#we have frozen pizza pretty regularly but cauliflower crust will never be as good as buttery garlicky bready crust

[tocourtdisaster]

I miss Domino's pizza crust so much.

[whole30problems]

Day 13: 1/13/18

Days 12-15 of the Whole30 are referred to as: “Boundless energy! Now give me a damn Twinkie.”

Hurray! The slump is over! Your pants fit again! Your energy levels are better than normal – you’re downright Tigger the bouncing tiger! But something weird is happening. You’re dreaming. Not crazy nightmare or strange surrealist dreams, either. Incredibly normal and realistic dreams – about donuts. Or Twinkies. Or Snickers. Suddenly, you’re craving things you don’t even like.

All joking aside, though, this phase gets really intense for some people. This is the part of the program where our minds try to drive us back to the comfort of the foods we used to know.

Sounds about right. We’ve entered the phase where we’re reminiscing about our favorite foods and drinks like we’re on death row and never going to taste them again. For me, it’s mostly pumpkin spice lattes and chocolate (although weirdly I’ve been craving tequila, which I don’t usually drink). For Erik, it’s mostly beer and pizza. 

Today was Saturday and we just didn’t have the energy to do anything. Actually energy is the wrong word because I do think we’re more energetic than usual. We don’t have the willpower to do anything. What’s the point? We’re just going to sit around looking at everyone else having fun day drinking and stuffing their faces with cheese.

On that note, here’s what we ate today. At home. On the couch. #whole30.

Breakfast

Erik made a big batch of green juice last night and I had a cup of it for breakfast this morning. Is green juice Whole30 compliant? I don’t even care. It’s a bunch of vegetables. Give me a break.

It tasted like celery. I put on This Is Us and therefore was crying when Erik got home from some extreme athleticism. (It’s probably worth mentioning that unlike me he exercises most mornings. We’re all very impressed.)

Lunch

I ate some leftover unstuffed cabbage roll and forgot to take a picture of it. I also had to clean out the fridge because I put in a new Fresh Direct order for next week’s meals. I’d been feeling like we’d been pretty good about eating leftovers but was shown otherwise when we had to empty out like six tupperwares. Need to do a better job of organizing the fridge and remembering what’s in there.

I thought about making some deviled eggs for a snack but never got around to it because again: what’s the point.

Erik, however, woke up with pizza on his mind and decided to make a paleo pizza for his lunch. (No, paleo and Whole30 are not the same. He is his own man.) I don’t know what recipe he used, but it entailed a cauliflower crust and some vegan cheese made out of nutritional yeast and cashews.

He went to the store to buy all the ingredients he needed, and came back about 45 minutes later empty handed because he forgot his wallet. So he set back out, bought his groceries, carried them home, and then... realized he forgot two ingredients. (I went to the store for those so he wouldn’t have to go three times.)

He slaved away at his pizza for hours and finally emerged with a slice. I watched him bite into it and asked, “Is it good? Does it taste like pizza??”

He said, “Well, the crust is made out of cauliflower, so that part tastes like a combination of cauliflower and garbage. The tomato sauce tastes like tomatoes, so that’s okay. The fake cheese is made out of cashews, so it tastes like cashews. So no, it’s not good and it’s not pizza.”

Here’s what a slice looked like:

He struggled through half of the pizza before giving up and throwing the rest away. Here’s our review of this paleo pizza:

Cost: $30

Time: 4.5 hours

Grocery store trips: 3

Should you make this pizza: no

I didn’t taste it because I’m doing Whole30, not paleo, although I did make a nice little charcuterie plate from his leftover ingredients (prosciutto and mushrooms, and I added some little pickles):

Erik made a joke about how he works really hard to find the loopholes in this diet. “You’re not finding loopholes, you’re just cheating,” I told him. He said, “Yeah, and you think this is EASY?!”

We watched a movie at some point and lamented the fact that we couldn’t eat or drink anything. I can’t remember the last time we watched a movie sober or without popcorn. People just do this regularly??

I will say our general demeanor has been better than usual, even though my Cold of the Century continues to keep me up at night. It’s nice not spending our weekends hungover. I mean, it would be nicer if I could eat some cheese, but it’s pretty nice.

Dinner

I think we maybe discovered this recipe last year during Whole30 but I can’t remember. It’s crispy chicken with beets, olives, artichokes, and lemon:

Super good, and pretty fast/easy, especially because I use canned artichokes, pre-chopped beats, and whole kalamata olives. There’s very little work involved, which is just the way I like it. The other nice thing about it is you don’t have to make a side because there are so many vegetables built in.

Oh, although I did have a minor breakdown when I started cooking because we were missing two ingredients (lard and chicken stock). I made do with ghee and chicken broth, and it was fine, but for a minute I thought we had to go back to the grocery store for the fourth time today. It’s ironic because I was just thinking earlier while I was doing the Fresh Direct order that we’ve had so much less panicky grocery runs this time around. I really hope this is not a harbinger of things to come.

Ummmm what else. I snacked on a frozen peach slice. Well... bye!