The Noodle Gods Have Aligned!

I am able to eat my favorite breakfast gluten free! Noodle Soup. I add rice noodles to un-chicken broth and make a gluten free, vegan soup. Paired with a fruit smoothie and this girl’s HAPPY! The rice noodles are a bit different but after they’re in the broth for awhile they’re really good. Thank you oh great, magnificent noodle gods!

I’ve been trying to find something gluten free that actually feels like I’m eating an entrée instead of a group of side dishes. Last night I felt like I had my first official gluten free meal. The entrée was Cheesy Potatoes and they were fabulous. Here’s the recipe:

Take two small or one cooked large russet potato, cubed, ¼ cup Daiya cheddar cheese, 1 tsp. Earth Balance butter, salt and pepper to taste. Put the potatoes in a dish, add the Earth Balance and microwave until hot and butter has melted. (2 minutes) Add salt and pepper and toss. Sprinkle on the Daiya cheese and return to the microwave until Daiya melts. (45 seconds)

I added a salad of green leaf lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber, dressed with light vinaigrette, and finished with a heavenly orange-berry –chocolate sorbet. It was a delicious dinner!

A couple of notes: I like to steam or slow cook my russets because I don’t like them dry and mushy. To save time, energy and for ease of meal preparation, I cook several at a time and have them ready in the refrigerator. Also, I have a 900w microwave. Your times might vary. I plan on trying this on the stovetop in my cast iron skillet. Daiya is available at Whole Foods and in Kansas, at HyVee. If you can't find it near you, click on the image.

What? Ahh … you noticed the orange-berry-chocolate sorbet? Yeah … it was heavenly … What? You want the recipe for that right now?! Hand over the chocolate and no one gets hurt? Far be it for me to stand between you and your chocolate!

The sorbet is basically my smoothie recipe frozen to the consistency of soft serve ice cream with shaved chocolate added. Here it is: ½ to ¾ cup of light cranberry juice, 1 orange, peeled and quartered, ½ cup of frozen blueberries, 3-5 frozen strawberries, 2” chunk of frozen banana. Blend well and pour into an ice cream freezer until it reaches the consistency you like. Toss in 1-2 tablespoons vegan chocolate chips. Enjoy! Chips can be shaved, chopped or whole. (Makes 2 servings)

I have a Donvier with a bowl that stays in the freezer until ready for use. It took about 6-7 minutes for the sorbet to get to the consistency I like. I put my leftovers in the freezer and then soften in the microwave, so if you don’t have an ice cream freezer, you could probably just put the smoothie in the freezer and soften it in the microwave prior to serving. Add the chocolate chips at the end.

When I run out of strawberries and blueberries, I’m going to try a tropical sorbet of oranges, pineapples, banana and coconut; and chocolate of course!

The biggest problem I’ve had with the switch to gluten free is how much food will hold me until the next meal. I used to eat a big breakfast knowing exactly what worked when lunch was going to be five hours later without an opportunity to eat between the two. The Weight Loss Challenge’s plan is to eat three meals and one snack per day while eating to satisfaction but not fullness. We are rating our hunger level, with a goal of staying between 4/hunger awakens and 7/completely satisfied on a scale with 0 being ravenous and 10 being sick.

I find that the foods that get me to 5 and 6 (neutral and satisfied) just don’t last as long as the heavier, gluten grains, so I’m pushing myself to 7 and even 8 (full) so that I am not ravenous an hour before my next meal.

I plan to sit down with a couple of gluten free cookbooks and really learn a bit about the grains that are available, choose some recipes, shop for the ingredients, and prepare them. Hopefully I’ll find some gluten alternatives with staying power. With this drastic change in foods, I also need to figure out my average calorie intake. Nice! I have some projects for this weekend!

Happy Birthday, B-Man! The journey continues.

Inveterate Experimenter

My community center is sponsoring their 2nd Annual Biggest Weight Loss Challenge, and since I stalled at a fifteen pound loss, I thought it would be a good idea to join. Sunday the 2nd we weighed in, were measured, and did a six-minute walk test to see how far we could walk and/or run in six minutes. Being a competitive sort, I just had to push it and so I mostly walked with about .10 mile of running added, for a total of .45 miles … Not a marathon-winning pace, but respectable. My feet were convinced we’d run a marathon.

