Giving gluten free a shot

Oh look, my semester of grad school is over and I have time to blog again.  YAY!!!

I've been thinking about going gluten free for about 4 months or so.  Never actually seriously thought about it, but every now and then following a gluten free or paleo diet comes up and I think about it.  Tom and I have talked about it a few times in passing but never seriously.

Three weeks ago I went to the doctors bc my blood pressure was OUT. OF. CONTROL.  I'm talking 150/100.  Yikes.  So now I'm on medication.  Let me start by saying that I am not someone who is anti medication.  If the medicine is going to make me better, then I am all for it.  However, I tracked my sodium intake for the first week I was on the medicine just to see how close to the recommended 2000 mg a day I was.  I averaged between 2000 and 3000 mg a day.  On a day where even one meal came from a restaurant.... we're talking 4000 or 5000 mg!!!!  It is insane the sodium in a flour tortilla from Chipotle.  Anyway, I'm getting side tracked.  I was noticing while I tracked sodium that bread seems to be the biggest culprit in my diet for sodium.  I normally have a slice of bread with peanut butter for breakfast and then a sandwich for lunch.  Even with the homemade bread I eat, there is 300 mg in one slice.  My bread consumption alone is 900 mg of sodium a day!!!!  That's insane.  So this is when I started to think more seriously about being gluten free.

I have a co worker who is allergic to gluten so I've been talking to her about it too.  We had a staff breakfast two weeks ago so I decided to try gluten free baking and made muffins:

http://www.spartan.com/food-of-the-day/recipe-of-the-day/lemon-strawberry-muffins/

 

 

The batter was so stiff and not at all like normal muffin batter.  I figured that it was just a product of all the weird ingredients so I baked them anyway.

 

They didn't rise!  Like at all.  They were these hard, tasteless muffins. :(  I still had half the batter left so I emailed the author of the recipe and asked for help.  She suggested adding more coconut milk or egg.  I added both.  I also decided to go to the store and get more vanilla extract.

 

While I was at the store... I found out that Aldi now carries gluten free products!!!  I got all of this (granola, crackers, mac and cheese, pizza crust mix, baking mix, chocolate chip cookie mix) for only $22.  Take that whole foods!

 

 

Anyway... the second round of muffins turned out better.  The taste was still a little weird but I guess that's to be expected when you bake with quinoa flour.

 

In the last few days I've been experimenting with other gluten free stuff.  I'm sticking to mixes from a box for now so that I don't have as much to try and get right.

 

 Sunday morning I used this baking mix to make waffles. They were delicious!

     

Sunday night I made gluten free pizza dough (again, from a box).  I spread the edges of the pizza a little too thin and it burned but other than that it was yummy.  The sodium is still really high in this mix so I need to find a better option, but for now it was great.

Tonight for dinner I had gluten free brown rice pasta with sauce, peppers, onions, spinach and meatballs.  The meatballs are not gluten free because I have frozen meatballs to use up.  But the brown rice pasta was good!

 

 

 

Low carb dinner or pancakes... though choice (NOT)

Today was supposed to be a low carb day.... today is also Fat Tuesday AKA Pancake day.  What is a girl to do?  Make pancakes!  That's what!!

Warning... this recipe is not healthy and not unprocessed.  I used good old fashioned all purpose white flour.  I'm not even sure why I have it in my house (as I type this I'm remembering that I bought it to make play dough when we were studying land forms).

Anyway.... here is the recipe:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Good-Old-Fashioned-Pancakes/Detail.aspx 

Ingredients 

Original recipe makes 8 servings

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon white sugar

• 1 1/4 cups milk
• 1 egg
• 3 tablespoons butter, melted

Directions

1. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Make a well in the center and pour in the milk, egg and melted butter; mix until smooth.
2. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. Brown on both sides and serve hot.

They were very fluffy and very delicious.  I don't regret my choice at all.... although I will go do some sit ups now..... 

Chicken Parm and carbs....

Super quick post because, well, I should be doing homework right now.  Oh the joys of grad school.  If we have a snow day tomorrow, I promise to post about my failures with carb cycling while in Vegas (big surprise).  

