Going Gluten Free

I am embarking on a food adventure (of epic proportions), so I figured I might bring back my foodie blog.

About a month ago, I started researching the Paleo/Primal/Caveman/What-have-you Diet. I'd been running to lose weight since September/October, and making healthier, or so I thought, food choices to help. But I wasn't really getting anywhere, so I wanted to see what diets were out there. The primal diet was the first one I checked out, because Weight Watchers, etc, where one has to count points or calories or weigh food just seem like overkill. Anyway, in my readings about the primal diet, I realised that I (and probably a great number of people) have a gluten intolerance.

Mostly, I came to this realization because the book I was reading at the time (Paleo Solution by Robb Wolf) mentioned gall bladder disease as something possibly caused by Celiac Disease. "Huh," I thought, "I had that!" So I jumped online to confirm his numbers; found a great number of studies showing a high incidence of gall bladder disease among Celiacs. Then I thought about my kidney stones. Same thing (though not quite as statistically significant as the gall bladder disease). Combine those two with my IBS and, well, it was kinda self evident.

Anyway, the first day of December I said goodbye to wheat. On the 14th, I ate some Campbell's Tomato Soup, which I love. EVEN THOUGH it lists wheat flour as an ingredient. I thought, well, maybe I'm NOT a Celiac. Maybe I'll be okay. Nope. I felt like shit for five hours after eating (and really enjoying) that bowl of soup. And since I was sick anyway, I had my last saltine cracker. Gods, it was good. Since then, I haven't purposefully eaten wheat. I've been tempted! I'm at my parents' house for the holidays and my mom made poppy seed bread, which has long been a favourite of mine. Even knowing it's delicious, though, I can't bring myself to eat it, because I know it will just make me sick.

After I get home, I plan on cutting refined sugars and all grains from my diet and following the primal diet, more or less. (I think, for now, I won't worry about the corn in baking powder or other small things like that.) The most difficult thing to cut will, of course, be Mtn. Dew. I know it's crap. It doesn't make me feel any better; sometimes it makes me feel worse. There is nothing REAL about it. But the SUGAR! and the CAFFEINE!

I'll be making a (refined) sugar-free and grain free pumpkin pie for my Xmas dessert. Will be taking pictures (via my phone, so they'll be pretty crappy. oh, well) for my first primal/GF recipe post. YAY!

BBQ Chicken Sandwiches

Okay, so this recipe is pretty straight forward. Take some cooked chicken and coat it in BBQ sauce. I used chicken breast, but it could be chicken from a rotisserie chicken, drumsticks, thighs, or whatever your preference/available chicken parts is. For BBQ sauce, I used KC Masterpiece, but again, feel free to use whatever you have/like. (Or super brave/not-quite-so-lazy-as-me people can make their OWN BBQ sauce. Ingenious!)



For the buns, I used wheat rolls from the Wal-Mart bakery. I was going to just buy some regular wheat hamburger buns, but everything I found had HFC in it. And while I'm not super-duper-anti-HFC (I mean, hell, I'm addicted to Mtn Dew and HFC is the second ingredient listed) but it's something that I might, in the future, look to avoid in foods. So I figure I'll start keeping track now. Anyway, the rolls worked just like tiny buns, which made these sammiches a lot of fun to eat. Served with seasoned fries and cooked carrots (nom!).

Fun snack

This is just a fun easy treat I made for Camden. A bowl of applesauce, strawberries cut in half, and a maraschino cherry. I arranged the strawberries and cherry in a starburst pattern for a little more excitement (I think it looks like an octopus, but Camden was adamant that it was a sun).

Veg Burgers!

In my quest to transition to a more veg-oriented diet, I decided to try making my own veg burgers. I suppose I could take the easy way out and just by Boca burgers, but they're prolly gross. Not to mention the fact that they're packaged with how many layers? A cardboard box plus plastic wrapper, most likely.

Ingredients:
1/2 a green pepper
1/4 (or more if you like onion, which I really don't) small onion
1 can black beans
1 can chick peas



Finely chop the green pepper.



And the same for the onion.



Rinse the beans and put them in a bowl to dry. Apparently this makes them stick better?



While the beans are drying, saute the pepper and onion with a little butter.



Throw the pepper and onions into the beans, and mash with a fork! This was hard work, and it sooo does not look delicious.

After everything is mashed into oblivion (or mostly into oblivion, like mine), form into patties. Then you can either grill (for an undetermined amount of time?) or bake at 350 for 10 minutes on each side.



I ate mine with a side of seasoned fries (I'm so addicted to those things) and sauteed zucchini (butter + zucchini + Lowry's seasoning salt). I also toasted the bun. I should have had some lettuce and whatnot on there too, but someone(me) forgot to buy it when grocery shopping. Oops!

