Back to School and What to Eat?

Back to school. Yesterday was the first day of my last year of college (at least for a while). So, since I knew this would be a busy time of year, I prepared ahead and stocked the freezer with some “instant” breakfasts. I really do love muffins for those “I stayed up too late last night” mornings. So here is a new favorite recipe.


Blueberry Apple Muffins

½ cup canola oil

1/3 cup agave

1 ½ cups cinnamon apple sauce

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp cinnamon

3 cups bob’s red mill (or King Arthur) all purpose baking flour

¾ tsp xanthan gum

1 ½ tsp baking soda

2 Macintosh apples

2 Handfuls of blueberries (I have small hands)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a muffin pan with muffin liners. Combine all wet ingredients and cinnamon. In separate bowl combine the dry ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the wet until just combined. Fold in apples and blueberries. Fill muffin tin with batter (makes 12 heaping muffins). Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown.

Dinners aren’t any easier to prepare when on a tight schedule, or just feeling plain tired (which can happen when your body is constantly attacking allergens). We made a spaghetti sauce tonight that was simple and delicious and is also a nice make- extra-and-freeze dinner.

Spaghetti sauce on rice noodles

1 Summer squash

2 Tomatoes and handful of cherry tomatoes

1 Onion

1 Green pepper

Fresh Oregano

Fresh Basil

1 lb Turkey burger

½ jar of spaghetti sauce

½ cup of water

Chop all vegetables and herbs, and sauté squash, onion, and green pepper until tender. Brown the meat. Add meat and tomatoes to the sautéed veggies and sprinkle with fresh herbs. Add ½ jar of spaghetti sauce and ½ cup of water. Stir until heated through and serve over rice noodles.


I hope you enjoy some pictures from my last summer bike ride in my beautiful home state, Vermont.

Mood Dessert

I honestly don’t feel very deprived unless I go out to a chain restaurant and have to ask for special alterations for everything on the menu. But since I’m often the one that cooks anyway, I make my would-be-bland diet exciting by trying new things. To all my dairy-free friends, give this a try, you won’t be disappointed.

Rich and creamy chocolate mousse –dairy free!

1 avocado

¼ cup unsweetened cocoa

¼ cup agave

½ tsp vanilla

Blend in food processor and serve OR fill ice cube trays for frozen treats…or make fudge pops!

This is a very rich dessert, and high in fat/calories (but it’s the good fat: monounsaturated fat and omega-3

fatty acids.). It may be good with bananas mixed in, or some gluten free/ dairy free Oreos, or graham crackers. It was hard for me to eat a whole bowl full, I definitely recommend having a small amount mixed with the before mentioned items and saving the rest as little frozen treats.

 

Fall is my favorite season and the weather lately is starting to put me in the mood for apples, pumpkin picking and pies. This weekend was a good bonding experience with my future mother-in-law. I have to give her lots of credit for being so willing to prepare meals for me that are free of all my allergens. She decided she wanted to make a fruit dessert that I could eat. So we hung out in the kitchen and played with some flavors.

Fruit Cobbler

1 can of cherry pie filling (or homemade cherry pie filling if you prefer)

1 can of peaches (or 2-3 ripe peaches, peeled and chopped)

3 Tbsp Sugar (or use a substitute such as Agave but less will be needed b/c it is sweeter than sugar)

2 tsp Cinnamon

½ tsp Nutmeg

½ cup Ground oats (Bob's Red Mill makes certified gluten free oats now)

½ cup Whole oats

The first crucial step is to toast the ground and whole oats in a frying pan with some cinnamon on low. Move the oats around frequently so they don’t burn.

Combine the pie filling, peaches, nutmeg, cinnamon and choice of sweetener in a bowl. Pour mixture into a baking dish. Sprinkle toasted oats on top and place the dish in the oven on 350 for 10-15 minutes or until heated through.

This dish was really simple, but very warm and satisfying. This has a flavor almost opposite to the chocolate mousse, so choose whichever suits your mood!

Summer Rain

This blog is about everything allergy. Not just about food. So I thought I’d share some info on natural beauty products. I’m often called a hippy by a friend of mine who goes to school in Boston (he jokes that my name would be Summer Rain)  because I like natural and organic foods and products. But, once you learn about it, it’s hard to ignore the risks associated with toxins and enter back into the Standard American Diet and overall lifestyle. Ignorance is what deteriorates our health. So these are the things I’ve learned about beauty products.


