Chicken Fajitas (SCD, GAPS)

Before SCD, one of my all time favorite styles of cooking would have probably been Mexican, I could devour tacos, burritos, fajitas, you name it - and we literally never missed a "Taco Tuesday".. I'd have to say that Mexican has probably been one of the things that I miss the most, so when Tom requested to have fajitas as his "last meal" before heading out to sea for 3 weeks, I was so on board.

Chicken Fajita Bowls

Ingredients:
2 chicken breasts
2 small red peppers
2 small orange peppers
2 small red onions
2 Tbsp paprika
1 Tbsp parsley
1/4 tsp onion powder (sub if you do not have a legal source)
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper

Directions:
1. Cut your chicken in to small strips, chop your garlic and julienne your onions and peppers - set aside.

2. Heat skillet on low with 1 Tbsp  of the olive oil
 
3. Throw your chicken into a bowl with the rest of the olive oil, half of the garlic, 1 Tbsp of the paprika and the rest of your spices - mix until thoroughly covered and then add to your skillet.

4. After about 2 minutes, flip the chicken then continue to watch, stirring often. Once the chicken starts to cook a little, add the rest of your garlic and let sautee until fragrant, then mix in the rest of your veg.

5. At this point, you can add the rest of your paprika, and a little more s&p (to taste)

6. Cook until peppers are soften and chicken seems done.

7. Serve up in a bowl with a little aged cheddar, yoghurt, and avocado.

Staple SCD Omelette (SCD, Gaps)

Today was my first day back volunteering at the GI department since my most recent flare, I'm so happy that I'm feeling better these days, I have more energy, I'm not so afraid to leave my house in the morning anymore, I'm working longer hours- it feels great.

I was in such a rush to leave this morning that I basically just showered and ran out the door, therefore I didn't have time to grab anything for breakfast. I volunteer from 9-11 at the GI department on Tuesdays, I was kind of nervous going in because mornings are when I am normally my sickest, something about colitis and mornings, everything seems a little more "active". Thankfully, it wasn't too bad, today went really well and I feel comfortable having to dip away, everyone knows me both as a volunteer there and as a patient, so everyone is very understanding anyway. It was a great day back.

By the end of my shift, I was starving though. I knew I needed to run to the grocery store and grab a few things before I headed home - so I got all the fixings to make an omelette, which I had been craving all morning. While I was there I also picked up some things to make some dry spice bbq wings for on the grill this evening, Tom leaves for a 3 week work trip on Thursday, so a nice dinner on the deck will be a good sending away.. I'll be making a beet coleslaw and grilled zucchini to go with. I hope to add that recipe as well!

Since omelettes are seriously my staple SCD breakfast, along with smoothies, yoghurt and fruit or just plain ol' boiled eggs I figured I'd share my fav, super simple omelette recipe.

Staple SCD Omelette

Ingredients:

2 eggs
2-3 Tbsp diced red onion
2 cremilini mushrooms, sliced
handful of spinach/kale chopped
3 Tbsp 1 year aged cheddar, shredded
1/4 avocado, sliced
s&p to taste


Directions:

1. Something that has totally become a game changer for me is to first sautee the mushrooms and red onion in a little butter, until soft and fragrant, and then set aside.

2. Whisk the eggs in a bowl, add butter into your skillet, once melted throw in your eggs. Let the eggs cook for a few seconds until you can see the edges beginning to cook before adding your sautee'd mushrooms and onions, along with the spinach on top of the eggs.

3. Sprinkle your cheese over top and let cook for about 1 minute , then add your sliced avocado before folding your omelette. Cook about another 30 seconds, add salt and pepper and then flip the omelette to cook on the other side for a few seconds - then you're done!

Sometimes I actually leave the avocado out and just lay the slices over top the finished omelette, I also love to have this with salsa on the side, for a little added kick.

Today, I felt like my body needed some extra probiotics, as I am just finishing up a round of antibiotics so I served it up with some homemade SCD yoghurt and banana!


Enjoy!

Beef Tagine (SCD, Paleo, GAPS)

I am obsessed with this rich, warm tagine dish. It's incredibly easy to throw most everything in the crock pot at the beginning of the day and just finish it up when you get home from work, and it leaves your house smelling amazing.


The first time I had this, we were at a family dinner at Hailey's and Dave's, as I've mentioned before, Hailey is the person who introduced me to SCD, so it's always a treat having dinner at their house .. as soon as I had one bite of this, I was obsessed. I literally had thirds. It's unreal good and you'd honestly have a hard time believing it was SCD unless somebody told you. I serve it up with some homemade yoghurt on a bed of cauliflower rice. If you have it, cilantro would be a nice addition, I rarely have cilantro around the house though.

Beef Tagine

Ingredients:

1-2 Tbsp ghee, butter or olive oil
1 lb Stewing beef
2 Tbsp cinnamon
1-2 tsp coriander
1 cm or thumb sized piece of fresh ginger (chopped)
2-3 garlic cloves (finely chopped)
1/8 tsp each salt & pepper (or to taste)
12-15 dried pitted dates (soaked)
8 dried apricots (soaked)
1 Tbsp orange rind
2 Tbsp honey
2 red onions
2 Tbsp blanched almonds


Directions: 

Soak dates and apricots for one hour.

In a crockpot add ghee, garlic, ginger cinnamon, coriander, s&p along with your beef and set to high for 4 hours, or low for 5-6.


Once beef is tender, in a tagine or pot sautee the red onion and almonds in remaining ghee for about 1-2 minutes or until almonds are golden, transfer contents of crock pot, along with the dates, apricots, and orange rind into the tagine and add just enough water to cover. Place lid on tagine and simmer 15-20 minutes. Stir in the honey, season with additional salt and pepper (to taste) and simmer for an additional 10 minutes. Make sure there is enough liquid in the pot, you want the sauce to be syrupy and carmelized but not too dry, add more water if needed.

