whole30 – NourishingWhole

Whole30 Pork Sausage

I am doing another round of Whole30, this round I am doing with some friends. Well, we are spread all over the place, but we are doing it together. It is really fun to be able to share with the others.

This is not my first Whole30, nor my first January Whole30. One thing that I have noticed with Whole30, is that there are THOUSANDS of recipes. Of those thousands of recipes, most of them call for some random hard to find, unicorn ingredient.

SERIOUSLY!?! Isn’t Whole30 about eating real food, and making real food accessible to busy people? So why does your recipe call for salt mined by virgin unicorn breeders?

This has been something that has been frustrating for me. I find a recipe, it sound delicious, but it calls for some ingredient, that I can not find or is only available at speciality places. I am not one to order or drive hours away to get the one ingredient. So I just don’t make the recipe.

When I am not Whole30-ing, I will play with the recipe, maybe use a similar, yet not compliant ingredient in place of the specialty. One of these experiments lead me to make my own complaint substitute. AND IT IS DELISH!

I really enjoy spicy foods, so this pork sausage has a bit of a kick (I think it could use more, but Mr. Wonderful says it is hot enough). It is great for Italian dishes or with just some sauted zucchini or carrots. Plus, since ground pork is cheaper than pre-made sausages, it is cheaper! So save a little and try this!

Note: I use a mortar and pestle to grind up the fennel seeds. Mr. Wonderful does not like fennel, but if I grind it up, he doesn’t notice it. You can leave it whole if you wish.

Whole30 Pork Sausage

Prep time

5 mins

Cook time

10 mins

Total time

15 mins

In need of a simple sausage recipe for a Whole30 meal? Try this pork sausage.

Ashley Teare: Ashley Teare

Serves: 2 pounds

Ingredients

2 lbs ground pork
Spice Mix:
1 tsp Italian Seasoning (OR ½ tsp basil, ½ tsp oregano)
2 tsp Fennel seeds, crushed
2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp garlic granules
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp Red Pepper Flakes
½ tsp onion powder
½ tsp parsley

Directions

In a small bowl, stir together the spice mix.
In a large mixing bowl sprinkle over the spice mixer and mix until well combined.
Divide into 1 pound portions, use or freeze.
To brown: Over medium heat cook, using the back of a spoon to break up. Cook until no pink remains.

Perfect Hamburgers and Ketchup-Whole 30!

I love hamburgers. To me they are the the epitome of summer; grilling, summer nights outside, enjoying family and friends.

In Texas, summer lasts almost all year round, so having potato salad a burgers for dinner didn’t seem strange on a hot November night (High of 85! It’s definitely not soup weather!)

I try to avoid corn (I have a weakness for buttery popcorn), it is hard to find an affordable ketchup without sugar or corn syrup. I found a ketchup recipe a few years ago, and I liked it but a half a cup of chopped dates seemed like a lot of sugar to me. Plus does ketchup really need to be sugary?

Not at all! Mr. Z loves this ketchup, and it is the perfect topping for a bunless hamburger. I hope you enjoy this simple ketchup recipe, along with this simple Hamburger recipe.

The Ketchup has options to be vegan, onion free, and Low-FODMAP! If you haven’t tried warm ketchup, do it, LIFE CHANGING!

We currently do not have a grill. (Mr. Wonderful is getting a new smoker for Christmas! Shhh!) Plus, setting it up and prepping the charcoal for hamburgers is more work than I want to do, we use my George Forman Grill I got as a high school graduation present! (I am not telling you how long ago that was…) Cooking them this way is fast and we can have grilled burgers all year round.

Perfect Hamburgers and Ketchup-Whole 30!

Prep time

5 mins

Cook time

30 mins

Total time

35 mins

This simple ketchup recipe will replace the traditional store bought sugar and corn syrup filled ones. The accompanying hamburger recipe is perfect for topping with your homemade ketchup. Adding just enough flavoring these hamburger are much better than just a meat patty.

