Gluten free?

Everyone's talking about "going gluten-free". Some have to because of health issues, others are doing it by choice because of the health benefits.

We are skeptical of most all fad diets, but we've been hearing so many good things about the way people are feeling after eliminating gluten or wheat flour from their diet. 

We decided to try it. Mind you we have one foot in and one foot out. Basically our version of this is to have the food in our home be gluten-free, and then if we have to eat out we'll try to stick to it, but we don't beat ourselves up if it's too difficult. Last week (during the week) we stayed relatively gluten-free. (My husband had 0 glutens, I cheated a little) 

Anyways, it wasn't that difficult. And we did feel good. I think what we noticed more was how bad we felt when we did eat glutens again on the weekend. So we're trying it again this week. 

Lunches are the hardest thing to do gluten free. You have to be creative. Last week we did curry chicken lettuce wraps (unfortunately no picture, but they were really good!), and this week is chicken salad on portobellos. (and of course some other gluten-free snacks).

I was thrilled when I saw this chicken salad recipe on pinterest. I adapted it a little, and was able to get away with out using any mayo! (Mayo is naturally gluten-free, but I've just always tried to stay away from it because of it's fat and calorie content.)

2 cups shredded chicken

1 avacado

2 tsp. chopped cilantro

Salt to taste

dash of lemon pepper

I put the chicken salad on roasted portobellos. I highly recommend this. The flavor of the no-mayo chicken salad is a little different than you'd expect, but tastes perfect on a portobello. 

I was afraid I'd get green chicken salad doing this, but the chicken holds it's color really well!

When you taste these, you won't be able to believe there's no mayo!

And we made these semi-homemade turtle brownies last night! We used the Betty Crocker gluten-free brownie mix, added some pecans and drizzled caramel sauce on top! Mmm...

So far the gluten-free thing ain't so bad!

Writer's Block

So I haven't had time to write in, well, quite a while. The holidays were very busy.

I'm actually not sure I have time to write much but here's a re-cap:

• I made the pumpkin pie, and it was a hit! Though I tried to make two, and messed up the 2nd pie a million times! So I only took one.

• Saw lots of loved ones, and had a blast going to two different Thanksgiving meals as newly weds!

• Got a table and chairs for an early Christmas Present! Our house is looking homier every day it seems!

• We're going to be more intentional about working out/ prayer times/ and eating right.

• The book "A Praying Life" By Paul E. Miller, is really good! I'm almost done, and will give a full book review when I am. But we're going to work on some of the prayer cards it suggests in the book.

• Made homemade honey-wheat bread for sandwhiches, and sundried tomato french bread for hour Italian dinner last night! All of which tasted amazing-- I love bread!

• Got books on crocheting, upholstery, gardening, and yoga. They're on loan from the library, so I only have them for 3 weeks! There's no way I'm going to learn all that I want to from the books before they're do back!

• Had dinner with some new friends! They're our first married couple friends. (not the first friends that are married, but the first couple we met as a couple, if that makes sense) anyways, they go to our church. We have a lot of fun with them, even though they're U(sic)GA fans. :)

• I finally learned how to make the right consistency cookie!

• I made butternut squash / kale casserole (really yummy and gluten free)

• I made butternut squash soup with the other half of the squash (also gluten free)

• I finished one of the scarves for Christmas presents!

WHEW! Okay, that's about all the writing I have in me for today! Hopefully I will learn to manage my time better and incorporate blogging into my life. It's not something that comes natural to me, in fact I've started several blogs in my life and always deleted them within a month. I just haven't been able to get into it. But I decided with this one I wouldn't delete it, and if time went by with nothing written, that was okay. 

Alright, well off to clean my house! After doing all of those things, you can imagine it's a wreck!