Monday, August 30, 2010

Shrimp Grok-Amole - a primal feast!

So, in my quest to find the solution to my recently prevalent health concerns, ie, more gastro symptoms despite eating less problematic foods, I have been recommended by several people to look into the paleo/primal/hunter-gatherer diet. I've spent nearly all my free time the last two weekends absorbed at Mark's Daily Apple.

The paleo/primal way of eating is a fascinating concept to me. Basically, you're incorporating all the foods that your caveman ancestors ate. You're pretty much eating meat, veggies, fruit, roots and nuts. You're avoiding things like legumes, grains, dairy products and refined sugars (hmm, sound like Stephanie's problem food list to anyone else???)

I've tried a few basic recipes, and so far so good. I like the idea behind the diet, but I'm not positive that this is the cure-all to my problems. Right now I'm looking at getting on the lowFODMAP diet for awhile, which sounds like it may be more appropriate for my symptoms.

However, I did buy Mark's book on Amazon, as well as adding the cookbook to my wishlist, and am so excited to get reading! I will definitely be eating with a more paleo-conscious emphasis!

I was excited, if a bit apprehensive, about this dish. It incorporated many of my favorite foods, like avocado, tomatoes and shrimp, but it still seemed a bit foreign to me.

I loved it! I ate the first batch over the weekend last week, and am eagerly awaiting ripe avocados to make it again!

I ate chips with it the first night (so un-primal of me!), but decided I liked it better without them. Think of it like a great fresh seafood taco, just without the taco shell. It might even be good over some romaine lettuce. Taco salad!

Just FYI, I'm kind of OCD about having equal amounts of food in my bite-fuls, so I chopped everything to be uniform in size (like the shrimp, tomatoes and avocado). I like to enjoy all the flavors at the same time.


Grok-Amole Salad
Adapted from Mark's Daily Apple recipe here

1 lb cooked and peeled shrimp, chopped
3-4 ripe avocados, peeled and chopped
3-4 ripe tomatoes, chopped
2-3 green onions, finely chopped (I used a dash of onion powder and a teaspoon of chives. I think it subbed okay)
1 orange/yellow pepper, chopped (I used a green pepper)
3-4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
Juice of 1-2 limes
Olive oil
Fresh cilantro, chopped (I just used about a teaspoon)
Salt and pepper

The original recipe called for 1 seeded/finely chopped jalapeno, but I didn't have one. I liked it without.

Mix the shrimp and all the veggies in a large bowl. Drizzle the lime juice and oil over the top, then sprinkle with cilantro, salt and pepper. Mix it all up really well, and serve.

Makes 3-4 servings

*Note: This recipe has been linked over to Amy's Slightly Indulgent Tuesday's Anniversary Edition*

Superly Awesome Cashew Cream

(photo belongs to Amy over at Simply Sugar & Gluten Free)

Cashew cream. Think dairy free whipped cream. For real!! Never would have thought of it myself. But wow, am I glad I tried it! This stuff is food of the gods!

When in the final rounds of taste-testing, I thrust a spoonful in my husband's face, and said, "Eat. Now." Warily, he glanced at it, then looked up at me and asked the infamous question, "What's in it?"

I bit my lip. I sighed. I nudged the spoon closer to his mouth, and said, "Just try it!" I was greeted with more hesitation.

Finally, I relented. "Cashews and dates," I revealed. He scrunched up his nose, and took half a step back.

I was persistent. "Seriously," I said, a hint of pleading now in my voice, "Just take a taste. It's good. I promise"

He took the spoon from my hand, declaring, "I hate dates. And cashews. Just for the record." Embedded in his words was the underlying meaning, you owe me.

Just wait, I thought in response.

A moment, my breath held in my lungs. The spoon finds his mouth. He takes it out, and savors the flavor for a few seconds. Then....A second lick to the back of the utensil!

Unbelievable!

In his own words, "I would eat that any day."

Success!!!!!!

There you have it, folks. Now you've got to try it for yourself.

I've eaten this atop dairy free pudding, freshly toasted GF bread, peanut butter cookies, almond flour biscuits, and dunked many strawberries (and maybe a few fingers) in it.

So, if you're looking for something to rock your world, a dessert topping that everyone will be wow-ed by, (just in time for the holidays even), this is it!


*the only change I made to mine was I only used 2 dates, rather than 3 (and I don't know if they were medjool...they were the sitting-at-the-bottom-of-my-pantry variety). It was sweet enough for me, and soooooooo delicious!

Pumpkin pie, anyone?

Monday, August 23, 2010

Egg Flower Soup

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this recipe! There's a restaurant in Beaverton, OR called Chang's Mongolian Grill, where our family ate growing up. We went there for all the special occasions - birthdays, graduation, new years, dates, etc., and all the times in between. We ate there so often in fact, that the owners and chefs knew our names! Every time Luke and I go to Oregon, we try and visit. They do a pretty good job of keeping things gluten free (as long as you go at the beginning of the lunch/dinner hour, since it is a buffet-style place).