Ashley Teare: Ashley Teare

Recipe type: Whole 30

Cuisine: American

Serves: 4 burgers

Ingredients

For the Ketchup:
5 large dates, pits removed (about 60 g)
6 oz tomato paste
14.5 oz can Fire-Roasted Tomatoes, diced
½ cup Bone Broth (or water for vegan or onion free/FODMAPs)
2 TBSP Apple Cider Vinegar
1 tsp Garlic granules*
1 tsp Onion Powder*
1 tsp salt
½ tsp Allspice
For the Hamburgers:
1 pound ground beef, 80/20
1 TBSP Dijon Mustard
1 TBSP Almond Flour
1 tsp Garlic Granules
½ tsp Onion Powder
Salt and Pepper, to taste

Directions

For Ketchup:
Make sure the pits are removed from the dates, chop or leave whole.
Place all ingredients in a medium saucepan bring to a low boil over medium heat. Reduce heat to low and Simmer for 10 minutes.
Pour the contents, CAREFULLY, into a blender and blend until smooth.
Return the saucepan and simmer for an additional 30 minutes or until desired thickness is achieved.
For Hamburgers:
Place the beef in a large bowl.
Add the Dijon Mustard.
In a separate small bowl, add the remaining spices, mix and then add to the beef.
Mix well and shape into 4 patties, about 3 inches in diameter and about an inch thick.
Grill or pan fry.

Notes

FOR KETCHUP:
VEGAN OPTION: Use water or vegetable broth
FODMAPs: Omit dates and onion powder, replace the garlic with 2 tsp of garlic infused oil in the ketchup. Simmer the ketchup for a minimum of 30 minutes.

Egg Yolks

Last week I shared with you my basic gluten free bread recipe. If you got a chance to try it, you got left with 3 egg yolks! I hate having wasteful recipes. I know that eggs are not that expensive of an item, but 3 yolks is a lot just to toss.

One great use for egg yolks is homemade Mayo. I do not have some amazing recipe. But I have a few I love:

The Kitchn: Immersion Blender Mayo (uses 2 yolks)

Nom Nom Paleo: Mayo (uses 1 yolk)

Our Paleo Life: Lime Mayo (uses a whole egg, but I think next time I bake bread,I am going to try using all three with this technique.)

These three recipes, are similar, but use different processes. I haven’t made mayo in my vitamix, only because I don’t really want to clean it afterwards (I am lazy, and it doesn’t go in the dish washer.)

I know this isn’t my own recipe, but I think everyone should know, or at least attempt to make their own mayo! It just adds something extra to anything you us it for.

90 Days In

April 1st, marks us at a just over 90 days into the this year. While I never came out and posted my goals for the year, I made some. There is the classic lose weight and get healthy, be more organized, and don’t go crazy. But I didn’t want to set myself up for failure with some crazy, lose 60 pound goal. I wanted to actually feel that I was making changes for the best.

This is the year that I get healthy, lose weight, and enjoy life.

Side plank, couldn't do this last year! — Side plank, couldn’t do this last year!

I then broken down this overall goal into small stages, with evaluating at the quarter. The first quarter, January through March, is over and I am not sure how I feel about it.

One thing I wanted to do, was a 90 day Whole30, made it 30 and crashed and burned. I have been meaning to do another 30 day round, but with the move, my mind has been elsewhere. (Have I not given details on our cross country move? I will have to work on that.)

I also wanted to finish Jillian Michaels 90 day Body Revolution. But I also want to run. Doing both, keeping a running training schedule and doing an intense daily workout program, was hard and I needed to listen to by body and not burn myself out.

With running, I have a goal to run 500 miles this year. Right now I am at, 48 miles, which is way under where I should be. (I should be logging 125 miles a quarter, about 40 miles a month, 10 miles a week, and running 4 days a week puts me at needing to run about 2.5 miles a day. To catch up, I neeguarwd to up to 4 miles a run day.)

The other thing that I am doing is trying to follow the recommendations of my doctor, taking the supplements that I need to for my deficiencies and not eating all the foods to which I have intolerance. I am not suppose to eat; gluten, dairy, legumes, corn, and sugar. (Basically, Whole30 is what I am suppose to eat all the time.) My original plan was take one out a quarter, compounding it. Gluten first, followed by dairy. Gluten has gone well, I have not willingly consumed gluten (I might have accidentally eaten some, but never on purpose.) Dairy, is going to be hard.

