This Week's Meal Plan

My dear friend Ashley commented yesterday on a post in which I said I would post some meal plans while I am on this elimination diet for my migraines so you all can see what I'm eating.

I'd forgotten about that, so I thought I'd remedy it. Here is my sample meal plan for this week. I go Tuesday to Monday cause my hubby gets paid on Mondays and I grocery shop after that.

 Some general notes:
For breakfast, I always have oatmeal, bacon or eggs in some shape or form...so I don't include those in the meal plans. Makes for boring repetitive writing. I make a list of snacks each week and pick from the list every day for snacks. I also only make a "dessert" once per week or when I'm craving something dessert-y. On days that I work I usually don't have a real dinner. I have a combo of snacks and leftovers!

My recipes are some from my hubby, some from online, some from cookbooks and some from my head. If I have a link to a recipe, I'll throw it in!

Oh, one last thing. My hubby is on a diet and works at a restaurant during the day and so only eats dinners with me. He also doesn't eat leftovers....so I don't need to always cook a ton of food. Mostly just cooking for me. I also buy snacks for him that I can't eat so he has his own "go-to" foods when he needs a quick snack. 

Tuesday:
Lunch: Stuffed sweet potato squash with ground lamb/goat cheese
Dinner: Seared Tuna Stead with sauteed green beans and quinoa

Wednesday (work): 
L: Thanksgiving leftovers from the freezer
D: Stuffed squash leftovers

Thursday:
L: Chicken salad on rice crackers
D: Oven roasted chicken with mashed cauliflower/parsnips with leeks and roasted brussel sprouts

Friday:
L: Veggie Latke's with left over oven roasted chicken
D: Gluten free chicken and dumpling soup (Using this dumpling recipe)

Saturday (work):
L: Soup leftovers
D: Leftover mishmash or snacks

Sunday (work): 
L: Soup leftovers
D: Roasted beef shank in crockpot with mashed parsnips

Monday:
L: Beef shank leftovers
D: Stir-fry with whatever meat I feel like that day and veggie mix from the freezer with brown rice

Snacks for the Week:
Raw almonds
Sheep/goat milk yogurt
Goat cheese with rice crackers and smoked salmon
Plain hummus with veggies
Celery with natural peanut butter
Brown rice cakes with artichoke dip on top
Apple with natural peanut butter

Desserts for the week!
Coconut Milk Custard (will blend that recipe with this one and only use liquid stevia as the sweetner)

The Diet

This has been the big deal around my house lately. I've been doing crazy diets for the last six months, trying to rid myself of migraines. Well, they've all been leading up to this mega-diet. The short run down is, I need to give my liver/adrenals/gut a rest and figure out what food my body likes and can handle and which foods it hates and can't handle.

A lot of the symptoms I have are common to people with gluten intolerance and dairy intolerance. Sigh. Sometimes though, it's just that your gut is angry and once it's not angry, you'll be able to eat those things.  We know my gut is angry, because yeast have taken it over and are reproducing, not giving the good guys a chance to fight back. This explains many of my gastro symptoms. I'm hoping I'm not truly intolerant to gluten or dairy, but if I am, it won't be the end of the world. There are lots of alternative things I can eat. I won't die. (I keep telling myself this....I'm SUCH a dairy girl.)

All these angry things in my gut could be overtaxing the gut, which is an insult to the body, which could and would produce headache. So, this diet is an elimination diet. Everything that might be causing a problem, we took out of my diet. Oh, and we also have to kill off the yeast, so I can't eat anything that feeds them. Plus, I'm taking a probiotic so the good guys can move in as the bad guys die. Complicated, huh?


