Some clean eats we had this week

We had a good week but it had its challenges - what week doesn't with kids. Baby was teething fiercely. I am grateful and blessed to have 3 healthy kids so I don't like to complain but I really do not understand why my kids suffer so hard with teething over such a prolonged period - they start early (4 months), come in slowly and are extremely painful. It is taking each tooth almost 2 full weeks to come through and medication doesn't seem to even dull the pain.........I mean baby Tylenol. I haven't had to resort to alcohol or meds yet. But baby turned 8 months today and tooth number 6 poked through so we only have 14 more to go - lol. It just makes me sad that we are missing enjoying the baby days because he is hurting so bad - he is such a fun, playful little guy when he isn't teething and I want to enjoy it. So hopefully we are on a break week - he was actually still fussy today even though the tooth was partly through so I hope it just needs a day or two to settle down versus another one making a move already.

Anyway, we had another week of clean eating. It actually gets easier as it becomes our "new normal". At first it is a struggle to think of what to eat but its becoming second nature to make a salad instead of a sandwich. Plus now I have a roster of good tasting snacks to keep us going and on the protein train. One of my main struggle is to keep the nuts/seeds, yogurt and fruit portions in check. Some days I am eating way too many nuts and seeds and not enough veggies. Nuts are full of healthy fats and a good source of protein but like everything moderation is key especially when you are working on improving a very weak digestive system. So I keep having to re-evaluate and make sure I am picking vegetables as my snack/meal whenever I can.

Hope you all had a good week and get some ideas here on some clean food choices you can make for yourself. I missed lots of pictures because of baby fussiness but here are some I got......

Pork and Beef meatballs in mushroom sauce with green beans and mashed cauliflower. The meatball recipe needs some tweaking before it gets a blog post.

Once bitten Twice Shy brownies. Made with coconut flour and dark chocolate. Baba said "why didn't you make a double batch". Good point. These are good........try them.  Kid-friendly even.

Vinegar with food dye, a plate of baking soda and a medicine dropper. What fun! Not a meal, just a way to let me actually make a meal.  And I found some phot editing software to play with. Fun for Mom!

Chia banana almond pancakes. I topped with high Protein Greek blueberry yogurt and blueberries. I am not letting myself have maple syrup. Take that sugar devil.  

Twice baked mashed cauliflower with leftover meatballs. I doctored up the meatballs and they were better the second day - they needed more salt/spices.

Mama's famous impress the in-laws ribs with Greek salad and steamed broccoli  I bought back ribs this time instead of side ribs. I never knew the difference before but I definitely prefer the SIDE RIBS. Plus I think we better slow down on our rib in-take. I thought we only ate them once a month or so but they keep popping up in the week in review so its a little more frequent than it should be.

I went to the MCC thrift store this week. Going to thrift stores gives me joy. Seriously. It must be my cheapness. I found these plates for the kids. They love "compartment" plates and in an effort to de-toxify our environment I'm trying to get away from using so much plastic. They were a hit! I wish all my kids meals looked like this but there were quite a few wheat-full sandwiches, pizza and noodles that i didn't take pictures of. But they did eat a fair amount of veggies and fruit so its all good.

Butter Leaf lettuce topped with Kale salad, rotisserie chicken, onions and Jalapeno  yogurt for lunch. And cranberries because I always need  my hit of sweet.

Apple and Banana Nacho's - I think I had these everyday for either an afternoon or evening snack. I think I might be addicted to these things. I'm not supposed to eat banana's (per my food sensitivities testing and because they have so much sugar) but I sneak them in here and there because they are so good. 

Last nights dessert/evening snack. This was insanely good to someone who gave up sugar and hasn't had ice-cream for months. Recipe to come this week so stay tuned! I snuck in a few more banana's.

So that's it. My sugar addiction was actually not too bad this week. I ate some dark chocolate everyday and some other treats but I didn't feel like it was controlling me. So that's good.

Have a great Sunday and start the week off clean tomorrow. Take a salad to work!