My 68 Day Challenge; The Whole30 Day 17

Feeling like a rock star!

They call this stage of the Whole30 Tiger Blood and I know why.  For two weeks I went to spin class
and felt a diabolical force resisting the movement of my legs and feet.  The harder I tried to pedal the more resistance there seemed to be.  Like I was getting sucked in by quicksand.  I've gone to class after, well, let's just say more than a few glasses of wine and done better, felt better, rode better.

This week; I owned it.  There was no quick sand holding my legs down.  In fact, it felt like there was no gravity.  Like I was spinning on the moon and could spin forever.  It was awesome!

We are in this very strange place in the Whole30 process.

My 68 Day Challenge; Whole 30 Day 9

The authors of the Whole30 say that most people give up on days 10 and 11.  The novelty has wore off, food fatigue, temptation.  A whole lot of reasons.  Being on Day 9 it doesn't feel like I'm ready to quit tomorrow or the next day.

How are you doing on your 2016 goals?  Need some motivation?  ET always does it for me.  Check out this video



Making the Whole30 fun by being able to be creative has been our focus.  By just focusing on making it through each day until you get to 30, I could see how you might give up.  If you focus on trying new things and being creative then you look forward to each new experience and don't even count the day you're on.

I've never even eaten a chicken burger before.  That didn't stop us for cooking them up for today's brown bag lunch.

Chicken Burgers
Printable Version

Dead Arm Mayonnaise

Many homemade mayonnaise recipes require power tools and face it, many kitchens do not have them.  I love this recipe because it doesn't require any tools except good old arm power and it doesn't make too much.  This is a concern because homemade mayo doesn't have a long shelf life.  You need to use it up quickly.

Homemade Mayonnaise
Printable Version

Ingredients

Beef Brisket with Endless Possibilies

Busy households need easy solutions.  What could be easier than cooking once and making 4 (or more) great meals out of it?

As part of the 68 Day Challenge, a great "your best year starts here program" my husband and I are doing the Whole30.  In a nutshell:  meat, vegetables, fruit, and healthy fats for 30 days.

Slow Roasted Beef Brisket

printable version

Ingredients

• 1 beef brisket
• 1 small box portabella mushrooms, sliced
• 2 onions, sliced thick
• 1 cup beef broth
• 1 tsp garlic
• 2 bay leaves
• cracked pepper
• salt (adjust this depending on the sodium content in your broth)

Back to School Cooking; Mac -n Cheese

9 days!
In 9 glorious days the kids go back to school.
Today, I did my back to school Costco run.  The first of a few.
Let the freezer cooking begin . . . .

With school and work and soccer and marching band and ... and.... and.... it's way easier to have awesome homemade dinners ready to go in our freezer.  Today I made mac -n- cheese.  This recipe is also perfect for sports banquets, graduation parties, and tailgating.

Macaroni -n Cheese for The Team
Printable version

Cook Chicken Once for Four Easy Meals

“I wanted to figure out why I was so busy, but I couldn't find the time to do it.” 
― Todd Stocker

Busy families like ours can still eat great with a little planning.  With one great ingredient and some creative thinking you can go far.  By pure accident I found my new favorite chicken marinade.  I was all set in my mind on how I was going to marinade chicken and at the last second my hubby cried out, "don't put an acid in the marinade". Crap!  I was going to use citrus.  What now?

I had just found a new salad dressing I had never seen before, Bolthouse Farms Cilantro Avocado Yogurt Dressing, with only 40 calories per serving.  What the heck, I thought, I might as well try it.

It's a new favorite!

At night:

Costco in the Kitchen; Chicken Tenderloin Stir Fry

Do items at Costco interest you, but you just don't know what to do with them?  Do you buy them and end up throwing them away or just walk past them and wonder?

From our recent trip to Vegas;
Chinese New Year at Bellagio

I spotted these Asian noodles in the deli section and threw them in the cart.  The first few times I just tossed a little soy sauce on them and threw them in the microwave.  This is still the 10 year old's favorite way to eat them.

Here's a super easy recipe just in time

What Kale? Protein Smoothie

Summer time = Breakfast?  No worries, the kids are not even awake until lunch time.
Back to school time = Breakfast?  Our daughter has the weird "B" lunch in the middle of her fourth hour class and our son has the late lunch, 4 1/2 hours after the bus picks him up in the morning. Whatever it is it must contain some protein or they just won't make it to lunch.

