Month: January 2015

Bill’s trip is starting to seem really long. When you can’t really eat out the weekend gets kind of long! I hadn’t realized how I look forward to that. I know we COULD find something to eat but it seems like a big challenge.

Before I get to today’s menu, some news. I now have a Paleo/Whole30 Pinterest Board! You can go there for all of the recipe links in my blog posts, in one place. I’ll make a note if a pinned recipe there is one that I haven’t tried yet.

So breakfast was hash, of course, with the meat of choice for each kid and potatoes, and eggs if they wanted them. It sounds like a hassle, but I timed myself and breakfast for five was totally made in five minutes. That is pretty quick.

The kids love drumsticks, so I cooked some more to have for lunch and then also on hand for later. This is such a quick and easy recipe. We also made some zucchini “noodles” with the Microplane spiral cutter. That is one under-whelming tool. The amount of waste is phenomenal, so I may look for a different one tomorrow. The idea is cute but the execution was terrible. I also cooked some spaghetti squash because it was just sitting in the fridge, and I had mostly vegetables for lunch. That’s pretty much forbidden on Whole30–I needed to eat a protein–but I couldn’t come up with anything I wanted to eat!

Dinner was…popcorn. We decided to go to the movies before I could get dinner made, and the kids all agreed that they would eat after we got home. I wasn’t going to buy popcorn, but after our first-pick movie sold out just as we were going to buy our tickets we found ourselves with a little wait. Also, we never, ever go to the movies. So those are my excuses and I’m sticking to them. (Just for the record, the popcorn was for the kids only. I’m still going strong.)

I did fix the Whole30 salmon cakes tonight, and since most of them are left, we have those for lunch tomorrow. Hooray! (I’ll post a link to a recipe if I can find one on-line. It’s in It Starts with Food (the Whole30 Bible) and of course there’s a slightly different one in the NomNom Paleo cookbook, but I don’t want to infringe on their copyright.)

And completely unrelated: We saw the new Night at the Museum movie tonight. It was very cute, of course, but I was surprised at how teary I got at the end when Ben Stiller tells Robin Williams’ character goodbye. Seeing him there on the screen and knowing what kind of pain he was in, and hearing him give the sweetest farewell–it was really sad. So yes, I was the mom with red eyes coming out of Night at the Museum. Awesome.

Okay, today my life really didn’t revolve around our food. I will pay for that tomorrow! Today the boys wrestled. It was a decent showing for my boys and an excellent one for the team, so I guess that makes it worth the hour-and-forty-minute drive to the school.

Eating at events like this can be a challenge even when we aren’t trying to modify our diet. I’ve yet to see a concession stand that even carries granola bars. So today I packed Larabars, some paleo trail mix, bananas, and chicken nuggets for my boys. Considering that I usually pack money and send them to the concession stand, this was a feast!

Here’s the scoop on the chicken nuggets: They are really yummy, but not exactly a crispy substitute for our beloved Chick-Fil-A. The recipe calls for almond flour which is of course just ground almonds. It tastes good but is definitely a nut coating. I’m making them again this week (two meets!) and I may try a mix of coconut and almond flour for at least some of them.

After a day on the road, we are all looking forward to a quiet day at home. And a long weekend! Hooray!

The picture has nothing to do with anything. I just liked it. I was shooting today while the girls took a ride and the sun made his appearance.

We are on hump-day of Bill’s nine day trip to Shanghai. We haven’t had bread in nine days. We are over it.

That’s not completely true. Let’s take a moment to talk about breakfast. My boys are sometime breakfast eaters at home, and the girls don’t touch it on the weekdays. (Weekends are pancake days for them.) But they love to stop at Chick-Fil-A and Dunkin’ Donuts on their way to school with their dad. Obviously those stops aren’t Whole30-compliant, so breakfast has become more of a real meal for all of the kids at home. And they are loving it.

