Learning as You Go + Dine Out for Life!

This article from The Kitchn describes a bunch of things that an author learned about cooking while writing cookbooks. I found it wildly relatable. I have learned the exact same things while teaching and developing recipes for this blog. Short, interesting, and worth a read. 

Don't forget to Dine Out for Life today! Beckett and I joined some neighbors for lunch at The Lowbrow. Super good. Super family friendly. Children are each given an etch-a-sketch along with their kid's menu.

Happy Thursday, friends. I hope you're enjoying some sunshine. 

xoxo

Lost and Gained on the Whole30

Well, my friends, it is time for me to share with you what I lost and gained on the Whole30. I'm going the list route because I'm still processing a ton. I think, given where I'm at, prose would end up loaded with v. unhelpful emotion, confusion, and judgment. Maybe someday.

Gained

Vastly improved meal planning skills

An improved (but by no means less complicated) relationship with food

About an hour more sleep per night

Knowledge: dairy and alcohol are not my best friends; legumes and grains aren't my worst enemies; almonds (the only tree nuts "safe" for me) cause or exacerbate eczema

Muscles

Energy

Love of ghee

Demonstrated aversion to chicken livers
Healthy suspicion of all foods that go down a bit too easily (e.g. smoothies, nut butters, cookies)

Lost

Hunger

Acceptance of food-as-reward

Cream in my coffee

My sugar dragon

Cheese addiction

Nightly glass(es) of wine

Skin ailments
A gazillion dollars, mostly spent on "healthy fats" and meat counter splurges

5 pounds

3 inches of waist

1 inch per thigh

1.2% body fat

There were other losses and gains that I feel are too personal to share on my public website which is, at its heart, a food blog and thus meant to be above all else appetizing. If you are interested in the nitty-gritty and/or are contemplating taking on a Whole30 challenge yourself at some point, email me and I'm happy to privately share my more detailed experience.

I have never felt lighter, leaner, evener, or more pain-free than I felt between days 8 and 32 of the Whole30. I was v. afraid of food coming out of the challenge and, according to the creators of the program, that meant I needed to ride my own bike and figure out what was next for me. I was also aching to eat something with a texture - while smells stopped enticing me somewhere around week 2 of my W30, when I made a sandwich for my children with MC's fresh bread, or when I saw someone eating a cracker, I really craved the chew, crumb, and crunch of foods that aren't meat, eggs, and vegetables.

I gradually eased forbidden foods back into my diet in the following order: alcohol (priorities!), legumes, dairy, gluten-free grains, grains. Sugar was kind of randomly in there, but no sweets until about Day 40. Every one of these foods made me feel immediately different (less great). The real kickers, however, have been alcohol and dairy. I feel fine when and immediately after eating them but the next morning I am a puffy, congested mess. They really are inflammatory foods. No joke.

Are they worth it nonetheless? Sometimes. Date night with MC was super fun. Rincon 38's fried manchego and red wine were delightful indulgences. Is one day of bags under my eyes, too-tight rings, and a fleeting but intimate relationship with my neti pot too harrowing a consequence for such hedonism? I don't think so. There is such pleasure to be derived from food and wine. What I've taken away from my W30 experience, however, is that food is not only meant for pleasure. It is meant, most importantly, for health and sustenance. And the foods that offer the most pleasure, at least for me, are the least healthy and sustaining. I hope that, as my food journey continues, I'll land somewhere that prioritizes healthy eating most of the time (like, really most of the time, i.e. 95% or more), and reserves indulgences to special occasions. Sounds so balanced and normal, right? But I'm not there yet. For one thing, my definitions of both "indulgence" and "special occasion" will have to be much broader than they used to be, back when I had cream in my coffee every morning and a glass of wine every evening. I thought those were okay since I ate healthy meals. I'd see other children's lunches at school, feel smugly chuffed about how comparatively nourishing my own children's lunches were, and then decide we all deserved a puppy dog tail from Isles Buns because - well of course! - it's Friday!

