long run fueling friday

Our internet has been down for several days so once I get this post up I'm all caught up.

I do my long runs on Saturdays so Fridays are a big eating day for me.

Breakfast: Rice Crispies with dried cranberries; coffee with milk.

Second Breakfast: Iced coffee with milk, biscotti, and a glass of nonfat milk.

Lunch: Baba ganoush and Orgran quinoa crispibread.

Second Lunch: Pizza bagel with half an Udi's gluten-free bagel, tomato sauce, and feta cheese.

Snack: Handful of chocolate chips and a cup of tea.

Dinner: Leg of lamb and potatoes roasted with rosemary, garlic, olive oil, salt, and pepper; zucchini sautéed with cumin, salt, and pepper, and quinoa.

Snack: Some chocolate and a glass of nonfat milk.

what-i-ate wednesday

I'm going to start participating in What I Ate Wednesdays as a way to motivate my running and healthy eating. For those of you new to the blog, I'm gluten-free and I live in India. I'm training for a half marathon in August. (We do have a housekeeper here in India who does some wonderful cooking for us. But I also have her do a lot of the prep work -- like chopping the veggies -- and do the cooking myself, often with the help of my almost-two-year-old daughter.)

Here's a summary of my Tuesday.

Breakfast: Two banana-coconut muffins baked with the modified Pamela's gluten-free pancake mix banana bread recipe. Coffee with milk.

I took Muffin to school and then met the playgroup moms at our weekly breakfast date. I had two unsweetened iced coffees with milk and a small plate of bacon.

Lunch: A pizza bagel with half an Udi's gluten-free bagel, tomato sauce, and feta cheese (still sipping one of my previously mentioned iced coffees) and an apple.

Snack: Homemade baba ganoush (from the Moosewood Cookbook ) with Orgran quinoa crispibread.

Afternoon Running: About 3.25 miles pushing Muffin in the jogging stroller around the park.

Dinner: Boneless chicken breast with roasted tomatoes (from Nancy Clark's Sports Nutrition Guidebook ) and quinoa and a (not pictured) watermelon-feta salad (modified from a Martha Stewart recipe -- this is a super-refreshing post workout salad).

Dessert: Glass of chocolate milk.

Second Dessert: Glass of white wine.

For more running fun, follow me on dailymile and at my blog Where in the World Am I?.

(Some links are amazon affiliate links.)

roland quinoa and other grains on sale at amazon.com

I love quinoa. It's the supergrain that the Aztecs warriors ate. It's packed with protein and for the pregnant ladies it's a good source of folic acid. Roland quinoa, along with polenta and rice, is on sale from Amazon.com. Throughout the month of March, select Roland products are 15% off with the coupon code ROLAN655. You'll save an additional 15% if you sign up for Subscribe & Save.

Note that not every product on this page is gluten-free, so read descriptions carefully.



*I am an Amazon affiliate. If you purchase from these links or from my store, I will receive a small kickback.

how long does it take you to eat 10 pounds of pasta?

How long does it take to eat ten pounds of Ancient Harvest quinoa pasta pagodas? It took me about a year and a half.Back in the summer of 2008 when we were preparing our consumables to ship to Africa, I was thrilled to see that Amazon.com had my favorite brand of pasta for sale in bulk. I bought a case of spaghetti, a case of elbows, and a case of pagodas, a short, squat, twirly tricolor pasta. I received 10 little boxes of spaghetti, ten little boxes of elbows, and one giant box containing 10 pounds of pagodas. While all the cardboard packaging of individual boxes may not be stellar for the environment, it's great for long-term storage and for portions. One giant box of pagodas? Not as convenient.

Our consumables met us here in September 2008. Since then I've been slowly but surely pecking away at my pagodas. I've made the spaghetti and the elbows a couple times, but I really wanted to finish those pagodas. The spaghetti and elbow boxes will keep and can be shipped to our next destination. The pagodas are an open box, so the movers won't take them. I had to consume them all.

And tonight, the last bowlful is boiling away, while a creamy cheese sauce waits to smother every last bit.