Overall, quarter one, was good. Workouts happened, and health changes are happening. Looking forward to improving and continuing onward.

Body Revolution Phase One: A Review

Phase one is over, two weeks of workouts 1 & 2 and two weeks of workout 3 & 4. It has been hard, but I am impressed by my results.

I started this program Jan 4th at 214.6 pounds. Sunday Jan 31, I am at 202.6 pounds. 12 pounds!

I have been following the workout schedule, mostly. I try on the Cardio days (Wednesdays and Saturdays) to go for a run. Sometimes the weather doesn’t allow for that, so I will do the video. And when I am extremely sore on Sundays, I do a Yoga video.

The program comes with a food guide which limits you to about 1200 to 1400 calories a day. But I am not following that. I am doing Whole30, and try to stay under 2000 calories. I have been averaging right around 1600-1800. I am not sure how accurate calorie counting is, or how helpful it is. But it has helped me to keep from just binge eating, just because I think I am hungry.

I have been posting on instagram almost daily, follow me: @ashlgetsfit.

I haven’t seen any miraculous changes yet, but I have noticed, my pants not being super tight, a tighter tummy!, and I and feel muscle building in my arms and legs.

I am mostly enjoying the workouts. Sometimes I wish they would just move a step faster between sets. So I sometimes will just move ahead, or take a breather.

Workouts 3 & 4 are a big step up for 1 & 2, so I am nervous about phase two, but it will be good.

January Whole30: Day 26

I can not believe that this January Whole30 is almost over, and I have not been writing about it. Let me give you a brief overview of the things we, as a family, learned so far this month.

Mr. Wonderful learned that changing your diet is HARD!

He was really surprised that at work he was finding himself jealous of people eating non-compliant foods. He told me he never realized how hard it has been for me to make these changes and developed a new appreciation for how hard I try.

Vegetables are CHEAP

I have been really surprised at our last few grocery bills. When I try to keep the bill under $100, I usually don’t make it. But our last 3 trips where right around $80. And this month, was the first month that we didn’t blow out the grocery budget. (I will say that we did go over, but only by $4.74!)

Workouts

Other rounds of Whole30 have just been purely about the food. This time I have been working out too. And I have motivation to go workout and I am finding that I am pushing myself. And the scale, whoa! It is moving! (Yes, I know weighing yourself is breaking a Whole30 rule, but I am doing a challenge with some friends and we have to weigh in weekly.)

Cooking Creativity

This came along as I was either lazy about preparing dinner or because I chose not to get something because of cost. Sweet Potatoes are great bases for almost anything.

Children model our behavior

I think most of us know this already, but it has really been shown to us. Mr. Z turns 3 soon and is pretty good about eating vegetables. He has even told Mr. Wonderful he needs to eat more!

It has been fun and an interesting experiment for our little family. I am glad I decided to do this as a family. I know it will help make the next two month easier.

January Whole30: Day 4

Four days down and 26 more to go. I really find these first two weeks to be the hardest. Last night after dinner, I wanted to eat a giant fluffy chocolate chip cookie. Instead I just ate another serving of dinner, with more gravy, and some grapes.

Grapes, why do they still sell grapes with seeds! Seriously, can we at least label them?

Otherwise this round of Whole30, which is the fourth I have started, is going great. Mr. Wonderful is doing well with it. He was a complete zombie Saturday and Sunday, he took 3 hour naps BOTH DAYS! This morning he was up and ready to start the day while I was still hitting snooze…

As for Mr. Z and his Whole30, that ended Saturday, when he couldn’t keep anything down for hours until we got him some saltines and apple juice. Also, telling a 3 year old, “No, you can’t have Cheerios for breakfast, how about eggs?” Only works until he sees the box of Cheerios… But we don’t have any milk, and so he just eats it dry. At least he is off dairy.

