Souvlaki

So, I guess with Mom here, I got a little sidetracked. Sorry! You didn't miss much, though. I basically repeated some recipes as well as ate out a few times. I did make a roast one night that turned out pretty good. Of course, I served all the potatoes for to rest of the family.

And just on a side note, you can make gravy from the pan drippings using arrowroot powder to thicken it instead of flour. You'll never tell the difference. And a special thanks to my hubby for taking a break from his Scrabble game to take a picture of my roast!

Tonight, we had Souvlaki. These are a favorite in my family. Normally, I make rice to go with it but made quinoa instead. Actually, I burned the first batch of quinoa and the second batch wasn't ready until after we were done eating. So, it was a good thing we weren't that hungry tonight. All you need to do to make it yourself is marinate the meat (beef, chicken or lamb) in olive oil, thyme, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Also use this mixture to coat onions, sweet bell peppers and tomatoes. Skewer and grill it! See, this diet is easy!

Stuffed Peppers

Today my mom drove in for a visit from Texas. This is about an 8 hour drive. So you're thinking, I need to have a nice dinner planned, right? That would be right if my mom left her house at a normal time, but since she's not one to do things normally, she left at 5:00 in the morning and arrived just in time for lunch.

I need to give a shout out to my friend, Lindsey (Hey Lindsey!) for giving me the recipe to these stuffed bell peppers. They were amazing! Real comfort food on a cloudy day. I paired the peppers with some carrot "fries" that I roasted with olive oil and rosemary. Even pre-schoolers gobbled them up!

After lunch, my 4 year-old helped me out with a little project. You may have seen last week that I dehydrated some fruits and veggies. Those, by the way, turned out great. My favorite thing out of that whole random batch was the green apples that I sprinkled with cinnamon. I decided to do an entire bag of apples this time. Thanks to my grandmother, I had a handy dandy apple peeler, corer, slicer doohickey that got all the apples cranked out in about 10 minutes (with the help on my daughter). In no time, those slices were layed out on all 8 trays and sprinkled with cinnamon. I can't wait!

Italian Chili?

It was one of those, "what am I going to do for dinner?" moments at around 4:30 p.m. (2 nights ago). Uh, dunno. So I grabbed some meat and thawed it, looked in the pantry and saw some cans of tomatoes. Okay, I'll make spaghetti. Although, that sucks for me as I can't have spaghetti noodles. Oh well, the family needed to be fed. I do actually make the best meat sauce ever. Ah, familiar food. I put the sauce together in no time and put on some water to boil. During that time, I racked my brain trying to come up with something I could have under my sauce. Brilliant"!", I use almond flour for everything else, why not make my own noodles with it?! I was so quick and efficient, I had my own almond spaghetti ready by the time the family's noodles were done cooking!Impressive, huh? Although, I actually DON'T recommend this. Once I dropped it in the water, it broke apart in a million tiny pieces and only tasted like mushy almonds. Gross. No wonder I haven't been able to find any recipes for noodles. Dang it. Then I started thinking. Some people put chili on spaghetti noodles so why not do it backwards. I'll have spaghetti sauce like a regular bowl of chili. Basically, I gave up...but it was still sooo satisfying!

Tortillas y Enchiladas!!

So, like I said, busy day. I tried out a new tortilla recipe that consists of flax, almond and buckwheat flour. Super easy to put the batter together but tedious to make...unless you have my handy dandy 3-in-1 waffle maker! The grill plates flip over for a nice, flat surface. All I had to do was brush some oil on the plates, drop a ball of dough in the middle, press and 30 seconds later, there it was. Hot delicious tortilla!

This will really open up some doors to meal options. Like tonight's dinner, for instance, ENCHILADAS! I have to admit, every time I have ever made enchiladas, I have used a can of enchilada sauce. Unfortunately, for this diet, I have yet to find sauce that is approved for this Phase 1 diet, so I was on my own. The result was nothing short of the greatest enchiladas I have ever made! Granted, some cheesy mess in it would have been nice but these babies held their own, even without the cheese.

I used the fresh stock from the chicken breasts that I had just boiled, to make the sauce. The sauce was easily thickened with some arrowroot powder. I seasoned the shredded chicken breasts with onion, cumin, garlic, fresh cilantro and a few green chilies, then tossed it in some sour cream. I added a small can of green chilies and some fresh tomatoes to the sauce and topped the enchiladas with it. After 15 minutes in the oven, the tortillas crisped up and were ready to give thanks!