3 weeks in...

Alternate title:  This post is dedicated to my mother who thinks maybe I didn't eat last week since I didn't post my meal plan.  ;)

So, I'm three weeks in to my 8 week goal of eating clean.  And I'm happy to report that I haven't cheated.  :)

In all honesty, as long as I prepare and have accessible foods available, I don't really struggle.  My toughest times are at the grocery store (the smells from the bakery are delectable!), anytime I pass a St@rbucks (I'm only human!), and when I'm not expecting to be faced with yummy temptations.  I've gone to 2 birthday parties and 1 bridal shower and I did fine at all those places because I was expecting to be faced with sweets, etc.  But we had cupcakes at church one night, and I was really struggling that night emotionally (although I *did* resist).

Someone asked me how I felt after this long of eating clean.  I really thought I'd have all this amazing energy.  And that's not really the case.  But on the other hand, I've not been lethargic either.  And I haven't felt sick or yucky at all after eating hardly at all since I started eating clean.  Before this, I usually had some sort of gastro issues at least 5 out of 7 days a week.  And I've only had issues maybe 3-4 times total in the last 3 weeks.  So that's huge!  I've also lost 4 pounds in the last 3 weeks.  Weight loss wasn't my main goal in trying this, but it's an exciting side-benefit!  :)

I try not to eat out much, but I have figured out ways to still eat clean when I DO eat out.  And this past weekend, I ate out a LOT!  At my favorite Mexican restaurant, I bypass the chips (I put my water glass in front of the basket so I don't accidentally mindlessly grab any chips), and I get their grilled tilapia with pico de gallo, guacamole and green salsa.  It's delicious!  And I've been eating Thai food a lot while out, because I can get my curry fix made with coconut milk (which is clean) and brown rice.  YUM!

I'm late in making my meal plan for this week.  The kids were off school yesterday and Don had a meeting at church last night, so I just had leftovers for dinner last night (which was a pork tenderloin I cooked in the crockpot with chipotle peppers and green chiles... it's delicious!  (Thanks, Becky, for the idea!)  I had it with brown rice, baby spinach and black beans with a little avocado sliced on top).

So, here's the plan for this week:

Tuesday:  Pork Tenderloin cooked this way minus the glaze (it's my new favorite way to make tenderloin!) and roasted green beans/red potatoes

Wednesday:  Eating at church

Thursday:  Roasted turkey breast and roasted broccoli and/or cauliflower

Friday:  Leftover turkey (it's 7 pounds, so we'll be eating on that for a while) and roasted vegetables

Saturday:  Turkey/vegetable soup (I feel like we'll be sick of eating turkey by then)

Sunday:  Leftovers (Don has a race that day, so it'll just be the kids and I)

Have a great week!

Meal plan - Week of 2/4/2013

Hello there!  As of today, I'm back on the meal plan wagon.  (I feel like this is going to be a wagon that I'll easily jump off of and back on).

The week before last, we were on a cruise, so you can only imagine how yummy and decadent the food was there!  Then, last week, being the types of people we are, Don and I jumped into super strict eating.  I am eating "clean" (which means only "natural" foods... no processed foods, no enriched flour products, no sugar) and Don is eating Paleo (like my food, except no complex carbohydrates either (except for fruit)).  One of my goals this year was to eat clean for 8 weeks in a row to see how I feel.  So I'm one week in now.  I don't know that I feel much better yet (I think my body is still detoxing from ALL THAT BREAD I ate on the cruise), but I notice small things like my stomach doesn't "pooch" out quite so much.  Oh, and I lost 3 pounds this week!  (woot!)

So here's the meal plan for this week:

Monday - Pioneer Woman's Steak Bites and roasted fresh green beans
Tuesday - Curry Chicken (recipe below)
Wednesday - Taco night at church (so, I'll probably have some of the meat and add it to my salad I make from the salad bar and add my own olive oil/vinegar dressing)
Thursday - Chili
Friday - Mexican "buffet" (I'll cook extra lean ground beef on Thursday, then I'll have black beans, baby spinach, avocado, etc. so we can put together our own Mexican bowl... I'll probably add brown rice to mine as well).
Saturday - Italian beef
Sunday - leftovers

Here's my recipe for Curry Chicken.  I usually make a double batch ahead of time and freeze it until I'm ready to make it.  We've had it multiple times and it's one of our favorite meals (and definitely my favorite crockpot meal!).

Curry Chicken - Taken from Kojo Designs

IN THE BAG- 3 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs*, 2 lbs. of chopped butternut squash, 2 medium onions,chopped, 8 minced garlic cloves, 1 oz fresh ginger, 2 T curry powder,1 t ground coriander, 1 t ground cumin, coarse salt

You can fix up the "In the bag" portion ahead of time and freeze.  When you're ready to cook it, you do the remainder of the recipe.

TO COOK- Add the contents of the bag and a can of coconut milk to a slow cooker and cook on low all day. 25 minutes before serving, add another can of coconut milk and a bag of frozen peas.

TO SERVE- Garnish* with chopped cashews and cilantro (except if you’re us and you hate cilantro- then just garnish with cashews).

*I have always used the chicken thighs in the past, but I think I'm going to try it this week with chicken breasts.  I don't usually garnish it at all, but I serve it over brown rice.  It's delicious!

Have a great week!

Meal Plan - week of 1/13/13

So, I'm being lazy on my meal plan for this week.  We're leaving town on Friday and will be gone all next week, so I'm just using up what we have in our refrigerator.

For the family slumber party weekend, I made lasagna and The Pioneer Woman's spaghetti for lunch yesterday.  I came home with quite a bit of leftovers, so the plan is to eat up all the leftovers (no lasagna for me...  that has dairy in it, but I can have the spaghetti) until they're all gone.  Wednesday night we will have dinner at church again.  Then I will fill in the other nights we are out of leftovers with breakfast for dinner.  That will include most likely omelets/scrambled eggs/pancakes/waffles/basically whatever the family wants for "breakfast."

I will fill in each of these meals with the rest of our fresh vegetables from our co-op that we participate in.  So, I'd expect roasted cabbage one night, roasted cauliflower one night, and roasted eggplant another...

Have a great week!

Meal Plan - Week of 1/6/13

So, this is my attempt at tracking my meal plans for the year. I like to try new recipes that I find on Pinterest or elsewhere online, but them I forget where I found the recipe and then I'm completely bummed because I don't have access to the yummy recipe anymore! So I'm going to start putting some of my recipes on here for my reference (& yours too, if you're interested).

Next weekend is my family's annual slumber party at my parents' house. I'm sure I will be responsible for at least some of the food, but we haven't planned out the weekend menu yet.

So, here this week's meal plan:

Monday - pork tenderloin with a peach-honey glaze (recipe below) and roasted cauliflower
Tuesday - chili
Wednesday - our church serves a meal on Wednesday nights for a nominal amount so that's what we normally do on Wednesdays
Thursday - Italian beef
Friday - family slumber party
Saturday - family slumber party
Sunday - family slumber party

Pork tenderloin (recipe from food.com):

Preheat oven to 500-550 degrees.
Put tenderloin in a roasting pan on the bottom third of the oven
Cook EXACTLY 5 1/2 minutes per pound of tenderloin
Without opening the oven, turn oven off and let the tenderloin sit in oven for an hour
Remove from the oven and let rest for 5-10 minutes.

Peach-honey glaze (recipe found here):

1 cup peach preserves
2 Tbsp honey
Juice of one small lemon

Bring to boil, then simmer for 2 minutes

I use glaze as more of a sauce than an actual glaze.

Bon appetit!