Preparations

Today wasn't too bad for a day 1.  I thought I was going to be suffering a lot today from all the sugar I ate yesterday.  I was tempted to eat some of the Halloween cookies we made, especially when Matt started eating them after dinner and was exclaiming about how good they were.  I know he was just doing it for the sake of the kids because the kids made the cookies and they were so excited that he was just loving them, but it made me want to eat cookies too!  But seriously, I've gone waaaay overboard on the sugar train and it needs to stop.

I think being exceptionally busy today helped me not feel the effects as much.  I did get a really bad stomach ache in the afternoon right after lunch and I was wondering if I didn't cook the chicken I put in my salad long enough.  There were many fervent prayers said after that meal and I decided to cook the remaining chicken longer just to be sure.  My prayers were answered and I apparently didn't poison myself with under cooked chicken, which is a good thing because I did a lot today.  This morning was spent cleaning the upstairs of the house.  The kids and I cleaned and organized their bedrooms, the spare room where all their toys are kept, and my room.  Plus we vacuumed and I gave the kids one of those enviro cloths from Norwex to clean the doors and light switches and walls from years of gunk.  I think there was still some poop smeared on the wall in the closet from when Chloe was smearing poop last year.... maybe not... hopefully not, but the walls and doors were dirty and that was their job.  It took all morning and it was noon before I knew it.  Then I started cooking chicken and making spices and I ended up eating my salad an hour later.  I made several things out of my Paleo cookbook today.  They were all in the basics section.  I made two spice mixes: Dukkah and Magic Mushroom powder.  Paleo Mayo, and Srirancha Sauce

I had to try the Mayo twice because the first time I totally botched it.  The recipe said to use an immersion blender and I thought I could just use my blendtec blender, but it didn't emulsify *sob* which is extra sad because I was using avocado oil and doubling the recipe.  I was left with a soupy mixture that went down the drain.  Now I'm out of avocado oil, but at least there was enough left for me to try it again mixing it by hand.  It worked but it wasn't very fun.  I think I'm going to buy an immersion blender, I keep seeing them in recipes and they are not very expensive.  Only about $35 on Amazon.  You are encouraged to make your own mayo because it is used a lot in other sauces for dipping meats and vegetables in and it adds a lot of taste and variety to your meals.  You can't really buy Paleo Mayo at the store because it is so heavily processed.  The mayo I made today only lasts 1-2 weeks in the fridge... I think I've had the same bottle of store bought mayo in the fridge for three months and it doesn't taste bad.  Talk about your preservatives.  The Magic Mushroom Powder is made from a special mushroom called Porchinci Mushrooms.  They apparently have a whole lot of flavor.  That is all I know about them.  I ordered dried mushrooms off of Amazon because even my health food store was sold out of them when I went to go look.  It's basically glorified salt, with an emphasis on the glorified.  I used it on my fish tonight and it tasted awesome!  The Dukkah started out as a mixture of spices to put in oil so you could dip your bread in it, but this recipe is used as a seasoning, or a rub.  I used it on my chicken this afternoon.  It smelled strongly of the cumin I put in there.  It has cumin seed, coriander seed, sesame seed, hazelnut, and pistachio nuts in it.

I had to grind them in my baby bullet because I don't have a spice grinder.  After trying to grind the dried mushrooms in my blender and getting fine powder everywhere (I'm not kidding those mushrooms went poof!  Mushroom powder was getting everywhere, in the air even and floating away.  I got a big wiff of it up my nose.....  Good thing these mushrooms aren't narcotic or the whole "magic" part would take on a whole new meaning).  Anyway, sidetracked.  I remembered my baby bullet had a milling blade and it worked wonderfully for grinding up my seeds for my Dukkah.  The Sriracha sauce is a spicy sauce made from red jalapeno peppers.  It was pretty easy to make, and this time my blender did the trick.  I had to blend up all the ingredients and then boil it for 10 minutes.  Pretty easy, and super tasty.  It made the whole house smell good too.  I used the sriracha sauce to dip my fish and veggies in for dinner and it was super yummy.  Spicy yes, but not too spicy.  If you like spicy you can use spicier peppers, but I'm a wuss and so the red jalapenos were plenty spicy for me.  The recipe has some honey in it, but I'm not doing a super strict Whole 30 this time around.  I'm more wanting to get back to eating healhty, and experiment with more ways of cooking and working on finding a better lifestyle.  I also made a citrus vinaigrette for my salad dressing that was pretty yummy.  Fortunately I had an orange on hand to juice, although I did have to run to the store anyway to buy an extra 1/2 pound of peppers for my sriracha since I only bought 1 pound and I needed 1 1/2... Next time I should put quantity of food items on my list instead of just "red jalapenos".

Tomorrow I want to boil some eggs so I can have some hard boiled eggs in the fridge.  There is a really good method in the book I want to try out.  I also need to clean the main floor of my house and make some more yummy stuff.  I am thinking of making the Macadamia Ricotta tomorrow.  I have one more mason jar left, and that sounds good :-)

It feels good to be back to eating healthy and working towards being productive.  I'm a happier person when I am productive and I feel like I have accomplished something besides eating and sleeping all day.

Breakfast

Lunch- There is the salad dressing I made!