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Whole 30 Day 10 - It's Not Who You Know, It's Who Your Mom Knows

Yesterday was fairly standard in the world of my Whole30 challenge.

Polar Kippers for breakfast, big ass salad for lunch, and then on to dinner.  It's almost getting rote and repetitive, and I'm surprised anyone is still reading this.  (I'm KIDDING).

But dinner brought up a pretty good improvisation that was made possible by my mother.  I mean, technically without my mother this blog doesn't exist, nor do I.  But this is a bit more direct than that.

About a month ago, my family was out visiting my parents in Arizona, where they retired from Michigan.  Can't blame 'em too much, really... we were swimming and running around in shorts at the end of March.  It was pretty awesome.  Great hiking, lots of activity, the whole nine yards.

Well, Mom has this "salsa guy" she goes to for her salsa - he's the owner of the San Pedro River Valley Salsa.  And it's REALLY awesome stuff.  All natural ingredients and just the right amount of real spice - not just gratuitous "let's see if we can kill all the midwesterners" spice, but spice that actually adds to the whole flavor of the salsa.  I absolutely love the stuff.

Anyway, to continue - Mom had sent me a jar and I hadn't opened it yet.  And last night my wife was heading off to the YMCA after work to get in some swimming and I was feeding the kids - so we were doing burgers (grass fed!).  I thew in some onion, salt and pepper, cooked them in the cast iron skillet with some bacon grease, and added some steamed broccoli on the side (at this point, I was REALLY missing Kerrygold Butter because there isn't much better than melted butter on steamed broccoli).  And then I realized that I had no ketchup (well, no Whole30-compliant ketchup).

Never fear, I have Mark Sisson's cookbooks!  I looked in The Primal Blueprint Cookbook and Primal Blueprint Healthy Sauces, Dressings and Toppings.  They both had ketchup but I didn't have all the ingredients - and the burgers were ready, and I didn't want to run off to the store because the kids were hungry... and then I look up on the top shelf and I see it:

That's right - the jar of San Pedro River medium salsa that Mom sent us (with all the stuff we forgot when we went down there to see them!).  I pulled that out, put it on my burgers (and what the heck, threw some on my broccoli too) and got a great extra serving of veggies along with some awesome flavor to go with that delicious grass-fed beef.

And my son eschewed the ketchup we had for salsa as well!  And the best part is that Mom knows the guy and how he makes it - all natural ingredients, no hidden sugars or anything.  It's just good solid salsa.  So I didn't have to worry about hidden ingredients that were going to throw off my Whole30's effects on me.

And that reminds me - the Clintonville Farmers' Market opened last weekend...  a trip up there on Saturday morning is definitely in the works!


 
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