Clarified butter

After spending the day in the hospital with my sick little boy yesterday, I have found myself housebound with him today (he is ok but needs medication at different times, which meant no school for him and no work for me). I thought I might try my hand at making some clarified butter.

Clarified butter is butter fat with the milk solids and water removed. This is what makes the butter Whole30 friendly. It is a fairly simple process, and I think it turned out quite well. Ghee can also be used, and my understanding of the difference between the two is that ghee is cooked off for a bit longer so it has more of a nutty flavour, and is darker in colour. 

Butter melting at a low heat so it doesn't brown

 The process itself of making clarified butter starts with slowly heating butter (grass-fed is preferred for the Whole30) in a saucepan over a very low heat. Its important not to have it too high as it can burn quite quickly. The colour of the butter shouldn't change too much. As the butter starts to melt a foam with form at the top of the butter fat. once the butter is melted, this foam is scraped off with a spoon or ladel.

Foam starting to form

Once the foam is scraped off, you can see the milk solids at the bottom that have separated from the butter fat. Using a ladle, scoop the clear butter fat out of the saucepan into a separate container. You can also just pour it into the container but you have to be careful not to get the milk solids in there, so I found using the ladle easier. 

Milk solids at the bottom, butter fat on top

 I only used one pack of butter (250 grams) and probably ended up with about 200ml of clarified butter.

Clarified butter

 

New frontier of ingredients...

After reading up on what the Whole30 was all about, I started reading a few different blogs and recipe books, and found I was coming across some new ingredients which were repeated often and looked to be quite useful. I bought some of these from iHerb, and my order arrived the other day...

Coconut aminos is in recipes that would normally ask for soy sauce, it is Whole30 friendly, and since I do use a fair bit of soy sauce in a lot of recipes, and have found a few new tasty looking ones to try, I figured it would be a good investment.

Coconut butter...I probably could have a go at making this myself, but as I mentioned in a previous blog, I don't have a high powered blender and I was worried I would burn out the motor of my ninja blender. I don't have the top of the range one, just the standard, and since coconut butter (although its made from just coconut) needs to be blended for a good while, I didn't want to chance breaking my good old ninja! Now, if I could only remember which recipes I saw it in hehe...I'm sure I'll come across them again. I did have a sneaky taste of it though. Yum!!!

Sunflower seed butter is an ingredient in Sunshine Sauce, which is used in a few recipes I'm planning on making from Well Fed. It is useful as a dressing for salads too and as dipping sauces for crudites. I must say, I am not a huge fan of salads unless they come with a tasty dressing, so I decided it would be worthwhile getting this ingredient.

The larabars...ok, they aren't Whole30 friendly, but they are paleo-friendly, and I have wanted to try them and see what the fuss is about. They aren't available in Australia, so I thought I may as well grab a box of mini assorted ones while I was getting an iHerb order. Incidentally, just after I ordered them I saw a facebook post about Emma & Tom's Lifebars which are fairly similar, and available at Woolworths. I tried the Cacao & Orange flavour (I'm a sucker for choc-orange anything), and it was really nice, and very filling. Of the three flavours in the box of larabars, I think my least favourite is the cherry flavour, its a bit sour. The other two are ok though. Having now tried both, I think in future I might stick with the Emma & Tom's ones...but as a sometimes treat once I have my first Whole30 under my belt!  And hopefully my Woolworths will start to stock a few more flavours as they only had the cacao & orange or the cherry & goji. Goji...not a fan!

Dairy be gone...

I think one of the hardest things for me to give up when I start my first Whole30 is definitely going to be dairy. I love my coffee, and I always start the day with a Nespresso latte style coffee. So I decided I need an alternative, and wanted to have a go at making my own almond milk. The ones in the shops have so much added to them, when really all it needs is raw almonds and water and a good blender. I have a Ninja blender, so I thought this could do the job, and decided to give it a go.

I started by soaking 1 cup of almonds in enough water to cover them, allowing a bit extra for the almonds to plump up as they soaked up some of the liquid. I had read that you can leave them soaking for up to 2 days, and the longer you leave them the creamier the milk. So I put them in water on Saturday morning, and waited overnight before I attempted the rest of the method.

The soaked almonds after almost 24 hours

I got rid of the soaking water and gave the almonds a good rinse. I put them into the Ninja blender and added 4 cups of water. The amount of water you add will give differing amounts of creaminess. If you want really creamy milk, just add double the amount of liquid to the nuts. 