This smoothie tastes so good and with it's beautiful purple hue they won't even know the kale is in there.  It's the perfect way to get them off to school


What Kale? Protein Smoothie
Printable Version

Blueberry Mojito Smoothie

“A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in--what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars.” 
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

My garden is my pride and joy.  I love being able to relax in the back yard with a different scene almost daily depending on what is in bloom.  Tucked away in the blooms are edible delights that almost look too pretty to eat.  Chives in the spring and fall, strawberries in early summer, blackberries in late summer, and herbs almost year round.

Not big on rum, a server at my old favorite restaurant (so sad that it is gone) talked me into ordering a blueberry mojito.  I have to say, it was fun summer awesomeness in a glass.  It was this morning's inspiration for our morning smoothie.

Blueberry Mojito Smoothie

Printable Version

He Happy, She Happy, We Happy

The dilemma - we are grilling steaks.  We picked up beautiful bone-in ribeyes, the king of all steaks.  He wants lionized hash browns as a side.  She wants healthy sides. Ahhhhh!  How do we make everyone happy?

I took a stab at making a healthier version of this diner favorite.  It was fantastic.

Baked Lionized Hash Brown

Printable Version

Ingredients

Sneak in an Avocado

Did you know that an avocado is actually a fruit?  I didn't.  I always thought it was in the veggie group.  Green, slimy, kids won't eat it.  It must be a veggie.  Digging deeper the avocado is a berry.  My kids new better.  "Mom, everything with a seed is a fruit".

High in fiber (10g), vitamin C, vitamin B 6, and more potassium than a banana sneak these heart healthy fruits into your morning smoothies.

We enjoy this recipe so much we have it every week.

Indoor Dinner Beach Party

"One must maintain a little bit of summer, even in the middle of winter." ~Henry David Thoreau

This has been a long - no - the longest - coldest winter I can remember.  Looking forward to spring break and ready for the weather to turn we decided to bring our beach party inside for our family dinner night.

The menu:
Turkey burgers 2 ways
Baked Beans
Potato Chips
Kale Chips

For a beach party you can't forget the décor: beach decorations, paper plates, beach boys music, and of course, a beach ball.  We made up fun beach ball games around the dinner table. Here are several variations of our silly games.

Skin In The Game

At a networking breakfast yesterday, someone mentioned leaving the skin on kiwi when you make

smoothies.  It just didn't sound right to me, but then someone added "my kid eats kiwi with the skin on like an apple".  OK, but kids eat worms too.  I still wasn't 100% sold, but I tried it this morning anyway - you couldn't tell they were in there.  Believe me, if anything was funky our 10 year old would have called us out.

Thanks for the great tip. 

I did some research this morning, there's actually a California Kiwifruit Organization.  I found out that by leaving the skin on the fiber value is tripled and more of the vitamin C is retained.  Hey, I just like that it's a shortcut in the morning.

According to Wikipedia to have "skin in the game" is to have incurred monetary risk by being
invested in achieving a goal.  In my smoothie recipe having skin in the game is to retain more of the vitamins and add fiber.

Any Day Can Be Mardi Gras

Our family Wednesday night theme dinner last week was Mardi Gras.  We were late.  Mardi Gras this year was celebrated 8 days earlier, Fat Tuesday.  But, who cares?  Why can't any day can be Mardi Gras?

James R. Creecy in his book Scenes in the South, and Other Miscellaneous Pieces describes New
Orleans Mardi Gras in 1835:

Shrove Tuesday is a day to be remembered by strangers in New Orleans, for that is the day for fun, frolic, and comic masquerading. All of the mischief of the city is alive and wide awake in active operation.

Fun and frolic is certainly one way to get your kids engaged in enjoying a family dinner together. 

Hide the Spinach

Sometimes it's not the foods our kids (and husbands) won't eat, it's the way they are prepared.  For instance, most people steam brussel sprouts. Yuck!  You can't get most people to buy in to them this way.  Try roasting them with olive oil, red pepper flakes, salt, pepper, and orange peel. DELICIOUS!  The same goes for asparagus.  Steamed, not so liked.  Grilled or roasted it takes on an entirely different flavor, and texture, that will get more wins and empty plates.

I find that the best way to make sure that my family gets enough vegetables is to hide them in a fruity flavored smoothie.  Sometimes I sneak a few too many veggies in there and I am busted.  Sometimes I hit a home run like with this limey flavored smoothie.

