I feel like I repeat myself all the time. In fact, I am sure I do. I have come across stuff I wrote a decade ago and it sounds like I wrote it yesterday or am just about to write it again! I'm forever spinning my wheels trying to get a good system going but never quite getting there.
So here I go again!
So this is a gluten free, focus on probiotics, omega 3's, iron for anemia, and limit sugar general meal plan.
Breakfast:
2x a week - cream of rice (iron!), grits or non gluten oatmeal, with nuts, seeds, honey or maple syrup and fruit.
2x a week - some kind of yogurt based breakfast: smoothies, parfait made with fruit and granola (probiotics in yogurt!) Yogurt has been an issue with me because I feel I should be making it instead of buying it to be more zero waste. However, this means we simply never have it because I never get around to making it. So I am just going with the yogurt that comes in a jar (plastic seal) because we really do need probiotics in our diet and that is the one I know everyone will happily eat.
3x a week - eggs in some shape or form: banana pancakes, egg and bacon cup (so easy and delicious!), plain old scrambled eggs or fried/poached eggs over hash or potatoes or omelets. (pastured eggs are high in omega 3s)
NB: breakfast is always served with fruit and/or incorporates some kind of veggie as well (in omelet or hash or mixed in with scrambled eggs.) Also trying to eat more nuts and seeds with hot cereal, granola and yogurt.
Lunches:
Lunches are hard because we run around so much in the middle of the day.
1x or 2x a week - good old Annie's gluten free mac and cheese. My teens like these. Must eat this with fruit or veggies.
1x a week - lunch at Chipotle (black beans have iron!)
1x a week - lettuce wrap burger at Five Guys (NB limit of one meal with fries each week).
1x a week - leftovers or Cobb salad with turkey and cheese
1x a week - salmon or tuna salad (omega 3s)
1x a week - leftovers/soup
Snacks:
granola
trail mix
peanuts
popcorn
fruit
fruit with peanut butter
veggies
veggies with hummus
yogurt/smoothie
Dinners must always be served with salad and veggie or two veggies. Salads should include a dusting of either chia or flax seed (omega 3s!). The more leafy greens and nutritous root vegetables the better! I need to find a fermented veggie that people will eat. They hate sauerkraut so that's out. But I've seen carrots and green beans that are supposedly fermented. Maybe if I toss them into a salad, people will eat them.
2x - roast chicken and then something made with leftovers from chicken.
1x beef (iron!)
1x vegetarian
1x seafood (omega 3s)
2x other (soup/stew, ham, pork, lamb, another seafood, etc)
Going gluten free:
Since we had given up crackers and I'd only been buying bread when it was fresh from the bakery and put into my own cloth bag or brown paper bag (because I am trying to be zero waste and don't want plastic packaging), this had actually primed us for eating less wheat. We'd have a couple days a week where there was no bread/crackers in the house. Not that the kids didn't complain about this! But not having bread doesn't feel THAT different (at least to me). Swapping out pasta for gluten free pasta is pretty easy. We already ate rice a couple times a week, now it's more like 3x at least. And I've been buying more corn. We've also been eating more sweet potatoes. And we still eat baking/red/gold potatoes - a couple times a week. This transition hasn't been as hard as I thought it would be.
Limiting sugar to:
Fruit
maple syrup
honey
Homemade or farmer's market jams and fruit butters
Kombucha (going to try to serve this with a meal a couple times a week. I just discovered I can buy this from a tap every week at my new CSA! I actually have 2 CSA's now.
Exceptions:
Allowed 1 soda a week
Dessert on Sundays - ice cream and Tate's gluten free chocolate chip cookies - delicious!
I also want to get the family to take some elderberry juice daily. Beefs up the immune system!
Wednesday, October 11, 2017
Monday, October 9, 2017
Weekend Hygge
The weather has been strangely warm and humid. It doesn't feel like October right now. And it's been raining all morning as well. However, in spite of, or maybe because of this, my flowers are still blooming like crazy!
Soon the weather will change, the flowers will all drop their petals, the leaves with color and die, the air will turn crisp and chill! So I am appreciating the last of the summer flowers!