So I've changed. I think differently about food. I want food in different ways and a don't want food nearly as much as I used to. I could write a book about it but (1) it already exists, and (2) I am trying to mince my words here and unpack just the information I would have found useful when I was blog-researching two months ago.

This is kind of important: I've been vacationing for the last five days. I've had paleo-ish breakfasts most days, I've avoided cheese and milk 4 out of 5 days (but holy crap I almost died of cheese on that fifth day!), but otherwise I've basically spent the last 72 hours eating and walking my way through Portland. Like, I've eaten six pastries in half as many days. (Or, at least portions of them. The new E-NC can eat a bite of a doughnut and be satisfied. Whaaaaattt?!?) So, even eating out, snacking, drinking - less freely than I've done historically, but still opting for pleasure over sustenance - I find my W30-defined baseline is a great place to veer from. I bounce back quicker after eating crap than I did before the Whole30. I can see why people use the program as a "re-set" option every few months or years or whatever. I will probably do the same.

In the meantime, though, I'm still not sure what meals will look like in the long run. I'm for sure reducing the amount of dairy I consume and will probably treat cheese as a rare treat. Alcohol as well. I am hoping to reintroduce legumes into our family's meals as a protein main as opposed to the amount of meat to which we've grown accustomed for the last several weeks. (SO. FLIPPING. EXPENSIVE.) And grains are a bit of a conundrum to me right now. I tolerate them well but don't know where they will fit in. As a substitute for nutrient-dense vegetables? As a filler? Obviously, I am still figuring all this out! I am about to get on an airplane though and one of my goals on this vacation was getting a proper W30 update on the blog. So here you go. I hope it was illuminating in some ways. Please let me know if you have any questions.

xoxox (p.s. I haven't proofread this!)

Date-Sweetened Butternut Squash-Apple Compote (and "How to Whole30-ify a Recipe")

Hiya friends. I meant to share this recipe in the thick of things but, well, it. was. thick. For me, at least during my first go at a Whole30, it was hard to keep up with food prep, document my journey on the blog, and share recipe-centered posts showcasing some of the gems I got to enjoy during the challenge. Here's my attempt at catch-up. I hope you'll make both the pork tenderloins and the compote - whether you're doing a Whole30 or just trying to avoid dumping a bunch of brown sugar into your dinner! THIS WAS MY BEST MEAL DURING THE ENTIRE 30 DAYS. (I can't help yelling! It's such a big deal!)

And now...

How to Whole30-ify a Recipe!

Step 1. Stick with recipes that are close to paleo. In a conventional cookbook, this step will v. likely limit you to the soups, salads, vegetable sides, and entree sections. Convenient, since those are the things you are eating on the Whole30.

Let's go through an example, shall we? A couple weeks ago I checked out from the library Ina Garten's delightful newish cookbook, Make It Ahead. It's great. I want it for keeps. Ina's an unexpectedly good resource for paleo recipes because, not only does she embrace meat and fish of all sorts, but also her overall approach emphasizes simplicity and quality. Simplicity + quality usually means you don't need a lot of ingredients. The fewer ingredients in a recipe, the easier it is to modify, and the more likely the recipe's integrity won't be compromised when you omit or swap around.

Skimming through Make It Ahead, drooling discreetly all the while, I concluded the following: with little or minimal alteration, no fewer than four starters, three lunch items, seven entrees, and seven vegetable sides could be made W30 compliant. The recipe that I kept going back to was the Herbed Pork Tenderloins with Apple Chutney. Pork tenderloins are wrapped in prosciutto (double protein! but more importantly, yum!) and 100% W30 compliant, no modifications required. The chutney, however, was another story: ten ingredients, including an off-limits cup of brown sugar, a cup of orange juice, and a bunch of dried fruit. I knew it was going to be hard to adjust, and perhaps not worth it. The pork would no doubt be delicious on its own (this was later confirmed), but some sort of compote or chutney sounded so good...

