Asparagus overload

This time of the year one of the few locally grown fresh produce items you can get is asparagus. I've been buying some every week at the farmer's market and have been trying to come up with ways to use it other than grilling or roasting it.

One of my most favorite recipes I came up with- by combing two recipes that I had- was for asparagus and Boston bibb lettuce risotto. It tasted like spring. I added a little bit of lemon zest for some extra freshness and it was delicious. Next time I need to tweak the recipe a bit to use more olive oil and less butter- the dish was quite rich and didn't make my GB too happy, no matter how small the portion.

Last weekend, after having already picked up two pounds of asparagus at the farmer's market, my mother-in-law came by and brought us another two pounds of fresh picked asparagus from the family farm! I needed a recipe to use up massive quantities of it quickly, so I found a recipe for asparagus soup that used up most of it. The soup is chilled, though you can eat it hot. I found that I preferred it cold as it was quite refreshing that way. It was also quite filling with just some crackers to go with it.

When my mother-in-law was over I had already planned and making a dish with asparagus on the grill. It was a huge hit with her. Simple recipe of white fish- in this case we used sole, though I had done it earlier in the week with halibut- asparagus, mushrooms, a little EVOO, and white wine cooked en pappillote (in a package) on the grill. Everything steams together in the package and you have a super tasty and healthy dinner. Extremely satisfying a light meal. This picture is from the first time I made it with halibut and shittake mushrooms. The second time I used button mushrooms and sole.

Also in season right now is rhubarb, so for the past two weeks I have made a strawberry rhubarb crisp. Quite good. Strawberries are in season now too, so I will have to make a 100% fresh and local crisp soon. You couldn't ask for a better dessert!

Waiting for relief

I've been a bit delinquent in my blogging lately, my apologies for three of you who read my blog. :)

Truth is I've not been feeling well. It's spring again and that means a complete lack of energy as my body attempts to ward off the tree pollens and grasses and all those other things to come back to life this time of year. Not fun at all for me. Spring is my least favorite time of the year. Sinus headaches abound and never ending quantities of snot and postnasal drip and itchy, watery eyes. Loads of fun.

On top of that, around the last time I blogged I had a gallbladder attack. After consuming so much wine the weekend before it was pretty much inevitable, especially if I didn't follow a strict detox diet. Which I didn't. The day of the attack I consumed Aleve and Allegra to try to combat the raging sinus headache I had, and then had a full-caffeine cappuccino (with skim milk) to attempt to stimulate my liver to process the meds quicker (which does sometimes help, not that day, though), and finished it off with a Twix bar (because it sounded good). Had I eliminated just the Twix bar or just the cappuccino I think I would have been fine, but good judgement was not a quality I possessed that day. So, by the time I got to dinner, it was an inevitability. Had I skipped dinner, I might have made it out okay, too, who knows. But after just a few bites I could feel my liver and gallbladder start to swell and the nausea kicked in hard core. For the next five hours the lower right quadrant of my back was inflamed and wreaking havoc on my body. Luckily it didn't last all night and by just after midnight I was able to lay down and sleep.

One of the recommended relief tools for a GB attack is to sip on flaxseed tea. You make it by boiling flaxseeds in water for five minutes and then letting them steep for another ten. What the tea comes out to be is essentially a flaxoil, from what I can tell. The tastes isn't bad, it actually tastes kind of fresh, but sometimes the tea can make you vomit. For a some gallbladder attacks, it's actually the best solution. Then your gallbladder doesn't have to try to process the offending foods anymore. Other times I just gets things moving so that if a stone or sludge is blocking the GB duct, it slips out of place. At least, that is how I believe it works. Thankfully, I didn't have to vomit after drinking the tea this time.

Acupuncture the next day helped to finish calming things down, though I was exhausted the whole rest of the week. GB attacks are physically grueling things. For me, it can take up to a full week to completely recover.

Baking Bread

Last week I was really in to making homemade bread. I made two separate batches, in fact. Early in the week I made Celiac-safe lemon poppy seed bread with the leftover Toro flour that I had. No joke, it is the best lemon poppy seed bread ever and you would never know it was gluten-free. My husband and I ate two loaves worth in two days. Yup, it was that good. To up the quality factor of the recipe I used fresh grated lemon peel and lemon juice in lieu of lemon extract. Why spend $4 to get a bottle of something that isn't lemon at all and is really just flavored sugar water (read the label, that's pretty much what it is) when for 50cents I can use the real thing and get just as much if not more flavor. So that's what I did and it was great.



Look at how moist it is!



