Monday, August 03, 2015

Whole30 - Day 2

Okay! Another super easy day, filled with yummy food. 

One part of this regime that I thought might be difficult was finding ways to replace Pierre’s bread. I, like my dad, am not much of a bread-guy, so this particular part isn’t a struggle on my end. Pierre, however, loves eggs on toast for breakfast (or a whey protein powder and fruit smoothie, which is also out, whey being dairy), and soup and a sandwich at lunch. 

Kitchen toys to the rescue! Last week I spent a few hours pre-prepping and freezing some goodies that we’ll spread out over the coming weeks. One of those was a giant Ziploc bag full of spiralized yellow squash from the garden and zucchini from the grocery. (Thank you, Paderno!) We love slightly caramelized summer squash either sliced or spaghetti-ed, browned in a dab of coconut oil and/or ghee.

I also peeled a five-pound bag of russet potatoes and ran them through the Kitchenaid processor/grater, flattened layers between parchment paper on cookie sheets and froze them. (Reminders to self and anyone who wants to do this: zizz some sweet onion in with it for more flavor, and it’s a good idea to score these into a grid so they break easily into squares or rectangles before freezing. My broken pieces look more like modern art.) The squash or hash browns do make a lovely and tasty bed for eggs. This morning we had squash and eggs, sun-tea and strawberry booch for me, and black coffee and ginger booch for Pierre.

Lunch was a bit more challenging, as, unlike me, Pierre prefers clean fingers to messy ones. I’d planned romaine wraps – the largest leaves cleaned and ready to hold his usual canned sockeye salmon, balsamic vinegar, tomato, and homemade mayonnaise (SO easy and containing no sugar, which Hellman’s, sadly, has.) Part of the appeal of bread, I think, is that it absorbs all of the goop, and romaine obviously doesn’t. Pierre ate it, but wasn’t crazy about the juice that continually oozed out around the leaf. We’ll be exploring new wrapping techniques, and if anyone has non-grain ideas for sandwich wraps, I’d be happy to hear them.

My lunch was a yummy tuna, mayo, tomato, and purple cabbage cortido romaine wrap, which dripped a beautiful (and delicious) pool of lavender juice onto my plate. I sipped that up for dessert!

Late afternoon we had a few almonds and Pierre enjoyed one of his favourite snacks: a crisp red delicious apple, undoubtedly grown in my native Washington State.

And dinner… oh my! This recipe (again from RealPlans) is a keeper – two out of two so far. 

I’m not usually a big fan of salmon (sockeye, the vegetarian salmon, fresh or canned being the only exception and, even then, rarely. This recipe might change that!) The preparation sounded interesting, so I picked up a couple of big wild Pacific sockeye fillets at Costco last week, froze them, and made one tonight. It was quick and easy, and had barely any fishy taste. Made a mix of a mustard powder and spicy deli mustard and spread it on the non-skin side, then pressed on a layer of finely ground almonds. Baked it for 15 minutes sprinkled on a wee bit of salt and pepper, and wowed us both! While the fish was baking, I cut a colander full of Swiss chard from the garden, cleaned and chopped it, steamed it in a little water and stirred in a couple of teaspoons of bacon fat for flavour and to improve nutritent absorption. 

How great is it, by the way, that we no longer need to be afraid of fat? Of course, bacon fat is saturated, and won’t be our oil of choice most of the time – coconut, avocado, and olive oil being tops. Nutritionist have learned, though, that even saturated fat is better for us than the hydrogenated oils which are in nearly all disgustingly delicious and addictive processed foods. Grrr! 

Goodbye Oreos. Farewell Cheez-its. Our unhealthy relationship is in the past.

Best news of the day: neither Pierre nor I are craving a nighttime snack. And THAT is a wonderful thing!

Happy dreams, everyone. And thanks for reading. :)

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