Scattered Sundays and Meal Plan
Happy Mother’s Day to the moms out there! Hopefully, your day involves not keeping anyone alive and being able to eat all meals with two hands.
To those who have a hard time on this day for whatever reason, just know that you’re not alone and I hope you find comfort and strength in whatever way works for your heart.
I keep waiting for the Whole30 magical health to kick in. I haven’t slept in two weeks and Troy got the flu for the second time in 28 days. I think it may be his new monthly thing. The flu period I guess? I swear Troy gets sick more often than a first-year kindergarten teacher. And then Jack picked up some of it and rocked a high fever for about 36 hours.
But hey, I got to eat bacon, right?
I’ve been having a snack before bed of an apple and almond butter and one homemade Lara bar/ball. Why in the world is it so freaking hard to find crunchy almond butter without sugar or honey in it? Creamy nut butter (<—snicker) is the work of Satan.
Let me tell you folks, not all almond butter is created equal. Far and away (I had that movie on VHS that I think I bought from a Blockbuster Video 5/$20 sale) the clear winner is Barney Butter Bare. Regular Barney Butter comes in crunchy but the Bare crunchy kind is harder to find. It is delicious. But expensive AF.
Next is the Costco almond butter. A much better deal but fairly grainy and CREAMY. After that is Justin’s almond butter. It’s fine but no better than the Costco stuff and costs twice as much. And it’s freaking creamy AF. Back satan, I command you!
If you’re on Whole30 or are on a sugar-free, dairy-free, gluten-free, vegan, and/or Paleo diet and want a ready-made made salad dressing, Trader Joes Green Goddess dressing fits that bill. I prefer to make my own dressing (takes 30 seconds), but Troy has always had the mindset that if he is hungry at that moment something needs to be in the fridge.
I found this dressing in the refrigerated section at Trader Joes and it is good! Not my favorite or anything but checks all the required boxes and the ingredients list is free of sketchy stuff.
We’re supposed to have two days this week in the 80’s with nighttime lows in the 50’s. Now would be an excellent time to get tomato plants planted FYI. I’m not going to because I’m always behind when it comes to the garden. FYI.
With the increased heat, I start to wear slip-on flats 24/7 (these are my favorite) when I’m not wearing flip flops (these are my favorites and last for five years). But as we have covered before, this girl has got some sweaty ass feet. Gah, you turned on right now?
To help keep my feet from sliding around in my shoes and to keep them smelling well, like decent feet, I use these terrycloth inserts in my flats. They are absorbent and machine washable. They work so well and I have got my sister addicted to them and the flats! I think she has three to four pairs of those shoes now.
After weeks of laziness, a well-thought-out plan to A/B test our new strawberry beds, I finally planted our final two towers. As I was about to cut the landscaping cloth to line the towers, I had a “what would happen if…” moment.
I stuffed old straw that we use as mulch in the garden around the internal perimeter of the wire towers. After I added the straw, I then hollowed it out by pushing the straw up against the wire to create a hole.
I filled that hole with composted chicken shit and then added a bit of straw on top of that. Then I added more straw to the towers, pushed it to the sides and created another hole. I filled that with potting soil and continued this process until I got to the top. I was able to easily nestle the strawberries in the towers around the straw to plant.
It has only been one week since I planted them, but it is safe to say the strawberries in the straw towers are thriving compared to the ones in the landscaping cloth (which are doing just fine). I’m going to watch and see what happens because the straw towers have a lot of things going for them that are putting bias in my “research study”. They were slightly older plants, get about 30 more minutes of sun each day, and aren’t shadowed by our “giant” mini drawf apple tree.
It has been a tumultuous 36 hours! Gah, Troy and I are/were so sad! It was announced this week that two of the four shows that we watch have been canceled. Brooklyn Nine-Nine and The Last Man of Earth were so dang good and funny. Screw you Fox. We never watch Fox except for those two shows, so they can suck it.
And then I woke up on Saturday morning to find that NBC had picked up Brooklyn Nine-Nine for next season. Yay! There is still hope.
Nothing says “we appreciate everything you do, now here are some flowers” like realizing you’ve been calling your kid’s preschool teacher by the wrong name for six weeks. Holy crap I’m mortified!