What I can't eat:
Dairy
Gluten
Sugar/honey/any sweeteners except for pure stevia
Certain veggies: corn, peas, white potatoes, bananas

Alcohol
Caffeine
Table salt
MSG

What I can eat in limited quantities:
Brown rice/quinoa - 1/2 cup 3x/day max
Raw non-roasted/salted nuts and seeds - a small handful 3x/day max
Fruits - apple, pear or berries only once per day
Tomatoes - once per week
Fish - twice per week
Mushrooms - limit

What I CAN eat:
Filtered water
Herbal teas with Stevia
Vegetables
Beans - green, black, kidney, lentil
Peanut butter (counts a nut serving for the day)
Brown rice crackers (counts as a grain serving)
Brown rice cakes with peanut butter (counts as a grain and a nut serving)
EGGS
Organic/grass fed red meat, chicken, turkey, venison, ham, pheasant, duck, pork
Almond milk
GOAT CHEESE <---- my new best friend
EVOO/unprocessed canola oil/coconut oil/raw flax oil
Apple cider vinegar/rice vinegar/balsalmic vinegar
Real sea salt or Dead Sea salt

I know many of you are shaking your heads, asking what in the world I am going to eat. Well, luckily Dr. Shaw had a cookbook that he emailed me. These recipes got me through the first week. Then I did some googling and realized that the diet he has me on is very similar to the GAPS diet. There are MANY sites with GAPS recipes. My diet also has many similarities to the Paleo Diet and there are also many free recipes for that. Plus, the cookbook I have, Nourishing Traditions, has many recipes that are ok on my diet and many others that can be modified to be ok. I'm eating, I promise.

Perhaps I shall post my first week's meal plan for you all. We'll see.

Eating Real Food on a Budget

Eating real food means that I have to follow a budget. It's more expensive in some ways, but cheaper in others.

Organic and whole foods can cost more.
BUT I'm not buying anything I can make myself or snack/processed foods.

Ta-da! More expensive, but buying fewer items, so it should equal out, right? Right.

Unless you are me and go to Trader Joe's for the first time, get excited about all the food you can actually eat there and buy a ton of splurge items. I spent way too much money at Trader Joe's and blew up my food budget.

I cried.
Yes, I cried.
A couple times.

I have been trying really hard to stick to our processed food budget and it's been working, until now. It made me upset that I had such weak willpower and went over so much. So not me.

Luckily, my loving and forgiving husband has been working overtime and covered it for me.

I cried again when I told him. AND, I just did the numbers and realized the total I told him I went over was a low estimate.
Poo.

I'll have to tell him the real estimate in the morning.
Double poo.

So, to understand what happened, I went over each receipt from all six stores I went to.
AND after about an hour of computing and circling things on receipts that were splurges......


I feel better.

My meal plan would have fit into my budget if I hadn't gone over and splurged and if I hadn't needed to stock up.

Yes, I'm crazy and anal to spend an hour and break all this down, but its necessary.
I need to be able to do this on a real budget.
It's important to me.
Thanks for listening.

Stayed Up Too Late

I had an awesome blog planned that would tell you how much freezer cooking and such I did over the last two days. So awesome. And yummy. I even had pictures. Well, I still have them.

Buuuuuut. I stayed up too late looking at thing in my Google Reader and Pinterest.
Whooops!

Maybe another day. Work tomorrow.
Shower and sleep now.

Night!

P.S. -NO MIGRAINE TODAY!!!! YAY! Days like today make me feel like everything I am changing and modifying makes a difference. Yes. Days like today get me through days like the last 5, all of which had migraines in them. You win some, you lose some. Today, I won. Hallelujah! Psalm 21.

(Lazy) Two-Week Meal Plan

This is a lazy meal plan.....or perhaps I will just call it a flexible meal plan. Since I've been eating real food that I actually have to cook and because I hate food-type stores, I now realize the need to meal plan. So, I list out a bunch of meals that I will cook with some sides and then a few desserts, go shopping all at once, cook in large batches, freeze some, eat some and then we are done! Whew. Oh, I list breakfast items, too.

Breakfast items get their own category, because I love breakfast. Favorite meal of the day. YUM.

