Let's Get Started! Whole30 Recipes Week 1

As promised. we've got your back!  No need to look any further for great Whole30 compliant recipes to get your first-week kick-started.  These recipes are tried and true with a twist or two of our own and family approved.  Even for those members of your family or friends who aren't on the Whole30 program, they will enjoy these recipes.

To prepare, you must first do your homework as far as shopping goes.  Preparing a list will help you purchase everything you need to get your first week started and give you staples to use for the 30 days of Whole30.  

Throughout this process and lifestyle change, we were more aware of the labeling and artificial ingredients choosing to follow the Whole30 strictly as instructed.  Our goal, as is your goal. is to figure out your body's triggers and what makes a difference in a healthier you.  

As with any lifestyle change, always consult your doctor or health care professional to see what is best for you.  We do not profess in any way to be a nutritionist or medical professionals but wanted to blog and share our success with the Whole30. Always, always use sound judgment and listen to your body as far as how you feel.  We, in no way, were compensated by Whole30 for any of these blogs or recipes.  

We've used our trusted fellow Internet bloggers and created our own recipes to help you along to give you flavorful, eye-appealing recipes that will not make you feel like you are missing out on anything.  You will feel full and have meals that are filling and delicious!  

As we said in the first post since New Year's Day is a traditional day off of work, start Whole30 on Tuesday, January the 2nd when you start back to work, or if you are an educator, on your first day back after your holiday break.  Beginning the program in this manner helps with the mentality of new year, new you...and hopefully you'll have fellow family, friends, and co-workers on the Whole30 with you as well.

So, to get started, do your grocery shopping in the store and online.  Natural Grocers was a huge help in our local area and Amazon online helped with the non-dairy creamer Nutpods and our Lara Bars for snacks and an occasional lunch if I was on the run.   

Do meal prep. It really was the key to our success during the Whole30. Make your meals times two at times if you and store in Gladware containers to have ready to go in your refrigerator.  Pack your lunch each day for work, along with snacks and your water bottle.  I drank unsweet tea like a madwoman each day.  As a southern girl there is nothing better than sweet tea in my estimation...but, I am now a little off that kick and can drink a good, tall glass of unsweet tea and actually like it.  

Do drink lots of water and remember DO NOT WEIGH YOURSELF FOR 30 DAYS!  It's not about weight, but about HOW YOU FEEL! And we promise you, you will feel better and will lose some weight. We lost on average ten pounds each, but I can not promise that it will be the same for you. However, I hope you go above and beyond what we did.  

Below an example of what a week's worth of recipes looked like for us. Use this as a guide to help map out your meals and prep for the week ahead. These are just meals for the week as we were traveling or out eating on the weekends. Just copy off the recipes and you'll have your shopping list ready to go! 

Please note that two of us were doing the Whole30 together, so we split up the recipes among one another for the week. If you are doing this alone, you don't need to make as many meals. 

BREAKFAST

Monday, Wednesday, Friday (6 meals)

Whole30 Sweet Potato Power Bowl

Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday (6 meals)

Whole30 Turkey and Egg McMuffin

LUNCHES

Monday, Wednesday, Friday (6 meals)

Italian Beef Stew - you can easily use ground pork, chicken or turkey

Tuesday, Thursday (6 meals)

Southwestern Meatloaf

****These were AMAZING and we used our Hereford beef for this recipe instead of turkey.  

Serve along with our Smashed Potatoes with Clarified Butter

DINNERS - Evening Meals

Monday, Wednesday, Friday (8 meals - 4 for Monday night)

Baked Salmon Patties

Serve with Roasted Asparagus

and with Roasted Delicata Squash

Tuesday, Thursday (6 meals - 4 for Tues. night)

Sweet Potato Hash

SNACKS

Larabars (Apple Pie, Pecan Pie, Chocolate Coconut Chew)

Whole30 Apple Delight - when a sweet attach hit at night, Bethany would whip these up! Delicious and Whole30 compliant!

We are excited for you!  You've got this!  And because we believe in it so much, Bethany and I are starting round 2 of the Whole30 Tuesday so that we can continue our journey with you. 

Alise and Bethany

The Ranch Kitchen

We survived the Whole30.....

Food has always been a mainstay in my life.  Of course, we all have to eat to survive, but for me, my adoration of food goes way beyond that.  Food is and has always been ‘my happy place’ and cooking my downtime at the end of the day.  But, that love of food and everything associated with it can get you in a bind calorie wise and on your waistline, IF you don’t make the right choices.  In an effort to eat healthier and lose a few pounds that have gradually added on, my middle daughter Bethany suggested a program called Whole30 which truly has changed the way I look at food and how it affects me.

Whole 30 is based on the premise that in order to know how food affects you and your body, you’ll limit grains, processed sugar, no alcohol, no dairy, and legumes (beans of any kind)….and guess what…you can do this.  We did and we lived to tell the tale!

Prepping as part of the Whole30 was essential and having a buddy like my Bethany to motivate and keep me on track, along with preparing meals was a win, win as well.  She is blessed with uber organizational skills and a little OCD…all traits that I must some extent, but not near her level.  I used to tell her she got all this straight from my mom. 

My Bethany, middle daughter…aka motivator and 

meal prepper on our Whole30 journey!

A good week before we started making sure that for the Whole30 program to be successful for us that our kitchen was stocked with compliant foods like fresh vegetables, canned foods, and oils that we would use to cook with.  I will admit going a little overboard on ingredients, but as I’ve shared before I love a good grocery store.  It’s my weakness and don't ever go to a grocery store hungry like I often do!

So, first thing first - we bought the Whole 30 book off Amazon.  We read and then went back and read it again.  Bethany researched tasty recipes for every meal that she could meal prep for us that were compliant from breakfasts to meals to snacks.  We shopped both online and at our local Brookshire’s grocery store as well as at Natural Grocers in our nearby town.  We gradually prepped our kitchen and we bought more individual sized Gladware containers to store our left-over meals in or those we prepped in advance to eat the next few days.  And last, we prepped our family for the Whole30 adventure we were about to go on so they could be supportive and help us along on our journey.

One main thing they tell you is to NOT start the Whole30program during the holidays, however blogging like I do and being an educator, if I am going to share something with my readers, I want to have lived it.  So, a week before Thanksgiving and a week before I turned 50 and went on a family trip for it, we started Whole30.  Not ideal, but usually nothing in my life makes perfect sense…so we went with it.  Amazingly, it all worked out!  Thanksgiving was wonderful for everyone in our family enjoyed both the Whole30 compliant dishes for Bethany and me and then they ate our traditional calorie-laden veggies, rice, and dressing for my husband and other two girls.  No one suffered because of our diet, but they did learn to enjoy healthier meals that were full of flavor and not so hard on your waistline.

So, as I write this post about our Whole30 lifestyle change, we want to make sure what we print give attribution to the inspiration we found from the creators of the program itself, to the fellow bloggers and nutritionist who shared their recipes online, and to our family for supporting us through this past 30 days.

Wednesday 11/13/17 was the final day on the diet as far as the 30 days go, but we aren’t done yet. This began our slow, but sure reintroduction of foods, oils, and flours to see just how these things affect our body and yes I will drink a glass of wine first and to top it all off we will weigh ourselves for the first time in 30 days!  This lifestyle change, however, isn’t about the weight you lose, but how you feel.  I can honestly say, I’ve never felt better, have more energy and my clothes haven’t been looser in over a year.  I can tell without the scale that I’ve lost weight by just my buttons not being as tight on my waist and my shirts, dresses, and jackets not being as tight around my back.  I sleep better, don’t snore nearly as much and my joints in my legs and hips are feeling better every day. I hope you all enjoy my brutal honesty here...the struggle is real with weight gain.

So, join us. We’re going to help you get started. Bring your family along slowly as we did.  My husband really enjoyed almost every meal and at least outside of lunch at the Golden Corral buffet, did eat healthier at nights.

Check our site by clicking here at The Ranch Kitchen to see all the recipes we’ve shared to date under our new tab under the recipe tab at the bottom titled Whole30.  We’ve included all our favorite and are adding more every day. Our plan is to continue adding to these recipes even after we finished our Whole30 – 30 days to incorporate healthier eating and compliant recipes in our lives.  As always, you can also help us and add your own recipes by creating a login and becoming a ‘Friend of the The RanchKitchen’, and place your own recipes on the site.  All recipes are also Gluten Free and diabetic friendly, so it’s a win, win for people who have food allergies that may adversely affect them.

For this first posting on the Whole30, see their list below of the do’s and don’ts on their site by clicking here.  Scan over the foods, spices, oils, and books you’ll need to get started and join us!  It’s not a diet, it’s a lifestyle change!  You got this.  There are tougher things in life than this.  Every time you think, I can’t do this, think of tougher things you’ve gone through or seen others suffer through. This is a change to make you a healthier, happier and more aware of what goes in your body.  There is just one you and YOU are the only ones who can truly change your life for the better.

Go for it…we will help you! Tomorrow we will have a list of compliant recipes and a meal plan full of delicious meals and snacks here on The Ranch Kitchen blog and recipe site for your first week.  Follow us and you can even add your own recipes to our site as we hopefully go on this journey together!  

Plan to start January 2nd so you can enjoy your black-eyed peas for a prosperous New Year!  You've got this..we promise!

Let’s make 2018 the year we are all healthier, happier and on the road to living longer lives because we made it happen!

Alise and Bethany

The Ranch Kitchen

The Ranch Kitchen's Thanksgiving Sides and Desserts

Holidays are many things to people in different ways.  Our family gatherings always center around first our family and secondly to the foods we serve. As the hostess I think we always strive to find the dishes that are individual family or friend favorites of those who come to our gatherings.  It's sometimes a difficult task to please everyone, but important to make them feel special by serving a dish they love.

As I was visiting with my mom, she instructed me to find the very best of every recipes we cook and place them into a file for safe keeping for generations to come.  That is in a nutshell is exactly what my The Ranch Kitchen recipe site is to my family... an online catalog of those dishes that mean the most to us. It's important for me to catalog those recipes we hold the dearest so my girls can always have them to remember me by.

So today, as I enjoy my week off for Thanksgiving and the time to travel on a quick trip for my 50th birthday celebration week, then clean and prep for our week ahead, I thought I'd place the recipes here on this post that we will be preparing for our feast later this week below.

My family made my year this weekend by taking me on a short trip to Nashville, Tennessee to celebrate my upcoming big 5-0!  What great memories we made and these mean more than any gift I could have ever received.  My daughter Ilissa planned the perfect itinerary and hubby Scott of course made it all happen with Bethany and Audrey urging me along from the onset of the idea to go and see Nashville and do something I wanted to do.  In a house full of women and one man, I am easily pleased doing what they do.  So, for once doing something I had always wanted to do was the perfect present. Thank you! I love my family so much and will always cherish this gift for my 50th.  Turning 50 really isn't all that bad even though I've secretly dreaded it for just a few years...

My girls love their mural shots and I think I will frame this one!

Scott and I taking in the music scene.

Fun on Main Street in Nashville. Talent is all around you here.

Sure do love our girls and my Scott!

Last stop Graceland and Elvis' home! Really cool to see it all.

Tomorrow, I will hit the grocery store early and buy all my Thanksgiving staples and especially the sharp cheddar cheese to make the Pimento Cheese to place in our celery sticks.  This is a simple recipe that is on my site as Two Mom's Pimento Cheese, however I've placed it below.  You can add any number of seasonings or even chopped bits of jalapenos to it, but we prefer to keep it simple. This recipe is easily made a few days ahead by prepping your celery and placing in containers with water and then grating your sharp cheddar cheese. This is definitely our favorite way to eat Pimento Cheese.

Two Mom's Pimento Cheese

2 lbs. Sharp Cheddar Cheese

2 - 3 cups Real Mayonnaise

juice of  1 - 2 lemons

salt and pepper to taste

Grate Sharp Cheddar Cheese and add mayonnaise and blend well.  Add lemon juice and seasonings. 

Serve on 3 inch long celery sticks on an pretty crystal dish!  This is a Young, Goudarzi and Nolan favorite at the holidays and was a right of passage for all kids to prepare at my Granny's holiday meals.

My 'Sure' Is The Broccoli Rice Casserole' is another dish I love to make as it's easy to make ahead of time and I can make in a huge batch.  Truly what is just as important is that you have plenty of leftovers for family to eat on throughout the week or take home to enjoy later. You can add chopped jalapeno's to this to spice it up or even leave out the broccoli if you are not a fan of this vegetable.

Next, this Green Chili and Cheese Hash Brown Casserole is a a huge favorite with the men in the family as it's a pretty hearty dish.  I use the freeze dried hash browns for this recipe, but you can easily use frozen or fresh grated potatoes.

Another side dish that has become tradition at our ranch are these Zucchini Squares that my brothers especially love.  We made it years ago for our Ilissa's first 4H Food Show and have been in love with it ever since.  It's makes you house smell wonderful and you get in a good green veggie to your kiddos without them knowing it!

Traditional smoked and a fried or roast turkey are always served with an occasional brown sugared ham. For convenience we always use those we purchase from our local FFA meats sales from our Audrey and enjoy Bear Creek's Smokehouse's meats. For our roast turkey we have most recently been using Char-Broil® The Big Easy™ Oil-less Propane Turkey Fryer we found at Academy stores.  It's minus the grease and safer with kids running around the cooker.

A vegetable tray is always present for my health conscious brothers and my girls. I like to make a non-traditional one with sliced zucchini and yellow squash.  Here is a recipe Roasted Mixed Vegetables with Parmesan Cheese for what to do with it after the holidays too!

These Unbundled Green Beans are a twist on the fancier version of the recipe for Green Bean Bundles that are both found on my site.  They are a local favorite and in an attempt to recreate them for a huge crowd, this simpler recipes was created. You can make these the fancier way by wrapping your green beans or simply chop your bacon adding to a gallon size of cut green beans and cook it all in a large pot or baking dish. Either way, this recipe I posted on Sure Champ/VitaFerm site as a their featured blogger is a favorite in our little part of the south!

