Whole30 – Day 1

Morning: I got up (late) and got ready for work. On my way out the door, I heated up my Blackberry Sage Sausage patties I’d made the night before. They were wonderful! Then I checked on my homemade mayo I’d also made that night. Big fat nope. I would have to try again tonight, but that put me in a bind for lunch as I was counting on that mayo turning out right for the chicken salad I had prepared the night before (I was rather busy that night). Oh well, I’d figure it out later.

Normally, I don’t call myself a coffee drinker. If I drink it at all, I either really need it or it’s something to satisfy a sweet craving in the afternoon. But after being up past midnight last night prepping all that food, I knew I was going to need coffee this morning. One problem: no sugar allowed on the Whole30 Plan. And with me being an “I like coffee with my cream and sugar” type of person, I knew this was going to be difficult. However, Whole30 does allow coffee on the plan, so step one was taken care of. They allow you to drink unsweetened coconut or almond milk, and you can add that to your coffee, but nothing else. Last night I thought ahead when I was shopping and picked up some unsweetened almond milk. I knew I liked the vanilla-flavored kind, so how bad could the unsweetened kind be?

I would find out.

I don’t make coffee at home, so I poured some of that milk into my Yeti and set off for work. When I got there, I made a cup of coffee and poured as much milk in there as my cup would hold and tasted it. Bitter as hell! So I poured some of the coffee in the sink to make room for more milk and tasted it. Not quite as bitter this time. Gross, but okay, this would have to work.

I stared at it as I spent my morning designing invitations for a trade show, but an hour and a half later, that coffee was still sitting at my desk, cold and only half gone. It would have to be enough to get me through the day because I had already exhausted my milk supply.

Lunch: After my mayo from the night before turned out gross, I found another recipe that I thought I’d try. Basically the same recipe I’d used the night before, but the ingredients went in in a different order and used an immersion blender versus the regular one. So, with chicken salad on the brain, I went home at lunch to make it thinking it would be quick.

Once I started mixing, I realized it was going to be next to impossible to slowly drizzle olive oil with one hand and mix with the other hand at one time. My blender also kept falling apart (thanks, Hamilton Beach!!), so I had to hold the bottom part and the top part together to make sure it stayed in place while I blended. So in order to pour the oil, I had to stop the blender, pour a tiny amount into the bowl and start blending again. Over and over again. This was going to take a while.

When I got down to about a quarter of a cup left of oil (recipe required a whole cup), my blender started smoking. SMOKING! Really?? It was also getting really hot to the touch, so I decided to switch over to the regular blender before that one blew up in my hands. Heavy sigh.

Forty five minutes, one burned up immersion blender and a major oily mess on the counter later, I had my second attempt at homemade mayo. And I was out of time to make my chicken salad. So, with a heavy heart, I put my mayo in the fridge and grabbed another Blackberry Sage Sausage, some grapes and went back to work.

Dinner: I made it through the day with my stomach only starting to growl after everyone had left the office for the day (thank goodness). I headed home and started in on my Buffalo Chicken Stuffed Peppers (topped with guac!!) recipe that I was more than excited about. It took about two hours to get everything chopped and cooked, but it was well worth it! I was skeptical mixing their Whole30-approved clarified butter (ghee) with hot sauce to mix with the chicken, but it turned out amazing! So great, in fact, that I sent it out to the group for them to try (after sending it to the wrong group first, but hey, who doesn’t like to look at good food?).

It was the perfect mix of hot sauce to chicken to pepper to guacamole ratio. So good I ate two of them. Whoops.

And the next day, when one of my friends mentioned the hot sauce, I found out the kind I used (Texas Pete) isn’t Whole30-approved. Damnit.

This is going to be a long 30 days.