Whole30 - Day 17: The Magically Growing Belt & a Tenderloin

Today was an incredible day. It started with precious time with my hubby and us with the kids. After 17 days on Whole30, my husband was getting dressed this morning and showed me his belt. He had to tighten it to the last notch! From the permanent groove in the leather, it looks like he's lost about two inches from his waist. His love handles are a thing of the past as well. In fact, he really looked great this morning. I hadn't noticed how trim he was getting. The effect has been similar for me as well. It will be interesting to do our one month weigh-in and see how it turns out. Either way, we've won because we've changed our bad eating habits!

I spent quite a bit of time in the kitchen with the kids today - peeling garlic, cutting onions, baking pork tenderloin... My little man loves it. He ate up the raw onions and all the kids helped me peel garlic. It kept two 2.5 year-olds busy for about 30 minutes, which alone is a miracle.

I love that my kids aren't afraid to try new foods and that they love so many of them raw. It's a good feeling knowing that I'm setting them up with a positive relationship with food. No pressed chicken nuggets here! They will grow up knowing the difference between a soup, a bisque, and a gazpacho, thank you very much. The goal isn't to turn anyone in our family into a food snob, just to show them what real food can be - delicious and devoid of all the unpronounceable ingredients in modern packaged food.

Tonight I made a pork tenderloin. I let my little man choose the spices and shake them on. He chose oregano and marjoram, to which I added paprika, curry, and salt. We coated the tenderloin with olive oil, sprinkled the seasonings on, and rubbed them all over to coat the meat. After 35 minutes in a 350 degree oven, what we pulled out was a beautiful piece of meat that was the most tender meat I've probably ever produced in my kitchen.

My older son says it's the best meat he's ever had. The look on his face says it all. I'll take that endorsement!

Whole30 - Day 16: Tropical Fruit Bisque

The Whole30 is going incredibly well. My family is starting to make comments about how food is tasting different to them - things like, "apples are tasting sweeter." While the little ones were on board from the beginning, my oldest son and husband were skeptical. They thought I would be feeding them mash I suppose. After sixteen days though, they are just showing the first signs of readiness to continue on a paleo diet after our 30 days is up. I'm quite happy to hear that too, since I couldn't go back to the way we ate before if you paid me.

In an effort to shake things up a bit in the kitchen, I've been trying lots of new things...spice/meat combos, non-traditional ingredients, same veggies/different method, etc. Tonight I blended up a tropical fruit bisque with my 2 year-old son. (Ours is an altered recipe from the Make it Right paleo cookbook.) We had so much fun together, though a few times we almost had a disaster when he nearly turned on the food processor while the lid was still off and it was full of pineapple and mango. He is also quickly learning that the privilege of being the cook is tasting rights. Our bisque was nearly mangoless.

We served this dish as a prelude to dinner, mostly because once it was made we were too excited to wait. Who am I to deny this for my lovely little boy who had worked so hard. (Can you just hear my rationalization?) By the way, it was so delicious! And just to put this into perspective, I have an intense aversion to cucumbers! Mangos run a close second to cucumbers as well, but I have to say this was the best mango I've ever tasted. I could have eaten it straight, though I'll still pass on the cucumber. :)

This dish is sweet, a little tart, chilled, and would be wonderfully refreshing on a summer day. Of course, you could just turn up the heat and eat it this winter. Here are our ingredients: mango, cucumber, pineapple, lime juice, unsweetened shredded coconut, and coconut milk. (One caveat for you, should you decide to make this - not all coconut milk is created equal. Most of them contain carrageenan, which is a food stabilizer. I'll be writing about this in a future post.)

Tropical Fruit Bisque

1/2 a fresh pineapple, cut into spears
1 whole mango, peeled and cut into pieces
1/2 a cucumber, peeled and seeds removed
juice of one lime
1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1/2 cup coconut milk

Throw all the ingredients into a food processor and puree smooth. Serve garnished with pieces of fresh mango and pineapple and dust with cinnamon and shredded coconut.

