Almost there…and Cake Wreck 2013

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Meaghan

I don’t know how it happened…but it’s 12:13am on March 8, 2013. In a few short hours, I will have been a mother for 5 years.

I’m having a hard time understanding that. I mean, I get that there are 7 days in each week, and 52 weeks in a year and all that…but I don’t understand how so much time has passed.

So instead of wallowing, I’ll just give you Cake Wreck 2013:

I’d planned to ~~half-ass~~ skip the whole cake chaos of years past. Then, at 10am Thursday morning, I panicked. I drove to town a few hours later with a thread of an idea and a recipe for a gluten-free quinoa chocolate cake. Yup. Cake wreck material if ever there was!

I taught dance until 8:30pm, drove home, and got down to business:

$40 worth of decorations and a few prayers later, I had one of my easiest and prettiest cakes ready to be admired:

A garden for my growing Bugz.

And dare I say? I think I’ve gotten the hang of this cake wreck nonsense after five years! And as always, I solemnly swear that I will not do this again…

Oh, and I also managed to sneak these in for fun:

REAL COOKIES!

Posted on March 1, 2013 by Meaghan

Hallelujah, let me shout from the rooftops!! I have found a REAL GLUTEN-FREE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE RECIPE!!

It has been over a year since I’ve found any kind of success with gluten-free baking, and had pretty much given up. Sadly, my sweet tooth got the best of me when we were without any store-bought boxed mixes and I decided to take one. last. chance.

And I am SO glad I did!!

What’s even better is that I totally modified the recipe, and IT DIDN’T FAIL! You have no idea how huge this is for me! I need to be able to work outside the lines when I bake. It’s part of what helps me relax and feel creative. For the past 12 months, I haven’t been able to do that at all.

So, without further ado, this is my masterpiece:

MagzD Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

makes approx 30 cookies, or 27 cookies and a bunch of batter eaten…

adapted from THIS POST from Earth’s Balance

Combine:
1c butter
3T cold coffee
2c powdered sugar
1/2c packed brown sugar
1 egg
1-2 tsp vanilla (I like a lot!)
1 tsp cinnamon

Add slowly:
1c gluten-free all-purpose flour blend
1/2tsp xantham gum
1/2tsp baking powder
1/4tsp salt

Stir in:
1/2c gluten-free rolled oats
1/2c unsweetened shredded coconut
1c chocolate chips…maybe more

The “dough” will be REALLY soft and fluffy…almost like a meringue (but heavier) when you scoop it onto the cookie sheets! You will think you’ve screwed up another recipe, but persevere!

Drop 2″ mounds onto parchment-lined cookie sheets. Only put about 8 cookies per sheet, because they get BIG!!

Bake each sheet at 350 degrees for about 16 minutes, until the edges are brown. Let cool for a minute or two, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

THEY TASTE AMAZING WHEN THEY’RE FRESH AND AMAZING WHEN THEY ARE COOLED! THEY DON’T CRUMBLE LIKE GROSS GLUTEN-FREE COOKIES!! I CAN’T STOP SHOUTING ABOUT THESE COOKIES!!! I’VE EATEN 9 OF THEM ALREADY!!

No, seriously. I’ve eaten nine cookies since noon, and I had a nap for an hour and a half in that time too. This is doing nothing for my post-Mexico food baby paunch.

Go make some. Share the love. And if you love gluten, it’s 1c flour and no xantham gum, okay?

Okay.

I’ll give you a photo later…I’m far too lazy for this nonsense

Veg’d out

Posted on January 16, 2013 by Meaghan

I love my fruits and veggies. I really do. Given the option, I’m more likely to order a big salad or a double side of vegetables when I’m at a restaurant than a potato or meat. I add crazy things to my culinary creations to up the veggie ante. Most days though, I’m a coffee hound with a side of a couple lazy fruits and a bowl of cereal.

Our family has been falling far behind on our 5-a-day. My bugz aren’t thrilled by anything other than an apple, banana, or fresh berries. They don’t particularly “like” vegetables…although they will eat them over meat. They are definitely (wheat-free/celiac) grainovores. They want cereal for breakfast, peanut butter and jam sandwiches for lunch, and noodles for dinner. And sadly, gluten free options aren’t always the cleanest food choices. It takes a lot of additives to make some foods taste good without the gluten!

