Lately?

Four months ago I went back to work full time. The amount of cooking that I was doing had fallen drastically for the first couple of months. I'm finally starting to feel like things are falling back into place. Of course I'm not able to do everything that I would like to do but who is right? I'm into a cleaning routine and getting used to getting up in the morning. I'm taking the dog to obedience school and learning more sign language. Thanks in part to the dog, Caleb, and the spring weather I'm getting a lot of biking time in too. So, I'm feeling like I still have plenty of time to pursue my own interests.

What I'm not feeling is having time to cook the way I want to. Many of my recipes have been scrapped. When you get home at 5:45, it's just not the time to be making spaghetti sauce from scratch! It's not actually as bad as it sounds. We have been eating out a lot less and I feel like the wheat free thing has become, deep breath, I can't believe I'm saying this, a total non-issue. I've discovered the wonders of spelt flour and so I've been using that in place of all purpose flour for most recipes. My next move is to switch to the whole grain variety.

Caleb started a new daycare for the summer but she has so far been supportive about his diet. Since she participates in the states food program for childcare she has to have a form filled out by the doctor stating that he needs this diet. That should be interesting since he doesn't seem to believe that he needs to follow this diet. I was able to show the babysitter on Thursday what his skin looked like after having spent the day with his grandma and my sister who let him eat wheat products both at lunch and supper. Since it had looked great on Tuesday she was impressed; not in a good way!

Anyway back to the cooking thing. It is starting to fall back in place little by little too. I'm not cooking every night but we're not eating out that much either. My friend let me have her La Vista share this week so that got me motivated today to try some new things out on my guys. Tonight I had some leftovers from a "beer-can-chicken" so I made some chicken and dumpling soup. I just made it up and threw some things in but it turned out pretty tasty. I used a little too much water and went a little over on the bouillon so it was kinda salty. The dumplings I made with white spelt flour and they were just not quite chewy enough like my mom makes. I'm going to plan to try 123 gluten free all purpose mix next time I think since that's my stand by for bisquits. (Spelt doesn't do so hot with those either.)

Tomorrow we are having a "Chinese" night of Bok Choy and Sweet and Sour Chinese Cabbage Salad. Mike is already asking what the back up plan is! I also plan to make a double batch of blueberry pancakes and a huge salad for lunch so it'll be a big cooking day which I hope will help me out later in the week.

The last change I've made lately came after reading Temple Grandin's "Animals make us Human" I came away from that feeling like I am better of with a cheeseburger from McDonald's than a chicken from the grocery store. So, my new thing is only free-range chicken which of course is more expensive. I can usually get two meals from one chicken and also plan to offset the cost my incorporating more vegetarian meals into our diet. I'm thinking that will be pretty easy. At least until winter!