"Plan B" Meals for Busy Weeks

Ever feel completely overwhelmed with life? That's how I've felt the past few weeks. Don't worry, I'm learning to manage it. I'll talk about that more in July with a post on dealing with feelings and emotions creatively through journaling and an artistic therapy called mandala. 

But one thing that's been stressing me out lately is food. I haven't had any desire to cook on a regular basis. I'll feel like it occasionally for dinner or breakfast... but overall... I just don't feel the desire or creativity to make food. 

It's an odd conundrum for a food blogger. Not really sure how to have a food blog, without food... so one thing that's come to the rescue in the past few weeks is Pure Foods/Fresh Start. It's actually a diet food service that sends meals to people trying to lose weight. And while weight loss is currently a goal for me... I just needed safe food. I wanted safe, gluten-free meals I could have readily available so we wouldn't go out to eat as much. We were spending wayyyyyyyy too much money, eating the same boring meals at Chick Fil A or Wendy's because Carrie just hasn't felt like being a food blogger. 

So enter Pure Foods/ Fresh Start. No, they haven't paid me anything. Nor have they sent me free samples or items to try. I've purchased the meals and tried them the past three weeks. So here are a few positive and negative highlights about the company and the food if you're interested: 

Positive: 

• The company is a diet foods company, therefore the meals are "healthy" by being lower in fat, low in sodium, high in fiber, and generally rank low on the glycemic index. These definitions of "healthy" may not meet your personal goals... but I think in general the meals work well for me. 
• They offer a pretty generous selection of gluten-free entrees. There are breakfast, lunch, and dinner options (I think about 30 overall?) You pick and choose which entrees you want. 
• You have a lot of options about how many meals you want. You can choose 5 days worth of meals, 7 days worth of meals, 3 full meals a day, 3 meals + snacks, 2 meals, 1 meal... however you want it... they offer you the option of customization. 
• Great actual food packaging and quick delivery. I found this blog which shows how the meals are packaged and how they arrive. The meals are in pretty decent reusable containers and will keep for two full weeks in your refrigerator or you can freeze them for even longer storage. 
• CONVENIENCE!!!! Anybody on a gluten-free diet/lifestyle knows how hard it can be to eat out or to have to prepare every single meal you will ever eat. Right now, the convenience and the fact that they are healthy, correctly portioned meals, is hugely important to me. 

Negative:

• This ain't your grandmama's cooking... not that grandma was well-versed in gluten-free cookin'... but low sodium, low fat means adjusting your taste buds. The meals don't taste bad (and really I'm not that picky), but they definitely made me realize how much fat & salt I had been using in meals at home and on the road. 
• Some meals are better than others. I'm not a fan of the baked cod & black bean salad. But I do like and enjoy most of the meals. 
• Shipping Container/Packaging -- this really isn't that big of a deal, but the company uses a lot of weird packaging to ship the food to you. It's shipped in a big box with big bags of some type of frozen gel, which keeps it all cool and it's in a big bag, and lots of styrofoam to keep things cold, which works great for the food, but it's not very "green" or environmentally friendly... but I'm not sure of a much better way either! 

Want More Info:

The Company: http://www.purefoodsfreshstart.com/
Phone: (866)52-MEALS (526-3257)

Email: Julie.Hanes@purefoods.com

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Waiting

lately we're spending lots of weekends traveling to see my Dad, who is very sick in the hospital. this is the view from the waiting room. the pictures are taken with my sad little flip phone, but i actually love the grainy, unfocused quality of them. 

because life feels rather fuzzy some days right now. we spent lots of time waiting. a little bit of time visiting. a lot of time hoping and praying. i'm not worried about clarity, about perfect meals, or about how often i'm getting a work out in. it will happen. 

within the halls of this big hospital are these little quilts from patients who have gotten better. in this particular area, the quilts are all from cardiac patients... it's comforting to see them.

visiting hours end at 10pm. when we get there i try to see Dad at least 3 times a day, in the morning, in the evening and once before bed to wish him good night. saturday evening he mouthed "i love you" and squeezed my hand. i decided it was a good night to visit my old friend the roanoke star. it was hot and humid and you could see a cloud hanging over the valley above all the lights... 

but the star, my star, was bright and beautiful... as always. 

