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IVORY1825's Recent Blog Entries
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Tuesday, November 18, 2008
It is Tuesday.
I've had a pretty good weekend and good start to the week. I feel like I've been eating well, even though we did go out on Sat and I ate a bit more than I wanted. I didn't exercise this weekend except for walking around and back from the farmer's market, so not good. I did get my turbulence training workout in yesterday! Me and DH need to start walking again, but we haven't quite worked out his new schedule with our lives yet and keep on not going.
I need to seriously work on getting more fiber into my diet, because I have been way low and my system is unhappy with that. It is difficult without wheat products and trying to keep carbs to a minimum! I need to eat more whole fruit, maybe add some berries or something to breakfast, but whole fruits are so expensive that it is hard to buy, for example, raspberries at $4 a pint each week! I've been eating homemade applesauce made with peels, but I know berries would be better. I did buy kale and collard green which I am adding to dinner, however, getting 10 grams of fiber for 8 hours and then 15 with dinner isn't quite what I should be doing either! Well, my diet is always a work in progress. I'm going to look into a fiber supplement until I work it out (and possibly for the holidays) and try to keep my pre/probiotics high too.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
So, since I cannot seem to eat wheat any longer, I've started playing around in my kitchen to figure out what I can eat. I think this is driving my husband more nuts than me, I don't mind being creative, but now he has to change what he eats as well. Anyway, here are my wheat-free exploits so far:
I made pancakes out of a gluten-free flour mix (Red Mill) and ground almonds with egg, milk, and baking powder. I then used the same recipe with a little bit more flour to make muffins. Yummy!
I made my first attempt at bread, it did not rise and was very thick and chewy. However, since mainly it was for recipes, not to be used as bread, I'm not concerned. Most of it, I chopped up, toasted, and turned into croutons. They seem pretty good. The remainder is going into a cornbread stuffing recipe later this week.
I made another set of muffins for breakfast at church tomorrow (because church pretty much only ever has bagels) with the flour mix, tapioca flour, flax,baking powder, sour cream, applesauce, milk, maple sugar, ad cinnamon. They are more chewy than typical muffins, but they taste good and the outside has just a little crisp to it, which is nice.
I've been using rice/grain mix pasta. It cooks very fast, but falls apart easily so I have to be very careful not to overcook it. It has a noticeable texture, but not bad.
I've talked my husband into trying a recipe tomorrow that he has previously done with couscous with quinoa. I like quinoa, so, hopefully he will too.
Since rice is a-okay, it is my goal to learn to make a good risotto. My first one had no flavor. My second was a rice-pudding dessert one and is pretty good. I'm planning a third, but probably not until next week.
I will continue to post about my cooking adventures as I learn more about wheat-free cooking. For now, I have to learn about talking to restaurants because me and the hubby are going out tonight. I think I'm more worried about that!
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
I'm using some great ideas from the latest Spark highlights e-mail to put in here some cheap dinner ideas (abbreviated for easy use and adjusted for my needs, find originals on sparkrecipes.com):
Rainbow Chicken and Rice - Boil chicken with ground garlic, sage, cumin, and black pepper until falling apart and can separate with fork into small pieces. Add veggies: green/red pepper, onion, celery, corn, green beans, carrots. Add rice to pot and cook until tender. Add lemon juice right before rice is done to give dish a zesty taste.
Benny's Ground Chicken and Beans - Cook beans overnight in crockpot. Brown the ground chicken/turkey in one pan with 1 tbs of grapeseed/olive oil. Mix in a couple shakes of Mrs Dash, and 1 tbs of diced garlic. In a seperate pan, sautee peppers and onion, add 2 tbs of minced garlic. Drain beans, add diced tomato's and put into pan with peppers and onions. When meat is browned, add. Let it simmer for approx 10 minutes. Serve over brown rice or with baked/roasted potatoes
Til Payday Casserole - Brown the seasoned (paprika, oregano, basil, rosemary, pepper, garlic, onion) ground beef. In a pot add tomato sauce (1 can), margarine (1 tsp), seasonings (as above) cover and allow to simmer. Placed cooked pasta in a casserole dish, add browned meat. Add the sauce after it has simmered at least 15mins. Mix thoroughly. Cover with cheese and cook until cheese is golden brown.
Fast-n-Easy Southwest Chicken Chili - chicken breast, cooked and cubed, 0.5 c water, diced tomatoes, diced jalapeno, Onion, Chili powder ( or serrano pepper), .5 cups Cooked Brown Rice, boil all together until done. Top with cheese. (Try in crockpot with uncooked ingredients??)
Mediterranean Chicken & Brown Rice Casserole - Cook garlic in olive oil until it has started to soften, add chicken breasts and par cook, about 3 minutes. Add diced tomatoes (with juice or water), turn heat on low, cover and let simmer for 20 minutes or so. Remove chicken breasts and set aside to chop up into rough bite sized pieces when they've cooled off a little bit. Add sun dried tomatoes and salt, pepper, basil, oregano. Add spinach, cooked brown rice, and feta, mix thoroughly. Place in a large baking dish and sprinkle with grated romano. Bake for 25 minutes or until cheese is brown on top.
Well, that could be a whole week of cooking there! Although, a lot of rice, so imay break these into two weeks with some potato dishes in between.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
I've had my eggs with veggies and no cheese for the last two days, and I quit. I don't like it without some cheddar. Therefore, I will have to adjust and eat some other things. Here are my ideas:
Fried eggs with gluten-free pancakes made with egg and almond breeze
Hot quinoa mixed with almond breeze, cut up apples, raisins, cinnamon, and egg
Pumpkin muffins/bread with gluten-free flour and fried eggs
Scrambled egg and sweet potato and ham pancakes
This should hold me over.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
So, my minor problems that may have been associated with wheat or sugar from my last blog post decided to become major problems that caused me to be nauseous every time I put food in my stomach for a day, so I stopped eating for a little while and drank tea and fruit juice, and saw a doctor.
The doctor was awful. He completely wrote me off as stressed out and a hypochondriac. I've been diagnosed with fibromyalgia (and take a tri-cyclic antidepressant to help me sleep because of it), but I haven't had pain symptoms in a year, and HE brought that up. he asked me if I was stressed out and I said no (I'm really not, i have a boring chilled out life) and he was shocked and suggested that everyone seems stressed nowadays. Anyway, he suggested that these problems are often due to stress, but maybe I'm lactose intolerant (I'm normally a dairy-whore, I drink milk daily and eat cheese with every meal, it would be a wierd acquisition of lactose intolerance), and I should avoid dairy and try some prilosec (I didn't even mention heartburn, I don't get heartburn) and maybe some probiotics (which I usually get in yogurt, but now I'm meant to avoid dairy, ack). I'm taking his suggestions (because ignoring them would be like a hypochondriac), as well as eating gluten free.
So, now I am on a short-term gluten-free, dairy-free diet and taking a handful of extra pills. So far, this combined process seems to be working, my symptoms are way better, I feel okay eating, I even exercised last night. I'm going to stick with the diet through the weekend, and then start slowly re-incorporating things back into it. Milk on Monday, if I'm okay, cheese on Wed. Something with gluten (but not a "wheat" product) the week after that, and then finally bread/pasta. I have a regular doctor's appointment on Mon, so i can discuss this with the NP I'm seeing (NP's are WAAYY better than doctors, they actually listen!) as well.
I do have to say that diet is great for weight loss. It is awfully hard to rack up calories without wheat and dairy. I've lost two pounds since Monday with all the insanity.
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