I blundered through this. We have already transitioned to Real Food for the most part, but we were still having dessert every night. They were made of real food ingredients, but it was creating a bad habit. And too much sugar in ANY form is bad. I am a sugar addict, and I have Candida over-growth issues, so Phase One is so important to me that I will probably do it for an extra week, just in case. But I have a toddler I have to cook for, and two picky children who only eat a Real Food diet half (or less) of the time. The toddler eats real food, but somehow that doesn’t make it easier. Chasing him around AND trying to come up with grain free and sugar free foods has been a challenge. The last two weeks, I certainly didn’t have the time to sit and make a pretty meal plan and grocery shop for strictly those ingredients. I have just been winging it! But in doing so, I did come up with a decent example menu. This isn’t exactly one week. I pulled random meals, because I only managed to take notes for a few days! And I also have some links for some pretty delicious nighttime snack ideas to get you through sweet cravings. That being said, I think it IS important to get out of the “dessert” mentality. So I suggest either going some nights without a post-dinner snack at all, or going some nights with a savory snack like raw carrots, beef jerky, or grain-free crackers and goat cheese. So without further ado…
Day One
Breakfast: 2 fried eggs and a slice of uncured turkey bacon
Lunch: tuna salad, with homemade mayo (recipe to follow), greek yogurt, hard boiled eggs, and cultured carrots (recipe to follow)
Dinner: Burger on lettuce with avocado and sauteed mushrooms (I just cooked the burger on a cast iron skillet. nothing fancy. You can marinate with approved ingredients, no added sugar)
Snack: Kefir smoothie (kefir, frozen berries, raw spinach, raw carrots, chia seeds, coconut oil, extra water as needed)
Day Two
Breakfast: Kefir smoothie and 1 fried egg
Lunch: Avocado half, filled with chicken salad. Rudabaga salad and roasted carrots on the side (recipes to follow)
Dinner: Steak and roasted veggies (cauliflower, broccoli and brussels sprouts)
Snack: Homemade beef jerky
Day Three
Breakfast: 1 fried egg, sauteed mushrooms, 1 grain-free muffin with homemade chia-seed jam (recipes to follow)
Lunch: Kefir smoothie and a veggie salad with olive oil and Apple cider vinegar (ACV)
Dinner: Coconut “breaded” flounder and roasted veggies (carrots and brussels sprouts)
Snack: strawberries, goat cheese, and homemade grain-free crackers (recipe to follow)
Day Four
Breakfast: Veggie omelet, 1 grain-free muffin with homemade chia-seed jam
Lunch: Portebello mushroom stuffed with homemade chicken salad and topped with slice of hard goat cheese
Dinner: Grilled chicken breast, mashed cauliflower & carrots (“recipe” to follow), and homemade cultured sauerkraut
Snack: Strawberry basil goat cheese tart (recipe to follow)
Recipes
Homemade Mayonnaise: You can find some good info on mayo here, and she has a link to her recipe, as well as some variations such as tartar sauce. I use olive oil instead of avocado oil, simply because I don’t want to go hunting for avocado oil. I also use ACV instead of white vinegar. I chose to link her recipe because she hand mixes it. I tried the Vitamix and the Kitchen Aid, but it is VITAL that the yolk gets properly beaten BEFORE the oil is added, and those appliance are too big to get to it!
Cultured Carrots: Here is a recipe for lacto-fermented carrot sticks. I love them. They’re like carrot pickles 😉 You can also add a little kefir whey (the liquid part of kefir, when it seperates) to help it along, if you want, but it isn’t necessary.
Cultured Sauerkraut: Here is a recipe for sauerkraut. I use this recipe, because I have a 3 gallon ceramic crock and I make a lot at once (we eat it!). But this is a good start 🙂
Cultured veggies in general: Here is a link to my fermenting Pinterest board. I can’t stress enough the importance of ferments in your diet.
Rudabaga salad: Here is a recipe similar to what I did. As always, keep in mind ingredients that are on the “foods to avoid list” and substitute as needed. Fermented carrots or something would have been good in here, but I was out. Dried cherries or cranberries would have been yummy too; the sweetness would cut the bitterness of the rudabega. Also, I always use half homemade mayo and half plain Greek yogurt. And I added chives for good measure. It’s a salad. Just put stuff in it 😉
Layered salad: I recently saw this recipe. I haven’t tried it yet, but it’s a great idea!
