Orange Chocolate Chip Cookies

I took another stab at gluten free baking today. They tasted good, but once again had a funky consistency. Very crunchy after they cooled. I won't take all the blame though. Trying to bake at altitude is hard enough. At least they are better than my muffin disaster last weekend.
I also got to play around with my Lensbaby!

Recipe adapted from vanessam.hubpages.com
Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour (I used 1 cup gluten free all purpose and 1cup oat, don't ask me why)
• 1 tbsp minced orange peel
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup butter
• 1/3 cup fresh orange juice
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350º F. Lightly oil a cookie sheet. In a medium bowl, combine flour, orange peel, baking powder and salt. Set aside. In a separate bowl cream together sugar and butter. Add vanilla and orange juice and blend well. Combine wet and dry mixtures, and mix to combine. Stir in chocolate chips.
Drop dough onto your prepared sheet, and bake for 15–20 minutes. Let cool on sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire cooling rack.

Orange Carrot Oat Muffins

This was my first attempt at baking with gluten free flour. I chose oat flour because it was safe- I'm familiar with the taste and bake with oats often. All purpose flour would have been a better choice but it has chickpea flour in it and chickpeas hate me. They turned out VERY DENSE (is it possible for something to be moist and dry at the same time?), but tasted great.

Recipe adapted from Yummly
Ingredients:

• 1/2cup olive oil
• 1/2cup vanilla coconut milk
• 2tbsp fresh orange juice
• 3tbsp sugar
• 1 large carrot shredded
• 1tsp ground cinnamon
• 1tsp ground ginger 
• 2tbsp maple syrup 
• 1cup rolled oats
• 1-1/4cup oat flour
• 1tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 350F. Combine oil, sugar, coconut milk, orange juice, and shredded carrot together. Add cinnamon, ginger and golden syrup. Fold in oat flour, baking powder and oats. Spoon batter into muffin pan. Bake for 20-25min. 

Gluten Free Cupcake Thursday

Today's flavor was chocolate with peanut butter frosting.

It was delicious.

Overnight Oats

This morning I woke up and went to my favorite Vinyasa class and came home to a DELICIOUS bowl of overnight oats. What a perfect way to start the day.

Recipe adapted from Skinny Taste
Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup quick oats
• 1/2 cup almond milk
• 1 tbsp chia seeds
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1 banana
• seed and nut trail mix
• maple syrup

Place oats, almond milk, chia seeds, vanilla, and cinnamon in a mason jar with lid. Shake to combine and refrigerate overnight. In the morning remove jar from fridge and go to yoga while it thaws! Put mixture in a bowl and top with sliced bananas, trail mix, and drizzle with maple syrup (add a little more almond milk if you'd like).

Weekly Meal Planning

One thing that I think is really important when you have GI issues is meal preparation. If you're always prepared with something to eat that's good for your tummy, you're less likely to just eat whatever is lying around. Sunday is the perfect day to go grocery shopping and plan out meals and snacks to set yourself up for a successful week of feeling great. These are the meals and snacks that I've planned for the week. I've been trying to eat more veggies.

Snacks

• Mozzarella sticks wrapped in turkey
• Lactose free yogurt cups
• Carrots and peanut butter (Sounds weird but tastes surprisingly good)
• Hard boiled eggs and chocolate almond milk (Also sounds a little weird but it has a ton of protein and curbs my sweet tooth. If you need something sweet it's best to pair it with protein so your blood sugar won't spike.) 
• Macrobars- I just saw these for the first time at Whole Foods and got to try a sample. Ok like 5 samples. They are the first protein bar I've found that is completely FODMAP free!
• and of course Bobo's Oat bars. These can be trouble though since they're a little over 300 calories per bar. Usually I'll eat half mid-morning and the other half in the afternoon.

Meals

• Baked chicken and sweet potato
• Salad- mixed greens, cucumber, shredded carrot, grape tomatoes, red pepper, hard boiled eggs, and balsamic dressing.
• Tuna salad on a bed of fresh greens- I like to make tuna salad with a little light mayo, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and Cholulaha and will sometimes add cucumber and grapes.
• Stir fry- I always keep jasmine rice, chicken, zucchini, scallions, peanuts, and red peppers on hand so my husband can make stir fry :) 

After looking at this list I realize how much I like to snack.

Favorite Food Friday

My favorite treat lately has been iced coffe with LOTS of ice and french vanilla coconut creamer. I'm not a huge coconut fan so I was reluctant to try this (I really don't care for coconut yogurt) but I'm so glad that I did. It's really creamy, sweet enough that you don't have to use a whole lot, and it doesn't have much of a coconut flavor. Yum!

Note to self...

... you can not eat food like a normal person so stop trying.

I haven't posted in a while because I've had a lot of tummy troubles and didn't want to sound like a Debbie Downer. But if this is a journal of sorts, and I want to reach others going through the same thing, then I've gotta share the bad too...

This sucks. I look like I'm pregnant and have stomach pains that feel like an alien is trying to escape my GI tract. I'm doing a lot better with eating low FODMAP meals and my symptoms have improved, but that's when I trick myself. "I feel great! Why not have that donut or that soy latte. I'm just like a normal person!" Then I load up on bad foods and the cycle starts all over again. Today I decided Indian food was a good idea. Followed by a chocolate chip cookie. So this is my reminder to stop it. Feeling healthy is better than cookies, Jessica.

Favorite Food Friday

This week's favorite food is... Green Valley's Lactose Free Vanilla Yogurt!