Green Bean Bundles (fancy version :o) )

And last this Vegetable Tian is a wonderful dish to make with whatever roasted sweet potatoes, red or Idaho potatoes, tomatoes, and squash you love!  I'll be changing this up a bit this year with purple and orange sweet potatoes to give it some extra color, but my Ilissa's version is wonderful!  Can't wait to try this variation out on my family!

Last, no Thanksgiving is complete without my Granny's Pecan Pie that has graced our tables even before I was born.  This simple New England style Pecan Pie is wonderful with a dollop of whipped cream on top and the perfect ending to your lunch, dinner or second helping after all that turkey and dressing! 

And another perfect ending are these Magic Cookie Bars that our Bethany makes for almost every holiday or occasion.  My baby brother loves these and so we try to make these for him as much as we can.

As you recover from the turkey and all the sides this week, my hopes are that your Thanksgiving is wonderful and season ahead be full of many blessings.

Alise - The Ranch Kitchen

Bread and Butter Pickles

This summer I've really enjoyed playing with a few new recipes with seasonal vegetables we've grown and bought from Farmer's Markets.  Today I used locally grown pickling cucumbers to make some delicious Bread and Butter Pickles.  Growing up these were my very favorite of all pickles because of their sweet-tarty taste.  I think I could just drink the juice honestly.

Our favorite seafood restaurant always had these pickles out on the table along with pickled okra and cheese spread spread on crusty french toast rounds to snack on before your meal was served.  When I was pregnant with my oldest daughter, I craved both these pickles and that cheese spread.

Click here for the recipe for Bread and Butter Pickles

Pictured are my Bread and Butter Pickles I made on this rainy East Texas day.  Although you have to wait three hours for the pickles to 'sit' in a pickling salt, garlic and ice water bath in the refrigerator, it's totally worth it.  I used the time to clean out some much needed drawers in our bedroom in anticipation of a garage sale coming up soon.  My garage looks like it has exploded and I will soon bring in a flatbed trailer for the attic cleansing that will come next.  This garage sale is lonnnggg overdue.

Once the pickles sat for their three hours in the refrigerator, I drained them (do not rinse) and then added to them the apple cider vinegar, sugar, turmeric, celery seed, and mustard seed and brought it all to a boil.  You will immediately turn the heat off and not allow the pot to continue to boil.

Immediately spoon your Bread and Butter Pickles in to Mason or Ball Canning Jars and seal according to the link provided on my recipe.  I chose to not hot water bath these pickles and refrigerate instead.  They will not last long at my house and I might even share a few with family members...if they are nice...  ;o)

What I really loved about this recipe was the addition of bell peppers and onions.  My green bell peppers had started to turn orange, but I used them anyway. Orange bell peppers are sweet, so I think they will compliment these Bread and Butter Pickles too.

This recipe for Bread and Butter Pickles made five jars. Click here for the recipe here!

I hope you'll give these pickles a try.  It's a super, simple recipe that I'll be making again before the summer's end.  I even used the left over juice from the Bread and Butter Pickles that would not fit in to the jars with two cans of drained Italian green beans for dinner tonight. Waste not, want not! Delicious!  Just bring it to a boil with about an additional 1/2 cup water.  My family loved the green beans too!  The sweet juice would probably make some fantastic frozen pickle pops (popsicles) with the leftovers too.  I think my girls would love them!

Alise - The Ranch Kitchen  

Last of the Garden & Confetti Pasta

It's hot in Texas finally.  After a mild summer with tons of rain and low temperatures, the humidity and heat has set in.  Our garden that produced so well for us this year is now on it's last leg and veggies are not producing as much as I'd like.

This past weekend I picked some of our last banana and bell peppers from our garden and along with the basil we've grown in large quantities, I created this simple pasta dish.  As my daughter's friend Ashley said, it had a fresh taste to it using the peppers and especially the basil.  The added sour cream, Real Mayonnaise, Rotel Tomatoes and cream cheese made the pasta creamy and delicious too.  If you still have fresh tomatoes, by all means replace the Rotel Tomatoes and use them instead with a sprinkling of cilantro. If you like a little heat, then add a chopped jalapeno to it as well.

                            Click here for the recipe for Confetti Pasta.

Confetti Pasta is just so bright, fun and colorful! 

If you serve this pasta outside, be sure to keep the bowl on top of another bowl of ice to keep this pasta chilled.  I think adding cooked chicken, tuna, salmon or even pepperoni would easily turn this side dish in to a main dish for dinner or a light lunch.

This recipe would be perfect for a church or work potluck or large family gathering or reunion.

If you have similar pasta dishes, please consider sharing them on The Ranch Kitchen Share a Recipe Section of my recipe site.  I love new recipes and would love to share yours on the blog with fellow followers.

Enjoy the rest of your July, try to stay cook and let me know how you like this Confetti Salad!

Alise
The Ranch Kitchen