MW30 Day 4

Breakfast - 3 ghee-fried eggs with Tabasco, 1/2 avocado, and lots of the roasted vegetables from the other night's dinner

Lunch - Leftover salad from last night's dinner with the added roasted cauliflower. I wasn't sure if I would eat the whole cauliflower, because that seems like a lot, but I did. It was delicious!

Dinner - I had another salad. Kale with roasted butternut squash, fresh grape tomatoes, toasted walnuts, a hard boiled egg, and olives. I made more tahini dressing because it was so good!

MW30 Day3

Breakfast - 3 ghee-fried eggs with Tabasco, 1/2 avocado, the last of the technically non-compliant potato and sweet potato wedges from last week that I don't want to go to waste.

Lunch - Black eyed pea stew from New Years Day, 1/2 avocado, 2 hard boiled eggs, and a handful of almonds.

Dinner - Great salad with a lemon-garlic-tahini dressing! Massaged kale with olive oil and s&p, roasted red pepper from yesterday's dinner, carrot strips, sugar snap peas, olives, toasted walnuts
Putting everything together took quite a while, so I should really try to prep the salads ahead of time. Everyone else was eating pizza while I was still assembling my dinner. I also started roasting a whole cauliflower before E went for the pizza, but it wasn't done in time, so I decided that it was for tomorrow.

Dressing -3 Tbsp. tahini, ~1-2 Tbsp. olive oil, juice of one lemon, 3 garlic cloves, salt, pepper - put everything in a tall bowl and blended with the stick blender

MW30 Day 2

Day 2 food:
Breakfast - 3 ghee-fried eggs with Tabasco, 1/2 avocado, leftover collard greens from last night, technically non-compliant potato and sweet potato wedges from last week that I don't want to go to waste. Roland ate several of my sweet potatoes.

I have been super full so far, but I still have a ways to go to lunch.

Lunch - leftover egg salad from yesterday, romaine lettuce, 1/2 avocado, sugar snap peas, 7 olives, and tomato soup

Dinner - A huge plateful of roast vegetables - potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, Brussels sprouts, onions, red pepper, and zucchini.

I started brushing my teeth with the kids, so I'm less likely to eat more when I finish putting them to bed.

Modified Whole 30

I need to get back to eating better, but the vegetarian version I did the last time didn't end well for me. I'm opting to eat beans/legumes for protein in addition to the many eggs I plan to eat. I will be tracking what I eat again, as it's helpful for me and others in the future. Starting weight is 165.2.

Day 1
Breakfast - 3 eggs, 1/2 avocado, 1med-large sweet potato
Snack- pomegranate seeds
Lunch - egg salad (probably 2-3 eggs worth) over romaine lettuce, 7 olives, 1/2 carrot, 1/2 avocado, handful of sugar snap peas, and some tomato soup.
Snack - stalk of celery
Dinner - black eyed peas with collard greens. I took the recipe for the beans from the Rancho Gordo Bean email but is also available here. It was ok, but only me and the toddler ate it. Now I have a lot left for the week.

I felt pretty good today, I felt a little hungry after dinner but I didn't eat anything, so off to a good start, I guess.

Raw, Vegan, Gluten free Carrot Cake

I have been craving carrot cake recently and decided that would be what I would make for my birthday cake. Yes, I make my own birthday cake.
Since no one else in my house generally eats these things, I wanted to bring it to work. There are a couple folks who follow gluten-free and dairy-free diets, so I wanted to make a GF, DF cake.

I found a carrot cake recipe from Paleo Running Momma, that looked pretty good, but I just couldn't bring myself to make it. It seemed a bit involved and there were a couple ingredients I needed to get from the store. I made the frosting though and put it in the freezer until I made the cake part. After a couple weeks, Dana from Minimalist Baker posted a raw carrot cake. I had all the ingredients, so I decided to switch gears and make that instead.

It turned out pretty well. My food processor is pretty small, so I had to make everything in several batches. This made things take quite a bit longer. I don't think I will make this cake again, because of the food processor issue, and it's fairly dense, but it is tasty. The frosting is very "coconutty" and not very "cream-cheesy." I might try to use tofutti/Trader Joes non-dairy cream cheese if I were ever to try a non-dairy "cream cheese" frosting again.

Rhubarb sour cream muffins

I made these rhubarb muffins with gifted-from-the-neighbor rhubarb:
https://www.geniuskitchen.com/recipe/sour-cream-rhubarb-muffins-27861

They were so good! Sweet and tart and very moist.

Recently made

• Creamed corn-https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/11675-creamed-corn?action=click&module=Global%20Search%20Recipe%20Card&pgType=search&rank=1

I wasn’t too excited about this version. It wasn’t super creamy like my mom made from the can. Could be the corn was a little dehydrated. Either way, I’ll probably not be making this again.

• Cabbage in a mild curry sauce - https://www.thekitchn.com/cabbage-in-mild-yogurt-and-mus-157670

I used this with some red cabbage I needed to use up. I thought it was pretty tasty. Other family members didn’t think similarly.

• Corn fritters - https://smittenkitchen.com/2018/07/corn-fritters/

I really liked these too. R liked it a lot, so the leftovers were great for his daycare lunches.

• Chickpea blondies- https://www.ambitiouskitchen.com/flourless-chocolate-chip-chickpea-blondies-with-sea-salt-vegan-gluten-free-healthy/

I made these for some friends at work who are gluten free. I thought they turned out pretty good, but my food processor didn’t get all of the chickpeas so there were some chunks. I’ll have to use the blender next time.

• Butternut squash linguine - https://cookieandkate.com/2014/creamy-vegan-butternut-squash-linguine-with-fried-sage/

This was ok, but I wouldn’t make it again. It was more like butternut squash bisque on Pasta.

• Vanilla buttercream frosting - https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/vanilla-buttercream/

I used this to frost a chocolate cake for E’s birthday. It was great!

• Vegetarian shepherds/cottage pie - https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1019221-vegetarian-shepherds-pie

This was a bit of work, but I really liked it and thought it turned out great!

• Chocolate ice cream - https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/56803/very-chocolate-ice-cream/

I thought this turned out pretty good!

• Peanut stew - https://thegirlonbloor.com/slow-cooker-african-inspired-peanut-stew/

I used the instant Pot  to make this, but it was so long ago now, I can’t remember how it tasted...I’ll have to make it again!