blogging again!

Well then theres a pic of yours truly with one of  my favourite treats to make and eat- raw chocolate almond butter cups! The point of this post is just to get me blogging again as I have lots of foodie and crohnie tales to tell and it would at least be better a better way to spend internet time than f-book. I've had lots of ups and downs in crohns town lately- my history has been that I always have a mega flare around christmas/new year and this year would be the first in 3 that I havent treated it with either  a hospitalization and steroids or surgery. I dont talk a whole lot in my day to day life about my disease but at this point most people know I went through a pretty big-deal surgery. What not everyone understands with crohns is that surgery is not a cure, it is just damage control. My resection provided the most relief from pain and symptoms that Ive had in 13 years, and bought me some time to heal, enjoy life and figure out my next steps on this crazy path. So definitely flared hard around christmas and now in April I'm still dealing with very touchy sensitive guts- been amping up the acupuncture and traditional chinese medicine herbs  which have been a total saviour in dealing with my flaring shortguts.    As well as been fine tuning my diet to  grain-free , low dairy, paleo, really simple whole eats. And almond butter cups. What a frickin revelation and relief when I finally gave up on grains and legumes (ironic considering these were huge staples in my diet for many years as a crohnie-vegetarian). Looking back I can pinpoint some of my gnarliest acute (1-5 days) food-triggered flares to meals containing lentils, beans or brown rice. Ouch. Lentils cause me  seriously painful  small bowel obstructions that make me puke lentil-poop. I wont ever touch a lentil again. Anyways, say something happy.... I love juice! Juicing everyday and especially on tender days when I cant eat much, it is pure vital life source. Exciting things in progress include creating a zine about my crohnie experiences, specifically hospitalizations and the mental f*ckery of living with a chronic illness. Level two of teacher training is just a handful of days away! It is at a retreat and Ive been able to communicate with the chef about my dietary needs and despite the raw-beany-seedy-high fibre ideals of yogi cuisine he is able to accommodate my paleo baby-food special-crohns-needs diet. Win. Trying not to stress about going into training with very tender guts- but I think the whole retreat atmosphere and getting away from my regular responsibilities to explore my passion is exactly what I need and not to be stressed about. Also some foodie farm trips around BC with my job are going down early this summer! Fun. Alright, officially ending this thought barf blog. See ya on the flipside.

paleo meals

The paleo/primal/caveman diet. Basically eating whole unprocessed foods like our great great great ancestors might have before the agricultural revolution. This means getting enthusiastic about meat, fish, eggs, nuts, seeds, vegetables and fruit. On the flipside it is a big hell no to all processed/junk foods, ideally all dairy, sugar,all beans/legumes, and the big one (for me at least) NO GRAINS. Now I am a little skeptical about following strict "label" diets, but after years of tweaking my diet to manage the crohn, a  generous small bowel resection that posed new digestive challenges and nagging joint inflammation- this "paleo" diet just happens to be exactly where I've wound up.  These foods make me feel strongest, keep my bowel movements healthy and slow (shortgut problems!) and maybe Im just imagining it but Im feeling beastly strong.... 

So in short, paleo is PLANTS (so many! lots of greens! lots of berries!) PROTEIN (animal)  FAT (nuts, olives/oil, coconut oil, avocado, nut butters, say it with me NUT BUTTER)

yum.

So , some meaty plant heavy meals as of late:

bacon salad

Big deluxe dinner salads! This was backyard lettuces, sunflower sprouts, rainbow cherry tomatoes, avocado, cucumber, and happy pig bacon!

you cant tell but theres a massive pile of broccoli in there!

White fish filet cooked in gluten free tamari and coconut oil with stir fried veggies- broccoli, kale, onion, snow peas, green onion, ginger. Finished with  a squirt of lemon. So so yummy and satisfying and feels much better to load up on broccoli than rice!

my fave, butter lettuce wraps

Salmon salad in butterleaf wraps!  I mixed all kinds of goodies into the salmon- pickles, radish, tomatoe, sprouts, mustard... 

