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! 

Menu Plan: Week of April 27 - Whole30 Detox, Week 1

This Monday is when we start our Whole30 detox where we go 30 days without eating grains, legumes/soy, dairy, sugar, or alcohol.  I've had a few worries come to mind when planning for this cleanse.

• I'm afraid that I am going to have trouble with my breakfast. I was joking about being addicted to oats because I have oatmeal for breakfast every single morning, but I might actually be addicted.  We'll find out.
• I'm also worried about what to eat before going to Zumba class. I typically have a couple pieces of toast with nut butter on them but bread is not allowed on our cleanse.  I tried a Whole30-approved pre-workout meal of two eggs and a handful of nuts and it worked out fine, so maybe I'll just eat that same exact thing every week.
• I'm afraid that I won't be able to do it, that I won't be strong enough to last the whole 30 days doing this change. This cleanse is generally pretty close to what I already eat, but occasionally I include a little bit of rice, bread, or pasta or something with sugar in it like a dessert.
• I'm afraid that I'll eat something without thinking about it, like clean off my son's spoon for him or while I'm packing his lunch in the morning.  It's just a habit to give a taste when packing his lunch, even if I'm not hungry.

Menu Plan for Whole30 Detox, Week 1

I don't know how much we'll eat each day so I've got ideas ready and we can make them as we run out of food.  Snacks aren't really condoned, so I came up with ideas that can supplement our meals since we're just figuring all of this out. 

I bought much larger amounts of things we already buy, like three dozen eggs from the local farmer, 14 bananas since Husband Jeff said he wants to eat bananas a lot, a bag of sweet potatoes, a bag of regular white potatoes, loads of fruits and veggies, etc. 

Prep - clean fruits & veggies, make a dozen hard-boiled eggs, make taco meat for lunch salads, make breakfast casserole

Breakfasts - egg casserole with homemade sausage, roasted veggies, fruit
Lunches - taco salads, leftover meat on top of salads, sweet potatoes
Lunch/meal supplements - apples and bananas with nut butter, some sort of dip with veggies, hard-boiled eggs, olives, monkey salad (banana slices, nuts, coconut flakes, raisins, nut butter)

My favorite random food item that I've found we can eat is pork rinds.  I want to make a creamy cashew dip and we can eat the pork rinds dipped in that.  

• Monday - The weather is supposed to warm up this week, so grilling out seems like a great option.  We'll grill up a whole package of chicken breasts and any leftovers we'll have on salads for lunch.  We've also got a grill pan, so we'll grill up a bunch of potatoes and veggies too.
• Tuesday - I've got a massage scheduled, that should be a really nice way to start the week, especially with this cleanse.  Grandma & grandpa are going to pick up Sonny D like usual, so we don't have to worry about dinner for him that night.  I don't know what Husband Jeff will eat for his pre-workout meal, but I'm going to have two eggs and a handful of nuts.  We also need to eat a post-workout meal of protein and carb-dense veggies, so I've got a bag of sweet potatoes waiting for us. 
• Wednesday - Around lunch time we've got Sonny D's conference at his preschool.  baked fish, spinach pesto (minus cheese) on zucchini boodles, and a frozen California veggie blend.
• Thursday - Trader Joe's spicy Italian chicken sausage (hot dog for Sonny D), homemade baked sweet potato fries with homemade mayo (which I made on Saturday, amazing!), a half batch of tomato-basil soup.
• Friday - BBQ pork shoulder roast, some sort of slaw, gold potatoes.  It's Me & D night but I think Husband Jeff is going to take him to the pool for open swim.  Lessons have been going great!
• Saturday - I've got exercise class in the morning like usual, and Sonny D has his swimming lesson.  We usually let Sonny D pick the lunch place after swimming, but I've warned him that Daddy and I won't be able to go out to eat at restaurants on our special diet, so I think I've convinced him to come home for lunch but we'll still take him out for the requisite post-swimmng ice cream.  For lunch we'll have leftover BBQ and slaw.  Dinner will be grilled burgers and potatoes.
• Sunday - I recently had to fill out some paperwork and give our dog's birthdate, so I randomly picked a date that worked with the age we estimate him to me.  So I picked May 3, so Zipper will be 2 years old on Sunday.  We'll probably treat the dog in some fun way, maybe make him a special doggie treat.  There's also the MadCity Bazaar (billed as "an urban pop-up flea market") that I'm going to check out and our little northside farmers' market starts up.  Lunch will be a random assortment.  We might have some leftovers from the week we need to eat up but if not, we can have tuna salad, hard-boiled eggs, nuts, and fruit.  For dinner we'll grill up a sirloin tip steak and have a frozen Price Edward veggie medley (green beans, yellow beans, and carrots). 

Whole30 Shopping

Here is a list of things I've already bought to stock our kitchen.  This is certainly not an all-inclusive list of what's available, just what I've bought so far.  

