Real Food: Day 6

Days like today make me think this Real Food thing could actually work...as in for good...long-term...foreva'.

Do you hear that sound? It's my husband crying.

So we might not be strict Real Foodies after the 10 days are over, but there are absolutely some major changes that will stick. More on that in another post.

BREAKFAST: It was a rainy day and warm oatmeal with honey, cinnamon, raisins, and bananas hit the spot. The smallies had some grapes and OJ as well. Coffee for Kyle. Cappuccino for me.

Breakfast of champions.

SNACK: I find it interesting that the last few times I made these whole wheat blueberry and oatmeal muffins, the kiddos didn't like them. This time, they can't stuff the little muffins in their mouths fast enough. I think maybe their palates have adjusted to a less-sweetened diet...or maybe they are just desperate. Whatever the reason, the batch of muffins from yesterday is almost gone.

muffin monster.

LUNCH: Kyle packed leftover chicken nuggs, grapes, blueberry muffins, and homemade honey mustard dipping sauce. I think he also grabbed a couple of bananas for back up.

Charlie was home from school today, so we all ate the same lunch: chicken nuggs, cantaloupe, and a whole wheat Wasa cracker with PB and raisins. The kids balked at the honey mustard today, so they are theirs nuggs nekkid.

Gone in 60 seconds.

We killed the first batch of homemade peanut butter at lunch, so I decided to make more. I get a little nervous and panicky when we don't have PB in the house. I grabbed a jar of dry roasted peanuts out of the pantry (different brand than the first time around). I just double checked the ingredient list before I dumped them in the food processor to make sure we were all good...but we weren't all good. Sigh.

Peanuts, salt, matodextrin, and cornstarch. What?! Why do they have to go messin' up peanuts? Why can't they just stop after peanuts and salt?

Above-mentioned panic started to set in as I thought about my empty peanut butter jar. I ransacked the pantry for more peanut option. I found a jar of honey-roasted peanuts. Way worse. I decided to punt and try something new for me: almond butter. I have bags and bags of raw and roasted almonds in the freezer for granola-makin' purposes. The only ingredient is almonds. Nice.

I love that there was a warning on the back that "this package contains nuts." Just in case you weren't sure by looking at the back of almonds...

I remembered reading on some peanut butter makin' blogs that the process is virtually the same for making any nut butter. Put nuts in food processor. Add other flava' (honey, cinnamon, cayenne, etc). Process for 5 minutes. Done.

But after five minutes, my almonds looked like a big hard clump of nothing. I checked with the interwebz and found that almonds take up to 18 minutes to break down to a spreadable consistency. Crisis averted.

Warm, almondy yumminess.

 In case you are wondering (and you know you were), I think almond butter has a depth of flavor that blows peanut butter out of the water.

So glad we were out of peanuts.

DINNER: Kyle and I had dinner with some friends tonight, so the kids ate separately. They had grilled cheese with Little Rooster whole-wheat bread and provolone. Threw in the rest of the cantaloupe from lunch too. I get cranky when the kids haven't eaten a green vegetable all day (don't judge), so I made our usual snack time smoothies and doubled down on the spinach.

Dinner with friends was a pitch in. I brought fresh salsa, guacamole, and tortilla chips.

nom, nom, nom, nom...

For the salsa, I used tomatoes, green peppers, onions, and jalapenos from our Visser Farms CSA. Also used some canned corn, black beans, EVOO, red wine vinegar, fresh lemon juice, and S&P. The recipe was a friend's, which is always a hit. No different this time around.

fresh summer salsa

Like I've said before, I don't expect ANYONE to go out of their way to make something special for us if we are eating with others. Lucky for us, one of our friends was nice enough to make the taco beef with local, grass-fed beef from Lubbers Farms, and seasoned it with a homemade spice mix instead of the store-bought packets. She also shredded some cheese and used regular sour cream and fresh cherry tomatoes from her garden, so we had some fully loaded tortilla chips. Dessert was off-limits too, but the pain of that was eased by having another drink.

OBSERVATIONS: I didn't feel as deprived today. (Wow, did that sounds snotty or what?!) I mean that my tastes have finally adjusted a little bit and I don't have the junk cravings I have for the last five days.

I don't, however, feel markedly different physically. No increased energy, not feeling "cleansed," not feeling like a super-hero. Not feeling any different than I did six days ago. But then again, I wasn't feeling bad to begin with. I have still have been sort of waiting for this magical feeling of health and superpower to come over me. Still waiting...