Menu Plan: Week of May 18 - Whole30 Detox, Week 4

So I was really lazy last week and didn't do a menu plan post.  I did have a menu plan though.  The highlights are

• We ate fish (Sonny D loves fish!).   
• I made a huge batch of beef stew that we ate for several days, including for my breakfast with a poached egg on top.  
• I went to Dubuque to visit my friend Renae.  I showed her how easy it is to make homemade mayonnaise and she immediately requested a second batch, which she turned into an awesome tartar sauce. 
• We made it through the week without a breakfast egg dish.  We ate leftovers for breakfast and made whatever sounded good, but it's a little too much work to have to cook something up to eat every morning.  

Whole30 Cleanse/Detox

This is the fourth week of our detox.  So far we've

• Learned - Jeff loves half an avocado for breakfast and he wants to continue that even after the detox.  I think sweet potatoes are great, I rarely ate them prior to the cleanse but I think I'll have them on hand in the future for a simple add-on for a meal.  Also, homemade mayo is amazing, I eat it with pretty much everything.
• Noticed - that I need less protein as the day goes on.  If I don't eat a big breakfast full of protein and fat I end up hungry by mid-morning, but for dinner I barely need any protein to sustain myself until morning. I've also noticed I have reduced my "love handles" and my tummy is less jiggly. 
• Been Frustrated By - not being able to eat a lot of fruit.  We're supposed to limit the amount of fruit we eat to break our sugar habit, but fruit is so easy -- it doesn't need much prep (maybe peel it) and doesn't need to be cooked.  
• Loved - avocado with as many meals as possible, taco salads.  I've cooked up taco meat three of the four weeks, I portion it out into jars so Jeff can grab one and some salad greens and take them to work.  
• Had a Hard Time With - different locations.  At home things are figured out for us, but our old habits come to the surface when we're somewhere else like the in-laws house for dinner.  This weekend I also ate at Renae's house and our friends' Brian & Kristen's house and I feel like I have to be so careful so I don't accidentally eat something I shouldn't. 
• Been Surprised By - How we sleep much more soundly.  But also surprised by a lack of good side effects.  We're supposed to have lots of energy (they call it "tiger blood") and that's not happening yet.  Jeff actually reports being tired more often.  I'm surprised that I haven't had any dreams about food.  I actually don't dream about food when I sleep, but I do think about it all day.  :)  I was already eating foods that were pretty consistent with the Whole30 way of thinking (less carbs, lean protein, veggies, etc.) so maybe my body didn't really need to do much adjusting. 
• Had to Readjust - We were eating WAY too much nut butter and fruit in the beginning.  We were eating both of them together to substitute for dessert, which we don't actually have anyway, but we do eat fruit with most meals.  I stopped buying so much fruit and I haven't really had nut butter since week 2.  
• Been Planning - all of the decadent treats I want to make/eat when we're done with the detox.  I listen to the America's Test Kitchen radio podcast and they've mentioned several things that sound great, like chocolate French silk pie and oatmeal fudge bars.  It's usually really rare that I even make desserts.  Oh, and I'm planning to have a doughnut when I'm done with this whole thing.  It's been so hard to be completely denied any sweets/desserts. 

This week we're supposedly hitting the stage where we're bored with Whole30, sick of our food choices and ready to be done.  I think I've done a pretty good job with a lot of variety for our meals, but I am certainly done eating so much beef and chicken.  I really don't like meat this much. 

Next week will be the end of our detox but I'm definitely going to do the gradual reintroduction of foods to see if I have any reactions to them.  I don't think I will have any issues, but you never know unless you try it out. 

Meal Plan

I made a breakfast egg casserole for the week, this time taco meat with bell pepper, tomatoes, chiles, and spinach.  

My lunches are going to be salads this week using my homemade mayo - I've already made chicken salad and will make another batch with the couple of cooked chicken breasts hanging out in the fridge.  Then next up will be egg salad because I make a dozen hard-boiled eggs every week.  And then tuna salad.  

Jeff's lunches will be taco salads, so good and so easy.  He found out today that a hard-boiled egg and a can of beets do not equal a lunch.  A few hours later he went to the grocery store to buy something more to eat because he didn't have anything else.  He found out most snack nuts are roasted with oils we can't eat, but eventually found something.  Maybe now he sees the beauty of a well-packed lunch (and appreciates what I do for him!).