"All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better."
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hide the Spinach, An Antioxidant Smoothie

Wednesday Night is Family Dinner Party Night

Parents, you know how hard it is to get the entire family seated in the same room, at the same time, to enjoy a "real" meal together.  The 9 year old boy just wants to play xbox.  15 year old girls just want to text.  Frankly, you're too tired to get it all done, so you give up before you even begin.

Last week I invented  the family themed dinner party.  It was Mexican night.  We had fish tacos (we made a cheese quesadilla for the 9 year old), beans and rice, homemade guacamole, fancy frozen drinks and we found a Spanish mix on Pandora.  It worked.  30 minutes of togetherness.

The next week,

Breville Juicer and Vitamix

“Instead of being oppressed by the Tyranny of the OR, highly visionary companies liberate themselves with the Genius of the AND – the ability to embrace both extremes of a number of dimensions at the same time. Instead of choosing between A or B, they figure out a way to have both A AND B.” Success Built to Last,  Jim Collins

 

Having posted a lot of smoothie recipes I get asked what type of juicer I own and my answer is, it depends on what you want to do and what your tastes are.  In my case, I like delicious fruit smoothies (and these are an easier sell to the 9 year old boy) AND I like smooth fresh vegetable juice.  To have both you need different equipment.  If you want to choose between brands, like Vitamix OR Ninja then the Tyranny of the OR applies.  You do not need two machines that do the same thing.  On a side note, spend the money and get the Vitamix.  If you want smoothies AND smooth juices without pulp then Embrace the Genius of the AND and purchase both a blender and a juicer.

VITAMIX OR AND BREVILLE

Vitamix



Creates smooth, thick, recipes that depending on the ingredients, may be chewy

Best uses: soft fruit such as:

    bananas

    mangoes

    citrus

    berries

    greens

recipes that add ice or liquid

recipes that add a liquid sweetener such as agave

 

Not the best for: hard fruit and vegetables such as:

    carrots

    apples

    beets

    ginger

The powerful motor in the Vitamix will certainly handle the above items, but it makes a chewy juice that will be a difficult sell to young ones.

 

 

Day 4 Losing 6 Pounds in 2 Weeks

One of the best time savers I have found is cooking once to eat many times.  Sometimes this means
making a gigantic pot of spaghetti sauce and portioning it out in tupperware to stow away in the freezer for many pasta nights to come.  Sometimes this means making simple dishes that can be spruced up or combined to make new exciting future meals in a snap.

This week I made polenta and roasted asparagus as

Chicken Thighs with Harissa Chickpeas

 

Usually, when I get my hair done is the only time I allow myself to indulge in tabloids.  They are there.  I am there.  Why not?  At my last appointment the January 2014 edition of Bon Appetit was sitting in the processing room and caught my eye.  I found page after page of tempting recipes that I couldn't wait to try our for my family and since it was the January version most of the recipes were healthy.  This one was at the top of the list.  I love that one pan goes from the stovetop, to the oven, to the table and I couldn't wait to see how tolerable my family would be to the heat of this dish.  They did not disappoint. The entertainment I hoped for was pricesless.  When you try it make sure to make sides that double as extinguishers.

Mujadara, Rice and Lentils Recipe

Middle Eastern food is one of my favorite food groups.  I can eat it every day.  Although I enjoy cooking, I find that many of the recipes either require too many ingredients that I do not have or require way too much labor (chopping parsley for days).  Mujadara, however, is one of my favorites to make at home.  The ingredients and the instructions are basic and you can cook it once and eat many times.

Mujadara is a low calorie, low cost meal packed with health benefits.  This recipe is super easy to make (except that I have a tendency to burn instead of caramelize the onions). I love to make it as a side dish for dinner and then enjoy the left-overs as a main course for lunch.  Dr. Oz lists lentils as one of the best anti-aging super foods and here's more on the 7 Health Benefits of Lentils.

 

Printable Version
3 onions
1 bag lentils
1 c long grain brown rice
6 cups low sodium veggie or chicken stock
1/2 Tbs. cumin
salt
pepper
olive oil

cut 1 onion into 1/2 inch pieces
heat olive oil in frying pan
caramelize onion (cook until dark brown, but careful not to burn)
remove from pan and set aside

Dice remaining 2 onions
Cook diced onion in olive oil in a saucepan on medium heat until soft, 2-3 minutes