A day of eats and palm oil

Packages!

You guys have GOT to join Thrive.  I’m sorry to belabor the point but it’s such an impressive company – both in terms of mission and economics.  I’m a sucker for a good deal but I’ve already saved so so much money and I’ve only been a member for a month.  I now only have to go to the grocery store for fresh produce because I can get virtually every pantry item online for cheap.  No sacrifice in quality whatsoever.  Winning.  <– Use my link – it gets you 25% off your order (and shipping is free for purchases over $50).

This was my most recent order.  I’ve been wanting to try (non coconut oil) shortenings for a while but have held off because all the responsibly sourced products cost a fortune.  Thrive Market offers them for an amazing discount so now I’m eager to try both the shortening and red palm oil.

Red palm oil has a high smoke point making it pretty versatile in cooking.

The first thing I did with it was pretty basic…

Salmon meet pan and palm oil.  Sizzle.

There’s kale under there too.  The flavor was neutral, meaning I didn’t notice anything different from when I sauté fish with another fat (i.e. olive oil), but now I know I’m getting carotenoid and tocotrienol antioxidants.  And Vitamin E.  It’s good to vary your sources of fat methinks.  I’m already a slave to coconut oil (in my crackers and chocolate bark) but beyond that I primarily stick to olive oil and/or soy free Earth Balance (more rare).  It’s nice to diversify and get different nutrients in.

P ate it too so yay!  Another healthy win for the whole family.

Speaking of bark…pounding my way through that 52 ounces of coconut oil like whoa.  🙂

I haven’t done a “day of eats” style post in a while and I just happened to take photos of everything from the other day so here’s a look at an average day.

My morning smoothie had frozen banana and strawberries + vanilla Vega One protein powder + ground flax + coconut cubes + ice cubes + almond milk.

I also had a few handfuls of banola on the side.  As exhausted as I was after traveling all Monday I knew doing grocery shopping and prep work for the rest of the week would pay off in a huge way, so I made a BIG batch of banola and crackers on the late night.  I had been saving bananas in the fridge while we were in NYC so they were perfectly ready for the banola recipe when we returned.  The ingredients for the crackers are all pantry staples so making those didn’t require a trip to the store first either.  Especially since my Thrive package with a huge jar of coconut oil had just arrived.  Done and done.  Grocery shopping preceded naps, which was a bold move since I had two stores to hit up (TJs and WFs) but I wanted to get produce so my lunch wasn’t something lame.

I got a bunch of greens, including the kale, cabbage, and broccoli slaw in the above tupperware.

I have a monster tupperware that I use to make my bulk salads in.  Once I added the cruciferous crunch I poured on some poppyseed dressing and shook it til it was coated in yum.  FYI I massaged the kale first, but didn’t do anything with the cabbage or slaw.  Also, I like soggy salads, so I like dressing my salads well in advance of eating them.  I’m weird I know.

When lunch time rolled around I added avocado, dried cranberries, and crackers to the bowl.

I had probably another 2 servings of crackers.  And before you all go commenting that I STILL HAVEN’T shared the cracker recipe yet, lt me just say I KNOW AND I’M SORRY!!!  Ugh.  I wrote it down again when I made it this time, but it still was too crumbly.  I don’t photograph the crumbles that I eat so you’d never know it based on the pics here, but the non-seen portion is like granola.  Not crackers.  So it’s still a work in progress.  I SWEAR I will share as soon as I get it perfect.

Normally we have soccer on Tuesdays, but this week’s was cancelled for some reason.  I made a coconut milk iced coffee drink as an afternoon pick me up.  I used the extra decaf from the morning and blended it with NuNatural’s liquid chocolate stevia syrup, coconut milk, and ice.  It was perfect.  Once P was up from his nap we swung by my friend’s house to get in some play time.

Dinner was BBQ sauce shredded chicken with a broccoli salad on the side.

I made the mayo sauce with a FREE JAR of Sir Kensington’s mayo that I got for ordering from Thrive (yes, you get free stuff for no reason at all!).  I stirred in some sriracha, dijon mustard, and celery salt.  Then I folded in some (overcooked – whoops!) broccoli, frozen veg medley (peas, carrots, corn, green beans), and cooked quinoa.

Kyle had his chicken on bread, but I had mine plain with broccoli salad on the side.  I had two more servings of broccoli.  So good!  P had the same meal as well.

Dessert was standard – chocolate and candied ginger.

And that’s a wrap.