30 Day Gluten Free Diet Challenge: Day 5

I've been asked what this challenge is, so I thought I should explain. Cecelia's Marketplace does a 30 Day Gluten-Free Diet Challenge each year. This is the third year. If you join, they enter you in a drawing for a $100 Amazon Gift Card and any product from their website. I really enjoy it because you are eating the same thing as a lot of different people for 30 days. We share photos, ask questions, and lend support.

This year, participation seems to be down, which is disappointing, but I'm hoping more people will join late and participate more to make it more interactive.

Day 5:

Breakfast: Restaurant food!
I went out to eat this morning with a business associate, so I didn't even have to make this amazing looking meal. The restaurant I went to is super accommodating when it comes to food allergies, and when I couldn't find my favorite breakfast on the menu, they said they'd make it for me anyway. This is called a Scrambler. It's hash browns on the bottom, with scrambled eggs on top. You can choose any three items to add in, so I went with cheddar, ham, and onions. I figured it was pretty close to what the breakfast was supposed to be in the book today anyway.

Morning Snack: leftovers
My breakfast was quite large, so I actually heated up my leftovers as my morning snack. It was almost just as good reheated.

Lunch: Salad
I didn't do a greek salad, but I did do a HUGE garden salad for lunch. I guess I miscalculated when I was getting the lettuce, and everything else followed in large quantities. This salad has iceberg lettuce, broccoli, assorted peppers, carrots, cheddar cheese, and honey mustard dressing. It totally hit the spot.
The whole thing:

A close-up:

Afternoon Snack: snack bar
I was really busy this afternoon, so I just grabbed an Enjoy Life snack bar (Coco-Loco) for a snack. I should substitute sunflower seeds when the snack is supposed to be roasted & salted nuts. I'll have to look next time I'm at the grocery store.

Dinner: GF Pasta w/Beef Marinara  Sauce & Zucchini
I kind of wish I had gotten a few more pictures of dinner tonight, but it was a long day, and I was hungry. We used Trader Joe's Rice Penne and Bertolli pasta sauce. I forgot to get zucchini, so we used yellow pepper instead, and we topped it with freshly shredded cheddar cheese.

Evening Snack: pineapple
I totally forgot to get a picture of the actual pineapple we bought because I figured that would be a better picture than another picture of the pineapple after it was cut up. I could probably get one pineapple to last the entire week for our snack, but I LOVE pineapple, and it makes a great snack to hold me over until morning, so I probably eat a larger serving than I need to.

30 Day Gluten Free Diet Challenge: Day 4

Day 4:

Breakfast: Fresh Fruit & Gluten-Free Toast
I eat a grapefruit most days during the winter because I did it a few years ago, and I didn't get sick until a few days after I stopped. Ever since then, I do my best to eat one every day during the winter. Normally, I peel it like an orange, but I wanted a slightly "prettier" picture. The bread is Udi's Cinnamon Raisin.

Morning Snack:
I can't even remember what I had as a snack. I know I munched on some popcorn and Cinnamon Chex and an apple and...and...and... Apparently today was a snacking day ;)

Lunch: Ham Sandwich & Corn Chips
I didn't bother with using my panini press today. This is Udi's multi-grain bread as a small change from the norm. I've always preferred white bread, but I tend to be more accepting of "healthy-tasting" items now that I'm on a gluten-free diet.

Afternoon Snack: Carrot Sticks with Ranch Dip
This might just be the worst hack job on cutting carrot sticks ever, but they taste the same either way, right?

Dinner: Sauteed Shrimp, Onions & Red Peppers w/Garlic Sauce Served Over Quinoa

My husband literally laughed at me as I was eating tonight. It was either really really good, or I was really really hungry (or a little bit of both). I assume it was humorous because I was trying to savor how good it tasted while cramming it into my mouth quickly. Quinoa doesn't seem hard to make, but I don't remember liking it as much before. The garlic sauce may have been a huge help with it, but I'm not sure.
Here is a close-up of the amazing goodness.

This is a pic of the garlic sauce. I wish I could make it look prettier, but if you like garlic, I bet you think it looks great.

Evening Snack:
Pineapple as usual! I also bought our papaya for week two today. It's rare to find a ripe one at the grocery store, so now I have time to do the paper bag trip to ripen it quickly if necessary.


