Vegan Almond Flour Pancakes

There is no rhyme or reason to my posts right now. I'm trying so many different things, it's hard to keep them straight. But this recipe was so good, I had to put it online or I would lose it. Again. I made these a few weeks ago when I was experimenting with different pancake recipes. We loved them. But instead of saving the recipe, I just printed it out. Then I lost the paper. This happens a lot now. I run upstairs then stare blindly, trying to recall why I hefted up the stairs to begin with. Entering your fifties is not for the timid.

I looked everywhere in my documents folder but couldn't find it. I was panic-stricken! The best pancake recipe on earth and I lost it. Curses. Then I caught a clue and went through my online history. No small task, considering how many websites and recipes I've been reviewing in the past month.

It resides on The Daily Dietribe. I am getting this woman's recipe book. I don't know who she is yet, but I will find out and buy it. I think I'm starting to feel the same way about this website as I do about The Gluten Free Goddess. Kitchen wizards!

These pancakes are fantastic. Her original recipe post is extremely detailed and helpful, explaining which flours work best and how to adjust liquid amounts depending upon your flour choice. Check it out.

Vegan Almond Flour Pancakes

Adapted from GF Vegan Pancakes by www.thedailydietribe.com

Dry ingredients:

1 ¼ C almond flour

½ C potato starch

2 t baking powder

½ t sea salt

2 T beet sugar

Wet ingredients:

¼ C applesauce

2 T oil

1 – 1 ½ C coconut milk

Directions:

Preheat griddle. Preheat oven to 200°.

Whisk together dry ingredients in main bowl.

Whisk together wet ingredients in a smaller bowl or measuring cup. Start with one cup of milk.

Pour wet ingredients into dry and mix well. If too thick, add more fluid. I like batter to be just ‘pourable’.

When oven preheats, turn it off. Prepare a cookie sheet with a cooling rack on top and place in oven.

Add a small amount oil to griddle. If oil sizzles, the griddle is ready.  Scoop portions of batter onto griddle using a ¼ measuring cup. These are usually so thick, I smooth them down a little with measuring cup. Batter also thickens as it sits, so keep that in mind as you work.

As pancakes are cooked, slide onto cooling rack in oven to keep warm.

I double this recipe so there are leftovers. Since I always store them in the fridge, I can't lose them. I may forget they're there, but I will find them.

Alton Brown's Baked Brown Rice

Hands down, the easiest, best way to cook brown rice. I was never a fan of brown rice until I tried this method. Comes out perfect every time. Every time! I've baked it in both a glass dish and a Teflon baking dish. Always perfect. I love Alton Brown and miss his show, Good Eats. Loved to watch it with my kids.

Adapted from Alton Brown's Baked Brown Rice.

1 1/2 C brown rice (I use Basmati)
1 C vegetable broth
1 1/2 C water
1 T canola oil
1 t celtic salt
 
Preheat oven to 375°.

Rinse brown rice and dump into an 8x8 cooking dish.

Add oil and salt to veggie broth and microwave 2 minutes on high. Stir to insure salt has dissolved then pour over rice.

Microwave the remaining fluid for 2 minutes and add to rice mixture.

Cover with tin foil and bake 1 hour.

Fluff with fork and keep loosely covered until ready to serve.

Make Ahead Dairy Free Mashed Potatoes

When I considered Thanksgiving dinner and converting everything to be allergy-safe, I made this way harder than it needed to be. I do what I always do. Hop on the internet, surf over to Google, type in dairy-free whatever-else-free I need, let the links unfold, then angst over which recipe looks the least alien to the original.

What I should have done was simply take my old recipe, replace the milk and butter with my go-to dairy subs, and get on with it. Not so hard, really.

My daughter claims she doesn't like coconut milk b/c it's too strong, but in reality, I cook so much with it, she hardly notices. I steered clear of it as my dairy replacement in mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving so it wouldn't overpower the taste. In truth, I used a combination of coconut milk, hemp milk, and chicken broth, and no one was the wiser.

I've since made mashed potatoes with all chicken broth and it was terrific. Not what I'd make for a traditional holiday meal, but it's great with a Mediterranean chicken dish I made last week. I'll have to post that someday.

This is based on a recipe from Betty Crocker's New Cookbook - remember cookbooks? I still occasionally consult one, but those days are waning. I make these in my crockpot so they stay warm while I'm dealing with last minute dinner prep - turkey carving, gravy-making, table-setting, etc.

We like mashed taters very creamy, so be forewarned. If you like yours thicker, dial back the milk sub.

Dairy-Free Mashed Potatoes

• 8-10 boiling or Yukon gold potatoes
• 1/3 to 1/2 C very warm dairy free milk (I use So Delicious coconut milk)
• 2-3 T dairy-free butter ( I use soy-free Earth Balance)
• 1 t Celtic salt (if using finer ground salt, you may want less)
• pepper to taste

Preheat crockpot to warm or low setting. Add DF butter to soften.

Scrub potatoes, peel and cut into large pieces.

Boil 30 minutes or until tender. Drain in colander.

Dump in warmed crockpot. Add DF butter and beat with hand mixer until lumps are gone.

Add salt and pepper, then slowly add milk until potatoes are to desired consistency.

Cover and keep on low until ready to eat.

Roasted Potato Wedges

This isn't Christmas dinner fare since my daughter insists mashed potatoes are the only potato allowed on the holiday dinner table - better on which to slather gravy - but these tasty potatoes are a staple side dish in the winter months.

