Playing with food

Here was breakfast - simply sliced strawberries and a peach  Yum

Lunch! This is my first try of Udi's brand sandwich bread. It's ok. I never have been big on bread, but it's kind of fun to have a sandwich once in a while. Peppered beef, mustard and lettuce on it. Was good :)
Yesterday, I tried their gf cinnamon rolls. They were ok, but kind of dry and grainy. I miss soft chewy cinnamon rolls :(

Yesterday's dinner.  It was SOOO HOT! I left early to run some errands and ended up just baking in my truck from B&N to the library to the grocery store, to the gas station and by the time I got to my parents' house, I thought I was going to pass out! Cinnamon roll, almond milk and a grapefruit soda later, I was on my way home - sweating buckets! So, after lying on the floor in front of the  a/c, cooking was not gonna happen. period. 
It was really nice to have a bunch of green lettuce in the fridge...here's the gross part...I was washing it and a dead grasshopper fell out. *gag gag gag*  I washed it really well and ate it anyway. Didn't die overnight, so it must not have been poisonous.

Dinner Friday. Yeah, tired of cooking after work so I sliced green onions and fried up eggs with it and added some hashbrowns. I always do like having breakfast for dinner though. I mean, I'm hardly ever up early enough to do anything for breakfast but grab a lara bar on the way out the door.

One night I actually felt like cooking so I made this delicious summer sauté. 1 yellow squash, 1 zucchini squash, 1 onion, 1 red bell pepper, a few mushrooms, drizzle of EVOO, S&P. It was great and I had a bunch leftover for the whole week.  Highly recommend.

OLE!! Guac and margs

The other night I left work with nothing on my mind but margaritas so I promptly mixed one up when I got home and of course had to have a little guacamole to go with it!
Recipe for the Marg:
In a Shaker: simple syrup or sugar and ice cubes, equal parts tequila and lime juice.  Shake it baby, shake it!


Recipe for the guac, as usual:
1 avocado, mashed + equal part salsa mixed in. numm.  I nuked the chips for 45 seconds till they were warm and it was like Cafe Cocoa.


I slept really well after I took my allergy pill with the last of the marg. Like the dead. Somewhat groggy at work, till noonish though. Probably won't do that again. It was just habit - I take a pill every night so it won't interfere with the other pill in the morning. It's a whole system. Since I'm not a regular drinker, kind of forgot.  oops.

Who makes Coleslaw? I make coleslaw!

I finally figured out how to use my food processor. Yay me! So, I made coleslaw :)

Yep, those are raisins in there.  My recipe went something like this:
shred 1/2 cabbage and 3 carrots in the food processor.
In a bowl, mix a couple spoons of mayo, 3 splashes of vinegar, 2 pinches of salt, 1 pinch of pepper and 4 spoonfuls of sugar. Stir in cabbage. Dump on some raisins and stir!
It was quite good. I think it's probably pretty hard to mess up coleslaw considering all you really need is cabbage and miracle whip or mayo.

So, it went with lunch:

I grilled up some steak and a couple ears of sweet corn. I'm not such a corn lover but my mom said it was really delicious. So, yay me again!
Barfycat turned her nose up at the piece of steak I gave her and grudgingly ate it so I was confused about why she was begging at the table. Then, when I opened up my corn and she started drooling and petting my feet, I knew.  So after I cut of my kernels I gave the cob to her and whoo hoo! She was a purring machine!!

For real, she's a corn kind of girl

My pickles bring all the boys to the yard...or something like that!

I made pickles. Sounds hard, right? Yeah it was.
NOT!
It took like 2 minutes and they are so yummy! I think I like them better than store bought...except maybe Claussen, those are darn good.
Want the recipe?
In a jar:
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 white vinegar
dash of salt
1/2 small onion, sliced thin
2 cloves garlic sliced
1 tsp dill
a little less than 1/2 cup water
1 sliced cucumber
Shake it all up, let it sit over night or longer in the fridge. I tipped it on the side for a while to make sure everything soaked up evenly. Nommy nom nom nom!
After all that hard work I also made some brownies from Betty Crocker's gf mix. I followed the high altitude directions this time and they turned out really nice. We ate them quickly...