And Leith? He just wants meat sticks from the 7-Eleven. And beer.

Sigh.

I can only sneak so much into my kids’ diets. Until I had a moment of genius: smoothies. My kids love smoothies! They beg for us to stop at Booster Juice whenever we are at the swimming pool. So last week, I introduced the idea of Smoothies For Breakfast, and they went NUTS! They have been having a veggie- and fruit-filled smoothie every day for 5 days now. They get about 2 servings of produce each, and then some. Each smoothie has pomegranate juice, almond milk, a whole carrot, 2 handfuls of spinach, parsley, a whole banana (or half an avocado), frozen berries, a few tablespoons of Greek yogurt, chia seeds, and hemp hearts.

BOOM!

Lots of real, organic, natural foods. No mixes or powders, no fake vitamins, no fibre substitutes, no sweeteners. Just real, whole foods. And they LOVE it! The rest of the day, I can sneak peas into their noodles or throw some baby carrots on the side of their sandwiches. I always take an apple and banana with me to my dance classes, and I get 4 servings of fruits/veggies in my smoothie because I’m not sharing it

To make an awesome change even better, I finally signed up for the Organic Box! They recently expanded their service to Spruce Grove/Stony Plain, and they have a drop-off location. I’m currently spending about $45-50/week on produce, and only half of it is organic. For $55/week, it’s all organic. Not bad!! I’m really looking forward to having more variety, and being able to custom-tailor our orders each week.

How do you get your family eating more vegetables and fruits? What are your tips and tricks?

1000

Posted on August 31, 2012 by Meaghan

1000 posts.

That’s a lot of rambling to put up with over the last 4+ years. It’s a little over 250 posts each year. You’ve listened to me ramble a lot.

Sometimes, it’s been inane mutterings. Sometimes, I’ve actually had something good to say. I’ve covered the gamut, from breastfeeding to mom-formula, from policing to cancer, from twins to contraception. It’s never boring around here!

I’ve fought with my Christmas tree and with my demons. I’ve moved and changed jobs. Myyyy, how I’ve changed jobs! I’ve baked and cooked and gardened. I’ve made cheese. I’ve been through not one, but two 101 in 1001 lists. Well…the first one ended in defeat, and the second is still in progress.

I’ve travelled alone and with my husband, and even with my kids. I’ve taken pictures along the way, and journaled my way through life. I’ve made good choices and bad choices. I’ve even made really bad choices. I’ve told my story.

And along the way, I’ve developed some fabulous friendship through the ether. I’ve cultivated relationships and poured my heart to my readers, who have loved me and accepted me with open arms for the most part.

So, to thank you for this, I’m having a little giveaway:

Leave me a comment on this milestone post about your favourite MagzD post in the past 4.5 years.

Let me know what your favourite charity is as well, and in one week, I will draw a random comment. I will give $100 to that commenter’s charity, and $100 to the Canadian Cancer Society as well.

You know, just to say thanks for putting up with me. Xoxo.

***

This post is a part of the Summer Blog Challenge (and I’m still down by two!!). Join the rest of us:

Natural Urban Mama
This Mom’s Got Something To Say
The Dulock Diaries
2 Plus 2×2

A bad, bad choice.

Posted on August 2, 2012 by Meaghan

I made a bad, bad choice last night.

You see, I have a nasty little addiction that I’ve managed to keep hidden under wraps for several years now. I keep it far from my thoughts, and I definitely keep it out of the house. The problem is, this has been a really rough week. It’s sucked in a lot of small, sucky ways.

So tonight, with my kids in tow (!!), I caved and bought a 330g box. I waited until my kids were in bed, because I am a responsible parent, and then I tore into it!!

Oh, dear.

I ate FOUR BOWLS full of sweet nonfood. I smothered every last marshmallow in vanilla coconut milk.

I am a bad, bad person. My mouth was raw and my body was shaking. I spent the rest of the night trying to avoid heaving up the rainbow that sloshed in my stomach.