I've had some challenges getting these to bake correctly, though. They stick like crazy to the tin foil I place over the cookie sheet. The sheet stays clean but the tin foil ends up enjoying more of the potato than we do.

I finally sat down and researched this phenomenon. Popped it into Google and voila! Instant answers. The main culprit was the tin foil. No surprise there. Many suggested dousing it with oil, but the vast majority of the posters recommended either no-stick foil or using a different type of baking dish - ceramic or glass - and placing the potatoes directly on the well-oiled, preheated surface.

The problem is the moisture in the potatoes. To prevent them from releasing fluid and thereby creating the liquid lock that causes them to stick, they must go directly on a preheated surface with plenty of oil so the skins seals up quickly before liquid releases.

I tried preheating the pan with the foil in it, but still got a gluey mess. I've had such bad luck with foil, I didn't bother with no-stick foil. I said goodbye to easy cleanup and went straight to a ceramic pan, preheating it with oil before dumping the potatoes in. Success! No sticking. Bigger cleanup, of course, but a much more satisfying culinary experience.

I wish I could tell you where I got this recipe. I found it on the internet years ago before I had the good sense to note the source when I saved it to my computer. I adapted it slightly as it had a boatload of salt in the original version (a tablespoon!), but these easy wedges are crispy and delicious and satisfy the french fry craving in my kids.

Roasted Potato Wedges

5-6 russet potatoes, scrubbed
1 t crushed rosemary
1/2 t garlic powder
1/2 t onion powder
1 t salt (I use a heaping t of celtic salt)
pepper to taste
4 T extra virgin olive oil

Place a greased 9 x 11 baking dish (glass or ceramic) in oven. Preheat oven 425°.

Directions

Cut potatoes in 6-8 wedges/tater.

Place wedges in a gallon Ziplock bag.

Add spices and olive oil. Close bag and mix together until spices are combined and oil is evenly distributed.

Remove baking dish (with oven mitts!) and place on a pot holder.

Dump taters in pan and use tongs to evenly distribute. For crispy taters, place on the cut side, not the skin side.

Bake 20-25 minutes. Remove from oven, turn taters to the other cut side, and rotate dish.

Place back in oven and bake another 15 minutes or until taters are to desired crispiness.

I'm dreaming of garlic knots

Not sure why I'm stuck on the idea of having garlic knots. I never once attempted to make them pre-allergy days. The only garlic knots I've ever had were made in an amazing pizza parlor in Belle Harbor, New York, called Plum Tomatoes Pizzeria. Holy cow, are those suckers good! Everything in this place is good. We ate in a couple times, but once my sister owned a permanent home in the area, we ordered take-out and had their luscious deliciousness delivered right to our door. Those were the days.

No more wheat or butter for me. And I have no hope of creating anything remotely like them, without yeast. The more research I do, the more I'm convinced that a reasonable facsimile are possible gluten-free, just not yeast or egg free. It's easy enough to make garlic butter with Earth Balance. Not the same, but as the memory of dairy and wheat fade in the data banks of our taste buds, the new ingredients will take hold and satisfy. That's the theory, anyway.

But the yeast thing really sucks. Bread texture is beyond dense without yeast. I've been working on a pizza crust that isn't half bad, but it wouldn't work as a garlic knot. The dough is too sticky. I made Noah's Rolls last weekend for a Christmas party, but the egg replacer I used - flaxmeal goop - overpowered the flavor and ruined it for me.

The texture wasn't half-bad, but the color was anemic. They didn't brown. Not sure what to do about that yet. An egg wash is out. Can I brush it with garlic butter before it finishes baking? Conventional wisdom calls for the butter brush-down after they come out of the oven.

T'is a puzzlement. I'm making lasagna tonight. I'd really like to have garlic bread with it, but I haven't found a good savory bread recipe yet. That's why garlic knots popped into my head. If I can get the rolls right, I can wash them down with garlic butter and call it good.

I'm going to try Ener-G Egg Replacer instead of flaxmeal goop this time and see what happens. If it works out, I'll post it into my library.

Corn-free Southwest Black Bean Salad

This is not perfect, but it wasn't too bad for my first attempt at improvising an ingredient.

There are many versions of this salad available in cookbooks and online, but I adapted mine from Gina's Southwestern Black Bean Salad at SkinnyTaste.com.

1 15.5 oz can black beans, rinsed and drained
8 oz roasted carrots, diced (about 3 carrots)
1 tomato, chopped
1/4 C red onion, chopped
1/4 C cilantro, chopped
1 scallion, chopped
2-3 T extra virgin olive oil
salt and fresh pepper
juice of 1 lime, divided
1 small Hass avocado, diced

Combine black beans through salt and pepper. Add half the lime juice. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. Before serving, add avocado and the rest of the lime juice. Correct seasonings and serve with chips, as a topping for tacos, or as a side dish.

Roasted Carrots

This recipe is available all over the internet in various forms, but I borrowed from both Ina Garten's Roasted Carrots and The Pioneer Women's Roasted Carrots by Pastor Ryan.

I can't believe I never tried carrots this way. Really easy. Really good.

Roasted Carrots

4-5 large carrots, as uniform as possible
1 - 2 T olive oil
1/2 t kosher or celtic salt, (to taste)

Directions:

Preheat oven 400°F.

Scrub carrots clean. Peel if you like, but I didn't it.

Slice lengthwise and cut in half. Try to get each slice relatively uniform to insure even roasting.

