Meal of the Day: Cinnamon Oatmeal with Strawberries

I finished W1D3 of the Couch to 5k this morning.  After dragging my butt back in the door - I'm good until I get back to face the hill up my driveway and the monster set of steps we have!....I got cleaned up and fixed a quick breakfast.  I have errands to run today, so didn't have a whole lot of time to spare. 

I picked up a bag of the Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Quick Rolled Oats awhile back at Kroger just for mornings like this.

So, I combined this:

Photo Courtesy of Bob's Red Mill @ www.bobsredmill.com

with my fresh strawberries, a bit of cinnamon sugar, and turned it into.....

Yum!!

Couch Potato and other ramblings

I finished week 1 day 2 of the Couch to 5k program this morning.  I dabbled in this once before, but was in much better shape at the time and just kind of blew through it.  This time around....I've very much let myself go and have no fitness level to even speak of at this point.  I'm hoping that by following the program as written, I can get back into running and a fitness program of sorts.

This is hard!  I don't remember it being this hard the last time around, and that's probably because I had already been doing 30-60 minutes on the elliptical a couple of times a week.  I don't have access to an elliptical anymore, so while I'm noticing that the effort with running is the same as it was when I started on the elliptical, I feel it much, much more in my knees and quads.  I've also found that knowing that I'm so very out of shape, has made it easier for me to procrastinate getting out of the house in the mornings to do my daily workout.  The only thing that keeps me going this early in the game (when I'm not seeing huge results, yet!) is the feeling of accomplishment once I'm done.

I'm also trying to track what I eat.  This is twofold for me....firstly, I've gained a TON of weight with the move, and secondly, I'm a struggling, recovering gluten eater and this keeps me accountable for both calories and gluten content.  I'm currently using My Fitness Pal to track what I eat and my exercise.  I'm not sure if I'll continue to use it or not.  I find it hard to put in gluten free foods and to be sure of calories.  While I'm not counting calories persay, I find that the with focus on calorie count on this site almost forces you too.  I'm more interested in getting to a healthy lifestyle of moderation and just generally having good eating habits than I am the exact calories.

One of my favorite things lately is the Yoplait Greek Yogurt.  I think this is pretty new, because the stores near me just starting carrying it.  The texture and taste is better than some of the other greek yogurts I've tried, and the price is excellent.  They run about $0.99 a cup at my stores, and I think it was around $3.00 for the pack of four that I picked up.

The absolute best thing about these, is that they state that they're gluten free right on the package!  Yoplait has always been good about labeling their products, and this is no exception.

Comfort Food and a Bellyache

I found Purely Decadent Dairy Free Ice Cream in the Cookie Dough flavor the other day at my local Kroger.  They were on sale two for $5, so I had to try them!

Photo courtesy of Turtle Mountain (http://www.turtlemountain.com/products/product.php?p=purely_decadent_cookie_dough)

Now that I've tried it (and by "it", I DO mean the entire pint!)....I realize that I've had this before.  The flavor was good, though not quite the same as normal ice cream.  It has a nice vanilla flavor to the "ice cream" though it doesn't seem quite as creamy as cow's milk ice cream would be.  The cookie dough is delicious, and some of the best raw gluten free cookie dough I've had.

I did end up confirming my suspicions that I have at least a slight intolerance to soy products.  It didn't make me sick right away, but after consuming the entire pint over the course of the day (horrible! I know), I was in some major pain last night and this morning.  I don't know exactly what this means for me.  I've been limiting soy milk for awhile now because it's consistently given me a stomachache.  It has never been quite this bad though, so I'm hoping it was simply a quantity thing.  I have to figure out now, whether it's safe to consume small amounts of soy or if I need to eliminate it entirely as I need to with gluten.

I'm very much a recovering gluten addict.  I've been cheating on and off for over a year, and this blog is my attempt to stop that.  For now, I'm going to focus on eliminating ALL of the gluten and gluten cross-contamination from my diet, and then I'll think about eliminating soy entirely.  I need baby steps here to succeed, and since gluten is the hardest for me, I'll start there.  In the meantime, I will either have to ration out the other pint, or give it entirely to my husband, and find a pint of the Purely Decadent made with Coconut Milk, in Cookie Dough, that also gluten free!

Meal of the Day: Spinach Spaghetti and Turkey Meatballs

Dinner tonight was Tinkyada Spinach Spaghetti with homemade turkey meatballs.  It was delicious and fairly easy to make.

This, being the first time we'd made meatballs, we just kind of winged it!

Turkey Meatballs:

1 lb ground turkey

1/2 green pepper, finely minced

1/2 medium onion, finely minced

generous pinch of dried basil

generous pinch of dried oregano

~1/4 cup of freshly grated parmersan cheese

Preheat oven to 400. Saute the green pepper and onion with a little bit of olive oil until soft.  Add all ingredients together and mix.  Form into meatballs and bake for 20-25 minutes.

We cooked the Tinkyada Spinach Spaghetti according to the directions threw a couple of meatballs on top, added some dressed up jarred sauce (jarred sauce, granulated garlic, basil, oregano, red pepper flakes), and top it with more parm. The only thing I would do differently next time is to add some minced garlic when we saute the peppers and onions to add a bit more flavor.  

A tall glass of milk.....

Would be perfect to go with these!

The man and I picked up some of the Bob's Red Mill baking mixes the other day during our shopping trip.  He picked them out and we got the brownie mix and the chocolate chip cookie mix to test out.

I've tried these in the past, when I went gluten free the first time around and I wasn't impressed.  They had a very distinct bean flavor that I absolutely hated, and I actually threw the whole batch out.  I don't know if Bob's has changed up their flour mix, or if my taste buds have just become more accustomed to the "gluten free flavors" but I'm pleased to report that they're definitely not the same thing I tried five years ago.

I was going to test out the brownie mix first, but with the great vanilla explosion that happened during the move, I didn't have the required ingredients.  So, I tried out the chocolate chip cookies instead and I'm super glad that I did.  They are absolutely AMAZING!

They were easy to make and only require three ingredients.  All you did is cream a stick of butter (or smart balance), add an egg and two tablespoons of water, and mix in the flour mix.

The dough was just as the back of the package stated, a bit dry, but it came together once you shaped it.  I did make my cookies a bit smaller than recommended, closer to 1 inch in diameter rather than 1 1/2 inches.  I think they were perfect this size and cooked exactly in the time recommended.

After that, just pop them in the oven and wait (not so) patiently......  The package recommends that you let them cool for five minutes, and that is an absolute must.  These cookies did not look or feel done when I pulled them out, but after letting them cool for a full five minutes on the pan, I realized that they were baked just right.  They held their shape but were still deliciously soft.

Time for that tall glass of milk and a taste test!  Ignore my coca-cola glass....

I am so completely amazed by the fluffy texture of these that I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get in my homemade cookies.  The flavor was perfect too, a little hint of vanilla, the chocolate, and just enough hint of the flours to taste like a REAL cookie.  There was absolutely no overwhelming bean taste to these at all.  My only, and I do mean only complaint was that I would have liked a few more chocolate chips.  We had a couple cookies that actually came out with no chocolate chips in them at all.  I'm more than willing to overlook that one thing, because they did at least use semi-sweet chips instead of my hated milk chocolate chips!


Rating: *****