Close but Not Close Enough

Today started off quickly! I had to tackle GROCERY DAY, and then hurry down to my parents' house for a family get together for my dad's birthday. Oddly enough grocery planning and meal planning this week was more difficulty Han the entire month. You see, next week I get to start the reintroduction process. My 30 days will finally be over and I can add back all the things that I gave up. 

Here's how the process of reintroduction goes: you add one of the "forbidden" food groups back into your diet for one day, then you remove it for 2 days to reset your system before you add in the next food group for one day. This is a lot more difficult than you think. I have relied A LOT on leftovers this whole month. But I can't make a dinner that contains a forbidden food group and expect to have that on a different day. So I had to be careful to plan meals that I could add the forbidden food into but be able to take it out the next day to utilize leftovers that would then be whole30 compliant. I also had to remember to plan meals that added only one food group at a time, they can't overlap. Much more complicated than I originally planned :/

So anyway, a quick breakfast and off to a not super complicated grocery store day, thankfully, because of careful planning and the help of Roomie. I even got to buy some oatmeal to eat for breakfast one day :) it's the little things haha

Then it was off to my parents' house to celebrate my dad :)

Lunch was thankfully not super complicated. My mom let me roast some potatoes so I would know they were completely compliant, then we had burgers which of course I had without the bun and cheese, and I had a pickle just to make it feel more like a real burger haha

 

It was so nice to get to spend a day and have a meal with my family. I haven't gotten the opportunity to do that since I started Whole30. I'll admit it was a little difficult, more so than I think I imagined it would be. It's definitely getting harder to abstain from things I think. I feel like that seems opposite of what I imagined. I thought at this point in the game that I wouldn't be missing things as much, but I feel like I miss them more. I think it's wearing on me a little bit more at this point not to be able to celebrate and enjoy things as much with my friends. Not to be able to go out, let loose, ever... at all...

 

I really like the choices and values of food that Whole30 has promoted in my life, and I would love to eat compliantly every week, but maybe not on weekends.... There has to be some give and take you know! Today I'm just really ready to be done :/

 

I did get to go out to grab a bite to eat with Stephen at an actual restaurant before the show tonight!!



It's so nice not to have to cook a meal for at least an hour ;)

<3 ME

Here Comes the Sickness

I woke up this morning and the cold that I've been desperately fighting off for a week now has finally settled in a little more comfortably.. sore throat, hoarse voice, cough, stuffy nose.. Time to break down and get some tea and medicine.

I got by with the tea that we had this morning, we had some green ginger tea which unfortunately has a little caffeine but not a lot. It definitely made my nose feel a little less stuffy to sip something hot and aromatic.

I had to work half of the day today, but when I got off I stopped by and picked up some medicine and vitamin supplement and snuggled up for the rest of the afternoon to rest before the show tonight.

  

The cough and throat relief is all natural flavors with no added sugars, so totally whole30 compliant. The medicine has some dyes and extraneous things that probably aren't exactly adherent, but when you're sick you're sick and you have to take care of yourself right?

After a little rest, it was time to tackle dinner. I decided to attempt to redeem my gnocchi from last night. And I think I did a pretty good job!

I added a lot more spices than the recipe called for to cover up the coconut flour flavor (garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper, and Italian seasonings). I then sautéed them for just a bit with clarified butter, garlic, and red pepper flakes and topped with some fresh basil and a quick balsamic vinegar reduction I made. So so yummy :)

My voice was definitely gone after the show tonight, so it's time for some rest and medicine. Hopefully it'll be ready the show tomorrow!

<3 ME

Little Surprises

A slow beginning to my day was so nice knowing that the rest of the day was going to be so busy, you know a change of pace for me hahah

I'm not sure what makes breakfast in bed so luxurious, but I really do love it. It's something about getting to lounge for those extra five minutes, even if I've already gotten dressed and ready for my day and breakfast is literally the last thing I do before I walk out the door, having it in bed is just so nice.

I had some leftover Thai meatballs from last night for lunch today over yet another meeting, while fielding phone calls from parents, and then running off to more kiddos.

After such a long day, I came home to attempt to make some gnocchi again today. Unfortunately they did not turn out like last time, I think my ratios were off this time :( but thankfully I had some leftover mashed potatoes and grilled up a chicken breast and steamed some broccoli for a really yummy meal.

