Day 22- Stuffed Peppers

Guys, we are on day 22!  Hallelujah, the end is in sight ;)   Overall we have been doing pretty well on the Whole30 after getting over the initial hump, but we do regularly talk about the first things we're gonna eat once the Whole30 is over :)

One common Russian recipe is Stuffed Peppers.  Do Americans do stuffed peppers?  I think so?  I tend to put a bit of Mexican flair to mine, which definitely isn't the Russian way!  But it tastes good!

Stuffed Peppers Recipe:

• Sauté ground beef with veggies of choice (I did peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, and onions).   Add tomato paste and taco seasoning (I use homemade so as to be Whole30 compliant).  
• Cut the tops off of however many peppers you need to fit snuggly upright in your pan.
• Fill the standing peppers with the prepared filling (normally I would mix mine with rice, but rice is a Whole30 no-no)
• Russians sprinkle grated carrots over the top
• Put 1 inch of standing water in the bottom of the pot, along with a bouillon cube.
• Cover with lid and cook on low on stove top for 30-45 mins

Peppers are so pretty!

Day 21: Russian Salad and Wings

Russians LOVE salad.  And by "salad", they don't mean the green stuff with lettuce and tomatoes that Americans think of :)  They mean something more akin to American potato salad.

I realized the other day that I could actually make the most famous Russian salad on the Whole30.  It is called "ahlivay" or "stolovoi" salad.  It's like a glorified potato salad.  In typical Russian fashion, you are supposed to dice everything in perfect, painstaking small pieces!  It takes forever!  But the result is good :)

Recipe:

Dice:

• 8 medium sized cooked potatoes
• 2 medium sized cooked carrots
• Whole30 approved ham
• 3 boiled eggs
• 1/2 an onion
• a bit of green onion
• 4-5 dill pickles

Mix all of this with salt, pepper, homemade mayo (from Day 1), and some canned peas.  And there you have Russian food!

We ate it with delicious baked wings and salad.

Day 18-20: Soup, soup, and more soup!

Y'all, we love soup.  It's been FREEZING here, and heat is centrally controlled and so not turned on until October 15th.  So not only is it freezing outside, but it is freezing inside our apartment as well :) So we have been eating A LOT of soup!

Soup is awesome, but not always very filling.  This simple soup was really yummy-- chicken, potatoes, onions, and carrots-- that's it!  All in the crockpot, which in my mind is the best place to cook :)

After lots of soup, we were feeling hungry for something that would stick to our bones.  So I made fajita chicken salad and it was DELICIOUS.  Grilled chicken and veggies on a bed of lettuce with salsa and homemade guacamole.  We adore guacamole and I had gotten avocados from the market but the last 3 I got were bad :(  Such a bummer!  But I got a good one this time!

Day 16-17

Mmmm breakfast casseroles have definitely been one of my favorite parts of the Whole30.  I make one every 4 or 5 days and it is what both Andrew and I eat almost every morning.  They're healthy and filling and super quick to pop in the microwave and eat on your way out the door.  Also a great way to use up a TON of spinach!

For dinner I made mini meatloafs and grilled green beans.  For the topping of the meatloaf, I used the homemade ketchup from Day 14. 

Oh man- on nights where we have just a bowl of soup for dinner, we find ourselves starving around 10 PM (right around the time our stomachs used to be conditioned to eat a piece of cake or a bowl of ice cream!).  The other night we were so hungry that I decided to use a mandolin to thinly slice potatoes and bake them with a little olive oil and salt and pepper.  We dipped them in homemade sun-dried tomato pesto that I'd made and it was SO good.  Just what we needed :)

Day 15- Whole30 Recipe Fail

So I had my first major Whole30 recipe fail.  We had friends coming over for dinner and I scrambled to try to figure out what to make with the limited supplies I had on hand.  I ended up putting a pork loin in the crockpot with diced butternut squash and apricots and cinnamon.

Everyone was polite and ate it, but y'all, it needed sugar SO bad!  It was just this mediocre middle between not salty and not sweet.  Sad day.  And of course I was in such a hurry to get it on the table that I didn't get a picture of it!  At least I had made a good salad that night to go with dinner and a cake that the guests ate while Andrew and I looked longingly lol.

----

I have been meaning to make applesauce this whole time and only got around to it today.  Y'all-- if you haven't made your own applesauce, it's so easy!