Two other hygge-y things. Both dealing with annoying aches and pains. This first one is ridiculous. Over a year ago we had our bathroom redone. I love my new bathroom! But I identity as chiefly a shower person. I hardly ever take baths. However, when we were choosing the new tub for our master bathroom, we picked out a soaker tub. The other bathrooms are too small for anything other than one of those standard, too small really for a comfortable bathtub so kind of a glorified shower space tub. But we had the room in our master bathroom so we got a big soaker tub. Nice and deep. Well, I had never taken a bath in it! Other members of the family had, but not me. I had been meaning for months and months to take an epsom salt bath for my plantar fasciitis feet, but I'd only gotten as far as buying a carton of the salts from the drug store. There it sat unopened on my counter for months. But yesterday my stupid knee was aching so, I decided to take the plunge. I had to clean the tub out first, which wasn't too bad. Then I ran the water and put in a couple of cups of epsom salts.
It was heavenly.
Sheer bliss.
I could feel myself relaxing. My aches and pains all went away and I just floated in the warm water utterly at peace.
Note to self: soak in epsom salt bath at least once a week!
The other thing I did because my neck has been really bothering me lately was go to Bed, Bath and Beyond and buy a new pillow. For years and years I slept on the same old pillows. Then I hurt my neck and had to get physical therapy. The therapist said to buy a special foam pillow to support my neck, so I did. It was ok but kind of too firm for comfort. I slept on it for a couple of years but my neck started to get really creaky (literally making creaking sounds when I'd go to turn it!) and I'd wake up with headaches that were not migraines yet but threatened to blossom into migraines. They definitely were emanating from my neck. So this past Memorial Day weekend while at our local town's annual fair where they have lots of booths of various merchants selling things, I bought a bamboo pillow. The guy swore up and down that it was the answer to my problem. So I bought it and. . . . too thick and the bamboo filling that was supposed to be so malleable always wound up in a big clump that was very uncomfortable. The last couple of weeks my neck has been super bothering me. So yesterday I tried again in my quest for the perfect pillow. I examined all the pillows Bed, Bath and Beyond had to offer and selected the Dr. Maas pillow for back and side sleepers (conveniently on sale). This morning I woke up neck pain free!!!!! I felt so refreshed!
Now if only my knee would stop hurting.
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| One of the last of the glorious hydrangeas! |
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| The azalea's last stand. |
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| Our Lady of Guadalupe with rose petals. |
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| The rose bush has grown so tall! |
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| A dash of yellow |
Soon the weather will change, the flowers will all drop their petals, the leaves with color and die, the air will turn crisp and chill! So I am appreciating the last of the summer flowers!
Two other hygge-y things. Both dealing with annoying aches and pains. This first one is ridiculous. Over a year ago we had our bathroom redone. I love my new bathroom! But I identity as chiefly a shower person. I hardly ever take baths. However, when we were choosing the new tub for our master bathroom, we picked out a soaker tub. The other bathrooms are too small for anything other than one of those standard, too small really for a comfortable bathtub so kind of a glorified shower space tub. But we had the room in our master bathroom so we got a big soaker tub. Nice and deep. Well, I had never taken a bath in it! Other members of the family had, but not me. I had been meaning for months and months to take an epsom salt bath for my plantar fasciitis feet, but I'd only gotten as far as buying a carton of the salts from the drug store. There it sat unopened on my counter for months. But yesterday my stupid knee was aching so, I decided to take the plunge. I had to clean the tub out first, which wasn't too bad. Then I ran the water and put in a couple of cups of epsom salts.
It was heavenly.
Sheer bliss.
I could feel myself relaxing. My aches and pains all went away and I just floated in the warm water utterly at peace.
Note to self: soak in epsom salt bath at least once a week!
The other thing I did because my neck has been really bothering me lately was go to Bed, Bath and Beyond and buy a new pillow. For years and years I slept on the same old pillows. Then I hurt my neck and had to get physical therapy. The therapist said to buy a special foam pillow to support my neck, so I did. It was ok but kind of too firm for comfort. I slept on it for a couple of years but my neck started to get really creaky (literally making creaking sounds when I'd go to turn it!) and I'd wake up with headaches that were not migraines yet but threatened to blossom into migraines. They definitely were emanating from my neck. So this past Memorial Day weekend while at our local town's annual fair where they have lots of booths of various merchants selling things, I bought a bamboo pillow. The guy swore up and down that it was the answer to my problem. So I bought it and. . . . too thick and the bamboo filling that was supposed to be so malleable always wound up in a big clump that was very uncomfortable. The last couple of weeks my neck has been super bothering me. So yesterday I tried again in my quest for the perfect pillow. I examined all the pillows Bed, Bath and Beyond had to offer and selected the Dr. Maas pillow for back and side sleepers (conveniently on sale). This morning I woke up neck pain free!!!!! I felt so refreshed!
