Living Insanity's Loving Food

I went to Trader Joes for the first time since starting this low iodine diet. I looked through the assortment of candy/chocolate covered fruits and nuts. I found these dark chocolate mint creams to be perfect! No salt and it didn't say milk in the ingredients. This blogger has photos and reviews

My husband bought two large chilies to stuff with manchego cheese, then he floured the outside, then dipped them into an egg/flour mixture, and fried in hot oil. I can't try one because of the cheese

I made the empanadas that I made back in June for the Spanish themed party again today. Check out this post if you'd like to try one

On this low iodine diet I am finding I can still have Mexican food, just without the cheese and sour cream. I used this Ezra Pound Cake Homemade Tortillas recipe to make my own tortillas! I filled them with some salsa chicken I made in the crockpot, just three chicken breasts, some frozen corn, and a jar of salsa, the taco seasoning (same recipe I've already posted), and some water.

Crazy Richard's peanut butter had no sodium at all French bread again Jelly Unsalted Kettle Chips, I shake some into a bowl and sprinkle some of my own non iodized salt on them

Non dairy pasta, I found this brand at Whole Foods 2 cans of no salt added canned roasted tomatoes Splash of red wine vinegar Italian seasonings Bay Leaf Pepper Salt Minced garlic and onion Olive oil In a saucepan add a drizzle of olive oil and sautee garlic and onion. Add canned tomatoes and seasoning. With an immersion blender puree sauce, bring to a boil, lower the temperature to a simmer, cover with a lid, and left simmer for about 20 minutes. Boil pasta in salted water (non iodize salt). The pasta took me about 30 minutes to boil until soft.

Taco seasoning Ground Beef Red Onion, diced Garlic, minced Lettuce, shredded Avocado Lime juice Tomato, diced 1 Jalapeno, diced No salt salsa Unsalted tortilla chips, I used Guiltless Gourmet Taco Seasoning 2 teaspoons cumin 1/2 teaspoon oregano 1/2 teaspoon non iodized salt 1 teaspoon pepper 1/2 teaspoon onion powder 1/2 teaspoon cayenne 1 teaspoon corn starch Guacamole 3 avocados juice of 1 lime 1/4 of a diced red onion diced jalapeno Mix together taco seasoning ingredients and add to 1 pound ground meat, minced garlic, and 3/4 of diced onion. Brown meat, garlic,b and onions until cooked through. Put no salt added tortilla chips in the bottom of a bowl, meat mixture, salsa, lettuce and guacamole

French bread, unsalted butter, no red dye 23 red raspberry preserves, and orange juice Natural granola with no salt

I have to be on this low iodine diet for a while. At least until the end of February. You will be seeing some new recipes coming as my husband and I try to cook things to fit this diet. More info can be found here Thyroid Cancer Survivor Association I don't have thyroid cancer. I do have to have the same treatment as a thyroid cancer patient would have. Don't worry! I'll be fine in a few months. Some of the guidelines include -No seafood. no problem since I don't eat any -No soy products. no soy sauce, no tofu, no soy beans. sadness :( -No processed foods. The frozen meals I like to eat at lunch at work are now OUT. AHHHHHHHHHH and so are things like canned soup. Good bye tomato soup in a can -No dairy. Whatever is used to clean the cow milking equipment has iodine. how will I like without milk, cheese, and yogurt. it really puts a damper on my breakfast options. -Only fresh bread. I just threw a loaf of sliced wheat bread in the freezer for when the diet...

Once again I've decided to eat out much less during my lunch break at work. I'm trying to go out just one time during the work week. Last week was my first week back and I only went out once, on Friday, and I had Panera Bread. I lost three pounds of my holiday/trip to Boston weight in 1 week I wanted to share some of the things I've been eating/drinking I've been making a lot of hot tea. Wegman's brand orange spice is my favorite Fruit for breakfast. I like bananas I also eat Dannon Light and Fit blackberry or raspberry flavored yogurt I have the individual applesauce cups Turkey, wheat bread, muenster cheese, lettuce, mayo Carrots with Sabra supremely spicy hummus Frozen microwave meals I am really picky about my frozen microwave meals. I tend to like ones without meat the most. Smart Ones has a new meal out called Pasta with Ricotta and spinach. It was so good I went out and bought a second one for this week :) I also really like Lean Cuisine's vegetabl...

After Christmas my husband and I went to Boston for a few days. We ate some great food and had a wonderful time in Boston even though they had just had a blizzard a few days before we arrived. Our first night in Boston we ate at The Beehive! It was a Wednesday night and they were booked solid with reservations but they said we could eat at the bar. We checked out the bar, it was huge, we sat down :) We ordered risotto balls, sage french fries, and two short rib and cheddar sandwiches. FABULOUS. the risotto balls did not have spicy cheese like the one's at Taylors in Bethesda but the different flavoring was still really good. The sage fries were amazing. I loved how the fries are cut. Horizontal and thin. I could only eat half of my short rib and cheese sandwich and we took some fries back to the hotel too. I loved the cheese on the sandwich. It was a very fancy grilled cheese. Thursday we did the Boston Freedom Trail. We ate lunch in North End which was full of Italian...

I have wanted a Rachael Ray lasagna pan with the carrying case for a while. Over a year at least. I finally got one for Christmas this year from cooking.com via foodnetwork.com. I have an orange pan and orange case. I got to make my scalloped potatoes recipe for Christmas Eve and transport it to my sister-in-law's house.

One of my teammates has a birthday right before Christmas and we try to make our teammate birthdays special. Last year we had snowpocalypse and we missed having the work celebration. No snow this year so I made a cake and we all got to enjoy it! This is a vanilla cake. The two layers were split in two resulting in 4 layers of cake. In between the layers is a seedless red raspberry jam and my frosting. For the jam I heated it in a saucepan making it spreadable. My frosting recipe was 1 package cream cheese and 1 stick of butter, vanilla extract, and add powdered sugar until I like how it tastes. I thin the frosting with milk usually but this time I just used a little water. The snowflakes were made with some white candy melt. A design was drawn on paper, wax paper was placed over the design, candy melt was scooped into a pastry bag, and then the design was traced in the candy melt. Pop in the freezer until it has hardened and you can easily peel the snowflakes off the wax paper...