Making a Delicious Healthy Meal Should Be as Fun as Eating It!
Jer and I love food. We love to buy it, to cook it, we love to eat it, we love everything about food. Food brought us together. A random encounter at a bar on the Cape known for their homemade seafood specialties where we were both having dinner. Food permeated our dating relationship. On our first weekend together he made me his heavenly vodka sauce, and we made it a point to explore unique restaurants in both Connecticut and on the Cape.
We had our intimate wedding reception at our favorite area Italian restaurant, Tony D’s in New London, Connecticut, where we made it a point to have the whole menu available so others could enjoy any of their delicious specialties. My wedding dress is stained with drizzles of oil from their phenomenal calamari and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Once married and settling in to life together we made dinner the focal point of our evenings, often gathering friends and family together around dishes from steak and potatoes to Indian curries, pairing wines and cocktails. When we were pregnant with Baby E we made a point of having people over and going out to our favorite restaurants often, well aware that our nights of freedom would soon belong to baby.
After Baby E was born we continued our tradition of nightly family dinners, albeit rushed at times, having fun with cooking from scratch and trying new recipes. I was told by many veteran moms that I would never see a warm dinner again. Now this may be true in the future, but with a little menu planning and prepping, and a very helpful husband who loves to cook, I have yet to eat a cold dinner. Like I said, we love food. It may very well take a higher priority in our life than others!
When we discovered Baby E’s gluten and dairy intolerances, and thus the need to remove these from my diet to continue breastfeeding, we decided that rather than bemoan the loss of many of my favorite foods, we would accept the challenge of finding and creating healthy, delicious gluten and dairy free meals.
This is our quest to continue our love affair with food, sans gluten and dairy….
Update: E outgrew her gluten and dairy intolerances, yay!! We still avoid processed foods which inadvertently means less wheat and gluten, but you’ll now find some gluten and dairy sneaking in here and there….
Me and Baby E 