Whole 30 - Whole Meal Plan - week 2

It's day six as I type this... my breakfast for next week is in the oven, and my meal plan is rolling around my head.  Here's last week's blog as a reference.

The breakfast cups I did last week were both time consuming and only okay.  This week, I did two egg bakes.
Breakfast:
2 spaghetti squash
2.5 pounds compliant sausage
3 peppers
1/2 an onion, or as much as you like.
36 eggs
2 9x13 pyrex pans
oil, salt and pepper for drizzling.

  I prepped two spaghetti squash and started baking them (cut in half, lengthwise, put in pan with a little oil and s&p - bake skin side up, at 375 for about 45-55 minutes, until skin breaks when pushed with a little effort) I bought a 5# pack of Botto spicy sausage at BJ's. I froze two, 1.25 lb packages, and cooked the other two while the squash was cooking..  I removed the casing and seared the sausage off in my cast iron skillet with 3 small, sweet peppers and some onions.  I cooked it all down till there was almost no liquid left in the pan.  Separate it out into 2 9x13 pyrex pans.  Crack 18 eggs into a bowl and whisk them.  The squash came out not long after I finished that (I'm also chasing a toddler and nursing a baby during this time).  I shredded the squash and treated it like my "cheese".  I put it on top of the sausage in the 2 pans evenly.  Then I poured the 18 eggs over one pan.  You might have to sorta convince the eggs to cover everything.  Do the same with the second pan and 18 more eggs.  Bake at 375 for about 30-40 minutes. (just leave the oven on from when you had the squash in)

The end result:

So, that's done - I'll cut them into 14 slices per pan, and assume 2 slices per person, per day = 7 days of breakfast.  They look great and the cuts came out nicely and I tasted a bit and YUMMO!

Lunch:
The fiesta chicken salad was great that we made last week.  Will be making that again.  We also ate a lot of tuna salad.  I made my own mayo (super easy - one cup of light oil, 1 egg, 1/2 a lemon juiced, 1/2 tsp acv, 1/2 tsp sea salt, and 1/2 tsp dried mustard - put in a container and mix with immersion blender)

The tuna salad had half a green pepper, one other smaller pepper of choice, two cans of tuna, and enough mayo to keep it all together.  I added paprika and onion flakes also.  Served it with celery and carrot sticks.  Yum!  Works as a great snack also!

Dinner last week was mostly success.  All the things we made were good.  They were.  But after 2 days of soup for dinner and leftovers of soup for lunch, we were pretty souped out.  This week, we will have some other stews and I'm just planning on Wednesday being leftovers.

Dinner:
Monday - we will have the chicken tikka masala from last week's Wednesday.  It never got made, because I was working and stupid and forgot to give Daniel the instructions to prepare it.  So he ate leftovers and I ate at work - a chicken breast and salad.  I froze the chicken tikka and will cook it Monday.

Tuesday - paleo beef stew - I will omit the red wine and do extra broth, since we aren't even supposed to cook with wine, to my knowledge, on Whole30.

Wednesday - we will have plenty of leftovers from Monday and Tuesday.

Thursday - I did the thai chicken last week and it was uh.maze.ing.  I adjusted it a little, to our tastes.  Here's my take.

Friday - we did the chicken and potatoes for our game night yesterday!  It was a hit!  This week, we will be doing a chicken version of these carnitas!  I'm catering a banquet that night, so I wanted something easy my husband and his friends could easily work out.

Saturday - egg roll in a pan again.  I have leftover cabbage from this week's dinner.  I added a smidge of sesame oil to the sauce, as well as sesame seeds to the final dish as garnish.  I also put a few tablespoons of refined coconut oil in the pan while it cooked, to up the fat content to make it more Whole 30 friendly.

Sunday - paleo power bowl again.

We will keep tuna and chicken salad options on hand as both snacks and lunches.  Celery, carrots, apples, bananas, and nut packs are at our disposal as well.

Struggles:

We seriously wanted pretzels/rice/grains on again, off again.
Daniel craved ice cream and sweets something fierce!
We both had slumps in energy, grumpy/moody sometimes, etc...but, now, on day 6, we seem to be on the            tail end of that.
THE COST - good Lord, it is expensive to eat like this.  We are eating MOSTLY plant based foods here,             and it is NOT cheap.  We are spending about 200 per week in groceries right now...no bueno...it's               worth it...but seriously, no bueno.  You know what's cheap - grains...dairy...beans - stuff not allowed.           The snack I love is pretzels dipped in cream cheese...and now I eat macadamia nuts instead....it's FAR         more costly to eat nutrient dense like this...but the benefits come basically right away...

Benefits:

Much more clear headed (for me anyways).
Not hungry throughout the day - I eat a hearty breakfast, solid lunch, a great dinner and feel full most of the        day!
 Weight loss - you are not supposed to weigh yourself on this diet...just let your body be for 30 days.  Well,        Daniel has certain weight loss goals tied in with opening new Christmas presents he got - board/video            games.  So he's been weighing himself...and I thought, well, if he is, I AM TOO!  So we've collectively          lost 15 pounds in 6 days - while not being hungry, not exercising, and not restricting fats.


So far, I'm nothing but happy with this diet, except the cost of it.  I'm excited to see how week 2 goes!

In health,
Becca H.