My Ninja blender isn't designed for non-stop blending like a regular blender, it has to be pulsed, so this did take a little bit of patience, but it got there in the end. Once the liquid was nice and frothy it was done. I strained it through a tea-towel (I didn't have any cheesecloth or a nut bag), then gathered up the towel and squeezed out as much of the almond milk as i could.

I didn't add anything to this batch of almond milk, I really wanted to see what it was like as is, and then decide for next time what to add. It is quite plain, so I think in future I might try adding a date and maybe a drop of vanilla essence. I have also read that a tiny pinch of salt helps with the sweetness.

Strained almond milk

I also think perhaps it was a little watered down, so next time i will try doing a ratio of 1:2 and see how that goes. It does seem like a lot of effort to go to to only get a couple of cups of milk, but I only use it in my coffee so it should last me 3 days, which is how long it can be kept for. It can be frozen for later use once made up, so if I do a larger batch it won't go to waste. 

Once the almond milk has been squeezed out, you are left with the almond meal. I spread it out on a lined tray and put it in the oven at 130°c for about 2 hours to dry out. I have also stored that in the freezer and will be able to use for cooking/baking.

Dried almond meal

Back to the slow cooker

I mentioned previously that I don't usually like to use a slow cooker, because I don't like having the smell of food in the house the entire day. But I was quite keen on starting to fill up my freezer so I will have meals to eat when it comes to starting my first Whole30, especially on the days when I get home from work at 1pm. So I borrowed the slow cooker from my mum, and yesterday I got to work. I chose 2 beef recipes to make. First I decided to try the crock port mocha rubbed pot roast, recipe found here. The recipe called for quite a large amount of meat, so I did decide to cut the recipe down a bit, since the slow cooker is a little on the smaller side. It lists more of the herb rub than is required too, so once its made up you can keep the unused mixture for next time (or even to use on a different type of meat). I must say I was quite surprised at the amount of coffee that comes out of a Nespresso capsule. Its the first time I have dissected one in 2.5 years of having the machine.

Spice rub 

Finished product - pulled beef. I added a little of the reduced sauce too.

Once the mocha pot roast was done, it was time to get the crock pot chili in. Now, I'm not a huge fan of hot spicy foods, I can handle mild things, but I don't see the point in food that is so hot its all you can think about and your mouth is on fire. Also, I do have to remember that the kids will be eating these meals too, so I need to cater for them. So I decided to cut down the amount of chili in the dish, and just used one red chili and one jalepeno, with the seeds removed. The recipe I used can be found here. The end result was quite nice, not too hot, and the addition of cacao towards the end of the cooking time gave it a bit of extra flavour. The use of arrowroot to thicken it up a bit just to remind me it is actually a Whole30 compliant dish too.

Finished crock pot chili

So that was my first meal prep done. I have split the dishes up into containers and stacked in the freezer, so I only need to worry about the side dishes when I want to use them.

Be Prepared...

Yep, that's my motto for the next few weeks. No, I'm not digressing to my youth, when I was a Girl Guide, dib-dib, dob-dob....I am determined to clean out my freezers and get rid of all the stuff that is in there that no longer resembles food, or has been there so long I can't remember what it is! I had good intentions of eating the leftovers, really I did!

This time I am going to do it properly. I have bought stackable containers of differing sizes. I have gone through some of the new-found paleo/Whole30 blogs and listed some recipes to make. I have started going through my Bikini Cookbooks and listing the Whole30 friendly recipes there are quite a lot!), or noting omissions or additions that could be made to make sure I can still use those cookbooks through my first Whole30. They are my favourties after all - as anyone who follows me on instagram would know hehe...

My main problem with eating well during the day is that I am often in a rush, between getting the kids ready to get to school, rushing to work, and working until 1pm when I am ravenously hungry. By then the carbs I have eaten in the morning have worn off and I am ready to chew off my arm. The shakes, sweating, and inability to think straight takes over, so I really can't be coming home and cooking up a storm for my lunch. I am going to be heavily relying on leftovers or pre-prepared, home-cooked frozen meals, especially for lunch and the one day I work in the afternoon.

I have been going through a lot of recipes lately and come across some unusual ingredients I haven't heard of or even thought of buying. Coconut aminos (Whole30 compliant) for example, is a good replacement for soy sauce (not whole30 compliant). A delicious sounding recipe for "Sunshine sauce" I found in Well Fed, a paleo recipe book by Melissa Joulwan, contains sunflower seed butter. Nope, never seen that before either. Perhaps it's around, but I've never looked for it.Also coconut butter, which i have heard of but not seen. I have ordered these items, and a few others from the iHerb website this morning.  If you have never used this website before, its great! You can zoom in to the nutrition labels and read exactly what is in each product, so you know if it has any ingredients that aren't compliant with the Whole30 rules. And on your first order you get $10 off, and it usually arrives in around 5 days. Faster than being couriered from the eastern states! 

