Of meals and eating

By the time we get to Tachi Palace Casino in Lemoore, CA, we're ready for a couple days to rest up. By last night, I'd rested up enough to make a fun dinner. I had all the ingredients and since running the generator is no problem here, I was able to bake a pizza. Yes, grain-free and healthy! I used the crust recipe from Wheat Belly Cookbook (which I would love to share, but that would be stealing). Suffice it to say that is uses almond flour, coconut flour, ground flax, an egg and 1/2 c cheese to hold it together. It's quite filling and we find we can only eat half the pizza at a time. So, leftovers! Yay! I used dried tomato powder reconstituted and with Italian herbs, pepper and fennel added. No waisted 1/2 can of tomato paste! I love the Trader Joe's Chicken Spicy Italian Sausage since it's one of the few without garlic and has decent ingredients. I sliced up the frozen sausages, sauteed them with the onions and added olives and organic mozerella cheese for the toppings. Totally satisfying.
  I often get asked "But what do you eat?!" when people find out I don't eat grains, processed foods, corn, soy or garlic. Well, there's meat and veggies, for starters. Have you even just stood in the produce department and noticed how many different vegetables there are? With meat, we're usually limited to a few varieties of fish, pork, beef or chicken. Not a huge variety there. For grains there's usually wheat. No variety there. Of course if you go gluten free there are the various mixes of rice, almond, millet, quinoa, amaranth, coconut, and teff flours. Variety, but still not huge. But veggies, now there you can find all colors, flavors, and textures. There is so much variety that you can eat a different mix of veggies every meal for a week and still not duplicate. So it just makes sense that focusing on veggies and the nutrients, colors and variety they offer with enrich your eating and well being. I have come by the moniker "The Vegetable Lady" for obvious reasons!
  Healthy fats are another key thing that are so satisfying. Because fats take longer to digest, they keep you from feeling hungry longer. I've been pursuing the healthiest way for me to eat for a long time, and some of those methods left me pacing the kitchen trying to figure out what I could possibly eat that wouldn't cause me problems. I no longer do that. Healthy fats include butter, coconut oil, olive oil, hemp seed oil, avocado oil, flax oil, avocados, nuts and seeds. Unhealthy fats are vegetable fats cooked at high temperature, hydrogenated fats and rancid fats. Corn oil, canola oil and shortening are not good for bodies. The best info on fats I've found is in "Eat Fat, Get Thin" by Dr Hyman. I know there is a lot of conflicting information out there about fats, and he takes you by the hand and walks through the research to sort it out and make sense of it. Worth the read.
 A few weeks ago I took a picture of a typical dinner for us that I'll throw in as a bonus! Large green salad with shredded cabbage, mixed greens, cilantro, avocado, tomato and topped with live sauerkraut and flax oil. Next is steamed veggie mix of carrot, broccoli and cauliflower with melted butter. Mahi Mahi cooked with sauteed mushrooms on top completes it. Often for my desert, if I'm wanting something, it's kefir-cultured cream with English Toffee flavored stevia, cocoa powder creamed together and then some almond butter added. Topped with chopped nuts, it's pretty decadent and satisfying. We certainly aren't suffering any with our healthy and tasty food.