Day 26 - No lactose, no gluten, no garlic, no cocoa

So. After inhaling some more bran muffins after dinner last night, I woke up this morning with a stomach ache. I woke up yesterday with a stomach ache too, and attributed it to the honey we put in the last lot of muffins (thinking we were fine with oats and trying to sneak another food in). This lot of muffins only had maple syrup in them. Oats? Are oats a problem? Honestly, what an innocuous food! Well, if the garlic stomach ache was a 7/10 on the "I never want to eat again" scale, oats are a measly 3 or 4. But there's something there for sure. I'm not ruling them out, but they're off the menu for the moment and I'll see how I go some other time.

I filled in a form for a conference registration today. When I got to the bit about dietary requirements I had to think hard. No cocoa was an easy one; so was no garlic. I'm pretty sure I'm lactose intolerant (or milk intolerant), but I'll find out later today or tomorrow for sure (more punishment for some past-life misdeeds), so I put that down too. And then I thought about the oats. Surely they weren't going to serve oats. But having small problems with oats has me worried about a bigger issue - gluten intolerance. See, while wheat is the biggie for gluten intolerance, oats have some gluten in them too. Geez I hope I don't end up on that road. Although, honestly, it will probably be easier than no-garlic, as gluten intolerance is well recognised and reasonably well catered for at many restaurants these days. My final food list said "No lactose, no gluten, no garlic, no cocoa". *sigh* I restrained myself from also ticking the "Vegetarian" box. I think they might have spat in my food if I'd done that.

Recipe - Apple Bran Muffins

So, having made 2 more batches of bran muffins, we've now gotten as far as writing down the recipe, but not quite as far as far as taking photos before we scoff them all. In lieu of the photos, here is the recipe:

Apple Bran Muffins (make 12)

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.

1 cup of brown rice flour

1 cup of oat bran

2 teaspoons of baking powder

2 eggs, beaten

1 tablespoon of olive oil

1 tablespoon of soy milk

2 grated granny smith apples (we've used 3 small red apples and it was good)

4 tablespoons is maple syrup OR 5 tablespoons of honey

Mix all dry ingredients.

Slowly add apple and mix.

Add eggs and mix.

Add other liquid ingredients, mix.

Bake for 25 minutes.

Try not to eat them all at once.

Day 23 - Naughty Children

D and I, that is.

So I've been on the chicken for 2 days. No issues, yay. D is all good with chicken and broccoli (he moved on while I was still moaning about garlic). So today (day 24) was supposed to be oats day. D bought some oats and some oat bran yesterday in preparation, and last night we made muffins from a modified recipe on the bran packet. No recipe to give you just yet as I wasn't looking too closely as D whipped it up. We put them on to bake, thinking we'd have them for breaky this morning.

Oh no, it wasn't to be. We couldn't resist the look and smell of them when they came out of the oven, and like naughty children we gobbled them all up, as fast as you can say "We've eaten a fair bit of chicken for 2 days, I think we're fine to move on to another food a bit early". Yeah, I know that's a longish sentence, but we did eat 3 muffins each in that time! We ate them so fast there are also no photos. We're making some more tonight, so I'll take some photos then. :) Then I got worried. I got worried because when I ate a lot of garlic (and then, even when I ate a little garlic), I got soo sick and felt horrible for days. And in my haste to devour muffins I forgot this for a second, but then I remembered and was worried that I might get really sick again. Anyway, we went off to the Melbourne Ukulele Collective open mike night and I tried not to worry.

When I woke up this morning without any signs of tummy ache I felt like waking D and squeaking at him with joy and elation, and waving my arms about a bit (nothing so drastic as actually getting out of bed to do a dance). But he was sleeping so I didn't. When he woke up he said "No tummy ache!", haha, great minds, and then I got to have my celebration. Oats for breaky this morning,, so we'll see how that goes down.