My own personal paleo challenge

One of the things on my 30 while 30 list is to eat one week strict paleo{minus coke which, I know,  defeats the purpose but it's my goal so I make the rules.  I am limiting myself to two a day, down from my usual 4-5.}.  I decided that this was as good a time as any to wipe that off the list, so we are currently on day 6 of 7.  Part of the reason I picked this week was because we had nothing going on that would cause me temptation.  That changed but we've managed to stick to it with one tiny accidental exception.  Since so many people are starting off the year eating healthy, I thought I'd share some of the delicious, and not so delicious, food we've eaten this week.

Our 1st paleo dinner was bruschetta chicken and oven roasted veggies {my very favorite way to cook veggies, if you haven't tried it, do so soon.}  I didn't use a recipe for this one, just made it up as I went along but I typed out the directions for a friend so if you want the "recipe" just let me know and I can send it to you.  It was pretty tasty.  We'll definitley eat it again.

This creamy curried broccoli soup was fantastic and it proved to be a life savor one day when I, at the last minute, signed up for a photo walk in Tokyo and had no clue what we were going to eat for lunch.  I carried some in a thermos and had it for lunch while everyone else ate curry and rice.

About half way into the week I just couldn't eat fruit/veggies as a snack any more so I made these herb crackers.  The were a little dense but the flavor was good {you can make them any flavor you want} and they were somewhat crispy.

I ate the crackers with Pioneer Woman's homemade salsa.  I used honey instead of granulated sugar.

 I made homemade mayo and was pretty happy about the results.  I was nervous about the step that says "very slowly" add the EVOO...I don't do anything very slowly so I measured out the EVOO, poured it into a plastic bag and poked a small hole into the bag so it came out in a very thin consistent stream.  It worked perfectly!

I used the may to make paleo krabby patties that turned out to be our least favorite meal of the week.  We've decided that we don't care for things that are "fried" in coconut oil.  Using it to saute veggies or in something is ok, but it's all we could taste in these.  PS, I've been super excited this week to cook with the homemade coconut oil we made in Bali!

Tonight we grilled burgers, I made homemade ketchup because I can't eat a burger without ketchup {I'm a sauce junkie!}.  I tried this recipe first and it was awful!  I tossed the whole thing out, didn't even bother trying to adjust it.  Then I decided that I know enough about food and flavors that I could figure it out on my own.  After a quick glance at the back of our regular ketchup bottle {as a guide} I started dumping things into a bowl and came out with a pretty good end result.  Even my husband who normally hates ketchup {he's a weirdo, I know!} liked what I made.  The moral of this story is NOT to try the recipe in the link above!

I also made a "ratatouille" of sorts with a bunch of left over veggies in our fridge that were about to go bad.  IMO ratatouille is kind of a "garbage" veggie stew.  I never make it with the same veggies twice, I always just use what I have in my fridge {this time I used zucchini, bell pepper, mushrooms and tomatoes}, chop them up, cook them with some onion, and garlic, add some thyme, basil and a little tomato sauce, let it simmer for 10-20 minutes and you're good to go.  It may not be a traditional French ratatouille but I love it!

I did have 2 very tempting days.  One day I babysat my friends two boys and she brought over frozen pizza and chicken nuggets for their lunch.  It was really hard to sit there and eat my salad!  I LOVE 99 cent pizza!

Last night we got a last minute dinner & a movie invite for a friends birthday.  I made sure we ate just before we left and packed an apple and some nuts in case we got hungry during the movie.  It was not easy to listen to see everyone else eat popcorn {Japan sells caramel corn in their theaters and I have a weakness for caramel corn!} and candy.  We did splurge and split a large coke since it was the one "cheat" I allowed myself this week.  I've never been so grateful for someone to choose Outback for their birthday dinner {we've been there three times since we lived here and all three times have been for someone's birthday}.  It was very easy to just order meat/seafood and veggies there.  We did forget to say no cheese & no croutons on our salad though and while it was easy enough to pick out the croutons, the cheese wasn't so easy.  We both ended up eating a little of the cheese but didn't feel too guilty.  No diet in the world is more important than celebrating a friends birthday!  Oh and see that birthday dessert, that was the least tempting thing put in front of me all week.  I'm not a big fan of ice cream or chocolate, but I think it about killed Jason not to dive into it face first, lol.

I saved the best for last.  This was the most talked about thing on my Facebook page this week.  This veggie packed tomato sauce was one of the best things we ate all week {I omitted the sweet potato and added a little agave nector for sweetness}.  It was super easy to make and I'm pretty sure kids would love this and not have a clue that they were eating TONS of veggies.  Jason and I were both eating it by the spoonful out of the pot while it was still cooking.  I even added some to those krabby patties we ate to make them taste better!  This will be my go to pasta sauce even when we're not eating paleo.  Luckily this recipe made enough for us to use this week and have 2 jars frozen for later use!  Seriously, if you don't make anything else I recommend today, MAKE THIS!

Jason helped me make zucchini "spaghetti" with this fancy tool I picked up at the 100 yen store.  It perfectly slices veggies into julienne strips!  We prefer zucchini spaghetti to spaghetti squash ten fold!

This was the most delicious and filling meal we had all week.  I used Betty Rocker's turkey meatball recipe and the flavor was great.  They were a tad dry but our only turkey option here was 98% fat free.  I think if you used a less lean meat, they'd be perfect!  The recipe made 16 meatballs so we had some for dinner and froze some for later {Jason REALLY wants me to make meatball subs using these and the sauce next week when we're eating bread and cheese again}.

I also made a chicken curry meal in the crock pot {or I guess I should say Jason did, the day I was in Tokyo} that we liked but I didn't take a photo because I was starving and freezing when I got home and dug right into it.  

We are only doing this for a week so I didn't do any kind of before/after weigh in or photos.  I don't expect a week to make a huge difference.  This was mostly just to prove to myself that I could do it and to detox from all the crap we ate over the past few months.  I don't know if I feel any different.  Nothing really noticeable.  I guess we'll see how I feel once I eat that 1st grain on Tuesday.   We might try to stick to paleo during the week and splurge on the weekend.  We eat mostly fresh foods anyways so it won't be a huge change for us, just a matter of leaving out the bread/rice/cheese during the week and not eating out during the week.  I know this isn't the most ideal option but I'm not willing to give up my last 6 months of eating sushi and ramen and curry and...you get the idea!  I'm in the mindset that it's better to eat very healthy 4-5 days a week than zero!

And, just because it's my blog and I can, here are a few OOTD photos from this week.  I'm not the most fashionable person by far so if you know me IRL, it may surprise you that fashion is one of my interests.  I just don't know how to make things work for me so I stick to my tshirt, jeans, hoodie look.  I want to change that. I don't make resolutions but I intend to put more of an effort into my look this year.  I love the Japanese shorts/tights combo so I decided to rock it a few times this week.  The black and white sweater is one that was in my lucky bag.  I would NEVER in a million years have even looked at it twice in the store but I'm kind of loving it!

I definitely got photo bombed by a 5 year old here!  I think I would like this outfit more with some chunky white jewelry and flats but I own ZERO jewelry {I am clueless when it comes to accessorizing!} and I needed the tall boots to keep my legs from freezing, it's not as warm outside as it looks in the photo!