I also did a bit of a balsamic vinegar reduction for the mashed potatoes. Just to give them a bit of a different flavor than usual. Pretty good for an improv :)

Then I settled in for a quiet night of paperwork with one of my favorite girls

Instead of such a quiet evening, I had a really surprising and amazing evening. I put in an order for a training manual for a new protocol that I want to try with some of my kiddos and I have one kiddo starting on Monday that I was really hoping to utilize the protocol for. But I haven't received the book yet. So I asked our front office coordinator if she could help me in tracking down the shipment expectation or if there was any way I could get this book by Monday to try it out on my kiddo. She came back after some research with the cell phone number of the woman who developed the program, and a message for me to call her. I put in a call and left her a message.
Well, this evening she returned my call. She gave me the unfortunate news that the training manual that I was so looking forward to is backordered and she's not sure when the publisher can get it to me. BUT, she spent half an hour on the phone with me, explaining the protocol, how to implement it, tips and tricks and strategies for my kiddo. She also offered to make copies of the book with some notes and things she likes and fax them to me, tonight. Not even tomorrow! She was so generous of her time and knowledge. It's days and encounters like this that make me fall more and more in love with the career that I have chosen. I am so lucky to get to surround myself with the amazing people who also chose this profession. One of the best decisions I've ever made.

It was a great day :) #25 on this Whole30 journey and my wonderful dad's birthday.

Must be a little bit of birthday magic making the day so special :)

<3 ME

Game Night

Thankfully today was not quite the early morning that yesterday was, so I at least had time to sit at a table and eat some breakfast today :)

Work was pretty busy again today, but surprise surprise I actually scheduled a lunch break!! A rarity of itself for sure!

I've found myself bringing more snacks lately. I don't ever eat them all, but I like choices for some reason haha

Now after work the real fun began!
We're hosting game night for some of our friends tonight at the Little Yellow House. I really wanted to be able to make some appetizers that they could enjoy even though we're so restricted in our diets and they aren't. I also had to throw some dinner together somehow haha

So I found a recipe for buffalo chicken dip and a veggie dip that I could serve with veggies or chips (you know, for the normal people). I was a little iffy about the buffalo chicken dip because it called for making a cashew cream and mixing in and I'm not going to lie, I thought it sounded gross.
For dinner I also threw together some thai meatballs, with some rice for Boyfriend.

They're turkey meatballs with some zucchini in them. They're in a coconut milk and red curry paste sauce. I could've stood a bit more spice I think, but overall a pretty solid Asian meatball.

And then the guests arrived!

Our friends are the sweetest and brought grapes and plantain chips that we could eat too :) The buffalo chicken dip was SO GOOD!!!! It was an overall super fun evening. We love hosting and it definitely felt good to still be able to host a fun night where everyone was full and satisfied, because as a good Southern woman it has been engrained in me from a very young age that I must feed and water everyone who walks into my house. So it's definitely unnerving to not have options available that people would normally choose. But this was perfect and gives a lot of hope to life after Whole30.

<3 ME

Cough Cough

This morning started sooo early! I was at the office at 7:15 to grab a couple egg muffins

 

and do some unfortunate research ...

Needless to say, there are no such things as Whole30 approved cough drops, and very very few Whole30 approved cough syrups or cold medicines in general. Which is quite discouraging :/ I mean you're going to get sick eventually in life and you need something to help you feel better because you can't just lie in bed until you do. (If that's your life please sign me up for whatever you do!) But in my life, there are no sick days. There's always work to be done whether at work or home. The biggest suggestion most of the forums I found were to try homeopathic teas that had no added sugars. I'm sure that would help me feel better, however, I don't have time to make and sip hot tea all day... at least some of the time I've got to hold these little babies! haha Also, bottom line: if you're really sick just take the medicine. If that is the thing that's going to make you feel better then take it in moderation, don't overdo it, and honestly it'll be fine. That's my opinion at least ;)

So the early start to my day and I hit the ground running, a pretty busy day today as compared to my day full of cancelled patients yesterday, so I had no time to take a picture of lunch only the aftermath of a hurried slurping of leftovers from last night and getting as much paperwork done as I could.

