All Things Foodie

Whole 30 Days Finished!

2012-02-02T08:15:00.001-05:00

It's an official Day 30 of the Whole30 for me because I started on January 3. As I was making my delicious asparagus frittata for breakfast this morning and thinking over the last 30 days and how I felt in comparison to Jan. 3, a couple more aha's popped in my mind.

I have to say that besides feeling incredibly bloated and unhappy about my weight for the last few months I didn't have any physical issues like pains in my knees, hips, joints, etc. No skin problems, except that extra layer that gravity has decided to pull over my upper eye lid so I can be sure to look like I have crossed over the half century mark. And I get headaches very rarely and when I do I freak out because I'm just not used to it. I was never overly tired and seem to be on a pretty even keel with energy for the most part. Most of that is because I get at least 9 hours of sleep a day and I had been doing about a 75/25 lo-carb diet for the last four years. It was only in the last few months that everything started to slip out of control. On January 2 when I gorged myself of the remainders of the leftover carb and sugar-laden goodies from a New Year's Day party did I feel like I hit bottom. If that's the biggest bottom I had to hit then I know I truly am blessed! Hah! :-).

So on Jan. 2 as I was laying around in my carb-laden state, surfing the net because I was unable to focus on anything else, I happened upon the Whole 9 Paleo Nutrition site. I was already familiar with Paleo having had Robb Wolf's Paleo Solution Book for the last year. I was trying to put some of the food concepts into practice but figured I'd never be able to actually stay on a Paleo plan for 30 days. It took feeling so uncomfortable with myself that the Whole 30 plan seemed like the perfect way and plan to start. I knew I needed to get back in control.

Now that it's over I can't believe 30 days has gone by already. As I said in my last post, I am surprised that I had no problem with the dairy. Two things that were the biggest changes for me were having a glass of wine with dinner during the week (I like to cook and eat around what wine would go best with the meal), and foregoing the can of diet Mt. Dew that I usually had every day after lunch. The wine habit I am happy to give up during the week now and researching about the unhealthy effects of soda has made me happy to give that up as well. But I really do miss the taste of that Dew! But I don't miss that "medicine head" that I get from it after drinking it.

The one thing that I wanted to know from this 30 day experiment was whether my eating/drinking habits had any effect on how clear my mind was. It took almost 30 days but I can say that my mind does feel clearer. It's like an invisible band around my forehead has been removed. Was it life-changing? Not really. But I now feel back in control with my eating habits, I now know that I can save $300 a month by not eating at work/out just for breakfast and lunch alone, and that's with buying the "expensive" fruits and vegetables and better cuts of meat (grass fed) and organic foods.

Finally, what next? I am continuing on a modified plan of the Whole30, eating Paleo choices, and starting an exercise plan. I feel good. (think James Brown's song, nah nah nah nah nah nah nah) !

In love and health,
Brenda

Ten Things I've learned from my Whole 30 Paleo experiment

2012-01-30T19:50:00.000-05:00

Ten Things I’ve learned from doing the Whole 30 Experiment:

1. I can drink coffee without cream. Really.

2. I had no problem whatsoever giving up the cheese. It is actually possible to eat an omelet without cheese. Who knew?

3. I now know what the cafeteria at work uses to coat the grill with – soy spray from a can. It kept me away from having my daily egg white with cheese omelet.

4. I also learned that the butter the grill cook uses is clarified. Yay! I had a few squirts of that on some tasteless looking broccoli one day. Saved me from getting whiney over what was for sure to be a yucky lunch day.

5. I can make it through the week without wine.

6. Strangely enough I didn’t have any sugar cravings until around day 11 which came disguised as a craving for Friday night wine. Crafty sly sugar brain…

7. I finally realized just how much money I was spending a month eating out between work and after work. Now I can afford Cross Fit if I can actually get there to start the On Ramp program.

8. I learned what to do with the rest of tomato paste (freeze it in an ice cube tray).

9. I love coconut even more than I thought. And I love Ghee too!

10. And most importantly, it’s not about the food after all. It’s about learning how to be non-judgmental about myself and others.

Today is actually Day 27. It's no problem to make it through the next three days strictly following the plan. In addition to the above 10 items, I have learned I really enjoy eating this way. Is it tough to stick to it? It sure is when confronted with situations outside of my home environment. Besides going to work, I pretty much stayed home the whole month. I don't know how I would have fared if I had a bunch of eating out, celebration challenges. The few events I did have to attend were tough and I wasn't 100% compliant but they were little slips and I made it through it still feeling pretty good about my choices.

End result? I'm going to go another 30 days... with exercise this time.

Paleo 30-Day Experiment - Day 20!

2012-01-22T11:04:00.000-05:00

OH My. Only ten days to go. Day 20. Time is starting to go by faster now. The first week crawled by. Now the days are starting to blur together. Missed our Saturday shopping trip because of the snow storm in CT. I was so focused on making the Paleo coconut crepes that I forgot about meals for the rest of the day. After spending a few hours out in the freezing cold taking photographs of snow crystals I was really hungry and did not have anything for a quick bite. Instead I munched on one tiny piece of pineapple leftover from breakfast, guzzled some water, threw some chicken legs into the oven and went back out in the cold to continue photographing. Hunger pangs go away pretty quickly when you fill up on water and you are busy with a project :-)

An early dinner consisted of the baked chicken legs and then I made a turkey shepard's pie. Will post pics and recipe on that later. That was one of the tastiest meals I've had so far.

Today, back to the "cow store", Stew Leonard's in Newington. Look at how beautiful the rows of nice veggies are. Not that these are organic but I really like cucumbers for lunch. Stew's food always looks so fresh. And I'm getting used to the maze that takes you through the store. It used to irritate the heck out of me walking through there but when you bypass so much of it to get to just to the fruits, veggies, seafood and meats it makes the journey through the store much quicker. It is pretty funny going through the cheese section with words "gotta have cheese" sung out of the speakers by the animatronics in the cheese section.

