& Beyond (day 31)

First day  officially off of the Whole30, I celebrated by having some company for tea and weighing myself. 

I lost 3.2kgs in the last 30 days without losing any inches.  I’m still quite happy about the amount of weight lost, I have never in my life lost that amount of weight in any given time!  (excluding when I had my daughter obviously)

Meal 1 

2 boiled eggs and Kale with olives and bacon.  

Meal 2

A friend I hadn’t seen in almost a year came by bearing gifts this morning.  I was proud to show her my collection of Tea from David’s Tea.  She chose a spearmint tea and I had a couple peppermint teas, then we talked non stop for 2 hours.  I decided to keep her for lunch as I tried a recipe from Well Fed 2 using left over ribs from yesterday called Faux Pho.  It was very good!  I wish I had remembered to chop up some cilantro or had some fish sauce, but it was good nonetheless. Z was a perfect little doll the whole time too. She played with her toys, came in and out of the kitchen for some attention, then back to her toys. We hardly heard her until lunch.  

I was sad S. had to leave after lunch, but she had to get to work! I feel like we could have gone on talking all afternoon.  

I deep cleaned the living room while Z was sleeping and watched a few episodes of Dawson’s Creek on Netflix, my current guilty pleasure!

Meal 3

 

Fiesta Pork Chops and Green Beans with Sizzled Garlic.  

I couldn’t find any canned mild green pepper so I simply used a couple of Jalapeno.  When I tasted the pork chops it was muy picante, but I realize I hadn’t properly washed my hands after handling the peppers.  This recipe was a success even with my husband.  The onions, spices and peppers just blended so well together, it will probably become a regular dinner dish in our home!  The green beans I have made before and they were just as good this time as before.  The cumin and green beans mix so well together.  I think I could replace using 5 cloves of garlic with garlic infused olive oil.  It might save a little bit of time!

This week will be my last at the crossfit prep course, it will also be busy with cleaning the house thoroughly and preparing for Z’s 1 year birthday party! I’m so excited for this week!

Go me!

 

Day 24 – Fueled by Tea!

Well okay my day wasn’t Tea fueled, but I did get my order of Organic Peppermint tea from David’s Tea today.  Along with it came 3 samples.  Genmaicha, Blue Lagoon, and Organic Pure Vanilla Rooibos.  The first two are out for Brown Rice and Cane sugar respectively, but the third one seemed legit until I read ‘With Natural Flavoring’.  David’s Tea FAQ was rather vague about what Natural flavoring were.  So I did what I do best and googled Whole30+Natural Flavoring.  This brought me to the Whole30 discussion boards and the okay was given for tea with Natural Flavoring.  I’m quite happy as this Rooibos is quite delicious.  Although I really want to buy a bag of it, I’m reminded of the last time I enjoyed a sample and bought a pouch.  I was a little disappointed with the purchase, it didn’t taste quite like I remembered.  My dad assured me this was a marketing scheme but would little ole David do that?  I can be very naive sometimes.  Other than the obvious telemarketer or peddler on the street I don’t believe that people are out to ‘get’ me!  So maybe I will buy 50 g of the Organic Pure Vanilla Rooibos!  Take that!

I was up before Z this morning and I’m happy to report that she slept all night!

Meal 1

Boiled eggs, mayo, Kale and bacon.  I used 3 slices of bacon this morning which was way too much.  The dogs got about half a slice each and were quite happy.  They spent the rest of the day running to their bowl every time I threw something out.

Meal 2

Left over Chilli from last night.  It was a little spicier than I’d like, and I did omit half of the cayenne when I made it yesterday.  It was very good though.

Meal 3

While Z slept I got tonight’s supper together.  Those grape leaves I was looking for?  They were to make stuffed grape leaves., another recipe from Well Fed 2.  I wasn’t too keen on the smell of the grape leaves, soaking them for 15 minutes helped wash out the liquid they were preserved in.  The grape leaves were a lot easier to roll than cabbage and made nice little ‘packages’.  According to Wikipedia this dish is considered a Sarma, but can also be called a Dolma.  Dolmas are middle eastern dishes and usually contain Lamb.  But after my experience with Lamb on Day 2 , I substituted it with ground beef for the recipe.

Since this is Paleo the rice was substituted with cauliflower.  I have to mention now that making cauliflower rice takes me a lot longer than it probably should because I don’t own an actual food processor.  I have a mini one that I use all the time to finely chop an onion or previously to make bread crumbs, but not an actual full size food processor.  So when I make cauliflower rice, I have to do it in about 10 batches to get it all done.  This recipe called for pulsing all the ingredients together to form a paste.  I omitted the meat from this process but put everything else in.  The results were still great.

The stuffed Grape Leaves were all done by 4 when Z woke up, which worked out perfectly because you need to refrigerate them as they are generally eaten cold or at room temperature.

I think I could have rinsed the grape leaves a little better to get the preserve liquid out, but otherwise these were really good.  I had (quite a few of) them with Tabbouleh and some garlic-stuffed olives.  My breath was really wonderful after supper!!  I unwrapped them for Z, and let her have a piece of olive.  She seemed to quite enjoy it too.  I know my husband will turn his nose at them, but more for me!

After a short 15 minute walk out in the cold Z went down like a dream and I have the rest of the evening to relax!

Yay me! Another day completed!