So theres alot of info out there about paleo as a great weight loss/ muscle building athlete diet which is cool but not the draw for me. There is also some pretty cool research and stories out there about the paleo diet slowing/stopping/reversing autoimmune diseases (oh hey thats me!). I'll keep fighting the fight so long as its delicious ;)

summer dinners

I've been feeling pretty *on* when it comes to nailing down exactly what Im craving/what my body wants since Ive given up the grains. I think all the rice flour products were messing with my hormones or something, I feel way less emotional about food and more grounded. Aaaahhh what a nice feeling. 

Tonights dinner was the bomb! Yesterday I randomly realized I had all the stuff to make this mint-pea soup from Jamie Olivers food revolution so I took my maiden voyage into pea soup! It started the way all good soups start, sauteeing some chopped carrots, onions, celery and garlic in a little olive oil and salt. Once softened I added my last bit of homemade chicken stock and brought it up to a boil (then went to my garden to pick a bunch of mint). Added a generous cup or two of frozen peas which took only moments to soften up then blend it all up with the mint. Once blended I realized I had a golden opportunity to blend some deep greens (one of my favorite things to do, naturally) so I went back to the garden for some kale and blended it in for a good dose of greens in my dinner. Yesterday I ate it with a dollop of goat cheese and some fried garden zucchini but tonights leftover re-appropration was so. damn. good. Jamie suggests eating it with fries to dip in the soup so I went ahead and prepared some home-fries (new potatoes quarterted, steamed then pan fried with garden herbs). I also brought home the bacon, literally. I have a great hookup for the best bacon, from happy well cared for pigs owned by friends of mine, so I indulge here and there. Chopped and fried a couple pieces of bacon to sprinkle in my soup. mmm mmmm. I highly recommend trying this! 

A simple fritatta with a base of sweet potatoes, loaded with arugula and topped with a bit of fresh tomato, served with a huge blob of homemade dairy free walnut pesto. Yum yum.

This one, also good. Loosely inspired by the nicoise salad. Baby lettuce (from my garden!), steamed new potatoes, cherry tomatoes, olives,  roasted chicken thigh, pesto and cashew cheese. Daaaaaang. 

Really loving being able to eat out of my backyard! My roomates and I all did a little project back there so we have a pretty fun eclectic little ramshackle garden space- loaded with zucchini, lettuces, kale, lots of herbs, arugula, strawberries (ok so Ive only gotten a handful of berries but its always a fun surprise to find a little red jewel and eat it right off the plant!), carrots, beets, beans and- a sunflower!!! Im really proud of my sunflower :) And lilies. Im really excited to harvest my carrots and beets and apples from our tree so I can make juice entirely from the yard. 

Coming soon, chicken stock via skype ;)

more stops on the grain-free train

Ok so there might be something to this grain free/paleo thing. Ive been intentionally choosing to avoid them for a few weeks now and its hard to put my finger on but I feel different. I feel solid and calm, and  its even taken the edge off my sorry joints (excited to see if that gets better the longer I stick to it). I finished my last little bundle of rice soba noodles after days and days of sticking to it and felt a notable unfriendly change in my digestive process. Ha, suspicions confirmed! 

my version of the cauliflower pizza

So my most recent experiment in creating grain free versions of my favorite meals- cauliflower pizza! This shit is all over the internet and there are a few different methods and tweaks to all of them, but I distilled it to the basic elements and got one fine veggie pie! 

I dont measure so these are my eyeball guesstimates, and also, I cook for one single little bunny so I err on the small side of everything

-1 small head cauliflower- proccessed into small rice-sized bits used a grater or food processor- then cooked at med heat in fry pan with a bit of olive oil till soft and slightly translucent (3-5 min, dont let it get brown/crispy) 

-very important step- you need to get some of the liquid out of the cauliflower- you can press it in a fine mesh strainer or cheese cloth  or nut milk bag or paper towel (I used a strainer) you may not feel like you are getting much liquid out but it makes a big difference in the final dough!

-in a mixing bowl beat together 1 egg and about 1/2 cup mozza (I used the goat variety)  (for a larger pie use 2-3 eggs and 1 cup or more mozza) add any fresh or dried herbs you like and a teaspoon or so of olive oil

- add cauliflower to egg/cheese/herb mix and combine to form your dough

-spread dough out evenly on parchment and bake @ 350 for 15-20 mins till slightly brown/bubbly, add toppings and bake another 5-15 min (I just used pesto, a few tender backyard greens and olives so I just put it in for another 5 min as I just wanted it a little wilty) - have fun with toppings- always a good idea to sautee things like peppers, mushrooms, onions ect before adding to pizza!