I look at the whole shopping trip now as an experience rather than a chore. Just another way of thinking about food!

Paleo 30-Day Experiment - Day 19 with Paleo Crepes

2012-01-21T18:20:00.000-05:00

Woo Hoo! It's Saturday. Thank you GOD! A friend was going to have a cooking class for a few friends and make ham and asparagus crepes, normal style. I was going to attend and try to make the same Paleo style. Alas - her event had to be cancelled so it gave me a change to try it at home. Hubby got the benefit of this delicious feast and helped in the process.

Paleo Style Crepes:

Mix together all the following ingredients:

3 Tablespoons Organic Coconut Flour (I used Bob's Red Mill)

2 eggs (cage free if you can get them)

3 Tablespoons Organic Coconut milk (in a can) full fat - without any sugar

2-1/2 Tablespoons water

pinch of salt

Use an 8" crepe pan. I used a teflon coated one which helped the crepe to just slide off. If anyone knows where to find a non-teflon crepe pan please let me know... I'd like to get away from teflon if possible.

Heat the pan. Add some coconut oil. Add 1/3 of the batter or just enough to be able to spread the batter all around the pan. The batter should have a runny enough consistency to easily slide from side to side. It did take me until the second batch and the fifth crepe before it came out as nice as in the picture.

I had previously microwaved some asparagus. I used the crepe pan to heat up some baked, low sodium ham - as Paleo/Whole 30 as I could find it... added that to the crepe rolled it up and added it to the beautiful fruit plated dishes he had ready. The coconut flour really did the trick. The crepes had the flexibility that would not be there is you use almond flour. The added benefit is they are slightly sweet (probably to those who have not been eating any sugar for a while). It was an awesome breakfast for a snowy New England morning. Gave us the energy to go out and deal with the snow later. :-)

Paleo 30-Day Experiment - Day 17

2012-01-19T18:53:00.000-05:00

Still hanging in there on Day 17. Getting into the routine of buying, preparing, and generally keeping a steady food stock in my kitchen. My next step is finding a local farm for my supply of grass fed beef. I did find the list of the farms on this wonderful Eat Wild website. Now it's just a matter of going to get the beef! Or chicken or pork. I am so happy to find out that I can go to a local farm for some great, grain free, sustainable food sources. We won't have time to get to any this weekend but hoping for a food run by the end of the month.

Only had one temptation day in work so far. We had a Department social with lots of "rewarding" sweet food. I really would have loved to have tried the butterscotch/chocolate chip brownies because they smelled so good but it wasn't that hard to leave them alone. My observation that day was that here I was on my "plan" and avoiding the sweets and it was somewhat of a challenge to me yet no one else in the room was eating the cake, cookies, and brownies either and it was no big deal to them at all. It was an eye opener for me. If I wasn't on Whole 30 I probably would have been the only one in the room eating one and the last one that should have been either if one as measuring body size... So, saved again by Whole 30 and I continue on!

Today I had leftover filet mignon from New Year's day for breakfast and blueberries. Not grass fed but it was what I had available to eat. Therefore my need to fill the freezer with the right kind of beef. Lunch was a HUGE spinach salad with asparagus, tuna and sliced almonds. Dinner, leftover pork tenderloin, broccoli, more blueberries with some coconut milk on top.

Time for some eye appealing dinners for more photos.

Paleo 30-Day Experiment

2012-01-14T21:38:00.000-05:00

Yeah - this is a good celebrating paleo night. Just because it's the weekend, Gridiron Greats Magazine is on its way to our subscribers, we have not eaten out since December 31, and lobster was on sale at our favorite grocery store. All good good good!

Meal of the day: Lobster. Lots of it. We cooked it ourselves on the grill outdoors in about 30 degrees F weather no less. Since we have a flat top cook top we thought the big pan would be boil the water faster and fit the two lobsters if we cooked them on the side of the grill outside. Still had to cook one at a time. They were pretty big lobsters. So happy we had some awesome Ghee to go with the lobster. So for once, hubby got to actually have some buttery taste with his lobster. He cannot eat dairy at all so me going Whole 30 and dropping the dairy just got us on the same page. I discovered Ghee, and now he gets to have that taste he liked without the dairy. The added fun part is that when I take the top off the Ghee, my cat, Angie comes running. She LOVES the taste of the Ghee. I'm sure it helps to keep her furs and coat nice and soft as well as helping with our own skin.

To get our fill of veggies I made a broccoli salad - cooked broccoli, fried up some non nitrite bacon, sliced up some grapes, chopped up some almonds since I had no sliced almonds in the house (ut oh) , and instead of making some paleo mayo, we decided - who needs that anyway and just squeezed some lemon over the broccoli. It worked perfectly.

Happy eating everyone! I know I'm enjoying this immensely. :-)

Paleo 30-Day Experiment - Day 8

2012-01-11T20:21:00.001-05:00

Another lovely Paleo day here in Connecticut on the Whole 30 plan. I haven't noticed any real difference in my sleeping patterns yet. I guess I expected that I'd be sleeping soundly ALL through the night and would wake up feeling refreshed and ready to just jump out of bed with all the energy I have stored up from eating such a marvelous diet. Alas, that is not the case. The only thing that has improved is that my husband commented that my snoring is not as bad as it usually is so I guess that's an improvement although not as outstanding as I expected. I also suppose that once I get into a regular work out or exercise routine that will help too.