Anyway, tonight for dinner I made chicken Parmesan.  Today is a low carb day and tomorrow, when I will eat leftovers, is a high carb day.  Low carb meals are supposed to be protein, fat and veggies.  High carb is protein, carb and veggies.  Chicken parm has breadcrumbs (carb) and cheese (fat).  Hmmmm.  What a conundrum.  

Wellllll.... I made tonight's chicken with out breadcrumbs and tomorrow's chicken has breadcrumbs and not cheese.  I also made asparagus with olive oil, garlic and Parmesan cheese.  Yummmmy. 

Of course, neither of my chicken breasts looks as delicious as the ones I made for Tom that have breadcrumbs and cheese.  Man, that's the life.  

Paelo baking

A friend of mine on facebook posted some really yummy looking pics of some chocolate gooey cookies from this blog:

http://cleaneatingwithadirtymind.com/ 

Once I checked the blog out I wanted to make everything.  I was searching for gluten free recipes because I have a coworker who is gluten free (and another one is nut free, and another chocolate free).  I was planning to have a team meeting today (but thanks to the snow that did not happen) and I knew everyone would hate me for making them come to a meeting on Valentines day, so I wanted to find a recipe that everyone could have.

 Last Sunday my friend Susan came over and we set out to make chocolate chip cookies.  Just kidding!  The recipe called for coconut flour and giant does not carry such a product.  I came home from the grocery store and ordered some on Amazon.  Plan B. Reese's swirl brownies.  The recipe calls for almond butter but the nut free substitute was sunflower seed butter (also not available at Giant).  I ordered some of that online too.  We decided to make it with the almond butter and try it out.  I was excited bc I thought this recipe would satisfy gluten free and nut free (once the sunflower seed butter came in) but it turns out my nut free coworker can't do that either.  :(  Oh well, we made them anyway... (My notes on the recipe are in red, the rest is from the blog)

Paleo “Reese’s” Swirl Brownies
*Makes 9 servings
Ingredients:
3 ounce dark chocolate bar 60% cacao or higher (I used Alter Eco) I used whatever I had in my cabinet...
1/2 cup coconut oil, liquid
3/4 cup creamy almond butter or sunflower seed butter (separated into 1/4 cup and 1/2 cup)
1/4 cup pure maple syrup, grade b My maple syrup is grade A.  Not sure of the difference... guessing its a processing thing, Paleo diets are EXTREMELY unprocessed (like the next recipe calls for "grass fed butter" what??)
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
3 organic cage free eggs My eggs were not cage free, too poor for that.
1/4 cup coconut palm sugar I used stevia instead, which should be ok Paleo wise bc its a plant
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup of dark chocolate chips

These are the chocolate chips I prefer, Enjoy Life.  Whole Foods usually carries the mini chips, the mega chunks I found on Amazon.  I got a package with 3 bags of mini chips and 3 bags of the mega chunks for 30 bucks.  

Ignore the ingredients to the right of the bread maker, those are for the cookies that we didn't end up making.... 
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. In a medium sized metal bowl melt the dark chocolate bar using the double boiler method by placing the bowl over a pot of boiling water.
3. Once the chocolate is melted remove from heat and slowly stir in the liquid coconut oil.
4. Then stir in 1/4 cup almond butter (or sunflower seed butter for nut-free option), maple syrup, vanilla extract and eggs.
5. Now whisk in the dry ingredients, the coconut palm sugar and unsweetened cocoa powder.
6. Fold in the chocolate chips.
7. Grease an 8×8″ square glass pan liberally with coconut oil or butter and pour in the brownie batter. Then pour the remaining 1/2 cup almond butter (or sunflower seed butter for nut-free option) evenly over the top of the batter and gently slide a butter knife around to create swirls through the batter.
8. Cook for 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool and enjoy!

Susan will probably back me up and say they were good.  They definitely didn't taste like Godiva brownies form a box (I mean, who doesn't love those?) but I liked them.  I would even choose them over Godiva yumminess because I know that they are not half bad for me.  We each had one and the rest went in freezer bags.  Now I have no excuse to eat crappy junk food when I need a fix (damn it!)