There’s half a bag left. My celiac children can’t have any. It should have went in the garbage. It’s not wasting food if it’s not actually “food”, right??

Instead, I ate the last two bowls this morning…

***

This hideous confession is part of the Summer Blog Challenge: a month of posting every day. Feel free to join in the fun!!

Wavering

Posted on July 24, 2012 by Meaghan

It’s Day Two of the Whole 30. I hate every living minute of it.

I have never, ever, in my whole life wanted to quit something so quickly.

I hate it. Yes, the food is tasty. Whatever. It’s not satisfying at all. At. All.

My reasons for doing this were varied:

Of course weight loss is always a little bit nice. I haven’t been able to break 135lbs, but I also haven’t been trying.
I like the paleo food lifestyle. We can’t eat gluten-y grains, and we avoid most dairy anyway. This provided some structure, which was much-needed and much-wanted.
I love doing stupid challenges, like my sugar fast. I wanted to see if I could do it.
I wanted to feel better.

But guess what? The Whole 30 is a HUGE, SUDDEN CHANGE, even for someone who eats 90% gluten/dairy-free already. The physical act of cooking and eating the super-strict Whole 30 food isn’t what’s hard. It’s the mental commitment to it.

You see, I’m already pushing my brain beyond it’s happy place with my marathon training. I have to run 18 miles this Sunday, and I have some serious mental energy that needs to unblock before then. This year’s training is taking more mental commitment than anything I’ve ever done.

I also have a husband who has been gone since Saturday, and now won’t be home until August 2nd. He was supposed to be home today. Surprise!!

There’s also the timing on top of the mental stress. I am going away for the August long weekend with two celiac kids. I already need to plan for their food, and I don’t know if I want the added stress of bringing my own food too. Plus, it’s kind of imposing and rude to my hostess (even though she’s a beautiful, accommodating soul). The morning after we get back, I leave for 5 days in Las Vegas. I’ll be dancing from 9-5 every day, plus three training runs. I’ll have a tight schedule around meal times, and I’ll be at a hotel the whole time. The hotel is at the edge of town – no time for grocery store trips or anything like that.

That, my friends, is 8 solid days of food stress. On top of travel stress, on top of training stress.

I honestly don’t think I can do this right now. I actually feel anxious about eating. THAT is not healthy. I actually want to CRY. It’s pathetic. I don’t want to run out and get a Blizzard and a bottle of wine. I just don’t want to feel trapped and anxious!

I’m a healthy person! I’m not overweight, and I’m very active. I have no discernible health concerns. This isn’t a do-or-die nutrition situation. But I have to stop and wonder: am I having trouble because of all the other stress it’s causing, or because I really need to do this for my body. Is this just withdrawal/cleanse, and I need to push through it? Or is it just BS and I need to take the warning signs and walk away, try again later?

And it’s not like I’ve been starving. I’ve eaten LOTS – at least 2000kcal each day for the past two days. But I’m forcing it in, and I’m still not getting nearly enough carbohydrates to support my training.

Ugh.

I don’t like quitting, and I quit too often. But it’s not worth the struggle right now. Even if I woke up tomorrow and it was an easy day, it’s not worth it right now.

I can go gluten-free and dairy-free. I can’t do this Whole 30 right now. So while the title of this post is “Wavering“, what it really means is “Quitting“.

I need some breathing room right now. I can’t do food guilt. I need to just eat and train and dance and run that marathon in October!

So, Whole 30? I quit.

Whole 30 – Week One

Posted on July 21, 2012 by Meaghan

My meal plans are set out for the next seven days! Today and tomorrow are my farewell-to-grain days, as I am preparing for the Moose is Loose half marathon in the morning. Monday morning is the start of my Whole 30 Challenge!!