Lots of products contain traces of gluten/wheat, sugar and just plain nasty things like sulfates, and dyes. Your skin is an organ, so anything you wouldn’t put in your mouth, is not something that should be applied to your skin. If a label warns against ingesting, think twice about applying. Sulfates in the very shampoo you use every day to look your best have been shown to cause damage to roots and result in hair loss. Not to mention your body begins to compensate for being stripped of all of its oils, so it produces in excess which causes you become dependent on washing with these products every day. So I researched homemade, natural shampoos. I discovered that using baking soda in water on the scalp cuts down grease, and apple cider vinegar in water acts as a conditioner.

1Tbsp baking soda + enough water to make a paste (massage gently, this will not create a foamy lather, b/c it does not contain sulfates)

2 Tbsp ACV + 1 cup of water (pour over the ends of your hair)

I feel as though my body is already working overtime when it comes to allergies and stress, so I don’t need to overload it with more toxins than necessary. These methods are inexpensive and environmentally friendly. I’m sold.

On this site you can enter the beauty products you use every day and see how their ingredients rate on a scale of 0-10 in toxicity levels. One of the connections this site checks for is between chemicals and Allergies/immunotoxicity.

Although the idea of making soap sounds like fun, some might not be that excited about the mess and playing with ingredients such as lye. I recommend these products.

Dr Bronner’s Fair Trade, Organic, All-in-One, Pure-Castile Soap (1-2 toxic level)

Crystal Body Deodorant  (0 toxic level)

Jojoba oil – as a facial moisturizer

On a side note, the only medication that has worked to prevent my cat allergies from affecting me, without putting me to sleep, is Claritin. I also vouch for Hepa Filters. I have a small Honeywell air purifier, and my future mother in law has a Hepa vacuum. Also, Peppermint oil can ease a sinus headache and a stuffy nose. These things help me survive weekend visits in their three cat home.

Soup and Salads

So, not only are prepackaged foods labeled “gluten free” pricey, but they’re often not all that healthy due to processing and sodium content etc. I do keep “instant gluten free” meals on hand, but I like to make as much as I can myself.

It’s still summer but I have been craving soup with a passion. We made chicken last night for dinner in the crock pot, so I saved the broth and added some extra Swanson’s Natural Goodness Chicken Broth to it (this broth does not list wheat as an ingredient, but always read the labels first because you never know when companies will change their recipes). Usually I would just boil the chicken bones and use that for the broth, but this didn’t make quite enough liquid on its own. This is wheat-free, dairy-free, egg-free, nut-free.

Save the broth from one chicken cooked in crock pot with favorite seasonings

1 boil in bag rice – takes about 8 minutes

Carrots/celery/onions/peppers – any veggies you want. I like to pre-cook the veggies in a frying pan because, as I discovered the hard way once, it will take hours to soften carrots in the soup broth.

I cut up some of the chicken from the night before.

After the rice is cooked, I just toss the ingredients in a pot together and heat thoroughly.

I love that chicken soup is so easy to make allergy friendly and tastes so good.

I made a salad with lettuce and cherry tomatoes that I purchased from my favorite local farm. And lunch was served; in the same time it would have taken me to drive to McDonalds and back, or run to the nearest grocery store and microwave something. Sometimes it just takes some planning ahead or creativity with leftovers from the night before.

I’m also in love with adding berries to salads. If you’re brave, you can try a tuna salad by replacing the mayo with mustard (if you have an egg allergy like me). Place this on top of a bed of lettuce and tomatoes, toss in some fresh blueberries and top it off with homemade hummus.

Good Bugs

When I discover that something is wrong, be it within myself or otherwise, I don’t like to slap a band aid on it or pop some pills (at least not anymore). Studying for my psychology degree has led me to seek out the underlying reasons why people are as they are. Allergies are no different. I wanted to know why people develop allergies, so I began to research. Isn’t it fascinating that more and more people are developing allergies and intolerances later in life?
Although this isn't the only cause of allergies, I discovered something called “leaky gut syndrome” or intestinal permeability (where food particles that are too large, manage to get through a weakened digestive system and the immune system attacks these particles, causing an allergic reaction). Ok. Fine. So what causes leaky gut syndrome? Lots of things. Taking over the counter pills like Ibuprofen, Aspirin, Tylenol etc., taking antibiotics and not restoring the good bacteria within your digestive system, and a fungal infection called Candida.

