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.)