Reintroduction Day 12: 02/28/14

I have been thinking about my long term plans after finishing this diet. Honestly, I don't really have cravings for dairy or anything that I have been avoiding. Maybe that's just because they have been out of my diet for so long. I don't know how to get back into eating normally.

This situation is kind of funny! Before I started this diet, I could not imagine my life without cheese, yogurt and ice cream. They were seriously a main part of my diet. I didn't want to try a diet like this because I didn't think I could make it without them. Now I am wondering if I should even eat them anymore. I'm asking how do even start eating them more often? And do I even want to? Who would have thought that I could go from dairy every day to not even needing it anymore. I'm just so completely surprised with how much this diet has changed my eating habits. I'm scared to go back to eating dairy whenever I want. I feel so good now and so energetic and clear-headed all of the time. I'm worried that it might stop if I actually reintroduce foods long-term. How do I know I really can tolerate dairy?!

I guess I will just have to take it all one week at a time, like I have with the "challenging" parts of this diet. I'm not really sure what I want to do, maybe one week I will want to try making zucchini noodle lasagne and use ricotta cheese. Or maybe on my birthday, I'll want real ice cream. I guess I'll just have to see when I get there. I will definitely continue to be really tuned into my body and how I am feeling though. That is definitely one of the most important things I will come away from this experience with. I have become more in-tune to how my digestion works and what sets off my headache and what makes me feel groggy and what slows down my digestion. So, while I am taking things one week at a time, I will continue to note the ways that I am feeling and listen to what my body is telling me. Isn't that the point of this whole exercise, to really understand what makes me the strongest, healthiest and best I can be?

After sleeping on it last night, I am reconsidering my statement that I can tolerate dairy. I definitely can digest it alright but I think it has otherwise effected my system. This week I have felt more negative and less balanced than I have in the past few weeks. I am thinking it has to do with eating dairy again. I have also gotten some acne this week and my knees and joints have been hurting more. I think that this means that I will be avoiding it most of the time. I will still probably have lasagne once in a while, or baked mac and cheese but I think my days of eating diary every day are over.

I realized last night that I won't ever go back to the way I used to eat, there is no more "normal". For the most part I will be creating a new normal way of eating that hopefully will leave me feeling strong and balanced. I almost don't want to test corn next week because I don't want to feel the depressed symptoms I felt this week. Hopefully the two are different for my system...

Reintroduction Day 11: 02/27/14

Today was my last day testing dairy! I had ice cream in the evening and it was yummy, I love the flavor of vanilla so vanilla ice cream is definitely my favorite! In all of my recipes I almost double the vanilla because I just love the taste! I want to start cooking with real vanilla because the flavor will be stronger!!!

Anyway after a week of testing dairy I think that I can say with confidence that I had not bad symptoms and I will be able to eat it more. I'm questioning my decision with eggs though and wondering if the sugar in the bread and maple syrup may have clouded my judgement of it. I mean it's not too hard to eliminate them from my diet, but baking is definitely easier with eggs. Although I have been enjoying the challenge of baking almost vegan. JJ says to keep looking for symptoms days 4-7 so I guess I will be looking for the after effects of dairy this weekend...

Reintroduction Day 10: 02/26/14

I am definitely enjoying testing dairy! Although, its not all as good as I remember it being. Maybe since I haven't been able to eat it for a while I have built it up in my head to be amazing. Cheese is still just cheese, which is good but not as heavenly as I had been imagining. I had Amy's gluten-free mac and cheese for lunch today. It was good but my favorite lunch is still refried beans on a rice tortilla!

I haven't been doing any interesting cooking this week because I have had three exams. Maybe I should tell my professors that I can't do my midterms because I have to keep up with my blog...haha. I have some good plans for next week though, I'm going to make more paleo granola and also I think I want to make spaghetti squash chicken lo mein. I still can't have soy though so I will also have to use a soy-free soy sauce recipe. I'm not sure you can still call it soy sauce if it doesn't even have soy.. My favorite flavor in Chinese cooking is definitely the scallions though, those make every recipe so I will at least be starting with something tasty! I also want to try and make those egg-free macaroons again but this time make them with no honey (or any sugar), so they will be vegan! I really love the taste of coconut so I think I will still like them! I'll let y'all know how they turn out!

Reintroduction Day 9: 02/25/14

Today was day two of dairy and I had string cheese with my lunch, again all is well and I am not having any bad symptoms!

