Day 16 Dairy Free: The Ultimate Challenge

I cooked dinner with cheese for the first time since I started down this journey.

The challenge?  I have a REALLY bad habit of nibbling on cheese while I cook meals with it for other people.  I'm used to cooking 2 meals since I live with carnivores but tonight was the first time I made them a cheesy dish.  I can't believe that I didn't have even ONE bite!!  Instead of leaving the tempting bag of delicious shreds open and with me while I cook, I replaced it with a jar of cashews.  I grabbed 1 or 2 here or there and found that I didn't think once about grabbing cheese.  YUM!!  Just had to be sure and chew thoroughly... jaw stopped hurting today by the way.

The lesson learned today is that cheese probably isn't the issue... snacking is.  I like to snack while I cook so maybe that's something else I need to work on.  I think I started this when I went meatless.  I like meat but don't digest it well so I quit eating it.  I still cook it though... so to help stop the cravings, I started snacking while I cook it.

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Breakfast:  Green smoothie (1/2 head of romaine, 1 fresh banana, 1/2 frozen banana, 1/2 cup frozen mango, mint leaves)

Lunch: Mixed greens salad topped with raisins, carrots, walnuts, dried cranberries, olive oil and a splash of sesame oil

Snack:  red apple, cashews

Dinner:  Lightly sauteed kale and broccoli tossed with wild rice, baby onions, "bbq" sauce (dates, tomatoes, sun dried tomatoes, onion, garlic), chunks of fresh pineapple, and left over tofu taco mix... topped with spicy "rooster" sauce.  Odd combination but MAN it turned out so delicious!  Washed down with Almond Breeze Almond Coconut milk.