paleo

Hell Hath No Fury…

Love this lady and her sign so much.  🙂

CR, your Mom would have been so proud.  🙂

Hey, y’all.  Hope all’s well in your part of the world.  🙂

Today …more than ever I am so moved and inspired to action by my fellow feminist activists.

And so very proud of all the first timers who turned out to march in numbers never imagined. 🙂

Papa B told me today that in solidarity he’ll march beside me in the next one. 🙂

Papa B…the very best daughter dad around.  🙂

Let’s see…since we last met…

This is my new fav snack. A Siete coconut flour tortilla micro’d for about 45 seconds / side then slathered with mashed avo.  These tortilla’s make the best chalupa shells.  I swear they hold up even better than traditional corn shells.  I mean…I haven’t actually had them as a chalupa because of the whole no beans thing…but they hold up to wet avo exceptionally well so I have to think they’d hold up to beans too.

Picked up a bag of this Bob’s Red Mill Paleo flour to try.

Tried the pancake recipe on the bag. Made it into waffles.

They’re pretty good and reheated beautifully. Next time I’m going to use the flour in my favorite waffle recipe and see how it works with that. That’s sugar free syrup.

So awesome to see this glaring difference.  🙂

Hey, Cheeto Dust

Bless your delusional / narcissistic / ugly little heart.

We have eyes and can tell the difference between the size of your inauguration crowd and those of both Obama inaugs.

Let me break this down for ya.

See he’s an awesome, good, decent, inspiring human being.

And let’s be real…you’re most definitely not.

He can inspire bus load after bus load of people to trek across the county for just a glimpse.

You inspired the same trek but for oh so very different reasons.

You’re an ugly / narcissistic / sociopathic / hot mess…but ya know what?

You’re the leader of this country now.

I know. Those of us with basic human decency running thru our veins can’t believe it either.

But sadly you are.

That means it’s time for you to shut up.

Stop pitching whiny little titty baby fits with the media and twitter (I figure you’ll appreciate the use of the word tit there)…and get to work.

I know you’ve never really worked an honest day in your life and this is a pretty much thankless job but it’s yours now so shut up and get on with it.

And trust me, the amount of anger that’s raining down on you from all over this great land / world is only going to grow over the next 1457 days. Get used to it. You can check in here weekly if you need a condensed version as I’ll continue to let you know just what a complete and total sh-t show you are / your admin is.

Love (no not really…nothing but utter disgust sent your way), Texas Girl.

Y’all have a great week and I’ll see you soon.  🙂

 

 

 

 

Cappello’s Gluten Free Grain Free Pasta

Hey, y’all. 🙂

How are things in your corner of the world?

Things are good here.

Took a little trip down to the homeland to take care of some financial stuff.  (The Homeland is what I call the formerly little town I grew up in.)

It’s on the super humid gulf coast so of course my naturally curly hair responded accordingly.  😉

 (source)

So I’m wondering…do we get to personally name those cowards Ryan and McConnell in our suits when we lose our health coverage due to our pre-existing conditions?  Oh please please say we do.  😉

Ok before I get started with the main topic of this post…a quick note. 

From day 100 on…about 85% of the time I eat super low carb. The rest of the time I allow higher days…usually around 50 and under…made up of all grain free / dairy free / sugar free stuff.  It makes this livable for me.  I want this to be something I can stick with for as long as possible. So while most of my meals look more like this…

…super low carb but also super boring.  I don’t post those here because… well they’re boring…and nobody wants to see my hamburger / bacon / mayo plate over and over and over again.  🙂  That’s sugar-free ketchup.

The higher carb stuff I do write about happens once or twice a week…and IS blog worthy / interesting.  🙂

This might be the most interesting yet.

Look what came last week. Cappello’s grain free / gluten free pasta.  It was super warm last week and it showed up in perfect condition.  One thing of dry ice had melted but the other two…two big blocks…were still frozen solid.  A++++, Cappello’s.  🙂

Always. 🙂

I ordered a mix pack of fettuccine, gnocchi and lasagna sheets.

Portioned out individual servings and vacuum sealed them.

Bought a block of my beloved dairy free cheese Follow Your Heart in Mozz flavor to try.  Another win.  🙂

Made that dough I keep raving about into a loaf.

 

Homemade dairy free ranch on top.

Y’all this stuff is legit. This is the best gluten free pasta I’ve ever had.  That whole plate had about 20 carbs (there’s only 1 oz of pasta here so 9 carbs).

When I portioned out the fettuccine I did it in 2 oz portions and had 1 oz left over.  I stuck it back in the icebox and then a few days later made it up with some ghee / bacon and mozz.  Kinda a Texan Carbonara.  So good.

It’s very expensive but if you’re like me and the only one eating it you can easily get 4 – 6 meals out of each box (if you do 2 oz servings).  Or make it a special meal every now and then if you’re feeding the whole fam.

The Women’s March is this weekend. Just a reminder if you can’t make it to D.C. there are sister marches all over the country. 🙂

You can find links to each city here:

https://www.womensmarch.com/sisters

The Houston march is going to be downtown at city hall.

The Austin march is going to be downtown at the state capital.

They’re being held in a bunch of other Texas cities too but I don’t know the exact locations of those so check out the link above.

Amen, Mrs. Scott King.  Amen.  🙂

Ok that’s all for today. Thanks so much for stopping by. Y’all have a great week and I’ll see you soon.  🙂

 

(I couldn’t find a version of this song without the picture of the domestic abuser duck dynasty piece of human garbage…so if you’re a decent human being who finds him repulsive on a 100 different levels…just listen to the music.)  🙂

 

 

 

 

 

Lesson Learned + Cherry Christmas Cake

Hey, y’all. 🙂

Did you have an awesome Christmas / holiday?

Things were kinda blah here.

First, the week leading up to Christmas I had to take Mama B to the ER late one night. It was all kinds of drama that led to us having to leave before she could be seen because the ER Dr at our Podunk hospital wasn’t covered under her insurance. If you know me in real life and live in our town…don’t go to the local hospital unless you’re like 110% sure you’re dying. Drive to SL or V and see some decent nurses / doctors.  There was this one nurse there that must be the sister of Satan (and that’s being nice). And believe me…she’s already been reported.  So anyway thankfully the urgent care at her regular Dr’s office was open super early the next morning. She got seen 1st thing and her temp was 104. The Dr. said if she’d waited any longer it would have been really bad.

So she was sick and then Sister B got sick and wasn’t able to come home. We ended up meeting her for lunch on Christmas Monday but she’s still not feeling all that great.  Feel better soon, SB.  🙂

We still celebrated Christmas.  It just wasn’t the same as if everyone had been healthy.

Made the real kolaches and pigs for the rest of the fam.

Used the roll dough I wrote about in this post to make me some celiac / paleo safe pigs and prune kolaches. These actually turned out really well. And they held up in the icebox too. I’m so impressed with this recipe.

Usual Christmas Tex-Mex meal. (Tamales / Enchiladas / cheese rice / beans).

So are y’all starting to practice y’all’s Russian. 😉

About that cherry rum cake.

Unreal.

I made my regular rum cake recipe using gf Jules of course (you can use any rum cake recipe) and for all of the water (just the water) in the cake and drizzling sauce I subbed cherry juice from a jar of maraschino cherries.  I drained the cherries really well and pulsed them in the food processor then dried them even more on paper towels and added them to the mix. I left everything else the same.  Mama B said this was the best cake I’ve ever made. 🙂

Amen.

My fav Christmas presents (so far)…a Rubik’s cube and a Salt Life sign / decoration for the back fence (it needs to be dropped down a little bit).  We’re starting to decorate the back fence with old vintage and cute signs.  When Rubik’s cubes were first a thing I got one for Christmas and played with it for hours on end. They had all those retro toys out for Christmas this year and it was one of them.  My other fav won’t come until sometime next week.  I’ll share when it gets here.  🙂

 🙂

A progress pic. Left pic was Christmas 2004 (in the middle of a 4 year lupus flare) and right pic was the day after Christmas this year. White bar across chest = no bra. Also…while my stomach is in no way flat that is not a bulge it’s the way the white shirt bunched up.

So…about the title of this post.  I took 4 days off plan for the holidays and while it was worth it in some ways it was horrible in others. In about 48 hours my pain level went from around a 4 to a 24.  My face bloated up.  I was itching like crazy.  It was awful. I had planned to stay off plan thru Monday (because we were meeting SB for lunch that day and it was a road trip) but I went right back on plan after Christmas day lunch.  It took a good full 3 days for my pain level to get back to somewhat manageable.

Lesson learned.  I just cannot jump on and off from no sugar / grains (even with celiac safe ones).  I have to find ways to make this livable.  And that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to figure out ways to make things I like so maybe I won’t miss them as much.  I did it when I had to go gluten – free.  I’ll do it with this too.  And of course I’ll share along the way. 🙂

Had to go out for lunch on Tuesday.  Saltgrass.  Caesar and Prime Rib. Forgot to take a pic of the steak but I cleaned the plate so you know it was delish.  This was a perfect back on plan meal. 🙂

Normally I wouldn’t post something with that many curse words in two sentences but I saw this and it is just so fitting right now.

Ok. That’s all for now. Y’all have a great / safe New Year’s Eve / Day weekend and I’ll see you soon.  🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paleo-ish Caramel

Hey, y’all. 🙂

Happy Monday. 🙂

It’s so cold here (low 50’s) and I’m freezing to death. It’s been a couple days and I’m ready for my summer back.  🙂

I finished up most of my Christmas shopping this weekend. Mostly online so now just have to wait on it to show up here.

I’ve been waiting on a bottle of peppermint oil to show up since Tuesday. I’m losing my patience, Amazon.

Love this so much. 🙂

2016-12-01-14-23-23

I’ve gotten some questions about the Follow Your Heart dairy free cheese I wrote about last week so I’m going to try to remember to take pics when I use it with different meals.  This one is to show the melt. We had hamburger night and that one was mine.  I didn’t have the fries…that night…but I do allow potatoes a couple times a week or when eating out. The cheese melts great with some things and not so great with others.

2016-12-03-14-38-09

Are y’all familiar with cheese chips? It’s a low carb staple. You take a slice of American cheese and fold it in half then half again and once more til you have 8 pieces. Then microwave til crisp. I tried it out with the Follow Your Heart Pepper jack and oh my gosh y’all. This is my new addiction.  🙂  These actually crisp up better than real cheese and they don’t burn.  In my micro it takes 2 minutes and they are perfect.

2016-12-03-14-38-35

Cashew cream, lemon juice and salt = diary free sour cream.

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Lunch.  Avocado, dairy free sour cream, salsa and pepper jack chips.

Here’s an example of where the cheese doesn’t melt super great. Chili with cheese and cashew flour tortilla chips. Tastes great but doesn’t melt in the chili like it does on a hamburger.

Teacher of the year. 🙂

I’ve been trying to figure out some sort of Paleo version of a Christmas time treat to try.  I really want to stay away from a lot of treats but I also don’t want to miss out on some holiday traditions.  One tradition we have that is really specific to my immediate family is toffee.

So I decided to test out some of the components…starting with caramel.

I had 1/3 cup of So Delicious coconut cream left in the icebox so I used it plus 1/3 cup Ideal plus 1 tsp coconut sugar.  Put it in a Pyrex measuring cup and cooked in the micro for about 4 minutes…stirring every 2o seconds. Then stirred in a 1/2 tsp ghee and a splash of vanilla.  IT WORKED.  🙂

I learned thought that I really really hate the taste of coconut sugar so if I make it again I will just use a 1/2 tsp of molasses. The carb count would be miniscule and would taste a million times better.

