Whole 30 - Day 10

Yeah, this may not look like the most appetizing meal, but get past the appearance, and give it a try anyways. It's a yummy way to incorporate cabbage into your meal, and it comes wrapped up in a package. Awesome.

Pork Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

Stuffing

1 head cabbage

2 lb pulled pork

1 carrot, diced

2 stalks celery, diced

1/2 onion, diced

1/2 green pepper, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp oregano

pinch of salt and pepper

Cooking Liquid

2 Tbls tomato paste

2 cups beef broth

2 tsp white vinegar

1. Rinse the cabbage and remove the leaves individually. You'll need at least 8 leaves depending on how much meat you actually use, but I used around 12 leaves. And keep in mind that the leaves get progressively smaller...

2. Place the 3-4 cabbage leaves in a microwave-safe bowl (depends on the size of bowl that you have available). Pour ~1/4 cup water into the bowl, and cover with saran wrap. Microwave for 3-4 minutes until the cabbage leaves are soft. Repeat as necessary.

3. Mix the stuffing ingredients together in one bowl, and the cooking liquid ingredients in another.

4. Put ~1/4 cup of the stuffing into a leaf...

...and wrap the sides of the cabbage leaves over the stuffing.

5. Place the cabbage roll face down into your slow cooker. Repeat with the remaining cabbage leaves and stuffing. It's okay to stack the rolls.

6. Pour the cooking liquid over the rolls, and set the slow cooker on low for 6 hours. My programmable slow cooker can only be set on low for 8 or 10 hours, so you may need to set a timer.

Before:

After:

7. Carefully remove the cabbage rolls using a large spoon. The cabbage is very soft and can easily tear.

8. Eat.

21DSD Day 8 - Chemo

Well folks, I'm back in Atl to be with my parents for this next round of chemo. Yesterday we just took things easy. We took the dogs for two walks, finished one puzzle, and watching Rise of the Guardians and Resident Evil: Resurrection. I really enjoyed the first one. I thought it was super cute and funny. Resident Evil was a bit of a let down though. I've been a faithful Resident Evil since I watched the second film during my senior year of high school, probably slightly becasue of the movie itself, but mainly because of the good memories I associate with it. (Yes, you heard that right. Zombie movie = good times. I'm weird, right?) Anywho, we stayed busy, while still taking it easy. I whipped up some steak and roasted Brussels sprouts for dinner.

And got to use my parents' handy Wustof Silverpoint steak knives. Yep, they copied me because of how much I raved about my set.

Today we spent about 4 hours at the facility, which is a lot less than what we expected. The doctors started the chemo drip slowly (50 mL/h, then 100, 150, 200, and 300 after 30-minute intervals) in order to watch for any signs of allergic reaction, which of course kicked in after about 45 minutes. The allergic reaction we got today was a "weird-feeling," slightly itchy throat. We notified the nurse (Vanessa is really helpful), and they paused the chemo and started up a steroid drip to stop the reaction. The doctor basically told the nurse to use whatever drugs (steroids, anti-nausea, anti-inflammatory, analgesic, etc.) she thought we needed, considering all of the issues we encountered with the supposedly "nicer" chemo drug. After the steroid we progressed without a hitch.

We then headed home to start a new puzzle, (maybe you can tell that we like puzzles?), and eat a late lunch. We brought some food to snack on while we were at the doctor's office, but it didn't count as a meal. I brought a sugar-free chicken-andouille sausage, some proscuitto, and a mixture of almonds, pistachios, pecans, and pumpkin seeds.

After about an hour working on the puzzle, we took a nap break because some light-headedness and tiredness had set in. We checked temperature and blood pressure just to make sure there wasn't any fever, which is a concern if it goes over 100 F, or anything like that. I headed back to the puzzle after placing a trash can next to the bed just in case and leaving the yorkies in the room to "keep an eye on things" (Yes. The two 8-lb dogs are worriers and will stick close by when they know something isn't quite right.) A couple hours later, we were pulling together some dinner before calling it an early night, with some Benadryl to hopefully prevent any other possible side effects.

In summary, things are going well so far. Fingers crossed that the good continues!

And just to leave you with some comfort food, here's a garden vegetable soup recipe I made last week:

Garden Vegetable Soup

4 cups vegetable broth

1 cup tomato puree

3/4 cup water

1 14-oz can diced tomatoes

1 14-oz. can tomato puree

2 cups carrots, sliced

2 cups celery, sliced

1 red pepper, sliced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 Tbls olive oil

1 small yellow onion, diced

1. Toss everything into a large stock pot. Heat over medium-high heat on the stove for 2 hours.

Man, again with the one-step recipes. Awesome, right?

Chemo - Part 9 - Day 8

This morning I woke up at 5 am to get ready to drive back to Texas. I took the dogs outside and continued to pack up my car. At around 5:45 am, my parent walked into the hallway and was not looking so good, so we made the decision for me to stay in Atlanta for an extra day. I brought my suitcase back into the house, headed up to my old bedroom, and climbed back into bed. I didn't go back to sleep though. Maybe because of the lack of sleep, we haven't done too much today. I've been trying to catch up on work emails from the past week. Unfortunately my mailbox is so full that I can't even send emails. No good.

