Tag: dinner

Fried Bratwurst, Eggs with Potato Brussel Sprout Hash Whole30 Lunch

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Sounds delicious, right? You bet your damn britches it is! Just made this bad boy for lunch and what a joy. It was actually enough for my next meal too, to those who are doing the Whole30 diet.

For those that are looking to get on the Whole30 diet, I would definitely recommend going to Whole30.com where you can see the rules and regulations to make it a success. Meal planning and food prep is a big part of the plan so make sure you have done a good week or so worth of food shopping to make it happen.

Here are some shots of my ingredients for lunch below:

 

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To start, defrost the Bratwurst Chicken Sausages under the faucet if frozen and you are hungry.  If you have some time and are ready to wait around for an hour or so to defrost be my guest.  In a pan on the oven, if you have bacon fat lying around light that up and throw in the eggs and defrosted Bratwurst links.  I then added chopped potatoes and the brussel sprouts whole.  Post cooking you can chop everything up into a hash mix or just eat as is.  Plated version below along with the pan version so you can follow along.

Not sure about you, but I love how the eggs crisp at the bottom!  It is so yummy!  I then sprinkled everything with a little bit of Himalayan salt and the end to give it a little more of a flavor kick.  Great part about this meal is that I made enough to last me through tonight!

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Happy eating!

Take Back Your Mojo via our Whole30 Dinner – Mojo Cubano Marinated Pork

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I have to admit I have never been to Cuba, but I would really love to visit now that it is open to Americans to come in and stay! I hate to drop the Kardashian’s name in it but I saw them visit and Jezebel wrote an article about it here. Too funny!

I am always looking for new Whole30 recipes and now that it is the new year I am more determined to be creative with my meals. It is easy to fall into the monotonous cycle of food, so I knew that when I started Whole30 I would become a better chef. In gardening, good gardeners have the green thumb, in cooking, I have the opposite! LOL! I always seem to burn, or under, or over cook, and just the act of cooking more has made me more present when I cook, despite my two little boys running around the kitchen. I have to say my cooking skills are like a C+ right now, better then the D- I had before.

Onto the recipe, this came out excellent! Normally on the Whole30 diet you cannot drink juice however you can cook with it. This was the first time I cooked with juice and it really added a tangy and bright flavor.

pork

Ingredients

• ¾ cup extra virgin olive oil
• ¼ cup lime juice
• ½ cup orange juice
• 1 teaspoon of lime zest
• 1 teaspoon of orange zest
• 6 garlic cloves, chopped up finely
• 1 ½ cups of cilantro
• 2 tablespoons of oregano
• 2 teaspoons of ground cumin
• 1/6 cup of mint leaves, chopped up finely
• 1 teaspoon of Himalayan pink salt
• 2 tablespoons of black pepper
• 2 pounds of boneless pork shoulder, in one piece

Instructions

STEP 1 – Add the cilantro, mint, garlic, orange juice, zest, lime and orange juice, oregano and cumin to a bigger ziplock bag and add the pork. Mash it around so that all is mixed up and coated nicely. Place in refrigerator and let sit overnight.

orange zest

lime

STEP 2 – Preheat the oven to 425 degree Fahrenheit. Place a wire or cooling rack in your baking pan and take out the pork, leaving the marinade in the bag. Add the salt and pepper to the pork now, and add 4 cups of water to the bottom of the pan, then drop into the oven for 35 minutes. Bring the temperature down to 400 for an hour. If you are fancy and have a meat thermometer, inside temp of the meat should read 170 when ready.

STEP 3 – Pull out and let cool for 40 minutes before slicing, this allows the juices to redistribute to make sure you have the perfect texture! Carve and serve!

My mother used to make pork at home but would use a BBQ sauce which was nice. I will try to find another Whole30 compliant recipe and will share soon!

Bon Apetito!

