Belle Brita

A Christian Feminist Lifestyle Blog

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My First Whole30: the Last 9 Days + Whole30 Recipes

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Today is my last day on Whole30. I can’t believe how quickly the last 29 days have gone! It helps that Dan and I have found some great Whole30 recipes. We’ll definitely repeat these meals even when I’m done.

I actually finished Whole30! Find Whole30 recipes & tips at the link. | Belle Brita

I still have 10 more days of eating carefully, though. The reintroduction phase is just as crucial as the elimination diet. If I eat my entire kitchen tomorrow and feel sick the day after, I won’t know why my body is reacting that way.

I’m loosely following the 10-day reintroduction plan from the Whole30 website. I think the biggest initial change will be preparing paleo treats that aren’t compliant with Whole30. That way, I get to eat a wider variety of foods, but I’m still mostly consuming ingredients that are safe. As much as I want to resume my morning breakfast of high-fiber oatmeal with peanut butter, that would reintroduce two food groups at the same time. So maybe I’ll just start with banana pancakes with peanut butter and go from there.

Since I’m doing #LoveBlog all of February, I will not have another Whole30 post until March. However, if you follow me on social media, I’ll post updates about my reintroduction phase.

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Whole30 Day 22:

Breakfast: Hash browns, bacon, fried egg, hot Constant Comment tea.

Snack: Banana-almond-green smoothie.

Dinner: Beef tips over mashed potatoes, seltzer water.

Challenges: Um… so beef tips are not a last-minute dish. After searing them, I only let them simmer about 20 minutes. Their flavor was good, but the meat was so tough. My first time making homemade mashed potatoes was a rousing success! I can’t believe I’ve never done that before (and marveled at how good other people’s mashed potatoes were). They’re ridiculously easy to make. Good-bye instant mashed potatoes!

Whole30 Day 23:

Breakfast: Bacon, scrambled eggs, hot ginger-peach black tea.

Lunner: Beef tips over mashed potatoes, cranberry lime seltzer water.

Snack: Raisins, pistachios, herbal tea.

Challenges: I recooked the beef tips in the slow cooker. They were ridiculously good!

Whole30 Day 24:

Brunch: Smoothie with banana, avocado, greens, blueberries, coconut milk, and cranberry juice. Hot ginger-peach black tea.

Lunner: Leftover beef tips over mashed potatoes, lemon-lime seltzer water.

Snack: Banana, prosciutto, dried apples, herbal tea.

Challenges: I was craving hot chocolate and crackers today. I do love crackers, so that’s pretty normal, but I only drink hot chocolate maybe 2-3 times a year. I almost always prefer hot tea, which I’ve been drinking daily. Weird.

Whole30 Day 25:

Breakfast: Banana nut porridge with raisins and blueberries, hot Constant Comment tea lightly sweetened with apple juice.

Dinner: Chili, lemon-lime seltzer water, cranberry lime seltzer water.

Challenges: I used the wrong beef broth in my chili! I bought new Whole30-compliant beef broth, but I still have some older beef broth with honey as one of the ingredients. I grabbed the old container from the fridge by mistake.

Whole30 Day 26:

Breakfast: Smoothie with frozen avocado, apple, blueberries, coconut milk, and cranberry juice.

Snack: Raisins, pistachios.

Snack: Leftover chili, lemon-lime seltzer water.

Dinner: Leftover chili, raisins & pistachios, cranberry lime seltzer water.

Challenges: I was pretty much out of breakfast food, so I used up the rest of my fruit to make a smoothie. It was okay, but definitely not the best.

Whole30 Day 27:

Breakfast: Fried egg, hash browns, fried prosciutto (all three cooked in ghee), hot chai tea with coconut milk.

Lunch: Leftover mashed potatoes, banana, raisins & pistachios, pomegranate-blueberry seltzer juice diluted with diet tonic water.

Dinner: Deep-fried orange chicken, zoodles (zucchini noodles), plain water, lemon-lime seltzer water.

Challenges: I love regular prosciutto, but I wanted to try it fried, and it was also delicious! It probably didn’t need to be fried, just heated up in the pan, but I cooked it and the egg at the same time.

I experienced a “non-scale victory” when I thought my pomegranate-blueberry seltzer juice was way too sweet. I needed to dilute it half & half with diet tonic water for it to be drinkable. That’s how much I’ve changed my taste preferences in the last month!

Finally, the orange chicken and zoodles were a bust. My husband loved his chicken and fried rice, but my orange sauce never thickened, and I over-cooked my zoodles. I’ll definitely try zoodles again, but I don’t plan on attempting a homemade Asian-style, Whole30-compliant orange sauce again.

