I haven’t written a recent eats post since completing Whole30 and I have so much good stuff to share with you today!
But first…
They have this “morning cuddle party” ritual and it kind of melts my heart. Could these pups be more rotten? And you’ve gotta love the creeper pug.
Okay, let’s get to the food.
I’ve kept breakfast pretty similar. Scrambled eggs, sweet potatoes with almond butter, coffee.
Chia pudding with berries, bananas, coconut, cacao and almond butter.
Keeping breakfast pretty much the same isn’t because I’m trying to stick to Whole30, I’m just a creature of habit when it comes to breakfast and once I find something I like, I stay stuck on it. How many green smoothie bowl pictures have you seen here?
I’m sure I’ll eventually make my way back to some of my old standbys like green smoothies, oats and overnight oats but for now I’m enjoying having some new options in the rotation!
Lunch out at 300 East. I had a salad with roasted sweet potatoes and butternut squash, pumpkin seeds, avocado and chicken.
Lunch at home, tuna salad in romaine cups. I mixed together one can of tuna, half of an avocado mashed, dried cranberries, diced apple and chopped pistachios and seasoned it with lemon pepper and kosher salt.
Soup and salad. I made a big pot of soup loosely based on this recipe. For this batch I sauteed onions, ginger and garlic and then added in a spoonful of turmeric and kept sauteeing a minute or two until fragrant. Then added one large diced sweet potato, three or four diced carrots and about two cups of cubed butternut squash. I poured in chicken stock until it covered the potato mixture and then let it simmer covered for about 30 minutes until everything was soft. Puree in Vitamix and enjoy! I LOVE THIS SOUP! It’s the most warming, comforting winter soup with all the ginger. This was my first time adding turmeric and it was a nice extra.
Soup and salad again. Salads this week have been spinach, pears, avocado, pistachios, dried cranberries and deli chicken. Deli chicken/turkey was one of the things I was excited to add back because of the convenience of putting it on my salads as a protein option.
Lots of good dinner ideas for you. This was a baked chicken with roasted brussels sprouts and mushrooms and herb roasted potatoes…with ketchup! I missed ketchup on Whole30!
Spicy turkey and mushroom spaghetti sauce over broccoli slaw mix from Trader Joe’s. I was a little tired of zoodles and read somewhere that TJ’s broccoli slaw is a good veggie base for sauces and it was. We loved this! The broccoli slaw is a little firmer than zoodles and holds up well to a thick sauce. I just placed it in a hot skillet with about a half cup of water and cooked it for 3-4 minutes or until it just started to soften.
We have the best salads at the cafe at the studio. I had my first legume test there last week. Remix salad (spinach, pumpkin seeds, avocado, tomatoes, red cabbage, cucumber, sprouts) topped with our housemade sweet potato chickpea cake and vegan coconut milk ranch. So good. I really missed our veggie burgers. They are the best!
Filet with a marsala, prosciutto, mushroom and onion sauce, roasted asparagus and roasted carrots and parsnips. The marsala sauce was off-plan because of a) the marsala wine and b) I used butter in the sauce.
Date night at Block and Grinder. I had the pork belly which was to die for. It was served over some sort of pea, brussel sprout and apple slaw mixture. I’m certain several things about this dish were non-Whole 30 friendly and it was great not to have to direct the server on what I could and couldn’t have. 🙂
This picture is a good representation of how dinner happens at our house every night. Turn oven on, prep veggies for roasting, season a protein, sear protein, finish everything in the oven together. We are also incapable of having leftover roasted veggies. I swear it’s like we are on a “no vegetable left behind” mission. No matter how much I roast, we finish it off.
This was roasted brussels, prosciutto, cherry tomatoes and mushrooms with “perfect chicken breasts.”
This is my favorite dinner creation of this recap. Seared cod with a shallot, almond and date vinaigrette over braised red kale and mashed sweet potatoes. I got the idea for the date vinaigrette from Blue Apron. I modified my vinaigrette by sauteeing the shallots first because I just do not like raw anything oniony. Highly recommend this combo!
This was a simple slow cooker dinner of a twist on my Chicken Tortilla Soup minus the beans. I did add corn to the soup though.
And finally, I did do some peanut butter this week in the form of ants on a log as a snack and…I missed almond butter! My fiance has been teasing me and calling me “almond butter runner” and asking me what I’m going to do about my identity crisis. Haha.