I also went grocery shopping today and scored 6 loaves of Udi's bread for $3.99 each. I think they're regularly $5.29, so I thought that was a pretty good deal. I love that we have a chest freezer so I'm able to stock up when commonly purchased items go on sale.

30 Day Gluten Free Diet Challenge: Day 3

Day 3:

Breakfast:
As I said before, I have a bad habit of eating dry cereal for breakfast. Today, I decided to forgo the "easy breakfast," and I took the 60 seconds to pour it in a bowl, cut a banana, and pour coconut milk over the top of it. This is Corn Chex and So Delicious Coconut Milk in case anyone was wondering.

Morning Snack:
Today I munched on Cinnamon Chex as my morning snack as I was busy at work and completely forgot my fruit cup at home. No picture was taken as I ate it straight out of the box. ;)

Lunch: Leftovers
It was a busy day at work, and we made a ton of stir-fry last night, so I went with stir-fry leftovers. It was quick and easy and totally hit the spot. The picture definitely doesn't make it look as appetizing as it tasted.

Afternoon Snack: Cookies & a Snack Bar
I haven't been able to find a gluten/soy/nut free pudding (I'd happily take a Lactaid if it contained dairy), so I went with random snacks for my afternoon snack. It was an Enjoy Life afternoon as both the cookies and the snack bar were Enjoy Life products.

Dinner: Beef Tacos w/Fresh Salsa & Avocado Cubes

I begin with a picture of dinner because I LOVE this meal. The taco seasoning mix in the book is absolutely amazing. I snapped a quick shot of the spices all grouped together after measuring everything out. In hindsight, I wish I had lined them up in a nicer shot and shown the actual mix after making it. I think I had good intentions, but once I got cooking, I just sort of finished and forgot about photos. (As you can see, I have no preference when it comes to brand--as long as it's gluten-free.)

It's not in the photo, but we ran out of chili powder, so we used cayenne instead. My husband looked it up, and supposedly you could use 1/4 of the amount as a replacement. I'm incredibly sensitive to spicy things, so if you know anything about the intensity of cayenne, you probably already know this was a huge mistake. I wound up eating tortilla chips as I ate the tacos to help cool my mouth off.
One more shot of one of my favorite meals from this book:

Evening Snack: Pineapple
It seemed like overkill to take another photo of the pineapple, so I skipped it tonight. I can't decide if it's worth it to take a picture each night.

30 Day Gluten Free Diet Challenge: Day 2

Day 2 of the 30 Day Gluten-Free Diet Challenge has been excellent. I realized that I tend to use the recipes and meal ideas quite a bit once the challenge is over, but then I start slacking as the year goes on. Maybe I need to start doing it twice a year even though the actual challenge only happens in February.

Day 2:

Breakfast: Banana Pineapple Smoothie
For some reason, I used to think that smoothies were hard to make. That all changed the first time I tried the Banana Pineapple Smoothie from the book. At this point, I will make random smoothies with whatever fruit or other ingredients I have, but I almost always follow this general recipe. I wish you could actually taste the goodness that this photo cannot accurately portray.

Morning Snack:
I'm allergic to nuts, and I was at church during the time I would have had snack anyway, so today, I'm counting my morning snack as my cup of coffee I had after church. I didn't seem interesting enough to get a picture of it ;)

Lunch: Turkey Sandwich & Potato Chips
I got to use our new Cuisinart machine once again, only this time I used the panini press feature of it. I was really worried about burning it, so I made the mistake of leaving the heat too low. You can see the indentations, but you cannot tell that it was actually toasted. It tasted toasted, and the cheese was excellent melty goodness. Lesson learned for next time.

I wish I had gotten a pic of the smoothie I had with lunch too. I had some leftover for breakfast, so I finished it off with my lunch.

Afternoon Snack: Applesauce
We went apple picking last summer, and I made applesauce with the bountiful supply we picked. Most of the applesauce was frozen for later use as there was no way we could eat it quickly enough. This is one of the containers, and it worked perfectly so that I wouldn't have to buy store-bought apple sauce.