Whole30 Day 28:

Breakfast: Fried egg, hash browns, bacon, hot chai tea with coconut milk.

Snack: Banana slices fried in ghee, drizzled with a hot mixture of coconut milk & almond butter, sprinkled with cinnamon & golden raisins.

Dinner: Steak, baked potato, cranberry lime seltzer water.

Challenges: Coconut milk goes a lot better with my hot chai tea than almond milk does.

Whole30 Day 29:

Breakfast: Steak and eggs, hot chai tea with coconut milk.

Snack: Apple, kalamata olives, pistachios, raisins, lime water.

Dinner: Green salad with lime blackened shrimp, apples, almonds, mandarin oranges, golden raisins, balsamic vinaigrette; fries; cucumber water.

Challenges: I totally see why people quit on Days 28 or 29. I mean, you’re so close to the end, it’s good enough, right? Dan and I went out to dinner tonight before attending a Star Trek concert at the Fox Theatre. I wanted SO badly to eat at one of the many restaurants featuring fancy cheese dishes, but I resisted.

Whole30 Day 30:

Breakfast: Eggs scrambled with steak & bacon, hot chai tea with coconut milk.

Lunch: Banana-almond smoothie.

Dinner: TBD

Challenges: TBD

Whole30 Recipes

Mashed potatoes – I used less potatoes and ghee instead of olive oil, and I mashed them with my KitchenAid mixer with the Flat Beater attachment, but I otherwise followed this recipe.

Beef tips – I seared the beef tips using this advice, except I also lightly coated the beef tips with tapioca flour and spices first. I then followed this recipe without the onions, except I screwed up by only simmering the beef tips for about 20 minutes. I also screwed up making gravy to go with it, but the juices were yummy. Like I mentioned above, the beef tips were tough because I needed to cook them longer. The next day, I tossed the leftovers into my slow cooker on High for about 3 hours and then on Low for another 1-2 hours since we ate a lot later than I thought we would. They were absolutely delicious!

Banana nut porridge – Possibly my favorite of all the Whole30 recipes I’ve tried. I’ve shared it before, but I really can’t share it enough. So yummy! I just used almonds and cashews, no pecans. I substituted almond milk for coconut milk and used a lot less.

Chili – I greatly adapted the official Whole30 recipe, which Sarah of Sometimes Photo{jenik} sent me on Instagram. (It Starts with Food includes a bunch of Whole30 recipes). I adapted it enough that I feel okay sharing exactly what I did.

Brita’s Whole30 Chili Ingredients:

  • 1 lb ground beef
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced (I keep a jar of minced garlic in my fridge, and just eyeball it with a regular spoon)
  • 8 oz tomato paste
  • beef broth
  • cumin, paprika, chili powder, and salt, all to taste
  • hot sauce
  • 2 bell peppers (I used 1 red & 1 yellow)

Brown the meat. Remove with a slotted spoon (to help drain the grease) and add to slow cooker (if you want to soak up even more of the fat, set it aside on a paper towel first). Add garlic and tomato paste. Mix with a spoon. Add enough beef broth for your preferred chili liquid level. Add spices and hot sauce to taste. Set the slow cooker on High to cook in 3-4 hours or Low to cook in 6-8 hours. Finely chop your bell peppers. Depending on how cooked you like your bell peppers, add them to the slow cooker near the end. Since I was cooking on High, I switched the temperature to Low and had the bell peppers cook for just 30 minutes because I don’t like them too soft.

I had actually added the hot sauce to my leftovers because I didn’t use enough of the other spices initially. I don’t really like measuring ingredients unless I’m baking, so I do everything according to personal preference! This recipe created 4 Brita-sized servings.

For the most part this month, I didn’t use special Whole30 recipes. Dan & I just ate a ton of meat & potatoes! Eggs are easy to make, although you will get tired of them eventually. I ate scrambled eggs, hard-boiled eggs, fried eggs, and poached eggs this month. Dan also grilled out a lot, which I realize is not an option if you still live in Ohio! Luckily we’re in Georgia now.

While finding Whole30 recipes might help you if you get bored with food easily, I thrive on simplicity. I don’t mind eating a few favorite meals over and over again. If you look at my Whole30 recaps of Week 1, Week 2, and Week 3, you’ll notice a fair amount of repetition each week, although not as much from week-to-week. I think I pinned more Whole30 recipes than I actually tried this month!

 

Have any questions about Whole30? Ask away!

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