Breakfasts:

Egg muffins with spinach, sausage, onion, and pepper
Ground turkey with onion, kale, and apples
Shredded chicken with yam/carrot/onion hash
Sausages with sweet potato hash brown cakes
Omelette with spinach, onion, peppers
Apples with almond butter, hard boiled eggs, left-over asparagus
Shredded chicken with apples, onions and carrots

Lunches:

Spinach salad with tuna, avocado, peppers, and cucumber
Spinach salad with salmon, red onion, capers, and olives
Peppers stuffed with tuna, carrots, peppers, avocado, mayonaise
Shredded chicken, sweet potatoes, fruit
Omelette with sausage, kale, and asparagus
Left-over beef roast with kale, onion, green beans and sweet potato
Left-over beef stew with apples, carrots, sweet potatoes, and onion

Dinners:

Spaghetti squash with ground beef, diced tomatoes, spinach, onions, and peppers
Beef roast with kale, onion, carrots, sweet potatoes, and green beans
Beef stew with apples, carrots, sweet potatoes and onion
Turkey chili with tomatoes, onions, and kale
Cauliflower pizza dough with sausage, onion, tomatoes, and peppers
Sausages with onions, apples, kale, and cucumber salad
Crustless spinach quiche

I’ll be honest: looking at my meal plan, the estimated cost of groceries for this week terrified me! Nothing but fresh produce and meat! And this is my first week of living on cash only! What if it was more than the $200 I allotted us??

I had a handful of the ingredients already (5 peppers, green beans, cucumbers, riced cauliflower, diced tomatoes, almond butter, and capers) but I needed to buy everything else. When the cashier at Superstore finished ringing up my items, I was shocked!

Shocked!!!

Now, I still need 2 rotisserie chickens (those are my lazy-protien days ) and a spaghetti squash, so my final total will be closer to $150. I’m sure I could do a little better on the produce if I went to H&W Produce, but I didn’t want to make 2 trips into the city today.

Not bad, hey? And this is for ALL FOUR of us!

Switching to gluten-free grain flours and products bumped my monthly food bill from $600/month to $850. It kills me to spend $4-8 on a loaf of bread. This will take a huge chunk off that total, AND it will also keep Leith from buying lunch every day. $8-10 a day, 5 days a week?? That’s another $200 a month saved right there!

I am so excited, and my mouth is watering just looking at the menu. I can’t wait to start…48 hours to go!

The No’s: any grains/rice/quinoa, seeds (including peas and corn), soy, dairy, legumes, sugar, caffeine (other than tea), and alcohol

I can’t wait to share the results with you

The Whole 30 Plunge

Posted on July 18, 2012 by Meaghan

I’m a little bit excited, a whole lot nervous, and very indecisive about when to start…

I read a great book this past week, in keeping with two other foodie books I read this past year. The first was Wheat Belly. This was my insight into the problems caused by eating grain. I needed to understand more about celiac and gluten, and this was a great resource.

From there, I moved onto Robb Wolf’s paleo bible, The Paleo Solution. It was another interesting read, but quite frankly, I didn’t like his tone. It was too casual and condescending for me. I know too many of “those types” from my fitness background. But I liked the material and the theories. Between that and Wheat Belly, it all made sense.

But of course, I like dairy and I love wine.

Unfortunately, 6 weeks into my naturopathic journey, I still feel blah despite strengthening my adrenal system and trying to improve my quality of sleep. I’ve thought about doing another sugar fast, and other than two oversights, I have been gluten free for all of July.

That’s when Laurie pointed me in the direction of It Starts With Food. It’s another paleo-style book, but I found a greater connection to the why: why I shouldn’t be eating dairy, or legumes, or grains. It also lays out a great 30-day purge, if you will, to challenge you to eat within Paleolithic nutritional guidelines and what to expect.

More importantly? It didn’t end with 30 days of meal plans. I hate meal plans. I won’t follow them, and I know that my family won’t follow them. I’ve tried to get eggs into my kids at breakfast. Not. Happening.

But guidelines? Perfect! Help me implement a lifestyle, instead of follow a chart! That I can do. I need that kind of flexibility.

I already know that nutritionally, I have something funky going on. My celiac test came back negative, but I feel better when I follow my girls’ celiac diet. One of the next steps my naturopath wants to take is eliminating dairy. Between those two, I’m halfway there already, so why not take the full Whole 30 plunge?

I just can’t narrow down the when. You see, there’s nothing stopping me from starting tomorrow. The problem lies in my Vegas trip in just under 3 weeks. I know that it will be a hard thing to follow while staying in a hotel, revolving around a conference schedule. I don’t know how easy it will be (time- or convenience-wise), and I don’t want to set myself up for failure.

