The Road Less Traveled

I should go down this road more often…

The road paved with Road’s End Organics gluten-free, dairy-free macaroni and cheese chreese and…

…crab meat lettuce cups!

Yes, I did buy a box— make that TWO 12-pack boxes of Road’s End Organics dairy-free, gluten-free mac ‘n chreese on Amazon. Excellent prices and FREE two-day shipping with my Amazon Prime subscription. Chreeziness at its best.

I LOVE this stuff because it’s made with minimal whole ingredients and lower in sodium than most boxed mac ‘n cheese. And it tastes fabulous.

The Alfredo Style:

Ingredients: GF Brown Rice Macaroni: Organic Brown Rice, Water. GF Alfredo Sauce Mix: Organic Brown Rice Flour, Organic Tapioca Starch, Enriched Nutritional Yeast (nutritional yeast, niacin, pyridoxine hydrochloride, riboflavin [vitamin B2], thiamine hydrochloride [vitamin B1], folic acid, vitamin B12), Organic Green Lentil Flour, Salt, Organic Garlic Powder, Organic Oregano, Organic Onion Powder and Organic Basil.

I also bought a 12-pack of the gluten- and dairy-free cheddar style.

I didn’t know what to make for dinner tonight, that’s what I get for not planning ahead. Dustin has resolved to avoid gluten this week as he feels he sleeps better and has better energy and focus when he reduces it. I’m slowly reducing my consumption as well. For now, we’re just making reductions. I don’t know if and when we’ll go completely gluten-free; maybe tomorrow, maybe never. Still doing our little personal experiments. Anyway…

Staring back at me in the fridge as I kept the door wide open for 20 minutes looking over my options was a head of Boston lettuce (with roots attached) that had about 36 hours of edibleness left, and an unopened can of claw crab meat. Lightbulb moment: Crab lettuce cups! And I had avocados!! But they weren’t ripe. And I have bacon!! But it’s frozen. Oh well, just crab salad + lettuce cups. Still yummy. No complaints. hehe

I made the crab salad the exact same way as the last time I made lump crab meat lettuce cups. Only this time I used claw meat instead of lump. It’s basically like the dark meat vs. the white meat. I admit: I discriminate a little. I think the white lump crab meat tastes better in this case. But I think dark meat poultry tastes better than white. I like variety.

I’ve been on a major black pepper kick lately! It tastes amazing on nutritional yeast cheezy mac and salad. Mmmm! So good. But black pepper is carcinogenic. Ugh. Isn’t everything?! Can’t eat a damn thing without it being deadly to some degree, lol. Exactly how much is enough to have a negative impact? And how many doses of other carcinogenic foods can you consume at the same time? Same day? Is there anything that mitigates the carcinogenic properties? I could spend years obsessing over this stuff.  

Or I can just enjoy it and not. Yeah…

By the way, if you cook Road’s End Organics dairy-free gluten-free mac ‘n chreese, the box suggests cooking for 6-10 minutes and warns not to overcook it, but I find that the macaroni needs to be cooked 14-15 minutes before it’s cooked thoroughly. That’s just me, though. Your stove and pot might cook better! heh

Tricia stopped over today before going to her second job of babysitting. I made her lunch; canned soup and corn chips, LOL. I’m probably not winning hostess of the year anytime soon. I did send her home with 3/4 of a red velvet cake, though! That has to make up for the preschooler lunch I served, right? I think so.

After she left, I took Caesar for a 40-minute stroll around the ‘hood. He LOVES going for walks. He’d probably walk 23 hours a day if we were willing participants. We’re not. Sorry, Caes! I think he gets a good amount of outside time; about 3 hours a day spread over 4-5 walks. He’s from Los Angeles, California, and I don’t know if he’s ever seen snow. Oh boy, he’s going to be in for a shock if he hasn’t. Does anyone have any experience with doggie shoes? Tell me about them… yay/nay?

Earlier this morning, my mom took Tanner and him to the vet—together! Separate cages, but same car. The kitties are getting used to him. He’s afraid of them, I think! He cowers when they approach him and hasn’t made any aggressive moves towards him. They’re still working it out, but keeping him in his own room, then baby gates, and slowly introducing them by scent really helped, I believe. There’s still tension, but I’m hoping in a few months that they’ll cuddle up and love each other. Right now, Caesar is asleep underneath my mom’s bed and Jack is sleeping by my mom, like he usually does. A huge improvement from the kitties being scared to walk past him to running past him and sleeping a few feet above him. Progress, indeed. Soon, I hope!!!

The vet said that Caesar is at least 3-years-old according to his neutering records in 2008. So we think he’s probably 4-years-old, assuming he was neutered around 6-months-old or so. We’ll go with that. He doesn’t look a day over 2-years-old, though! He’s in a good health, no fleas or ticks, and up-to-date on all of his shots. Scheduled for a follow-up 2 weeks from now for another shot in the series. Tanner’s tests all came back normal—YAY! She’s 9.5-years-old now, and overweight, so we’re trying to get some weight off of her. She lost .5 lb since her last vet visit. Go, girl! She has some kind of growth in her mouth, which we thought was a bad tooth. The doc isn’t sure what it is without doing a biopsy, but he thinks it’s plaque. It could be a benign tumor, but all of Tanner’s blood work was normal, so a cancer threat is low, but we’ll definitely follow up with it and see what’s going on.

Pets are expensive! In fact, we called about pet insurance for vet visits today. Caesar’s paperwork included 30-days of coverage, so we called to inquire about renewing it. It would only be $15/month, but it doesn’t cover: Preexisting conditions, vaccinations, or preventative treatment, such as heartworm medication. Oh, and you have to pay for everything upfront, then they reimburse you in 1-2 weeks. For all 4 cats, and 1 dog it would have been $69/month and covers up to $8000/year per pet. We weighed the pros and cons and decided against it. We’ll just pay out-of-pocket like we always have. Maybe if we only have one pet we’d consider it, but we have five, and they’re sort of a package deal. hehe

Dustin’s been asleep for almost 2 hours and I’m burning the midnight oil blogging and tending to kitty demands. In, out, in, out, hungry, in, out. Full-time job!

Goodnight.

Tagged as: crab lettuce cups, dairy-free, dairy-free mac 'n cheese, easy meals, gluten free meals, gluten-free, gluten-free mac 'n cheese, low-carb, mac 'n cheese, nutritional yeast, pasta, rice pasta, Road's End Organics