May 16, 2018
Week 5
Here are Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, and Week 4.
This week is all about avoiding cross contamination: cooking in separate pans, using different utensils and plates where we would normally share to cut down on dishes.
I’m not a fan of the extra dishes to wash but I’m also trying to make the most of this trial and we do have a dishwasher so we can handle it.
As I mentioned to Linda, we’re doing more substitutions now than we may later in part because we’re trying to preserve some of our easy go-to recipes but I can see that changing over time as I learn new recipes and adjust them to our lifestyle and time constraints. I adore rice myself and grew up eating it for every meal so I have no issues going to a mostly-rice based diet but the family is going to need a bit of time to adjust with me. (more…)
May 9, 2018
Week 4
Read Week 1, Week 2 and Week 3.
This week was supposed to be about experimenting with recipes and getting comfortable with the new diet but it turned into a week of survival because the Flu going around tackled me to the ground and sat on me, taunting me.
Rude.
As someone noted, I probably underestimated how long this diet trial has to last – I may not document beyond the six weeks, though, if there’s not much interest.
Day 1.
Breakfast: Bowl of two cereals – GF “honey nut O’s” and the weird maple ladder cereal. Yes to the Os again and no to the ladder cereal again.
Snacked on bars and a couple slices of dressed cucumber – cross contamination? Felt tingly and weird after. But that might have been sleep deprivation.
Lunch: Grilled cheese and apple slices
Dinner: Grilled shrimp and cheesy buttery sliced grits
Pain/Discomfort: Less pain than yesterday’s weird night but my lower back is a mess.
(more…)
May 2, 2018
Week 3
Read Week 1 and Week 2.
At this point, the gluten should be all out of my system except for that one oops of the hash brown I ate with an egg, thinking that it was fried potatoes! Potatoes are GF, right?
Not these. Drat. There’s likely still some residual contamination in this week.
I THINK my exhaustion is less intense and my pain spells are maybe a little shorter. It’s still hard to be sure whether it’s related yet because I normally have irregular cycles of pain and fatigue. I do feel like there have been some minor differences in how I feel.
Day 1.
Breakfast: I defrosted a huge batch of homemade muffins for PiC and JB to eat feast on. For myself, a slice of GF bread with peanut butter does the trick, and I have half a glass of milk.
Lunch was an experiment with the millet and rice ramen that PiC found. I made up a broth with a base that I use for chicken soup, gently simmered onions, salt, a dash of onion powder, a dash of garlic powder, sliced roast pork. The ramen noodles looked really strange but they were not bad! The broth was awful, though. Next time, I’ll just boil the noodles, fish them out, and dash some sesame oil and sesame seeds on top with the pork slices.
Dinner: Leftover pork roast, coconut rice, sauteed spinach. Simple, filling, and easy! Also this reduces the cost per meal even more.
Pain/Discomfort: Medium – several joints are out of whack but I can still walk so yay for that.
(more…)
April 25, 2018
Week 2
See Week 1 here.
Day 1.
Breakfast: PiC whips up GF pancakes for me, and regular just-add-water flapjacks for the rest of the gang before we venture to IKEA to buy some gifts.
Lunch: We end that epic visit with lunch in their restaurant and an ice cream cone. (Don’t eat the cone! he warns me. I know, I reply sadly.) Most of their food has gluten but the salmon fillet with veggies plate is quite good, and GF! I feel full for the first time in days. Not sure if that’s because I’ve been inadvertently eating less or because I don’t feel full without six carbs for breakfast.
Dinner: We have leftovers for dinner again – those ribs make excellent tacos!
Pain/Discomfort: Hands are swollen badly, but I can still bend the fingers on my left hand. Cannot lift my arms above elbow level – it causes searing tendon pain. Back, hip, ankle, knee, shoulder pain is low.
(more…)
April 18, 2018
I’ve been seeing research that suggests that a gluten-free diet may help the effects of my fibro and rosacea, not just anecdotes like I’d heard in the past and finally had to start considering that it might be something worth trying.
I hated the thought because oh how I love my carbs but I’ve lived with high levels of pain for most of my life. If a simple change in diet might help, I’ve got to try it.
I planned to wait until after our summer vacation to start because that would give me time to use up the gluten-ful ingredients we have stocked and phase in GF foods instead over the course of several weeks. Instead, PiC convinced me to start early because if it could help, why not find out earlier rather than later?
My order-loving soul is grumpy about it but his argument has a certain amount of logic. It takes at least two weeks, according to the experienced, for all the gluten to exit the system so I have to try this for at least 6 weeks to get any real sense of whether this will help.
(more…)
March 9, 2016
We spend a lot on food. But we also eat a lot and I don’t have FOND memories of those penny-pinching days when I’d only eat one meal a day and that was leftovers from dinner from the night before.
So we spend on food. I wondered, though, could we feed all three of us for $75? That’s what our biggest Trader Joe’s and local produce shopping trip cost.
Mostly I’m curious. I am terrible at meal planning in any sane kind of way that saves time and energy so this is an experiment in making a meal plan and sticking to it. I’ve hit a cooking rut. I typically like cooking even if I suck at coming up with vegetable side dishes, but when my cravings are for take out it’s because I’ve gotten busy and stressed or more tired than usual and can’t spare the brainpower to come up with foods we like.
What we bought, roughly, was mostly stuff for this week, but some stuff for freezing and will be used later. In turn, I’ll be using ingredients we already have but the value is generally going to balance out. This week I bought 4 pounds of ground turkey for $2.99/lb. Two weeks ago we picked up a few pounds of chicken for $1.19/lb and pork for $1.99/lb. We use more chicken or pork in a single recipe than ground turkey so it’s an even enough trade.