Since that bread baking experience went over so well I decided I would be spend my day off on Thursday making Cinnamon Raisin Bread. I've been craving the cinnamon rolls over at Panera lately, so homemade cinnamon raisin bread seemed like the logical thing to make. The recipe made three loaves and we had the first two finished off by Saturday morning. The third loaf still remains, but we are slowly chipping away at it. :) Next time I'm going to add more raisins, I think.



Next time more raisins and hopefully whole wheat flour to up the health quotient. This was a great start though!

Recovery

Last night I had a wonderful night with two of our closest friends, Stevi and Jason. We went to June for dinner (see previous blog) and shared great conversation and, perhaps, a bit too much wine. The food was to die for and the wine was amazing, and since my gallbladder did not complain once the whole time I kept drinking away. Self control was not one of my strong suits last night. :)

So today I am in recovery. While there were no GB complaints from the wine yesterday, this morning my liver definitely is giving me some payback. Nausea is present, but, thankfully, manageable. To get things back on track and let my liver recover I am eating small meals and keeping things vegetarian this next week. Lots of water is in order as well. I'm listening to my body, which can be really hard sometimes! I tried ignoring it at dinner tonight when it told me to stop eating all the yummy food I prepared and ended up nauseous for about 30 minutes afterwards.

I think one of the greatest challenges for anyone following a restricted diet/lifestyle is managing social outings, such as the one I had last night. And of course once you've had a few drinks you let your guard down even more and those strict dietary guidelines you were following go to the wayside. For me, I did excellent on not overeating last night, which I think prevented the GB complaints I usually get. However, I did overindulge in the wine and am dealing with the consequences thereof today. It's a delicate balance and I think that finding a happy medium on "having a good time" and paying attention to your health is doable. While I may have erred a bit on the side of "having a good time" last night, I am refocusing on the health now and am thankful that I didn't go so far to make myself really sick like I have in the past. I consider that a victory.

Going Local

After waiting and waiting for the start of the season, I finally made it the local farmer's market today! Perhaps I was a bit overexcited, but I am really enthused about starting my "local" eating efforts and by the farmer's market opening I can finally do that!

Because of the crazy rain we have had here in Central Illinois the farmer's don't have a ton to offer yet, but I did manage to snag some beautiful asparagus and rhubarb. Look at that color! I can not wait to eat the asparagus tomorrow; I plan on making asparagus risotto! The rhubarb I am saving for Mother's Day this Sunday to make a Strawberry Rhubarb dessert for my Mother-in-law. It will be so good!

My inspiration for wanting to eat locally when possible is a result of reading Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Following her year long journey of only eating locally produced foods was life changing for me. She got me to think about the food I eat differently; how every item I buy that is not locally produced and not sustainable has an impact on the environment and my health. The amount of fossil fuel used to transport a banana- which does not grow locally here in the Midwest- from South America (or elsewhere) when they are out of season even here in the states has a real global impact on the environment for having that fruit available to me. In addition, the longer it is for the produce to hit my plate from when it is picked in the field the less nutrients available in the food. And non-organically grown foods actually have less nutrients to begin with since the pesticides and herbicides prevent the plants from producing their own natural "icides" in the form of nutrients. Those same antioxidants in the plant that help me fight off infection and disease are the same ones used in the plant to help it survive. By using chemicals on the plants less of those protective antioxidants and nutrients are produced.

The book fascinated me and I am committed to taking whatever steps I can towards eating a more local diet, both for my health and the health of the planet.

"Take a minute to study this creation – an imaginary plant that bears over the course of one growing season a cornucopia of all the different vegetable products we can harvest. We’ll call it a vegetannual ..."

Homemade cupcakes

For the past few weeks I've been having cravings for cupcakes. While I think I'm over it (finally) as of today, I still want to take a quick minute to share the best of the cupcakes I've had. Homemade cupcakes using a wonderful "celiac safe" flour mixture that I discovered at the Food Allergy Expo I went to a few weeks ago.

I never got around to blogging about the expo which is due in part to the fact that I didn't take any pictures. I had my camera with me, but didn't quite get the gumption up to take pictures as the show like I thought I would. I think part of that is due to the lack of attendance, both by attendees and exhibitors at the show. My girlfriend Jen and I had a great time sampling all the allergy free food and talking with other exhibitors, as well, about products that would help us live our lives healthier. Jen has more food sensitivities than I do, so it was great to go with her! I was sad to see the expo so poorly attended, but I know that everyone who attended came away with a lot of great resources for food and other allergy friendly services. Hopefully next year they do a better job of getting more exhibitors and advertising in the food sensitive communities better-- my friend with Celiac didn't even know about it a week ahead of time and she is very active in the community!

