Stuffed Peppers are so versatile

I've been a bit delinquent at blogging, but things have been busy. First, the good news. I'm feeling eons better than I was last month. Diet and health seem to be getting back on track. No gallbladder complaints in a few weeks. Woohoo! I think cutting back on sugar and processed foods again has made a huge difference! Not perfect about my eating (like I was a year ago) but still focused and keeping it healthy and in moderation. This last week I've been exercising more and it's been making a huge difference not only in the shape of my body, but in how it feels. Pilates and yoga are what I'm focusing on right now, and I love it. I even made the hubs do yoga with me the other night! It was fun!

Anyway, I have lots I've been meaning to post and still have a few great pics stored in my camera that I will try to get up later this week. But for now I wanted to share one of my new favorite foods: Turkey and Wild Rice Stuffed Peppers. I got the recipe out of Clean Eating Magazine (one of my new favorites), made a few alterations to the recipe (using canned instead of fresh tomatoes because I had them in the pantry, and using fresh herbs from my garden instead of dried because I had them in my garden) and it was a hit. I made it twice in one week.

Making this recipe made me realize something: no matter what you stuff in a pepper, it's gonna be great. They are so versatile! And healthy, too. Whenever I make stuffed peppers I make sure to make extras for leftovers during the week, and since I'm usually just serving my husband and myself we get anywhere from one to two extra meals out of them. Such a great meal. They might take a bit of time getting all the ingredients put together, but with so many leftovers, it's worth it to me for quick and healthy meals later in the week that I just pop in the microwave.

Ok, more to come later this week... vegan red velvet cupcakes, more garden pics, lettuce soup... good stuff!

Gardening for Health

As I (think) I mentioned before, I started a garden this year. It's my first ever, and due to my allergies we did a lot of container gardening so I could control/minimize my contact with grass and dirt and all sorts of that kind of stuff. The hubs helps with most of the hard labor, but I am an excellent waterer. :) Although there was a bit of start-up cost for the containers and soils and seeds, I hope that it ends up paying for itself with a lot of veggies and herbs! So far, the herbs are already proving to be a cost savings, and very handy to have when I want to flavor a recipe! Plus, eating fruits and veggies straight from the garden maximizes nutrient value as they are at their freshest and eaten quickly after picking.

I thought I would share some pix of how my garden is doing. Things are starting to flower and I am hopeful that in the next thirty days or so I will be able to start harvesting more than just herbs!

Tomato flower! From my understanding, we should have a tomato to harvest about thirty days after the bloom comes... which means we should have a tomato by early to mid July.

The large garden. Although we thought we were going to only container garden this year, we had no option but to make a plot in the yard due to overplanting in the containers (I couldn't just throw out all of the plants that were growing so well!) and buying extras from the farmer's market because the hubs wanted tomatoes earlier in the season and freebies from his mother. She gave us a purple tomato plant- can't wait to see how that turns out. Most of the plants in this garden are extra tomato and hot pepper plants that we had to weed out of their containers. Surprisingly, they all seem to have taken to the ground quite well and there don't appear to be an casualties. After this, it's survival of the fittest in my mind since we planted them in small groups not knowing if they would all take to the ground.

Green beans! I planted more in the large garden though I don't know if they will take, plus since I just planted them last week who knows if they will have enough time to get a crop. Sadly, the bunny rabbits in my yard have been eating the leaves of this plant, and I noticed today a few of the leaves off the top were completely eaten off. Sigh. So long as they don't eat the actual green beans I will be okay. There is nothing quite as good as a snappy green bean fresh from the garden.

My pepper flower. I think this is the green pepper plant. I can't wait for peppers!

Where all of the tomato plants started, Roma specifically. There are at least 8-10 plants in here. We actually had so many seeds that took we had to transplant the rest in to the big garden (as seen above). We will have more tomatoes than we know what to do with! Must learn how to can this year, I think.

Cucumbers! I love that when you get close to the plant you can smell the cucumber even though they aren't grown yet. Sprouts did shoot out from the buds earlier this week after a good rain storm. I'm excited for lots of cucumbers! Cucumber sandwiches are a summertime favorite of mine.

My lovely herb garden. Since taking this picture I have added a rosemary bush and sage. Forgot to plant sage and the rosemary I planted only produced two plants that aren't growing so well- hence the fact you can't see them!

Butternut squash- a staple for my carrot-free vegetable stocks and for wintertime risottos and soups. Two of these are squash, the other two are weeds. Haven't figured out which is which yet!

We can't all be perfect all the time...

This weekend I went a bit overboard. Clearly I am not doing "perfect" on this round of detox. Oh well. I'm trying and staying focused as much as I can. I've already started to notice the sugar cravings going down, so I think I'm making progress, nonetheless.

Back to this weekend. I went to my favorite restaurant, June, again with a good friend from work and her husband. We did a double date. I had gotten her a gift certificate for their wedding a few months back and promised to go with when they used it. Well, this weekend was it. Granted, it was a last minute decision but I couldn't say no when they didn't have any of their kids for the weekend, which only happens about once a month. So, off we went for a lovely dinner. And four bottles of wine later...