Another preparatory effort for my first Whole30 was making some home-made beef stock. It is just too hard to find one in the supermarket that doesn't have added sugar or other non-compliant ingredients. So i thought I would have a crack at doing it myself, so I know exactly whats in there. Its the first time I've made beef stock from scratch, and it smelled great while it was cooking.  The recipe I used was this one from the Taste website

I have frozen some in containers as well as some 20ml ice cubes of the stock, so its easy to grab out the amount i need for a recipe. I have put them into a big ziplock bag, so that they don't take up too much room.

Next on my list of things to do is start making a few dishes in the slow cooker. I don't have a slow cooker (I used to but I found that when i was home all day with one of the kids, I would be smelling the food cooking and by the time dinner time rolled around I couldn't think of anything worse that eating what had been wafting around all day). So this morning I borrowed my mum's slow cooker, which I'm sure she won't miss one bit since they are leaving to go on a European cruise on the weekend! I figure since i am preparing these meals and freezing them, I won't have the aversion to eating them like I used to!

So over the next few days I will be picking out a few recipes to prepare..I'm looking forward to stocking up my freezer!

What is a Whole30?

So for those who don't know a lot about it, I will explain exactly what a Whole30 is. For more information, please have a look at the website, which does explain it briefly, but if you want to delve into it further, I highly recommend reading the book It Starts With Food by Dallas and Melissa Hartwig.

The lowdown....A Whole30 is very similar to the well known Paleo diet, AKA caveman diet. It is probably a bit more strict, but the idea is you are very strict with yourself for 30 days, then you can slowly start reintroducing the restricted foods back into your diet, paying special attention to the effects it has on your body (and mind!). The foods that are restricted are:

• added sugars, real and artificial
• alcohol (even in cooking)
• grains
• legumes (with the exception of green beans, snow peas and sugar snaps)
• dairy (clarified butter and ghee are ok)
• carrageenan, MSG and sulfites (found in processed foods)
• baked goodies and treats, even if made with Whole30 ingredients (yep pancakes made with bananas are out).

A more detailed description can be found here.

You might be thinking, what the heck can you eat?! Easy! Meat, seafood, eggs,  vegetables, fruits and good fats. This is listed in much more detail in the book, and on the website, so if you want to know more check it out. I'm not here to plagiarise! haha

The main idea of the Whole30 is that it resets our bodies to work at an optimal level. Most people these days eat way too many processed foods, and the increase incidence of lifestyle related diseases and rising levels of obesity shows what sort of effects this is having on the population. You only need to read through the many testimonials to see how changing your diet for just one month can have drastic outcomes on your health. It has helped people with allergies, autoimmune diseases, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, Lyme disease, migraines (hello, this is where it got me interested), digestions issues such as reflux, Crohn's disease and irritable bowel syndrome and many others.

I won't go on and on about it. It all sounds pretty amazing. And to an extent, I do know how something as simple as changing your diet can have a profound effect on your health and well-being. When I started seeing my naturopath, he had me on an elimination diet. I didn't consume any dairy, sugar, wheat or caffeine for 2 weeks. Yes, the first 3 days were horrendous. I suffered from terrible headaches and withdrawal symptoms, but I persevered. after a week I started to feel good. I felt like I had come out of a fog, I had loads of energy and was thinking much more clearly than I had in years. After the 2 weeks were up I started reintroducing each food, and monitoring how I felt. Dairy, wheat and caffeine didn't seem to give me too much trouble. But the sugar - that really messed me around.

I eventually got lazy and the sugar crept back into my diet. I have put on weight and feel tired a lot, and even after sleeping all night I have trouble waking up in the morning. I also have energy slumps in the afternoon and have occasionally nodded off on the couch after eating lunch. 

I'm hoping to find that doing a Whole30 will help with these issues and also reduce the number of migraines i have been getting lately. I know that some of them are related to the amount of processed,refined carbohydrates I have in my diet. I would like to get off the sugar train. And stay off!

A little about me...

Well, hello and thanks for stopping by! I'm Clara, and I am a self confessed carb addict. And it has done nothing for me. So I have decided to make a change. And that change just so happens to be doing my first ever Whole30.

Before I launch into describing what all that means (although if you have come across this blog, you probably already know), I will tell you a little bit about how I came to discover the Whole30. And I apologise in advance, because it is quite lengthy!