Prepare a baking sheet with foil and spray with olive oil.

Place carrots on foil, drizzle with olive and sprinkle with salt. Toss to evenly coat.

Place in oven and roast 25-30 minutes. Skin of carrots should shrivel and gently brown in spots when done.

Carrots are the new corn!

Ever since we were handed this culinary death sentence, I've been mourning the loss of corn. I've been mourning the loss of a lot of things, frankly, but some items are easier to replace than others. Cane sugar has been relatively easy - not inexpensively easy, but alternatives have seamlessly been substituted in many a baking project with little to no difference. If you live within driving distance of a Whole Foods or have internet access and a credit card, you can find any number of granulated sugar substitutes - beet sugar, coconut palm sugar, maple sugar, etc.

Cheese is an entirely different animal, but if you take a shine to cashews or almonds or Daiya 'cheese' (an acquired taste, to be sure), vegan cheeses aren't too shabby.

I'm getting ahead of myself. Corn has been a monster to replace. Lets forget for a minute that cornstarch, HFCS, dextrose, and xanthan gum infest almost every convenience food that exists. And by convenience food, I don't just mean snacks - I mean salt, salad dressings, condiments, marinaras, crackers, yeast-free, gluten-free breads, gluten-free crusts . . . . The list is endless. I've come to terms with the fact that most convenience foods are a thing of the past, or until such time as I transform into Rachel Ray and start my own line of allergy-free products.

Considering how much whole food cooking and baking I've done in the past month, it's not out of the realm of possibility. Actually, it is. Way outside the realm. I kind of dislike baking right now. It's not how I envisioned spending my fifth decade on earth - chained to the kitchen with the oven perpetually on and a timer forever going off. Please, shoot me.

Most packaged goods are off limits. I can live with that. Learning to live with that. But corn. Corn. Not the thickener or the manufactured sweetener or the gummy binder. Just sweet, simple corn on the cob. Oh, the pain. The pain.

My sisters delighted in reminiscing how my mother craved corn when she was pregnant with me and joked I would come out an ear of corn. It explained a lot. I loved corn. I couldn't wait for summer barbecues where corn was a menu staple. It was one of the few vegetables we ate fresh, outside of garden grown tomatoes (nothing quite like a Jersey tomato) and iceberg lettuce (a nutrition-void, tasteless impostor of salad - ick), so it was worth the wait. Slathered with butter and sprinkled with salt. Goner.

Nature AND nurture. Of course I loved corn. I was genetically incapable of disliking corn.

Now I'm genetically incapable of digesting it. I'm praying it's one of those items that can be added back to the diet - in moderation and rotation - once I heal my immune system. Praying.

In the meantime, I have to get past the self-pity and make adjustments. So I can't have most Mexican meals anymore since commercial brown rice tortillas do NOT bend or fold without falling to pieces and I'm too intimidated to make a homemade one yet. No more chips and dip. Or chips and salsa. Or chips and hummus. Although - I came across a recipe for turning those dense commercial brown rice tortillas into chips that has real potential. Will let you know how that turns out as soon as I can get to it.

One Mexican-style side dish I miss the most is Southwestern Black Bean Salad. Variations of this salad exists on many recipe sites, but the one I first tried was from SkinnyTaste.com, a site filled with yummy Weight Watchers-friendly recipes. I can't make the vast majority of the recipes from there anymore, but it's a great site if you are a Weight Watchers devotee. Her recipes are delicious!

I considered making it without sweet, delicious roasted corn (which my husband would make homemade for me on our outdoor grill), but I knew it would lack a whole lot of flavor. I was glum. Then I was cruising on a website one day and someone had a recipe for roasted carrots. I'd never tried roasted carrots - and for the record, they are stupid easy to make and scrumptious - and I thought: What if I subbed roasted carrots for roasted corn? What if?

I did. And it wasn't half bad at all. Not the same, but my taste buds will adjust. I'll post both the roasted carrot recipe and Southwest Black Bean Salad separately. Pretty darn yum.

Gluten Free Vegan Coconut Pecan Pie Crust

This pie crust comes courtesy of The Gluten-Free Goddess. She is an allergyland food magician as far as I'm concerned. I find recipes on her site that I didn't think I'd ever enjoy again. I nearly wept when I tried her Cheesy Uncheese Sauce on rice pasta. Not cheese sauce really, but a tangy, creamy ocean of yum for your taste buds. But that's a gush for another post.

This crust is pressed into a parchment-lined Springform pan and placed in the oven to set before use. I've tried it two different ways: using coconut oil and using Earth Balance Soy-free margarine. The first time I baked with the oil, it leaked all over the bottom of my oven and generated enough smoke for a four alarm fire. I figured it was the oil content, so I tried the Earth Balance the next time. Oh so much worse. Did I learn from the first experience and place foil on the bottom of my oven to capture the smoke monster? Nope, nope, NOPE. A five alarm smoke fire ensued. My house still reeks.

I don't know if Springform pans are known for such leakage and I'm a complete noob for not knowing that, or if I just have a malfunctioning one. Suffice it to say, I will line the bottom of my oven with foil the next time I make a pie - or anything else - with a Springform pan. Experience is a harsh mistress.

The crust tasted just fine using either fats. I'd say the crust using coconut oil was oilier, so maybe I would use less next time, but it was no less yummy.

So proceed with cautious optimism. And line those ovens.

