Pizza!! Cheese!!

This week I never got around to doing a meal plan.. le sigh..  Luckily, that’s what Pinterest is for!  I found this pretty easy sounding GF pizza crust using quinoa, so I thought I would give it a try.  I soaked the quinoa overnight; I decided to make two because I always figure if you’re going to make a mess, might as well make double the mess!  I omitted the garlic and seasoned it with dried rosemary and some tumeric.  To give it a little more flavor, I used garlic olive oil to cook it in instead of just regular.  I cooked it on the stove in a full size cast iron skillet and thought it worked great!

quinoa pizza crust

quinoa pizza crust

double the yum!

double the yum!

I froze one and let the other one sit out, awaiting toppings for dinner.  For the sauce, I mashed up half of an avocado with some lime juice, garlic olive oil, and salt and pepper.  Then I topped it with tomatoes, black olives, spinach, mozzarella cheese, feta cheese, and some dried rosemary.  It was awesome!!  It is pretty filling crust, so even though it was only about 9 inches, I still was very satisfied just having half for dinner and saving the other half for the next day.

GF pizza!!

GF pizza!!

I also made tacos this week, which really weren’t any different than I always made them: with no taco seasoning.  I’ve never liked taco seasoning, so several years ago I just started making my meat separate from the hubby’s and that works fine.  I added smoked paprika, tumeric, some garlic olive oil spray, and salt and pepper.  I used corn tortillas from Trader Joe’s and just warmed them up on the stove.

Tonight I made Gouda & Spinach Stuffed Pork Chops- they turned out great!  I found the recipe in a random magazine and made some adjustments based on what I had on hand and my dietary needs.  The recipe called for thick pork chops and we only had small, thin ones, so instead of trying to stuff anything into them, I decided to just stack them!  This worked out very well, though eating “one” was really too much since it was really two pork chops, so we each just ate a half.  Here’s my recipe:

6 thin pork chops
3 slices smoked Gouda
3 handfuls of torn, fresh spinach
1-2 tbsp dijon mustard (Hy-Vee brand actually is low FODMAP safe)
1/2 cup or so of almond meal

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and spray a glass dish.  I spread a small squirt of mustard on each pork chop then dipped it in the almond meal.  I placed one pork chop, almond meal down, in the dish then put a slice of smoked Gouda and then piled on a handful of spinach.  Then I stacked another pork chop, almond meal up, on top.  Cooked for 35 minutes.  Husband approved!!  Though I do have to admit, I think anything you put that smoked Gouda on is going to taste good 🙂

gouda & spinach stuffed pork chops

gouda & spinach stuffed pork chops

I’m doing some travelling over the next week and so eating will be an interesting task.  I’m mostly worried about this weekend and what to eat on the road the day before my half marathon.  I think for my pre-race breakfast my plan is just to have some Erewhon brown rice crisps and a small clementine, but I know that the entire day before I’ll need to be careful too.  Might just be eating some carefully selected salads!!  I did just make up another batch of granola, so I’ll have that on hand for snacking at least.  This round I followed the oats & amaranth granola recipe that I used before except instead of amaranth I used sesame seeds.  I also decided to experiment by adding some almond butter, yes I know I said that it may be giving me problems, but I just can’t live 100% without it and I figured having only about 4 tbsp throughout the whole granola shouldn’t bother me too much.  The reason I decided to add it was that I really want this granola to have some good chunks in it!  It has been successfully crunchy ever since adding the egg white, but it has been crumbly and therefore hard to snack on.  Good for cereal and on yogurt, but not so good for trying to just eat out of the bag 🙂  It is cooling now, so we’ll see if adding the almond butter was successful or not!

Back at it!

