Whole30

I haven't been taking photos of the food we cook. I do take lots and lots of photos when we go out to eat, but that's a different story.

I am in the middle of a Whole30 round. It has been an...interesting and enlighting... 10 days so far. The biggest challenge has been cooking a dinner we all can/will eat.

Biggest hits have been:

• Nutpods. I resisted buying them, but I found it harder to give up half and half in my coffee than it was giving up sugar; who saw that coming? After trying my coffee black for something like 2 weeks, I'm glad I caved and now I'm on the hunt for the best price on these little cartons of joy.
• Whole30 BBQ Sauce from Jay's Baking Me Crazy. When I made this, I was confident my family would not like it, but they all gave a big thumbs up to the recipe I made that used this (next bullet).
• Hawaiian Chicken Meal Prep Bowls. I didn't expect them to like this, but we all did. Husband was upset I took the remaining chicken as my lunch.
• Sloppy Joe Bowls We tried this before I was even on a Whole30, and my husband requests it for dinner throughout the year.
• Coconut Shrimp Taco Bowls This was a huge hit for the whole family. I took leftovers for lunch, and even the shrimp was good straight from the fridge. Major keeper!

I've enjoyed:

• Sweet Potato Breakfast Bowl has been a great and easy breakfast, so long as I remember to cook the sweet potato the night before.
• Burrito Bowl Stuffed Peppers
• Egg Roll in a Bowl
• 30 Minute No Bean Chili
• Roasted Breakfast Potatoes and Veggies This has been a great make ahead breakfast item. It tastes great, and keeps me satisfied, along with scrambled eggs or a hard boiled egg or two, until lunch time.
• Cottage Pie This was delicious (without peas, of course), and most of my family enjoyed it. It made me several days' worth of leftovers, but it was definitely time consuming to make.

Whole30

Yes, it's been almost a year since I've posted here. See my instagram. I've definitely been cooking, but documenting is just not happening lately.

This year, I hope to reduce my sugar addiction. I'm noticing it in small ways like the mid afternoon crash and in bigger ones, like my waistline. I asked on facebook about free sugar detox, and was pointed in the direction of Whole30.

Heck, it's only a month, right?

So I need to plan. I jumped in (as is my way) and planned a whole bunch of Whole30 on Pinterest tagged recipes. This made me realize that jumping in isn't going to work, and I need to take some time to plan, while trying out these recipes (and being willing to say ok, this needs cheese to be ok)...

First up, I need to figure out breakfasts. I'm a carb junkie but I'm also in need of really easy, no brainpower, breakfasts on weekdays and surprisingly, even more so on weekends (I take it so leisurely, I often just forget to eat until I'm too hungry).

So this looks good:

• http://crazytogether.com/easy-delicious-breakfast-saved-whole-30/

It's lucky that the Kitchn is doing a series on Whole30 as I start this, so here's a great post about weekend prep:

• http://www.thekitchn.com/what-i-prep-on-sunday-for-whole30-meals-227075

My goals for 2017 are many, and while there's a lot of criticism of Whole30, and I honestly don't think I have the discipline for it, it's also in line with many of my goals.

So here are some of them:

• Eat more vegetables
• Eat out no more than 3x/month
• Reduce sugar intake
• Exercise 3x/week (once I get this shoe off)
• My son will cook 1 dinner/week
• Drink 64oz of water/day
• 1 meatless meal/week

So far, we've cooked two of the recipes I planned. The first was... a fail. The second was pretty awesome; we added cheese to it (to make it more awesome but not Whole30 ok) but it was a hit for almost the whole family. SCORE!

First intentional #whole30 dinner. I have no confidence I will last for 30 days if I have to cook separate meals for my family. #365project 8/365 #croy36517

A photo posted by Christina Marie (@smallbutfeisty_jersey) on Jan 8, 2017 at 2:28pm PST

This was the first one. It was way too spicy for any of us to eat. It did, though, inspire me to get back to the breakfasts I used to make of roasted sweet potatoes. I'll have to see if I can make a sweet potato hash of some kind. It was awesome to cook it in the crockpot though! Here's the recipe.

Our second #whole30 meal (though this has cheese, I haven't officially started) is also the second meal @b1g1mag1nat1on cooked. #365project 9/365 #croy36517

A photo posted by Christina Marie (@smallbutfeisty_jersey) on Jan 9, 2017 at 3:33pm PST

Yum. Here's the recipe.