Gluten free frog eye salad recipe with egg free option

I've been meaning to post my gluten free frog eye salad for awhile, but with our added food restrictions I haven't seen the point in making it (we can't eat the marshmallows, cool whip, tapioca pearls, or eggs, and the oranges are on the iffy list) and I couldn't quite remember how I'd done it before- it's been a year and a half since I last made it. Mr M convinced me to fudge things a bit for Thanksgiving so I decided to go ahead and make some frog eye salad so I could finally post the recipe.

I've been able to eat small amounts of corn products without too many problems, so I was willing to fudge most of the ingredients, but I wasn't willing to eat eggs. I tried eating some last month and it was not pleasant. So I tried making the custard with a flax egg, and it actually turned out pretty good. While it's not as pretty as an egg custard, it tastes very similar to what I remember it tasting like, and Mr M agreed.

Gluten free, Egg free Frog Eye Salad

EF Custard

½ c sugar

1 tbl fine brown rice flour (I used Authentic Foods)

¼ tsp salt

1 cup pineapple juice drained from 20 oz can of pineapple that you use later

1 flax egg (1 tbl ground flax seed + 3 tbl boiling water, let sit for a few minutes to thicken) or use 1 egg if you're not egg free, beat the egg well

2 tsp lemon juice

Whisk together dry ingredients then whisk in pineapple juice and flax egg. Heat over medium heat , stirring occasionally. Bring to boil and continue to cook for a few more minutes till thickened. Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice. Allow to cool, it will “gel” as it cools, so stir occasionally.

The custard as it cools and gels. The brown flecks are bits of ground flax. 

GF “acini de pepe”

1.5 c large tapioca pearls

Bring water to boil in a large saucepan/pot. Whisk in tapioca pearls.

Stir occasionally and cook till most of the pearls are translucent (about 17 min).

Turn off heat and let sit for another 5 minutes or so till the pearls have only small bits of white left in the centers. Carefully dump tapioca into a fine mesh sieve and gently rinse the gel from around the pearls (I had to do it in three batches because my sieve isn’t big enough to hold it all).

rinsing the tapioca pearls

Allow pearls to cool in bowl.

Bring it all together

1 20 oz can crushed pineapple (juice drained and used in custard)

2 11 oz cans mandarin oranges, drained (juice can be used in custard if needed to make 1 cup)

1.5 c mini marshmallows

8 oz tub cool whip

Once the custard and tapioca are cool, gently fold together.

Carefully add pineapple, oranges, marshmallows, coconut, and cool whip and mix together. Refrigerate overnight.

Enjoy!
My previous posts on gluten free frog eye salad are here and here.

If you make it, let me know how it turns out for you!

What we ate for Thanksgiving dinner

Mr M convinced me to relax some of our food restrictions for Thanksgiving. Not sure that's going to happen again- my intestines aren't too happy. We were gluten, egg, and soy free, but we still ate potatoes, tapioca, corn and corn products, and sorghum.

I bought the ham from the Honey Baked Ham store and the gravy was Imagine brand. Both are gluten free. Mr M really wanted a HB Ham so we went that route instead of the traditional turkey this year. While pricey, there was zero stress when it came to preparing it. You let it sit on the counter for a half hour or so before you eat, and then you eat it. Sooo simple! I did purchase a turkey from the grocery store because it was a great price, but it's sitting in the freezer- we'll probably have it for Christmas.

The mashed potatoes had coconut milk and Earth Balance soy free "butter" in them.

I made the cranberry pear sauce using this recipe, and there was no questionable ingredients in it.

I made the frog eye salad using my MIL's recipe that I adapted to be more within our limits- tapioca pearls instead of acini de pepe pasta and a flax egg instead of a real egg in the custard- I'll post the recipe soon now that I have it (finally) figured out.

The oranges in the jello are still on the iffy list, but I sure do like them :)

I made the cornbread and sausage stuffing mix using this recipe. I had planned on making my own corn bread from scratch, but I couldn't find gluten free cornmeal so I used Bob's Redmill gluten free cornbread mix. I've used it before and it's super easy to make, but the mix also contains sorghum flour, which makes my intestines really unhappy. Better the sorghum than gluten contamination, though.

I was going to do some green veggies- salad or something, but we eat lots of vegetables and we decided to take a break for the day :) Do olives count as veggies? Mr M insisted that Thanksgiving wouldn't be complete without some olives.

We also had blueberry pie and vanilla ice cream and  a pumpkin bread trifle. Yummy! I found the blueberry pie recipe here and the vanilla ice cream recipe was adapted from this recipe.

