Day Five

It's day five, and Friday to boot!

Seth had work at eight in the morning, so I woke up at 6:40 to make his breakfast and lunch. We had another amazing fritatta, and I packed his lunch with a sliced apple as a snack. When he left I went straight back to bed.

Lunch for me consisted of boiled dinner leftovers. Not too exciting so I waited to blog about it. ;)

Tonight's dinner: spaghetti!

Now obviously we can't eat pasta, so I picked up an adorable spaghetti squash. They're super easy to cook and make an effortless pasta substitute. I preheated the oven to 375 and threw the squash onto a pan after piercing it to bake for an hour.

The sauce only takes about 25 minutes to prepare, so I chilled and ate apple slices with cinnamon as a snack. I usually don't snack during the day with fruit, but lunch and dinner were pretty far apart.

Perfection.

So when the time came, I chopped up peppers and onions and threw them into a pan with olive oil. I cooked the peppers first for a few minutes since they take longer to cook.

When they were almost done, I took diced tomatoes and tomato sauce and warmed them in a saucepan. I used to religiously use Hunt's tomatoes. One day in the store I was chatting on the phone with my mom in the canned tomato aisle and was telling her how much I loved Hunt's. A man stopped me and walked me over to a different brand of tomatoes to show me a more healthier choice.

The sodium content in Cento crushed tomatoes are miles lower than in Hunt's. They're a little pricier but they're just as tasty. For this recipe I chose diced, not crushed, but either works. I then cooked my ground beef, and with a dash of salt, pepper and parsley my sauce was good to go. Simple and delicious. Sometimes I like to add squash and mushrooms to spaghetti sauce but tonight I didn't.

My spaghetti squash finished baking and I sliced it in half to remove the pulp and seeds. I put them aside to toast later.

From here, you can pop the squash in the microwave for five minutes and the squash strands come out perfectly and ready to eat.

This recipe is similar to my goulash, which happens to be one of Seth's favorite dishes that I make. He was really impressed that it was like eating spaghetti itself. I was super excited that I could make a tasty substitute : )

After dinner and cleanup, I rinsed the squash seeds to make a toasty, healthy snack for later. I toasted them in olive oil and salt at 375 for fifteen minutes. They sort of taste like popcorn...

This concludes day five! We're both happy and full. Bring on the next twenty five days!

Day Four - dinner

The second half of the day was a crazy awesome-disaster rollercoaster. But we'll get to that shortly.

I love cabbage. I often make boiled dinner, but since potatoes are a no-no, I tossed some cabbage and carrots together and boiled them for forty minutes.

Cabbage ♥

So. While that was cooking, I grabbed the pastured butter out of the fridge. It was time to take a shot at making ghee.

Hello, dumb shadow.

What is ghee? It's clarified butter made from milk, typically used in Indian cooking. It boils the water and milk out, leaving the fat behind with a bold, nutty taste. You can use it to grease a pan, throw in a recipe, or put onto food.

So first I melted the butter. When I took the butter out of the package, the sweet creamy smell hit me like a ton of bricks. It was amazing.

After it melted, I simmered it until the water started boiling out of the fat.

About eight minutes into the boiling, the fat starts separating from the milk, and turns a golden brown while the milk solids turn a dark brown. That's when it's done.

Okay, so here's the part where I essentially fucked up and created chaos in my kitchen.

When making ghee, you need cheesecloth so you can pour and strain the fat into a cup to separate from the milk solids. I don't have cheesecloth. But I found online that you can substitute cheesecloth with a coffee filter, and my heart sang. I was sold.

Lol.

I made a makeshift strainer, using my handheld strainer with a coffee filter tucked inside. I poured some in. Saw no liquid coming out. Realized I had two coffee filters stuck together in the strainer.

Naturally I went to hold the ghee filter while removing the bottom filter. And before I knew it, I spilled burning ghee on my counter, my floor, and my gigantic foot.

Goodbye, you dumb hassle.

Because I'm stubborn and dumb, I ignored the pain in my foot and fixed the ghee situation, successfully straining it in a single filter. The ghee took forever to strain (drip. drip. drip.) but finally it finished and solidified. I managed to clean up the mess in my kitchen, but not before Freya came running in to see what all the fuss was about.

 You can't see it well but it's all over the floor where she's standing -__-

 But yeah. Here is the result-

Bravo.

With my foot finally washed, I sat down and ate lunch.

After lunch was done, I finally put up my new shelves!

I want to add more candles but for now, Buddha will do.

Dinner time finally rolled around and I started steaming up some cauliflower. Tonight's dinner - pan fry chuck shoulder steak, with guacamole and cauliflower.

Prettyyyy.

For my guacamole-

Two avocados
1/4 onion, shredded
1/4 cubed tomato
Lime juice
Kosher salt
Pepper
Paprika

This was my first time making guacamole since the last time I tried back in 2010. Back then I didn't realize avocados had to ripen, so imagine my frustration when I tried to mash rock hard green avocados. So tonight I was praying it would all turn out perfectly.

