A recipe for the best chimichurri ever

I made my own chimichurri sauce during my Whole30 and it was quite possibly the best thing ever. I somehow managed to not inhale the entire thing, even though I definitely wanted to. It's sort of like pesto (but pesto is basil) and this is spicy and delicious (so is pesto--delicious that is, not spicy). It's the perfect pair for steak and fajitas and tacos and chips and even if you got a spoon and ate this right out of the jar, I wouldn't judge you at all. Promise.

Here's the recipe:
/Handful of parsley (I used about a cup)
/Smaller handful of cilantro (I used about 1/3 to 1/2 of a cup)
/Lots of fresh garlic
/1/2 teaspoon of salt
/1/2 teaspoon of pepper
/1 (+++) teaspoon of crushed red pepper
/1/4 teaspoon of cumin
/1/2 cup of olive oil
/1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar
/Fresh Squeezed Lime

Put everything in your food processor and blend, blend, blend. I assess the situation after a few pulses and add more herbs or more salt, probably more red pepper and garlic. For most people, I probably put about six-times too much red pepper and garlic but we are big fans of that over here. If I make before a meal, I make it an hour + early so that it can sit and marinate and then add more salt or probably red pepper.

The only person who doesn't like this in our house is Maddox. And sorry for him, really. But not really because this just means that there's plenty for Evan and I. Also, this steak. Let's talk about that for a minute. It's from Costco, this pre-cooked sliced prime rib. All you do is throw it in the oven to reheat it and it's delicious. I definitely recommend the chimichurri with it though, obviously.

Whole30 finale

We finished our first Whole30 the last weekend of January, just in time for the Superbowl, and just in time for me to research how to introduce foods back into your diet, only to learn that you should do them one at a time, and one every few days. Well. We didn't do that. I am super picky about my snack foods and in situations like that where there are dips and random meats and crackers, I'm never a big snacker. I had already decided I wouldn't be drinking and I had guacamole in the fridge, ready to go with my giant, Costco-sized bag of carrots. Evan ordered a few pizzas though, and I did have a bite. ONLY to realize that it wasn't as good as I expected it to be. I knew it wouldn't be. That even though pizza is my boyfriend--and not in the sense that it's my comfort food, just that I love pizza more than probably any other kind of food--it wasn't as great as I remembered it to be. And for whatever reason, I didn't even care. I ate a few pieces because it was good, sure, but it wasn't like, YOU WENT AN ENTIRE MONTH WITHOUT PIZZA AND YOU'LL NEVER GET THOSE 30 DAYS BACK, LOSER.

Also, perhaps it was because Evan and I weighed and measured ourselves the day before and when I saw the numbers and then when I tried on a shirt that had previously been too small for me, only to realize that it fit!, I was pretty sold on this lifestyle.

I lost 11 pounds; Evan lost 15. I lost 2 inches off my chest, waist and hips. I didn't measure my legs or arms but I can definitely tell a difference with all of my clothes fitting looser, even a pair of my boots. And, I didn't exercise one single time. In fact, I did the opposite of exercise for most of January while my body flushed out toxins and I spend the month being sick and sleeping. And I still managed to lose 11 pounds.

In addition to the weight, I totally killed three of my worst eating habits: //I stopped snacking out of boredom. When Maddox wakes up from his nap, he usually has something small and I might grab a handful of carrots. I'm not searching for chocolate or sugar to give me an afternoon pick-me-up like I was in the past. \\I also totally kicked my dessert-after-dinner habit that was totally killing me. I picked that up somewhere along the way. Even when I was grocery shopping I would say, "No, I don't need to buy any dessert." Then dinner would roll around and Evan and I would decide that, yeah, dessert sounds pretty good. Off he'd go to the store to grab us ice cream or cookies or cinnamon bears or whatever to satisfy that sweet tooth. I did have some fruit after dinner a few times and Evan and I were pretty into dried mango from our natural grocery store that has no added sugar (hashtag high five!), but at some point we just stopped wanting anything. //And I also kicked my bad habit of eating late/snacking before bed. This was just a bad combination of eating dinner too early depending on Evan's evening plans and Maddox wanting dinner at exactly five o'clock. And then nine or ten would roll around and my stomach would be like, "Hey, haven't eaten in five hours. Let's fix that." And so I would. With whatever I wanted. Before bed. Like, no. I totally felt like I had no self control over it either; like, if I didn't give in to my stomach telling me I was hungry, that I might starve. I don't even know where that mindset came from but eating whole foods and not filling up on empty carbs or sugars left me fuller longer and not like I was dying of hunger before bed. And, the few times I have gone to bed feeling hungry, I've not been tempted to eat.