I used this recipe for the pumpkin bread trifle, which isn't super attractive-looking, but did taste good.

Everything tasted yummy, and while my intestines weren't super happy, my stomach and throat didn't bother me (if I'd eaten eggs or gluten they would have), so I'm not complaining too much. If it was just my intestines, I might fudge things more often. Unfortunately, the mental fog comes back if I eat foods that don't agree with me. So it's probably a good thing I don't fudge on a regular basis. I'll have to decide if it's worth it do this again come Christmas. It does make meal planning easier, and as long as we don't go anywhere LMS and I can be close to the bathroom. Hmmmm....

Grilled elk tenderloin

While I was laid out on the couch last night (I think it's highly unfair that I have to endure painful monthly cramps when none of my other lady parts seem to be able to work properly) Mr M made a really yummy dinner.

He grabbed an elk tenderloin from the freezer, defrosted it and then rubbed some salt on it and let it sit for awhile.  While it was sitting, he put a butternut squash in the oven to bake.

Mr M briefly rinsed the salt off the meat, then brushed on the fauxmato bbq sauce that he had made a couple weeks ago (I still need to do a post on the fauxmato sauce). He then tossed it on the grill to cook.

When the squash was done he scraped the flesh and pureed it in the BlendTec, using some canned coconut milk to thin it.

When the meat was done, he sliced it and we sat down to a dinner of grilled elk tenderloin and coconut squash puree. The elk was a smidge salty (he'll rinse the salt off more next time) and the squash a tad runny (he'll use a little less milk next time), but it all tasted soooo good! The tenderloin was so tender and juicy no knife was needed, and the flavor was great. The flavor combination of the tenderloin and the squash really hit the spot.

I didn't get any pictures because we ate it all up so fast :)  I'll try to get some next time, since we will definitely be making this again.

I'm so glad I have a husband who likes to cook and who has taken on the challenge of cooking meals we can eat :)

Is a Blendtec really worth the price?

image source

After the very first green smoothie, I'd have to say YES.

Our old blender, a fairly decent KitchenAid model that was only a year or two old, just couldn't manage to blend everything up really smooth.

The Blendtec effortlessly blended everything- no chunks or little bits of kale and spinach left behind. We had to do some chewing with the last few smoothies I made with the KitchenAid blender. The Blendtec is noisy, but I don't mind the trade-off. Having fully blended food is definitely worth a little extra noise.

I had heard great things about the Blendtec and its close rival the Vitamix on a lot of the food blogs I follow, but the cost really made me hesitate. I debated for *months* before finally deciding to bite the bullet and buy a Blendtec. I'm glad we finally did it!

We've used it for making green smoothies, mixing up our ice cream before putting it in the machine, mixing up salad dressing, pureeing steamed squash, and making Nomato sauce (more on that one later...). I'm sure we'll be using it even more as we do more experimenting in the kitchen in an effort to find more recipes we like and can use.

What we eat when we invite friends over

We invited the neighbors over for dinner the other day. They're a cute young couple with a one year old daughter that LMS really likes (and would really like to play with, though she's too young to understand that concept yet). These days it's definitely easier to host a meal than to worry about going somewhere else to eat.

So what was on the menu?
Aidells chicken and apple sausages

image source

Grilled chicken, marinated in Nomato Sauce (more on the Nomato Sauce later)
Grilled mixed veggies (onion, mushroom, zucchini, yellow squash, broccoli, carrot)
Faux-tatoes (pureed squash)
Real mashed potatoes just in case the squash wasn't well received (and because Mr M really wanted some)
Fruit salad (blueberries, strawberries, kiwi)
Green salad (LMS put this dressing on it)

and for dessert we had homemade peach ice cream, using this recipe.

We ended up with more food than we needed, but we tend to operate on the "rather have too much food, than too little" mind set, especially when we're having company over. We had a good time and all the food was enjoyed, even the squash :)

Birthday ice cream

I had stopped baking by the time my birthday rolled around at the end of June, but I did make some ice cream- coconut ice cream topped with blueberries. I used the recipe I found here but I left out the chocolate. Even without the chocolate, it was pretty yummy.

However, LMS is still upset by the fact that I didn't have cake for my birthday. She has brought it up multiple times, and is quite concerned that I didn't have a birthday cake. Too cute!

Paleo Strawberry Shortcake

I've recently found that recipes that follow the paleo diet are fairly close to what we need to eat. I do have to make some changes and substitutions, but they're fairly easy to do. I like the emphasis on fresh, unprocessed food, and I'm enjoying the opportunity to try some baking, which I haven't done in several months.