I have been doing daily workouts. Currently I am doing Jillian Michaels’ Body Revolution. It is a 90 day program, with 30 minute daily workouts. (Sunday, is technically a rest day, but I am going to be doing Beachbody’s 21 Day Fix Yoga Fix to have a more active stretching rest day.) I started on the first, but since it was a Friday, I have officially started today which makes my projected finish date, April 2. At the end of the month, I might repeat a week or two of Phase 1, depending on how strong I am feeling.

I am obviously not following the prescribed diet plan, since I am doing Whole30. I am planning on doing Whole30 for the whole 90 day program. I do have a “cheat” meal planned though. I promised Mr. Wonderful that on the 31st we would have homemade macaroni and cheese for dinner. (This is the recipe I will use–>HERE)

Budget Tips:
I told you that I would share budget tips as we progressed through this January Whole30 so here is one that requires some time, work, and freezer space, but yields delicious bone broth.

Save your vegetable scraps and bones!

I keep two bags in the freezer, a bone bag and vegetable bag. Each are a one gallon freezer bag. I put in the scraps throughout the month. When both bags are full, I dump them into my crockpot with some apple cider vinegar and about 10 cups of water. I let it cook for 24 hours and strain away the bones and vegetable remains. Then you can pressure can, or freeze it. It doesn’t take much active time, but you now don’t have to buy broth.

If you choose to freeze it, you can freeze it in different size portions. I like to do a ¼ cup and tablespoon portions.

Broth pucks, 1/4 cup portion of broth frozen.

Whole30 Differences

Now that it is January, we have started our January Whole30, and I told you that it was going to look different for all three of us. Mine will look like a more traditional Whole30, minus my smoothie breakfasts.

Mr. Wonderful works full time and is in school full time. Usually, he eats a bowl of sugary cereal (seriously, I have tried to convince him he does not need to add sugar to Cheerios, a banana is just as good if not better…), a turkey sandwich for lunch and then whatever I made for lunch.

Convincing him to do Whole30 with me, was a little bit of compromise. He will not be doing a true Whole30. Why? Because telling him, you can’t do x, y, z, q, w, r, t, p and f was like I was killing him. So we sat down, and for his “first round” we made a list of compromises.

I will always pack him a lunch, whole30 approved.
Except Wednesday’s, when his company has lunch meeting a feeds the company. (They have a chef, and usually it some fancy dish.)
I will provide him with nuts to take to work for snacks.
He can snack whenever on nuts and fruit
While he is on his grad school interview trip, he will be free to eat “off-plan”
I won’t make him drink green smoothies
He won’t complain

For those that know the Whole30 rules know that this is FAR from a true Whole30. But for him it is a start, and I am hoping that he will see that it is improving his life and will stick with it and maybe do a true Whole30.

For Mr. Z, his experience is going to be very similar to mine, since we will be home mostly and I will be making all of our meals. The only difference is we are potty training… So dates are going to replace his potty treat. He loves them so hopefully he will adjust. We started offering them after Christmas, so it helps.

January Whole30: Week One-Grocery Shopping

I was planning on going grocery shopping Friday morning, but we had done a really good job cleaning out the fridge before we left for vacation. Now that we are home, we need something more than carrots… I want to share my experience, feeding a family of 3, while also doing Whole30 on a budget. Our total food budget for the month is about $450.

Today, I went grocery shopping with the goal of spending less than $100. Here is what I got:

Frozen Mango, Frozen Broccoli Spears, Frozen Asparagus, Ground Turkey (4 pounds), Pork Tenderloin (4 pounds), Ground Beef (93/7, 2.5 pounds), Canned Chicken, Tomato Sauce, Plugra Butter (for ghee), Raisins, Zucchini, Red potatoes (5 pound bag), Carrots (2 pound bag), English Cucumbers, Oranges, Raw Cashews (1 pound), Lettuce (red and green leaf), Parsnips, Cilantro, Kale, Spinach, Garlic, Sweet Potatoes, Lime, Grapes, Mandarins, Guacamole, Eggs (Medium, 5 dozen)

For a grand total of $117.29

Now, there was a few things I didn’t get (bacon), and a couple of things that I could have not gotten, like guacamole and mandarin oranges. I did purchase everything at Winco, and nothing was specifically purchased as organic.