Oh boy. Here is the good news though. No headache, no gallbladder/liver problems, only a slight headache the next day (which is to be expected after drinking four bottles of wine with friends). The last few times I drank I didn't fair quite as well. The last time I did this well was back when I was doing really well health wise in the wintertime and had gotten down to taking only a few supplements for my gallbladder. To me, despite breaking my detox diet to have the wine (I did good otherwise, though!), this is a good sign that I am heading in the right direction. Now, I won't be drinking anymore wine for a good while and I plan on staying focused on the healthy, clean eating, but at least I had a good sign that I was heading in the right direction.

What was the wine I was drinking? Elena Walch Merlot 2006, Kastelaz, Italy. As we described it during the night: dangerous. It was quite possibly the smoothest Merlot I have ever drank, with a great dark berry (a hint of cherry even) aroma at the beginning and finishing with a smooth blueberry and blackberry taste. At least that was how it tasted to my pallet. Highly recommend it.

Yeast overload

I can't even remember where I am in the detox diet. Day 11 probably, being that I started on the first. Things are going okay. Definitely confirmed the sugar problem the other day though. Candida is full-blown and has taken over my digestive system. Here is the lovely chunk of yeast that was in my throat and I coughed up the other day. Beware, very gross, but I had to share what this stuff looks like. (sorry my camera sucks, this was the best I could do)

That chunk in between my two fingers is yeast that was inside of my throat. Disgusting. Note to world: stop eating refined sugars and too much sugar in general- it rots your insides out!

This is not the first time I've had this stuff in my throat and coughed it up. It's been happening a lot lately, and it has everything to do with all the sugar I was consuming. So I am trying to refocus on cutting out the sugar to the level I did last year (so difficult now that I don't feel as sick!) so that my body can get rid of the candida in my gut. Only natural sugars from fruit, honey, and agave or maple syrups will be consumed, and it will be limited severely.

Good-bye dessert. You were good to eat, but not good for my belly. In a few months maybe we can visit again occasionally... but I think it's best we go our separate ways for a while...

PS I think I have a sensitivity to pineapple. Large sore in the back of my mouth from eating it today. No fun. I'm adding it to the list... not the first time it's happened. Boo!

Detox Diet: Days 6 & 7

Despite the fact that I am not doing as wonderfully as I should about detoxing I believe discovered something this week. Sugar makes me not feel so good. Yet still I made another two loaves of gluten-free lemon poppyseed bread. Glutton for punishment.

Yup, I started to put two and two together. Sinus headaches, indigestion, gerd when I wake-up in the morning, liver/gallbladder flare-ups, all coinciding with sugar consumption. Bad tastes in my mouth, fun yeast chunks in my throat (I know you totally wanted a visual on that, right?), and subsequent itchiness elsewhere all coinciding with large amounts of sugar consumption. I also realized that my digestion started to get not so great again when I started allowing myself more and more sugar. Both refined and non-refined. I have a candida problem and it's making me sick.

Funny thing is that when I eat it I feel fine for a while, even a few days, and then I hit a wall and all the sudden I'm having flare-ups all throughout my body. And of course, I'm addicted. Sugar is my arch nemesis... I can't fight this addiction. I was really close at the end of my three month detox a year ago, but then I started letting myself eat it again and the addiction started all over.

That being said, I need to make this detox be about going sugar free. Natural sugars from fruit and produce only. Forget processed versus non-processed. I can't eat sugar, lest I want to be sickly. Time to get creative to trick my body, because I know this means I need to cut back on fruit too. Oh boy, this is gonna be rough... No more maple syrup with my turkey sausage in the morning!

Detox Diet Day 5

Ok, so yesterday was not as detoxifying as it could be. We had a going away party for one of our doctors who is leaving us to take over his father's business. Potluck meals are dangerous for any food allergy sufferer, and especially when you are a food allergy sufferer who is detoxing. I did okay. I supplied one of the few healthy dishes there- which is surprising at a health and wellness office, but I guess we all have to live at some point- a fresh from the farmer's market salad with strawberries, cucumbers, and mushrooms and homemade balsamic vinaigrette. My current staple salad, you've seen pictures.

While my salad was awesome (of course), but it did not a meal make. And because there were few healthy choices otherwise, and it was a party afterall, I decided to give myself some leeway to eat a few not so healthy things. Two beef ribs (the Dr is from St Louis, so bbq ribs were his special request), a quarter of a twice baked potato, and a cookie and a half. In the real world, this is not considered bad, I guess. But when you are following a detox diet, it's not the most detoxifying meal you could eat. At least I ate a huge serving of salad first!

Detox Diet Day 4

Sugar cravings were rampant today. I did however discover that in a pinch some organic raisins do the trick quite nicely to get rid of the cravings. Hit the spot. I think I will be carrying them around with me all day long just in case. I have issues with sugar... bad. Hence the need for detox right?

Because I am avoiding processed sugars I decided to try something different today. I bought organic pure cane sugar to use in my gluten-free lemon poppyseed bread. Yes, yes, it's cheating a bit on the diet, but I thought I would try it.

