Slow-cooked pork ribs, broccoli, carrots and onions with garlic

The cook-up went well. My husband cut up all of the veg and I did all of the cooking. It took about 3 hours total of actual work between us. I didn't get to the sauces or muffins yet, but it is in the works for today or tomorrow.

We started out with me getting the ribs and roast in the oven to slow cook while Matt cut up the long list of veggies. About halfway through, I had to nurse and fix lunch for the other munchkins. When I was done, I cooked up all of the vegetables with the steam-sautee method. Then I got two burners going and grilled all of the chicken-- this was the most time consuming part.

Things I will do different next time-

• We will both work at veggie prep on Saturday and have them ready to cook on Sunday.
• I will get two burners going with the veggies to make this process even faster.
• Peas. I forgot them this week.
• More carrots and cabbage.
• I will pound the chicken thighs flat to cut the cooking time and probably add white pepper to the seasoning.

It was tiring, and a pretty big job, but dinner took less than 20 minutes to make last night. This is going to help keep us away from take-out and reduce stress during the week. I am totally on board for next week.

I've found that by the time dinner rolls around, between not sleeping at night and all day nurse-a-thons, I am exhausted, nursing or both, and it is difficult to get dinner cooked before bedtime. We manage, but there has been an awful lot of Trader Joe's hotdogs and stops off at Chipotle.

Last week, I picked up a cookbook called Well Fed from the library and it may very well change my life. The first chapter of the book goes into why we should eat a Paleo style diet, but we've already been at this (off and on) for two years, so we're already there. It is the second chapter that is really working for me though.

The Author, Melissa Joulwan from The Clothes Make the Girl, talks about "Hot Plates" and Cooking WOD's (Workout of the Day). Basically, she takes an hour or two and preps her veggies and meats for the week, then she pulls them from the fridge and builds plates throughout the week.

This weekend, we are going to be attempting our first Cooking WOD. It should feed our family of four for five days Sunday through Thursday. It looks something like this:

Meats 
3lb Ground Beef , browned, Make chili w/ half and put the other half in the fridge.

4lb Chicken thighs in grill pan, for salads, stir fries etc.
3lb Pork shoulder, slow cooked, for salads and hot plates

1lb oven bacon, reserve the fat

1 doz hard boiled eggs

Cooked Veg

2lb of Broccoli, steam sauteed
1 Cabbage, shredded, steam sauteed 
2 lb of Carrots, steam sauteed
4 Mixed bell peppers, steam sauteed
2 Sweet Onions, steam sauteed

1/2 Celery Heart, steam sauteed

Raw veg
2 onions, chopped
2lb Baby Carrots
1/2 Celery Heart, diced
4 heads of romaine
1/2 lb mushrooms 
2 cukes
2 tomatoes
1 bunch spinach or kale

1Sunshine Sauce – Well Fed pg 45  

1  Mayo
1  Tahini Dressing – Well Fed 2, Page 74

1 Pumpkin Pie Muffins

1 FrozenWaffles

I let Ryleigh choose a meal as well, and she picked  pan-grilled Salmon for lunch one day and tuna salad on celery another.  

It sounds awesome, but can we get it done? I think that if the husband and I work at it, it is definitely an attainable goal! Wish us luck <3