This is a common question. To a lot of people, preparing gluten free, soy free, dairy free, meals seven days a week seems impossible. Really it's not. It's just something we get used to. It does mean the days of frequent fast food and "convenience" foods are loooong gone though. Let's look at this last week of dinners though. I think you'll see we're a lot more "normal" than you thought.
Tonight, brisket braised in draft cider w/ roasted carrots, salad and mashed potatoes. (Mashed potatoes we split up and do some non-dairy and some w/ milk.) Snack tonight was baked apples stuffed w/ cranberries.
Yesterday I made my version of sweet 'n sour and served it with rice. It's not breaded and doesn't have ketchup in it, so it's not anything like a chinese restaurant...but it is tasty. ( peppers, carrots, onion, garlic, w/ pineapple chunks in juice, w/ ginger as the predominant spice. Throw in some brown sugar and either lemon or orange juice. Beyond that, it varies. This time it featured chicken and coriander. Sometimes it's a dash of clove & red pepper flakes w/ pork, etc.)
Sunday I didn't make dinner. We had a pot luck lunch at church & I took taco meat w/ diced tomatoes & black beans, and all the other stuff for taco salad.
Saturday we were without a few kids, so we broke the rules & had pizza. Doesn't happen often though, and yes, I paid for it dearly.
Friday night we had company, so we had tacos.
Thursday was lemony chicken spinach artichoke heart sautee.
Wednesday we had smoked sausage skillet. (Cajun seasoning, rice, tomatoes, onion, smoked sausage, green pepper, kidney beans, broth)
We also eat spaghetti, burgers, meatloaf, and breakfast for dinner. We love our grill. Our family is far from starving. I'm rarely bored with what I cook. That's because of instead of focusing on what we can't have, we enjoy what we can.
Does it work? Most of the time.
Are there times it's frustrating? Sure. Especially when money is extra-tight. We can't live on ramen and mac and cheese for a week. Not because we don't want to, but because we really can't! That means that we have to sacrifice other parts of our budget so the food money is there. So sometimes a haircut gets postponed, like two months. Isn't that what hats and pony tails are for?
Overall, we eat well, even if it is different. Compared to Hamburger helper and mac & cheese, I think different is good.
2 comments:
Your choices all sound amazing. We've been working "toward" gluten free, although I can't say I'm nearly this successful!
Megan, don't get discouraged! I've been doing this for years. It's really tricky to learn what brands of stuff you can and can't buy. Even simple things like stock sometimes are GF, and sometimes aren't.
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