Whole30, week 1 in Whole 30/post w30 eating

This week has been pretty ho-hum so far (starting this draft on Wednesday, for reference.)

Breakfast has just been some combo of eggs and veggies.

My mason jar salads are NOT good this week. Orange bell peppers were on sale, so I got those for my veggie and they just don’t taste right. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I’m not enjoying them at all. And the spinach I got isn’t right, either. I feel like they may have waited too long to harvest it. Also, while my chicken roasting experience was exciting, it’s a bit over cooked and flavorless. I’m also not sure I even enjoy white meat anymore. I froze the thighs, so I guess I have those to look forward to.

Also, with the salads, I really hate the tahini dressing I made. So much so that I’m not even going to share the recipe. It’s not good. I tried to save it with a bit more lemon juice and some balsamic, and it helped a little, but not a lot. It’s definitely not as good as what we made at the cafe. I’m going to keep experimenting, though. I found and avocado tahini dressing that I’m going to try, and then I also found another recipe that I want to modify to use tahini to see if that works. That one uses OJ, and the sweetness from the juice might help cut into the tahini a bit.

Dinner has also been bumming me out. On Monday I did my last day of pulled pork and then froze the rest because I was over it. Actually, the concoction I came up with was quite good. It was a mix of pulled pork, leftover butternut squash (which I’ve decided I don’t really like, but it was good in this mix), spinach, and onion, I think. Topped with the tahini. It worked. Oh hey! I found a picture on my phone:

On Tuesday I really wanted to put my curry in the crockpot, but I couldn’t get my beef to finish defrosting. The running water trick wasn’t doing anything for the pieces it couldn’t touch directly, and then I was out of time. I was so pissed off by dinner time I ended up eating a turkey burger, fried egg, and roasted sweet potato. Boo. Then I realized I couldn’t make it today (again, Wednesday) because I went to the movies this afternoon (where I ate a bunless burger. I was going to get a salad, but I forgot to eat lunch and was starving). So hopefully, curry will happen tomorrow and it will be awesome and save this cruddy food week.

Back on Friday to finish this up, since today is technically day one of week 2. So, the curry.....oh, the curry. I do all the prep work, even browning the beef which is a step I usually skip, and throw it all in. When I check on it in the afternoon, it’s a watered down mess. Which I thought might happen. Which always seems to happen with crock pot recipes that are supposed to end up with an edible sauce. WHY?! I mean, you would think the recipe would somehow solve this problem in its instructions, right? Fortunately I thought to grab another can of coconut milk when I was out earlier. So I spooned out all of the meat and veggies and then dumped about half of the liquid in the pot. Then I added more curry powder and the other can of milk and a little arrowroot and let it cook for a bit. Then I added the meat and veggies back in, let it all heat up together for a few minutes, and then finally got down to eating. Curry never takes great pictures, but I took one anyway:

It’s okay. I wish I had gotten another sweet potato in there. I forgot the second one in the microwave, lol. I think next time I’d make it on the stove top, too. The only reason I’m trying to use the crockpot more is Callie complained about the gas bill the last time I did a w30.

Because I have all this cauliflower rice to get through before it turns, I made fried rice for dinner tonight. It wasn’t as good as it could’ve been (I really missed the scallions!) but I wanted to just use what I had in the house. So it was egg, the cauliflower rice, regular onion, coconut aminos, and a little fish sauce. Pretty tasty, though a little salty. And while it didn’t taste fishy, I hate that the fish sauce smells fishy.

I’m still not feeling this. Maybe I’m just in kill all the things mode. Boo grump.