Here's the food primer for today. I decided to listen to my body and my body said it wanted fruit. I haven't been eating very much fruit for some time so it was time to try something different for a change (I usually have eggs and something). So for a real treat since I made it to DAY 8 I had blueberries and raspberries covered with coconut milk and a liberal dosing of ground cinnamon. OMG. Well I found my new favorite treat. Who needs sugar when you have something this good? And no, the coconut milk did not have sugar it in.

As I was preparing my lunch to take to work I finally realized that the reason I had gotten so out of control with my food choices is that I wasn't preparing anything! I was running out of the house every day without making breakfast or lunch, eating at the cafeteria at work every morning then at lunch time or I would go out. Then once I got home I had no ideas or plans of what to make so usually it was another night out at a restaurant or bring home take out food from a good restaurant but take out nonetheless. So that was my epiphany for the day. I didn't have the best leftovers or lunch idea for today so it was the chicken wing leftovers with lots of organic baby spinach and cucumber. We have a great cafeteria with a pretty varied salad bar so I added some asparagus, tuna, roasted red pepper (not out of the jar) and brussels sprouts to it. It ended up way too much to eat it all at lunch and it was very satisfying.

Dinner started out with a plan to make some talapia with a recipe off the coconut milk can. I got it all prepped with cut up red and green peppers, onions, garlic all ready to saute and then I took a look at the pre-frozen now thawed talapia. One of them was GREEN! gag. For a brief moment I thought this whoe Paleo thing was really going to my head and I was seeing things. Not. Ok so toss the fish and make note to myself to make sure I don't buy frozen talapia anymore. Plan B. Chicken sausage with red and green peppers, onion, garlic. The sausage was from my favorite Stew Leonard's store from their fabulous "naked" food product line which meant no hormones, antibiotics, preservatives, etc. just chicken, peppers, and garlic. Not bad. Cooked up a batch of broccoli rabe and mixed it all together. Perfect. I guess if my camera is not right in front of my face I forget to take a picture. That reminds me though I did take a picture of my lovely breakfast... And, I was not hungry again until noon. Now that was a surprise since it was just a small bowl of fruit. Love that coconut milk!

Paleo whole 30 experiment day 7

2012-01-10T08:12:00.000-05:00

I'm a day late posting for day 7 but wanted to get it in anyway. Yayyy I made it through another day 100% no cheating no tastes of anything off the plan. For those of you who happened to stumble across this post, the Whole 30 is a 30 day challenge to eat healthy and to put it simply, eating the Paleo way with a diet oflean meats, fish, fruits and vegetables. See their site for more info and my post from day 1.

Ifelt much better on Monday than i did on Sunday. I Took a vigorous walk and felt off kilter after that. Could have been a blood sugar drop. Don't know but i felt great Monday.

Morning of day 8

Just had a nice egg white omelet with natural cooked sliced turkey breast and spinach and finally got to use my ghee. Wow. I love the smell of that ghee warming up in the pan.

Eye round roast has been started in the crockpot for dinner and i expect that to be a tasty event. A couple of friends are stopping over for a short visit so that will be my first situation in a week where I may be presented with the social hour challenge so to speak.

Have a great day!

Paleo 30-Day Experiment - Day 6

2012-01-08T19:07:00.000-05:00

Day 6. Wonderful Sunday morning. Church in the morning at 8AM. What did I forget about? The bread for communion! First time ever that I took the rice cake and the water instead of bread and grape juice. I know there are those who would say it's only a little piece of bread... but for this plan even one piece is not what I wanted to eat. Thankfully there are options. I could have made my way through the grocery store the other day just tasting all those little pieces of food samples but I didn't. You see how this way of life eating and such is about much more than just the food. It's about choices, and willpower, and motivation, and much much more. It's about making food at home instead of running to a restaurant. It's about exercising and starting to feel better. Although I have to say, that my husband and I went for a walk this afternoon and it was a very hilly walk. Not the best way to start out because it wiped me out instead of making me feel energized. Just goes to show us how we need to work on that aspect more.

So, I continue on and share more great meals we've been creating and eating and photographing!

Steak Soup

grass fed eye round beef steaks chopped, browned, and coooked in the crockpot with some yellow peppers, onions, and tomato paste, and beef broth. Wow was it tasty.

For dinner, hubby made some shrimp sauteed with olive oil, asparagus and cherry tomatoes. Using up the rest of the veggies from last nights meal. I wasn't in the mood for anything else fried so I boiled up some of the shrimp for myself and ate a couple of those plain with some asparagus.

On to a good week 2. We have leftovers, plenty of fruits and veggies and planned out a few days worth of meals. We have had our seafood weekend but I will be adding in some salmon this week.

Thanks for reading!

Paleo 30-Day Experiment - Day 5

2012-01-07T21:17:00.000-05:00

Day 5 of my dramatic lifestyle change... Today started out well with a nice egg omelet with fresh spinach and tomatoes and a slice of deli chicken. The deli chicken was gluten free, no antibiotics, yada yada. Let's just say it fit the list and didn't list any strange ingredients nor did it have any sugar in it.

I started a crock-pot of what was going to be a meat chili but turned into steak soup. I chopped up four grass fed eye round steaks, quickly browned them and threw them in the pot. Then I added a cut up yellow pepper, some minced shallots and garlic, and then some beef broth. I didn't have any tomato sauce that worked for me but then I realized that tomato paste is only that - tomatoes. Unless there is some other reason why that is not a good thing, then this is what I'll be using as a tomato base for anything that needs it. No sodium, no sugar, no citric acid. Works for me.

I went grocery shopping and stocked up on some things. Got a lot of fruits and veggies, some shrimp, scallops, and all things Paleo. By the time I got home I was really hungry. A couple more slices of the chicken meat with a cucumber before the shopping trip just didn't hold me too well. Then I finally started having some pings of sugar cravings. It doesn't help that all you smell all the way through Stew Leonard's is old fashioned donuts cooking and every section it seems someone is trying to get you to eat a sample of their food. It's a really strange store. You make your way through this maze so that rule of shopping on the ends for the produce and the meat doesn't hold true for Stewies :-). More on the store on another post because I took pictures of my shopping trip. They really have a beautiful presentation of food.