Two Week Meal Plan - May 27 to June 9th

Main Dishes

Lemon Garlic Drumsticks
Eggplant Torta (sorta like lasagna I think!)
Cucumber Soup
Apple Bacon Tomato Soup
Tortilla Wraps
Chicken & Fruit Salad
Marinated Chicken dish
Ahi Tuni Steaks with Coconut Lime Cous Cous

Sides

Squash/Onion/Zucchini sauteed up in EVOO
Side Salads
Hummus - 3 different kinds cause I'm making a lot!

Breakfast

Eggs - any new way I can think of!
Hot Wheat Cereal
Gluten Free Apple Pancakes (although I'm sorta sick of these)
Bean/Deer/Tomato Quiche
Bean Apple Cinnamon Muffins
Overnight Oatmeal (maybe....can't decide if its important to stay away from oats)

Desserts

Yogurt with Fruit (If my new yogurt starter ever comes)
Baked Custard
Flourless Cocoa Cake
Organic Strawberry Smoothies

So there you have it! Some of the recipes I am altering to make them more nutritious, or just plain ok for me to eat right now. For all the main dishes, I just make the recipe and it's usually enough to feed me and Justin for one meal plus have one to two leftover dishes to pack up for work or lunches. Some recipes I am striving to make two of so I can have a freezer meal when I don't feel like cooking. Like today when I made Cucumber Soup, I made a triple batch because cukes were on sale when I went shopping so I got 6, instead of the two the recipe called for!

I'm getting used to cooking smarter, not more. AND cleaning smarter, not more or harder. Right now, I have three types of beans soaking on my counter. Tomorrow I shall cook three pots of beans for a long time, use some beans right away in recipes and freeze the rest to have instant "canned" beans when I need them. Using dry beans is MUCH cheaper than buying in the can. Plus safer.

Ok, longest post ever. Sorry! Bye!

Yogurt and Things

I killed my first batch of yogurt. I actually killed it while re-hydrating the starter. Special, huh? Apparently, they aren't kidding then they say that your mesophilic yogurt will die if you let it get above 78 degrees F on your counter. It's true. Mine turned into curds and whey, not yogurt. (Although it was in my oven with the oven light turned on. Dang thing got to like 84 degrees in there! Crazy!!)

Sad day.

So, I have the second half of my starter re-hydrating on top of the fridge. When I woke up at 7:45 this morning, my little thermometer said it was 70 degrees in my kitchen. Hopefully it didn't get too cold there last night. Hoping that the heat from the fridge keeps it warm, but not too warm!

Sigh. Counter-top yogurt might be harder than I thought if my counter tops won't cooperate by being a steady temperature.

Gluten Free Waffles

I made some gluten free waffles the other day, 

because I was dying for some oatmeal, pancakes, gluten, --something. 

I used the recipe on the back of the Shiloh Farms Tapioca Flour.  I didn't really read the directions about mixing the dry, then the wet, whipping the egg whites. 

Yeah.

I just plopped it all in a bowl and stirred. 

I was afraid they wouldn't turn out because of my lack of direction-following, but they did! 

See? Crispy golden yumminess.

They taste a little eggy and are a bit chewy, but not bad. It's a good taste for sure. 

If you are wondering about the odd shape, that's because I didn't use a waffle maker. I used a sandwich maker. Works just as well as a waffle maker 'cept without the cute little boxes. 

The recipe made a TON, which is cool cause I froze them and have been eating one or two toasted as snacks with butter and cinnamon! Double yum. 

Going Crazy

I am going slightly crazy tonight.

I want a hot fudge sundae. With oreos. I don't care if it's an all-natural raw milk ice cream with dark chocolate made with coconut oil fudge or even homemade soaked chocolate cookies-- I WANT SOME.

Sigh.

I am experiencing food fatigue, I think.

It's not because I'm on a "healthy" diet or even a "no-MSG-diet". It's because I'm on this really strict diet for a while here.

I have found healthy options to make chocolate, chocolate fudge, ice cream, peanut butter. All my comfort foods. You name it! There are healthy options out there for splurge items as long as you eat in moderation. Right now I am in a stage where I have total denial of homey, comfort foods that I like.

I just feel tired tonight. Tired of this stupid diet. Tired of these stupid headaches.