Cut to this week and two snow days in a  row (today is day 2!!!)  I promised my class I would make them cookies for Valentine's day because they filled up the warm fuzzy jar (they get to put cotton balls in a jar for doing nice things and then when its full they get a reward).  Anyway... the coconut flour came in the mail on Wednesday and I wanted to try the Paleo cookies anyway.  Win- win.  

Paleo C4 Cookies
*Makes 24
Ingredients:
2 cups cashew butter (see recipe below)
1/2 cup grass-fed butter, melted
1 organic free-range egg 
1/4 cup raw honey, melted I used regular honey not raw.... 
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup coconut flour
2 tablespoons organic maple sugar
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 bag Guittard Extra Dark Chocolate Chips I used the enjoy life chocolate chips and chunk (1/4 cup each)




 Funny note about the coconut oil... Tom saw it in the cabinet and got excited because he thought it was marshmallow fluff (gross).  He was disappointed when he realized it was coconut oil. 


Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and set aside. Make cashew butter using recipe below.
2. Put the grass-fed butter in a microwave safe dish and microwave until melted, about 30-60 seconds. Watch closely to make sure it doesn’t get too hot. When most of it has melted, stir to melt any remaining butter.
3. In a medium sized bowl add the melted butter, egg, honey, and vanilla. Make sure the butter isn’t too hot so it doesn’t cook the egg. Mix the ingredients together using a whisk or hand mixer. Set aside.
4. In a separate large bowl add the cashew butter, coconut flour, maple sugar, unsweetened cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. Pour the melted butter mixture on top and stir the ingredients together with a whisk or spoon until completely combined. Fold in 1/2 cup of chocolate chips. Add more if desired. Refrigerate for 10-15 minutes or until dough firms up.
5. Take a handful of dough and roll into a ball about the size of a golf ball. Place on the parchment lined baking sheet. Repeat the process until you have 12 on the tray. Use your palm to slightly press and flatten the balls down into a cookie shape. They will spread some during baking.
6. Bake for 10-13 minutes or until golden brown. Repeat process with remaining dough. Let cool on the baking sheet.
7. While the cookies are cooling, melt the rest of the chocolate chips using the double boiler method by placing a metal bowl over a pot of simmering water and stirring until the chocolate is melted. Then dip the bottom of a cooled cookie in the melted chocolate, tip the bowl to get a better coating if needed. Place back on to the parchment lined baking tray. Once completed, place in the refrigerator to harden for at least 10 minutes. Enjoy!
Cashew Butter
Ingredients:
3 cups raw cashews
2 teaspoons coconut oil, melted
few pinches of sea salt
Directions:
1. In a food processor add your cashews and puree for a few minutes or so depending on how awesome your food processor is. You will have to stop and scrape down the sides a few times. Once you start to get an almost dough like consistency, slowly add the coconut oil and then a little bit of salt and puree some more. For this recipe it doesn’t have to be as finely textured as store bought nut butter, you actually want it to be more dough like.


 Man, that's a lot of cashews!!!!  You definitely had to scrape a lot!  Not really on the sides, but getting down by the blades.  As the cashews turned to a dough like consistency they got stuck around the blades.  It did actually turn out pretty dough like, but there were still some clumps so I ended up having to mix the dry ingredients into it by hand to break them up (I washed my hands first).

Well, so far so good.  They certainly look like cookies!  Also, the dough is the most delicious cookie dough ever.  And its basically all protein (and fat...) because its mostly nuts.  Seriously, yummm.



Look at that!  It looks like a cookie after baking too!!!!  And, they were pretty good.  Like I would choose these over some processed chocolate chip cookies (maybe not Nestle, but definitely chips ahoy). 



I left 10 cookies out and put the rest in the freezer.  Oh yeah, and I forgot I have a kid with nut allergies so I can't even bring these into school.  I made them heart shaped sugar cookies from a bag instead... sorry kids. :(

Weekend Shenanigans (did I spell that right?)

