Easing into the gluten free life

We've began easing into the gluten, dairy, sugar free diet. I made two meals that I found on www.glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com and I am confident I will be visiting her blog often because they were both delicious! We didn't feel that we were missing anything from our meals. The first was a yummy soup, called the morroccan coconut and chickpea soup which includes granny smith apples, sweet potatoes, baby greens and coconut milk. As I was tossing everything into the pot to cook, I felt like a kid tossing anything and everything in for fun but it turned out wonderful and it was super easy to make. I literally just added almost every ingredient and cooked it for about half and hour before adding the greens and serving it. This soup was so satisfying it didn't need anything to go with it. The next meal includes turkey, I rarely eat turkey but I made this for the hubby and I ate it as well, gluten-free turkey and sweet potato enchiladas. It was just a bit spicy I think mainly because of the salsa I used, the hubby loved it and it fed us for two meals and there is enough for lunch tomorrow. I added some organic brown rice and a fresh cut pineapple as the sides as well as dairy-free "cheese". Again, we felt like we were splurging with this meal, it was very good. Now I'm excited to try some more new meals and begin my health transformation. :-)

Useless Purchases

I want to try something in 2013, hopefully it becomes a habit. It is: to stop making needless purchases. You know, that plastic contraption that you bought for the kids that was never really touched but it was such a good deal, or that cool, ginormous coffee table book which nobody looks at? I wish to STOP, think and put the pair of $2.00 mittens down. Yesterday I was excited to realize I just had my first non-purchase, I was planning on going to the store for a few food items and thought to myself "oh! I should pick up some party items for us, Zury would love confetti, noise-makers and a hat." If I had gone I'm positive I would have found other fun new year party items and on sale too! Moments later I remembered that those things would be useless items so I didn't buy them and I feel...good! There are several reasons to make this a habit. A) We live in a 700 square foot home with a toddler, two dogs, two cats and they all come complete with their own kitchen sets, beds and litter boxes. Also, I am a pack rat. No, scratch that...I'm a saver. 2) To save money. D) Because our precious Earth deserves a break. I think it would be fun to keep track of all my non-purchases to see how I do and imagine the pile of 'stuff' that would be piled in my extra space. So without further adieu, here is my list... #1 New Years party items. #2 Some books and toys at Barnes and Noble that were marked down 50%.