And of course, after a long day at work I can't go home and relax, I have to go home and work some more haha
But I was really happy to do it actually ;) we're hosting a game night tomorrow which will be a different kind of adventure with being a host without being able to serve snacks/drinks to our friends :/ BUT more of that struggle tomorrow. For today I had to prep the house, which meant finally taking the time to take down Christmas decorations haha I know I know it's the end of January and I'm just getting around to this, but it's been a really busy month. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it! Well, that and I just love Christmas decorations. They make the house festive and warm with twinkly lights and it always looks so empty when I take it all down. But it's down and clean and now we have up season appropriate decorations haha

After cleaning it was time to cook a little dinner. I had salt and vinegar chicken on the docket for this evening. I roasted some quick potatoes, made a little salad, and baked some chicken in some spices and balsamic vinegar.

All in all a productive, exhausting, and very satisfying day. We have only one full week left in this 30 day journey before we enter reintegration. How time flies!

<3 ME

Change

I began today desperately hoping that I would be able to combat this food boredom thing, because the LAST thing that I want to do in the LAST full week of this journey is to slip up!! I mean come on, I've made it 22 days and I'm going to say "forget it"?!?! I don't think so!!

So test #1 was.... did I make better egg muffins this time??????

ABSOLUTELY!!! Guys, I'm telling you these were 5 MILLION times better :) Here's a thing I've definitely learned over the past few weeks, I could season just about everything tons more than I'm used to and maybe then it'll be enough. From making the egg muffins, to making sausage from scratch... everything needs SO MUCH SEASONING! Salt and pepper and herbs and spices. The savoryness of cheese so often over powers any other spices that we put in a dish, but the cheese flavor is what we want to come through... so by using it we don't have to put in as many spices. Or premade sauces or foods that come with sugar and tons of artificial flavors hit our pallets so much harsher than fresh, whole foods that we have to spice up to really appease ourselves. Healthy food is boring and unappetizing not because it's good for us, but because sometimes we just don't know how to cook it to make it interesting. It's inevitable that reality cooking shows they always have a cooking healthy challenge, and every time they emphasize that it's all about infusing flavors into healthy food to make them delicious. I've heard it dozens of times, but why don't we listen?!

Week 1 I put some homemade sausage (that I poorly seasoned), bell peppers, and red chili flakes with some salt and pepper into my egg muffins. And they weren't that great.... Week 4 I put salt, pepper, garlic, red chili flakes, sundried tomatoes, fresh basil, and some balsamic vinegar that I reduced slightly. Not that many more ingredients week 4, but ingredients that imparted strong flavors which made all the difference!

For lunch I had leftover chicken tenders and mashed potatoes from last night with the usual fruits and veggies to supplement haha
The best part of the afternoon was when one of my kiddos made this pizza to share with me...

..and I realized the irony that this is the only kind of pizza I can actually eat right now haha. Wooden pizza that I pretend to eat with a sweet little girl :) It'll do for now haha

Dinner was another experiment to get me out of this food boredom whole. I scrambled the recipe together yesterday as an abridge to a recipe that I already had planned. I had planned to make shrimp with veggies steamed in parchment paper... but I just didn't want it! So I found a recipe for a shrimp and sausage skillet. The challenge was finding ready-made sausage that I could eat. You'd be surprised how much of them contain sugar, or no-no preservatives, or CHEESE! Like tons of them have cheese: cheddar, feta, gorgonzola, gouda.... on and on and on... BUT I miraculously came across some chicken and apple sausages that had nothing in them that I couldn't have, PERFECT :)

 It came out pretty yummy. The shrimp had a spicier sauce on them that the sweeter sausage complemented really well. A nice balance with some yummy zucchini.

I think the biggest reason why I want to combat this food boredom hurdle so much, with good options that are not just borderline good, but really good for me, is that I need to be planning for life after Whole30. What's the point of this whole experiment? Finding out what foods my body responds to positively and negatively. But if I spend all this time making my body feel good what's the point in getting to day 31 and just putting everything back in? Shouldn't I be entertaining the idea of at least eating semi-Whole30 approved indefinitely? If I don't respond negatively to adding any of the forbidden foods back, then what is it that I'm eating that makes me tired around 2/3:00 or makes my face break out randomly etc etc.

