Day 6: GF, DF, EF Lunch Dates are Hard!

Day 6: GF, DF, EF.

Had a lunch meeting today and luckily they asked where I wanted to eat. But then I panicked. What could I eat out?!?!

Luckily my friend recently took me to Tractor Foods and their tag line literally says: Everyday Healthy Foods, so they probably have lots of options that would be ok for me right?

Wrong. Almost everything that looked or sounded good had dairy in it… so sad. I was basically down to 2.5 options for their side salads. The 0.5 is because the apple salad is DF if I don’t add on the amazing sounding herb & blue cheese vinaigrette, sad.

• Organic quinoa, kale, blueberries, butternut squash, mint, basil, white balsamic vinaigrette
• Roasted and fresh apples, arugula, endive, toasted pumpkin seeds, pecans, herb & blue cheese vinaigrette
• Roasted brussels sprouts, shredded kale, radicchio, Italian parsley, apricot mustard vinaigrette

I chose the apple and quinoa salad and topped it with two 2 oz pieces of albacore tuna steak because I wanted to indulge at least a little. Can’t say I was very excited about the apple salad, it was kind of meh. Probably because it lacked the dressing. The quinoa salad was only ok as well. The highlight was definitely the two pieces of tuna.

My lunch plate came to $12.50.

Day 5: Kale Chips

Day 5: GF, DF, EF

Made kale chips for the first time!! It was kind of a success and at the same time not really hahaha.

So I washed the kale, ripped off the leaves from the stems and put them in a bowl to mix in some olive oil. Because I’m using a toaster oven, I split the baking into two batches.

Batch 1, I mixed the salt in with the oil

Batch 2, I mixed in the oil first then sprinkled salt on top when it was laid out on the tray

The results:

• Batch 1: didn’t bake long enough so most of it was not chip like and still had a lot of moisture
• Batch 2: baked longer so it was light and crispy but SUPER salty! And the bottom layer didn’t have as much heat time so after removing the crispy ones, I put the others back into the oven, only to burn them

It’s amazing how much water gets sucked out leaving only remnants of the tray overloading with kale.

Now I’m looking to see what I can do with the kale stalks – let me know if you have suggestions!!

Day 4: Fruits make the perfect snack

Day 4: Gluten, dairy and egg free.

Fruits are a total girl’s best friend with these types of diet restrictions. Love pomegranates, especially after some quick YouTube tutorials showed us how to open one quick and easy AND we discovered that you can eat the seeds too!!

I grew up having to suck the meat off and spit the seeds out! Ridiculous right??

Now I eat them by the spoonfuls!

 

Pomegranates

• Properties: anti-oxidant, anti-viral and anti-tumor
• Vitamins: A, C, E + folic acid
• Has 3x as many antioxidants as both wine or green tea

Day 3: Steamed squash and spare ribs

Day 3! Trying to stay healthy as I do the gluten, dairy, egg free thing so went back to my old staple steamed squash and spare ribs. My grand aunt in Hong Kong taught me how to make this and it’s so simple and tasty!

But… simple does not equal easy. To peel the skin off the squash is slow going and dangerous – it takes more strength and patience than you’d think. With me being risk adverse and there being a high risk of accidentally slicing a chunk of my finger off, yes I’ve done it before, things moved slowly…

Once the squash is peeled, then it’s easy! scoop out the seeds, cut them into chunks and then arrange them around the exterior of the plate. Salt, pepper.

Then arrange the marinated spare ribs in the middle and steam away!

Ingredients

• Spare ribs
  • Marinade – salt, pepper, sesame oil
• Small pumpkin/squash
• Salt
• Pepper
• Sesame oil

 

Day 2: Ham and veggie pasta

Day 2 of being gluten, dairy and egg free.

I now have a homestay student who’s staying with me, so she’s gonna have the same diet hahaha. Although I used gluten free fusilli pasta for me and regular spaghetti for her.

I didn’t have the right sauce to pasta ratio going so the pasta was a bit plain… I probably simmered it too long and so the sauce was less watery than I’d like. Will need to adjust next time…

Ingredients:

• Box of Catelli’s Gluten Free Fusilli
• Meat in a can – Swift Premium Cooked Ham
• Frozen corn
• Carrot
• Onion
• Jar of Classico’s Roasted Portobello Mushroom pasta sauce

Diced up the onions and threw that in the woke to make it nice and fragrant, then added in the chopped up carrots and corn. Covered and let cook while the pasta was being cooked in a different pot. I had 3 stove tops on at this point because I needed to separate out the gluten pasta and the sans gluten pasta…

Then I turned on a 4th burner! Needed to pan fry my meat in a can 🙂 Cubed it and fried them up to a crisp.

Although the dish was a wee bit bland, the saltiness from the ham gave it a nice kick.

Day 1: Baked Salmon with 3 sides

Took a food sensitivity test last year that said I was allergic to wheat, barley, dairy, egg whites, cuttlefish and oranges. Sad.

So my naturopath asked me to cut these foods out of my diet for 6-8 weeks to cleanse my body and then start to heal my gut before re-introducing the foods into my body. I figured it’d give it a shot. Was waiting for post Christmas, New Years, Chinese New Years and a bunch of birthdays before I started hahaha.

So yesterday was Day 1.

My friends came over for a casual get together and decided on baked salmon due to all the restrictions in my new diet.

Lemon Honey Salmon – sprinkle with salt and pepper. Squeeze half a lemon on top. Cover in honey. Put remnants of lemon under salmon and slice the other half to put on top for presentation. Baked at 375 degrees for 20 min.

Garlic Broccoli – fry up the minced garlic, put in broccoli, add salt, add some water and cover wok. When almost done, pour thickener (cornstarch, sugar and water) into the middle and mix around for a nice glaze.

Herb Potatoes – oil wok, put in halved mini potatoes. Salt, pepper, paprika, Italian herb. Add water, cover until potatoes are soft. Pan fry until crisp.

Craisin Quinoa – make quinoa, fluff. Add olive oil, apple cider vinegar, craisins. Mix well.