Step 2. Think outside the box. If a recipe doesn't really fit into the paleo framework, think about what it is you specifically like about that recipe and then consider what else might do the trick. 

What would be good instead of an apple chutney? An herbed salsa of some sort? Magic green sauce? I really want something sweet and spicy. Wait a minute! A memory is triggered! In another much more decidedly non-paleo cookbook I have and love - Kim Boyce's Good to the Grain - there is a butternut squash compote recipe. I made it once and I don't recall it being overly sweet so maybe there's no sugar in it. Was it pears in it or apple? Let's check! (We're checking now. Dance break.) Got it: butter, squash, salt, apples, brown sugar, apple cider vinegar. Six ingredients (including salt). Only a quarter of the amount of refined sugar in Ina's recipe is called for, plus there's less fruit sugar, since the compote is equal parts squash and apple. This is totally workable. So let's get to work.

Step 3. Omit and substitute. To do this, you need to consider what the function of each ingredient is and decide whether to entirely omit or come up with an alternative if necessary.

W30 protocol forbids sugar and dairy other than ghee. First switch is to substitute ghee for butter, tablespoon for tablespoon. We also have to omit the brown sugar. In the compote recipe, what's the function of the brown sugar? Obviously, it's to make the compote sweet. Solution: substitute chopped dates. They are delicious, super sweet, and will pair nicely with butternut squash and apples. (Another decent but less delectable option would be unsweetened applesauce, permitted during W30.)

Note: you might realize once you get going that there are additional, less obvious functions served by an ingredient. In the case of the compote, it became clear that the brown sugar was going to help caramelize everything and provide a lot of moisture to the compote - it was going to become liquid itself as it melted, and then it would draw out more juices from the fruit (a la strawberries + sugar when you make strawberry shortcake topping). Solution: water. Easy peasy lemon squeezy (as my kindergartener would say).

Step 4. Give it a go!

I did. And it was crazy good. The only change I'll make next time will be to double the recipe.

Date-Sweetened Butternut Squash and Apple Compote

Adapted from Good to the Grain - original recipe online here

2 tablespoons ghee

~2 cups peeled, 1/2"-diced butternut (or other winter) squash (10 oz)

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 pound Granny Smith apples, peeled and cut into 1/2-to 3/4-inch pieces

20 pitted deglet dates or 12-15 pitted medjool dates, diced

~1 cup water

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar or a squeeze of fresh lemon juice

Melt the ghee in a 12-inch skillet over a medium-high flame.

Add one piece of butternut squash to the pan and see if it sizzles. If it doesn't, give the pot another minute to heat up. Once hot, add the rest of the squash and salt to the pan and toss to coat with the ghee. Cook the squash for 3 minutes without stirring or moving the pan.

Toss the squash and cook for 3 minutes more, again without stirring or moving the pan. The squash should be browning on the edges.

Add the apples and dates to the pan and toss to coat in ghee for a minute. Reduce heat to low-medium (this is important especially because we are ditching the brown sugar - cooking apples over a low flame will draw out their natural sugars more effectively (think caramelized onions)). Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring every few minutes, until the apples and squash begin turning translucent. Add water, 1/4 cup at a time, if pan gets dry or the compote starts to brown quickly or stick to the pan. Increase the flame to medium and cook for about 20 minutes, tossing every 2 minutes, continuing to add water in 1/4-cup portions, until the apples and squash are dark and caramelized and the mixture is thick. Off the heat, stir in the apple cider vinegar (or a squeeze of lemon juice). Compote is best warm, straight from the pan or reheated in the microwave for a bit. It keeps well for a week but it probably won't last more than a day in your refrigerator.

THE WHOLE30 COMES TO AN END!

Hooray! My W30 email today told me to do something celebratory tonight not only for my dad's birthday but also as a reward for a job well done. I taught tonight though, so, as far as relishing my W30 success was concerned, I was prepared for an anticlimactic evening.