We have finally settled on breakfast hash as our dish of choice. The girls stop at meat cooked with some potatoes and onion, while the boys like an egg scrambled in and run under the broiler. (I agree with the boys.) The meat might be anything leftover, although I do have cooked ground beef in the freezer if we need it. I’ve also got roasted potatoes at the ready in the fridge. And I can throw in whatever leftover veggies sound appealing, typically zucchini or broccoli. I had green beans in mine this morning and it was surprisingly delicious. Honestly, there is nothing that feels “diet” about this meal, just healthy.

The kids took the leftover soup from last night for their lunches (all four! that never happens). The girls are spending the night out tonight and the boys are wrestling tomorrow, so for once eating was not an issue here. Matthew and Jack both ate light, with an eye toward weigh-ins tomorrow, and I had the last of the vegetable soup with some leftover pork. We are all exhausted so it is just as well.

Early morning wake-up tomorrow. Have a great day!

At one point while I was writing yesterday’s post, I woke up with my head on the desk. I was that tired. So it seems a little incoherent, and I was going to rewrite it, but I think I’ll leave it. And review.

I had some grim kids last night. Seriously hostile. Since I’m flying solo this week, it’s particularly exhausting. Something had to give, and it was the rigid adherence to Whole30. This was not my hill to die on.

And you know what? Today, as far as I can tell, they all stuck to Whole30, ate their lunches that they had packed the night before, and were in good moods at dinner. No one modified their meal or complained. As a matter of fact, we had a lot of fun and probably spent more time laughing than eating.

The lesson? Control is a powerful thing. If my kids feel like things are under their control, they will do almost anything, and willingly. But if I give it as an edict that can’t be argued with, well, look out. Having the choice is important. And I think even more so with something as personal as the food in your mouth.

So, to recap, I modified their Whole30 last night. Our house will continue to be Whole30, and I’m cooking Whole30 meals. If it’s not on the Whole30 approved list, I’m not buying it at the grocery store, either. However, they can modify Whole30 to the extent that they want. If they want to cook that is fine with me! More importantly, the girls get to go to the pancake breakfast at the local high school this weekend.

My package from Pre-Made Paleo also arrived last night. The kids chose a couple of the entrees for lunches today and everything got rave reviews. It is a huge relief to have those meals in the freezer and know I don’t have to prepare every single bite!

So for meals today, we discovered that Aidell’s Organic Sausages (in some flavors) are okay, and the kids love those. I sliced them and cooked them up with green beans and eggs for another yummy scramble. Dinner was kind of a surprise:  the Pioneer Woman’s Hamburger Soup. Pioneer Woman Paleo–who knew? It was delicious and just the thing for a day that has been 38 degrees and raining most of the day. Deep January, I think this is called.

What about cravings? I was surprised to realize that I’ve been sugar-, grain-, dairy-, and wine-free for eight days now. I haven’t felt deprived at all, and rarely have I felt hungry. Only now sitting here at the computer do I really miss a glass of wine. Twenty-two more days.

I think the reason for few cravings is that I’ve been absolutely focused on meal preparation for my family. I’ve been so concerned about what we can eat that I haven’t thought about what we can’t eat. Also, a lot of the reading implies that people can get bored with the diet. That isn’t a risk at all for me, because I’m preparing meals all the time. If I were doing this by myself, I’d be tempted to just grill up a bunch of chicken breasts and knock this thing out. And by day four I’d be feeling deprived. Instead we haven’t had the same meal twice, and I’m honestly not sure when we will start repeating.

As for me, I feel fine, and not really any different. Some stomach distress is the only indication that things are changing. Waiting on that “Tiger Blood” feeling.

Please feel free to ask anything about Whole30. I think it’s been a good thing to do with my family so far.

Wednesdays are my quiet day around here. We usually eat at my mom and dad’s on Wednesdays, and this week my sweet mom made homemade ketchup! Because of our crazy Whole30 thing she fixed a whole Paleo meal: pork chops cooked with onions and ketchup, potatoes and green beans. It was really sweet.

Oh! I also made the salmon cakes that are in the It Starts With Food book. They were wonderful! A couple of the kids took them for lunches today. The others took the barbecue. No one took the slaw from yesterday.

