Weekend Recap

we (meaning my husband and i) went to a family reunion on his mothers side this weekend. it was my first time meeting lots of these folks in my new family (and they were wonderfully warm and welcoming!) and my first outing with my new diet.

by the way, i hate the word diet. its been so poorly used for so long in conjunction with crash diets and unhealthy things. when i say diet, i certainly mean 'what i eat,' not 'what i eat to lose weight quickly and scarily.' moving on.

the reunion was on a beach (san onofre, i think) and we were there for two days. we stayed in a rather nice little cabin right there, and brought or cooked all of our food there as a big group. this side of the family has a lot of mexican going on. they like cheese, and it was in most everything. i made sure to bring a container of vanilla coconut milk, some safe granola bars, and a couple of gf/df hamburger buns.

i did bad with pictures. as in, i didnt take any of food. (and not many of people..)

the first night we were there, hamburgers were on the menu. so i had a two hamburger patties with ketchup, mustard, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and relish, with one gf bun. (udi's brand bread for the win). i couldnt eat any of the greek salad, because of the copious amounts of mouthwatering feta. i did pile some tomatoes and onions on my plate though, with a bit more salt and pepper. and of course, my father in laws famous potato salad. (we decided it was safe after some discussion about his ingredients. yay!)

the next morning, i crumbled up a granola bar in a bowl with blueberries and raspberries and ate it with vanilla coconut milk.

this lunch was the main meal of the event, and was destined to be the trickiest. it went well! there were a few things i truly considered cheating for..thats not true. there was just one thing- my sister in laws spinach dip. its my favorite and i routinely kill it at family gatherings. i refrained, but it was hard. i filled up on corn tortilla chips, salsas and pico de gallo out the yen yang, and crazy good guacamole. tamales (my mother in law sweetly called the restaurant where she got them to check the ingredients), tasty and spicy homemade frijoles, and mexican rice. after that, i caught sight of the grapes and cantelope, and went to town. no partaking in the 8 year olds birthday cake, my favorite dip, or the cookies that i made before i got the news and brought with us. i was so full from that, that i didnt eat another real meal the rest of the day (we came home late that night), but did get to have a perfectly roasted marshmallow curtesy of my sister in laws boyfriend.

yesterday, was a day of relaxing at home before the hubby went back to work today. i had some rice with nutritional yeast, furikake, and an egg, (plus a handful of blueberries. yum.) for breakfast. for a quick snack/lunch, i had another bowl of granola, berries, and coconut milk. then it was time to head out and replace my husbands phone. (he might have walked into the ocean with it in his pocket the other day...iphones dont do well in water.) we were both eligible for upgrade, so i got a new phone too! (samsung infuse for her, samsung galaxy s2 for him.)

i had every intention of cooking some safe and delicious chinese-style food for dinner last night, but by the time we were done at best buy, we were shaky hungry and read to gnaw each others facce off. we traded going out tonight, which we had been planning on, for chipotle last night. rice bowl with chicken and grilled veggies, mild salsa and corn salsa, and guacamole for me. (plus also the addicting tortilla chips and medium salsa. chipotle is easy to do for gf/df, but i did miss my sour cream a bit.

that brings us to today! i have a picture for today!

today i made my take on the pumpkin smash smoothie from jamba juice (gf but not df, and my favorite, i wait for it all year.) i did pretty good, i think. a little too much nutmeg. heres what i did:

a bit over one cup of frozen pumpkin

one cup of vanilla coconut milk

1 tbls vanilla

2 tbls brown sugar

4 ice cubes

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg (too much)

(i would rather have just used pumpkin pie spice, but target didnt have any.)

blend!

it is delicious.