Frustration

I've been having a rough time these last few months.  Our schedules have been crazy, yes, but that's not the cause this time.  It's not the extra activities, commitments, or lack of time.  It's food.  More specifically it is trying to justify and convince myself that the way we are eating is right for our family.  It's about seeing the need in the world, the millions who live without enough food, and the homeless in my own city who go hungry more nights than they are fed.  It's about wrestling with all of these things when I look at how much money we now spend on groceries.  Don't get me wrong, for the size family we have we spend very little on groceries compared to most (and even less when you consider our dietary restrictions--currently that means gluten and milk intollerance).

It's becoming very difficult for me to reason spending so much money on our specialty diets since we don't have specific diagnoses from doctor's (we do on the milk, not gluten--though our doctor has noticed an improvement). It's hard for me to justify eating things that cost 2-3 times more than "normal" food and it has me second guessing the improvements we have seen in our families health.  I will admit that, as a family, we cheat.  My son...definitely not cheating (too much of a difference).  However, my husband and I...well, we aren't the most devout to our new dietary restrictions.  Maybe it's the frustration in having to explain it to people who think they know better what is healthy for us.  Maybe it's the huge associations we have between food and good memories (or any memories in some cases).

For me, I felt a few months ago that I could no longer tax our families meager food budget by continuing to eat gluten free (and I REALLY missed bread).  So I began buying flour tortillas and bread for myself to make sandwiches quickly during the day.  I eat off diet at least 2 meals almost every day (usually not dinner because I make it gluten free and I only cook 1 dinner).  I know that it will make me sick...I will have more headaches than usual, be more tired, and sick to my stomach most of the day.  But I can deal, or so I tell myself.  "The symptoms aren't *that* bad for me," I say.  But when I really think about it and analyze how I felt before I started cheating and how I feel now I do see a difference.  And I wish that wasn't true.

I guess I'm really just frustrated with myself...and God.  Why does my body not work like "normal"?  Why would God make us go through something that strains our budget even more and makes us increasingly suspect of our tithe?  Why am I so tired all the time if I'm doing what you want me to do, God?

Sounds silly, doesn't it?  It does to me.  I know that God doesn't bring anything upon us that He won't also help us walk through.  Not by my own strength, but by His.  He brings us through these situations not to bring glory to who we are and how strong I am, but to show how good He is.  How strong He can be for us when we have no strength left.  Having faith in this is something I struggle with every.single.day.  Most days....I "win" and give in to the struggle, frustration, and cheating.  No one is perfect, but in our imperfection God shines.  So why do we choose over and over to deprive Him of this?  Why do I choose over and over to put my own comfort/desires ahead of God's?  Do I really think I can do such a better job at running my own life? If my past is any consideration I should have been assured of that a LONG time ago.

But knowing this, knowing the physical tole gluten and sugar take on my body, and knowing how much my attitude changes with these things in my system...I am still frustrated.  I still feel "better" eating sandwiches every day and saving money for those who really *need* the diet (my oldest son and husband).  Boy, it's amazing what I can talk myself into.  I wonder sometimes, like today, how long it will take me of being sick and frustrated, to truly lay these things down.  To really allow God to help me walk through this new life and be successfully because of His power and provision.

Pantry Clean-out Tostadas

So we had tostadas for dinner last night.  Wow!  It was the simplest of ingredients, but turned out SUPER yummy!  We'll definitely be making these again :)

Beef and Bean Tostadas
12 corn tortillas
3 cans pinto beans, drained
1 can rotel
3 cloves garlic
1 t cumin
1 lb ground beef
1 pkg taco seasoning (3 T of homemade seasoning)
1/2 c water (optional)
3-4 oz velveeta, cubed

1. Lay out tortillas on cookie sheet.  Bake at 400 until browned (turning at least once while baking) - approx 10 min.
2. Place drained beans, rotel, garlic, and cumin in blender and blend until combined and thin (may need to do in batches and may need olive oil to thin out a bit).
3. Brown ground beef, drain.  Add taco seasoning and water.  Simmer for a few minutes then add velveeta until melted and incorporated.
4.  Assemble tostadas with tortilla, bean mixture, and topped with cheese/taco meat.

This turned out great!  We were in a hurry or I would have made rice to go alongside.  This would also make some killer nachos!

Recipe Options:
- Adding water will thin the meat/cheese mixture and stretch it a bit.
- You will probably have leftover bean dip...we had quite a bit leftover that we'll use to dip cheese taquitos in later this week.
- You could substitute regular cheese for the velveeta (it's just what I had and I'm trying not to go grocery shopping).  You may need to add a bit of milk if you use regular shredded cheese.

Got the idea from two blog posts recently...one is for how to make the tostadas and the other on how to make the bean dip.