Last Friday I decided to take my workout out of the pool and back onto the track. The muscles in my right leg felt healed (after a strength training move I should never have done) and I missed my walking sessions a lot, so I walked for 30 minutes, fairly quickly, and then moved to the elliptical for ten minutes. I stretched out and went home. My feet were hurting a bit.

That afternoon I had to do a bit of minor repair at the back fence line. A section of my neighbor’s fence had blown down and I needed to put a temporary fence up so that my dogs could be out in the backyard off leash. I was out in the cold wind for half an hour or so hammering 16-gauge galvanized mesh to fence posts. My fingers were numb from the cold, and my feet were aching from the stress of bending on an uneven surface. By evening my feet were screaming!

Saturday also took a toll on my feet since I was on them all day. A few friends had decided to have a progressive New Year’s Day event so we could share our holiday decorating with each other before we put everything away. My house was first on the list so I spent Saturday cleaning and preparing food for guests. This was a great way to share hospitality … half the work of having to prepare an entire evening and really FUN! My feet had toned down the cacophony, but were still being heard.

On Sunday when I went to workout, I walked 1.2 miles, had my scheduled Challenge weigh-in, then cycled for 20 minutes and headed down for the orientation meeting and initial team meetings with our newly-assigned team leaders.

My team leader is a meat, fat and green leafy veggie sort whose diet plan is contrary to almost everything I follow. His plan includes meat, seafood, fish, eggs, green and root vegetables and tubers, and includes saturated animal fat along with healthy fats. Basically his plan is a modified Atkins, with root vegetables and tubers being the only modification. He stresses in all caps, NO FRUIT, NO GRAIN, NO DAIRY, and NO LEGUMES. And, he said that exercise wasn’t critical … WHAT??

I find it interesting that I ended up in this group. The other two teams and all of the Challenge’s printed materials espouse Bob Greene’s ‘The Best Life’ plan. Go figure. I’m considering sending an email to the program organizer asking for his input on the discrepancy.

We discussed our differences after the evening ended and I agreed to give up gluten, but that was it. My vegan diet stands. I’m concerned that the individual support he offers will be subject to his bias. I’m taking a wait-and-see approach.

However, credit goes where credit is due and it was my team leader who got me interested in a gluten-free diet experiment. According to research that we discussed (and I researched online), gluten is inflammatory, and so a diet without gluten should significantly lessen arthritis and asthma because they are both responses to inflammation. Being an inveterate experimenter, I decided to adopt a gluten-free diet and gauge it's impact on my arthritis and asthma. I have experienced a significant reduction by eliminating dairy and eggs; however when I add a bit of running to my walking, I end up experiencing minor asthma attacks and my feet still ache. I am definitely hoping for a positive impact on these.

It will be tricky … gluten-free and vegan. Most of my comfort foods involve noodles. I see a lot of rice, quinoa and corn tortillas in my future. It’s being done by many, but it will be challenging to get started. Stay tuned!
Here are a few links if you are interested in more information. Huffington Post,  Mission Hills Integrative Therapy Newsletter, eHow.

The Gift of Time (And Some Great Tea!)

It's been awhile. This year has been a year of change. My company took medical insurance off of the benefit list, and I have a long string of pre-existing conditions which exist in the medical world, but not very much in my physical world. In the past I have been diagnosed with, and suffered from fibromyalgia, asthma, back trouble, a cancerous polyp, hypertension, and hypercholesterolemia (high cholesterol), and I had a total hip replacement in 2008. All of this adds up to being uninsurable by today's standards. 

Unfortunately for me, insurance companies don't ask what lifestyle changes a person has made. I work out, eat a vegan diet, and lead a less stressful life. My blood pressure is fine now, and my cholesterol (apparently more genetic than diet related) is getting closer. I haven't had an asthma attack since I quit ingesting dairy products, and the fibromyalgia is gone or so mild that I don't even notice it. Both of my hips, new and old, are doing fantastic, and my back doesn't bother me if I don't do anything stupid like lift a 50-pound sack improperly. My colon ... well, really, do we want to go there? 

