breakfast quinoa

Breakfast continues to be very difficult for me.  Summer proved to be a bit easier, as I resigned to drinking protein smoothies most mornings for breakfast.  Now, I don't too much feel like smoothies every morning.  So I am back to trying to eat quinoa in some form for breakfast.

Try this banana quinoa recipe.  I made it hot and added milk.  Yum!  

Enchiladas

Go make these.

Enchiladas
I insist. You really must. And then add avocado to them. Yum yum.

Do you only eat salads?

I was asked the other night, "How do you do it - only eating salads?"

I think this person knows that I eat more than just salads, but still I am asked often about this or get comments often about how difficult it must be to eat gluten free. The majority of the time...not that difficult. In general, other than my bitter at life moments that I cannot have a donut, it is all worth it to me now.  I feel healthy, I'm in the best shape I've been in in years, and I usually don't miss the bread and carbs.

So yes, I do eat salads often...but I eat a lot more than that!

Here is a picture of today's...you guessed it...salad!

Today's salad was very simple.  Cucumbers, carrots, cauliflower, and my favorite addition to most salads this summer - avocado.  Summer is quickly ending it seems - yes, I know, it has already officially ended...  But, the weather here is still gorgeous, so I am enjoying "summery" food as long as I can.  Soon it will be soups and all things fall!

Coconut Chicken Curry

Tonight's dinner...Coconut Chicken Curry.  Yum, yum, yum.

Heat oil in a skillet.  Add a chopped up onion.  Then add some veggies of your choice - I went with green pepper, cauliflower and carrots.  Let them cook for a bit, then add spices of your choice - used primarily curry and cumin powder in this dish.  Then chop the chicken, add it to the skillet and let it cook.  Add a can of coconut milk, cover and let cook for another 5 minutes.  Easy and delicious!  

Caprese salad toothpicks!

Fresh Mozzarella 

+ Cherry Tomatoes

+ Basil =

Delicious caprese salad on a stick!  

Time for a New Look

I really need to have a new look and layout to the blog. Sigh. When will this happen? Hopefully soon, for both your sake and mine. I do not entirely like looking at it right now. I keep quickly changing it, thinking that a quick fix will help. Alas, usually quick fixes aren't such good ones. So for now, I will just post about changing it.  Hopefully I will be fully motivated here soon...


On a different note...had a fabulous weekend with my good friend Steph in town!  We ate delicious food.  Drank lots of wine and hung out in the beautiful Denver weather.  The pool was absolutely delightful.

More from the GF Fair...

Lots to share about the fair I went to over the weekend.  It was so great.  Met many interesting people in the gf world and sampled more gf food than I knew what to do with.  

I found this gem at the fair...

I had never heard of this brand before.  They are a new company and their samples were so delicious that I decided I needed to purchase some of their pancake and waffle mix to take home with me.  I'm actually considering making some right now after my intense workout.  I'm sure I'll have nothing but good things to report!  

Denver Metro Celiac Support

I will post more about the GF fair later as I can barely keep my eyelids open.  But let's just say it was uber fantastic and just what the doctor ordered.  More GF samples than I ever needed and met some good peeps in the industry.  Hooray for living in Colorado where gluten free is trendy and in, regardless of if you have celiac or not.  Yeah for me for picking to live here and purchasing a condo here before I knew my diagnosis!

I'm Alive

I am alive.  I have been trying to post recently and have had zero patience for figuring out what happened to my blog and why I have been unable to fix the formatting so that I could post.  Well, I finally have figured it out and here I am.  I really intend on being better at blogging and really need to figure out a layout for the blog that I am happy with.  I will just add that to the list of projects.

For now, here is what I am excited about posting:
http://www.denverceliacs.org/gffoodfair.html

I hope to be able to make it to the fair after ultimate on Sunday.  Should be a good way to meet more folks in the gf world here.

The Gluten Escape

So I was at Panera the other day (which, if you are from St. Louis you know is hard to call it Panera, because after all it really is Bread Co!)...  Anyways, I was at Panera and the guy behind the register said I had a free pastry on my Panera card if I would like to get one.  I said no thank you, unless you have anything gluten free?  He frowned and said "unfortunately no, no, we don't.  Sorry.  But, have you been to The Gluten Escape?"  And I said actually, yes I have and it's quite tasty.  So here is my small shout out to The Gluten Escape...http://www.theglutenescape.com/

I have only been there twice, but both times I enjoyed my pastries and the cupcake I had once!  I am always up for trying new gluten free bakeries, restaurants, etc. these days - so thank you Gluten Escape for opening!

More from NYC...

I am obviously not doing the best job of keeping up on blogging about gluten free living.  I really am going to do my best to improve on this, cause it really and truly has changed so much about my life.  I feel the healthiest I have in years and am by far in the best shape I have been in in years.

