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  • Stuffed Bell Peppers, Slow Cooker

    Low Carb Stuffed Bell Peppers

    One of my favorite comfort food meals before GAPS was Stuffed Bell Peppers. But this recipe was different than any others I’ve seen. Typically the recipe directs one to cook the hamburger, blanch the bell pepper, cook the rice, and then mix everything together. Yuck.

    The recipe I used called for raw hamburger, uncooked rice with canned tomatoes and seasonings, stuffed into raw bell peppers and cooked in the crockpot for eight hours.

    Alas, rice is not legal on GAPS.

    I found a recipe I wanted to try, which called for cauliflower. I lost the recipe though, and cannot find it.

    I had some beef ground by the butcher on Sunday night, and wanted to get it used and I also bought four beautiful huge bell peppers at the same time. And, I bought cauliflower. Alas, both heads of cauliflower were used before this morning, which is when I decided to put my experimental recipe into the crockpot.

    Here’s what I used:

    • 2 large green bell peppers, tops removed and deseeded
    • 2 large red bell peppers, tops removed and deseeded
    • 2 -1/2 pounds ground beef
    • 1/2 of a medium onion, chopped
    • 1/2 cup almond flour [affiliate link]
    • 1 cup shredded carrots
    • 1 tablespoon parsley [affiliate link] flakes
    • 1 teaspoon sea salt [affiliate link]
    • 1 teaspoon black pepper [affiliate link]
    • 14 ounce can of diced canned tomatoes

    Grease your crockpot with some type of fat (butter, lard or coconut oil [affiliate link]). Wash the bell peppers, remove the tops and seeds. Save the tops to replace once you’ve stuffed them with the hamburger mixture. Mix the remaining ingredients together and stuff lightly into the bell peppers, replacing the tops. Place the bell peppers into the crockpot, and tuck the remaining hamburger mixture in around the bell peppers.

    Set the crock pot to cook on low for eight hours.

    These were a pretty good substitute for the ones I used to make, except of course they don’t have the carbs.

    Next time I’m making these with cauliflower.

    Here are the nutrition facts for my Low Carb Stuffed Bell Peppers at Calorie Count at About.com.

    Low Carb Stuffed Bell Peppers

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    Recipe: Stuffed Bell Peppers, Slow Cooker
    Author: 
    Recipe type: Main Dish
    Prep time: 
    Cook time: 
    Total time: 
     
    A grain free stuff pepper recipe that can be made in the slow cooker.
    Ingredients
    • 2 large green bell peppers, tops removed and deseeded
    • 2 large red bell peppers, tops removed and deseeded
    • 2 -1/2 pounds ground beef
    • ½ of a medium onion, chopped
    • ½ cup almond flour
    • 1 cup shredded carrots
    • 1 tablespoon parsley flakes
    • 1 teaspoon sea salt
    • 1 teaspoon pepper
    • 14 ounce can of diced canned tomatoes
    Instructions
    1. Grease your crockpot with some type of fat (butter, lard or coconut oil).
    2. Wash the bell peppers, remove the tops and seeds.
    3. Save the tops to replace once you’ve stuffed them with the hamburger mixture.
    4. Mix the remaining ingredients together and stuff lightly into the bell peppers, replacing the tops. Place the bell peppers into the crockpot, and tuck the remaining hamburger mixture in around the bell peppers.
    5. Set the crockpot to cook on low for eight hours.
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    If you love recipes like this, I have two cookbooks you really need to check out ASAP! Beyond Grain and Dairy for gluten-free recipes and Winter Soups.

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  • Day 270 – Weight Update

    I stepped on the scale on Tuesday the 24th, and I weighed 292. Good lord, why do I keep typing 292?! That’s 192!

    Then I stepped on the scale on Monday or was it Tuesday morning? I think it was Tuesday morning. I weighed 188.6.

    My official “step on the scale” day is the 1st of each month, so I stepped on the scale this morning. Now I weigh 187.4.

    My “official” weight loss: 44.6 pounds

    Hmmm… I’ve been eating normally. In fact, on the last two days of vacation, I ate as much as I could to try to eat up the food we’d bought and would have to leave behind. I would have thought for the amount of beef jerky and dried fruit and nuts that I ate, that I would have gained. Although I did do a lot of walking.

    Tonight for dinner I had Stuffed Bell Peppers. Tomorrow I’ll share the recipe with you.

    I’m still tired from our vacation. I guess it’s normal to feel this way.

    I’ve been trying to read Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health by Gary Taubes but an acquaintance has informed me that the book is complete nonsense. I don’t know. It seems to make some sense. Perhaps I’m allowing the wool to be pulled over my eyes. It does seem that some kinds of calories affect us differently so that we are more hungry and want to eat more.

    My mom and I were talking this afternoon,  I don’t remember exactly what was said and my mom said that it was my choice to do GAPS and to limit the foods I’m eating. That I could eat anything I want to eat, but I choose not to.

