Diet & Healthy Food Stuff.

Be forewarned, this post is really heavy on the picture content.

It has been quite a while since I updated anything. I keep emailing myself pictures of things I've made for dinner and then forgetting to put them up anywhere. So, in keeping with today's theme of housekeeping and managing paperwork, I am going to try to get blog work done too. (After this post, I'm going to go wash some dishes to be followed by a post on one of my other blogs. Because blogging makes a good reward after doing dishes.) I have been gradually switching my diet to something more vegetarian-ish. I have also been in the process of cutting carbohydrates out and getting rid of dairy. (Discovering that one of the sources of my stomach related misery was diary made me sad, but I'll live.)

For some reason, the picture of this meal didn't send. I had beet noodles (made using a Vegetti spiral cutter) that I sauteed with summer squash (also cut with the spiral cutter), cashews, and spinach. I then topped it with some goat cheese. Along side, I had 3 bean chili with textured vegetable protein crumbles that were seasoned like taco meat. Alas, the chili was a loss and the goat cheese made my stomach unhappy later - though it tasted amazing.

This was kale along side grilled chicken in chicken paprikash with yellow sweet bell pepper in it on noodles cut from summer squash. The high diary content wasn't great for my lactose intolerance, but this was the meal I had shortly before the proverbial penny dropped and I realized what part of my problem was.

The day that I had this for dinner, I had a relatively low carbohydrate meals for most of the day. Breakfast has been a bowl of cereal with some dehydrated fruit thrown on top of it (usually dehydrated strawberries) and a cup of coffee on the side. Lunch is usually a salad of some sort.

I am finding that I really enjoy kale in pretty much anything I can get my hands on. I also have been really enjoying beets. My preference has been for pickled beets, but since I started taking Agestin, I have been all about pickles of pretty much any form. Direct result of this is that pickles have been a regular between meal snack.

Zucchini cut into 'ribbons' with my vegetable peeler comes pretty close to fettuccine. I had this with alfredo sauce on it. I then threw italian seasoning and red pepper flakes on top. It was ah-mazing. I highly recommend it. Because I was basically having nothing but a whole zucchini for dinner, I didn't add anything else to this meal for myself.

Dinner that night for the guys was spaghetti and meatballs.

This night, the guys had sandwiches. It was oppressively hot that day and I just didn't have the will to heat up the kitchen to cook burgers as I had planned. So, I broke out the flatbread that I picked up at Aldi's and then put a combination of romaine lettuce, bagged salad remnants, hummus, and tuna salad on there. Next time, I think I'm going to use a little less filling for the wrap.

Now, with the diet changes that I have made, I am allowing myself more than one wrap if I am super hungry. My thinking is that one tortilla or flatbread is pretty much the equivalent of a single slice of bread. Thus, two slices of bread worth of carbs is not going to be a big problem.

I have also been finding that romaine lettuce is a bit hard to roll up down the length of it because of that strong central rib. I am thinking about trying out using them in place of bread at some point. A friend who has gone ultra low carb and gluten free for health reasons has said they even work for hotdog buns.

My diet is not just veggies and I still allow myself tasty food. I have been making indian and chinese food a lot more often. This pic is from before I went from regular sized plates to using a salad plate for my meal. It has more carbs than I usually eat in a given meal, but it is also from right at the beginning of this diet change.

The chicken korma was fantastic. Aldi's right now has the korma simmer sauce. I don't know if it is going to be a regular part of their stock. It has been there for a few months now. I kinda hope it will be because it is delicious. I also picked up the garlic naan there as well. The spiced lentils are from a recipe that I found and put up on my Pinterest cooking page.

Of it all, the rice was probably the most basic part of the meal because it was plain. But that was because I wanted to use some of that korma sauce on it. (I love rice with sauces on it and with butter. It is something that isn't the healthiest thing for me, but it is a small vice I allow myself when I make this sort of stuff even now. I just have a smaller portion.)

Huh.

So, it looks like Etsy suspended my account because I didn't give them a credit card to bill. I guess this means that I am going to have to take a slightly different approach to selling stuff that I have been making. I just am not sure where to start. I mean, I don't have a credit card and I am not planning on getting one just to make Etsy happy.

I have been looking things over and thinking carefully about stuff like my attempts to sell things that I have been crafting and trying to make money via Keen. I need to sit down and do an inventory of what sort of things I have to sell. I also need to sit down and make a solid business plan for Keen. I may be disabled, but I would like to have some kind of income. It is demoralizing to not be able to say 'I have this physical item for my work.' I didn't realize how big of a deal this was for me until I started taking a hard look at what manner of things trigger depressive episodes.