And another favorite, broccoli noodle stir fry! made with all zuchinni noodles! I add my noodles to the stir fry to cook as my guts dont deal well with raw zuchinni. This lovely little summer sunday dinner was shitake mushroom, broccoli, red onion and yellow zuchinni noodles in a garlic-ginger-miso-almond sauce.

yum.

hippie muffins and denial

blueberry banana coconut muffins, so much butter and mystery tea

 Even more comfort food (notice a trend....) I've got a lot on my mind these days. Before I get to that I'll tell you about these little wonders. Grain free blueberry coconut muffins! So my eating less grains experiment came about after too many baking binges and feeling like even though Ive been working gluten free, all the rice/oat/assorted gf flours may be contributing to inflammation and irritation in my tender lil guts. This leads to an interest in the paleo diet but given my aversion to strict rules Im sticking with weaning-experiment approach for now. But grain free or not, this bunny neeeeds to bake. Its in my DNA. My ancestors made cookies. And muffins. And so shall I.

I use www.elenaspantry.com   most often for my paleo baking endeavours but check out this banana bread from hungry hungry hippie. I had a tiny bit more almond flour left after measuring it for this recipe so I just added it and thus began the transition from banana bread to blueberry muffins :) I added a bit of coconut flour as well, coconut chips instead of oats, handful of blueberries, coconut sugar instead of stevia, a bit of lemon juice and enough mylk to make it like unto muffin batter (my ancestors would be proud).  Bake in a muffin pan  instead of a loaf pan and cooked it for 10 min less than she calls for. Boom. Muffins.Yum. As you see in the pic I ate two, then three and called it dinner. Maybe nows a good time to introduce denial. 

happy as a peach on a beach

I keep meaning to write posts (and eventually I will...)  about my road trip fun but heres just a snap to take you there. It was a great little burst of silly fun and  sunshine beaches and yummy food and time to relax and reflect :) I brought a bit of that fresh perspective home but with all that time to think I'm starting to feel a little screwed about the crohnularism. I have this doc appt. in less than 2 weeks that Ive just been ignoring for the few months after the last visit terrified the bejeebus out of me with her crazy drugs. I dont know if Im bad at talking to doctors in general or just cant talk to this particular one but I'm sooo not ready for that calibre of medication. Last I saw her I was in total fight-or-flight mode (and flyyyyyying outta there!) barely able to say a word both because Im trying not cry and shes in a rush- shoving me out with a bunch of prescriptions and bloodwork (neither which I have followed through on) and a nice "glad-you-liked-our-talk-lets-hope-you-dont-get-cancer-or-life-threatening-infections-once-we-bomb-and-poison-your-immune-system" smile. Yeah and my follow up is in two weeks. Ok so Ill go get the bloodwork done but it wont matter much since Im not taking the  meds..... I have a few ideas I want to run by her and we're gunna do some looking inside which is always a good reality check but geeze, I just hope I can say what I have to say and dont choke :(  What can I say, I kinda suck at being a sicko. I'd rather make almond butter cookies.

dinners lately (and mooooore juice!)

Ive been doing good lately with my eating less grains experiment but I caved for noodles the other day. There have been lots of tasty trials with kelp and zuchinni noodles but nothing beats these pumpkin ginger brown rice noodles. I made a deal with myself that I would balance the grain load with tons of greens! Including my very fave broccolini and tons of my backyard greens (mostly kale, arugula, spinach and parsley). And shittakes, I dont like alot of mushroomy things but damn I love me some shittake.  The sauce was probably some kind of miso tamari tahini thing but I don't remember exactly. Friggin delicious. 

oh hey its vegan!