I have had a seriously crazy couple of weeks in regards to homework, holy cow!  I had some major cheat days (hello flour tacos from Tasty Taco??), but have been for the most part sticking to the low FODMAP diet.  Despite the chaos, I still had some time to try out a few new recipes and tried to snag some pictures when I remembered!  Here are the ones that I can remember:

Skinny Baked Lemon Dill Mahi Mahi: I didn’t have fresh dill so just used the dried that I had and I subbed my homemade coconut milk yogurt for the cream cheese.  It turned out super yummy!

mahi mahi

mahi mahi

Roasted Fennel & Quinoa Crunch Salad: I made this as a side for a family dinner and everyone thought it was great!  The roasted fennel was really good and all of the flavors and textures melded together really well.  I think I might make it again this weekend, especially now that I have a HUGE bag of quinoa courtesy of CostCo!

fennel quinoa salad

fennel quinoa salad

Carrot Fries: This looked really tasty and super easy, though it was harder to find the matchstick style carrots than I expected.  I found a bag at Trader Joe’s for $1.69.  I was very underwhelmed by it, not as crispy as I had hoped and they shrunk up super small- did not look like the picture on the website.  They weren’t bad, but I wouldn’t bother making them again.

Grilled Lemon Chicken Thighs with Tabbouleh: I have use this recipe before for chicken thighs and it is so easy and they turn out so yummy!  If you are afraid of grilling chicken because you think it will dry out, try thighs.  I always overcook chicken breasts on the grill, but thighs have enough fat that they stay nice and moist.  For the tabbouleh, I used quinoa instead of bulgar and added some chopped spinach.  Great meal!

Parmesan butternut squash: Yum!  I’ve had a squash hanging around for probably a month now that I keep meaning to use, so I finally had time to chop it up last night and decided to give it a try with parmesan cheese instead of my usual cinnamon and ginger.  I liked it!  The hubby said he liked it better with cinnamon, so I guess it’s a matter of preference.

Pumpkin Quinoa Flake Microwave Muffin: I’ve been wanting to make something like this since I got my quinoa flakes, so I finally had time one morning when I had off work.  I used ground chia seeds instead of flaxseed and 2-3 tbsp of maple syrup instead of Truvia.  It was very tasty but very filling so I saved half for the next day’s breakfast.

pumpkin quinoa muffin

pumpkin quinoa muffin

Oats & Amaranth Granola: I went through my last granola batch super fast- it was so good!  I wanted to try a slightly different variety and was wondering if steel cut oats would work.  I found a recipe that used steel cut oats as well as amaranth, which I bought quite a while ago.  I followed the recipe pretty closely, though added some pumpkin seeds and ground chia, as well as an egg white.  I added golden raisins and dried cranberries after it was cooked because I felt they stuck in my teeth in the last batch since I had baked them with the rest of the granola.  It turned out very good again, though honestly, I could do without the amaranth.  They are these tiny seeds and get stuck in my teeth, though do help to give a little bit more of a crunch.  I’ll probably use them again at some point so I can use up the bag, but don’t think I’ll use them every time.

oat & amaranth granola

oat & amaranth granola

Mint Chocolate Chip Vegan Ice Cream: Just tonight I made this up- sooo good!  I had bananas already frozen in the freezer and several avocados hanging out from my trip to CostCo.  I made a pretty big batch so that my family can try some this weekend, so it was probably 5-6 frozen bananas, 1.5 avocados, 1 tsp mint extract, 1 cup homemade coconut-oat milk, and 1-2 tbsp maple syrup.  It was awesome!!  I used a mix of Trader Joe’s chocolate chips and EnjoyLife’s dark chocolate chips.

mint choc chip vegan ice cream

mint choc chip vegan ice cream

This week has mostly been eating on the chicken thighs that we grilled up as well as the whole chicken I roasted in the crock pot.  I used some of the chicken to make my version of “ave paltas,” my favorite Chilean sandwich.  It is just chopped up chicken, avocados, lime juice, salt and pepper, and a little bit of garlic olive oil mixed up and put on bread with a tomato.  For my bread, I made the GF instant flatbread several times.  This is a great, fast bread especially now that I’ve been mixing dried rosemary into the dough.

