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 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!

Whole30 Day 14 and a Tarter Sauce Disaster

As far as Mondays go, this was a pretty good one. We all got out of the house and had a fun day and the cravings to cheat were pretty low. Green Beans and Turtles are starting to slowly change their eating habits too. They both were starving by the time I started to cook dinner and they were more than happy to sit there with me munching on raw bell peppers and tomato slices.

Breakfast-Eggs with Salsa and Coffee
Lunch-Leftover Hamburgers
Dinner-Lemon Dill Cod with Sauteed Squash, Bell Peppers and Onions

Leftover red pepper and Green Beans' baby doll in the kitchen

 Lemon Dill Cod

Cod 

EVOO 

Dill, Garlic Powder, Salt and Pepper

Fresh Lemon Juice

Put the Cod on a lined baking sheet, drizzle some EVOO over it, dust with dill, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Cook at 400 degrees for 22 minutes and then squeeze a lemon over the cod. You could also slice the lemon and cook on top of the cod, I just didn't want such a strong flavor but its good if you are in the mood for it.

 

Ready to go in the oven

Before I got the Cod ready to go, I diced up some onion and got it cooking in a pan. I then diced up yellow squash, zucchini and green and red bell peppers. After I put the Cod in the oven I added the squash and bell peppers in to the pan and cooked over medium heat until it was tender. It took about 20 minutes since the pan was so full so it all worked out perfectly. 

Finished Product

The Whole30 page on Facebook had posted a picture with Whole30 tarter sauce on it. Well I thought I would give it a try before I realized I didn't have half of the ingredients. So I then went on to try to make a dill sauce but it was an epic fail. It was so nasty and I didn't want to waste more spices by trying to fix it. Next time I will be better prepared and hopefully it will turn out better. But a nice creamy sauce on top of this cod would have been very satisfying and the extra fat would have made it more filling too. 

Fail

Whole30 Day 11 & 12, Beef and Broccoli, Strawberry Fields Cafe and Meat Market Steals

The post root canal haze is starting to lift and life is looking a little more bright. Or it could be because I ate 3 square meals today including two with red meat.

Day 11
Breakfast-I think it got skipped by both Whole30 parties.
Lunch-Husband had leftover wings and an orange. I had water and lortab.
Dinner-Beef and Broccoli with Onions


Day 12
Breakfast-Strawberry Banana Smoothies
Lunch-Leftover Beef and Broccoli
Dinner- Sirloin Steak with Sweet Potatoes

The dinner of Beef and Broccoli came around by accident. I had some cubed steak I was going to cook up with onions. I gave Husband a choice of frozen green beans or frozen broccoli and he wisely chose broccoli.

Beef and Broccoli

Cubed Steak

1 yellow Onion

1 bag of frozen Broccoli

Salt, Pepper and Garlic Powder 

I had a 3 pack of big cubed steak. Probably about 1 lb.  I set them out on the counter for 45 minutes before I was going to cook them. I rubbed them with sea salt and let them sit. After sitting for 45 minutes I sliced them into thin strips, sprinkled black pepper and garlic powder, and fried them in coconut oil. I also cooked an onion in another pan. It was soft but not caramelized throughout.  I cleaned out the cubed steak pan and put in a tablespoon of Ghee and tossed the steak and onions together. I then warmed up the broccoli and added a tablespoon of Ghee and tossed. I served separately but next time I will toss it altogether in the pan since it ended up that way on the plate. 

Strawberry Fields Cafe

 This is the 2nd healthfood store I go to in town. It has an organic cafe attached to it which serves really good food. They also have Whole30 compliant smoothies which are made of fruit, ice and 100% fruit juice. Now I know it isn't the best idea to eat an 8oz cup of concentrated fruit, but I figured the lack of intake from the tooth issues warranted at least one smoothie. I also had to share with two little girls so I'm not sure how much I actually got to ingest. It was enough to give me an energy boost to make it to the farmers market and Albertsons. 

