Egg breakfast bake with mushrooms, kale, bell pepper, and ground chicken

Before the Whole30, Chobani Greek yogurt or oatmeal with fruit were my go-to quick breakfast choices on workdays. Because dairy and grains are forbidden on the program, I did some digging on breakfast suggestions and came across a bunch of egg bakes. (I’m not sure whether or not to call this a quiche since it doesn’t have a crust or cheese in it.)

Here’s the original recipe: http://wholefoodhalfass.com/post/33712015566/october-16-whole-30-day-16-breakfast-beef

Of course, I had my own modifications…

Ingredients:

• 6 eggs
• 3/4 – 1 cup of coconut milk
• 3 cups of chopped kale
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 1 red bell pepper, chopped
• 1 cup of chopped mushrooms (I used cremini and white.)
• 1/4 cup of chopped scallions
• 1/4 lb of ground chicken
• olive oil
• spices of your choice (I use ground pepper and garlic salt by default.)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Grease a round pie dish with olive oil.
3. Heat about 1/2 – 1 tbsp of olive oil in a skillet.
4. Over medium heat, saute onions until they are translucent. Add in the chicken to the skillet. Cook the chicken until lightly browned. Set the chicken and onion aside in a small bowl.
5. Lightly grease the skillet with olive oil again. Saute kale until it’s wilted. Set aside kale in a separate bowl.
6. Saute red bell pepper, mushrooms, and scallions. After these are finished cooking, turn off the fire. Toss in chicken and kale.
7. In a large bowl, whisk eggs and coconut milk together along with a pinch of salt and pepper.
8. Fold in the chicken and veggie mix in the egg mix. After all ingredients are mixed together, pour into the pie dish.
9. Bake for 30-45 minutes.

Makes 4 servings!

Whole30 adobo?!

Before I started the Whole30, I was a little sad to find out that soy sauce is forbidden on the diet. However, after reading blogs and forums here and there, I found out that there’s a Whole30-friendly substitute for soy sauce: coconut aminos! A bottle of coconut aminos is super expensive online, but luckily I was able to find some at The Vitamin Shoppe. Soy sauce is one of the main ingredients in Adobo, a well-known Filipino dish. I’d like to attempt to paleo-fy traditional Filipino dishes this month. Anywho, here’s how I made Whole30-friendly chicken adobo:

Ingredients:

• 1 bottle of coconut aminos
• 1 cup of white vinegar
• 1 tbsp of applesauce (I normally use sugar. To make it Whole30-friendly, I used applesauce as sweetener.)
• 1 tbsp of peppercorns
• 3-4 bay leaves
• 1/2 onion, sliced
• 3-4 cloves of garlic, sliced or minced
• 1 1/2 lbs of chicken (Bone-in. I recommend thighs or drumsticks. Chicken breast will dry out.)

1. Place all ingredients in a pot as shown in the picture above. (There’s no right or wrong order.)
2. Simmer on low – medium fire for 30min – 1 hour.

That’s it! Easy peasy 🙂

Shrimp curry

Another popular Whole30 dish I’ve seen online is curry. Thankfully, I was able to find a curry paste with no additives! I tried to follow this recipe: http://everydaypaleo.com/red-or-green-thai-curry/. I was expecting something more soupy, but maybe I didn’t reduce the coconut milk properly. Oh well. Instead of adding the raw veggies at the end, I cooked them in a separate skillet. Here’s what I did:

Ingredients:

Red curry paste, coconut oil, and coconut milk. Salt and pepper for seasoning, too. (Not pictured, but I’m pretty sure you know what salt and pepper looks like haha.)

Veggies! I used:

• 1/2 a pack of cremini mushrooms
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 zucchini
• 1 serving of baby carrots
• 2 handfuls of green beans (Note: legumes are not Whole30-friendly. However, according to the guidelines, green beans are allowed because there’s more pod than bean. Whatever, I like my green beans, so yay for that exception.)

I think this is about 1 lb of shrimp. (It’s in a clear bowl in case you’re wondering why you can see my sink rack.)

1. Wash all vegetables before chopping. Chop your veggies to your liking. I decided not to julienne the zucchini.
2. Cut up your protein. In my case, I had to peel all the shrimp…
3. Heat about 1 tbsp of coconut oil in a skillet. When the pan is hot and the coconut oil is melted, saute green beans and carrots for 2 min. Add in zucchini, bell pepper, and mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper to your liking. Cook for another 2 min. Don’t let the zucchini get all soft and soggy. Once the veggies are cooked, turn off the heat and set aside.
4. While the veggies are cooking, heat up 1/2 can of coconut milk in a wok over medium heat. You’re supposed to stir and boil the coconut milk for 3 minutes. I have no idea what coconut milk is supposed to look like when it’s reduced, but after 3 minutes, I stirred in about 2tbsp of red curry paste into the milk.
5. When the curry paste is blended well with the coconut milk, add in your protein. It took me about 5 minutes to cook my shrimp.
6. Once the protein is fully cooked, toss in your cooked veggies. Add the remaining coconut milk to the wok. After tossing all the ingredients together, I let it simmer for about 5 minutes. Here’s how it turned out:

And it was pretty tasty. 🙂 Would definitely be better with rice, but oh well. Makes 3-4 servings.