On the bright side, today was better than the previous two days. Things get worse as the day goes on though. Maybe it's just because of getting tired throughout the day, despite a few naps/lie-downs. We did go for a short walk today (just part of the way down our street), so that's really good! And we've been pushing fluids today (I even managed to gulp down over 5 L of water), which is almost always recommended by doctors for well, almost everything.

I was out of the house for a little while this evening. I met up with my friend Darby for gluten-free pizza at Mellow Mushroom (Yes, this is the place I rave about every once and a while!). Then, I swung by LF's house to return the dress that she let me borrow for Steeplechase on Saturday. In the two hours that I was gone, we hit a fever of 101.5 F and were applying ice packs and cold washcloths to cool down. When I last checked about 5 minutes ago, the temperature was down to 98.7 F.

The plan is to return to Texas in the morning. So let's hope all goes well tonight. And to finish off, here's part of the results from my day of cooking and cleaning on Sunday...

Chicken Broth
2 chicken carcasses (from 5-lb chickens)
1 onion, cut into eighths, and layers peeled apart
5 carrots, scrubbed, peeled, and cut into ~ 2" pieces
4 stalks celery, scrubbed and cut into ~2" pieces
10 sprigs fresh thyme
2 bay leaves
4 cloves garlic, peeled, but whole
sprinkle with black pepper
water



1. If you have a whole roasted chicken, pull the meat from the bone and save for a different recipe. It's fine if some meat remains on the bones. Place the bones in your slow-cooker.

2. Toss in the chopped veggies and seasonings.

3. Fill water up to the brim of the slow cooker. Cover and set on low for 8 hours. Stir occasionally.

4. Use a large strainer to remove the bones, veggies, and herbs. Then pour through a cheese cloth to remove all of the little remaining bits.

5. Cool in the fridge before attempting to freeze.

Chicken broth is good for constipation, dehydration, fatigue, nausea, sore mouth, and difficulty swallowing. It's easy for your body to digest and is generally rich in minerals since it's made from bones. For that reason, it also provides iron.

Bone Broth Follow Up

Here's the nice layer of fat that I pulled off of the cooled Slow Cooker Bone Broth that I made the other week:

And here's what the gelatinous bone broth looks like:

A couple tips for those of you intending to make the bone broth and freeze it for later:

• Don't fill the container all of the way to the top. The bone broth, like water, expands when frozen.*
• If you're going to use Mason jars, don't fill up all of the way to the top, and allow the bone broth to freeze before putting on the lid.

How do I know this? Well, I apparently filled my Mason jars too full, so the bone broth managed to pop the tops off of the jar and in one case, broke the jar. Cue failure music now. So learn from my mistakes, people.

*H₂O in its frozen form has a hexagonal crystalline structure because of hydrogen bonding between different water molecules. Each water molecule is hydrogen bonded to 4 other water molecules. This structure makes ice less dense than its liquid form, a.k.a. why ice floats and why 1 mL of liquid water would take up less space than 1 mL of frozen water.

Thrive Brussels Sprouts

Last month, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution published an article about Atlanta restaurant Thrive's Brussels sprouts. While I was in Atlanta two weekends ago, I tried out their recipe, and decided it was good. Yesterday, I decided to make it Paleo by changing the unsalted butter to ghee and using olive oil instead of canola oil (ewww). Oh, I also cooked more Brussels sprouts. See the original recipe here.

3 Tbls EVOO for sauteing

2 cup Brussels sprouts, ends trimmed, cut in half

Salt and pepper

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

1/4 cup chicken stock (I used chicken broth because I didn't have any stock at home)

1 tablespoon ghee

1/2 tablespoon honey

3/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes, or to taste

Heat the EVOO in a skillet over medium heat. Place sprouts cut side down in a single layer. Sear sprouts until they are golden brown, then turn, searing the other side. (I cooked mine a little too long on the first side because I got distracted. It should be about 3 minutes per side.)

Season with a few shakes of salt and pepper. Add vinegar and cook until vinegar has reduced by half. Add chicken broth, ghee, honey and pepper flakes and continue to cook until sauce has reduced to a glaze, about 5 minutes.

Slow-Cooker Bone Broth

I was browsing through a cookbook this past weekend and came across a recipe for bone broth, which stated that it's a good option for cancer patients going through chemo. This is not that recipe, however it got me thinking about making bone broth. It's on my list of foods to try. So I figured, why not? Here goes...

Slow-Cooker Bone Broth

3 carrots, peeled and chopped
3 celery stalks, chopped
1 white onion, roughly chopped
8 cloves garlic, smashed
4 lb beef bones (grass-fed)
2 bay leaves
sea salt
2 Tbls apple cider vinegar
water

Toss your chopped veggies and garlic into your crock pot.

Layer the beef bones on top.

Add in the bay leaves, and a few shakes/twists of sea salt. Drizzle the vinegar over the bones, then add water until all of the ingredients are covered. Set your crock pot on low for 10 hours.

After cooking, strain the broth, and dispose of the solids.

Pour your broth into a large container and place in the fridge. After letting it cool overnight/throughout the day, remove the solid layer of fat that forms. From here you can freeze the broth, it'll stay good for a few months, or eat within the next week or so.

As a FYI, the remaining broth under the fat should be gelatinous. It's basically beef jello. The gelatinous bits of meat really freak me out, reference my post here for how well I handled ripping chicken meat off of the bones... it was all because of the jelly-looking bits.