The elimination diet is over. Officially. I still have not added everything back into my diet, but am working on doing so one day at a time. On Sunday night I had beef, half a beer, and a tiny bit of chocolate and ice cream (as in, a couple bites). Yesterday I had a small yogurt, which was my only source of dairy for the day. Tonight I might just have to have a small bowl of the homemade low fat ice cream I made recently.
I made a batch of vanilla low fat ice cream, then added a bunch of leftover Halloween candy.
If you’re wondering how I’m doing with my caffeine, I’m happy to report I am still only consuming 200-250 mg/day, which is 100mg less than before my elimination diet. I’m feeling great.
Finally, some new recipes!
Sweet Wine Reduction Sauce
What do you do when you open a bottle of wine and it’s just…well….gross!!?? You make a reduction sauce! This wine below was just too sweet for my taste. I rarely ever say that, but if you tasted this I bet you would agree.
So being the “foodie” that I am (I guess), I poured the bottle into a large saucepan and heated it on LOW heat for about 90 minutes. The key to making a reduction sauce (as I read online) is to NOT let it boil. There really isn’t any need to stir, but you need to be patient and it will eventually start to reduce and thicken.
Once it’s reduced to the point where it’s starting to almost bubble, turn off the heat. The next step is really up to you, but I added about 1/4 cup of Smart Balance 50/50 butter sticks, as well as some basil leaves.
Once it was cooled I poured it into this plastic container, just to see how much it really reduced!
I reheated the reduction sauce a couple days after making it, and poured it over some homemade frozen yogurt.
Butternut and Acorn Squash Soup
I found this recipe on Allrecipes.com, but as always I modified the recipe by using Greek yogurt instead of cream cheese. It was so simple. The most difficult part was taking the skin off the butternut squash.
After cutting up all the squash, I put it into a blender with all of the other ingredients (low sodium chicken broth, Smart Balance 50/50 butter sticks, and plain 2% Greek yogurt). I blended the ingredients in two batches since my blender couldn’t hold it all at once.
After the ingredients were well blended and pureed, I added the soup to a large saucepan to heat it. Then I added some cinnamon and nutmeg.
This soup was so good, even Nick ate it (and I’ve never seen him eat soup, ever).
I made this soup before my elimination diet, but last week I made it again using EVOO instead of butter, and cultured coconut milk instead of Greek yogurt (it wasn’t enough to give me gas, thank goodness). It was just as good this way, and made a great addition to my lunches.
