie here and there and it ended up with a big lowf of sourdough on my counter. It felt so liberating to be able to eat whatever I wanted! I ate toast, sandwiches, pasta, like it was nobodies business....but then the "doom" set in (as my paleo friend calls it). It tookabout 2 weeks for me to start feeling the "doom".

For all of you who have never experienced the "doom" before it is the feeling that something is wrong or about to go wrong. You have no idea what it is but you have a feeling that everything is about to come crashing down. I felt paranoid and anxious about the stupidest stuff. I thought it was because I wasn't going to my crossfit box anymore. Exercise is a big stress relief for me and always has been. So I started exercising again at my non-crossfit box/regular people gym. The exercise seemed to help but not as much as I would like or had hoped. My chest still felt tight and it was hard to take a full breath. Nothing specifically was worrying me....I couldn't figure out why I was feeling so anxious!

So yesterday was like the worst doomsday ever. I ate spelt pasta the night before, toast yesterday morning, and a half a jar of Biscoff cookie butter around lunchtime. I almost had a complete meltdown. My chest got tight and I was so irritable. For a second, I thought I was about to have a panic attack. Ok ok you may think at this point I'm a crazy person....but I swear the doom was at it's highest!!! I talked to my fellow paleo friends and read a lot of articles about how gluten affects the mood. The things I read were astonishing and the people described symptoms that I was feeling after eating a ton of gluten.

After talking to the awesome people of The Result Cult and reading articles on the nasty nasty of gluten I decided to abandon my lunch of leftover pasta and get a salad from our work's downstairs cafeteria. It wasn't the best thing in the world (two words: iceberg lettuce) but I put a ton of veggies and protein on it. For dinner I had veggie soup, salad with avocado and tomatoes, and baked pork chops with pears. I still felt crappy but I knew it was only a matter of time before I would start feeling better. This morning I made a fruit smoothie and made some eggs and turkey sausage. After a good nights sleep and almost 24 hrs free of gluten I'm starting to feel better. I don't want to jinx it but I have a good feeling about this.

The moral of this story is I guess you have to figure out why eating paleo or gluten free is important to you. Is it because its the latest fad? Is it because your family does it? Or do you think you may have an allergy or sensitivity to it? Whatever the reason it's important to find out why it's important to you. For me I knew I felt better eating paleo but I didn't truly appreciate it until I had my ultimate doomsday gluten experience. My experience has helped my change my mindset from a diet fad that made me feel pretty good to a need for good fuel to support a healthy and happy body and mind.