Day 12

Monday Overview:
Breakfast: 1 cup of tea, 1 cup of watermelon
Lunch: Chicken Vegetable Soup
Dinner: Sweet Potato Fries; Grass Fed Bacon Hamburger with onions and a side salad
Snack: Coffee; Sauteed Cinnamon Walnut Bananas

I was determined to start this week off better than I ended last week. I'm really surprised at how little I feel hungry.  In fact, I don't notice that I'm hungry at all (unless I've not eaten the whole day but it still feels so different than before)!  Previously, by the time I got home, I'd be craving a snack of some sort.  I'd usually reach for a few slices of cheese and some Triscuts.  I love the crunch of grains.  Out of everything I can't consume during this Whole 30, it's the crunch of grains I miss most.  I don't really miss the dairy which is rather surprising since I'm a Wisconsin girl at heart - raised on a steady diet of milk and squeaky cheese curds from the time I was in the womb.  Pretty sure I was eating cheese curds the day I was born.  If you don't know what squeaky cheese curds are check out this picture from http://www.eattoblog.com.   These, my friends, are squeaky cheese curds and they are pretty fantastic.  They exhault all other cheesecurds and there isn't a need to deep fry them to hide inconsistencies.  They are just perfect as they are.

Let's get back on track.  This week was going to be better than the end of last week.  I was able to convince a co-worker (another foods teacher) to go on the whole 30 journey with me.  She has been a great resource to not only share ideas or recipes with but someone I can talk to about the experience.  In any case, she had texted me on Sunday morning to say that she would be making Chicken vegetable soup.  Since I had just frozen some of my butternut squash soup (whole 30 friendly), I asked her if she wanted to swap out some soup so we could each try our recipes.  She brought some in on Monday and it looked (and smelled) so fragrantly delicious - I couldn't wait for lunch. I wish I had taken a picture but I'm sorry - I forgot!

I had happy hour plans with a friend and afterwards we were supposed to go to a public lecture on the Physics of Cooking.  Seems intriguing, right?  In any case, we went to The Republic that is known for it's grass fed beef burgers and cocktail selection.  I knew that I was going to be a little high maintenance when ordering so I was trying to be really nice about it.  No bun, no cheese, raw onions - side of sweet potato fries.  When the food was given to us, it was missing the bacon completely and our fries didn't come out.  I asked for the bacon and after a few minutes, we realized he had forgotten to put in the fry order.  Yeesh.  Who knew that it would be so difficult to get a meat patty with some bacon on it?

Our conversation was engaging and before we knew it, we were running late for the lecture.  Parking was atrocious so we ended up just going home.  Sorry I don't have fun new learning to report on here.

When I got home, I made up a little cup of coffee for myself.  My hubby loves his coffee super dark.  I loved my coffee medium with sugar and cream.  Now, I just prefer light coffee without those additives.

I had recently seen an idea on a blog about frying up some bananas.  I decided that I'd put my coconut oil to good use and how frying up some bananas would go.  I dropped less than a tablespoon of oil into the pan, dripped in a little vanilla and placed the sliced banana pieces in the pan.  Fry for a few minutes on a side then flip.  Spinkle some cinnamon on top of fried bananas and then drop some walnuts on top for the finishing touch!  Yummmm............................  but a little sweet.  A nice way to end the night.

Links to Recipes: