On my road to living another 58 years - as in living to 115 or so - is a wee diet change to fix a few things. In May, I will begin an Elimination Diet which will leave me with only meat and vegetables as my options for eating. Actually, I won't be able to eat all vegetables -- this is a problem I'll talk about below -- though I will add in a couple legumes -- this will help. I'll have more details about the specifics of the diet in a future post. This post is simply about the struggle! The struggle to figure out what to eat. But I do have a couple successes to share along with one "funny" and one big flop.
Hurdles:
Part of my struggle is that I'd rather be anywhere than in the kitchen -- almost. But regardless, I have been trying to experiment in the kitchen so that when May arrives, I’ll have something to eat! Over that last several weeks I’ve tried 6-7 recipes. It’s been tough, though, to find recipes that I might consider because I won’t be eating tomatoes and peppers among other things. It's amazing how many of the dishes I would normally consider eating contain tomatoes and/or peppers!
So...IT’S TOUGH FINDING RECIPES! ….sigh…
...and annoyances:
I love watching meal prep videos and I can easily go down the rabbit hole with them. I get excited by dishes that look yummny! But then I get annoyed when this happens: I'm watching a meal prep video for a Mexican dish and then they add tomatoes. I'm not going to be able to have tomatoes during the elimination diet! So Mexican is out. (insert crying emoji)
Then I was looking into Indian dishes (Mmmm) but they also use tomatoes in so many of the curries. I so love curry but am not sure what I can do about that one. If, by any chance, you happen to know any good Indian curry dishes that don't use tomatoes or peppers, please share it in the comments.
The Big Flop:
One recipe I tried that was unfortunately a complete flop was a Beef Tips recipe using coconut aminos. I mentioned it in my last blog post and said it was "okay, but not great". I am revising my assessment of it: It was not good! Nope! Not that one at least. Maybe it’s not specifically the fault of the coconut aminos but I’m not making that recipe again. But I still have to finish eating it. One thing helping me eat it (I have many servings to get through) is straining off the "gravy" and then adding sesame oil to the pan when I am rewarming the beef. After that: I serve it with rice and watch a good YouTube video for distraction. I hardly notice it then!
In all honesty, I am trying to hang in there regarding potential flops. But I really hate spending a lot of time making something that in the end, tastes bad for some reason or another. I think it's a carry over from a previous time in my life: I regularly made chili when I was in university and it was good...except this one pot. I was vegetarian at the time and to add some bulk to my chili (because there was no ground beef), I added bulgur wheat. But I guess this time I added too
much. I had made a big pot of the chili and froze it in individual the servings. But with each progressive meal, I was hating it more and more because it was so thick and, well, blechy.
Finally, with still 2-3 servings of the chili left in the freezer, and a bowl of it in front of me that I was forcing myself to eat, I realized that I didn’t have to eat it and I tossed the remaining servings! I felt bad to do that but I couldn't take any more and I’ve never forgotten it. Maybe that’s what put me off being in the kitchen, generally not enjoying cooking. However, I now am trying to forge ahead anyway because I really do want to age with good health. ...No! I want to age with great health!
And for that I need to embrace cooking.
Successes (and the "Funny"):
On the bright side, I have had a couple of meal prep successes over the last few weeks, although the first had a bit of "funny" tossed in!
MEATBALLS
One success was a new recipe for meatballs that didn't call for the usual eggs or bread crumbs, neither of which I'll be able to have soon. The first batch of meatballs I made were good enough that I made a second batch!
Okay, to be truthful, the first batch wasn’t so good. But that was an "operator issue"!
You see, I was using a meat thermometer to check for the requisite "done" temperature of 160 F. But I couldn’t figure out why it wasn't going past 90 degrees. I kept the meat balls in the oven, taking the temperature numerous times. But it wasn’t budging from 90 degrees. It was getting ridiculous how long the meatballs were in the oven cooking! Finally, I pulled them out and cut one open to see if I could tell if it was done inside. It was!
The meat balls weren’t burnt but they were really, really well done! They were a bit dry to eat, too, but tasted okay so I made another batch when the first was finished. It was when I made this second batch that I realized for the first batch, I’d had the thermometer set to Celsius! We always have it in Fahrenheit. Well, except when we don’t! So my 90 degrees was actually 194 F!! Doh!
CHICKEN
Another particularly good success has been roasted chicken with roasted veggies! I did sweet potatoes, carrots, parsnips, onions and even the roasted Brussel sprouts were a hit. If you don’t like Brussel sprouts, try roasting them or frying them. They’re actually pretty good and at the same time really good for you! Also helpful is that the chicken and veggies freeze well and then also heat up well, even from frozen. (I just put them back in the oven at 350 F for 30-40 minutes, or until warmed. The time depends on if you thaw it first or not.)
Rabbit hole needed:
I still need more meal ideas and they’re slowly coming but the remaining big hurdle is breakfast. I’m not even sure what to write about this. I won't be having eggs which throws a bit of kink into breakie! We are so used to our normal breakfast of eggs, bacon and sweet potato (yep, read that one right...they're good cooked and then fried). But I'd happily have spaghetti and meat sauce except I can’t because along with no tomatoes, is no wheat.
I think I need to find an AIP breakfast rabbit hole and hope that something there will work and that I'll like the taste of it. But one thing I've discovered as I've been looking for recipes, is that it turns out not all AIP diets (which is kind of what I'm going to be doing) are the same. This is making many of the rabbit holes dead ends! Still, though, I will continue on "hunting rabbit" holes in search of yummy and healthy meals, for I am determined!
And you?
Have you ever done an elimination diet? Or considered doing one? Please let me know in the comments.
Also, if you want me to share the recipes I find that I like, please let me know that, too.
Credits:
Bump photo by Tungsten Rising on unsplash.com
Tomatoes by Josephine Baran on Unsplash.com
Rabbit by Gary Bendig on Unsplash.com
Cooked dishes are all my photos