Family Pleasing Dinner

We've been missing tacos. .  . nachos. . . burritos. . .

So tonight I came up with taco home fries.

It's grain free.

First, I washed and cut several organic baby red potatoes into 1/8ths.  (Think home fries).  I then laid the potato wedges on a baking sheet lined with parchment and sprinkled them with olive oil and sea salt.  The potatoes baked at 425 for about 25 minutes (until tender).

Meanwhile, I browned 2lbs of organic ground beef and seasoned with taco seasoning.

We placed a few potato wedges onto a plate, piled on seasoned ground beef, and then everyone got to add their own toppings. . . herb salad, grated cheese, olives, sour cream, salsa. 

Potatoes are a once or twice a month treat in our house. . . everyone gobbled this dinner up!

Packing Grain Free Lunches

Trail mix. .  . our go to grain free treat.

I buy in bulk and store the ingredients in glass jars on the counter.  The kids LOVE making their own combinations of goodies.  We usually have the following items to choose from:

unsweetened coconut chips (larger than flakes)  (Market of Choice, bulk)
raw walnut pieces  (Market of Choice, bulk)
unsweetened banana chips  (Market of Choice, bulk)
raisins   (Costco)
dried cranberries, sweetened with apple juice  (Market of Choice, bulk)
raw almonds  (Trader Joe's)
diced macadamias (Trader Joe's)
sunflower seeds  (Trader Joe's)

READ LABELS.  Many coconut and dried fruit are sugar sweetened and/or treated with sulphates.  
EVEN BETTER. Make your own dried fruit at home.
NUTS.  Buy raw, soak (maybe even sprout), and dehydrate or make crispy if possible.  This helps break down the anti-nutrients making them more gut friendly.
GO ORGANIC.  Whenever possible. 

As a rare treat we include some dark chocolate.  The problem with having it avaliable all the time is that the kids will not use just a little bit.  I prefer Dagoba Dark Chocodrops (pieces are big though, so breaking up for trail mix is good).  Enjoy Life mini chips might be a good option or a chopped up dark chocolate bar of choice.

It's great to have small containers to house the daily trail mix in so you aren't wasting a ton of plastic baggies. I'm also considering putting the scale out next to the trail mix station and teaching the kids about weighing out servings.  This will help with over consumption of nuts and sweet things (dried fruit is concentrated).  Currently we use a pre-measured scoop and the kids can do one scoop of nuts and one of each of the other items.  Or they can mix their scoop to combine all the nut options into one serving.

We love our PlanetBox lunch kits. . . the individual sections are perfect for housing our grain free lunches!

Researching Nutrition and Blog Names

I'm a researcher. . . I love learning.  I love knowledge. I'm finally learning that knowledge isn't everything (especially if you make others feel poorly by your use of it).

Over the last several months, our family has evolved into a grain free lifestyle.  I've been researching. . . learning the health benefits and any possible drawbacks.  Trying to figure out how to get my children to all reach their optimum health.  I have a skinny kid who hates fat but would live on fruit alone.  I have a couple of darling girls that tend to store carbs as fat (aka inherited Mama's genes).  I have one typical child who is of average size and good health.  I have another girl who is on the small side, and suffers from stomach upset, acid reflux, and major behavior upheavals.  Five kids, five very different dietary needs.  I'm striving to meet them all in our grain free life.

While doing all my research, I started thinking about starting (yet another) blog.  I have several, but one primary blog that I've been writing in since my middle daughter's Celiac Dx in 2007.  I noticed there is more need for information about feeding families in a grain free/paleo deviant fashion.  I call us Paleo-deviants because I bake.  My kids like kid food (surprise, right?).   So they get muffins and *gasp* cookies made healthier, more natural.   I tried many different blog names that would grab attention and let people know what we are about.  GoDaddy rejected a few, something about them already being taken. . . but I happened upon grainfreefamily.com and I bought it.  Then I logged in over here at blogger and that name was already taken!  Oops. . .should have checked that first.   But here we are.  Grain free and thriving.  Lots of kids.  Real life natural living in a big family. . . on a budget.  What we eat. . . how the kids handle it. . . how we afford it. . .