Meg's Meal Planning

Gluten Free

Gluten and dairy free. Week Three

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I feel like I’m getting in the groove with these meals. It does take a little more time to plan, but it’s well worth it. At the start of the week, we were still away, but I packed snacks and almond milk, so we were still able to somewhat stay the course.

Sunday– away

Monday

  • Breakfast – Avocado toast with Everything but the Bagel Sesame Seasoning Blend from Trader Joe’s.
  • Lunch – Sandwich with ham, lettuce, and tomato on GF bread. 
  • Dinner – Baked chicken thighs with butternut squash and a side salad. I didn’t use the entire squash, but I cooked all of it anyways and will use the left over squash another night this week. I also gave some of the squash to the baby since it was very soft. 
One pan chicken thighs and butternut squash photo by Let the Baking Begin

Tuesday

  • Breakfast – Gluten free waffles with blueberries and bananas. I used a store bought brand, Vans.
  • Lunch – Spinach salad with left over ground turkey mixture from the zucchini boats in week two.
  • Dinner – Boneless pork loin with garlic and free herbs. I roasted Brussel sprouts and sweet potatoes at the same time as the pork. Love those one pan dinners!
Boneless pork loin photo by Boulder Locavore

Wednesday

  • Breakfast – Shake: 2 cups kale, 1 cup left over zucchini from last week, handful of frozen strawberries, ½ banana, 1 cup almond milk, 1 tbsp almond butter, 1 tbsp ground flax seed, water.
  • Lunch – Lemon herb Mediterranean quinoa salad.
  • Dinner – Turkey taco salad. Made this one again because it’s so easy and tasty! Originally made it in week one.
lemon herb salad
Lemon herb Mediterranean quinoa salad

Thursday

  • Breakfast – Egg sandwich with avocado on GF bread.
  • Lunch – Sorta just picked at things today because I took my older son skiing – carrots and almond butter, trail mix, and a banana. I’m loving the raw almond butter from Trader Joe’s. It is nice and creamy and easy to spread.
  • Dinner – Left over pork loin with spinach salad and the left over butternut squash.
Trader Joe’s Raw Almond Butter

Friday

Superfood salad

Saturday

Gluten and dairy free. Week two.

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Zucchini Shrimp photo by Paleo Leap
Lemon Garlic Chicken photo by Anna Watson Carl

Week two of going gluten and dairy free. In case you missed week one, CLICK HERE. One week into it and I think we’re doing pretty good. One little mishap when I left the chicken out overnight in the crockpot, which resulted in having gluten free pasta two nights. Oh well, I’m human!

My thoughts from last week: Going gluten and dairy free is not as difficult as I thought it was going to be! The most noticeable difference compared to my normal diet is, on my day off, I usually eat a snack around 3 in the afternoon. Normally, I grab either a cheese stick or yogurt because they are quick and offer protein. If I eat just fruit, I’m hungry again in 30 minutes, so I grabbed some carrots with almond butter and that did the trick.

I bought a few pantry items to help with meals: almond butter, almond flour, almond meal, and ghee.

Without further delay, here is the meal plan for week two. This week gets a little dicey because we will be away for two nights visiting friends. That trip was already planned before we decided to go GF and DF for February, so it will most likely be a cheat weekend. However, I’m curious to see how I’ll respond to gluten and/or diary after being without them for two weeks. 

For this week I also prepped some grilled chicken ahead of time (link below) and used it with salads for the week. 

Week two

Sunday

  • Breakfast – Scrambled eggs and bacon.
  • Lunch – Grilled cheese (GF bread from TJ’s and cheese alternative also from TJ’s) with grapes, and gluten free chips. The cheese took longer to melt than regular cheese, so I kept the heat on low and covered the pan with lid. 
  • Dinner – Meatloaf with roasted Brussel sprouts. This was a very tasty dinner!

Monday

  • Breakfast – Shake with two cups kale, ½ cup riced cauliflower, ½ cup frozen strawberries, ½ banana, 1 tbsp almond butter, 1 tbsp ground flax seed, 1 cup almond milk, water.
  • Lunch – Quinoa fried rice with grilled chicken. (Instead of soy sauce, I used coconut aminos).
  • Dinner – Lemon garlic rosemary roasted chicken with Brussel sprout salad (I didn’t add parmesan cheese). We didn’t love the raw Brussel sprouts, so we ended up roasting them in the oven.