We've been to many similar restaurants, and nothing else compares. Their combination of food/sauces is so unique, and so delicious! You start the meal out with hitting up the food bar, where you essentially grab all your "ingredients," then take it up to the grill for them to fry it up for you. You get back to your table, and are greeted by egg flower soup, sticky rice and crepes (don't know if these are GF, haven't asked...). Dessert is a fortune cookie atop chocolate ice cream (on the side for me, though). So good! So worth the trip to Oregon for ;) Just kidding Mom and Dad!

For the rest of the time, when we're Chang's-less, we have Egg Flower Soup.

I found this recipe in my trusty "Life Tastes Good Again" cookbook, but didn't try it until one night, when I was desperately hungry, and short on ingredients. Luckily I had everything for this soup. I started jumping up and down when I tasted it, because it was exactly as I remembered Chang's soup being! This is a great accompaniment to chicken fried rice, or stir-fry. It's also a great dinner when you're home late, and thinking, there's nothing to eat...like I was tonight :)

I've made some variations to the original recipe, and here it is in all it's simplicity and deliciousness!

Egg Flower Soup

2 tbsp starch (cornstarch/arrowroot works great)
dash of salt
2 1/2 c chicken broth (I use Swanson, have tried using homemade, and it's just not as good)
1/2 c water
1/2 - 1 cup carrots, finely minced or grated
1 egg, beaten

Combine the starch and salt in a medium pan. Stirring with a whisk, slowly add the liquids.

Add the carrots. Bring to boiling over medium-high heat, stirring very frequently.

Once it's boiling, decrease the heat to medium. I usually let it cook for about 10 minutes, to soften the carrots.

While gently stirring with a spoon, slowly drizzle the beaten egg into the soup. If you use a whisk, you break the egg up too much. If you pour the egg in too fast, you get big clumps of egg. Which aren't necessarily bad, if you like them. My sister and I used to have competitions to find the biggest egg lump in our soup!

Remove soup from heat and serve hot. Makes 3 full servings, or 5 appetizer servings. Reheats really well.


P.S. This post is linked over to Amy's Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays! Check out the other great recipes posted there!!

Monday, August 16, 2010

Help me solve my health mystery!

I've been feeling frustrated lately with my gut. I don't know what to do. I feel like I'm fighting two wars:

1 - The battle of Stephanie-feeling-like-crap-all-the-time, and
2 - The battle of "what's for dinner"/"there's nothing good to eat"/"WTF can I eat in the next 30 minutes because I just got home from working a 10-hour day and DON'T feel like cooking!?!"

When I pay attention to the first, I am more careful about eating foods that are considered "safe" (mostly, considered to be IBS-safe). But often, that is more boring, less exciting, and let's be honest, I love to cook/bake/explore the world of food! Eating chicken and rice all the time sucks.

When I devote more energy to the second, I make things that I enjoy eating. I may cheat a bit on my "IBS diet" and have a bit of dairy, more fatty foods, etc. But I feel satisfied in that I'm not eating the same ol' boring food, and my palate is pleased. Problem is, my gut sometimes isn't.

My main symptoms tend to be serious gas, bloating, cramping, and constipation/diarrhea (and associated pain).
Other, possibly, maybe related symptoms are frequent headaches, joint pain-including severe TMD (hello, I'm 26!!! Some days I can't even get out of bed and function without ibuprofen and heat), very intense PMS, irritability (so says my husband lol)...and I'm sure there are more, I just can't think of anything else at the moment.
That may be another possible symptom - memory/brain issues. I've noticed recently that my memory isn't what it used to be (and, like I said, I'm not that old), and I'm really having problems with mixing my words/letters up when writing/typing. I never had problems with dyslexia before, but it's kind of worrying me...

Anyway, I'm not sure what to pinpoint as far as the cause of my symptoms goes, b/c it varies so much, and feels so random.

So what's the problem/problems?

Stress? Yes, I do have a lot of stress in my life, and I cause the majority of it. But is it the source?
Specific intolerances that I am missing?
Lectin intolerance?
IBS (and not following the diet more directly)?
It's all in my head (lol!!)?

I DON'T KNOW!!

I don't eat a lot of sugar, processed foods, or fat. I only eat out 2-3 times a month. I eat mostly lean meats, GF grains, fruits/veggies, nuts, etc. I drink a lot of water. I take an IBS-friendly fiber supplement before each meal, I drink herbal teas, and not a lot of caffeine or alcohol. I take a probiotic daily. I try and take vitamins a few times a week.

Anyone have any advice/suggestions/good resources on where to look/how to figure this out?

