Whole 30 - Day 5

an old photo, but the bows
make it so celebratory!

8 a.m.
I should let you know upfront that there may be some cheating today. If that means adding on more days at the end, I'm ok with that. Today I'm 33 and we are going to celebrate, so if a friend brings champagne to the house, I will drink a glass. Please don't judge me, just send me birthday love instead!

10 p.m.
I am contemplating renaming our month to be the Paleo Challenge instead. There's been a lot of drama on the Whole 30 Facebook page and I think they would say we aren't doing whole 30 because of things like smoothies, muffins, or granola. The thing is, tonight when I cheated I was reminded what my food weakness is. I don't eat muffins or pancakes nonstop, I don't crave pizza, I don't swim in buckets of fried chicken. The times I can't help myself are centered around chocolate, cookies, cakes, and pies. I made a paleo dessert for dinner tonight and caught myself sticking my finger in the bowl to test it again and again. Clearly this is where my impulse control flies out the window. So, today we broke our fast from sweet treats and booze (I had one glass of champagne and a sip of a friend's homemade beer), and now I see I need a long break from desserts. In that way, I do feel like we're following the Whole 30, but maybe others wouldn't agree. As a note we both felt bloated and overly full at the end of the evening.

Today's Menu

Breakfast: green smoothie and nut-ola with frozen cherries and spiced, whipped coconut milk (ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, lime juice, banana puree and date purree folded into the whipped goodness)

Lunch: leftover soup from yesterday's lunch

Snacks: marcona almonds and an apple

Dinner: Stone Soup made with friends, a big green salad with fresh fruit, and Paleo Chocolate Banana Pie (recipe below)

Paleo Chocolate Hazelnut Banana Pie

I used the walnut crust recipe from Mark's Daily Apple with a few changes. I used ghee instead of butter. I also baked the crust for 30 minutes because the filling was not something that would be baked in the crust.

Slice a banana and place the slices in the pie plate once the crust has been cooked.

Make Chocolate Hazelnut Ganache (adapted from Aran Goyoaga's Small Plates & Sweet Treats)

Coarsely chop a 6oz bar of 100% unsweetened chocolate (I used Dagoba) and place in a medium size heat-proof bowl

in a saucepan, whisk together:
2/3 c unsweetened coconut milk
1/4-1/3 c maple syrup or honey (I mixed the two)
2 T hazelnut butter (I made hazelnut butter in my food processor, so easy! These tips helped. I didn't sweeten or salt, but I did add a few teaspoons of walnut oil to help it along.)
heat until simmering

pour the coconut mixture over the chopped chocolate and gently stir to combine.

Stir in:
2 t vanilla
1/2 t salt

Pour the ganache into the pie crust. Cover and refrigerate.

Make Coconut Banana Cream

In a blender, liquify:
2 bananas
1 T maple syrup
1 T vanilla extract

Follow these steps from Oh She Glows to make coconut whipped cream in your mixer. Then stir in the banana mix. Refrigerate.

Pipe coconut banana cream onto the pie before serving.

Everyone liked this dessert, even the eight year old!