Whole30 Dinner – Chicken Sausage & Mashed Potatoes

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It has been a long day y’all!  We had a lot of kids activities, including tutoring them with flash cards from Bob’s Books which are great for kids as they start to learn how to read.  We are also digging Netflix recently as they have two really great shows for kids speech and learning: Story Bots & Word Party!

At 4:45pm my husband asks, “What’s for dinner?”. I checked the refridgerator and turns out we had 5 russet potatoes there along with chicken sausage in the freezer.  I decided to make both mashed potatoes & soft potatoes with paprika, garlic powder and salt.  If you like hot spice, I would try red chili flakes or tabasco sauce.  Tessamae also has different Whole30 ranch dressing, along with hot sauce and others that are great for dipping.

As for the compliant Whole30 chicken sausage, I used AppleGate picture below for your reference when you are grocery shopping:

I had to defrost the sausage for 10 minutes or so in the microwave as they were like sausage ice cubes when I pulled them out.  Once they were defrost I put them on a frying pan on medium heat for about 4 minutes per side.  I like my sausage a little crispy brown on the outside.  After they were somewhat cooked I turned off the heat and cut the sausage into little pieces.  I then turned on the heat again in the frying pan and fried each little piece on both sides so they were extra crispy.

For the potatoes, I peeled the 5 small russet potatoes, sliced them into half inches and put them in water on the stove.  It came to a boil, and I kept them on the stove boiling on high for about 20 minutes.

Once the potatoes were soft to the touch via fork, I drained most of the water and put them into a bowl, mashing them up quickly with pepper, salt and garlic powder.

I felt like being fancy, so I didn’t mash all the potatoes and kept some of the sliced potatoes as a side with olive oil, salt and paprika.  Paprika has a little kick and looks pretty when plating so I tested it out.

Here is the sample of the mashed potatoes side, plated with the sliced chicken sausage.

Hope you enjoy this meal as it was pretty solid and didn’t feel like a diet meal whatsoever.  It was definitely a comfort food meal, and with the temperature dropping here at night, it really made me feel warm and comfy!

Let me know how yours comes out and if you had any tweaks to this, feel free to comment below.

Buen provecho!

Whole30 Meal Ideas

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Hey all!  So excited to share some additional recipes with you that are Whole30 friendly today!

As a reminder, on the Whole30 diet, you CANNOT eat the following:

  • Dairy.  This means cheese, cow milk, cream, yogurt, half and half, butter.  Substitute these cravings with sugar free almond and coconut milk!
  • Grains.  No corn, wheat, rye, millet, buckwheat, rice, quinoa.  Substitute these cravings with potatoes, even yams, almond flour, coconut flour and more.
  • Alcohol.  No pops for you, you lush!
  • Legumes.  Lima beans, etc.  Replace with vegetables.
  • Added Sugar.  No sugar whatsoever, not even juice (only to cook with in moderation).
  • No junk food and anything with sulfites.

Some things I cooked over the last week or so include:

  • Eggs sunny side up, with Kale and Uncured Bacon

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  • Italian Chicken – garlic, olives, onions, kale, chicken, tomato sauce (no sugar added), tomato past, basil, oregano, garlic, black pepper, Himalayan saltplated italian chicitalianchic
  • Chicken Leg Roast – organic chicken legs, organic brussel sprouts, potatoes, carrots, whole garlic, olive oil, himalayan salt, combine all at 425 degrees F for an hour.

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Extra tips to be successful on this diet:

  1. Try to get a friend, boyfriend, husband, family member to do it with you!  If someone you are living commits with you it makes it twice as fun and twice a party once you complete your first round!
  2. Remove any food non-compliant, or any temptations.  Unfortunately my kids birthdays were close together and then Thanksgiving happened during my first round, but no worries, I didn’t cheat.  I just made sure all candy and sweets were not in my view, some I completely removed, to make sure I could not just grab it and eat it.  I hid these main sugar sweets in my cabinets so that when the kids wanted them I would give them close the cabinets, out of sight out of mind.
  3. Drink tea and coffee as your dessert.  This sounds odd, but really helped me succeed in a big way!  I used the sugar free coconut almond milk and it was really delicious and heavy almost like a hot chocolate.
  4. Be prepared always with food!  There are both Larabars and Rxbars that are compliant with the Whole30.  I would buy these and keep in your purse, car or pocket, just in case you get hungry.  Fruit and veggies are also nice to have along with a water bottle filled with ice, lime, lemon, orange, cranberries, etc. as a treat for yourself.
  5. I weighed myself.  This is supposed to be a no no, however I wanted to see immediate results which I did.  I lost about 10 pounds in the first few weeks, and if you are addicted to carbs, sugar and dairy, which I was, you will probably be as successful as I was.

In closing, I have never found a diet more successful than this one.  There is really no measuring, tracking points, etc. which gets old and boring fast.  No frozen tasteless meals and your taste buds begin to enjoy fruits, meat, veggies again.  After your first round, you can try another round, but some people opt to do the Paleo diet which I have not tried and plan on continuing through the New Year.

HAPPY EATING, and enjoy your Sunday!

Day 11 & 12 Whole30 Diet – Meals & almost half way there!

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pizzapotReally proud of myself for sticking with this program.  For some reason when trying other diets and counting calories for everything I ate, I never seemed to stick to the plan.  I tried MyFitnessPal.com and never could remember to enter all meals.  On the Whole30 I am accountable for the food I eat as I make it from scratch myself.  I normally hate cooking as I am a working mother and cooking at the end of the long work day in Sales is not my idea of fun!  My 3 boys (counts my husband) are super picky eaters so I typically let my husband fend for himself and then try to get the younger kids to eat as much as possible before bed time.  I then cook the separate Whole30 meal on my own, and it nice to do something healthy for myself.  Before I wasn’t respecting my body as much as I am now.

After children and being in my 30’s, I always thought that I would just naturally be as thin as I was in my 20’s, however it is far from the case!  My metabolism slowed down tremendously, especially post 35, and this year being 36 I knew I needed to do a complete lifestyle change with food.  I few older ladies I know that were super skinny were on the Paleo Diet which is a little similar to the Whole30.  Basically limits your sugar and carb intake too.  I thought to myself ‘how could I ever not eat carbs’ but here I am no carb for almost two full weeks now.  My husband definitely sees the difference which I like.  For now I plan on sticking with it until the end of the 30 days, and hopefully after that I will never go back to carbs again.  A thinner woman I know only does smoothies during the day that she makes herself, no carbs, no sugar.  It is a sacrifice, but I think worth feeling more energetic and healthy as a whole as we all grow older.

Onto my meals today, I was on my phone emailing for work this morning and by the time I looked up it was 9am!  I got in the shower and walked to work per usual, but didn’t have a chance to cook the eggs I normally cook.  Instead I had some grapes in the refridgerator, along with the chicken soup and coconut biscuits and walked quickly to work.  I was more hungry throughout the day without those eggs, so I need to make sure that I do eat before I leave now onwards.  I ended up going grocery shopping after and saw a great dinner recipe that I modified to make it my own.  They are called Pizza Potatoes and they were delicious!

First I cut a white russet potato in 4 pieces and put them in the microwave for 5 minutes.  They were hot after and I carved out little holes to place the pizza ingredients in.  After I put a little olive oil in a 12×9 pan and put the four pieces of partially hallowed out potato on it.

Second I cut a tomato and mushrooms up, placing them on the frying pan with a little olive oil and Himalayan salt since regular iodized salt is off limits.  Threw a little dash of pepper in it and set it to the side.  I bought some organic sugar free tomato sauce, opened it up and put some on the potatoes.  Then I topped it with the tomato mushroom mix and pepperoni, and threw it in the oven for 30 minutes at 400 degrees.   After I topped it with chives and it was perfect.  It was so delicious and I am so happy I tried it!  Final product below:

 

This would be a stellar meal to entertain with friends and could really make them smile!  HAPPY EATING!