Dinner:  Stir-Fried Chicken & Vegetables in GF Teriyaki Sauce w/Brown Rice
I'm still having issues with chicken, so we subbed out steak instead of chicken. I'm also trying to figure out my weird personal issue with soy. I seem to have had slight effects from the soy sauce we used for the teriyaki sauce, but nothing like if I have soybean oil or soy lecithin (most people can't have soy, but they can have soybean oil and soy lecithin if they're intolerant to soy).
I'l let this meal speak for itself with pictures (note we also didn't use mushrooms because neither of us likes them--we used carrots instead).

A close-up and a shot of the whole meal:

I meant to take more pictures of prep, but this is when I got started--the steak is in the wok, and the teriyaki sauce is ready to be heated up in the sauce pan:

And this is the teriyaki sauce just before it was finished. This stuff is super easy to make, but I wish you could bottle it. As soon as it cools off, it hardens, so you have to make it fresh each time:

Evening Snack: Pineapple
Just a nice close-up of this wonderful fresh pineapple...

30 Day Gluten Free Diet Challenge: Day 1

Cecelia's Marketplace has held a 30 Day Gluten-Free Diet Challenge every February since they published their Easy 30 Day Gluten-Free Diet book. I've participated each year, but I thought it would be fun to blog about it too. I need an excuse to post more pictures, so this is the perfect opportunity, right?

I'm going to do my best to post a photo of each meal, and I'm also going to do my best to ensure I follow the book as closely as possible to help those interested in trying to follow along.

Day 1:

Breakfast:
I generally have a hard time eating much more than dry cereal or an Udi's muffin top for breakfast along with my cup of coffee. For that reason, I LOVE that they've started the challenge/book with bacon, eggs, and hashbrowns. It is the perfect hearty breakfast, and I'm hoping this will encourage me to start getting up earlier to make a more substantial breakfast in the future.

Morning Snack:

The morning snack is supposed to be orange slices, but I have a weird thing for grapefruit, so I decided to do grapefruit instead. I usually don't eat grapefruit the "normal" way either. I peel it like an orange, which is why you aren't seeing half a grapefruit here. This is white grapefruit which I haven't purchased in a long time. It's not as sweet as red grapefruit, but these were much larger, and both were $1 each, so I went with the white this time around to get better value. 

Lunch:

Lunch is supposed to be Garden Salad with Italian Dressing and Corn Chips on Day 1. My only modification was using Honey Mustard Dressing instead of Italian Dressing. I've been having trouble finding a soy free Italian Dressing, so I'm open to suggestions if anyone has any. This salad includes spinach, romaine lettuce, yellow pepper, carrot shreds, and honey mustard dressing. I used Fritos for the corn chips. 

Afternoon Snack:

The afternoon snack on day 1 was popcorn. I decided to go with kettle corn. Here is a close-up of my popcorn before you see the next picture proving I "cheated." 

I'm really glad I discovered Angie's brand popcorn because it's been my go-to backup for when I don't feel like taking the five minutes to make fresh popcorn. It was recently on sale for $2/bag, so I purchased 6 bags. I still plan to make my own kettle corn (have you read my Popcorn Spree entry?), but I'm a sucker for a sale, and convenience won out today.

 Dinner:
 The first time I did the challenge, I completely fell in love with the lemon dill sauce from dinner on Day 1. The meal is Grilled Salmon with Lemon Dill Sauce, Brown Rice, and Steamed Snow Peas. All I have to say is yum! As you can tell, I put the sauce on everything. I've also found in the past that the sauce tends to turn green when I mix the dill in with the sauce, so I simply sprinkled it on top this time. If anyone has suggestions on how to mix it without the sauce turning green, I'd love to hear it.

It's incredibly cold where I live, and we received a TON  of snow, so we used the new Cuisinart grill we got for Christmas to grill the salmon instead of pulling out our propane grill. This thing is amazing! The plates come out and are dishwasher safe. We had one of the older models of the George Foreman grill, and my husband absolutely hated washing it. You can't submerge it, and it's awkward to do. There were a few times that we discovered it had been put away without washing it because it sat on the counter for such a long time, and neither one of us wanted to do it so it eventually just wound up on the shelf. The plates on this device also flip over to a flat side if you want to use it as a griddle or you don't want the marks on your food. We were also given additional plates so we can use it as a waffle iron. How cool is that? (The George Foreman will be sold in a garage sale this summer now that we have a replacement.)