But the big thing today was that I changed the rules on the kids. I started thinking about how I had basically given them absolutely no choice on their lunches, and they also didn’t have much of a choice when it comes to social outings. For example, Paige had a meeting at school today at lunch. They served pizza! Of course I let Paige eat lunch with her friends but it got me thinking.

I haven’t given the kids much of a choice about food. Even more, I certainly didn’t consult them before implementing Whole30. But events like this are going to happen, and I want to give the kids some feeling of control about what they do put in their bodies. I’ve been dealing with some grumpy kids lately (one in particular!) and so I decided to give them a small measure of control over what goes in their mouths.

So I decided to tell them that I will continue to be Whole30, and we will only have Whole30 foods at home. But if they have the opportunity to be out with friends, then they can make their own choices. It may only placate them for a week, but I certainly had some happier kids going to bed tonight.

I hope this was wise!

Bunco night! Usually a fun night for me, especially when I host. I love finding a fun theme and then pulling together an interesting menu complete with a couple of yummy desserts and a great mixed drink. Just typing that makes me sad.

Bunco is a simple little dice game–it’s really a good excuse to get together and chat with friends. My group has been meeting together for more than fourteen years! I really love these women. What a disappointment to realize that Bunco night was day six, and worse yet I was hosting!

I had two choices: I could just go to the store and buy all of my party food ready-made, and cook for the kids; or I could just cook Whole30 and let the kids eat the food I prepared for my friends. I went with the second choice, a bold move! I decided to make a slow-cooker pork roast and barbecue sauce and go with barbecue as a “theme.” I was inspired by Nom Nom Paleo’s Ginger Slaw, made from Brussels sprouts. I added a mixed fruit salad and roasted potato wedges and my kids were set. For my friends I had chips and made a dressing for the fruit salad from lime juice and maple syrup. It smelled yummy!

Of course I had desserts for my friends: an assortment of mini cupcakes and chocolate macaroons. And wine, of course!

So–I hated it. The food tasted okay but it wasn’t fun. The slaw is great, but has about a thousand ingredients. Really, would it kill someone to make a three-ingredient recipe?! The barbecue sauce is fine if you have never actually tasted barbecue sauce. (Recipe from Well-Fed.) That recipe was a disappointment because the ketchup was terrific.

I was really convinced that I did the right thing in cleaning out the cabinets when we started this. Just having the chips and sweets in the house was really hard on the kids. I don’t need to make this harder than it already is.

I think it would be good to talk about how they are doing and what I’m seeing so far, but it’s late and I’d really rather go to bed. If you wonder anything about Whole30 and our experience, please ask!

Whole30. First, Larabars. Thank you, God, for Larabars. They are energy bars, Whole30 approved, and I was able to buy them at Publix and bring them to my wrestlers before practice. You would have thought it was actual manna from heaven. The girls also had one. I tried theirs and they were yummy–but I know the girls’ tastes have already started to shift because they absolutely wouldn’t have found them sweet enough even a week ago!

Another frittata with asparagus and prosciutto for breakfast today. Lunch was a scrounge-in-the-fridge affair for all of us. I marinated a London Broil in a little olive oil, balsamic vinegar, garlic and salt/pepper, tossed it in the oven and slow-cooked it for several hours. We had that along with the leftover curry and some dairy-free mashed potatoes. The sauce from the curry was just so good we needed something to soak it up with. Potatoes were just added recently to the “okay” list for Whole30, so we were good.

Bill left town today and I did a ton of driving. So much, in fact, that I didn’t have time to go to the grocery store for my big run. No laundry, either. AND–I am hosting my Bunco group tomorrow and I simply have no idea what we will eat. Even if I serve non-Whole30 (very likely), I don’t know what it will be!

I’ve got to get a longer horizon for cooking and shopping than 36 hours. I’m not sure that will happen anytime this week, but maybe next. With Bill out of town and tons going on this week, I may just try to survive each day!