Day 19: Ahhhh, Fridays. The day we realize THE WEEKEND IS COMING!!
It’s almost here!!! Our husbands will be home for two whole days and we will
get to go to the bathroom by ourselves and even *possibly* take a bubble bath!
I love weekends. Not only because I might actually squeeze in a little bit of
mental space, but because there’s pretty much nothing better on this earth than
watching my husband play with his boys. I love the way their eyes light up and
they can’t contain the grins when they see him. I love the way he tirelessly
plays “monster” and chases Buggie around the house. I love that he truly enjoys
this time with them as much as I do, and that we get to share in all this
crazy, messy, chaotic fun. It reminds me that we are in this together, and that
we are so incredibly blessed that there’s no way we could ever wrap our minds
around the truth of it.
It was a school day, so I was thrilled to scarf down another
piece of Italian Brunch Bake for breakfast while I contemplated working out during
Squish’s nap. Yah. It didn’t happen today either. Maybe tomorrow. Sure.
Tomorrow.
Lunch: Squish and I ran to Sams today on our way to grab
Buggie from school and I picked up two awesome finds!! Frozen tilapia fillets,
with the only ingredient being tilapia, and frozen turkey burgers, both Whole 30 approved! I was so excited! It would be great to have
something I could throw in the toaster oven while I put the boys down and then
eat with a side of veggies. Hello, Lunch Fairy!!
Today I baked one of the tilapia fillets, and sautéed some
kale and broccoli super quick in the skillet. I added an apple and I was good
to go!
Dinner: My first “guest recipe”!! My sweet friend Kristin
decided to jump on the Whole 30 bandwagon with me, and she has helped me gather
some great recipes! This one was for coconut chicken patties. They were a big
hit!! I will admit that I slightly overcooked them, so my picture is not as
pretty as the originals, but I also added some awesome dipping sauce, homemade
sweet potato fries and a salad with mango, strawberries and walnuts. It was delicious!
Here’s the recipe:
 |
| Here is her FAR prettier picture. It makes me laugh now when I look at mine. |
For the dipping sauce, I threw one avocado, a tablespoon of
olive oil, the juice of a lime and some salt in the food processor and blended
it till it was velvety smooth. It was like very smooth guacamole and was a
perfect complement to the coconut chicken.
I’ve struggled with finding a sweet potato fry recipe that
produces CRISPY fries, but this one swore it would deliver. I can say they
definitely were crispier than the ones I’ve made in the past, but still not
perfect. Oh well. They were delicious dipped in the avocado sauce.
Day 20: I can’t believe I’m on Day 20! I’m not sick of the
food or tired of this whole thing yet. I’m still having lots of fun and
enjoying all the new foods we’re eating. I'm still getting used to all the prep, but it's beginning to feel a little more like a habit, now.
Breakfast: I enjoyed my last slice of Italian Brunch Bake
today. It served me well! I have to say I liked my original breakfast casserole
from Week 1 a little more, but this was still good.
Lunch: Guys. We went to a precious friend’s birthday party
today. You wanna know what they served? CHICKEN MINIS from Chick-Fil-A. And the
most gorgeous cookies you’ve ever seen. And cupcakes. Oh. And there was fruit
for me.
When I got home I reluctantly threw a frozen turkey burger
into the toaster oven. I used the left-over avocado sauce from last night and
added some Whole 30 mayo and cherry tomatoes. I also re-heated some sweet potato fries and
honestly it was very satisfying!! It was no chicken mini, but it sufficed.
Dinner: This was another winner right here!! I made this delicious
spiced pork tenderloin, some roasted broccoli and some mashed garlic and
butternut squash! The squash was so. good. I could have eaten the whole bowl.
It was like kicky mashed potatoes. You have to try these, guys!
Here’s the pork recipe:
Here’s the squash!
Day 21: It’s a rainy Sunday morning here, folks. Our Sundays
are madness. (Not mine, your saying. My Sundays are quiet and serine and
organized... And now we’re both laughing because we all know that’s not true.)
Can I as a question,
here?? Why in the world is there not a church service at a time that works for
babies that take a morning nap?? If you go to the 8:30 service, your kid is so
exhausted by the end that he is batting his ears and pulling his own hair out.
If you go to the 10:00 service, you have to wake your baby up and take him to
the nursery when he’s grumpy because… well, you WOKE HIM UP. If you go to the
11:30 service, that works great! Unless they cancel the 11:30 services for the
summer. Then that doesn’t work. So we went back to waking Squish up and trying
to tickle him into a better mood. It worked this time. He was a squishy delight
in the nursery.
I made a smoothie for myself, but everyone in my family loved
it and wanted to share, so I drank half and made myself a scrambled egg and
some watermelon.
Lunch: This is what I like to call “Leftovers Salad.” I
threw some chopped up pork from last night, along with the last of the sweet
potatoes from the night before that, some blueberries, olive oil and vinegar on
a bed of greens. It was so yummy and I felt good about using up the rest of the
leftovers.
Dinner: My Mother-in-Love came to visit today to help with
the kids and keep Squish for me on Tuesday morning when I have a SPA DAY! You read
that right. More on that later.
Anyway, I know some people have Mother-in-laws that are
difficult or opinionated or disapproving. But I honestly don’t. My sweet MIL is
my cheerleader. She’s always on my side and she (somehow, delusionally) thinks
I’m great. So I'm blessed to have TWO moms in my life who love me beautifully and adore my boys. "Mia" (her grandmother name) got here this afternoon and helped
entertain the boys while I took on this big soup adventure. It was a lot of
chopping. Like, a lot. It was a lot of steps. It was a lot of cleanup. And, in
the end, it was pretty good. Perhaps not worth ALL the time it took, but it was
pretty good.
I subbed parsnips instead of radishes, and kale instead of
spinach. Otherwise I followed the recipe.
Again, take this on when you have an extra pair of hands around to help. It’s a lot of work.
Day 21:It’s the beginning of Week 4!! It has gone by so fast
I can’t believe I’m almost done. I haven’t missed too many things… other than
some fried chicken nuggets and the occasional sweet treat. It was nothing that
sent me into crazy-cravings, though, so my guess is I’ll keep up most of the
habits I’ve learned this month... with the exception of my coffee creamer. We
will be adding that back in.
Breakfast: We are low on supplies again so I scrambled some
eggs and ate some watermelon for breakfast. Later in the morning I had half an
apple with one tablespoon of almond butter. That helped sustain me through a
morning at the museum with the kids until we met Husband for lunch at
Chick-fil-A. Gosh, I say the name of that place a lot on this blog. It’s
getting sad. I should branch out more.
Lunch: I had the same Grilled Market Salad I had a couple of weeks ago,
minus the blue cheese. This time however, I wised up and added some more
grilled nuggets to mine. I was starving an hour after I ate it last time. This
time I was sustained for much longer. Still no dressing though, because they
don’t have any without added sugar, and I left mine at home. Silly me.
Dinner: This was SO GOOD!!! We love salmon in our family, so
I was excited to try out a new way to cook it. I found this recipe from Giada
(whom I just love, even if she’s way too skinny to be a chef). I added some
roasted cauliflower and a salad with berries. It was a hit! We will definitely
be making this again.
We’re on the home stretch, people! We can do this! Our
little bit of coffee creamer is just one week away!!
No comments:
Post a Comment