Roasted veggies: You don’t really need a recipe for this. I preheat the oven to 400 degrees. I pick a veggie, or several. I melt some coconut oil (I actually bought some of the cheap stuff, not extra-virgin, because I use it so often for roasting. I use extra-virgin for anything and everything else. But I literally roast veggies every day) and then toss the veggies in it, along with any spices. I put the veggies on a baking sheet/stone and roast them for 20 minutes or so, stirring halfway through. Get creative. You can do this with green beans or asparagus or beats or butternut squash. I do sweet potatoes and organic potatoes for the rest of the family sometimes.
Roasted carrots: I cut these in half, and then I quarter them so that they’re in french fry-like shapes. Then I toss them in the coconut oil and some ceylon cinnamon, ground ginger, and nutmeg, and a bit of Himalayan Pink salt. No need for any honey, these are delicious 🙂
Roasted Brussels Sprouts: I cut the huge ones in half, but leave small ones whole. Toss them in coconut oil then add pepper and pink salt. Some other herbs and spices would taste great, but in a hurry I keep it simple.
Roasted Cauliflower: I break these up pretty small, toss them in the oil, then pink salt, pepper, and usually Tumeric. I think I just love the yellow color, and there are added health benefits 🙂
Roasted Broccoli: We cut these in long strips, but sometimes I also like to chop up the “trunks” in smaller pieces. Then I just treat them like everything else.
Grain-free muffins: I think this recipe actually needs a little work. So, play with it yourself, or I’ll get back to you! You can google grain-free muffin recipes, but they come in varying difficulty levels. A lot of them mix a ton of different random flours.
Chia seed jam: You can use this recipe with any berries. Use honey instead of syrup for phase one!
Grain-free crackers: This recipe and this recipe is good. I used almond meal instead of almond flour. You can make almond flour the same way you make coconut flour, or you can buy it, or you can get almond meal from Trader Joe’s. Next time I plan on making a cracker like this but with cinnamon instead. Yum!
Mashed cauliflower and carrots: I literally just steamed carrots and cauliflower, mashed them, then put butter and salt in them. Yum yum 🙂
Coconut “breaded” flounder: You can use any fish. Just make sure you pat the fish dry with a clean cloth or paper towel, then dip it in egg, and then in shredded (unsweetened) coconut. Fry in coconut oil on a cast iron skillet and, bam 🙂
Strawberry basil goat cheese tart: This is super yummy. I made it for Easter. It’s sweet and savory at the same time. It’s super good. Of course, you should always keep in mind that there is a detox period where everything that isn’t laden with processed sugar is going to taste weird. But after a couple weeks, it’s the opposite. Real food tastes great, processed food is too sugary and “salty” (quotes because it’s not real salt!)
Other helpful recipes
Coconut butter: This is how you make coconut butter. A lot of yummy recipes use this, but Westley and I literally just ate it with a spoon this morning. It’s delicious.
Coconut milk and coconut flour: This comes in handy when you’re trying to cook grain-free.
Almond butter: Any nut butter is basically the same. You put it in a processor or Vitamix until it gets creamy. Coconut and peanut doesn’t take as long as cashew and almond, evidently. You need to process almonds for quite a while, I’m told.
Strawberry white chocolate candy: I used this recipe, but I used butter instead of cacao butter. Cacao butter is very expensive. Even grass-fed butter is less expensive than cacao butter. Next time I’m going to use coconut oil and more coconut butter. I think I might even just add the strawberries to one of the following recipes.
Coconut Snowballs: This is the recipe.I don’t know if it’s because I used honey rather than syrup, but it was way too sweet. I would start with 1 TBS of honey and add from there. Coconut butter is so good on its own, it probably doesn’t even really need honey. You could omit the honey altogether and maybe add those freeze dried strawberries!
Coconut-honey candy: This is the recipe. I’m excited about this one too. It’s similar to recipes I’ve tried, but I always used syrup. Pure maple syrup is good, but if you’re trying to cut down on sugar (even natural sugar), which is what The Maker’s Diet 40-day plan does, you want to stick to the small amount of honey (which means you could only have one piece, or something like that. For now.)
Coconut flour tortilla: I plan on trying this soon. I feel like it should come in handy when you want to eat something in a wrap, or when everyone else is eating tacos!
Cauliflower tortilla: I do something like this for Westley and might start for myself too, again for wraps. If you have a nut milk bag (also handy for making coconut milk or almond milk), it makes it a TON easier.
Peanut Butter cups: I found this recipe in preparation for Easter. In adhering strictly to Phase one, you could probably only have one or two of these. But I think it could make Easter much more enjoyable. Even if you indulged, it would be less of a cheat than a Cadbury egg! I will probably make these next year and skip the store-bought candy all together!
My Pinterest board: This is the link to my Maker’s Diet Phase One Pinterest board. I add to it when I come across things that either fit the rules or can be tweaked very easily.
I hope this helps! Here’s to good health!
The Narrow Gate 