I made strawberry shortcake following this recipe. Other than subbing flax eggs for the real eggs, I followed the recipe as written. It is quite dense and not much like your traditional shortcake, but it was still pretty good.

Mr M put strawberries and bananas on his.

 I put strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries on mine.

 LMS just had coconut cream on hers.

What we eat

I've decided to periodically do a post about what we ate on a given day, mostly to demonstrate that we actually do eat well :)

Thursday we ate paleo Coconut Flour Waffles for breakfast. While paleo recipes are, for the most part, within our limits, they do frequently use eggs, which we can't eat. I subbed flax eggs for the real eggs, and they turned out ok, though they stuck to the waffle iron. That could be because I bought a new waffle iron though. I was going to use the waffle iron we've had since we were newlyweds, but then I remembered how super-sensitive I am to cross-contamination and decided that wasn't such a great idea so I bought a new one that still needs to be broken in.

For lunch we had leftover Chicken and Vegetable Lo-Mein that I made for dinner Tuesday night. I really liked this recipe and while LMS wasn't a big fan, I'm hoping that's just because I've been trying a lot of new recipes lately.

For dinner we made Grilled Chicken and Veggies. We only recently bought a grill, so we have a learning curve to deal with. Like the grill basket Mr M picked up at wally world was not the type you need to grill veggies (they all fell through the holes). With some jimmy-rigging we eventually got it to work and were able to eat a very yummy dinner.

We've also been making super easy ice cream using our ice cream maker. I found a recipe for Strawberry ice cream, which is yummy, and I've also made it with fresh peaches (even yummier!). We've been splitting the batch in half - half popsicles, half ice cream. I like the texture of the freshly made ice cream the best- homemade soft serve- yum! The rest hardens up nicely into popsicles that are healthy enough to eat for breakfast. Which we did today :)

Our trip to IKEA

Last week we took a trip to IKEA for stuff for our schoolroom and the trailer (we're picking up a camping trailer in a week or two). I thought the steamed veggies and side salad would be safe for lunch, but apparently not. I got glutened. This was the first time in at least 5 months, though I think it's been even longer. LMS isn't a big fan of salad, so she didn't have any, and she only ate a couple pieces of steamed veggies before deciding she was full. In any case, she didn't seem to have any reactions, thank goodness.

I've read about people's reactions when they get glutened, but never had a similar reaction till now. On the drive home, the pain started in my stomach, and then the cramping and bloating started. Not fun at all.

Instead of being productive, I spent that evening curled up on the couch trying not to think about the pain in my stomach. Luckily for me, I felt mostly fine in the morning. Others have reported feeling like crap for several days and having to stay close to the bathroom, so I got off lightly.

Thoughts

It's recently been reinforced just how much of an effect what I take into my body has on my physical and mental well being. I managed to get into some poison ivy two weeks ago (it happens every year, and I never know where I get it- I swear I'm a magnet for poison ivy), so I went to the doctor to see if she had any suggestions. She had me do a round of prednisone and gave me a referral to an allergist so I can get some testing done- it's been almost 20 years since the last time I had a skin test, so I figure it's about time for another one.
I've never taken prednisone before, and I have to say it's not been a wonderful experience. I really hope the allergist has some better ideas about how to control my allergies. Yes, the prednisone helped the itching and the rashes cleared up way faster than they ever have, but the side effects stunk. I got a case of the raging munchies, which I haven't had since I eliminated all my food triggers, it knocked my sleep cycle off, and the mental fog reappeared. I HATE the mental fog. Anything that makes it come back is not a good thing in my book. It's a real struggle to get anything done because my brain just kind of checks out- it doesn't want to do anything that requires thought or effort, which is pretty much everything.

The really wet spring has been great for keeping the yellow tree pollen from killing me. Until last night. I was cleaning up after LMS' birthday party that we had on the back deck and I must have gotten some pollen on my chin because it started itching. The itching has gotten progressively worse since then, and I now have hives across my chin, jaw, neck, chest, and ears. And I can't take anything for it. Allergy meds knock me out (I get completely non-functional even with the "non-drowsy" versions), and I've got the allergy appointment this week and can't be taking anything that will affect the results of the tests. I really hope the hives and itching stop before then. I very rarely get hives, so this isn't a normal experience for me.

