Day 9: It's All About the Sauces, featuring... Garlicky Sunbutter Sauce + Herbed Mustard Vinaigrette

I teach a class called Sauces 101, but I think "It's All About the Sauces" is much sexier. Next time we throw it into the mix, I'm changing it. Because seriously, one of the eight hundred things I've learned about myself and food in the last nine days is that sauces can sure make a meal. Especially when the meal is eggs. Again.

In the spirit of sharing what I'm learning, I'm going to share two sauce recipes today. Both are versions of personal favorites, which I enjoy at home and use in class. Both make everything taste good.

W30 Super Garlicky Sunbutter Sauce

Makes about 1 1/2 cups / 6+ servings

5 cloves garlic

1/2 cup Sunbutter

1/3 cup coconut aminos

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

2-3 pitted dates

1 tablespoon sesame oil

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 raw or cooked carrot (optional - thickens it up a bit)

Blend everything until smooth. Serve with chicken, shrimp, anything grilled, noodles, quinoa, fresh or sautéed vegetables, or over salad. We enjoyed it (twice) with carrots, green beans, shrimp, baby spinach, and kelp noodles. This afternoon I enjoyed it on a green salad. Scrumptious.

The Super Garlicky Peanut version of this sauce, as featured in my Quick Weeknight Meals class, is as follows: Blend together 5-10 cloves garlic, 1/2 cup peanut butter, 1/2 cup soy sauce, 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar (or rice vinegar or white wine vinegar), 3 tablespoons honey, 1 tablespoon sesame oil. Everybody loves it. It totally makes the veggies go down.

Herbed Mustard Vinaigrette 

Makes 1 cup / 6-8 servings

Note: This dressing is always W30 compliant unless you use mustard with wine or some other prohibited food in it. Natural Value Dijon works and that is what I used.

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/3 cup white wine vinegar or red wine vinegar or white balsamic vinegar or champagne vinegar*

1 tablespoon dijon or grainy mustard

1 shallot or 1/4 red onion, minced

6 leaves fresh basil (or more), minced (I also used some oregano because I had it)

1 teaspoon dried Italian herbs or Bouquet Garni (I used 1/2 teaspoon marjoram + 1/2 teaspoon Bouquet Garni)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

Place everything in a jar and shake well.

* If all you have is balsamic, go for it, with this caveat: if it's really high quality, just go balsamic vinegar + olive oil and save this dressing for another time. It won't shine amidst all the herbs and mustard.

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And now for your daily dose of W30 mumbo-jumbo!

Today was harder than previous days. I worked out hard and also swam a few laps as a cool down. Yesterday or maybe the day before I mentioned that my body composition is changing. This was much more obvious in the pool. I felt more buoyant, and faster. This, after skipping the pool for ten days! And after a v. challenging HIIT/Chisel class. I don't want to downplay how this feels. It's rad! 

So that was the good part of the day. The bad part is that I'm exhausted and insatiable. I have not figured out what to eat post-workout. Historically, I'd have coffee with milk in the morning, work out an hour or two later, shower at the gym, then come home (or go to Lucia's) and eat an enormous lunch. I am trying to follow the W30 eating template, however, which calls for pre- and post-workout meals, separate from your other meals. The workout-contingent food is a bonus! Except that I don't want to prepare another meal. Three is hard enough! Today I thought I was super on it, working out within two hours of breakfast and bringing a post-workout banana and two tuna-sweet potato cakes in a cooler to the gym. I ate them right after my shower and they felt good. But I was ravenous by the time we came home. I ate what I thought was a decent lunch (it followed the W30 guidelines, anyway), but I was still hungry. So then I had three Navitas chia snacks (they are kind of like Lara Bars, but smaller and with a few more ingredients, all W30-compliant)... and a handful of nuts... and some strawberries... and some plantain chips and a few olives. All decidedly snacky foods that were unsatisfying but handy. What was not handy: a giant burger and fries. I contemplated for a long while whether I was hungry or something else. I think I was tired (I took something like a power nap a little later - a closed-eyed lie down with Bob the Builder whining at me from 22 centimeters away - which, surprisingly, still ended up being refreshing), but mostly hungry. Maybe I need more fat, but I thought I wasn't supposed to have much post-workout. I don't know. Pardon my rambling. This is something I should have probably taken to the W30 forum, where, invariably, a moderator tells the newbie like me to chill out and to eat a sweet potato.

That marks the end of today's impressions. Other than that I really want an iced latte.

What I ate:

Breakfast at 7:20 am - 2 eggs, spinach, salsa, coconut oil (same as yesterday; why mess with a good thing?)

Post-workout meal at 11:10 am - 2 tuna-sweet potato cakes, banana

Lunch at 12 pm - salad with red lettuce, egg, tomatoes, roast beef, sprouts, cilantro

Post-lunch snacks (no picture) - chia snacks, nuts, strawberries, plantain chips, olives, chicken stock

Dinner at 5:30 pm - leftover sausage and roasted vegetables, green beans with mustard vinaigrette, apple, spoonful of coconut oil 

Board meeting snacks - about 2 liters of water, while everyone else enjoyed chocolate and lemon-thyme shortbread

Tomorrow night I'll be a third done. Hooray!