Saturday, July 31, 2010

I'm plum awesome

My new job, in addition to being awesome, had the added bonus of having an extremely fecund plum tree.



Not that I'm really allowed to eat them, but hating to see them go to waste, I decided to try to make something with them. I'd vowed to come up with a pie recipe and it's been on my mind alot, so...

Crust:
3c almond meal
1/2ts sea salt
1/2ts baking powder
1/2c grapeseed oil
4tbsp Greek yogurt
1ts vanilla extract

Combine ingredients and press into bottom and onto sides of dish.



Bake at 325 for 10 minutes

Filling:
Green apple
5 large or 7ish medium sized plums
1/2 lemon
1/3c oat flour

Cut green apple and put it on a plate/dish/etc. with the bottom covered in water. Pop it in the oven for 5-10 minutes on 325.



Skin and cut apple into chunks.
Cut up plums.
In a bowl, combine fruit, squeeze juice from 1/2 lemon, add oat flour.



Stir well and pour into crust.



Bake at 300 for 5-10 minutes.

Voila!



Damn, it feels good to be a gangsta!

Thursday, July 29, 2010

I'm Soup-er



4 cups water
2 yellow squash
1 green squash
1 white onion
2 carrots
1 cup broccoli
1 cup black beans
1 red bell pepper
Fresh chives, oregano and basil to taste

-I steamed the squash
-I chopped everything
-I boiled the water
-I threw everything in the water and let it simmer on low heat for an hour
-I scarfed it down and congratulated myself on creating a soup-er good meal

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Waffle Fail



Turns out that substituting almond-meal for flour, egg whites for oil, and rice milk for cow's milk does not equal a waffle eating experience. Who am I kidding? The best part of waffles is the butter and syrup anyway. Next time I'll just eat a handful of almonds and save myself from scrubbing the faux-waffle remnants from the waffle-maker.

Friday, July 23, 2010

I'm sorry, I can't hear you, I've got olive oil in my ear.

Apparently staying out until 3am(when you've been going to bed between 7 & 9), in chilly, damp, sea air on Friday, and then going to a rock show on Sunday, when you have a serious illness, isn't what the doctor means by "taking it easy." Who knew?! I'm sure this comes as a shock to most, but I'm kinda a stubborn bastard, who has to learn things the hard way(you're dying of shock, aren't you?).

Worry not, I paid for my bullheadedness, when I was struck down Monday night with a cough from the depths of Hell. Thinking that was penance enough, was silly on my part, however. At my check-up on Tuesday I was alerted to the fact that I had, not only a respiratory infection, but a double-ear infection, as well(Yay, I win!).

The rattle in my chest is old news, frankly. I haven't been able to breathe deeply for months anyway, and the cough is nothing compared to my friend that once had one for 7 months straight, so I'm not gonna bitch about any of that...but, I'm a sniveling baby when it comes to ear infections, no joke(there, you know my kryponite).

The best part is that I'm not allowed any medication because it all has antibiotics, sugar or alcohol in it.

My friend suggested boiling olive oil with garlic, letting it cool, straining the garlic and then putting the oil in my ears...so I've been lying around the past few days with my head dunked in oil, watching the entire first season of One Tree Hill, and I must say: I really wish I had some Olive Garden breadsticks.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Come on baby, light my fire

I haven't spent much time with friends since getting sick. This is largely because I was either on my death-bed; because my immune system was too low to be around large groups of people; because I was feeling sorry for myself and the fact that everyone else would be eating/drinking when I couldn't; because I didn't want people to know what was going on with me; and because I've been going to bed by 8pm. Last night I broke my social dry-spell and hung out with a great group of people at a bonfire on Ocean Beach. It was the best time I've had in a really long time. I really needed to be around good people and have my spirit lifted.

I missed out on the s'mores my friends and the 75 Brazillian kids mowed through, but I did make some choice kabobs (minus that one that fell in the sand, and that other one that got charred).



In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit. -Albert Schweitzer

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

It's The Great Pumpkin(bread), Charlie Brown

"There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people: religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin."



1.5c rice flour
1/2c oat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp each: ginger, nutmeg and pumpkin spice
1c pure pumpkin
1 egg white
2 tbsp rice milk
1c applesauce (or subsitute plain Greek yogurt)
1/2 tsp vanilla ex
4 tbsp coconut oil (instead of butter)

-Preheat oven to 400degrees
-Mix dry ingredients, blend well.
-Mix wet ingredients, blend well.
-Combine ingredients, blend well.
-Pour mixture into bread pan and bake for 35-45 min.
-Top it with some cultured coconut milk, if you're feeling fancy (I'm cleared on small amounts of coconut, this week, btw :)! )

This came out fantastically and I'm uber proud of my concoction!

