Whole30: Day 29 - Culmination!

Wake Up: 8:30am I had insomnia last night, just laid there and tossed and turned for hours. It's okay, it's just my brain working on a few things. Nothing that won't pass. I'm going to focus these next 15 days on getting better sleep and by that I mean a better bed time. We woke up to lots of snow today and it was magical. Just magical.

Breakfast: 9:45am

Same ol' same ol'. BUT IT'S SO GGOD. The best part about sweet potato hash with 2 eggs and avocado is the staying power it gives me. Even steady mood all the way until lunch. I was not very hungry today. I also had a bit more insight into the difference between being a little down in the dumps because of real issues, versus blood sugar issues. When my blood sugar is low and I get depressed I get irrational, I feel like nobody helps me, and like I have the worlds weight on my shoulders. When I am down for good reasons I can remain a rational human being, I don't blame others and I can think more clearly. Similar feelings, but different consequences. This is good for me to understand.

Lunch: 2:30pm

Like I said, just wasn't very hungry today. Last night I made the Pork Roast from Well Fed 2. I put 6 pounds of grass fed pork in my Crockpot overnight. I made slices all in the pork and put slivers of garlic. I did a rub on the pork of chili powder, red pepper flakes, cumin, and paprika. It turned out pretty good, but I think that I need a new Crockpot, mine runs too hot. I had it on low but it still finished faster than it was supposed to and was drier than I would like. The low setting on mine is not good enough. Any Crockpot recommendations out there?

Alongside the pork I had the rest of my sweet potato hash, some avocado, and a bowl of organic frozen cherries with coconut on top. Very tasty, all of it!

Dinner: 6:40pm

I'm just going to lead with the photo. I'm so proud of the dinner I made tonight. It's a carrot coconut soup topped with roasted pulled pork that is drenched in BBQ sauce....all WHOLE30. BAM! I wanted to run around the kitchen and squeal. I think I am most proud of this dinner over all the other Whole30 ones because it truly is a Whole30 masterpiece. Hahah!

Okay, the reason is because I made the soup without a recipe!! I mean, I didn't FOLLOW a recipe! I looked in my cookbook called "The Best Recipe" but their soup had wine and cream in it.

Tell me that doesn't look good? In the rainbow bowl and everything! It tasted even better!!!

Soup:

Okay, so, on day 29 of Whole30, I made my own soup without a recipe and it is really good. I sautéed 2 onions diced up for like 5-6 minutes, until they started to brown. I added 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar to deglaze the pan and then added in 3 pounds of carrots that I had skinned and sliced thin. Why oh why did I buy 10 pounds of organic carrots from Costco?

I let that sauté for a little while, like 6-7 minutes. Then I added 4 cups of home made Chicken stock (nothing added to it), 1 cup of raw cashews, 1 Tablespoon of salt, and I ground some pepper into it and ground some nutmeg into it too. Do you have a Nutmeg grinder? If you like nutmeg and you use it often, you need a grinder. Every time I use it I get joy from it. Buy the nuts whole at a spice shop, my favorite is Savory Spice Shop and grind away. I brought the soup to a boil, put the lid on, turned it down and let it go for 25 minutes.

Then I put it in my Vitamix and blended the heck out of it, adding along the way an entire can of full fat coconut milk. I put it back on the stove to warm up up after the cold coconut milk. WHA-LAH! I made my own recipe. I was kinda impressed with myself.

Pork Topping:

So the pork was dry and I decided I was going to make a Whole30 BBQ sauce and smother it in that to perk it up. It did just the trick and was really easy to make. This was done in less than 30 minutes and I was doing other stuff at the same time. Chopping an onion and garlic was really the only work it involved, that and running the can opener. Once finished I just dumped all of the BBQ sauce on the pork and mixed it all up with my hands and topped my soup with it. Super happy!

The coolest part about this meal was that as my Whole30 wraps up, this was the perfect culmination. Every single thing in this dinner was made from scratch including the ketchup in the BBQ sauce, and the chicken stock in the soup. It was like my whole experience was brought together in this dish. And it was super tasty too.

Movie:

I went to the movies tonight with Michelle. No need for popcorn, no desire for it, the smell didn't bother me. I didn't bring any snacks since I had just eaten dinner. To think that a few weeks ago I didn't want to go to the movies because I didn't want to face the temptation of the popcorn and now it doesn't phase me. That's pretty darn cool!

Success Story:

The Whole30 emails end tomorrow. That's bumming me out. They wanted me to write my success story. I just think this blog has been one long account of that. Plus, there is more fun to be had in the kitchen. So tomorrow I will write a little something about it all, and then I think I will keep posting for another 15 days or so. After that, I'll reevaluate and go from there.