People seem to be most interested in my other post about my daily nutrition, so I thought that I would share another day. Here is what I ate today: 

 

As usual I began the day with my usual breakfast smoothie and my vegan and paleo breakfast muffins! Rice tortillas with refried beans is my absolute favorite thing to have for lunch! It is just so filling with the tortilla and the beans and I love it! I look forward to it every week! I had it with my usual salad with a little bit of apple on top. I started dinner with green beans and spinach that I cooked in coconut oil and then had one of my stuffed peppers! It was a very delicious day and all of my nutrition was right on track!

Reintroduction Day 8: 02/24/24

Today was the first day of dairy! I had plain greek yogurt with my lunch and I'm happy to report that I felt fine afterwards. I am so happy because I love yogurt and I definitely want to be able to eat it. I made sure to get plain yogurt because I didn't want sugar to confuse my system with the yogurt. I am starting to wonder if really it has just been sugar all along!

When I think about it that kind of makes sense. In all of the foods that I have questioned over time there is also sugar! Yes, ice cream has dairy, but it also has sugar! Tomato sauce has sugar; maple syrup is sugar! It makes so much sense now!

Reintroduction Day 7: 02/23/14

I have four different types of dairy ready to test next week: yogurt, string cheese, mac and cheese and ice cream. I'm nervous but also very excited to be able to eat dairy again!

For my dinners this week I made stuffed bell peppers and they turned out very well! I put in black beans, rice and ground beef with some tomato sauce. It was actually very easy to make them all and now I have all of my dinners made for the week! I made a total of six stuffed peppers and froze one of them for some night in the future.

Reintroduction Day 6: 02/22/14

This week I am back to my regular kale smoothies!

(The fruit looks a bit sad because it has been defrosted from the freezer over night)

I usually alternate my Breakfast Smoothies switching from kale to avocado. I pair these smoothies with Vegan and Paleo Breakfast Muffins or Paleo Granola. Together they give me a well-rounded breakfast with plenty of protein and fiber to get me through the morning until lunch time!

When I went grocery shopping last night I bought everything I need to test dairy next week. I am very nervous and excited! I hope that everything goes okay and I won't have any problems! 

Reintroduction Day 5: 02/21/14

I finally perfected my Vegan and Paleo Breakfast Muffins! By accident, I added a lot less baking powder and the muffins turned out wonderful! The first time I made these they didn't quite cook through because of all the bananas in there to substitute for the eggs. This time I brought the temperature of the oven down and added extra time and they were great! I think I will now take that step from the beginning when I am using bananas as an egg replacement.

Reintroduction Day 4: 02/20/14

Today was my last day testing eggs, I had french toast for lunch again. I made it with just egg whites to see if that made a difference. I didn't really feel any symptoms after eating it, which was surprising since I really felt some on Tuesday. I am wondering if maybe I just got used to eating eggs or maybe using just egg whites made a difference. I definitely have more acne this week, so if it goes away after my egg-free days, I guess I can blame it on the eggs.

Before this diet, I never really ate eggs very often. I would have them in baked goods, but I don't like fried or scrambled eggs. I have only eaten french toast maybe five times in my life. I think that in the future I will probably just avoid eggs as often as I can. For the most part it is easy to substitute them in baking and when I am offered french toast I will probably take it. Even though my symptoms seemed to disappear after a few days, I think it is safe to say that eggs will go on my list to avoid 95% of the time.

One of my friends found me some store-bought cookies that I can actually eat. They are not too bad in terms of gluten-free food, most of the time these include soy and corn as substitutes. These cookies had millet flour and none of the top allergens! I would definitely recommend these they are really great!

Reintroduction Day 3: 02/19/14

Today I just had another slice of my Chocolate Cinnamon Bread (hmm maybe taking out some cinnamon would make the chocolate bread less bitter- lesson learned after the French Toast fiasco). I actually felt fine for the most part after eating this. I took an epsom salt bath maybe too soon after which made my stomach feel a bit upset. I didn't feel the same headachey/tiredness though so maybe the bath was just not a good place for digesting. I noticed I had a bunch of new acne this morning though, that could also be a sign of an egg intolerance. I honestly wish it would be just a bit clearer and maybe I would get hives or something so it was really obvious...

For dinner this week I have been enjoying a delicious beef stew that I made in the crockpot on Monday! It was pretty simple to make I ended up adding green beans and peas because there weren't any veggies in the stew. I have been looking forward to my dinners all week with this stew!

