A New Move

So we have bought our second house...well almost. We close on Friday and are trying to literally eat our selves out of house and home. We just bought some wonderful grass fed steaks and are going through those. Chris has made a few "comfort food" types of things. He made a dish with lots of extra juice and since I just happened to be trying my hand at gluten free bread, we sopped up the juice with the bread. Super comfort food and something I haven't had for a VERY long time. Now, I am not big on substitutions. I made the bread only because we got some dipping oil that we wanted to try and didn't have much to try it with. But the gluten free bread (although good) had sugar and corn and all sorts of things that I try not to have in the house. It was nice to have such a treat. I urge you to think when you "cheat." Go for the wheat and sugar free. Don't make "cheating" a habit either. Do as I say...not as I do! :)

Our Party Anniversary

Today Chris and I will celebrate 4 years from our wedding date. Not quite the day we got married, but the day that we celebrated with our family and friends our marriage. To celebrate we are grilling to T-bone steaks with some simple salt and pepper. Chris learned a salt technique where we completely coat the steaks with salt and allow them to marinate for about an hour. Then you wash the salt off and grill. It makes them very tender and perfectly salty. A little pepper for spice an yum! On the side we will have some fresh string beans with olive oil, salt and pepper. Not much to this, but with good olive oil the taste the amazing.

We are spoiled. We buy just what we need for meals. We don't tend to keep "snack" food around. This allows us to splurge on things like really good olive oil. Have you ever been to an olive oil tasting? One where they give you a small "cup" of olive oil for you to sip? If you haven't, try it! Don't think about calories, just think about all the good fat you're taking in. No bread for dipping, just sipping. Chris found Temecula Olive Oil company and did just this. He now has it shipped to us and let me tell you...it makes a HUGE difference! The smallest drop of this on a dish just makes it amazing! I can't describe the flavor. You have to try it for yourself. Splurge on a bottle of olive oil that costs as much as a bottle of wine and you'll see! I promise the bottle will last you longer than the wine will. It is so worth it!

As we celebrate tonight, we raise a glass to all of you who are eating and living healthier!

Getting Started...Again

Our lives have changed immensely. After travelling across the country twice by plane and then half way by car, we are ready to settle in for the long haul in Wisconsin. All the while we have kept our Three Questions in mind. Chris is no longer in the military so his need to be as lean as possible is no longer an issue. Now we simply want to be healthy, have energy, and make sure that we live long happy lives. Although I have many many recipes, I am going to concentrate on posting pictures of what I am eating. This will keep me on track and hopefully encourage you to come up with easy ways of answering the Three Questions!

For lunch today I had full fat cottage cheese, some frozen blueberries, and a handful of almonds. I woke up early to go watch the sunrise over Lake Michigan, so by lunch time I was very tired. I though the almonds would help boost my energy.

For dinner we are having an altered recipe I found in a magazine. It is macaroni and cheese with brocoli. Now, I am using gluten free pasta shells, made with brown rice. The brown rice has a lower gi. I forgot to take a picture of mine before I scarfed it down, but here is a pic of Wyatt's. The kids liked it, but then again Lorelai will eat any and everything.

Fresh Start

Hello Friends,

It may have been too ambitious with two young children to think that I could write something new and exciting everyday. Plus, I just can't imagine that any of you think what I have to say is that important. But I am going to try to post once a week with anything new and interesting tha tI have tried. We still live by the 3QD code. We are a gluten free home. Our GI threshold has gone up a bit because none of us are trying to lose weight, but some days it's higher than others. We binged this weekend and clensed on Sunday. We are now trying to clense our bodies completely. Yesterday and Today we are drinking berry shakes that consist of blueberry, raspberry, and marion berry (costco frozen fruit blend) along with a scoop of vanilla protein powder (gnc brand), and water for me, whole milk for chris. I simply put about a cup of berries, a scoop of protein, and a cup of water and blend in my Vitamix. You'd be surprised how it can fill you up. After a few hours when I was hungry again I just blended myself another. I don't really recommend this on the diet as the idea is to eat what you want, but for us, we wanted to empty ourselves. I haven't gone "hungry" for a while because I'm nursing and I am always hungry. But my stomach has felt very heavy, so I needed to lighten it. I tried greek yogurt last week and I got to say I wasn't as much of a fan as I was hoping. I ate it with the berries for lunch, but really, it just was a weird texture. I have been eating some cottage cheese though. It's hard to find the 4% in the big containers though and I don't want the 2% since they add sugar for taste. Today is the last day of my fruit/protein shakes. Two full days should be enough to reset my stomach. Tomorrow (wed) I plan to adapt a recipe I got from Tracie Moss from Living Well Ministry for a Spagetti Casserolle. Here is my adaptation for 3QD (keep in mind that we have a high GI threshold right now).
ground chicken
salt/pepper
1 tomato
2 cloves garlic
sour cream
onion
cream cheese
rice noodles
mozarella cheese
start by cooking all ingredients that need it (brown the ground chicken, boil the noodles). Layer ingredients starting with noodles and ending with cheese and bake until melty. It sounds yummy.
A second new recipe I am going to try is pizza burgers. I'm sure that this is nothing actually new, but I found some mini pepperoni (actual little round ones) at costco and though I would try something new.
ground beef
sausage
mini pepperoni
marinara sauce
mozzarella cheese
egg
I am going to cook the sausage first as I don't want to risk it being undercooked, and then mix the ground beef, sausage, mini pepperoni, a tiny bit of cheese and egg together and form burgers. Then broil them (or grill, but our broiler is in the house and easy), top with marinara then cheese and let melt. Should be super simple and hopefully yummy. I might mix in a little parm and/or red pepper since my husband tends to put these on top of his pizza anyway.

I have some ribs that I plan to make probably Friday or Saturday night. Other than that, I don't plan on doing anything super special. We are still our normal easy going selves. Wyatt eats what we eat and Lorelai is starting to. She eats our veggie cut up and I have pre-cooked ground chicken, turkey, pork, and beef in the freezer that I heat up for her at each meal. Her food is all unseasoned and simple...meat and veggies. She eats some dried and mashed fruit, but she doesn't like it as much. Since I was gone this weekend I was going to buy some baby food for her dad to feed her so that it would be easy, but looking at all the labels, baby food is so sugar filled that I just couldn't bring myself to give it to her. However, her dad was happy to feed her the homemade baby food even though it takes a few seconds more to prepare.

So this is my post for the week. I hope that everyone has a wonderful week and stays well!