Day 4-6

As I write this on Day 7, I'm pleasantly surprised at how easy the first week has been. I have had almost no cravings, have felt satisfied after every meal, and haven't' had a hard time trying to figure out what to eat.

When I first proposed the Whole30 to Rob in the beginning of January, he asked, "What the heck are we going to eat?" which is a legitimate question when the base of almost every meal is a grain and dairy and legumes play a huge role in side dishes. We usually included one (maybe two) vegetables with dinner and occasionally with lunch. We were actually trying to cut down on meat consumption as we know this is less sustainable than plants. Now that we eat animal protein at every meal, we are working on choosing more sustainable meat-mostly from our meat share at our local CSA.

Day 4
Our last morning with the McGillvray's necessitated something new and inspiring. So sweet potato waffles it was! These are just shredded raw sweet potatoes (easy thanks to my new food processor), eggs, and cinnamon. I cooked them in the waffle iron and topped 'em off with applesauce. Sooo good! These tasted like dessert (it's amazing what a week without sugar can do to your palate!). I think they are going to be our new Saturday morning breakfast (to replace the pancakes and syrup we usually have). They were so good that Matt thought they were cheating. We added some spicy turkey sausage and pears to round out the meal. Who says clean eating is hard???

For lunch I re-headed the left over chicken tortilla soup from Day 1 (and included a picture finally).

 For dinner I made an amazing Teriyaki stir fry (thanks for the picture, Steph). It tasted like cashew chicken from a chinese take out place but better. Rob and I were going out and Steph was going to watch the kids so early in the day I had chopped carrots, onions, red pepper, celery, and apple with the thought of making salads for dinner. Then I bought some happy chicken tenders at Trader Joes and it inspired me to make the teriyaki sauce above (whole30 approved of course). I dumped the veggies in the pan along with some harlot verts (mini green beans basically), added some sauce and the chicken and voila! Stir fry! A few cashews added a crunch. I also made a mango/cucumber dressing for a lettuce/spinach salad as a side.

Day 5
Potato/carrot hash with fried eggs. I'm having trouble with my eggs sticking to the pan and breaking the yolks...PAM is not Whole30 and olive/coconut oil isn't seeming to do the trick, even when the eggs are FLOATING in it...needs work.

I needed a mid-morning snack and a half a banana with almond butter did the trick.

 Lunch was some leftover chicken sausage and peppers and a clementine.

 I found some spicy chorizo sausage in the freezer from whole foods-I bought it on sale last week as it was the ONLY fresh sausage they had without sugar...  I'm not really sure what chorizo is but it was certainly spicy! I thawed three of the 10 or so links I bought, added onions, carrots, a sweet potato, some chopped parsnip, and julianned asperagus at the last minute. We had it over spaghetti squash to tame the heat which was welcome!  Rob had it for breakfast with eggs the next two mornings and there is still some in the fridge!

Day6

Breakfast: We have lots of parsnips from our farm share so I found a recipe for parsnip 'hash browns'! I was a bit skeptical but they turned out great. 

I was hungry at lunch so I made a huge salad-lettuce, spinach, red peppers, carrots, cucumber, avocado, eggs, raisins, and toasted almonds. Homemade balsamic dressing and a side of grapefruit left me with a little heartburn but it dissipated throughout the afternoon. 

 I've been looking for an alternative breakfast sausage since EVERY kind at any grocery store has sugar. I found this recipe and made a double batch (two pounds of ground pork). It made almost three times what you see here and they were pretty good. Too spicy for the girls unfortunately, but Rob and I gobbled them up with our roasted veggies for dinner. (I added some radishes and brussels sprouts to the veggie roast today just for something different-tasty!)