Fuel: Greek Meatballs!

I'm going to try to alternate food and exercise posts - hopefully something is helpful, and if not, at least it pleases my OCD mind to have some sort of balance here!

Tonight's dinner was a winner, at least with me and Coach T.  The littles were a little indifferent - i think because of the olives.  Next time, maybe i'll make a batch of plainies for them..

I used ground pork because it's delish :) but you can use lamb, beef, deer, moose, whatever you have on hand (can you tell we are Canadian?)

This recipe makes enough to feed a family of ten - so, half it if you are a normal sized family or scale down to suit your household...

Paleo Greek Meatballs

2 lbs ground pork

1 c. flaked feta cheese

4 eggs

4 tsp dried parsley (i didn't have any fresh)

3 tsp dried onion (again, no fresh)

1/2 c. olives, cut up into little bits

3 tsp greek salad dressing

Turn the broiler on in your oven.  Mush all ingredients in a big bowl till well mixed.  Using olive oil, grease a few baking dishes - cookie sheet, cake pan, pyrex baking dish (i used all three!) and form the mix into balls, placing on the pan.  Broil on one side until bubbly and just browning.  Flip and brown the other side, and then move each batch to a cookie sheet at the bottom of the oven.  Once all meatballs are cooked, move cookie sheet up to the top rack of the oven to get nicely golden and sizzling with melted feta.

Serve with greek yogurt tzatziki (we just discovered a new favourite from Costco!)

and a side salad.

This side salad is just a small head of romaine, chopped up small, 1/3 of an English cucumber, 1/2 a tomato, chopped up small, a few handfuls of feta cheese, and greek salad dressing.  You can adjust proportions and ingredients according to what you like - i would have added olives if i'd had any more pitted olives!

           As a mom, this way of eating sometimes seems more expensive - after all, where's the filler?  It's just meat and veggies (and a dip!) - but what i've found is that while the ingredients can be more expensive, you don't need to eat a ton to feel full (because there is plenty of fat to satisfy, and plenty of protein to give you energy).  The carbs from vegetables give energy without a sugar high and collapse later on, and although it seems strange to have a meal on purpose without a starch on the side (!), you really don't miss it at all.  Now, if i have guests, i might still serve a starchy side, just because some smaller guests may be picky and only want carbs (my sixteen year old!), but as a family we don't miss the rolls, rice, noodles etc... and i tend not to even have a lot of those carbs in the house, as the littles will want them and they're pretty tempting when we're running low on time.  Fresh veggies or fruit is just as quick as grabbing a bun or toast, and better for you in so many ways!

Paleo cookies!

I am seriously feeling way too deprived. And grumpy. The grumpy i think comes from ketosis, since it is abated if i eat a lot of fruit/veggies - but it seems like i'm always on the verge - but the deprivation... not much i can do about that. On the paleo way of eating, my "treats" have been fruits (which i am allowed to eat as much as i want now, as opposed to the Zone's miserly doling out) - and nuts (which i don't eat too many of since they are expensive :)...)

But today after running some errands, i had a brain wave. I had been oh so deeply desiring a coffee crisp chocolate bar with 70% cocoa chocolate - and been a good girl and even said no to my uxorious husband's offer of lunch at McDonald's...

I went to my recipe book cupboard and pulled out Serene Allison's cookbook, Rejuvenate Your Life, and double checked the ingredients for her "chocolate". It's a raw foods cookbook, and for awhile i was making a lot of things out of it - super healthy, really yummy - but a little time consuming, especially before we moved here where there is pretty much no moisture in the air and the dehydrator works like a dream (as opposed to several days to dry out flatbread in our last place)...

Anyway, not only was that recipe pretty kosher, but i decided to make halvah balls. Now i have, in the freezer of my fridge, delectable little balls of deliciousness that don't break the rules and that will give a little variety.

Here are the recipes i used:

Serene Allison's Chocolate

2 cups raw almonds, ground into almond butter in my vitamix
1/2 c. tahini
1/3 c. cocoa (i put a little less than she originally called for, which was 1/2 c.)
pinch sea salt
1/2 c. raw honey (again, i put a little less as i didn't have much and wanted some for halvah, too)

I mixed it all by hand in a bowl with a silicon spatula, oiled my hands with a little olive oil, and rolled them into balls, and put the plate into the freezer for an hour or so. Then i picked them off the plate and put them in a ziplock bag in the freezer, ready to eat...

Serene Allison's Heavenly Halvah

I ground 4 c. raw hulled sesame seeds (i bought a big bag of these through our natural foods coop and this is mostly what i use it for!) - i really made homemade tahini, since i ground them up into a paste
added in a little olive oil
a little raw honey

Mixed well together in a plastic bowl with a silicon spatula. Then, as it was really too soft, i chilled it in the fridge for awhile before i oiled my hands and rolled them into balls, put them on a plate in the freezer, till i can put them in their own ziplock bag. These are delicious little nougat-y balls, full of energy, and not too sweet (i didn't have a LOT of honey, and i prefer a little less over a little too much)

I asked T about the paleo acceptance of cocoa, since it is a bean, but he assured me that a lot of paleo people use cocoa, for whatever reason - if i knew why it's excepted from the beans restriction, i'd feel a little less like a cheater, but for now, these are a nice paleo alternative to the things i'd rather be eating (like fried cheese with mayonnaise and a side of fries... LOL!)

End of second week....

So, it's been a crazy week - we celebrated Thanksgiving early with my sisters, brothers in law, and my children and their twelve (soon to be thirteen) cousins... so much fun!

And i fell off the paleo wagon, but not too bad - one cookie, a serving of stuffing, a little potato casserole (to die for!)... and then back up...

Since then, we've been pretty good at paleo eating - i had one piece of toast, and one piece of pizza at a meeting in the next town over... So all in all i'm finding that this is a potentially possible way to eat.

What i've found so far:

1. my digestion is much better eating paleo than Zone - i respond quickly to flour/sugar/grains/potatos when i do fall off the wagon - but when i am good - less bloating, less tummy upsets..

2. oh, i still very much crave grains. I worked for months perfecting my flax seed bread recipe! With the exact mix of freshly ground hard red wheat, freshly ground flax, whole flax, and gluten... and now i bake it, slice it, and toast it and then butter it and cut it in little pieces for little people to eat - even holding it up to my tiny birdie's mouth to let her take a bite of the most delectable inside heart.

3. i have WAY more willpower in my 30s than i did in my 20s or my teens! It's not FUN to have to use it, but i can see this as a spiritual discipline, too...

4. I will do pretty much anything to please my husband! LOL!

5. Eating paleo does make you feel full on much smaller portions.

6. I have to eat a lot more fruit/veggies than i did when eating Zone to avoid ketosis - if i hit ketosis, i am just not a friendly mama anymore, and with seven little children 13 and under, i need all the help i can get to stay sweet :)...

7. I am still not sure about the healthfulness of this way of eating, due to my single, horseshoe, medullary sponge kidney - not sure if this is putting a strain on it. It seems to me that if i am feeling more awake, and having less digestive troubles, it shouldn't be too much of a hardship - but i will be talking to my doctor soon about this (i have an appointment - but it's a small town, and appointments have to be made two weeks in advance - very helpful. not.)