Coconut Pecan Pie Crust

Adapted from a pie crust recipe nestled within her recipe for Gluten-Free Pumpkin Pie with Praline and Coconut-Pecan Crust.

Line a 9-inch Springform pan with parchment paper. Line the bottom of your oven with foil to catch oil drippings.

Ingredients:

1 cup flaked unsweetened organic coconut
1 cup pecan pieces
1/2 cup all purpose gluten-free flour blend*
1/2 cup coconut palm sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
5 tablespoons vegan butter (Earth Balance or coconut oil)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350ºF.

Place dry ingredients in a food processor and pulse until the mixture looks like coarse sand.

Add vegan butter and pulse several times until crumbs are moist and begin to fall away from the sides of the bowl.

Dump crumbs into pan and spread them evenly. Using your fingers gently press the crumbs across the bottom and up the sides - about 2/3 of the way up.

Bake in the center of the oven for about ten minutes to set.

Remove the pan and set aside while you make your pie filling.

*I used Karina's Basic Gluten-Free Flour mix with a slight tweak (can't use xanthan gum):

1 C sorghum flour (or millet)
1 C tapioca starch (or potato starch)
1/3 to 1/2 C almond meal (or buckwheat flour)
1 t guar gum (or xanthan gum) 

It's pretty versatile. If you don't have time to whisk together a blend, I think any GF flour would do. 

Gluten Free Vegan Pumpkin Pie

I've made many gluten-free, dairy-free pumpkin pies over the years for my son, but none have come close to the actual taste and mouth feel of the Gluten-Free Goddess' Pumpkin Pie recipe. She is a wizard in the kitchen, no question.

This pumpkin pie stands up on its own and requires no crust. It's good enough to impress gluten, dairy and egg enthusiasts alike. I'm bringing it to a Christmas party this afternoon and expect people to genuflect at my feet. No joke. Paired with this sweet cashew cream, the response is inevitable.

I was feeling adventurous and poured this into the goddess' Coconut-Pecan Crust, also a yum! The recipe can be found in her Gluten-Free Pumpkin Pie with Praline which I will give a try at Christmas time. I'll post the pie crust recipe next, as I tried it two different ways and found one worked better than the other.

Don't ask me why I choose the other pumpkin pie recipe. The fact you can dump all the ingredients into a food processor, give it a whirl, and pour into the pie crust might have had something to do with it. Also, I didn't have any soaked cashews on hand to make cashew cream, so the other version earned the first test drive.

Once I find a recipe that works and is not only tolerable, but distinctly palatable, I hesitate to put work into another version only to come up short. There are a lot of disappoints on the journey through allergyland. When I find something that works, I stick with it. Still, Karina's concoctions haven't let me down yet. Its worth the leap to give her other pumpkin pie recipe a try. I'm sure you won't be disappointed.

As Karina advises, I went with full-fat canned coconut for this recipe. To make the recipe corn-free, I subbed guar gum for xanthan; to make cane sugar-free, I used coconut palm sugar instead brown sugar.

After I heated my coconut pecan crust at 350ºF until it set (ten minutes of so), I left the oven on and set the crust on top to cool a bit while I processed the pie mix. I have a KitchenAid Professional 670 which I've had for years. One of the best investments I've ever made!

Gluten-Free Vegan Pumpkin Pie

Preheat oven to 350°.

To the bowl of a food processor add:

• 1 15-oz can organic pumpkin 
• 1 1/2 C full fat coconut milk (or vanilla soy/almond milk)
• 2 t corn-free vanilla extract
• 2 T light olive oil (I used EVOO)
• 1 T Ener-G Egg Replacer
• 3/4 C organic coconut palm sugar
• 1/2 C GF buckwheat or sorghum flour (I used sorghum)
• 2 T tapioca starch
• 2 t corn-free baking powder
• 1/4 t guar gum
• 1/2 t celtic salt
• 1 t cinnamon
• 1 t ground ginger
• 1/2 t nutmeg

1. Cover and process until smooth and creamy. Stop and scrape the sides to incorporate all dry ingredients that stubbornly cling to the edges of the bowl. 
2. Pour into the prepared pie plate or pie crust and smooth. Bake in the center of a preheated oven for about an hour until done. The pie should be firm but with a little give when lightly touched. The center should not be wet.(I live in the Pacific Northwest. It's a tad rainy here. I had to bake this a bit longer - four minutes or so.)
3. It will fall a bit as it cools. The price we pay for egg-free baking.
4. Cool the pie on a wire rack completely. Cover and chill in the refrigerator until serving. 

Yield: 1 pie with 8 slices (cut mine smaller to feed more.)

Vegan Cashew Cream Dessert Topping

This was really delicious! It is not the consistency of true whipped cream - what is, in allergyland - but the flavor was terrific and it tasted delicious on this Gluten Free Goddess' Pumpkin Pie recipe. I love that you can make this pie in a food processor. Talk about easy. I only made one change - we can't do brown sugar, so I used coconut palm sugar. Yum! I'd post the pie recipe, but I don't yet know the rules governing copyright infringements. I know some people are okay with reprinting with credits and links back, but many ask you to request permission. Which I have, but I haven't gotten it yet.

I found this at the Savvy Vegetarian, my new favorite site - well, next to the Gluten Free Goddess. I'm not a vegetarian, but so many veggie and vegan recipes are friendly to our new cuisine.

The original recipe can be found here. The only disclaimer I will make is the need for a high-quality blender. I recently acquired a Vitamix, which had little trouble mixing this up. A stick blender is also recommended, though I didn't try it with that. I wouldn't try doubling this recipe without a Vitamix or other work horse blender.

