Hola Mi Gente,

Checking in from week 2, and feeling really good! Historically, going into the third week of Whole 30 is when I feel at my best. It’s when my cravings start to subside, and I get a lot more mental clarity to plan and keep a good rhythm (hello productivity and actually-scheduled workouts 🙋🏽‍♀️) in my day-to-day. For example, today I sat down to meticulously schedule out my my life in Google Calendar with a color-coding system and everything. To be honest, the last few weeks I’ve been using this as a tool for my meal-planning, and it’s seriously the best! I love that I can share my calendar with Ben, and customize the events for our meals to attach instructions or recipe links, so that Ben can hop in and help meal-prepping if it’s on a day I have a jam-packed schedule.

As per usual this week, I had a hard time stopping for lunches, but also part of that is because I eat pretty big/late breakfasts. When I DO stop to eat or snack in the middle of the day, I’ve been consuming A LOT of citrus–it’s in season right now and my tastebuds are LOVING all the grapefruit and blood oranges. They also really seem to satisfy my cravings a lot for sweet things. Example: the other day I was craving a margarita, and I sprinkled some salt on a grapefruit and called it good 😂

But anyway, a few notes about this week’s round-up:

-There are fewer pictures because A LOT of days I ended up heating up what I had for dinner, and eating it for breakfast the next day. This helps me take care of leftovers and minimize food waste, while making cooking in the morning easy. Also I didn’t take TOO many pictures of my dinners because the lighting here is the worst at nighttime and I knew they would make an appearance in the WAY better morning light the next day 😂

-We’ve been doing this round of Whole 30 with some of our best friends here in PDX, and do a weekly meal together (seriously having friends to do this with is SO helpful). As we’ve been sharing about our experiences, they said something that resonated with me a LOT: which is that they could only eat SO many work-lunch salads. Because of that they switched to making bigger batches of their dinners to eat leftovers at lunch. Listen, y’all, I like my salads when they’re a little bougie and have like 17 ingredients in them, but after eating salad for a few days I DO get bored (I was cursed/blessed with my mother’s high-maintenance tastebuds) of munching on raw veggies. IF this is you, cook for leftovers! It makes your prep-work for your work lunches easy, it minimizes waste, and it lets you eat a hot-lunch at work instead of going for 30 days of salads.

Now Let’s Talk About Our Meals

One of my staples right now for late breakfasts and my rare-moon lunches, is this seared salmon. Literally all it has is some Jacobson Salt Co Steak Seasoning. I sear it in avocado oil for about 8 minutes and it’s all delicious and done! I’m also really crushing on soft-boiled eggs right now. The thing about Whole 30 breakfasts, is that you can get a case of eggs-haustion, so switching up how you cook your eggs is really helpful to combat food boredom!

This was one of my favorite meals this week! Here it is in all it’s breakfast glory: Pepian (it’s the filling for my famous chuchitos ). It’s a rich Guatemalan dish (my personal fave) made from roasted tomatoes, sesame seeds, pepita, chili peppers and chicken. This was one of those dinner-became-breakfast scenarios and I wasn’t at ALL mad about it.

For a quick dinner on a super busy day, I made this chicken ‘noodle’ soup by spiraling yellow squash, carrots, and red potatoes, and boiling them in some homemade bone broth with some leftover shredded chicken. It literally took about 10 minutes to throw together, and it was so rich and satisfying on a rainy, Portland night!

Another Dinner-Became-Breakfast scenario where these short ribs! I can’t rave about these enough–they were PACKED with flavor (I followed my Drool Worthy Short Ribs Recipe, and subbed coconut aminos for soy sauce and the taste was spot on)! Topped with Chirmol, and paired with grapefruit, leftover cabbage salad, and soft scrambled eggs.

When in doubt, add tropical fruit. That’s a saying right?? Well, it should be. Like citrus, I’ve really been crushing on tropical fruit this whole 30 to satisfy my appetite (and get all my fruit/veggie servings). These homemade hash browns with baby kale, a poached egg, and avocado rose were a huge hit on instagram this week!

These ‘Chicken Parm’ coconut-flour breaded tenders (recipe on Instagram here) were DELISH this week, paired with compliant marinara and sautéed green beans.

One of my biggest Whole 30 Tips is to ALWAYS have a ready-to-go protein source! This week I made Ben’s Favorite Roast to shred and add to our salads, scrambles, and quick meals.

My FAVORITE meal this week was this BBQ chicken–it’s marinated and brined in a ruby-red mayonnaise, and then grilled to crispy perfection and topped with garlic mayo–Look for the recipe on the blog later this week!

And that’s it for meal inspirations for me this week! We’re really enjoying this round so far, and I’m excited to keep sharing what we cook with you all! Also, if there’s a meal here you’d like a recipe for, please let me know in the comments and I’ll make sure to add it to the blog. And again, a reminder, that if you’re looking for more Whole 30/Paleo inspiration, you can always check out this page for a round-up of related posts!

Love, love, love,

Mary-Beth Johnson

Mary-Beth is a creative, food-obsessed, Georgia transplant living Chicago. She is proudly and fiercely Latina, and more specifically Chapina. In her day to day she is a food educator to students around Chicagoland aged 3 to 80+, both virtually and in-person. She is passionate about cultivating the truth that every person has an understanding of food that deserves being brought to the table, and that time in the kitchen can be sacred, passionate, and an act of love for self and others. Outside the kitchen you can find her at the intersections of infertility, chronic illness, and a deep love for the dignity of all humans. She hopes to create a space that is holistic about the role of food in the social, political, relational, and physiological dynamics of our world.