Reintroduction Day 2: 02/18/14

Turns out French Toast without maple syrup isn't that awesome. I really didn't want sugar side-effects to confuse me about eating eggs so I tried to eat sans sweetener. I added maybe too much cinnamon and it was just not that enjoyable. I think I am getting better at making French Toast though, I have never made it before this week.

Today, I was really tired and had a headache on and off all day. I'm wondering if already the eggs are giving me allergy symptoms. I think it will be clearer after Thursday, then I can look back on all the times I ate eggs.

Reintroduction Day 1: 02/17/14

Today was my first day testing eggs! It has only been a little while since I had a slice of my Paleo Chocolate Cinnamon Bread! I don't really feel anything too specific now, no hives or anything...I think that it might be easier to tell if I have a sensitivity after my egg days. That way I can look back and compare those four days to how I feel all of the time.

I originally made this bread for Thanksgiving last year, I didn't change the recipe at all but baked it using a gluten-free flour blend. I really wanted to challenge myself to use almond flour, coconut milk, honey and grapeseed oil instead of the flour, buttermilk, butter and sugar the recipe calls for. I also only used 1/4 of the amount of sugar the recipe calls for. My taste-testers said that the bread was pretty bitter, but I think that its pretty good. It might need a bit of a pick me up like some chocolate chips or cranberries, I'll definitely experiment with that next time!

I wanted to make a post about my breakfast smoothies! Every morning I have a green smoothie with my Momshine Granola sprinkled on top, like a parfait. There is a breakdown of everything in my smoothie from this morning in my Breakfast Smoothie Recipes.

Every other week I swap the avocado for 2 cups of chopped kale. This is my first week doing avocado and I think I like the kale smoothies just a little better, but the avocado does make the smoothies very creamy! According to my nutrition app this smoothie has: 346 calories,  9g of fiber and 3.2g of protein!

Elimination Day 21: 02/16/14

This post is going to be about understanding Cycle 2 which is Reintroduction. These names sounds so official, when I think of them I imagine a booming voice announcing them.

Testing Food:
Monday-Thursday add the food into one meal per day
Friday-Sunday go back to elimination diet

Reactions:
Days 1-3= can no longer be in your diet, re-challenge the food in 90 days
Days 4-7= rotate the food every fourth day in your diet
No reactions= put the food in your diet for every 2-3 days

I have a whole list of reaction symptoms written in my journal:

I will be reintroducing eggs, dairy and corn (in that order). JJ Virgin suggests reintroducing gluten, dairy, eggs and soy. I was gluten-free for a year prior to doing this diet and I have no desire to change that so I won't bother challenging gluten. The only time I eat soy is in gluten-free tamari sauce, which I have actually found recipes for which have no soy. I am happy to eliminate it completely from my diet since it is usually GMO anyway. I decided to challenge corn just because I have been curious about it for a while now. Back in December after eating a bag of microwave popcorn per day for months, realized that I was starting to feel tired and groggy after eating corn. I stopped eating then, so I just was curious to reintroduce it now after the elimination diet to really see what effect it has on me.

In preparation for next week I ordered some bread from Sami's Bakery and bought a half dozen eggs. I'm going to make french toast two days this week and then make some baked good using eggs for the other two days and alternate. The baked good will involve some experimenting and I don't want to use a lot of sugar, so I'll have to wait and see how it turns out before I share!

As I write this post I am enjoying my date coconut rolls. I made a point if buying a whole pound so there would be a chance of these lasting until next week:

Elimination Day 20: 02/15/14

I can't wait forever for Whole Foods to start stocking The Good Bean, so today I am roasting chickpeas myself! It has been a bit of an experiment but they turned out pretty good!  I drained a can of organic garbanzo beans and put them into a bowl. I poured in about a tablespoon of olive oil and then some coarse salt. I roasted in the oven at 250 degrees for 1 hour. Every 10-15 minutes I would make sure to shake the beans around on the tray so they cooked evenly. I can't wait to enjoy these all week!

I stopped by a going out of business sale near Whole Foods and got two lovely glass jars for storage. They even have rubber to make a nice seal! They are perfect for holding all of my breakfast muffins for next week and they were just $4 each! I can't decide what to put in the other jar, any ideas?

Elimination Day 19: 02/14/14

Happy Valentine's Day!