The menu
Caveats: Cooking really only applies to dinners. Breakfast is almost always eggs, sliced ham, toast, or a simple bowl of oatmeal.
Lunch is (PiC) ham and cheese sandwiches with chips; (LB) some combination of banana, tofu, raisins, clementines, tortillas, cheese, ham, dinner leftovers; (me) leftovers.
Sunday
3 pork chops & 1 drumstick, ginger garlic rice, mashed cauliflower.
Monday
Turkey burgers (made with ground turkey, minced zucchini, quinoa) on honey whole wheat buns served with tomatos, red onions, sprouts, mayo, ketchup. Plus tator tots.
What happened? Success! Despite a major bump in the day, we got burgers on the table.
Tuesday
Homemade pizza with tomato sauce, cheddar and mozzarella, chicken
What happened? Fail! Turns out my yeast is super expired. It didn’t even put up a token fizz. Of course I discover this at 430 pm, so instead I recklessly tried a miso-butter chicken and bok choy recipe. This is what happens, I was looking for a green bean vinagrette and get a whole new recipe instead. I cannot be trusted. (Justification: We had leftover baby bok choy that needed to be used! And it’s not every day I have miso in the pantry.) It was delicious, soooo, yay improv?
Wednesday
Hainan chicken with ginger garlic rice (cooked Sunday), served with cherry tomatoes and cucumbers
What happened? Fail! My brain shut down at 4 pm and this is where it would have been really useful to have cooked more on Sunday. But I had cooked enough rice and mashed cauliflower to go with the Trader Joe’s packaged chicken curry we had in the fridge from last week and that was served with a side of fresh green beans. I did cook ahead a pan of roasted red potatoes for tomorrow.
Thursday
Side roasted red potatoes with dabs of butter and lots of garlic. Um. A main dish of some kind.
What happened? We had turkey burgers again because I’d made 6 adult patties and 2 baby patties.
Friday
Tuna or ham and cheddar sandwiches, salad and soup
What happened? Cheese sandwiches and boxed tomato soup. I could make a good tomato soup from scratch but not all days are from-scratch cooking days.
Saturday
Unplanned
What happened? Turkey burgers again! We wanted to use up the burger buns and veggies bought specifically for this (sprouts, red onions, etc) and we did. Good thing we love our turkey burgers and enjoyed them down to the last bite!
Meal approximations are better than planning
Ironically, I did better in the three weeks after the initial challenge. Forcing myself to follow an exact menu plan, meal and day, just didn’t seem to work well. $75 was high for our perishables but our overall costs were generally in line with a $75-100/week budget. We pick up bulk staples irregularly so that’s the extra $25-40 in the weekly spend.
Some of my best dinners were…
A) Lemon baked tilapia served with brown rice and green beans
B) Mixed cavatappi and whole wheat rotini topped with a zucchini, carrot and turkey ragu sauce served with a homemade load of bread, baked bok choy and carrots
C) Crockpot lasagna
D) Tilapia fish tacos & burritos.
Warning: if you’re baking your fish with lemon slices, the rind might leave a bitter taste on parts of the fish. Also remove all the lemon slices before serving. I missed one and wondered why my fish taco was disgustingly bitter.
Ideas for future menus
Shrimp and grits with garlic, onions, and tomatoes
Poached eggs served with polenta, hash browns, veggie
Marinated Baked Pork Chops
Pork chops with caramelized onions
Lemon baked chicken with roasted potatoes and onions
Best Takeaways
I don’t mind using the occasional packaged or prepared meal anymore. First it was about the cost, then it was about the nutrition. But overall, we’re doing a lot better on both fronts just by virtue of this experiment, more so than expected, and a few conveniences are just fine by me.
Our stress over getting a meal on the table, previously disproportionate to the crime, is incredibly low now.
I did serve pasta so frequently it’s been put on the No Fly List for a while. That was predictable but oddly disappointing, nonetheless. It’s just barely fathomable that it’s possible no one can eat pasta every day for three weeks without complaint.
If you’ve got tried and true recipes that you’re willing to share, please do! I require simplicity, though.
June 17, 2015
Thanks in large part to PiC, our reputation as hosts for the SF Bay Area remains untarnished. If there was a Great Hosts Club, I think we’d be eligible to join. A dear friend spent a weekend with us and with a bit of planning, a lot of flexibility, and a soupcon of adventurousness it couldn’t have been more perfect.
It could have been actual perfection if we had miraculous recoveries from our various health issues but other than that, it was perfect.
Most of the time was spent catching up, talking about life and money and kids and travel and just, oh, everything under the sun. We tend to fail miserably at exploring our own city but having guests is an excellent way to kick us out and discover.
When we ventured beyond the front door….
Remember the Nopalito fail? We redeemed ourselves with take out.
The painted tiles are gorgeous. Who knew?
16th Street painted tiles
My suggestion of NOT trying to cross the bridge and get an excellent view of it: great!
Our first visit to Crissy Field
Crissy Field, view of a foggy Golden Gate Bridge
I had forgotten what delectations can be had from Arizmendi Bakery (a co-op).
Cheese bread, peach strawberry scone, oat scone
We actively practiced respecting our limits, not being fools or pushing ourselves too much. One of the stupidest mistakes I make when traveling or hosting is failing to recognize when my body’s about to bow out. Another is failing to flock to the birds of my feather: those who are considerate of all physical limitations and find ways to have fun without catastrophic regrets.
So this weekend? Mutual respect, good memories, happy plans to make more.