Unfortunately, since I also decided to use grapeseed oil in the recipe I can't tell if the flavor of the bread was changed by the oil or the sugar. I think it was a combo of the two. The bread wasn't as sweet as with the processed white sugar, and there was definitely a different taste from the grapeseed. Did not, however, keep the hubby from eating almost the entire loaf in one sitting though. At least he thinks it's still just as fabulous.

I did however have some cooking victories today. Dinner was sinfully delicious but so healthy. Grilled broccoli, red peppers and shrimp with EVOO, garlic, and seasoning served over wild rice. My husband gave it an A+, and I think I would second that vote. It was so good.

As you can see the sun was setting on my food, but I kind of like the artistic touch it gave to the picture. Anyway, we will definitely be having this dish again in the next week. You don't get much healthier than this!

I was super excited to find the wild rice mix though because most of the wild rice mixes in the store have flavoring added to them, which inevitably have carrots or some other allergen in them. I was so excited to find this mix and even more excited to be able to eat whole grain wild rice without allergic reactions!

Detox Diet- Day 2 and 3

I came to a realization yesterday. This detox diet will not go like the last one. When I started my detox diet last year I was starting at a very sickly place. I wasn't digesting, I had serious gastrointestinal issues that needed addressing, and my body was in a complete and total state of toxicity. Well, my body has come a long way and I don't need that level of cleansing anymore. Don't get me wrong, I need some cleansing and a good dose of refocusing (ie stop eating those darned cupcakes from Kroger), but I can't do it the way I did last time.

That being said I decided that this go round I need to include much more protein than I did last time. Last time I was borderline vegan for three full months before I started eating meat consistently again. And most of my protein came from fish once or twice a week, tofu in my miso soup, or the occassional lamb stuffed veggies that I would make. The rest of the diet was vegan. And at that time my body needed to cleanse at that level, but now, I need the protein to keep me going. So I hit the grocery store yesterday and bought some organic, all natural, turkey breakfast sausages (yummy!), my favorite chicken and fennel dinner sausages, and a new high protein breakfast option: puffed millet cereal and hempmilk. The millet cereal with hempmilk and strawberries is officially my new favorite food. I was really surprised by how creamy the hempmilk is, I am so glad my vegan girlfriend recommended it!

I might not keep up the high protein thing, but at least for this week I need it. I'm still detoxing by cutting out processed sugars, gluten (though I did eat some whole wheat bread yesterday in desperation), and eating whole foods again. And even though I've had to derail slightly a few times already- the chocolate on Monday (and again today... but I limited myself to the portion size on the box of three pieces) and meatballs with bbq sauce at last night's work event (the only healthy food available at the event had things I was allergic to so I didn't have much option in the matter), and the bread with peanut butter last night- I am lightyears better than I was last week. And I think we are moving in the right direction again.

Detox Diet- Day1

Yesterday was NOT a good day. I did great on eating healthy, but my body wanted nothing to do with it as it was too focused on making me feel miserable. For the past two weeks I have been getting excruciating headaches, doubled with a sinus headache from allergies (usually), and bloating. I tried everything to make that headache go away yesterday to no avail. First I tried a chiropractic adjustment... the headache subsided and lessened for about 30 minutes. Then I tried a massage during my lunch break... the headache went away with the exception of some sinus pain above my left eye for about an hour and a half. And when it came back, it came back hard. I couldn't hear right, I couldn't see straight, I felt confused, and started to even feel a bit nauseous from it. I had the hubs drop off some Sudafed after taking some Aleve hadn't helped at all. The Sudafed got things down to a more bearable level and that helped me to feel safe enough to drive home.

Went to bed by 9:30 and woke up throughout the night with the headache still mildly bothering me. Around 5:00 am I woke up and it was finally gone. Thank goodness for small miracles! After eating a snack and drinking some water (I was hungry from not eating much for dinner), I went back to bed until about 8am. Still headache free, but I can tell by the pinching nerve in my back that it's threatening to flair up again.

Based on how the headache withstood any medication I could take and looking back at the last two weeks of headaches and bloating, I believe I have determined this to all be related to PMS. TMI, I know, but we are chronically my health struggles so we have to document this stuff, people! I have not had PMS this bad since I can remember... maybe a year or two. But what got me thinking was all of the bad food I ate in May. I ate a lot of overly processed cupcakes, so much so that the food coloring from the frosting was altering the color of both my husband and my bowel movement (we compared notes because we both thought it was funny). Though I tell you what, nothing says "you shouldn't eat this" than food coloring dyed poo. :)

So, this detox diet is definitely due. With the exception of the three pieces of chocolate I ate last night to see if a smidgen of caffeine would help the headache (it did, believe it or not) I ate very healthy. Not sure I got quite enough calories in, so I am reevaluating a few things to ensure that doesn't happen again, but otherwise the eating part of day 1 went very well.

Day2 is starting out much better. Fingers crossed it remains headache free. Time to go ice my neck to help out with the cause...