Bennett had a Mother’s Day “tea” at school this week. It was potluck. For the record, the dad’s event later this month is donuts. They don’t even bother to ask the dudes to remember to bring in food.
Anyhoo, I was there and kept hearing people call the teacher by what was clearly the wrong name. And then it hit me, my butthole puckered a bit and I puked in my mouth. Dead. Blech.
I added some fun new things to my site’s shop page this week. I stock it with resources that we use and love in our house and things that help me with meal prep, laundry, and finding joy and inspiration in cooking. Check it out and see if we’re twinsies on any of the items.
On Sustainable Cooks This Week
How to Make Chimichurri – Herby Packed Heaven – This amazing back pocket chimichurri sauce will transform anything you drizzle it over. Steak, chicken veggies, and eggs (oh heeeeck yes) are all instantly transformed with this herby packed heaven in a jar!
10 Minute Instant Pot Bruschetta Chicken – This delicious bruschetta chicken in the Instant Pot is a simple weeknight dinner that the whole family will love. Bruschetta chicken is packed full of flavor, paleo, Whole30 compliant, low-carb, and made with 100% real food.
The Five Most Popular Posts This Week
- How to Make Chimichurri – Herby Packed Heaven
- Real Food Healthy Sweet Tea
- Air Fryer French Fries
- DIY Insulated Blackout Curtains
- Peanut Butter Frosting With PB2
Meal Plan
Monday:: A new recipe I am working on. I did a test run of it last week for lunch and it was so good. Troy has declared it his favorite of the original Whole30 recipes I’ve been making. I’ll be using some of the pork that came in this month’s Butcher Box order.
Tuesday:: Chef Salads and bread (<—for the boys).
Wednesday:: Instant Pot ribs, coleslaw, and roasted sweet potatoes. The ribs were from our US Wellness meats order from last week.
Thursday:: Roast chicken, salad, and Air Fryer French Fries.
Friday:: Popcorn dinner. Maybe? We may or may not have baseball practice this night. Things are getting less organized as the season goes on.
Saturday:: My nephew’s birthday party and then Jack has a baseball game that evening. We’ll load up at the birthday party and then have leftovers after the game if anyone is still hungry.
Sunday:: Family dinner
What We Bought This Week
Trader Joes – $62.18 but I didn’t get a picture. Lots of veggies, some gummies for Bennett (potty training rewards), chicken sausage, and Applegate organic hot dogs (they’re Whole30 compliant).
Costco: – $85.08 (foil and allergy meds came from a different budget). Those gummy bears were for Jack’s teacher for teacher appreciation week. I could have eaten them all myself. Cookies were for my nephew to take to school for his birthday (my sis had me pick them up). I could have eaten them all myself.
What are you having this week?
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It doesn’t allow you to reply to the same thread more than once.
Nope. Worcester is “technically” not keto but, I would drink it straight if I could so I use it sparingly.
Worcestershire* (had to Google how to spell it.
Well, that’s weird!
!
You’d love the mixed nuts I made the other day then. I heated some ghee in a cast iron with chopped rosemary, almonds, cashews, and kosher salt. I mixed in onion powder and garlic powder and a splash of worcestershire at the end. They taste just like Chex Mix!
Man that does sound good. I’ve made the Union Square Roasted Nuts on many occasions to great acclaim. The recipe also contains rosemary which I think just adds a special something.
I’ve never had/heard of the Union Square Roasted Nuts but now I need to track that recipe down!
Do you use fresh rosemary or dried? I have a rosemary bush in the garden and it is prolific!
Fresh rosemary. Love fresh rosemary but I have a black thumb.
Do you have Trader Joes nearby? Every holiday season they sell tiny rosemary Christmas trees. I planted ours one year and it just went bananas. I think that was 5 years ago? I literally do nothing to it but trim it back a few times a year. But I wonder if your area is too humid for that?
We do. And a Whole Foods. I bought a rosemary plant from our farmer’s market a few years ago and called it my son’s to try to “trick” it into living. I asked the guy what kind of light and when to water it. I did all that. It fried. I guess the afternoon sun got too hot for it. The worst part is I have a neighbor who has one planted on the same side of their house. It’s huge! Luckily, I asked them if I could snip a little and they said I could have some whenever I’d like.
