Scattered Sundays and Meal Plan
We need to settle a debate right now.
Right darn now.
The word coupon. Do you pronounce it “cue-pon” or “coo-pon”? There is only one real answer. Hopefully, you pick it because I’d hate to stop being friends.
We’re almost done with week one of the Whole30. You guys won’t even believe what happened! My acne scars completely disappeared, I have been sleeping like a baby, and I lifted a freaking van off of an injured baby goat. And my hair is luscious and thick.
In actuality, nooooothing has changed. I’ve been more creative with cooking lately and I’m adding more veggies to our meals. And that’s about it.
But I would still save a baby goat.
This is the first time in recent memory where I gave up sugar and wasn’t stabby with everyone. I have no idea why the change, but hey, that works best for everyone in arm’s distance of me. I will miss our Sunday morning tradition of getting a latte on the way to church later this morning, but #firstworldproblems.
Something I’m super annoyed about with limiting certain foods is that I am finding myself recreating dishes with out of season ingredients. If you saw on my Instagram stories I made zucchini noodles with homemade chicken sausage, bacon bits (aka bacon fairy dust, aka bacon glitter) and chimichurri sauce. And it was amazing! But pre-Whole30 you would never find me buying zucchini in May. Zucchini is a summer veg and buying it out of season is pure silliness.
But holy hell you guys that dish was soooo good and something I would happily eat once a week in the summer even without Whole30. I can’t wait to share the recipe with you all. My peeps! My possee. My tribe. My um, er…friends.
And another thing is it is way too much meat for protein. I like meat but prefer it in smaller quantities than I am eating right now to get enough protein.
Too Much Meat is the name of my Menudo cover band.
On the bright side, I have been having a renewed love affair with avocados. Fun nerdy fact – year round avocados are a side effect of NAFTA. Before that, it was hard to find avocados when they weren’t ripe in the US. This useless fact is brought to you by NPR and all my solo Saturday nights in high school.
I’ve been finding/pinning lots of fun Whole30 recipes on Pinterest so hopefully, we’re already matched up over there. Once we officially get past week one I’m going to make Mexican Hot Chocolate Lara Bars.
Are you doing this challenge along with us? How is it going?
Jack had an out of town baseball game this week and pitched for a few innings. In one of those innings, he pitched 10 pitches and nine of them were strikes! So proud of that guy. Still fully support his choice to not play baseball again next year.
I finally finished reading American War which I started a few weeks ago. I love to read but have found it at the bottom of my priority list lately which makes me so sad. The book was great but nothing happy happened in it. It was post-apocalyptic AF. The writing was amazing and the environmental implications were pretty bold and interesting.
I stumbled onto an awesome drink recipe this week. This Healthy Pink Drink from 40 Aprons is pretty delicious and we’re all enjoying it. I have never had the Starbucks drink it is based on so I’m not sure how close the actual flavor is, but I like it! I didn’t use the strawberry sparkling water it called for since we have a Soda Stream and therefore a steady supply of plain sparkly water. Still delicious!
It was a real honor and so much fun to be interviewed by Cheapism this week in their article “Is Raising Chickens Cheaper Than Buying Eggs“. Give it a read if you have a chance.
On Sustainable Cooks This Week
Air Fryer French Fries With Roasted Garlic and Parmesan – Homemade fries are a real treat with these Air Fryer French Fries With Roasted Garlic and Parmesan Cheese. Air fryer french fries give you the crispiest fries with little to no oil. Learn the secrets for the best fries you’ll ever make!
Homemade Mayo – Keto & Whole30/Paleo Options – Make the creamiest homemade mayo in under two minutes! Skip the sketchy ingredients in store-bought mayonnaise and whip up a batch today. Conventional, Keto and Whole30/Paleo options are included in the recipe.
The Five Most Popular Posts This Week
- Three Ingredient Lotion Bars – There is a reason that this post has been pinned over 214k times. They are EASY and they work! This post tends to get popular a few times a year (holidays and mother’s day!), and I’m so thrilled that some of your moms are getting some lotion bars wrapped up next Sunday.
- Air Fryer French Fries – crispy and covered in roasted garlic. ‘Nough said.
- Three Ingredient Lotion Bars
- Homemade Mayo – Keto & Whole30/Paleo Options
- The Oil Cleansing Method
Meal Plan
Monday:: New Instant Pot recipe I am trying out for you all. And just like all my IP recipes, there will be instructions for how to make it without the Instant Pot. Let’s do this!
Tuesday:: Bahi Mi “sandwich” bowls. So the meat portion of this recipe over salad and shredded cabbage. Made Whole30 friendly with the sugar removed, soy sauce subbed for coconut aminos, and the sweet chili sauce will be left off. Sigh.
Wednesday:: Real food Instant Pot Orange Chicken over cauliflower fried rice with stir fry veggies mixed in.
Thursday:: Turkey burgers (no buns) with salad and Air Fryer French Fries.
Friday:: Movie and leftovers night.
Saturday:: Jack has an evening baseball game so honestly I’m not sure what we’ll have.
Sunday:: Family dinner
What We Bought This Week
What is a budget? Cause we stomped on ours and took a pee right over the top of it. Oh mylanta, our grocery bills came here to chew bubble gum and kick ass. And they’re all out of bubble gum.
Why the huge bills this week? It’s not really Whole30 related but that did contribute to some of it. I had to stock up on some new replacement staples like coconut aminos (instead of soy sauce), almond flour, sulfite-free balsamic vinegar (give me a break. Giant eye roll here) and a few other things.
Additionally, I am doing some research for an upcoming blog post on ordering grass-fed/pasture raised meat online. I wouldn’t recommend something I myself didn’t try, so I ordered from two separate companies this week. Farewell budget! Hello, meat for months though.
Meat for Months is the name of my ska band. We’re terrible.
Butcher Box: $114.00
US Wellness Meats: $100.45
Trader Joes: $88.26. I was shocked this wasn’t more expensive because my cart was full! Side note, I hate buying produce at Trader Joes. So much freaking packaging.
Costco: $88.68
What are you having this week?
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I was once firmly ensconced in the “cue-pon” camp and then one day, I just found myself saying “coo-pon”. I don’t even know how it happened. I can say with absolute certainty that you will never hear me pronounce “vase” as “vahz”, though. Can we still be friends? 🙂
Jack decided not to play baseball next season? Is he not enjoying it?
I didn’t take the Whole 30 plunge with you but nevertheless, i am enjoying reading about your journey.
Clearly, it appears you were infected with craziness at some point which changed your grammatical structure. Maybe there is an antidote?
Jack didn’t want to play this year but we strongly encouraged him to (i.e., made him). We had hoped he would get this amazing coach we have been admiring since tball. Super positive and loves the kids and just an awesome dude. He didn’t get that coach (but his is still great) and is still just not really having fun. So we’ll give him a year or so to take a break from it and see if he misses it. He really wants to do track and I find a club for kids his age. It is a spring sport and I refuse to do two sports at once so a baseball hiatus works for us!