Safe Pumpkin nut bread

Happy autumn. This bread is seriously delicious. Especially warm and smothered in goat butter. (I've been nuking slices at work and making folks jealous with the wonderful smell.)

Ingredients:
3/4 cup bean flour
3/4 cup rice flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoons baking soda
1-1/2 teaspoons xanthan gum
1 cups pureed cooked or canned pumpkin
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup corn oil (or other vegetable oil)
1/4 cup water
2 eggs' worth of Ener-G egg replacer

Directions:
Grease and flour loaf pan. Stir together flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and spices.

Stir together pumpkin, corn oil and water, add egg substitute (mixed with warm water per the instructions on the box) .

Make a well in center of flour mixture, add pumpkin mixture and stir.

Pour into prepared pan and bake for 1 hour at 325 degrees.

Modified from recipe found here.

Safe Bison shepherd's pie

Who knew shepherds ate bison?

I just needed a break

Turns out my post of despair was the 50th post on this blog. Perfectly reasonable to think a girl would require a break and a change of focus after 50 diet-dedicated meditations.

Nine days of diet without conviction (and a reinvigorated job, and the creation of a band - The Stickers - and some serious good times rolling) later, I'm cooking and excited about it, so it's back to the Lactator.

Almost 2 months, and I've had enough

I cheated on Saturday and ate eggs and french toast. And somehow had the best gut day I've had in months! No nasty symptoms, all party fun times at the garage rock fest in Portland. And more energy from food than I've felt since starting this thing. Thursday's the official 8-week ending, and I'll be damned if the fucking fasting will suddenly start feeling beneficial between now and then.

Perhaps the prescription for wellness is just PARTY.

Safe Ginger cookies

Recipe found on The Vegan Chef, but improved by my fuckup of thinking all Ts, ts, and tees were made equal. Imagine, that much baking powder, that much ginger! Well, it worked out beautifully, so I'm feeding you all the Ts as tablespoons. These fuckers are delicious.

2 cups brown rice flour
1/2 cups arrowroot, plus extra for rolling out cookies
2 cups teff flour
2 T. baking powder
2 T. baking soda
2 T. cinnamon
1 T. ground ginger
1 t. salt
1/2 T. ground nutmeg
1/2 T. ground cloves
1 1/2 cups maple sugar granules
1/2 cup applesauce
1/3 cup safflower oil
1/3 cup honey
2 T. vanilla
safflower oil, for oiling cookie sheets

In a small bowl, stir together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, salt, nutmeg, and cloves, and set aside. In a medium bowl, place the remaining ingredients, and stir to combine. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir well to combine. Cover the bowl, place it in the refrigerator, and chill the dough for 1 hour or more. Using a little safflower oil, lightly oil (or mist with oil) two non-stick cookie sheets and set aside. Sprinkle a little arrowroot over a work surface. Divide the chilled dough into quarters, work with only one quarter of the dough at a time, and keep the remaining dough covered and chilled until needed. Working in batches, roll out the quarter of dough to 1/4-inch thickness, and cut into desired shapes with cookie cutters. Carefully transfer the cut cookies to the prepared cookie sheet. Bake them at 350 degrees for 6 minutes (the cookies will feel slightly soft to the touch). Allow them to cool on the cookie sheets for 3 minutes before transferring them to a rack to cool completely. Repeat the rolling and cutting-out procedure for the remaining cookie dough. Store the cookies in an airtight container.

Safe Stew

I stocked up on root vegetables at the cheap Beacon Hill produce stand today - $11 for all the root vegetables a stew could ask for, the bushiest celery stalks I've ever seen, bananas, grapefruits, and a cantaloupe. Impressive.

I haven't made a stew since cutting V8 and all tomato out of my diet, so this should be an interesting challenge. Hard to go wrong, though, with slow-cooked meat and root veggies.

The plan includes:
1 rutabaga
1 parsnip
1 beet (giant)
2 baker's potatoes
celery
carrots (yellow and orange)
white onion
1lb cubed stew meat

To season:
turmeric
lemon
cloves
bouillon
arrowroot for thickening

Feel free to give some advice. I'm planning to make this Saturday, so I'll be stewing over the possibilities until then...

