Day 7: So many work treats, and none for me

On Monday during the summer we have a department breakfast at work. This morning there were delicious fried things and Indian dessert (gulab jamun) and so many breakfast tacos. It wasn't as hard as I expected, but i still wanted to know how all the things tasted.

It didn't help that I tried paleo porridge* this morning, and it wasn't as filling, even with almond butter and blueberries added in. It was tasty, though, so tomorrow I'm trying with whole eggs instead of just the whites. We'll see how that goes. Hopefully better around 10am.

Sweet potatoes and red potatoes

Breakfast: paleo porridge* with almond butter and blueberries
Lunch: left over shepherd's pie
Dinner: coconut lime chicken, roasted potatoes and sweet potatoes, broccoli slaw
Snacks: nuts, dried figs, magic bar, baby carrots

* many people call it paleo oatmeal, but the only resemblances it has with oatmeal is that it's best warm, goes with cinnamon, and is eaten with a spoon. It's more like thin, fluffy cream of wheat. I liked it enough to try it again, but don't insult my beloved oatmeal.

Days 5 & 6: Just don't lick your fingers

Day 5 was definitely the hardest for me so far because I was making kid food and had to resist my habits of tasting it to see if it was done enough, checking the temperature by tasting it, and licking my fingers to clean them off after breaking cinnamon sugar graham crackers. But I made it!

I also made it through the CUPCAKE HURRICANE. Ok, that's a tiny bit dramatic. My sister works at a cake and cupcake bakery that happens to be closed on Sundays. On Saturday we came to see her at the end of work and there were a lot of cupcakes left. Including the chocolate cupcakes with chocolate fudge frosting. I don't know what they put in that frosting, but it's amazing. And the peanut butter and jelly cupcakes! So good! Peanut butter frosting and raspberry (I think??) filling in the cupcake. YUM. I am a stress and procrastination baker, so once I am done with my 30 days and start reintroducing things, I may have to try to make those cupcakes with whole30-compliant ingredients. It could work, right? yes? no? maybe???

Erm, sorry, back to the point. The cupcakes that aren't sold, or taken home by employees, are trashed. Sad, but there's not a ton of choice. (Note: so many cities need an easier way to donate left over food!!) So I offered that if she took home more than usual, I would redistribute them to friends and coworkers. We have made 8 friends happy so far and there are more cupcakes heading to work with me tomorrow! I have been very careful to NOT lick my fingers after transferring cupcakes, too. Even the fudge frosting. And the peanut butter frosting. They are both still in the fridge........ and will stay there until I give them away.

Day 5
Breakfast: Eggs and... something? Not the boys' toast, maybe a banana?
Lunch: Left over shepherd's pie
Dinner: Tuna with home made mayo in a green bell pepper and salad
Snacks: Homemade egg white, fruit and nut bar ('magic bar' from here on because this saves me so much!), apple, baby carrots, dates, nuts

Day 6:
Brunch: Steak and potatoes hash, topped with guacamole and a poached egg (yay for whole30 options at restaurants!)
Dinner: 16-hour crock pot pork with roasted cauliflower, blueberries
Snacks: mixed nuts, magic bar, blueberries, apple

Day 4: Prepping for the hurricane. And the weekend.

I'm a little surprised, I finally read the daily whole30 guide, and I didn't have any particular trouble so far. Too much time on food prep, I was sleep deprived for other reasons, but not a bad 'hang over' feeling or anything. I did dream about eating Naan last night, so that was pretty funny.

In other news, a hurricane is headed for Texas and while I'm live far enough inland that we'll probably be totally fine, there's just enough storm threat that people are acting weird.

I'm also babysitting from tonight until tomorrow, at the kids' house, which means taking all my food. And resisting the siren call of whatever food I need to make for children. I was proud that I did NOT grab a jelly bean from the table and eat it. But tomorrow I'll need to protect my chicken from the youngest, who's a picky eater but could eat chicken all day long. And I have to find indoor activities to entertain them if this storm really hits. Wish me luck!

Breakfast : hard boiled egg, sweet potatoes, pecans, blueberries. (it's becoming a thing)

Lunch : left over sweet potato hash

Dinner : shepherd's pie, but with the corn and peas swapped out for zucchini and broccoli stems.

Snacks : home made rx bar, nuts, apple, dried figs, half an avocado

Day 3: survived a work dinner!

MMC had a work related dinner at a nice place that we were both excited to go to. Until I realized that dinner is food. Food I would not be eating and an open bar I could not enjoy. But, I went and brought snacks and ate guacamole with baby carrots. And came home and ate more food. I even resisted the pistachio tapioca dessert that people were loving.