Ok short and sweet wrap up of my weekend tonight because I cut my finger on something this evening (I have no idea what) and it kinda hurts to type.....

Susan and I decided to start our reward day a little early and go from Friday night until Saturday afternoon instead of all day Saturday.  We went to Social Pub and Pie in Fed Hill for the most delicious pizza ever.


There might be several pics of this pizza on my blog in other posts because I love it that much.  Like I want to be eating it right now.  Caramelized onion and blue cheese!  Off to the side of the plate is pesto and chicken pizza.  That was our first item trying that one and it was pretty tasty.  After a bottle of wine we ended up ordering another blue cheese and onion pizza... yes that's right, 3 pizzas + 2 ladies + 1 bottle of wine = reward day indeed.

The next day I made up for it (slightly) by having a fairly ok breakfast.  I mean, that is cream cheese inside my omelet, but the rest is not unhealthy.

Saturday morning I paid bills and did dishes and then it was time to go to the gym.  Power Hour at Charm City Fitness was certainly worth it this past weekend.  It kicked my butt.  As I was doing a million and one calf raises (with lots of weight) the trainer told me I would not be able to comfortably wear heels until next weekend (which is good timing because I'll be in Vegas next weekend!!!!!).  He meant it.  My legs hurt all day Sunday and Monday.  We went to Panera after class which undid a lot of the work out (mostly because I got my sandwich on asiego cheese bread, had broccoli and cheddar soup instead of black bean, and got a baguette... whoops).  But hey, this was supposed to be my last reward day meal anyway. 

I was all set to eat well the rest of the day (since I technically started my reward day on Friday).  But after LITERALLY 6 hours of sitting at my computer doing work for my online grad class (which started the week I was in NY so I was playing catch up) I decided I needed some Great Pumpkin Dessert (my dads name for this really yummy dessert. Recipe is below).  I have a bunch of this frozen from Christmas when my dad made it.  It was delicious.  

On Sunday I had A LOT more homework to do. I also knew I would have to do a lot of homework throughout the week since I would be gone this weekend.  So I decided to prep as much for the week as I could.  First, I got chili going in the crock pot for Sunday dinner.  Then I made taco meat, egg muffins, packed yogurt and cheese for snacks, measured out protein powder for shakes, made bread crumbs.  It was a really productive morning/ early afternoon.

Later on Sunday I did some Paleo baking... but more on that in a post on another day.  I said I wasn't going to type a lot and I lied, so now my finger hurts.  Also, apparently an injured finger makes me over use parenthesis (like this) so I apologize (but not really).  Good night everyone. 

Oh yeah... Great Pumpkin dessert (not unprocessed at all, but delicious):

Clean eating doesn't have to taste gross

Last week we were in NY for a full week because we had a death in the family. :(  We have amazing friends and family and were fed delicious, cheesy, fattening foods all week long.  Especially the pizza.  Man I love Brozetti's pizza.  Like I want some right now... yummm.  Anyway, we ate well for a week and a half.  Really well.  Not only was there always food, but there was SO MUCH DESSERT.   Brownies, double chocolate cookies, chocolate chip cookies, cupcakes, pound cake, apple pie.  I ate all of it. Yup.  Diet be damned... I ate my heart out.

I was really worried that when we got back home I was going to be really bored with clean, healthy food.  Over the past few days I've been pleasantly surprised at how delicious toast and peanut butter is for breakfast.  And how much I missed eating fruits and veggies all day.  We've had some pretty delicious dinners this week too.



Roasted potatoes with olive oil, rosemary, and garlic.  Served with turkey tenderloin from Aldi and peas.  Yummy.  And I was full after one small plate instead of just eating all day.




Tonight we had meatloaf (Tom makes that, I don't like to put my  hands in ground turkey).  Ground turkey with carrots, onions, peppers, salt, pepper, basil, Parmesan cheese,  and egg.  He forgot the bread crumbs, which worked out because today was a low carb day so I shouldn't have the bread crumbs anyway.  We had mashed cauliflower with it, cauliflower with Parmesan cheese, garlic, cream cheese, salt, pepper.  Really yummy. And a bonus, I made the cauliflower on my snow day yesterday so all I had to do was microwave it when the meatloaf was done.