I have much to update, including my trip to Europe where celiac is very prevalent.

For now, a few pictures...

Sister at S'Mac!  Yummmmmm

Gluten free sushi at Lili's 57 in NYC http://www.lilis57.com/

GF NYC

So my sister and I went to NYC to celebrate my 30th. We definitely did some touristy things, but I'd same the majority of our trip was planned around food. Traveling now is a bit different than it used to be and I always have to check things out to see what I can eat. I do have to saymliving in Colorado spoils me a lot, as I seem to be able to go most places and it is just a given that gluten free is marked on menus or they have separate gluten free menus.

My sister and I looked up ahead of time so places we for sure wanted to hit, particularly some gluten free bakeries and restaurants. One of our favorites for sure was S'Mac http://www.smacnyc.com/
Absolutely delicious and worth the wait! I couldn't even tell that my mac n cheese was sans gluten.

http://www.bistangonyc.com/
I wish I could bring this place to Denver. A-mazing. They can make basically everything on their menu gluten free and it was beyond delicious. The bread was some of the best I've tasted yet. And their ravioli- yum, yum, yum. We went here for my birthday dinner before going to Broadway, so of course we needed cake. The carrot cake was to die for. I won't go into the whole story of how we ended up eating here, but let's just say I made reservations, changed the reservations, cancelled the reservations...went to another place to eat and ended back at this place. SO glad we didn't eat pizza by the slice that night and went here instead. So so good. If you are ever in NYC, check it out.

My dear friend Aya came and met us on Saturday and of course the food tour continued. More to come as I'm missing many places we hit up, but sleep is calling.

Weekend Pancakes!

I love pancakes.  Breakfast has been by far the HARDEST part of going gluten free for me.  I don't eat eggs, so breakfast is quite the challenge these days.

So far Pamela's
http://www.pamelasproducts.com/product/Pamelas_Baking_
_amp_Pancake_Mix/13193.aspx
pancake mix is my favorite.  They are seriously delicious and you cannot tell they are gluten free.  This weekend I indulged in some of the blueberry variety.

I'm on the constant search for new ideas for breakfast sans eggs, so if you have any bright ideas - let me know!  Happy brunching everyone!

More posts soon...

I have failed miserably this year at posting.  It is something I want to make happen and will.  I got an iPad for Christmas and for whatever reason am having a hard time uploading pictures from it onto my blog.  So, I need to be better about using my computer and figuring out the glitches.

My sister is the best and got my a subscription to "Delight" - a gluten free magazine.

http://delightglutenfree.com/

I came home tonight to a new magazine in the mailbox!  The cover has "Make your own gluten-free bagels."  Can't wait to try it out!!  I seriously miss bagels.  Thanks, sis!

Until next time - happy gluten free eating!

Chicken Enchiladas

I love love love Mexican food.  So it is a good thing that eating gluten free means still being able to eat most Mexican food.

Chicken enchilada photo tour!

First, saute the onions in some olive oil and garlic for about 10 minutes.  Then, stir in about 

3 tbsp. of chili powder, 2-3 tsp. of cumin, and 1 tbsp. of sugar.  Cook for about a minute.  

Now mix in a can of tomato sauce, a cup of water and a few chopped up tomatoes.  Let simmer for a few minutes and then add the chicken breasts.  Cover and let simmer for about 20-25 minutes.  

Pull out the chicken and put on a plate to cool.  Then, you need 

to strain the onion mixture away from the sauce.  

Shred the chicken and add to the onion mixture.  Add about 1/4 cup of the enchilada sauce 1/2 cup of two different cheese of your choice (this time I used cheddar and mozzarella), and 1/2 cup of cilantro.  

Heat about 18 tortillas (6 inch corn rounds) in the microwave for about 20 seconds or more, so that they are soft and easy to work with.  Place the chicken mixture into each tortilla and place seem side down into a 9x13 pan.  This recipe around, I made two 9x13 pans.  Once you have put all the tortillas in the pan, put them in the oven at 450 degrees for about 5 minutes.  Then take them out, pour the enchilada sauce to cover them and spread another 1/2 cup of each type of cheese over them.  Place in the oven, covered for another 20 minutes.  

And there you have it!  Pure deliciousness.

Sidebar: I will work on making the blog full of better photos and make sure to 

include all the steps of the recipes I include.  Cheers to at least a good start at it!  

A Year of Gluten Free

I have not yet blogged in the new year, but I promise to be better about it this year. All I really have to say in this post is how incredibly excited I am to be gluten free all year this year! It has been about six months now and I'm so excited about another year of feeling healthy. So cheers to gluten free living in 2012!