Nanner-nanner-boo-bread



1c oat flour
1c rice flour
2c almond meal
1.5 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt (I used Kosher, sea)
1/2 tsp nutmeg
dash cinnamon
1/2c nuts (macademia)
3-5 ripe bananas
1/4c oil (grapeseed)
juice of half a lemon
1 tsp vanilla extract(pure, non-alcoholic)

-Preheat oven 400degrees
-Mash bananas in bowl with fork.
-Chop nuts.
-Mix dry ingredients in a bowl, blend well.
-Mix wet ingredients in a bowl, blend well.
-Mix dry ingredients into wet ingredients
-Pour mix into bread pan and bake about 30 min (25-40 depending on oven)

*I came up with this by combining a few different recipes and by subsituting things I'm allowed to eat.

I'm not sure the grapeseed oil was the best choice, so I suggest trying a different one.

Also, mix the salt in really well, otherwise you'll have salt-bombs in your mouth, which we found to be an unpleasant surprise.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

I'm a genius

Yesterday I ventured to Whole Foods, solo, for the first time. I've been twice before, with friends. The first time I was too over-stimulated/whelmed/self-pitying to actually explore the wonders to behold. The second time I bought some rice cheese (NEVER again, I say! NEVER!)

This time, prepared to bake, I set out to find some almond meal...and found this:

*Clouds part, sunbeams and rainbows shine, bluebirds sing, angels get their wings*

Holy crap, there's such a thing as rice flour?! Oat flour?! (And about 20 other flours I'll have to research)

End results:

Pumpkin and Banana breads

It took a lot of subsitutions, some ingenuity and a bunch of luck, but I managed to make a desert without dairy, gluten, or sugar AND it actually tasted good. I'm a genius!

Recipes coming asap!

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Comparisons

July 2008


July 2009


July 2010


Experiencing July without a face-ful o' meat is sacreligious, y'all :(

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

"I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu..."

This is what I ate on the 4th, when I was mourning the fact that I wasn't gorging on brisket:

Chicken breasts, yellow squash, chopped red onion, pressed garlic and orange bell peppers splashed with rice milk(I didn't have Dr approved olive oil with me) and a dash of ground cinnamon. Baked on 350 for 40 min(flipping chicken halfway through). It wasn't BBQ, but it was a tolerable substitute. I'll def be making this again.

Attention friends: Please note, if you go out to eat with me, and you ask me whether you should get a salad or chili cheese fries, I will demand you get the fries and also a milkshake to wash it down, as witnessed tonight. *Cue Tim McGraw's Live Like You Were Dying...*

If I can't eat it then you'd damned well better! I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm not only going to enjoy living vicariously through my friends' eating habits, but also watching them get fat as I wither away. Happy eating y'all.

Monday, July 5, 2010

You have such a good humor about all this...

"Look, in my life you either laugh or cry, there is nothing in between." Elizabeth Glaser

And so, I've been laughing...

I spent the first week or so after my sentencing(diagnosis) in complete shock and denial, and the next three weeks wavering between anger and feeling extremely sorry for myself. By the month mark, I thought I'd accepted things and was fine... You see up until very recently, my range of emotional vocabulary was thus: fine, not fine, and angry (I'm slowly learning to recognize and label other emotions I previously couldn't).

I've always been told/thought I had a pretty high threshold for pain, and physically I think I'm withstanding a lot right now, considering; but nothing prepared me for this overwhelming tidal wave of sadness that nearly drowned me yesterday. I knew at some point a not fine feeling would resurface, but I wasn't expecting the magnitude and sheer force I was blindsided with.

The thing is, in the past, I never managed my pain, I just disassociated myself from it. So while I may have experienced a lot of painful situations, physically, emotionally, spiritually, I never learned how to process and deal with any of that pain. I just sidestepped it.

I feel so raw and vulnerable, like an emo-chick entering menopause. A drink sounds like a really good idea right now. Two dozen donuts sound like an even better idea. Three boxes of It's-its sounds phenomenal! Something, anything, to get me away from this feeling, to get me away from me. But a drink isn't the solution. Stuffing my face full of donuts, or It's-its isn't the solution. Not feeling my emotions is not the solution. Learning to sit through and deal with pain in a healthy way is what I need to do. And I sure am doing a whole lot of sitting lately! (I sat for 3 hours and did a puzzle, start to finish, the other day. Holy cow.)



Someone recently told me that pain is beautiful... I told her she was full of shit. I do think pain is necessary for growth, though. This is a learning experience, right?

This illness is going to prove to be a good thing(it'd better!), in that it's stripping away all my defenses and pride and escape-routes.

Now, if I could just make it a day without bleeding from one of my orifices...