Time to get creative

When I face a challenge, I find it best to 1) pray, 2) stay hopeful, 3) get creative.

If you read the last post, I bet you're not salivating from reading the list of ingredients I had to work with for the first part of this elimination diet...BUT I think you may change your mind after consuming with your eyes some of the meals I've eaten along the way. It's taken time, thought, and some research, but I'm settling into a new normal (albeit ever-changing as I start adding in new foods every three days or so).

As a reminder, here are some of the ingredients I had to work with:

Let's get real here: not everything tasted good or looked good! I'll share the good and the bad. Let's start with...a real bad one:

Looks like styrofoam and beans, doesn't it? So, I've actually NEVER tried tapioca before...EVER. I came across a product called Wrapioca on Thrive Market (it was a free add-on), and it claimed you could use these tapioca+water pearls to make a wrap by heating them in a dry skillet. Unfortunately, I never figured out how to get the Wrapioca to wrap and ended up making more of a styrofoam textured (and tasting) tostada (after this picture, of course, which was a complete cooking fail).

So...it can only get better, right?

I hope so! Here is a winner meal with the red kidney beans:

Steamed zoodles with red kidney beans, a drizzle of olive oil, and a dash of salt.

Ready for another visually-challenged meal?

Ground lamb and basil meatballs with steamed zucchini and a dash of salt.

This one tasted better than the styrofoam and beans, and I had an idea in my mind I ended up using later (stay tuned for a future post...), but it is definitely still lacking in presentation. At this point, though, all that mattered was I could stomach the food!

Here is an improved lamb meatball meal:

Ground lamb and basil meatballs on a bed of lettuce cushioned by sprouted quinoa
and sauteed mushrooms (I was able to add mushrooms in after the initial 7ish days).

This one was a feast to both my eyes and my stomach!

By this point, do you think you could make do with kidney beans, ground lamb, quinoa, and zucchini? It's possible, and I'm living proof!

Next up? Cod, green beans, bok choy, a *coconut* wrap (much improvement over the Wrapioca), and a few more ingredients. Stay tuned!