I made pumpkin bread. It tastes like sorgham flour and rice flour and it  made me want to barf. I can smell it in my house and I want to barf.

I'm eating my third bowl of rice today because nothing else sounds appetizing. Cereal would be nice. Oatmeal would be nice. Cheese on things again without worrying about color additives. Chocolate. Cookies. Cake. Tea. Coffee.

Sigh.
Two more weeks left, right??

My Life in Pictures

I got a starter for water kefir in the mail last week. I quickly set the kefir grains to re-hydrating. 

(Because they came in the mail dehydrated for better shipping)

There they are, re-hydrating. Just chillin' in some sugar water. 

The water is tan/yellow-y because I used organic cane sugar, which is brown.

Sunday was a hectic day. We grabbed some produce from a local farm store and I spent four hours in the kitchen washing it all, chopping it, prepping it to be eaten and cooking meals for work the next two days.

Up above you see some apples and turnips with their tops chopped off soaking in soapy water.  They soaked there while I did ten billion other things before getting back to scrubbing them. 

I made yellow split pea Dahl and Jeera rice and a gluten-free rhubarb/apple crisp with a biscuit top. I also made a brown rice/tomato/onion/eggplant casserole to put in the freezer for a quick freezer meal. 

I LOVE this new eggplant casserole. 

Did you know you needed to let eggplant sit with salt on top for an hour before cooking it to let all the bitter juice drain off? I didn't either! Makes a WORLD of difference. 

These little turnip guys are pretty, huh? Hope they are tasty! 

This is the water kefir I have brewing right now. It's living life in my turned off oven with the oven light on. Makes it nice and warm in there. Perfect for all that probiotic goodness to grow! 

I am hoping to make lime-aid with it when it's done. 

Should be done soon. It was too sugary early today, so I'm letting it go a bit longer. 

After I get this going successfully, I am going to try to make yogurt. YUM!

I felt like crocheting, so I made some washcloths for the kitchen because I spend a lot of time there. Might as well have cute washcloths, right? I used 100% cotton from Wal-mart and various different stitches. There are about four other stitches/patterns I want to try. Should have about eight washcloths when it's all said and done. 

Here are the others. I think the brown in my favorite!

Hopefully they can replace our bacteria laden sponges that we've had forever. 

The seedling are all doing well. We've had some major rain the last few days, so the marigolds on the right and the tomato plants in the center are looking a lil' yellow. I put them under the glass table today to let them dry out a bit. The beans and peas behind them are doing GREAT! They just keep getting taller! I think they will need to go in the ground soon. 

The herbs in the tin cans never came to fruition and then the rain drowned whatever might have been thinking about growing. I'll just have to replant them!

All my chives are doing well and growing little flowers, but the basil plants from last year died. I might just cheat and buy a basil plant from the farm store. OR I might start over again with seeds. Sigh, it's just so late to try and start from seed now. Oh well. Such is gardening. 

Tired

This was my kitchen tonight so I'd be ready to working and eat the next two days.

Broccoli, short grain brown rice, chicken with lemon and cooked apples/pears.

These days my kitchen seems like it is always dirty and I am always cooking.

OR you could look at it as I am cooking as much as a normal person now,

and cleaning as much as the kitchen should be cleaned. 

Mom, Dad, you'd be so proud. My kitchen is truly clean, clean at least once per day now.

Clean like my mom used to clean the kitchen right after dinner,

so that you knew the kitchen was closed and you weren't getting anything else.

Cept I'm usually too tired after dinner, so I clean it after breakfast.

Or while it's cooking. Works for me. 

Just still getting used to all of this. I LOVE the food now and I feel better.

Healthier. But right now, lots of cooking and cleaning. 

Some day, when I get better at all this, it won't be so much.

HA! Who am I kidding??

Some day we'll have kids and then it will get worse!

Oh well. They're worth it. 

Right?