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Spicy Chilli Chicken Recipe

Need a break from everyday Indian meals? Then look no further than Indo-chinese recipes. Popular among them are Gobi manchurian, Chicken manchurian and one of my favorites Chilli Chicken. For beginners Indo-chinese cuisine is basically the usage of chinese seasoning, sauces and cooking techniques mixed in with some indian spices to suit Indian tastes.

The Chilli chicken recipe here is a dry and spicy version where marinated chicken pieces are deep fried then cooked in a mixture of green chilly, capsicum, soya sauce & red chili sauce and finally garnished with spring onion. So lets get cooking!

Ingredients for Chilli Chicken Recipe

• Boneless Chicken – 1/2 kilogram (1 inch pieces)
• Green Chilly – 15-20 (cut length-wise)
• Onion – 1 small (thin long slices or short thick cubed slices)
• Capsicum (Bell Pepper) – 1 (thin long slices or short thick cubed slices)
• Soya Sauce – 1 tablespoon
• Red Chili Sauce –  1 1/2 teaspoons
• Ajinomoto – 1/4 teaspoon (optional)
• Sugar – 1/4 teaspoon
• Garlic – 8-10 cloves(chopped finely)
• Ginger – 1 teaspoon (finely chopped pieces)
• Pepper Powder – 3/4 teaspoon
• Corn Flour – 3 tablespoon
• Egg – 1
• Spring Onion – 4 chopped
• Water – 1 1/2 cup
• Food color (red or orange) – 1 pinch
• Oil for deep frying
• Salt to taste

Prep time: 15 min

Cook time: 30 min

Serving: 4 people

Chicken Marinade

1. In a bowl take the chicken pieces and add 1/2 teaspoon salt.
2. Add 2 tablespoon corn flour, 1 egg and 1/2 teaspoon pepper powder (rest will be used later).
3. Mix the ingredients well and set the bowl aside for 10 minutes.

Cooking method for Chilly Chicken Recipe

1. In a frying pan or a heavy bottomed vessel take sufficient oil for deep frying on medium heat.
2. When the oil is hot put the marinated chicken pieces into it and deep fry them for around 8 minutes.
3. After 8 minutes take the chicken pieces out and put them on tissue paper to remove the excess oil.
4. Take another pan on medium heat and add 1 tablespoon oil.
5. When the pan is hot add chopped ginger and garlic and stir for 2 minutes.
6. Now add green chilly and mix for another minute.
7. Toss in onion and capsicum and fry for 3 more minutes.
8. Its time now to put in the soya sauce and red chilly sauce. Mix the contents well.
9. Add 1 cup water, stir the contents and wait till it starts to boil.
10. Now add food color, salt to taste and mix again. At this stage you can now taste a few drops of liquid to check for salt and also for spice level. You can add more salt or more red chilly sauce based on your taste needs. Be careful to not overdo it.
11. Add a pinch of food color and mix well.
12. Its time for the star of the the dish the chicken to go in . Add the remaining 1/4 teaspoon pepper powder, ajinomoto (optional) and sugar.
13. In a separate vessel or a cup, add 1/2 cup of water, 1 tablespoon corn flour and stir. This will be used as the thickening agent.
14. Now increase the heat from medium to high. Add the corn flour water mixture little by little and stir the contents slowly. You will see that the contents starts to thicken.
15. When there is no liquid left, the chilli chicken recipe is almost done. Take the pan off the heat and add finely chopped  fresh spring onion and mix gently.

Serve hot as a starter/appetizer or as a side dish. Enjoy!

