i'm a planner by nature. i plan like its my job. well, actually, it IS my job.... so i have lots of practice. i may be a little socially awkward but i can plan like a boss. when i learned i was going back to work full time with a newly diagnosed autoimmune disease, i went into full blown planning mode because the anxiety levels were high... a terrible combo with an autoimmune disease. so my coping mechanism was to plan. knowing i was returning to work while embarking on a personal quest to go into remission, i hunkered down and planned like it was nobody's business.
i hired someone to clean our house twice a month.
i asked our babysitter/friend/adopted family member to take on some extra household tasks like laundry
i made chore charts for our kids that complimented the housecleaners
i planned menus and prepared/froze food for my AIP journey
i planned to bring my shoes to work and walk during lunch
i planned and prepped meals for tuesdays and thursdays that kjaer could easily make while i did some yoga.
i spent last weekend buying a truckload of meat from the butcher and shopping for produce.
i have been a flurry of micromanaging and control. it's helping me feel better. i'm so much fun to be around. ask my husband.
so i'm finishing my first week on AIP and let me tell you how NOT prepared i was for three things: coffee replacement, liver, and sauces.
let me explain.
COFEE REPLACEMENT
ever since determining i was going to spend the next 2-3 months doing the autoimmune protocol (AIP), i have been grieving that i would have to go coffee free. i've always had a thing with coffee... ever since high school when i knocked over a giant mug of coffee in mr. leutkenhaus's class my senior year and the delicious smell of my too-much amaretto creamer wafted through the AP lit room (please don't tell him i blog in all lowercase!). usually my consumption has hovered around a travel mug of coffee a day. when whole 30 started for me in jan of 2018 i said goodbye to my sugary creamer (LONG LIVE COFFEEMATE AMARETTO CREAMER) and adopted nutpods. it was a hard adjustment but a change i sacrificially made for my health. when covid closed schools down and kjaer and i were alone with our three kids and working, the coffeepot became my security blanket. i'd pour a warm and tasty mug of coffee and wrap my hands around it as i sat in front of a screen and tried to digest what had become of my job, the state of our schools and our lives. we brewed pots a day... pots with an s. around 3 or 4 we'd have our final cup of coffee and switch to decaf.
to be honest, by now i probably sweat the stuff.
when my naturopath asked how much coffee i drank, i shrugged and tried to pretend i didn't know... knowing full well i couldn't tell her because it was so much i couldn't even keep track myself. she tapped her coffee mug and said, "i want you to start getting down to one travel mug a day". i sighed and made a halfhearted promise.
then the diagnosis came for hashimotos. while an allopathic treatment of it would just be to take levothyroxin, a more wholistic approach starts with healing the gut (which makes up roughly 70% of your immune system), supporting with herbs/vitamins and drilling down to the root cause with various tests. (i also still take levothyroxine). this is where my decision to try AIP came in. ya know, because i like to do things the hard way sometimes... don't ask me why, i don't know. but i do know that a few times in my life the hard way has had big pay offs.
so i fretted about the coffee thing. i thought i had found a good alternative and planned on starting to wean myself down. last sunday night i happily sat in our living room feeling all sorts of prepared. i had gotten a crock pot meal ready for monday night, packed my lunch for school, had my n'oatmeal thawing in the fridge for the morning. then i turned the bag of alternative coffee over i was using (because i had bought a coffee pot for my office at work so i could brew the coffee alternative) and read the ingredients. there were wonderful things like chicory root and carob. then there were things like barley (contains gluten) and ramon seeds.... which i still don't know what they are or why they are in teas, but they are definitely not AIP approved.
this planned girl hadn't even paid attention to her "replacement coffee" because it was made of roots and healthy sh$$ so i figured it was all good. i googled and googled to find a different replacement in a frenzy but to no avail and finally gave up. i could not solve that problem at 10 PM that night.so i had to start my first week of AIP with a cup of coffee (and an AIP compliant creamer... basically coconut milk). i think i have a plan now... but just so you know... last sunday night threw my game. i was feeling all sorts of prepared and then i saw a critical misstep on my part. i've decided to get some caffeinated tea (but i still have to watch those ingredients because who knew that ramon seeds were a necessity in the hot drink world? not me!).
by the way... although weaning myself off of caffeine is probably a good choice, AIP doesn't require it. it requires you to cut coffee because it's from the bean family. i know.... this surprised me too. but i can work on reducing my caffeine intake to support my strung out adrenals too... i guess. sigh.