In an effort to even the score, so to speak, I decided to semi-retire by taking Social Security Survivor Benefits. (For those of you that don't know me personally, my husband passed away in 2003. I qualified for benefits when I turned 60.) I would make the same amount of money, and with medical insurance off the table, I couldn't come up with a good reason to continue to work full time. I cut back to what Social Security allows me to make per month without losing any benefits. In my case it works out to three, six-hour days a week. 

So, the biggest change has been the gift of time. I manage to get everything done around the house, joined a community center and workout several times a week, take my dogs for a daily one-mile walk and still have time to read, take classes, volunteer, play flute in the New Horizons Band and enjoy life.

I recently decided to schedule my daily tasks such as working out, walking the dogs, and actually writing my blog! So, I got out my Blackberry and put recurring appointments in for each day of the week. I'm hoping that by adding this level of organization I will be able to get more out of this gift. So far, so good, I'm writing an entry today!

The weather was awful a couple of weeks ago and so I decided to stay in the entire weekend, during which I got my recipes organized ... YAY! I had them in a binder, but with the switch to eating vegan came a love of recipe collection and they quickly outgrew the binder. I had some room in a file drawer, so I made a hanging file for each category and now I just drop them in. Sweet!

Speaking of recipes, Kansas City has a magazine, Enhance, that is a wellness-focused publication. In the Nov/Dec issue they had a recipe for Ginger-Lemon Tea. It is my new favorite winter beverage! Here's the recipe: 1tsp of freshly grated ginger, 2 lemon wedges, honey & cayenne pepper to taste. Grate the ginger over the cup, fill with hot water, squeeze in the lemon juice and add honey and pepper to taste. It's awesome and provides a powerful immune system boost!

That's it for today. I have Blogging scheduled for Monday and Wednesday morning ... Y'all will know how well my new schedule works! ;)

"Awareness is bad for the meat business. Conscience is bad for the meat business. Sensitivity to life is bad for the meat business. DENIAL, however, the meat business finds indispensable." ~John Robbins, Diet for a New America

Comfort Food

I have found a less-than-healthy, but not unhealthy, delightfully-decadent comfort meal: Campbell's Tomato Soup made with almond milk and served with Farm to Market sourdough bread and Earth Balance vegan buttery spread. There isn't time to miss the Kraft processed American cheese food because you are dazzled by the deliciousness of the soup. Vegan Heaven!

This defines my problem, though: I am a wing-it eater. I eat what's convenient. I love spaghetti because I can make a ton of it, freeze it, and pull it out on a whim. The same goes for macaroni and cheese. Unfortunately I haven't found a vegan macaroni and cheese alternative. This tomato soup comes close to filling the void though. It's simple and can definitely be served up on a whim. Even without the sourdough, it's great with whatever bread is in the house.

My children and grandchildren thought I was a really good cook, and I was a good cook when it came to the standards. What I am not, is a creative cook. I don't really have that knack of knowing that if I add a touch of mustard to the dip, it will be perfection. And I certainly never got into the science of cooking. I didn't even know there was a science to cooking! That leaves me with coming up with an idea, checking it out online to see if it's been done, and if not then just giving it try. 

Through accident and serendipity I have found out that almond milk is a lot better than rice milk. I made a lovely, easy batch of scalloped potatoes using unsweetened almond milk. I was able to cut the fat in half by using half the butter (Earth Balance to the rescue!). It tasted great! (Another comfort food!)

So, two alternatives to my traditional comfort foods, and I have a plan for a third: Whole Foods has a house brand, ready-to-use, whole-wheat pizza crust that's delicious, but all of the vegan cheeses I've tried have been found lacking the correct texture and taste. So my question was, how can I add the taste/feel of cheese without adding bad taste or texture? I am going to create a thick roux using almond milk and Earth Balance, along with a couple of spices, and try spooning/drizzling it on top of the pizza sauce, and then top it with all my vegan pizza favorite toppings. I like diced onions, black olives, and Field Roast Italian Sausage. I know it won't have the texture of cheese, but I'd rather have a great taste and non-offensive texture than spend life without pizza.

It's pretty rare that what I try is inedible ... Maybe not great, or even something I'd make again, but at least edible. I'll let you know what category the pizza falls into!

Speaking of comfort foods, please read Jonathan Safran Foer's book, Eating Animals. It is his journey to discover the diet he wanted to feed his children. It's amazing. You can purchase it through Amazon by following my Amazon link.