The other day I had a hankering for pizza but  wanted to avoid anything grain based including  my usual go-to  gluten free frozen crust  or rice tortilla  for pizza so I came up with this dish. It was maybe like a ratatouille? Bottom layer-  lightly sauteed round summer squash slices, a super thick herb cashew cheese (soaked cashews blended with backyard herbs, lemon, garlic, salt) big fresh beefsteak tomato slices, sundried black olives and lots of fresh chopped basil. It required a fork and knife but was a seriously yummy pizza mess!

not vegan! 

And some total Sunday night comfort food. Roasted organic chicken thigh (because thighs are cheap and tasty!), steamed broccolini with this crazy good bone marrow-shallot butter from work and a roasted yam and baby potatoes (if this were breakfast I'd call those hash browns). I know a lot of people think chicken is boring but it is so easy and safe for my crohnie guts so sometimes boring food means safe food. Also Im still not great at cooking meat but Ive figured out some tasty and easy ways to roast chicken so its my default for meat night.

juice makes me so happy!

So those are dinners lately, and just for kicks Ill sign off with more green juice! Love love love  this vibrant medicine!

juicehead

Going on a long weekend roadtrip! In an effort to clean out the fridge of perishables I made these two super beautiful juices busting with life. You know youre a health foodie when you consider this sort of activity great fun :) Hoping this XL dose of liquid veggie love will get me and guts there and beyond in good shape. See you on the other side!

smoothie love

Just a quick post to declare my love for smoothies, the ultimate fast-health-food! Seriously guys, smoothies are foundational to my diet, preferably with lots of green! So easy to digest and they always make me feel great. This bad boy is 1/2 avocado, 1 banana, bunch of backyard babykale (my garden is doing great!) spinach, 1/2 cucumber, a generous amount of frozen blueberries, coconut water. So yummy, had to share :) 

noodles and trees

Well, Ive been a crappy blogger. Lately Ive been thinking alot about how much crohn I want to talk about here and have no conclusion for this thought. Ive been digging deeper into the world of crohnie bloggers and there is a pretty cool community out there with loads of important info. Ive read alot of stories of different treatments and scary complications ect and have am a little overwhelmed and in awe of the bravery and strength required to take the biological pharmaceuticals. Crohns is pretty wild in its varied degrees of severity and am I just so super grateful that Ive managed as well as I have as long as I have. I have to admit Ive been thinking a lot about these drugs and the (unknown) long term effects. For now Im still honoring my gut feeling (haha) that imuran/remicade/humira are not right for me, as Im still feeling amazing post-surgery and am going to ride out this great feeling as long as I can. That ride includes lots and lots and lots of greens! 

One of my very favorite dinners, miso veggie noodle soup. Ive been experimenting with eating less grains lately (more on that later) but I loooooove my rice noodles so this is challenging. This bowl is a mix of half rice noodles (actually they are pumpkin ginger rice noodles yum!) and half zuchinni noodles    to lighten the grain load. Lots of greens steamed in a broth of homemade chicken stock and chickpea miso, tamari, ginger, green onion and shitake mushrooms. Yumyumyum. And soooooo good on my guts :)

In non food related news, Ive been climbing alot of trees, with Lula standing watch. Good for catching a new perspective ;) We are loving summer :)

Alright, Im going to try to be a better blogger, because I actually kind of enjoy it :)

comfort food

Just a couple breakdowns of some delicious dinners that were born out of the need for comfort food. 

hippie bowl

This one happened after I had the foresight to start the rice cooker with some sprouted brown rice before I headed out for my cleaning shift at the yoga studio. I was pretty tired and hungry and so happy for the quick yet still hearty and wholesome meal that is made possible by having a pot of rice at the ready! This was inspired by one of my favorite bloggers Hungry Hungry Hippie. She frequents the rice&egg bowl with a zillion random variations. This one was sprouted brown rice, pea shoots, wilted arugula, dairy-free pesto, a fried organic egg and a blob of cashew cheese. So yummy and satisfying :)

Lula gets really interested when I cook meat

So Im one of those mostly-vegetarian, great at vegan baking, sometimes eats organic meat kinda girls. This was one evening after work and I wanted a good, simple dinner with lots of yum and not alot of frills. I gathered a few solid quality items from the market and whipped up this nice dinner- Steamed broccoli with lots of butter, roasted rose fingerling potatoes and grilled organic chicken breast :)

still getting the hang of this blogging stuff

alright, alright so I havent been great at being a regular blogger but Im still getting the hang of it. You havent missed too much though, still feeling great post-op and enjoying the peace and quiet of normalcy after surgery. Normal and happy has been looking alot like this:

so many pancake mornings

 Its been super beautiful here for at least the past week so we've been getting in lots of backyard chilling time.

lula staying chill on hot backyard days

rocking so many monster salads

vintage crockpot crafted soup, groovy sister-made potholder  and mooooooore salad!

