Why, hello again!

I've been so slack about posting on this blog! Not that anyone has been particularly complaining about it, but it pains me to see it languish, when I've had so much fun with it in the past.

So, I'm resolving to post more often! Today's post arises from a few inspirations:

• The realization that it's cooking healthy meals at home that has been instrumental in helping me shed nearly 50 pounds* since October 2011, and has helped my Beloved heal from his recent surgery and lose at least 15-20 pounds (so far) during his recovery;
• The knowledge that planning meals and doing the grocery shopping makes it easier to cook healthy meals at home;
• An interest in new recipes and new foods, and new ways to tempt both my own palate and my (very picky) husband's

That being the case, I thought I'd use this blog to plot not just my cooking adventures, but this little family's journey down the road to health and weight loss, the Paleo Way.

This week's plan for dinners!

Sunday: Steamed Brisket¹, green salad, homemade Szechwan green beans.
Monday: Leftover Chili², rice, green salad
Tuesday: Meatza, green salad
Wednesday: Roasted pork loin with herbes de Provence³, roasted root vegetables, salad⁴
Thursday: Leftovers
Friday and Saturday we normally go out for dinner, either on our own or with friends, so no need to plan for those!

Notes and observations about this plan:

1. Paleo eaters generally eschew processed food, including processed meat. My Beloved is fairly new to the paleo way, and is still finding his footing. As mistakes go, Dunn's Famous Brisket is probably not as bad as others he's made (and will undoubtedly make in the future) as he adapts to the new road. The brisket is high in sodium from the curing process, but as we are learning, salt is important for human health (too little can also be harmful!). And I'm pretty sure the two of us are not getting too much salt, because the other food in our house is generally fresh, raw, and unprocessed, and thus doesn't include sodium until we add it. 
2. Full disclosure: Monday's chili is, in fact, leftovers from a big pot o'chili I made last week. Mondays and Thursdays are the days I hit the gym after work, so leftovers are a big plus on such evenings.
3. Yes, I know it's June. But we live in Vancouver, BC, and summer has yet to settle in this year. This week's weather forecast is abysmal - wet, grey, and blah. So although doing a roast pork (tender)loin and root vegetables sounds like a rather autumnal or wintry kind of meal, it's not out of keeping with the environment. (If it were grillin' weather, I'd do it that way and think of a different vegetable accompaniment for it.)
4. We eat a lot of salad. I love salad, and eat it at every meal except breakfast, usually. My Beloved is less keen, but since I do most of the cooking, he takes what he's given, and as long as I don't put cucumber or avocado on his, he doesn't really complain.

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*there will be party here when I pass that milestone, believe me!

Been cooking up a storm, but...

Such an opportunity I've missed! I've been cooking virtually every meal my Beloved and I have eaten since March 30th, and not one have I documented here. Shame that. Perhaps I'll change that, now that I've got a bit more time to devote to this blog.

On March 29th, my Beloved tore his Achilles tendon off the bone. (The medical term for tearing the tendon off the bone is "avulsion", by the way.) He had surgery to repair it on March 30th. It's a same-day-discharge kind of surgery, so he came home that evening, and my stint as Chief Cook and Bottlewasher began in earnest the following day, as Beloved started six weeks of no weight-bearing on the operative leg.

For various reasons - healing, overall health, weight control, and because it's how I eat - my Beloved switched (or got switched) to the Paleo way of eating pretty much overnight. There was some bread in the bread bin, but once it was gone, it stayed gone. And he didn't even squawk about it, really; the reality check of having to haul his entire body weight around using primarily his upper body strength, and the spectre of the possibility of Type II diabetes were strong motivators, I guess.

It's been seven weeks now. He went from a plaster/fiberglass cast to a walking boot/air cast two weeks ago, and can do a lot more for himself now that he can put weight on the operative leg. He has lost weight. We don't know how much, because we haven't put him on the scale. But the fronts of his dressing gown overlap by at least six inches more than they did the first week post-op.