Silk soy yogurt used to be a staple in my diet. When I found out that I shouldn't be eating it and would need to switch over to real yogurt, I was actually disappointed. I've never preferred the taste of regular milk or yogurt and was reluctant to try this yogurt. I have to admit, it did take a couple days to get used to the consistency, but now I LOVE IT. Great lightly sweet flavor, very creamy and rich, and it's really filling too. I would eat twice as much soy yogurt to feel as full. Lately what I've been doing is having it with homemade maple cinnamon granola and a seed and nut trail mix.

My favorite day of the week...

...gluten free cupcake Thursday! Every Thursday the local cupcakery has gluten free cupcakes. I'm there every week. That's not too often right?

Clif Products

I am really enjoying IBS: Free at Last. It's very informative and is helping me feel less frustrated with this diet.  I've learned some new things about additives in foods and thought I should update my previous post on energy supplements for endurance sports. Sharkies are now out. They contain fruit juice concentrate which is a no-no. Clif Shot-Bloks and Clif Electrolyte Drink are in! and they are yummy too. Clif Bars and Energy Gels are unfortunately out but Bobo's Oat Bars are a good substitution.
And I'm still mourning the loss of Honey Stingers and Waffles.

IBS: Free at Last- second edition

Just got this book in the mail from Amazon. It's a great resource for anyone wanting to know more about the FODMAP diet. I'm only on page 12 and LOVE it already. Looking forward to the QA at the end and tips on coping with my crazy tummy.

More info from the author here.

Maple Cinnamon Granola

Granola is a great FODMAP friendly snack to have on hand, and it's super easy and fast to make. I really enjoy this recipe with Green Valley's lactose free vanilla yogurt.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups rolled oats
• 4 tbsp crunchy peanut butter
• 3 tbsp maple syrup
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/3 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease baking sheet. Stir together crunchy peanut butter, maple syrup, vanilla, and cinnamon. Next add in oats and raisins, and stir until mixed and oats are moist. Spread across greased baking sheet and bake for 6 minutes. Remove from oven, toss oats (to prevent burning on one side), and bake for 6 more minutes or until granola is slightly browned. Granola will continue to harden as it cools.

Green/Orange Smoothie

I just discovered how awesome RW Knudsen's Orange Carrot juice is and I want to drink it all day long. That probably wouldn't be a good idea so I decided to make a green smoothie with it instead. This is delicious and very sweet.

Ingredients:

• 4 oz almond milk
• 4 oz orange carrot juice
• 2 tbsp vanilla hemp protein powder
• handful of spinach
• a few frozen cucumber slices
• 1 frozen banana

Blend until smooth and enjoy!

Favorite Food Friday

I was really worried that being on this new diet (I hate the word diet, more like nutritional plan) would make me feel limited with my food choices, but it has actually opened my mind up to new things. There are a ton of new-to-me products I've fallen in love with, so I decided to start "Favorite Food Friday" to feature one every week. My husband wanted to call this post "Fantastically Flavorful FODMAP Free Food Friday", but I thought that was a little much. ;)
So the first most delicious food ever is... QUINOA PASTA!

Who would have thought? I used to hate quinoa. This pasta is blended with corn and you can't really tell it's not wheat, except that it has a delicious buttery flavor and texture. Which is better, so I will not miss traditional past at all! I've been making it with spinach and feta chicken sausage and 365 organic pasta sauce. They have one flavor of sauce that doesn't contain onions, just garlic. That seems to sit ok. I'd also love to try this mac n cheese recipe (minus the garlic and plus gluten free breadcrumbs).

Baked Oatmeal Snacks

I'm a big fan of snacking. And when you have dietary restrictions and work out a lot, it's a good idea to have healthy, tummy friendly snacks on hand to avoid eating naughty things when you're ravenous. Here are two of my favorite snacks made with oats.

CHEWY GRANOLA BAR BITES from Shape.com

Ingredients Makes 6 bites

• 1 cup old fashion oats
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 3/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice (cinnamon will also work)
• 2 tbsp chia seeds
• 2 tbsp ground flax seeds
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 egg white
• 1/2 cup milk

Preheat oven to 325 degrees and line muffin tin with paper cups. Combine oats, brown sugar, pumpkin pie spice, chia seeds, baking powder, and salt. Stir in milk and egg white into oat mixture. Divide batter among six muffin cups. Bake for approximately 15 minutes or until batter is fully set.

*This was my first time using silicon liners. They're amazing, I highly recommend trying them!


PUMPKIN PEANUT BUTTER OATMEAL BARS from loveveggiesandyoga.com

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup peanut butter 
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 2 cups rolled oats
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• (I added 1/2 cup chocolate chips and cut the sugar in half)

Combine all ingredients into a mixing bowl and stir by hand.  Spread batter (it will be pretty moist) into a foil-lined and spayed 8 x 8 or 9 x 9 pan.  Bake at 350F for 22-25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  The bars may still look underdone, but that’s ok because they will continue to set up as they cool.  Allow to cool very well before slicing.

*I had some leftover pumpkin puree from my Frosted Pumpkin Bars so I decided to make another type of pumpkin bar today. I also put a spoonful in a bowl of vanilla yogurt with nuts, seeds, and cinnamon and it tasted just like pumpkin whipped cream! I don't think I will ever get enough pumpkin.

Success

For the first time I went to a party and did not eat foods I knew were bad for my tummy. That is such a huge step for me. I passed up the artichoke dip, bread, crackers, and cream cheese dip, and I even put down my ginger ale when I realized it had high fructose corn syrup in it. Instead I munched on tortilla chips with guacamole and tomatoes, deviled eggs, and had a small glass of prosecco. And I wasn't even tempted this time to eat any of those bad foods. It's amazing how if you never give up and keep telling yourself you're worth it, you can overcome frustration and defeat and replace it with self love and success. What a great way to start the new year!

*Avocados have FODMAPS but I can tolerate about a half an avocado at a time.