So, I want to continue this lifestyle change. I didn't know where Whole30 would take us when I started this in January and although I can't say that I "feel good" because I think my body was detoxing so much crap that it made me physically sick 90-percent of the month, I want to feel good and I think my body has finally caught up and I can now eat good and really feel it. I'm not going to call this Whole30 anymore because I want it to just be how we eat; but, I also am planning on allowing myself to have restricted items in moderation. And by "in moderation," I mean that I'm going on a girl date with my bestie for Moscow Mules and Evan is taking me to a fancy dinner for Valentine's day. I'm not going to have a piece of candy every day because that's moderation. I'm not going to put some cheese on one meal or have a coffee once a week. It's going to be a rare moderation--a treat.

Because in addition to the pizza I did have a fairly good amount of sugar, especially considering I hadn't actually eating sugar in a month. A few bites of oreo ice cream and a rice crispy or two and I was hyped out of my mind and my hands were shaking. My brain has felt fuzzy ever since and I can't maintain a conversation with anyone without getting so sidetracked and off-topic. I did have a 100% uncompliant dinner on Monday night, shared between the three of us (because I was busy watching that crazy episode of The Bach and live texting with my girlfriend Jamie and not eating or even planning on making dinner) and I felt a weird sense of gross after it. I felt like I could physically feel the food in my stomach, and like my body was working extra, extra hard to digest it. I never felt that way with any of my whole food meals and I never felt that disgusting full you sometimes get when you can't stop eating and your stomach might actually explode.

So. I like these changes. I'm pretty proud of us for getting through the whole month and for seeing a difference (ps, Evan looks so good and I'm so proud of him) and wanting to continue. Because a month ago I would have told you it was a one month only thing and I'd be back to pizza and coffee and cookies in no time at all. I can tell you that unless we make a plan to stick with this, we'll head right back into our old way of eating, like being too lazy to cook dinner because Evan worked all day and I chased after a wild toddler. But, seeing changes in yourself and when your friends and family members tell you how good you look, it FEELS GOOD and it makes me want to continue this. I'll be quiet about it now, maybe popping in to share more results or good meals that I make but my weekly updates will end here and this will now be a lifestyle, not a diet.

whole30 week 4

Oh my gosh, I can't believe we made it to week four! I mean, I can. I totally can. It's smooth sailing from here on out. But at the beginning, when I was like, "I NEED SUGAR. I NEED COFFEE." I felt like this week would never come. We have two more days left so we can finish strong, measure and weigh ourselves, and then decide how to proceed with our diet.

This week was a pretty low-key week minus the fact that I am quite possibly dying because I had some type of virus enter my body and fight its way out through my eyeballs. My eyeballs were literally bleeding (okay, dramatic a little but it was seriously bad, bad, bad pink eye) and it lasted for like 5 days. Evan was a total gem the entire week and let me sleep for like a million hours and even went grocery shopping by himself and totally killed it. While I wallowed in self pity about my entire body hating me and feeling like I wanted to scoop my eyeballs out and burn them.

Even though I dealt with all of that, we still made some incredibly delicious meals this week and ate a lot of leftovers. Evan even survived a college potluck which was quite hilarious because just by the food they brought, you can totally tell that they are college students. We do a potluck with our friends and they're bringing goat cheese stuffed portabella mushrooms with pine nuts (oh you fancy, huh?) and steaks and blue cheese and vinaigrette salads and blah blah blah. You tell college students to bring potluck food and they come with a six pack and a pound taco pack from Taco Johns, a box of hot pockets, cupcakes and popsicles. Hilarious. The discrepancy is hilarious.

 Meals this week (L to R):
/Spaghetti Squash Chow Mein (recipe here, sub coconut aminos for soy sauce and add apple cider vinegar. Don't add brown sugar to the sauce)
/Larb Gai in butter lettuce cups
/Grilled pineapple and porkchops (not pictured) (if you've never had grilled pineapple, stop your life and get on that. it's the best thing ever.)
/Salisbury Steak and smashed potatoes (recipe here)

I've been eating a lot of fruit and hard boiled eggs and leftovers this week. We had turkey burgers again because they're the best ever and Maddox has been eating a lot of French toast. It's his new obsession and although I'm quite jealous, I'm perfectly content with my meals.