 Every time I do the challenge, I ask myself why I don't buy pineapple more often. It makes the perfect bed time snack, and according to the book, the bromelain in fresh pineapple aids in digestion. (This only applies to fresh pineapple--canned pineapple is good for you, but doesn't do the same thing.) I don't have nearly the problems with digestion that I used to have, but I'll take everything I can get. Fresh pineapple can be a bit of a pain to cut, but it tastes SO much better than canned.

If anyone else is doing the challenge, I'd love to hear your comments. 

Popcorn Spree

Sometimes I get a thought in my head and get a little crazy and go overboard with it. This time it was popcorn.

It all started when my boss brought a popcorn maker into the office while we had extra temporary staff working. We were going through quite a bit because we made at least one batch each day, so my boss asked me to grab popcorn kernels along with other snacks when I went to Sam's Club for office supplies. I searched and searched, but I only found one option...a 50 pound bag. The price was $32 which was pretty good considering less than 2 pounds can go for more than $5. But 50 pounds?

I teased my boss that I was going to buy it, but I didn't. When we were done with our research project, we realized we had actually gone through close to 50 pounds over the course of a few months, and we should have bought it. Our temporary workers were done at that point, so my newfound popcorn habit quickly ended. (Note: towards the end we were rotating the dates we made popcorn because we feared we would develop corn allergies due to the amount and frequency with which we were eating it.)

Over the holidays, I was shopping at Target and came across Angie's Kettle Corn. The flavor was Sweet & Salty which sounded amazing. It was Certified Gluten-Free through GFCO, and it was dairy, soy, and nut free. I had to buy it and try it's deliciousness.

I was right. It was amazing. I quickly realized it would get expensive to eat this constantly, so I was going to try to make it myself. I did a few quick searches and settled on a recipe from allrecipes.com. (Click here if you'd like to check it out.) I swapped out the vegetable oil for olive oil, and I added an unknown amount of salt because I wanted it to be similar to the Sweet & Salty variety. 

The first batch came out good, but it was way too salty, the sugar could have been better distributed, and a small amount of it was slightly burnt. The picture makes it look pretty good though:

We gave it another shot the next night, but we measured out one tablespoon of salt rather than simply dumping the salt. It was still a bit too salty, so I think we are going to skip the salt altogether the next time we make it which should turn out more like this other flavor I found at another grocery store:

Yes, I'm so hooked, I had to buy more.

So that's my popcorn story. It's hard to believe I didn't eat popcorn for over 3 years because I broke a tooth on popcorn which caused a root canal and a crown. I guess I'm making up for lost time.

I'm also trying to decide if it's worth it to keep buying this popcorn. I haven't figured out the cost per serving, but it's kind of a pain in the butt to make kettle corn, so laziness might win over frugalness this time. The packaged kind is far better than what I've managed to make at this point too.

Do you ever get on a food kick? Do you love popcorn as much as I do now? Tell me about it!

Living...LIVE!

A few months ago, I read an article from the Huffington Post titled How to Get Flat Abs, Have Amazing Sex and Rule the World in 8 Easy Steps. I assumed it was an article similar to the ones you see on the cover of Cosmo (of which I haven't read in years), so I ignored it when my friends first started posting it on Facebook.

When multiple people posted it and started leaving comments alluding to their being more to it, I decided to break down and read it. I have this secret hatred of all things Huffington Post, and I'm not sure why. I think it has something to do with something I heard they stand for a long time ago, but I honestly have no idea what it was or if I should actually despise them. At this point, I'll occasionally read their articles, but I always keep in mind that they might be slanted or have misinformation or do something else that will tick me off.

I am incredibly grateful that I read it. Not because it was something I necessarily needed to hear because it is how I prefer to live my life anyway. (Did you break down and read it yet--if not, I encourage you to do so.)

If you were to apply these things directly to the gluten-free diet, you would have my outlook on it. Stop believing your BS that you can't do this. Stop with the crazy making: "Life is full of obstacles; we don't need to create extra ones." Stop making things so hard. Stop complaining for the sake of complaining. Stop thinking the waiter/waitress is going to hate you for asking a million questions. Stop assuming your family will hate you for bringing your own food/asking questions/doing whatever you need to do to get a safe meal at family gatherings and the holidays.

So tell me. How do you truly LIVE?