More cheese!

Trader Joe's has started carrying a sliced goat cheese. Or they've carried it for a while, and I never saw it before. Whatever, it's SCD legal!!

It does have egg in it for some reason, so if you're not able to have egg, then you'll have to stay away.

Ingredients: Pasteurized goat's milk, salt, starter culture (does not specify if cow dairy starter or not so if you are sensitive, please use common sense), microbial rennet, lysozome (enzyme from egg white).

ETA: Reader Natalie asked me a few more questions as to how I can be sure this cheese is legal. Here's what I told her:

The key is in the starter culture and in the carb count.

The back of the cheese package lists 0 grams of carbohydrates per serving and the ingredients list rennet and starter cultures. Both are used in aged cheeses (even if they aren't aged for a very long time -- the goat cheddar I use is only aged about three months). Unaged illegal cheeses are very soft and don't really hold a shape when sliced -- like ricotta or mozzarella.

This packaged cheese is a firm cheese that is sliced. This is another clue that tells you it is an aged cheese.

Since this is packaged as "Dutch" cheese it is likely a type of gouda or edam. Both are legal.

Hope that helps!

Susan :)

Blog updates

I'm planning to decommission the pages that have the stage one and stage two recipes. For one thing, they're messy (using tags and linking to them is a far better way of doing this) and for the second thing, a lot of my recipes are wrong!

I will post the old recipe and the new recipe together when I do new entries, just so you know the history. I'm also going back and tagging recipes that somehow escaped the tagging process the first time around.

As an example, my almond butter brownie recipe was wrong! I was shocked. If you look in the tags list on the right side of the blog, you can find it tagged under "desserts" and "stage two".

So, expect some new blog entries with some old recipes. They'll be newly tagged, and you'll still be able to find them quite easily.

I've also got some new recipes that I'll be posting soon too! :)

Merry Christmas!

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday. We did! Although I really need to make mayo. Sometimes I can't even look at another piece of plain chicken with olive oil. LOL.

I wanted to talk a little bit about prep time when it comes to cooking. I've been getting a little more adventurous in the kitchen, and I've realized the value of prep.

You know how when you watch a cooking show, everything is measured out ahead of time in cute little bowls? Veggies are chopped and ready to go, and eggs are pre-broken?

Well I learned there's a reason for that! :)

For some recipes, you do need to do actual prep. It makes the cooking process go much more smoothly. I can't even tell you the times I was sweating that I wouldn't have enough time to chop up the chicken before the onions burned. It was a very "duh!" moment for me.

But don't worry! It's not hard, and I promise you don't need a cute little set of matchy bowls to do it. So if a recipe requires prep, I will describe the best way to go about it.

Plus I have a willing sous chef... my son! His auntie Cathy bought him his very own Spongebob apron for Christmas, so he's ready to go in the kitchen this year!

We'll talk again soon. Promise. :)

Long time no post and cooking marathon!

I actually wrote this post a few weeks ago. I apologize, as my life seems to always be crazy.

I'm going to spend some time evaluating the blog while I'm on vacation. I really do want to keep up with this more, but making it a priority has been a challenge... especially when you read the rest of this post!

I hope you're all doing well and having a good holiday season. :)

*****

My husband and I own a pretty large and successful podcasting company and so occasionally we go to comic conventions to promote said company. Since my son and I are on SCD, you can imagine this complicates things.

Not only do I have to bring food to the convention, but I have to have things sufficiently prepared so that we don’t starve for the week following said weekend. With no cooking time for most of the day Saturday and Sunday, things have to be planned in advance.

So Friday I needed to take the day off from work because I had to get all the food together for the weekend and upcoming week. I started cooking a little before 8 a.m. I put carrots on to steam, butternut squash in the oven, and a large beef roast in the crock pot. The squash would take over an hour, so I wanted to be sure that it would be done before we started running errands.

Once the carrots and squash were finished, I left them to cool and we went out. We went to a couple of other stores and then Costco. First we got gas for the car and then went in to get a few things, mainly for Jeffrey although I needed some of Costco’s awesome organic eggs and fresh pineapple as well.

Got back home, put the food away, and had lunch. I also managed to make some script edits I needed to make for one of our podcast productions.

Back out to get an oil change, and then we went to Jons, which always has incredible prices on meats. I picked up nine pounds of bone-in chicken breasts for 99 cents a pound, and I got six pounds of ground beef for meat loaf as well. I don’t know how much I paid for the beef but it was under 2.99 a pound.

Back home again, and I put the chicken in the oven. I knew it would take about an hour, maybe longer, and I was starting to worry because it had to be done, cooled and put away before I left at 5:20 p.m. The chicken was done a little after 4 p.m. and it was cool enough for me to pull all the meat off the bones at 5 p.m. So I managed to BARELY make this deadline.

My husband also managed to chop up the peppers I wanted to put in the meatloaf during this time. Yay. So those were chopped and put in the fridge for later.

I turned off the crock pot just before we walked out the door since I knew it would take hours for the roast to cool off.

Off to my son’s school, where I volunteered for the fall festival from 5:30 to 7 p.m. My son had a super time! I had fun too. :)

Back home! I asked Jeffrey to help me mix the meatloaf because somehow I’d managed to cut my thumb on something and having an open wound with raw meat didn’t seem like a very good idea. :/ He concurred and I measured out all the spices and got the eggs for him and such.

