Day 28 - Getting a little nervous...

 

I'm starting to get nervous about the end of the whole 30.  I like having this little safety bubble that gives me an excuse to not eat and drink certain things! And I have really enjoyed writting the blog.   Last time I didn't go very well after the finish of the 30 days and felt terrible physically and emotionally for undoing all my hard work. This time I am determined to maintain a fairly strict 80/20 of good paleo eating. I am thinking I might even create a facebook page after finishing for continued recipe sharing and where others can post things too :)

Woke up this morning before my alarm at about 6:30am.  I made a carrot and zucchini omelet for breakfast and a coffee with coconut milk.  I grated up 1 each of a small purple and orange carrot and a zucchini and melted some coconut oil on the fry pan.  Once melted I added the carrot and zucchini to the pan and cook for about 4-5 mins then spread the mix out evenly over the base of the fry pan.  To this I added 3 lightly scrambled eggs and swirled them around the pan to cover all the mix.  Once the egg was pretty much cooked I folded half of the mix over, was a little tricky as the carrot and zucchini mix didn't hold together that well, but worst case scenario it would have ended up being a scramble :) 

Managed to be able to jump in on a lifting session with Mel and Haley out at Honey Beavers coached by Ben Turner.  Was an awesome class and learnt a lot about position, movement, extension and speed.  Still need heaps more work, but was a pretty good start and hopefully I'll be able to translate these new skills into my next weights day at Roar :) 

When I got home I made up a quick and easy salad of baby spinach, sundried tomatoes, kalamata olives, red capsicum, mushrooms and salmon, dressed with the juice of half a lemon.  If you're not a fan of salmon you can easily add a meat of your choice.

For dinner I made an eggplant lasagna:

500g of grass fed beef mince

1 brown onion diced

3 cloves of garlic crushed

2 x tins of crushed or whole tomatoes

140g tin of tomato paste

1 large eggplant sliced thinly

1 red capsicum diced

4 button mushrooms chopped

2 small zucchini diced

2 tomatoes sliced

1 tablespoon of dried oregano

1 teaspoon of dried basil

Salt and pepper

1/4 cup of almond meal

1 teaspoon of ghee

Lay some baking paper out on the bench and spread out the sliced eggplant.  Sprinkle salt over each slice and leave to sit while you make the meat mix.  Heat ghee in a large pot and cook onion and garlic until starting to brown.  Add mince to the pot and cook through.  Once the mince is cooked add the tinned tomatoes, tomato paste, basil, oregano, mushrooms, zucchini, capsicum and salt and pepper.  Allow this to simmer on a low heat for about 30 mins.  While the meat mix is simmering rinse the salt off the eggplant and pat dry with some paper towel. Heat a little more ghee in a fry pan and fry the eggplant on both sides then set aside on some paper towel on a plate.  Once all the eggplant is cooked grab a baking dish and place a layer of the meat mix on the bottom.  Top with a layer of eggplant (you may need to cut some slices to fit and fill gaps), another layer of meat, more eggplant and sliced tomato.  If I wasn't on whole30 I would have sprinkled some Parmesan over the tomato, but used a little almond meal instead.  You could leave this step out as it didn't make a lot of difference.  Place the baking dish in the oven under the grill until the tomatoes are nicely cooked.  Slice into desired portion size (I got 6 slices out of mine) and freeze any leftovers for a quick and easy meal.