paleo

day twenty-five: the great mayo meltdown ’16

Posted on by thedingismything

Got a little bit of bad news yesterday. Both of the offers we submitted for houses last week were rejected. Seriously, who are these people making all-cash offers over asking price? How are we supposed to compete with that? Who has half a million dollars in cash just lying around anyway? And if you do, why the hell would you want to live in Reseda, of all places?

<<deep breath>>

As you might infer, I’m a little disappointed. But, I also was expecting it, so it wasn’t completely devastating. I took the news pretty well, and tried to muster up enthusiasm for going back to square one and checking out the latest on Redfin and Zillow. That lasted about 10 minutes before I was just over it.

I take solace in knowing that it’s not just us who find it difficult (read: impossible) to buy a home in this market. Still, it makes me feel pretty crummy. I’ve had some pretty sharp peaks and valleys when it comes to my self-worth and self-confidence over the years. I can honestly say that nothing has made me feel as much of a miserable failure in life as this home-buying process has.

When I finally left the office, I had one of those commutes where every asshole on the 5 freeway decided it was ok to cut me off. I hit every single red light. I had to stop at the store, and a shithead stole my parking space as I was about to pull in to it. Got in the shortest line behind the s-l-o-w-e-s-t old lady who, of course, paid in cash – with exact change.

You can imagine I’m reaching the end of my rope here.

The Husband said he would handle dinner for us. He was taking a stab at a salmon cakes recipe out of the Whole30 book. The note at the bottom of the page said it paired well with the tartar sauce recipe, made from their basic mayo.

For any newcomers, the Whole30 basic mayo was the first Whole30 recipe I made and it was a smash hit. I was so happy with it. Easy to make, tasted great, saved my lunches for the first 10 days. I haven’t made any since I ran out of my first batch, so while he made the salmon cakes, I took on the mayo so we’d have a nice little sauce on the side.

One egg, one-half teaspoon of mustard powder, one teaspoon of salt and a quarter of a cup of olive oil all went into the standing mixer. I flipped it on, and it started to combine.

And then, it just kinda did nothing.

I seemed to remember it looking a little less liquidy the first time. But oh well. Let’s just keep going.

Started to drizzle in my one cup of olive oil. Little bit at a time. Little bit. Little. Bit.

Only difference was MORE of the liquid. Not thickening. At all.

Do I stop? No! Persevere! Keep going! It will start to emulsify.

Have I mentioned it’s 7:45 p.m. at this point, the salmon cakes are just about ready, and we’re both starving?

Entire cup of olive oil is mixed in. It’s the same consistency. Much more yellow than I remember it looking the first time.

At this point, a person in their right mind might step back and think, “OK, clearly this isn’t working out. You’re hungry and tired and very stressed out. Just stop and enjoy the cakes by themselves.”

I wasn’t in my right mind.

I went back to the recipe and saw the direction that said your egg needed to be at room temperature in order for this to work. Forgot all about that. No wonder. A tip said that if you’re pressed for time (story of my life) you can put the egg in a bowl of hot water for five minutes and then it would work.

Second egg comes out of the fridge and goes into a bowl of hot water. I remove the first failed batch from the mixer and pour it into a mason jar. All I can think about at this point is that a bottle of olive oil costs $15 and I just wasted about $3 worth. I can’t throw this away. I can save this somehow.

I start the second batch. Egg is warmed to room temp, everything else is good to go. I’ve re-read the complete instructions for the recipe about four times. It’s now 8 p.m. and the salmon cakes are out of the oven. The Husband, the most patient man on the Earth, is waiting for me to get this mayo right.

I add the first ingredients. It looks slightly thicker this time. I’m hopeful.

I crank the mixer up to top speed and begin to slowly drizzle in the olive oil.

Same. Exact. Results.

Not thickening. Not getting lighter in color. Not working. Not happening.

And I start losing my mind.

There is ugly crying, and then there is what unfolded for me last night.

My face got hot, tears welled up in my eyes and streamed down my face. I’ve wasted $6 worth of olive oil, about 45 minutes, made my loving husband wait for mayo that never happened, ruined dinner by crying, and above all, I can’t buy a house.