Anyway, while at the expo I found this fantastic company that makes Celiac-safe flour mixtures. Jen and I could not stop sampling their foods! They were moist and delicious and light just like you would expect a non-celiac-safe bread to be. The company is Toro who is part of the Swedish company Tastes Like Real Food. Lucky me, I was able to find the flour mixture at my local health and wellness store! I was ecstatic.

I decided to make the vanilla cupcake recipe from their website and it was quite good. From the Jello pudding mix in it I thought I got a bit firm, but I may have put a bit too much in or the fact that I was using rice milk instead of regular milk might have been what altered the texture. Nonetheless, they were excellent and my hubby and I couldn't stop eating them.

Looking at them you would never guess they were Celiac-safe, would you? They look like any other cupcake mix!

Of course, my favorite part was the homemade frosting on top. Sooooo good!

Allergy to the Sun?

Apparently, my liver hates me and is totally jacked up. Or, at least, that's what Doc K told me yesterday when I had him do some acupuncture to get rid of my sun rash. Although the picture isn't the greatest, you can see quite a bit of the rash circling my neck.

Every spring/summer for the last 8 or 9 years I have developed a rash the first few times I go out in the sun. Although I can't pinpoint the exact cause of it, I believe the timing of my annual sun rash corresponds with when I was on major anti-inflammatory meds for what the docs though was carpal tunnel. Come to find out after one year of taking massive quantities of prescription and over the counter anti-inflammatory drugs (including a short run of Vioxx, which was soon after taken off the market... I didn't last very long on it because I noticed I got one of the red alert side effects which I won't relive for you hear, but I'm pretty sure it caused internal bleeding) that I did not have carpal tunnel thanks to going to a chiropractor who took xrays and noticed that neck from in between my shoulder blades and up was practically at a forty-five degree angle. Go figure right where the misalignment started was where the nerves that run down to you hands are. Isn't it amazing that "traditional" doctors just want to pump you full of drugs to manage the symptoms but don't really think to look in to the true cause of the problem? During that time I had one doctor actually tell me to a get a second opinion because he couldn't understand why I was in so much pain... especially since the cortisone shot he gave me didn't work. Long story short, a chiropractor saved my liver and internal organs from what was sure to be further damage from a never-ending amount of harsh prescription meds to manage the pain.

But I digress. The first year I noticed a rash from the sun during the spring was the year after I spent all of that time on heavy meds. And while I'm not on the heavy meds anymore (though, I was, until recent years, still taking lots of other prescription meds for allergies and whatnot) my health has not been the same since that time period. Digestive issues, rashes from everything, increasing food sensitivities, etc. Anyway, it was the sun rash that started first and has continued every year since. After about six or seven days of sun exposure the rashes stop and I just tan like most other people, but getting through that time period- which you have to break up and allow the rashes to heal in between each exposure- is near impossible because the itching is so intense and putting any sort of product on it to stop the itching causes the hives to turn in to boils and get worse. The only remedy was let it dry out and take lots of Benedryl.

However, when I started doing acupuncture last June I noticed something really amazing. My first session of acupuncture I had a rash on my hand that I had gotten from sun exposure while driving in my car for a long trip about five days prior. I also had a rash on my leg that refused to heal from sun exposure a full year beforehand (yup, that's how bad it had gotten for me). About two hours after my acupuncture session I noticed the sun rash on my hand had completely cleared, and the inflammation on the year old sun rash on my leg had gone down! After years of trying every medicine under the sun (haha :) ) and nothing clearing up my rashes one session of acupuncture was all it took to get my skin to start healing.

Naturally, upon getting my first rash this season I made sure to get some acupuncture yesterday. Doc took one look at my tongue and said something along the lines of "holy stagnation!" I can't remember exactly what it was, but I laughed. First, he confirmed what I suspected, things in my system have been stagnating again lately, and second that the rashes were a result of some of this. He explained that the rash was actually a result of my liver not functioning properly. The stagnation in my liver and other organs causing the body to not be able to react appropriately to even natural stimuli and as a result I get a rash instead of a normal suntan or sunburn. I paraphrase here of course, but you get the idea. Makes sense. The liver is the largest and most important organ in the body for processing anything your body is exposed to: food, sun, etc. So Doc hit some acupuncture points to stimulate my liver and wholla the rash cooled down and started to go away. As I expected it didn't go away completely, but it did calm down and start to clear on my hands and arms.

Being the baby that I am and hating being itchy, I did take some Benedryl last night to calm things down even more. The inflammation has gone away though I can still feel some small bumps under the surface. Hopefully I can sneak in another acupuncture treatment today and finish clearing everything up. I'm also planning starting up the Ebi-pro footbaths again. My body is in need of detoxing again, so it's time to refocus and get my act together again.