Month: January 2015

I’m not going to lie. I am cooking all the time. I mean, all the time. Today I made ketchup, for goodness’ sake. This diet may do me in just because it seems like all I am doing is cooking, or thinking about cooking, or cleaning up from cooking, or shopping. It is taking a lot of energy and time, and that is really eating into the laundry time around here. I may need to rethink my priorities.

This morning I made an awesome breakfast. I would order this in a restaurant, no lie. Steam some asparagus, toss it in a frying pan with ghee and sliced prosciutto, add some eggs and stir til almost set. Run it under to broiler so the eggs get puffy and slightly brown and delicious. Don’t forget the salt and pepper. It almost made up for my black coffee.

I’ve started following the @whole30recipes feed on Instagram, and so I decided to make the vegetable curry for lunch today. We ate it with leftover meat (whatever the kids wanted, pork, chicken, some shrimp I pulled out of the freezer), and it got thumbs-up. After this is over, I will definitely make this again but with RICE to soak up all the yummy curry gravy.

Dinner is thanks to NomNomPaleo, Bacon Burgers. I cheated–We are using an all-natural but not whole30-compliant bacon, but I am SO TIRED of worrying about it. And it’s only Day 4. We’re having roasted brussels sprouts with it, and roasted portobello mushrooms that I’m pretty sure no one will touch. And whatever fruit I can scrounge.

Oh, gosh, I said that and I realize that we don’t have any fruit for lunch tomorrow. UGH!

But I’m carrying on. I think the benefits will be there when we get done. Don’t tell the kids, but I think we will be doing good if we get to “Whole10.”

And I’ve decided to order some pre-made meals, too, from this site. It was a recommendation from the Whole30 blog. We’ll see. I think the ease of a few meals is worth the expense. I hope I’m right!

Yes, day two was actually yesterday (Friday). The natives are getting restless and claiming I am trying to starve them out. Yesterday I cooked a six-pound pork shoulder–Kalua Slow-Cooker Pork–so obviously they are right.

The pork was good but I really wanted to pour a bunch of barbecue sauce on the side! It was just so terribly porky. Pork has dark and light meat, and sometimes that dark meat has a flavor that is really strong. I also fixed cole slaw with that homemade mayonnaise, baked potatoes, broccoli, and assorted fruit. Yes, obviously starving.

One thing I realized yesterday is that, without sugar as an option even as a seasoning, flavors can go to the tart side really fast. The homemade mayo is amazing, but tangy, and the coleslaw really needed another flavor to balance out the tart. I think now I might have grated a little apple with it, but without sweetness flavors can be one-dimensional. I need to think about this more.

Today I am fixing a huge pan of chicken drumsticks for the kids to munch on. And I’m putting on a pot of Vegetable Soup to simmer as soon as I can get to the grocery store. I’ve made the vegetable soup before and it is like salad on a winter day. It’s also a good foil for added protein of all kinds. And–confession time–I’m going to use store-bought broth. I haven’t gotten around to making the chicken broth at home yet, so this will have to do.

What about the beef broth? Nasty. I was going out on a limb when I added ox-tail bones to the soup. What part of the cow is the tail near? Yes, that is what it tasted like.

Another problem is that I hate being consumed with what we are going to eat. On a regular week I make our schedule out, shop, boom, done. But I feel like this is a kind of experiment, so I am buying and adjusting as we go. We have eaten 22 eggs in four days, and I think we would have eaten more but I ran out.

So, off to the grocery store!

We’ve had an entire fall, and maybe longer, of excess. It’s time for a reset. Several blogs I read (including Modern Mrs. Darcy) have done Whole30 and have had good success with a diet reset. We are in need of an adjustment of our taste buds and eating habits (if I adjust my waistline that will be a very welcome bonus) and so Whole30 sounded like a good approach.

The basic idea is to cut out sugars, grains, dairy and legumes (and alcohol). So what’s left? Proteins, veggies, fruit and limited fats and nuts. My kids and I can consume massive quantities of sugar, so that seemed like a good reason to go on Whole30. At least, it seemed like a good idea yesterday before I went to the grocery store!

So today, I clarified butter, cooked beef broth, and roasted chickens. Before breakfast. We had chili for dinner (and it tasted good but the kids missed the beans!) and I made homemade mayonnaise. Have you ever made mayonnaise?

Shut the front door. Go make some. Seriously delicious stuff.

So day one is under our belts. We’ll see how this goes.