At that point, realizing that my brain had long stopped working, The Husband literally handed me my plate of three salmon cakes, turned off all the lights in the kitchen and walked me over to sit down and fucking eat. And I cried the entire time.

I think it’s fair to say that our home offer rejections affected me more than I realized. I rode that bus way past Discouraged, past Disillusionment, straight into Crazy Town.

After we ate, I went back and poured the second failed batch into the jar with the first one. It’s in my fridge as we speak. I’m going to find a way to use it if it kills me.

P.S. The salmon cakes came out really good, in case anyone is wondering. And I married the greatest man on the planet.

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Wouldn’t that have just been perfect with a little mayo?

 

Note: This is a re-post from the Tumblr version of this blog. It originally ran on April 21, 2016

day twenty-four: a lunch-time quickie.

Posted on by thedingismything

Get your filthy mind out of the gutter.

I’m talking about healthy lunches you can make in mere minutes. No more excuses for going out. Not that you can, because you’re on Whole30 and no restaurant is safe, apparently.

My awesome parents felt my pain about how tired I was getting of cooking all the time. So they invited us over for dinner, and promised to cook everything per our guidelines. We had grilled yellowtail, roasted sweet potatoes and steamed veggies. All were seasoned only with olive oil and a little S&P. And it was delicious. I would have taken a picture, but I ate it too quickly.

After dinner I realized the only downside of not cooking for myself was that I had no leftovers to pack for my lunch the next day. We didn’t have anything prepped at home, either. Crap.

Decided to make my go-to tuna salad, but also realized that I didn’t have any Whole30 mayo already made. Double crap. Decided to make some, but then realized we were low on olive oil. Crappity crap crap crap.

It just wasn’t my night.

The Husband had a genius idea: substitute avocado for mayo with my tuna.

So I did. And it is Y-U-M-M-Y.

tuna

Five-Ingredient Tuna Salad

1 Can of Solid White Tuna in Water, drained
1 Avocado
¼ c. chopped onion
2 stalks celery, chopped
Juice of ½ lemon
(and some pretty little lettuce pieces on the side, if you’re feeling fancy, but that makes it a six-ingredient dish and that just doesn’t sound as easy so I’m leaving it out)

Directions: Mix.

Time to prep: As long as it takes you to open a can, scoop an avocado, chop onion and celery and squeeze a lemon. It took me longer to arrange the lettuce so it looked pretty for this picture than it did for me to make the tuna salad.

Note: This is a re-post from the Tumblr version of this blog. It originally ran on April 20, 2016.

day twenty-three: ooops.

Posted on by thedingismything

I make mistakes on a regular basis. Like, it would be fair to say that I do something dumb pretty much every day.

Here’s some proof:

tupperware

Yep. I forgot that I put a Tupperware on top of our oven and then turned it on. Whoops.

In the last week or so, I’ve burned my finger, gotten my leg caught in the chair at my hair stylist’s salon, packaged up leftovers but forgot to put them away in the fridge, melted that Tupperware lid, and about a dozen other really dumb things.

Here’s the take-away: I’m never going to not make mistakes. The important thing is to learn from them, and to learn how to recover and rebound when you do make them.

This time yesterday, I was about halfway through writing a blog post about how The Husband and I found a few restaurants we could order food from and still eat within the rules of Whole30. We’ve done this exactly three times in 23 days, which is a HUGE improvement from how often we were eating out prior to starting Whole30. The first of these three times, we got salads from Chipotle.

I had done a little research on Paleo diet-friendly restaurants, and what you could order at each one. No, Whole30 and Paleo are not the same thing, but they are the closest you can get when comparing most nutrition guidelines. Y’all don’t know how excited I was when I saw Chipotle on the list. Salad, no dressing, double chicken, pico and guac. Yes, please!

I told The Husband and he was as excited as I had been. We made big plans for a Friday night “date night” that included a little Chipotle action and binge-watching the last season of Game of Thrones before the new season starts. (HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS IT STARTS THIS SUNDAY. CAN. NOT. WAIT.)