So here’s what I’ve reintroduced so far:
– Wine
– Beans, peas, legumes (peanut butter falls in this category)
– Dairy in form of butter only
– Added sugars (ketchup, deli chicken, sauces, nut butters, etc)
– Corn
Coming next:
– Non-gluten grains (quinoa, rice, etc)
– Some sort of cheese like goat or feta and then greek yogurt
– Gluten (will be last)
My overall reintroduction philosophy has been one food at a time and gradual. We’re going on vacation at the end of this month so I want to have everything tested/reintroduced before then so that I can not have to worry about following any sort of special diet (hopefully) while we’re away. I have some ideas of what my eye trigger might be but too early to post anything here. Acne-wise, my skin has really cleared up in the last 10 days or so (this happened post-Whole30). I’m THRILLED about this but keeping fingers crossed that it’s not going to be dairy or gluten-triggered. We shall see.
What is your favorite type of nut butter?
Those who have completed Whole30, what did you reintroduce first?
Love the post, you always give me some awesome meal ideas so thank you! Do you remember exactly how you made the marsala wine sauce for the filets? It looks divine and I am searching for something similar for a valentines day dinner this weekend!
Thanks 🙂
silly observation but you roast on foil ? i recently basically ruined a cookie sheet because i thought it would be good to put some balsamic on my asparagus when i roasted. yea good for flavor not good for burnt on pan ! for some reason i always thought you had to roast on the pan or you would get mushy veggies ? Do you just roast with evoo ? just wondering. i also have a problem leaving a roasted veggie behind !
I do! Almost always. It makes the cleanup so much easier! Nothing gets mushy at all. I roast shiny side down with EVOO and salt.
Jen, I’ve loved following along your Whole 30 journey! You look great and you’ve given me some awesome ideas in general for meals and snacks.
I attempted a Whole 30 a few years ago but I wasn’t fully in the mind set and got stuck too much on doing a perfect whole 30, therefore I only lasted until day 24. I remember I was at work (I worked at a pita pit at the time in college!) and I just quit and ran next door to get fro-yo because the craving was REAL! lol…Reading through all of your posts make me want to try it again. I think I would be able to get more creative in the kitchen this time around. Nut butter I’ve been LOVING lately: Sunbutter! It’s delish.
Thanks so much Rachel! I can’t imagine doing Whole30 as a college student…and being surrounded by pitas. Haha! I just had sunflower seed butter and apples for a snack! 🙂
I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you that dairy is not the cause of your acne! It totally is for me (as well as soy I think), so I’ve gone 90% dairy-free which limits my break-outs to almost nothing…I have dreams about pizza sometimes. 🙂
you and me both! i will be so sad…but better to know triggers, right?
Dairy is my break-out trigger too — boo. I first introduced dairy after my first whole30 and was SO SICK. I couldn’t believe what it did to me – I had no idea it was even an issue before that. But now whenever I eat it, minus grassfed butter, I break out and get really bloated.
We just finished Whole30 yesterday! We really enjoyed it and found it oddly satisfying, as far as food goes. We felt empowered by being able to eat high quality meals with all of the awesome proteins and veggies! Anyway, we had been craving pizza like crazy, so we broke the reintroduction recommendations and had it for lunch! It was crazy, we (my hubby and I) both are one piece and said, that was good but not what we remembered. So, here is to Whole30 round 2 starting next Monday!
A lot of people have similar experiences with reintroduction. Pretty incredible how much impact 30 days of really clean eating can have on our habits!
How do you make your breakfast sweet potatoes? I’m on Day 28 of my Whole30 and have been doing green smoothies nearly every morning (I know, not strictly encouraged, but…) I want to find a few more healthy breakfast options for after I finish, those sound interesting!
It’s basically pureed baked sweet potato and banana. You can mix in other things like pumpkin, raisins, chia seeds, and cinnamon to make it a little more interesting.
I know from my reintroduction gluten and dairy are big triggers. I have a friend who hasn’t tried this yet but agrees gluten or fairy trigger acne.
I always love your food recaps. The salads at your studio look fantastic! And the slaw is a great idea.
Re. the dairy, I find I do better with goat and sheep than I do cow (I reintroduced mine separately). Just a thought 🙂
Good to know. That’s a good idea! Thanks!
Right now, my favorite nut butter is cashew butter! I’m hooked and put it on everything. I’m such a creature of habit too…especially for breakfast.
I love cashew butter! The kind I buy almost tastes sweet even though there isn’t any sugar.
At least wine and peanut butter is not the trigger?
Not for my skin at least!
I just got some of that broccoli slaw this week and didn’t think to use it as a pasta base! Great idea. I actually have been on a huge almond butter kick lately too, just because I wanted to switch it up. Every nut butter is amazing in my book 🙂
I’m with you on the nut butter! I’ve yet to try one I didn’t like.
That tuna salad recipe looks great! Your doing an awesome job with the re-introduction phase. I feel like that would be the hardest part, to refrain from eating everything you missed during whole 30. Keep it up!
Thanks so much! It is a challenge but I figure after going 30 days I can wait a little longer on some things!
I cannot find a more recent post about if you found what was your dermatitis trigger food? Did you ever narrow it down?