I want to note that I did not spend the 90 some-odd dollars on the test to be diagnosed for intestinal permeability. But due to the fact that I ignorantly took antibiotics numerous times in high school, and used to take a pain reliever for every minor ache, the possibility exists. I decided to start taking probiotics, drink soothing tea (Marshmallow root, Peppermint, Slippery Elm) and be very gentle with my digestive system. I stumbled across “The Water Cure” by Dr. F. Batmanghelidj and realized that my body is primarily water. If I gave it what it was mostly composed of, there would be more right with me than wrong.

I don’t watch the Oprah show religiously or anything, but I was sucked in when I noticed she was doing an episode on food. My weakness. She was interviewing Michael Pollan and discussing the movie Food Inc., which everyone should see. With all of the chemicals and antibiotics on/in our food it’s not surprising that so many people are becoming allergic to the very things that are supposed to be sustaining us. I visited the Food Inc. website, and discovered their blog. The following article hit home fast: Western Diet Kills Good Bugs in Stomach, Causes Obesity and Allergies.

I am entirely convinced that food allergies, are not merely a hereditary thing. Despite the fact that most of my family has problems with food, it may be because we have been eating the same conventional foods, taking the same pain killers, and antibiotics. So, I try to eat what is local and in season (and grow whatever I can at home).

Farmer's Market Peaches and Plums

Purple Basil from Sarah's Garden

Homemade Muffins and a Rice Pasta Dish

Muffins! I made the banana flax muffins from The Allergen-Free Baker’s Handbook by Cybele Pascal and they are so good! I can’t even tell the difference between them and “regular” muffins. I now feel confident that all the recipes in this book will be a success, after going through the slightly tedious requirement of tracking down all the ingredients. But with time these ingredients will seem like familiar friends. My personal favorite is using organic blue agave in place of sugar. It is low on the glycemic index and better for you than chemically created artificial sweeteners. For copyright reasons, I won’t post the recipe, but I will encourage you to check out the book. I have one of these muffins each day for breakfast, so I froze half so they wouldn’t go bad…although it is tempting to eat them all at once.

I subscribed to receive e-mailed recipe ideas from Living Without Magazine. This is where the following recipe was inspired from, but I had to alter it quite a bit.

Rice Noodles with Fresh Tomato, Corn and dairy-free Cheese:

12 oz wide rice noodles ( I used A Taste of Thai)

6 Tbl olive Oil

1 sweet onion

2-3 cloves garlic

Corn kernels from 2 ears of corn

4 Tablespoons red wine vinegar

1/3 cup chopped fresh basil

Sprinkle of chopped fresh oregano to taste

2 garden tomatoes

Handful of daiya cheese

Cubed, cooked chicken

Cook pasta according to package instructions. Mine required them to be soaked in VERY hot water for 25-30 minutes. Drain in a colander.

While pasta is cooking, boil the corn until they turn yellow and there is an aroma of corn. Cool. Cut kernels off corn and set aside.

In a large saucepan, heat 1 Tbs of Olive Oil. Saute the garlic and onion until onion is clear and tender. Add corn, chicken, 4 tablespoons of Olive Oil, vinegar, basil and oregano.

When all ingredients are heated, add the cooked and drained rice pasta to the pan of vegetables. Stir well and add remaining Olive Oil. Sprinkle in cheese. Allow it to melt and serve.

(You can add tomatoes when you add the cheese, but some of my picky eaters don’t like tomatoes so I served them separately).

Matt (my fiancé) didn’t appreciate the corn in this recipe, but then again he doesn’t appreciate any vegetable very much. My father and I liked it thoroughly. The recipe originally claimed to serve 8, which it probably could as a side dish, but between the three of us, we finished it all. In fact, it was gone so fast that I didn’t have time to take a picture.