This needs to be more than an experiment of will power, this needs to be a change. A lifestyle. At least partially ;)

<3 ME

Food Boredom

Today I definitely hit the ground running to make up for my lack of productivity yesterday :)
I made a quick breakfast and then recruited Boyfriend to venture out for GROCERY STORE DAY with me. He had a great time I assure you! haha

 We got home with just enough time to get just a little bit of meal prep done before we have to head to the theater.

I made some more egg muffins this week! (I know you're all surprised haha)

This week I tried some garlic, fresh basil, sundried tomatoes, and some balsamic vinegar that I reduced down in a pan a little bit. I made sure to put TONS more seasoning than I did last time, so hopefully they'll be better than the ones I made week 1.

Unfortunately getting meal prep done to the last minute meant that I ran out of time for a real lunch, so I just had a snack when we got to the theatre and planned a yummy dinner for when we finally would get home.

I'm really not in the mood for healthy food today... I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that Boyfriend has eaten fast food and pizza in front of me all weekend as well as a cupcake haha

So I searched around and found a recipe for Buffalo Chicken Tenders that were Whole30 compliant with some mashed potatoes!

They actually called for a few pork rinds to add that crunchy outside to them, and a pretty nice take on buffalo sauce with apple cider vinegar, lemon juice and some spices.

Then to make myself feel better about dessert... I baked some peaches with cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. Pretty yummy even if it wasn't a cupcake haha

I can't believe I've already finished 3 whole weeks!!! Only 1 more full week left plus two days. I must say I was apparently getting really lazy with meal planning at this point in the plan and I've had to make a lot of changes. I assumed that at this point just grilled chicken and veggies would be fine, but I couldn't be further from the truth. If anything I need and crave much more flavorful foods at this point than I did at the beginning. Funnily enough Whole30 warns of just this mood at Day 21 (which is today!) They call the culprit food boredom and that is so accurate. So I spent a long time today researching some different recipes and switching the meal plan up a bit more.

So here's what this week is looking like (so far :/)

WEEK 4 JANUARY 25-31

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Breakfast	egg muffins	egg muffins	egg muffins	egg muffins	egg muffins	Breakfast casserole	breakfast casserole
Snack	banana	banana	banana	banana	banana	banana	banana
Lunch	leftover	salad	leftovers	salad	leftover	leftovers	leftovers
Snack	apple celery	apple celery	apple celery	apple celery	apple celery	apple celery	apple celery
Dinner	shrimp and sausage skillet	salt and vinegar chicken tenders	thai turkey meatballs	gnocchi	shepherds pie	stir fry	chicken and mushrooms

 Obviously everything is subject to change depending on my mood haha

Here are the recipes I used for Week 3
Pumpkin Breakfast Custard
Thai Coconut Soup
Buffalo Chicken Tenders
Gnocchi -- for this one I substituted coconut flour for the regular flour and I baked them in the oven

Not a ton of recipes since we ate out as well, and I repeated the chili recipe again. Hopefully this last full week will be easy, and hopefully I'll be excited about some of the new recipes I plugged in this week!!!

<3 ME

10 More

I woke up this morning to a minimal dusting of snow, mostly ice, and mostly just cold cold wind. I also woke up feeling the beginnings of a nice cold :(
So all the dreams and motivation of getting up and being productive flew out the window.

This sweet face and I cuddled up all morning instead.

When I finally crawled out of the comfort of my warm bed I made a late breakfast that was pretty yummy :)

The hashbrowns I of course had to make from scratch because all of the Frozen hashbrowns and forbidden preservatives or starches or sugars. They weren't as difficult as I imagined which was nice, and I'm getting pretty good at making sausage from scratch by now!

After my late breakfast Boyfriend and I ventured out to a funeral for Biffel's father. It was a very sad day, but we're so glad that all the weather cleared out so that everyone could be there.

A late breakfast meant just an early dinner before we headed out to the theatre for another show. I just threw together a quick stir fry with some veggies and chicken. My typical stir fry sauce has Siracha in it which we unfortunately can't have because it contains sugar, so I had to invent a new one with coconut aminos, hot sauce, ginger and garlic. It turned out pretty tasty for a quick meal.