We are excited to start on Friday, well at least me. Mr. Wonderful, is convinced he is going to starve.

January Whole30

In early December after I noticed I was not following rules for my gut issues. I thought, I just need to do another round or 8 of Whole30. Then Mr. Z got this crazy rash all down his back side. After a visit to the doctor, she said it was eczema more than likely caused by an allergy, and sent him off to see an allergist. So I thought, I am going to put ALL 3 of us on Whole30 for the month of January and then I will be doing it mostly indefinitely.

But we are on a strict budget, and with our impending move, money is tight. So I plan to share with you all my crazy budget saving and Whole30 tips. My first is one straight from Whole30.com.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A PERFECT WHOLE30.

Yup, perfection is not the goal.

All the rules are available for free off the website, here is a direct link to the PDF downloads. They are very simple and basic. To me there are only two that require any hard effort are the No sugar, added sugar, and sugar alternatives, and second the no carrageenan, MSG, and sulfites rules.

The reason these two rules are so difficult is that they require you to be educated on all the different derivatives companies use for those forbidden additives. So for me and my Whole30, I use the common additive cheat sheat. If it not listed specifically on the list, I just say no, cause looking it up, is just another thing to add to my giant to do list. But I have two foods that I have bent my rule for.

Kirkland Low Sodium Bacon from Costco, comes in a 4 pack for like 12 bucks, cheapest Whole30 “approved” bacon.

Ingredients: Pork cured with water, salt, sodium phosphate, sodium erythorbate, sodium nitrate.

Both sodium phosphate and erythorbate are not listed on the cheat sheet. So I looked them up, sodium phosphate is a salt, used to control the pH of food. I can let that one slide. Especially as, bacon is not something we will eat daily on Whole30, let alone anytime of the year. The other, sodium erythorbate, is a type of vitamin C. And that is approved. So for me, this is an affordable bacon choice. Bacon is expensive, and is something we do not use regularly. It is a splurge type food for us.

Califia Farms Unsweetened Almond Milk, about $4.50

Ingredients: Almond milk (Water, Almonds). Contains Less Than 2% Of The Following: Vitamin/ Mineral Blend (Calcium Carbonate, Vitamin A, Vitamin E, Vitamin D2, Vitamin B12, Vitamin B2, Zinc), Sunflower Lecithin, Sea Salt, Potassium Citrate, Natural Flavors, Locust Bean Gum, Gellan Gum.

They just recently changed their recipe and no longer have carrageenan in the ingredients!!! The only ingredient that isn’t on the list is Potassium Citrate, which is another form of citric acid, and approved additive. While I normally make my own almond milk, sometimes I forget to soak the nuts and ugg! While this is expensive for milk, half a gallon for almost $5, sometimes it is worth it for the convenience of having milk without making it.

Another thing people get hung the rules versus recommendations.

This is straight off the Whole30 website:

The following are not official rules of the Whole30 program. If you snack, buy non-organic eggs, or eat six servings of fruit in a day, that has no bearing on whether you are still staying true to the Whole30. We make these recommendations because we believe they will maximize your results with the program. These practices are the most likely to lead to health and body composition changes, an improved relationship with food, and overall awesomeness.

In summary, you are free to eat seven meals a day of Rx Bars and sugar-free bacon with a side of non-organic blueberry/strawberry/banana smoothie and you’d still be doing the Whole30 with 100% compliance. However, we would not recommend this.

Rules are rules, and recommendations are well just that. For us, mornings are usually a mad dash, because someone has learned to turn off the alarm clock… So having a hard boiled egg or two and a green smoothie, is usually our breakfast. Whole30 approved, but not recommended. But it works for us, and that is what I feel is more in line with Whole30.

A perfect Whole30 is impossible. And everyone’s Whole30 looks different. Remember that. I will talk later about how different Whole30 is going to look for the 3 of us. I know that was more than just one tip, but I think you’ll for give me.