Day Two: Gluten Free Diet

Ugh. Today is day two of my gluten free diet, and I'm miserable. I woke up with a splitting headache, one so bad that I wasn't able to fall back to sleep and felt sick to my stomach. (And, no, I'm not suffering from a hangover; I hardly ever drink these days.) I emailed to reschedule my lunch time appointment, popped two headache pills, drank as much water as I could stomach, and crawled back into bed. Not that it helped, because I couldn't sleep.

Still, the pills kicked in eventually, so I got up to make my first gluten-free bread: English muffins. They came together easily, looked and smelled great hot out of the oven, but the taste? Not so hot. Plain, they tasted alternately bland and chemically. No wonder Nick pulled a face... haha! An hour later, I tried one lightly toasted and smeared with yummy red pepper jelly. They were better, mostly because the strong flavor of the jelly covered the nastiness, but they still left an aftertaste that stayed in my mouth for a while. I'd give 'em an "okay" at best. Maybe I'll try a different flour combination next time.

For lunch, I made a vegan caesar salad with eggplant bacon from Isa Chandra-Moskovitz's newest cookbook, Appetite For Reduction. The eggplant bacon was good enough that I ate a whole serving of it just snacking, but the dressing wasn't the best. It's probably because just a few days ago I had a "real" caesar salad at Red Lobster, so the taste is fresh. Also, I didn't have capers so I used olives instead. Maybe those capers really make a difference.  At least it didn't have tofu in it?

I just finished making dinner, and I have to say, it's not appealing. Nick assures me that it tastes better than it looks, but it looks, well, disgusting. I made eggplant and chickpea curry and a cranberry and cashew biryani, again from Appetite for Reduction. The biryani looks okay, but smells kind of burnt, while the curry looks like, well I'll just say it, feces. Yuck. I can't even bring myself to eat it. I'll probably get hungry enough soon to at least try the biryani, but I think Nick's going to be eating curry leftovers for a few days.

Oh well, I'm not all that surprised. Despite my British heritage, me and curry don't mix very well. I like the idea of curry. I like the smell of curry. But I don't really like eating curry. I've had a mango chicken curry in a restaurant that was nice, and my aunt made an awesome chicken tikka (I think?) that I loved. Oh, and I love Chana masala from Trader Joe's, and even then, only with chutney, but that's the limit of my curry tastes. Anything remotely tongue-burning and I won't be eating it. And now that I'm gluten-free, at least for the month, I can't eat Na'an bread either. Blah.

I was going to try making a GF flatbread using a recipe online, but after the English muffins, I was kind of scared to try it. Maybe tomorrow I'll be more adventurous, but I think tonight's dinner will be Greek yogurt and a banana.