But, since I was starved when I got home and it would be a while before we ate the scallops I quickly baked up a batch of what Stew Leonard's calls "naked" for their no antibiotics, no hormone, organic chicken. I was so hungry by the time they were finished and I didn't have any other emergency snacking food that I ate quite a few of them.

How do you like the "naked" chicken wings? :-) Baked with nothing more than some italian dried spices on them.

For the dinner (geez all I did was either think about food, buy food, make food and eat food today all day!) I made a

Mediterranean Scallops

I pretty much followed a recipe I found on The Paleo Project. I used cherry tomatoes and added 1/2 a bag of fresh spinach and tossed it in the pan to wilt it down at the end and put that with the dish.

Look at these fresh scallop beauties! Beautiful dry packed scallops to give you that nice browned look when cooked and without the preservatives!

Voila! The finished Mediterranean Scallps dish. It was as yummy as it looks.

Observations from today are that first I had my first sugar cravings. Not bad but mostly because I didn't plan correctly and eat enough for lunch. Second, I am having no desire for alcohol at all which is the most surprising to me especially since this is day 5 and it's a weekend... Third, I'm happy that I am getting to not only eat better, but I'm finally using my camera to practice food photography, and actually posting photos every day. All good!

Paleo 30-Day Experiment - Day 4

2012-01-06T20:31:00.000-05:00

Day 4. And it's a Friday too. No problem getting through the day. Had leftover pork and cauliflower from the other night for breakfast. Then leftover turkey muffins with brussel sprouts for lunch. Lots of water throughout the day helped as well. Tonight's dinner: julienned zuchinni, nuked for a couple of minutes and added chopped fresh garlic and some olive oil. Not sure about the olive oil thing. I haven't used it a lot on these meals, just a sprinkling here and there. I had heard a cooking tip where you sprinkle the olive oil on the food after cooking it, not while cooking it as it will turn the flavor so I've been following that rule for some time. The meat was baked chicken breast with herbs. Simple meal but yummy.

This experiment has more benefits than getting healthier. It's been five days since hubby and I have gone out to eat either breakfast, lunch or dinner. That's a record in itself! The money we will be saving from this experiment will far outweigh the cost of the organic food. Tomorrow is a trip to Stew Leonard's, a local grocery store that has grass fed beef, lots of beautiful fruits and veggies and organic food.

30 Day Paleo Experiment - Day 3

2012-01-05T21:40:00.000-05:00

The biggest challenge for me so far is to cook dinner instead of finding a way to go out to dinner! I managed to make my way to the grocery store. I don't go that often anymore but found I really needed to get to Super Stop & Shop to get something for dinner and stock up with a few basics like the coconut milk, some grass fed beef and organic stuff. Thank God for S&S for their Nature's Promise line. Not everything was organic, like the brussels sprouts that I roasted. They were the fresh ones that I had to pick off the stalk though. Thought that was pretty fresh if not organic. Then I decided to make a turkey meatloaf or meatballs kind of thing. Usually I add oatmeal to my meatloaf mix but that's a no-no so what I ended up doing was making the turkey mix with about a 1/4 cup of almond flour, 2 eggs, lots of spices, and I added 3 teaspoons of Kosciusko mustard. I thought the mustard would give it a special flavor. I put the mix in my muffin pan. It held together nicely and now I have some cute little meatloaf muffins leftover that I froze for when I need a quick pick me up. Overall it was an ok recipe but I think some nice beef would be better. I'll try this again with the ground bison that I bought.

Still no sugar cravings and I'm kind of surprised especially since I had so much more sugar than normal in December. But, it's only Day 3 so I'll see how tomorrow goes. I'm not really hungry at all either so I must be making a good mix of food. I do think I need to add more veggies to the day though.
Woo Hooo! Made it through another day with no grains at all! Amazing. Till tomorrow!

30 Day Paleo Experiment - Day 2

2012-01-04T18:32:00.000-05:00

Day 2. Still doing fine. Had a nice egg white omelet for breakfast this time with some leftover chicken, sliced almonds and fresh spinach. Then I took a quick photo of tonight's dinner before turning the crock pot on to cook a nice porketta with cauliflower. I had already put it together last night so all I had to do was turn it on.

Today one of my co-workers brought in some really delicious looking home baked cookies to share with the department. Normally I would have been all over those but I managed to keep my hands and mind off them. After a nice salad for lunch and some more leftover chicken I was fine for the rest of the day at work.

Once I got home I was ready for dinner. I had bought the porketta from the local butcher all ready put together with some spices and spinach. The only other thing I added was some Kitchen Basics organic beef broth. It is the only beef broth I've ever found that didn't have some hydrolized something or yeast and sugars in it. Although it listed honey as an ingredient there were 0 grams of sugar in the ingredients. Only problem with this roast was that it cooked longer than it should have even with the setting on low. Was still pretty good though!

I had started this plan with little actual planning for the food though so I need to get my grocery list together and get moving otherwise I know I'm going to run into a problem. I'm getting a little nervous about the weekend. If I can manage to lay low, keep close to home and do some exercising I will be fine. One day at a time!

Back to nomnompaleo.com to look at some of her great recipe pics :-)

Paleo 30-Day Experiment - Day 1

2012-01-03T18:26:00.001-05:00

Day 1 of my 30-day Paleo experiment.