Vegan Cashew Cream topping

• 1 C raw cashews
• 2 C sugar-free apple juice
• 2 T coconut oil, melted
• 1/4 C beet sugar or to taste
• 1 t vanilla extract

1. Combine cashews and juice in a saucepan and bring to a boil. 
2. Reduce heat and simmer ten minutes, or until cashews have softened. 
3. Cover. Let cool several hours or overnight in the fridge.
4. Drain cashews, reserving the liquid.
5. Combine cashews, oil, vanilla, and about 1/4 C reserved juice in container of your Vitamix. Turn on to variable speed at 1 and work your way up to 10, then high speed. Add more liquid if needed, but use as little liquid as possible. The cream should be thick. I'm still learning my Vitamix. It tends to get air pockets when blending something with so low a liquid content. I have to use the plunger (or whatever that thing is called) to poke out the air pockets or stop the thing altogether to scrap the container. Or both. The engine is so powerful it scares the crap out of me sometimes.
6. Add sugar gradually until well blended.
7. Refrigerate cream until dessert time.

Again, yum. Using apple juice makes all the difference. I've made cashew cream just soaking cashews overnight in water and it came out fine, but not dessert fine. I have a sweet tooth and this fits the bill nicely. I want to make this every week. But, alas, I don't want to weigh twice as much as I do now, so I restrain myself.

The original recipe called for powdered sugar, which is hard to come by when you're sugar-free. I understand I can make powdered sugar using a Vitamix, so I will be testing that theory out soon. Especially since Christmas is right around the corner.

Five Minute Gluten-free Sugar-Free Vegan Fudge

As I said in an earlier post, I found this fudge very oily. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that it was freshly ground almond butter. Not sure. I had this once using peanut butter and sugar and it was really good. But I'm sure the peanut butter had regular salt, sugar, and soybean oil in it. And there may have been some condensed milk in it. And chocolate chips. That kind of explains it, huh?

So it wasn't like I remembered. I still liked it. Perhaps I should have tried peanut butter, but my husband is avoiding it, so...had to go with almond butter. My daughter, however, objected to it. Hence, I will keep searching for another recipe.

From a recipe posted on Spark People.

1 C agave syrup
1 1/2 C homemade almond butter
1 t vanilla extract
1/2 C cocoa powder

- Oil an 8x8 baking pan. (I used coconut oil)
- In a 2 quart saucepan, heat almond butter and agave syrup until well combined and gently boiling.
- Stir in cocoa powder and extract.
- Remove from heat and pour mixture into prepared pan.
- Cover and refrigerate overnight.
- Cut into small squares and serve.

Original recipe called for cutting this into 64 pieces. That seems excessively health-conscious, but okay.

Thanksgiving 2012 Part 2

I didn't have time to tackle rolls this Thanksgiving. I've been testing out different quick breads in my search for a sandwich bread replacement, but I haven't found the right recipe yet.

So...no stuffing this year. We did try a "rice" stuffing dish. My husband found the recipe online. He was in charge of making a side dish. I'm going to be honest and say I wasn't all that impressed with it. It was a wild rice blend that was supposed to be made with pork sausage. He subbed turkey sausage. I'm not a wild rice fan myself, so that could have influenced my lack of enthusiasm. Oh, well. You win some, you lose some.

Dessert was the real hit of the night. I made three separate items - a five minute fudge, a pumpkin pie, and a yummy cashew cream to go over the top. Since I have no idea how to create a page without it showing up in my menu bar, I will post each recipe as separate posts so I can link back to them. It'd be much easier to create a page, but eventually, I'd have hundreds of tabs showing up in my menu bar. I'm sure there's a way to do it; I just don't know how yet. Still new at the blogging thing. So, I will make them posts until such time as I learn to do otherwise.

My daughter wasn't thrilled with the fudge. Too nutty, she said. That didn't stop her from eating several pieces of it over the course of Thanksgiving break. But after, she admitted she didn't like it nearly as much as the pie. In her defense, I did find the fudge too oily. Still too new at the baking thing to know what to change in the recipe, but it will do in a pinch. Especially if you're newly diagnosed with a sugar allergy and craving something sweet.

Which I have been. Weird considering I don't eat many desserts anymore. I have a sweet tooth, but being weight and health conscious in my middle years, I steer clear of them except on special occasions - birthdays, holiday, parties, etc. Coupled with the fact that I would get stomach cramps after eating wheat-filled, sugar-infused, dairy-drenched goodies, I kept my distance. You think that would have been enough to clue me into the allergy thing, but I guess you see what you want to see. And I didn't want to see I had food allergies because what a gigantic pain in the ass, is it, to relearn cooking and baking? But I'm not bitter.

Maybe a little. But I'm over that phase. Almost.

Thanksgiving 2012

Well, we made it through our first holiday meal gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, corn-free, sugar-free, and yeast-free. Thanks to the many recipes I found online, we had a pretty delicious meal.

First, the turkey - we got an organic turkey at our go-to store, Whole Foods. We stuffed it with veggies and herbs to help infuse the drippings with flavor. Organic turkeys, however, don't ooze fat and what-all like Butterballs used to - I take this as a good thing - so I basted the turkey in the beginning with safe chicken broth until the drippings had a chance to percolate.