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Kale Chip Nachos W/'No Dairy' Parmesan (Paleo/Priaml/GAPS)

Once again, I am super thrilled to be sharing one of my recipes over at the amazing Mommypotamus! One of my favorite Real Foods/Family bloggers. Heather, is a seemingly unending source of information on important subjects such healthy eating, natural health and beauty, "Real Foods", breastfeeding, early baby foods, natural remedies, general parenting, and the list goes on and on! So head on

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July 2012 Virtual Self-Care Retreat

This month I'm honored to be participating in Cheryl Harris' July 2012 Self-Care Retreat. I feel like in many ways my blog has morphed from being a food blog into one that's more centered on holistic wellness and self-care. In many ways that transition has been due to the amazing coaching I've received from Cheryl Harris of Harris Whole Health (and author of the blog GF Goodness) over the past year and a half.

I will be writing a post for Saturday July 21 on how simply being creative can share a huge role in self-care. Until my post rolls around, I hope you'll visit the other incredible bloggers who are participating in this event.

More information about the July 2012 Self-Care Retreat
--borrowed from Valerie's latest post! Thank you for such a thorough write-up Valerie!

Our fantastic group of bloggers and themes:

• June 30th Food: Cheryl of Gluten-Free Goodness 
• July 7th Support and Connection: Valerie of City Life Eats 
• July 14th Movement : Shirley of Gluten Free Easily (GFE) 
• July 21st Creativity: Carrie of Ginger Lemon Girl 
• July 28th Inward Reflection: Iris of The Daily Dietribe 

These posts are to inspire you all to make July a month of reflecting on self-care and the many ways to nourish ourselves. We would like everyone to participate in this event in a way that feels appropriate to them, whether that’s through personal reflection, journal or other self-care. If you would like to share your experience with self-care, we would love to include you in the experience, whether you join us for one week or every week. You can write generally about self-care and how you include it in your life, or “try on” one of the practices we’re blogging about over the course of the next week (food, support and connection, movement, creativity and inward reflection). We ask that you link back to this post so that more people can learn about this retreat, and leave a comment for the weekly theme host, too! At the end of the month, we’ll include a roundup of all the self-care posts you write to inspire others to work on their own self-care.

As a little added incentive, for each post on your goals and your progress you link back here or one of the other co-hosts, you’ll be entered to receive a $50 gift certificate to Nuts.com (they are not sponsoring, Cheryl is donating this gift and wanted something with healthy gluten-free, vegan, sugar-free, etc. options).

Valerie updated last year’s badge to use for the retreat; feel free to use it in your posts. If you would like to be included in our roundup and the drawing, please email a link to your post, along with your name and blog name, to us at selfcareretreat at gmail dot com by July 30, 2012.

Non-bloggers who would like to contribute, please e-mail the full text to the same address and it will be included in the roundup.

 For a “flavor” of previous retreats, here’s a link to the July Self-Care Retreat and the December Sanity Challenge.

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Gluten Free Weekly Menu - Cooking for the week

I feel like a broken record in saying this... but life is busy and unpredictable right now. And honestly, it's too darn hot to cook... Over the past month I've been using a food service called Pure Foods Fresh Start to deliver gluten free meals to my house once a week and it's been awesome. I'll share more thoughts on this food service in a later post... but I missed a few weeks weeks in ordering so I've had to *gasp* actually cook the past few days.

And honestly... I'm a bit spoiled... I'm rather enjoying this whole NOT cooking thing... :-) But since I forgot to order, we had to do something for meals this week. I knew if I left it up to cooking once I got home every night it would probably not happen. Since we're trying to watch our budget and not go out to eat right now, I decided to simply cook all of our meals today. In 100 degree weather. I'm sure I'll appreciate the effort the rest of this week when all I have to do is heat our meals up in the microwave... but dang it was hot today...

I didn't use the oven. I cooked part of our meals in 2 slow cookers, part of them in the microwave, and I scrambled eggs for our breakfasts on the stove. I didn't do any shopping for these meals, I relied solely on what we had in the freezer, pantry, and fridge from weeks past.

