Autoimmune Paleo: Week 5

I dreamed of piles of waffles last night.

Warm, fluffy, lightly browned waffles glistening with syrup. Oh yum.

If you are not on a restrictive diet, I plead with you to go eat a waffle for me. It seems that my pancake cravings have subsided, and have been replaced by yearning for waffles instead. I never realized how much I loved baked goods until I started this diet with my hubby five long weeks ago…

While I have been craving bread, hubs has been holding it together admirably. I have been so impressed by how he never feels sorry for himself, wavers in his commitment (except for that one pie incident last week, but we won’t talk about that), and has remained really cheerful.

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It is tough for him to be working twelve hours a day, going to school, and being on such a restrictive diet but he has been holding it together beautifully.

What Saved Us This Week

Spending an entire afternoon cooking: I don’t know why I haven’t ever done this before, but on Tuesday I spent about four hours just cooking up AIP meals for the rest of the week. My kitchen was a wreck by the end of the afternoon, but it was so nice to open the fridge and have ready made dishes for the next few days. Spending a block of time working on meal prep was so much more efficient: I got all my grocery shopping done, was able to multitask (I had meatloaf and banana bread in the oven, ketchup cooking on the stove, slaw marinating in the fridge), and we didn’t have to worry about meals for the next few days.

Homemade ketchup: We ate so many condiments before going on this diet. With every meal we would pull out hot sauce, soy sauce, ketchup, mustard (dependent on the dish itself, of course). We have really missed all of our sweet, spicy, and zesty condiments. This week I finally decided to make my own ketchup. I didn’t have much hope that beets, carrots, and assorted spices would end up tasting like full-bodied tomato ketchup, but I gave it a whirl. We loved it. We ate it with our meatloaf, chicken, and I even made a faux-ketchup marinade for my ribs. Nomato ketchup is a game-changer!

Probiotics + Fish Oil: We decided to start taking some probiotics and fermented cod liver oil every day to help restore his gut flora, and bring down inflammation in his body. We are still trying to eat lots of wild caught fish and drink kombucha, but I just felt like we needed to take that extra step in order to cover all our bases and boost his healing.

Recipes That Succeeded

You guys, after a few really lean weeks I finally began cooking again. We ate several rather unfulfilling meals on Monday and Tuesday leaving me feeling painfully hungry Tuesday afternoon. Hubby had the car at work until late so I walked a few blocks, in the rain, to the grocery store: loaded up my backpack and several bags full of groceries (including a watermelon and some canned goods) and then trudged back in the rain.

My back hurt after carrying all those groceries. Let’s just say, it is a good thing I work at a chiropractic office!

I had printed off a whole slew of recipes, and that afternoon I went on a cooking/baking rampage. I cooked, and baked, and baked and cooked while the mist drifted through the windows. By the time hubby got home I had several meals made. He looked so overjoyed at the cornucopia of food before him! I was pretty happy myself.

Korean Pork and Slaw: Wow, was this delicious. We really have missed Asian inspired meals on our menu, and this food just hit the spot. This recipe called for a little Arrowroot Powder (this is the kind I buy) to make a thickened sauce for the pork, and it was so creamy. We haven’t had any sauces ever since we started this diet, so indulging in some meat dripping in a creamy sauce really was a treat!

Meatloaf: This meatloaf called for a pound of pork, a pound of beef, and a pound of liver. In true meatloaf fashion, I mixed together all the ingredients including several handfuls of fresh herbs from my garden. While I hated making pate in week two, because I just could hardly stomach grinding up cooked liver in the blender, I really enjoyed putting the uncooked liver in the blender and pulverizing it. Since liver has a ton of liquid in it, it mixed really well with the ground beef and pork. Hubby couldn’t even tell there was liver in the finished meatloaf! This is a recipe I will definitely be using from now on, and I look forward to serving it for my future children to sneak in some nutrient-rich liver into their diets.

No-Mato Ketchup: Meatloaf isn’t really that satisfying without some nice ketchup, amiright? I was really dubious about making this recipe, because how could you really have ketchup without tomatoes? However, I swallowed down my misgivings, and gave this recipe (which calls for beets, carrots, apple cider vinegar, and honey) a whirl. I am so glad I did. When I first tasted it, I was still a bit dubious, but when I ate it on the meatloaf it gave it just the right amount of sweetness and acid that we were missing without our beloved ketchup.

Pork Ribs with Beet marinade: After we fell in love with the No-Mato Ketchup, I was throwing some ribs into the crockpot, and decided to loosely use the recipe to make a tangy marinade. I blended up cooked beets, apple cider vinegar, and honey and poured the mixture over the ribs. I was a little worried about eating bright pink ribs, but the taste was excellent. The marinade cooked down, and added an extra depth of flavor to the meat.

Hubby’s Psoriasis

Honestly, I feel like every week I am going back and forth between thinking this diet is making a difference to feeling discouraged, and that all our dietary sacrifices are for naught.

This week, I feel as if we might be finally seeing some positive changes, despite some added issues. Hubs has struggled with a lot of itching, and feeling like his skin is burning. However, he has been working twelve hour days at a corn plant, and after talking with his coworkers he feels as if constantly being surrounded by corn dust has just further irritated his skin. I am hoping that once they wrap up harvest, his skin will calm down again.

Even though his skin hasn’t been feeling good, it is starting to look a little better. We definitely think that his psoriasis is beginning to flatten out. Psoriasis is usually raised patches with a silvery coating. His spots have begun to flatten out, and I think that is a really, really good sign.

We are both so desperate to see some of his patches disappear altogether! I am hoping that each week his skin just gets better and better.

Goals From Last Week

• Ferment something: You guys, it didn’t happen. I have the cabbage, the recipes, and everything–I just didn’t do it. Maybe I need to have a fermenting party. Do you want to come?
• Eat organ meats at least two times.Thanks to our new favorite meatloaf recipe, this actually happened! Callooh, callay!
• Stay positive Hubs has been staying super positive, and I worked hard to stay the same.
• Challenge each other to drink more water.We’ve been doing really well with drinking lots of water, and bringing water bottles with us wherever we go.
• Go on a walk with hubs: This didn’t happen. With hubby’s crazy work schedule, we just didn’t make the time for a walk. Hoping to remedy that this week!

Goals For This Week

• Ferment. Something. (Do I even need to write this one out?)
• Cut back on fruit, and double our veggie intake.
• Have one designated cooking day, where most the meal prep gets done.
• Publish an AIP recipe on the blog
• Go on a walk with hubs

Adios, Week 5!

Well, that wraps up week five! It is hard to believe that it has now been over a month since we have had milk, cheese, grains, tomatoes, beans or nuts in our kitchen. Time flies when you are…healing psoriasis (I don’t think that slogan will catch on any time soon, do you?).