What's for lunch?

Today, we left the preschool parking lot while the snow continued to fall, after 6 hours of alternating magical fluffiness and driving blizzard.  I had no idea what we would have for dinner, so I went to my cold-weather fall back:  Pumpkin Soup.

This recipe started as a way to make a meal out of non-perishable pantry favorites:  canned pumpkin, canned coconut milk, boxed broth, and spices.  It is still a great option that way, but I was fortunate to come home to a crock pot full of nourishing bone broth, and a bit of homemade coconut milk (my latest kitchen experiment) in the fridge.  Given more time, I could have steamed the butternut and/or acorn squash on the counter.  However, there is little enough time between preschool pick-up and ideal napping time, so I felt quite rushed.





Squash Soup
2-4 cups cooked pumpkin, butternut, or acorn squash purree (1 to 2 cans)
2 cups coconut milk (full fat, homemade or 1 can)
1-2 cups chicken bone broth, to get the right texture
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp dried ginger
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Put it all in a pot over medium heat.  Use an immersion blender to mix it all together.  It is really good if you have time to let it simmer for half an hour and thicken up, but I often serve it within 10 minutes.

Top with plain yogurt, cream, crackers, croutons, sausage crumbles, almonds, or anything else you think would taste good.  Serve to toddlers with a straw!

This was the perfect warming lunch after trying 5 times to make it up the driveway.  At least we don't have to shovel until the snow stops falling!

What's for lunch?

Lunch.  Even (on the rare occasions) when I'm on the ball planning meals and grocery shopping, lunch always seems to be left until the last minute, making use of whatever is to be found in the fridge and pantry.  I was thrilled when I saw that Catherine of Weelicious posted a daily picture and description of her family's school lunches on her facebook page:  Year 1, Year 2, and now Year 3.  As inspiring as that is, though, most of those ideas don't work with our grain free, starch free, soy free eating style.

If I have this problem, many others do, too, so I would like to share some ideas.  Just one for today, though, but it is incredibly versitile:

Yogurt Salad
 
Yogurt, plain & unsweetened (and/or homemade mayonnaise)  (enough to get the right texture)
Flavoring base:  mustard or mango chutney are my favorites (1/4 cup or so)
Protein:  cooked chicken (diced or shredded), canned salmon or tuna (1 to 2 cups)
Veg:  frozen peas, diced celery, diced red pepper  (~1 cup total)
Fruit:  apple, pear, grapes (~1/2 cup shredded or diced)
Dried fruit:  raisins, currants, diced dried apricots, etc  (up to 1/4 cup)
Nuts and seeds:  chopped walnuts or almonds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds  (up to 1/4 cup)
Cheese:  diced or shredded cheddar, jack, colby (2 oz)
Bit of salt and pepper

Mix it all together, and serve alone or with pita, crackers, lettuce, etc. 

I wish I had a gorgeous picture of this morning's salad to show you.  I can picture it now:  a scoop of salmon salad sitting on a thick, red tomato slice, on a bed of lettuce.  A nice side light from the window, a bit of food on the nearby fork to show the texture.  Instead, we ate our lunch from our plain white bowls with spoons, and this stuff just isn't pretty all on its own. 

This yogurt salad works great as a make-ahead lunch.  If we are traveling with a cooler, some version of this is in it.  I can make it at any time of the morning to have ready to go, and it is easy to make enough for multiple meals or large-ish groups.  I'd love to hear any options you might add, as well as your favorite lunch ideas.  Please share!

The Specific Carbohydrate Diet and Me

About a year and a half ago, upon being invited to our house for Thanksgiving dinner, a friend told me that she was on a very restrictive diet for medical reasons.  I didn't ask too many questions (people who care to share medical information usually do so without much prompting, and those who don't are usually happy for the privacy), and she sent me her allowable food list with the hope that there might be a few things she could eat, and the reassurance that it wouldn't be a big deal if she wouldn't be able to eat much- holidays are about family and friends, after all!

Based on that food list guidance, I changed my turkey brine to a honey based solution instead of sugar, and we had roasted butternut squash instead of sweet potatoes.  With the garlic green beans and warm spinach salad, I was quite pleased that there would be more interesting options next to the mashed potatoes and dinner rolls.  I consider fruits, non-starchy vegetables, and unprocessed meats the most nutritious part of a diet; the SCD food list seemed to set apart the most nourishing foods of our diet.  Queue the Friends clip [3:10] of guest star Brad Pitt:  "Two greatest enemies, Ross - Rachel Green and complex carbohydrates." 

Checking the food list so often in preparation for this meal, I learned that the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) was introduced in Elaine Gottschall's book, Breaking the Vicious Cycle.  From what I read, the diet was indicated for serious digestive problems like [links may have graphic images of intestinal diseases] Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis.  The book (that I hadn't yet read) detailed how the organisms that live in our digestive track (google 'gut flora' for more details) react to the different types of food we eat.  Apart from adding an interesting component to the holiday meal, I really didn't think much about the SCD at that time.

The following summer, while visiting my family, my sister mentioned her diagnosis of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS).  When I researched the syndrome, most of the symptoms sounded strangely familiar.  The more I read, the more I realized that I have had these symptoms most of my life, without knowing that the symptoms were anything different than 'normal human digestion'.  Everything would seem perfectly fine for a week or a month, and then I'd have issues for a day or a month.  When you live with a condition for 15 years, how do you know what is normal and what isn't?

Routine Troubleshooting

As my Jason nears his third birthday, I've spent a lot of time thinking about those last few months before we became parents.  I already knew I would take a year off of work, and I knew I would most likely not return to my engineering career very soon, but I had no idea what to expect from stay-at-home-motherhood.  Oh, the assumptions I made!

Sitting at my desk at work, I'd daydream about being able to cook the healthy dinners that my work schedule didn't allow.  I imagined all the cleaning and organizing I would finally tackle.  I imagined getting outside every day to take walks and water the garden.  Nice ideas, but far from my reality.