Day 10

Today was not at all a glamorous food day. For breakfast I had a scoop of my vegan protein powder mixed with almond milk and a banana.

Lunch was steamed broccoli and leftover baked chicken drizzled with that yummy honey mustard I made yesterday.

I was invited to an essential oils party in the evening and didn't have a lot of time to eat. My husband made the kids grilled cheese sandwiches and since I didn't feel like cooking I had another protein shake. It held through the party and kept me from nibbling on the yummy snacks that were provided, but by the time I got home at nine I was pretty hungry. I ate some more baked chicken from the fridge and a handful of cashews.

I'm not even two weeks in a I'm already bored with my food. I feel there's so little I can eat and I'm eating the same things over and over. If I want to eat or snack, I have to cook which I don't much care for. I need to get organized and do some preplanning so I have a fridge full of "go" foods to avoid having to reach the same old things again and again. 

Day 9

Despite my culinary flops in recent days, I decided to try another new recipe for breakfast.  I pulled again from the cookbook Against All Grains and made banana porridge. You start by soaking cashews, almonds, and pecans overnights, and then whizzing them up in a blender with a banana and coconut milk. Then you heat the whole concoction on the stove. My husband and I really liked it. My son ate it if I drizzled honey on it. My daughter....a firm no. She's my cereal girl. There isn't much else she likes for breakfast. Three out of four ain't bad. I'm just glad this experiment was edible without any exceptions. I'll be making it again!

Lunch was leftover sloppy joe on a baked sweet potato. OMG. That's what I should have done last night. Forget those almond hockey pucks  biscuits! A sweet potato and joe is the way to go!

We had extra kids at our house tonight so I baked off some pizzas and sliced up a watermelon and called it good. I had a huge salad; spinach, romaine, tomato, onion, pecans, carrots and roasted chicken. I made my own honey mustard dressing which was a wonderful change from my usual vinegar and oil. I mean seriously. I would drink it with a straw. It was THAT good. 

Amazon came through for me again and delivered my vegan protein powder today. Hurray! I miss my morning protein shakes. I'm hoping between the protein, porridge, and eggs I'll have enough variety to keep from going crazy. Breakfast has always been a difficult meal for me and all these restrictions aren't making it any easier. I'd like to investigate some recipes for an allergy friendly granola. I do miss having the occasional bowl of cereal. I must get it from my daughter!

Day 8

I was grossly unprepared for today. Lesson learned: if you can't eat 90% of the food around you, do NOT fly by the seat of your pants. Plan, plan, plan or be hungry, hungry, hungry!

This morning I had a fasting blood draw. The appointment was scheduled for nine which meant I was RAVENOUS. My one shining moment of the day was that I remembered to pack myself some breakfast. I had other appointments and errands after the blood draw and since the drive-thru was out of the question, I borrowed my son's Angry Birds lunchbox and packed a coconut yogurt, berries and almonds. I scarfed it down in the parking lot of the doctor's office.

By the time lunch rolled around, I realized that I didn't have any dinner leftovers thanks to last night's Orange Chicken Fail. In fact, the fridge looked pretty bare. I ended up scrambling two eggs with two slices of peppered bacon and topped the whole mess with green chili, followed by a handful of cherries. Green chili counts as a vegetable, right?

I tried another recipe today, this time from the blog Elena's Pantry. Another big fat fail. I made almond flour biscuits which, straight from the oven, tasted pretty good. But they didn't rise and resembled hockey pucks rather than the fluffy biscuits pictured on her website. I have come to the conclusion that my baking soda is dead. Time for a new box! I still ate a couple of them smeared with peanut butter. My daughter came home from school and ate three!

For dinner I made sloppy joes, courtesy of the Pioneer Woman. That woman is a genius. Every one of her recipes is just delightful and her take on sloppy joes was no different.  A can of Manwhich is easy but it is also has corn syrup in it making it a no no food for me. Besides, these were SO much better than any 'ol can of Manwhich. Initially, I crumbled some of my hockey pucks, er, biscuits to pour my sloppy joe over but the coconut oil flavor in the biscuits clashed with joe so I picked it out and just ate my meat. No veggies. The crisper is empty except for a sad, wilted head of lettuce.

I have to go shopping tomorrow!

Day Seven-One Week Down!!

One week free of wheat, corn, soy and dairy! Yeehaw! To be quite honest I'm feeling pretty good. My energy is up, my face is clearing, the bloated belly is gone...its enough to encourage me to keep going for sure!

For breakfast I had Silk Chocolate Almond Milk blended with a banana and a scoop of peanut butter. It was mighty tasty but a bit too sweet. The chocolate milk had 21 grams of sugar in it!! What's up with that? I'm finding that a lot of the ready to eat alternatives have lots of sugar, perhaps in an effort to make them taste as good the original. I'll keep looking and will eventually get in the groove of things. I also had a handful of raw cashews to keep that zinc supplement in my stomach.

For lunch I had the last leftover hamburger patty and a baked sweet potato with a drizzle of olive oil, salt and pepper.

For dinner, I tried a recipe from my new cookbook, Against All Grain by Danielle Walker. I made her Orange Sesame Chicken in the crock pot with steamed broccoli and rice. The recipe has potential. It didn't taste like orange chicken though, more like General Tsos chicken. The sauce was too salty even though I halved the amount called for. The rice helped cut the saltiness. I'm not ready to abandon this one yet. It's easy to throw together and it doesn't use any weird ingredients.

