Skipping out on gluten really has a way of spurring my creativity. I used to cook and eat just because I was hungry, but now that I’m gluten free I have lots of fun cooking new and interesting things and adding new flavors to dishes. To explain that going gluten free can unlock a hidden kitchen whiz within you I would like to talk about the evolution of my very favorite gluten free recipe over time. And hopefully this entry can help you unlock your ability to create new, fun, slightly unusual, healthy, but oh so delicious dishes.

When I first went off of gluten it was a tough adjustment. It was really hard getting used to not eating bread in just about every meal. One meal that I really missed eating gluten in was breakfast. One thing I loved to eat was a breakfast sandwich. I would fry up a couple of eggs, sausage and hashbrown and lay them over a warm piece of toast with cheese. I would eat this breakfast at least 3 or 4 times a week. When I realized that gluten was causing all of my stomach issues this breakfast was all of a sudden out of the picture. I went without for a while, but eventually I needed to find a replacement, the cravings were almost too much to bear.

Enter eggs over fries, the first of many evolutions of the breakfast pile:

I’m from Idaho so I love some good french fries every once in a while and that is how this came about. It was breakfast time and I was starving! I couldn’t eat bread anymore and I didn’t have much in the kitchen except potatoes, left over taco meat jalapenos, eggs and cheese. I thought about it for a second and said to myself, “yep I think that just might hit the spot.” So i fried it up all together. The meat and jalapenos got overcooked to the verge of burned because I put it all in the pan at the same time. Man it hit the spot though. I made this recipe over and over again because I loved it so much.

Over the months I found that I liked this recipe even better with sliced potatoes. This led to the second evolution of this awesome recipe:

I found that avocado tastes really good with scrambled eggs. Around this time, my stomach decided that it really doesn’t like much starch in my diet. I found this out when I started experimenting with tapioca starch in recipes. About every time I ate something I had made with a lot of tapioca starch, I would have headaches, bloating and gas. So I decided to limit my starch intake.

This led me to the evolution of the recipe that I use now and probably my favorite one. Zucchini and squash to the rescue:

I love frying up zucchini and squash. I have found that it tastes especially good when fried with apple cider vinegar (gives it a tangy flavor). I’ll fry it with peppers from the garden and some onion. It’s healthier and tastes amazing. I love these stripey squashes. I don’t know what they are called but I love the taste and texture. They have thin skin so they still fry up well. A little sriracha on the top to add some spice and you have everything in one meal.

So that’s the story of the breakfast pile. The reason why I’m sharing this story is to give you hope. I know it can be hard when you have to change your diet to feel better or to be healthier, but don’t look at it as a bad thing. You don’t have to sacrifice great tasting food to be healthy. Healthy food doesn’t have to taste bad and great tasting food doesn’t have to be unhealthy. I feel much better now that I have taken gluten out of my diet and limited my starch intake. Also, don’t be afraid of change. And don’t be afraid to try new things. It’s an opportunity to adapt and become a better, more creative, more happy person. I love you all.