I had planned to make 2012 a year of health. 2011 wasn't such a good year of eating for me and I only put on pound after pound even though I thought I wasn't eating that badly. I had lost weight on a lo-carb diet in 2007 and pretty much stuck to a semblance of lo-carb eating for a few years. Then in 2011 little by little I lost control. By the last week in December I was eating sweet cakey like things that I had never even liked before.

Along the way in the last year or so I also happened upon the Paleo Solution. I had stumbled across the blog of Tim Ferris and his post "How to Keep Feces out of Your Bloodstream (or how to lose 10 pounds in 14 days)". After reading that post which is a take on an excerpt from Robb Webb's book "The Paleo Solution" it sounded like that was the way to go. It made perfect logical sense to me when I read the book and how he explains what grains are doing to our systems. I don't need to explain it here, nor can I rework it well enough to explain it without messing something up in the translation. If you want to Google it, just type in Paleo and there is plenty of explanations of what it is.
I do know this though, I did feel great when I was on a lo-carb diet and eating Paleo is that but even better.

What I do know is that I need to change what I have been doing for the last year or so, if not to get healthier, but to fit into my wardrobe at least! The Paleo way of eating is not just so that people lose weight. Part of the reason why I'm doing this Paleo experiment is to see how I feel overall after trying it. Do I feel crappy from the way I eat now? Not really except for the uncomfortable way I feel from being overweight. I'm one of those people with an "ironcast stomach". I can eat just about anything and I feel ok so there's no issues of food allergies or anything like that. What I'd like to see is if I have more clarity and more energy at the end of the 30 days. Will this way of eating really make me feel different and for the better?

The Universe was on my side in helping me to start this test since the thought of exercising was starting to sound good to me. It's also helps because this is the time of year when so many people want to start a diet and exercise so the timing works for me as well. I was thinking that I would just start walking, maybe work out a little, rejoin the gym at work, or start the Cross fit program in town. Then when I went online to read about the Cross fit program, one thing lead to another and I was back on the Paleo track. It really felt right and I decided to start at that moment, today, right now. So luckily I had a good start with an eggwhite omelet so I can easily say with the food I ate today, that it fits in for a solid Day 1. Here's what I'm NOT eating (taken from the Whole30 website, whole9life.com). It's Paleo to the core.

[No] added sugar of any kind, real or artificial. No maple syrup, honey, agave nectar, Splenda, Equal, Nutrasweet, xylitol, stevia, etc. Read your labels, because companies sneak sugar into products in all kinds of ways.
Do not eat processed foods. This includes protein shakes, pre-packaged snacks/meals, protein bars, milk substitutes, etc.
Do not drink alcohol, in any form.
Do not eat grains. This includes (but is not limited to) wheat, rye, barley, millet, oats, corn, rice, sprouted grains and all of those gluten-free pseudo-grains like quinoa. (Yes, we said corn!) This also includes all the ways we add wheat, corn and rice into our foods in the form of bran, germ, starch and so on. Again, read your labels.
Do not eat legumes. This includes beans (black, kidney, lima, etc.), peas, lentils, and peanuts or peanut butter. This also includes all forms of soy – soy sauce, miso, tofu, tempeh, edamame, and all the ways we sneak soy into foods (like lecithin).
Do not eat dairy. This includes all cow, goat or sheep’s milk, cream, butter, cheese, yogurt, whey, ice cream, etc.
Do not eat white potatoes. It’s arbitrary, but they are carbohydrate-dense and nutrient poor, and also a nightshade.
Most importantly… do not try to shove your old, unhealthy diet into a shiny new Whole30 mold. This means no “Paleo-fying” less-than-healthy recipes – no “Paleo” pancakes, “Paleo” pizza, “Paleo” fudge or “Paleo” ice cream. Don’t mimic poor food choices during your Whole30 program!

Whole30 does have a nice logo that I will add to my posts as soon as their website it back up. I had learned about trying a 30-day experiment from reading so many of Steve Pavlina's blogs. He's done some great 30day trials - but this way of eating is certainly not something that would resonate with him since he is a raw-foodist. Raw foods are part of what's important in Paleo, but the meat part doesn't cut it for any vegetarian. That's a debate for another day and for other bloggers to explain as well. For me, I just want to see if I can do the 30-days :-). Eating meat and veggies and fruit is just what I love and is the easy part. Not eating pasta is pretty easy for me too in fact. I haven't had bread in the house for the longest time so that shouldn't be too bad either. It's just been lately that some Italian bread seemed to have snuck it's way back in -- hah!

Pictures will be forthcoming. I do like to photograph food and this is a good way to document my 30-day journey. Thanks for reading along.

New Haven Restaurant Week- Bespoke

2010-04-19T07:52:00.000-04:00

New Haven, CT is having their Spring 2010 Restaurant Week from Sunday, April 18 - Friday, April 23 2010. While there are plenty of restaurants to choose from we had the pleasure of dining at Bespoke. The restaurant was offering a prix fix, three course lunch and dinner menu with an appetizer, entrée, and dessert for $29.

We ordered the Romaine Salad and the Merguez Sausage dishes for appetizers. The salad was fresh and light while the sausage dish with was filled with slices of tasty sausage with a balanced amount of chickpeas and tomato, with a perfect touch of spiciness along with plenty of sauce to soak up with the grilled bread pieces.

For the dinner one of us had the New England Shellfish - smoked ham, mussels; clams, truffle gnocchi. We wanted a dish not too heavy with gnocchi and this fit the bill perfectly. The clams and mussels sat in a scrumptious sauce with the lightest, fluffiest gnocchi I have ever tasted.

I had the Coffee Cured Hanger Steak - with melted mushrooms and judies asiago bread pudding. My steak was cooked just the way I like it, medium rare. I think this is my new favorite steak. The flavors are intense. The melted mushrooms are a sauce of the most intense flavors of mushroom that you could imagine. And the bread pudding on the plate, tastes like a divine serving of scalloped potato. Each bite is a heavenly intensely flavored morsel.