Safe Chocolate banana walnut cookies

These turned out a bit cakier than I might have liked, but they were delicious and sweet and perfect crumbled in rice cream for a succulent dessert. Inspired by some weird health cookie recipe a friend saw on Real Housewives of New Jersey.

1c buckwheat flour
1/4c cocoa powder

2 rotten bananas
1/3c vegetable oil
1/3c agave nectar
1tsp vanilla extract

1/2c crushed walnuts

Whisk dry ingredients in one bowl. Whisk wet ingredients well in another, breaking up the banana. Add wet to dry. Mix in crushed walnuts. Bake 20 minutes at 350.

Safe Sick Kid Dinner

Mashed potatoes and spinach.

Mashed Potatoes
7 leftover cherry potatoes (from Trader Joe's)
parsley
1/4c goat's milk

Boil potatoes in goat's milk with parsley pulled from stems. When warm, mash with a fork.

Sautee spinach. Drain water, drizzle with expensive olive oil, salt, pepper.

Safe Butternut Squash Penne

It's neither mac n' cheese nor squash ravioli in a brown butter sauce, but it's delicious and perfect paired with peas.

Rice penne
2 jars butternut squash baby food
1/2 shallot, minced
olive oil, cheap + expensive
salt + pepper
chopped walnuts

Sautee onions in cheap olive oil until translucent. Add baby food, walnuts. Cook down to a paste. Cook and drain rice pasta. Coat penne in sauce, drizzle expensive olive oil over top, salt, white pepper.

Safe Pork chops

Delicious, simple pork chop dinner. Made and left in the oven while fetching a loved one from the airport, this made for a perfect and genuinely safe latenight dinner.

Pork chops patted dry and coated in salt, pepper, and a dash of turmeric. Browned on the stovetop, then baked at 350 for 20 minutes until cooked through (but not dry).

Potatotes boiled, drizzled in expensive olive oil, salt, pepper. Broccoli rabe sautéed then given the same treatment. I dipped my pork in apple sauce.

Midpoint check-in

It's been just over a month (okay, so after my long break from blogging it's actually been over 6 weeks) - time to check in and see just how this diet is working out so far. I'm committed to following my bloodwork strictly for two months before starting to experiment. The doctor insists it takes two months of detox before any real results are expected.

So far, the results don't look great.

Weight
I lost 10 pounds since my last visit to the GI - 6 months ago, so not necessarily all diet-related. But there's no question the thighs and ass of my jeans are looser today than they were in July.

Appearance
I've got the Somali child gut going - distension ain't pretty. And the waistbands of the same pants are feeling tight and uncomfortable, particularly after eating.

Guts
I've never been so gassy in my life. Significant bloating after each meal and also upon an empty stomach. Rollercoaster diarrhea-to-constipation excitement (0-12 BMs/day). Achy left side pretty constantly, with occasional cramping. Inspired by my Excel artistry for work, I'm going to start collecting some BM data and see if I can trace any patterns.

Nausea
Overall not too bad. Worst on an empty stomach (nothing new there) and while in transit. Generally consistent with pre-diet recent history.

Joints
My neck and shoulders have required all the special attention (stretching, self-massage, heat, chiropractor visits, yoga) they've ever required before, with no notable improvements. Hips and wrists still require the same 20 minutes or so to loosen up in the morning if I expect range of motion. In other words, no notable difference from pre-diet.

Blood
Waiting on some general lab results from my recent GI visit. I feel just as nourished/malnourished as I did before - in other words, my intuition seems entirely unrelated to any cause and effect scenarios. A number of previously illegal foods have taken center stage on this new diet (beans, raw fruit, vegetables, nuts), and all of my safe go-tos from prior diets are out (bread, eggs, noodles, chicken soup). I've moved through the LOST diet and can now claim to have a balanced diet, but there's no question I've thrown some wrenches into the works with the extreme changes. More when Dr. Lee gets back to me with details...and more still IF I decide to spend more $$$ to check back in with Dr. Wangen on the food allergy front.