I have always been someone who could pretty much eat anything I wanted. There are a few things I don’t care for, but otherwise I have never suffered from eating anything other than lettuce. I have no food allergies, no other intolerances.
That all seem to have changed this past week. Both Brett and I suffered from wonky tummies, and had other digestive issues. We’re weren’t sick, but we definitely didn’t feel good, and by the end of last week we were concerned about what could be causing the problems. We gave it a lot of thought and discussion, and decided the only thing that had changed was that we had been eating cream puffs and tiramisu for dessert, both new additions and filled with dairy. We each only had been having five of the mini puffs for dessert, less than the recommended serving, but along with the tiramisu they appeared to have stirred things up. We knew Brett was already slightly lactose intolerant, but after going months without any dairy other than cheese (which doesn’t bother us), it looks like I may have possibly developed a bit of lactose intolerance as well. As soon as we dropped the cream puffs for dessert, everything settled back down.
We still have about six evenings worth of cream puffs left to eat though, but will space them out between other non-dairy desserts going forward and see if we can avoid the issues we had last week. If not, we’ll have to start at zero again and try to figure out what’s going on. Growing older and stay healthy is indeed an adventure, and I honestly did not have another possible food intolerance on my scorecard.
Below is what we ate for dinner last week. Everything was easy to fix and delicious (as were the leftovers).
Sunday: Chick’n patty sandwiches; three-bean salad
Monday: Tikka masala with tofu & peas; steamed rice
Tuesday: Chick’n nuggets; onion rings; 3-bean salad
Wednesday: Vegetarian lasagna; roasted peppers
Thursday: Mini pizzas with roasted peppers and onion
Friday: Cheese board: Manchego, Brie, Irish Cheddar, and Boursin; crackers; apple slices; dried apricots; marinated artichoke hearts; sweet pickles
Saturday: CookDo tofu & pepper stir fry; steamed rice
We enjoyed both the mini cream puffs and the tiramisu cups last week (up until we figured out they were probably the cause of our stomach issues). We’d have a couple nights with the cream puffs, then a tiramisu, then back to cream puffs, but that won’t be happening again. We picked up a (vegan) apple pie at Costco on our shopping trip last week. They had a whole two of them out and we grabbed one, so this coming week’s dessert will be pie, pie, and more pie with one evening of cream puffs in there somewhere. We had honestly come to believe though that we’d never see those apple pies again.
In spite of the beautiful weather we’ve been enjoying, temperatures have cooled off a bit so we’re enjoying what goes for fall dishes this next week: soup and toasted cheese sandwiches, chili dogs, and risotto. A new thing we’re going to try this week is a chicken and butternut squash casserole, vegetarian style. Mavis posted the recipe on the 100 Dollars a Month blog week before last and I decided I would try it IF I could keep it vegetarian. Costco finally got butternut squash in, and we found grilled chick’n strips at Walmart. The Great Value chicken flavored stuffing mix has chicken flavor listed as its absolute last ingredient so we figured we were pretty safe with that as well so the casserole was on! We’ve still got a lot of spanakopita and falafel on hand that we’re going to enjoy that again as well.
- Vegan chili dogs
- Vegetarian chick’n & butternut squash casserole
- Cheese board
- Mini pizzas
- Spanakopita & falafel
- Risotto with peas
- Split pea soup & toasted cheese sandwiches
Last week was our swan song for perimeter walks and golf ball hunting. We need/want to get rid of the golf balls we have, and want to get back to walking for exercise as our main focus versus hunting for golf balls, which sort of got in the way at times. One benefit of getting away from the perimeter walks is that we’ll once again be able to go to the park a bit earlier in the day, at 3:30 in the afternoon versus 4:30, and be home in time that I don’t have to segue right into fixing dinner. I can’t say we’ll never walk the perimeter again but we have other goals we need to focus on now. I know it’s going to feel strange not heading out onto the course but we’ll get back into our old routine in no time. Our walking total for October (66 miles) was our lowest for the year so far, but there were so many bad weather days where we either didn’t walk at all or had to shorten our walks.
The clouds were white when we started our walk, pink when we finished last Wednesday. We’ll once again be walking earlier in the day beginning this week.
We had a great final week for lost ball hunting though. We picked up 52 balls between Monday and Tuesday, then another 29 of them on Wednesday! We thought we’d picked the course clean when we started out on Thursday but found yet another 13 that day. The weather was too sketchy for us to walk on Friday and Saturday, but we went out again yesterday for one last round and found 42 (!!!) to give us our top weekly total ever: 136. We have quite a bit of sorting to do, but we hope to have everything listed by the second week of November and out of the house by the end of the month with some additional funds in our travel account!
The Occasional Nomads 