Now if only my knee would stop hurting.
Sunday, October 8, 2017
Friday, October 6, 2017
Happy Birthday!
Yesterday was my husband's 55th birthday! Just before we started dating, I surprised him with a birthday cake in the lobby of the law school we attended. That was 30 years ago! My, time flies!
I bought a gluten free cake from a bakery in a nearby town. It was pricey but it did taste pretty good. The cake itself tasted a bit more like a sweet bread than a regular cake. We got the vanilla on vanilla flavor, since I can't do too much chocolate or I get a migraine.
I bought a gluten free cake from a bakery in a nearby town. It was pricey but it did taste pretty good. The cake itself tasted a bit more like a sweet bread than a regular cake. We got the vanilla on vanilla flavor, since I can't do too much chocolate or I get a migraine.
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| Pretty, pricey and pretty good tasting as well. |
Wednesday, October 4, 2017
Hump Day Hygge! (More food)
Puerto Rico. Las Vegas massacre. Then, my darn knee is still hurting, making me limp around while I do my errands. And suddenly I am trying to go gluten free. I know the last two aren't any comparison to the first two, but all of it has made life seem very heavy lately.
So I seem to be retreating into cooking a lot, enjoying the cool early fall weather, and reading.
I made a delicious salmon chowder last night. Wasn't difficult to make at all. We eat canned salmon about once a week, but getting the wild caught frozen fillets or steaks is super expensive. So salmon chowder is a good way to stretch one package of filleted salmon.
Here's the recipe: Salmon Chowder I pretty much followed the recipe exactly. I trimmed the skin off the salmon though. It doesn't say whether you are supposed to or not, but I personally can't stand oily fishy tastes. So I cut/scrapped off as much salmon as I could and then I fed the skin to my dog and cats, which they loved.
I also used the light coconut milk. I think I've only cooked with coconut milk once before. It was really delicious! Made the chowder very delicate and tasty. We did add more salt and pepper at the table, but once we did that the soup was just scrumptious.
I also made sweet potato fries to go as a side because usually we have bread or crackers with soup so I felt we needed something.
I took this simple recipe from the Hashimoto's 4-Week Plan book again. I think these recipes are nice and simple and well done. I chopped up two big sweet potatoes into matchstick thin sticks. This took awhile. Then I melted 2 tablespoons or maybe a bit more of coconut oil in a pain, poured that over my sweet potato french fries then add some salt and 1/4 tsp of tumeric, per the recipe in the book. I mixed and tossed those thoroughly, then put on a big cookie sheet and into a hot oven at 450 degrees. Took about 30 minutes. Some fries were crispy, some were not, but everybody enjoyed them a lot!
Another win was trying out Cream of Rice cereal. I was looking for gluten free, non-GMO oats at the store. I didn't find those but my eye lit on another hot cereal proudly endorsed by the Celiac.org group.
It's very easy to make, a nice hot cereal you should eat while piping hot from the pot. I garnished it with raisins, pumpkin seeds and a drizzle of maple syrup and it was quite satisfying. Apparently, it has lots of iron in it? 70% of your daily recommended amount. And since I'm feeding someone struggling with anemia, that's a very good thing!
So I seem to be retreating into cooking a lot, enjoying the cool early fall weather, and reading.
I made a delicious salmon chowder last night. Wasn't difficult to make at all. We eat canned salmon about once a week, but getting the wild caught frozen fillets or steaks is super expensive. So salmon chowder is a good way to stretch one package of filleted salmon.
Here's the recipe: Salmon Chowder I pretty much followed the recipe exactly. I trimmed the skin off the salmon though. It doesn't say whether you are supposed to or not, but I personally can't stand oily fishy tastes. So I cut/scrapped off as much salmon as I could and then I fed the skin to my dog and cats, which they loved.
I also used the light coconut milk. I think I've only cooked with coconut milk once before. It was really delicious! Made the chowder very delicate and tasty. We did add more salt and pepper at the table, but once we did that the soup was just scrumptious.
I also made sweet potato fries to go as a side because usually we have bread or crackers with soup so I felt we needed something.
