Cleaning the cabinets

Yogurt "cooking" in the dehydrator!

Bag of foods I can no longer have!

The pantry cupboard.

The kitchen cupboard

I purged our cupboards of alot of illegal foods. Some I am keeping for hubby and the girls. It's so nice to have things in orderly fashion. My next new years cleaning project will be the entry way and office. Those areas need help (again)!

I am still in the "preparing to transition" phase of SCD. I have begun eating some SCD foods while using up some stock in our cupboards/freezer. It seemed silly to waste food when I am overall feeling fine at the moment. I have not bought more cases of pop (I did have a can last night). I have cut down on my cereal intake too. Tonight we are grilling venison tenderloin and the marinade is SCD compliant!

My first recipe!!!

Modified to be SCD legal from an existing oven baked pork chop recipe I found. I tend to cook "Rachael Ray style" and guesstimate amounts of things.

2 T melted butter
1 egg
1-2 T of water
ground pepper
1-2 T honey
1 C finely chopped walnuts
dried parsley
porkchops

Cover bottom of glass baking dish with butter (I used a 9x13 pan). Make egg wash using egg and water, add pepper to egg wash. Dip chops in wash, then roll in the walnuts, drizzle some honey on and sprinkle on parsley. Bake 425 for 20-30 minutes depending on thickness-flipping halfway through cooking.

An awesome deal!!!

It's Murphy's law that I like expensive things. This diet is no exception. Lets face it food is expensive enough as it is, but there are stores like Aldi where you can purchase processed foods for cheap to help with the grocery budget. Now I am restricted to specific brands and fresh produce and meats. And then there is the equipment to prepare all of this fine cuisine. On my wish list is a food processor and ice cream maker. We have already purchased a couple of small things...a grater, and double boiler to aid in yogurt prep. But the best deal was on the food dehydrator! We went to Cabela's and found one of their $400 commercial dehydrators in the bargain cave for $250, and then I got an additional 30% off...we also picked up a pack of screens for it and some silicone mats to make fruit leathers...and hubby got some ammo since we were there. They were having a promo for Cabela's card holders so we got an additional $70 off our purchase spending only $233 on all of it!!!!! I am so excited. The dehydrator is a ginormous but it will double as a yogurt maker and it was so cheap considering all the extras we got too!

Next week we'll get it up and going and make some yogurt! Stay tuned!

An intro and my process leading up to my start of the SCD

I am 29 years old and have had Crohn's disease since age 3. I have been on countless medicines over my course with the disease, and have endured 3 surgeries related to my Crohn's. I had a colostomy at age 10, colostomy reversal at age 12 and adhesion removal at age 16. I have been in a remissive state for a bit now following remicade a few years back. I am currently taking Imuran.

I discovered the SCD (Specific Carbohydrate Diet) through a recommendation to get the book Breaking the Vicious Cycle by Elaine Gottschall. I had been feeling a bit flare-y lately and wanted to see if I could do anything with my diet to help. It turns out there is alot of changing I can do to my diet to hopefully be free of symptoms, and maybe even get to a better point than my normal. I am excited to try this, but apprehensive as well because I love my carbs, milk and sugar...I totally crave all of those things so this will be a struggle for me to resist temptation.

I bought the BTVC book a couple of weeks ago thinking I'd just browse it and slowly start things, well I haven't been feeling better so I've stepped up my desire to start with this. To do this I have been reading alot online (blogs, Yahoo groups, etc.), printing myself some resources (food lists, menu ideas, etc.) and gathering as much knowledge as I can.

To start things:
I went to the grocery store today and got a few safe foods
I am looking into purchasing a food dehydrator to use as a yogurt maker too
I need to order almond flour
I need to plan my menu

It is very overwhelming right now, I am excited to cook however, I enjoy that. I'm not sure where I will find the time to do so with my two young girls "helping" so be looking for my posts about my helpers at a later point I'm sure.