A new group of bloggers

I have been on the Endo diet for a whole week. No wheat, dairy, sugar, caffeine, alcohol, etc. I feel good and it really hasn't been a significantly challenging experience. Yes I had to endure 3 parties where I couldn't eat 90% of the food offered but I was prepared for that and it really didn't end up to be a big deal. I left the parties feeling healthy rather than bloated and remorseful. I was sure I must have already lost a couple pounds but today I found my favorite guacamole at the natural food store and it didn't have any of my taboo foods in it so I bought it and a bag of corn tortilla chips and, well, let's just say if I did loose any weight this week it is sure to be back. Apparently I can over indulge even when I am on a restricted diet.

Before I started this diet a friend led me to a blog called Frugal Granola by a woman who has been eating gluten free and that led me to other web sites devoted just to gluten free cooking with recipes and more. The mommy blogs I have been stalking have led me to more mommy blogs so now I am finding a whole new area of the blogging world in food and healthy eating. As if I needed more ways to squander my time on the computer.

I though I would share a couple new recipes I am adding to my life which are delicious and would not require you to be on an extreme diet to enjoy. I found both recipes at Gluten Free Mommy.

First is Wild Rice Salmon Cakes. Now anyone who knows me understands that I find following a recipe exactly to be challenging. I don't like to get alot of bowls or measuring utensils dirty and if I don't like or don't have an ingredient I just skip it. So with this recipe I skipped the Parmesan cheese which I can't have and I didn't feel like making 2 kinds of rice so I just did the wild rice. It was still delicious and I think I will bake all Salmon patties from now on because I have never had them turn out so well before. I ate 3 of them. John agreed we needed to add this to the rotation.

Second is Thai Chicken Wraps. Again I can't follow a recipe so instead of the veggies she mentions we just julienned up the veggies we had in the house which happened to be carrots, cucumber, red onion and pea pods. Also I hadn't shopped for these rice tortilla shells she mentions so I make it a lettuce wrap and finally I used "some" maple syrup in place of the sugar in the peanut sauce. Oh and I was about out of the creamy so I used some crunchy peanut butter in the sauce. It was delicious although a bit messy but my 14 year old son ate 3 of them as did my husband. Jake used regular tortillas instead of the lettuce but John braved the messy lettuce. I picked up some butter lettuce today which I think would work better for wraps because it doesn't have as thick a stalk running down the middle of the leaves. We just had some red leaf lettuce around.

The other thing I thought I would share is from the Frugal Granola site. She does some Monday Menu carnival thing and posts her weekly menus each week. It is fun to see what she is eating and so I thought I would post my menu for this week.

Today: Thai Chicken Wraps
Monday: Spaghetti with Quinoa noodles
Tuesday: Seafood Chowder
Wednesday: Cornbread BBQ Chicken
Thursday: Wild Rice Salmon Cakes
Friday: Pizza on Spelt flour pizza crusts I found at Whole Foods
Saturday: fish (I think I bought Cod?) with a Broccoli and ginger side dish.

I am also going to try to make home made apple sauce this week because I accidentally double bought large bags of apples and then we didn't eat either of them. Normally I would be making an apple crisp every night but a friend suggested apple sauce which would be perfect for sweetening the plain yogurt I can eat

I also picked up a gluten free flour mix and some alternative sugars to make banana bread or cookies but think I will try to get a little more detoxed before I try those. I did have a mild headache for the first 2 days of this new diet. I was amazed at how quickly my body realized I wasn't eating these things. Could it have been the holiday binge?

Finally, I am proud to say that I managed to exercise 3 days this week. Exercise is one of the suggestions along with this diet that is supposed to improve my Endo Pain. So what we are learning is that if you eat healthy and exercise you feel better...Interesting. Who knew?