Recipes Sweet and Not

I've been doing a fair amount of cooking lately and experimenting with some yummy foods that I love ( but can't have anymore) so I've had to make it WLS friendly. One thing I adore is pasta. I love love love pasta. I love it because its cheap. I love it because I'm Italian. I love it because it is comfort food to me aka I grew up on it. Pasta and making sauce is something I have fond memories of as a child. With my new tummy, pasta rarely works and so it isn't a go to food anymore. I've been really feeling like I'm missing out lately (it could be a lot of things cause this, but food has me feeling odd lately) so I've been in search for good recipes to give me the pasta feeling without pasta and carbs.

Friday night I had a horrible real dumping episode. I've only dumped twice since Jan of 2011 and I remembered why I avoid it at all cost. I was tempted with icecream and I had to have some chocolate sauce, well long story short I ended up in the fetal position, miserable, sweaty, headache, and needing my big nausea medicine. Eating Saturday stunk because my stomach was so sore. I'm so glad my husband was here with me because being alone when this happens is miserable. I won't be touching icecream anytime soon. Hence why I went searching for something to fill my sweet tooth.

Single MugCake (check out my pin here - altered recipe)
1/4 cup of cake mix (I have sugar free)
2 tbsp of water
Mix well and microwave in a Mug for 1 min
Voila' a single cup cake

*You can add all kinds of extras to it if you want. I added a tbsp of peanut butter today to chocolate mix and boy oh boy it was yum!

Today I  experimented with Quinoa with Meat Sauce. First you are probably like - WHAT, but let me present it to you. Quinoa is a great source of protein. It is something that is excellent to add or replace a menagerie of foods and it is something that is easy on my stomach. I've been wanting spaghetti, but after a major dumping episode on friday night - I'm not trying it. I used Ancient Harvest Quinoa. I love it and it has been the easiest and most consistent to cook. You can get it at Walmart for around 4.29 and it might be pricey, but it works with my tummy so I spend it. 1 box can last me 2 months.

Hence Quinoa with Meat Sauce was born; here are some pics of the steps I used to create it. After the sauce is done I'll add a 1/4 cup of quinoa to sauce and enjoy!

Cook Quinoa according to package directions. This is 1 cup of Quinoa and will last me 1 week with over 10 meals!

Create Spaghetti Sauce - I take one small 3 oz can of  tomato sauce from Aldi, added 1 small can of mushrooms, and spices to taste. My special ingredient is 1/2 tsp of splenda brown sugar.

Brown ground beef or turkey - I brown it with minced onion and garlic and pepper. Add to sauce. (note this is one hamburger pre-made ground chuck I cooked - it will feed me for 2 meals)