We were standing in line for about 15 minutes, it seemed, and The Husband asked me if we could have the fajita veggies. I told him I didn’t think so, but I wasn’t positive. He got out his phone and looked it up. No dice – the fajita veggies are grilled using rice bran oil, a Whole30 no-no.

I have to take a quick second here to applaud Chipotle for the transparency of their website. You can find out every ingredient that goes in to every item on their menu. They have a whole page dedicated to allergen information. Their nutrition calculator allows you to basically build your meal and find out fat, sodium, carbs and protein info before stuffing a 1,600 calorie burrito in your face. I wish more chain restaurants took this website as their model.

Fast forward to yesterday, when I’m sitting here typing, retelling this same story. I couldn’t remember what kind of oil they used that made the veggies off-limits. So, I pulled up the Chipotle website … and discovered they use rice bran oil to cook their chicken, too.

WHAT.

THE.

HELL.

Alright. So, there goes that one. I deleted the entire post, said a few choice words, and beat myself up a little for not doing my homework beforehand.

I consulted my Whole30 book last night, to see what they recommend doing if you slip up. Was it deliberate? No. Is it a food that I would eat emotionally or for comfort? Absolutely not. (If I’m eatingrice bran oil as my comfort food, I’ve got other problems.) And in my opinion, it wasn’t one of the major criminal offenses. It wasn’t sugar, dairy or alcohol.

So, the big question, am I going to start my Whole30 all over because I ate something cooked in rice bran oil?

Um, FUCK no.

If I was eating Chipotle chicken three or four times a week and getting double meat on each order, I might acknowledge the need to push reset. But honestly, if chicken (that they brag about being “responsibly raised”) is the worst thing I eat in 30 days, I’ll be just fine.

Last night, when The Husband got home from the gym, I told him about my discovery.

“Love, I have something I need to tell you.”

“Uh-oh.” Something you have to know about him: Not only does he have incredible willpower, but he is a rule-follower, to the letter. Two traits I find very appealing in a husband.

I broke it to him easy: “You remember when we had Chipotle last week? And how you looked up the fajita veggies and found out they were cooked in rice bran oil? Well, I don’t know how to tell you this … but … so is the chicken.”

“Yeah, I know.”

WHAT?? “You knew?? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“We were already in line.”

Yep.

Looks like we’ll just be sticking to home cooking for the next seven days.

Note: This is a re-post from the Tumblr version of this blog. It originally ran on April 19, 2016.

day sixteen: the easiest dinner you’ll ever make.

Posted on by thedingismything

Before starting out on this ridiculous Whole30 journey, our dinner routine was the same old thing week after week: Food shopping on Sunday night with the best of intentions. Chicken and veggies on Monday night. Turkey Taco Tuesdays. Wednesday would be more chicken and veggies. By the time Thursday came around, we’d be sick of cooking, so we’d get a little cheapie take-out. Friday Funday calls for dinner out and drinks. Then Saturday breakfast on the go, followed by a weekend of “Where should we go for lunch?” and “Where do you want to eat dinner?”

It was a vicious cycle.

One upside of Whole30 has been that we’re forced to try some new recipes and think outside the chicken-and-veggies box. If you’ve been following along, you’ve seen some of our new fav’s. The turkey meatballs  and loaded sweet potatoes are right up there. I haven’t even told y’all about The Husband’s chili he made last week.

Trying new recipes each night can be a little exhausting though. This is when it pays to have a staple, like my basic chicken and veggies.

You know that one go-to dish you have in your repetiore that you can make in your sleep? This is one of mine. (The other, in case you were wondering, is my mom’s chocolate chip cookies. But I’m not going to think about those sweet, crispy-on-the-outside, warm-and-gooey-on-the-inside, melt-in-your-mouth, better-than-anything-on-the-planet cookies.)

Chicken and veggies is cheap, quick and easy. Just like me.

This meal is perfect if you’re pressed for time. The total cost is going to range depending on the quality of meat you buy and whether you’re buying frozen or fresh veggies, and whether they’re in season. You can go dirt cheap and get a pound of chicken tenders for about $4 and a bag of frozen veggies for another $2. On the higher end, you can buy the larger vegetarian-fed, no antibiotics, raised without hormones, fancy pants chicken breasts that Whole30 encourages, and that will run you about $10 or more for a pound and a half.

