It's funny - I did very well at sticking to Paleo during the Christmas holidays. I spent 5 days at home in rural Washington state with my family, where finding some paleo friendly food items can be challenging, so I did what any good paleo girl does - I brought it with me. Yup, I packed my suitcase with coconut oil, coconut flour, and almond meal, and two of my favorite paleo cookbooks (check out Make it Paleo and Paleo Comfort Foods).
My goal: eat well and show my family that it still tastes good.
Upon arriving at my parent's house and looking in the fridge I realized that they really had no REAL food in the house. I'll talk more about this in another post, but at any rate, I needed to go shopping stat. I was able to find coconut butter, almond butter, and some other ingredients I wanted at their local grocery store that carries more of the natural and organic foods, but I was still very thankful that I packed my staples.
After shopping, I decided that I would start with making breakfasts for my family while I was there and by breakfasts I don't just mean eggs and bacon. We had that too, but I wanted to show them that you could have things like pancakes and not have to eat gluten.
I first made them coconut flour pancakes, which would have been great if my mother had a gas stove and a griddle. They tasted good, but I couldn't get them cooked quite right. FAIL
What's a girl to do, but try again. This time I borrowed my sister's electric griddle and made pumpkin pancakes. SUCCESS
Of course in making pancakes I had to have the conversation with my mother that sugar free syrup is not actually food. I bought real 100% pure maple syrup for those who felt they must have syrup and I used frozen blueberries and raspberries from my mom's garden for me - it was delightful.
At any rate, the more dishes I made the more they discovered that paleo is actually pretty darn good. I even made some paleo fudge from the Make it Paleo cookbook, but it was a little bit rich for my taste given that I rarely eat such treats.
All in all the holidays were a success, but post holidays are another story. All I will say is I went to Vegas for MLK weekend. So, beginning February 1st I will be doing another paleo challenge.
