Monday Monday

Meatless Monday, Meatless Monday, MEATLESS MONDAY!!

So alas it is Monday, which means that it is meatless Monday!  Last night I made some Butternut Squash Soup.  

2 small butternut squash
3 yellow potatoes
2 ambrosia apples
2 generous tablespoons of curry powder
5 cups of chicken broth

• Peel and cube the butternut squash, potatoes and apples.
• Heat up chicken stock
• Put all ingredients in chicken broth
• I let everything simmer for about an hour. 
• Once cooked, I blended the soup in my blender.

I don't think I realised how much soup this would make because I seriously ended up with a lot!  I wont go hungry for at least a month haha!  Good thing it turned out pretty good!  Before I enjoyed a bowl I added some plain yogurt!

No mess chocolate fudge

Since the holiday season is fast approaching, I decided to do some "baking" tonight.  I call it "baking" because there was actually no baking involved.  I got the recipe from my Mum and she makes it pretty much every year during the holidays!  The only issue I have with the recipe itself is that it is in mL and mg as opposed to cups.  No big deal, just meant I had to actually read the packages.

Here is the recipe:

NO MESS CHOCOLATE FUDGE

350 grams chocolate chips

300 ml can sweetened condensed milk

300 ml icing sugar

5 ml vanilla

pinch of salt

125 ml chopped nuts (optional)

paper cups

1. Put all the ingredients in a glass or plastic bowl.
2. Stir them together till they are well mixed.
3. Put the bowl with the fudge mixture into microwave, on high for 2 min.
4. Take the bowl out of the microwave and stir the mixture again, till it’s really smooth.
5. Spoon the fudge mixture into baking cups.
6. Put the baking cups on a cookie sheet and then put the cookie sheet in the fridge.
7. Chill the fudge for 1 - 2 hours, till it’s firm. 

I added more chocolate chips after I finished mixing and I added skor toffee bits! Turned out pretty darn well if you ask me :)

 

9 Days

So I've been gluten-free for nine days now and I don't feel all that different than I did when I started this   lifestyle change.  I haven't had any gas and I have only been bloated a few times, but I guess I was expecting something more "A-HA!" as Oprah would say.  I think what I'll do is go all the way to 30 days and re-evaluate.  If after 30 days I notice a change in my overall health, then I'll stick with it!  What I may do is after the 30 days I may turn to just baking my own bread as opposed to buying any bread from stores that way I know that there are not any sort of fillers in what I'm eating.  I'll admit it, I miss my gourmet sandwiches with homemade pesto and roasted tomatoes and I miss BLTs.  I tried to make gluten-free bread on the weekend and it turned into a brick.  Like, I could throw it at someone and the 'bread' would probably knock them out.  Good for walking through a sketchy part of town, not good for eating.  Tonight for dinner I had some chicken salad after I got home from my run.

Chicken Salad

• can of chicken, in water (drained)
• cup of yogurt
• half a cup of celery
• a few stalks of green onions cuts up
• half a cup of grapes
• a generous tablespoon of curry powder
• handful of walnuts

Mix and enjoy.  I love the contrast of the grapes and the curry! Tasty tasty!

A Change of Lifestyle

Hello bloggersphere!

About two weeks ago I decided that I would completely cut wheat from my diet.  What prompted this change in lifestyle was reading the book Wheat Belly.  The book is rather insightful and it really opened my eyes to how bad wheat is for our bodies and health.  I have suffered from gastroesophageal reflux disease for a little over three years now and after reading about how wheat gluten is really hard on your gastrointestinal tract, I decided that cutting wheat from my daily diet would be the best decision for me. I have been wheat-gluten free for five days now and I am feeling pretty great.  My cravings for all things wheat are slowly subsiding and I'm feeling better than I have in months.

It is definitely a complete lifestyle change.  This is due to the fact that there is wheat in everything.  It requires you to be more conscious of what you are putting into your body and putting a bit more preparation into meals.  It is honestly not as hard as I thought it would be, which definitely is making it easier to stick to it!

The past week I've been looking up different recipes and getting inspiration from different blogs.  Tonight I'm going to make some homemade sloppy joes with homemade bread! I'll post pictures and the results tomorrow!

Anyways, check out the book Wheat Belly.  If anything, it gets you thinking critically about the food you are consuming.