Finally made Bora Bora Fireballs...and yes it lived up to it's hype

Bora Bora Fireballs are awesome! Here is the recipe. I just wanted to share the pictures my brother in law took and mention a few changes.

Toasting the coconut was easier than I thought. If you haven't done it (like me) you just toss it in a pan and toast over medium heat. It is easy to burn so you have to watch it closely.  I used Bob's Red Mill unsweetened coconut. If you aren't Whole30 I would still recommend using it or else the fireballs will turn out way to sweet. 

I also used a whole Jalapeno and 1.5 teaspoons of Cayenne. I'm not a huge fan of spicy but my friends coming for dinner were. It actually turned out perfect. I enjoyed them without my mouth on fire and even the 3 year olds snacked on them.  

Spacing is critical. I put mine to close together and they didn't crisp up because of all the juices. The above picture shows the appropriate amount of spacing! I served it with a large salad and sauteed yellow squash. 

Smoke, Smoke, Smoke!

Green Bean turned 3 over the weekend so we made a pork shoulder in Husband's new smoker. Its hard to believe something this good was actually healthy. All I did was rub it down with Bryan's Black Mountian BBQ rub from his cookbook. Then it cooked in the smoker for 10 hours with hickory chips. We wrapped it in tin foil after cooking for 4 and it turned out nice a juicy.

BBQ Rub

6 T Salt

6 T Chili Powder

4T Paprika

2 T Black Pepper

1 t Tyme

1t celery seed

1 t garlic

2t oregano

4 t allspice

I mixed it all up in a mason jar for storage. 

Whole30 Day 1 and 2, a Change Up with Steak recipe plus Addition of Twitter

2 down, 28 to go!

Day 1
Eggs, Green pepper, Coffee
Fried Sweet Potato, Egg and Spinach with Balsamic Vinegar
Hamburger Wraps


Day 2
Eggs, Carrots, Coffee
Leftover Hamburger Wraps
Steak and Fried Sweet Potato


So I know these meals are complaint but maybe a bit boring, low on veggies and to much sweet potato. I'm going through a little detox and since I have done a Whole30 before I thought I would ease the transition with some sweet potatoes since they help with the headaches. Since I'm trying to lose weight I'll be cutting back from here on out. Plus I used them all up. Its easy to cut something out when you have run out. I find it easier to make one decision at the grocery store than to fight temptation in the house. Even though if Sweet Potato are your only temptation you are doing pretty good in my book.

This steak is brought to you courtesy of the frying pan. I salted them and let them sit for about an hour. Then I tossed some homemade clarified butter and cooked 6 minutes (3 each side) on medium high. It was awesome!

What 1 lb of butter gives you if you wondered. Which brings me to...

I've never used twitter before but I figured I would give it a shot. My internet can be slow so it can be hard to knock out a blog post in a reasonable amount of time. So I'm opting for short updates via Twitter! There is a follow me button at the top of the blog on the right. You never know what will happen next as I figure out this blogging stuff..

Getting Ready for Whole30 Round 2

Well I did it. I ate my way through Alabama. And I enjoyed every.moment.of.it. 

In what seemed like a bid to have cake every day, I started out at the bakery that did my wedding cake. It was a sweet memory lane. That was the beginning of the end. I won't bore you with the details but there were plenty of carbs, alcohol, creamy sauces and not nearly enough veggies.

I even got a college favorite, a vanilla frappuccino, with two extra shots of coffee. They looked at me like I was crazy. It was still to sweet but I enjoyed it. 

Now I am enjoying my hard boiled eggs, sliced up raw green pepper and black coffee as I knock out another Whole30. I have my list of favorite things to get from the store. I have motivation. I have the husband on board. So here we go...

Memorial Day

 Can you tell we weren't in West Texas? I don't think the kids had ever seen so much green. 

One Down, One to Go

The first wedding of the summer was a blast. Turtles and Green Bean were the perfect flower girls.

Enjoying some leftover Tangerine Blossom Wedding Cake, Chocolate Grooms Cake, and Chardonnay after the ceremony. Surprisingly no weight was gained despite eating off plan for a few days. 

We had a western themed rehearsal dinner where Husband and I thought it would be a good idea for the guys to wear belt buckles. They never let me get a picture of them all together so this one will have to do. My dad, 3 brothers, Husband and brother in law all donned them for the party. Want to guess which ones was Husbands? 