I'm thinking about changing up my diet, either by doing an elimination diet or trying the paleo diet. Any opinions on either of those?

Thanks!

Monday, August 09, 2010

What To Eat When Backpacking

Red Castle Mountain



So, last week, my husband, my father-in-law, and I spent 4 days backpacking in the High Uintas. See a full report on my trip, with lots of pictures HERE.


I wanted to share what I packed for my husband and myself, and what we learned from what we brought. There were definitely things we’ll be doing different next time around to save on weight and space.


What we ate:

For breakfasts, Luke ate 2 packets of oatmeal and a couple pieces of turkey bacon the first couple days. I had made some gluten free hot cereal, which I had frozen in Ziploc bags, and I heated that up each morning for breakfast for me. It was really good! I drank tea with breakfast, and Luke had some Hawaiian Punch.

Lunch was made to be more on-the-go, and it worked out really well. Luke had some peanut butter and honey sandwiches on wheat bread, which seemed good enough for him, eaten with some trail mix and jerky. For myself, the first day I brought some egg salad in a Ziploc bag, and ate that with half a gluten free bagel (made by Udi’s, which I found at our local Einstein Bro’s Bagels). The other days I ate tuna (in the individual pouches) with a bagel half. I also brought some individual mayo packets to mix into the tuna, which made it much more enjoyable (P.S. I stocked up on the mayo at recent trips to fast food restaurants with my husband. Lol).

Dinner consisted of tin foil dinners the first night. The rest of the nights, Luke ate a half packet of ramen, and some bean with bacon soup (which I’d divided and frozen). He loved it! My dinners were actually surprisingly good. I had a packet of Thai Kitchen soup (Bangkok Curry is my favorite), along with some freeze-dried turkey and veggies. I mixed it all together, and it made for a tasty and filling dinner! We also had more Hawaiian Punch with our dinners. We topped off the meal each night with a couple peanut butter cookies. So delicious!

Snacks we packed were trail mix, beef jerky, energy bars for me, oatmeal bars for Luke, dill sunflower seeds, and some Mary’s Gone Crackers Sticks and Twigs (which is a snack similar to pretzels, only gluten free, and healthier. Luke calls it bird food, b/c it’s made from grains and seeds, and tastes like it, but I love it!).


What I recommend for future backpacking trips, knowing what I know now:
(this is mostly for myself, so I don’t forget when next summer rolls around, but hopefully it will benefit you, my readers, as well)

We probably had 10 lbs of food more than we needed! We way over-packed in general, but I think we could have cut back on our weight a bit by watching our food.

So, first on the list: Don’t bother with the perishables. Yeah, it was nice to have bacon with breakfast, and obviously I can’t do oatmeal on the gluten free diet (learned that the hard way last time we went backpacking, that even “safe” oatmeal does not agree with me at ALL). However, my cereal was heavy pre-made. I also wouldn’t want to spend 20 minutes cooking my breakfast each morning, so, I think in the future, what I will do is breakfast on energy bars, trail mix, jerky, and tea.

Luke says that he’d sacrifice good food, like the tin foil dinners, and bean with bacon soup, for a few pounds less in his pack. As unappealing as the freeze-dried meals are, he says he’ll make them work next time. Plus, there’s always ramen. Luke’s dad ate 2 packets of ramen for lunch each day, and a freeze-dried meal each night for dinner. Smart!

My dinners were actually the lightest food I brought. They worked great, tasted good, and I can’t complain. I was really frustrated before we left, because I had found some gluten free dehydrated meals that I really liked, but wasn’t able to get more shipped to me before we would be leaving. So, next time, plan ahead, and order that gluten free stuff way before you need it!

Plus, with perishable food comes a need for a way to store and keep cool. We packed in a couple pounds of dry ice, 2 frozen water bottles (which were nice for having ice-cold drinks, and kept the food cool for a couple days), and a small cooler, which was light by itself, but bulky. Way too much weight there!!!

I brought a couple different energy bars that I really liked:
Lara bars. I really love the peanut butter cookie flavor, but there are a few other flavors that are pretty good too. The cinnamon roll is okay, as are the apple and cherry pie flavors. I enjoyed the peanut butter and jelly flavor as well.
I discovered Organic Food Bar, which may be my new favorite treat! I’ve only tried the Belgium Chocolate Chip flavor, but I really like it. The bar part reminds me of your average energy bar, but nestled in every bite are bursts of creamy, chocolaty goodness! These were great to have up on the trail.
On their website, the price for a box of bars is about equal to the price I paid in the store (about $2.75), but add in shipping…and you’re up to about $3.40. However, I did look on Amazon, and it looks like they sell them for quite a bit less, which is great! Plus, they qualify for amazon prime, which means I get free shipping! So, total cost on amazon is $2.22. Much more affordable for an occasional energy bar!
Just a note: There are a couple of their bars which contain wheat grass and barley grass, but they claim that they are well below the US standard of gluten free. I would still recommend testing them out at home before you open one up on the trail. I will have to give their other bars a try sometime, and report on my findings here. But these I definitely recommend!!

