It's the Little Things in Life. Like Pancakes.

A few weeks into this dairy-free, egg-free life (for me) ~ dairy-free, egg-free, gluten-free, soy-free life for The Mister friends have been asking how it's going.  So I took some time to reflect.

First I forget that I'm not totally gluten intolerant; but gluten is an inflammatory (and kind of useless calories) so it's a good idea to cut back anyway. And in support of The Mister's gluten intolerance I pretty much stay away from gluten. It's just easier when you're making a meal together. I'm a huge butter lover, though, so giving up butter was a tough one. Finding a butter substitute that tastes half way decent is hard enough, but with The Mister's soy intolerance - we were on a mission! Amazingly we discovered Earth Balance "natural buttery spread" with no soy. I was reluctant at first, but tried it on toast and holy moly - it was good! Granted nothing will ever replace real butter; but if you have to substitute, this stuff is good!

Eliminating chocolate from my life (at least for now - maybe forever) was actually easier than I had expected. Thank god I can still have sugar. :) Not eating chocolate has made me realize, however, how much chocolate I used to consume! Most of it was just mindless eating while I was working. 

I tried Jelly Bellies but they pulled off my crown. No bueno.

Dried fruit is ok but more often than not I just resort to these

or fruit or nothing at all.

Once we found a gluten-free, egg-free pizza crust 

we were able to indulge in one of our favorite meals again 

- homemade pizza. 

This one is pepperoni, baby portabellos, red onion, fresh basil, 

goat cheese for me - mozzarella for him.

The Mister makes a mean turkey burger 

(stuffed with goat cheese for me; mozzarella for hiim) 

and hand-cut homemade roasted fries.

And a delicious chicken burger with tomato-mango-onion-cucumber salsa

Our fabulous home meal delivery service The Spicy Radish offers gluten free and dairy free options on almost all their meals and that's a real plus for us!

Like this peanut chicken lettuce wrap 

with cabbage, carrot and snap pea salad.

and this chicken, gluten free pasta and arugula salad with lemon dressing.  

I was so tired when I heated this up last night 

that I put the homemade tomato sauce on the chicken 

rather than the pasta.  Oh well...

and braised pork chop with quinoa, scallion and carrot salad (The Mister's)

and a turkey meatball with gluten free pasta and 

pesto and roasted red pepper.

My go to meal when I'm in Denver is usually sushi

My go to meal when traveling is a Caesar Salad with chicken or shrimp, no croutons, dressing on the side. Because Parmesan is typically sparse on Caesars, I treat myself to a sliver or two. And I realized on my last trip that Caesar dressing is full of dairy; so from now on I'm going to make the unusual request of balsamic vinegar dressing on the side. Caesars are usually consistent; it's hard to screw up a Caesar salad. Trust me, though, I have had couple that were hot messes - or I guess I should say, cold messes.  (Seriously, though, how can you screw up a Caesar salad??)

Chicken Caesar in the Mill District Minneapolis

Chicken Caesar at the St. Paul Grill in St. Paul

Shrimp Caesar at Red Lobster in Ames, Iowa

I mix it up sometimes - a kale, roasted butternut, pine nut and

 goat cheese salad at Napa Grill in Minneapolis.

Fries? What fries? I don't know what you're talking about.

I can eat most meats, but eliminated beef from my diet by choice several years ago. I can eat most seafood, but have had to [temporarily I hope] forego salmon, cod and sole. 

I'm very much a seafood person.

Halibut with roasted tomato and avocado salsa and gluten free pasta

at Crave in Minneapolis

All veggies are good.  

So, ok, you caught me ~ 

sometimes a favorite side dish to accompany a healthy salad 

is a little platter of fries.  

My guilty pleasure. *wink*

All fruits but bananas are ok. (I miss my peanut butter and banana toast.) I miss ice cream and gelato but am testing the water with some coconut milk and almond milk "ice cream." And I really, really miss my peppermint hot chocolate on cold mornings. That's a tough one - it's my true comfort drink on a snowy day.

One thing I have been really craving is pancakes. I was finding it a real challenge to find a pancake recipe that didn't call for an egg. Its easy to substitute gluten and dairy, but eggs?  That's a different story; and I can't eat bananas - sometimes an egg substitute. I owe my sweet and very food savvy friend, Jen, big time for sending me this delicious egg-free, gluten-free, dairy-free pancake recipe!  I substituted coconut milk and brown rice flour.  De-lish! (And yes, I get the irony that Jen's blog is called "Use Real Butter.")

I was in such a hurry to taste them!

They were scrumptious. And they may become a real Sunday morning habit!

This new way of looking at food has its learning curve. I'm grateful for the good things - and yummy things - I can still eat. And I'm learning to look at food as fuel to help my body and mind work at maximum capacity ~ rather than entertainment or reward.

I'm not crazy. I haven't given up everything! I still indulge in certain treats now and then. 

Thank goodness I'm not grape-intolerant. *wink*

And there are other kinds of rewards. Like I have more energy and I'm not getting that mid-afternoon slump as often as I used to. (Unless A-choo has me up and at 'em at 4 am) 

The real bonus? I've lost 16 lbs. in about 6 weeks. 

