Crazy-ass Diet, Day 6

I'm super excited to be on day six of this experiment, because tomorrow that means I'm halfway through the hardest part!  I'm already planning carefully what recipes I want to use for my challenges, which can be kind of tricky because you have to isolate a single potential allergen.  For example, you can't use bread for a wheat challenge because it also contains yeast.  During an egg challenge, you can't cook scrambled eggs in butter because then you'd be introducing dairy as well.  Aaron mentioned looking forward to Caprese salad last night, and I find myself fantasizing about the texture of mozzarella.  So milky and smooth...

Aside from coffee, what I miss the most on this diet is variety of texture.  Nuts and raw vegetables have a different kind of crunch than the shattering kind of crunch you get from biting into a tortilla chip or a crouton; six days of meat and lettuce and you really start to notice. 

Yesterday my energy level was really feeling the lack of complex carbohydrates and I really wanted to work in the garden, so I made some roasted sweet potatoes to go with my lunch.  While I was at it I roasted a second chicken breast to save for later; I can't emphasize enough the importance of having ready-made protein on hand while doing this kind of diet.  It would be easy to fail simply out of desperation, so if you're trying something like this make sure you have plenty of food on hand that you can actually eat.



Oven Roasted Chicken and Sweet Potatoes
1 bone-in skin-on chicken breast
1 medium or two small sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tsp. fresh rosemary, minced
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 400. 

Toss the sweet potatoes with a good drizzle of olive oil, salt and pepper, and half the garlic and rosemary.  Arrange flat in a roasting pan large enough to accomodate all the potatoes and the chicken breast without crowding. 

Place the chicken breast, skin side up, in the pan with the potatoes and season with olive oil, salt and pepper, and the rest of the garlic and rosemary. 

Roast everything together for 30-40 minutes, until the chicken breast registers 160 degrees on an instant-read theremometer.  If the potatoes need longer, remove the chicken to a plate and cover gently with foil.