Crack, Crack, Cracklin Chicken {Whole30 Week 3} {Recipe Files}

Hello, ladies! Thanks so much for your sweet compliments yesterday, y'all are the best. I'm loving my hair and am excited to be so close to ending my Whole30 journey. While there have been some ehh moments the food and recipes I've found have all been pretty phenomenal. So far my favorite has to be Nom Nom Paleo's Cracklin Chicken. I like a lot of her recipes, but this one is amazing. The best part is the crunchy cracklins, something many of our recipes have been lacking. Don't get me wrong, Whole30 is delicious, but a lot of the foods are soft. The delicious crunch is my FAVORITE part of this recipe.

Michelle does such an amazing job with her explanation of this recipe, so I'm going to have y'all follow her directions instead of mine. No, it's not a cop out, I just think it's best to leave something this great in the hands of the true artist. I'll just let my pictures do the talking this week. You can get Michelle's recipe *here*!

What you'll need to create Cracklin chicken.

I highly suggest you get a splatter cover, this dish can get kind of messy.

Pure cracklin goodness.

Don't forget to let your chicken rest five minutes, it gets the cracklins even tastier.

Voila, a delectabley crunchy and healthy chicken dinner. ENJOY!

Since this is our last full week of Whole30 I really want to try some new recipes. I'm looking at this one, this one and hopefully this one as well. Fingers crossed for a fun week of cooking!

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Whole30 Week 3 Thoughts
I'm choosing to document my journey daily so I have something to look back on at the end of the program. I didn't just do this program for Lent nor did I just do it as a diet. I really wanted to try and test my willpower and see what happens when I actually stick to something for 30 days. Feel free to skip if it's too much text, I totally understand. 

Day 15 Monday: HALF WAY THERE!!! Oh my goodness, I'm so excited to start the downhill in this program! SOOOOO stinking excited! Last night was rough meal prepping, but I got up off my tired hiney and did it and I'm reaping the rewards of a good meal day. Slept well last night, not fabulous but pretty well so I'll take it. I honestly wasn't as exhausted as I expected to be with the loss of sleep, so cheers to Whole30, again. I mean, I was a bit tired but nothing insane. We had a delicious slow cooker pork shank tonight and it was perfect for a couple that wanted to chill out after a long weekend. Cheers to halfway!

Day 16 Tuesday: Today was pretty good. I wasn't too munchy which was awesome. I messed up on my dressing though, so my awesome salad didn't taste quite right. I was able to eat most of it and had some leftover pork shank for added protein. I'm finding that when I'm hungry or munchy, carrots and baby tomatoes are my go tos. Honestly, I feel 100% better after I eat a handful or so which is great. Hooray for instant mood booster. For my work out I went to Sports Conditioning and was scared I was gonna fail so hard, since I hadn't been there in months. But, I actually did pretty well and I attribute a lot of that too good fuel in my body. I'm making Cracklin Chicken tonight and am super hopeful it turns out well. I need some crunch!

Day 17 Wednesday: I slept well last night, but didn't get to bed until 1130pm because we had so much going on at home. I made cracklin chicken and it was amazingly delicious. For rizzle, everyone needs to try this chicken. And get a splatter cover because it's a bit messy. We paired it with yummy roasted veggies and green beans, but were both still hungry after eating two thighs. Next time, we will need to make four each unless we have heartier sides. Anyway, today I woke up tired and with a headache, which is how I used to wake up when I went to bed super late. I had tons of energy last night to pack stuff up, to throw stuff out and to prep food for the week so I expected to feel great this morning. Yeah, no dice. It kept up until I ate part of my lunch which was a salad, grapefruit and carrots. Once I started eating I felt better, but it was weird because I ate NO'TMEAL for breakfast so I wasn't 'hangry'. I was hoping my lunchtime yoga class would help but then a meeting went long, boo, no yoga. I packed snacks for after work because I had a haircut and then planned on ballet but haircut went too long. So it was back home to make more cracklin chicken for dinner and for lunch Thursday.