In the last few weeks I've realized we still haven't identified all our trigger foods. Between family visiting, Easter, and birthday cakes, I've done more baking in the last couple weeks than I have in the last four months. Not neccessarily a bad thing, except that the mock cornbread I made for Easter used both millet and sorghum and at least one of those is a trigger. I made the mock cornbread for Thanksgiving and noticed a reaction then, too, so it didn't catch me off guard this time around. However, you're only supposed to introduce one new food at a time so it's easy to identify the problem. We didn't do that well at all- millet, sorghum, oranges, bananas were all introduced within a few days of each other, and I know at least one of them is a problem. The chocolate cake I made for LMS' birthday didn't react well with her, so I made a coconut cake that used sorghum for her birthday party. That didn't react well either, and I had a very pronounced reaction to it, which I haven't had for quite some time- I've been using LMS' reactions as our main barometer.

So what aren't we eating these days?
Gluten, oats, corn, dairy, egg, soy, nightshades (tomatoes, peppers, potatoes), tapioca

Questionable, that we still need to determine for sure:
Citrus, bananas, strawberries, chocolate, millet, sorghum, peanuts

We've had to eliminate all the starches (potato, corn, and tapioca) except for arrowroot starch. This is a problem since gluten free baking requires a starch mixed with a flour. I'm really hoping arrowroot doesn't become a problem since then we won't be able to do any baking. The few commercial baked goods we could eat are now off the ok list since we had to eliminate tapioca.

When it comes to eating a healthy diet, less sweets is a good thing, but sometimes you just want a cookie or a brownie. Not sure how we'll work around it, but we'll come up with something.

The bright part in all of this is at least we don't have an anaphylactic reaction to these foods- the most common effect of eating something on our list is really bad diahrrea that can take days to clear up. And while it's doing that, our intestines aren't absorbing nutrients properly. If we aren't getting the nutrients we need our bodies aren't growing and functioning properly, so the incentive to keep the intestinal walls healthy is strong. Being healthy really is worth all the hassle.  (must remember to keep telling myself this...)

Random thoughts

Once again I've been lax in my posting. I find that when I'm busy, blogging is one of the first things to go.

So what have I been busy doing?

**  Looking at lots of houses. We pretty much looked at every house in our target area (and some outside it) that came close to fitting our wants and needs that was in our budget (and a couple that were above our budget). We did finally find a house that we like and we're set to close 10 days before our rental contract ends- just enough time to move everything and clean. I was going to paint the bedrooms before we move, but I decided I want to see our furniture in the rooms before deciding on paint, beadboard, board and batten, and so on. Waiting to paint will also make the timeline on moving everything a lot easier.

** Signing lots of papers. We've been signing papers as we went through the process, which meant more visits to the realtor and mortgage offices, but fewer papers to sign at one time, so fewer hand cramps :)

** Keeping the house clean. There's a contract on it now, but I have to keep it clean for all the inspections, the appraisal, etc. It's been good to see the buying/selling process from both sides, but I will be very happy when we're all moved and done with everything.

** Resisting the urge to start packing already. Since we're only moving 15 minutes away I don't see the point in boxing everything up just to turn around and unpack it again. We'll be taking stuff out of the closets and cupboards, putting them in the car, driving them to the new house, and putting them directly away. Since we won't be using boxes, there's nothing to pack ahead of time. Every other time we've moved, I've had everything packed and ready to go in plenty of time.

** Moving in and out of fuzzy headedness. We tried adding nightshades (tomatoes, potatoes, and peppers), with limited success. LMS had massive reactions (ie, disgusting diarrhea) to the tomatoes and peppers, but didn't react as badly to the potatoes. I didn't notice a reaction to the tomatoes and peppers, but I did notice an increase in mental fuzziness when I ate the potatoes. So we'll be avoiding tomatoes and peppers and limiting potatoes. This one is a pain in the rear- tomatoes, potatoes, and peppers are in a lot of things. For some reason, frozen stir fry veggie mixes all have peppers in them. There goes my easy, go-to dinner idea.

I also checked my vitamins again and found that several of them are made with corn or soybean oil, which is a problem. I can't take most vitamin c supplements because they have rose hips, which make my throat swell, and the only one I've found that didn't have rose hips was a capsule that has soybean oil in it. How important is it that I supplement my vitamin c intake? My Co-Q 10 also has a soybean oil base. I'm not willing to stop taking the Co-Q 10, so I need to find another brand, though I don't know if I can.