Let cool for about 5 minutes and serve on a bed of cauliflower rice, topped with homemade yoghurt, cilantro and additional slivered almonds!

Enjoy!

Where I've Been

Starting a blog is a funny thing, well, for me anyway. I sit down to gather my thoughts, topics, recipe ideas and you know that in the beginning, you're really probably the only person reading the posts. But thats ok, everybody starts somewhere - a blog doesn't just appear out of thin air over night, it takes time to gather content, a niche, and for me, motivation.

 I had many plans this past summer, upon first discovering SCD to create a blog catered to really helping gather recipes, whether I am finding them elsewhere, tweaking them, or completely creating my own. As I've said in a previous post, I've had trouble really finding a blog that had it all-  the basics, great recipes, info, but a blog that was also aesthetically pleasing. For that reason, it has been my goal to create just that. However, life got in the way. I had an incredibly hard summer; being sick with my first big flare - it was months of testing, being wrongly diagnosed, put on wait lists, trying new meds, etc. While IBD was on the radar, it couldn't be confirmed without a scope, so SCD really helped me in that time, and thankfully by the end of the summer I was somewhat feeling better and ready to conquer my first year back in university.

September went really well, I stuck with SCD and things were great, I had a real rhythm going for a bit, until I got sick again. In the months of November and December I dropped down to 106 lbs, for my height that still isn't underweight , but for a girl who was wavering over the 130 line just in June, it was huge. I looked sick, I was sick, I had an incredibly hard time getting focused for exams - but I did it. I went back to intro for about a week after exams, and finished up just in time to have a beautifully made SCD dinner thanks to my loving "mother in law" (my boyfriends sister is the one who put me on to SCD, and the family is such a huge support team for us) . On boxing day I went back to a more basic/early stage form of SCD until New Years, which we spent in the city with good friends and dined at an amazing restaurant- The Wooden Monkey that had specifically crafted me a beautiful SCD legal meal of sesame crusted haddock, local veg and even topped it off with a chocolate avocado pudding made with all legal ingredients (minus the cocoa, but I wanted to splurge a little). I honestly can't find the words to thank them enough, I contacted them prior and they helped me create a menu, aware that I'd be coming. I was able to feel a little more normal, not having to stick out like a sore thumb in the group listing off the specifics of my medical diet, and therefore enjoy my evening with friends to the fullest. After the restaurant we went back to a beautiful new hotel in downtown halifax where we laughed and drank the night away, and watched the fireworks over the harbour.

The rest of the winter was OK, I started feeling pretty good by early January, and that lasted about a month until another flare started, it seemed to come on slow, but by March/April it hit an all time high I was in and out of doctor appointments the entire last month of school, and nearly had to cancel my trip to the Dominican. I was wrongly diagnosed with a tapeworm and subsequent infectious colitis (I won't go into details about how or why, you really don't want to know) and took the treatment for it just 3 days before I left for my trip.

The Dominican was beautiful, our resort was amazing and I had a jacuzzi suite all to myself, right next door to my family. Everything was great and my symptoms were at a minimum until the 3rd day- a Monday, we had an all day excursion booked.

On the 2 hour bus ride into the jungle I started feeling really sick, my stomach felt like it was ripping apart and I was getting really overheated and nauseous, I told my sister in law that I was feeling motion sick and that I couldn't friggin wait to get off the bus (I wasn't really sure what what was up).. by the end of the bus ride, I had my backpack open in my laps ready to vomit into it, but luckily we made it to our destination in time. I immediately ran to the bathroom, after that I thought I might be fine, I still felt shitty and my stomach was incredibly bloated, tender to touch and the nausea was still present but I went to the first area where we were supposed to do ziplining. About 20 minutes later, I announced that I couldn't do the ziplining so I took the lift back to the main area, closer to the bathroom and got myself a bottle of water.  My family came back, my niece came into the bathroom to find me and asked me to try to do the buggies, so I followed along - I didn't want to miss the buggies, and I wasn't really able to throw up anyway, despite the constant feeling that I had to. That's when it all went down hill, about 5 minutes into the buggie ride the whole group stopped at a river to go swimming, I was beginning to feel very sick at this point and I stayed back while everybody went swimming and spent the time throwing up in the bushes, by the time we got back to the main area it was probably around 12, I ran to the bathroom where I was intermittently either filling the toilet with blood, or throwing up- my sister in law came in to find me, followed by an employee who was cleaning the rest rooms.. when the employee heard me she began talking to my sister in law and then ran to grab a  medic. The rest of the day was a mess, they didn't have much for me there, but they were loading me with gatorade to avoid dehydration and gave me anti nauseant, my family enjoyed the rest of the excursion and I went in and out of falling asleep in the bathroom stall until we were ready to leave at 5pm. Needless to say, it is marked up there of one of the worst days for me. The following 2 days I was feeling a little better, I was no longer throwing up and immodium kept the rest of my symptoms to a minimum but I was still in incredible pain, making trips to the bathroom every 10 minutes, and unable to eat. The last 2 days at the resort I was able to have a little more fun. When I got home I had a doctors appointment the following Monday where I was immediately put in for an emergency scope and started on 4000mg Sulfasalazine. Leading to the ultimate diagnosis of UC- proctosigmoditis (finally I know what's going on).

Right now, I'm feeling a lot better but I'm determined now to really get back to this blog, I feel it will keep me more motivated to stay on track with SCD , when I was following it fanatically, I was doing really well. I want to get back to that point. I know this has been an incredibly long post, but like I said - I'm likely the only person reading it at this point, its a way to get things off my chest and if/when someday my blog becomes well known myself and my readers will be able to look back and see where I started any why.