LIVER
apparently liver/organ meat is the number one recommended thing to incorporate into your diet when you struggle with an autoimmune disease. and i gotta be honest with you... the thought of eating it makes me gag.
i'm pretty sure most of you agree with me... it just doesn't sound good. no one turns to their spouse at night and is like "lets break out the good wine and have LIVER tonight!"
if you do... mad props to you.
we don't. when we were in france two years ago kjaer and i were lucky enough to enjoy a couple of verrrryyy fancy dinners. one inside 58 Tour Eiffel in the eiffel tower and one in annecy at Haute-Savoie in our hotel, Les Tresoms. both times we were served various forms of liver for one course. and it was delicious... but again, i have to be honest and say making pâté or foie gras isn't necessarily something i would like to do and have around as a snack with plantain chips. et toi?
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| fancy pants dinner in the eiffle tower |
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| there's foie gras somewhere in that beautiful masterpiece! 58 Tour Eiffel 2nd course (of 5) in the eiffel tower |
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| foie gras... delicious AND gorgeous 2nd course (of 7) at Haute-Savoie in our hotel at Les Trésoms |
so when i was in planning mode i learned that you could incorporate 1/4 pound of liver into 1 pound of ground beef and hide it. i was game. THIS i could do! i might not be courageous enough to go all out, but i could try sneaky liver.
so i called our butcher, who is used to me an my obnoxious custom meat orders, and asked if they would give me 2 lbs of ground liver. i was thinking no problem... i'll just cut each pound into fourths, mix it with the ground beef i'm ordering and it'll be ready to go. the young man helping me told me that, unfortunately, he couldn't grind the liver for me as it was frozen at their store.
my heart sank... you mean... i have to grind it? moi?
gross.
he did, however, offer to cut it into 1/4 lb frozen liver chunks for me. so i could just pull what i need from the freezer. thank God for small miracles.
soooo... being super prepared and trying to remain on my game i pulled 2 pounds of ground beef out of the freezer and 1/2 pound of liver out of the freezer to thaw in the fridge for our dinner i made on sunday night. my plan was to serve my family and have plenty of leftovers for breakfast and lunch this week.
the problem was i failed to research how to grind liver. i just sort of figured we could use the food processor or the magic bullet and voila! ground liver!
so sunday afternoon i thought maybe i should look at the best way to do this. and the first thing i read was DON'T DEFROST YOUR FROZEN LIVER FULLY.
uhhhhhhhh....
it claimed that if the liver was partially frozen, you'd have more success. it did suggest a food processor so i got ours all set up and pulled out the liver. have you ever seen a raw liver before? (gag). i picked it up with the least amount of digits i could manage and shoved it down inside my cuisinart... ready to grind the ever loving crap out of it.
now i cook a lot... it's one of my passions. touching raw meat isn't my favorite but i am used to it... although sometimes chicken makes my insides quiver. liver is like ten times worse than chicken. its soooooo bloooooodyyyyy.... probably why it's so nutrient dense. i did my very best not to gag every time i had to touch it or look at a little pool of blood it left on my cutting board. when i finally got the liver into the little tube thing to shred it (i put both pieces in so i would only have to touch it once) i pressed the pulse button and prayed.
once my eyes were unclenched, i looked at the container and there was about 3 shreds of liver, lots of blood and two lumps of liver resting unscathed on the bottom. (gag). by now lucy, our dog, was onto the smell of the liver. she isn't really a terrible beggar. she came to us uninterested in table food but has now learned mommy will secretly feed her a cut of meat under the table but she has very nice manners about it. (shhhhhhh! don't tell!). but she couldn't contain herself. she was like a beatles groupie... whining and begging with her crookity ear, tail waggin' so hard her booty couldn't contain the sway. meanwhile, i stood there perplexed.
i abandoned that bloody mess and walked out to see kjaer in the garage and was like, i don't think i can do this.
he gently encouraged me and back in i went with a new plan... kjaer's beloved magic bullet. you know... the appliance i teased him about when we were dating but have slowly come to love myself. using a spatula, i did my best to divert the mess into a new kitchen appliance. lucy got to lick the spatula, which made her begging worse. then i tried again. by the time i was done i basically had liver milk. (gag). it was just liquid with a few strands of gristle. i poured it over the beef and began massaging it into the meat. grateful to be done, i started browning it for the delicious breakfast hash (which you could make without the liver). my beloved quartz countertops were a mess of bloody appliances and cutting boards to be washed. i threw the hand washing ones in the sink and didn't even rinse my cutting board because i was so grossed out i put it straight into the dishwasher.
sweet people - I. DIDN'T. EVEN. CARE.