Regular instructions are to add butter and eggs.  High altitude you add cornstarch, reduce butter, add another egg and some water. I almost felt like I was cooking from scratch. But, living in Colorado is worth the extra work.
Otherwise, spinach salads every day! Gotta keep those vitamins up.

90% vegan bc I have to get my life back

Hi Kids! 


I haven't felt like boring you with picture after picture of summer squash on skewers and salads topped with tomatoes because I've also given up dairy in an attempt to calm the raging tummy
You see, a couple of weeks ago I was invited to my grandpa's 99th birthday party and as much as I wanted to go, my body just wouldn't let me. It was like I hit a new low.
I realized that getting up every morning, barely making it to work and suffering through in pain to come home and go to bed early every night isn't living. That one day a week when I felt able to run my errands was a real accomplishment for me and somehow I felt ok with that. But now, I feel sad about that.

Maybe TMI, maybe just a candid confession: I've been really unwell lately. Like, if I have one or two days a week that I'm not in excruciating pain, having gi issues or just curled up in the fetal position from all of the above, I feel lucky. 

So, giving up dairy was kind of an accident. I felt so sick for about 2 weeks that I didn't even go to the grocery store. I lived off my Door to Door deliveries and whatever was in the pantry. Mostly quinoa and instant mashed potatoes. So, I ran out of cheese, yogurt and milk (I was making my instant potatoes with water and olive oil). Not so great tasting, but in a few days I was feeling better. My one good day came that week and I spent it with a friend visiting and laughing. A couple days later, I felt good enough to do some house cleaning above and beyond basic maintenance. Then, a third good day came and I considered going to the grocery store but I had so many other things I wanted to do, so I skipped it! I actually ended up with an entire week where I was able to accomplish things that I hadn't felt well enough to do in months but no "decent" meals to show for it.
Then, I went to the store. I had put 2 and 2 together but I got 3.5 somehow and grabbed some cheese. That night I topped my gf pepperoni pizza with it and the next day I was in pain and sick and for 3 days after that.
So, the short end of my story is that I've decided to give up dairy. Even if it was a coincidence because all other tests have shown it to be ok for me, I don't need it. It's kind of odd for humans to drink cows milk anyway.
People either scoff or are really concerned for me now that I've gone 90% vegan because they don't see how I could possibly get complete nutrition being gluten free, sugar free and meat/dairy free. I think mostly, they are afraid I'm going to put my food issues on them. Well, I'm not. Go ahead and drown in your gluten and pork, if it makes you happy. 
All I know is that raw meat gags me and there's a good chance I'm somehow intolerant to dairy. I want much more from life than the pleasure of food, so I'm willing to give it up. As for nutrition - I'll worry about that when I get my life back! The FDA/USDA might suggest a "perfect mix" for us on some funky looking "pyramid" but that doesn't mean it's what I need to get through my day. 
So, I'll get back to the food pictures, in fact there is a batch of pickles, pickling in my fridge right now. They are very pretty. 
I'm starting to feel like I'm going to end up with a blog about how to eat nothing...well, maybe just plant based foods and the odd egg or grass fed beef (I said 90%...).

Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

Economical me fried the bacon in a skillet, then dumped out most of the grease, fried the potatoes and onions, then the eggs. Added a tomato to cut the grease. So good! So bad! One thing I can say, I don't like eggs fried in bacon grease. There, I said it. Please don't judge me.

Sautéed and ate an entire onion and entire zucchini for lunch. Is that 2 servings of veggies or more? Who cares? It was delicious!

Sautéed some spinach with garlic, thawed out some pre-cooked frozen shrimp and viola! Dinner in 10 minutes or less. This is why I don't understand people who live on fast food because they don't have time...I didn't even have to watch those shrimp defrost - just put em in a bowl in the sink and let the cold water dribble on them for 5 minutes while I stirred the spinach. This would serve 4 people for under $10 can you do that at McDonalds?
I'm just sayin', I could save the world if they'd let me.