Adventures in babysitting and grocery shopping

Times have been hectic indeed!  There's been a move, a new job position, a little more drinking and a little less cooking than is ideal.  I recently spend most of a weekend babysitting my little niece; I'm not a kid person, so it was interesting.  I was curious to see how she would like being a paleobabby for the weekend (Paleohacks joke!), and the experiment went well!  I told her I was making bacon for breakfast and she seemed cool with that; she even got impatient while it was cooking and said "where's my bacon?!"  Needless to say, I was delighted; she had bacon & bananas for breakfast and loved it.  Then we went to the county fair to look at the animals and I forgot to give her lunch :/  Didn't I say I'm not a kid person?  Let's just call it intermittent fasting!  She seemed fine though, and after naptime I gave her some rotisserie chicken and a little white rice for dinner.  I didn't accomplish getting any veggies in her that day, but she ate an impressive amount of chicken, and no cookies, crackers, or prepackaged baby meals.

The next week I spent a day in Baltimore with my parents and I found a great dinner place on Restaurant.com- it's called Waterstone Bar & Grill and it was an absolute gem.  I'd gotten a $25 gift certificate for $2, so dinner for the three of us was under $40.  Mom got a bison burger, and dad & I both got the Hairiki Village dish: 2 lamb chops, fried calamari (yes, there was gluten), grilled yellow squash, and a side of cucumber, tomato, feta salad.  I'd go back in a heartbeat, and my mom was even impressed (no small feat).

I've also recently had the opportunity to try out Elevation Burger.  A location was recently opened at the National Harbor (about an hour and a half from my home) and I was excited to check them out after learning about them from some paleo forums.  Their beef is grassfed, they will wrap your burger in lettuce, and they cook their fries in olive oil (also, said fries are enough for two people to share)!  Pretty cool!  I was really pleased with my meal and will definitely be back next time I'm in the area. 

I also had a rare opportunity to go to Whole Foods last weekend (yes, Whole Foods and Trader Joe's are a special treat for me).  While I absolutely believe Whole Foods doesn't have to be expensive and there are great deals to be had, I'm a little ashamed to admit I spent over $100 on two bags of groceries :(  There were some fancy things (a pastured chicken, grassfed beef, wine, etc.) but I also stocked up on my Kerrygold (which costs a lot more in my town for some reason) and got some good yogurt because I'm doing some experiments with lacto-fermenting, and apparently the regular store yogurt isn't very effective in the probiotic department (I read that on the internet, so I'm not 100% sure, but why mess around with fermenting mayo?)  I also got a container of sheep yogurt for shits & giggles, and a bottle of goat kefir because I want to see what all the fuss is about.  I'll definitely be doing some smoothies with the kefir, and will probably try drinking some with honey and some spices.

So that's what I've been up to; more recipes are coming soon!