Whole30 – Day 27

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I traveled from the US to the Eastern Bloc with my meals today.

Breakfast

My favorite green smoothie, minus the banana.

Lunch

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More heirloom tomatoes, this time with leftover Mexican Beef from last week + Saturn peaches + scallions + citrus salt. Simple, summery and very, very yum.

Dinner

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Eastern Bloc night. I made the ćevapčići (beef & lamb skinless sausages) from The Clothes Make The Girl, along with her recipe for Ajvar (red pepper relish) and a side of sauteed green beans. Dinner was pretty good, but a bit bland.

Snack

1 ounce sea salt dusted almonds.

The

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Whole30 – Day 26

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No chicken in sight today.

Breakfast

My favorite green smoothie, minus the banana.

Lunch

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I wasn’t very hungry, but had some tomatoes that needed to be eaten. Made a salad of sliced heirloom tomatoes with a nectarine and citrus salt. Delicious.

Snack

Hungry happened at about 4 today, so I had some sea salt dusted almonds.

Dinner

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Snack 2

Dried mixed prunes, apple, peach and pear.

Rogan Josh (from The Clothes Make The Girl) over sautéed kale with fresh cucumber. *beefy drool*

The

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The Weekly Dozen – Week 5

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Week 5 of the ‘Weekly Dozen’ challenge. The gist is to share your 12 favorite pics per week – in an effort to make one more mindful about taking and using the camera daily.

Most of these pics were taken while meandering around Roosevelt Island this past weekend.

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Roosevelt Memorial

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Roosevelt Memorial 2

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The UN Building

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Looking across at Long Island City

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Pretty shadows

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Abandoned small pox hospital 1

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From the tram over to the Island

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From the tram ride over to the island

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Under the Queensboro Bridge

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Small pox hospital 2

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Small pox hospital 3

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4th Ave/9th St subway bridge

Whole30 – Day 25

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I ate a lot of chicken and chicken-related products today.

Breakfast

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Grabbed a naked breakfast sandwich (chicken, egg & cheese – minus the roll and cheese) from the deli down the road.

Post Breakfast Snack

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2 hard boiled eggs from a pharmacy snack center.

Linner

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1/2 rotisserie chicken with steamed garlic spinach from a delivery place.

The

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Whole30 – Day 24

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Snacks, mini meals and a movie.

Breakfast

My favorite green smoothie, minus the banana.

Lunch

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You could call it a weekend lunch rut, or a healthy obsession: Hu Kitchen grass fed/grass finished meatballs again (hey, I limited myself to 4 this time – I’m counting this as progress) and a bigass coffee with coconut milk.

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I also got some crazy good looking raw beet/carrot/kohlrabi/kale/parsley/lemon salad.

For future reference: the meatballs contain beef, tomato sauce, shallot, eggs, garlic, celery, carrot, onion, basil, parsley, almond, sea salt, crushed red pepper & black pepper.

Dinner

Dinner happened in snack stations. Luckily, I happen to live in a city where eating food from the deli counter is a “thing.”

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Before the movie (World’s End, which was hilarious) – cold ratatouille with grilled chicken from a gourmet market.

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After the movie (where I sat sipping my smuggled bottle of water while crunchings and munchings happened all around me) – Aloo Mattar (cauliflower & peas) with roast chicken thighs from Whole Foods. And a kombucha.

The

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Spicy Crab Cakes with Sriracha Aioli & Pineapple Kiwi Salsa (paleo, Whole30)

This not your momma’s polite little garden party crab cake. This crab cakes sits legs splayed in a skirt, puts its cigarette out in your sweet tea, and gives you a snarl.

A note here on making aioli. For the love of all things holy, follow the instructions. Your instructions using a whisk? Break that bad boy out. Found instructions for a Vitamix? Use that. I am aioli-retarded and can’t seem to make it – ever – to save my life. Why? Because I don’t listen. I started out this meal’s mayo sojurn with an immersion blender using a recipe written for a whisk-using over-achiever – and made a runny, kinda broken mess. I then Googled ways to fix the mess – and ended up wasting another 2 eggs in the process. I threw the whole batch out, grabbed my Vitamix, Googled Vitamix-specific instructions, and went to town. I waited until the noise of the aioli whipping around the blender changed – until it sounded like slaps instead of whirring madness – and I still thought I’d screwed something up – until I let the mayo sit and it firmed up on its own. So, take it from me: calm the crap down. Calm down and follow directions and your aioli will turn out just fine. No need to use half a bottle of grapeseed oil & over half a dozen eggs in the process.

