Lunch Meal Planning, Delicious Lunch Idea & Recipe Link

I almost always plan my dinners for the week ahead. It makes it so much easier to grocery shop, and to keep from eating out when we already know what the plan is. 

This week, I took my meal planning one step further than I usually do, and planned out my lunches for the week. Lunchtime is the most challenging meal for me. I never know what to make, and end up overeating, eating something junky, or just kind of grazing a little bit. I'm hoping this will help me feel less "lost" at lunchtime everyday. I'm trying to keep my meals pretty "clean" too, and organic when I can.

Day one of a planned lunch was great! I made a Clean Eating Quinoa Avocado Salad that was to die for. SO GOOD! I used a recipe from The Gracious Pantry (which is one of my new favorite blogs), with just a few tiny tweaks. I didn't have any limes, so I used lemon. And I inadvertently used too much garlic powder. But, it was one of the best things to hit my palate in quite a while, really. It was simply bursting with flavor.

 
 This recipe is a "clean recipe", so it's dairy free, and it also happens to be gluten free. Perfect! The whole thing took less than 20 minutes to prepare. I highly recommend it! So, go ahead and head over to The Gracious Pantry for the full recipe!

Busy Weeknight Dinner: Semi-Clean Eating

Weeknight Little League games call for quick, easy dinners.
 
Last week I mentioned that we are eating cleaner in this household, and that my daughter and I are Dairy Free/Gluten Free. So that does present some challenges on the "quick easy meals" situation. No take out for us!

Last night it was GF spaghetti. I make it with Ancient Harvest Quinoa pasta, which is so much better for you than a rice based pasta. In fact, for those of you on Weight Watchers, it happens to be a Power Food. Yes, that's right, a pasta that is a Power Food!

Tonight we'll be enjoying a pot of pinto's with bacon & onion accompanied by some GF cornbread muffins on the side. Yum! 
Dinner's on the stove already and making my mouth water.

What are some of your favorite "quick & easty" healthy meals?

How to Cut Fast Food From Your Diet

Ok, so I'll be the first to admit that the allure of the oh-so-convenient Drive-Thru has been a contributing factor to my growing waistline and shrinking pocketbook for years now.  With a busy schedule and hungry kids, it's just too easy to swing by one of these fast "food" joints to grab a meal. Sometimes multiple times in one day if it's a hectic day. Can you relate?

Recently, I have made some dietary changes for my daughter and myself. And I don't just mean, "we're on a diet".  These changes have kept us out of virtually every drive through there is (because there's nothing on the menu that we can order at almost all of them). They don't even tempt me anymore!

Back in December, my daughter and I made a change to our diets. After considering the developmental delays of my daughter, and doing some research (GoDairyFree.Org is a great starting place and resource. , I eliminated all dairy (and casein) from our diets. I blogged about the experience here.
Dairy Free was much easier than I had anticipated it would be. For the most part, we have not had any problems with that.
After we survived December and January without dairy, the time had come to eliminate gluten from our diet. (Why? http://alignlife.com/articles/digestivehealth/compelling-reasons-to-explore-a-gluten-free-lifestyle/) Obviously, that was a slightly bigger challenge than going Dairy Free was. It was a major diet overhaul. Still a work in progress. But I am happy to say that we are doing well with it.
But I'm not just substituting all of our old favorites with junky alternatives. I am incorporating as much "whole food", "clean eating", and organic foods into our lives as I can. And those boxes of processed foods? No more! It's a work in progress, but every day it gets a bit easier.
As for those fast food joints? Now I just drive by instead of drive through.

Dairy Free Mac & "Cheese"

Ah, Monday, we meet again. All of last week I was planning on posting this recipe and I just never got around to it. It seemed that this blog and myself were at odds last week. On that note, my kitchen stayed relatively clean and my laundry backlog is less than usual.
Recently I posted about how my daughter and I have started the journey into a dairy free lifestyle. You can read about that here if you missed it.
One of the struggles of having a two year old that is dairy free is that two year olds love cheese. Seriously. Tot-friendly foods like grilled cheese, quesadilla's and macaroni & cheese really cannot cease to exist in the life of a two year old. So what's a mama to do? Well, make those tot-friendly foods of course!
I decided to make some Mac & "Cheese" for my Little Lady, and didn't feel like getting caught up for hours browsing recipes on the internet, so I just made my own version. I mostly eyeballed it as I went, but the following recipe worked well for me.

