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Whole 30: One Week Down

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Well, after blathering on about it for almost 1000 words, I started a Whole 30 after all! Except that, in a “works for me” twist, we’re only doing it for 21 days. We’re going backpacking at the end of the month, and, as some people experience, uh, you know, intestinal difficulties after reintroducing non-whole foods back into their diet, we decided to give ourselves a couple of days before we hit the woods with freeze dried meals that include who knows what, just in case. We’re one week in, with exactly two to go. The authors of It Starts with Food, who came up with the Whole 30 program, say, for various reasons that “in [their] experience, the full thirty days of the program is essential to give you a taste of ‘the magic.’ Many Whole 30 participants report that their most significant transformations take place in the final few days of the program.” But since I don’t have a full 30 days to offer it right now, and they were also adamant about starting immediately, I figured it was better than nothing. We can always return to the program after our trip for a week or two (though “they” also say that any slip-up requires an entire reset of your 30 days….I call baloney on that, personally).

[Note: I like that they call it a program. I'm not thinking about it as a diet, and I don't think the Hartwigs intend for you to. In fact, it's sort of the antithesis of a diet.  I don't really want or need to be on a diet, especially since I think the way Americans especially approach diets is, for the most part, unhealthy. But diet is the word most people can associate easily with a change in eating habits, so I've tried to come up with a good response when people ask me what diet I'm doing. I've been saying that it's less about restricting what you eat and more about trying to change your approach to food in general.]

Bets hedged as they may be, I haven’t really experienced any of the negative things some people have written about at the beginning of the program. I had a very, very mild headache at the end of each of the first two days, but I’ve had no upset stomach and honestly no particularly strong cravings. Yesterday was the first day I even thought about wanting a Diet Coke.

That said, I have yet to experience anything particularly positive either. In fact, the more I read about the Whole30 in It Starts with Food, the more antagonistic I felt toward it, and at this point in the program, I’m feeling mostly ambivalent. I honestly didn’t buy a lot of the science they put forth in the book that was supposed to convince me not to eat things like legumes and dairy. And after some time on the program I’ve developed a few other criticisms.

The authors claim that food should be enjoyable. But the very nature of this program makes it not so! For the one thing, for the first 5 days of the program, I felt like all I was doing was thinking about food, cooking, and cleaning the kitchen. Normally Andy eats breakfast at work, but his meal would normally be oatmeal or granola with yogurt, so in order to replace that, I’ve been needing to provide breakfast, lunch, AND dinner options, which is new. So I felt like every time I turned around the kitchen was dirty again! Since I had more time to plan, this week has been much better so far, but it definitely takes a lot of work.

Secondly, this program makes socializing hard. (And I know the authors say, “this is not hard. Quitting heroin is hard. Beating cancer is hard. [...] Drinking your coffee black Is. Not. Hard.” I get that. But the Whole30 is, without a doubt, difficult some days!) I hate being “that girl” at restaurants or parties, having to ask what is in everything. We’ve managed a few outings since starting it: one featured a barbecue buffet, so we just left off the sauce, and one was for brunch, so Andy got eggs and breakfast meats and I got a salad. Last night my church community group had a cookout, and I know for a fact there was some honey in the sauce on a sweet potato I ate, but I decided to let it slide. I can only do so much.

On the flip side, among these outings I have passed up macaroni and cheese, chocolate cake, sushi at a work lunch, cake again at work, and various goodies at the cookout, and I have to admit that it feels pretty good to use that willpower muscle.

The other issue I take with the presentation of the Whole30 plan is their discouragement of eating snacks. They suggest that you eat enough lean protein and good fat at each meal so that you are not hungry until the next meal–and in fact, so that if you for some odd reason have to skip your next meal, you would be okay. They say, “Avoid snacking between meals because it turns your eating habits into grazing, and grazing can disrupt the normal functioning of leptin, insulin, and glucagon, and may promote inadvertent overconsumption.” Okay. But as one who has always struggled with blood sugar fluctuations, I have lately quite successfully structured my days around 3 meals and 2 snacks. I eat specifically portioned snacks, and I don’t graze except for on occasion. When I sit down to eat my snack, I eat my snack and that’s it. I normally eat some nuts or a granola bar a few hours between lunch and breakfast, and some sort of fruit or veggie between lunch and dinner, and I don’t see what’s so bad about that! For the sake of the program I’m giving it a try; I’ve actually started being able to make it from breakfast to lunch, but after lunch I get raging hungry around 5:00, still a few hours before we’ll be eating dinner. I can feel grossly stuffed at lunch and still get hungry like that–and I don’t think they would promote “grossly stuffed!” I just hate that this program that is supposed to promote healthy eating has made me feel guilty about one of my eating habits for the first time in my life.