This weekend I'm planning to do some baking.  Found some really delicious looking Paleo desserts on this blog:
http://cleaneatingwithadirtymind.com/ 

I'm especially excited about these chocolate chip cookies:

And these Reese's swirl brownies:

  

Recipe's and results later!  I plan to bake while doing homework (grad school started this week) on Saturday.  Then I will pack them up and freeze the leftovers so I have them for future cheat days. Yay.

Meal Planning

There would really be no way to stick to carb cycling without meal planning.  After reading the book on Tuesday I planned out meals for the rest of the week.  It took me about 30 minutes and I was only dealing with Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (Saturday is a reward day... thus not planned).  Susan and I keep saying we need to sit down and make a list of options for each meal of the day so we can just pick things off a list.  This. Needs. To. Happen.  It would make planning much faster.  I was particularly hard to think of proteins for every meal and snack.  Here's what I came up with.

Wednesday:
Breakfast- Protein: Eggs with peppers, Carb: Toast with jelly and an apple

Snack- Protein: Yogurt, Carb: Granola

Lunch- Protein: Tuna with mustard not mayo, Carb: 1 slice wheat bread, grapes

Snack- Protein: Whey powder, Carb: Almond milk

Dinner- Protein: Tilapia, Carb: Brown rice, Veggie: green beans

Thursday:
Breakfast- Protein: Whey powder, Fat: Almond milk, Carb: Apple

Snack- Protein: Egg muffin, Fat: cheddar cheese

Add caption

So I was trying to think of ways to get in more protein, enter the egg muffin.  I cooked up some peppers and spinach, put them in the bottom of a muffin tin, and then poured an egg in each cup.  Bake at 350 for 20 minutes.



Lunch- Protein: Chicken, Fat: Parmesan cheese, Veggies: Salad

Snack- Protein: Egg muffin, Fat: Almonds

Dinner- Protein: Chicken, Fat: Blue cheese, Veggie: green peppers and hummus

Seriously... this dinner was delicious.  Broiled blue cheese should be on everything.  I just cooked the chicken and sauteed some onions.  Top the chicken with the onions and blue cheese and then broil.  Yummm.

 Friday:
Breakfast- Protein: Egg muffin, Carb: Apple

Snack- Protein: Whey powder, Carb: Almond milk (And I do realize I'm using almond milk as a carb and a fat depending on the day.... I refuse to drink protein shakes with water- I tried and its gross- so I'm manipulating almond milk to suit my needs).

Lunch- Protein: Chicken, Carb: Brown rice, Veggie: Peas

Snack- Protein: Yogurt, Carb: Granola

Dinner- Protein/ Carb: California roll (going to be out to eat at a sushi place.  Planning to get a califirnia roll... I know its not brown rice but its the best I can think of).

I've been doing the 9 minute workouts the last two days too.  He really packs a lot into 9  minutes.  Yesterdays workout was:
5 squat thrusters (like a burpee but no push up)
10 swing ups (kind of like a v up sit up)
15 marching soliders (kind of like hip raises)

So you do that as many times as you can in 9 minutes.  I got through it 6 and a half times...

Today's workout was:
3 minutes of triangle push ups
3 minutes of bench dips
3 minutes of pike press

In today's workout you did as many as you possible could of each.  I got to 50 of each and stopped counting at 50.  My arms were dead after wards.

Wednesday I had a snow day and today was a 2 hour delay... we'll see how successful I am tomorrow getting up and doing the workout.  I'm setting my alarm for 4:45.  YUCK.  But I have boot camp at school at 7 am so I need to get up and get moving.

This week I've been doing a lot less exercise than last week because of the snow.  No boot camp Monday and Wednesday, no kayak rolling on Tuesday, and no running. :(  But I am going to a class at the gym Saturday morning and skiing on Sunday.  So bring on a weekend full of activities to make up for a lazy week.  I'm hoping to run on Saturday too if the side walks are at all cleared by then. We shall see.