My home made rx Bar is too wet, so I cut it smaller and rolled it in coconut and more dried raspberries. Very nice.

Breakfast : sweet potato with blueberries and pecans

Lunch : leftovers from last night

Dinner : carrots, guacamole, Brussels sprouts, broccoli slaw with mustard vinaigrette, and chicken sausage

Day 2: No honey for my throat

I was gone for 10 days and got lazy about my allergy meds while away. Well, now I'm back and my throat and head are NOT happy about the reduced drugs in my system.

Normally, I would make a nice tea with some honey to soothe my throat. But of course not yesterday. And today it's bad again. I may not be friendly today.

On the topic of tea, I went to grab one from my stash at work yesterday and as I unwrapped it, I noticed a little sign "contains soy"!!!!! What are you doing putting soy in my tea!!???! I'm low now, with that one out, so I stopped for more on the way to work. I love working near downtown where I can do that. I don't love when a BAG OF TEA tries to thwart my food experiment efforts. Bastards. 

The offending tea, bottom, and the throat helper, top. 

So to the foods! 

Breakfast : egg, sweet potato, blueberries, and pecans

Lunch: salad with tuna and avocado and an apple cider mustard vinaigrette (much better than the balsamic) 

Dinner : zoodles with meat sauce

Snacks : homemade rx bar, mixed nuts, apple, blackberries (picked on my recent trip!) 

I cut down on the food making time today, and that helped a lot. We'll see how tomorrow is while I accompany Mr More Calories to a work dinner. Yikes. 

Day 1

Breakfast : deconstructed frittata (read : was too tired to make it last night, but had the ingredients.) potato, hard boiled egg, and broccoli

Lunch : salad, tuna, oil and balsamic, hard boiled egg, half an avocado

Snacks : dried, unsweetened Mango, mixed nuts (no peanuts!), apple

Dinner : sweet potato hash with ok sausage, onions, spinach

Turns out I'm not a fan of balsamic with tuna and egg. Better get on making other options!

Today was fine, but it's going to take a lot more energy than usual to make all my meals. I can do it, but I can't imagine doing a whole30 while making different food for kids!

Whole30 Eve

Certainly not as exciting as Christmas Eve, but I probably ate the same amount of sugar, ha! I came home and Mr. More Calories had bought baked goods from our favorite bakery. And I couldn't let him get a stomach ache from eating them all! Then I cleaned out the cabinet to hide my remaining snacks, and a few of them looked so tasty.... which is why they are now hidden from me. I routinely grab for them while hungry and cooking.

Recipes are pinned, foods are purchased, meal plan is roughly made. Time to see how this goes!

And before you feel the least bit worried for me, I live in a place where this will be about as easy as it could be. Even at work I have several places nearby where I could buy ok salads, as long as I keep some dressing on hand for myself, so I will.

Whole30 whys

Well, I've decided to start the Whole30 in two weeks, once I'm back from a trip, and I think that having a place to update daily will help me. So here I am, reviving this blog, at least for a month.

The 'why' part - I think I eat pretty well. I probably get too much sugar regularly. And I know I need more vegetables. But the big reasons for me are a couple of nagging health issues that are maybe food related. Maybe not. Which is why I haven't tried before. So I wanted to try an elimination diet to see, and this one is popular enough that it's a lot easier to find recipes!

I've already started pinning recipes, which I'll add here, and making menus. I can share those, too. Then I'll just need to put it all in action! Wooo!

One of my sisters is joining this quest, she already likes the whole30 and has done it twice! Even though she has to make other food for he kids! I'm pretty lucky to just be cooking for (and with) my partner who has agreed to eat whole30 at home. And we live in a big city with lots of healthy stores and even a few restaurants where you can eat on the whole30! We're really pretty spoiled. Oh, AND I've already recruited 5 cheerleaders for when I forget why I'm doing this.

So there you have it. I'm basically a wimp when it comes to food even though I'm super lucky with this. Now I think I'll go prepare by eating more of that chocolate in the cabinet....

Banana Walnut Cake - Nostalgic Kitchen

I really like old cookbooks. I don't mean from 2000 or even 1980. My favorites are from around the 1900s and use terms like "teaspoonfulls" instead of just teaspoons. Since a lot of them are now public domain, you can even find them for free online! They are fun because of the recipes, too. I mean, at the time they didn't have the same kinds of refrigeration or access to fresh produce that we do, or pre-processed things like 'boneless skinless chicken breast,' which is certainly a staple in my modern American kitchen.