Today was grocery shopping day and I found a great deal for lunch at Whole Foods! Has anyone else seen the 4 for $4 promotion that they offer in the prepared foods section? I got a whole quinoa sweet potato burger, sweet potato and a bean salad for $4. I was so excited to get home and eat my lunch!

I got all of the ingredients to make a beef stew for dinner this week, I'll make sure to share whatever recipe I end up using!

I think it is about time that I do a little writing about cheating on diets. I would like to begin by proudly saying that I have not cheated once on this diet. I have gone almost three entire weeks with no diary, gluten, corn, soy, eggs, peanuts or excessive sugar. It is extremely important not to cheat, because it could lessen the effects of the food when you do eventually test it and they may not be noticeable. I have already experienced this with some of the desserts I have baked. I went the first full week without having any sweets and when I had them the second week I definitely felt the symptoms.

I believe that part of the reason that I haven't cheated at all is because I really want to prove after this that I still can eat dairy! I would hate to loose cheese and ice cream and yogurt! I want to do this diet to the best of my abilities because that way when I don't have a diary allergy I will know it for certain and no one can question it and say that maybe I do! I am getting nervous for testing foods in the next few weeks! Everyone wish me luck!

Elimination Day 18: 02/13/14

Today I made myself a delicious treat to enjoy tomorrow on Valentine's Day! I made Elana's egg free coconut macaroons and they were amazing! I used my almond flour instead of coconut flour and they were so good!

Here they are before they baked, as you can see I added some chocolate chips for garnish: 

After: 

I am really enjoying all of the new recipes I am learning and all of the challenges that come along with allergen-free cooking! Sometimes I wonder if cooking and writing cookbooks is really my dream job...

Elimination Day 17: 02/12/14

Today I had a fun time experimenting with almond flour muffins. I wanted to make a healthy-ish breakfast muffin, so I started with a basic recipe from my grandmother. I had to do a lot of substituting: almond flour instead of regular flour, banana instead of egg and grape seed oil instead of canola oil. I added an extra banana half some pecans and a dash of mini chocolate chips to add flavor. My biggest feat with these muffins was not adding sugar! The recipe called for a lot of sugar which I thought I could just do a little honey instead, but I became determined to have no sugar in these muffins! (Well, except for 1/4 cup of mini dark chocolate chips!)

Here's the final result:

They came out a little mushy on the inside, which must have been because of all the banana. Next time I will just lower the oven temperature and add more time for them to bake. It might also help to take out some of the oil to make things a little drier. The flavor is definitely right though, I wish I'd had some raisins to add because that would have been really great (and healthier than the dark chocolate chips). After another experiment I will share the recipe!

Elimination Day 16: 02/11/14

Greens! Greens! Greens! I am all about eating delicious green vegetables! I wanted to share with everyone some more details of my nutrition. Here is what I ate today, straight out of my food journal:

Today, I ate approximately 2 cups of kale, 1 heart of romaine, 1 cup baby spinach, 1.5 cups of broccoli, 1/2 cup petite green peas.  This is pretty much a normal day for me and I am so proud of that! I am starting avocado instead of kale in my morning smoothies, but I eat salad every day and my greens at night are always bountiful!

I am including screen shots of My Fitness Pal which I use to make sure I am eating enough protein and calories.

The goals are just based on my current weight and my desire to maintain my current weight. The app calculated all of those for me but you can change them in the settings based on your personal weight and fitness goals.

I ate three banana halves when I was volunteering tonight, so that added a lot of sugar to my day. They had Domino's pizza, the smell of which makes me reconsider my gluten-free diet, so I ate some bananas to restrain myself. In retrospect, this was definitely not my strongest day in terms of eating all of my calories and protein. I didn't realize how few calories the soup I had planned for dinner had and next day I eat that, I will definitely be adding something extra to supplement that nutrition.

Also, the hummus I ate is the stuff that Whole Foods made for me so I didn't know what the exact nutrtional content was and I just used Athenos Hummus as a close approximation.

Here's my recipe for Momshine Granola, my yummy paleo breakfast!

Elimination Day 15: 02/10/14

Tonight for dinner I had paleo chicken pot pie and it was so good! 