Image from quinoa.net.

what I eat while pregnant

I have celiac disease, I live in Africa, and now on top of that I'm navigating the world of eating for two. The gluten-free part is easy. The lack of variety here is my big challenge. I haven't really had cravings, but I've had some very strong aversions, which makes the lack of variety even more challenging. Like every expectant woman I want to make sure the baby and I are getting enough of everything that we need.

A friend here gave me her copy of What to Expect When You're Expecting and I immediately turned to it for dietary guidelines. Most of the foods on the list are either unavailable here or inedible for me, which didn't surprise me. What surprised me was the gigantic amount of food that they want you to eat in one day! I'm working hard to gain the weight I need to with the proper nutrition, but I can't get anywhere near the daily calorie recommendation. (My husband looked at it too and was amazed. He doesn't even eat that much, and he's a fit, athletic guy who consumes mass quantities.)

I have a gluten-free prenatal vitamin. I'm eating a lot of quinoa and quinoa pasta, which has protein and folic acid. I'm also eating a lot of rice and beans, another good source of protein and folic acid. I try to get one serving of meat per day, but sometimes meat is my greatest aversion. I started making my own yogurt and I found a nonfat powdered milk that I can tolerate, so I'm getting plenty of calcium and my healthy yogurt bacteria. Every morning I start my day with a tropical fruit smoothie. (Sometimes on the weekends I make a banana-chocolate milkshake instead for a treat -- with my yogurt and nonfat milk of course.) I can get broccoli, carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, zucchini, and cucumbers here for my veggie intake. The baby craves carbs more than anything so I'm baking my own bread and eating cereal like mad. And my ultimate comfort food is Annie's gluten-free macaroni and cheese.

Besides the nonfat milk, I also drink a ton of water. Most of the other beverage choices here are too sugary for me and even before the pregnancy I drank them sparingly. I occasionally have caffeine-free coffee or tea. I gave up caffeine and alcohol as soon as I found out I was pregnant, and within two weeks my blood pressure plummeted from borderline too high to the low end of normal.

I know my efforts are paying off with every visit to my local nurse, who checks my blood pressure and does a urinalysis every other week. Without adequate medical care here (for anything more in-depth I have to go to Nairobi, South Africa, or even Europe or the States), my diet has to be my primary source of health maintenance. As you can see, I'm eating good stuff, but I am dreaming of the day several months from now when I will be back in the United States and can walk into any grocery store to face a huge variety of food.

whole grains from bob's red mill

For anyone who's vowed to eat healthier this year, Bob's Red Mill has some of its popular whole grains on sale for 20% off this month, including some that are gluten-free. When I started the gluten-free diet, finding a source of whole grains seemed like a huge problem. Everywhere you look in the grocery stores, "whole grain" means wheat. But thanks to Bob's Red Mill's quinoa, I've found a tasty, healthy, protein-packed grain to love.

On the Monthly Specials page, the quinoa, millet, and kasha are all gluten-free. Note that the popcorn and rice are not necessarily processed in a wheat-free facility. Read labels carefully and ask questions if you have them before ordering. 

Don't know what to do with these grains? Check out the Recipes page. I love using the quinoa in place of wheat in tabouleh. 

*I am a regular consumer of Bob's Red Mill products. I have not received any compensation for this post.

chili-roasted acorn squash

I got this from Everyday Food.

2 acorn squash (1 1/2 pounds each), halved lengthwise, seeds removed
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons chili powder
Coarse salt and ground pepper

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Cut each squash half into several wedges, then halve wedges crosswise.
2. On a large rimmed baking sheet, toss squash with oil and chili powder; season with salt and pepper, and toss again. Roast until tender and starting to brown, 20 to 25 minutes, tossing halfway through. (This is the full recipe for 4; I halved it.)

