And then this happened...

I mentioned in a previous post, many months ago, that I had encountered unintentional/unexplained weight loss.  The trick of simply eating less filling and more calorically dense foods had minimal impact on my ability to gain or even maintain weight.  I chalked it up to my metabolism becoming super-awesome.  As months passed, little by little, I lost more weight.  Or I gained two pounds, only to turn around and lose three.  Honestly, I never felt bad, so I couldn't bring myself to be concerned.  It was the urging of my worry-wort parents that finally brought me to schedule an appointment with my MD (okay, and the annoying muscle fasciculations in my legs that have been present for longer than I've been vegetarian may have had some impact on that as well).

Long story short, after losing a half gallon of my blood for testing, I received a call from my Doctor's nurse.  Man, I hate it when they call back.  She told me I tested positive for Celiac Disease.  I may have cried like someone died after I got off of the phone.  Then I may have looked at all of the lovely, delicious beer in the fridge and cried some more.  I'm totally used to omitting things from my diet at this point, and I'm used to the difficulties of dining out as someone who doesn't consume meat or dairy.  But gluten?  Say it ain't so.  Things have gone from difficult to seemingly impossible.  Gluten appears in places it has no business being.  I have faith that I'll eventually settle into the new diet, but it's going to be extremely challenging for me, as well as Husband-Dude.

On the plus side, all of my other blood work came back normal.  No anemia, or other deficiencies to speak of.  So, note to my father, I'm doing just fine without meat :p.

As for the future of blog?  Gluten-free, obviously.  Apologies!

Tex-Mex Lasagna

Living with a bean hater isn't easy, especially given that one of my primary sources of protein now is beans.  Knowing this, I try to avoid making bean-centric dishes for shared meals.  I've had a recipe for Tex-Mex Lasagna in 1,000 Vegan Recipes book marked for months, but hadn't made it due to the simple fact that it has a layer of mashed pintos.  We aren't exactly swimming in money here at present, so it was the perfect time to take an inventory of what I have on hand and make my weekly menu based on that.  Also, for a person who loves food, I absolutely loathe going food shopping.  Beanie lasagna won the Monday night slot.  I had planned on playing the mean cook, and telling bean hater he didn't have to eat it, but he might be hungry if he skipped dinner.

I kept my mouth shut, and portioned it into eight pieces (pieces of either, kaw!), and smothered each individual serving with extra queso sauce.  Holy.....jalapenos.  Yum.  The combination of the salsa sauce, creamy beans, black olives, and whole wheat pasta was/is freakin' awesome.  The bean-hating HD asked for seconds!  I love it when omnivores and noobtastic vegetarians can find a middle-ground.  Guess what's for lunch today?

It's all gravy

A few nights ago, I made sweet potato shepherd's pie and had to make a batch of mushroom gravy for it.  Rather than halving the gravy recipe and making only what I needed, I went ahead and made the whole thing leaving me with a little over a cup of extra.  I figured I'd have no problem using it up before the end of the week.  Well, yesterday was do or die.  I hate throwing food away unless it's all green, gaggly, and crawling with mold.  Lunch and dinner were already spoken for, leaving me with breakfast as the only opportunity for gravying.  I nuked a serving of Bob's High Fiber Hot Cereal with some chives, parsley, and a pinch of salt.  I reheated the gravy separately and topped the cereal with it.

Tasty stuff.  I had a bowl of Kix immediately afterward because my sweet tooth was throwing a temper tantrum.

White Bean Gazpacho - Soup for Lazy Girls

The amount of prep and cooking time with some of the stuff I make borders on insane.  Sometimes I want food that I don't have to spend an hour or five on.  This cold soup is just the ticket!  Creamy, spicy deliciousness.

If you've got an extra few minutes, using fresh tomatoes and jalapenos would probably be better, but it was yummy as is.  Also, if you refrigerate the beans and tomatoes ahead of time, it cuts the chilling time drastically.

White Bean Gazpacho

From Short-Cut Vegan

3-4 servings (I split it into 2 giant servings)

Ingredients

1 can of navy beans, or other white beans

1 small clove of garlic

2 to 3 teaspoons red wine vinegar

1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes with chiles, such as Rotel

1 average size cucumber, peeled and coarsely chopped

salt to taste (I used about 1/8 tsp)

hot sauce for serving

1. Empty beans and bean liquid into a food processor. Add 2 teaspoons of vinegar, salt, and garlic.  Process until smooth.  I let it go for a couple of minutes.

2. Transfer bean puree into a large bowl and stir in the tomatoes and cucumber.  Taste and add more vinegar or salt if desired.

3. Chill soup for 30 minutes, or as long as you can wait.  Serve with your preferred variety of hot sauce.