But! I underestimated my guests! Which I should never do because they (you! YOU! GUYS!) are so rad. Lovely Naomi showed up a little early and mentioned that she'd been reading my blog and had also completed a Whole30 Challenge over a year ago. The floodgates were opened. Our class was smaller than expected - only 9 showed of 14 registered - and they were an exceptional group. Several of them had heard of W30, some had done it or experimented with other paleo diets - they all had experiences and opinions to share, all with a lot of openness and no judgment. It was a wonderful night for me. So not anticlimactic. Andrea, Josh, Naomi, Marless (sp?), Ron, Maria, Scott, Katie, and Dano: Thank you! You were all so animated, engaged, competent, and great at making and talking about food! (Ron - those carrots were unbelievable!) It was so nice to be able to share my current food baggage with you without making it all about me. (Which is what the last 30 days have been. And I'm a little tired of myself.) You made the end of my Whole30 a delight. So thank you thank you thank you. Come again! I especially love groups of men in their fifties! (Insert [wink emoticon] if I knew how to use emoticons. But as it is I don't even know how to use Instagram.)

As for the rest of you: thank you so much for reading my blog, which has taken self-indulgence to an entirely unprecedented level (the level without sugar) during the last 4+ weeks. You really are my good friends! As such, you probably wanted to know what I ate today.

Breakfast at 7:30 a.m. Kale, 2 eggs, knob of ghee, salsa, sauerkraut, 3 strawberries.

Not pictured: black half-caff coffee at about 11:30 a.m.

Lunch at 1:40 p.m. Spinach salad with sprouts, beets, carrots, kalua pork, herbed vinaigrette, and a cup of kombucha.

Dinner at 8:30 p.m. Sweet potato quesadilla of sorts (no cheese, used 2 plantain tortillas); 1 chicken apple sausage. A v. unphotogenic meal. The sausage looks like weird breadsticks. Drinking a cup of turkey stock as I type. I drink about 2 of those a day, maybe just one if it's warm out. Today I took a picture of it because it's Day 30.

Tomorrow will be mostly Whole30 but with DAIRY! I can't wait. I am going to have cream in my coffee, fry my eggs in butter, and devour cheese for dinner. Wish me luck and the opposite of indigestion. I'll do a little recap of what's been lost and what's been gained in this process. Thereafter, however, I will revert to original and curated recipes rather than just blabbering on about which ailments come out of remission as sugar, dairy, legumes, alcohol, et cetera reenter my diet and poison me forever. If you are interested in doing a Whole30 or just looking for more information on one fairly normal, typically healthy-eating, kitchen-savvy, mother-of-two, mostly vegetarian individual's experience completing the Whole30 challenge, I am happy to answer any questions you have. Feel free to email me. Thanks for listening! Being accountable to readers has helped loads. 

Days 26-29: One Day More!

Perhaps you need some musical accompaniment to get you as excited about where we're at as I am? Always at your service, my friends: kindly click here.

Hi! Happy Easter or Passover or Spring!

Hi yourself! And Happy Near-End of Whole30!

Thanks so much! I'm pretty stoked, like we all were in the late eighties. Except NEWSFLASH: because I want to make the most of my clean slate, I'm going to be essentially Whole30 for a couple more weeks as I gradually, with a great deal of deliberation and journaling, reintroduce foods. Full disclosure: as soon as I realized my transition might take a while, I started adding some things in before my 30 days were up. I know. Not v. W30 of me. You say cheating. I say methodically compromising.

Dude. What are you on about?

I consumed alcohol on Saturday and ate legumes on Sunday. He is Risen, after all. So instead of Easter candy, I enjoyed a tiny mimosa Saturday morning; and instead of Easter ham on Sunday, I had lentils for lunch, stew with beans in it for dinner, and a peanut butter Lara Bar after working out. The alcohol was a trip. Three sips in, I felt it v. pointedly and suddenly in the v. front of my head. This, according to the healthcare folks whose company I was enjoying even more than the mimosa, is to be expected, as the brain's frontal lobe is what the alcohol gets to first. It wasn't painful, just v. there. I also got buzzed-feeling and boneless about three minutes after those sips. It only lasted a little while and I recovered completely in under an hour.