I haven’t had much brain power to do meal planning the last few weeks, but hope to get back to that this weekend.  I have a lot of options now that I made it to CostCo!

Meals this Week

A couple of new foods I tried this week:

Lime & Coconut Chicken: This was SUPER tasty!  Rave reviews from the hubby!  I obviously excluded the chili and I also didn’t add cilantro because I didn’t have any on hand.  I would say the only strange thing was the sauce turned out lumpy, it was still tasty, but definitely not a smooth sauce.  My guess is this was because I used my homemade oat-coconut milk instead of just straight canned coconut milk.  (forgot to take a picture of it)

Instant Flatbread: It definitely seemed crazy to try to make bread in the microwave, but I thought it was worth at least giving a try.  It was very good!  I doubled the recipe and made two both last night and tonight.  Even the hubby wanted one!  I think next time I’m going to try mixing the rosemary and maybe some tumeric into the dough so that there is more flavor incorporated throughout instead of just sprinkled on top.  I smeared some garlic-infused olive oil on top with the salt and rosemary.  It was so easy that I think I’ll be making it a lot!  And I think it is soft enough that I could almost use it as a wrap as well.

GF instant flatbread

GF instant flatbread

Greek Style Quinoa Patties with Tzatziki Sauce: I still had some tzatziki sauce leftover from the tandoori fish I made last week (okay so it wasn’t really called tzatziki sauce then because it was for an Indian dish, but seriously they are the same thing!), so when I stumbled upon this recipe I thought it would be a great way to use that up.  I made some adjustments to the recipe to make it low FODMAP.  I sauteed some green onions in garlic infused olive oil and then added the fresh spinach, I used chia eggs to substitute the actual eggs, and I used almond flour instead of the bread crumbs.  Oh and I didn’t have a lemon for zest so just sprinkled a little bit of lemon juice.  I thought they turned out great!!  Not really hubby’s style, but he had leftover chicken to eat.

quinoa patty w/ tzatziki sauce

quinoa patty w/ tzatziki sauce

Side note: My most recent recipe for homemade granola has been SOOO GOOD!!  I want to eat it all the time, breakfast, snacks, lunch!!  So note to anyone who wants to make their own granola: a) it’s easy, b) it’s so much healthier, and c) ADD THE EGG WHITE, it makes all the difference!  *crunch munch munch*

Even MORE New Foods!

I tackled a few more new recipes this week as well as buying some new foods to try through Vitacost.  My first new recipe was a Spaghetti Squash Veggie Bake, with several adjustments.  First, I omitted the red pepper, second I used garlic olive oil, and I used my homemade Turkey Tomato Basil marinara for the sauce.  I thought it turned out tasty, the hubby was just okay with it, but I supposed I wasn’t surprised by that.

spaghetti squash veggie bake

spaghetti squash veggie bake

Next, I wanted to find something that I could use some of my date paste for, especially since I just recently realized that it’s not something I should really be having, per FODMAP.  I knew dried fruit was technically off limits, but I guess I thought it was more because it can be hard to digest, not because of the fructose content, but apparently dates have VERY high fructose content.  Darn.  I found this recipe, Sugar Free Chocolate Chip Cookies, which I ended up also using my leftover oat-coconut pulp from making milk instead of just oats. I had to play with the amount of liquid since the pulp was more moist than oats would be.  I thought they turned out okay, not wonderful, but a good use of things I had on hand.

