Happy Friday

Happy Friday! This is an extra good one for me. Tomorrow marks the end of a Whole30 for me & Eric. (Whole30 = 30 days of no grains, dairy, legumes, sugar, alcohol, or soy.) I started feeling great at least half way through - way more energy than normal, no afternoon slump, better moods, better sleep, the list goes on. I'm so happy we did it.

The month was far easier than I had anticipated. There's quite a bit of food prep and a TON of dishes, but otherwise it's not that hard. We ate really good food the entire month and will keep many of our favorite meals from this month in rotation. The food is really satisfying - no big surprise that real food would make you full and content.

Some favorites: (all meat was well sourced, grass-fed, nitrate free, etc. etc.)

Breakfast: eggs & bacon or banana "cereal" - sliced banana, walnuts, almonds, hemp seeds, chia seeds, raisins and coconut milk

Lunch: tuna salad made with homemade mayo on top of big salad (...we mostly ate a lot of dinner       leftovers for lunch)

Dinner: slow cooked jerk chicken thighs, guacamole, & sweet plantains; grilled flank steak and broccolini; roasted pork tenderloin with garlic and rosemary potatoes

We broke some sort of record with how many avocados, eggs and sweet potatoes we ate this month.

Your sweet tooth fades when you eat this like, but this last week I have been daydreaming of pancakes and cinnamon rolls. There are pancakes in my future this weekend. And wine.

Our Gardens

Hi blog. Let's just pretend I didn't abandon you for several months.

Our first full fledged gardening attempt was a success this year. We planted potatoes, flowers, herbs, snap peas, cucumbers, zucchini, tomatoes, and peppers. We hardly had to do anything thanks to so much rain. My dad helped us put in a rain barrel (and gutters). I only had to water the garden beds twice by faucet in a four month span (!!). I was so happy.

We got a lot of produce out of our three beds for a few months, but everything started to shrivel up by the beginning of August. We had a lot of rain sometime during the month though and we're back with at least a few things growing again. Sweet potatoes, cucumbers, peppers, eggplant, leeks, and plenty of herbs. My favorite thing growing might actually be the lemongrass. My mother-in-law gave me a piece of lemongrass that rooted, we planted it, and this thing has thrived! It's huge! I'm so stoked to walk outside and get fresh herbs and in particular ones that aren't always available (and are pricy).

We planted dahlia bulbs in February, not really knowing how well they'd grow in Austin, but for months we had tons of flowers. They're so beautiful. Being able to cut fresh flowers from your backyard is on my top ten list of things that make me happiest. At one point the bushes were producing so many flowers that I started making bouquets for friends.

Here are eggplants growing in our garden right now. This is my first time ever growing eggplant. I remember my mom growing it when I was little and I was so weirded out by the name. I hated eggs back then, so clearly eggplant was very sketchy.

 More soon!