What I Ate Wednesday #57

 

& Gluten Free

That’s right, we are participating a gluten free week as an experiment. Because of my nutrition background and study of visual diagnosis, I have had a suspicion that Andy might have a gluten sensitivity. We are trying a week or two gluten free to study the effects of not having it in our system.  Many people have asked me about gluten issues in my sessions, so I was curious if being vegan, I could accommodate both without going raw.  I have gone raw in the past, but I don’t feel for me that it is doable in cold weather.  I enjoy it much more when the produce is growing in my yard.  I do eat a lot of raw food, so this might be a good combination to try. The meals here are from yesterday, day two being gluten free. 

I woke up at 4:00am to coffee, that goodness that has no gluten!  After a bit of writing, I journeyed to the basement for cardio.  Then back up for a 7:00am breakfast.

Frozen Fruit (defrosted), berries and mango, with soy yogurt and protein powder mixed in, topped by hemp and chia seeds.

After breakfast, I knew I had to go to the store to stock up, if two weeks of no gluten were ahead.  So I packed my bags and headed to Wegman’s with dad. I picked up tons of produce, bean noodles, tofu, tempeh, frozen fruit and veggies and other meal essentials.

I left there quite disappointed, not just because they were out of my favorite bagged kale, because, I probably ended up spending about $80 more than if I had drove 9 more minutes to Trader Joe’s.  Other than Dayia cheese and Vegenaise, I can get pretty much everything at TJ’s. Just since the two weeks I had been there last, so many of their items went up in price.  I budget probably double what most people do for groceries, and I was even shocked.  I don’t mind spending money of good healthy organic food, but, if I wanted to spend that much, I would have gone to Whole Foods and got even better options.

My most exciting find had to be strawberries.

I know they are not quite in season yet, but when I saw they had organic strawberries, I just could not help myself.

Mya screamed with joy when she got home and saw these!  She ate half of them as an after dinner snack.

I was quite hungry after shopping, I had a coffee before we left the house, and now I was ready for lunch. I picked up a bag of their Asian Salad, I love this mix, especially the cilantro.  Andy does not like cilantro, so I pick it all out of the bag, then put it all in my bowl! It came with almonds and Chinese noodles as topping.  I gave the dogs the noodles, and we ate the almonds mixed in.

 

Right after lunch, I threw together Mya’s after school snack. Peanut butter brown rice syrup rice treats with chocolate chips.

This recipe was adapted from an episode of Andrea Beaman’s Fed Up.  I did not write it down, I just remember the basics.  So I melted some peanut butter in a pot with some brown rice syrup. I poured it into a bowl of puffed rice, not as good as crispies, but I was all out, then I added the chips at the end before pressing it into a casserole dish to firm up.

After refrigerating it for an hour, I cut it into squares.

After lunch, I made up for my weight training I missed in the morning.  My arms were killing me by the time the last set was done!

Dinner was my take on Asian lettuce cups.  I never made these before, but I thought of all those fresh veggies I had, plus a block of Asian baked tofu that would be perfect to add in as the “meat”.  These savoy cabbage leaves were stuffed with a mixture of cooked brown rice, Asian baked tofu, shitake mushrooms, onions, peppers, snap peas, carrots, a drizzle of gluten free shitake mushroom sauce and some peanuts on top.  They were super delicious and I was stuffed after one and a half! Very filling.

After dinner, I had a hot cup of decaf Dark Magic with cinnamon!

At 6:45pm, I made my way to the basement for another 1/2 hour on the elliptical. I was a little hungry because we ate dinner pretty early. I ended the night with a strawberry protein shake and some stove popped pop corn.

So that was the end of our day two of gluten free.  I would also like to share my favorite snack of the week.

Grilled Asparagus with lemon cashew dipping sauce.

I roasted one pound of asparagus at 500 degrees for 5 minutes with a drizzle of coconut oil, some garlic seasoning, and a dash of lemon juice.

While it was roasting, I made my sauce. 

Half cup raw cashews, 2 tsp. lemon juice, 1 tsp. agave and 1 tbsp. water blended in the Vitamix until a creamy thick dipping sauce was formed. YUM!!!! Perfect combo.

I will update you on our progress of gluten free eating next week!  Have a great Wednesday, and eat a piece of bread for me!  Just kidding, I have not craved any yet, it has been three days. 

Enjoy your day and stop by again soon!

XOXO