Downtown Farmer's Market

(not today, but wanted to show set up)

I've been wanting to get down here the past few weekends so I was really excited to go today. As you can imagine there isn't a lot of produce for sale yet but I wanted to get the lay of the land. The best surprise of the day was there was a local rancher who sells grass fed beef  at market store prices! I didn't plan to buy anything but now that I know they are there, I plan on stopping back by. There are also green house tomatoes that looked great. I'm excited for the summer produce to start rolling over. If you are close to the Pecos Valley you must try Pecos Watermelons and Cantaloupe  They are the most amazing fruit. I really can't wait for those to come in towards the end of the summer.  

I do not normally like to shop at Albertsons but I had two girls who were about to lose patience with me shopping. HEB was going to take to long so we all ran in to grab a few things (EGGS!). We hit up the meat aisle and they were having a huge sale. I got 

1. Two family sized chicken leg packages on sale with an added in $3 dollars off. Making what was over $7, only $3. 
2. Two packs of pork chops, 50% off
3. Two packs of sirloin steaks, 50% off
4. 6 lbs hamburger $6 off

Overall we saved $43. Not to bad for an unplanned grocery store trip

Whole30 Day 10 and a Root Canal

I got a root canal! Half of one technically.  Normally someone might not be happy about that but after all the pain I have had I was more than happy to get rid of the nerve in that tooth. So yay! Hopefully I'll be back to eating raw veggies and meat in no time!

Breakfast-Apple but most of it was stolen by Trutles and Green Beans
Lunch-Leftover Quiche with Salsa on top
Dinner-Buffalo Wings and sauteed asparagus

Now I only cooked the wings, but Husband said they were really good. I forgot to take a picture because I was laying on the couch trying not to think about the pain in my mouth. We all know what wings look like so just use your imagination.

Ingredients: Aged Cayenne Red Peppers, Distilled Vinegar, Water, Salt, Natural Flavor and Garlic Powder

Buffalo Wing Sauce

1 cup Frank's Red Hot

2 T Coconut Oil

Mix in a sauce pan and simmer until it thickens (about the length it takes the chicken to cook). Pour Over Baked Chicken. 

I know I have put the recipe for this chicken before. So let me cut and paste for you just to make it easy. 

Chicken Drumstick Non-Spicy Rub

1 part Garlic powder (or crushed garlic)

1 part Onion Powder

1/2 part Salt

1 part Pepper

1-2 part Italian Seasoning (optional)

I rubbed the wings all over with EVOO and then tossed the seasoning on. I left off the Italian seasoning since I was doing wings. Baked at 400 degrees for 30 minutes. They turned out really nice and crispy. If you have a roasting pan or a rack for a cookie sheet I would use that. I can't wait to get one and try it out for even crispier baked wings!

Whole30 Day 8 and Our "Spaghetti"

So day 8 wasn't much calmer. It was full of Dr. appointments and a busy day at the office for Husband. I didn't manage to get anything on the table until 6:30p but it was a delicious easy meal.

Breakfast-Scrambled Eggs and tomatoes
Lunch- Egg Scramble with green peppers and green onions and tomatoes
Dinner: Rao's marinara with hamburger and sauteed onions and broccoli.

Our "Spaghetti"

Ingredients: Imported Italian tomatoes, imported olive oil, fresh onions, salt, fresh garlic, fresh basil, black pepper and oregano.

I took 2 lbs of hamburger and browned it, drained it and then dumped the sauce in. Cook over medium low until everything is warm. I usually roast some zucchini and yellow quash to pour it over. Or even a spaghetti squash every now and then even though Husband isn't a huge fan. But tonight I didn't have any of that and I was to tired to make a salad so we just had frozen broccoli. It wasn't perfect but it hit the spot.

Whole30 Day 4 recap and Ribeye Steaks with Sweet Onion Topping

Day 4 was kinda crazy. I had to go to the dentist at 8am so my half of my mouth was numb until 11:30! I was so hungry I ate while numb and chewed up my lip and the food was not as good as it should have been. Overall it was a bummer of a day...until dinner.

I have been meaning to make mayo for a while and was craving some ranch dressing. I set my eggs out at noon so I could make mayo this afternoon for tonight's salad dressing. I ended up making a few mistakes and ended up short on light olive oil and went heavy handed on the lemon juice. I finished it off with coconut oil but there wasn't much I could do to fix the lemon juice error. There went my grand plan to have Whole30 Ranch. I was trying to figure out how to add sweetness to offset the lemon juice without sugar or sugar substitutes. I ended up with caramelized onions.

