Just wanted to lend my support for something some of us are calling "Paleo Enough".
Nancy's right - get the big things under control first, before worrying too much about some of the finer points.
I drink coffee. No plans of giving it up either. I put Native Forest brand organic light coconut milk into it, since I gave up dairy awhile ago. Pretty tasty, and if I'm out, I just order my coffee black, since no coffee shop is going to have coconut milk. My trick for this scenario is to order a milder blend of coffee, not my usual industrial-strength French Roast. Oh, and I never go to a coffee shop when hungry either.
For a buttery taste, I will sometimes use a store bought 'certified casein free' ghee. It's pricey, but gives a nice buttery flavour if you're wanting it for a special recipe or something. I rarely use it though.
Never thought I'd say this!
And for vegetables - I'll cook 'extra' at dinner time and actually save the leftovers. This is new for me - I never used to save leftover vegetables. In any case - having some leftover roasted vegetables in a lunchtime salad is *excellent* - elevates a plain-Jane salad into something extra-yummy. Not kidding about this - I've cooked extra roasted asparagus spears with the express purpose of having some leftover for next day's breakfast or lunch. A roasted asparagus omelet is pretty tasty. Cold roasted leftover vegetables are
excellent in a lunch salad.
Geeze - just a few weeks ago, I made a bunch of roasted cauliflower with garlic, onion and olive oil. Roasted it forever in the oven, then drizzled some chicken broth in just to moisten, and mashed it up roughly with an old-fashioned potato masher. Texture comes up a bit like 'hash browns'. Some for dinner, and the rest went into the fridge. Guess what we made with the leftovers?
Roasted garlic and caramelized onion cauliflower latkes.
Yep - just took the cold leftover roasted cauliflower mash stuff, added one egg and plopped the mixture into a frying pan, mini-pancake-style. Very, very good! Way better than any restaurant food.
Meanwhile, it really sounds like you need to get on with cooking more stuff at home, and a really good way around this is to cook a lot at one time. Make it worth the hassle, so to speak.
Do you have a good crockpot? This could really come in handy, and prevent those 'eating out' deals. Awhile back, I came across a great post from one of my forum friends (Bat Spit), replying to a college student who had no kitchen and wanted quick low-carb meal ideas. Well - it turns out that you can put a bunch of chicken in the crockpot with a jar of your favourite salsa. I tried this, used Santa Barbara brand roasted tomatillo salsa. It was *amazing* and after cooking for just four hours, the chicken was fork-tender, and shredded up all by itself. Looked and tasted like something from a restaurant. We're talking a bunch of chicken and some salsa - throw into the crockpot. Turn on...walk way. Dinner's ready when you get home, and the best part is having the leftovers. The flavours meld a bit and the whole mess tastes even better the next day.
Now, it would be easy to get all picky about this. Maybe there's nightshades in that salsa I used, or perhaps the salsa I picked didn't have the 'right' peppers or whatever....
This is why I like the silliness of saying "Paleo Enough" (thanks Lisa for coming up with that one!).
I can't help but wonder if part of the 'problem' of getting going on this
better diet for you, is that there's a bit too much pressure to get everything just perfect.
I know it's partly because of not having the food on-hand, cooked and all ready and so on - but I have a funny feeling that maybe you're almost trying too hard. What do you think?
Is Paleo Enough good enough?