    I told her it doesn’t really feel that way. I guess it is my choice.

    But it seems like I cannot eat anything I want. The price is pretty high for eating whatever I want. I did that for fifteen years and gained over 100 pounds.

    I can’t eat dairy or my sinuses become swollen and I can’t breathe through my nose to sleep at night. If I eat carbohydrates I gorge like a starving dog and can’t stop myself from eating which causes me to gain weight. It’s uncomfortable being as big as I was. I just don’t feel like I can eat anything I want.

    I guess it helps my mom to not feel deprived when she tells herself she can eat anything she desires. Although she also cannot. She has eaten low carb and low fat for many, many years. Possibly for two decades.

    I just feel like I’m lying to myself if I tell myself I can eat anything I want, but I just choose not to. What do you think? Do you tell yourself you can eat anything you want, but you just choose not to?

    GAPS DIET JOURNEY is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to AMAZON.COM. GAPS DIET JOURNEY is an affiliate for several companies and may be compensated through advertising and marketing channels. Therefore, this post may contain affiliate links.

  • Day 268 I’m Back From Vacation!

    Hi! I’m back! We got back into town at 7:15 and I was in bed by 10:30pm. I slept 6:30 but I was still feeling so tired that I ended up spending most of the day sleeping.

    My energy levels were phenomenal on our trip, I am so glad I started GAPS back in December. I know you must be sick of hearing me say that, but I remember how I used to feel after a simple trip to the grocery store, let alone flying across the country on a plane and trekking all over a city I’d never been before!

    Much of my success in staying on GAPS was due in part to this wonderful, wonderful surprise which I found upon entering our hotel room where we stayed at the Hawthorn Suites by Wyndham in Alexandria, Virginia:

    Full Kitchen!!

    When I booked the hotel, it said it had a full kitchen, but I thought they were just trying to say that a microwave, tiny refrigerator and coffee [affiliate link] pot were a “full kitchen”. I was so happy I almost started crying at the site of those two gas burners. The drawers were filled with just about everything a person might need to cook, down to a potato peeler! The refrigerator was just the perfect size.

    I’ve started a post on what we ate while we were in DC but I don’t have time to put it up tonight, and maybe not until the weekend.

    Suffice it to say we’re back, and I survived. I have to go to work tomorrow, so I think I’ll be getting to bed soon, I feel tired again.

    GAPS DIET JOURNEY is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to AMAZON.COM. GAPS DIET JOURNEY is an affiliate for several companies and may be compensated through advertising and marketing channels. Therefore, this post may contain affiliate links.

  • Day 263 – I Can’t Bring My Food On the Plane

    Oh boy… I just found out that no food whatsoever is allowed past security, unless it is in a checked bag. So we are going to do that, so at least I will have my beef jerky, nuts and dried fruit with me while on our vacation.

    Thankfully I’m able to tolerate cashews or almonds [affiliate link] that have not been soaked and dried – I know they are not “legal” but they are one of my “cheats” and I know I can tolerate them. When I’m at work and I don’t bring enough food I’ll get a little bag of cashews from the Circle K. I hope someplace in the airport will have them. I’ll buy a few bags of those from the airport mall when we leave and that will have to do while we’re in the air. Or maybe there will be a burger place that has 100% real meat burgers and I can get a lettuce burger. 😉

    This is going to be a short report. I mean, I need to make it short. Because I still need to go through my list and make sure I have everything I wanted to pack. And I need to get to sleep!

    Tuesday morning I decided to step on the scale. My original plan for August was to “fruit fast” the entire month, and step on the scale the morning before leaving on the plane. But then I started drying the jerky, the nuts and the fruit, and eating it.

    Can you guess what happened? I tried not to be upset by it, I was, well, upset to see that I had gained two pounds. I’m at 292 192.

    I am sure it was the dried fruit, nuts and beef jerky that I kept “tasting”. Also on Tuesday I brought an avocado, about one ounce of crispy cashews and two cups of vegetable soup. As a result, I didn’t eat enough.

    And then my air conditioning didn’t work on my hour drive home. I felt like I was having a heat stroke by the time I arrived home – my vehicle showed the outside temperature to be 120°F – and I was also starving hungry. I scrambled myself three eggs [affiliate link] along with some leftover vegetables, went into my bedroom and laid on the bed in front of the fan and slowly ate the yummy and nourishing food. I didn’t have the energy to remove my clothes, they were half soaked anyway from sweating on the way home.

    I was also tired, since I had trouble getting to sleep on Monday night, and then woke at 2am on Tuesday morning and felt like I didn’t sleep until finally getting up at 4am.

    After I ate, I laid there for a few minutes and I think I fell to sleep and then I woke up shivering cold. I covered up and slept another couple of minutes and then I had to get up, since I still had to go vote.