oat-coconut pulp, date paste cookies

oat-coconut pulp, date paste cookies

We had leftovers a few nights this week, which was really nice- I love knowing that I have several kinds of already cooked veggies in my freezer to choose from at any time!!  I did make this Tandoori Spiced Fish last night and I thought it turned out pretty tasty.  I think the chicken curry I made last week was much better though!  A good use of my homemade yogurt though 🙂  I had the fish with a side of this awesome pumpkin, ginger, rice pasta that I just got through Vitacost- yummmy!  I wanted to see how flavorful the noodles were by themselves, so I just melted a little bit of the coconut manna I also got (aka coconut butter- yes different than coconut oil) and some salt.  I didn’t necessarily get an overwhelming taste of pumpkin or ginger, but they were very good even as plain as I had them.

rice pasta; coconut manna

rice pasta; coconut manna

Some of my other findings at Vitacost, which had some products cheaper than Amazon but definitely not everything, was raw pumpkin seeds for only $5.79/lb (almost a dollar cheaper than Amazon), organic pumpkin for almost the same price as Hy-vee brand, and quinoa flakes cheaper than I’ve seen anywhere else!  I definitely am going to stock up big time on pumpkin come the fall, I use it all year round so it’s really dumb to be paying twice as much for it right now!

organic pumpkin- no BPA!

organic pumpkin- no BPA!

pumpkin seeds

pumpkin seeds

quinoa flakes

quinoa flakes

I’m excited to give the quinoa flakes a try, they can be used similar to oats and I have several recipes pinned that I want to give a whirl!  Since I finished off my homemade yogurt, I was able to do another batch of yogurt, but this time I wanted to try coconut milk yogurt!!!  I used the Aroy-D coconut milk that I got at the Asian grocery store, plus a bit of my homemade oat-coconut milk.  It ended up being about 6 cups Aroy-D plus 2 cups of homemade, mostly because that was all that I had of my homemade.  I used this thick and rich coconut milk yogurt recipe, but doubled it and like I said, used a little more coconut milk than she did since I didn’t have much homemade on hand.  I was very nervous if this was going to work, I had read other blogs that said never to mix in things like tapioca starch or agar while it’s cooking!  But I think it turned out GREAT!  It has a natural bit of sweetness, so I didn’t really need to add a whole lot of maple syrup to make it palatable.  I do think I might try next time to use less tapioca starch, it was plenty thick and I feel like I could kind of tell there was a starch in it.  But maybe I would need that much tapioca starch if I had had more homemade milk, not sure..  OH and I used a store bought SO Coconut milk yogurt as the starter, since the starter I have is dairy based and I wanted to make this one with no dairy whatsoever.  In any case, I think it was a success!!  A return trip to the Asian store to stock up on Aroy-D will be made next week!  🙂

homemade coconut milk yogurt!!!

homemade coconut milk yogurt!!!

I swung out to Trader Joe’s tonight so that I could gather some more ingredients to make another batch of homemade granola this weekend- can’t wait!  I think I’m going to try a version that uses egg white, I know I don’t really eat eggs, but I think it wouldn’t be all that much and supposedly that is what makes it nice and crunchy, which I missed with my last version.  While there, I was looking at beer for my husband and came across this NGB gluten free lager!  I’m enjoying it now after a chill in the freezer and it’s pretty good 🙂

ngb GF beer

ngb GF beer

Week 4 Meal Plan

On top of my game again this week, though it helped that I already had a few ideas for meals this week leftover from last week!

week 4 plan

week 4 plan

week 4 plan cont.

week 4 plan cont.

week 4 prep

week 4 prep

Bonus pic: GF pumpkin aebleskivers!  I followed this recipe, which I used before at Christmas, I just swapped in my GF flour mix.  I would say that it was very thick, I’m not sure if that was because of the GF flour mix or because I used my homemade oat milk, but I had to add some more water to get to a better consistency.  Oh and I used melted coconut oil instead of vegetable oil.  The trickiest part with these is just knowing how long to cook them without burning.  When I made them the first time, many of them were still gummy in the center, so I wanted to make sure that didn’t happen again.  They turned out WONDERFUL!  Now I have a whole bag in my freezer 🙂

GF pumpkin aebleskivers

GF pumpkin aebleskivers

Say It Ain’t So!

