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.