Snacks and Lunch

I don’t personally care for shopping. It’s slightly overwhelming and I feel silly if I can’t find something easily. However, it’s much more fun with a friend and two sets of eyes. Not to mention, a second person can show you things you never thought to look at before. Perhaps they approach the store in a whole new way. So yesterday, I took my good friend Erin to the local Co-op with me to search for snack food.

I have been reading rave reviews about Kale chips all over the place. Perhaps my taste buds aren’t experienced enough to appreciate them. But honestly, this is not something I would EVER make again. I read warnings about over cooking them and sure enough the first batch came out browned and bitter (after only ten minutes). I made sure to check the second batch every couple minutes to make sure they were still green but crisp …better…but still nowhere near worth the amount of time this process took. I am not a picky eater. These are just not good. Even with salt. The only good part about them was the wonderful crunch they made when you bit into them…but they soon became a chewy blob I had to force myself to swallow. If, after all that, you still want to try to make them, here is the process I took:

wash the Kale,
dry it completely
rip it to pieces (I would also recommend cutting out the stems)
cover them in olive oil.
Bake at 350 for about six minutes, watching all the time so they don't turn brown.
Then, sprinkle them with salt.

Although I like to be positive as much as possible, I want to keep this blog realistic. I’m a college student, an intern, holding down a part-time job, and planning a wedding. It’s easy to say I have little extra time and money. Kale chips=waste of time. So, hungry as we were, Erin showed me how to make homemade hummus.


16 oz can garbanzo beans
¼ cup of juice from can of beans
¼ cup olive oil
Juice from one lemon
1.5 Tbs. tahini (which we bought in bulk at City Market)

GARLIC!! (chop one to three cloves depending on how much you like garlic)

Toss the ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth. Tada, hummus!

Erin was the wonderful person who introduced me and my family to hummus. Now we are slightly addicted. My father and I used to eat it with crackers all the time before I cut wheat out of my diet. But yesterday we used fresh green beans.

Today’s lunch was something less than photogenic, but still delicious. A salmon melt (I can eat fish, my brother can’t). I can’t believe how large it was or how fast I ate it. But it was goooooood. I used a left over piece of grilled salmon from dinner, tomatoes sliced thinly from the garden, Daiya cheese and tapioca bread. I basically made a grilled cheese sandwich first because the cheese is the “wrinkly” kind, as we say at home, and can get pretty messy. Then I warmed the salmon and tomatoes and stuck them in between the bread and cheesey goodness.

To top it all off, I devoured a bowl of Purely Decadent, coconut milk, chocolate, non-dairy frozen dessert. Whew what a name! For the record, I hate coconut flakes (those waxy, squeaky things that are like chewing on bark). And while this ice cream had a slight coconutty taste, it was still fabulous. When I first had a suspicion that I was allergic to dairy I switched over to soy ice cream not knowing soy was a problem too. The taste was only mediocre but I made it work because it was better than nothing. My naturopath recommended this "ice cream." She sure knew what she was talking about! People who are allergic to nuts have to be careful about coconut products. I only tested high for almonds and moderately for peanuts, so I'm not too concerned for myself.

Thunderstorms

Rain.  Ahhh. I much prefer this cool rainy weather over the heat any day. When my fiancé showed me pictures of his trips to Ireland, I knew that would be a place I would love to see some day. Perhaps I have lived there in a previous life.

(Ireland photos courtesy of Matthew Hodgson)

Since it’s nice and cool, we can cook again! This morning, my mom put the pork roast in the crock pot before leaving for work. I love crock pot dinners. They are simple and make the house smell good all day. We let the pork cook until it was so tender it fell apart when I poked it with a fork. Then, I pulled out the bone, drained the excess water, shreded the meat and covered it in Sweet Baby Rays BBQ sauce.

When I came home from my internship up at the hospital, I made a Bob’s Red Mill cornbread to go with the pulled pork. It smelled delicious. Now I want to learn how to make my own cornbread from scratch (allergen free of course).

I just purchased Cybele Pascal’s book, “The Allergen-Free Baker’s Handbook: How to bake without Gluten, Wheat, Dairy, Eggs, Soy, Peanuts, Tree nuts, and Sesame.” Thank you Cybele! I’m eager to start trying out her recipes, but I have to make use of the heaping pile of various mixes we already have in our pantry. That’s why this blog has been mostly reviews so far.