Can't you tell?  *wink*

And that's just by eating what my body craves to be healthy.

Maybe this will be ok after all.

Be Kind to One Another

When I left Iowa at 19 I spent a short stint in Canada then moved to Colorado. Since September of 1974 I have called it my home. So I have officially celebrated my 39th year in my adopted home state. And over those 39 years I have made a LOT of road trips across the vast state of Nebraska to visit my family in central Iowa. In the early years it was just cheaper than flying with little kids. In the later years it was because we couldn't bear to be without our Boo for a week, so she always traveled with us.

After our trip in 2012 we knew that she didn't enjoy traveling that far anymore. So even before we knew she wouldn't be with us for the 2013 trip we had decided to leave her home in the loving care of our pet-sitter. Sadly she didn't make it that long.

I told The Mister that if I had to travel by car across Nebraska one more time my head would explode. (No offense, Nebraska peeps - it's just a very long, straight road to drive with the same scenery for 39 years.  Yikes.)

So we decided to fly ~ but also mix it up a little and see some country we haven't seen that much of.  We decided to fly into Minneapolis, spend some time there and rent a car to make the three hour drive to Mom in central Iowa.

We left our home at 5:45 am last Saturday (taking time to make breakfast and weigh our bags.) We parked in the outlying airport parking, snagging a parking spot 40 feet from the bus stop. Oh and as luck would have it, the shuttle bus pulled up right behind us. And we arrived at Denver International Airport as the sun rose.

Someone had booked our seats in the emergency exit row where there is no place to stash your bag under the seat in front of you. I'm a girl. I have to have my stuff.

 

So we joked with the ticket agent and bingo bango - we have better seats. The Mister thanked him for saving our marriage. 

We were fortunate to be among the first to board and our flight attendant instructed everyone as to their designated spot for carry-ons. She requested we put ours under the seats in front of us. (She and I got along fine.) I watched her as the remainder of the plane boarded. She was friendly and smiled but every inch of her 5' 100 lb. frame was all business. If she told you that was your overhead bin space, you listened. She joked and called herself "Judy the Baggage Nazi."

Get this - the pilot came out and talked to everyone. First thought, of course, omg the flight is delayed. Quite the contrary ~ he was welcoming us all and said if it was alright, we would be departing a bit early.  We arrived in Minneapolis 20 minutes ahead of schedule. As we left the plane I paused to thank Judy the Baggage Nazi and told her I had never been on such an organized flight!

Next step was to pick up our rental car. Someone had requested the wrong size car so the Hyundai Sonata we had hoped for wasn't available. Again, humour and patience paid off. The girl at Avis went above and beyond to find one for us. We waited. She came back and said, "You've got your Sonata!  I stole it from Budget."  

The Mister to our Avis agent, "Don't you own Budget?"

Me to our Avis agent, "You do now!"

Again The Mister thanked her for saving our marriage and we left fast friends.

So we check in to the Marriott (10 minutes from the airport) and have an afternoon to kill. Mall of America (MOA) is across the street, so what the hell ~ let's go see what all the fuss is about. We're walking, we're walking, we're walking. We stop in a few shops. A new carry-on bag with a padded shoulder strap was in order; my shoulders were killing me.  (Hey my carry-on was heavy but both checked in bags were 36 lbs and well under the weigh limit!)

I love handbags but I've never been into name brand bags. I'm more of a Marshall's/Kohl's whatever bag is on sale gal. But over the years my Mom-in-law and BFF/SIL have sent a few Vera Bradley's my way and I think they are kind of works of art. So when walking into the Hallmark store in MOA looking for something else, I stopped by the colorful Vera Bradley section in the front of the store. The bags aren't within my normal budget but I did fall in love with an extremely colorful one. (As Emile Zola said, "If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist will answer you: I am here to live out loud!") When I saw it had a padded shoulder strap, the deal was done. However... I kind of wanted to see the rest of collection in that pattern and theirs was limited. 

I asked the friendly clerk about that and she said if I really wanted to see all of them the Vera Bradley store was one floor down. And she said it genuinely and with a smile. So I finally found the store, took a quick look around and promptly took myself back to the Hallmark store and the nice lady and bought the bag from her.  Because she had been generous and honest and kind.

Considering every loop around MOA is a mile, we did our 5 miles. We found the delightful Napa Grille and plopped our sorry tired behinds down in seats on their patio. Our friendly server brought us our kale, chicken, roasted butternut squash and goat cheese salads. They were quite yum.

And so began our salad tour of the Midwest. And the oh so healthy side of fries almost every time.

As we were leaving I found our server to thank her and I found myself saying something Charlie's Gannie always said - what his Mother always says - "Have a happy life, sweetheart."

 

The Mister and I remarked as we were saying good night that wasn't it interesting how smoothly the day had gone. Even with a couple of bumps kindness begat kindness; laughter begat laughter and patience paid off.

 

There's a lesson there, grasshopper.