Whole30 Challenge: Day 8
Wed, March 8th
DISCLAIMER:
If you haven't already read my disclaimer, please click the link HERE from Day 1 of our challenge. As with any lifestyle or dietary change, if you have any questions or concerns, be sure to discuss them with your physician. Also check out the Whole30 website for specifics and additional info.
PRE-BREAKFAST:
First I’d like to congratulate my hubs and me…We’ve made it an entire week on Whole30, even making it through our first vacation while on Whole30!!!
GIF compliments of GIPHY.com
Second, I know you were all losing sleep about my potential risky behavior with eating food that's past its prime...but I’d like to note, that 1.) My mother has clearly not read my blog posts… and 2.) I’m still alive (and feeling mighty fine at that)! Yep, still here, still blogging, and still have the stomach of an iron goat. :) Yay for no food-borne illness!
GIF compliments of GIPHY.com
Breakfast:
Onto breakfast, my favorite meal of the day.
Since I had to make up for the last 3 days of technology issues, I decided to go all fancy and enjoy some of the hard-boiled eggs we had made on Monday enhanced with Frank’s Red Hot sauce and a side of fruit. Lucky for me, I already captured this fruit picture yesterday, but it was pretty comparable with what I gobbled up this morning.
TASTE TEST: Not much to say about this one. Fruit tasted sweeter than I remember though. Maybe my taste buds are starting to change...
Mid-Morning:
Taking my husband’s suggestion of creating everything in Word first instead of working directly in the Blog space has proved to take much longer than anticipated… Thank you formatting and interface issues… I took his advice for the morning though, but after formatting and reformatting and formatting some more, I decided to go back to the old ways to test the water…
Lucky for me though, the gremlin is hibernating today (and hopefully forever) as I’ve had one stellar day with slim to no tech issues! HAPPY DAY!!
GIF compliments of GIPHY.com
LUNCH:
Again, I apologize for my lack of creativity today, but being real, sometimes we all just need a break from the kitchen and today is that day for me.
After investigating what was in the fridge for lunch options, my eyes landed on the remaining chicken that we had bought last Saturday from Earthfare. 4 days was pushing the limits a tad but after surviving the 6 day old stuffed pepper without any repercussions, I decided it was best I consume this chicken now before my mom started sending a cleaning crew over to purge my fridge on a weekly basis.
I enjoyed my chicken with a little Frank's Hot Sauce again (the old lady was right! You really can put that s*** on everything!) Here's a reminder if you needed one more...
I also elected to open the 2nd jar of almond butter to complement my banana. (Yes, I'm going on jar #2 for week #2... Let's pretend that my hubs likes the almond butter as much as I do so I can blame the quick disappearance on him...)
DINNER:
Our Cuisinart 14-cup elite food processor arrived today, so I had to give it a whirl with something for dinner... After spotting the head of cauliflower hiding in the back, I knew I had located the perfect culprit.
I also remembered our coconut flour that I had been wanting to test out, so I thought this might be the prefect opportunity to do that. I don't recall cooking with coconut flour before, so as any rookie coconut flour culinarian would do, I consulted Google. After finding a few recipes online, I decided to try cooking the chicken a few different ways to have our own little taste test.
We had 4 different options:
drench chicken tenderloin in olive oil before breading with coconut flour/spices, then bake in oven
drench chicken tenderloin in avocado oil before breading with coconut flour/spices, then bake in oven
drench chicken tenderloin in egg before breading with coconut flour/spices, then bake in oven
drench chicken tenderloin in avocado oil before breading with coconut flour/spices, then pan fry in avocado oil on medium heat.
We served the chicken tenders with Herb-Garlic Smashed Cauliflower and a small side salad of romaine, spinach, cucumbers, bell peppers, and onions, topped off with the Trifecta Salad Dressing, which is also paleo-friendly, gluten-free, and dairy-free.
Whole30 Salad Dressing (Trifecta Salad Dressing)
INGREDIENTS:
1 clove garlic
1 tablespoon fresh herbs (I used fresh parsley, cilantro, and dill)
1 teaspoon oregano, dried
1/4 teaspoon crushed black pepper
1/2 teaspoon Himalayan sea salt
3/4 cup olive oil, organic
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
STEPS:
1. Throw all ingredients into a bottle and shake.
Whole30 Chicken Tenders
TASTE TEST: Well, you can't hit a home run every time... Let's just say that when it comes to coconut flour, less is more... The chicken drenched in olive oil option was better than drenching the chicken in the egg, but the flour batter was still too dry and crumbly for us. We definitely ended up scraping off most of the coconut flour breading, especially for the ones cooked in the oven. We liked the pan-fried tenders the most as they were the most moist and less batter tasting than the others, but that was probably a give-in.
To be fair, both hubs and I are normally regulars at Chik-fil-A so we were a tough crowd to begin with, especially when it comes to judging chicken. I will wait to post an actual recipe for the chicken tenders until I try them again and tweak a few things to make sure they are recipe-saving worthy. :) So stay tuned for a rematch.
Whole30 Herb-Garlic Smashed Cauliflower
INGREDIENTS:
head of cauliflower
2 tablespoons ghee (olive oil can also be used)
2 cloves garlic
1/4 onion
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon crushed black pepper
green onions, chopped (to sprinkle on top)
Optional: Fresh herbs, finely chopped (such as 1 Tbsp Rosemary, 1 Tbsp Thyme)
STEPS:
Clean cauliflower and cut into smaller pieces.
Heat water on stove until boiling. Then add cauliflower and reduce heat.
Cook cauliflower until it is tender, but not mushy (usually 10-15 minutes).
While waiting for cauliflower to cook, add remaining ingredients to food processor.
After cauliflower is done cooking (10-15 minutes usually), drain and pat with paper towels to remove excess water (the drier the cauliflower, the better).
Transfer cauliflower florets to food processor. Pulse several times, then blend until smooth and creamy (but don't over process).
Top with chives.
TASTE TEST: The taste and flavoring of the herb-garlic smashed cauliflower was actually pretty darn good. I would say we may have overcooked the cauliflower a tad since we were multi-tasking watching youtube videos on our new food processor, so they had the consistency of instant mashed potatoes, but other than that, I would have these again!
POST-DINNER:
Here's our first happy dance for officially making it 1 week on Whole30 and not killing each other!
GIF compliments of GIPHY.com
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