There was some mold in the crawlspace under our house, and bleach was sprayed all over the crawlspace to kill it. We discovered this last night when we got home from errands and the whole house smelled of bleach. Can we say instant headache and fuzziness? We should have packed up and spent the night in a hotel, but I didn't think of it (due to the headache) till after LMS was asleep. So we slept with windows open and lots of blankets on. Too bad they didn't do this last week when the temps were in the 70s instead of this week when the temps are in the 30s.

Chocolate

I've noticed something very sad lately.

I remember when a good, smooth Swiss milk chocolate tasted sooo good. Or the yummy taste of a Snickers bar (I do like the taste of a Snickers).

Since the advent of all my food issues, I've had to eliminate first milk chocolate (dairy), then most other chocolates (soy). About the only chocolate I can eat now is Enjoy Life chocolate chips, which taste decent, but aren't as good as what I remember Swiss milk chocolate tasting.

I do still occasionally crave good chocolate and sneak a piece, but it never tastes as good as I remember it used to taste. And I get a massive stomach ache. It's very sad. I liked chocolate.

But it does help me resist the urge to do it again. Why eat something that doesn't taste good and makes me sick?

So I'm curious. Has the taste of chocolate changed because I know I shouldn't be eating it, or because my tastes have changed as my refined sugar intake has drastically decreased? Or is it both? Any thoughts?

So what DO we eat?

Lately we've been asked by a lot of people "So, what can you eat since you've eliminated so many foods?"

Let's see, the basics are: rice, quinoa, mung beans, adzuki beans, lentils, lots of veggies, some fruit, and some meat.

So how does that translate to our daily menus?

One of my favorite sites for recipes is The Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen. Their cookbook (The Whole Life Nutrition Cookbook) is also a great source for recipes and info.


Green smoothies
Cabbage quinoa soup
Broccoli soup  (from another of my favorite recipe sites)
Red Lentil Soup
Curried Cauliflower Carrot soup
Potato Leek soup
Chicken stew
Lentil and rice casserole
Lettuce wraps
Nori rolls  (we stuff these with whatever veggies we have in the frig- avocado, sprouts, spinach, cucumber, carrot, green onion, steamed sweet potato, cabbage, etc)
Quinoa salmon burgers (we really like these!)
burrito bowls
parsnip fries (quite good- kind of sweet)
sweet potato fries
steamed broccoli
sauteed zucchini and summer squash

Treats:
Mango coconut pudding  (I also made a peach version)
Date treats


Breakfast is usually a green smoothie with leftovers from dinner
Lunch is usually a burrito bowl, nori rolls, or a lettuce wrap and a piece of fruit
Dinner is one of the recipes mentioned above
Snacks are fruit, carrots (LMS will go to the frig and grab a carrot and start munching), or a date treat (LMS really likes them. I've fiddled with the recipe a bit, but the date taste is still very strong, and I'm not a huge fan of dates. I need to mess with the recipe some more)

So we have plenty of food we can eat. It's mostly a matter of changing up our menu and cooking completely from scratch. It takes more planning on my part, but some of the recipes come together very quickly. We're getting used to eating lots and lots of veggies and we're getting to try a lot of new recipes.  Changing my mindset about how I cook has been a bit of a hassle, but LMS and I are both feeling good (and LMS's intestines are finally healing) so it's worth it.

The only downside to changing up our menu this way is the increase in cost. Lots of veggies costs lots of money. I read an article recently that said something along the lines of the cost of 500 calories of vegetables costs a lot more than 500 calores of junk food or convenience food.

Eat a couple candy bars and you've eaten 500 calories and only spent a couple bucks and you'll be hungry again soon. I dare you to try eating 500 calories worth of broccoli at one sitting. I found this site that shows 200 calories of a food.

via

Hmmm. That's 200 calories worth, which means that 500 calories is another plate and a half full of broccoli. That'll stick around a lot longer than a couple candy bars. And it's a lot healthier. However, that much broccoli will cost a lot more than a couple candy bars.

Despite the increased costs, the health benefits are definitely worth it.

Last week

Last Saturday I got hit by a double whammy- cramps (the monthly variety) and a head cold. The last week has not been too fun. 

Luckily LMS didn't get sick, but she's been very whiney and cranky the last few weeks. (I think she's mad that daddy's gone so much with work and this is the only way she knows to express it)

We're still waiting to hear if we got the house or not. We signed the papers, the owners signed the papers, but the lady who was going to buy the house (her financing fell through) also has to sign the papers (giving up any claim to the house), and then they get sent to the bank to be given the ok (or not). Hopefully it doesn't take too much longer and the process will start moving ahead quickly.

