Fixing a homemade mayo fail

The other day I wrote about my first homemade mayo fail. My friend, Rick, read it and suggested a very easy fix. Even though it had been in the fridge for nearly two days, I got it out and left it to come to room temperature, along with a whole egg.  

After a couple of hours in a web meeting where the main theme seemed to be, "Am I going to have a job much longer," I happily went back to my mayo rescue, starting with separating the egg yolk from the white. 

Here are Rick's instructions, which I followed to a "T": 

Begin with everything at room temperature (including the bowl) and whisk together an egg yolk and a few drops of oil. Whisk gently, adding a few more splashes of oil, and it should start to come together without much effort. Pour in the dregs a trickle at a time. Once you're sure it's staying thick, you can use the immersion blender to finish your mayonnaise with the rest of the dregs. Add as much oil/lemon/seasoning as it takes to reach your desired result.

It actually began to come together very quickly when I started whisking, which was, I'm not going to lie, very thrilling. When I was completely done incorporating the dregs and had a fine-looking mayo, I took a taste, added some garlic powder, salt and lemon juice until it tasted just as I wanted it to taste, and put it back into a container in the fridge. No money wasted and time well-spent. 

And if I lose my job, well, there's always another waiting in the wings.  Here are before and after pictures of my mayo. 

In this one, the thin, watery stuff I'm pouring from that container is the mayo fail dregs:  

And this one is the perfect, creamy saved mayo:  

Lovely little sliders

I had my first homemade mayonnaise fail yesterday. It made me sad because it uses a whole cup of olive oil, and I don't want to waste it. So, I put the runny mess in a container in the fridge and figured I'd figure out what to do with it later. 

Then, today, I was trying to think of what to have for lunch and just had this vision of adorable little sliders drizzled with my garlicky mayo fail. 

I just happened to have a pound of grass-fed ground beef in the fridge, and remembered that I had some leftover Penzey's Arizona Dreaming spice mix from Cinco de Mayo, when I made short rib tacos (which were devoured). Southwest sliders? Sounds good to me!

Here's the thing about sliders: they're fun. Even low-carb folks, like me, eat a lot of burgers, we just forgo the bun. And it's easy to get tired of burgers, but sliders make it seem like it's a whole different meal.  

I plopped the meat into a bowl. Added an egg, some chopped onions, fresh parsley, Arizona Dreaming spice (about 1/2 tablespoon), garlic and mixed it all together. While I was forming them into meatballs, I preheated a griddle on a burner of my stove on medium. When it was hot, I melted a bit of coconut oil on the griddle. When it was hot, I flattened the meatballs and plopped them on the hot skillet. 

This is what that step looked like: 

I cooked them for about 7 total minutes, and drizzled them with my mayo fail. For a side, I had fresh veggies I got from the farm store (broccoli, kohlrabi and carrots) with my homemade ranch dressing for dipping. And here's the finger-licking good lunch I ended up with:

I say finger-licking good because you can eat these cute little sliders with your hands, they're that small and perfectly-shaped. Now that's a happy meal. 

Chicken stir fry with cauliflower "rice"

I have never been much of a one for creating my own recipes, although I don't know why that is, but following the Whole30 way of eating seems to have just made me very creative. 

I'm especially drawn right now to "bowl" food. Scrambled, sauteed or stir-fried bowls of deliciousness. 

Of course, I don't use rice in stir fries because rice has absolutely no health benefits whatsoever. That means none, nada, nyet, zero. White especially, but brown isn't much better. Don't be fooled by the "fiber" argument. It's just starch and arsenic. 

Instead, I "rice" cauliflower. It's so easy -- just put some chunks of cauliflower in a food processor, pulse it until the cauliflower is roughly the size of rice grains, and store it in a covered container in the fridge until it's ready to use. It looks like this:  

Can't tell the difference, can you?  

Anyway, I made stir fry yesterday and it turned out great. I melted ghee in a heavy skillet over medium high heat -- about a 7 on my electric oven burner. When it was hot, I tossed in some diced onions and let them cook a bit. Then I tossed in some leftover zucchini and yellow squash that I had grilled the night before, and some leftover chicken thighs I grilled before Rachel Carson. Then, I stirred in a couple of tablespoons of coconut aminos. The result was delicious.  

It's a perfect balance of good fats, lean protein, and a variety of veggies. And it took about 10 minutes, maybe less, to put together. A great lunch! 

Whole30 Compliant Italian Meatballs

I did not post yesterday, because I was too busy, so am going to wrap up two days worth of food here. 

First, I have to say that I'm feeling pretty dang good here on Day 3 of my Whole30. My legs are tired, which is weird, because I didn't do as much physically as I usually do. I had a two-hour meeting this morning, so didn't have time to exercise, and, since the meeting required me to be tethered to my Skype headphones, did not work at my treadmill desk as much either. I did clean the whole house, but that doesn't usually wear me out like this, so who knows. 

Day after tomorrow is Rachel Carson and between work and Rachel Carson prep, it will be a couple of days before I have time to post again. Wende says she's going to join me in the Whole30 beginning on Sunday or Monday, so she'll post as well. However, she cheats on Whole30, so you can't really trust her. 

