Friday, July 6, 2012

The Whole30 has come to roost





I totally owe you big time for reading this poor excuse for a blog considering how bad I've been about posting.  So far this summer, I've frozen or canned 20 lbs of asparagus, 8 quarts of strawberries and 12 pints of blueberries, 1/2 bushel of pickling cucumbers, and 1/2 bushel of peaches (yay, peach pickles!!!).


But the big news is that I'm on Day 6 of the Whole30 eating plan.  My grain-free wagon became seriously unhitched about a month ago when my mother-in-law passed away.  I was just trying to keep us all fed and make sure my husband could be wherever he needed to be for his family.  It meant lots of crap meals on the road, and a good deal of late night trips for ice cream as we sat on the couch and felt sad about losing her.  Whole30 is a cold turkey take-it-back-to-basics challenge that goes even further than I'd imagined I'd go - it eliminates dairy (including my beloved - cheese), all sugar, legumes, grains, and anything artificial or "unpronounceable."  It's like a huge reset button - which my bloated, crampy, unhappy gut really needed.


I already feel better, physically and mentally, even though I've suffered a bit of carb withdrawal.  I was ready to make my tasty crockpot pulled pork this evening when I learned that liquid smoke is not Whole30-compliant.  I know that this is a tragedy so don't even go there, ok?  Like, for real.  Anyway, I looked at our recently harvested herbs from the back yard garden and came up with a plan.  The recipe is below.

Oh also, we bought the piece-of-shit vacant house next door and we're going to gut it, renovate it, add a floor, move in to it, and rent our current house.  And we just found out that when we bought that house, we might have also bought the building behind it, which means I am not longer just a Kenzo Cook.  I'm also a Kenzo Land Baron.  

I'm trying to figure out if this blog is the right place to post about the house.  Should I start a new blog?  Should I reconfigure this blog to meet the needs of both projects?  Tell me, dear readers, tell me!

And for the two of you who are still reading this garbage bag of a post, here's that recipe: 

Mustard-slathered, herb-encrusted, slow-cooker pork

If you are doing this as a Whole30 meal remember to get a compassionately-raised pork shoulder or at the very least trim as much of the fat as you can off of a conventionally-raised one.  Also, make sure your chicken broth isWhole30 compliant (no sugar)!

2-3 lb pork shoulder
1/2 cup grainy mustard
1/2 cup of dijon mustard
2-3 cups of mixed FRESH herbs, finely chopped (I used basil, rosemary, thyme, sage, and oregano from our herb garden)
1/2 cup chicken broth
salt and pepper to taste

- Cut the shoulder up into 5 or 6 hunks.
- Mix the two mustards together and slather it on to all sides of each hunk.
- Press generous amounts of the herbs into all sides of each piece.  
- Salt and pepper each hunk.  As each piece is finished, place it in the crock.
- Pour in chicken broth.
- Cook for 10-12 hours on low.
 

2 comments:

  1. Oh Laura. I'm so sorry to hear about your MIL. And excited to hear about the house news. Sounds like there's been a ton of upheaval for you guys lately.

    I think you should keep it all on this blog. Because you'll be cooking up house stuff just like you cook up food. Everything is still Cooking in Kenzo, it's just that the pot has gotten a heck of a lot bigger.

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  2. Liquid smoke is whole30 compliant as long as the only ingredients are water and natural smoke :)

    http://forum.whole9life.com/topic/1016-liquid-smoke/

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