Whole30 - Day 13: Green Bean Frittata & Squash Casserole

Okay, so it was a nice, lazy Saturday morning and I was trying to see what leftover veggies I could involve in our breakfast. Wow! This is a huge change in my thinking. Veggies were never a consideration for breakfast until a few weeks ago. I spied the green beans and the word frittata sprang to mind. I threw those suckers in the skillet with some olive oil, sauteed them until tender crisp, with some spices, and poured my beaten eggs over them. I left them cooking on the stove until the eggs began to bubble around the edges, then popped the skillet in the oven and broiled it until the eggs were done on top. I cut it up like pizza and everyone got 1-2 slices along with a bacon and fruit scramble and some grapes. It was a great breakfast and a nice change up. We're going to try other frittatas as well, like salmon. Yum!

Tonight we marinated steaks for the grill and baked some sweet potato fries with cinnamon. Of course that was all good, nothing new there. Then I found a recipe for a squash casserole in the Paleo Comfort Foods cookbook. After making this dish, I can see why it's called a comfort food. I could have eaten the whole pan. Talk about Whole30! It was super simple too: squash, zucchini, onion, coconut milk, almond meal, and pecans. That is one thing I can say with ease - everything I've cooked has been fairly quick and definitely easy. I can't afford to take loads of time cooking, with three kids, a husband, school work, house work, etc. Anyway, here is close-up of the dish. We were so anxious to sit down to eat that I dished the plates before thinking of taking a photo of the whole dish, hence the close-up of what was left. :)

Whole30 - Day 12: Turkey Curry Stuffed Poblano Peppers

I have to say that cooking is getting easier by the minute. Tonight we had turkey curry stuffed poblano peppers. They were a huge hit! I'm becoming more bold in my pursuit of ingredients. Spices are becoming central to my cooking and we're all enjoying our meals much more. I never realized how boring my meals were until now. It's refreshing in more ways than one. One thing I definitely want to avoid is eating my ingredients. You know, baking the chicken, steaming the veggies and throwing them on the plate with little thought to their seasonings, combinations, or presentation. I didn't start out this way 12 days ago. This is becoming more of a learning process. Here's the recipe:

Turkey Curry Stuffed Poblano Peppers

5 poblano peppers
2-3 Tbsp. olive oil
1 cup chopped onions
tops of peppers, chopped
20 oz. ground turkey
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. Thyme
1 Tbsp. curry powder (I’d love to use paste, but haven’t been able to find any)
½ cup coconut milk
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Boil a pot of water. Prepare peppers by cutting off tops and removing seeds. Once water is boiling, submerge the peppers and cook for 5 minutes. Remove and place in a bowl of ice water (blanching). Heat olive oil in large skillet, add onions and peppers and cook 2-3 minutes on med-high heat. Add turkey and spices, cooking until turkey is cooked through and spices are blended. Finally, pour coconut milk over the turkey and mix. Stuff each pepper equally and bake for 20 minutes.

Okay, the truth is I never measured anything. My usual M.O. is eyeballing everything. I sort of played with it until I loved it. I almost can’t get enough curry, so adjust it as you see fit. I can think of a gazillion different ways to change it up.

Whole30 - Day 10: Brussel Sprouts on a Date

Tonight's dinner was the best of the last ten days. Don't get me wrong, we've had some nice meals, but this one was truly exceptional. We marinated our steaks for a couple hours before throwing them on the grill. Cooked medium and they were to die for. I pared them with oven-roasted garlic sweet potatoes and brussel sprouts.

The brussel sprouts were incredible!

I sauteed onion in olive oil, tossed in the sprouts and dates, seasoned with a little salt and pepper to taste, and cooked until the sprouts were tender crisp. The last touch was some chopped walnuts. Delicious! It's one of my all-time favorite foods now.

Whole30 - Day 9: A Reason for the Farmer's Market?

