Meal plan, pre-Whole 30 edition

This is my last week of "normal" eating before I start the whole 30 on Monday! Eek/yay? I don't know how I feel. For Adam's sake I'm rotating in a few of our bean-based favorites since I'm not planning to make them super often in the next month (no beans or legumes allowed!). Here's my meal plan, with notes on how I would adapt to fit W30 rules.

Tonight: bean and cheese burritos. I cooked pinto beans in the Instant Pot yesterday, and there's rice in there now on a timer to be ready when we get home. We'll also add roasted veg since I roasted up a bunch over the weekend. Both rice and beans (and flour tortillas and cheese and sour cream) are out for the whole 30, so if Adam and Josie are having a meal like this I would eat the roasted veg, some sort of cooked ground meat with taco-ish seasonings, and I'd have the whole thing on a pile of greens instead of wrapped in a tortilla. 

Tuesday: green veggie pancakes (frozen from last week), black bean chili from the freezer. I can't have either of those things (pancakes are a no even if made with compliant ingredients) so I'd be eating something entirely different. I plan to make and freeze some pulled chicken and beef burger patties and have sausages available for situations like this. We can all share a side salad or other vegetable.

Wednesday: five spice cabbage and tofu. Adam and Josie would eat the tofu, I'd eat meat instead.

Thursday: lamb chops from the freezer, mystery veg from our CSA, which we get on Wednesday. Totally compliant meal!

Friday: Book club pot luck! My book club group is coming over on Friday night. I'm making a big pot of soup (minestrone? butternut squash? I'm not sure yet) and people are bringing salad, bread, cheese, wine, and some sort of dessert. If I had to guess, none of it will be Whole30 compliant (maybe the salad? and maybe my soup?) but if I were on W30 on Friday I'd make sure my soup was compliant and I'd make deviled eggs, too. 

This has been an interesting exercise, honestly. I might go back to some of my previous meal plans and do the same thing.

Meal plan, or what we ate this past week.

SundayI made short ribs braised in red wine and tomatoes (plus onion, bay leaf and lemon peel), and Mark Bittman's ricotta gnocchi. My parents were supposed to come down to visit and it was their wedding anniversary, hence the luxurious meal, but my mom woke up with a cold so we toasted them in their absence instead!



Monday: I made those swiss chard pancakes, plus carrot salad and yogurt sauce and fried eggs. Tasty!
Tuesday: tuna melts! Thanks, Adam.
Wednesday: that Melissa Clark roasted shrimp and broccoli situation, but a huge batch of it. I have the last leftovers for lunch today.
Thursday: Bolognese out of the freezer over cauliflower "rice" and garlicky sauteed greens.
Friday: takeout. Either Tasty Burger or Tasty Momo; Adam has coworkers coming over to play D&D and it'll depend what the group is in the mood for.

This coming week will be my last "regular" week for a while. I'm starting a Whole 30 on Monday, February 1st. It's definitely going to be an adjustment, but I'm excited to try it. Essentially I'll be eating nothing but meat and vegetables, with occasional fruit, nuts, and seeds.... for 30 days. No dairy, alcohol, grains of any kind, beans or legumes, no MSG, no sugar (not even natural sugars), no carageenan as filler, no soy (so no tofu, no soy sauce no miso). It's going to be an interesting month. The point of the challenge is to change your relationship with food; it's a strict elimination diet to see if you are more sensitive than you think to certain food groups. After 30 days you reintroduce things a little at a time to see how they make you feel. I don't know what to expect, but I am hoping to break my pregnancy/breastfeeding induced sugar habit, and I'd like to curb some of the insomnia I've been dealing with lately. I've seen a little weight creep since  starting my new (100% desk) job, too, even though I'm walking 3 miles to get there in the morning.

Here are some things we ate recently

Mark Bittman's Salmon Burgers with roasted cauliflower. Tasty, and not too pricey because you're grinding it up anyway so you can buy cheap pieces of salmon instead of nice filets.



Cranberry curd tart! So amazing! The crust is made of hazelnuts!



My mom made this ham, swiss and pear strata for Christmas Day. It was EXCELLENT despite not being particularly pretty.



Christmas Eve was manicotti. I think Josie liked them.



She also apparently likes hot sauce on her faux-gogi.



Roasted tofu and vegetable (delicata squash and eggplant) banh mi sandwiches, plus avocado and cucumber salad, pickled carrot and daikon radish, cilantro.



A couple of quiches (mushroom, artichoke, goat cheese and tomato, broccoli, cheddar) plus two chocolate babkas for our New Year's Day brunch.



Dave Lieberman's Moroccan Spiced Chickpea Soup, a perennial favorite here. Josie learned to dip bread in soup!



Chicken with celery seed and salt from Zahav, roasted fennel and shallot, sweet potato. Not a pretty picture, but good. Tahini sauce to go with.



Leftover chicken from above reheated in its cooking juices, plus cukes and rice and various pickles, made into lettuce wraps. Romaine isn't the best choice but it is what we had that day.



Moules frites and champagne, because it was the only white wine we had in the house, so I had to open it to cook the mussels anyway. Herbed mayo for dipping the fries.



Oatmeal. Josie is learning how to use a "puun! puun! puun!"



And just a day or two ago, swiss chard pancakes, carrot salad and #putaneggonit.

Here are some things that happened recently.

First, Josie helped me make muffins! She likes stirring, does not like me helping her stir.



We learned that Josie enjoys putting things on her head.



And making other people put things on their own heads.



Like, rather a lot.



It was Christmas! I stayed up till 10:30 finishing a giant stuffed sea monster for Josie.



She was underwhelmed.



Though as of this morning, Nessie is popular.



Also popular: the megabloks Josie was given by the women at Grampy's office. Thanks, Community Pharmacies!



On our tiny Christmas tree, Josie likes pointing out "baby!", an ornament with a baby picture of our nephew Eliot, who is now five!



New Year's Day brunch involved rather a lot of kids this year, including Darth Veda.



Josie got her first hair cut, sob.



And learned to bowl. Thanks to our neighbor Nick for teaching her how to use the kiddie ramp thingy.



Over this weekend, we learned that Josie still doesn't like snow. Better get used to it, though, kid, there's more coming in a couple of days!