The legumes were less noteworthy, except that I got a weird pain in my face near my left sinus. I don't know if it's related to food. It lasted all yesterday afternoon and evening and then went away overnight. I guess we'll see next time I try legumes. I have felt so great for the last couple of weeks that any ache or pain is v. acute and obvious. This is a big change from pre-W30, when I always had weird aches, pains, ailments. I am still stewing over what this all means, and what kind of food changes are sustainable for me. 

My reintroduction plan is tentatively as follows:

Day 28 Legumes

Days 29-30 W30

Day 31 Dairy

Days 32-33 W30

Days 34-35 Gluten-free grains

Days 36-37 W30

Day 38 Wheat

Days 39-40 W30

And, finally, what I've eaten while we've been taking a break from each other...

Day 26, Friday

Eggs and veggies for breakfast with a glass of mango kombucha. I had some strawberries and a tuna burger in the late afternoon.

Day 27, Saturday

Chicken livers for breakfast (heck yes! and probably never again!), with a side of kale, mushrooms, guacamole, sauerkraut, and a clementine. I needed the fruit to take away the chicken liver flavor in my mouth. Too much psychology and texture that early in the morning. But I did it. Which isn't nothing. Clearly, I'm a changed woman as I approach the close of my W30.

My favorite lunch: chicken pozole, baked sweet potato (a purple yam!), spinach, avocado, some salsa.

Green salad with Nom Nom Paleo's Kalua Pork, boiled yellow beets, sprouts, and herbed vinaigrette. A slice of potato rösti. (So, so good - it's like a giant french fry! I used ghee and pork fat.) I'm pretty sure I ate a hot dog earlier in the evening too because the pork took forever.

Day 28, Easter Sunday

Blueberry Eggs for breakfast with a glass of mango kombucha. Egg flipping didn't go so smoothly.

I had lentils for lunch and a big salad. Also had a few deviled eggs that had Miracle Whip in them (and accordingly a whole slew of non-compliant foods - my first official cheat!).

Dinner was a big plate of fresh vegetables, some fruit, and a bowl of vegetable stew with kalua pork and some beans in it, plus the rest of my kombucha. Super hit the spot.

Day 29, Monday

Breakfast at 7:30 a.m. Kale and leftover rösti hash, 3 eggs and some ghee, sauerkraut.

Lunch at 1:30 p.m. A handful of olives and a big spinach salad with sprouts, purple cabbage, 2 tuna burgers, avocado, and salsa. A slice of paleo banana bread with chocolate chips (see end of post).

Fan-tas-tic dinner at 5:30 p.m. Kalua pork tacos with plantain tortillas, avocado, and a delicious little slaw I threw together: 2-3 cups thinly sliced purple cabbage, 6 chopped dates, 1 grated carrot, 1/2 teaspoon salt, about a teaspoon of ground coriander, juice of 1 lime, 1 tablespoon olive oil, handful of minced cilantro. (Amber: make this!)

I've also dabbled v. cautiously in sugar. The deviled eggs on Sunday had sugar in them (Miracle Whip - high fructose corn syrup to be specific). Then today I had that paleo bread which has all W30 compliant ingredients except for some chocolate chips (those chocolate chips made it v. tasty). So, by normal quick bread standards, barely any sugar. By W30 standards, a lot. I got a crazy headache tonight that put me out of commission for about three hours. Was it the sugar? I don't know. But I don't typically get migraines. It also could have been caffeine withdrawals (I drank a lot of coffee this weekend and did not today), but I've had caffeine headaches many times before and this was distinct from and much more debilitating than those. I will continue to dabble. I'm taking weird notes. I'm excited about cheese. I'm not going to inhale a scone any time soon.

One day more. One good night's sleep is in order.

Day 25: No Snack Success!

Food goal of the day achieved. That feels good. I veered away from my ambitious meal plan and settled on a simpler dinner than my Indian-inspired feast would have been. I overcooked some bison sausages by using this typically fool-proof recipe. (I guess I'll stick to chicken sausages next time. Note: using really excellent balsamic vinegar makes a big difference here.)

Breakfast at 7:30. I went CRAZY and skipped the eggs today. You heard me. Leftover pork tenderloin hash with kale, sweet potatoes, potatoes and zucchini, all fried in a little ghee.

Lunch at 1:45. This is my dream lunch. I reheated chicken pozole, frozen spinach, and sweet potato in the microwave and topped it all with a big spoonful of Wedge guacamole. Mango kombucha  on the side there (which did not make me sick the way juice evidently does - no juice or sugar in ingredient list (just mango puree), and only 12 g carbs versus 36 in the juice).

Dinner at 6. Overcooked bison sausage, slow-cooked onions, green beans, salad with baby kale, tomatoes, purple cabbage, pan sauce from sausage and onions as dressing, and a spoonful of coconut oil.

It was a busy day with busy children. We got sunshine and play time and friend time and family time. I washed my children's feet and told them about Jesus. I ate well and anticipate sleeping well tonight. I won't be posting tomorrow and maybe not Saturday either, but I'll document everything so that I can report back asap. 

Day 24: Portion Uncontrol

I still am never hungry. That is the most striking aspect of my W30 experience, because I used to think I was hungry all the time. Throughout the first week of the Whole30 Challenge, I ate a ton three times a day. I just couldn't believe I could last for 4-16 hours without eating, so I'd load up on both protein and vegetables during breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Without much thought, my portions gradually got smaller by week 2. It became subconsciously clear how much I needed to eat in order to stay satiated until my next meal, and because I wasn't eating the kind of foods that are easy to overeat (e.g. bread, cheese, peanut butter, smoothies), I didn't have the inclination to overeat. It was all v. natural and that was cool. I felt proud of my body for knowing what it needed. 

I have been so proud of my body that I've gotten a little loosey-goosey lately, taking it all a bit for granted. Example: this morning I had some iced coffee to finish up. I thought I'd stir in some leftover coconut milk but it was too thick to stir in, so I threw it in the blender. That wasn't v. good. Way too watery and bitter. So I added half a banana and a spoonful of almond butter. Some of you might call this a smoothie. Guess why smoothies aren't allowed on the Whole30? Because your clean-eating body can only handle so much non-protein food in one go! And liquids are so quickly digested. It was horrible, a la the Naked Juice experience. Totally felt sick after like three sips. Portion control is tricky with liquid food, especially when you're body has grown unaccustomed to it.

I ate my real breakfast and then kept the rest of the smoothie as my PWO food. I tolerated (even enjoyed) it much better that way.

Even though I am sensitive to changes to what or when I eat right now, my recovery time after the deviations and their discontents is super short. I feel this is significant. A sign of enhanced health perhaps. Which reminds me: I've never felt better in my life. Yep. I said it. I am struggling with what that means in the long run. Or even the short run. Only one week left!

Breakfast at 8 a.m. Sautéed kale, mushrooms, and zucchini with sauerkraut and scrambled eggs with magic green sauce. PWO offending "coffee" at 10:30 a.m. See above.

Lunch: salad with chicken, sprouts, cabbage, kale, pepitas, carrot, tomato, olive oil, vinegar.

3 p.m. Almonds and plantain chips for snack. And the sweetest tangerine of my life (no picture).

Dinner at 6 pm. Pork tenderloin, squash-apple compote, and cabbage leftovers; olives; roasted sweet potatoes and potatoes.

During my final week, I am going to work on being v. strict about not snacking. I know how to eat properly at meals so that I don't need to snack. Nibbling is primarily to alleviate boredom, antsy-ness, or frustration, I've found. No snacks and minimal nuts/seeds; sticking to those primarily as PWO food or part of my lunch protein.