Progress Report

Well, the cat's out of the bag. The kids found out we're on a "diet". You see, I had to tell hubby about it. I needed a co-conspirator, after all. But when hubby told his buddy, who then asked (in front of the kids), "how's the gluten-free diet going?" Well.... The kids got all wide-eyed-- which was immediately followed by copious moaning and whining. And it had been going so well! (Sort of....)

In case you're curious, I'll go through a brief run-down of what we've been eating this week. (If that sounds like a dull read-- you might as well abandon this post right now.) For starters, I recently hit a big cereal sale at a local grocery store. Fortunately, it's a pretty "earthy" store and they had a good supply of gluten-free, organic (bonus!) cereals. I stocked up. Spent a small fortune, in fact-- but I saved even more than I spent (whoopie!). So, breakfast is taken care of.

Lunch.... Now that's a whole other ball game. I think it's the hardest meal of the day to maintain our wheatlessness, actually. When you think about it, lunch usually involves a lot of gluten (sandwiches, mac and cheese, crackers etc.). And while I thought I could easily replace our whole-wheat bread with a gluten-free sandwich bread-- turns out I was incredibly naive. Gluten-free bread is disgusting. At least, the two incredibly expensive varieties we've sampled thus far are. (By the way, many thanks to my health-foodie cousin who has once again come to my rescue-- as she did in the past, with that other diet that shall remain nameless-- and given me a website with recipes to try.) You see, lunch has been a bit interesting around here lately. I like to call them "snack lunches". For instance, today I packed LM sliced peaches, veggie sticks, a juice box, gluten-free cookies, and a slice of Colby Jack cheese. Ruby Jane nibbled on a gluten-free granola bar, some dehydrated fruit, and a smoothie I made from strawberry yogurt, peanut butter and bananas. And fortunately, I have not received any complaints about these lunches since having omitted the nasty bread substitutes.

Dinner is much easier to manage than I thought it would be. If worse came to worst (or is that the other way around? I never can remember...) I could always fall back on seasoned chicken breasts with steamed vegetables and a fruit salad. Maybe with some quinoa or rice on the side. But that's boring, right? What I've found is that Asian food (which I adore) is very conducive to a gluten-free diet-- and much more interesting indeed. So one night we ate Chinese, to everyone's delight. Another night I whipped up a Pad Thai with shrimp-- the kids were not fans of that one, however-- they're crazy. But what I really wanted to try was Italian food. (Why not make a challenge even more challenging, I always say. Not.) I found some gluten-free spaghetti noodles and decided to make a really nice, robust sauce to go with it. Guess what? Nobody noticed a difference! They're so used to the whole-wheat or multigrain noodles I normally buy that the funky gluten-free noodles didn't even phase them. Add a nice Romaine salad and you have yourself a fine wheatless Italian meal. Who woulda thunk it possible? Next up on the docket for dinner are a curried soup and a baked apple-cinnamon oatmeal (breakfast for dinner is a favorite of ours). And if any of y'all have some other great dinner suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

But don't get the wrong impression, please-- this week hasn't been a cake-walk, that's for sure. It's hard to control what the kiddos eat when they're not at home. (I don't believe for a minute that they'd forego a cupcake at school if offered one.) And unless I can find a truly delicious gluten-free bread recipe, I don't know how we will survive much longer. What can I say? We like bread!

So please wish us luck, if you think about it. My family does not enjoy these little dietary experiments as much as I do. What a bunch of pansy party-poopers! Where's their sense of gastronomic adventure?? Ah, yes, there it is-- over in the bread aisle next to the bagels....