Sweet Onion Steak Topping

1 Yellow Onion Finely Diced and Caramelized in Coconut Oil

A Couple Spoonfuls of Homemade Mayo, just enough to coat

Add to taste Pepper, Garlic Powder, Dried Parsley and Onion Powder

The inspiration for this was herb butter that is served with steaks at restaurants with a combination of my usual sauteed onions topping. I usually buy cheap cuts of meat so the sauteed onions help add flavor and fat to my steaks. Tonight I had ribeyes that were on sale so I didn't really need anything to put on it. But I figured I would whip something up and use it as a dip for the fries or a veggie dip. It ended up being good enough to put on the steak and was a nice addition. If I were to make it a dip I would add more mayo but since my mayo was lemony I didn't want it to over power the onions. 

I paired the steak with some Sweet Potato Fries that I baked in the oven. Just slice into strips, sprinkle EVOO and some coarse Sea Salt and cook until tender. I like to do it for about 45 minutes at 350 degrees, but you can cook for a shorter period of time at 400 degrees. I tend to forget and burn mine so the 350 degrees is more forgiving. 

A little Friday Night Lights for your Friday night

I was so happy with the end result of this meal.  A couple days of successes in the kitchen has been quite invigorating!

Whole30 Day 3 Recap and A Really Good Chicken Recipe

Well day 3 is over and no slips occurred  I know it isn't really that hard but I'm still proud. Especially since I'm the only one in the house doing Whole30. So give me a

Breakfast-Coffee, leftover quiche

Lunch- leftover quiche, La Croix

Dinner- Really Good Chicken, Sauteed Veggies, Tea

I made this chicken from a compilation of recipes and then just kinda winged it once in the kitchen. If you have been reading my recipes you know I'm not really specific. Just a pinch there and a sprinkle here. So I tried to write down everything I did, but it is important for you to taste each component before putting it all on the plate together. 

Really Good Chicken

Rub:

2 tsp. Paprika

2 tsp. Ground Coriander

1 Tbsp. Garlic Powder

1 tsp. Onion Powder

1 tsp. Cumin
1/2 tsp Ginger

Sprinkle of Cayenne Pepper to taste

Couple dashes of Allspice

The allspice was a last minute addition (hence missing from the picture) because I felt that it was missing a sweetness. Nutmeg or Cinnamon could have also worked. I usually go off smell for spices but I'm glad I tasted it and added the allspice. I am not a fan of Cumin but if you like it up it to 2 tsp. 

Start with a brine. When done brining, rinse the chicken and pat dry. Coat in melted coconut oil, rub the spice mix on both side and place in a greased baking dish. Cook at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until internal temp reaches 165 degrees. 

I sliced it before plating it. It was so tender and juicy. Just perfect! Since I wanted some extra fat to keep me full I added some EVOO Drizzle. 

Leftover Drizzle 

EVOO Drizzle

3/4 cup EVOO

1 tsp Crushed Garlic (or Powdered)

1/2 tsp Paprika

1/2 tsp Sea Salt

1/2 tsp Black Pepper

Dried or Fresh Chopped Parsley 

Juice from One Lemon (optional)

Mix everything to taste in a mason jar. Drizzle over chicken. Great on veggies too. 

I felt like I had been chincy on my veggies recently so I made a big pan tonight. I sauteed some onions and then added in yellow squash, zucchini and asparagus. I cubed the squash and zucchini and cut the asparagus into 3 pieces to help the cooking process. It was the perfect blend of sweetness and "green veggie" taste.  

"Keep Calm and Whole30 On" right?

Resisting Temptation and a Sneak Peak of Tonight's Dinner

I really want these right now. I got some as a bribe treat for the girls and now they are sitting on top of my fridge tempting me...

So on to tonight's dinner! Which is some chicken breasts brining right now. 

Brine minus the chicken

Looks good right? I'm going to let them brine for about 4 hours and then I'm going to bake them in the oven. 

Chicken Brine

12 c water

3/4 c salt

3 T Garlic Powder

2 T Whole Peppercorns

2 T Ground Coriander

1.5 tsp. Ground Ginger

6 Chicken Breast

I made this with just what I had on hand. It smelled really good so we will see how it turns out!