Whole 30 Month – Days 18, 19, 20, & 21

Life sometimes gets in the way of blogging so my apologies that these have gotten less frequent. We have had some super time-intensive meals, then we’ve had some slacky meals because we’ve been busy.

However, I will come clean that the rotisserie chicken we had for Thursday’s dinner did have brown sugar in the glaze, but I was too tired and too in a rush to think of an alternative. PLUS THE RECIPE SAID IT WAS OK SO HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW?!

You may be asking…are we gonna start over? The answer is:

Hell no.

We’ve been doing so much better than we’ve ever done before and I’m proud of us. We’ve learned a lot. We will probably be making some of our W30 food items permanent additions to our diet. A little brown sugar glaze is whatever…

Also, can I just make a note at how crappy I am at food photography? This is usually because it already takes me 15 minutes to get all the condiments, drinks and silverware I need before I can eat. Staging food…ain’t nobody got time for that. See exhibit A from our stuffed peppers:

Or exhibit B from our Rotisserie Chicken Chop Salad:

So, I apologize for the unappetizing images. I will try to post the pretty professional foods going forward. 😛

The TLDR Version:

Since this is 4 days worth of dinners, I’m just going to dump them all below. Enjoy!

Day 18: (Jan 28)

Rotisserie Chicken Chopped Salad

Day 19 (Jan 29)

Pornk chops, Thyme Roasted Potatoes, Sauteed Green Beans

Nothing special about this meal, seriously folks, if you dunno how to cook a pork chop, GTS. I will say that pork chops/potatoes/veggie is one of my favorite “I dunno what to cook” meals. Though these could’ve used apple sauce or spiced peach jam or something…(I kept telling Eric we should have bought the giant 2x jugs of pure applesauce at Costco…regrets, regrets).

Day 20 (Jan 30)

Growed-up Chicky Nuggies aka Bacon Ranch Chicken Poppers

Day 21 (Jan 31)

Sous Vide BBQ Chimkin Tenders from the recipe Sous Vide BBQ Chicken Sandwich. Instead of buns, we just ate them with sauce over cauliflower hash (like rice but square chunks instead of mouse-poop sized). Also not posting the picture b/c it looks way too good and is not W30 compliant.

Check out the whole story below to see my feedback on these recipes.

The Whole (30) Story

For the Chopped Salad:

• Eric didn’t like the mango (too slimy) but I thought it added a good taste and texture combo.
• Also, do you know how hard it is to find dry roasted cashews or cashew butter that’s W30 compliant? Instead, we used almond butter and fancy cashews that had “Vegetable (Canola, sunflower and/or peanut) oil”. Peanut is the only not-ok oil there so I thought it was OK to risk it.
• I don’t think I like cashews in dishes…the waxy texture throws me off. So Eric doesn’t like slimy and I don’t like waxy…there ya go.
• Overall though 10/10 would make again.

For the Chicky Nuggies:

• We doubled this recipe and it was good we did because James’s 8yo ate 13! That’s over 2x as many as each adult.
• They are pretty time intensive, but were a big hit with everyone.
• We used W30 BBQ, Ranch, & ketchup to dip them in.
• And the melting coconut oil seems scary when you go to rotate them, but don’t worry, it absorbs/cooks off and they aren’t actually that greasy.
• The bacon didn’t add much, we probably should have thrown in a whole pack rather than the 6 strips it recommended…
• I love how you can bake these rather than fry them. Way less messy!

For the Sous Vide Chicken:

• Jesus, Mary and Joseph, it wasn’t dry!
• It. Wasn’t. Dry.
• Seriously guys. It wasn’t dry. I ALWAYS find chicken breast dry no matter how many times people say “my chicken breast isn’t dry”. With the exception of Chick-Fil-A’s nuggies, white meat always requires so. much. water. to wash it down.
• Not this stuff tho!
• Try it. Sous vide a chicken. Let your head explode…

Also, I want to give a shout out to these W30 sauces. These no-sugar added sauces have changed my life. Noble Made is one brand whose BBQ sauce is so close to my/my parents’ recipe (not sickly sweet like the “maple-brown-sugar-honey-with a touch of smoke Baby Ray’s). Their medium buffalo has a a good kick and their mustard BBQ is tangy and delicious.

We also got ketchup & a few salad dressings from Primal Kitchen. The ketchup actually tastes savory and vinegary rather than like sweet tomato paste. And the salad dressings get rid of what I hate in about 99.9% of premade salad dressings – No. Fucking. Sugar.

Normally, I’ve made my own salad dressing b/c I just can’t stand spending money of the overly-emulsified, gelled, sweet garbage that are ALWAYS disappointing. However, these dressings def help me be lazier some days. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ll still make dressings for the most part, but it’s nice to have options!

The last one we got was a ranch from Tessemae’s and while it’s okay, we’d call it more like dill sauce than actually ranch. You may say this ranch is KIND OF A BIG DILL. Huh? Huh? Anyway…here is my meal breakdown as far as I can remember it.

The Menu

Day 18 (Thur, Jan 28)

• Breakfast
• Scrambled Eggs w/ ketchup
• 1/2 grapefruit
• coffee

• Lunch
• Uh…

• Dinner
• Rotisserie Chopped Salad

Day 15 (Fri, Jan 29)

• Breakfast
• Probably same ol’

• Lunch
• WTF…I can’t remember

• Dinner
• Pornk Chops, Thyme Potatoes, Green Beans

Day 20 (Sat, Jan 30)

• Breakfast
• Bacon
• Hash browns
• Fried Egg

• Lunch
• Leftover Pornk Chops & Hash browns w/ mustard BBQ sauce
• Salad

• Dinner
• Grown-up Chicky Nuggies
• Salad

Day 17 (Weds, Jan 27)

• Breakfast
• Pan-fried tomatoes
• Sauteed Mushrooms
• Pork belly bacon

• Lunch
• Pre-cooked chicken (store bought not the non-compliant rotisserie one)
• Salad
• BBQ-Ranch dressing
• Lara Bar
• Fruit

• Dinner
• BBQ Sous Vide Chicken
• Cauliflower hash
• Salad

I will note that I’m eating a lot more salads and fresh fruit. I haven’t listed my snacks daily but when I’m feeling snacky, I usually go for the following things:

• Fresh fruit: Clementine, apple, grapefruit, berries
• Fresh Veggies: Carrots, celery, peppers
• Canned fruit/veggies: Mandarin Orange cup, olives
• Dried Fruit: Raisins, apricots, watermelon, apple
• Sunflower/pumpkin seeds
• no-grain granola
• Fruit leather (more of a treat)
• Lara or RX Bar if I’m like hungry
• Dried watermelon (is weird tho)
• Dried cauliflower
• Nuts: Almonds, Macadamias, Pistachios

Overall these snacks are way better than that bag of chips or packet of cookies. I have to keep telling myself that so I can keep these snack habits going. I know W30 tells you not to snack, but that is impossible for me. I cannot eat as much volume at meals so I inevitably need to eat again an hour or two later. This is just something I’ve come to accept about myself.

Anyway, we are doing good…in the home stretch now!