Cheeseburger Pie

This is a go-to recipe for our family, and to be honest it has been even before we were gluten free.  This was one of the first recipes that I "converted" to gluten free.  But do you wanna know a secret?  It was super easy since you can now buy a gluten free Bisquick mix!


GF Bisquick is pricey compared to it's gluten-filled counterpart, but for us it was worth a shot simply because I needed something that made me feel more normal when cooking in the kitchen.  One thing that has been nice is that we use it exclusively for this recipe so this one box has lasted us several months!  By the way...there are people online with recipes for making a GF version of Bisquick at home that is supposed to be closer to the regular version, so if you want to save some money you could look into those options.

GF Cheeseburger Pie
1 lb ground beef
1 medium onion, minced/grated
1/2 t Montreal steak seasoning*
1 c shredded cheese (we like sharp cheddar)
1/2 c GF Bisquick**
1 c milk
3 eggs

1. Cook beef with onion and drain off excess fat.
2. Stir in steak seasoning and spread in pie plate.
3. Sprinkle with cheese.
4. Beat Bisquick, milk, and eggs.  Pour over beef/cheese mixture.
5. Bake @ 400 for 25-30 minutes.

*You can also just use 1/2 t salt + 1/8 t pepper, but I prefer the depth provided by the steak seasoning (FYI...Aldi's carries the same seasoning under their own brand name).
**If you use a homemade GF Bisquick mix, only use 2 eggs.

Chicken Taco Filling

I realized today that I have not yet posted this AWESOME recipe on my blog!  I've emailed to a few friends and somehow never got it up here...not sure how that happened but I'm fixing it now!

This recipe is great for company, especially if you are dealing with allergies/intolerances.  I recently made this for a friend who came to visit.  She is lactose intolerant and we are gluten free, so there were some issues (especially since milk is in almost every recipe in my repertoire).  This turned out wonderful!  One note, if you want this to be lactose free...make sure you buy a milk free chicken stock and make sure you use a milk free cheese (our friend buys Kraft Naturals brand as it claims to have 0g lactose and she's good with that).

Chicken Taco Filling
1 c chicken broth
1 packet taco seasoning (or the equivalent of a homemade variety)
1 lb boneless skinless chicken (or just eyeball how much you'll need...I usually use about 3-4 large breasts)

1.  Pour broth and seasoning into slow cooker and stir to dissolve seasoning.
2.  Place chicken in broth.
3.  Cover and cook on low 6-8 hours (I always check at 4-5 since my slow cooker cooks rather quickly).
4.  Use forks to shred when done.  Leave in slow cooker and in juices until ready to serve (be sure to turn slow cooker off or to warm setting).

We LOVE this on tostada shells (homemade).  I take corn tortillas and fry them in a little oil until they start to brown, flip and fry on other side, and remove to paper towel.  These make the shells crispy, but still easy to fold over like a taco shell (and are much cheaper than buying taco shells).  We normally top these with cheese and avocado/salsa.  Yummy!

Side note:  You could prep this ahead of time by putting the broth and seasoning in a zip-top bag and then adding the chicken.  Freeze and then thaw the night before you're ready to fix it.  Probably won't save a lot of time, but you'd have a quick dinner pretty much ready to go!

Back on Track

Last week was C-R-A-Z-Y!  VBS all week had me getting the kids up, fed, and out of the house by 8:15, returning home around 1:00, and then nap time.  I haven't consistently been out of the house like that since I was working (December 2009).  Yikes!  We had a great week at VBS, despite the crazy schedule and I have to admit that I miss my pre-k kids :).

Onward and upward!  Because of the crazy schedule last week we had a LOT of baked potatoes...3-4 nights if I remember correctly.  Not ideal, but it was fast, gluten free, and fairly healthy.  Now we're getting back the swing of things.  Need to get my house clean this week, caught up on laundry, and cooking dinner (and breakfast and lunch) again.  This week is a lot of recipes I'm familiar with and are relatively easy to prepare.  Here you go...

Breakfast:
Mini Crust-less Quiche
Grits (with either cinnamon apples or cinnamon-sugar)
Peach Strudel Muffins (I'm using pureed peaches for the fruit)
Giant Breakfast Cookies
Peanut Butter Banana Smoothies (recipe coming tomorrow)

Lunch:
Leftovers
Tostadas with Bean Dip
Bean Dip
Taco Casserole
Cheeseburger Pie

Dinner:
Sun: Tilapia Corn Chowder (this was amazing!)
Mon: One Pot Spaghetti
Tues: Potato Corn Chowder
Wed: Baked Potatoes with Broccoli Cheese Sauce
Thurs: Chicken Taco Tostadas (recipe coming soon)
Fri: Tacos with Mexican Rice
Sat: Baked Chicken and Rice
Sun: Mexican Casserole

This post is linked to Menu Plan Monday at orgjunkie.com.  Please head over and check out all the other wonderful recipes and menus posted to get ideas for your own menu plan!

