h2>Dating : Week 170: Sticking With It
As you probably know by now if you’ve read one of our articles, Sarah has a gluten allergy which definitely affects how we prep and cook meals. She’s also sensitive to dairy. Recently, I have also made the change to gluten-free eating, due to my own digestive issues (I won’t go into detail). Along with that, my doctor had me on a diet where I wouldn’t have dairy for a couple weeks. All that to say, we had a dairy-free, gluten-free meal ahead of us this week.
Now, before you jump to conclusions, I’m not saying that with a hint of disappointment. Sarah and I have found so many wonderful gluten-free meals, and we’ve had a lot of fun preparing them. We haven’t made quite as many dairy-free recipes, but we certainly weren’t worried about it.
We also recently started ordering products from Brandless. One of the products we ordered was a box of gluten-free pasta. We were so excited to try it out, so we decided to make gluten-free, dairy-free mac and cheese with bacon. It’s a mouthful, I know!
Anytime a recipe includes bacon, I’m hooked. I went and picked up all the items from the grocery store, and I couldn’t wait to get home. Sarah started prepping the pasta right away, and we preheated the oven for making the bacon. Once that was ready, I had the pleasure to be the one to cut the bacon into little chunks for topping the mac and cheese (I promise I didn’t eat…too many).
In no time, the food was ready. We dished the mac and cheese into bowls, and we topped them with that tasty bacon. I took a bite and…
…look. I didn’t want to say anything.
Sarah asked me how it was, and I answered. It was fine. Honestly, with the bacon on top, it was fine. I wasn’t being deceptive.
But the cheese was a bit off.
It was just very…dense. And the taste wasn’t quite right. Again, with the bacon, it was a fine meal overall. But it didn’t really meet my expectations. Sarah said she liked it, though!
But — here’s the thing — we had made these dietary decisions, and we stuck with them. That doesn’t mean it’s always going to be easy sailing. This recipe just happened to taste a little off with the dairy-free cheese. No worries.
Later, we tried using that same cheese for a different recipe. You’ll have to come back next week to see how that one turned out (#foreshadowing). We even made it with dairy free cream cheese, too.
But the fact that I didn’t particularly care for this recipe didn’t reflect on Sarah or me. We didn’t make it wrong. We followed the recipe. We did our part.
It just wasn’t the right fit. That happens sometimes.
It also would have been a poor decision for me to just write off dairy-free and gluten-free foods for good. That would have been a major overreaction.
Again, it was just the wrong fit. That happens sometimes.
You live and learn, and you move on. I often let things like that dictate how I view myself. When something out of my control goes awry, I can start to beat myself up over it. But this wasn’t my fault, Sarah’s fault, or anyone’s fault.
Next time, I’ll just lobby to change the recipe up a little bit.
I hope you can have the clarity to see the things that are not in your control this week. I need that for my own life, so I’m not preaching here. I just sincerely hope that for you, as I do for myself and for Sarah. We’re all in the middle of it. Let’s help each other along.
This week’s recipe didn’t turn out quite like I had planned. Oh well, that didn’t stop us from trying again the next week. I’ll have that story for you next Friday. See you then!