Alright, so real talk. I had a slightly overdue follow up with my specialist not long ago, and well, it was interesting. The heavy duty drugs they are pumping crohnies up with these days are pretty serious scary stuff and this doctor is in a bit of a rush to get me on them. I wont get too far into the details, but the potential side effects vs the potential success is far too high a risk for me to take at this point in my life. The drugs they are pushing are not a cure, they are not %100, they come with loads of potentially life changing side effects and basically are extremely harsh on all your major organs/systems... And this specialist I see, well she sees me for about 10 minutes a year, and didnt even have the real story about what went down with my surgery, so I just dont feel right trusting her judgement. I feel like Ive worked really hard for the health I have in spite of crohns disease and these drugs would just put it all in jeopardy. So after dr. scared the bejeebus out of with 10 minutes of terrifying tales of side effects, a life sentence of being pumped up with modified mouse proteins, followed by completely losing my trust when she was clueless as to what actually happened in my surgery, I just knew this was not the way for me.

You see that glow there? That is the look of a dedicated green-juicing health warrior on a pretty groovy healing journey. Pretty sure that glow would not be possible on biological immune suppressants!  Green juice! Amen and namaste!

milk, bread and cookies

Milk, bread and cookies, bunny style. First up, a delicious jug of freshly milked nuts.  I believe this was a cashew/almond combo, sweetened with dates and vanilla bean. The nuts are soaked a few hours so they are soft, alive and readily digested, then blended with water, strained through a fine mesh bag then blended again with dates and vanilla. yum.  Great warmed up with chai spices, or in a creamy smoothie or...

A nice big glass alongside  gluten-free vegan almond butter cookies. The recipe I use calls for peanut butter but I swing the almond butter way. Chewy, dense, slightly sweet, slightly salty and I still get that old school cookie comfort. 

The other day I had a funny thought. Ive been on such a lettuce-as-the-bread kick that I now buy gorgeous heads of butterleaf or romaine as though I were buying a loaf of bread. Look at that beauty! 

That there lunch would be homemade guac, sweet potato chickpea burgers on butterleaf (grown locally!) And Ill proboaly have a variation of this for lunch today too!

catching up

gettin fresh in the am 

Things have been same-same here, waking up the ol' GI tract with a juicy grapefruit and green juice. So much life in this combo! And when I am done it looks like the fruit plates they leave for the butterflies at the zoo.  Feeling good, eating well and getting back into the groove of participating in the outside world.

all healed up @ 6wks

I'm pretty happy with way surgery turned out. I'm far enough along  from the intense hospital part that I can enjoy the benefits of my gi renovation project. Its pretty crazy that they can knock you out and go inside fixing stuff and bring you back like that. I went in with a positive attitude and tried naively to prepare myself for the post-op situation but it still utterly kicked my butt.  Good news is it got a tiny bit better every single day, and 6 weeks later I am healed up in pretty good shape! 

rice tortilla pizza with a blue-green smoothie

That there photo is yesterdays lunch, with the added bonus of a sneak peak at my glass  collection. That is  a spinach, tempeh leftovers, tomato feta pizza and a blueberry-banana-green smoothie, in a sundae glass, and yes, that it a glass straw.