I say this is paleo-ish because Ideal contains Splenda which Paleo peeps thinks is the devil.  I do not and do use it. To make it textbook Paleo use all coconut sugar or xylitol or stevia or a combination of the three.

Reminder: I’m just me. I’m not paleo or anything else. I’m keeping carbs below 25 / day with the occasional spike…with the spike coming from completely on plan foods. My plan. Not yours or anyone else.  Keep the food policing to yourselves.  Thanks.  🙂

So once I had the caramel I had to do something with it.  I decided to test out some chocolate.  This didn’t go quite as well as the caramel and it’s still a work in progress.  I used the recipe for chocolate in Kelly’s Paleo Chocolate Lovers’ book and it was good but just not exactly what I’d want for my toffee…too grainy.

Like I said before…I’m not doing a lot of treats right now so I’m not sure if I’ll keep experimenting or not but it’s nice to know it can be done.  🙂

Some before and currents…

Shirt the day I bought it (in the dressing room) and 5 weeks later. 🙂

(white out because no bra) 🙂

Santa shirt 2015 and Santa shirt 2016.

Isn’t ’16 Santa so cute? It says Merry Christmas Y’all. 🙂

Red shirt comparison from last year to this year. (the white out is just covering up one of those horrible huge blood spots I had last year…don’t want to look at those anymore).

Ok that’s all for now.  Y’all have a great week…stay safe and warm and I’ll see you soon.  🙂

 

The Best Gluten Free Waffle Recipe

Hey, y’all. 🙂

How are y’all doing this week?

As y’all know things were rough for me last week.  I got to participate in a conference call with HRC (along with other campaign volunteers) though and am doing much better.

 🙂

 

Yeah. The #calexit won’t happen. But I mean…did we ever in our wildest dreams imagine we’d have an illiterate openly racist / misogynistic  dude as our president?  So just incase it does happen…I bought the domain for just a cali girl and her blog. 😉  Sister B wants to go to Canada.  I can’t commit to that but I think we all know I could commit to a California beach and an avocado tree in the backyard. 🙂

I almost had a heart attack last night. This thing was crawling on the wall right next to where I was sitting. It’s some kind of gross hairy spider with shiny green eyes and white spots. When it spread all the way out it was the size of a quarter. I f…uh…reeked. (But then caught it in a glass and let it outside…being a child of Charlotte’s Web and all…).

So we had breakfast for supper a few times (in a row…but who’s counting) 😉

120g Almond Flour, 70g Arrowroot, 2 tsp Baking Powder, 1 Egg, 1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp Cashew Milk, 1/4 cup Coconut Oil, 2 tbsp Sugar equivalent (I used Splenda),  1 tsp Lemon Juice, 2 tbsp Blueberry Preserves.

I adapted this from Brittany Angell’s Waffle recipe in Every Last Crumb.

Almost 2 years ago now I went to a book reading / signing that featured Brittany plus some other Paleo / gluten – free people.  At the time I was going to give Paleo a try and then instead spent pretty much the entire year of 2015 feeling like death with one health crisis after another.

Since I’m mixing in some Paleo ideas right now I decided to pull out those books.

She describes this waffle as crispy on the outside but soft on the inside. It was.  I loved it and can’t wait to make them again. She doesn’t use blueberries in her recipe but those are my favorites and I had some of those cooked down blueberries left from before so I added them.

One note from my own personal observations: The first two waffles were not crispy at all straight out of the waffle iron (they did crisp up in the toaster oven). The rest were perfect though. So plan on the first two to be a little more floppy til the iron gets supper hot.

I loved these so much and even though I’m about 2 years post purchase these alone were worth the cost of the book.

She says you can cook these straight from the freezer like regular waffles. I had 2 left over so I’ll let y’all know how that goes.

Related to the eating…went shopping for a little retail therapy this weekend. I’d tried this top on about 4 weeks ago (left) and it was on the clearance rack this weekend. Tried it on to check progress. I didn’t buy it because I’m going thru sizes so quickly I didn’t think it was worth it even on clearance.

Hope y’all have a great week and I’ll see you soon. 🙂