I took this simple recipe from the Hashimoto's 4-Week Plan book again. I think these recipes are nice and simple and well done. I chopped up two big sweet potatoes into matchstick thin sticks. This took awhile. Then I melted 2 tablespoons or maybe a bit more of coconut oil in a pain, poured that over my sweet potato french fries then add some salt and 1/4 tsp of tumeric, per the recipe in the book. I mixed and tossed those thoroughly, then put on a big cookie sheet and into a hot oven at 450 degrees. Took about 30 minutes. Some fries were crispy, some were not, but everybody enjoyed them a lot!
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| Half way through eating my soup last night, I realized I needed to take a picture. The sweet potato fries on the little plate. |
Another win was trying out Cream of Rice cereal. I was looking for gluten free, non-GMO oats at the store. I didn't find those but my eye lit on another hot cereal proudly endorsed by the Celiac.org group.
It's very easy to make, a nice hot cereal you should eat while piping hot from the pot. I garnished it with raisins, pumpkin seeds and a drizzle of maple syrup and it was quite satisfying. Apparently, it has lots of iron in it? 70% of your daily recommended amount. And since I'm feeding someone struggling with anemia, that's a very good thing!
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| I think this will make a regular appearance at our breakfast table this winter. |
Tuesday, October 3, 2017
Banana Pancakes - Zero Waste and Gluten Free!
What is that saying? Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans. Just when I announce to the world we are going on the Mediterranean Diet for various health reasons, I decide to go gluten free. Long story short: 4 out of 7 family members have been diagnosed with Hashimoto Thyroiditis in the last couple of years. The most recent being my just turned 16 year old at the beginning of August. She has been grappling with depression, anxiety attacks, fatigue, lethargy, PMS and very heavy periods, feeling cold but then getting hot flashes, dizzy spells, the beginnings of hair loss (her hair is her crowning glory, thick, wavy, down to her waist dark chestnut hair), all sorts of skin allergic reactions, headaches, mysterious aches and pains, weird forgetfulness that isn't normal, brain fog (inability to think clearly or concentrate) and anemia. The things that used to energize her and give her motivation now all overwhelm her. She got on synthroid and her numbers got better in terms of TSH but she is still grappling with all these other emotional/focus type issues. The response of the doctor is just to put her on anti-depressants. I really don't want to do that if it isn't necessary. We are wanting to get another family member off anti-depressants and it is a hard and rather scary process. It turns out that many Hashimoto patients don't feel well and/or struggle with depression even though their lab numbers are supposedly fine. There is a booming industry out there because of this.
Conventional medicine doesn't seem to focus on why autoimmune diseases are becoming so prevalent. They do tell you that if you have one you are more likely to develop another. I'd like to see if we can fix the auto-immune system. Conventional medicine doesn't seem very keen on trying alternatives to medication. Enter functional medicine. I am really skeptical about this kind of stuff. While acupuncture has been found to help with pain, which makes sense when you think in terms of nerves, I don't see how it helps reduce nodules in your thyroid for example. And I don't get how chiropractors can actually fix thyroid issues. I think the only true thing chiropractors do falls under the realm of physical therapy. In fact that is how they bill for insurance companies. But when they get into fixing things like autism, etc, I just don't see how that works. Same with essential oils. I am sure some essential oils have enough concentrated chemicals in them that they help some conditions, but I don't believe there is an essential oil out there for every condition!
But I have been hearing a lot about gluten free helping with auto-immune stuff, especially Hashimoto's, so we are going to give it a try. My 16 yo is kicking and screaming about it all. But emotionally she is locked into resisting everything upon first exposure to it. Anyway, yesterday was our first day and the very first thing I made was a hit! And I realized it is zero waste too!
I got this recipe from Hashimoto's 4-Week Diet by Karen Frazier. It's an elimination diet.
This recipe is so simple and it turned out really well! These things look and taste like pancakes! It only take 4 ingredients, all of which I had on hand. (Zero waste notes are in the parentheses).
This recipe is supposedly for 4 servings.
2 bananas, mashed (compost banana peels; stupid sticker is trash)
4 eggs, beaten(compost egg shells; recyclable cardboard egg cartons)
1/2 tsp cinnamon (glass jar with tin lid)
some coconut oil for the pancake pan (glass jar with tin lid)
Mix the first 3 ingredients together to get a 'batter.' Melt the coconut oil to coat the pan well. Make sure the pan is hot. Then pour in scant 1/4 cup of batter for each pancake, and cook for about 3 minutes or until you see bubbles forming and the edges getting firm. Flip and cook for another minute or two on the other side.