So what are the positives? I’ve discovered some delicious new recipes that I think I’ll keep in my repertoire. I’ve been able to flex my meal-planning muscle and practice using willpower. And I get to think about what specific foods might be “worth it” to incorporate back in later. I’m glad the authors remind us that ”the Whole30 is just a springboard into a lifetime of healthy eating habits. We don’t exepect (or want) you to stay on the program forever, or eat according to our rules all the time! Think of the Whole30 as a tool, allowing you to build new, sustainable habits that will be with you for the rest of your life.”

That’s what’s getting me through so far, since I haven’t had any “magic” to report, but I’ll let you know if anything changes!

I’m linking up to Works for Me Wednesday at WeAreThatFamily.com!
works for me wednesday at we are that family

insomnia.

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Last night, I went to sleep.

That shouldn’t be an inherently revolutionary statement, but for the last few weeks my body has been rebelling against me. Every night I would look forward to that delicious moment when my head hit the pillow. I would ease under the covers and sigh a little sigh as I relaxed. And then, the laying there would begin.

I always start out trying to sleep on my right side, my left arm hugging a pillow and my right hand tucked under my face. I’ve slept the same way since I was a baby; there are pictures of me in my crib lying just like that, though the pillow was replaced with a bright pink cloth doll (who, by the way, is now rather gray, but still lives in my bedroom, along with her similarly-gray sister doll, not to be confused with a sister wife). I’m rather skilled at scrunching the pillow into just the right position to support my neck, except on the nights I am not, which recently has been every night. My neck and shoulders get tense.

So I flop over onto my left side, but I can never seem to figure out what to do with my right arm when it’s not the one supporting my head. So I flop onto my back, scrunch the pillow up and tuck another one under my knees, which they say you’re supposed to do to support your lower back. I feel like I am dozing off until all of a sudden, I am not. I get up and go to the bathroom. I come back and start the charade over on my right side again. An hour has passed.

Some nights I go out to the couch, and miraculously I am almost always able to fall asleep. Something about being squished against the straight back of the couch makes me feel comfortable enough to finally drop off. Many nights I wake back up in the early hours of the morning and try to go back to bed, but Andy has (understandably) moved to the middle, so I resign myself back to the couch. The alarm goes off and I groggily stumble into the shower. Or I make it through the night in my own bed, with hopes of getting up to go to the gym, but the alarm goes off and I can barely move.

I’ve been off my routine, and I am a creature of habit who needs her routine. Not being able to sleep is so dreadfully frustrating to me. One night in my insomniacial stupor I laid on the couch and cried. Other nights I punch the pillow. “I just want to sleep,” I shriek in my head. Every night, I would think, “This is the night. This is the night that I’ll fall right asleep and sleep well.” I never fell into the trap of worrying about not being able to sleep and thus not being able to sleep. In fact, I felt like I did everything right. I didn’t drink caffeine after lunch time. I started winding down well before I wanted to go to sleep, and if I read, I read in the dark with only a book light. I don’t watch TV too close to bedtime, and I rarely take my phone or computer into the bedroom. I took melatonin an hour or so before I wanted to drift off (or I took it at 1 in the morning after unsuccessfully trying to sleep for 2 hours). And yet, every night, the rotisserie of trying to get comfortable in my own bed, the bed for which I yearn when I am on vacation, the pillow that called to me as I wearily stumbled through my days, usurped my hope.

I had a phase like this in college as well and even went to the doctor about it. She, probably rightfully, was wary of prescribing me a sleeping pill. Normally when I can’t sleep, though, I can pinpoint something that is stressing me out. In fact, insomnia is usually my first sign that I’m under duress, my body cluing me into what my mind has not even figured out yet. But the most frustrating lately has been that I really don’t think I’ve been stressed, at least not for as long as the sleeplessness has been plaguing me.