If you already know how to make basic chicken and veggies, there is no need to read any further. Unless you like a good joke about large breasts. That’s going to happen. But, if you don’t know shit about dick when it comes to cooking, I invite you to read on.

Disclaimer: This is not a recipe. This is my own personal method. And I’m not professional trained to work in a kitchen. (Obviously.)

To make chicken and veggies, you only need about 30 minutes max. Turn on your oven to about 400° and get out one large nonstick pan and one oven-safe pan. You’re also going to want a good pair of tongs.

Start with prepping your veggies. This process is going to depend on what you’re working with, obviously. For this example, I’m using Brussels sprouts. You want to buy the tiny ones; they’re more tender. The large bulbous ones are a little rough to eat. I like to cut off the stem part as much as possible and then halve them. Get some kind of fat (either olive or coconut oil works best here) going in your nonstick pan and swirl that puppy around. Once it’s hot, place the sprout halves flat-side down in the pan. All of them. When there’s no more room left, just throw them all on top. Everybody in the pool.

A package of pre-cut butternut squash is a great compliment to Brussels sprouts and adds another level to a basic chicken and veggies dinner. They will get squishy fast, so don’t be in a rush to add these. In fact, if you want to redirect your attention to the chicken and then come back, that will work just fine.

You’re probably wondering about seasoning at this point. This is my only “trick” when it comes to chicken and veggies. I don’t even know that it’s a trick. More like a guideline.

I used to date this guy whose mom told him he should never date a girl who didn’t wear panties that matched her bra. (We broke up.) Apply this rule to your chicken and veggies: Whatever seasoning you put on the bird, you put on the veggies.

This helps change your dish up. If you’re using peppers and onions, go for some chili powder, paprika and fresh garlic. If you’re using asparagus, lemon pepper and fresh lemon juice is perfect. For Brussels sprouts and butternut squash, I like something a little more savory, like dried rosemary and thyme. No matter your combo, you’re always going to start with kosher salt and black pepper. If you don’t have a pepper grinder, no bigs. If you do, mazel tov.

So you’ve got your veggies in the pan and your chicken out on the board. Salt, all the way around. Pepper. Sprinkle that thyme all over. Take about a tablespoon of rosemary in the palm of your hand and use your fingers to grind them down, then you can throw that on top. I’ve learned to use rosemary conservatively. It’s lovely, but very powerful. Just like me.

Your seasoning is done, time to get that bird on the stove. Put your choice of fat or oil (remember, matchy matchy) in the oven-safe pan. When it’s hot, GENTLY lay down each breast so you don’t get oil splatter. This here is very important: Once you’ve put the chicken in the pan, DON’T TOUCH IT.

DON’T poke at it.

DON’T push it around.

DON’T try to lift it up.

What you’re trying to do is brown one side real good, then you’ll flip it and brown the other side real good. How do you know when it’s time to flip it? When you can use your tongs to pick up the breast and it lifts up without sticking. But you just told me not to try to lift it up…?   I know. Life’s a bitch, isn’t it?

Keep an eye on how long one side takes before you can flip it. However much time it took to cook the first side is a good measure for how long you should leave it on the other side, but I generally give it a minute or two less. You’re going to take the pan at this point and put it in the oven, so it will continue to brown on that side while it’s cooking.

The amount of time these stay in the oven depends on how large your breasts are (HEEYY-O!). If you’re using tenders, you are going to skip putting it in the oven entirely because they’re so small and pathetic they’ll cook on the stovetop and finish in no time. If you have large breasts, like me (winky winky), you’ll want to cook them between 20 and 25 minutes, including the time they spent stovetop.

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The tricky part is that chicken is one of those things you definitely don’t want to undercook, but you also reallllly don’t want to overcook. Dried chicken is awful. But so is food poisoning. This is why God invented meat thermometers. Use this to tell when your chicken is done. This being said, I will tell you that every time I’ve cooked chicken until it was ready by my meat thermometer’s standards, it came out drier than a Christmas tree in March.