Gravy

 

This was the first big challenge. I've made homemade gravy in the past, but I'd gotten lazy over the years and started buying low-fat, pre-made gravy. Not this year. I surfed the internet for gluten-free gravy recipes and got back a ton of options. The one I choose was pretty darn simple. I adapted a recipe I found on Gluten-free girl and the chef. Since we can't have butter, I replaced the butter with the turkey drippings from the bottom of the pan:

Gluten-free Gravy

1/4 C turkey drippings
1/4 C sweet rice flour
shredded turkey neck meat
2 C turkey gizzard broth + pan juices

One of the coolest investments I ever made was a fat separator cup. It's this funky measuring cup with a long spout that is a must when making gravy from drippings. After the turkey is roasted and moved to a plate to rest, pour the pan juices into this handy gizmo. As it sits on the counter, the oil separates from the pan juices. Viola! Easy fat extraction. I used my turkey baster to suck up a quarter cup of fat to add to a sauce pan.

The night before, I started my turkey gizzard broth. This is something my mother used to make day-of in a saucepan - just water, celery, carrots, onions, gizzards, salt and pepper to taste. Simmer all day and you have turkey broth to supplement gravy. I opted to go a different route since I knew my day-of would be packed with all kinds of new recipe activities.

I pulled out my crockpot, added the gizzards (minus the liver, of course), onions, roasted garlic, carrots, celery, bay leaf, fresh thyme, and parsley. I added two quarts of chicken broth, set to low, and let simmer overnight. I strained it in the morning after a slight-cool down and shredded the neck meat into a container for later use.

I actually ended up doubling this recipe b/c my daughter - who also started the diet and loves gravy - was concerned we would not have enough for leftovers. I had almost exactly a 1/2 C of turkey drippings, so it worked out perfectly.

Instructions are as follows:

- combine equal parts fat and sweet rice flour in a saucepan
- whisk until combined
- heat contents until it browns up nicely
- add pan juices and whisk to combine
- slowly add in heated broth until evenly combined*
- add shredded turkey neck meat
- simmer until it thickens to your liking
- adjust flavor with salt and pepper

*I confess I did not warm the broth or slowly add it in. I just dumped the broth in semi-cold and whisked the snot out of it. Then I added the warm pan juices. I didn't mean to do it in this order, I just forgot to add the juices, even though it was sitting right in front of me.

I had no problems with lumps. Sweet rice flour does not clump like starches do. It works gravy miracles as far as I'm concerned. Tastes great, too.

Since I used chicken broth, I did not need to correct the salt much. In fact, I will taste it first next time to see if it even needs salt. My bad. Not as experienced with this stuff yet. In time.

Homemade Cranberry sauce

Homemade cranberries is something I started making a couple of years ago. My mother never fussed with such things. She bought a can of Ocean Spray cranberry sauce - the solid, jellied kind -opened it, sliced it, and called it good.

Since moving to the Pacific Northwest and making friends with women who actually know a thing or two about baking, I became aware that Reddi-whip may be good, but homemade whipping cream was an epiphany. And extremely simple to make if you have a stand mixer.

Anyway, I started to dabble in homemade goods, expanding my cooking repertoire to include things I always assumed came pre-made in box or can - like pies. And whipped cream. And eggnog. I can't drink eggnog anymore, but I stopped buying it in a carton when I had it homemade. Holy cow! What a difference in taste. Deadly good. Hugely fattening. Nothing, nothing, NOTHING at all like what you get in a carton. I could never drink prepackaged eggnog again.

You can say that again, b/c I can't have eggnog - ever - with an egg allergy. But I did decide to tackle homemade cranberry sauce. When bags of cranberries started showing up during the holiday season, I read the recipe on the back of one and realized - sugar, water, cranberries, heat - I can do that.

Now that I have sugar allergy, I assumed I could no longer do that. Then I discovered sugar substitutes. Hallelujah! Homemade cranberry sauce, here I come:

Cranberry Sauce

1 C beet sugar
1 C filtered water
1 12 oz. bag fresh cranberries

Combine in saucepan, bring to a boil, let simmer ten minutes. I let mine simmer longer b/c the fluid didn't get gel-like. Maybe it's the beet sugar, but I simmered this for fifteen to twenty minutes until the consistency seemed right. Turn off heat, let cool completely, then store in fridge until dinner.

Next is mashed potatoes, a side (rice "stuffing"), and our amazing dessert, but I will leave that for another post. Suffice it to say, we had a delicious meal and didn't feel deprived at all.

Sandwich bread

Finding a pre-packaged sandwich bread with our limitations has proven impossible. Even baking a serviceable sandwich bread is a gigantic obstacle with my limited baking skills. I've been scouring the internet for ideas, but most include yeast. When they don't, they include other ingredients that can't be replaced due to our restrictions. The task is daunting.

Now that we know our daughter has as many food issues as us, really more when you look at her blood panels - yikes! - this has become my number one priority. Despite the fact my son has had food intolerances for years, he is okay with yeast. And he's learned to replace many staples of life with alternative or unconventional food items (dinner for breakfast anyone?)

Our daughter has not. My husband and I moved away from sandwich breads the past year b/c we suspected something was going on with wheat. We usually eat leftovers for lunch, anyway. Easy when you have a microwave near at hand. A senior in high school does not have that luxury. Coupled with the fact she is a PB&J freak and must find not only a safe bread but a sugar-free jam, how does she make the transition to an allergy-free life on a dime? That is the question...

Off I go on my first food adventure . . . .