All in all, I thought they were a little bland. Lettuce and tomato on top might make all the difference, though. Next time I make these, I'm going to try adding in some spices to the mix, or maybe liquid smoke or Worcestershire sauce or something along those lines. I know it will never taste like a delicious, grease filled hamburger, but I'd like it to taste like something! Aside from the blandness, though, the texture was not at all bad; actually, it was pretty close to a normal hamburger texture, since I didn't completely mash up the beans.

This recipe made 6 burgers, and four of them got frozen. Hopefully they'll cook alright after being frozen. Guess we'll see!!

Cravings

Every so often, I find myself craving a food. And that craving sticks with me (for months, sometimes) until I give in to it. Well, lately, I've been craving some chocolate chip cookies. But I didn't want to deal with making a batch, because of the time involved, the mess it makes, the clean up, and I didn't want to deal with having 36 delicious cookies living him my house (because they wouldn't last long; I have no willpower). So when I stumbled upon a recipe to make two cookies, I thought it was a gift from the gods!



Chocolate Chip Cookies (the little version)

Ingredients
1 T white sugar
1 T brown sugar
1 T butter
1/8 tsp vanilla
pinch of salt
pinch of baking soda
1 T water
1/4 cup + 1 T flour
1-2 T chocolate chips



Mix together all the ingredients. The best part of this recipe is that the order doesn't matter--no need to cream the butter with the sugars or anything of that sort. Just throw it in a bowl and mix!



Delicious cookie dough! If you prefer, you can just eat this. No eggs, so no worries about disease or whatnots.



Form it into however many cookies you want/can. I ended up adding a bit more flour than the recipe calls for (because I like cakey cookies NOM!), so my recipe ended up making two good size cookies. But you can make one large cookie, or several smaller cookies.

Bake at 350 degrees for 10-13 minutes, or until the edges are brown and enjoy!

Tofu

I've been an avid meat eater most of my life. Because, well, I love me a good steak. But in recent years, I've been striving for a healthier lifestyle. Not just for me, but for the earth, too. Meat is a healthy food, it has stuffs we need: protein, iron, etc. But too much meat is not so healthy. And, as for the earth, meat farms are absolutely terrible for the environment (not to mention the poor animals that spend their lives there). So, while I don't think I'll become a strict vegetarian, I am trying to cut back on my meat consumption. Enter: tofu.



Tofu has always scared me. I mean, it's bean curd. Gross. And then there are those people who tell you that it doesn't taste like anything, that it just mushes in your mouth, and it's terrible. And I let all that talk prejudice me against tofu. Well, I decided to be brave. (Of course, I've decided to be brave in the past. Bought the tofu... Then let it sit my fridge for a month before throwing it out because I was too afraid to try cooking with it. Oops.)

I bought some cubed extra firm tofu. Does this make a difference? I honestly don't know. But I do know that I didn't want it to mush too badly. Ick. So, extra firm. Marinated it in a mixture of soy sauce, honey, minced garlic, sesame oil, and rice vinegar. Then I fried it in a pan with about a tablespoon of olive oil. Normally my pan-frying happens over high or medium high heat, because I am impatient. But, having done my homework on tofu... Cook it over medium-low heat. Something about giving it time for the water to evaporate from the inside out... Or something. Anyway, it makes it less likely to mush. (Because that's gross.) I don't know how long I cooked it (oops), but it was until it turned a nice golden brown.

I removed the tofu (and tasted a chunk.. it was pretty good and didn't mush badly at all) and put some frozen veggies in the pan. Turned the heat up, stir-fried them. Then, following the recipe I had, I put the marinade in with the veggies (along with some cornstarch for thickener). And... OH MY GOD, WHY DIDN'T I THINK???? Ugh. A marinade made almost solely from soy sauce is not your friend if you use it as a sauce for a stir-fry. WAAAAY too salty. I really wish I had thought about this, before ruining my not-so-bad tofu and veggie stir-fry.

Anyway, if I'd just marinated the tofu, then made an entirely new concoction for the sauce, it would have worked out perfectly. I'm definitely going to play around with tofu again, hopefully the next recipe will be kinder to me!

Reasons I shouldn't be allowed in the kitchen

Okay, just one.

I was going to boil some potatoes. So I washed the potatoes, cut them up, covered them with water, sprinkled it with salt, set it on the stove. I turned the right knob for the right burner. But, I turned it a bit too far... Closer to medium than to high. So I turned it back to high and went off and did something else. About ten minutes later... I'm wondering why I haven't heard the water boiling. I go check... I overshot again.

Yep. I turned the burner off. And the grumblies were not so happy with me at that moment! lol

Happy Monday.