  

While at home my sister introduced me to this pear cider. Now I'm usually a Woodchuck girl because the Thirsty Thursday Bar I went to in college had it on tap. I hate beer and it was the only cider on tap so I acquired a taste for the 802 Dark and Dry or the Pear. This blew Woodchuck out of the water. ACE also makes an apple but I didn't get a chance to sample it. 

Zucchini, Green Pepper, Onion Sauteed with Pan Drippings from Steak Added. Amazing! 

We have been eating pretty clean since getting back and are gearing up for Whole30 round two starting in one week on June 12th!  Green Beans turns 3 during our Whole30 so that will be our challenge to staying strong. My favorite holiday (4th of July) also will fall before the 30 days are up. I'm not sure I could bring myself to eat a non-compliant hot dog anyways. But I'll be on the hunt to make those events special and complaint. I'll write a post about our impressions from our 1st Whole30 and what we want out of our next Whole30. 

107 degrees. Poor Sam finding the only shade in the yard.

So for now, I'm getting ready to go out of town for a 4 day kid free weekend. It will be fun to be back with all my girls from college and celebrate the marriage of NatNat and Gabe! 

Kiddie Pool is Out and Working!

Whole30 Fried Sweet Potatoes-A Leftover Creation

Sweet Potatoes are my go to veggie when I need some more carbs in my meals. We typically cut them up into fries and eat them with steak. I was to tired to cut them up last night so I ended up just rubbing some EVOO and Salt on them, wrapped them in tin foil and baked at 400 degrees for 45 minutes. They were good and satisfying. I wrapped the leftovers back up with the plan to reheat them in the microwave.

Obviously Fried sweet potatoes are already an established side dish. And not really all that hard to make Whole30 approved. But what would I be here for if I didn't tell you how to do it?

Fried Sweet Potatoes 

I sliced the sweet potato up into even slices

Had some coconut oil over medium high heat and added the sweet potato slices. Added some salt to both sides

Fried until the started to turn brown. I had to turn the heat up to high at the end because I was hungry and impatient. 

Variations:

Add sauteed onions

Sprinkle cinnamon on top

Low Carb and Whole30 Almond Fried Shrimp

Nothing beats fried shrimp, crispy french fries, sweet creamy coleslaw and hush puppies with a long island ice tea all on a Florida beach watching a sunset.

Hi! Welcome back to the real world. Living in West Texas is the driest place that I can think of. When we had a prediction of rain storms and one guy laughed and said "Rain in West Texas? That can't be right" Sadly, he was right. We had clouds but no rain actually fell. 

Balmorhea Texas State Park

Growing up in Florida and spending my college years in Alabama, beach trips were a common event. Now we are 12+ hours from the Gulf of Mexico. I'm going to have to settle with swimming pools and an occasional spring fed water hole. 

Seafood is obviously best at the beach, but thanks to trucks and airplanes we are able to have it delivered semi fresh to our stores. When Pacific Northwest Salmon is on Sale watch out at Albertsons. That stuff goes in hours! Thankfully we can still get frozen shrimp and cod year round to get us through the off season. 

Now this is an actual recipe I did purely on my own. Usually I read recipes and then tweak them to how I like it, but I felt like a real chef winging it. It was so good the first time, I had to make it again to write the recipe down to share with you!

Almond Fried Shrimp

15-20 Large Shrimp, Deveined and Peeled

1 large egg, scrambled

1/2 cup Almond flour

2 tea. Garlic Powder

1 tea. Onion Powder

2 tea. Dried Parsley

Pinch of Cayenne Pepper

Beat your egg in one bowl. Mix all your dry ingredients in another. Take shrimp and dip into the egg and then toss in dry ingredients until coated. Almond Flour doesn't stick like regular flour so the less movement the better it sticks. 

Heat some coconut oil over medium high and add shrimp into pan. Make sure not to over crowd the pan and flip after 2 minutes. If they aren't browned cook for an additional minute on each side.

I served mine up with some dill garlic mayo.

 It was delicious!

Another Whole30 Catch up: Days 23, 24, 25,26, 27, 28 and 29

Well we have already planned out our 2nd Whole30 and I'm already doing recipe planning for it so please forgive the lack of blogging and originality in this post.  I'm determined to make Bora Bora Fireballs next time, so if you try them out let me know how they were!