I Have the Best Church Family EVER

We are very blessed with the little church we've found here, Bible Christian Fellowship in South Butler. Its a small church plant, filled with people who love the Lord. Namely, people who love the Lord and love to have large families. Many families in our church have 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9 kiddos! That was a huge pull for us when we were choosing a church, as we want to have a large family and want to learn how to raise them to love the Lord. Many of the families homeschool, which we might want to do. AND, the best part for me right now, is that many of them love gardening, canning, eating healthy and cooking with whole foods.

Amazing.

It is amazing how the Lord puts us in strategic places for just the right season in our lives. Perfect. Just when I need to learn how to cook with whole, healthy foods, the Lord puts me smack dab in the middle of ladies who know how to do that. (!!!) I am so blessed.

So, all of that leads up to what I really wanted to say. Two ladies from my church, Sally and Heather, bought me birthday gifts for my birthday two weeks ago. I told them both that they didn't need to do that, but they both did anyway! Sally bought me an amazing cookbook, Nourishing Traditions, and gave me all the her gluten-free flours/recipes that she didn't need anymore. LOTS of them. Heather put together a little cookbook of whole-food recipes and gave me a big bag full of the ingredients from Trader Joe's to make them! Made me feel really loved.

 

Here is my table full of all the flours, food and spices Sally and Heather gave me! I feel really blessed. Seriously, I could cry. This is amazing!

I am especially excited about the three ingredients above. Almonds, natural peanut butter and cous cous! YUM!

And lastly, the amazing Nourishing Traditions cookbook. If you look really hard, you can see all my cute little bean/pea sprouts growing and getting more leaves! Yay, grow little sprouts, grow. My tomatoes on the other hand, are so not worth photographing. In fact, I might I have killed some. I tried to revive some today, so we will see.

I Made Bone Broth from Chicken Drumsticks!

I am feeling quite happy with myself. I accomplished a lot of things on my list yesterday AND I made my very first bone broth. (!!) I love getting things on my list crossed over and I love making nutritious things for my body. Bone broth is very nutritious. My husband has always told me how good his stock from bones is, but we haven't made it since we've been married. Yesterday, I decided to give it a go since we have two packages of frozen drumsticks and Justin doesn't like drumsticks.

{If you'd like to read more about the nutritional quality of bone broth, here is a good article from the Weston A Price Foundation.}

I started with these frozen drumsticks. Don't be fooled by the "natural" stickers on them, they are probably not that natural, but it's what I had, so I used it!

I used the directions from my friend Sarah Eileen (who is wonderful and amazing!). I started out with taking all the meat off of the chicken drumsticks, as best as I could. I wasn't fanatical about it. I tried to break the bones, but I'm too weak. I threw it all in a stockpot and poured two tablespoons of white vinegar over it, again, what I had. I would prefer apple cider vinegar. Then I threw two raw diced onions and a bunch of fresh chives over it.

(My chive plants from last fall survived all winter!! I'll show you them later.)

I poured about 4 large plastic drinking cups of water over it and let it boil. After about 10-20 minutes, I tried to get off the scum, but wasn't super successful because I didn't want to remove the chives and the onions and they were in the way. I didn't worry bout it. I got some scum and that was fine with me. After boiling and taking off the scum, I let it simmer away for about 7 and a half hours. I drained off all the broth and reserved the chicken and veggies for later.

Below is what I got. It looks like a small container here, but it's actually pretty large. About 8 inches wide, 4 inches deep. YUM! It even has all sort of little pretty oils on top. Love it. I plan on cooking rice in it tonight.

And below here is all the chicken and onions/chives that I drained out of the broth. I am going to use this to make a big batch of chicken salad since Justin brought home some yummy Kaiser roll type things. (I'm not sure they are actually Kaiser rolls, but they kinda have the same shape. They might be.)

I froze the bones/fat that I used this time and I am going to put them through a second boil and get the rest of the minerals out of the bones, since they were still pretty hard. I read that most people do this, and the second broth comes out more as a clear broth, but still with all the nutrition. I'm going for it, but this time, I won't start at 4pm on the hottest day of the week. ;)

Thanks for sharing the recipe Sarah!