Dessert was just as an enriching taste experience as the rest of the meal. We dove into it so fast I forgot to get a picture! The desserts were Orange Kissed Ricotta (honey, kataifi, pistachios) and Chocolate Malt Icebox Pie with butterscotch sauce. The chocolate malt actually had malted milk balls on it! There was enough butterscotch sauce to have a taste of it with each lovely silky bite of it. The ricotta dessert was a ricotta base, awesome in simplicity, that you scooped up into a kiss of orange marmalade tossed with pistachios and topped with the crunchiness of the kataifi. Unbelievable!

What we love the most about the meals at Bespoke are the perfect intensity of the flavors. We will think about and remember this meal for a long time.

Time for Low Carb

2009-11-29T17:09:00.003-05:00

I really got into the low-carb diet a couple of years ago and I loved it because I could eat the things I love the most. Like all diets, the same old bad habits crept back in little by little. I've never been a big processed food person, with cabinets stocked full with cereals, boxes of processed foods, freezers full of ice cream, and bags of snack foods. But you can't start each day thinking low-carb AND then go and eat something sweet or a half of a muffin, go out and eat some french fries there, have some crunchy snack, and do that daily without the pounds creeping back on.

This is the time of year when we are faced with even more carb laden choices flung in our faces daily. It just makes me more aware of how I want to make the change back to low carb. I actually really liked eating like that. It made it so much easier to eat in a restaurant because I could narrow the menu down to a few choices instead of hemming and hawing about all the things I really wanted to eat. Even today, I went out to breakfast and knowing I was going to start a low carb life style again, I ended up ordering the buckwheat pancakes. I never get pancakes because I would much rather have an egg or an egg white omelet. I ended up trading with hubby because he got the omelet. Your mind does funny things to you!

So, back I go to my favorite eating style, Stella Style, which is a low carb way of eating, focusing on fresh foods. Tonight I through out the carb laden foods, like the Thanksgiving Day leftovers. There isn't really that much besides the stuff leftover that I made for everyone else and some white flour.

Now, on to the challenges and the joy of eating low carb again. Wish me luck.

O'Rourke's Diner

2009-05-03T15:43:00.005-04:00

We had the pleasure of eating at a local restaurant icon, O'Rourke's Diner in Middletown, Connecticut today. Wanting to do something a little different than our usual Sunday morning breakfast around town, we decided to take a ride knowing that the end result would be some great desserty type breads with our breakfast. We have been here a few times before usually right after church, a little past 9:00 AM and there is rarely a line then but always is when we are leaving. So this morning we arrived closer to 10:00 AM to stand in a line of about 16 people. It's a good thing we did because the owner came out with a fresh hot tray of an almondy, chocolaty, buttery, cookie-like dessert to pass out to us hungry waiting folks. What a way to start off breakfast!

In order to help the line along, those who wanted to double up with another couple got in quicker. We got to meet two very nice people and had a tasty breakfast as well. O'Rourke's is famous for their extensive, and I mean extensive by a few pages of breakfast choices. It takes more time to look at and decide what we want sometimes than actually eating the food.

When you first sit down you get a plate of sweet home baked items like lemon poppy seed cake, blueberry sour cream bread, and other delicious baked breads to share. Here's the breakfast items we had today:

Barbara had the Eggs Benedict Florentine and enjoyed it right down to the last bite!

Gene had an omelet with home fries and bacon.

Bob had the Irish Soda bread french toast with blueberries. YUM!

And lastly, I had a special which was eggs benedict with Irish bacon, a crab cake and then the eggs with Hollandaise sauce, with a lobster claw and those tasty home fries.

Until another delicious day,

Brenda

Wild Maine Blueberry Muffins Whole Wheat Muffins

2008-07-27T11:21:00.003-04:00

Following a wonderful week of vacation in Bar Harbor, ME , I brought home a couple quarts of wild Maine blueberries. Here's the result of the first batch of blueberry muffins.

Wild Maine Blueberry Whole Wheat Muffins

4 Tbsp. melted butter
2 c. whole wheat flour
1 tbsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt
1/4 c. sugar
1 c. organic unsweetened soy milk

2 eggs, well beaten
1 1/2 c. wild Maine Blueberries
(coated with 1/4 c. of whole wheat flour)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Spray muffin tins with vegetable spray. Sift the dry ingredients in a bowl. Mix the soy milk with the beaten eggs and stir in the melted butter. Combine the two mixtures and mix in blueberries.
Fill muffin tins about 3/4 full. Bake 15-20 min. and remove from tins immediately.

Water's Edge Resort Father's Day Sunday Brunch

2008-06-27T13:36:00.006-04:00

We celebrated Father's Day at the Water's Edge Resort and Spa in Westbrook, CT. We love Sunday Brunch and we especially love the ones that have plenty of wonderful food to choose from. Besides having an elegant and food filled Sunday Brunch every week, they kicked it up a notch for the special day with a special ice carving. The shrimp was plentiful, perfectly chilled, and clean and fresh tasting. There were all assortments of salads, and fresh fruits and vegetables, so that the vegetarian in our group was able to enjoy it. We even tried the fun foods like taco dip with nachos. A platter of lox with all the pickings was also available.

Plenty of breakfast items were available prepared to order such as a fully stocked Omelet station, and a Belgium Waffle and French Crepe station that included chocolate chips, blueberries, coconut, and almonds to name a few. Follow that up with a splash of Grand Marnier? More please!

Six hot entrees, a carving station with roast beef and ham, and fresh pastas made to order with a varying sauces rounded out the dinner side of the menu.

