When first going gluten free, there can be a sense of loss, feeling like maybe you're going to miss all of your favorites. I still remember the day I set myself up to eat my own words. My belly dancing teacher had just returned from taking a medical leave for treatment and remission of colon cancer. When we returned to class, she shared that she had also learned during the process that she had celiac. After hearing what that meant she could no longer have, I spoke the words I came to eat about five years later, "I can't imagine giving up gluten. I love pizza, cake, and so many other things way too much." I was in my twenties and I looked like an insensitive jerk with those words. How could I have possibly known that my constant allergies, skin reactions, and chronic constipation were all signs of that same disease? I had learned to accept all of those miseries as my normal.
It took three years after my diagnosis before realizing that the pre-made gluten free meals and snacks I was living on were the trigger behind my thirty pound weight gain post diagnosis and in 2012, I learned to really start cooking and enjoying it. Baking healthy alternatives is still my favorite part of cooking, but let's face it, we have to eat real food too. Just like you, I have obstacles to work around. Yes, I am now a work at home mom, but that means I still work and no, I don't spend my days cooking, cleaning, and running errands. I have found it's more important now to juggle responsibilities. If I spend all day cooking and prepping, work doesn't get done. We also need to eat real food. Add in the other fun factors of meal planning and like you, I have challenges too. My daughter has dance two and a half days a week. She's a picky tween who has homework that still needs overseeing. My boyfriend is a pilot who can be gone anywhere from two to six nights in a row. He enjoys cooking, but he's also in school now, so when he's home, there's the juggle of quality time, his homework, cooking, and of course the honey do list. Did I mention he prefers to not eat the same thing within the same month? When he came into our lives, my daughter and I were content with our rotation of about seven different options. She ate them, they were healthy, and I didn't have to debate with her over them. They also for the most part were pretty quick meals.
We have made some changes over the past year. We reserve the easier meals for days that it makes the most sense, usually related to work, homework, or extra curricular activities. We also take turns cooking and have added a few more easy meals to the rotation. These are a little bit more labor intensive and tend to be full family work together meals, at least the first and third are. Since my daughter was also diagnosed last month with childhood absence seizures, we have been incorporating a few more keto dishes into cooking. (No, we haven't gone full keto at the guidance of her MD because going in and out of ketosis would be a bigger risk, so for now, we try to minimize her carbs and sugars overall.)
Our go to cookbooks we have been using lately are Maria Emmerich's Keto Comfort Foods and Keto Instant Pot. This was our first attempt from the Comfort Foods cookbook at making chicken pot pies. This was one of my favorites as a kid who grew up on lots of microwave style meals. It provided what we once thought was a balanced meal and of course have since learned was processed carb trash. In our first attempt, I reached for whatever dishes I had available to make these because I don't worry about perfection when it comes to cooking. If you're looking for someone who will only share Pinterest worthy pics that make you question if your version is edible, this isn't the place for you. I will share my real pictures, imperfections and all. These turned out absolutely phenomenal. On the non-keto side of things, I did revert a bit back to childhood at the request of my loved ones. We added some peas and carrots, which of course adds way too much carb count to be considered keto, but still amazing.
While my boyfriend and I love soups and chowders, this isn't something that my daughter has come to appreciate yet, so I made the seafood chowder on a week she was with her dad. I think it was supposed to be something like four servings, but it was really good, so it didn't make it that far in our house. As much as I love seafood, I tend to burn candles when I am cooking seafood though to mask the smell. Cooking it in a crock pot, especially when you work from home means definitely plan on it. We give this two thumbs up. The only issue we had is that we would like the chowder a little bit thicker without adding too many carbs (corn starch) or changing the flavor too much (coconut flour).
And now we have my daughter's night of cooking. At eleven, I admit she needed some help to stay excited throughout the process. Like most kids, she chose what we would eat based on what looks and tastes good. Cauliflower is a vegetable that was previously on her I won't eat it list. That's when my boyfriend started the challenge of getting her to like new vegetables. It worked and she chose cauliflower with bernaise sauce and biscuits and gravy. While she could have managed this completely on her own, we needed to eat at a reasonable time, so we helped her and made it a family adventure. As you can see, she's quite proud of her accomplishment. And yes, these are going on our favorites rotation! These are also from the comfort foods cookbook mentioned above.
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