Recovery and Grilled Cheese

Being gluten-ized sucks. I was sick with Friday's dinner, had the leftovers for Saturday and had some more for lunch on Sunday (after removing the larger pieces of meat). I was stupid to keep eating the food that made me sick, but the meal itself was so good, it was disappointing that the Italian sausage ruined it. By Sunday afternoon, I felt so horrible. I was so nauseous and was having crazy "bathroom problems", my stomach ached, my headaches worsened, the swelling on the right side of my abdomen grew, I could barely think, I wanted to crawl into bed by 6pm, and I could not eat. I cut my losses and just stopped eating for the day.

The next morning I went to Jamba Juice and started my stomach recovery. By Monday evening, I was almost back to normal. What a crazy detour! I made an easy dinner of grilled cheese.

Grilled cheese? It's on my list. When I realized I was going to be gluten-free for life, I opened up one of my basic cookbooks and made a list of everything I wanted to eat - including all of the ones I had ruled out because they would be "too hard." I used Udi's Whole Grain bread and freshly sliced goat cheese with some fresh chopped basil in between the cheese slices. I should have let the cheese melt a little more, but I have been horribly out of practice. It has probably been over two years since I stood at the stove making grilled cheese. It was really nice to be able to turn back to traditional comfort food as my stomach started healing and I began crossing items off of my food wish list.

WARNING: not everyone who is lactose intolerant can have goat cheese. I can't have any butter (which is really low in lactose levels), but I can eat as much goat cheese as I want. Here's some additional information: http://www.drgourmet.com/askdrgourmet/goatcheeseallergy.shtml