Catching Up - a week of onions

Hey folks!  Sorry to leave you hanging!  I've been crazy busy the past couple weeks starting school, getting our baby registry finished and cooking up a storm!  Some successes, some not so much, but I'm here to catch you all up on the results :)

First off, as promised to all of my lovely Facebook friends, the skillet chicken chili pasta!

I swore I took a picture of this meal before Matt & I devoured the whole thing, but clearly I forgot (pregnancy brain).  So the above picture from the inspirational recipe (although I altered it significantly).

My final version, which Matt and I both enjoyed hot, but preferred cold:

Ingredients

• 1 16oz bag of brown rice pasta (I used spirals)
• 2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 chopped mayan sweet onion
• 1 chopped red bell pepper
• 1 diced jalapeno pepper (don't forget to wear gloves when seeding/dicing it!)
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 2 cups cooked ground chicken *see note
• 1 1/2 cups diced fresh tomatoes (I used both grape & on-the-vine)
• 1 1/2 cups chicken broth
• 1 can green chiles 
• 1/2 cup corn (I used frozen, but you could use fresh or canned as well)
• 1/2 cup chickpeas (I used dried that I had soaked and cooked the week before)
• 1 Tablespoon chili powder
• 1 Tablespoon ground cumin
• gluten-free Ranch seasoning mix (1 packet equivalent)
• 1/2 tsp dried cilantro

Directions

1. Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain and run under cool water to stop cooking. Set aside.
2. Heat oil in a deep saucepan or skillet. Add onions and peppers, cook stirring until softened about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook stirring for 1 minute. Add chicken, tomatoes, broth, green chiles, corn, chickpeas, pasta, chili powder, cumin, Ranch seasoning and cilantro. Stir until well combined. Reduce heat to low and simmer until ready to serve, or after simmering about 20 minutes, chill and serve cold.

*note: We had some left over ground chicken that Matt had browned and seasoned with 2 small cans of tomato juice, cumin and crushed red pepper, so we used that, but you could use any cooked chicken - grilled, rotisserie, baked... whatever you have on hand.

Aside from cutting up the veggies, this was SUPER fast and easy, and because I used the whole bag of pasta instead of just 8oz as the original recipe called for, it lasted us forever, which was good because we were both really busy last week!

I also made Pumpkin Pie Granola, but due to a crockpot death in the family, this had a bit of an issue.

I used this recipe from crockpot365.blogspot.com (I only used the 1/2 c honey, and I used all raisins - no dried cranberries) - but after 2.5 hours (of the 4 required for cooking), the crockpot breathed its last & turned off, never to turn on again.  Matt ate about 1/3 of the granola before I finished it in the oven (325* for 15 minutes, stirring once and adding raisins half way through).  I haven't tried it since I finished it, and honestly, I wasn't super happy with the burning of the oats that happened in the crockpot, so I might try to adjust this recipe for just the oven (especially now that we have no crockpot).   If you don't use honey, I'm sure coconut nectar would work just as well (and honestly would probably mix better than the raw honey I used).  I'll keep you posted on the updates to this recipe as I go.

For breakfast, I made a casserole:

I was super excited about this because even though it took a long-ish time to put together, once it was done, it was crazy simple to just take out an individual slice in the morning and microwave it for 1 min on high.  I'm normally not the biggest fan of the microwave, but I've been pretty tired this week, so it was nice to not have to work hard for breakfast.

I used this recipe from thekitchn.com - but I subbed turkey bacon for the regular bacon (we're not big pork people in our house), cooked with olive oil.  I also used 3 mostly-baked white potatoes, diced with skins on, instead of the frozen ones because they put all kinds of weird additives in frozen potatoes at the grocery store.  I try to stick as close to real food as I can.  (I thought afterwards that red skinned or yukon gold potatoes probably would have been even better).  Also, I've never been a big fan of sun-dried tomatoes, so I diced 2 on-the-vine tomatoes and threw those in instead.  It was a really tasty breakfast, and like the skillet chicken pasta, was convenient for our nuts-o week.  You could easily modify this recipe to use up whatever vegetables/meats you happen to have lying around.  I feel like all of the ingredients in this were completely optional.  You could just as easily use spinach instead of potatoes, artichokes instead of peppers, leave out the bacon entirely....  Be creative and let me know what you try!

