Lately...

First...I have successfully made it through 25 gluten-free days! Today is day 26 and I am still going strong. I think once I heard something about new habits...and if you do whatever you want to become your "new habit" for 21 days, it becomes a habit. Maybe that's way off. But, whatever, that's what's in my head right now...so I will just make myself think I have successfully formed a new habit...living gluten-free!

Let's see. Monday night after a long day at work (I left around 6:30), I came home and decided to make gluten-free home-made baked macaroni and cheese. I found a recipe in my trusty Carol Fenster book and got to work. I used corn elbow noodles I had purchased from Naturally Yours earlier that morning when I was on my way back to work from an offsite visit with a kiddo I had. It took a while, naturally, to make the sauce (basically rice milk, tapioca flour, a ton of cheese, and a tiny dash of hot sauce), but finally the big caserole dish full of cheesy noodles, topped with gluten-free bread crumbs...was in the oven! I was really pumped up, as I had been craving macaroni and cheese. Well, we were both sorely disappointed. It was terrible! We think the problem was the corn noodles....and maybe the tapioca flour in the cheese sauce. They tasted funky and were an odd texture. I felt terrible, but we threw away the whole thing. It was bad. Bad, bad, bad! I almost cried...and I definitely sat on the couch and sulked for a while. It was so frustrating to waste ALL of that TIME and MONEY on those ingredients! Jeremy pointed out that I can't win every time...but I still want to! I stopped sulking long enough to get ready to go to the gym...so off we went. I felt MUCH better after an intense workout. And, after I got back I popped some popcorn with our stove popper. I don't think I have mentioned yet how much I LOVE popcorn. It has seriously become the biggest staple of my diet in the past 3 weeks! Our stove-top popper gets quite the workout!

So, also on Monday...my friend AWESOME Jillian from work informed me early that morning that she had a treat for me. She led me to her office and pulled from her purse two bars and a cookbook she had checked out from the library for me...Gluten Free and Easy. How awesome is she?!

The bars...oh my gosh. They are AWESOME! They are called Larabars. Click on the link to check them out! She got me two different flavors: Peanut Butter Cookie, and Cherry Pie. I ate the Peanut Butter Cookie one that morning and I ate the Cherry Pie one yesterday morning! The Peanut Butter Cookie one seriously tasted like a peanut butter cookie...and the only ingredients were dates, peanuts, and salt! Are you kidding me!? These bars are AWESOME and have MINIMAL ingredients..and are all natural and organic!

When I went to Naturally yours later Monday morning to purchase the nasty corn noodles for that nights doomed dinner, I also looked around for Larabars. I found some...but not the Peanut Butter Cookie flavor, unfortunately! I purchased a Pecan Pie one, and also two Jocolate chocolate bars also made by Larabar...check them out below!

YUM! I can't wait to try those last three! Which one should I eat today?!