I think I found a food I’m sensitive to that never dawned on me as being an issue: almond butter!  NOOOOOOOOO!!!  I am so depressed… 😦  I know that the FODMAP diet says that almonds can generally only be tolerated in low quantities, but I didn’t really think it applied to me.  I hadn’t been having almond butter all that much, mostly because I hadn’t been having bread!   I did put it on rice cakes a few weeks ago, but didn’t really think anything of it.  Well, this morning I had my baked oatmeal that I’ve been having for a week and a half now and I put about two tablespoons of almond butter on top.. and now I feel MISERABLE!  This is a very sad day.. I love almonds, and almond butter was such a great way to add some protein/richness to smoothies.  I have had sunflower butter before, but it’s not nearly as tasty, plus it’s quite expensive, and Trader Joe’s version has sweeteners.  I’m still on the fence about whether or not bananas sit well with me.  I am pretty certain that my homemade yogurt is going okay, I had it again for lunch yesterday and felt decent!  I’m making up another batch right now, still with the 1% cow’s milk, not quite ready to venture into coconut milk yogurt yet.

I tried out this Loaded Baked Potato & Chicken Casserole last night for dinner, only adjustment was I used canned coconut milk instead of heavy cream.  I thought it was quite tasty and the hubby did too!  I would say next time I would add more bacon and chicken to make it feel a little more “meal-like,” it was heavy on the potatoes so seemed a little more like a side dish.

loaded baked potato & chicken casserole

loaded baked potato & chicken casserole

Into Week 3!

So here I am, third week in to my 30 day FODMAP challenge and it’s been going great!  I have found it pretty easy to make some massive eliminations from my diet and have actually really gotten into meal planning and trying out new and exciting things, like yogurt-making!  For the most part, I think my energy levels are better and even my attitude has been up (most days). I’m able to think more clearly about what my future is going to look like in the next year, which is a personal issue I’ve been struggling with a lot lately.  My stomach is definitely better, which is really all that I’m asking for.  I have found giving up gluten really easy and probably the only thing that I’ve needed a few mini cheats has been chocolate.  Probably my next mini cheat would be a fun cocktail, kind of have missed a little alcohol here and there 🙂

The only kind of weird thing is that I have felt like my appetite has been HUGE, I’m just super hungry all the time!  And not even with specific cravings, like I am missing sugar or something, just that I’m starving and need to eat.  A friend asked if I was weighing myself through this and I said no because that wasn’t the point, but since I feel like I’ve been eating more I did want to make sure I haven’t GAINED weight lol!  That certainly wouldn’t be my intention either!!  So far I’m normal, so I guess that’s good.  Would have been nice to see a pound or two loss from removing gluten and most sugar, though!

Despite having class this weekend, I still made some time to try a few new foods, including using my homemade yogurt to make Greek yogurt!  It was easy, I just put it in the cheesecloth that came with and hung it over the sink overnight.  It was very thick, so I think next time I wouldn’t hang it for quite so long.  I used it to make these Pumpkin Oat n’ Honey muffins.  I used 1/4 cup of maple syrup and a 1/4 dextrose instead of honey and added chopped pecans and shredded coconut.  Oh and use a food processor, not a blender, my blender definitely did not work for this!

GF pumpkin oat-yogurt muffins

GF pumpkin oat-yogurt muffins

Next up, I made these yummy looking Oatmeal Pumpkin Pie bars!  I haven’t had a chance to try one yet because the recipe said they were best after sitting overnight in the fridge.  I plan to freeze some since it made a 13X9 pan.  Adjustments I made included using the GF flour mix I bought instead of spelt flour, I used more pumpkin instead of applesauce, dextrose instead of coconut sugar, and milled chia instead of flaxmeal.  Oh and I sprinkled some shredded coconut on top!

oatmeal pumpkin pie bars

oatmeal pumpkin pie bars

I also made another round of the Baked Carrot Cake Oatmeal because it was so yummy!  The main change I made was that I blended fresh spinach with the coconut milk, so it’s a lovely shade of green this time lol!  I just missed knowing that I was getting some veggies in the morning since I usually add spinach to my smoothies, so I thought this would be a way to add it to my oatmeal.  Turned out good, does taste a little “greener” but not terribly.

