As the world opens back up, I feel like I have been traveling, eating and drinking alcohol so much more than I have for the past 14 months. Although it has been great to see friends and family again and get back to the things we used to do, the recent over-indulgences have left me feeling bloated, tired and achey. To reset myself, I decided to eliminate alcohol, coffee, gluten and processed foods for one week.
One of my all time favorite things in life is a piece of peanut butter toast in the morning. I love sourdough bread, but I decided to swap gluten for protein this week so for breakfast, I alternated between my favorite yogurt bowl: Fage O% Milk Fat yogurt, Kind Granola, cinnamon and local honey and eggs with freshly made salsa.
For lunch I mixed it up by making a smoothie or ordering from Sweet Green or Chipotle and I decided to get the most creative with my dinners for the week. I didn’t realize it, but Will and I normally eat quite a bit of gluten so it was a bit of a challenge to eliminate that for a week of meals. Since I never know what our weekends will bring, I only plan meals Monday through Thursday night, here’s a look at what I made for the week!
Monday Dinner: The Defined Dish Mushroom Lettuce Cups. Will and I absolutely LOVED this recipe. It was so easy to cook (and clean up) and it was surprising filling. I had three and I lost count of how many Will had..maybe seven? I’d highly recommend these if you’re wanting to eat clean or eliminate meat and fish.
Tuesday Dinner: Taco Salad Night! I think this was my favorite meal of the week. For our taco salad, I used chopped romaine lettuce, taco meat (2 lbs. ground beef cooked with half of a diced white onion, salt, pepper, 1 tbsp. chili powder, 1tsp. ground cumin, 1 tsp. oregano), shredded cheese and black olives. Instead of using salad dressing which can be highly processed, I got a freshly made salsa from Central Market and topped the salad with my homemade guacamole (3 avocados, half of a diced white onion, 1 diced jalapeño, 1 tbsp. Maldon salt, 1/2 of a lime squeezed and topped with chopped cilantro.)
We also loved this meal and I served it as a “build your own taco salad” so I got to make mine exactly how I wanted and Will got to do the same for his. Super easy to make, filling and very healthy.
Wednesday Dinner: The Defined Dish’s Mongolian Chicken with a carrot ginger spring salad. I’ve always loved Mongolian Beef, but had never heard about Mongolian Chicken until I saw it from the Defined Dish. As with all of Alex’s meals, it was amazing and SO easy to clean up…another one of her one pot wonders.
Because Will and I normally have some sort of a starch with our meals, I just made more chicken than I normally would and more salad to make sure we were both full and it worked out perfectly.
Thursday Dinner: Broccoli with grilled chicken and homemade Alfredo sauce. By Thursday, I was ready for some comfort food so rather than making my favorite fettuccine Alfredo, I swapped the noodles for broccoli. I never use store-bought Alfredo sauce and I’m not saying my homemade sauce is light, but it is not heavily processed.
To make the sauce, heat 1/2 stick of butter in a sauté pan over low heat and add in 1 cup of heavy whipping cream–let simmer for five minutes. Slowly whisk in 1 and 1/2 cups of freshly grated parmesan cheese. Finally add in 2 tbsp. chopped Italian Parsley, 2 cloves of chopped garlic and salt and pepper to taste.
By the end of the week, I felt refreshed, my skin looked clear and dewey and I lost three pounds. How have you stayed healthy as life gets back to normal? Leave me a comment and let me know!
XO,
Brit
BASICALLY BRIT 