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.

whole30 week two

I sort of can't believe that I've already done two full weeks of Whole30. Week two absolutely flew by and I totally, totally sucked at making anything new and exciting this week. One, we were out of town with some college kids doing a little college retreat in the mountains and two, I have been sick since 2014 (dramatic much?) and have not even wanted to put on pants, let alone think about venturing to the grocery store to stock up. We've kept compliant the entire time, but we've definitely been taking the easy way out like a piece of fruit and hard boiled eggs for breakfast, salads for lunch and some kind of chicken with sweet potatoes for dinner.

I need to talk about that retreat for a quick minute because I was super nervous to go along since my role was going to be to cook all the food. I don't feel like I need to impose my dietary restrictions on everyone else; but, I'm also not in the mood to cook five different meals. So, Evan and I planned meals that we could eat and incorporated things like buns and dairy and muffins (Omg. There were Costco muffins. And I didn't eat a single bite. Bless.) and cookies. And it was fine. I mean, I wanted a muffin more than anything. We also went into town and stopped at the candy store and I always, always get some homemade chocolate carmel something or other and had to stand there, staring into the glass case filled with the most delicious treats you've ever had, while Evan bought $1.70 worth of candy for Maddox. It was pathetic and so sad. But not really because I am stronger than I ever thought I was. (hashtag fist punch emoji)

So, this week's meals consisted of larb gai (again because it's incredible), porkchops and lots of chicken. We made turkey burgers for the college students as well as lime cilantro chicken. We learned that most of them had never had a turkey burger before and I think this is totally crazy because my parents made turkey burgers all. the. time. when I was growing up. So, if you haven't had one before, do yourself a favor and try it. They're best with guacamole and salsa.

Grocery shopping is on my agenda for today and I found a few new recipes to try out so hopefully I come back next week with a more inspiring and exciting post.

Except. EXCEPT. I did try the whole30 "latte," which is actually delicious even though it sounds absolutely horrible. It's coffee (I use my espresso machine because then it's one cup and I'm not tempted to have more than one and I don't need an entire pot of coffee to myself anyway, latte or not) + coconut milk (from a can, not the carton. That I steam because lukewarm coffee is just from the devil.) + ghee (which is clarified butter. BUTTER, you guys. You put butter in coffee. There is no dairy in it, so it's okay to eat.) + cinnamon.

So, if you didn't get that, which you probably didn't, it's coffee + coconut milk + ghee + cinnamon. You just put it in a blender and blend it all together and you have a creamy, foamy latte. I was super skeptical at first but it really is delicious. I have to put the ghee in last and screw the lid on my bullet and then blend it all together because if I see the ghee melt and get all oily on the top of the coffee, I'm out.

Also, this week, on Monday, I noticed that my craving for sweets dramatically dropped. I'm a snacker and I felt like even my desire to snack decreased. It's a little hard to snack when you're so limited on what you can eat. I think the first week is definitely the hardest, as you're completely starting from scratch and rewiring your brain but as I'm heading into week three, I can definitely see the reward.

Whole30 Week One

Well, we did it! I'm so proud of Evan and I for completing week one of no dairy, sugars, grains or alcohol. We even hung out with some friends for a game night and brought along a bag of carrots and some fruit to snack on as well as our gigantic mason jars full of fruit-infused water (TOTAL. LIFESAVER.). We're cute. Our friends made wings and had chips and guac and drank beer and snacked on Christmas cookies in front of us and even though we were like, "Oh man, that does look good," we were strong and resisted all of the food (except for the guac because it was safe and we learned that guac + carrots is actually really good). Some days have been harder than others. There have been times when I want dessert so bad I can't even stand it. Evan filled my stocking with my favorite candies and I hardly ate any of them before our diet and so they're sitting in our cupboard taunting me but I am doing good so far. My friend Jamie told me to just brush my teeth when I have a sweets craving. Totally works and that's my absolute favorite piece of advice so far. If I feel like I absolutely need something sweet I have a piece of fruit. A few blackberries totally kicks the need for candy right where it counts. I know the point is to get out of that mindset but I'm taking it easy on myself since this is week one.

Like I said up there, infused water has been the biggest lifesaver! Before doing Whole30, I wasn't conscious of my water intake at all. I would have a glass here and there and even bought myself a nice, fancy water bottle to make myself drink more water. But then I also have an espresso maker and a ton of fancy teas and coffee with cream always sounds like a good idea and water gets pushed to the end of the list of things I want to drink. I can only do so much "plain water" so I just keep a couple of mason jars with fruit + water in the fridge and have been challenging myself to drink at least five a day. They're 32oz so that's 160oz a day, which should have great effects on my skin and overall health. My favorite infused blend is lemon + lime but sometimes I get creative with mint and berries, too.