In the meantime, here's what I ate yesterday and today: 

This breakfast scramble was the bomb dot com. I sauteed shiitake mushrooms and spinach in light olive oil, tossed in some pork sausage that I had pre-cooked the day before while I was cleaning the kitchen, and scrambled it all with one egg and about two eggs worth of egg whites. So good I had it yesterday and today and have enough sausage left for one more tomorrow. 

Remember the chicken and turnip home fries I made on Tuesday? Yesterday I sauteed some sweet peppers, tossed in the leftover turnip home fries and fried them up a bit, tossed in the leftover chicken, cut up, and topped it all with a dollop of homemade mayo, just for fun. OMG. I would eat that everyday, but I'm out of chicken and turnips. On the list!!!!

So then, last night, I roasted a leg of lamb, something I make a lot anyway, and ate it with a salad and leftover butternut squash. I forgot to take a picture, probably because, like I said, it's something I already make a lot so didn't have to be creative. 

However, I also decided to take some time to come up with some Whole30 compliant meatballs for Rachel Carson this weekend, and the results were completely amazing. I was having trouble resisting popping the delicious balls o' meat in my mouth every time I walked by the bowl they were cooling in. I finally tucked them in a storage bag and hid them in the back of the fridge. I'll make some fresh sauce tomorrow night and heat them up in that. In the meantime, here's the recipe:

1 lb each ground pork, veal and beef

1/2 cup flaked coconut

3 eggs, beaten

fresh parsley (I only had about 1/2 cup available in my herb garden, so that's what I used)

medium onion, chopped

1 tsp minced garlic

Italian seasoning to taste (I used about a tablespoon)

Form into meatballs and cook at 350 for 25 minutes.  

For the sauce, I am just going to saute some chopped onions and peppers in olive oil (I have yellow, so will use that), dump in a few cans of Whole30 compliant tomatoes, simmer for a bit, then heat the meatballs in that.  Racers can have theirs over pasta, I will just eat mine as is.  

And that's it, Fort Pitt! 

Whole30, Day 1: I read the rules

Today is the first official day of Whole30. Everything's easy the first day. And maybe the second, so I'm not getting too excited about it all. 

I did spend some time noodling around the Whole30 forums today, and I have to say those moderators are patient because there are some dumb questions being asked -- mostly about bacon and booze. 

About every other post is someone asking, "Can I eat bacon?" And the answer is always, "No," because bacon has sugar and even if it says it doesn't have sugar, it probably does, and because bacon is about 100 percent fat and is just, in general, not a food that is good for you and this program is about eating only foods that are good for you. 

Then, two posts later, the question is: "Can I eat bacon?"

Same with booze. Interestingly, wine seems to be the one thing people most long for. I can dig it. However, the Whole30 "rules" fit neatly on a single PDF page, and about the second line in the "no" column is alcohol -- not even in cooking. And yet every other forum post that does not ask about bacon asks if they can cook with alcohol. 

Sheesh, people, read the instructions. They're simple, straightforward, and free. 

Here's what I ate today:

Eggs are something I eat all the time anyway. This morning I sauteed some fresh shiitake mushrooms and spinach in light olive oil and then topped it with a couple of fried eggs. It was delicious. 

Lunch was leftover veal piccata from last night. The veal recipe was my own, I make it all the time and long ago adapted it for low-carb. The mashed cauliflower was a new recipe I tried from Well Fed. I did not care for it. The coconut oil/milk gave it an odd flavor. I make a bomb-ish mashed cauliflower but it has dairy, so is a no-no on Whole30. I am definitely going to come up with a Whole30 compliant version of mine. I also had a bit of leftover butternut squash (not pictured). 

Here's the piccata: 

Hm. Wish I could figure out how to flip these photos so they're not lengthwise, but I can't. 

Anyway, I was going to grill some chicken thighs for dinner, but my propane ran out and I can't change it out by myself, so baked the chicken, some turnips (cut into chunks), and had salad with homemade ranch dressing made with homemade mayo, both recipes courtesy of Well Fed.  

Here's how that all turned out:  

It was kind of "meh." It would have been better grilled. Also, I wish I'd thought to toss some onions in to bake with the turnips. The ranch dressing was amazing, though. 

I'm starting a Whole30 tomorrow. 

I've always been fascinated by the program and now I'm going to dive on in and try it. I've been struggling with vertigo and a few other nagging problems that I'm hoping a nutritional reset will solve. I've spent the day prepping everything; I made a menu plan, cleaned out the fridge, and went shopping at Whole Paycheck Foods. 

Best of all, I made some mayo from scratch using a recipe from Well Fed, a cookbook written by Melissa Joulwan. If you want the recipe, buy the book, it's worth the money. It's probably on her blog as well, but as a writer I like it when people buy books. 

Here's a picture of my mayo. I'm very proud. It turned out perfectly and tastes amazing. 

I also washed some organic spinach. I love spinach and eat it every day, but I usually buy the bagged stuff. A big part of Whole30 is eating fresh, local, organic as much as possible. Here's my spinach:  

You're supposed to journal on Whole30 and keep track of your progress to help you stay on track, so, since we've been neglecting the blog, I thought I'd revive it just for that purpose. I may even post before and after pics. We'll have to see about that. 

Making a list of meals is also helpful for other people on Whole30 to get meal ideas. That's where I get them anyway.