2011 – A year in review

This year has brought some pretty big changes in my life. Going gluten free, and getting married are only 2 of the things that happened this year. I figured I would do a year in review just to show myself how many important things have happened.

January – January started of 2011 and my first full year of being a real adult. No more college, no more “I’m a student” excuses, no more days of no student loans, no more school stress. It also brought me my first full year of being a nurse, and all of the stress and emotions that come along with the job.

February – This month found me doing my research on going gluten free. A friend of mine was diagnosed with Celiac Disease, and I myself was dealing with increasing GI problems. She shared her symptoms with me, and I realized I was having many of the same symptoms. I did my reasearch and made an appointment with my doctor.

March – This month started off with me going completely gluten free under the direction of my doctor. She and I went over my symptoms, and decided that the best plan of attack would be a GF trial. If things went well and my symptoms went away, we would be golden. If not, we would go back to the drawing board in an attempt to figure out what was going on with me. March also brought around my 24th birthday!

April, May, June – These months were full of wedding planning!!

July – My first anniversary of being a nurse!

August – This month brought around my Bridal Shower and Bachelorette parties! It was an amazing weekend, and I am so lucky to have so many great family and friends. Not to mention how lucky I was to have such great bridesmaids and maid of honor, who spent a TON of time planning such a perfect day!

Bridesmaids!

Nurses!

Grandmas!

Cousins at the Bachelorette Party

Friends

For the full review of the Bridal Shower, you can go here.

August also brought about the birth of the blog! PastaFreeRunner was born after 6 months of me being gluten free. I wanted to share what I was learning with those out in the blog world, as well as wanting to connect with other gluten free people, and just other bloggers in general. I had another blog for about a year prior to starting PastaFreeRunner, but everything about it was fizzling. I missed blogging, and decided that this was the direction I wanted to go. You can go here to read my very first post!

September – This month brought about my discovery of Tofu! Who knew that tofu could be so delicious!
It also brought around the 10 year anniversary of September 11th. It was, and will continue to be, a very difficult  but important day for our country to remember.

October – This month was wedding month! The New Yorker and I got hitched after almost 6 years of dating. The day couldn’t have been more perfect (78 degrees and sunny in Boston on Columbus Day Weekend?? Unheard of!) and we were so lucky to share such a special day with the people we love the most.

All of these amazing photos are courtesy of Photography By Jennifer Millian. If you are getting married in the Boston/MA area, I HIGHLY recommend her! She was fantastic to work with, and very professional!

We also went on our Honeymoon, which I have to admit, I’m still working on uploading the 1500+ pictures I took in Hawaii! 🙂 It was the trip of a lifetime, and we made sure to do everything we could possibly do. We saw a volcano, we hiked to some waterfalls, we took surfing lessons, went to a Luau, went to Pearl Harbor, drove through a rainforest (or 3!), ate plenty of local fish, and relaxed. It was phenomenal!

November- This month brought me back to my running roots! I signed up for the ING half Marathon with Amy, and ran the Gobble Wobble 5K. I also celebrated Thanksgiving with my family, and took a trip down memory lane.

December – This month has found me in some crazy running outfits, making our annual trek to NYC with the New Yorker and his family, and getting situated for starting off our organic diet.

This year has been amazing. I wouldn’t have changed anything that happened, and I wouldn’t have added anything more. It was a year full of fun, family, and friends.

I thank all of you who have read, commented, and followed my blog for you support. I’m looking forward to an amazing 2012, and can’t wait to share all that it brings with you!

PMRNMVIT

Happy National Celiac Awareness Day to all those with celiac! I hope you have a splendidly gluten free day!

Last night I was back at work. It had been a lovely 4 days off (I sometimes have a love/hate relationship with my schedule!) except that the New Yorker and I had been away all weekend and hadn’t gone grocery shopping. That meant one thing: Scavenge for food!

As I talked about here, it’s really hard to find nutritious food on a night shift. We had gone to Not Your Average Joes (more about that a little later) the night before, and so being the sweetheart that he is, The New Yorker gave me his leftovers. Then I hunted down some crackers, a banana, yogurt and cereal. Needless to say, it was less than a stellar dinner that had me heading for the Lays Potato chips at around 2 am. The even better story here is that I had been trying to make a milkshake for my Grandma, and didn’t realize that Carnation Instant Breakfast is so not gf! So I headed into work with no sleep, a boring dinner, and a super gluted stomach. Rough!

The shift wasn’t that bad, I survived and was ready to leave in the morning. Getting on the bus home there were a TON of open and empty seats! I plopped my poor tired body down in one and put my bag on the seat next to me. Not even 3 minutes later, with all the empty seats still available, a woman comes over, doesn’t say anything and just pushes my bag onto my lap and plops down next to me. Now, I love to talk to people, but after a 12 hour night shift on my floor, you don’t want to be on the same bus with me, much less right next to me!

I grumbled through the whole ride and shot grumpy texts to The New Yorker. When I got home and finished complaining about it, I hopped on the computer to check something before going to bed. That was when I saw this genius thing : PMRNMVIT!

Translation: Night (PM) Nurse (RN), MOVE IT! (MVIT)

Its so true! No matter how hard you try, people are not naturally nocturnal! Anyway, it made me laugh, and now I want a shirt that says it! 🙂

Moving back to the food part of this blog here! The New Yorker and I are getting married in a church, so we had to go to this (I don’t know what to really call it) counseling weekend. There were 60 couples there total, and it was LONG. Very informative, but VERY long.