From Target

• Nestlé pure life sparkling water - we love the any of the flavors
• Market Pantry raw, tail-off peeled shrimp
• Pace picante sauce
• Reese artichoke hearts
• Taste of Thai coconut milk (full fat)
• Celestial Seasonings tea (I found a great chocolate caramel flavor on clearance)
• California olives
• Sun-Maid dates
• Archer Farms frozen butternut squash
• Birds-Eye frozen broccoli

From Aldi

Fresh

• Romaine hearts lettuce
• Multicolored peppers
• Lemons
• Mandarin oranges
• Bananas
• Grapes
• Cilantro
• Fresh green beans
• Limes
• Organic grape tomatoes
• Avocados
• Cauliflower
• Broccoli
• Blackberries
• Raspberries
• Mangoes
• Pears
• Minneola tangelos

Frozen

• Steamable California medley
• Swai fillets
• Prince Edward vegetable medley

Pantry

• Yellow mustard
• Roasted red peppers in a jar
• Diced tomatoes in a can
• Black olives
• French green beans in a can
• Unsweetened dried coconut chunks
• Sliced beets in a can
• Decaf coffee
• Pumpkin purée
• Organic tomato sauce
• Any of the regular nuts in the baking area or snack area

Refrigerated

• Unsweetened almond milk
• Unsalted butter (to make ghee)

From Trader Joe's

Fresh

• Bananas
• Sliced mushrooms
• fresh pineapple spears
• Grapefruit
• Hothouse cucumbers
• Bananas

Pantry 

• Raw pumpkin seeds
• Raw mixed nuts
• Unsalted sunflower seeds
• Unsweetened dried dark cherries
• Organic Thompson raisins
• Hatch green  chile salsa
• Canned Skipjack tuna
• Canned albacore tuna
• 21-seasoning salute spice blend
• Pitted jumbo Kalamata olives
• Premade Punjab Indian eggplant dish
• Dried Turkish apricots unsulfured
• Black olives
• whole raw cashews
• Salsa autentica (red salsa)
• Raw almonds
• Kosher dill pickles
• reamy salted almond butter
• Capers

Refrigerated

• Spicy Italian chicken sausage
• Applegate organic beef hotdogs
• Organic chicken tenders
• Prosciutto
• Sliced uncured roast beef lunch meat
• Smoked wild sockeye salmon

Frozen

• Chili lime chicken burgers
• Frozen turkey burger patties
• Vera Cruz marinated fish
• Grass fed Angus strip steak

Whole30 Cleanse Food Ideas

This post is for my friends Ildi, Heather, and Kristen.  Ildi is curious about what food we'll eat on the cleanse, so I'm sharing that.  Heather and Kristen are both currently gluten-free, dairy-free, and soy-free, so these ideas fit within their restrictions.  Heather has food intolerances and Kristen is breastfeeding her son who is having digestive issues when she eats those foods.   

Husband Jeff and I are starting the Whole30 cleanse on Monday, April 27.  The cleanse excludes foods that can cause inflammation such as sugar, grains, legumes, dairy, alcohol, MSG, sulfites, and carrageenan.   I've been preparing a list of food/meal ideas, bookmarks for specific recipes, and food that we can buy that fits in with the program.

Here is my Pinterest board of Whole30 ideas.   I also have over 200 bookmarks of Whole30 recipes.  There is also a recommendation for how to make a balanced Whole30 meal, the short version is a hefty amount of protein (1-2 palm-sized portions) and veggies with a decent amount of fat. 

I mention mayo in these ideas and it would involve making it homemade. 

Breakfast

• sweet potato hash (sweet potatoes, bell pepper, onion) with fried egg on top
• southwest egg bake (peppers, onion, taco meat, salsa, black olives, green chiles)
• pumpkin breakfast pudding (with eggs to make it like a souffle and nuts on top)
• roasted veggies with fried egg or scrambled on top
• scrambled egg masala
• fritattas with leftover roasted veggies

Lunch

• lunch meat rolled around avocado
• riceless sushi with tuna, salmon, shrimp, sweet potato, cucumber, avocado, carrot
• taco salads
• any leftover meat from dinner on a salad 
• avocado and tomato salad
• tuna salad in cucumber cups
• egg salad
• chicken salad

Dinners

• meatballs/meatloaf
• pot roast/beef stew
• grilled steak
• burgers
• chile con carne
• poached or baked fish
• ceviche or avocado shrimp salad 
• fish/shrimp curry
• shrimp scampi
• nut crusted fish
• fish taco lettuce wraps with cumin-lime coleslaw
• pesto (no parmesan) on fish, chicken, or veggies
• chicken or steak fajitas without tortillas
• almond-crusted chicken fingers
• mustard chicken
• Mexican chicken soup
• salsa verde chicken 
• chicken shawarma 
•  cauliflower or cashew alfredo sauce (nutritional yeast instead of parmesan) on veggies with chicken
• BBQ pork shoulder
• roasted veggies with sausage
• cauliflower rice (could season with lime and cilantro)
• zucchini noodles with homemade red sauce
• baked sweet potato fries with spicy homemade mayo
• tomato basil soup
• celery, fennel, bell pepper slaw
• lots of homemade dressings - vinaigrettes, creamy cashew dressings, mayo dressings, tomato dressing, kalamata olive dressing, etc.