Honorable mentions this week go to:

• KathEats whipped banana oatmeal
• KathEats carrot cake oatmeal (which I made with a peach instead of a mango, because that's what I had! It totally RULED!)
• TheKitchn arugula, apple & chickpea salad wraps (made with brown rice tortillas lightly heated with olive oil)
• Sumptuous Spoonfuls peach, pistachio (or in my case pecan) and chicken salad (although I lazily topped it with Annie's red raspberry vinaigrette instead of making the white wine vinaigrette from the recipe - still, might be my new favorite salad of all time.)
• TheKitchn braised french onion chicken (a great main dish answer to french onion soup!!)

We also enjoyed:

• TheKitchen farmer's lunch sandwiches with onion-thyme jam - I liked this, but I bought mild cheddar for Matt, who isn't the biggest sharp fan, and I probably would have enjoyed it more with sharp.  Plus, the jam gave me heartburn. #pregnancyproblems
• Bon Appetit curried egg salad (on rice bread instead of pitas - messy!!) - This was also fun as an experiment (especially since I used Greek yogurt instead of mayo), but I am still a bigger fan of plain ol' egg salad.  This one was yummy, but it was a little more tangy than I like normally.
• Laylita.com baked ripe plantains with cheese - we waited a little too long to make this and our plantains were a little too ripe, which yielded bites with a bit of fermented flavor.  Probably would have been better if we'd made them sooner.  Oops.

 Up next:

• "Use up what we have lying around the house" challenge - we're going to try to buy only eggs, milk, yogurt, butter and a few snacks this week (partially to make up for the fact that I spent twice our food budget last week in my ambition, and partially because we've had a bunch of dry/frozen ingredients sitting in our kitchen for months that need to get used!)
• TheKitchn DIY applesauce (as part one of DIY apple butter!)
• Healthful Pursuit frozen banana raspberry "muffins"
• Anne-Marie Cain cinnamon apple crisps
• TheKitchn sweet potato hash & eggs (sausage, probably not)
• TheKitchn kale & apple soup (which Matt already made, but we haven't tried yet)
• Glucose challenge - yes, I realize this is a medical test and not a recipe, but it's weighing heavily on my mind as a reactive hypoglycemic who is also pregnant and concerned about holistic wellness.  While I can 99% guarantee I don't have gestational diabetes (given that I've still had several blood sugar crashes recently), I still am *strongly encouraged* by my midwives to take this stupid test.  I'm not drinking Glucola - they're letting me sub fruit juice - but I'm still really nervous about the effect all of this sugar is going to have on my body and on Squirt.  I'll be sure to keep you posted about it!  My plan right now is to drink the juice (equivalent to 50g sugar!!) and if I'm feeling the sugar crash coming on within 30 mins, I'm going to just eat some protein and tell them I'm refusing the test.  If I don't feel the crash, I'll go to my appointment, have my blood drawn the hour after I drank the juice and then immediately stuff my face with enough cheese to feed a small country.  I've gotten very little support on this issue from my medical professionals, including my holistic doctor who's been treating me for the adrenal fatigue, so I'm frustrated.  But Thursday will bring an end to it all one way or another.  

To be continued....

Tales from Low Blood Sugar

No, I didn't cheat, I swear!  I have no idea what led to my insane blood sugar crash last night that I'm still reeling from this morning after a brown rice wrap with 2 fried eggs, 2.5 turkey bacon slices, spinach and a slice of white american cheese....  You'd think all that protein would have fixed me up, but it's now 10:45 and I still have a headache and that empty nauseated feeling.  Blech.  I didn't have any sugar yesterday, aside from a white peach, but I don't usually count fruit in the "sugar" category - natural sweet, yes, "sugar," no.  The only thing I can think is that I got really hungry at my ultrasound, which lasted over an hour because of this uncooperative little miracle, and didn't ever really catch up.  Either that, or, like my dad and my sister, somehow fish sends my blood sugar tanking within an hour...  We had baked tilapia and collard greens for dinner last night, and about an hour later, I felt cranky, sluggish and headache-y, just like when I cheat and eat ice cream.  Except without the yumminess of ice cream.  I need to look into this more.