Oh, and since I havent officially introduced her, this is Lula. She would like to get that squirrel over there.

double dinner

The other night as I was considering what to make for dinner I had funny feeling that I should consult sister before I committed. We had a undefined loosey goosey hangout plans that food would fit nicely into, but before I knew it was whisking eggs and chopping broccoli for a frittata.  While it was baking in all its eggy glory wouldnt you know, I was invited for black bean burgers with sister! I am no stranger to hobbit style eating (Im a big fan of second breakfast) so I accepted the invitation and had a wee small slice of sweet potato broccoli frittata for pre-dinner.

sweet potato, broccoli, green onion, sheep feta

 You guys, Nunus black bean burgers were ridiculous! All the flavors were spot on, I felt like I was 11 years old eating tacos in New Mexico! We ate them on romaine leaves (we are so on to the breadless sandwich trend) and because of the shape of the leaves and slight crumbling of the burgers we called them burritos! There was a touch of heat in the patties but the cool crunch of the lettuce and creaminess of the avocado and goat cheese were the perfect combo for my delicate bunny palette.

black bean burger burrito bar for sisters!

I had a spot of coconut milk ice cream for 2nd dinner dessert but Nunu skipped as she thinks mint chocolate tastes like toothpaste. And because she didnt have dessert she made a yummy almond milk chai to sip while watching Babe. And to this I asked "even though I had dessert can I have tea too???". And so it was, there was tea for two!

toddler pancakes/ bunny waffles

So I recently learned this cutie is making "toddler pancakes" for her very cute and hungry toddler. From what I understand toddler pancakes involve a free-style blending of veggies with banana/egg/oats to sneak the veggies into the toddler in a toddler friendly yummy unit of food. I found this rather suspicious. This sounds alot like bunny pancakes. Or bunny waffles. It started with my pumpkin pancake craze one fall many moons ago in art scool. Then pumpkins were out of season so I quickly became famous in my art school house for sweet potato pancakes. My most used ingredients to blend into a good old breakfast cake are cooked sweet potato or squash/pumpkin, banana, applesauce, grated carrot and oats. Pancakes are incredibly versatile and while there are a million yummy creative recipes out there I usually just wing it. They are my breakfast of choice. And if the batter is just so I might get crazy and pull out my vintage thrifted waffle maker rescued from Mom's apartment of wonders and make bunny waffles!

sweet potato waffles, butter, maple syrup. perfection.

Off to make breakfast now! I think its banana pancake day....

getting my veggie groove back, the things I didnt know

One of the major issues I had leading up to my surgery was extreme stricturing of my small intestines- which made it difficult/painful/impossible to eat straight up raw veg and most raw fruit. I was juicing, blending, steaming, stirfrying and roasting my produce but eating a raw apple or a raw carrot would have me doubled over in stitches or other worse fates. Even though surgery was a total ass-kicking, it was just a flinch compared to the 11 years of ass-kicking that crohns has given me.

Well 4 weeks into healing and I am comfortably and jubilantly eating raw raw raw veggies! It is so exciting. I have also been super-reflective, now that I am well into healing and growing fresh new cells, about the bigger picture of this disease and what this surgery marks for me. I was diagnosed at the tender formative age of 14 when this disease was utterly destroying me. I was raised on the standard american diet (SAD) of white bread, gluten in every meal, convential meat&dairy, sugar cereal every day, tons of fast food and a candy bar or two at every grocery shopping trip. I was fond of the deep fried pizza pops at the mall and made myself microwaved minute rice and cheeze whiz as my packed lunch in junior high.  Ive come a long long way in understanding food as medicine and shifting to a whole foods, plant based, unproccessed low allergen diet as well as learning how to manage stress and finding peace and self-love in the hardest of times. Ive let go of the years of sadness and struggle and confusion that were trapped in those 3 feet of destroyed intestine and have a new sense of peace and strength about the years ahead of me. I have a renewed sense of dedication to my health and spirit, and am excited about the new connection of my healthy intestine as it represents a new connection to healing, growing and possibilty. Heres some eats Ive been crafting lately:

rice tortilla pizza with shitakes, spinach, sheep feta

romaine wrap with sprouts and sweet potato latke

super delux salad! romaine, apple, cuke, avacado, fried tempeh and sheep feta

addicted to these almond butter cups. Ive made 3 batches. I want to feed them to everyone I love.

lovely dinner of salmon, broccoli, rice and sprouts

Eat your veggies and be bountiful and bright! Nourish and be grateful for you health, treasure your body and practice self-love and empathy.

dinner with Kris and Meghan

I wish.