Bobby Flay, if you’re reading this, I love you but please don’t read what I’m about to say. To make sure the chicken is done, I will usually take a knife and cut into one of the thickest parts of the breasts. If it’s pink, it’s not ready yet. No pink? Time to eat. You will lose some of the juice by doing this, but it’s better to be safe than vomiting.

So there you go. Chicken and veggies. It’s so easy, even I can do it.

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Note: This is a re-post from the Tumblr version of this blog. It originally ran on April 12, 2016.

whole30: day four.

Posted on by thedingismything

Alright. Most days this week, I’ve been a little gloomy. Self-pitying, even. But not today.

Today, I gotta brag.

Day 4 was a home run, guys. Start to finish, I think it was my best day yet.

For breakfast, I had diced potatoes and bell peppers, my new favorite Whole 30 compliant chicken sausage and an egg. Lunch was half a bell pepper filled with tuna salad (with my homemade mayo I made for Day 1. And dinner was … well. Dinner was amazing.

I found this recipe for Loaded Turkey Stuffed Twice-Baked Sweet Potatoes on paleOMG.com and thought that with a name like that, you really couldn’t go wrong.

Holy smokes, it was every bit as good as it sounded. And easy, too!

The recipe called for the traditional yellow sweet potatoes, but I’m a sucker for the orange ones. (I think these are technically yams?) I followed the writer’s instructions exactly, and it all worked out perfectly. Her suggestion about not getting too close to the skin when scooping out the ooey gooey yummy middles was spot on.

The turkey is seasoned with chili powder, paprika and an alarming amount of hot sauce. We used Cholula because it’s Whole 30 compliant. I was a wee bit worried, but the sweetness of the potato balanced out the heat nicely.

After I stuffed the filling in the potatoes and popped them back in the oven, I threw some Brussels sprouts in a pan to get something green on the plate. Super simple to make in a dash: just cut ‘em in half, add them to a hot nonstick pan with a smidge of coconut oil, add a little S&P and don’t let them burn. Although, personally, I like a little char on mine.

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This dinner was a success, and The Husband already asked if we can make this even after Whole 30. Um. I want to eat it again tomorrow night!

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So one quick note for anyone thinking of reasons NOT to do Whole 30. I’m guessing this all sounds like it takes a lot of time to prepare everything, and you might be thinking you don’t have hours to dedicate to cooking each day. I thought the same thing at first, too. But I’ve learned quickly that there are some easy shortcuts that will help for those days when you’re pressed for time. One of the biggest, easiest tips is to make a dinner that is big enough so there will be leftovers you can pack for lunch the next day. If you don’t like eating the same thing twice, then you’re not making food that is yummy enough. I could eat those flipping stuffed sweet potatoes every darn day.

I’m going to be totally honest. Remembering to prep your food ahead of time is the hardest part. The night of Day 3, we were settled on the couch watching TV when I remembered I didn’t have anything put together for lunch the following day. It was 9:30 at night, but I got up and whipped up my tuna, stuffed it in the bell pepper boat, threw some veggies in a baggie and was back on my ass in time for The Husband to make me suffer through the end of “World War Z.”

The potatoes I had for breakfast? Came already cut up. Our market has a nice little space in the produce section with fresh cut vegetables ready to bring home and cook. I’ll admit some aren’t worth the price. Like, I’m perfectly capable of buying a zucchini and squash and slicing them up on my own instead of paying $5 for the already sliced package of them. But other things – like the pre-cut butternut squash – totally worth it. These diced potatoes and peppers were $2.99 for a good size container. It was enough to feed both of us for two breakfasts.

As long as you’re able to think about these things ahead of time, this is an easy lifestyle to maintain. And it gets easier, the more you train yourself to do it. I can already tell you what I’m having for my next two meals. We got in a habit of waiting until late in the the afternoon to think about dinner, and by that time we’re usually too tired to develop a game plan. When it gets to that point, it’s easy to just say “Screw it, let’s go out!” By the end of the night you’ve eaten an extra 1,000 calories, probably had a drink or two, and spent $50 or more. Total dollar value for my Day 4 food was probably between $10 and $12. AND I got to eat a super duper delicious dinner.

Like I said: Home run.

Note: This is a re-post from the Tumblr version of this blog. It originally ran on April 1, 2016.