Also, I'm packing up to go to Mj's wedding so I did a preview for today (28) and tomorrow (29). Traveling on day 30 will be a challenge so I'll write a post when I get to my final destination to let you know how it goes :)


23
Breakfast: Coffee and Orange
Lunch: Leftover Beef and Broccoli
Dinner: Chicken Legs with Italian Seasoning

24

Breakfast: Bullet Coffee and fried eggs
Lunch : Leftover Chicken Legs
Dinner: Pork Chops with sauteed Squash and bell peppers


25

Breakfast: Coffee and veggie omelet
Lunch: Leftover Pork Chops and Squash
Dinner: Steak and Eggs


26

Breakfast:Eggs and Salsa
Lunch: Leftover Steak and Salad
Dinner: Spaghetti with grey squash


27

Breakfast: Eggs and Salsa in bed for mother's day
Lunch: Leftover spaghetti
Dinner: Steak and baked sweet potatoes

28
Breakfast: Eggs and Strawberries
Lunch: Leftover Steak and Sweet Potatoes
Dinner: Really Good Chicken and Asparagus

29
Breakfast: TBD
Lunch: Leftover Chicken
Dinner: Pork Chops with baked squash and zucchini (attempting a Paleo squash casserole)

Getting Ready to Fly with Two Kids by Myself 

Catch Up: Whole30 Days 18,19,20,21 and 22

Day 18
Breakfast: Eggs and Coffee
Lunch: Test run of shrimp
Dinner Almond Shrimp with veggie stir fry (Recipe to come in another post)

Day 19
Breakfast: Omelet with leftover stir fry
Lunch: skipped
Dinner: Spaghetti with zucchini and calabacita (grey squash)

Day 20

Breakfast:Orange
Lunch: Leftover Spaghetti
Dinner:Chicken Breast and Roasted Asparagus

Day 21

Breakfast: Eggs and Salsa
Lunch: Leftover Chicken
Dinner: Cod with peppers and onions and broccoli. (Changed the spices to dill, dried parsley, garlic powder, salt and pepper).

This is not the picture you are looking for

Day 22
Breakfast: Banana and Green Peppers
Lunch : Leftover Cod and Sweet Potato Fries
Dinner: Beef and Broccoli 

Whole30 Days 16 & 17 and a Little Bit about Salt

Day 16
Breakfast-Grapefruit, eggs and Coffee
Lunch-Leftover Chicken and Broccoli
Dinner-Grilled Pork Chops with Onions and Bell Peppers and Green Beans

Day 17
Breakfast- Leftover Sweet Potato Fries and Coffee
Lunch-Leftover Pork Chops & sides
Dinner-Steak and Broccoli

Evolution of My Salt Usage 

You know those people that can eat peanut butter straight out of the jar? You either are one of those people or disgusted by them. Well, I am one of those people but that isn't the point. I would eat salt straight out of the shaker. Just lick your finger and roll...

Publix Thanksgiving Shakers 

Well due to a variety of reasons I don't do that any more. And since I got married to a guy with blood pressure issues we limited our salt pretty strictly. It didn't really help.

Starting last year after following the low carb/paleo diets I have gotten much more adventurous with dumping a whole bunch of spices on meat at random. Husband has noticed that I have all of sudden seasoned everything perfectly. Turns out I wasn't using enough salt! I used to be worried about our salt intake but there hasn't been a raise in blood pressure since I stopped measuring. I guess I could be doing horrible damage and not know it but I imagine our sodium intake has dropped by dropping all processed foods.

I now have 3 kinds of salt in my spice cabinet. Regular Ionized Salt, Coarse Sea Salt and Fine Sea Salt.

I keep the Morton salt in my shaker and use sea salt when cooking. I love the Tones Sea Salt because its this perfect size between super fine and coarse. The Morton's fine sea salt is way to fine and it ends up making everything to salty for me. I have Morton's course sea salt but I really only use it on roasted veggies and sweet potato fries. 

The whole iodine in salt is something I prefer not to debate. I just use ionized salt 1/2 of the time and use sea salt the rest of the time. There is sugar in the Morton salt which is why I originally changed over to sea salt for the Whole30. But it isn't going to send you on a sweet beige because you used it.

I originally started to dry brine with steaks because of this article. I don't follow it exactly but we do let meat sit for about 20 minutes or longer if it is a really tough piece of meat. I usually don't wash it off because I don't use as much salt as they do in the pictures. Just take the shaker and shake until covered, you don't have to have a ton of salt piled on it for the brine to work. I pretty much do it to all red meat and pork chops. For chicken I do a wet brine. You can also do pork chops in a wet brine but I find the dry brine works well.  

Fleur de Sel

As far as fancy salt goes, I haven't ever tried any. I wouldn't be opposed to buying some but I don't think it is sold at the local HEB. Infused EVOO is my next gourmet item to try so fancy salt will just have to wait.