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Spicy Crab Cakes with Sriracha Aioli & Pineapple Kiwi Salsa (paleo, Whole30)

8 ounces crab (lump or claw, canned is perfect here)
2 tsp. brown mustard (I use Gulden’s spicy)
1/4 c. paleo aioli
2 Tbsp. coconut flour
1.5 tsp. chipotle powder
1 scallion
1 tsp. sea salt
1/4 tsp. white pepper

Drain the crab and pick through for errant shells. Drop into a large bowl. Slice the scallions thinly and add to the bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients and stir to combine.

Form into patties and place on a parchment-lined plate. Chill 30 minutes to let firm up a bit.

While your patties are chilling, make the salsa.

1 kiwi
1/4 pineapple
1 shallot
2 Tbsp. cilantro
1/2 jalapeno, seeded

Scoop the kiwi out of its fuzzy jacket and chop finely. Chop the pineapple finely. Dice the shallot. Chop the cilantro. Dice the jalapeno. Combine all in a small bowl and store in the fridge until dinner is ready – you want this to sit about half an hour, so the flavors have a chance to mingle.

While everything else is chilling, take about a 1/4 of a cup aioli and add a teaspoon or two of Whole30 sriracha to make your sauce. Set aside in a small dish.

When it’s time to cook the patties, heat 1-2 Tbsp. coconut oil over medium heat. Add the patties and cook about 4 minutes per side, or until nicely browned.

Serve topped with the salsa and aioli.

Serves 2 for dinner.

Whole30 – Day 23

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Tonight’s dinner could have been a disaster, but by deciding I wasn’t going to let it be, it wasn’t.

Breakfast

My favorite green smoothie, minus the banana.

Lunch

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Chicken breast with nectarine, heirloom tomatoes and scallion. Tasty.

Snack

1 ounce sea salt almonds.

Dinner

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Went out for BBQ, and the only thing on the menu that was Whole30 compliant is the coriander pork shoulder. So, half a pound of pork it was. And it was good.

Staying Up Way Too Late Watching Torchwood Snack

1 cup cherries, 1/2 cup pineapple.

The

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Whole30 – Day 22

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Mmmmmmm……. beeeffff.

Breakfast

My favorite green smoothie, minus the banana.

Lunch

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Leftover lamb samosa filling and green beans from Tuesday’s dinner. Still delicious.

3 PM Slump Snack

1 ounce sea salt almonds.

Dinner

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Slow Cooked Mexican Beef from Nom Nom Paleo with sautéed broccolini and cauliflower “tortillas”. So much yum.

The

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Whole30 – Day 21

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Another successful, easy day.

Breakfast

My favorite green smoothie, minus the banana.

Lunch

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4 ounces leftover roast pork from Whole Foods with 1/2 cup eggplant (1.5 c. raw) sauteed in a Tablespoon or two coconut oil – finished off with a squeeze fresh lemon juice and a good helping of salt. Good, but a little oil-logged and not quite as crispy as I had envisioned. More lemon would have helped.

Dinner

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Grass fed top round (which is a bit tough when eaten like a steak), half a container of heirloom tomatoes sprinkled with salt & Japanese 7-spice, and a sautéed orange bell pepper. Satisfying, albeit a touch chewy. But those tomatoes … those tomatoes were the proverbial bomb.

The

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Whole30 – Day 20

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Mmmmmm….. Lamby tacos.

Breakfast

My favorite green smoothie, minus the banana.

Lunch

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Seared chicken thighs & pineapple + heirloom cherry tomatoes, toasted pecans and the rest of that herb sauce from last week’s salmon. Delicious.

Dinner

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Snack

1 ounce sea salt almonds.

Deconstructed Samosas from Nom Nom Paleo with butter head lettuce wraps and broiled green beans. Delicious and fun to eat.

The

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