So I caved last week and bought a supplement that a friend recommended. It has like every herb and hormone that I’ve ever heard of that promotes sleep, all wrapped up in one little pellet. And it was beautiful. It was worth every penny. I slept! I even made it to the gym one morning! And last night, sans pill, I fell asleep. And I got up this morning to go to the gym for the first time in quite awhile (I’ve been forced to transition to going in the afternoon, when I’ve gone at all, because of my lack of sleep). I have plenty of pills left, but my hope in buying them was just to break the cycle: to sleep normally enough a few nights that my body remembered how blissful it feels, how productive I can be when I’m rested. I’ll knock on wood as I type this, but for now I think it’s worked. Because last night, I went to sleep.

Do you struggle to sleep? How do you deal with insomnia?

In Pursuit of Pumpkin: Pumpkin Pie

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When fall comes around, I go pumpkin crazy. I’ve always loved the pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving, but I’m not sure I ever thought about enjoying pumpkin outside of that one day a year until Starbucks pumpkin spice lattes came into my life. Now, I’m one of those people who gets excited when it’s featured on their menu again every year (though one of my coworkers reminded me that you can get whatever flavor drink you want at Starbucks all year round). Even though we don’t usually get much of a fall in the South, once the calendar hits September, I have pumpkin on the brain. When I realized I had a preposterous number of pumpkin recipes pinned, I decided to share them here. Here’s the final installment of 10 pumpkin recipes for your gustatory pleasure!

Well folks, after 10 weeks, we’ve made it to the crowning glory of the pumpkin recipes: pumpkin pie. I’ve usually used frozen pie crust (or, uh, my mom has made the crust) and followed the recipe on the side of the pumpkin can, so I decided to go wild and crazy for the sake of the blog this year and make the crust from scratch AND try out a different recipe. I turned again to my trusty Fannie Farmer and found that the filling didn’t deviate much from my usual recipe: pureed pumpkin (she probably assumes you’ve made your own), evaporated milk, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, a dash of salt. She does add half a cup of regular milk, which I’ve not seen before. That part’s easy: dump all the deliciousness in a bowl and whisk. Done. But the crust. Ah, the crust. I compared recipes from Fannie and Baking at Home but also remembered a post from the Pioneer Woman about her approach to pie crust. I looked it up and saw that she called it “The Perfect Pie Crust.” Well, how can I argue with that? It sounded simpler than either of the other two, plus it had what seemed to be a secret ingredient (vinegar?!), so I decided to go with it. I trust the Pioneer Woman. Plus she has a lot of pictures, which I thought might be helpful with something requiring as much finesse as a pie crust.

The Pioneer Woman swears by Crisco for a pie crust, so even though Fannie told me I could use butter, I decided to give it a shot.

Oh, Crisco. What are you? I am slightly terrified of you.

I bought a pastry blender just for this project. Isn’t it fun having excuses to buy new kitchen gadgets?

The instructions say to blend the Crisco into the flour until the mixture resembles a coarse meal. I was having so much fun with the pastry blender that I think I went a little bit too far, and it was already more like dough.

Add in the wet ingredients and stir gently. As with scones, you don’t want to work with it too much or it may get tough!

Shape the dough into 3 balls and place them each in a bag. Roll out the lumps a bit to make rolling easier later. Then let them chill in the freezer for 20 minutes or until you need them.

I was so impatient and anxious about rolling out the dough, but I forced myself to wait the full 20 minutes. Honestly, the dough wasn’t even really that cold after all that time! And then I worked with it so much that it was back to being pretty warm by the time I got it in something resembling, like, a circle.

There aren’t any pictures of the rolling and the placing into the pan, but let’s just say it was far from expert. I ended up balling the dough up and starting over several times. I think I needed more flour from the beginning. I eventually got it roughly big enough–I didn’t have much to flute at the edges, but I made it work.

While the dough was chilling, I mixed up the simple filling.

The filling didn’t quite all fit–maybe Fannie’s pie plate was a little deeper than mine, but it was lookin’ like a pie by the time I poured it in!