Another fun kind is from fundraisers and church groups. The other day I was at Goodwill looking for props for a photo booth. I got a great scarf and a foam hand and over-sized martini glasses, and picked up a Cookbook from the San Antonio Orchestra's Women's group, published in 1963. Sometimes even the descriptions are funny, like Crepes Suiza, which they call the French version of enchiladas but then note that the recipe comes from Mexico City. When I googled the name, I got several pages in Spanish, like this recipe.

I decided to put my fascination with these to good use by including them on the blog, with the tag "nostalgic kitchen." This is the first, and if I stay interested, with enough free time, many more will follow! Of course, my soft spot is sweet things. For my first test, I decided to try Banana Walnut Cake, a simple dessert. The directions are very simple, even if not in the order I would expect.

Cream the butter and sugar? Yes, normal. Add baking soda and buttermilk at the same time? Ok.... but then the flour, vanilla, bananas and nuts at once?? And why fold it, instead of just stir in? Doesn't seem like it would mix right, but I did it anyway.

Since this was just a test recipe, and it has more butter than I would usually put in a recipe. I made just a half batch instead of adjusting things like crazy. It says to bake it in 2 pans (what size? I guess that's up to you? Or maybe you should just know??) but I made it as cupcakes and it filled 8 cupcake cups.

They look pretty good! They feel really soft, taking them out of the tin, and are nice and brown on top. Most of them have dimples in the middle, like they are undercooked, but a toothpick came out clean, so I'm calling it good.

Banana Walnut Cake

(Half recipe, with re-interpreted directions.)

1/4 c butter, at room temperature

3/4 cup white sugar

2 Tbs buttermilk

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 egg

3/4 cup flour

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup mashed banana (about 1 medium banana)

1/2 cup walnuts, in large pieces

1. Preheat oven to 350º F, grease muffin tin
2. Cream the butter and sugar
3. Add buttermilk, blend, and then mix in egg, then mashed banana
4. Add flour and baking soda, stir to combine
5. Stir in walnuts
6. Pour batter into muffin tin to fill each about 2/3 full
7. Bake at 350º F for 20-25 minutes, or until tops are brown and toothpick in center comes out clean

Nutrition info: Calories - 238;   Fat - 11g;    Carbs - 32g;    Fiber - 1g;    Protein - 3g

(Mr. More Calories loves that I didn't decrease the butter or walnuts, but we're not all triathletes! Hoping for something similar, but a little healthier? Try this banana bread, without the coconut!)

Gluten-free Shortbread Cookies

New experiment! I found a recipe here that looked worth trying, but couldn't resist tweaking it by adding in some almond butter. Since I was a little skeptical, I planned to make a 1/3 batch. In fact, I added the butter as if it were a 1/3 batch. And just realized that I only halved the rest of it... I should know better than to not write it all down! So now I understand why I had to add more moisture.

I also was skeptical of the cook temp/time. She says 300º for 20-30 minutes, but that surprised me. Since we had lasagna in the oven at the same time, I did half of them at the typical 350º for 20 minutes, and the other half at 300º for 25 minutes.

And good news! They turned out! The temperature really didn't seem to matter and there wasn't even a coffee flavor from my chosen milk substitute. In my opinion, they were VERY dry. Too dry. I guess because of all of the corn starch, so if I experiment again I will be sure not to use such a starchy recipe. They might be good with tea or coffee, I'll try that tomorrow.

Here's what I did in full batch amounts, in case you are feeling adventurous, too:

Gluten-Free Shortbread Cookies
Makes 32 cookies. 10 minutes to blend, 60 to chill, 20 to cook

1/2 cup cornstarch
1 cup brown rice flour (you can make your own!)
1/2 cup powdered sugar
6 Tbs butter, room temperature
2 Tbs almond butter
3 Tbs milk/replacement (approximate! I used a protein-enriched coffee dairy drink)

1. Sift together the cornstarch, rice flour and powdered sugar.
2. Cut in the butter and almond butter with a pastry blender (or knife and fork, that's what I had) at first, then mix with a big fork or a spoon.
3. Add in liquid about  teaspoon at a time and stir well between additions. You want JUST enough liquid to make it stick together.
4. Make a 'log' of cookie dough down the center of a piece of plastic wrap and roll up. Chill for AT LEAST an hour. These don't get as firm as typical shortbread cookies because of the lower butter content. They are a bit lower in fat, though!
5. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Parchment paper makes them easier to remove from the pan.
6. Let cool at least 10 minutes and enjoy!

Nutrition info per 3 cookies: 116 Calories, 5.8g Fat, 15.4g Carbs, 1.3g protein