My daughter’s school gave me a flowering plant for Mother’s day. I went out yesterday to water it and it dead. My sister got the green thumb. I just know how to cook with what grows.
So far the only thing that Whole30 has discernibly been doing to me is making me pee like crazy. Like, had to change my pajama pants because they were putting too much pressure on my bladder; not being able to be a stomach sleeper for the time being; having to get up TWICE after going to bed (before which I HAD GONE PEE) to go pee. And no, I’m not pregnant. I even cut off drinking about an hour or so before bed. This is miserable. I already go to bed so early (before sunset in the Pacific NW currently) to get up ridiculously early for work, and the bladder is making it even harder to fall asleep and stay asleep.
But, the worst thing about Whole30 is, and will always be, having to drink black coffee. I tried drinking black tea, but it somehow wasn’t enough caffeine to ward off my migraines (exacerbated by longer daylight hours) so I need a medicinal cup of coffee in order to keep myself pain free. BLECH.
The list of things I will do when Whole30 is over: drink a cup of coffee with some kind of milk in it; eat the Junior Mints my boss gave me for Admin Professionals Day, and…. I haven’t thought any further than that D:
OMG I am so glad you said that. I swore last night I had a bladder infection or something because I was peeing so much! Did you start on May 1st too? I wonder if we’re in the “pee your pants” stage?
The daylight hours are so long right now. I love it, but it does mean my chickens get up early. We had to invest in good blackout curtains because of the daylight hours.
Have you tried NutPods in your coffee? I was going to buy some today (Fred Meyer and FYI it is on sale right now) but they didn’t have the flavor I knew Troy would want. Apparently, they’re pretty dang good and I think all the flavors are whole30 compliant. Troy is the coffee drinker and on day 2 he sent me a text that said “black coffee is gross”.
I love Junior Mints. They’re dairy-free and I lived off of them when I was DF while nursing Jack.
I’ll check out the NutPods!
The other day I could barely choke down my coffee so I steeped a vanilla black tea bag in there after I poured a cup and… it was one of my less good ideas.
I started on May 1st and I’ve basically had to pee constantly since May 3rd. I am legitimately not drinking any more water than I was before, as I always have a water bottle and a stash of sparkling water near me regardless. And since coffee is a chore right now, I’m drinking much less of that than I normally do (I’m usually a cup in the morning, and grabbing a venti drip coffee on my way into the office). This is probably because I’m eating much less salt (which I never really ate that much of to begin with anyway). Either that, or I’m liquefying from the inside and I’ll soon be a dried out husk of a person!
Update: Found NutPods at my local hippie-dippy grocery store, and it’ll certainly make life more bearable for the last two weeks of this!
Ohhhhh right? Now I’m excited for Troy! Fred Meyer is supposed to have them back in stock tomorrow morning. What flavor did you get?
Got French Vanilla, which has just a hint of the flavor. It’s definitely not sweet… I think I’ll pick up the hazelnut one next
I couldn’t find the vanilla at our Fred Meyer but they did have the hazelnut in stock yesterday. It was $3.09 on sale at Freddies. You said you live in the PNW so I assume you’re close to a Freddies!
Also, it’s founders day sales time right now and their fancy flavors of La Croix were on sale 2/$5.
I tried 2 racks of beef ribs in our Instant Pot last night. The meat shrunk to only a few bites each. It was the weirdest thing. I think they were already pretty stingy.
I’m doing a leftover veggie frittata, keto Philly cheese steak stuffed peppers, mushroom braised chicken thighs, and a Greek pork dish were you sear pork shoulder with white wine and lemon rather than cook it forever.
Well farts, I hope that doesn’t happen to ours. I’ve been warned though, so thanks for that.
Is keto philly cheesesteaks just cheeseteaks without the bread?
Pretty much. I just browned some ground meat, tossed in mushrooms, onion, garlic, Worcester sauce, and coconut aminos. Then put cheese inside the bell pepper, filled it with meat, then more cheese on top. It’s in the fridge waiting for tonight. I’m going to do some roasted cauliflower and your smoky creamy sauce on the side.
