I’m confused. How is it possibly 1 day away from February? I don’t even know what happened to the last 30 days. I hope the rest of the year isn’t like this, or I will need 48 hours in a day. I’ve been a bit swamped with work stuffs (yeah, stuffs, that’s no typo), which is always a good thing because job security is awesome and all that.

My baby is turning 3 in February. I absolutely love this age, though she’s currently in a very headstrong, independent, I’ll-say-no-to-everything-you-say-just-to-be-a-jerk-even-if-I-really-want-that-banana stage, which is pretty frustrating. But she’s so freaking cute that I can’t help but laugh when she defiantly crosses her arms, humphs, and turns away when she doesn’t get what she wants.

February can be a pretty gloomy month in the colder parts of the world, and when we lived in Minnesota, we were all “yeah, let’s go to Florida for the month” and it was so great, hearing about the massive snowstorm that closed the schools in half the state while we were on the beach. I don’t even like the beach but that was pretty great. But we’re in Colorado now, so we get these glorious breaks in the weather where we’ll have a few 60 degree days between snowstorms, and I can live with that. But I do love me a good snowstorm so long as I’ve got nowhere to go.

Blizzards also conjure happy feelings for me. Our almost-3-year-old was born in the middle of a blizzard, at home, and it was quite possibly one of the most amazing experiences of my life. Watching the snow fall outside a big picture window reminds me of all those beautiful moments and the emotions that came with them, and I love it. So bring on the snow, but not the ice, because the ice pretty much sucks.

So, I’m one of those people that sees a pound of ground beef and immediately thinks “spaghetti” or “burgers”. Totally from my pre-paleo brainwashing. I know there are a million other uses, but my brain just usually shuts down at that point. It’s taken some time to get past that mental roadblock and realize there’s more to ground beef than that.

One day, I went through my old recipe cards (yeah, I actually have a little plastic container of recipe cards) for some inspiration and came across this recipe for a Cowboy Casserole that I hadn’t made in forever. I was kind of wanting some comfort food so I made (quite a few) alterations to it and came up with something fantastic! I have actually made this recipe about a dozen times, changing things up a bit here and there until it was just right. I also made it for non-paleo dinner guests and they loved it, so that’s always good news.

And yeah, since this is a paleo dish, I’m ditching the “cowboy” part and adding something a bit more appropriate, hence the “Caveboy Casserole”. I know, I’m so totally clever. I wonder how old my kids will be when they start getting embarrassed by me…