I bought a package of chicken thighs as the commissary and was very excited to roll it in coconut flour and spices...until I saw this. One fourth of the package was fat! They had folded the fat under and had the beautiful meat showing through the top of the package. Talk about irritating! I won't buy that again. It all got me to thinking about farmer's markets and fresh meats. I'm going to have to check out Eastern Market in Washington, DC. They are supposed to have and incredible selection of foods. It's gotta be better than this. I don't think I could put myself through this again. There must be chicken out there that I can buy without making me pay for this fat. Once I find it, I'll post. I'm going to try Eastern Market in D.C. and Whole Foods.

Whole30 - Day 7: Breakfast is My Favorite Meal

Breakfast has become my favorite meal of the day. I think it's quickly becoming that was for my family too. I've been shaking up our boring breakfast routine with some different scrambles.

This has become the favorite...Cabbage and Hot Sausage Scramble.

I saute cabbage, onion, and fresh sliced garlic in coconut or olive oil, toss in my browned homemade hot sausage, pour in my eggs, and it's instant gratification! Arie loves this for breakfast!

Whole30 - Day 5: Chicken Enchilada

After the success of the coconut torillas, and with extra roasted chicken on hand, I decided to try my hand at an egg crepe. Again, it was super easy with my flat, round skillet. I just beat the egg, spread it around, and waited for the sides to spring loose before flipping and calling it good. I stuffed the egg with sauteed chicken, peppers, and onion, in cumin, salt, and black pepper. A little avocado and fresh tomatoes on the side and my mouth was happy. This was a meal I felt really good about. In addition to going to the gym on a more regular basis, the food has been tasting good and I'm not really noticing much of a sweet tooth today.

Whole30 - Day 3: Coconut Tortillas

Today is day 3 of my Whole30 and so far, so good. I've managed to avoid: grains, legumes, dairy, sugar, and alcohol. It's been a little bit of a challenge since I'm not using bread, rice, pasta, or potatoes. Initially, I struggled with how to take up space on my plate. It wasn't until I removed those things that I realized how central they had become to my meals. What in the world do you do for lunch without sandwich bread? Don't make sandwiches. Hm, that was a novel idea! I'm learning as I go.

Since my guys are accustomed to eating their food wrapped in bread or tortillas, I found a recipe for coconut tortillas and tried it out. It was the easiest thing in the world to make: coconut flour, baking powder, eggs, and water. Voila! I had a wrapper to hold the pulled chicken from last night. We wound up with seasoned pulled chicken, avocado, pear tomatoes, and raw salsa. It was pretty yummy. Here's a photo. Next time I will put spices in the tortilla mix to give it more flavor. Everyone seemed to like them, especially the carb-addicted kids. :)

Whole30 - Day 2: Paleo Cookbooks

A friend of mine who eats paleo style, met me recently and shared some ideas and some wonderful books, which I am currently pouring over. The first one, Robb Wolf's "The Paleo Solution," is one that will take some time to digest because it has a lot of detailed information about the "why" of eating this way. I'll likely post something about his book at a later time. Here are the two books that are helping me with my immediate need of changing the food coming out of my kitchen. I've pulled a number of recipes and ideas from these books, in addition to several websites, like www.EverydayPaleo.com.

1. Make it Paleo, by Bill Stanley and Hayley Mason

2. Paleo Comfort Foods, by Julie and Charles Mayfield

To begin with, they both have sections that lay out what you should stock your pantry with. After a trip to the commissary, Trader Joe's, and Whole Foods, I found everything I needed and was up and running. Obviously, it has been helpful to have many of the staple items on hand. I had to look carefully at labels to make sure I didn't pick up any products that contained things like sugar (in practically everything in some form), soybeans (surprisingly even in spray oils), preservatives (if it's packaged, it has it) or stabilizing agents like carrageenan (found in coffee creamers, chocolate milk, processed meats, etc.). It took a little time initially, but it turned out to be quite easy to avoid all those things...I simply skipped the entire middle section of the store! :)