Garlic-roasted broccoli and cauliflower

Another challenge I’m going to have is finding carbs to replace grains in my diet. In the Whole30 blogs I’ve seen, people tend to use sweet potatoes, cauliflower, and squash to replace their carbs. Here I used cauliflower, and I added broccoli for color. 🙂 You can also use different veggies instead of broccoli and cauliflower for the recipe, like zucchini.

Ingredients:

• One head (?) of broccoli
• One head (?) of cauliflower
• 2-3 cloves of garlic
• olive oil
• garlic salt and pepper

1. Preheat broiler (or oven at 425 degrees F).
2. Wash broccoli and cauliflower prior to chopping.
3. Cut off stems of the broccoli and cauliflower. Chop the veggies into florets. Place chopped veggies in a large bowl.
4. Peel garlic cloves. Chop/mince garlic. Sprinkle garlic on top of the veggies in the bowl.
5. Drizzle olive oil onto the veggies to coat lightly.
6. Season the veggies to your liking.
7. Toss all ingredients in the bowl until veggies are coated evenly with olive oil, spices, and garlic.
8. Empty the coated veggies into a round pie dish. You could also use a foil-lined cookie sheet or a cake dish.
9. Roast veggies for 8-12 minutes.

Serves 3-4!

Macadamia-crusted chicken

 

 

Another thing I craved in February was fried chicken! Not cool how someone was eating it for lunch at work the other day. 😦 Fried chicken isn’t the healthiest thing in the world, lol, so I tried to find Whole30-friendly recipes that were somewhat similar to fried chicken. Breadcrumbs are not an option for the coating on the Whole30. Lots of recipes I found use crushed nuts (macadamia, almond, pistachio, etc.) and coconut as the crust instead. I was so frustrated that I couldn’t find coconut flakes at the store without sugar, so I picked up a pack of macadamia nuts instead. For a recipe so simple, this is probably one of the tastiest things I’ve ever made.

Ingredients:

• 1lb of chicken thighs
• 1/2 cup of macadamia nuts
• 2 eggs (I probably could have done with just one)
• garlic salt, pepper, and dried basil
•  

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Line a cookie sheet with non-stick aluminum foil.

Pulse macadamia nuts in a food processor with about 3 tsp of each spice. (Adjust spices to your liking.) Empty crushed macadamia nuts onto a bowl or plate. Here’s how the crust should look:

Scramble eggs in a separate bowl.

Remove skin from the chicken thighs. Coat one thigh evenly in the egg. After coating in egg, coat in the crushed macadamia nut mixture.

Repeat until all the chicken is used. Bake for 10-15 minutes until the crust is golden brown.

Serves 2! (for me anyway haha)

 

 

Prosciutto-wrapped asparagus

 

I’ve seen this on Pinterest. You can also use bacon instead of prosciutto. In order to be Whole30-friendly, the meat cannot have sugar or additives. Another challenge I’ve had during grocery shopping is finding Whole30-friendly deli meat. Luckily I was able to find some at Trader Joe’s.

 

Ingredients:

• 1 package of prosciutto (or bacon). I believe this pack had 8 strips
• 1 lb of asparagus
• olive oil
• salt and pepper

1. Preheat broiler.
2. Lay a sheet of non-stick aluminum foil onto a cookie sheet.
3. Wash asparagus. I also chopped off about half an inch of the bottom of the stalk. 
4. Arrange asparagus on top of the foiled cookie sheet.
5. Drizzle olive oil on top of the asparagus. Season asparagus with salt and pepper. To coat the asparagus evenly, you can roll the stalks back and forth.
6. Lay one strip of prosciutto on a cutting board, length-wise and slightly diagonal. Place 4 asparagus stalks on top of the bottom corner of the prosciutto. Roll the asparagus into the prosciutto tightly. (This is where a picture would have been helpful. Sorry!) Return wrapped asparagus to the cookie sheet.
7. Repeat until all of the prosciutto and asparagus are used.
8. Place cookie sheet on the bottom rack of the broiler. Cook for 8-10 minutes.