• Monday - We had grilled sirloin tip steak, fajita veggies (grilled peppers and onions), and cauliflower rice
• Tuesday - Grandma and grandpa pick up Sonny D and Husband Jeff and I go to Zumba, so no real dinner but hard-boiled eggs and nuts.  It's actually the perfect amount of protein and fat before class.  After class we'll have some lean protein, last week I cut up chicken breast and we chowed it on the way home to get Sonny D.  
• Wednesday - Indian night with butter chicken and a package of Punjab eggplant and more cauliflower rice.
• Thursday - Greek bison kofta (ground meat on a stick) and some veggies.
• Friday - In the morning I'm going to my step-brother's graduation and in the afternoon I'm visiting my online friend Biz (from My Bizzy Kitchen) in real life when she comes to Milwaukee to do the Spartan adventure race.  So I'm leaving Husband Jeff and Sonny D for yet another Friday.  This time I'm planning they'll have frozen Trader Joe's chile-lime chicken burgers and a bag of steamable broccoli.  I'm
• Saturday - Core Fusion exercise class in the morning and Sonny D has swimming after that.  I think we'll have lime shrimp avocado salad for lunch and dinner will be Italian meatball soup or Mediterranean chicken skillet.
• Sunday - Northside farmers' market! There still isn't much at the market aside from asparagus, rhubarb, onions, and plants.  Oh well, still fun to go.  Last week I spent a ton of money on local grass-fed beef and some fish.  I think for dinner we'll have a lasagna where instead of noodles it uses zucchini and instead of cheese it's ground cashews.  I know it doesn't sound too amazing, but the recipe had a lot of good reviews.  It'll be a nice change of pace. 

I keep forgetting that this weekend is Memorial Day.  We don't have any plans at all. 

Ready In Seconds, Seriously! Homemade Mayo

I've had some people (particularly my friend John) interested in my homemade mayonnaise I've been using for our Whole30 cleanse so I made a quick video to share with you.

I follow the Everyday Maven mayo recipe because it has instructions for using an immersion blender, which gives amazing results pretty much every time.  And as you can see in the video, it's pretty much instant! 

Please forgive the shortness of the video, I recorded it with my phone and it tipped over before I was finished because of the immersion blender's vibrations on the countertop.  But as you can see, it turned to mayo in just a few seconds.  All I did to finish was to bring the immersion blender up to incorporate the oil sitting on top.  So quick! 

The most important thing to do is to use LIGHT olive oil.  Regular extra virgin olive oil is to olive-y and strong, what you need is a really light oil so it doesn't give too much flavor.   I would recommend a touch less salt, this was my first time using the Himalayan pink salt and this batch turned out a little more salty than expected.  If you're following Whole30, you should use plain mustard or mustard powder because Dijon mustard has white wine, which is not Whole30-approved. 

I've read that to make a smaller batch, you use just an egg yolk (save the white for your next omelet) and whatever amount of oil you want, like 1/4 to 1/2 cup.  But I say go for a whole 1 cup batch, this stuff is so good!  I eat it on everything these days. 

And I follow the advice that it lasts longer than one week, in my book it should last for as long as your egg.  I'm also using a farm-fresh egg that I bought at the farmers' market, really good quality. 

Menu Plan: Week of May 4 - Whole30 Detox, Week 2

Whole30 Cleanse - Week 1

The cleanse is going quite well. The food is no problem, but that comes from lots of research, planning, and preparation.  We did a lot of prep work to have veggies ready to eat.  On the second day I had a bit of headache (as expected) but it was barely anything. They say the second-day headache is directly related to the amount of crap you ate before the cleanse, it's your body working through it. Luckily I'm a pretty healthy eater, I can't imagine what it must feel like for those people who drink several diet Cokes per day and eat fast food regularly. 

Breakfast egg bake - potatoes, peppers, onion, and black olives.
And half an avocado for healthy fat.

Breakfast also looks like this.
Scrambled eggs with mushrooms, spinach, peppers,
sweet potato, and avocado.

More egg bake - chorizo, spinach, tomato, green chile, and black olives.
Mashed avocado on top.

I'm supposed to be aiming for three meals per day to ensure you're eating enough protein and fat and also to make sure you're not having snacks (which tend to be sugary and uncontrolled), but I'm still hungry between meals.  It's getting a little better because I think my body is adjusting.  The hardest thing about being home all the time with nothing to do is that there aren't a whole lot of real distractions to keep you busy. I have lists of random chores that I work through each day, but none of them are actually important or busy enough to ensure I don't get distracted. The best is when I'm out of the house running errands.  

Taco salad for lunch.

Lunch of homemade breakfast sausage and leftover roasted veggies.

I've come to realize how much I usually taste things that I can't have right now - licking my sticky fingers after making a PB sandwich for Sonny D, testing the temperature of his ultra-creamy coffee, checking to see if toast is too crunchy to feed to him (ended up toasting a second time to warm up a leftover piece and it was too toasted/dark).  Just so many habits to break. Like snagging one of his gummy vitamins because they're good. 

Dinner of zucchini noodles with pesto and baked fish.

My attempt at french fries didn't work, too crowded on the baking sheet.
We still ate them!

Homemade BBQ sauce to go with shredded pork.  Turned out great!

Chicken with roasted veggies and sweet potato with cilantro pesto.

Husband Jeff found that his vitamins had soy in them so lucky he was able to switch to a different bottle we already had.

My favorite snack is pork rinds dipped in homemade mayo. Crunchy, creamy, tasty!  Pork rinds are awesome, they don't have any carbs and are less calories than potato chips. And homemade mayo is great!  I used extra-virgin olive oil that has a strong olive taste which is a little overpowering.  I'm glad I got light olive oil for my next batch so it's a little more milk.  I'm the only one who eats the mayo, but that's not a problem, I put it on a lot of things. 

Post-workout snack, pork rinds with mayo!