The recipe called for serving with fresh raspberries, but I didn't have any, so I topped with some homemade blackberry jam.
Delicious and so easy!!! A definite keeper! I might make these every Saturday morning instead of our usual bagel run (which is very hard to give up, especially for my husband).
For dinner I made spaghetti with meat sauce (I keep forgetting about Meatless Monday - it seems I tend to want to be meatless on Tuesdays instead!).
Spaghetti:
Non GMO corn pasta by De Boles (small plastic window in cardboard box)
Brown rice pasta by De Boles (same)
Jar of marinara sauce (glass jar with metal lid)
ground beef - (local, grass fed, but wrapped in plastic)
topped with a little parmesan cheese (glass jar, metal lid)
Conventional medicine doesn't seem to focus on why autoimmune diseases are becoming so prevalent. They do tell you that if you have one you are more likely to develop another. I'd like to see if we can fix the auto-immune system. Conventional medicine doesn't seem very keen on trying alternatives to medication. Enter functional medicine. I am really skeptical about this kind of stuff. While acupuncture has been found to help with pain, which makes sense when you think in terms of nerves, I don't see how it helps reduce nodules in your thyroid for example. And I don't get how chiropractors can actually fix thyroid issues. I think the only true thing chiropractors do falls under the realm of physical therapy. In fact that is how they bill for insurance companies. But when they get into fixing things like autism, etc, I just don't see how that works. Same with essential oils. I am sure some essential oils have enough concentrated chemicals in them that they help some conditions, but I don't believe there is an essential oil out there for every condition!
But I have been hearing a lot about gluten free helping with auto-immune stuff, especially Hashimoto's, so we are going to give it a try. My 16 yo is kicking and screaming about it all. But emotionally she is locked into resisting everything upon first exposure to it. Anyway, yesterday was our first day and the very first thing I made was a hit! And I realized it is zero waste too!
I got this recipe from Hashimoto's 4-Week Diet by Karen Frazier. It's an elimination diet.
This recipe is so simple and it turned out really well! These things look and taste like pancakes! It only take 4 ingredients, all of which I had on hand. (Zero waste notes are in the parentheses).
This recipe is supposedly for 4 servings.
2 bananas, mashed (compost banana peels; stupid sticker is trash)
4 eggs, beaten(compost egg shells; recyclable cardboard egg cartons)
1/2 tsp cinnamon (glass jar with tin lid)
some coconut oil for the pancake pan (glass jar with tin lid)
Mix the first 3 ingredients together to get a 'batter.' Melt the coconut oil to coat the pan well. Make sure the pan is hot. Then pour in scant 1/4 cup of batter for each pancake, and cook for about 3 minutes or until you see bubbles forming and the edges getting firm. Flip and cook for another minute or two on the other side.
The recipe called for serving with fresh raspberries, but I didn't have any, so I topped with some homemade blackberry jam.
Delicious and so easy!!! A definite keeper! I might make these every Saturday morning instead of our usual bagel run (which is very hard to give up, especially for my husband).
For dinner I made spaghetti with meat sauce (I keep forgetting about Meatless Monday - it seems I tend to want to be meatless on Tuesdays instead!).
Spaghetti:
Non GMO corn pasta by De Boles (small plastic window in cardboard box)
Brown rice pasta by De Boles (same)
Jar of marinara sauce (glass jar with metal lid)
ground beef - (local, grass fed, but wrapped in plastic)
topped with a little parmesan cheese (glass jar, metal lid)
Sunday, October 1, 2017
The Plague and I - Book 28
I am on a Betty MacDonald kick. Right after I finished The Egg and I, I started on The Plague and I which I remember really enjoying when I first read it many years ago. I enjoyed it again! I confess I find the peek into a TB sanatorium before World War II fascinating. MacDonald describes the atmosphere, the people, her emotions and experiences in such a way that the whole book was a pleasure. It wasn't as funny (or trying to be as funny) as The Egg and I but since I found the humor a little forced when I reread The Egg and I, I kind of liked that aspect of it. I think her writing was just better in this book. It flowed better to me. And I wasn't cringing at her characterizations of Native Americans and such. In fact, her dearest friend from the sanatorium turned out to be a young Japanese girl with a wicked, dry sense of humor.
Definite two thumbs up!
For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.
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