Here is the recipe I used, another wonderful product of hours spent browsing Pinterest! I only made 1/4 of the recipe since I just wanted to make two personal chicken pot pies. It turned out really good for my first chicken pot pie. I was a little disappointed with the consistency of the crust. Even after chilling it for an hour, it was just so crumbly and sticky. I had trouble rolling it out and ended up just stretching it over the pie. I imagine that if I had rolled it out, the top would have been slightly above the contents of the pie which would have kept it from getting soggy. Though the crust was soggy, it had all of the right flavors and was absolutely delicious! It was a lot of work the first night, but the second night I just popped the pie in an hour before I wanted to eat. In the future I may make the full recipe and freeze some of the little pies for future dinners.

I also discovered these amazing date coconut rolls at Whole Foods in the bulk section! I will have to take a picture next time I buy them, but they are so yummy! I got five of them for just a few dollars and they are the perfect raw treat! I'm completely obsessed!

Elimination Day 14: 02/09/14

I have been thinking a lot about this diet as I come into the last week of the elimination cycle. I have realized that this diet will have done a lot more for me beside potentially helping me discover food sensitivities. I realized that even if I have no sensitivities when I test eggs and dairy, I will never eat the same way I did before.

I used to be a total sugar addict and while I still crave sweets, this diet has helped me feel the true effects of sugar on my body. When I made these chocolate chip cookies a few days ago and ate 8 cookies (see I do have a problem) in a day, I got a headache and woke up with acne on my face the next morning. I realize now it is just not worth how toxic it is to my body. Of course I will still enjoy occasional indulgences, but prior to this diet I used to eat massive amounts of candy in one day! I don't think I will ever be able to tolerate that amount of sugar again.

Another thing I have learned is to appreciate the power of greens! I used to eat salad every day and occasionally have asparagus or peas with dinner, but know I eat almost five servings of green vegetables a day (read how I do that here)! I will definitely continue to eat this way, I can't imagine eating dinner without first enjoying my pan of greens!

It has been a really huge challenge to cook and bake while avoiding all seven foods plus my known sensitivities. I have definitely found a lot of success with certain recipes and I now know that it is possible. I can really enjoy the baked goods that I love more often because I challenged myself to make them in a much healthier way (I'm especially proud of these muffins)!

Even if next week I don't discover any sensitivities, this diet has been one of the best choices I have ever made for my health. Maybe even before my decision to be gluten-free!

Elimination Day 13: 02/08/14

Today I am in hummus heaven! Yesterday I called ahead at Whole Foods and pre-ordered 2 lbs of tahini-free oasted red pepper hummus! Today I enjoyed it for lunch after my salad, I had green beans and carrots to dip and I spread some on a rice cake! Oh I have missed hummus since I came back to school! Trader Joe's has tahini-free hummus that I was enjoying at home over winter break but I had to go a few weeks without it since coming back to school.

I think this is the perfect amount of hummus don't you?

Elimination Day 12: 02/07/14

Today was grocery shopping day and I bought ingredients to make chocolate chip cookies! I had ordered almond flour from Amazon and I just needed the chocolate chips and grape seed oil. I used Elana's recipe and they came out so good! I baked just six and I put the rest into the freezer on a cookie sheet overnight and then put them into an air-tight container. I always do this when I make cookies because then I won't be seduced by the cookies into eating more than I want to and every time I want cookies they are freshly baked!

I have been wondering about my sleep habits. It has been taking me a lot longer to fall asleep this week than it did last week. I have been trying to think of the things that I am doing differently. At first I thought it was drinking lady grey tea in the morning, but even when I switched to decaf I still had trouble sleeping. Maybe the Emergen-C I drink after I run? But that hasn't been every day this week. Maybe it's just that I have been getting in bed too late and so I have my second wind? I did buy a dark chocolate bar this week and I have been eating a little bit after dinner every night but it is about 1/4 of what the label says is a serving. What could it be? When I track my sugar it seems about right, I am not going over 30g per day and most of that is from the smoothie I drink for breakfast. Hmm its a mystery!

Elimination Day 11: 02/06/14

I bought this new kind of almond butter and I have been eating it obsessively! It's Barney Butter Smooth Almond Butter and wow, so good! I love it because its really smooth and tasty, I decided to skip buying almond butter again this week because, it didn't make me feel so great when I ate it. My roommate pointed out that that may just be due to the fact that I ate it in mass quantities. She has had to point this out about a lot of things including: smartpuffs, tings and popcorn. It did only take me four days to eat the whole jar. I was a little sad that it didn't come in a glass jar because I have a whole collection of almond butter jars that I now use to store things:

Paleo Momshine Granola for breakfast and carrot sticks for snacking!