Kris Carr of www.crazysexylife.com and Meghan Telpner of www.meghantelpner.com  are two very inspirational ladies I look up to when it comes to living healthy, happy, vibrantly and practicing plant based food choices (for everyone, really!) but especially as a healing tool in the face of dis-ease. I get advice and ideas from  both of  these rainbow sparkly health warriors often, and when I felt like cooking something special and different on a mellow Saturday night date with myself, they had my back.

Cheesy pasta and tomato sauce is total nostalgic comfort food for me, but a rare treat and a far cry from the white wheat-prego-orange cheddar of my childhood. Im onto the gluten free noodles, organic tomato and goat cheese options.  My dinner with Kris and Meghan (can you imagine though?!) started when I had all the stuff to make a version of these  balls - I used a blob of pesto for the herbs, oats instead of flour and egg instead of flax, and used the base of this dirty penne to create a hearty, comforting creamy pasta.  My sauce was simply some leftover marinara I crafted after having a sister date at the italian market blended with a simple cashew cream. I layered fresh spinach between my penne and sauce so it wilted perfectly, topped it with 3 balls and generous fresh parsley. YUM.

freshly layered penne, spinach, sauce, balls

after mixing, so yummy I already have a mouthful 

the gluten free sandwich

When I was in the hospital I watched alot of tv. Because thats the way they set you up- they tie down to a bed with IVs and stick a tv in front of your face. The remote is actually a part of the bed, like right next to the nurse button. As if watching TV were equally critical as post-op nurse care. I digress. I watched alot of food network, as I went about 5/6 days with no food and the visual experience of food was the best I was gunna get. I happily watched programs showcasing and glorifying greasy fried diner   food and was too numbed out from my regular self to care. They did however leave me with an intense desire to eat sandwiches, what with all the super delux burgers and deep fried BLTs. Being of the gluten-free persuasion, sandwiches are not typically in my meal rotation. This week I was not numb and I was not in the hospital and I was not on a liquid diet. This week I was home, I was aware, I was hungry and I wanted a sandwich. Now, there is bread in my life, but it is expensive. Ive tried many a gf bread and settled on a basic brown rice loaf as my go-to. I typically use only one slice at a time for eggs or almond butter/jam ect but the sandwich occasion called out for the extravagant and rare use of TWO slices of the holy grail brown rice bread. This little beauty of a food unit was so satisfying. 

yellow heirloom tomato, mustard, pickle, goat cheddar, avocado, pea shoots

Then there is the breadless sandwich. This is where shit gets fun. Butterleaf or romaine are super fun to use as non-bread food vehicles. This one came together pretty randomly as I was insipired to make sweet potato latkes but then didnt really know what to eat them with so I called them veggie burgers and raided the fridge for burger fixings. That there is a sweet potato latke piled with pea shoots, goat cheddar, pickle and avocado held in a butterleaf bun. yum yum. 

I will leave you with a little tip. If you have gluten free friends in your life, and for whatever culinary circumstance they happen to use gluten free bread in your presence, dont laugh or make fun! we know our bread looks funny and is different than your bread,  but everyone deserves a sandwich once in awhile :)

what color did you have for breakfast?

I love to start my day with a fresh veggie juice. Preferably green (I save the beets/carrots for an afternoon juice). In fact, I swear by it and feel totally off if I dont have it. My green juices are usually a base of cucumber and/or celery, an apple for sweetness, half a lemon for that morning cleansing effect, maybe a knob of ginger and a leafy green like kale, chard, parsley or romaine. So delicious. And Ruby red grapefruit, if it is juicy and succulent, also tops my list of fresh morning starters. Seriously, when I wake up I just lay in bed dreaming about my juice or what fruit I have to make a little fruit salad, my stomach is asking for the fresh live enzyme kick of raw fruits&veg. And then after my juice and/or fruit Ill follow with a little stretching and something more substantial- eggs, oats, yogurt ect.  Green juice is my lifeblood!

treats

Today I was inspired to make chocolate! They turned out so good. Silky, fudgy raw chocolate stuffed with a slightly sweet and sea-salty almond butter filling. These are way better and bunny-friendly than anything I could buy.  I had fancy ideas of cooking dinner later but I might just eat these.