Girl time and day 4 and 5

My week hasn't gone exactly planned with the hubby being off work but I'm still eating right, just not getting my workouts in like I planned. I'm realizing that I have to workout first thing in the morning or else I won't fit it in. Now I just need to make myself do it ;)

Quick recap of what I ate yesterday Day 4:

Breakfast: Leftover orange ginger roast

Lunch: Fruit smoothie and some almonds

Dinner: Spaghetti squash with a meat sauce (quick and easy meal)

Exercise: None :(

Had a killer headache today, not sure if it's part of the detox or no caffeine!?

Today started off a little rocky when we overslept but I got a lot of sewing done....leggings and infinity scarves oh my :) And I made my favorite whole 30 breakfast, don't tell D (it's her fave too).

Day 5

Breakfast: Banana pancakes, avo and chicken apple sausage

Lunch: Sauteed spaghetti squash, chicken, bacon, green beans and garlic (Oh em DELICIOUS!!!)

Dinner: Chipotle Salad, avo, salsa, and steak

When your bestie texts you that she can come get you in 20 minutes to go have girl time. You get off your booty and rally that ish! I forgot how much I love having adult conversation, you kind of lose that when you're at home with the babes all day. It was so nice tonight chatting with my girls, shopping and playing with makeup. It was so needed! And it's always fun to bring home new makeup ;) 

Banana Pancakes (note don't cook in coconut oil, they cook really hot)

• 2 bananas
• 4 eggs
• dash of cinnamon

Makes 5-6 small to med pancakes. Mash bananas and mix with whisked eggs, add in cinnamon to taste. Cook on medium heat, I use a lid to help evenly cook both sides before flipping. Typically I cook using Kerrygold Irish Butter, but I was out so I used coconut oil. I wouldn't recommend it since it cooks really fast, I was cooking on low heat and it was still making the pancakes really dark. They were still tasty though. And if you aren't doing the whole 30 and just going Paleo, you can top with Pure Maple Syrup or Honey.

Round 2 day 3 and some flexibility

It's a day late, but oh well!

Today was a weird day! The morning started out way too hectic.  The hubs hurt his ankle during soccer, and can't drive which is kind of huge when you drive a semi for a living. So the morning started with rushing D to school so that we could make it to the hubby's doctor's appointment to make sure he didn't have a fracture. 2 hours later, a tired Sully, 2 flu shots given, x-rays done and no broken bone. Hallelujah! But he has sprained tendons around his ankle which means no work for at least the rest of the week. Hmm, talk about a little nerve wracking when you're a single income family. But I'm finding the silver lining and we're calling it a "stay-cation" and today we're getting D out of school early to go to the pumpkin patch. 

Anyways, due to a hectic morning I didn't get my workout in like I planned and eating was a little weird but I did the best I could and stayed on plan.

What I ate today

Breakfast: apple, salsa scrambled eggs, avocado and sausage (more like brunch)

Snack: fruit and nut mix, piece of turkey

Dinner: Bacon wrapped chicken thigh, sweet potato fries and cucumbers with apple cider vinegar and salt.

And yes I know that you aren't supposed to eat fries on the whole 30 but it is what it is and they were DELICIOUS! 

Exercise: None (for my sanity I chose to work on orders)

Today I felt good, a little sluggish but not bad. I can tell somethings working because my wedding ring is moving around, which is usually a good sign. 

Round 2 day 2 of the Whole 30

Today was Day 2 of the Whole 30. I'm not gonna lie, I was bitter today.  There were M&M candies taunting me (no I did not partake). My husband ate leftover calzone, but holy man am I glad its out of the fridge! And then I had to make my precious D a sandwich for her lunch. So there was lots of bitterness, but I'm over it. 

I also didn't get my morning workout in. I'm finding that I really love working out in the morning. I don't have to think about it the rest of the day and I'm way more productive when I workout in the AM. But at least I played indoor soccer this evening, even though the hubs messed up his ankle :(

Made something new for dinner tonight, Orange Ginger Rump Roast in the crockpot. It was pretty good.

Orange Ginger Rump Roast

• Roast
• Naked Orange juice (no additives)
• Coconut oil
• Ginger
• Sliced Oranges

Place roast in crockpot. Poke with a fork all over roast. Top with spats of coconut oil. Poor orange juice over roast (1 1/2-2 cups). Sprinkle with ginger, to taste. Top roast with sliced oranges. Cook on low for 7 hours. 

What I ate today:

Breakfast: Chopped apples and pears, 1 tbsp ghee, cinnamon and slivered almonds. Heat mixture and stir together. 

Lunch: 2 Fried eggs, small avocado, 4 sausage links (whole 30 approved)

Dinner: Orange ginger roast, roasted broccoli, broccoli slaw topped with red wine vinegar

Exercise: Indoor soccer

Side note, finally tried coconut oil as a facial moisturizer, AMAZING! My skin was so soft this morning! And I smelled like I was at the beach ;)

Oh hey Whole 30, Round 2

Some might think I'm crazy for taking a trip down the Whole 30 road again, but I like to think that I'm up for the challenge. 

Reasons why I love the whole 30:

It gives me discipline

I'm fueling my body

I feel good while I'm on it

It pushes me

I have never FELT better then while on the whole 30

Its a challenge that I can conquer

Reasons why I loathe the whole 30:

Dishes.....so MANY dishes

No treats

Kinda cranky (just for a few days)

Preparation

And it can be spendy

This time around I'm doing things a bit different. The hubs isn't doing the Whole 30 with me this time, but he's eating what I eat (which means he's going to eat junk while he's not around me :)). I'm going to try to do this on a grocery budget. Another big difference is D is in school this time around and Sully is eating table food now so I'm still going to be making kid friendly meals, but I'm going to try my best to make them Whole 30 approved. 

