Earlier in the year I got really sick, seemingly out of the blue. It wasn't out of the blue - I'd been tired, stressed and struggling for what felt like years, and then all of a sudden, my body called time and I was in bed for about 3 days. I just couldn't get my feet back under me. I came right with a lot of chicken soup, and not much of anything else, and found that it had a bit of a taking-care-of-myself snowball effect. My diet changed a lot because I couldn't stomach much aside from plain foods, and so processed foods, baking, a lot of things went out the window.
But, I like bickies and sugar and bread and sugar and sugar ... Plus, I felt like the proverbial bandwagon jumper-onner, and meh. Bandwagons make me twitch.
But it's pretty hard to deny - I felt so much better eating wholefoods, simple, non-processed foods, either gluten free or high quality bread (I don't believe I'm gluten intolerant at all, but there's something in store bought bread that affects me - it's as simple as that. No idea what, and too lazy to find out, when I have a fairly good solution), and ditching refined sugar. That was just the reality of it. Dammit. And it's not just feeling a little bit better, the endometriosis I had operated on before I had Cuinn came back after having Antonia, and the pain and symptoms were chronic, on top of general fatigue - the symptoms almost entirely disappeared with a change in diet.
So I kicked up my heels on holiday as a last hurrah of sorts (that mallowpuff was worth everything!) and then came home and started settling into new, better habits.
Petite Kitchen really is my favourite resource for this sort of cooking and baking - her recipes are simple, easily achieved and the ingredients not usually hard to come by or expensive, and if they are, usually they'll last for aaages. I've wanted this book for quite a while, and finally decided it really was worth it moving forward. She's great though if you don't want to buy the book - she has a wealth of recipes online. I just need the motivation that having a book in front of me provides, and of course, buying her book helps to financially support her to continue which will help me in the long-run too.
Anyway, I'm meandering, so here's some of what I've been playing with. It's different to traditional baking - I had a hell of a time trying to get the biscuits (in general) to come out without burning them horribly, but a couple of batches in I worked out that if I quickly pull them out of the oven halfway through baking and whip them onto a cold baking tray, that stops the burning. I don't know how everyone else does it - maybe my oven is just possessed. They do need a bit more of a delicate touch though. I put some shortbread together for the kids today, and it felt like a different world.
The recipes for these are all by Petite Kitchen, and all on her website.
Lemon and Coconut Macaroon Cookies
Vanilla Nut Butter Biscuits (which are supposed to be with raisins, but ugh. Raisins)
'Caramel' Banana Cookies, Sprinkled with Chia Seeds.
Coconut Cream Popsicles. Actually, I haven't checked that this recipe is on the website, but I presume so. Al made this one, and obviously it's not popsicles. What it is, is such an amazingly delicious mixture we sat down and ate it like gelato He put mango in it, and it was DIVINE. I don't think we actually managed to make any of it into iceblocks. I'd be surprised if we do next time, either.
And this. This recipe being posted online was such a happy moment for me. I adore bread, but it seems to be something of an enemy to me. I can't eat loads of this, but it's definitely kinder to me than most others, tastes really good and is so easy to make. It's made with spelt (not gluten free). Who knew spelt was such a great thing?
Crusty Artisan Dutch Oven Bread
And I've just made, but didn't take a pic of, Salted Peanut Butter Cookies. They're pretty much held together with peanut butter and medjool dates. I'm historically petrified of dates, but these are so good! Soft, crumbly, and so sweet they definitely make me feel like I'm not giving up a thing. Actually full disclosure - I'm not. Al rang a while ago from work to say he'd picked up a chocolate caramel tart or something along those lines to split for morning tea tomorrow, and I'm totally going there. I don't do denial. Denial for me just results in binging on bad stuff and then giving up the good stuff totally because I'm useless.
Oh, and yeah, I started feeling better again almost immediately. There's a point about 2 weeks after I make the change where I feel like I'm dying for a wee bit and I'm there now, but it's already blowing over thank heaven.
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