Day Seven, One week complete

I know I sound like a broken record, but I SERIOUSLY cannot believe it's been a week since beginning the Whole30. I've seriously been enjoying the ride. Naturally I could go for a soft serve with sprinkles... but whatever.

Today I got a really late start with Seth. So instead of a breakfast fritatta... we had a lunch fritatta. Exciting ; )

I talked to my mom a ton today about the Whole30. Immediately after hanging up the phone the first time we spoke today she went to Nelson's, a local fruits and vegetable stand, and picked up a huge amount of goodies for only $24. Then she drove to Barnes and Noble and bought It Starts With Food, an awesome book about the Whole30! I'm so proud that she's this interested in trying out the program.

I'm happy that she, at least, has taken this challenge I'm doing seriously, whether or not she's interested in participating. The most annoying part of this program to me isn't the cravings or frustrations of not being able to eat my favorite foods (though this has thankfully been rare). No, the most annoying part is the question "Oh, you're still doing the Whole30?"

Yes, I am. It's a thirty day program. It clearly has not been thirty days. I'm not a quitter. I'm obviously passionate enough to be doing this that I've been writing about it literally every day in this blog. Seth's family also contributed to this, as they invited us to a huge barbeque-esque dinner today and already threw barbeque/whatever sauce on everything before telling us about it. They had sides we couldn't eat either. Seth told his mom "Well... we can't eat any of that." So we didn't go. I mean, if they had just had plain and dry meat it would have been fine. But we both explained the program to them multiple times only a week ago.

Like if you don't have faith in me, that's fine. I'm obviously going to prove every doubter wrong. I'm doing this, and I'm doing this for me.

Putting the soapbox away.... Tonight we went grocery shopping. We picked up a lot more meat and fruit this time around, and minus eggs and spinach (we picked up some more a few days ago) the bill totaled $91, only two dollars more than last week, and we obviously got more this time around.

Tonight I'm making lemon basil chicken breasts with zucchini as a side. It's cooking right now but smells heavenly. I'm going to explain the recipe below, but I took it from Eat Yourself Skinny and omitted the wine with a touch more oil.

I preheated the oven to 400. In a small pan, I threw in a splash of extra virgin olive oil with two minced cloves of garlic and let it cook for a minute or two. You don't want to brown the garlic.

When the minute was up, I removed the pan from the hot burner and added the juice from a lemon, a heaping tablespoon of lemon zest, salt, pepper, and a good amount of basil. I didn't measure the basil, just use your best judgement.

Before preparing the sauce, I salted and peppered my chicken breasts in a greased pan. When the sauce was stirred and warmed I poured it over the chicken.

I cooked it for 45 minutes (until it reached an internal temp at 165) and let it rest for ten minutes while I prepared the zucchini. I'm about to go taste it now, I hope it tastes as good as it smells : )

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Verdict: AMAZING.

Amazing, amazing, amazing. It better have been for the price. We got the three for a little over eight dollars. In comparison to dining out it's extremely cheap, but eight dollars is a lot of money to throw down for meat. Anyway, it was incredible and Seth absolutely adored it too (thank goodness). I definitely want to recycle the sauce recipe for when I make fish. I hate fish unless it's cod but I'm saving that rant for another entry, since I'm going to try out salmon and tilapia again.

Hurray for the start of a brand new week!