An update on my "Celiac status"

Hello all, it's been a while. I have some very big updates, and an explanation of my absence.
I never blogged about my Celiac diagnosis, because I wasn't sure what to say. I've had symptoms for many years, maybe even 10 years. I went from doctor to doctor trying to find someone who could fix me. Finally, last December I went to the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, FL. My doctor there is fantastic, and the level of care offered there is something I've never experienced before. He listened to my story, and he looked at my medical records that I brought. He looked over a report (no photos, or slides) from my endoscopy and explained the findings. One of the findings, among a lot of other damage/inflammation, was mildly blunted villi. Combined with my symptoms and my personal and family medical history, he told me he believed I had Celiac disease. My visit wasn't meant to be extended, and we had traveled out of town to come to the clinic, so he only ran my blood and told me to go gluten-free and see how I felt. My antibodies came back negative, my genes were positive, so my "diagnosis" would be based completely on how I reacted to the diet. Well, I never really got better. I tried hard to be optimistic, because prior to my visit I had been depressed about my health. I gave it 10 months, until I decided that it was time to go back to the clinic.
At my visit last month, I told him how dedicated I had been to the diet, and how I even tried to make my lifestyle healthier in general (more water, more activity, positive outlook, more whole foods, less processed foods, etc.) and how I felt that I had seen minimal improvement. So he told me it's time to move on to something else. At this time, he no longer considers Celiac disease to be my ailment. We're looking into SIBO (small intestine bacterial overgrowth) at this time. If this doesn't pan out, I'll return to the clinic to get a full work-up of tests.
So this is why I've been absent. I've felt poorly because I've been undergoing treatment for SIBO, so I haven't had much will to blog, but I also didn't know what to say to you all. Currently, I'm still eating gluten-free because you should never change more than one thing at a time to truly see how your body reacts (plus, I've still got like 10 lbs of GF flour..), but I'm eventually supposed to try introducing gluten into my diet again. But to be honest, after 10 months of this I'm pretty scared. If I react poorly, then I may have Celiac (or gluten sensitivity) and something else as well making me still feel poorly. In that case, of course I'll continue eating gluten free. But, until we figure this out and I start seeing a real improvement in my health and figure out how my body really reacts to gluten, I am on an indefinite blogging hiatus. You can still follow me over on Instagram and Twitter if you'd like (links in the side bar). Also, if this is my last blog post, CheckYourGluten.com will stay up until my year contract for the hosting/domain is over (around May next year). After that, I plan to keep CheckYourGluten.blogspot.com up with all the exact same posts.
If this is my goodbye to the gluten-free blogging community, I'd like to say thank you. Thank you for those who inspired me to join this community. Thank you for those who were comforting and helpful in this journey. Thank you for those who have been supportive and friendly. Thank you all so much. It has been a truly life-changing 10+ months being a part of this community as a whole. I'll say goodbye to this blog, but not to this community. There are so many special, wonderful people here that I won't say goodbye to because of this. Thank you.

Tilapia & Red Potatoes

I've mentioned previously that I changed my diet drastically a few weeks after going gluten-free. One of the first changes I committed to was to make a simple meat and veggie dinner every week. At first it was an attempt to cut down on eating heavy, or processed foods too often. But, I developed this meal and it's not only become very convenient, but VERY tasty. We've been eating this once a week for several weeks and haven't grown tired of it because it's that good. Not only that, but it's really convenient on busy days. This makes a filling meal for 2 people.

Vegan Quesadillas

Recently I've been experimenting with going dairy-free. Long story short: I react VERY poorly to carrageenan so that didn't last long. Anyway, it was pretty hard. For me, cheese was one of the most disappointing offerings of the dairy-free market. But then I found the Daiya Havarti Garlic & Jalapeño Wedge. It tasted way better than the other cheeses I had tried and melted fantastically (where others failed). I knew instantly what to make with it. And this is what I came up with. The avocado balances the spiciness of the "cheese" really well making the simplicity of the ingredients work. It's quick, easy, and really yummy.

Grilled Pesto Shrimp

So rather than a recipe, today I present more of an idea, or an inspiration to base a dish on: pesto shrimp. It's really, really easy and very un-fussy but the flavor is fantastic. It's great because if you use pre-made pesto and frozen shrimp, this can be whipped up last minute if need be and served in a variety of ways.

Breakfast Smoothie

I have a love-hate relationship with breakfast. I don't really like cereal, or eggs, or yogurt. But I like really bad breakfast food, like hash-browns and bacon-egg-n-cheeserz (a breakfast sandwich of my childhood). So that kind of made me stop eating breakfast. But recently I concocted an awesome breakfast smoothie that's not awful for me. It started with mocha powder, ice and milk. Then came almond milk instead. Then PB2 (powdered peanut butter) and frozen bananas. Suddenly I had an awesome breakfast smoothie that I really liked and wasn't half bad nutritionally.

Pillsbury GF Pizza Crust First Impressions

This week I have another "First Impressions" post about one of Pillsbury's new gluten-free offerings. This time I tried the refrigerated pizza dough. I had a hard time finding this one, and the pastry dough as well. I found the cookie dough very early on (about a month ago) but just found the pizza dough this week. Each week I've been longingly glancing at the refrigerated dough section of my local grocery store and finally this week I hit the jackpot!

GF Essential: Waffles

The M.V.P. award for gluten-free living for the month of July goes to waffles. Yes, waffles. Why? Because waffles are so versatile. Waffles couldn't care less how you eat them, or store them, or re-heat them. They take it all in stride. I realized waffles had some versatility soon after I went gluten-free, but it took me a while to realize just how valuable a good waffle is.