At any rate, here is my recipe for the collards, which I thoroughly enjoy making often.  They are vegetarian, unlike most recipes for collard greens, which call for a ham bone (ick).  We're not really ham people here, so the likelihood of us having a ham bone at any given time is slim-to-none.

(side note: I neglected to take a photo of the full pan before I devoured my portion of collards - this is what was leftover after Matt & I both ate some!)


Vegetarian Collard Greens (adapted from the Food Network)

1 T olive oil
1 T butter *see note
1/4 - 1/2 large onion, diced
3 cloves garlic
dash of crushed red pepper flakes (I overdid it a bit with this one tonight!!  SPICY!)
1 lb collard greens, washed & torn into bite size pieces (I tend to throw out the thicker part of the stalks) - you could probably also use frozen chopped collards if you can find them
1-2 c vegetable stock, depending on how soup-like you want your final product
1 piece dried kombu (seaweed, optional)
salt & pepper to taste

In a large pot over medium heat, heat oil and butter. Saute the onions until slightly softened, about 2 minutes, then add the red pepper flakes and garlic, cook another minute. Add collard greens and cook another minute. Add the vegetable stock & kombu, cover and bring to a simmer. Cook until greens are tender, about 40 minutes. Remove kombu & season with salt and pepper before serving.

*note: If you are vegan/dairy-free, feel free to add another 1 T of olive oil or other cooking fat instead of butter.  It's just for flavor and doesn't matter at all.

You can also top them with chopped tomatoes at the end, but I find that it doesn't really add all that much to the recipe, especially when tomatoes aren't in season.  This recipe also stores/reheats well, so it's great if you want to add more greens to your diet but are too busy to prep them during the week.

I also experimented with our ice cream maker for the first time (no, I did not use sugar, in case you're wondering if that's the connection to my sugar crash!) - more on that later!

The Whole Story So Far

I am 30 years, 9 months, and 22 days old today. I am 1 month and 18 days into my new life. For 30 years, I lived with the idea that all of my health problems were "normal" and that there was never going to be anything better for me. Sure, I went to the doctor. Lots. Sure, they ran tests. Many. But to my detriment, when the tests didn't show what they expected to see, I was sent home with a "You're perfectly normal. There's nothing wrong with you." Eventually, I believed them.

My symptoms have included:
dry, itchy skin - since age 7 (especially on the scalp - since age 10)
allergies and chemical sensitivities - noticed as early as age 3, worsening over time
allergy induced asthma - age 22, if not before
exhaustion, especially in the morning and around 2-4pm - since age 9, if not before
trouble sleeping/insomnia - my mom says this has been since infancy
digestive problems galore - since age 6, if not before
migraine headaches - since age 22, if not before (it took us a long time to figure this one out because mine start with nausea and vomiting and end in headaches rather than the other way around)
intense menstrual periods - since age 14
reactive hypoglycemia - since age 16, if not before (reactive hypoglycemia is basically low blood sugar shortly after eating)
dependency on sugar, caffeine, and food to make it through the day - since age 15, if not before
extreme irritability when hungry - since infancy
forgetfulness - since age 23, getting progressively worse
salt cravings - since childhood
extreme sensitivity to cold - since age 15
depression - since age 15
thinning hair/excessive falling hair - since age 22

(The reason I note some ages, "if not before" is because my earliest confirmed memory of a symptom is at the age listed, but it's possible it was a problem longer and I don't remember or I can't confirm it was related.)

I was tested for mono (I did have it my freshman year of college, but I was in recovery by the time I was diagnosed), hypothyroidism (three times - normal results on all three tests), and probably a mess of other things I don't remember, because they were convinced I had hypothyroidism until my tests said I didn't, and then they gave up.