We have to keep the house we're renting clean all the time so it can be shown to potential buyers. Not that we usually have a dirty house or anything, but when time is short clutter can take over a bit, and 4 year olds like to spread their toys all over. Kind of a pain to be constantly picking things up, but the house does look nice. We've looked at 6 or 7 houses so far, and only one of them was occupied, and it was a bit of a dump. Not clean and organized at all. Of course, it was a foreclosure, so it could have been worse. In any case, I don't want the house looking like a dump when people come by- it does not leave a favorable impression at all.

The elimination diet is definitely helping. LMS's diarhea is mostly gone and she's mostly having normal bowel movements. Yay!
I say mostly because we've started adding things back in and not everything agrees with her, which has resulted in a couple instances of very bad diarhea, which I'm really hoping won't ever happen again.
It was horrible.
I think I'm scarred for life.
And so is LMS.

The down side to the elimination diet is that our list of things we can't eat is growing. Either that or our bodies still need more time to heal before we add new foods back in. So we're going a lot slower than planned and are keeping our meals very simple and basic. And I'm still losing weight!

How was your week?

The difficulty of multiple food allergies

There's nothing quite as heartbreaking as standing in the natural foods store, telling LMS we can't buy the animal cookies that we've bought in the past. She broke down and started crying- loudly. Not that I blame her, because there's definitely times I feel like crying about being so limited in our food options.

The animal cookies in question contain corn starch, which was added to our no-no list since the last time we bought them.

Luckily for us, an employee came by to help, as did a fellow customer- both of who (whom?) gave suggestions of cookies to try. The winner: Enjoy life  gingerbread cookies. They are free from all the allergens we have to avoid, and they taste fairly decent. In fact, LMS horked down most of the box while I wasn't looking :)  Like a lot of things we are able to eat, they are pricey, but for a once-in-a-while treat, that's ok.

I'm also a fan of Enjoy life semi-sweet chocolate chips. Unlike every other brand of chocolate chips I've checked, they don't contain soy lecithin- yay! I actually find them a bit sweet, but the flavor is pretty good. I've been doing some experiments with them, and we were able to make some yummy chocolates for Christmas.

Elimination diet

As I mentioned Saturday, we're doing an elimination diet. What does that mean? Well, we eliminate a whole bunch of stuff (anything that could cause a reaction) and eat a non-reactive diet for several weeks, allowing the body to heal. We then start adding in potential problem foods one at a time, with enough time in between each to make sure there's no reaction.

So where did we find this elimination diet? Awhile ago, when I first started searching for gluten free, vegan recipes, this is one of the sites I found that was an excellent resource for recipes and information: NourishingMeals.com. The couple who run the blog (they have a website also) are nutritionists who have also written a book, The Whole Life Nutrition Cookbook.

I bought the book after Christmas, and I have to tell you, I love it! Not only are there recipes, there's also a lot of good nutrition information, including the elimination diet. I can prepare most of the recipes as written, though there are a few with tofu or eggs that I would have to adjust. I've prepared several of the recipes in the cookbook, as well as some from the website (there's some overlap, but not all recipes are in both places), and they've been very yummy.  I really like that the ingredients are whole foods: fresh fruits and veggies, herbs, spices, gluten free grains, legumes, lean meats, etc. It's a bit more work to cook completely from scratch, but the chances of cross-contamination are reduced to almost nil, it's healthier for us, and the food really does taste good.

We're a week into the elimination diet, and already I've lost 3 pounds, which is in addition to the 13 pounds I've lost since eliminating dairy, eggs, corn, and soy. Goal #37 is almost accomplished!

Admittedly, it hasn't all been fun and games. We had colds all week plus we had to deal with the detox die-off that makes you feel crappy. And we had to adjust to eating A LOT more vegetables than we're used to. In the past we tried, but never succeeded, in eating as many as we should. Though I can honestly say that we are now getting more than the recommended servings of veggies (not quite on fruit, because that's too much sugar).

The recipes from the book and website make it really easy to incorporate more veggies into your diet. And if you eat leftovers from dinner for breakfast or lunch the next day, that's more veggies for very little work. I balked at eating lots of veggies for breakfast, but it's not that bad (I really like being able to just re-heat leftovers, and then maybe whipping up a green smoothie to go with it), and it does stay with you. I made this broccoli soup (from another site I use a lot) a few days ago, but instead of serving it with rice, I served it with quinoa. We had leftovers for breakfast the next morning, and it stuck to my ribs very well.

Have you tried eating veggies for breakfast?