What would you do? Would you commit to the full 30 days, and hope for the best for 5 days in Vegas? Or would you wait until you got back and just make small changes in the meantime?

I really want to try this. I want to buckle my diet down to good food that my body was designed to digest. I am SO sick of feeling sick and tired and unwell. I’m tired of feeling achy, dehydrated, sore, swollen, and inflamed with no discernible cause.

I’m giving myself until Monday to (decide to) start. My next half marathon is this Sunday, and I don’t want to change anything right before a race. But in the meantime, I’d love some feedback. And, if you’d like to join me, I’d love to have a team to survive with

Homemade Gluten-free Failures

Posted on July 13, 2012 by Meaghan

Well, that was disgusting.

The thought that ran through my head as I finished eating a piece of my latest disaster…

This whole new celiac lifestyle has thrown my kitchen for a loop. I just can’t see to find from-scratch recipes that are consistently tasty, nor can I figure out how to modify my existing recipes.

Tonight, for example:

At first glance, it looks beautiful. But this bread normally resembles a round, crusty sourdough loaf instead of a crumbly biscuit disc. It’s the simplest of recipes: flour, water, yeast, salt. Mix, rise, form balls, rise, bake. My friend has successfully substituted quinoa flour and soaked chia seeds for the regular wheat flour. I did the same.

It failed.

A) It didn’t rise. It poufed a little in the bowl, but that’s it. It definitely didn’t rise a second time.

B) It tastes like dirt. Oh, so very gross. So very…quinoa. I had to drown it in almond butter and jam to destroy the flavour, and now I have a very distinctive quinoa aftertaste in my mouth.

Yuck.

I have found a great pizza crust mix, a great pancake mix, and a great bread mix in the celiac/gluten-free sections of our supermarket. I’ve even found decent brownie and chocolate chip cookie mixes.

But from scratch? I quit. It took me 28 years to learn how to love cooking and baking, and the last 4 months have single-handedly destroyed my desire to even try anymore. This sucks

31 Things

Posted on June 16, 2012 by Meaghan

I intended to write this post a year ago. I was so full of pizazz over turning 30…and then I got distracted by something shiny.

So instead of having a dry, dull 31st birthday tomorrow, I decided to kick off my original 30′s plan with a list of 31 things to accomplish this year! Some are borrowed from my list of 101 in 1001, and others are new interests and goals that don’t fall into that

Learn to use my sewing machine
Set up a sewing area in my house
Sew kitchen curtains
Create a new garden plot for vegetables behind the shed
Build 2 or 3 raised perennial beds
Plant our hydrangea and night bark trees
Make dill pickles and carrots
Give homemade Christmas gifts
Take the bugz berry picking at Happy Acres U-pick
Take the whole family back to the Calgary Zoo and Heritage park this summer
Spend a month actually following my girls celiac diet, instead of cheating
Having my wedding rings soldered now that the set is complete
Go to the whisky bar with Leith
Buy an acoustic guitar and keep learning
Finish the Okanagan marathon this fall
Bring home lots of Okanagan wine from the marathon trip
Spend a blissful week in Mexico this winter!
Go scuba diving
Build a sand castle on the beach
Spent an exorbitant amount of money on a bottle of funky wine. Drink it NOW.
Have Leith show me how to change the oil in a vehicle and change a tire on my car
Have an acreage party tweet up
Learn to ride a motorcycle…in a very controlled setting
Have a “YES” day
Find a really, really, REALLY good gluten-free chocolate chip cookie recipe. For real.
Send a handwritten letter
Use the rest of my Bikram 20-pass before it expires!
Buy houseplants…possibly keep alive
Buy myself something extravagant without guilt
Eat a freaky flavour of ice cream, like dill pickle
Go to the roller derby…hell, maybe even go roller skating!!!

30 was the year of growth, and healing. It was the biggest roller coaster of my life, and I wouldn’t trade my experiences for the world. The past year shaped me into the woman I am today: strong, confidant, beautiful, healthy, happy, loved, loving, and damn proud of myself.

It’s a pretty good platform from which to leap into 31.

MagzD Life

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