Days 19 & 20!

'Brunch' for Day 20 was leftover crab stuffed mushrooms and a fried egg :) Yum! I love crab stuffed mushrooms! :D

We did some shopping at Costco and Wegman's - It was good to have hubby with me to choose things for his lunches etc. He's not following the plan as strictly as I am, but I am proud of him for trying as much as he is :D Since Costco's Organic Ground Beef doesn't say if grass fed or pasture raised, I buy it at Wegman's - they have a 3 pack (1 lb each) 93% lean Organic Grass Fed Ground Beef for $14.99 - I also got their pork tenderloin and a couple different sausages hubby wanted (and a duck one I wanted to try!)

We also ended up deciding to pick up some Lara Bars - I had never had them before and was surprised there really wasn't ANY crap in them! Hubby even opted to buy the 16 pack of the Apple Pie flavor for his lunches - Packing him lunches is probably the hardest and costliest part of this (seriously, I finally found a good organic turkey deli meat at Wegman's - I think the package is only 6 oz and it was $6.49 - I'll split it into 2 lunches and fill it in with other stuff...

At Costco we picked up organic whole chickens, organic chicken breast, a fortune's worth of nuts, apple chips etc.

I was so thirsty I went up to get a bottle of water from the machine, next to their cafe and man, I have to admit, the smell of their hot dogs made me salivate :P I've always loved the hot dogs at Sam's and Costco :o

(I don't like to buy bottled water, but I was really thirsty! :P)

We also got strip steaks, though they're not grass fed, but hubby wanted a nice big steak and all the grass fed stuff was tiny. I'm so tempted to look in to buying a 1/4 or 1/2 cow this year...

Hubby bought some salad dressing packets so he could make it with better oils, downfall is they ALL have sugar - he has opted to use them anyway and just use as little dressing as he can stand (that's huge for him, he's used to drowning his salad in dressing!), so while I had sauteed greens and mushrooms with onion & garlic, he had them with organic spring greens as a salad instead.

I was really happy with the crust I got on our steaks, too bad I overcooked them :(  I decided to finish them in the oven, I usually don't do that - I obviously should have either had the oven lower and/or had them in much less time (I like very rare, hubby usually orders medium rare).

Later I tried the Coconut Lara Bar - It's funny, you open it up and really, let's face it, it looks tiny and insufficient if you're hungry (I wasn't particularly hungry as I just wanted a little snack and wanted to try the Lara Bar) - But man, it felt like it took me forever to eat it, it's very compact and requires a good amount of chewing.

Day 20 Success! :D

Day 19 Breakfast was leftover Deviled Eggs and Kiwi again, so no pic...

I decided to order Sashimi for lunch - and here's where I messed up!

No, I did not use the soy sauce - I did, however, use the pickled ginger (I love that stuff!) not even thinking it probably had sugar in it -- I realized this later when my stomach started to hurt a bit; I'm betting it was the sugar in the pickled ginger :o

My favorite sashimi/sushi is Salmon - Raw salmon has the buttery, nutty kind of flavor to it that I just love, so I ordered the sashimi lunch and an a la carte salmon (3 pieces) - I'm sorry, but Coconut Aminos just didn;t cut it for me here; After the 30 days, I will definitely be getting tamari and making that exception to the no soy (tamari is fermented and is gluten free)

Since hubby was coming home this evening, I wanted to make us a nice dinner - I had my daughter pick up wild caught sea scallops that were in the ad for Acme - I was expecting larger, less wet scallops (Had I realized, I would have told her to get the dry sea scallops that were $4 more per pound - after all, I paid for a lot of water in these scallops!). So much for nice seared scallops, even draining for a while and blotting with paper towel, they were still way to full of water for a sear, all they did really was steam/boil :(  I also thought they tasted more like Bay Scallops - I'm not a big fan of Bay Scallops myself...

I had seen a recipe for sea scallops with an apple cider balsamic blaze, so after I removed the scallops, I added apple cider (1/2 c) and balsamic (maybe 3-4 Tbs) and simmered it down into a syrup consistency - I decided to serve it on the side for dipping so we could choose whether or not to use it - I used it...

I also made Crab stuffed mushrooms - yum! 

I'm really wishing I'd had my daughter pick up 2 cans of this crab meat (wild caught) for $9.99 for a 1 lb can - I didn't realize what a great price it was...

To make them, I cleaned and de-stemmed 15 baby bella/cremini mushrooms and used a tiny spoon to scoop out the center of the mushrooms, reserving the stems and what was scooped out - I diced half a small onion and used the chopper attachment to my immersion blender to chop the stems and center bits of the mushrooms and sauteed the onions and mushrooms in bacon grease and garlic olive oil. I let that cool while I measured out 1 c crab meat,  picking through to double check for shells pieces, I added a good spoonful of my homemade mayo, maybe a Tbs or two cashew meal, I added a little paprika, thyme, granulated garlic, sea salt, pepper and some old bay seasoning and mixed that all up. 

I filled the mushrooms in a baking dish and drizzled them with a little melted gee and sprinkled a little cashew meal on top and baked at 375 for about 15-20 min -- SO GOOD! :D

I also roasted organic rainbow carrots and asparagus (the asparagus was overcooked, I should have started the carrots and then added the asparagus after 10-15 min.) - Hubby loved the roasted carrots, I guess I need to roast carrots more often :)

I guess after the pickled ginger, I can't quite call Day 19 a Success... :o