randoms

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.  🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

Orange Cake 100 days and Birthday Wishes

Hey, y’all. 🙂

First…Happy Birthday to Sister B. The best sister a girl could wish for.  I hope you have an awesome day.  🙂

So…

I did it, y’all. 🙂

100 days.

No grains or sugar for 100 days and no dairy for 50 days. 🙂

I’m pretty proud of myself. It’s been rough in some ways but super zen in others.  It was the weirdest thing.  I didn’t have any inner debate with myself over trying this.  In late August I really did just wake up one day and say to myself “enjoy Labor Day and then you’re doing this grain free  / sugar free thing for a while”.  There was no way I could have given up the dairy right from the start.  It’s what got me thru that first month.  But I’m so glad I eventually tried getting rid of it too.

The whole point of trying this was to try to help my autoimmune inflammation. It’s helped a lot but I’ve just got so much of it raging in my body that it’s going to take a lot longer.

I’m planning to stick with this for as long as I can.  Hopefully this is now a lifestyle change but I learned a long time ago to never say forever.  It’s a one day at a time kind of thing and today…I am still all in.  🙂

Before / current. Before was August and current was this weekend.

Logo from the shirt in the current pic.  You can never have too many y’all Christmas shirts.  😉

Remember that caramel I wrote about last week? That’s what it looked like in action.

I read about this orange cake where you boil 2 oranges for 2 hours then..

Throw the whole oranges peel and all (chopped into chucks) into the food processor and process to mushy.

Add 2 cups almond flour, 4 eggs, 1 – 2 cups sugar (I used xylitol), 1 heaping tsp baking powder and process til well blended.

Bake at 350* for about 45 minutes.  I glazed it with a ghee / xylitol reduction.

It’s kind of pound cake-esque. I loved the flavor and the texture was good but I did have a reaction to the acidic oranges.  If not for that I’d totally make this again sometime.

In that caramel post I wrote about using Ideal brand xylitol / splenda sweetener.  I switched over to this for the cake along with some added liquid splenda and that’s going to be my new mix.

Quick side note…a reader reached out and wanted to know how I can claim to be staying below 25g carbs / day when using xylitol. The answer to that is that I don’t count sugar alcohols at all. I’ve tested my blood sugar after eating them and they have zero effect on me. For example an hour after a piece of that orange cake my blood tested at 80.  Two hours after it tested at 78.  (I’m not diabetic but someone in my house is so I just used their testing machine to test it out. I also did it when I decided to allow the occasional potato.)  Anyway…that’s just how my body works.  You have to know your own body before you decide not to count sugar alcohols.  As I’ve said many times though…you do you and don’t worry about me.  🙂

Ok that’s all for today. Hope y’all are having a great week. 🙂

 

 

 

 

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. 🙂

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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.

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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.

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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.  🙂

 

Thanksgiving Hodgepodge

Hey, y’all. 🙂

Did y’all have a nice Thanksgiving weekend?  Do a bunch of shopping?

We had a good one.

And I did it, y’all.  I stayed 100% on plan. No grains, sugar or dairy.  🙂

If you’re not spatchcockin’ your turkey you don’t know what you’re missing. 🙂  This was the best turkey I’ve ever had in my life.  SO moist and juicy.

Don’t y’all wanna know how that bible study class went down.  😉

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I made the Parker House rolls from Every Last Crumb and they were really good. I couldn’t believe something made with almond flour could be that soft.  Highly recommend this one (but trust me…add some salt to the dough).

Made the ‘cornbread’ recipe in Danielle Walker’s Against All Grain Celebrations and then gave it to Mama B to make some dressing for me. Everybody else had regular dressing but she takes my Mema’s dressing recipe and makes a celiac safe version for me.  Last year I was able to have real cornbread but since I’m not doing any grains right now I had to try something else. It was good. Not great…but then my Mema made the best dressing in the world 🙂 so it’s kind of hard for nut bread to live up to that.

Blurry pic of my plate. Turkey, dressing, roll and green bean cass.

Everybody else had regular green bean cass but since I’m not doing dairy I had to make something safe.

Enter…

My new favorite thing. 🙂 Follow Your Heart vegan cheese.

Now let’s be real clear here…I will never eat vegan. 

I mean this is Texas after all. 😉

But cutting out dairy has changed my life and I’m determined to keep it up.  I miss it A LOT  though so in order to stay strong with cutting it out I had to find something to keep me on track. I tried several other brands and they were horrible…not to mention expensive.

GO VEGGIE was the worst of the worst.  I tried it and was almost ready to give up then I found the Follow Your Heart at Whole Foods. I was like ok if this Follow Your Heart doesn’t taste good either then a dairy free life just isn’t for me.

Thankfully it was good.  It doesn’t melt as smoothly as I wish it would but the taste is great and it completely hits the ‘I need some cheese right this minute’ spot in my head.  Also let me add here that I’m only eating the ones labeled “New”. They don’t have any soy. I can’t speak to any of their other products but the new cheese slices are excellent.

I keep a bowl of cashew cream in the icebox at all times.  It’s so versatile.  It’s just soaked cashews, water and salt pureed til completely thick, smooth and creamy. I’ve used it in protein shakes, to make ‘sour cream’ and…as the ‘cream of chicken’ to make my green bean cass.  I took a little bit of cashew cream and mixed in some chicken broth base and then heated it up with some of the Follow Your Heart cheese til it melted then added the green beans and baked as normal.  It was my second favorite part of the meal after the turkey. 🙂

Everyone else had regular desserts and I attempted a safe one for me but it wasn’t good enough to blog.

Overall I was very happy with my totally on plan holiday meal. 🙂

I’m not sure what I’m going to do about Christmas. I’m leaning towards taking the day off and just eating regular stuff but we’ll see.  I said from the beginning I just wanted to make 100 days and then reevaluate so that’s what I’m going to do.  14 days to go.  🙂

Got the decorations up. Decided to do an all red, white and green theme this year. Thank you, CA for my beautiful poinsettia tree skirt quilt from Hawaii. I love it so much.  And you.  🙂

Ok that’s enough for today.  Y’all have a great week and I’ll see you soon.  🙂

p.s. don’t forget Giving Tuesday today.  🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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. 🙂