Some of the staples now occupying my pantry as a result of the guidance of these cookbooks, include:
almond meal
coconut flour
unsweetened coconut
coconut oil
coconut milk
coconut aminos
balsamic vinegar
apple cider vinegar
all natural salsa
all natural salsa verde
sunflower butter
hot sauce
capers
olives

My list isn't nearly all-inclusive, but just a handful of things in my pantry now. I realize there are a ton of coconut products on my list. It's amazing how useful coconuts are! The coconut aminos actually taste like soy sauce and are so much better for you, sans soybeans. I'll blog in the future about coconut versatility.

The rest of my kitchen and pantry are taken up by copious amounts of produce - and we DO go through it all: eggplant, squashes of every kind, kale, spinach, beets, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, wide varieties of peppers and onions, garlic, to name a handful, and about a gazillion kinds of fruit. Our plates are so happy now and I've even learned from these books how to replace my rice with grated cauliflower. Will the brain cell growing never end? :)

Whole30 - Day 1: First Cup of Black Coffee

Coffee is one of those things that calms me. Historically, since Arie and I came back from our honeymoon thirteen years ago, we've been coffee drinkers. It truly wasn't until having coffee in Europe that we realized how good it could be. American coffee had always tasted like dirty dish water. We were hooked and have had at least one cup nearly daily ever since. We have spent many nights curled up watching a riveting movie, playing full-contact Risk, or reading a good book, all with our cup of joe. With these bits of knowledge then, one would understand that I'm a little attached to my daily grind. We even still drink from the same cups we bought on our honeymoon...awe.

So here I am, blogging this morning about my first cup of black coffee. To say I drank my coffee would be a bit of an overstatement. It was more like a sip, followed by wincing facial pain, over and over and over. Honestly, I didn't like it at all. Where was the long-held emotional connection? If I can't find an appreciation for it without cream and sugar, then I'm going to have to stop drinking it during the next month. I'm sorry coffee, no offense, but without the condiments you're just another cup of hot bitterness. :( I already miss you horribly, but I will not cave and put that stuff in my coffee for thirty days! It might wind up being one of the hardest things I've ever done, but I'm determined not to put sugar in my mouth for the "Whole30" days. :)

Paleo Primer: Time for a Cool Change

It’s been too long since I’ve written on my blog, but, “It’s time for a cool change.”  Since January 2, I’ve been slowly wading through the food in my house, taking stock of the contents of my fridge, pantry, and cabinets.  Nothing has been sacred – even my spices have been gone through with a fine tooth comb, meaning I have read every label to finally see exactly what I’m putting in my mouth.  I’m weary of consuming food that have high fructose corn syrup, caramel color, MSG, and host of other horrid additives that have been show to cause cancer in lab mice.  Why do I have to eat that way?  The short answer: I don’t and now, I won’t.

Here is my refrigerator door before I cleared out all the junk.   

 

Here is what it looked like after…

 

It was shocking to see what all I had in my fridge!  Make no mistake about it, my pantry was just as bad.  The spice cabinet was actually an after-thought, but turned out to have all sorts of sugar, MSG, and soy.  Now it too has had a makeover.

It feels really good to be committed to reclaiming my nutrition.  I’ve talked a good talk before, but walking the walk is another animal entirely.  Starting tomorrow, and for the next thirty days, I’m going to eradicate grains, dairy, and sugar from my menu.  It’s important to see what these things are doing to me, especially since auto-immunity is an issue in my family.  Over the next month, I will document not only what I eat, but any changes I experience in my body.  The goal is not weight loss (although that’ll be a bonus), but I will be weighing and taping my measurements tomorrow morning before putting the scale and tape measure away for the whole month.  I’ll make sure and post how it turns out.

Just so you know, I began this whole thing as a result of a nutrition challenge that was put out by our fitness center.  I will be following the Whole30 plan, which can be found on www.whole9life.com.