Follow up all that foodie goodness with an incredible array of mini pastries. I wish I could say we all shared this plate but no, the Dad in the group with his sweet tooth ate to his heart's content.
Water's Edge is such a lovely place to enjoy the food, the sights, and the all around beauty of the place. You won't go wrong making a reservation to have Sunday Brunch here. It's the best in Connecticut.

Hyatt Aruba Sunday Brunch

2008-06-01T20:21:00.002-04:00

We have to tell everyone about the best Sunday Brunch we have ever had. It's not as some may think, that just because you are on vacation in a special place it makes everything so much better, although it did make our hearts sing knowing that we were in Aruba. The Sunday Brunch at the Hyatt in Aruba would be awesome whether it was in Aruba or at a Hyatt in your nearest city.
It was all about the variety of choices on the menu and the freshness of all the food. And the waiters and waitresses were always right there to clean up your plate as soon as you finished and before your glass of champagne or mimosa was empty to refill it again.

Get ready for the line up of the menu - in no particular order:

Omelets to order
Sushi bar
Home made donuts hot and fresh from the machine (that's why Bob is smiling so much below)
Carving station with Angus beef and turkey
Fresh pasta station
Waffles
Lox (fresh as could be) and everything to go with it including caviar
Assortment of breakfast items - bacon, sausage, eggs, fried potatoes, etc.
Assortment of hot dinner items
lobster bisque
Salads galore including an incredible crab salad that hit a hint of hotness to it
Pate'
A huge pile of nicely sized shrimp in the shell and oysters on the half shell (see below)
desserts
Free pouring champagne for mimosas during the entire meal

The crab salad is on the left, the lox was perfect, and there were all the accompaniments for it including blocks of cream cheese, red onion, caviar, and more.
Bob gasped in delight when he spotted this incredible array of shrimp and oysters.
Hot, fresh, pesto pasta right out of the pan. Delicious.
The restaurant had a fresh and light ambiance, a free flow through to all the different food stations, to make it easy to get to your choice and back to your table.

There were plenty of assorted desserts for the finale including my favorite, mini fruit tarts.
We'd go back to Aruba just to experience the Hyatt Sunday brunch. And, in fact, for our next trip to Aruba we are going to make sure we get two Sunday's in to enjoy it twice.

Scoozzi's Spring Seafood Festival

2008-05-10T13:26:00.015-04:00

Scoozzi Trattoria and Wine Bar in New Haven, CT held their Six Annual "Sagra Del Pesce," Spring Seafood Festival this past week. Not wanting to pass up a chance to try out some Italian wines and some of Scoozzi's delectable Italian food we made our reservations and attended the event. Chef Jeff Caputo prepared the following items:
We started out with a nice chilled glass of 2006 Cantele Chardonnay, from the Puglia region of Italy. Since chardonnay is probably my favorite white wine I was happy with the smooth velvety feeling of this nicely balanced wine. Alone and paired with the appetizers the chardonnay was a pleasant beginning .

The appetizers were a delicately seasoned Atlantic Tuna tartare on ciabatta croustades, Peekytoe Bay, Maine Lump Crab tartletts and Pan fried Italian Bronzino bites. The crab tarts were simple and light, while the Bronzino bits had a nice very light fried coating that did not overpower this white, mild, soft Mediterranean fish.

Once we sat down we started out with a Ceviche of American Red Snapper, Wild Mexican Gulf Shrimp and Canadian Digby Bay Scallops served with a fresh artichoke heart. This was paired with a Botromagno 2006 Gravina. The gravina started off a little too acidic tasting for me but within a half hour opened up and showed some elegance. What started out as a what I refer to as a rough bouquet mellowed and morphed into a Chardonnay-like oaky aroma. It worked wonders with the ceviche. I'd call the Gravina a two-fer wine. Drink it quickly and you'll have a clean and tart tasting wine, let it warm up and the bouquet opens, it becomes more oaky, mellows out and holds its finish nicely. This may very well be one of the wines I keep in stock for summer on the deck parties.

Next course was Connecticut harvested Little Neck Clams and Rhode Island harvested Squif braised in a spicy tomato sauce, garlic brushed croustade, escarole and beans. Ahhh, look at this beautiful melange of seafood. This dish paired up excellently with the Il Palagetto 2006 Vernaccia. For me it's usually red food, red wine. Yet the Vernaccia proved that the tried and true is not always the way to go. The spiciness of the sauce toned down perfectly with the low acidity of the Vernaccia.

Following the saucy seafood mix came the Grilled Connecticut harvested Sea Scallops, sweet corn fritella, sautéed spinach and mushrooms, with a dash of saffron-ginger creme fraiche. For once I could actually taste the spinach and mushrooms without being overwhelmed with sodium. The sweetness of the scallops was complemented by the sweetness of the corn in the fritella. This was another meal in itself. This dish was served with the 2006 Principato Pinot Noir. I felt this was a lighter weight pinot noir but still had that wonderful cherry aroma, spice and oak in it. Once the nose developed it smoothed out. It had a slow start but nice finish. The black cherry and berry fruitiness made this a good choice to taste with the scallops and corn.

By the time we tried the Fried Maryland Softshell Crab with arugula salad and lemon aioli we were really full. I wasn't about to pass up on softshell crab though. Paired with a 2003 Bove Montepulciano D'Abruzzo, "Avegiano" this was another good choice for the pairing. The rich fruit character of the Bove was delightful without being too complex for richness of the fried crab.

And finally, the end was near. Coconut Gelato was the dessert. A sweet, clean ending to the food, flavors, and fun of the night. A bubbly, airy, carefree finale tasting of the Prosecco, Neirano put a smile on my face.

Thanks to the three Jeff's; Jeff Horton, Jeff Schultz, and Chef Jeff Caputo, including their wonderful staff for a tasteful night of food and fun.

