Whole 30 Week 2

Well we've survived our first week of Whole 30 and surprisingly we managed through our 2nd week without any cheats…which amazes me. Again, I can't say enough for having a support system during this journey.

The second week brought new challenges: boredom. Breakfasts were starting to get a little boring, eggs and bacon every day sounds great until you're 15 days in and you're getting a little green at the thought of one more egg. So this week we got creative and branched out. I think the first week, you're so worried about eating something bad that you get caught up in eating the things you know are safe. Or, like we did- we got super adventurous and they didn't go according to plan so you wilt back to your safety net of grapes, salads, and grilled meats. 

Anyways, for week 2 we got a little more adventurous with our recipes and trying new things. Instead of cooking eggs and bacon every morning, on Sunday we did some prep and made these super simple and versatile meat and veggie egg muffins. Here is an example of a recipe we used. We made egg-spianch-sausage egg muffins and were able to put them in the fridge and reheat them in the morning. Our secret ingredient this week: apple pie spice by Penzy's. A definite life-saver. I've used more cinnamon and apple pie spice in the past few weeks than I have in my whole life!

Above: egg muffins, fresh mango and strawberries for breakfast

Some other good recipes from this week included a Summer Cucumber and Tomato Salad

Paleo Mexican Chicken Soup 

and I made a variation of this Garlic Shrimp with Zucchini Noodles which was delicious, I did a little homemade pesto (without the cheese of course) and I think I could've ate 3 helpings.

La Croix water: I used to hate it. Now I'm obsessed 

Arugula with a homemade mustard/olive oil dressing and Moroccan Meatballs (I'll try to find the recipe because these were absolutely delicious)

Another fun adventure this week: homemade sugar-free applesauce. I also cut up some fresh strawberries and pureed them together to make homemade strawberry applesauce- I highly recommend.

Keep on, keepin' on folks. You can do it!

GF Adventures

With the recent diagnosis of gluten intolerance, things have been slowly clicking and after years and years of feeling..eh, I'm finally starting to feel better. Who knew, after four years of random diagnosis, that GF might be a possible solution. One of the hardest things is that for 22-years I have enjoyed everything with gluten, and I'm not sure I'm ready to give up everything I used to love just because of the gluten; time to start experimenting. Tonight was a quiet night with Abby so I made a GF Fish & Chips for us (Okay, she got the scraps...)

Baked Gluten Free Fish & Chips

Olive oil cooking spray

1/2 cup GF Rice Krispies

Salt & Pepper

Lemon Pepper Seasoning

1 egg white 

Pinch of salt

1 tilapia filet (I used a frozen piece of tilapia, thawed)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees 

Set a wire rack on a baking sheet and coat with cooking spray. TIP: This gets the bottom crispy too!

In a shallow bowl, combine the egg white and a pinch of salt and whisk with a fork until frothy.

In a second shallow bowl, crush the Rice Krispies using your hand or the bottom of the measuring cup. Add seasonings.

Dip the fish in the egg whites, then roll in the cereal crumbs to coat. Place the five on the rack. Bake the fish on the bottom oven rack until crisp and just cooked through, about 12 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and serve with "chips".

12 minutes later...voila! Bon appetite. 

The "chips" were some gluten free sweet potato oven fries as I was too exhausted to make homemade sweet potato chips tonight :)