Whole 30 Meatballs

You better believe I had leftover steak for breakfast yesterday.  I also had leftover mushrooms from the night before AND 1/2 a cup of potatoes leftover, so that leftover made a – hash.  I nuked 1/2 a cup of egg whites with spinach an a ramekin, and fruit on the side.

I’ve actually had stuff to do at work which is refreshing!  Before I knew it, it was time to get my walking shoes on.  It was about 52 degrees so I wore a light jacket, but quickly ditched it.  I also decided not to concentrate so much on my time when I walk and just walk for the pure enjoyment of it and not look down to see if my second mile was faster than my first mile.  I mean, I am competitive, but do I have to be competitive with myself?

I found this gorgeous path behind a huge office building about a half mile from my office.  The scenery was stunning.

Longtime readers will know it’s been a while since I’ve had balls in my mouth.  Um – MEATballs.  Get your heads out of the gutter.  And obviously what goes better with meatballs then marinara sauce.  Pasta was out of the question, but I love spaghetti squash, so lunch was born.

I ended up getting coconut flour at Jewel for $4.99 for this bag.  It says that you can substitute up to 1/3 of this flour for regular flour, but no more than that because it really absorbs a lot of water in recipes.  But it worked out perfect for the meatballs – I couldn’t taste the coconut flour, but it gave the balls the perfect texture.  You know we all want balls with nice texture, right?

I don’t really have a recipe for my marinara sauce – it’s all by taste.  Luckily my tomatoes were really sweet and ripe on their own – sometimes tomatoes can be acidic and I need to balance that with sugar – but sugar is not Whole30 compliant.  I lucked out my buying 20 tomatoes on the $1 rack.  I had to throw out 3, but the rest were perfect.  I simmer the tomatoes with minced garlic, Italian seasoning and crushed red pepper for about 20 minutes over medium heat – then used my stick blender to combine and added salt and pepper to taste.  Once I pureed the sauce, I placed the meatballs in to simmer. 

Holy yum.  These were delicious!  I ended up having three meatballs as a serving, over spaghetti squash.  Here’s my tip with spaghetti squash – I poke a hole in it and nuke it for 7 minutes.  I let it cool completely before cutting it open, I find the seeds come out more cleanly when I do this.  Then I scrape out the squash, then squeeze the squash in a paper towel to get out all the moisture.  Once at work, after I nuked it to warm it up, I got more paper towels and squeezed out the excess moisture.   It doesn’t taste mushy to me and has a really good texture.

So I ended up not taking any insulin with lunch so that I could have the energy to work out after work.  Yesterday was legs:

I did a 10 minute warm up on the treadmill, then that routine took me just over 35 minutes.   I was headed home by 5:50 – nice!  Just in time to watch the sun start to set.  (Hi Tony!)

My store had chicken legs on sale for $.59 cents a pound and I can never pass that up.  I found out that Frank’s Hot Sauce is Whole30 compliant – it’s basically just vinegar and peppers.  So I ended up baking the chicken legs and tossing them in the hot sauce.  On the bottom was some sautéed zoodles.  So good!  I did miss the extra crunch from my deep fried chicken, but this was still really good.

Since I’ve been eating lower carb, I’ve been having lower blood sugars – I have to realize that the insulin is staying in my system longer and without the carbs to meet it, the insulin lowers my blood sugar. I made the mistake of skipping taking my blood sugar before bed last night because I felt fine, but at 3:15 I woke up with a blood sugar of 55. I was pretty active around the house last night after dinner, so I ate a cup of fruit and went back to bed. Not gonna lie I was going to look for some chocolate, but stuck with the fruit. Go me!

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I was so excited to head home and see how my bedroom turned out.  Um, turns out there were a lot of dings and knicks in the walls and it took the painter a couple hours just to prep the walls for paint.  The top is what it looked like before work – and the bottom when I got home – no worries, I’ll be taking better pictures when it’s all done, but obviously the sun had already set by the time I got home.

I LOVE IT!!  It makes the room seem so much bigger, and it’s nice to see the trim in a different color than the wall.  I don’t know why Tony and I never took the time to either do it ourselves or pay someone to do it these last 14 years.  They were literally done in four hours.  So worth the $$!  Best part is that I confirmed that all the flooring will be completed a week from today and my friend is coming over a week from Saturday to put the house all together.  I’ve been given strict instructions that I cannot be home from 8:00 a.m. until noon while she does her magic.  I always wished it could be like on Property Brothers where they shoo off the people while they do all the detail work and they just come back and it’s all done.  Well, that’s going to be me!   I hope to have an Open House the first Saturday in November if all works to plan – I wish you guys lived closer (or you can road trip!) to come see it in person.  So excited.

But a part of me is so sad that Tony will never get to live in this new updated house.  It makes me feel guilty that the more changes I make the more it feels like I am erasing his existence in the house.  I don’t have the mega bed in the bedroom anymore, or his sleep apnea machine, or many of his clothes.  His recliner was broken on one side so if you sat on it, you leaned to one side, so I am going to have to get rid of that.  I know he’s always in my heart, my thoughts, etc., but I know moving on is what I need to do.

I have a secret though.  Sometimes when I really miss him, I smell his cologne and maybe spray a little on my pillow and when I close my eyes, I can feel him with me.  That’s the best I can do for now.  I know I will make it through.  I’ve made it this far, so I know I can make it through whatever comes next.  I just miss my best friend.