And finally I made up burgers inspired by these Paleo Sun-dried Tomato & Spinach Burgers and homemade ketchup.  The burgers are a funny story, I kind of went overboard on the spinach, so I ended up adding a half pound of ground turkey.  They still just seemed boring, per the recipe, so I decided to spunk them up with some garlic-infused olive oil, coconut flour, grated cheddar cheese, and spices including smoked paprika, ground mustard, and tumeric.  Thankfully, despite my random additions, they turned out great, including husband approval!  For the ketchup, I followed the recipe pretty much exactly except that I warmed it on low on the stove (I didn’t think the brown sugar would blend properly otherwise) and added only a tiny bit of cayenne pepper.  Tasted great, though it makes a lot, so I hope I can use it up before it goes bad.

spinach & sun-dried tomato burgers

spinach & sun-dried tomato burgers

mm ketchup

mm ketchup

lotsa ketchup!

lotsa ketchup!

At the end of the weekend, I had to laugh at my recycling pile: FOUR cans of pumpkin and an entire container of oats!  That’s totally normal, right???  Guess all I can say is: I LOVE PUMPKIN AND OATS!  😀

pumpkin everywhere!

pumpkin everywhere!

Week 2 Plan/Prep

I’m a little behind, but have been thinking ahead for meal planning/prepping this week!  I decided to continue eliminating the same foods, including banana, but excluding chocolate since I already cheated a bit with that 🙂  I’ll just limit it to my pumpkin chocolate chip oat bars, at least!  Taking another analysis, ya know, I do think I’m feeling better!  I have had a lot more energy despite staying up later and being frazzled with homework!  And aside from some grumbling/pain from the attempt with goat’s milk yogurt, my stomach has felt great!  In fact, I feel like I’ve been SO hungry, I have to make sure I don’t eat too much.  It can be easy to think “hey this is all healthy stuff, I can eat more!”

Week 2 Meal Plan

Week 2 Meal Plan

Week 2 Meal Prepping

Week 2 Meal Prepping

 

Day 5

Homework levels are beginning to consume me, so this will be brief so I can get back to that.  I have made time to try a few new foods, well two I guess weren’t “new” but I made some tiny adjustments and they were just as good!

For dinner last night, I used the leftover chicken breasts from the crockpot chicken on Monday to make an amazing Greek Inspired Chicken meal!  It is almost the same recipe as this one: Greek Inspired Chicken Breast Recipe except I subbed garlic infused oil instead of the garlic and instead of spinach on top, I added chopped cucumber and fresh mint.  SOOOO good!  So good in fact that I devoured it before I could take a picture of it!  Trust me, it looked as good as it tasted.

Since I made up a broth from the crockpot chicken, I wanted to throw together a quick soup with some of it and the rest of the leftover chicken.  One thing to note, I am loving the making your own broth from the chicken bones/skin, but cooking it in the crockpot overnight is a bit annoying because the WHOLE house smells like soup and I actually found it hard to sleep!  Next time I might make it in the basement and close the door haha!  The soup I made is one that I have made before, it is from Iowa Girl Eats: Harvest Chicken Quinoa Soup  The only changes I made was I excluded the onions and just sauteed the veggies in the garlic infused oil.  Looks yummy and I will be glad to have it on hand for a quick meal!  I accidentally used my smaller pot, though, so it was a bit full 🙂

harvest quinoa soup

harvest chicken quinoa soup

For breakfast yesterday, I made an impromptu oatmeal/quinoa bowl, semi-inspired by Chocolate Covered Katie.  It was oats cooked in coconut milk with some already cooked quinoa added, fresh pineapple, shredded coconut, cinnamon, and a tiny bit of maple syrup.  It was yuuummy!

oatmeal/quinoa pina colada!

oatmeal/quinoa pina colada!

