Whole 30: Week 4 - The Home Stretch & Adventures With Wings

The home stretch!  The snow and ice storm of doom that hit Atlanta on Tuesday made a mess of a lot of my meal plans.  Thankfully, I've learned over the last few weeks to keep some spare cooked chicken breast and veggies around and my ability to make pinch hit, hodge-podge meals has improved dramatically!

Breakfasts

This week's egg cups used prosciutto and sun-dried tomato - a nice shake-up!

Lunches

With three extra lunches snow/iced in at home, lunches were mostly hodge-podge.

Dinners

We started the week with chicken "Parmesan", breaded with almond meal.  Daddy M and I both loved it, but the breading was much too peppery for Moose and Mouse.  I substituted chicken broth for the wine in the sauce, and it still had great flavor.  We had ours with steamed zucchini one day, and the leftovers with sauteed zucchini, just to keep things interesting.

I pulled out a favorite South Beach recipe for Marinated London Broil and substituted red wine vinegar in lieu of the wine in the marinade.  We made it a real comfort meal with baked sweet potatoes - I've been using this method from the Eating Bird Food blog to make a big batch of sweet spuds each week and it works perfectly every time!

Wing-a-palooza! One of the things I've missed most about my usual Saturday "cheat day" while I've been on the Whole 30 is wings.  So on Saturday, inspired by Danielle Walker's new recipe over at Against All Grain, I decided to try my hand at making my own.  All told, I made four flavors: ranch (for Daddy M, using packaged ranch seasoning), lemon pepper, Danielle's Buffalo, and a "dry rub" of my own concoction (see below).

Paleo Dry Rub Wings
2 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1/4 tsp salt (sea salt or kosher)
1/4 tsp ground pepper
1/4 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp onion powder
6-12 Chicken wings (1/2 to 1lb), drumlettes and flats separated, skin on
Preheat oven to 400F and prepare a cookie sheet with a wire cooling rack over top.  Mix first six ingredients together in a prep bowl or small bowl.  Toss wings with mixture (in a larger mixing bowl or zip-top baggie) and space evenly on prepared pan.  Bake for 40 minutes, pausing to flip the wings over after 20 minutes. These are mild enough to eat without any ranch dressing but still flavorful.

I made my own ranch using this recipe but Danielle's dressing mixing proportions (1/2 instead of 1/3c of Paleo mayo).  All in all, it was a delicious, guilt-free treat!  That said, I spent about 4 hours in the kitchen. Next time I'll stick to one or two flavors to cut down both prep and clean-up time.  I was so disappointed that I forgot to take a picture of all my hard work, but by the time I remembered, all that was left to show were bones . . .

Finally, this is how I survived the Super Bowl party we attended on Sunday:

#SuperBowl party, @whole30 style: byo guac & celery, & drinking LaCroix! #Day28
— Victoria (@MommyMarginalia) February 3, 2014

Yes, I totally missed not having an Irish Car Bomb with the rest of the wives.  I did treat myself with a few spoonfuls of coconut milk when I got home as a reward.

What food(s) do you miss the most when you're eating clean?