And, like the magic, on a cooking show, here’s the completed pie!

Success! The crown jewel of the Thanksgiving table, especially with a dollop of “real” whipped cream on top. Mmm, mmm, mmm good.

While the pie crust was not a breeze, it was not as scary as I had feared, and I won’t hesitate to do it again! Plus, now that I have a pretty green pie plate, I’m probably going to want to make pies all the time. Should that be my next blog series? ;-)

Happy Thanksgiving and Black Friday!

Book Review: The Bridesmaid

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The most recent list of fiction books available to review for Bethany House Publisher didn’t thrill me when I initially saw it. But as I perused the list more closely, one book in particular jumped out at me: The Bridesmaid, by Beverly Lewis.

In the last few years, Amish fiction has taken off. No, not fiction by Amish people; fiction (mostly romances, honestly) about Amish people. In a Salon.com article on this very topic, Steve Oates, vice president of marketing for Bethany House, says, “bonnet books are a sure thing and have been ever since Beverly Lewis single-handedly gave birth to the genre in the late ’90s.” (The article also cites that, “Incidentally, Wal-Mart accounts for 50 percent of the sales of Amish fiction’s top authors.”) He continues, “bonnet book readers get really emotionally connected to the characters and their lives. That means the authors are really doing their job.”

I knew of the Amish fiction genre but have always mentally scoffed at it (despite my love of Nicholas Sparks). But when I saw this book by Beverly Lewis, “the queen of the bonnet book,” available to review, I thought, “Why not give it a shot?”

The Bridesmaid follows the story of 24-year-old Joanna Kurtz, an old maid by Plain standards, who has been three times a bridesmaid but never a bride. As you might hope, she meets a man, Eben, but he lives in a different state–a big deal for people whose lives are dictated by the Ordnung of their bishop. They struggle through a long-distance relationship, but much hinges on the return of Eben’s brother, who appears to have chosen the English (that is, non-Amish) world over his farm heritage. The book takes soft twists and turns. The romance, obviously, is understated, which was somewhat refreshing. The novel paints a picture of Amish family life that comes across as idyllic when compared with the hustle and bustle and noise most of us face. I really wanted to sit down to dinner with the Kurtz family at their weathered farmhouse table and dig into their hearty, delicious-sounding food!

I don’t know how realistic the Amish details are, but I have to admit there is something fascinating about being a fly on the wall of a different culture. However, I wondered the whole time what the Amish community would think of these books. I doubt they’re hiding under the covers reading them, but who knows! Unfortunately the dialect that Lewis uses throughout was a stumbling block to my enjoyment of the book. Presumably the dialogue is “really” happening in Pennsylvania Dutch, but the book is obviously written in English. Lewis throws in a German phrase or two as if to add to the authenticity, and there’s the odd colloquial English word or phrase too. I had trouble taking the “ya”s and “ain’t”s seriously for some reason. Although, I think I may just be adopting the word “ferhoodled” for my own use. (Feelin’ ferhoodled today, ain’t ya?)

All in all the book was enjoyable enough. It was pretty light and fluffy but mostly satisfying. I was engaged enough to find Joanna’s sister quite annoying but not enough to be moved when the romantic conclusion finally came about. It was pat and rather predictable, and I don’t think I’m a convert to the Amish fiction way. I can understand, though, why so many women have bought into the genre–it’s good old romantic escapism, and I can’t blame them for enjoying it!

In Pursuit of Pumpkin: Pumpkin Scones

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When fall comes around, I go pumpkin crazy. I’ve always loved the pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving, but I’m not sure I ever thought about enjoying pumpkin outside of that one day a year until Starbucks pumpkin spice lattes came into my life. Now, I’m one of those people who gets excited when it’s featured on their menu again every year (though one of my coworkers reminded me that you can get whatever flavor drink you want at Starbucks all year round). Even though we don’t usually get much of a fall in the South, once the calendar hits September, I have pumpkin on the brain. When I realized I had a preposterous number of pumpkin recipes pinned, I decided to share them here. Here’s the 7th of 10 different pumpkin recipes for your gustatory pleasure!

