Day 17

Actually, I am going to start with dinner from Day 16 (Monday). My friend Megan suggested a recipe with sauteed chicken, zucchini, onions, garlic, and coconut oil. We tried it on Monday and I loved it! Interestingly enough, one of the few recipes I have tried with coconut stuff in it that I thought was actually good. Not just edible, but good. Jason didn't like it as much, but still said he thought it was okay.

Yesterday was day 17, and I started off with my usual, eggs and fruit (grapes).

For lunch I decided to be adventurous and try pancakes again. Eden had a waffle for breakfast and I had really been craving some! If I had to name my recipe I think I would call it "everything but the kitchen sink pancakes." I was determined to make these taste good, so I just kept putting things in that I thought would help. The base recipe I used was from paleospirit.com. The core ingredient was coconut flour, which my dear friend Jennie had given me a week or so ago!

From there, I added applesauce (natural, with no added sugar or preservatives) and mashed up bananas. I also added tons of cinnamon and some coconut milk. Of course it called for the normal baking soda, salt, eggs, etc. And here is how they turned out:

That's right folks, they actually looked like regular pancakes! Which is more than I can say for my first attempt. Although these were definitely edible, I still didn't particularly like them. They were extremely dense (I think because of the applesauce, but I was trying to find something to help with the flavor!). And I'm afraid I need to just admit that I do not like anything with coconut. Kinda stinks since so much of what is in the paleo lifestyle includes that little ingredient. I did like the chicken (as mentioned above, made with coconut oil), but I think that was because it reminded me of sweet and sour chicken. The flavor from the coconut flour I used for these pancakes unfortunately reminded me of the "mud pancakes" I made last week and therefore made these a little hard to swallow...bad memories, haha. I managed to eat one for lunch, which tided me over til dinner.

In the afternoon, I decided to do some painting...got a little into it though and did the entire master bedroom edging and paid for it last night. I was so sore! I guess it counted as a workout though. Yesterday was also my first attempt at using the power drill by myself - VERY COOL! I liked it, made me feel like I could really do something, haha. I actually only used it to remove some nails (from the towel bars hanging in our bathroom), but still, it was on and I was holding it (as Jason instructed through the phone). :)

Dinner last night was wonderful: steak, roasted sweet potatoes, and sauteed zucchini and onions. For whatever reason, it just hit the spot.

So far today I have had leftover coconut chicken with sweet potatoes for breakfast. Not feeling super hungry because the children shared their colds. Hopefully we will all be better in the next few days.

17 down, 13 to go!