Later that night kjaer saw my shortcut and took the cutting board out to rinse it. he didn't want it to stain. i was like SORRY BUT DON'T YOU CARE THAT I HAD TO PUREE A FREAKING LIVER TONIGHT?!?! WHAT ABOUT ME?!?! I HAVE BIG FEELINGS AFTER THAT.
it was still stained after his rinse and a run through the dishwasher. a permanent badge for my first encounter with liver.
and let's not talk about what happened to the remnants of liver when you wash the appliances. actually... let's do. i soaked them and when i went to wash them it looked like they had peanut butter on them. (gag)
during dinner i kept looking at kjaer. i feel like he procrastinated picking up his fork for awhile. he happily volunteered to get things that were missing from the table, the kids' drinks, and "oh, we need to listen to some music, i'll turn it on." poor guy... he's such a good sport. finally he took his first bite. my eyes bore holes into his soul while i used my telepathic skills to ask him, well????? do you taste it? he didn't... two thumbs up from him. my kids didn't taste anything different either. we will probably have to hone my liver grinding skills, but at least i know i can eat it now disguised in ground beef and lots of herbs!
quick sidenote: this recipe is legit delicious and i've been using it for breakfasts and lunches. so flavorful and filling. i have officially made it a whole week without eggs! a feat that felt impossible a month ago.
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| breakfast hash with hidden liver (and olive oil salad in the background) so delicious! |
SAUCES
you know half of the reason i loved whole 30? it turned me from a basic cook into a pretty darn amazing cook. i learned how to make some basics in the kitchen... building blocks. i made my own ghee, bone broth and mayo. from there i made delicious homemade dressings, soups and sauces. in the dressings and sauces category about 95% of them required my homemade mayonnaise, which has eggs. well, as you know by now... i can't have eggs. they aren't compliant on AIP and furthermore my food tests revealed a sensitivity to egg yolks... which is interesting as the whites are typically what cause reactions for people.
anyway, i stupidly planned for only balsamic vinegar (high quality) this week for salads and various renditions of guacamole (mango guacamole, regular guacamole). so on sunday night when i went to pack my lunch i realized i had about 1/2 tbsp of balsamic vinegar left. i mixed it with olive oil for my salads at school but i'm sad to report that no matter how much i shake that dang container, the delicious balsamic vinegar sinks to the bottom and i end up eating an olive oil salad. not a bad thing... but not necessarily the most flavorful. only by day three did i successfully get my vinegar to land on my spinach.
day 2 i sent kjaer to school with our delicious guacamole and cut an avocado up on my cauliflower rice and pulled mojo chicken. it wasn't the same. i came home distraught, ravenous for flavor, only to find that i had planned AIP tacos - ground beef on lettuce leaves with guacamole (i had to make more). and then day 4 i had these lovely baked sweet potatoes planned, stuffed with the leftover mojo chicken and a mango guacamole. i think went through 12 avocados this week.
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| i should probably have taken the picture before digging in but i couldn't help myself. sweet potato with mojo chicken and mango guacamole. plantain chips on the side. ...amazing. |
so basically the only added flavors i've had are olive oil and guacamole. not the zestiest sauces to say the least, although the mango really changed things up.. this weekend i will be in the kitchen sharpening my egg free mayo, sauce and dressing skills. clearly.
in spite of my planning faux pas, i'm glad to be embarking on this AIP adventure. it's nice to feel like i'm doing something about helping my gut heal when it would be so easy to not and eat a bag of potato chips (or eggs and coffee in my case). and the food really is delicious (if you plan to make more than olive oil dressing and guacamole all week). For instance, we had homemade AIP pizza crust topped with olive oil and sautéed arugula, prosciutto, grapes and turkish figs tonight... i may continue to eat pizza this way for life as it doesn't make my belly hurt and is absolutely delicious. i made several crusts in advance over the summer and froze them so we can just come home on fridays, our official pizza and movie night, and take care of the toppings. most of these delicious meals are coming from The Healing Kitchen... which i highly recommend if you are struggling with an autoimmune disease and need your body to chill the heck out. just beware that if you plan on going all out, like i did, it takes considerable planning and time in the kitchen. i don't mind that so much; clearly i have a strong drive to plan when i'm stressed and love cooking! 😊
so here's to being healthy, plans gone awry, and new adventures.
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| AIP Pizza with sautéed arugula, prosciutto, grapes and turkish figs |