I've really veered off course with the meal plan this week. Throwing chili in and even cooking stir fry today instead of the salmon. It's so much easier these days to deviate because I have a much better idea of what I can eat and how to throw it all together into a recipe/meal. Because of how much I've changed it up, though, I've really had to alter the plans for next week to accommodate what I bought this week but didn't use. I'll have to sort out the grocery list before I go tomorrow. It's our last full week!!!! It's gone by pretty quickly :) which is exciting but definitely leaves me wondering exactly how the reintegration process will go and especially what do I do after I find out what foods I react poorly to. The whole time it's definitely been the attitude that I can't wait until the end of this so I can have yogurt or pasta again, but I also need to start entertaining the idea that if I react badly to adding them back in, maybe I have to cut them out of my diet :/ oh well we'll deal with that if we come to it...

For now, I just need rest and will hopefully feel better tomorrow :)

<3 ME

Snow and Ice

The one Friday I finally decide to work and it's the snow day haha

So this was my view today for breakfast and lunch...

I've really been killing the LaraBars this week. They're just really convenient and easy, and I'm kind of over having to work so hard to come up with meals this week haha I'm really just ready to grab and go...
Luckily my day ended pretty early so we got home safe and sound out of the freezing rain.

Even the show was cancelled tonight resigning us to a night of leftover chili, warm socks, and movies :)

It was actually just what the doctor ordered! Even though this week was amazingly relaxing compared to last week, I'm definitely still running on a smaller tank. My energy levels throughout the day are amazing, but I absolutely run to the end of my tank by the end of the day.

A relaxing, warm night, doing a little crocheting (with the help of delilahcat of course) and an early bed time is the perfect way to spend this snow day! And obviously by "helpful" I mean the exact opposite of that... I really mean that she tried to destroy and unravel everything I did every five seconds.

Hopefully the ice won't negatively impact my productivity too much tomorrow. It's supposed to be grocery day, but I also have an unfortunately busy afternoon and then (fingers crossed) a show tomorrow night!!
Hope you're all tucked in safe and warm with the ones you loved and out of the snow and ice ;)

<3 ME

Quiet and Stormy

There are those days that you long for solitude. The days where you just need to be in the quiet to think and decompress, to relax and unwind. To have time to be productive or unproductive depending on your days. Days where rooms are too bright and too loud.

But there are also those days, that you might not want to be surrounded by people, but neither do you want to be alone. Because alone can also feel isolated. The quiet can feel oppressive. The solitude can feel cold and empty.

Today was one of the latter days for me. I didn't want to be surrounded by people, but the thought of a night alone was also kind of sad. I used to relish these days I had. Living alone, just my dog and me. But how quickly you adapt to a house that has other people to it.

--
I skipped breakfast again this morning. I know I know, I just said yesterday I wasn't going to get into the habit of it, but this morning was just so busy! I did have some LaraBar for a little sustenance.

I had the rest of the Thai Coconut Soup for lunch today during yet another meeting.

However, when your boyfriend likes mushrooms and you don't, this is what your soup bowl looks like after lunch haha

So, obviously tonight I came home to a house all by myself (I mean besides dooleydog and delilahcat). Tonight is supposed to be cold and rainy, and so I changed the meal plan up a bit. I ran to the grocery store after work and got supplies to make chili again. It was so yummy last time we made it, and my mom has definitely taught me that on a cold, winter night, there's nothing better than a bowl of chili.

And as an added bonus, I got to use my new dutch oven for the first time! It worked beautifully :)

A warm bowl of chili under a quilt with some puppy cuddles and reality tv is the best way to spend a cold night.

I'm sure tomorrow I'll be longing for the quiet solitude that this night brought ;)

<3 ME



A Night Out

I have been counting down to this day for weeks and weeks!
A short day at work, really crazy morning but slow afternoon and off early! I was so excited, I skipped breakfast today... not something I recommend, but a huge habit of mine was to trade breakfast for coffee and that's absolutely what I tried today. I coasted through easily, mostly because I was so busy so I didn't think about it, but it's not a habit I need to keep, Kick starting your metabolism in the morning is important, and I should start my day off with some good nutrition!

Lunch was had over a meeting. Leftover Thai coconut soup on this cold day was pretty perfect, followed up by these yummy treats :)

And then I was off!! Home to get ready and then off to the THEATER!!!!