I shredded the onion and had it sit in lime juice and kosher salt. This softens the acidity of the onion. I halved two avocados and put one half aside, mashing the other three with my archaic masher.

I threw the mashed avocado in a bowl with the diced tomato and lime-onion. I added pepper and paprika and mixed it all. When it was well blended, I cubed the remaining avocado half and folded it in for texture, similar to Chili's guacamole (sans the yummy corn!).

I tentatively tasted it and it was DIVINE. This is another recipe that I will NEVER buy from the store (much like my mayo).

I set it aside and poured olive oil in a pan to heat up for the steaks, which I salted and peppered.

This is part two of my chaotic day. I didn't realize how hot the oil had gotten, so when I placed the first steak into the pan, hot oil flew EVERYWHERE and fried my face, neck, and shirt. I stood back and threw the second steak into the pan, extremely annoyed. But it wasn't for nothing, because the steaks ended up being cooked perfectly.

Evil beast pan.

Finally, dinner came together. I made the guacamole as a steak topping, but I put it on the side in case Seth didn't like it.

Much to my surprise and relief, Seth went CRAZY over the guacamole. It was very much like eating beef fajitas minus the tortillas. He kept looking back to see if there was more steak which made me a very happy girl. 

I brought the ghee to the table to try on a piece of cauliflower. I'm going to wholeheartedly admit I was NOT a fan of the robust nutty taste, but I'm definitely going to use it to replace olive oil here and there. 

That ends day four. Which means... tomorrow is day five! Today was my first day without a headache which made me a happy camper. I can't wait to munch on another fritatta. Cheers!

Day Four - morning

Day four already!

I woke up late this morning, so I wasn't able to make the spinach and egg muffins which take thirty minutes to cook. I'm saving these instead for Saturday morning. This morning however, I made the classic fritatta once again. If it ain't broke....

Lunch is going to be boiled cabbage and carrots. I'm also going to clarify my butter today and there will be pictures! I seriously can't believe I've gone this long without butter. Even the day before Whole30 I didn't have butter, just baked ziti. I used to have butter every single day!

More to come, I have a kitchen to clean. -__-

Day Three - dinner

Day three is basically over, I can't believe it!

Seth came home from school and took a nap while I made myself lunch.

Can you spot the brat cat?

I prepared two simple turkey patties - one for me, one for Seth - with onions, salt, pepper, parsley and onion powder. I made spinach and zucchini for quick sides.

Best lunch ever.

After cleaning up, I was naughty.

I measured my waist.

I wasn't expecting anything. I didn't feel any different, except fuller. I've been eating nonstop (or at least that's what it feels like to me) so I wasn't going to set myself up for good news.

Until I realized I lost an inch in my waist. I wasn't sucking in. I re-measured myself three times. One inch. I then incredulously measured my thigh, and was down half an inch. The hell? It's only day three!

I'll admit, I did a super happy dance and immediately told Seth about it. We measured him later and he was down an inch and half inches from his waist to his pelvis. Then we both did a happy dance. Woo! Then I treated myself to some badass watermelon.

Amazinggggg. My favorite thing to eat ever. Besides zucchini. Maybe.

Anyway, so about dinner. I'm just going to throw out there that I'm super dumb. We bought two packages of chicken thighs, thinking there were only two each inside, and I cracked up when I realized there were four per container. Oops.

So tonight's dinner -

I preheated the oven at 375 and put all eight chicken thighs into a 13 x 9 pan. I smeared olive oil on the thighs and sprinkled salt, pepper and paprika on top. In a separate bowl I tossed baby carrots with olive oil, kosher salt, pepper, paprika, parsley and thyme.

 Boom.

Then I shoved the carrots underneath the thighs. In retrospect I probably should have thrown the carrots in the pan first, but shut up.

I baked this for 45 minutes but wasn't satisfied with how the skin turned out (soft) so I baked for ten more minutes at 400. I then separated the chicken from the carrots onto a baking sheet and put the oven on high broil for five minutes. This perfected the chicken and made the skins crispy and smoky.

Perfection.

  

When I got up and had my back turned, my cat jumped onto the table and ran off with a piece of chicken skin. When Seth got up to grab the skin from her, she growled. My cat, in her short dumb life, has NEVER growled or hissed. She'll be two years old in November. NEVER. Ever. Frankly, Seth and I were shocked and a little nervous, so we let her have it. I never give her scraps so if she liked my chicken that much, well,  she could have it. -__-

Day three is complete, and we're feeling better than ever. ♥

Tomorrow morning I'll be making spinach and egg muffins. I'm super stoked even though Seth isn't. I know he'll adore them though! :)

Day Three - morning

I can't believe it's already day three! Day three without bread!! Without anything bad! I was so psyched when I woke up.

I made another fritatta and threw together Seth's lunch for school. Since we ran out of chicken salad I used plain ham and homemade mayo. I felt ridiculous spreading mayo with a butterknife onto a piece of lettuce, but hey, it worked.