Peel and core 15 apples (this is the part that takes a while :)
Put them all in the crock pot with a cup of water, generous sprinkling of cinnamon, and 1/2 cup of raisins if your kids like their applesauce with raisins (mine do).
Cook until they're soft (usually about 4 hours) and gently mash with a fork (I don't use an immersion blender because I want to leave the raisins intact and we like our applesauce chunky anyway).

Mmmm this is a great healthy snack!

Day 13 and 14

I made two breakfast casseroles this week, and they were both delicious.  Breakfast casseroles are so forgiving because you can pretty much put anything you have in the fridge in them.  Mine included:

• ground beef
• onions
• bell peppers
• mushrooms
• sun-dried tomatoes
• TONS of spinach
• Diced cooked potatoes
• 10 eggs
• 1/2 cup water
• salt/pepper/rosemary/any other seasoning you want :)

Just pop it in the oven at 350 for 40 mins and it's ready!

One day this week I skipped lunch (okay, took a small bag of nuts and raisins to class=not sufficient) and I was starving by dinner time.  Ended up making burgers and fries and they were AWESOME.  

For the fries I used store bought ones.  Are you allowed to do that on the Whole30??!  I'm not sure :)  But the ingredients on the bag just said potatoes so I'm going with it being ok....

I also made homemade ketchup from this recipe.  It was not nearly as good as the real stuff, but it was ok in a pinch (to be fair, I didn't follow the recipe perfectly and used Russian ingredients instead of American ones, so maybe the recipe itself is better than how my version of it turned out).  

Day 12- Whole30 "Shrimp and Grits"

Even though I'm from the South, I never tasted Shrimp and Grits until I married my husband.  He introduced me to them and it was love at first taste :)  The first time I had them was at a restaurant and they were amazing and every other time I've ordered them out I've been disappointed because they never taste as good as that first time I had them.  So finally, a couple years ago, I decided to try to come up with my own recipe that would copycat what I remembered from the first time I ate them.  And this is the recipe I came up with and it is awesome.  I have made it SO many times over the past few years.

1) Saute 1/2 diced green pepper, 1/2 diced onion, 2 diced bacon slices until onions are translucent and bacon sizzles. 
2) Add 2 C shrimp, 2 minced garlic cloves, 1 diced tomato. Cook til shrimp are pink. 
3) Add juice from 1/2 lemon, 2/3 C Half and Half, tobasco sauce, salt, & pepper to taste. 
4) Prepare grits according to box- gear towards thick. Add salt, pepper, butter, & cheddar cheese to taste. Pour amazing sauce on grits & enjoy!!

Now obviously that recipe is not Whole30 friendly.  So I adjusted it to make it Whole30 friendly.  I used cauliflower instead of grits and coconut milk instead of milk, etc.  We also happened to not have any shrimp when I made it, so it also had no shrimp in it.  Can I call it "shrimp and grits" if it actually has no shrimp and no grits in it??  Lol :)

Anyway, here's the Whole30 version:

1) Saute 1/2 diced green pepper, 1/2 diced onion, 2 diced Whole30 approved bacon slices until onions translucent and bacon sizzles. 
2) Add 2 C shrimp, 2 minced garlic cloves, 1 diced tomato. Cook til shrimp are pink. 
3) Add juice from 1/2 lemon, 1/2 C coconut or almond milk, tobasco sauce, salt, & pepper to taste. 
4) Boil 1 whole cauliflower.  Once it is soft, drain water and add 1/3 cup olive oil or ghee and 1/2 cup coconut or almond milk. Blend with immersion blender.  Add salt, pepper, hot sauce to taste. Pour amazing sauce on "grits" & enjoy!!

Day 11

Have I mentioned we need to figure out something besides eggs and fruit to eat for breakfast?!

Lunch was a greek salad made with leftovers from the other day.  Salads in a jar are the best.  Here is a link 18 possible salads in a jar!

(disclaimer- not my photo.  I ate my salad before I managed to take a picture of it :)

Dinner was stuffed mushrooms (yumm!) topped with the sun-dried tomato pesto guac from yesterday, along with greek salad with grilled chicken and baked veggies.

Day 10- The birthday cheat

So yesterday, Day 10, was my birthday.  We decided to eat Whole30 throughout the day, but then to break it at dinner on the birthday date Andrew took me on.  It was awesome!