I also made plain quinoa to serve the squash on. Something was not quite right about this meal. It was warm and filling but the taste was off. Maybe it was a sub-par squash. Maybe just because Martha says it's okay to eat the skin of an acorn squash that doesn't necessarily mean that you should. Maybe it needed a bit more salt and pepper. Whatever the case, last night was cold and rainy and we gobbled up this warm, comforting dish.

tabouli and grilled veggies

For awhile I've been thinking I should try making tabouli with quinoa grain instead of wheat and I finally got around to it yesterday. It was amazingly delicious! We gorged ourselves on it and my mouth is watering, thinking ahead to lunchtime today. I used the recipe in Moosewood. I'm not good at deciphering tastes in things, so I need recipes for guidance. Salt? Lemon? Garlic? Something else? Obviously I exchanged the bulgar wheat for quinoa. I steamed it early in the afternoon and by dinner-making time it was cool. I eyeballed the ingredients amounts and added them to taste. Garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper, parsely, scallions, mint, tomato--mostly stuff we have on hand regularly.

Mike put veggies on skewers and I brushed them with herbed olive oil (dried herbs de provence and fresh garlic added to the oil about an hour beforehand to steep), then he grilled. Mike heated up some pita for himself, and voila. Fantastic meal.

travel snacks

Packing for Europe includes me needing to bring some food. There will be delicious pastries and breads that I'll have to pass by. There will be flour hidden secretly in sauces and sausages. I have restaurant cards in Polish and German for giving to waiters to explain what gluten-free means. The breakfasts at our hotels will likely include some fruit or yogurt or cheese. But I'll need snacks, and I don't want every meal to be a chore. So I've been test-tasting some convenient foods to bring along.

Recently I ordered some stuff from gluten-free.com. First up, Glutino Breakfast Bars in cranberry. At first I didn't like these. I had been eating crackers with garlic cheese when the UPS guy delivered my gluten-free goodies, and I tore into the box and ate one of these bars right away. Mixing with the taste of the garlic cheese was not good. I had an awful taste in my mouth. I chased it with one of the Glutino organic chocolate and peanut bars and that made the taste in my mouth even worse. I was totally turned off by both bars, and very disappointed.

The next day, with a more hospitable pallate, I decided to give them both another try. I had my usual first few cups of coffee. Then I wanted a snack before heading out to the grocery store. I figured this sort of mimicked my coffee and light breakfast before going out for a few hours of sight-seeing. Even if the bars tasted terrible, would they be filling enough to sustain me for a few hours? I ate one of the cranberry bars. It tasted better, but not delicious. There's not a huge amount of cranberry flavor in the filling. But whatever they use for the outside is very heavy with something cinnamonny. (Maybe to cover up something less-tasty?) Several hours later, after grocery shopping, I noticed that I wasn't hungry. Yay! I got properly hungry at lunch time. As a pre-lunch snack I ate a chocolate-peanut bar. It still tasted awful. The chocolate is low-quality and I just didn't taste any peanuts. I tasted plastic.

The taste of the cranberry cereal bars grew on me, and I ordered another box plus the same kind in different flavors to bring with me. A couple bars, some fruit, some yogurt, not a bad breakfast or lunch.

I've also been trying hot cereals. I can tolerate oatmeal most of the time. Being on the road is not when I want to chance the 1 time out of 10 I might not tolerate it. So I ordered Alti Plano Quinoa Hot Cereal, the variety pack. I'd tried their chocolate cereal several years ago and didn't like it, but that was before I'd started eating quinoa regularly, and I think it's a taste that takes some getting used to. The variety pack comes with orange spice, chai spice, and apple spice flavors. They definitely overpower you with spice flavors to cover up the fact that you're eating quinoa, not the oatmeal you grew up with as a kid. They taste okay and they are filling. At the hotels that offer a cold breakfast, I'll be able have hot cereal (since they'll have hot water or milk for tea and coffee) and sometimes that comforting hot cereal mentality is what gets you going in the morning.

I'm mostly worried about Poland and Austria. From what I've heard the UK is pretty gluten-free friendly, plus I know the language. I fear that for the first 2 weeks of the trip I'll be living on coffee and my cereal bars until I get into the UK and can read the menus and labels.

How am I going to get all this stuff to Europe? I'm going to stash bars and packets in my backpack, my day pack, and my purse and pray they don't get too crushed.