~No gratuitous pictures to be had because it's all repetitive~

Last night I ran to the store and forgot to pick up chicken broth. I was planning on making garbage soup, and I KNOW my stock/bouillon cubes in the pantry are more than likely chock full of sugar, so that will have to wait until tomorrow. 

Tonight I'll be making chicken thighs! I haven't decided what I want to do with them yet, but more than likely I'll simply be using paprika which is thankfully Whole30 approved.

Much more interesting dinner entry coming tonight!

Day Two - dinner

So about an hour or two before dinner I had zucchini as a snack. Zucchini is literally my favorite vegetable, I could eat it all day every day. I usually nuke it in the microwave for six minutes. If I'm making about four or so, I put it in for ten minutes. This also highly depends on the type of microwave you have. I've been doing the ten minute time frame for years and years, and when I attempted this with Seth's microwave the zucchini came out blackened.

So yeah.

So yeah.

I eat it plain and dry if anyone cares. Sometimes I even sprinkle a dash of salt on top if I'm feeling daring.

Tonight for dinner I made my old fashioned hamburgers recipe without all of the "bad stuff," no Worcestershire, no bread, no ketchup. In the 1lb of ground beef I blended the leftover ingredients- salt, pepper, one egg, and chopped onion. Tonight I also added chives to the mix to give it an extra something. Thankfully they still tasted just as amazing without the bread and sauces!

I threw them into the pan, browned each side once, then covered the pan to allow the burgers to cook inside faster. While they were cooking I threw together some chopped onions and peppers and sauteed them for a garnish.

Not the prettiest presentation, but they were incredible and I got two huge thumbs up from Seth.

Day two was awesome. No cravings, no problems. I ran into another headache but that's because I'm dumb and didn't stay hydrated, something that has always been a huge problem for me. Day three is looking exciting! All I need to do tonight is take out an egg to warm on the counter so I can make some mayo for Seth's lunch tomorrow.

:)

Day Two - morning

Seven hours of sleep felt like four as it took us FOREVER to get out of bed. Forever meaning twenty minutes for me. Today I made another fritatta which came out more fantastic than yesterday's (if possible) because I made a few minor changes.

First of all, I threw in WAY more spinach than I did yesterday, now confident my picky eater would enjoy it.

Hello.

I also put the broiler setting on low instead of high like yesterday because I wanted to see if it would create a fluffier egg. I never have a reason to use the broiler setting so it was interesting to experiment with it. Other minor changes included throwing salt, pepper and parsley into the pan, I forgot to do this yesterday but it was great without it.

You can't really tell here but the low broiler setting created a marvelous fritatta, and the salt/pepper really enhanced it! We ate it with a banana on the side.

While the fritatta was doing it's thing I whipped up the last of the chicken salad into lettuce wraps for Seth's lunch.

All set!

That concludes our morning. Lunch will probably be a medley of veggies for moi while I figure out what to do for dinner tonight.

If you know me, I'm neurotic when it comes to lists. I make lists for literally everything. But with this meal planning, I've drawn a blank for the very first time. I've found dozens of recipes but when I go to put it all together, I get really anxious and save it to do for later. When later comes, I continue to brush it off. Meal planning really isn't difficult. I have no idea why I haven't sat down to do it yet, but luckily we haven't ran into trouble so far because I'm great at improvising.

I pulled ground beef out of the freezer last night so I'll be looking around to see what I can do with it! :)

First dinner

Seth had to run to his parents' for a few hours, so I made us some turkey burgers with salt, pepper, minced onions and pepper mixed in the meat to hold us over before dinner, since it would be late.

Unlike ground beef, this lean ground turkey NEEDS the pan to be greased, so I used a bit of olive oil.

While they were cooking, I began to marinate the pan fry top round steak for tonight's dinner.

Marinade:
Lime juice
Ground ginger
Minced garlic
Salt
Pepper

I threw it in the fridge for a few hours, and finished up cooking the turkey burgers. I made a side of squash to go with it.

Badass snack.

When dinnertime rolled around, I pulled out some broccoli and cauliflower to make as a side.

 Because my colander is weird, this steaming process takes 25-30 minutes.

When the time came, I threw some olive oil in my pan and began to cook the steaks. I also started on an oil topping for the broccoli/cauliflower in a separate pan, which consisted of olive oil, salt, pepper, minced garlic, and lemon juice.

Time to eat!

The only thing I'd change about this dish would be to add less lime juice to the marinade. Seth and I enjoyed them just fine but they were really lime-y.

Finally, my little beggar:

Meet Freya, my bratty cat.

-___-

This now concludes our first day on the Whole30! All in all a fun, successful day. Because we were eating consistently all day there was no time to miss any foods. We both ran into headaches at one point of the day but this was to be expected and it was nothing ibuprofen didn't fix. Today definitely was inspiring!

♥