Day 18 Travel Day: Note to self - cracklins don't stay crispy the next day. Eat all cracklins day of and just pack the chicken pieces for dinner. My lunch work out was again thwarted by rude work complications, bah. I'm eating awesome but my workouts have been sooo sporadic recently. I feel pretty decent today, nothing bad but nothing special either. Since I'm flying out tonight for Cincy, I've done major food prep so I don't give in to anything bad at the airport. The smells are usually what do it to me. I have carrots, blueberries, a salad, almonds and my special treat, bacon wrapped dates. BRING IT ON!

Day 19 Friday: Holy cow was I tired. We didn't get home until 130am and I passed until 7am when the dog woke me up. WOW, I slept hard and it was amazing. I've missed the hard sleep, it's so refreshing when I wake up fully rested. Today was a fun day of nothing, if that makes sense. Drinking black coffee still sucks [especially when it's not the kind I like, but I'm not going to complain to my MIL] but breakfast was pretty yummy. Eggs, mushrooms, peppers, onions with a side of avocado, delicious and nutritious, yum. Le Husband annoyed me when I tried to find an almond milk creamer at the store, he said "Suck it up, you only have 11 more days." so not WHAT I wanted to hear if you catch my drift. Dinner was a great fish meal with yummy veggies, but I was still hungry at bedtime.

Day 20 Wedding Day: Oh what a wonderful day of celebration. But, a horrible day for Whole30. Who wants to go to a wedding and not drink or eat cupcakes? NO ONE [sorry pregnant mamas]! We started the day with a big, late breakfast that was really good and filled me up. However, I wasn't smart and didn't plan for right after the wedding and was starving during cocktail hour. Sadly all of the munchies were non compliant so it was just black coffee [again] for me. The wine and cocktails looked so yummy and even though the coffee was good [thank the coffee gods] it wasn't the same. LUCKILY for us the dinner was a buffet with veggies, potatoes [in evvo hallelujah] and prime rib. You best believe I loaded my plate up first go round and was the only girl that went back for seconds. I'm gonna be honest, there were a few mellow moments during the reception, because I felt like I was missing part of the celebration. It was only magnified by the fact Le Husband wasn't having an issue, AT ALL! Trust me, I wasn't trying to be a debbie downer, but I did want someone to commiserate with about missing a cupcake. That was only 5% of the evening though, the rest was awesome. And, guess who won't have a hangover tomorrow :)!

Day 21 Sunday: Slept well again and enjoyed not feeling like poop from alcohol. We did a big breakfast with Le Husband's brother's family and it was yummy, but again, I felt like I missed out a bit. They made beignets, hash brown casserole [his mom made me a plain potato] and had cheese omlettes. I really just wanted one bite of a beignet, that's it, but I held my ground and didn't cave. We packed up, made some snacks and left for the airport to fly home. We weren't able to get up during the flight due to turbulence, so I was super thankful for my water and almonds in my bag. Something weird happened on our way home though [besides HORRIFIC traffic and a delay at Pollo Rico] I had some kind of allergic reaction to the almonds. I'm thinking that I ate too many, without anything else in my system, so my body wasn't happy with me. It made it hard to eat my chicken dinner, but I was able to get some nutrition. My lack of food contributed to my accidental nap at 8pm instead of meal prepping like I should have done. But, I'll be fine with a salad from Whole Foods when I go shopping at work tomorrow. Only one more SUNDAY LEFT, woohoo!

End of the week thoughts: This was an up and down week, but overall a good one. I'm actually see small changes in my physical body which is very encouraging. We aren't allowed to weigh or measure ourselves till the end, but if I'm seeing  difference I know something good is happening.

Sending you some LUCK TODAY!!! Happy St. Paddy's!

Linking up *here*, *here*, *here* and *here*.