Reluctant Veggie Girl turns to Gluten Free Slightly Organic Girl

So, I’m technically *not* off the meal plan at my school, but I have yet to eat in the caf since I have been back. Why? Because their food makes me a sick. I honesty doubt I’ll get off the meal plan, but I really can’t eat much in there other than cereal and salad. Mmmm… salad sounds so good right now. Salad leaves, honey mustard dressing, and some eggs and cheese. Yeah, that may not be the healthiest meal. But uh, I’m not the healthiest eater. Put some onions and some bell peppers in there… yeah I’m definitely craving healthy food right now. 

I’ve moved to a mostly gluten free diet. I even bought this Ezekiel bread at Earthfare, and while it’s expensive, it’s still pretty good. The thing that sucks about gluten free is I don’t really know what to eat. So I’ve been sustatining off of gluten-free rice chex and apples and that bread and cheese for like a week. Oh, and tons of corn ships and salsa. I don’t really know if that’s gluten-free, but it doesn’t mess my stomach up at least. 

So I am in need of some gluten free foods that can be fixed in a dorm. All I have is a mini fridge and a microwave. This honestly kinda stinks. I miss real food. 

A Meal Fit for a Wizard

For Christmas I received a Harry Potter Cookbook, complete with recipes to the delectable meals J.K. Rowling so tastefully describes for us in her books.

I picked out my main meal, the side dishes, and the dessert and played chef for the day.

I started with dessert first – apple crumble ice cream. I caramelized apple chunks and set them in the freezer until time to mix them into the ice cream. The crumble was made with butter and brown sugar and baked in the oven for around 15 minutes. (This was my favorite part of the meal!)

I then salt and peppered a roast, setting it in the oven to cook.

Yorkshire Pudding was next on the list. It tastes more like bread, and although it turned out not to be very pretty, it tasted delicious!

The last on the list was herb & vinaigrette potatoes. It smelled pretty strong, but it also tasted yummy!

My Harry Potter meal was a success. . . I can’t wait to go home and cook from it again!

Shish Kabob!

As I am typing this, I am enjoying a yummy sandwich at Panera. I even kept the lettuce and onion on it! I’ve come to like onions now. I guess my  big girl taste buds are finally kicking in. However, I do not like the onion taste in another’s mouth when you’re kissing that other. It’s actually quite disgusting. Like, make me want to gag disgusting. But that’s beside the point.

Last night my best friend and I made shish kabob dinner for our boyfriends. We grilled onions (yumm!), peppers, and chicken and shrimp all on kabobs. It was quite delicious, and I tried a vegetable each. I did not eat all the vegetables though.

While preparing the kabobs’s last night, I shish kabobbed my finger! It hurt. 😦 I started bleeding profusely and had to be taken to the emergency room. I only had a little blood.

I don’t have any pictures from this adventure because I thought I forgot my camera. Turns out I had my camera; I just didn’t know it. But I’m pretty sure the boys enjoyed our dinner. . . and they’ll probably expect it more often now. Ugh. Men.

Salad a la Moi

With this evenings delectable treats of Chicken Diapers (chicken mixed with cream cheese and sour cream wrapped in crescent rolls) we had green beans and salad.

Cauli Flower was in charge of the green beans. Bacon bits and sea salt and pepper were added to the simmering vegetable for flavor.

I was in charge of the salad. I poured the regular and spinach leaves into a bowl, cut up carrots and tomatoes and added some garlic and butter croutons.

I even cut the tomatos – and I do believe I did a fantastic job this time! See?

Also to note: a healthy lunch of chicken on wheat bread with honey mustard and lettuce, water to drink and strawberries for dessert. Once again later in the day I cheated and had some Doritos. I love that stuff 🙂

Whatever Tickles Your Pickle. . .

Yesterday I went to eat at a McAllister’s Deli. That place may be my new favorite sandwich shop. It is 98234 times better than Subway.

I do believe I made a very healthy choice in my dinner selection. (I had to considering my lunch was a healthy 1/4 bag of Doritos. I love that stuff!) I ordered a grilled chicken caesar wrap, with a water. So I splurged on the chips as my side. But a pickle was also on the side.

Normally, I just ignore the pickle and eat everything else. But yesterday, I decided to brave. After first offering my sister the pickle, I held it up in front of my face. It was so… green. And stinky. I was scared. But my sister coaxed me to try it.

So I closed my eyes and bit the bullet. Well, bit the pickle. You get it. This was the first pickle I’ve ever willingly tried in my whole entire life. Of course I’ve accidentally bit into them on my burger before, but that is just yucky.

Surprisingly, this pickle wasn’t too bad! I didn’t finish eating it because the chips were more important, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is – I tried a pickle and I think if I make myself I can eat them later in life!

An Emotional Cooking Experience

After an extended hiatus, your Reluctant Veggie Girl is back to take on the world! I have to admit I haven’t done much cooking or baking within the last six months. Life just got too busy! But tonight I helped out with the fourth of July cooking!

Supermom asked me to cut the onion to put on our hamburgers. I pulled out my trusty knife and proceeded to slice the thing – haphazardly so. The poor onion looked like it had been mauled by yours truly. I honestly couldn’t help it. Maybe I didn’t have the proper knife… or maybe I just didn’t know how to properly cut onions?? Supermom still made fun of me for my poorly sliced onions. It made me sad. I tried my hardest… but I still failed 😦

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Oh well.. Reluctant Veggie Girl at it again. I even tasted one of the onions I cut… for looking awful, it didn’t taste too bad!