My hopes for this time around:

I'm going to take before/after pictures and measurements

I'm going to to go out and just make the right choices

I'm going to try and "move" for at least 30 minutes a day whether that's walking, soccer or zumba

And I am putting the scale AWAY

Enough rambling, now what I made for dinner. Quick, easy and tasty and the whole family loved it!

Thai Curry Chicken

Thai Curry Chicken (feeds family of 4 with leftovers)

• 3 chicken breasts
• zucchini
• carrots
• broccoli
• mushrooms
• 1 can of coconut milk
• 2 TSP of curry (any flavor of curry I used Thai curry)

Cube chicken breasts and cook in coconut oil, salt and pepper chicken while cooking.  Remove chicken from pan. In skillet place can of coconut milk and mix with curry, cook on medium heat for 5 minutes. While curry mixture is cooking steam chopped veggies. (I highly recommend cheating and using a ziploc steam bag). After veggies are steamed and curry has been cooked for 5 minutes add chicken and veggies back to the pan. Let simmer for 10 minutes.  Voila super easy dinner! 

Round 2, Day 1
What I ate today:
B: banana, chicken apple sausage and cashews (my avocados were bad)
L: Scrambled eggs with cilantro/tom/onion, apple and sunbutter
D: Thai Curry Chicken (my fat was the coconut milk)

E: 50 mins Zumba with a touch of U-Jam

Simple fall cookies

Fall is in the air around here. Pumpkins,changing leaves and scarves!

I came up with these cookies the other day on a whim. The base is a classic Weight Watcher's recipe for pumpkin muffins, but I took it up a notch. 

Introducing the 4 ingredient fall cookie aka pumpkin chocolate chip cookies

These are soft "cakey" cookies

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 1 box of yellow cake mix
• 1 15 oz can of canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie)
• 1 tsp of pumpkin pie spice
• 1 cup of chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350.  Mix box of yellow cake mix with the can of pumpkin (do NOT add the extra ingredients on the back of the cake mix box). Once mixed thoroughly, add pumpkin pie spice and chocolate chips. Grease cookie sheets. Using a cookie scoop drop dough on sheets and bake for 15 minutes. Makes approximately 15 minutes. 

Variations

• You can use spice cake mix instead of yellow (I haven't tried this)
• Nuts
• Omit chocolate chips and do cream cheese frosting

Friday nights and a little nostalgia

Growing up Friday night's meant family night. Pizza and a movie and picnics in the front room.  Sometimes we'd make our own pizza (taco pizza is what I remember) or we'd pick up Papa Murphy's or Figaro's (if you're from the Dell you know that place was the ish) and super convenient to picking up movies at the old Hollywood Video.

The hubs and I decided that this tradition was a must. Now that D is getting older it will be easier to do this tradition, until recently it hasn't been very fun to watch movies with a chatty D :)

My fave part of friday nights is making Homemade Pizza or Calzones. Dylan loves helping with the "toppings." And they are just sooooo good, I mean my calzones put Papa Murphy's to shame. 

Creamy Pesto Calzones

Roll out your dough and place on greased cookie sheet

Take Ricotta and spread on half of dough. Do the same with your Pesto.

Top with your favorite ingredients

Fold dough in half and take your fork and seal the edges. Poke some holes in the top of the dough too.

Bake at 425 for 18-20 mins or until golden brown.

Cut int and enjoy some serious deliciousness

(Can you tell this picture was a complete after thought....whoops)

Stacy's Calzones

Ingredients

• Prepared pizza dough (i really like Wincos and Safeways)
• Pesto (Costco's is the best deal)
• Light Ricotta (small tub)
• Italian shredded cheese blend
• toppings (sausage, pepperoni, olives, canadian bacon, mushrooms)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 425. Grease cookie sheet.
2. Roll out dough and place on cookie sheet.
3. Take ricotta and spread over half of dough. Then take Pesto and do the same.
4. Add toppings (we did canadian bacon, italian sausge, turkey pepperoni, olives and mushrooms) There's no right or wrong way to layer these ingredients.
5. Top with shredded cheese.
6. Fold dough in half. Use a fork to "seal" the edges. Poke holes in the top of dough to help vent.
7. Bake at 425 for 18-20 minutes or until golden brown. 
8. Slice that bad boy up and enjoy!

Every time I make this I usually make 2 because it always gets gobbled up and because the leftovers are delish!

Love.

Stace

The first day of fall

The first day of fall in the lovely Pacific Northwest means rain, and lots of it. I'm not complaining. Fall is one of my favorite seasons, maybe because its the start of the holidays, almost my birthday or because I can justify boots, scarves and hoodies.

In honor of the first day of fall crockpot baked potato soup needed to happen.  It's one of the hubby's favorite meals. He likes it so much that he will get up early to heat it up for his thermos for lunchtime. 

Crockpot Baked Potato Soup

Ingredients

• 5 lbs of russet or yukon potatos, diced not peeled
• 2 cloves of garlic or the equivalent of minced garlic
• 64 oz of chicken broth
• 16 oz of light cream cheese
• toppings (sour cream, shredded cheese, bacon, green onions)

Instructions

• Cook potatoes, garlic and chicken broth on low for 8 hours or high for 5 hours.
• Puree/blend half of your potato/broth mixture with both bricks of cream cheese. (we like our potato soup chunky so I don't puree the whole soup)
• Serve soup with any of the above toppings

Note this makes a TON of soup so I'd half it if you are a small family. My family love this soup so I cook the whole shebang and we just eat it for lunch throughout the week.

If you're feeling extra fancy and don't care about the bazillion calories serve soup with this garlic cheese bread. You can thank my bestie for finding the little delicious number.

I'll post pics of the soup after it's done cooking :) Happy first day of fall!

Love,

Stace