My picky hubby is out of town so I get to cook what I want. Something went wrong and he said he might come back so I said he’d have to eat what I’m cooking because I already bought all the ingredients. He said he wasn’t coming back so I told him “Fine. Be that way. I hope you and Julius have a nice life together!” Julius is a 6′ 2′ big former marine. Then he accused me of threatening him with food. I said, “It’s not like I’m making shrimp [shellfish allergy]. You just might have to choke down a bell pepper or mushroom.”
LOL, death by veggies! A terribly healthy way to go.
I used Worcestershire sauce the other day to make some mixed nuts, then realized it has sugar and molasses in it. Ugh. Is there a keto version you make/buy or just the normal Lea&Perrins?
Hahah! You crack me up! Buttpuckering!! I literally LOLed! I am horrible with names! We lived at our old house for five years and I never did catch the first name of our across the street neighbor lady. Her husband I called Denise “the Menace” cause that was the only way I could remember his name. ?♀️
Dinner this week…. who knows. I only know that tonight the kids and I are going to my parents for dinner and are seeing an uncle I haven’t seen in 20yrs. Should be interesting.
It was so tight it could have cracked a walnut girl.
Hope the dinner went well. Yikes…?
We lived in the same place for seven years. Shortly after we moved in, we got a new neighbor next door. Shirley was a nice single mom with two kids who was also a very busy business woman. She’d ask me to take in a package she was waiting for once in a while, and I was happy to do it. Shortly before we moved to a different place, she came by and asked me if I would pick up some packages for her. Of course, I was happy to. This time, she said, she’d need to know when they were delivered, and asked me to email her (as she handed me her business card). I looked down to find her first name was LESLIE. I looked up and said, “Your name is Leslie? I’ve been calling you Shirley for seven years.” “Yes,” she says, “I know.” I asked her WHY she never corrected me. She said that in the beginning, she didn’t think it mattered. And then, it had gone on so long that she didn’t know how to tell me. Leslie/Shirley, what the hell, it’s all the same, right? Uh, nope.
Oh my gosh, how did you react? That is hilarious and horrifying at the same time.
It was hard for me to find an almond butter let allow an actual but butter without sugar. My husband and I are also doing the Whole30 challenge as well. I found a nice crunchy and affordable almond butter at Trader Joe’s! We both love how it tastes so that makes it a winner! I bought Justin’s once and it was too thick and overpriced to my liking.
Ohhhh thank you, I’ll grab a jar and check it out.
I agree that Justin’s is pretty thick. And definitely expensive.
OMG Dot, I had to come back and say thank you so much for this recommendation! I went to TJ’s yesterday and got their salted almond butter. It is SOOOOOOO good! Would be better with sugar of course, but baby steps. Thank you again.
Yay!!! I’m glad you enjoyed it! I’m like addicted now and need to buy some more today :). Yes, sugar would but it in a whole new category of greatness! Well at least we have some good almond butter to get us through the challenge 😉
So, I do t think I’ve been this good about taking my vitamins in years. Granted, I take kids chewables, so yeah.
Not sure the plan this week. We have pork, carrots and potatoes going in the crockpot right now, so there’s that.
I also keep hoping for some magical wellness to be bestowed on me, but it hasn’t. Some people actual get sick when they start a Whole30, so maybe that’s what’s going on with Troy?
Jareds sick too, but that’s probable because of the prednisone he’s taking for his Florida poison ivy.
No this was definitely the flu. He temp got up to 102.6 at one point.
Good job for taking your vitamins! Sorry to hear about Jared. How long are those symptoms supposed to last?
I completely forgot how to say someone’s name last week! I know how to say it, but I just looked at the name, Ijeoma and brain couldn’t work out to say it! It’s been that kind of a week. This week I’m eating from the freezer, because it’s really full but I’m not sure what that looks like yet! Off to go and work it out…
I have never seen that name before and have NO idea how I would pronounce it!
Good luck with the freezer purge.
I called the wife of my favorite farmers market vendor by the wrong name for SIX YEARS before anyone corrected me. Six freakin’ years.
It’s the freaking worst, isn’t it? Ugh.