Day 16: Eliminating The Crap

Breakfast: overnight oats with blueberries and fresh raspberries. 1/2 cup of fresh oatmeal bought from the farmer’s market yesterday, 1/2 cup no fat Greek yogurt, 1/2 cup almond milk, 1 tablespoon chia seeds, 1 teaspoon maple syrup, 1/4 cup frozen blueberries. Shake in a jar and put in fridge overnight. Topped off with fresh raspberries in the morning.

My husband and I always put artificial, dairy free creamer in our coffees and when I started this clean eating experiment I took a look at the ingredients in said creamer. So many chemicals! I decided that if we were going to start eating clean it was time to start purging our fridge and cupboards of all the crap and so I sought out recipes on beloved Pintrest for replacements. First up the coffee creamer/sweetener. This recipe is so simple. I noticed in the grocery store there were two kinds of sweetened condensed milk: regular and low fat. A quick look at the nutritional information yielded interesting results: there isn’t that much difference between the two. Only 1/2 g of fat per serving! You know what the replace that fat with? Sugar! One more gram of sugar in the low fat variety. I got the full fat. My husband approves.

For lunch I made a veggie sandwich with hummus on multi grain bread. I sliced up a half an avocado, one slice of a beef steak tomato, a little leftover romain and an ounce of goat feta.

Two peeled and cut carrots with two tablespoons of hummus rounded out my afternoon snack.

For dinner I decided I was going to make pizza. I found a bunch of recipes for whole wheat crust online but they all called for all purpose flour in addition to whole wheat flour. Their reasoning behind the mixture is that the whole wheat flour doesn’t contain as much gluten as the AP and would make a cardboard tasting crust. I found one recipe that was 100% whole wheat and you know what? It was great! It made 2 portions of dough so I froze one for next week. To my pizza I added my own tomato sauce (crushed tomatoes, garlic, shallot, Italian spices), roasted eggplant, zucchini and tomatoes, feta and parmesan. I baked the crust first to get it nice and crispy before I added the toppings.

For desert I bought an organic dark chocolate bar that is 80% cocoa. It tasted like bakers’ chocolate and was very bitter. I decided to wash it down with a glass of red wine. The two paired quite nicely!

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Day 5: My Husband Cooks Better Than I Do

Wow! I never thought I would have made it this far! Today I learned that I should leave the omelet flipping to my husband. Actually, I should leave all the cooking to my husband.

I was a little skeptical about today’s breakfast, as there was no cheese involved in the cauliflower omelet, but it turns out it didn’t need it. The cauliflower took on a really creamy texture amongst the egg and it was actually quite nice. I would have liked some bacon and hash browns alongside it but that wasn’t in the recipes.

After lunch we decided to go for a walk. The City of Nanaimo puts on this Golden Bucket challenge every summer where, each week, they hide a child’s yellow beach bucket around various parks and give clues on where to find it. The bucket has a question in it, usually pertaining to the location it is at, and you send in your answer to be entered to win prizes.My son and I have been doing this for the last two weeks.

Today brought us to a sea side nature park where you can walk a trail that runs along the ocean. The sea air did wonders on my sinuses and I felt more energized, albeit sweaty, than I have all week. Also the crashing waves and the bouncing of my steps (I had my baby in a carrier) lulled my son to sleep.

After our walk I decided that, since I was doing so well in this clean eating experiment, that I would reward myself with a glass of wine. The challenge says I can limit myself to two glasses over the two weeks. Well they didn’t say how big the glasses had to be! I had the 9oz. Red, of course.

I felt a little tipsy afterward. It wasn’t my first drink since giving birth so I was quite surprised how hard it hit me.

By the time we got home from our drinks and shopping for more diapers it was 7:00pm. I needed to cook more lentils since I used up all the left overs a few days ago. I forgot that they take an hour to cook so the salmon dinner wasn’t ready until after 8:00pm.

Since I didn’t get my first snack in after lunch, I snacked on my carrots and hummus as we prepared dinner. My husband brought home a large fillet of salmon bought locally from the marina in French Creek, BC. Caught right off our very own coast.

Not only is it clean and fresh, but sustainable as well.

We decided that we would bbq the fillet instead of baking it in the oven. It gave it such a different but tasty flavor. I would say that we had an 8oz portion of salmon and half a recipe of the big batch of lentils each. So, needless to say, dinner was filling and there was no need for an after dinner snack. Plus by that time is was 9:00pm.

Even though I drank way more than the recommended 60oz of water today, I ended up with a migraine that has been trying to rear it’s ugly head for three days now. I’m not sure if this is another one of the side effects of changing the way I eat or that maybe I was just due for a migraine. It has been a while since my last one (since before I was pregnant).

It’s now 4:15am as I am writing this and I am wide awake. But I feel great after day 5 of my clean eating experiment!

Not today’s bucket, but an example of the Golden Bucket Challenge

Day 4: Really, That’s All The Snack I Get?!

If you can flip an omelet, you deserve a medal. This is what my breakfast looked like:

The instructions said to turn the heat down to low and cook the eggs for one minute until the eggs are not very runny. Well it took me over 5 minutes on low, a lid, and one minute cranked up to medium before I could get my eggs to set. Overall the “omelet” looks like crap, as you can see, but it tastes alright. I would use less green onions next time.

Speaking of using less or more of the ingredients, I wish they would be more specific about the amounts used. For instance this recipe called for 4 scallions (green onions). Well what size are your scallions? Mine were too big.

Today’s lunch, a Greek salad using the left over lentils from last night’a dinner, calls for one red pepper and half a cucumber cut into pieces. Last I checked there is a wide variety of sized cucumbers and peppers. So my salad ended up being huge! It could have fed two people.

Oh, and about lunch: I used up all the lime vinegarette in last night’s cabbage wraps and had no more limes to make more. I thought substituting bottled lime juice would have the same effect. It didn’t.

Word of advice: DON’T USE BOTTLED LEMON OR LIME JUICE IN PLACE OF FRESH SQUEEZED. It does not taste the same and it does not taste as good as fresh squeezed. I know lemons and limes are ridiculously expensive right now but it is sooo worth it, especially in salad dressings.

I had to go grocery shopping again before dinner. Since my husband works from early mornings to later at night, the only meal I have to prepare for him is dinner. However, when I did my initial grocery shop I forgot to take into account that I have to feed my husband too! That is why I have had to hit the store almost every day so far. He is also off for the next two days so I bought more supplies to accommodate him. I will have a running total for all of you at the end of each week.

Dinner was good. I roasted up some more chicken breasts (boneless, skinless because I wasn’t wrestling with chicken on the bone again, plus, I don’t like all the waste) alongside the fennel. I threw some more cauliflower in the oven since I burnt the florets last night that I was supposed to use in tomorrow’s breakfast.

My after supper snack was a joke. If you aren’t following along with the challenge from BuzzFeed, it was two dates and two almonds. You were supposed to stuff the almonds in the dates. F*%# that. I threw a handful of dates and almonds in a bowl and snacked on that while I caught up on work.

I have to say I felt really good today. I never really felt tired or worn down. I got lots of work accomplished, both my paid work and my house work. Although, I didn’t get much exercise or get my full 60 oz of water in. I have I say, though, my tummy is looking a little round with bloat and an unfortunate side effect of the challenge is my body trying to rid itself of poison in the form of noxious gas.

Seriously. And since having gone through childbirth, it’s not as easy to hold it in when the timing isn’t right. Like at the grocery store when there is a line up behind you in the check out. It’s even passing onto my son. His poops have gotten quite explosive and foul. I’ll leave you with that.