Whole30, Days 11 & 12

What I do for work, and what I'm trying to do for myself were bound to fight each other at some point. We had a shoot at a coffee shop Saturday morning. You really can't review a place if you don't taste the food. Avocado toast, down the hatch! It was delicious too. I also wound up having TWO cups of coffee with milk and sugar. One at home, and again on the shoot. As an old-school Italian, it would've been wrong for me to turn down their generosity! Literally, we are raised to eat whatever someone offers you, even if you're not hungry, because someone offering you food is really offering you their TIME. But I digress.

Avocado toast with house smoked salmon from Ground Connection in Jersey City, NJ - how was I supposed to say no!?

All of that came AFTER I had already come up with a very creative breakfast. Only 1 egg left (that went to hubby) and not much else in the house, I located a frozen banana and thought, smoothie!

Banana, coconut milk (the recipe kind that you find near the Thai food in the store) almond butter, cocoa powder, and vanilla extract...BUT vanilla extract has sugar in it. At least it does in this country. I had another bottle that I had picked up last year in Mexico on vacation...guess what? No added sugar. It's discoveries like this that are 1. The real point of this diet. To show you just how MUCH of your food has sugar added to it. 2. Make me annoyed with food in this country...why does it ALL have so much added sugar!?

Left: Vanilla extract from Mexico. Ingredients: Vanilla bean extractives and water.
Right: Vanilla extract from the U.S. Ingredients: Vanilla bean extractives, Water, Alcohol AND cane sugar...

Dinner wound up being what hubby and I refer to as the "Leftover Buffet" - a little sausage and peppers, some leftover steak from Friday night, and a few pieces of chicharon (also probably not allowed but I'm telling myself they were fried in their own fat.) Then it was off to work for another insane overnight shift.  

By the time I woke up Sunday morning hubby had walked himself over to our local CVS to get a dozen eggs so at least we had that. I was finally able to get to the store in the afternoon and made a DELICIOUS shepard's pie for Sunday dinner (again, old-school Italian, we eat at like 3 or 4 on Sundays typically). Another great dish, that's real food and will last us for a few days. Part of my frustration on this diet is there's lots of ways to "fake" the foods your missing out there...but there's very few REAL dishes that fit the bill on their own or with minimal tweaking. The shepard's pie works though. All I did was sub in olive oil for butter and coconut milk for cream in the mashed potatoes. 

Shepard's Pie - SO good! Not a whole lot of alterations here!

I'm CONTEMPLATING trying these sweet potato zoodles with a faux alfredo sauce made of cashews...but I feel like that would make my great-grandmother turn in her grave. 

Whole30, Day 11, 1.25 lbs lost
Breakfast: coconut, banana smoothie
Lunch: avocado toast
Dinner: sausage & peppers, chicharron, steak

Whole30, Day 12, 1.25 lbs. lost
Breakfast: scrambled egg, 1/2 avocado, salt, red pepper, lemon
Dinner: Shepard's pie