She is running a free giveaway on her award winning blog until August 11th. She also has some free recipes and food reviews. Check it out!

Some Recommendations

Betty Crocker has come out with a whole bunch of gluten free baking mixes. So far we have only tried the Devil's Food cake mix and WOW, was it good! It's the gluten free version of the chocolate cake I have had  each year for my birthday. No funny after taste. Even my picky eater boys (who know who they are) said it tastes just like 'regular' cake. I can't wait to try the other mixes. They're also coming out with a gluten free Bisquick this summer. We simply used Ener-G egg replacer and Earth Balance Buttery Spread along with the frosting I mentioned in a previous post.

I also recommend Sunshine Burgers.  They are Veggie burgers that are gluten free, soy free, egg and dairy free. It was really good on tapioca bread with spinach, tomato, and barbeque sauce.

Tonight we made pizza using Bob's Red Mill Pizza Crust Mix. (It just so happens we have far too many gluten free mixes on hand and need to use them up). It turned out well! I used 2 Tablespoons of flaxseed meal mixed with 6 Tablespoons of water to replace the eggs. The toppings were a jar of pizza sauce (w/o soy), onions, green peppers, garlic, mushrooms, spinach, Daiya cheese, and tomatoes from our garden. I topped it off with basil and oregano that I grow on our sun porch.

Last and certainly not least, I highly recommend Amy's vegan rice macaroni and cheese. It's made with non-dairy Daiya cheese. No soy ingredients. Perfect! Thick and smooth. I prefer it over any other macaroni and cheese. Vegan or otherwise.

While I understand that some prefer to make everything from scratch, it's always nice to have some backups for convenience. As a college student, these little goodies are life savers to me. And while on the topic of convenience...

It's also interesting to note that the Outback, Olive Garden, 99, Uno Chicago Grill (and more) restaurants are offering gluten free menus. You just have to know to ask. Merci beaucoup!

August Heat

It's summer. It's hot. C'est chaud! C'est chaud! I live up in the North East so heat is not something I (nor my French grandmother) tolerate well. I know, it's nothing compared to living down south, but when its in the 90s and your house doesn't have air conditioning, the last thing you want to do is turn on the oven, the stove, or even the lights. But people still need to eat. That meant cereal for breakfast. I prefer Rice Chex cereal. It's gluten free and is now coming out with some different flavors. Cinnamon sugar is the best. However, as most people with allergies know, it's not good to eat the same thing every day because you risk becoming allergic to that as well. So in attempting some sort of  'rotation diet' I had EnviroKidz Gorilla Munch. It's made with corn meal which is a nice break from rice all the time.

I usually use rice milk in place of milk, and this may seem odd, but I used orange juice instead of any type of milk what-so-ever. This was something a family friend used to do...pour orange juice on his cereal.  Quirky? Sure. But it's dairy free, gluten free, egg free and more. It's cheap, common, and sweet! Oh and fortified with calcium for those of us who can't have dairy.

Birthday Cake!

Today we are celebrating my grandfather's birthday. Traditionally we always had a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting for everyone's birthday. Our family LOVES chocolate. Now, my grandpa (aka Papa) has no known food allergies, but what kind of party is it when only two people can eat the cake? I had to adjust our chocolate frosting family recipe to contain a buttery spread made of olive oil in place of butter (I used Earth Balance Buttery Spread), and rice milk instead of cow's milk. And who knew...it tastes EXACTLY the same! We credit this recipe to my great-grandmother who everyone called Memere.

Memere's chocolate frosting recipe:

3 T butter (regular or vegan butter)

3oz unsweetened baking chocolate

3 cups confectioners sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1/3 cup milk (regular or rice milk)

1 tsp vanilla

Melt butter in saucepan, add chocolate and stir over low heat until melted. Pour into a small bowl. Add remaining ingredients and beat until well blended. Chill until spreading consistency (10-15 minutes).

For the cake I used a Bob's Red Mill vanilla cake mix. I don't personally like the after taste of many Bob's Red Mill products, so I added a little extra vanilla in hopes of covering it up a bit. I also used Ener-G egg replacer instead of the three eggs the recipe called for. The cake didn't rise as much as a normal "wheat infested" (as my mother calls it) cake. So it was shorter and I ended up with a nice amount of leftover frosting to do something else fun with later.