They served pasta, bread, and caesar salad with croutons mixed in for lunch, so I had to pass on lunch. I was pretty hungry by the time we left, and we were on such a “we’re so close to being married” high that we decided to head out for dinner. I jumped on google on my iPhone (what did we do before those?!) and found Not Your Average Joe’s nearby. The New Yorker’s only experience with NYAJs was catering at work, and he just remembered that the mashed potatoes were to die for. Sign me up!

So we went in and they handed me a gluten free menu. 2 points!

Choices, choices!

The server came over and brought us bread and the cheesy, oil delight that they have you dip it in. As soon as he realized I had the gf menu, he ran off and came back with a gf roll for me, and a new plate of the cheesy delight for me to dip in. I was in shock! No one ever brings you separate dips.

Delish!

Amazing!

Then he asked what we wanted to drink. I asked what they had that I could have, and next thing I knew the manager was at my table. He told me he couldn’t guarantee any of the drinks on the menu were safe, so he wanted to create something for me specifically that wouldn’t make me sick. The New Yorker and I were both so surprised. We’ve been introduced to every manager at all the places we go (it’s pretty standard in MA that if you have a food allergy, the manager will deliver your food) and none had ever offered that. Usually they say “have some wine”, which is fine, but sometimes you’re just in the mood for something fruity!

After a few trips to talk to the bartender, check google, and come ask me what I liked, he whipped up a frozen vodka/fresh fruit drink that was amazing!

Frozen fruit spectacular! (excuse the iPhone photos!)

We ordered dinner, and talked about the weekend. When the food came, I was so hungry that I dove into my dinner and devoured it before I remembered to take a picture! Fail! It was baked haddock with garlic mashed potatoes and summer veggies. So good!

When we finished eating the manager came over again to give us a welcome packet (since it had been our first time there) that included $5 off our next trip, and 10%, 20%, and 30% off takeout orders. Again, super surprised! When they handed me the iTouch to fill out a survey, you can bet I gave a glowing review!

So now I’m headed back to work in a few (I like to bring this full circle!) and I’m going to make the Kale salad again! No more crappy dinners!

I hope you all had a great day! Show some Gluten Free Love today!

Delicious Chicken Dinner

I might as well say it now, any recipe or link to one that you find here will be gluten free.

Which is good for those of you who need gluten free recipes, and maybe an eyeopening experience for those of you who don’t.

Lucky for me I have a great fiance who tolerates (and usually enjoys) most of the gf foods I try. Tonight’s dinner was another one of those trials.

I decided to make Salsa Chicken from Recipe for A Gluten Free Life By Mrs. G. F. It looked easy enough and I had all of the ingredients already in the house.

Cheese and Salsa, perfect combo!

First I used Bob’s Redmill All purpose Gluten Free flour to coat the chicken:

Floured Chicken

Then I put them in a pan with butter and cooked them until they were golden brown.

Golden Brown!

Then I put salsa and cheese on the chicken, and in the broiler it went.

Salsa and cheese!

All cooked!

I added a few veggies, and some leftover quinoa for me, and voila! Dinner!

Ready to eat!

I definitely gave this one 4 stars. It was super easy, and tasted amazing. The New Yorker gave it 3.5 stars, but that was his own fault. He said that the chicken was too thick. Since he was in charge of making sure the chicken was thin enough, I blame him.

I’m really excited about this one. I’m planning on adding it to the standard rotation.

Does anyone have any other easy dinner ideas that they use on a weekly basis?

 

 

 

Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl Brownies!

Gluten free baking just got super exciting!

A while ago my mom had told me to check out this blog called The Wannabe Chef. Being stubborn, I refused to look at because I was convinced that there would be nothing interesting to read, and it would just be a list of recipes that I was going to have to ignore anyway since I’m gf. A few weeks later she tried again. “Kate, you really need to check out this blog! He has tons of gluten free recipes, and they all look amazing”. Again, I ignored her. I’m not into cooking. Why would I want to check it out?

So what happened a few days ago? I stumbled on his blog while reading a bunch of different blogs about the Healthy Living Summit (looked like such a fun time!) Since I got there of my own accord, I got to reading. Then I got to following. And THEN I got to baking!

I have been craving brownies lately, and one of the posts I read was one about chocolate peanut butter swirl brownies. Heaven? I think so! So off I trucked to Whole Foods to pick up all the ingredients that I would need to make this fabulous dessert.

All you need!

Then I got to use my new kitchen scale, and chopped up the bakers chocolate.

Pre-melting

Post-melted

Goes nicely with cooking!

Then I poured everything into the pan and poured the peanut butter swirl on top.

Chocolate

Peanut Butter!

Then I put it in the oven. To be completely honest with you, it wasn’t that hard! (Don’t tell my mom or sister that!) Even for a baking newbie, I was able to easily follow this recipe. He even lets you know which brands he uses for different ingredients which is a huge help when trying to decide what is safe and GF.

I let them cool completely, and then The New Yorker and I dug in, the final decision? They were awesome! The only thing I would have added would be chocolate chips. I’ll save that for next time 🙂

A huge thank you to Evan at The Wanna Be Chef for this awesome recipe! I can’t wait to try another one of your delicious creations!