Back on the 100-Day Challenge "Wagon"

Oy, where is the time going??? This week ended up being a bit of a write-off due to physical/health issues Tuesday through yesterday. Part of it was messed-up sleep affecting my ability to concentrate and even make decisions. Now that I'm coming out of it, I'm feeling less guilty about not focusing on my goals because I can see just how affected I was!

But at the end of this second week, that leaves me with fewer days to accomplish some big goals I have for the rest of this year, which include:

*walk/run 5 km (I had gotten up to 1.3 miles/just over 2 km on the treadmill, but I haven't done anything on the treadmill in a week, I think)
*get the rough draft of my teen novel done
*get my dairy-free ebook done
*100 blog/website posts!

I had not connected with my goals really at all this week. My energy levels and mental stamina were poor enough that they didn't matter to me a bit. And yet, first thing this morning, my mind is back on the goals and I really want to accomplish them.

One of my smaller goals is to work toward having one to two weeks' worth of gluten-free (and naturally, dairy-free, since I can't have dairy) lunch and supper menus that have been tried and enjoyed. My daughter and I both really like the stuffed peppers recipe from Raw Food: A Complete Guide for Every Meal of the Day but I don't know it's the kind of thing my husband and son will like, so we make it now and then for lunch. I made some yesterday. It's a super quick recipe. (I do have to modify it slightly since the recipe calls for hazelnuts--hazelnuts make my mouth itch!)

I've had a new gluten-free book for a little bit and had not yet tried anything from it. Part of it is that I can not for the life of me find the sorghum flour used in their flour blend. There's probably one store in particular I need to go to (Planet Organic), but I just haven't made my way there yet. In any case, the book is

Cooking for Your Gluten-Free Teen: Everyday Foods the Whole Family Will Love

They are conscious that many people eating gluten-free also have dairy issues, so many of the recipes specifically mention substituting a non-dairy product. I made the pizza for us yesterday, but just used the flour blend I had left over from a different book and used a reduced amount of soy parmesan (wasn't sure what it would do compared to regular parmesan) in the crust. It still worked out very well! And I had a happy teen when I picked her up from dance class and had a piece of pizza all ready in the vehicle for her to eat. She ate nearly the rest of her half (we split one pizza; I forgot to take a picture of the whole thing, but her side had "regular" cheese and mine had the Daiya) and had no feeling of unwellness afterward. She really wants to try the doughnuts; I will have to either find sorghum flour or make a new batch of the blend I use and try the recipe with that.

Before I head off to the treadmill, I may not have a picture of our whole pizza, but I do have a picture of some of my pieces:

A mix of mozza and cheddar Daiya, gluten- and dairy-free meat slices (no, didn't go veggie this time), gluten- and dairy-free crust. Italian seasoning sprinkled on top. Photo taken on a BlackBerry Torch; forgive me. ;)

Time to refocus!

A little recap of the past few days:

*Saturday: wheat-free, but heavy on other grains, low on fruits and veggies.
*Sunday and Monday: NOT wheat-free. Even went a little overboard perhaps.

I told you it was a little recap. ;) I will say that my weight has stayed the 2lbs down. It'd be lovely to see it go down more this week. I've slowly had weight creep up over the past 5-10 years, not a lot, but 10 lbs down from where I am now would be fantastic.

Today, I need fruits and veggies. I'm craving them. But I have realized I don't really have a focus anymore. I wanted to see if I could do wheat-free last week, ended up having 4 days wheat-free (wow!), so that's accomplished but I don't know where I'm going from here! What are my goals again? lol.

I still have a yearning to be high raw, at least for a while. I find myself often thinking of people who went 100% raw for a while and their allergies just faded away. I especially think of it when I'm rubbing my eyes lately due to something in my environment driving me crazy. :-/ Or when I would like to eat certain foods raw but can't. My body needs to detox.

I guess this helps give me a vision for the week: more raw, less processed. That's one thing I can say about lately is that there have definitely been fewer processed foods prepared by me. There's so much garbage added to them all that just removing them will probably make a difference.

What does this mean for today?

*Wheat-free again. Why not? It was much easier than I thought. I do have to set some limits on the other grains I eat, like the corn Tostitos in the house (I've been eating them with the Daiya cheddar as nachos and cheese; yum!).

*I've been having a hankering for Ani Phyo's Coconut Breakfast Cakes from this cookbook:

I've had them a few times before and really like them.

*Of course, that doesn't take care of my fruits and veggies situation. I have oranges, not sure if the bananas are ripe yet, there are some grapes... I just have to prepare things. If the bananas are ready, I'll make myself a nice green smoothie today. I can add a salad or two in, cut up some carrots and cucumber and eat that with hummus...

I have lots of great food in the house; I just need to take the time to prep and eat it.

I'm going to have to get more adventurous and really try some different recipes. I have a few raw cookbooks here. I just hate taking the time to prepare something and then I don't like it and have to figure out something else to eat. lol. Of course, it has also happened that I've decided to try a recipe, I've bought the necessary stuff, it's stayed in the fridge so long that I've forgotten which recipe it belonged to. *sigh*

Daiya Cheese

I commented on someone else's blog (http://cookingglutenfree.blogspot.com/2012/01/easy-peasy-dairy-free-sour-cream.html) about Daiya cheese. I'd just like to talk about it here. :)

Daiya cheese is a dairy-free, soy-free, gluten-free cheese. It comes pre-shredded in mozza-style and cheddar-style. I can not stand all of the other dairy-free cheeses I have tried that are soy- and rice-based. I've tried them all, I think. Not that there's a huge selection of truly dairy-free soy cheeses--so many have casein!

In any case, I do really like the mozza. It's great on pizzas and in lasagnas. You must use it sparingly; it can really overwhelm you as you go along and has even made me and a friend feel sick when we've used too much. Tonight, I tried the cheddar-style in a grilled cheese sandwich and it was GOOD! I was so excited: I haven't been able to eat grilled cheese in years!