I might have mentioned once or twice that The Husband and I have started looking to buy a house. Anyone who has tried to do this in the last year or so will feel my pain. In Los Angeles, it is impossible to buy a move-in ready house unless you are independently wealthy. Impossible.

The fact that we began this process around the same time we decided to begin our Whole30 was both brilliant and disastrous. Brilliant, because if I was not limiting myself to what food I was eating, I probably would have gained about 10 pounds in the last two weeks from stress eating and drinking until I felt like less of a financial failure. Disastrous, because by the end of our second week, The Husband and I were on each other’s nerves like no one’s business and taking all our stress out on one another.

He worked all day Saturday, while I did some cleaning and food shopping. I had a vision of me cooking a wonderful dinner for him so that the house smelled yummy when he came home after a hard day’s work and then the two of us sitting at the table and enjoying every delicious bite.

What happened instead is that food shopping took me about two hours. That is a major downside of Whole30 – having to read labels on everything. I chalk that up to being a newbie. I’m sure it gets better when you’re on Day 28 or doing it for a second or third time. (I don’t wanna!)

By the time I got home, he was already there and was playing his video games. I got annoyed because there was a sink full of dishes and I couldn’t cook because the kitchen was a mess and the table was covered with all kinds of junk so we wouldn’t be able to sit and eat until it was cleared.

OK, time for some serious truth talk here. Who sits and eats at their dinner table every night? Or, at least, often? Our “dining” table has become a collect-all for junk mail, miscellaneous paper goods that don’t fit on shelves, that Ikea shelf I have been meaning to put up for a few months now, cans of cat food I’m too lazy to put away in the cabinet, Monopoly game pieces from Vons (we’re so gonna win!), and just about anything else you can imagine. We’ve been eating dinner from our couch while watching Jeopardy, just about every night since our honeymoon. It had been literal months since we ate at our table. Is that not normal?

Back to Saturday. I snipped at him for some help, and he snipped at me, and we were all set up to fight and have the whole night ruined. But somehow things steered themselves back on track and he did the dishes and cleared the table and I made one of our best dinners yet. And we got to sit at our table and eat it together. And we enjoyed each other’s company. It’s the closest thing to a date we’ve had while on this dumb diet.

The Whole30 cookbook has a recipe for an herb and walnut encrusted pork tenderloin with mashed cauliflower “potatoes.” It’s phenomenal. And, even better, it’s easy. And, better yet, it’s relatively inexpensive. All the ingredients were less than $20 (not including pantry staples) and we got six meals out of it.

So here’s where my lack of professional training comes into play. When I opened the package of pork tenderloin, I was expecting one hunk of meat in kind of the shape of a log. But, there were two long slabs of meat. After a little research (i.e. Google) I’m still not sure that pork tenderloin is supposed to be like this. It initially threw me for a loop, but I remembered I had cooking twine (don’t ask why) and just tied them together.

Another instance in which following directions probably helps. I had prepped everything for the recipe in advance, which means I chopped the walnuts before I started assembling everything. The directions tell you to season the meat with a spice rub, then chop your nuts and roll your meat in them to coat it. This recipe yields a whole heckuva lot of spice rub. I applied it allllll over, and had a ton left over. So when I went to roll it in the chopped nuts, they didn’t really stick. I think if you do the spice rub in advance, and let it set for a while, the nuts will stick better. When all was said and done, I had a ton of unused nuts. So many nuts.

I have a few friends who just snorted reading that. I threw it in purely for their entertainment.

While the finished product came out tasting incredible, I know what I’ll do differently the next time I make this. Assuming I get a similar cut of meat, with two slabs, I would apply the spice rub to each piece and let is set for about 30 minutes. I would sprinkle chopped nuts on top of one piece, stack the other on top and tie them together. Then more nuts on top, and any extra spice rub to make a really tasty crust on top.

I cooked it per directions, measuring its temperature after 25 minutes. It needed more time, so just another 5 minutes got me to exactly 145°, right where the book said it should be.

While it was in the oven, I made the recipe for mashed cauliflower “potatoes.” It looks just like mashed potatoes. Bonus: Texture aside, it tastes just like mashed potatoes. Maybe even better. They were light and fluffy and I could eat them all day without feeling bad.

One note before you try them at home: The recipe calls for chicken broth. It’s not easy to find Whole30 compliant chicken broth, and when you do, it’s expensive. Lucky for me, last week we got a (Whole30 compliant) rotisserie chicken that we cut up for chicken salad. I used the carcass to make chicken bone broth (using another recipe in the Whole30 book). So, I was able to make the mashed cauliflower with made-from-scratch chicken broth. WHO THE HELL HAVE I BECOME??!?

For the pork tenderloin topping:

About 1/3 cup chopped walnuts
Mustard powder
Garlic powder
Paprika
S&P

For the cauliflower mash: 

One head cauliflower, cut into florets
2-3 Cloves garlic
Ghee, or clarified butter
Coconut cream
Chicken broth
Chopped parsley

Steam the cauliflower until you can poke a fork in ‘em. Put them in a food processor, or if you’re like me and don’t have one, use a Ninja blender or similar. Make sure it’s big enough to handle all the cauliflower. Add in the ghee (which is just really fun to say) and the coconut cream, then the chicken broth a little at a time until you reach your preferred consistency. Add the parsley last and give it a final spin. I added some extra salt to them, for flavor.

 

Note: This is a re-post from the Tumblr version of this blog. It originally ran on April 13, 2016.