Elimination Day 10: 02/04/14

Wow this week just totally got away from me! I totally slacked on posting!

This week for my lunches I made a quinoa and garbanzo bean salad with orange pepper in it. I meant to add kale but forgot! It was really easy to make since I used canned grabanzo beans, which have more flavor. I used sprouted quinoa and I just threw it in the rice cooker and chopped the pepper and voila! It was great to bring with me on my busy days because I eat it cold with vinaigrette on it!

Elimination Day 9: 02/04/14

I have been recording my daily meals and symptoms in a journal every day. A food journal is more important for the reintroduction cycle, but I like keeping it now anyway so that I can be better at meal planning.

I'm kind of running out of things to write about. During school I don't really have a lot of time to try new recipes and experiment, I bought some almond flour online so hopefully I will have time to bake this weekend. First on my list to make: Elana's Chocolate Chip Cookies!!! Next maybe I'll do Paleo and Vegan Thin Mints! This might be a problem....

Elimination Day 8: 02/03/14

BEST DINNER EVER!!! I roasted a spaghetti squash, made meatballs and of course usual greens! I don't know what it was! The creamy spaghetti squash? Sauteing the onions before putting them in the meatballs? It was just so amazing! Here it is in all its yummy glory:

I haven't talked much about the changes I have noticed since starting this diet. First, I think that my running times have gotten a lot better! I went from 9:30 per mile to 8:45 per mile in the last week, and I was only able to run three times! My abs are also much more defined now, maybe this diet is helping with my muscles?

It is a little hard for me to tell what I can attribute to the diet because in the month of January I made a lot of changes in my life. I started running and conditioning three days a week; I started going to bed at 10:00pm and waking up at 8:30am every day! Before changing my sleep schedule, waking up at 10:30 seemed difficult! Those two lifestyle changes have definitely changed my energy levels! Starting this diet is almost just complementing how awesome I have been feeling anyway! I think the really telling part will be when I try to add back in foods that I am potentially sensitive to!

After dinner I roasted the seeds from my spaghetti squash! These will be my snack while I watch tv tonight! I did 350 for ten minutes and sprinkled them with a little Himalayan pink salt!

Elimination Day 7: 02/02/14

Things are going pretty well, I miss baked goods. I have been trying to collect recipes made with ingredients that I can eat. The next step would be to get the ingredients that I need to make them! The most difficult thing to find is vegan and egg free recipes. It seems that I can only find two of the three either glute-free, paleo or vegan. I think that the best solution will be to just get some flax seeds and start replacing the eggs in paleo recipes.

Here are some of the good ones that I have found!
egg-free paleo macaroons
paleo thin mints
paleo chicken pot pie (skipping the egg brush of course, maybe olive oil will work)
zuchinni apple spice muffins need flax seeds for this one!

I had my leftover chicken for lunch on a salad and it was very yummy with the clementine slices and my usual balsamic vinaigrette! 

Elimination Day 6: 2/1/14

Today I had my first non-dairy cheese experience. I bought Amy's frozen gluten-free, dairy-free macaroni and cheese as a treat. It was far from that. I was not fooled by the taste or consistency of the cheese and despite my efforts to make the taste better (adding dried mustard and salt) I couldn't finish the little tray. I think I'd rather just wait until I get to have the real thing again during cycle 2.

To make it up to myself, I went all out with dinner. I made orange chicken and rice! I had been craving some filling carbs so I broke down and made the rice. I got the idea for this chicken from a Better Homes and Gardens recipe for Power Kale Salad which is orange chicken served over kale. I don't particularly enjoy kale as a salad base, so I made rice instead. I also had my usual greens and I've finally got some pictures to make this blog more interesting.

Yum yum yum yum yum!

Looks way less healthy over white basmati rice, but it was so yummy! I bet this chicken would have been even better if I had freshly squeezed the tangerines and marinated the chicken in the juice over night! Maybe next time!

Elimination: Day 5 1/31/14

Day 5 is grocery shopping day. I broke down and got myself some Amy's gluten-free, dairy-free frozen macaroni and cheese. Thankfully, unlike most gluten-free options, there isn't any corn or soy hidden in it! It's sad that most of the things that could fit three of my criteria end up having soy to replace the diary or corn to replace the wheat. I guess this is going to be some kind of scavenger hunt!

Also, Whole Foods will make me hummus without tahini!!! I just have to buy 2lbs or more! Yay! Now I just have to find out if I can freeze hummus!