    Anyway, finally when we got back home from voting I had some work to do on my computer and I was having trouble with it, you know how that goes. But I did force myself to take a detox bath with magnesium at 8:45, even though it was way past my bedtime, and I still had to get up at 3:30am to milk the goats.

    This is a jumbled mess of a post, I know it.

    Today wasn’t too bad at work, mostly because I got done with what I had to do and was able to leave two hours early. I drove by the airport to see where we will be parking our car, and then had to go to a couple of stores.

    I bought myself a new swimsuit, since I hope to get to swim somewhere one day while we’re gone. I bought myself a new swimsuit because I couldn’t find mine.

    Then I found out I couldn’t take my food on the plane and my MIL told me I should just bring a small suitcase with my food, so I was digging through my closet to find a small satchel that coincidentally she gave me a few years ago, and I found my old swimming suit.

    I’m going to stick with bringing my new one anyway.

    My New Swimsuit

    I probably won’t be posting for a few days, so I will be sure to report how things went when I get back!

    Night!

    GAPS DIET JOURNEY is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to AMAZON.COM. GAPS DIET JOURNEY is an affiliate for several companies and may be compensated through advertising and marketing channels. Therefore, this post may contain affiliate links.

  • Drying Blueberries using a Dehydrator

    Last week my husband did some work for a customer and they had several cases of blueberries and offered him two cases. That meant he came home with 24 pints of blueberries.

    Luckily I’d been using the Dehydrator to make beef jerky and dried banana slices and crispy almonds [affiliate link] for our upcoming trip; otherwise, I would probably have not even considered the option of drying the berries.

    I found in my dehydrator that I can dry eight pints at once, if I’m really careful to line up all the blueberries carefully.

    Dehydrating Blueberries

    Here they are after they are all dried out. Some of the littler ones were so small they were falling through the cracks.

    Drying Blueberries in a Dehydrator

    As you can see they shrink down to half the size.

    First I dumped each pint of berries into a colander and rinsed with water. Then I put a kitchen dish towel on a cookie sheet and dumped the blueberries onto the dish towel. I handled every single blueberry because a few were mushy and I didn’t want to put mushy blueberries in to be dried.

    When the blueberries had been in the dehydrator for twelve hours, I rotated the shelves and switched them all up so they would be in a different position.

    When they were done, there were a few of the biggest ones that weren’t done. So I ended up keeping those out from the ones I was planning to store because I figure they will go bad and ruin the others.

    This is the first time I’ve dried fruit of any kind. My son has made beef jerky in the past, and that is the only thing we’ve used the dehydrator for until now.

    I was thinking I should dry some carrots and squash and other vegetables to go along with the beef jerky, maybe I could brew a pot of water and pour over the dried items and make some kind of soup. I would probably have to cook the vegetables prior to drying them. At least partially cook them.

    In the past I have just frozen any excess fruit like this, but since I’m not eating much fruit on GAPS, I didn’t think that would be the best idea since it doesn’t last forever in the freezer.

    I also got a chance to use the FoodSaver that my boss gave me! I only had a short length of the plastic left but I was able to make a few packets of vacuum sealed trail mix (made with my crunchy almonds, dried blueberries, dried banana slices and dried apple slices).

    Oh, and I found an Excalibur Dehydrator on Craigslist for only fifty bucks! But I guess someone got to it before me because the seller never responded to my email or phone call. Darn. I am so tempted to invest in one. I have heard they are a lot nicer than the round ones because you can lay everything out straight, plus the fan is in the back pulling from all of the shelves, and there are nine shelves! Thirteen square feet of drying area.

    Do you have a food dehydrator? Do you use it regularly?

    GAPS DIET JOURNEY is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to AMAZON.COM. GAPS DIET JOURNEY is an affiliate for several companies and may be compensated through advertising and marketing channels. Therefore, this post may contain affiliate links.

  • Day 261 – 3rd Day of My Wii Workout

    OHhhhhhh, just a super quick update. I feel like I have fallen off some wagon or something because I went off my fruit fast last weekend. I am eating peanut butter [affiliate link] and coconut flakes [affiliate link] mixed together with crispy cashews and coconut oil [affiliate link] and a dab of honey [affiliate link], so yummy and crunchy!

    I did make a pot of chicken soup today.

    And I did my third workout. I only had to run for about one minute today. My thighs and calves are actually sore!

    I am getting excited about our trip, but also had some anxiety last night before going to sleep because it is the first time we have ever left our children (they are both adults now, sheesh) while traveling thousands of miles to another state on the other side of the country. I am definitely taking some Kava Kava with me so if I do feel anxious I can take some to help alleviate the anxiety.

    And now, I have to get to bed. It’s 8:33pm!!! And I have to get up at 4:30am!!

    Night!

    GAPS DIET JOURNEY is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to AMAZON.COM. GAPS DIET JOURNEY is an affiliate for several companies and may be compensated through advertising and marketing channels. Therefore, this post may contain affiliate links.