Finding SCD Recipes

I've been thinking about starting to do the whole "meal planning" thing. As opposed to what I normally do, which is take out whatever meat I think will thaw fastest and throw together some veggies. Clearly, I need some planning. I need some kind of routine, so I will remember to pull meat out of the freezer well before I'm wanting to cook it. Also, some of our veggies from the CSA have died in the fridge, and that's just not acceptable to me. The whole point is to eat local, fresh, in-season produce.

So, in my typical fashion, I've thought about the best way to do it. I've looked at pictures on the Interwebs of other (craftier) people's fancy bulletin boards and white boards with printed magnets. (Did you know there are magnetic sheets you can actually print on?) I've read blogs posts about how to start. I've tweeted about my intention to start. But beyond that, I've done nothing.

I guess I'm still in the research phase.

If history serves, it may be a few more weeks before I actually DO something.

Part of my reluctance, I think, is that I've yet to build a wide range of SCD legal recipes.

Before James' health issues really got going, we used to cook together all the time. We're both really good at making super tasty food. At one point, before Shelby came along, we were going to start a blog called For the Love of Bacon and Cheese: This Couple Don't Diet. We were going to post things couples could cook together. And, as you can guess by the title, they wouldn't necessarily be the healthiest things, but they would taste damn good.

After all of the digestion issues, still suffering from lack of hunger and early satiety, James just hasn't been wanting to cook. Part of it might be that he thinks about what to cook, then thinks about all the things he can't include, and gets disappointed or frustrated. But that's just conjecture on my part.

At any rate, the cooking is now falling primarily on my shoulders, and I want to make food so good we don't miss the things he can't have. It's easy to get caught up thinking about the things that can't be included.

For example, we used to make chicken bacon enchiladas every now and then, especially if we had company. They were nowhere near authentic. But they were GOOD. Always a crowd pleaser. We'd make two pans, and we'd be lucky if we had leftovers for the next day. A shame, really, because they were even better the next day. Anyway. The thought process goes like this: Mmm...chicken bacon enchiladas. I bet I can make something like that...but no corn. And no black beans, he can't tolerate them yet. And no tortillas...but I bet I can make almond flour tortillas! The sauce will have to be from scratch. And we haven't found SCD-legal bacon yet. And no cheese. So...chicken, wrapped in tortillas I don't know how to make yet, with sauce I don't know how to make yet. I guess we'll have chicken then. You can see how it can get overwhelming, and underwhelming at the same time.

So instead of trying to recreate family favorites (which may be possible somewhere down the road when I have a bit more experience with SCD cooking and James is able to tolerate a wider range of foods) I'm just going to start from scratch. Which is also overwhelming. Because when we cooked together, James was primarily the meat guy, and I was primarily the sides gal. I can do a zillion things with most vegetables. I can cook meat, and I can make it tasty, but left to my own devices I'll have chicken breasts every night, cooked the same, just seasoned a little differently. I guess I lack inspiration when it comes to protein. Because I didn't eat beef for so long, I have little idea what to do with it. I look at all the ground beef in the freezer and think, tacos, spaghetti, and nothing else. And now that I'm not putting the meat on a bed of rice/pasta/bread and smothering it with sauce...my whole way of thinking about meals needs to change.

My plan, my still-procrastinating-but-kinda-not plan, is to find a bunch of SCD-legal recipes to use as jumping-off points. In the next few weeks, I'll test them out and see what works. I'll post the results, with pictures if I remember to take them. And I'll develop at least the start of a good base for meal planning.

Now, the tricky part: finding recipes I want to use. There are loads of recipes in the blogosphere. I'll be searching through those. I'll check out recipes on scdrecipe.com. I'll search for GAPS recipes, too, because as I understand (and please correct me if I'm wrong), GAPS is like SCD without the dairy. I'll even search for Paleo recipes, because they're usually just a few tweaks away from SCD.

If you have any awesome recipes you want to share, please do. Especially for ground beef that is not in tacos or spaghetti.

Once I have enough recipes, I'll start planning the actual meal planning. I might even make a fancy schmancy board.