Rethinking breakfast

Since wheat, dairy, eggs, oat, corn, sugar, and pork are out, breakfast is a whole new ballgame. I'd already started to shy away from pork sausage when my digestive issues suggested something was seriously wrong when I ate dairy or wheat.

I began to supplement eggs with hash browns or turkey bacon (Wellshire or Applegate brands).  I finally cottoned to the fact that eggs were a problem (sulfur + gas = humiliating public appearances). Now that I know for sure eggs are out, I don't know that I'd whip up a breakfast of hash browns and bacon. Seems incomplete. Gotta check my hash brown brand now, too. So many things to check . . . .

Breakfast cereals

Cereal. No bones about it, I can't eat it anymore. As I mentioned in my bucket list, I continue to look for a brand that is safe, but so far, I've only found two that come close to meeting my restrictions: Enjoy Life Foods Perky's Crunchy Flax and Nature's Path Millet Puffs.

Crunchy Flax is fruit juice sweetened (raisin) and contains honey. I'm not allergic to honey, but my naturopath asked me to avoid this b/c it is considered an inflammatory. I can't say I'm adhering to this precisely, but I'm trying. The anti-inflammatory list further restricts my limited food choices to barely there. I'm picking and choosing what to avoid on that list for now. Allergies trump anti-inflammatories. Sorry, a girl's gotta eat . . . .

The ingredient that worries me more is salt. I can't have regular table salt b/c many brands contain dextrose (corn) and the innocuously-named, anti-caking agent known as yellow prussiate of soda, aka sodium ferrocyanide. I don't know about you, but anything that binds with cyanide doesn't sound like something I should ingest. I'm buying Mediterranean sea salt now. No dextrose. No prussiate. The Crunchy Flax, unfortunately, does not say sea salt. So . . . I think that is off my list for now.

Millet Puffs are . . . okay. Nothing to write home about. They are manufactured in a plant that also processes wheat, but I haven't found this to be a problem. They'll do in a pinch. I'll hunt for more as time allows.

Hot cereals - replacing oatmeal

I miss oatmeal. My favorite breakfast was oatmeal with brown sugar and home-grown organic blueberries in the morning.  I've learned to swap out Quinoa flakes for oatmeal, and coconut sugar for brown sugar, but it's not quite the same. I find quinoa a little too earthy. Like dirt earthy. I'm learning to like it. Did I mention I miss oatmeal?

Another option I found recently at Whole Foods is Arrowhead Mills Organic Rice and Shine Hot Cereal. A fancy name for brown rice grits. I don't follow the microwave instructions on the box. I tried - once - and got a soupy porridge of undercooked grits. You're suppose to let it sit to thicken, but I'd be a grandmother before this happened. I kept microwaving it until I got the texture I was looking for. Infinitely more palatable. Feels like I'm making oatmeal - 1/4 C grits, 1 C unsweetened coconut milk, dash of sea salt. Microwave on high for three minutes, add two handfuls frozen blues, a handful of dry-roasted walnuts, 1 tablespoon coconut sugar and zap another thirty seconds. Yum. Hey, my first recipe! This, I can eat.

A couple of other options I found are buckwheat groats and hulled millet. I've already made the millet like you would a side dish - boil in water and let simmer for 20-30 minutes. The taste was good - mild, almost grain-like - but it didn't have the right mouth feel for breakfast. I will try again, this time using DF milk and the microwave, see if I can get it creamy.

Smoothies

This is one of my favorite alternatives. Quick, easy, satisfying. Delicious. I get protein from nut milks as well as a protein powder (Nutribiotic Rice Protein Powder - vanilla flavored) that the wonderful Gluten-free Goddess recommended on her site. My favorite so far has been a pumpkin pie smoothie. I've tried various recipes but haven't found that perfect combo yet. When I do, I'll post.

Granola

Try finding store-bought granola without oats. Or sugar. Or corn (as in starch, dextrose, dextrin or hidden in salt). Ain't happening. However, a lot of vegan websites, especially gluten-free or raw vegans, post recipes for granola. Raw foodies make something called "buckwheaties" which is a dehydrated form of buckwheat groats used as a replacement for oats in granola recipes. As my dehydrator should be here any day now, I look forward to trying this.

Pancakes/waffles

We weren't big pancake or waffle people, so I can't say I miss them. Not nearly as much as eggs. Guess I need to rethink pancakes. Lots of GFDFEFSYCF recipes out there for pancakes. And I suppose french toast is totally out. Until I find a sandwich bread recipe sans yeast. And an egg replacer. I used to make a faux french toast for my son using nutritional yeast, coconut milk, cinnamon, sugar, and vanilla extract. Doesn't sound like much but when you can hardly eat anything, it's ambrosia.


That's as creative as I've gotten to date. This is only one of the many food groups to explore and remake in a new, allergy free existence . . . .

Substitutions - Gluten free flours

Substitutions are a staple in practically food free baking and cooking. Since I have been scouring the internet for weeks and bookmarking like crazy,  I now have a monstrous barrage of links that point to so many topics, it makes my eyes cross. Head slap. Must organize this mess into a manageable format, by topic, in one place. Another reason to blog. As if a writer needs a reason to write.

There's an abundance of suggestions for substitutions, some I remember from the old days (ten years ago) of gluten, dairy, and egg-free baking. Many are new, however, and novel ideas. I'm pretty pumped to try them out.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, I'm sure, but it's a start.