We loved the Hawaiian Punch singles packets! They’re sugar free, but tasted delicious! They were great for accompanying meals, and we ran out too quickly. Pack lots of these, even if you only bring one empty water bottle for them. You’ll want something other than filtered, not-quite-cold spring water to drink. Would have loved some Gatorade as well, but I couldn’t find any individual packets at the store, and forgot to measure out how much would be needed for a water bottle. I’m sure that wouldn’t be too difficult to figure out though. To keep things gluten free, I gave Luke the cup from the mess kit, and drank out of the bottle myself, topping him off as needed.

The GF bagels were so awesome to have, and I would bring them next time. The only problem is, the week we got home, I headed to Einstein Bro’s to stock up again, and was told they have discontinued carrying them! Weak! I’m so sad. They were the best, most “real” tasting bagels I’ve had since going gluten free. Buying them on Udi’s website is probably not an option for me, unless I can find some people to go in with me on them. The price per bagel is the same online as it was to buy at Einstein. But the shipping fees are atrocious! I understand they have to be shipped quickly, and kept frozen to stay fresh, but come on! Twice as much as the cost of one bag of bagels!
I suppose if you buy a few at a time, the shipping fee doesn’t increase much. But I would need to invest in a deep freeze in order to store several bags of bagels, and I don’t have room for that in my current house :P Ah, well, such is life. They did make for very handy meals, and half a bagel was all I really needed at lunch.

Definitely loved the trail mix! We packed way too much of it (filled 2 quart-sized Ziploc bags, one for each of us). We probably only ate half of what we brought in 4 days, and that included sharing some with Luke’s dad. For future trips, I would recommend packing extra M&M’s in the mix. We had a mix of peanut and almond M&M’s, and those got eaten first (I know I don't usually tolerate dairy, but the M's don't seem to bother me in moderation. Score!).

Our trail mix ingredients:
Steph’s: peanut/almond M&M’s, pecans, peanuts, walnuts, almonds, cashews, raisins, dried apples, and dried apricots
Luke’s: peanut/almond M&M’s, pecans, peanuts, walnuts, and almonds

As far as jerky goes, we packed way too much of that too. Probably only ate a serving a day each. But it’s not too heavy, so packing a little extra wasn’t a bad thing. I’ve found a couple of brands that do well with the gluten free thing. Target’s generic brand (can’t think of it at the moment) is good, as well as Hi-Country, which I found at Wal-mart. I don’t know for sure that either is gluten free, but neither lists wheat on the ingredient list, and I have eaten both with no problems. I prefer the Hi-Country jerky, personally. It’s really good!
P.S. I just realized this, and don’t know if I’ve been oblivious all my life, but on most jerky packaging, it says to refrigerate after opening, and best when eaten within 5 days. Was this always the case? We always had jerky in our pantry growing up, and I never remember having to throw it in the fridge. Anyway, side note :) I just took a few servings worth of jerky in a Ziploc bag, and threw the rest in the freezer.

I also packed some Earth Balance butter substitute and a lemon for our fish (that we didn’t get to eat, since we didn’t catch any dinner-worthy fish). The butter was frozen, and in the future, I would probably only pack half a stick, rather than a full one. I also packed some seasoning mix for the fish, that actually worked pretty well with the dinners we ate. I mixed salt, pepper, onion powder and garlic powder in a prescription pill bottle. I’ve since made grilled chicken with this stuff, and it’s pretty good. I would probably bring all this stuff again, as long as we caught some real fish this time (which mostly I blame on us not having enough fishing gear).

We had no problem with fires, once we got the first one going, which was the only difficulty. We kept the ashes covered with rocks until the next time we needed them. I would still recommend bringing a small propane stove for boiling water, which was mostly what we needed for our meals.

So, in summary (because I tend to ramble on a bit in my posts):

Stephanie’s recommended food for backpacking:

Non-GF Food Suggestions:
Breakfast – Oatmeal
Lunch – PBH sandwiches
Dinner – Ramen/dehydrated meals
Snacks – Trail mix, jerky, seeds, oatmeal/energy bars, Hawaiian Punch or other individual drink packets

GF Food Suggestions:
Breakfast – Energy bars/ GF oatmeal
Lunch – Tuna packets w/ GF bread/bagel/crackers
Dinner – GF dehydrated meals/Thai Kitchen soup packets w/ dehydrated meat/veggies to add
Snacks – Trail mix, GF jerky, energy bars, Sticks and Twigs, Hawaiian Punch or other individual drink packets



Enjoy!