Orange Molasses Sticky Pork with String Beans

Yes, it’s a long and complicated title for a relatively easy-to-make and healthy meal!

Reluctant Veggie Girl here reporting with a new recipe after an extensive leave of absence. Since the daily grind of school has started back up, I haven’t had as much time to try out my new recipes as I would like. But this past weekend, I set aside some time for some experimenting! And this time, my experiment is both healthy, and delicious rather than that baked good of my last post.

It was dinner time, and although my all time favorite meal is anything chicken related, I knew I needed to branch out and find other types of meat I could enjoy. So it was pork time. The recipe looked incredibly delicious, and I knew I just had to try it.

The marinade for my pork was fairly easy to make. Just combine orange juice, molasses, ground cumin, and garlic and ginger. (My hands still smell like the garlic and ginger that I had to grind against the grater.) I then marinaded the pork for about two hours.

Next up was my favorite part… okay my least favorite part. So it’s not string bean season, so I had to substitute the string beans for green beans. I slathered a baking sheet with olive oil, cut up a yellow pepper (which smelled gagtastic) and placed the green beans and pepper into the oven to bake.

I then cooked the pork on top of the stove with a skillet. The leftover marinade was boiled into a sauce to pour overtop the pork. I set the pork on the green beans and peppers and then drizzled the marinade. With a glass of water and a piece of toast, my meal was set!  The pork was delicious, and so were the veggies! I tried a pepper for the first time in my entire existance and I actually swallowed it without choking! (Ever since I was a little girl, everytime I eat vegetables I gag. It’s awful, especially for one who is trying to eat healthier. I’m trying to control my gag reflex, but sometimes it flares up, and usually when I’m eating in public. Gross.) Everyone liked the pork, and some even ate their vegetables, but all in all, it was a hit!

My First Bite of Veggies

Reluctant Veggie Girl here reporting of an epic event in my life. I tried greenbean casserole for the first time in my life! (Well, I may have tried it before, but I don’t remember eating my WHOLE spoonful!) Determined to beat out the demons in my mind telling me no, I quickly grabbed a spoonfull of the greenbean casserole prepared by Cauli Flower. I tried a bite, and it was delicious! I’m sure that the tastiness came from the cream of mushroom soup and whatever that crunchy stuff is that she put on top. Luckily for the rest of the family, I wasn’t very hungry, so I didn’t eat the whole casserole by myself.

Cauli Flower fixed her man, who looks identical to Twilight’s Jacob Black, dinner tonight. The house had to be in perfect order and the food cooked to perfection. The cleaning fairies had arrived though, so there was not much to pick up, and Cauli Flower made her world famous chicken diapers. (They aren’t really diapers, just chicken stuff rolled into a crescent roll. The three corners of a crescent roll a folded into the center, thus making the diaper formation.)

Chicken diapers are quite yum, although they are not as healthy compared to yesterdays crepes made by yours truly. However, I do believe it is alright to indulge with unhealthy food every once in a while. Sadly for me, this every once in a while has more or less been my whole life time. Unhealthy food, I have found though, makes one groggy and feel gross. Any one agree with me? That is why I want to change my eating habits, and change my eating habits I shall… after the holidays. 😉

The First Hellth-food Adventure of Reluctant Veggie Girl and Cauli Flower

For the past four years, my New Year’s Resolution has been to eat healthier. I resolve to eat salads and limit my junk food intake. (Potato chips = love.) My resolution is wrecked by January 1. This year, however, things will be different… I think. This year I will have my best friend and trusty side cook in the hellth food business with me. Together  we will explore the wonders of cooking and baking healthy and slightly organic foods.

Today we cooked our first meal – Ultra- Thin Breakfast Crepes with Fresh Blueberry Syrup (creative title.)

Our yummy and slightly organic ingredients!

With our ingredients all set out, Cauli Flower and I embarked on our first journey. The blueberry syrup was up first. Mixing blueberries, honey, and lemon juice, we created a wonderful and delicious syrup that we would drizzle over our crepes.

The blueberry syrup

After two eggs and a tidge of salt, and much whisking of flour, then milk, then flour, then milk, and so on, our crepe batter was prepared to be sent to the stove. Our very first crepe turned out perfectly!

Thumbs up!

Who knew that the Reluctant Veggie Girl and Cauli Flower could cook? We certainly didn’t. However, our cooking skills today proved us wrong. It’s nice to know that when we should live on our own someday, we won’t starve or gain weight by consuming only tv dinners and potato chips. With today’s breakfast of crepes we used blueberry syrup rather than maple syrup, and added a dollup of Greek yogurt in place of whipped cream. To top it all off, raspberries for a finishing touch!

Voila!

As any chef knows, appearance is everything. Our crepes did not just need to look yummy, they tasted delicious! Our first victims were the super Nahnah and amazing Aunt Cassie. Cauli Flower and I also tried our creation, and were astounded by the yumminess of it all!

Well now it is time to go run. Reluctant Veggie Girl and Cauli Flower will be back soon, ready to take on the world and rid society of unhealthy food!

NINA: Here is your challenge… if you dare!

Merry Christmas Christina!

Here is the challenge… learn to cook what’s good for you, and try to learn to like the foods you make!  I’m supplying you with a booklet of recipes & cooking tips & tricks to get you started, and will be happy to continue sharing more along the journey.

Blog here about your experience.  Take photos of the process.  And have fun!

Love your Veggie Loving Aunt,  Cassie.

PS… keep cheating to a minimum.  Processed foods, TV dinners, and microwaves don’t count.