Ingredients:
1 c. Elbow Noodles
1 Tb. Earth Balance Butter Substitute (I used the whipped spread, but there are several variations of Earth Balance that would all probably work equally as well.)
1/4 c. Almond Breeze Original
3/4 c. Daiya Cheddar Shreds

Directions:
In pot, bring water to boil. (No set amount, I just eyeballed this. Dash of salt if desired.)
Add 1 cup  elbow noodles to the boiling water.
Once noodles are soft, drain the water.
Add 1 Tb. of  Earth Balance spread and 1/4 cup almond milk. Stir.
Add 3/4 cup of Daiya cheese shreds. Stir until mixed well. Salt and pepper to taste.
Serve and Enjoy!!!
Photograph your happy tot.

 Do you have a favorite Dairy Free recipe?

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Going Dairy Free~ A Lifestyle Change Experiment

Back in November I was out with girlfriends to see part 2 of Breaking Dawn. I met a mother who also had a special needs child (though hers is quite older than mine.) She mentioned how her daughter becomes non-verbal when she eats meat. Then another lady there chimed in and said that she's heard that if a person seems "addicted" to any specific type of food, that they could actually be very sensitive to it. And I thought to myself "Hmmmm... Little Lady is pretty hooked on milk. Like, REALLY hooked on milk." After that night, I mostly forgot all about it.
Early in December, I stumbled across some information that made me consider it again. I'm not 100% sure what I started researching (probably the term "developmental delay") and I found something regarding dairy being a contributing factor to delays in some children. Again, I gave thought to my Little Lady's ultra-love for milk.
Further research triggered an experimental lifestyle change. She was going Dairy Free, and so was I.
(The males in this household aren't on board with making the change themselves, however, they are consuming less dairy as a result of the cooking changes I've made. Baby steps.)
I realized that December is a very challenging time to make any type of dietary changes so I gave us that month to use as our "phase out" time. During those four weeks, we worked on the elimination of dairy and dairy by-products in our diets.
Within a week of starting this change, my daughter propelled herself forward in her gait trainer for the first time ever!

She's still working on the movement in the gait trainer, but I feel that after she gets new braces she'll improve even more! Also, her vocalization has increased, as well as her floor movement (she rolls from room to room regularly now!). Her struggle with constipation has improved considerably as well.
This has been a learning curve. Dairy, and dairy derivatives are in A LOT of food. Especially processed foods, or restaurant foods. Even "non-dairy creamer" has dairy derivatives in it (casein).
After we have mastered the dairy free diet, I'm hoping to move us into a gluten free lifestyle as well. But one big change at a time.
To read some of the findings on why dairy is no good, check this out. And this. And this. Here is an interesting article.
The change has been much less challenging than I was anticipating. She drinks almond milk now instead of cow milk (so do I). One day I made her some dairy free creamy potato soup. I've also made dairy free blueberry muffins, dairy free pancakes and dairy free mac & cheese. I found a relatively nearby health food store that has many dairy free and/or vegan options.
I'm looking forward to sharing our new adventure with you.
If you have any special dietary lifestyle choices (dairy free, gluten free, vegetarian, vegan, etc.) I'd love to know what they are & why you chose to take that route.

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 Have you "liked" me on Facebook yet? If not, what are you waiting for? Get over there! 
Are you following My {Not So} Glamorous Life via Google Friend Connect or BlogLovin'? 
Don't miss any of the fun! All you have to do is click "follow" on that button over there on the sidebar. Or Follow my blog with Bloglovin. Just click here!! C'mon, you know you wanna! 
I can also be found on Twitter under the handle @MyNotSoGlamLife