Last thing I gave a whirl was 3 Ingredient Paleo Naan.  She had me at 3 ingredients!  Well, and Paleo 🙂  It is just almond meal, tapioca flour, and canned coconut milk!  I would say the only thing not super “easy” about them was they take quite a while to cook all the way through and I even made them pretty thin to hopefully save time.  I think it is because the canned coconut milk has a lot of fat, so it takes awhile for that to really cook.  Very tasty though and definitely satisfied my bread/carb craving!

paleo naan

paleo naan

A quick analysis of how I’ve been feeling: I would say it’s hard to tell.  I’m super tired and stressed with school right now, so that is definitely playing a factor.  Stomach wise, I would still hesitate to say I have seen a huge improvement.  Foods I have missed this week: BANANANANANA.  Yeah I am way missing bananas, though really my smoothies have been fine without them, just not the same.  I have also wanted chocolate a few times and been bummed to not have that.  I haven’t missed yogurt as much as I thought I would, my mashed carrots+almonds+raisins has actually been a satisfying alternative.   I’m thinking next week I might try adding bananas back to my smoothies.  We’ll see, I need to remind myself not to rush things because all of this takes a lot of time to figure out!  To quote the movie UP!: Adventure is OUT THERE! 😉

Day 3

Well what can you say on Day 3?  So far so good!  Day 2 was same breakfast and lunch and then for dinner I had some leftover pork from earlier in the week.  The downside with the pork was that it was kind of dry but I couldn’t put barbecue sauce on it.  I thought about mustard that I had bought, a smooth Dijon from Trader Joe’s and one with seeds from Hy-vee (their brand too, all of the “brand name” ones had added crap), but they were both SO spicy!  Clearly I was spoiled with my Dijon+white wine/sugar kind.. So I thought about what I could add to the mustard to cut some of the bite and settled on some coconut oil and maple syrup.  This actually worked out great!  And it make the pork much better.  I had a sweet potato with almond butter for the side.

Today was a smoothie for breakfast, made without banana or yogurt… I was a little worried it wouldn’t be as filling, so I had three slices of Canadian bacon as well.  Lunch was a salad with tuna and feta with sides of mashed carrots and strawberries.  For dinner, I had a whole chicken roasting in the crock pot, so I had that with green beans and a baked potato w/ coconut oil.

who said diets had to be boring??

who said diets had to be boring??

I also made up some quinoa to freeze and for dinner and/or breakfast later in the week.  As far as how I’m feeling, I really think it is too soon to say a lot.  I did feel like this weekend I was not nearly as fatigued or foggy as I usually am, especially considering that I ran 8 miles, my longest run since October!  So on the brain front, things are tentatively looking up!  For my stomach, it has been mostly better, I wouldn’t say perfect, but for sure better than it has been in the past.  I’m hopeful that it will continue to improve!

Below are some of the products I bought to give a try:

snack for work- i liked em!

snack for work- i liked em!

haven't tried these yet, they are kept in the freezer

haven’t tried these yet, they are kept in the freezer

garlic-infused olive oil, supposed to okay since garlic is water soluable

garlic-infused olive oil, supposed to be okay since garlic is water soluble

mmm rice cakes.. always top on anyone's list

mmm rice cakes.. always top on anyone’s list

nut thins.. not as good i remember them!

nut thins.. not as good i remember them!

haven't tried yet, but sounds tasty!

haven’t tried yet, but sounds tasty!

I call these guys my 3 amigos from Trader Joe’s- absolutely favorite things to buy there because they are good quality AND a reasonable price!

the three amigos

the three amigos