Breakfast was eggs, lunch was soup (getting in an eggs and soup rut, I'm afraid!).

Then for afternoon snack, I made a delicious dip!  I'm calling it sundried tomato pesto guacamole :)  Quiet the mouthful!   We ate it with zucchini "chips" and carrot sticks and (no judging) a spoon!  It was that good.  Even my 2 year old liked it!

Sun-dried Tomato Pesto Guac:
Use an immersion blender to blend together:

• 1 avocado
• The juice of half a lemon
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1/3 cup cashews
• 1/2 cup sundries tomatoes (the kind packed in oil)
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 whole tomato
• 1/4 cup whole30 approved mayo

As for my birthday dinner, we went to a Georgian restaurant (as in the country Georgia, not the state-- no fried chicken and mac n cheese for us!).  We did, however, enjoy cheesy bread and juice and coke and meat smothered in cheese and bean dip and chocolate streudel and ice-cream cheesecake and a mocha coffee.  It was crazy how STUFFED we felt (we haven't felt overstuffed once since being on Whole30).  Our stomachs weren't very happy with us afterwards, but it was worth it!  It's crazy how SWEET the sweet stuff tasted, and how overly rich the cheesy stuff tasted.  Amazing that our tastebuds have actually changed in just the 10 days of detoxing through Whole30.

Happy birthday to me!  Not gonna lie, it was fun to break the Whole30 :)  But we won't be doing it again!

Day 9- struggling!

So apparently most people, if they quit the Whole30, quit on day 10 or 11.  They hit a slump and feel like it's never gonna be over and decide to throw in the towel.  Well man- yesterday was my slump day!  We didn't quit, but I sure felt like it!

We had run out of leftovers, and Andrew and I took the kids out for late morning/early afternoon picnic and local market run.  We got them food while we were out but didn't get ourselves any because we couldn't find anything Whole30 approved where we were.  By the time we got home I was hangry.  Never a good thing when Mama is crabby!   

Thankfully, a bowl of soup held me over until I had time to make us great big greek salads topped with grilled chicken at dinner and they were awesome.  And bonus- I chopped up enough ingredients to make salads in a jar for the week.  Have you ever tried salads in a jar?  They're the bomb!  Not sure how I hadn't made any yet on this Whole30, but I definitely will be making them in the future!

I will be forever grateful to my friend Angie who taught me how to make the best homemade salad dressing:

2/3 cup olive oil
2/3 cup vinegar (any kind- white, apple cider, or balsamic)
1/2 cup diced sun dried tomatoes
1/4 cup diced olives
1/2 cup diced green onions
1 minced garlic clove
herbs of some kind (dried basil or oregano or italian blend- whatever you have)
salt and pepper

Put all of this together in a mason jar with a lid on it and then shake it up and voila- healthy homemade salad dressing!

Day 7 & 8- Lamb!

Some dear friends recently gave us part of a lamb that they had slaughtered at their home.  Lamb has always been daunting to me-- I never feel like I know how to cook it.  I ended up just baking it for a couple of hours on 350 with onions and carrots and mushrooms and it was good.

I served with a side salad and rosemary garlic mashed "potatoes" (actually mashed cauliflower :)

Before:

After:

Andrew and I have been struggling to figure out snacks for Whole30 (I know, I know, you're technically not supposed to snack....but 10AM and 4PM come around and we need a little pick me up to get us through!).   So I made these Whole30 compliant energy balls today and they are awesome!  (recipe from bowlofdelicious.com).  

Last but not least, I made a pot of "everything I have edible in the fridge" soup :)  It turned out pretty well!  (chicken, tomatoes, salsa, bell peppers, potatoes, carrots, onions, and lots of spinach).

Day 6

Hubby and I were talking last night and we both agree that the Whole30 is starting to get easier than it was the first few days.  We really aren't craving sweets or carbs much.  

Breakfast today was eggs and fruit (am really gonna need to try to figure out something other than eggs to do for Whole30 breakfast!).

Lunch was simple chicken soup that I made last night-- chicken thighs, diced tomatoes, onions, carrots, potatoes, and zucchini.  Super simple!  Our kids LOVE soup (living in Russia has rubbed off on them :), so I made a bunch so that we can have leftovers.