We had dinner at Whole Foods and it was super fun and super sad at the same time haha It was so fun to get to read all the ingredients and find fun new things I could eat! Like potato salad with kale and sundried tomatoes, and some Indian spiced chicken :) The sad thing though was that I couldn't have any of their dressings because they all had sugar in them. This is what I was afraid of, but I thought certainly they would have plain vinegar and olive oil available. They did not... So I just bought a bottle of balsamic vinegar, because we needed some at the house anyway and used that.

I also found this fun, no sugar added, blood orange "soda"! I'm pretty certain that 2 weeks ago the sugar fiend in me would not have approved of this, but today I loved it!

Then we headed to the Fox to see Book of Mormon!!!!! It was my second time seeing the show, but it was Boyfriend and Roomie's first time seeing it on stage :) I love love love going to the Fox especially sitting in the balcony. It's so wonderful to feel like you're sitting under the stars enjoying some wonderful singing and dancing. And particularly in this show: laughing until we cry!

It felt so special after weeks of feeling chained to my house (especially my kitchen), to be able to go out and enjoy an evening relatively stress free :)

So thankful.

<3 ME

The Good with the Bad

It's definitely and up and down kind of week. It's been so cold the past few days and I've really been missing my hot drink in the mornings. So I read about how cold brewing coffee decreases some of the bitterness which is what I've been disliking the most during my journey of black decaffeinated coffee... so I decided I'd try it last night, I mean what's the loss right?

 

I put some coffee grounds in a paper towel and put it down in some water in a thermos and let it sit in the fridge overnight. I heated it up this morning (because with how cold it was outside I couldn't bear to drink it cold!) and it really wasn't bad! Definitely less bitter, so I'm going to try it again tomorrow and see if it was just a fluke ;)

Work was busy this afternoon so no lunch pic again, sorry ;)

BUT tonight was the night that Roomie and I were so excited about because we got to venture out to our first restaurant since starting this Whole30 journey!!!

And all to surprise and celebrate this wonderful friend's birthday!!!!

She was totally surprised and it was so amazing :)
Dinner was slightly challenging because it was a restaurant where we didn't prepare the food or see the ingredients :/ Also because it was such a special night the menu was preselected. But our waitress was so so nice and she brought us a salad without dressing with some olive oil and vinegar on the side

So Roomie and I chowed down and were pretty proud of navigating this first big challenge. I mean I'm not going to lie, the huge plate of spaghetti and meatballs and all the cannolis were pretty tough to resist, but we took a lot of free smells and passed it all by.

Entering our third full week, I can't say that I don't still crave the "bad" foods. I still wish I could have some yogurt for breakfast, or some cream in my coffee, or you know... a cupcake.... But it's definitely easier to walk away from them. They don't pull me as strongly. I'm getting quicker about knowing what I can and can't have, and guessing what things would be in recipes that we couldn't have. Baby steps. And we have only 2 full weeks left :)

We get to eat out again tomorrow before we go to see Book of Mormon at the Fox. It'll be so fun to have another night out. After feeling so anti-social all of a sudden we're social butterflies.

Just hoping to sprinkle in some good with all the sad lately.
<3 ME

Coldness

Today was definitely a cold day. Cold in temperature and cold in feelings.
I have been surrounded by so much loss lately. Not my own personal loss, but many people close to me. They are losses that have shocked and saddened me to the core. Losses for which I don't have good words to express my condolences to the people who have actually lost. There's nothing that I can do to fill the void that is left. All I can do is love them and pray for them and leave the rest of it to a God that is thankfully far more powerful and wise than myself.

On top of the emotionally trying day that today was, it was also a super busy day at work! I started off with my new Pumpkin Breakfast Custard that I made this weekend. It's basically like pumpkin pie filling, but without the sweetness haha It wasn't terrible, but I definitely needed to eat it with something to help the texture out a bit. I might try some sausage with it tomorrow perhaps.

Lunch was eaten in the car, so I didn't have time to snap a picture. But I had some of the leftover pork from the carnitas that we made last week, with some salsa in a taco salad of sorts.

When we finally made it in from the cold, I had some of the yummy ranch I made and some veggies.

