whole30 week 3

This third week of Whole30 was equal parts good and bad. On day 20, I hit my breaking point pretty bad because I wanted All Of The Things and was just frustrated by something, I can't even remember what, and felt like I needed a latte and chocolate and pizza and my gosh, if that doesn't tell you something about my previous eating habits, I don't know what does. I did not cave in but instead texted my girlfriend all night about how hard this was and she kindly reminded me that on Wednesday's, one of my favorite bars has $5 Moscow Mules. So, she's obviously a good friend. ;]

I guess my theme for each week is to try something new and exciting (last week was the coffee with butter) and this week it was my adventure in homemade mayo. I don't know if anyone has ever dabbled in the homemade realm of mayo before but first of all, it's absolutely disgusting. It's literally one (room temperature, ew!) raw egg and olive oil. You add a few spices to it but essentially it's egg and oil. I basically never want to eat mayo again. What makes it worse is that the site I was using for the recipe said something about how she loved to lick the beaters when she was finished. I threw up in my mouth a little bit when I read that. But I really, really wanted an egg salad sandwich and tuna fish and I could make ranch with mayo! And the list goes on and on and so even though the recipe is super daunting because although it's just two ingredients, it is literally a four-hour long project because you have pour the olive oil so slowly that it's barely even a trickle. If you're not bored and listing off things you would rather be doing (cleaning the bathroom with a box of q-tips. putting away all the laundry. seeing how long i can stand in the snow barefoot. etc, etc), you're doing it wrong.

And so, I made my first batch and poured fairly slowly but come on. It's really hard and daunting and I maybe cheated a little bit. I also used my blender because she literally says, and I quote, "...a mixing bowl, blender or food processor." I figured this would be messy so I chose the blender. BECAUSE SHE SAID THAT IT WAS OKAY TO USE THAT. And I'm fairly certain that she lied and the blender is not a good choice. Because although I had a sort of heavy hand while pouring, there was curdled? chunks? slimy? pieces of egg white around the entire blender. Ugh. Barf. I was fairly disgusted by the whole situation at this point and then not to mention the soupy mess that my science experiment mayo was. The egg + oil didn't blend together like they should have (which happens when you have poured your oil in in less than 5 hours). So I dumped it out and got out another egg to try again in a few hours.

When I tried it again, I measured out my oil and then dipped a teaspoon in the oil and slowly let the teaspoon drizzle the oil into the blender. For probably 30-minutes I stood there doing this and checked on the mayo a few times AND IT LOOKED LIKE MAYO! Bless. Then I finished drizzling the oil in and stopped the blender and there was round two fail, the same as the first time.

So, I think homemade mayo is just a big conspiracy and I'm still mad I didn't get my egg salad sandwich last night for dinner. Instead I had hard boiled eggs and roasted veggies. Womp womp.

As far as meals this week, we didn't do anything fancy because my poor babe came down with croup on Sunday and pink eye on Tuesday (which he gave to me, the little darling) and so we've been house-bound. I can totally see where prepping meals would be so beneficial for situations like that but I'm a freak and have issues with food that's been in the fridge for more than a day. So. That doesn't work in this household. Also, Evan made dinner one night while I got ready in the bathroom (aka, "mama needs a minute") and then we sat down to eat and......I hated it. Oh man, I felt so terrible. He had made prosciutto wrapped chicken and mushrooms sauteed in ghee and prosciutto is just gross. Which is my fault entirely because I'm the one who bought it on the recommendation that it would be a good substitute for bacon. [WHICH IT WOULD BE IF BACON WERE GROSS AND IT'S NOT, SO. Yes, I have a problem. It's called CARING TOO MUCH. (I love you if you get me.)] And so he ate the dinner and Maddox ate my chicken (not the prosciutto because he knew it was bad) and I ate an apple.

Four meals this week (L to R):
/Egg + shredded pork from Costco (the best) + prosciutto "omlet." Recipe here. It was good but I have a thing with eggs and I ate this for lunch and it kind of creeped me out. I'm weird. I don't know.
/Turkey tacos with lime, avocado and tomatoes in a Romain lettuce cup.
/Turkey burgers with guacamole and salsa on a butter lettuce "bun" with a side of green beans sauteed with mustard and almonds.
/Steak fajitas with guacamole and salsa with a side of roasted zucchini (olive oi, garlic, s&p for 25-30 minutes @350).

This week I ate a ton of roasted veggies. If you're not roasting them, you're doing it wrong. I still make cauliflower and carrots with lemon just about every day and I'm not sick of them yet and so that's a good sign. I'm totally sick of chicken. I could eat turkey burgers every day for the rest of my life. We buy our ground turkey at Costco and then add s&p, red pepper and chopped onion to it and hand-pack burgers. We bake them in the oven at 350 for 10ish minutes each side depending on their thickness. Turkey is super lean so it's really sticky. I don't know if this would be a good combination on the grill, but I'm assuming not. I made my own fajita seasoning and those were the best fajitas ever.

Aside from my little meltdown, it's been a good week. Today I feel like I could do this for 20-years. I know that I can't unlearn bad habits in 22 days--or even 30 days. But. This is a huge step for me and I'm really proud of myself for not giving up and for fighting through the urges and for just doing it. Everyone keeps saying, "I could never do it." But you can. You could. Food is good, really good, without cheese and buns and tortillas and sour cream. You can survive 22 days without a latte or soda or alcohol. You can survive without dessert and you can eat the same thing for the majority of every meal (turkey burgers) because it's delicious.