WFD {What's For Dinner} Wednesday

Wow!  Is it really Wednesday again already?!  My goodness, this week just flew by!  Are y'all finding that you are keeping busier lately with the weather cooling {for most} and the fall festivities picking up?  I feel like we have hardly stopped for a minute around here!

Mitch's POM leave {his pre-deployment leave} starts next week and I know that we will be on the go then, too.  We are going to get Sandra and Bryson {our older rugrats} and we're taking all of the kids to Sea World in Orlando!  We took The Sophster right before last deployment and she loved it then, so I know that they will all enjoy it this time!  The Mister and I are also trying to plan a small overnight getaway.  Just the two of us.  That will be fantastic!!

Anyway, with us staying so busy, I have been a little lazy in the kitchen.  Luckily, we had a lot of leftovers to get us by on the days that I didn't cook and I even cut a few corners on days that I did!

Thursday night I decided I didn't want to cook, so we went out for some wings and a beer.  We also ordered a lot of fried stuff.  I knew I would pay for it.  Boy did I ever!  I was laid up on the couch with terrible stabbing gas knots in my tummy for the duration of the evening until I finally gave up and went to bed.  I think I said to Mitch something like "I freaking hate paleo for making me healthy!"  But seriously, I don't.  I love it.  :)  It's just a hard pill to swallow that this is how I used to feel all.of.the.time....and it felt normal.  Gross.

Friday night was a nice easy meal to make.  I was going to make pork chops {ended up making these on Tuesday night}, but we picked up a rotisserie chicken from Target instead.  It was delicious.  I made the Rosemary Carrot Mash from the Beyond Bacon cookbook, and some simple roasted brussels sprouts with bacon.

Edit** I found the recipe for the carrot mash, here, on the Paleo Parents site.  It's fab and you should totally make it.  Also, how awesome does that meatloaf look?!  Clearly, I haven't read the whole cookbook yet!

The brussies are a regular staple in this house, now.  It's funny how we used to protest brussels sprouts and swore we would never eat them.  We were wrong.  Have you tried them roasted?  I just cut them in halves or quarters {depending on the size}, toss them in some melted bacon grease {or coconut oil}, chop some bacon up over them, season with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and roast them at 400* for about 20 minutes.  They are SO good, you guys!!  The carrot mash was fantastic, too!  I'll definitely be making that again.  I had a half bottle of GTs Synergy Kombucha  to drink, and the Mister had an Angry Orchard.  I am in looooove with GT's kombucha in the Gingerberry flavor.  They are a little on the pricey side, so I swing by Whole Foods once a week and buy three.  I drink half of a 16oz bottle a day.  One of my upcoming deployment goals is to learn how to make and bottle this stuff on my own!

Saturday was super busy for us.  We had The Sophster's fall festival at the Discovery House, which is quite possibly her favorite place in the known world.  Then, home for a nap and right back out the door for a fall/Halloween mini photo session with one of our favorite local photographer mamas!  I definitely did not have the energy to cook that night.  As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure I dined on dark chocolate covered almonds and a glass of red wine on the couch and passed out under my snuggie while watching Person of Interest with The Mister.

Sunday was also a busy day.  My girlfriend, Kim, was throwing a baby shower for her daughter-in-law, Melissa {also a friend}, to celebrate the arrival of Kim's first grandchild!  I spent the day cooking and prepping food and helping her get things set up.  We went with a tea party theme, which ended up being so much fun!  I ended up staying after the shower was over and helping Kim clean up.  Mitch was home with The Sophster.  I didn't get home until after her bedtime, so they had to fend for themselves for dinner.  I ate some {read: A LOT OF} bacon wrapped dates...and some petit fours {whatevs, it was a party}.

If you follow this blog on Facebook, you may have seen the picture of the beef oxtails that I posted on Monday morning.  I had never cooked with oxtail before, so it was a bit of an adventure, but seriously you guys, it came out SO yummy!  I ended up mashing two recipes together to get this meal.  I made the Crockpot Caribbean Oxtail from Stupid Easy Paleo and I took inspiration from The Paleo Cupboard's Mashed Rutabaga and Veggie Gravy.  

What I did different: I added about a cup of {preservative free, no added sugar} red wine into the slow cooker about an hour and a half before the oxtail and veggies were done.  This added such a nice flavor profile!  For the mash, I used a little chicken broth {which it calls for}, but I also added some grass fed butter and some bacon grease, for a little more creaminess.

The meal came out wonderful!  It actually felt like we were eating such a guilty pleasure type meal.  Kind of like mashed potatoes, gravy, and pot roast.  I will most definitely be making this again.  We also had a small side salad with some Tessemae's Red Wine Vinegar dressing.  We love this dressing and I'm sad that our local Whole Foods only carries this flavor.  We want to try them all!

The Sophster's plate was not much different from ours.  Her Daddy put more grapes on there than I usually would.  What happens is, she eats the grapes and then claims she is full and will hardly touch the rest of the meal.  Plus, she was in a particularly sour mood that day.  Oh well.  Can't win 'em all, especially with a two year old!

I also bought 3.5lbs of oxtail and quickly realized that it all was not going to fit in my {much too small, apparently} slow cooker.  We are {slowly} trying to transition the dogs over to a raw food diet {that's a whole other future post}, and they know that when there is extra raw meat around the kitchen, they are in for a treat!  So, we weren't the only ones who enjoyed those oxtails!

Tuesday night, we had Shaken and Baked pork chops from Beyond Bacon, leftover Rosemary Carrot Mash, and one of our favorite things ever, sweet potato hash with sausage {that I made for breakfast that morning! So versatile!}.

We love these pork chops SO much!  They are easy, fun for The Sophster to help with, and so so delicious!  Not that the other recipes in the book aren't completely fabulous, but I would recommend buying this book solely based on this one recipe!  The Mister drools all over himself eating them and The Sophster always finishes her serving!  Win!  And besides...

Our plates came out looking pretty orange with the chops/carrot/sweet potato combo {it's time for a farmer's market run for more green veggies!}, so I made a side salad with organic salad greens, organic grape tomatoes, and crumbled some raw jalapeño cheddar on top.  We dressed it with some Tessemae's red wine vinegar and had a fabulous meal!  

The Sophster actually ate everything except for her carrot mash.  She just is simply not a fan of all things mashed, apparently.  We were thrilled that she ate what she did, though, so we left it alone.

Apart from these meals {and our other daily meals}, I also cooked up a large batch of chicken broth and a bunch of paleo brownie bites for the fall festival we went to on Saturday.  I was so excited to see that they were the first things to go on the cookie walk!  Makes me so happy to see people getting serious about their health and the health of their children. :)

This week I'm going to make a big batch of beef broth, and I may try to make the yummy looking pumpkin seed recipe I saw over at The House of Boys & A Girl!  I just love fall!  How about you?!

So those are our dinners for this week!  I hope you saw some things that you may want to try!  What did you make for dinner this week?  Don't forget to check out what The Pajama Mama had on her menu for this week and check out anyone else who is linking up over there!

**Disclaimer: This post does include some affiliate links.  If you were to click on said links and purchase said product, I would get a teeny tiny kickback from Amazon.**