Day 3

I slept really poorly last night. Normally I would have blamed it on too much caffeine, but I didn't have any. I think I saw every hour and just couldn't turn my brain off. It might be a long day.

I gave the pumpkin pancakes one more try this morning.
...I'm giving up on pancakes.
I'm fine with eggs, canadian bacon, and veggies so I might as well save the time and frustration. :)

I do need to figure out what to do with the last cup of pumpkin puree though, so if anyone has ideas, let me know. I can't add sugar, sweetener, dairy, or grains. No protein powder. No soy. I can use coconut milk and almond flour though. And spices.

This is my adaptation of a smoothie  recipe I found on Pinterest. Maybe I'll try it tomorrow:

2/3 cup water or coconut milk (plus more if you want to thin it out)

1/2 cup pureed pumpkin (roasted or canned)

1 ripe banana or peach

1 Tbsp almond meal

1 Tbsp almond butter

1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice

¼ tsp cinnamon

I also forgot to mention that on day 1 I tried cinnamon carrots. They were pretty good. I've never been a fan of cooked carrots, but roasting brought out their sweetness and cooking the life out of them gave them a nice crunch.

CINNAMON CARROTS

• slice 1 carrot VERY thinly - try to get them all equally thin
• toss the rounds with coconut oil
• put parchment paper on a cookie sheet and lay carrots out in a single layer
• sprinkle with cinnamon - as much as you like
• bake at 425* for as long as it takes to crisp them up - about 12-ish or more if they're thicker.

You can play around with other spices too, I'm sure.

Lunch was carrots (shocker! Am I turning orange yet?) and APPLE CHICKEN SALAD.

I chopped up one of my 5oz portions of chicken strips and added 1/2 a diced apple, 1/2 a green onion, diced, and a mixture of Paleo Mayo and Mustard.
I meant to use red grapes but the kiddos got to them first and polished them off. I also meant to put almonds in there but... I forgot. I do miss the blue cheese that I normally put in this mix but I'll survive without it. It was still good.


My youngest and I went to the grocery store and got some fun items. They have a machine that makes fresh ground almond butter for you. We both got a kick out of it. It's the little things...  I also picked up some strawberry sauce in the health market. The ingredients are strawberries and concentrated grape juice. I intend to create a vinegarette with it for salads or maybe I'll just use it as it is over a chicken salad. I stocked up on some more organic, grass fed beef and also got some almonds and cashews. I intended to get some ready made meatballs in the meat case but quickly remembered that they add bread crumbs. Can't have that. I really wanted to make meat sauce with tonight's dinner, but my oldest daughter insists that we have meatballs instead. It would have been easier to buy them already made, but I will make the meatballs out of love for that kid.  ;)

Dinner was a little labor intensive. We had
SPAGHETTI SQUASH WITH PALEO MEATBALLS AND TOMATO BASIL SAUCE.
(and no carrots - whew!)

I roasted the spaghetti squash for 45 minutes at 375 degrees with a little water in the bottom of the pan.

For the meatballs, I squished together:
1lb grass fed, organic blah blah blah ground beef
1 small grated onion
2cloves of garlic
1tsp seasoned salt
1tsp garlic powder
1tsp Italian Seasoning
(and I really wanted to use worchestershire sauce but can't)
and baked at 400 degrees for 15 minutes as soon as the squash came out.
It needed to cool a bit before I could scrape out the "spaghetti" anyway.

For the sauce, I carmelized 1/4 onion to a really nice brown (to add sweetness since we can't have sugar.) Then I tossed in some diced up Roma tomatoes, salt, olive oil, garlic, pepper, dried basil and dried oregano. I let it simmer for a bit and then ran the immersion blender through it.

Assemble and enjoy your hard work.
It tasted good. It was not spaghetti but it was good enough.

Day 2

I slept like a rock last night. That doesn't happen very often, but it was sure welcome!

Breakfast was a learning experience. I attempted to make pumpkin pancakes and ended up making pumpkin cookies. I wasn't patient enough to cook at a lower heat for a longer amount of time, so I tossed them in the oven. We all have our faults.  :)
I added some carrots and beans from the previous night's dinner to round things out. Every meal has to have veggies and protein.

Those pancakes taste slighly better than they look. It's a process.

PUMPKIN PANCAKES
1 egg
1/2C pumpkin
1/4C coconut milk
You can add almond flour if you'd like.
Cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice to taste.
I also mixed 1/4C coconut milk with cinnamon and drizzled it over the top, just to have something a little sweet.

Lunch was TUNA SALAD and CUCUMBERS

1 packet of tuna
1-2 spoonfulls of paleo mayo
1 tsp mustard
Mix and serve with Cucumber slices

Nothing special, but I wasn't actually hungry yet. We also have a bit of a time crunch between soccer practice (indoor) and getting my oldest to school at 12:30, so lunch had to be quick.

I also learned yesterday that, while we're supposed to get away from between-meal snacks, I still need an afternoon snack to get me to dinner without battling a serious case of the munchies, so a small lunch would be fine.

My Mom came to visit and brought a whole box of thin mints. I resisted them, although I let the girls have some. I don't actually care much for girl scout cookies :: gasp! :: so it only took a few seconds for the hunger pangs to subside. My mom told me that she was going to bring her awesome home baked chocolate chip cookies (which I loooove!) and I'm so very glad she didn't.


Dinner was CHICKEN WITH BASIL CREAM SAUCE. (plus the required veg.) It was a favorite from our menu last week, so I paleo-fied it to fit the rules of Whole 30, and it was really good! I definitely recommend this one. Just be sure to add plenty of salt. The original recipe has Parmesan in it so you need to replace some of that salty flavor.

2 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts, pounded thinly
2 teaspoons seasoned salt
3 Tablespoons ghee
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 cup Chicken Broth - watch the labels
1/4 can of Italian diced tomatoes, drained and finely chopped
1 cup coconut milk
2 Tablespoons freeze dried (or fresh) basil

Sprinkle chicken with seasoned salt.
Place in a pan or casserole dish with edges.
In a small skillet, heat ghee until melted. Then pour it over the chicken.
Toss into the oven at 500* for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, in the same skillet, add garlic with a little more ghee or coconut oil and saute for approximately 1 minute.
Add chicken broth and bring to a boil over medium heat. Stir occasionally to loosen browned parts from the pan.
Stir in coconut milk and tomatoes. Bring to a boil and stir for one minute.
Reduce heat to low; add basil.
Stir sauce and cook until heated through and thickened.
If it's taking a long time, you can raise the heat a bit, but stir constantly.
Taste to see if it will need salt. Mine needed a lot.
Serve by pouring the sauce over the chicken.


That's all folks! Another pretty easy day. I'm not complaining.  :) yet.
Is anyone just dying to jump into this with me yet? Just checkin'.