Today I also made these awesome caramelized peaches and cream!  The hubby and I agreed that they would've tasted better sprinkled with sugar, but they were pretty good as is ;)

http://www.lifemadefull.com/caramelized-peaches-cream-no-sweeteners-or-dairy/

Day 5- Getting the hang of this

We're 5 days in to the Whole30 and starting to kind of get the hang of it...we think ;0

Breakfast- eggs, bacon, fruit

Snack- zucchini chips dipped in garlic dill mayo.  For the zucchini "chips", I just sliced zucchini very thin on a mandolin and baked them at 250 for 1-1.5 hours (til they got crispy).  For the dip, I just added fresh garlic and dill to some of the mayo I made on Day 2.

Lunch was delicious.  I was really wanting something different, so I made these zucchini poppers and they didn't disappoint!  I made them with pork instead of chicken.

Recipe: http://www.onelovelylife.com/chicken-zucchini-poppers-gf-df/

See that light green stuff on the right?  That's the Russian version of zucchini :)  It's called kabachki and is a great substitute!

Yum!  These things are addictive!  The dipping sauce was mayo from Day 2 with some hot sauce added to give it a kick.

Days 3 and 4

Nothing much to report here.  I feel like I should rename the Whole30 the "leftover diet" because that's what we pretty much ate :)  If you don't have leftovers on Whole30, you're up a creek without a paddle because pretty much everything you can eat on Whole30 takes so long to make.

On the evening of night #4, I did make Indian Curry Chicken in coconut milk, which was so yummy and so filling.  It ended up being kind of like a stew.

(ingredients- chicken, onions, tomatoes, potatoes, raisins, water, coconut milk.  Added fresh garlic and ginger.  Spiced with salt, pepper, cumin, curry, and red pepper.  Garnished with lemon and cilantro).

Day Two

Oh man, it's only day two and I'm totally already craving chocolate and carbs!  My husband and I are doing the Whole30 but our kids aren't so I keep looking enviously at their grilled cheese (and other such non-whole30 compliant food!).

Breakfast this AM was an awesome and easy sausage/egg/veggie casserole.  I had made a batch of homemade salsa a couple days ago, so I put that on top of the casserole.  It was a hit!  I think casseroles are gonna be my go to Whole30 breakfast.

Lunch was chicken salad from yesterday eaten as a picnic at a lake.  It was 75 degrees and beautiful and we swam in the freezing water and had a blast.  Saturdays are the BEST.

Dinner was eggplant "parm".  I will post a recipe for it later.  It's a bit labor-intensive, but if you have made the spaghetti sauce in advance (which I recommend doing), it's not too bad.

Day 1- Not Suffering Yet...

Day 1 wasn't too bad!   Though I did miss my morning tea with milk and honey, and the hubs missed his coffee with sugar.  We substituted coconut milk for the things we normally add to our morning drinks and it was doable.

Breakfast-  Bacon, eggs, fruit (simple, straightforward, no pics)

Lunch- chicken salad with homemade mayo and cucumbers.
The mayo I made from this website, and it worked great and was super easy:
http://thehealthyfoodie.com/fail-proof-home-made-paleo-mayo-whole30-compliant/

For the chicken salad, I just mixed plain shredded chicken with mayo, grapes, sliced almonds, apple cider vinegar, and a dash of salt and pepper.  Cucumbers on the side made it a full meal!

Dinner was shredded chicken (stuck it in a crockpot that morning with the chicken for the chicken salad) in a mushroom dill sauce, green bean sautéed with garlic, and twice baked potatoes with bacon.   Everything was delicious!

For snacks, we had fruit.  Not sure if you're supposed to, but we did ;)

Getting started....What is the Whole30?!

So my hubby and I decided to try the Whole30 as an attempt to get healthier.  Gonna track our progress here on the blog!  I LOVE to cook and always have, but this is my first time posting any of my stuff online.  Hope you're inspired with ideas for your own Whole 30 journey!

So WHAT IS the Whole30?

"Established by Dallas Hartwig and Melissa Hartwig (of Whole9) in April 2009, the Whole30® is a nutritional program designed to change your life in 30 days. Think of it as a short-term nutritional reset, designed to help you put an end to unhealthy cravings and habits, restore a healthy metabolism, heal your digestive tract, and balance your immune system." (whole30.com)

Basically, you stick to eating only natural ingredients for 30 days-- veggies, fruits, non-processed meats, and nuts.  Pretty much everything else is out!  You can check out www.whole30.com for more info on how the Whole30 actually works.