I have had issues with fluctuating weight and yo-yo dieting for around 15 years. It pretty much started when I got my drivers licence and had the freedom to go through the McDonald's drive thru. Again. And again. And repeat. While I was at uni, I decided I needed to lose weight. I was still living at home and didn't have a huge amount of money, or know how to cook very many meals, so I signed up to Lite 'n Easy (for those not in Australia, this is a service where you order all your pre-prepared meals to your door, breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks at a set calorie limit). I did it for about 3 months and lost 13kg and was happy. However I didn't learn how to cook, so once I stopped, the weight gradually came back. When I finished university I was back to the size I was before. So I joined Weight Watchers. Again, after a certain amount of time I reached goal, became a lifetime member and hovered around that weight for a while, but the weight kept creeping on. I then heard about Ultralite. It involved having shakes, eating a limited variety of foods and very little in the way of carbohydrates, to get to the state of ketosis. Yep, i had to pee on sticks daily to make sure this was happening. The things we do for weight loss, huh?! Needless to say, once i stopped doing this after losing 7kg, I put all the weight back on again, and fairly quickly.  I was also starting to get migraines, and was diagnosed with gallstones and had to have my gall bladder removed.

Fast forward a few years, I got married, had a baby and gained a whopping 18kg during pregnancy. I only lost about 5kg once my first son Josh was born. I stayed the same weight for the next 6 months, then decided I would start going back to Weight Watchers again. Not only to lose weight, but also to get out of the house on my own for a little adult conversation! I ended up getting back to my pre-baby weight. Then I was pregnant again. By the end of my second pregnancy I had put back on all the weight. I also had developed terrible heel pains, and was diagnosed with plantar fasciitis and a heel spur. I spent 6 months wearing supportive sneakers and prescription orthotics all day, every day. One year after my second son Ethan being born, I decided to something about it. I saw an advertisement for the Michelle Bridges 12 week body transformation. I had a few friends who had done it and had amazing results, so I thought, what the heck, I'll give it a go! Paid my $200, and got right into it. As with all things, I tend to go all or nothing. I followed the program to a T, nutrition wise and exercise. It was exhausting. At least 1 hour of exercise per day for 6 days, as well as eating 1200 calories per day. After my first round I had lost 9kg. I was pretty proud of that effort and enjoyed the food and exercise, so I signed up for another round. This time I was a bit slack and didn't follow it exactly, so I lost 6kg. I got down to about 63kg. My ultimate goal weight was 58kg. Doesn't sound like much but I am only 157cm (5'2" in the old language). At this stage I found i was pretty exhausted from all the exercise and I got sick a lot with coughs and colds because my immune system had gone on hiatus. My migraines were terrible. I couldn't take codeine or other strong painkillers for them because since having my gallbladder removed I have had a terrible reaction to them and end up writhing in pain in waves for 4 hours until the drug is out of my system. 

I started seeing a chiropractor, and have Bowen and Dorn therapies at a naturopath. I have also found that I am on the way to being insulin resistant, I have reactive hypoglycaemia (sweats, shaking, foggy brain, feeling erratic and this all results in binging on any carbs I can get my hands on, only to end up with a massive migraine). I have to eat every three hours or this is what happens.

I have been trying to clean up my diet. I bought Bikini Cookbooks (BCB), I now have the whole collection and I love them. I use them daily. But I still found I was binging on carbs when i was in a rush and felt my blood sugar dropping. The fear of the migraine meant I would scoff a bowl or two of nutrigrain for lunch some days when I got home from work. So recently, to avoid this, I have been ordering Lite 'n Easy breakfasts, lunches and snacks, along with using BCB recipes for dinner (I still have to feed the family after all!!). So doing this over the last 5 weeks i have lost about 4kg. I still get the odd migraine and feel the effects of the reactive hypoglycaemia if I wait too long between meals. 

Last week I was browsing Facebook and saw a link to a blog. Unfortunately I can't remember which blog it was, but basically it was about how the Whole30 had erradicated her migraines. Well, this caught my attention big time. I read the article and was intrigued to find out more. I bought the kindle ebook It Starts With Food, by Dallas and Melissa Hartwig, the brains behind the Whole30, and read the book over the next 4 days. I found myself nodding through the whole book. It just seemed to be about me. And it scared me. I don't want to end up with any of the lifestyle diseases they talk about in the book. We all know what they are. Cardiovascular disease. Type 2 Diabetes. You know the drill. I was already displaying some of the symptoms. The reactive hypoglycaemia. Blood tests have shown i have a fatty liver. I have had gallstones. Plantar fasciitis. What was I doing to myself! 

So the decision was made. I am spending the next few weeks planning, researching and organising myself for my first Whole30. And I can't wait!