Scones have been oversimplified for me by the “just add water” mixes we’ve gotten from Andy’s family in Ireland, but when I told my mom I was making these pumpkin scones recently, she reminded me of the couple of scone fails she and I have had. Oh, right. Scones are not the simplest baked good! And yet, with this recipe from The Shoebox Kitchen (originally on http://sweetpeaskitchen.com/) I was able to easily turn out a batch of beautifully glazed, light and fluffy scones. Success!

The cast of characters looks pretty familiar by now:

  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 6 tablespoons cold butter, cut into 1-inch cubes
  • 1/2 cup canned pumpkin
  • 3 tablespoons half-and-half
  • 1 large egg

Coincidentally, I had EXACTLY 3 tablespoons of half and half left in my carton, which I hadn’t known until this point in the recipe. (I was going to substitute milk up to the right amount if needed.)

Spiced Glaze

  • 1 cup plus 3 tablespoons powdered sugar
  • 2 tablespoons milk
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • Pinch of ground ginger
  • Pinch of ground cloves

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. (I never actually do the preheating bit until later on. I’m not sure why. It just stresses me out a little bit if the oven is hot and I’m not ready to put my stuff in it yet!)

In a mixing bowl, whisk together the pumpkin, half-and-half, and egg.  Set aside.

There’s that beautiful orange color I’ve come to know and love!

Sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger together into a large mixing bowl.  Add the cubed butter on top. (I don’t actually have a sifter, so I rigged the contraption below. Worked just fine!)

The recipe I followed called for the mixing to be done with a pastry blender, stand mixer, or food processor, but I happen to know that your fingers can work just as well (which is good, since I only have one of the above electronics and didn’t feel like getting anything else dirty by using it). With a light hand, pinch the pats of butter between your fingers until the dry ingredients mixture begins to stick to them. You eventually want a coarse mixture of butter and bits of flour, etc.

Gradually add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix gently. You want to stop mixing as soon as all the dry ingredients are moistened–scones get tough if you work the dough too much!

This batter is STICKY! I started mixing with a spatula and then tried to use my hands, but I got so much goop on my fingers that I ended up washing my hands and switching back to the spatula.

I don’t have pictures of the next few steps because, well, my fingers were covered in the aforementioned goop. Having a co-pilot might be helpful if you decide to make these scones, because it’s awkward when you need to grab something but your hands are all batter-y!

On a well-floured surface, flatten and form the dough into a 12″ x 4″ x 1″ thick rectangle. (Emphasis on the WELL FLOURED, and you’ll probably want to flour your hands, as well.) Using a sharp knife or pizza cutter, divide the rectangle into three equal pieces, then slice each piece into four triangular pieces by making an “X” through them.

My rectangle didn’t quite make it to 12″, and it was thinner than 1″ thick, but I decided that having it not quite the right size was better than working the dough too much. (And I see now that it was probably more than 4″, so that was my problem! And yes, that’s a ruler you see over there. I measured…but clearly only one direction! Whoops!)

Place the triangles of dough on the parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for just 15 minutes, or until light brown.  Remove to a cooling rack and let cool before icing.

I mixed up the sugar glaze while the scones were baking. The original recipe called for a double glaze: one plain sugar and the other spiced, drizzled in a nice little pattern. I decided for simplicity’s sake to just make the spiced glaze and use it as the primary. It’s amazing how easily powdered sugar and a little bit of milk mix together to make a liquidy glaze!

Not the prettiest color, but it tasted delicious!

 The scones turned out beautifully, and thanks to the parchment paper there was neither sticking nor clean-up. :-)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, they’re all slightly different shapes…

I let them cool for a bit and then used this weird plastic brushy thing (I guess maybe it’s a pastry brush of sorts, or a grill basting brush? Whatever, it worked.) to slather the glaze all over them. I put some newspaper under the wire rack at this point so that my counter wouldn’t become glazed in the process.

After a little more cooling, the glaze hardened up nicely. The scones themselves aren’t super sweet, so the glaze adds a nice bit of sugar and spice. I think the pumpkin makes these a bit cakier than your typical scone, which is perhaps why they seemed easier. No dense, dry scones here! I enjoyed one as an evening snack and one for breakfast the next morning, which was delicious reheated for about 20 seconds in the microwave.

Bon appetit!