Long Time, No Write, So Sorry!

Well, again, it's been an embarrassingly long time since I posted on this blog. Clearly, I'm not wired to be a full-time blogger anytime in the near future. So much has happened in the last 6 months that has partly kept me from blogging that I have not shared with you all.  For starters, I found out in early March that I was pregnant again with another baby girl- yay! Just like with Claire, the first trimester I had horrible morning sickness so my eating and cooking were all over the map (aka I ate way unhealthier than usual and was too embarrassed to post about it!)

Second, I have a milder case of ulcerative colitis and started to flare again about 8 weeks into my pregnancy. I'm always hopeful that I can get the flare under control with some extreme diet, but it always ends up being too hard. It's one thing to give up sweets and fast foods, and an entirely different thing to give up healthy items like grains, nuts, beans, and raw vegetables because it might be easier on the bowels. So anyway, a couple months ago, I decided to try the specific carbohydrate diet which is the complete opposite of my plant-based, mostly vegetarian ways! You start off the SCD diet eating chicken soup, homemade yogurt, eggs, beef patties (I didn't eat any beef), and that's pretty much it! Then you slowly add back in cooked veggies and fruits. You do not eat any grains, period! Like I said, I was only able to last a couple weeks on this diet before it became too difficult. And now I have this yogurt maker that I may never use again- whoops. I'm happy to say that after finally seeing my GI doctor again and adjusting/doubling my medications, I'm very close to being symptom-free! Thank goodness! I finally feel like I can eat how I normally would without worrying about how each and every food will affect my poop. I've got about 15 weeks left in my pregnancy (I'm due November 13th!), so I'm hoping everything will stay the way it is now.

Unfortunately, I do not have any recipes to share, but I can tell you some foods and meals that we've been enjoying and also some recipes I want to make. I've been making a lot of green smoothies for myself and Claire- it's the easiest and most delicious way to get Claire to eat her greens. I usually blend a couple handfuls of baby spinach, a banana, walnuts or other nut butter, a little almond milk, maybe a medjool date or two, and some ice all together, and we both love it! Sometimes I'll add in berries or mangoes, but the above is my basic green smoothie recipe. Today, I added in some cocoa powder and it tasted like a chocolate milkshake- you really can't taste the spinach at all! I also made some amazing chocolate chip cookies today with almond flour and replaced the oil in the recipe with a mixture of peanut butter and applesauce and they were amazing! Here is the link to the recipe I used: http://www.elanaspantry.com/dairy-free-gluten-free-chocolate-chip-cookies/. Let's see... I've also been making A LOT of chocolate chip pancakes... I know, I know, not the healthiest meal ever, but I did try to health-ify my recipe a little since I eat so many of them!

Ok, and recipes I want to try...

1) Almond flour brownies- these look amazing, but I'd probably substitute flax eggs for the real eggs in the recipe and also replace the oil with either applesauce or a combo of applesauce and nut butter like I did with the cookies I made today.
http://www.thewannabechef.net/2011/08/18/almond-flour-brownies/

2)  Beet burger- I love trying different veggie burgers and I've had a beet burger at a vegan restaurant in Portland that was amazing! We'll see if this recipe is just as good....
http://www.theppk.com/2012/02/quarter-pounder-beet-burger/

3) Vegan Mac n' Cheeze- I've tried multiple vegan macaroni and cheese recipes, and while they've been good, I haven't found a recipe that I've absolutely adored. I recently found this recipe that doesn't look super healthy, but I want to try it anyway to see if it'll fill my mac n' cheese craving that I've been having lately.
http://chefchloe.com/entrees/vegan-mac-n-cheese.html

Well folks again, I apologize for my nearly 4-month blog silence, and I hope I can post a little more frequently than that from now on, but I'm certainly not going to make any promises! ;)