Trying to keep weight on.....

Its hard for me to keep on weight.  I try to eat at least every 4 hours.  I am eating millet, or quinoa.  Cheese, sour cream, and/or cottage cheese with every meal.  Hot dogs, salad out of my garden.  Every couple of days I try a slice of toasted wheat bread that I froze a while back.  I melt some cheese on it in the microwave.  I sometimes mix the quinoa or millet cold into my green salad.  Lettuce, spinach, and swiss chard from my garden.  I also add pinto beans in every other week.  They are good mixed with either the millet or quinoa, sour cream, and cheese.  I have issues with rice, and wheat.  I also have roasted sweet potatoes with sour cream.  I was done to 115.  I am back up to about 125.  Started at 135 last July.  When I do eat I try to eat a big plate full.  Then sometimes I force myself to eat more the minute I feel hungry again even if its been only 2 hours.  :-) 

Beets

Cut the tops off the beets leaving about 2 inches of stalk.

Cover in pan of water. 

Cover, bring to a boil, simmer for 30 minutes of until you can inserting a fork into them. 

 When finished, cut off tops and bottoms and slide the skin off.

Wash the greens and simming in about 1/2 cup water until soft about 10 - 20 minutes.

I eat all greens with a little apple cider vinegar.

Roasted Potatoes or Sweet Potatoes

Preheat oven 425

Scrub and Peel any kind of potato these are sweet potatoes

I use the bottom of a teflon broiler pan. 

 Add palm shortening or any other kind of oil you prefer.  Olive oil is great, I just can't use it.

 If using palm shortening place in the oven to melt.  Notice my squash is in the oven too.

Place potatoes in the pan and coat with oil. 

If using plain white potatoes, try mixing in rosemary, basil, or chives.

Bake 30 minutes stirring every 10 - 15 minutes.

Butternut Squash

 

 Pre-heat oven 425

Scrub the outside of the squash.  Slice in half, clean out seeds and gunk.  Place in roasting pan with a couple inches of water.  Cover and bake 30 - 60 minutes when forked it is soft.

Scoop out, eat with butter, or in my case sour cream and salt and pepper. 

While this is baking to save on oven heat I also roast potatoes.

histamine - epiphany

We have had a several new corn allergy people this week on Delphi.  I had an epiphany....  :-)  If you have read my stuff, I do try to be funny.  Well, my epiphany was that its the beginning of seasonal allergies. (grass, weeds, trees, mold)  People are having worse allergies than normal and they are finding out they are allergic to foods too. 
Allergy Bucket Theory:  You are already having a reaction.  When you are over reacting to several allergians, you then feel you are reacting to everything. 
This happens to me.  I will eat something that I know I am not allergic to, but yet it will feel like I am having a reaction, which later I realize I was not reacting. 

Green Salad out of my garden

 Red leaf, spinach, leaf lettuce, and swiss chard

Dressing (Braggs apple cider vinegar, water, honey), Newmans Own raisins, Kerrygold aged cheddar, and freshly ground black pepper

Freezing food

Ice trays are handy to freeze all kinds of things.  I use to get lemons from my Uncle.  We would freeze the juice as ice cubes.  Its also great to freeze baby food as ice cubes.  This allows you to take out a portion at a time.  Muffin tins are good too.  I use to make food for my dog and freeze it in a muffin tin then transfered to a ziplock.  Ziplock bags should be used to freeze food because you can freeze them flat and they take up less space.

Amazon.com

I started ordering Millet flour from Amazon.  They sell 4 - 2 pound bags together.  The cost including shipping is the same as if I were to buy it from Earthfare Market, which is a 30 mile drive for me.  I also order Squigle toothpaste, POH unwaxed dental floss, and Squigle toothpaste from Amazon as well.  In the future I will check some of my other products to see if it is the same price to have the items delivered.

Swiss Chard Salad

I have been eating my home grown swiss chard as salad.  I make my own dressing.  1/3 cup Braggs cider vinegar, 2/3 water, teaspoon honey, several garlic cloves, and/or ginger.  Let soak in the frig for at least 24 hours.  Adjust the ingredients to your own taste buds.  Today I ate my salad with Newman's Own raisins and pieces of Kerrygold aged cheddar.  Of course I put a lot of fresh ground pepper on my salad too.  Enjoy! 

Medic Alert Bracelet

I just got my medic alert bracelet.  http://fiddledeeids.com/compartment-medical-id-bracelet-p-61.html
I like this one because I can put expanded information and phone number inside it.  I put No Dextrose IV, and listed my other allergies, also put down my husbands name and phone number.  It came with extra inserts so you could change it in the future.

Garden - I will have food!

I am sore from planting 4 blueberries, and a pear all 18 x 18 inch holes in clay.  I lost my footing on one hole and fell...  lol:-)  I looked around to see if anyone was looking!  :-)  I was at the top of our hill and there are houses all around, no fences.  I also turned a 6 x 8 section of sod for more garden space so I can get the rototiller through it.  I also watered the current planted area from my rain barrel.  Its straight up hill about 10 feet or so from the barrel to the garden.  I just put the barrel in last week.  I filled 2 watering cans at a time.  Its rest time waiting for the cans to fill.  :-)  I enjoy it and it keeps me busy.

Vehicle Airbags have corn based talcum powder

I just found this article:  http://www.allergy-details.com/food-allergy/corn-allergy-mine-field/
Another challenging source of corn, for those allergic, is in vehicle airbags. When the airbag goes off, the powder containing corn based talcum powder is released from the airbag into the vehicle. With the passengers breathing and their clothes and skin covered in this powder reaction can be most unfriendly. The reaction is also ill timed, especially immediately after a car accident when people are distracted.

I guess I need to have my epi-pen handy if I get into an accident and my airbag deploys.