tuesday

So today is Tuesday, and I have been cooking wheat free, gluten free, dairy free, yeast free, sugar free and (mainly) egg free meals for my family for about two weeks. At first, this was nearly impossible and I was tempted to just gnaw on a hunk of vegetables for each meal. But that wouldn't do...I wanted real food. I wanted real meals. And I wanted them to taste GOOD. These restrictions really seemed to limit that, however. Thankfully, I have been used to eating "weird" food for most of my life, seeing as my brothers used to be allergic to gluten and dairy, so my mom would cook different things than most moms. They managed to rid themselves of those allergies a couple years down the road (or did they...) so lately my mom has been into general health food (keifers, soaking flours, alternative foods, etc.). However, the past month, my mom has become convinced that we are all suffering from an overgrowth of the yeast Candida, which is normally found in all humans, but exorbitant amounts of it can cause problems like allergies, brain fog, nausea, bloating, tiredness, psoriasis, and pretty much every other ailment under the sun. So, in an effort to cleanse ourselves of this, we are now following a very strict and rigid diet, which bans pretty much every food item found in common "normal" dishes. This is where the art of the challenge comes in: I am given the duty of creating dishes that please everyone (including unrealisticly high standards of my 19 year old brother) and still do what food was always and originally intended to do: nourish our bodies.

I decided to start this blog mainly to remember what I made each day (or at least the interesting things) and maybe help other people out in the process. Although - I am greatly at the mercy of the many many other blogs and research I found out here, I am merely a receiver of their tireless recipe-making efforts! So, I really claim no recipe as my own, although I do generally make many alternations.

So, today I made Strawberry Coconut Muffins - this is a HUGE landmark because my past three batches of muffins (one of which was this recipe, but with all applesauce instead of eggs - crazy, I know) failed in some aspect or another. Finally - what I had in my head actually materialized on the plate! Amazing. I only used 2 real eggs, because I didn't feel like using up 6, and used 3 flax "eggs" (1 TB ground flax seeds to 3 TB water, per "egg"), and one cup of mashed left over spaghetti squash. And I also eliminated the sugar and added more coconut oil and some water. They were delicious!




And for dinner, I made Chicken Alfredo with homemade buckwheat noodles. I made a few alterations because we only had half a zucchini, so I put broccoli in with the noodles, and used the stalks from the broccoli in the sauce. It was soooo good...my parents had no idea! And thankfully I was pretty good with the cashews - I've been having some problems with them sometimes (brain fog and some tiredness). So all in all, a good day! I also made brown rice waffles for breakfast, but I didn't get a picture of them. Maybe tomorrow, since there were leftovers. :)