I focused on cooking breakfasts that we could heat up at work and then making 4 meals. Three of the meals had 4 servings each. 1 meal had 2 servings. After cooking the meals I portioned them into correct serving sizes in plastic containers. We'll heat them on plates throughout the week and have meals we can take to work, or even use if we need to travel. All we'll need is a microwave to have hot, healthy, correctly portioned meals.  I used very simple seasoning and very simply prepared foods.

Because I used the slow cookers the prep time for all these meals was about 7 hours. That doesn't include washing all the dishes afterwards... but overall, I know it will save a lot of time for the rest of this week.

If I have time, I might make a blueberry cobbler this week! Yum!! 

This Week's Menu: 

Monday:

• Breakfast: Carrie's - 2 gluten free waffles, 2 links gf sausage, diced apple, Michael's - 2 scrambled eggs with cheese, 2 links of gf sausage
• Lunch: Remaining frozen meals we have from last week
• Dinner: 3 oz. BBQ Beef Short Ribs, 1/2 c. fresh sweet corn, 1 c. steamed broccoli

Tuesday:

• Breakfast: Carrie's - 2 gluten free waffles, 2 links sausage, diced apple, Michael's - a frozen breakfast sandwich
• Lunch: 3 oz. Slow Cooked Turkey, 1/2 c. diced sweet potatoes, 1 c. green beans
• Dinner: 3 oz. Spiral Ham slices, 1/2 c. diced sweet potatoes, 1 c. steamed broccoli 

Wednesday: 

• Breakfast: Carrie's - 2 scrambled eggs, 2 links sausage, diced apple, Michael's - 2 scrambled eggs with cheese, 2 links gf sausage
• Lunch: 3 oz. Spiral Ham slices, 1/2 c. diced sweet potatoes, 1 c. steamed broccoli 
• Dinner: 3 oz. Rotisserie Chicken, 1/2 c. fresh sweet corn, 1/2 c. peas & carrots

Thursday: 

• Breakfast:  Carrie's - 2 gluten free waffles, 2 links gf sausage, diced apple, Michael's - 2 scrambled eggs with cheese, 2 links of gf sausage
• Lunch: 3 oz. Rotisserie Chicken, 1/2 c. fresh sweet corn, 1/2 c. peas & carrots
• Dinner: Slow Cooked Turkey, 1/2 c. diced sweet potatoes, 1 c. green beans
• Delivery Day -- I'll receive 5 days worth of gluten free healthy meals for the next week from Pure Foods, Fresh Start today! Woohoo!!! 

Friday: 

• Breakfast: Carrie's - 1 c. cooked GF rolled oats with 2 tsp. brown sugar, 1/4 c. dried cranberries, 2 tbsp. sliced almonds, Michael's - 2 scrambled eggs with cheese, 2 links of gf sausage
• Lunch: Michael will have lunch at home, Carrie's - prepared meal from Pure Foods/ Fresh Start
• Dinner: Traveling to visit my Dad for the weekend, so dinner on the road... 

Update on My Daddy: 

I cannot thank you all enough for your thoughts and prayers about my Dad. Right now he is still in very critical condition. He is very slowly making small improvements and I'm thankful that my Daddy is a fighter. I know he wants to live. Right now he is still in a medically induced coma due to all of the equipment he is connected too, and because his body is so weak and needs to heal. He is currently still on a ventilator, continuous dialysis, and a left ventricle assist device (basically a machine that acts as the left ventricle for his heart.) He has a very long road ahead and I would truly appreciate your continued prayers and thoughts. (((((((hugs)))))))))) -- Carrie 

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Street Foods: Vietnamese Cauli-Fried Rice W/Nước Chấm (Grain Free)

If you've ever had the pleasure of walking through an open street market in some foreign city you know that there is nothing quite like the overwhelming tidal wave that it is to the senses. Brightly decorated little food stands with colorful signs describing their fare. The excited chatter of vendors striking deals and calling in new patrons. Steel scraping hot steel as charred woks barely

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