30 Days of Real Food Challenge

ARE YOU READY???

Tomorrow we kick off 30 Days of Real Food, gluten free style!

I have wrangled up some real food eating friends over on Facebook in a new, “Gluten Free & Good For Me” closed group and you should join us too!

Here’s a little “Real Food 101” so we’re ready to go…

• Know where we’re headed!
  • Check out the rules for our real food challenge — just remember that Lisa and her family are not gluten-free, so just ignore the “whole wheat” and know that means whole grains for us, like brown rice, sorghum, etc. I have used several of their recipes as ideas and inspiration and any that are not written as gluten-free are easily converted.

• Plan ahead!
  • Don’t let yourself get hangry. ALWAYS carry snacks.
  • Write out your menu for the week and make a grocery trip.
  • Look at your calendar for any upcoming social events and see if you can choose a restaurant with real food, meet for coffee instead, eat before you go, etc.
• Try new things!
  • Let this month be an experiment in new-to-you foods.
  • Check out all the real food ideas on Pinterest. (be sure to modify them to be GF)
  • Dig out some of those recipes you’ve tucked away but been meaning to try, then share them with us!

• Breakfast ideas
  • Anything Goes Egg Cups
  • Morning Monkey Mocha Smoothie
  • Overnight Oats (please use GF Harvest oats!)
  • Oatmeal Raisin Breakfast Bars
  • Banana Nut Oatmeal Bites (breakfast cookies!)
  • Pumpkin Spice Granola (or omit pumpkin spice and just do cinnamon and have this with plain Greek yogurt sweetened with honey or maple syrup)
• Lunch ideas
  • Spicy Tomato Dill Soup 
  • Potato Leek Soup
  • All kinds of satisfying salads
• Dinner ideas
  • Zucchini Planks 
  • Simple Shrimp Skillet with Chive Potatoes
  • Italian Chili (people LOVE this one!)
  • Grilled Asparagus with lemon (top with a fried egg!)
• Snack ideas
  • Peach “Sorbet” (ONE ingredient!)
  • Almond Joy-like Lara-like bars 😉
  • Chocolate Banana Peanut Butter Mock Ice Cream 
  • Four Ingredient Hummus
  • BLT Bites (if you can find bacon sans sugar)

See? You’re set for the first few days!

TO-DO LIST

• Add yourself to our Gluten Free & Good For Me page.
• See the RULES here. 
• Leave a comment below with any questions or real food recipes to share!

I know we can do this! (I did over 50 days of real food in the fall and survived, so this will be totally do-able, I promise!)

Gluten-free in MKE: Pairdd

I’ll let you in on a little secret.

Many of our evenings are spent in the kitchen, you guys know that, that’s not the secret — we make a couple cocktails, find our chill Pandora station, apron on, (for me at least, the husband doesn’t wear the one I got him.) and then we do our thing. Find fresh ingredients in the fridge and see what we can come up with.

The secret? I don’t actually like to go get the ingredients at the store.

I sometimes joke to the husband that I wish someone would just drop by with a bag full of everything and we go from there.

That’s where Pairdd comes in.

It’s like my wish came true!

Pairdd is a new company in Milwaukee that is going to make our gluten-free lives easier — and we could use a break sometimes, am I right?

Their concept is simple:

1. YOU select a gluten-free recipe from their website. (this week they are featuring MY recipes, which is beyond exciting!)
2. THEY do all the shopping and measuring and deliver it right to your door! (my favorite part)
3. YOU follow the simple step-by-step recipe in your kitchen and make a gourmet meal.

AND… as my lovely readers, you can use the code CITC50 to save 50% on your order to be delivered on Tuesday! (that is one amazing meal for just $15)

Let me tell you how fun it was to have all of the ingredients to one of our favorite, easy-peasy skillet meals show up at our doorstep to taste test!

(see, wishes DO come true!)

Want to see how it turned out?

SIMPLE SHRIMP SKILLET with SMASHED CHIVE POTATOES

 

Looks good, doesn’t it?

Fresh ingredients. Real food. Delivered to your door. You just have to pick the Pandora station (the Jack Johnson one is perfect for cooking) and the apron and leave the rest to Pairdd.

But I didn’t think the 50% discount was enough. (although please do place an order as well — you won’t regret it, and it is an amazing price for what you’re getting!) I wanted to offer you a FREE PAIRDD MEAL on me!

That’s right, a meal on me — just leave a comment below letting me know which of the two recipe choices from this week you would choose. Stop over at their site: www.pairdd.com to see the recipe options, then come back and leave a comment with your choice.

Want BONUS entries? Your name will be entered again for each item you complete below. Leave a separate comment for each item. (be sure to leave your email address in your comment so I can contact you!)

• LIKE Celiac in the City on Facebook and leave a comment telling me you did.
• LIKE Pairdd on Facebook and leave a comment telling me you did.
• SUBSCRIBE to my posts via email, just use the box on the upper right corner of the blog. (Google Reader is sadly gone and I wouldn’t want you to miss a post!)
• FOLLOW Celiac in the City on Twitter and leave a comment telling me you did.
• FOLLOW Pairdd on Twitter and leave a comment telling me that you did.

Although I’d love to send this to any of my readers near and far, it is limited to the delivery area for Pairdd. Winner will be drawn at random on Monday, July 29th at 10pm CST and delivery will take place on Tuesday, July 30th.