Operation Pinterest: Browned Butter Cookies

For the second installment of Operation Pinterest I made Browned Butter & Sea Salt Chocolate Chip Cookies from Ambitious Kitchen. I had only experienced browned butter once before, in a recipe similar to this that involved Nutella as well. (If you follow my Instagram you may remember, those were a little bit of a disaster..) Those cookies were very good, but a bit of a hassle to make, so when I saw this recipe I thought I'd give it a shot.

Scallop and Mushroom Pasta

The development of this recipe started simply, with a "hey, scallops seem cool," while passing them in the grocery store. They're a little bit pricey so I thought they deserved a nice, well-rounded recipe. The scallops have a sweetness not found in a lot of seafood, and the portabellas bring a little saltiness to balance things out. A little bit of seasoning keeps things from being boring, but not enough to outshine our special guests scallops and mushrooms.

Gluten-Free Lipstick - Red Apple Lipstick

I have a little different post today, about gluten-free lipstick from Red Apple Lipstick. My general feelings about gluten in cosmetics is that I avoid it. I read the ingredients lists for all of my cosmetic and personal hygiene products and don't buy products that contain obvious gluten ingredients but I won't call every manufacturer and check their processes. I made this judgement based on a research study of gluten levels in gluten-ingredient-containing cosmetic items. But I am very careful with lip and mouth products. They will be verified gluten free because they will be ingested. It's a compromise between availability and peace of mind.

That brings me to Red Apple Lipstick. To start, all Red Apple products are certified gluten-free. They are also paraben, soy, dairy, and allergen free. They are made in the USA, vegan, natural and cruelty free. They have a VIP club that only requires an e-mail that offers you a 20% of coupon each month. They also offer discounts when you buy multiples or if you trade in an old lipstick.

Pillsbury GF Cookie Dough First Impressions

Today's post was a little last minute, simply because I was shocked to find one of Pillsbury's new gluten-free products at a local grocery store today. I was unnaturally excited to find it, and felt the excitement warranted a prompt testing of the product, of course for blogging purposes. ;) Since this is the first time I've tried this product I'll categorize this as a first impressions post.

Operation Pinterest: 1st Edition

Today I am starting a new series of blog posts called Operation Pinterest. For this series, I will test recipes from Pinterest and relay to you what I think about them. I was inspired by the variety of experiences I've had when testing Pinterest recipes. It doesn't seem to matter how many people pin it, it can still suck, in my opinion. I don't mean this to be a critique of the recipe, or the author, because I don't think that's fair. For one, people's tastes are different: different strokes for different folks. But also, I can't stand it when people change a recipe and then complain about how bad it was. In this case, I did change some ingredients so it's not fair for me to judge the original recipe. I only want to give you my thoughts and advice on the recipe so you can get a better idea about the random recipe you found on Pinterest.
Today I have for you Tomato Basil Chicken from Menu Musings. This recipe is currently very popular on Pinterest. That was what first qualified it as a candidate. Also, it's naturally gluten-free (serving with pasta is optional) with accessible ingredients. Sounds good to me!

Frozen Chocolate Bananas

Today I have a (sort of) healthy summer treat for you! Recently I've been trying to eat healthier, because I'm still not happy with how I feel. My weakest area in this has been snacks. If unhealthy snacks are in the house, I feel compelled to eat them. Then once I eat them, I feel compelled to eat other unhealthy things. I've noticed that direct correlation in myself: when you eat junk you crave junk, when you eat healthy you crave healthy. So in trying to find a sweet, cool snack for summer, I thought of these babies: chocolate covered banana bites. I'm not a huge dark chocolate fan, so I use semi-sweet chips but you could easily switch to a good dark chocolate and this would be pretty dang good for you, and vegan/dairy-free! Keeping these in the freezer makes them like little chocolate covered ice cream bites, perfect for summer.

Salad in a Jar

I learned very quickly after going gluten-free that my fickle, spontaneous eating habits weren't going to work. When I wasn't planning my meals, I was going hungry some nights or eating (gluten free) foods that were not very good for me and not cheap either. That's when I started meal planning. I've only got myself and my fiancé, so we stretch our dinners for multiple days as leftovers. But with no solid breakfast or lunch plans, I was still eating junk too much. Around this time my mom mentioned something she saw online: vacuum sealing salad in jars. She just liked the idea of extending the lifespan of lettuce, but I saw it as a new healthy habit that would help stretch my budget.
We got the idea from an awesome website called http://www.salad-in-a-jar.com/ . She has a special section on her blog for jarring salad that covers a lot more than I will in this post. All I do is simple jarring of romaine hearts and, recently, cut onion (by itself in a separate jar). We only buy, cut and jar enough lettuce to last a week, but it absolutely lasts those 7 days without browning or wilting. We do this every week after our weekly grocery trip.

Gluten Free Sesame Chicken

Shortly after going gluten-free, I realized that my previous diet as a vegetarian wasn't going to work. Nearly all faux meats contain gluten, and nearly everything else I ate was gluten (bread, pasta, etc.) The transition to gluten free was already going to be tough enough, so I made the decision to eat meat again after 7 years of abstaining. I was instantly excited about eating the things I secretly missed again, until I realized.. They all contained gluten. One of those things was sesame chicken.

I was always a pretty good cook so I decided I would recreate it myself, gluten free. I started with an originally gluten free recipe and that didn't taste like what I remembered. So I moved on to well respected recipes that weren't intended to be gluten free. That was when I found something closer but not quite. So I adapted the recipe to make it my own.