One of my biggest triggers is not having tangible things to hold up and say 'Behold what I have been compensated in for my work.' It looks like Keen right now is going to be my biggest option for getting some kind of income. It is really hard for me to do Keen, though, because I have really intense issues with social phobia.

Still, I think if I make a plan and stick to it, Keen will prove worthy of remaining involved with and maybe even help me get past some of my enormous social issues.

Wish me luck, I suppose.

Menu for week of 9/10/17 & update

Hi again,

It has been a really busy week. School started last Wednesday. Beloved and I celebrated our anniversary last Monday. And somehow between then and now, I have been busy doing stuff like organizing everything and being cranky. I think this means I am in a mixed episode. It isn't that bad. I'm just extra cranky and extra focused on cleaning/organizing. No wild feelings that I must buy all the things. Though, I confess some annoyance that my brain is going faster than I can write at the moment. Nothing does a better job of making sure you're going to have typoes than trying to spell the word you're thinking instead of the one that is supposed to come next in the sentence.

Meals this week are a little bit easier now. The boys are doing school lunch. We qualify for the free lunch program, so this will actually be a big help. I am still packing lunches for Beloved. And I am still working on mastering the healthier lunches for myself. It became pretty clear last week that I need to stick with a low carbohydrate diet. The issue that created for me is cleared up now, but I must focus my enjoyment of carbohydrate rich foods into something done on the basis of much smaller portions than I have had in the past. I also am replacing my carbohydrate rich foods with ones that are lower in carbohydrates or completely free of them.

I tried making my own veggie burgers but it made a complete mess. I am going to eventually master how to make these things with out a ton of rice in them. Aside from that, I'm going to keep doing the veggie noodles. I am afraid that I am going to have to limit how much I can have by way of sweet potatoes and potatoes. For some reason, I thought that they were relatively ok to have instead of the wheat based pastas. I was wrong. They're better than some of the wheat pastas but just as carbohydrate laden as the others. It's tough because I want something with the same mouth feel as regular pasta. Thus, I am going with portion control. Instead of a normal dinner plate for my meals, I am using one of my fancy good china salad plates. While I do have salad plates from the everyday basic set, the fancy plate makes me feel a little better about my smaller portions because they look kinda pretty.

Here's this week's menu.

Day	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Mon	Eggs	Sandwiches	Hamburgers w/ fixings
Tues	Cereal	Spaghetti & meatballs / salad w/ hummus	Pulled chicken enchiladas & mexican rice
Wed	Pop-tarts	Leftovers/ salad	BBQ Hotdogs w/ fixings, salad & chips
Thurs	Eggs	Turkey sandwich w/ chips / chicken salad wrap & veggies	Spaghetti & homemade meat sauce w/ salad & garlic bread
Fri	Cereal	Turkey sandwich w/ chips / leftovers	Pork chops w/ sweet potatoes & peas
Sat	Eggs & bacon	Leftovers/ Sandwiches	Roast beef w/ root veggies & broccoli
Sun	Eggs & hash	Leftovers	Pizza

Menu for the week of 9/4/17

Hi there!

Today has been a busy day. It is my wedding anniversary. We were out to lunch this afternoon and we enjoyed some quiet time as his folks watched the boys. It was really nice to just get some alone time with Beloved. Also, the new Mexican restaurant in Geneseo is pretty good. I highly recommend it. The service was excellent. The food was excellent. And the atmosphere was excellent. We also got a giggle at the random song that was playing with elements of Felix Mendelssohn's wedding march from A Midsummer's Night's Dream while we were eating. We both agreed that the coincidence had Flame-Hair's fingerprints all over it.

This week school starts up again. It makes for lunch time to be much quieter starting Wednesday during the week. I still, however, am going to make lunches for Beloved and myself, obviously. The goal is to get to where we are both eating super healthy meals. We're making good progress on that. I have been doing a reasonable job of staying on the low carb diet. It helps that I love zucchini and it is in season right now. (Gods bless the gardeners and the farmers who are sharing their bounty with the rest of us.)

Day	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Mon	Pop-Tarts	Sandwiches	Leftovers
Tues	Cereal	Spaghetti & meat sauce / salad & sandwiches	BBQ beef ribs w/ salt potatoes & garlic green beans
Wed	Pop-tarts	Leftovers/ salad	Pulled pork w/ apple slaw
Thurs	Waffles	Cuban sandwich/ mac & cheese w/ pulled pork	Tacos w/ fixings & Mexican rice
Fri	Cereal	Burrito bowl / taco salad	Chicken korma w/ jasmine rice & raita
Sat	Eggs & bacon	Leftovers/ Sandwiches	Roast chicken w/ mashed potatoes & broccoli / carrots
Sun	Eggs & hash	Leftovers	Pizza