Snacks

• nut butter on apple slices, banana, celery, cucumber slices
• hard-boiled eggs or deviled eggs
• monkey salad (banana, nuts, unsweetened coconut flakes, raisins, nut butter)
• smoothie (these are not really recommended but sometimes you gotta bend the rules)
• romesco dip (roasted red pepper and almonds) with veggies
• olives
• unsweetened applesauce
• deviled eggs
• savory spiced nuts
• stuffed dates 
• grainless granola (dried fruit, nuts, seeds, coconut) to eat as a topping for fruit

beverages

• flavored water (lemon, lime, cucumber, mint, berries)

Let me know if you have any questions or want any specific recipes, I'd love to share with you.

Amazing Avocado Salad Dressing, Happens To Be A Whole30 Recipe

This recipe is dedicated to my friend Renae, she's an avocado lover.

I threw together a salad dressing on Sunday night that I totally loved. It was based on user Beets' recipe from the Whole30 recipe sharing forum, but you don't have to be on a special cleanse to eat it.

Beets' original recipe:

1/4 avocado
juice from 1/4 meyer lemon
sea salt
1/4 cup (?) good EVOO

I was making dressing for both Husband Jeff and I, so i double the amounts (unmeasured, cause I'm a rebel!) -- I mashed half an avocado with a fork, a couple tablespoons of bottled lemon juice (wish we had fresh lemons!), a hefty glug of olive oil, and then tasted it to get the right amount of salt.  Then I added a southwestern spice blend since we had marinated the chicken in lime juice, olive oil, and cumin.  It made a lot of dressing and we probably could have gotten away with the original amount for the two of us, but I knew it wouldn't stay pretty since the avocado would oxidize, so I made sure to finish it off that night. 

I don't have a photo, but the dressing was a thick avocado-green sauce.  We used it on hearty romaine salads with grilled chicken breasts. Jeff did a great job of grilling the chicken, it was juicy and tender.  We'll definitely be making this dressing again!

No Menu Plan: Whole30 Instead

I barely had a menu plan for this week, so I'm going to skip posting that for this week. It ends up I only had half the week planned and then we needed to go grocery shopping to buy ingredients to eat anything else for the rest of the week.

Last Week

A funny little thing I wanted to mention. Our dog Zipper sleeps on our bed with us and sometimes he'll snore so loud that it makes me laugh, and I'm supposed be trying to fall sleep. But it's just so cute this teensy little dog with this big ol' snore going on. 

Here are some pictures of food from last week.  

Cooked down frozen strawberries to make sauce for waffles.

Aldi multi-grain gluten-free bread, quite good!

This peanut butter-chocolate fruit dip was based on the recipe from Oh She Glows. I scaled it down to approximately half but with a lot less almond milk since it seemed like it would be too runny with the full amount.  Sonny D liked it, but I absolutely loved it.  When it was gone, I swiped my finger around the bowl to clean it out. 

Peanut butter-chocolate dip.

 

Whole30

Husband Jeff and I are interested in a detox/cleanse called Whole30, it doesn't allow gluten, grains, legumes/soy, sugar, or alcohol. I'm happily planning and researching what we'll eat for the 30 days. We're starting to remove those things from our diet already so it won't be such a shock when we are actually doing it. We've found that black coffee is yucky!  :) We've got some events coming up that would make it really hard to start the cleanse so we're gonna wait towards the end of the month after Husband Jeff's birthday.  I'm glad we're doing this together, it's nice to have a partner on something so challenging like this. 

Whole30 appeals to me because I have been overeating at meals. And clearing my son's plate after he was done eating. And feasting on Easter candy. I want to feel good about my body. I am proud of my strength from weightlifting but I want to feel good about the rest of my body, get rid of the bit of flab.  I think it will feel good to reset our eating habits. 

I'm very excited to plan and make all sorts of new foods. I want to make homemade mayonnaise, which just sounds totally awesome and you can use it on everything because fats are good for the Whole30. I love browsing Pinterest to find new recipes and a new concepts, here's my Whole30 Pinterest board.  It's neat to find there are regular dishes we will be able to eat, like beef stew. I've already started grocery shopping in preparation for our cleanse and reading labels at Trader Joe's and Aldi.

For Sonny D we're going to probably serve him the regular food that we're already eating for dinner and then just adding in rice or pasta for him, but I'd like for him to eat some of the foods that were making anyway.  He doesn't really like much veggies so would be good for him to try some new things. For breakfast he normally eats cereal, oatmeal, or an egg sandwich. I make his lunch for preschool so he'll eat his regular things like peanut butter sandwiches, crab snacks, seaweed,  hard-boiled eggs, homemade trail mix, and other random things that he likes.

In my Whole30 research I saw a recipe called Monkey Salad that I had to try because it sounded good and I had all the ingredients. It's more of a concept than a recipe, banana slices with whatever type of nuts/seeds, unsweetened coconut, etc.  Would be good with some dried fruit or nut butter too.

Monkey salad - banana, pecans, unsweetened coconut flakes, pinch of salt