We've inspired some of our friends to look into what they're eating.  One gal is reading ingredient lists for added sugar and another friend is modifying what he eats to be more focused on protein and veggies without grains or sugar.  

I've found that I'm the only one in the family who eats celery or cucumber.  So sad.  And it's hard to really eat much of either of them if you're not dipping them in yummy hummus (not on the cleanse because it's made from legumes).

I thought I ate pretty healthy but apparently I still have a sugar habit.  I realize that throughout the day I want to occasionally have a little taste of something sweet. I keep trying to tell myself it's because I can't have anything sugary that I want it so much, but I don't feel that way for bread so it must be an addiction.  I definitely know that I was using sugar for a quick burst of energy, before my exercise classes I would have something small and sugary like 3-4 jelly beans. And we've definitely been substituting fruit for sugar, we've eaten four container of strawberries in just one week and two each of blackberries and raspberries.  We put almond butter or sunflower butter on them as a dessert.  I'm going to try to reduce the amount of fruit this week.   

I'm not having coffee during our cleanse since I found that coffee without both cream AND sugar is disgusting.  That's ok though because I don't need it for the caffeine since I drink decaf anyway.  

I thought breakfast would be hard, but we've made a couple big egg casseroles with potatoes and veggies and meat and it's fine.  I don't actually miss my oatmeal and I thought I would have a huge problem with that.  

We've gone through a lot of eggs on this detox, we bought three dozen eggs last Sunday and we needed more eggs before the end of the week.  Eight eggs went in our first egg bake (enough for 4 days) and I also made a dozen hardboiled eggs for supplementing lunches and quick workout protein.   The rest of the eggs went into individual breakfasts after the egg bake was gone and for Sonny D's breakfasts.  This Sunday I bought four dozen eggs and we immediately used a whole dozen to make this week's egg bake.  

We're eating a lot more food, I went grocery shopping several times to supplement what we already had.  But in other ways we're not eating much, like some of the veggies are sticking around a while. 

Zipper dog hanging out resting on my slippered feet at dinner.

Non-Whole30 Stuff

Sonny D loves swimming lessons.  Jeff took him to the pool for open swim on Friday and he had a great time jumping in and diving for the weights.  It's so great to see him work with his swim instructor and be so happy after each activity.  

We found some time on Saturday to start working on my coffee station.  Jeff cut out the boards and I drilled out all of the holes to connect everything.  Only need to glue it together and then screw it together and then paint it! 

Husband Jeff cutting out wood for my coffee station.

I'm using the Kreg jig to make holes for my coffee station.

And I have to declare that Craigslist is great.  I listed a Crate & Barrel rug on Friday and sold it a day later for $200.  And then later that same day we drove out to someone's house and bought a tagalong bike for Sonny D.  It connects to the adult bike and rides along behind like a tandem bike.  The kid can pedal if they want or just hang on and look around.  They went out for their first ride to try it out and I thought they would go around the block and come right back but they were gone for over an hour.  Money well spent!

Husband Jeff and Sonny D heading out on tagalong bike.

Menu Plan

It's Cinco de Mayo on Tuesday so I've got a theme of Mexican food this week.

I'm having a hard time planning veggies for our meals.  We seem to eat a lot of some things and nothing of others.  It's pretty easy to make something with whatever we've got around, either fresh or in the freezer or pantry. I also feel like we're stuck on the same veggies -- green beans, cauliflower, and broccoli.  I need to consult my Whole30 shopping list for some ideas of other things to try. 

• Monday - Mexican shrimp salads with roasted carrots
• Tuesday - No dinner because Sonny D goes to grandma & grandpa's and we've got Zumba class.  I'll have a couple hardboiled eggs and a handful of nuts before class.  After class I have some more protein and a sweet potato. 
• Wednesday - Continuing the Mexican theme with chile con carne.  It's going to be sad since we can't have beans in our chili and that's our favorite part.  But I'm going to upgrade us from regular ground beef to large meaty bites of beef chuck, hopefully that will satisfy us.
• Thursday - Having leftover chili for dinner before I head out to a board meeting for our Korean adoption group.  I love having leftovers around for minimal effort.   
• Friday - a quick meal of hot dogs before we head to family fun night at the local rec center.
• Saturday - I want to hit the plant sale at the local community garden.  I don't know what they'll have, but my garden planning is banking on them having what I need to finish my garden.  I don't have a dinner planned, but I've got a recipe for a Mexican chicken taco soup that uses pumpkin puree and I might make that.  Or if the weather is really nice we'll plan to get something from the meat market and grill out.
• Sunday -  Heading to the northside farmers' market like usual.  I'm glad it's already going but sad because there isn't much available yet and what is there isn't appealing.  I usually like rhubarb to make a rhubarb cake but we can't have that.  I also make a rhubarb puree for my oatmeal, but not eating that either.  And rhubarb isn't going to be any good without any sugar added.  And I like asparagus, but Husband Jeff doesn't like it much so I can't count on that for a veggie for dinner. 
  It's Mother's Day and we're having a meal with my in-laws.  I said I would come up with a couple things to make, but I haven't done that yet, gotta look at my bookmarks and Pinterest board for inspiration!