 

I was so thankful that we had a soup planned for dinner tonight, because seriously it was so cold today! It was nice to sit down to something so warm and comforting. Thai coconut soup is probably one of my favorite types of soup. I used to order it when I lived in Atlanta anytime I was feeling sick because we had an amazing Thai restaurant down the street that would deliver it to us. The whole house would put in an order basically. Gosh it was so good! This one did not disappoint either :)

 

The recipe called for shrimp, but I used chicken instead. Mostly because I couldn't find any shrimp at the store this week that didn't contain added sulfates that are on our naughty list. Some of them have a sulfate preservative in them that is not recommended but not expressly forbidden, that's what I had to settle for last week, but this week there was no such luck. I'm used to eating this soup with chicken anyway, so I didn't miss the shrimp.

It was a glorious to end my day, snuggled up with a hot bowl of soup.

 

As this day closes, if I could ask you all, all you beautiful people that take the time out of your busy days to read my silly ramblings ;)

Could I ask you to take a minute and say a prayer or send a positive thought or vibe, whatever it is that you do, for these wonderful people in my life that are experiencing the deepest of losses this week. They need our courage and support even if they won't ask for it.

 

I love you all

 

<3 ME



Halfway!

Holy crap! Can you believe it's already been two weeks?!?! I'm so excited and proud that we've made it halfway through these 30 days! Of course I'm still having cravings, and still wishing things could be a bit simpler... I wish it was easier to go out to eat, or have a quick meal, or just have a cupcake sometimes haha but I'm feeling really great and I'm definitely ready to see this thing through!

Here's last week's recipes in review:
Crockpot Cashew Chicken
Crockpot Green Chicken Curry
Crockpot Shrimp Fra Diavolo
Crockpot Pork Carnitas
Crockpot Beef and Broccoli
Mediterranean Chicken Skillet
Breakfast Pumpkin Custard

Today,  ended up taking advantage of sleeping in. I was simply exhausted. It has been such an incredibly exhausting 8 days. Long long nights, and super busy days has just worn me out.
Since sleeping in gave me a bit of a break in my morning schedule, I took the time to make some poached eggs and spicy breakfast sausage. I had grand plans to make some hollandaise as well with my clarified butter that I made this weekend, but it just wasn't my day with that because I broke the sauce with both of my attempts :/ It did taste pretty good without it tho ;)

 

Then we had to run off for our Sunday matinee show. Since we had a late breakfast we skipped lunch and snacked on some of these that we were able to find a few Whole30 options :)

 

So, the meal plan called for us to have leftovers from the Mediterranean chicken skillet that we made yesterday, but.... we didn't end up with enough leftover for that because it was so yummy haha so I had to improvise a bit!

I settled on making gnocchi with some marinara sauce. I'm sure they weren't the best gnocchi ever made, but they were pretty yummy overall :)



I substituted regular flour for coconut flour, and I baked them instead of boiling them. One of the recipes that I read used tapioca flour and they complained that their gnocchi kept disintegrating in the water because of the substitute flour. In making this recipe again, I would add some more seasonings to the gnocchi base to cover up the coconut taste a little bit more. But it was a yummy treat, both to get to make something I'd never made before, and to get to eat something kind of like pasta haha

With more and more practice it's definitely getting easier to pick and choose meal options, and to come up with them on the fly. It's also easier to shop once you memorize what you can and can't have.

So we're entering week 3 and it seems pretty promising!

WEEK 3 JANUARY 18-24

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Breakfast	pumpkin custard	pumpkin custard	pumpkin custard	pumpkin custard	pumpkin custard	hashbrowns sausage egg	hashbrowns sausage egg
Snack	banana	banana	banana	banana	banana	banana	banana
Lunch	chicken salad	leftovers	chicken salad	leftovers	chicken salad	leftovers	leftovers
Snack	apple/ veggies	apple/ veggies	apple/ veggies	apple/ veggies	apple/veggies	apple/ veggies	apple/ veggies
Dinner	thai chicken soup	OUT TO EAT!!!	BOOK OF MORMON!	salt and vinegar chicken	chicken and veggies	teriyaki salmon	nachos

 We get to eat out TWO TIMES this week!!! I'm so excited to test our skills and eat out in a restaurant! And, I'm even more excited that we get to see Book of Mormon :)

It's going to be such a fun week, I can't wait!
<3 ME