Tuesday

Wednesday

  • Breakfast – Gluten free oats. I buy Happy Quick Oats by Bakery on Main. I actually prefer these to gluten oatmeals. They come out nice and fluffy!
  • Lunch – Prepared salad from Trader Joe’s; my husband and I split the tahini, pepita, and apricot slaw kit. It includes shredded carrots, broccoli stalks, green baggage, and kale with a tahini orange dressing. He ate his with left over meatloaf and I topped mine with grilled chicken.
  • Dinner – Slow cooker “queso” chicken chili.

Thursday

Friday and Saturday – Away

Gluten and dairy free meal plan. Week one

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For the month of February, my husband and I ate gluten and dairy free, or at least we tried to. This was a new way to eat for us, and we definitely had some bumps in the road, but I wanted to try it after reading the book, The Walh’s Protocol. I heard about this book, which was written by a doctor who talks about how to improve symptoms of autoimmune disease through diet, from a patient of mine. My husband and I do not have any autoimmune conditions, but in the book she talks about how everyone can benefit from following her protocol and rebuilding your cellular health. If you have an autoimmune disease or food sensitivities, I highly recommend checking it out for yourself. Click here for the link for the book.

There are three levels to her protocol. The first and most basic level is what we followed. The criteria are the following :

  1. Gluten and dairy free.
  2. Eat 9 cups of fruits and vegetables daily. (Can adjust the amount of cups for your height/weight).
  3. Eat organic lean protein daily.

In the book she breaks down each criteria in more detail. The 9 cups of fruits and vegetables are broken down into three categories: 3 cups leafy greens, 3 cups of vegetables rich in sulfur, and 3 cups of bright colored fruits/veggies.

Paleo breakfast
Kale and red bell pepper frittata

If you know me or follow my blog, you obviously know I like to plan my dinners. However, to follow this protocol I also had to plan my breakfasts and lunches; I didn’t know how challenging this would be, but with a little time and effort we made it successful!

Week One

Monday

  • Breakfast- Shake with 1 cup spinach, kale, 1/2 cup fresh fruit (I used blueberries, grapes, and raspberries), 1/2 cup left over broccoli stems/leaves, 1 tbsp almond butter, 1/2 cup almond milk, 1 1/4 cup water, and 1 tbsp ground flax seed.
  • Lunch– Mediterranean quinoa salad minus the feta cheese. I cut the recipe in half and we still got three lunches from it.
  • Dinner– Eggplant parmesan with vegan cheese, a side of chick-pea pasta from Banza, and roasted broccoli.
Quinoa salad 2
Mediterranean quinoa salad

Tuesday

  • Breakfast– Frittata with red bell pepper and kale and avocado toast with gluten free bread.
  • Lunch– Salad with romaine lettuce, red bell pepper, avocado, cherry tomatoes, and rolled up/sliced deli meat.
  • Dinner– Chickpea pasta and a spinach salad. This dinner was an “oops”, I planned for a whole chicken in the crockpot, but when I cooked it a few days in advance, I turned off the crockpot to let it cool and forgot about it during the dinner time rush! It sat out overnight, so we had to toss it.

Wednesday

  • Breakfast– Shake – 2 cups spinach, handful of fresh blueberries and frozen strawberries, 1 tbsp almond butter, 1 tbsp ground flax seed, half an avocado, 1 cup almond milk, and 1 cup water.
  • Lunch-Left over mediterranean quinoa salad.
  • Dinner– Asian chicken chopped salad. I added half an avocado and fresh mango to our salad.

Thursday

smashed chickpea sandwich
Smashed chickpea and avocado sandwich

Friday

  • Breakfast- Left over frittata.
  • Lunch– Kale, edamame, and quinoa salad. I added a hard boiled egg to mine for more protein.
  • Dinner– Pizza night. I used cauliflower crust from Trader Joe’s and topped it with tomato sauce and vegan mozzarella cheese (also from TJ’s)

Saturday

  • Breakfast– Banana cinnamon paleo waffles. I used almond flour instead of coconut flour because that’s what I had on hand. I also doubled it hoping to have left overs, but we didn’t. My waffle iron must be bigger because it only made six. P.S. Noah loved these, he had two whole waffles, which I definitely didn’t account for!
  • Lunch– Left over chickpea pasta and kale quinoa salad.
  • Dinner– Beef and rice stuffed peppers. I used ground turkey. The recipe calls for 5 bell peppers, but I only made three, and didn’t cut back on the rest of the ingredients. I used the left over stuffing for salads the following week.

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