Livin' la vida wheatless

Menu Plan Monday logoMy nephew has some kind of wheat intolerance or allergy, so he’s been on a wheat-free diet for most of his life. I’d never given all that much thought to it — beyond “poor kid can’t have doughnuts” — until his dad decided to try it out, too. He’s been wheat-free for a month or two (or three, maybe), and he’s lost something like 20 pounds. So I thought I’d try it. And then we got home, and I tried it for a day, and we had dinner with friends and they made pasta and that was the end of that.

We visited the Poppins household again this weekend, and it renewed my desire to try the wheat-free diet. I’m not going to be hard-core about checking sauces, etc., but I am going to try to avoid the Very Obviously Wheaty things. Here’s my first wheat-free menu.

Kung Pao Scallops
After a long, long drought, I finally got to go to PF Changs again over the weekend. The kids were so hungry and tired when we got there; I was pretty sure it was going to be a disaster. Once they got a little food in them, though, they were fine. Poppy at a crab wonton and a plate of sweet and sour chicken. I had the Kung Pao scallops. And while they were great, they reminded me that I’ve made Kung Pao before. So I thought I’d try it again.

Veggie migas
When I was pregnant, I thought it would be a good idea to throw some cheese and salsa onto a plate of scrambled eggs. It was a good instinct, and I’ve since added tortilla chips and veggie sausages to the mix. I’ve come to learn that there’s a real way to make migas. I’ve never tried to follow a recipe, but it’s easier to call my version “veggie migas” than “scrambled eggs with Tex-Mexy flava.”

Indian Butter Chicken

Pizza
I found a wheat-free crust mix to try. I might still make some dough for Rockford and the kids, because I don’t think the mix will make a very large pizza.

Prioritizing

Works for Me Wednesday logo

Today’s tip is one I picked up from Simple Mom (which is a really great place for the picking up of tips, by the way). I put together my version of one of her Daily Dockets a while back, and it did wonders for me in terms of getting my stuff together. Then I thought it would be terrific to have my pages laminated and spiral-bound, so I could use them over and over again. That was a few months ago, when a work thing had Rockford stopping by Kinkos pretty much every morning. So I gave the pages to him, he took them to Kinkos, and … no one ever picked them up. I’m guessing Kinkos has tossed them by now.

But that wasn’t the point I was trying to make here.

The most helpful part of the Daily Docket for me is the making of the Most Important Tasks list. As the name suggests, you pick the day’s top priorities and give them their own special place on your to-do list. And then you do them.

There was a special place for those three-to-five items on my Daily Docket pages. Fortunately, though, I can write down a few important things on a non-specialized piece of paper. Yesterday I only managed to do three of the five. But on a day when I don’t write ’em down? I might’ve accomplished one of the five.

One of these days I’ll put “Reprint the Daily Docket” on my Most Important Tasks lists. Until then, though, jotting those MITs down on a scrap of paper will have to work for me.

Visit We are That Family for more Works for Me Wednesday tips!