So we got the meatloaf in the oven right after getting back home. I knew it would take an hour. It was done just about the time my son had to go to bed. I pulled it out to cool and I knew I was out of time as far as cooking went, because nothing else would cool off in time. While it cooled I put the beef roast, carrots and butternut squash away. Yes, I left the carrots and squash out all day. Yes, they’ll be fine. Really. I do it all the time. :)

Saturday was crazy because I had to pack up our meals for the convention AND get myself ready within an hour, and I got confused and thought I would have more time to do it. Sigh. I don’t know how I managed to get everything done within an hour, but I did it! We were gone all day as the convention was from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. I went to panels, networked with people, and chatted comics and podcasts, which is exhausting in its own way. I brought enough food for lunch and dinner for both me and my son and it worked out pretty well.

After getting home and going through all the bedtime routine stuff with the kid, I made brownies because there was no other time for me to do it.

Sunday we were gone all day again, but the convention ended at 5 so we only needed to bring lunch. There was plenty of food in the refrigerator when we got back, so while my son had dinner, I put the pineapple in as soon as we got home because again, there was no other time to do it really. It takes 90 minutes to cook pineapple so it was done and cool by bedtime, which is when I asked my husband to please put it away because I was so tired of messing with food. He did so cheerfully. LOL.

And now it’s Monday and I’m at work, and next weekend is another convention so we’re going to do it all again.

But because of my planning, we have brownies and pineapple done for the week, plus beef roast, chicken and meatloaf – which should last us through Friday.

Of course the food will be running out by then. I have half a day off on Friday, but no car, so I’m going to have to work out what my husband will need to pick up for us before then…

Onward. :)

The way things are

It's been a long time since I made an update, and I figure I should address a few things.

When I'm in pain or going through a hard time, I hide. I withdraw. I don't talk about what I'm going through and I shut down. I ignore people who care about me. OK, maybe ignore isn't the right word. I sort of... go inside myself. And I've been doing that far too much lately.

At the end of May I sprained my foot. Nothing traumatic really happened; I walked around Disneyland all day and night in flip flops and at the end of it I noticed my foot was swelling. Two weeks went by and it didn't really get any better, so I went to a sports doctor. First I was in a walking boot, and then athletic shoes. Due to rheumatoid arthritis, I hadn't really worn closed shoes because they're uncomfortable so I had to actually go buy some!

Even after seeing a sports doctor and then a podiatrist, I'm still not to the point where I can walk for long distances. So far they have been telling me that injuries like this take a long time to heal and that's about all they can say. I was not happy with the doctors I saw and so I won't be going to them anymore. I can't encourage this enough -- if you are not happy with your doctor, change doctors! You and your insurance pays them so they work for YOU.

Anyway, due to the situation, I got very depressed for a while. I felt like I couldn't do anything, and not being able to walk much made my arthritis worse. For those of you with RA, you know that sitting around doing nothing is just about the worst thing you can do.

However, I do have a little bit of good news. I finally remembered that my place of employment has a free gym, so I popped in there and used the recumbent bike for 20 minutes.

That really improved my mood. I was feeling really good at the end of the day. The next day I walked about three quarters of a mile round trip to 7-11 from my work as well.

I also decided to see a physical therapist. My first appointment is Friday. My rheumatologist (who I AM very happy with) recommended it because my left elbow joint is stuck -- I cannot fully extend that arm and I haven't been able to for upwards of six months. This makes me really unhappy so I'm hoping that the physical therapist will have some ideas as to what I can do to un-stick it.

So. Hard times for me, I guess. On the upside, my son has started fourth grade and is doing great! He does have an aid again but things seem to be going a lot better this year. His behavior is great at school and rocky at home -- exactly what we want to see.

I have much to be thankful for, and I need to remember that. :)

So! That's where I am right now. I hope to post something a little happier and possibly food related soon. :)

I'm always apologizing...

Sorry, guys. I made a loooong post and blogger ATE IT! And I was so mad I didn't come back here for a while. Because I'm mature like that.

My refrigerator is broken and I'm eating out of a cooler this weekend. Meh. The repair person won't be here until Monday, and I felt like I just wasn't strong enough to say, "Hey. My son and I have many food intolerances, so is there any way you can get a repair person over here today to look at it?" Although they did want me to unplug the fridge for 24 hours and then plug it back in, and we did that (we plugged it back in a few minutes ago. So we'll see if that helps. If not, I'll be acquiring a new fridge on Monday.

I guess I could tell you how I coped with the news. Once I realized the refrigerator portion was a goner (the freezer was still working), I stayed up until midnight and cooked ten pounds of ground beef and scrambled two dozen eggs. I let it all cool down as much as possible, and then I put it all in the freezer in single-layer bags or single serving bags so everything wouldn't stick together. It was all reasonably frozen in the morning, so I stocked the cooler with all of that plus what few ice packs and frozen food we already had in the freezer. So far most of the food is still frozen, so that's good. The biggest loss was my husband's organic milk, which was a real shame, but other than that, we were mainly out of food (I had bought the ground beef just hours before), so I think we're pretty fortunate, all things considered.

Tonight I'll evaluate the cooler. We may need to go out and get ice as the food level goes down, and I have a LOT of food in the cooler, so I think we'll be OK. If I do have to go get some food, I can cook it, cool it down, and then put it back in the cooler too. I really had to think about what I was going to do if things got too warm and I was really freaking out, but now that I know my options, I'm OK.

I hope you're all having a better weekend than I am! :)