Gluten Free Flours

 

Here's the skinny on gluten-free (GF) flours: they work best in creative combinations as a replacement for wheat. I'm hardly an expert yet, but here are a heap of posts that I've found very helpful in my quest to become a better baker.

About.com provides the basics regarding the role of gluten in baking as well as tips on how to bake with GF flours. It's geared toward Celiac's disease, but most resources tailored for those afflicted with Celiac's are currency for GF bakers.

TACA (Talk About Curing Autism) has many wonderful resources for starting the diet, including their GFCF Articles page, which points to even more fabulous links on everything from food allergy testing, how to read labels, and a flour substitution page. This, in turn, points to a ton of other baking subs as well as a variety of flour blends. Since many people who access this site also are soy-free, a lot of these links are very helpful. You won't get bored here.

One of my favorite blogs is the aptly titled Gluten-Free Goddess. Karina Allrich is truly that, a goddess, for creating a blog that is a must-see for allergy sufferers desperate for information and baking tips. Her link describing GF flours also provides one of her GF flour blends, a self-rising blend recipe, and a word of advice when using brown rice flour. Her GF cheat sheet gives a quick and dirty explanation of what flours are - and are not - GF, including a comprehensive list of GF flours and starches. She also has a page explaining how to begin your GF life, which isn't as hard as you think. Her wonderful baking tips are here. You can spend all day perusing this site, it is filled with that much information. Her substitution page includes subs for all items: flour, starch, eggs, dairy, sugar, yeast, peanuts. Check it out.

Cybele Pascal is an experienced cook and award-winning author with a terrific ingredient smarts page. It is all inclusive, but a great resource for all kinds of substitutions. Page down to get to the GF flours and flour blend.

Gluten free Mommy has a GF Grains 101 page that talks about subbing GF flours and points out these substitutions vary depending upon the baked product. She also gives a run-down on her favorite GF flours.

The Daily Dietribe - love the title of this blog - has a handy page describing textures and tastes of the various GF flours.

Simply Sugar and Gluten-Free has an all-inclusive substitution page as well as an extensive recipe index.

Gluten-Free By the Bay has several different flour blends at the bottom of this link page. Page down to find them.

She Let Them Eat Cake is a wonderful site filled with delectable GF recipes. She doesn't have a specific page set aside for subs, but just pointing to this site is help enough for people with a sweet tooth. :) Her own personal flour blend is here.

Ginger Lemon Girl has a nice GF Baking 101 page on her website. Plus a bunch of recipes.

Ricki Heller's Diet, Dessert, and Dogs is a neat little spot that contains sugar-free, vegan, and GF recipes. Her substitution page is small - eggs, binders, milk, and oil - but helpful. She wasn't specifically GF when she started, but her page contains a link to her GF blend.

Six Food Intolerance Living has a great explanation of the role of gluten in baking and how GF flour blends  can be substituted for wheat flour in recipes. Her site points to a link for GF blends on the Celiac Sprue Association website.

Chef Jamie Oliver has a page on all types of flours, but gives some details on GF flours; how to combine them and how to make some (specifically nut flours).

Living Without is a magazine for people with allergies and food sensitivities. Their substitution page includes subs for multiple allergies, including some GF flour blends.

Gluten Free Cooking School has a link page to a couple of GF flour blends. They contain soy and corn, but also provide substitutions for both.

Just found this neat little gem called The Dusty Baker. Her page on gluten free flours has some unique flours I've never heard of plus a couple of gluten free flour blends. Not to mention some neat recipes.



 

Our new allergy free life

Good news and bad news.

My husband and I recently got diagnosed with a laundry list of food allergies. We arrived at these challenging prognoses while dealing with sudden, persistent disparate medical issues.

I chalked mine up to peri-menopause and the delightful symptoms this phase of life deals a woman. Wrong! That's the good news. And the bad news.

Our blood draws revealed similar, though not identical, food allergies reeking havoc on our immune systems. Similar enough that much of what I'm learning to cook we can both eat. The bad news is I'm learning how to cook. Again. After twenty plus years of marriage and a child diagnosed with a score of food allergies early on, you'd think I had this pretty well in hand.

Not so. I choose to prepare two separate meals much of my son's life. Not such a good idea. Had my husband and I made the adjustment to much of my son's allergies, rotating foods as I did for him, we might not be dealing with such an epic list of food problems.

They include the fab four: gluten, dairy, corn, and eggs. Deviations which make life even interesting: I can do soy but my husband and son can't. My husband can do oats but my son and I can't. My son and I can't do sesame, but my husband can. I can't do yeast. Or cane sugar.

Sugar! I had no idea how many foods contained sugar. I thought living without eggs and dairy were hard. Sugar is a killer. I've been chowing down on dried fruits thinking I was the healthiest creature on earth. They riddled with cane sugar! Sob. I started reading labels. Condiments, salad dressings, tomato sauce, tomato paste. I can understand processed foods and sauces, but tomato paste? Ugh.

Here is a little good news, though: there is so much more information available online then when I first tackled food allergy issues almost ten years ago. The websites and blogs and recipes are endless and wonderful. I owe a small portion of my sanity to several blogs I have already discovered, of the knowledge these ladies have, and the recipes they so generously share.

This blog is as much a homage to these ladies as a log of all the wonderful recipes I will try, track, and recommend. There are more resources than blogs and websites, but I'm pretty lazy and find it easiest to hop on my computer for a quick fix. That will probably change, but as long as these ladies are out there posting, I will be out there surfing.

Welcome to allergyland.