I also whipped up a loaf of allergen free banana bread. My family loves banana bread and I had the perfect recipe. My own recipe would be difficult to adapt so I looked again to Mrs. Walker's cookbook and used her recipe instead. I used ingredients I never have before, mainly almond flour and canned coconut milk. My loaf doesn't look anything like the golden, fluffy slices in the book but it does taste good. The knife came out clean but its still gooey, almost like there was too much moisture in the batter. It didn't rise well either. Perhaps it's time for a new box of baking soda.  I won't consider it a total fail since it is tasty but it needs some work. I'm not sure where it went wrong. I've heard coconut flour is finicky and maybe I made an error when I added it to the batter. Either way, I'm still a little disappointed. I was a damn fine baker pre-allergies and now I feel like a novice again. Practice makes perfect but I may need to get another job to afford all of these new ingredients!

Day Six

Oh Monday. Do you have to come every week?

I suppose as Mondays go it wasn't too bad. I may or may not have fallen asleep on the couch for an hour after I took my daughter to school...

I had a final wrap up appointment with my allergist this morning and that extra hour on the couch put me a little behind. I had a quick breakfast of coconut milk yogurt, berries, bananas and almonds. I raced over the allergist's office where I learned that chemically, I am officially allergic to rubber, lanolin and hydrocortisone. Weird. The hydrocortisone really gets me. I was practically bathing in the stuff to try and get rid of my itchy rash when in reality all I was doing was prolonging my misery!!

After my appointment, I came home and had a lunch of leftover steak and brussel sprouts. I was afraid the sprouts would be mushy but they were just as good today as they were yesterday. I hit the gym after lunch. I didn't work out at all last week since the allergy test patches I had on my back prohibited me from bathing or sweating. This was also the first time in a very long time I went without any of my preworkouts. No Spark and no Argenine. I could definitely feel their absence but I still got a good workout in. I'm hoping in time I'll adjust to not having my "go go juice" to help me push my limits at the gym. I'm trying to be gentle with myself...easier said than done!

For dinner I made tacos for the family and made myself a taco salad with greens, black beans, taco meat, avocado, tomato and salsa. I didn't miss the taco shell at all but I wish I would have been able to have a little cheese. I'm longing for longhorn!

Day Five

Happy Mother's Day!

Along with a breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon and fruit, my family showered me with homemade gifts, flowers, and cards. They even did the dishes and wiped the counters while I took a shower! Once everyone was dressed, we hit up the bowling alley for some family fun. We visited a local smoothie joint for a light lunch and my husband made a FANTASTIC dinner of steak, roasted brussel sprouts and sweet potatoes. Poor brussel sprouts. They have such a bad reputation but those baby balls of cabbage are just delicious!!

Tomorrow begins a new week and I'd like to try some new recipes as well as eat on more of a schedule. Nothing rigid but I felt like this week I was snacking a lot, trying new foods and trying to get a rhythm. Before my diagnosis, I typically ate three meals a day with an afternoon snack and that's what I'd like to get back to.  I don't like to graze...it makes me feel chubby!

I'd also like to up my veggie intake. I can't do veg at breakfast. It makes me want to gag. I can put greens in a smoothie but that's as far as I'm willing to go. However, I should have no problem including veggies in my lunches and dinners. I'm usually just too lazy to do so, especially at lunch. Perhaps I should just start doubling our dinner veggies so I can eat the leftovers the next day. Cooked vegetables are still nutritious after spending the night in the fridge, right? I need to google it!

Day Four

I had a hearty Saturday breakfast of scrambled eggs, potatoes and bacon. For lunch I had a leftover hamburger patty and for dinner I had white chicken chili. My family loves this recipe but it calls for a cup of sour cream right before serving. I dipped my bowl out of the pot and then added the sour cream for the family. It was still good without the sour cream but the cayenne pepper kept sneaking up on me and making me choke!

Today was my first foray into the world of allergy friendly baking. I made chocolate chip almond cookies with Bob's Red Mill Almond Meal. The recipe was on the back of the bag. It uses coconut oil in place of butter which I like, and maple syrup as the sweetener. I was afraid the cookies would taste like pancakes but luckily, this was not the case. I used Enjoy Life chocolate chips which taste exactly like their traditional counterpart. Hurray!

The cookies turned out okay. The texture was similar to that of a chunky oatmeal cookie. They weren't super sweet and had a subtle almond flavor thanks to the almond meal and extract. These definitely aren't anywhere close to "wow" and I'm determined to find a better recipe but I was eager to start experimenting and I had all the ingredients on hand. My Amazon box came and I've got a big 'ol bag of blanched almond flour waiting for me so I'm hoping there is something truly yummy on the horizon!

My husband and I argued today about tostados. I asked for dinner ideas and he suggested tostados. I said I can't eat tostados so I will just eat the beans and toppings. He said he was going to stop suggesting dinner ideas because "I can't eat anything" and that I made him feel guilty for wanting to eat a tostado when I can't. It sounds absolutely ridiculous now, writing it down. We had a fight about Mexican food for crying out loud!  The issue for me was that his comment made me feel very hurt and unsupported in this difficult journey. I don't want to eat like this. Two separate doctors told me I had to eat like this to be healthy. It's not something I'm doing on a whim or to be trendy. I want to keep my family's food as normal as possible; I'm the one who has to adapt.  

I know this impacts my family as well as myself, but I'm doing my best to keep the changes small. My family can eat whatever they like but they are going to have to expect that I will have to modify what they eat for myself. We can have tostados but mine will be sans tortilla. We can have hamburgers but mine will be without cheese and a bun. Its hard for me but it doesn't have to be for them.