Wine Review #2 Echelon Central Coast Merlot

2008-03-04T19:04:00.002-05:00

Another night another wine! Today's tasting is a 2003 Merlot, Echelon Central Coast from the Echelon Vineyards in CA. Our favorite wine store owner wanted to know what we thought of this one. We liked it! It is a thousand times better than the white wine we had last night. Well maybe not a thousand times, but maybe 900 times better... The Echelon Merlot was a nice deep cherry color with a pleasant, very cherry taste. Nice balance with medium tannin, and lingered on my tongue nicely with a long finish. I give it a 10 plus tongue roll because the flavor was still there after that many clicks to the roof of my mouth. On the bottle it states that it has a cocoa flavor but I had a hard time picking that out. I did try a piece of 70% dark chocolate from Guylian to see how it held up with it and bingo! It went well with chocolate and that's one of my favorite things to note especially if I'm going to be ordering a wine out at dinner. I really like my red wines to have the possibility to go with chocolate since that's what I most likely will have for dessert. Yum. I would buy this wine again to have with a meal or even to drink without food. Hmmm. Sounds like a good idea. Pour me another one! Ahhhh.

Wine Review #1 - Goat Door Chardonnay

2008-03-03T18:39:00.002-05:00

I really needed to get going on this wine and foodie blog. Tonight is the night. I'm going to start right at the bottom with a really, and I mean really, inexpensive wine I picked up at a local wine store recently. For $3.99 (I wasn't kidding about the el cheapo price) in the end cap isle, was a bottle of Goat Door, 2005 Chardonnay from South Africa. Now I have to tell you, I was eating a bowl of cauliflower covered in a dried Indian curry mixed spice mix when I took the first sip. The familiar oakiness of a Chardonnay jumped out at me, made me smile, and I thought I had a winner at $3.99 a bottle. Nevertheless, that feeling didn't last long.

The curry actually helped the taste along but when I was sipping the wine alone the flavors took on their own character when not in competition with the curry. I continued to taste the oakey flavor which I do indeed like. I also got a silky, buttery, feeling from the wine which I also like. There just seemed to be a sour back end to it that I didn't like. When I really searched for it I could taste a veeerrryy slight caramel taste or maybe that's what I was hoping for. All in all for the price it wasn't too bad. I would probably buy it again just for one of those nights when I would like to open a bottle of wine, have a glass with my meal and not worry about whether or not the rest went to waste.

Clarke Cooke House Brunch

2008-02-02T08:09:00.001-05:00

Sunday Brunch is one of our favorite meals to have at a nice restaurant. The Clarke Cook House in Newport, RI is one of those places. At a recent weekend getaway, we not only had lunch there, when we saw the menu for their brunch we had to come back and try it. This restaurant is a classic Newport tradition. It's a place where the locals hang out. People who grew up there and moved away are drawn back by memories of their childhood dinners and the restaurant's Snowball from Hell dessert. What child wouldn't remember an ice cream sunday type dessert, a chocolate roulade topped with vanilla ice cream in a chocolate coated goblet covered with Callebault chocolate and sprinkled with coconut?
One of the reasons I like brunch so much is because of Mimosa's, champagne and orange juice. I gave up my sugar-free diet for one day just to be able to indulge in this little bit of Heaven. And Heaven it felt like as we enjoyed the crisp, clean, blue sky and calm water outside our window seat.
The brunch menu offers a variety of specialty poached egg dishes. I tried the Oeufs en Meurette, two poached eggs in red wine on a crouton with bacon, pearl onions, mushrooms, and frisée. That was out of this world. It's not something you would normally throw together at home on a Sunday afternoon. We followed up our meal with a bread pudding dessert special. It was a slice on the plate drizzled with a caramel sauce. We ate it so fast I didn't even get a picture of it. But it was so memorable that we'll be coming back years from now hoping to repeat that special meal from the past.

Cake anyone?

2007-11-29T07:47:00.001-05:00

Dessert at D'errico's in North Haven, CT. I really should write down the names of these things! Whatever kind of cake it was, it was fabulous.

How 'bout them apples?

2007-10-20T11:11:00.001-04:00

This the season to enjoy the freshest apples around. These apples are from Rogers Orchards in Southington, CT. We'll be in apple eating, baking pie heaven for the next month. Can't you just imagine that wonderful crisp, juicy, sweet and tart taste as you bite into one of those beautiful apples?

Fine way to start

2007-10-08T21:01:00.000-04:00

The kick off of this blog can have no better way to start than to post pictures of food and wine from my favorite restaurant, Becco, in New York City. A luncheon birthday celebration for Bob's 49th birthday turned out excellent as usual at Becco. It was our 4th visit here and each time it just gets better if that's possible. The food is always top notch as is the service. Our waiter, Mitch, graciously let us take his picture modeling the wine we chose. It was a Castelrapiti 1997, Fattoria Montellori Cabernet Sauvignon, Sangiovese blend. It was excellent with a nice zing to begin with a nice smooth finish.

Next for the appetizers we had the procuitto and parmesan cheese plate and the antipasto that comes with the pasta luncheon special.

Three pastas of the day come with the luncheon special. They serve it to you right out of the pan. Wow. The three pastas were ravioli with a cream sauce, the ziti with the bolognese sauce, oh my God, it was wonderful, with a slightly sweet taste to it, and the spaghetti. It doesn't get any better than this.

The other dish was a freshly made pork sausage over Mediterranean vegetable assortment of zuchinni, eggplant, and peppers. For a lo-carber like me, it was truly the perfect dish. For dessert we had the sampler platter with cheesecake, chocolate moussecake, gelato, panna cotta, and an apple crisp type of pastry.

We know we have to go to some other restaurants in NY but we keep coming back here because it is so wonderful. Try it sometime.