I haven't had any headaches but I feel like I'm hungry all.the.time and so I made sure to buy lots and lots of snacks--things like apples and almond butter and carrots and little things like that. The other night Evan and I played some games together and we would normally snack the entire time, usually on popcorn. I brought out a handful of carrots and we drank hot tea and we didn't die.

That's the biggest thing I guess, we haven't died yet. Eating better won't kill you. Imagine that.

So, here's the list of food we've been eating over the past week (L to R):
//Sautéed chicken breasts with fresh tomato, avocado and lime.
//Chicken with mushrooms and spinach and sautéed sweet potatoes with salt, pepper and Mrs. Dash.
//Chopped spring mix salad with chicken, cauliflower, tomatoes, almonds and homemade balsamic dressing (recipe below).
//Grilled steak, mushrooms and onions cooked in olive oil and sweet potatoes again (They're so good. I could maybe eat those for the rest of forever).
//Larb gai (recipe below).
//Grilled pork chop with green beans sautéed in mustard and almonds.
//Cilantro lime chicken with green beans again.
//Creamy cauliflower soup (more like mashed potatoes but still good. Recipe here.)
//Chicken tacos in lettuce cups with homemade guac and cauliflower and carrots roasted in olive oil and lemon. 

You can tell that our meals have NOT been boring. They're colorful and flavorful and I'm eating way more veggies which is actually totally weird because I love my veggies but I definitely wasn't getting the proper amount of fresh fruits and veggies before. I thought I would be eating a lot more salads for my main course but as you can see, I ate only one. I am surprised at how diverse our meals were and similar to what we eat normally, just better for us, obviously. But aside from really wanting some pizza and sugar, I haven't been disappointed in any of our food.

Maddox eats everything that we eat but I do give him some cheese and his favorite thing in the world is peanut butter toast ("pea buh" he calls it as he's climbing the shelves of my pantry to get to the jar) but he ate half of my steak and most of my pork chop and like five bowls of that cauliflower soup and so he's not missing our old meals at all.


Recipes:
Balsamic dressing: My favorite pizza restaurant has the most delicious house dressing for their salads (that come with pears and grape nuts [yes, the cereal]). Last time we ate there, their recipe must have been a little off because all I could taste in the dressing was mustard. I never thought I could recreate it because I'm not good at tasting something and pulling apart the ingredients but once I knew it had mustard in it, I knew I could make something similar. So, this isn't it 100%, but it's similar and I could probably drink this right out of the jar.

Ingredients:
Equal amounts olive oil and balsamic vinegar. A generous splash of apple cider vinegar. To taste: Salt, pepper, crushed red pepper, dried basil. Generous heaping spoonful of minced garlic. Generous squeeze of mustard (french's is compliant!). I add all ingredients to a mason jar and shake-don't stir. Let it sit for an hour and taste it and adjust amounts as needed. If you aren't ride or die vinegar (like me; I could drink it straight), then lessen the amount. Get creative with it!

Sweet Potatoes: This could possibly be my favorite way to eat sweet potatoes. Heat oil in a skillet and peel and chop the potatoes. Add them to the skillet and stir or toss to coat all the potatoes in oil. Add a little water and cover, cook them for about 7 minutes or until soft. I season them with salt, pepper and Mrs. Dash. They're the perfect side to basically any meal.

Larb Gai: This is actually pronounced "lawb" and it's something I had never even heard of until I saw it on my favorite whole30 instagram (teamwhole, get it), and you can get the recipe here. It's my number one dinner that we've made so far.

Green Beans: Saute green beans in olive oil (and a splash of water for faster cooking) over med-high heat. Once tender, add mustard but don't leave your pan because the mustard will burn quickly. Add a sprinkle of almonds (and parm cheese if you're not whole30) and eat! My favorite way to eat green beans and asparagus.

Roasted Veggies: I love roasted veggies more than any other kind of veggie. We roast a lot of cauliflower around here and I had the idea to add some lemon to the pan. It might have been one of my best ideas because it was delicious. Just toss your veggies in olive oil and spread evening in an oven-safe pan. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and squeeze some fresh lemon over everything. I like lemon so I tend to be a little heavy-handed with it. Roast at 350 for 15 minutes, or until your veggies are tender.