I have been prescribed numerous medications, but I rarely take them, because my dad is an immunologist, and staunchly opposed to prescription medication. Plus, I find I generally dislike the side effects more than I dislike my original symptoms. I don't understand why western medicine insists on treating symptoms, which are your body's signals to you that something is wrong, rather than finding the actual causes, and then treating that. Blows my mind.

So after failed lab tests, unpleasant prescriptions, and years of unresolved medical complaints, I finally gave up, like my doctors before me.

Then, on 9.25.11, I read a facebook post by Sarah Morgan, one of my dearest inherited friends by marriage. That post changed my life.

I originally went to Sarah's blog, to read about why she would be doing such a dangerous, drastic, intense diet, and wound up wondering why I had never been told to do it, too. I contacted Sarah, and she sent me a link to Dr. Kharrazian's book, which I promptly bought for my Kindle app on my iPad. I read about 1/3, and knew I was finally on my personal road to wellness, after 30 years and counting.

On 10.2.11, I began my elimination diet - no gluten, corn, dairy, soy, eggs, tomatoes, sugar, sugar substitutes, caffeine (including "decaf"), processed foods, or alcohol. Some of those were easy (I've never been a big drinker), some were painfully difficult (I'm a huge sugar addict). And I never knew how frighteningly hard it would be to not eat corn - it literally is in everything. Luckily, my husband was a huge supporter of my desire to get well, and was an enormous help with the food shopping and cooking while I figured this all out. Plus, we have great healthy friends like Dylan and Michelle who had already prompted us to make some of these changes to our diets before I embarked on this new journey.

After just a few weeks, the number of symptoms that had improved was staggering. I lost 10 pounds without even trying (other than the dietary restrictions), I was sleeping through the night (I'd never done that before in my life), and the week of 10.17.11, I woke up every morning at 6:30am feeling awake (I used to wake up dragging at 9 or 10am). I thought something was wrong - that's how backwards my concept of health had become. Then I realized, it wasn't wrong - it was the health I had been craving for the last 30 years, finally becoming a reality.

After reading Dr. Kharrazian's book, and doing some research, I decided to see a doctor who could help guide me through this quest. I found Dr. Reiff through Dr. Kharrazian's website. We set up bloodwork for analysis on 10.12.11 and a first visit for 10.24.11. After analyzing my bloodwork, my health questionnaire responses, and doing some biofeedback (which is by far the coolest thing you can ever have done), he informed me that my thyroid is functioning at ideal levels. It's my adrenal fatigue, reactive hypoglycemia, and malnutrition/malabsorption/dehydration that's mimicking all of the symptoms of hypothyroidism I've been experiencing, which is why no one could ever figure out what was wrong. He put me on several supplements, including essential fatty acids, told me to stay on the elimination diet, but to add things back and note whether or not any symptoms returned, gave me more specifics about controlling my sugar levels and adrenal stress, and told me to do some follow up testing for the adrenal response and my immune system's inflammatory response (which causes adrenal stress and perpetuates the problems).

Then, on 10.25.11, I found out I was pregnant with our first baby. I was thrilled, but also worried about continuing my testing/supplements. Dr. Reiff told me what not to do from the list, and congratulated me on the little development. I continued to see great results, and continued losing weight daily.

Then, on 11.15.11, my life ground to a halt. We had our first ultrasound, and discovered that our little bean had no detectable heartbeat. They told us not to worry, that my due date may have been miscalculated, and to schedule another ultrasound for the following week. Unfortunately, later that day, I began bleeding, and I miscarried at 7 weeks. My midwife assured me that pregnancy loss that early was not due to anything I did or didn't do, but more likely a natural response to a pregnancy that ultimately wouldn't have been viable.

The miscarriage is just about the most painful thing I have ever endured, both physically and emotionally. But I think my little bean knew it would be best to wait until I could be a totally healthy incubator. I can now continue my testing and supplements, and try to get myself totally healthy for our next pregnancy, which is a sliver of a silver lining in this blackest of clouds, but it's there.

So I continue on this road to wellness, in memory of Bean. Thanks for joining me for the ride.