Gluten Free...Week 2

I know I'm a little behind on getting this posted, but life has sprung up in weird ways this week.  Anyway, week one of our gluten free diet went great!  I cooked more last week than I think I ever have in my life.  Almost everything has been made from scratch and it was all pretty wonderful!  Even the things that seemed like flops turned out to be pretty tasty and I'm learning a lot in the process (like my Crockpot gets super hot and doesn't need nearly the whole time to cook chicken...unless of course you want it to be SUPER dry).  So we're heading into week two--though I'm almost positive at this point that we'll be continuing this diet for the long term because of how well Carter's doing.

Anyway, here's the plan for this week.

Breakfast
Mini Crustless Breakfast Quiche
Coconut Flour Muffins with Chocolate Chips/Walnuts
Peanut Butter Oatmeal
Smoothies
Scrambled Eggs with Bacon

Lunch
leftovers
sandwiches; steamed veggies
chicken nuggets; fruit

Dinner
Lemon Chicken; Salad; Brown Rice
Tortilla Soup
Cheesburgers; Oven Fries
Easy Cheeseburger Pie; Salad
Tandoori Chicken with Rice; Salad
Boston Chicken; Quinoa Pilaf
Cheesy Beef and Rice

Cooking Gluten Free

This is our first week on our four week challenge to eat gluten free.  We are embarking on this to try and help my son with his recent diagnosis as well as trying to resolve some of the health problems that my husband and I have dealt with or are currently dealing with (PCOS, heartburn, allergies, asthma, migraines, depression, ADD, etc).  Hopefully this experiment with help, but we'll have to wait to see.  I have read everything from 2 weeks to 6 weeks are needed to see a quantitative change, we're going with four because it seemed manageable to me and not too overwhelming to my husband.

The biggest change so far has been the need to plan more specifically.  While I almost always menu plan dinners for at least a week at a time, I now have to plan breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks for every day of the week.  Buying convenience food that is gluten free (though possible) is expensive and it's difficult to find places that are safe to eat out.  I also felt it would be easier to just focus on cooking while I'm still learning more about what is ok for us on the diet.  I have made a general rule to not buy things with extensive lists of ingredients as I'm still not sure about all the hidden gluten-containing things I need to watch for.  By buying things with readable ingredient lists, I have a better chance of getting things that are a) healthier and b) don't contain gluten.

For the most part we have avoided a lot of convenience type foods for ourselves, though I have splurged a bit on things that are quick or good snacks for my son...things like gluten free graham crackers (which are surprisingly yummy), crackers, Lara bars (until I can make some from scratch), cereal bars, and animal cookies.  I also ordered a box of gluten free food from Angel Food Ministries which is an EXCELLENT way to buy some more convenient gluten free food and not go completely broke.  I also try to spread out my shopping, only purchasing the absolute necessities at more expensive stores like Whole Foods and buying what I can at Aldi's (where I buy gf lunch meat, canned veggies and fruit, cheese, yogurt, sour cream, etc.).

So that is where we are right now.  I'll update more as we progress :)

Menu Planning on a Gluten Free diet

This week is our first week going gluten free, so this menu will be more extensive that what I normally plan.  I will try to link to recipes when possible, but if you want more ideas on gluten free foods I am posting a link to some good recipe sites at the bottom of this post.

Breakfast
Peanut Butter Banana Smoothies
Crustless Mini-Quiche (made mine with turkey ham, hash browns, and cheese)
Coconut Flour Muffins
Overnight Eggs (I make this without the salsa)
Yogurt and Fruit
Baked Oatmeal (using gluten free oats)

Lunch
Leftovers
Sandwich (using this bread) with fruit and string cheese
Chicken Nuggets with veggies and hummus
Spinach Ricotta Bites
Chicken with potatoes/rice

Dinner
Stone Soup
Beans and Rice with Corn Tortillas; Fruit Salad
Baked Chicken; Baked Potato with Broccoli Cheese Sauce
Boston Chicken; Salad; Quinoa Pilaf
Tacos with Spanish Rice
Jerk Chicken; Carrot Salad; Rice
Taco Corn Fritters; Fruit

Snacks
Protein Bar
Peanut Butter Krispie Treats (with gf cereal)
Corn Tortilla Chips with Salsa
Veggies/Crackers and Hummus
Apples/Celery with Peanut Butter
Popcorn
Granola *
Applesauce Fruit Rolls *
Mock-Lara Bars *
Peanut Butter Cookies

* - These recipes came from the ebook, Healthy Snacks to Go, which you can purchase here.

Some great resources for gluten free recipes:
Heavenly Homemakers
Lynn's Kitchen Adventures
Kiki's Kitchen
***EDIT***
Found this blog today and it is WONDERFUL!
Chocolate Covered Katie

This post is part of Menu Plan Monday, hosted by OrgJunkie.com.