Closing things down

Wow, it's been nearly a year exactly since I last wrote here, phew! 

What with the current Apocalypse and all, things have been a bit crazier than usual, even. 

I may start blogging with this blog again, but part of the reason I started this was to keep track of what was working, and to help motivate me to actually try out some new foods and ways of doing things. And that's not quite where I am at any longer. 

So odds are that this baby is going to be left up as an archive and we'll be moving on to greener pastures, rather than picking this up again. But for anyone who actually does use some of these recipes, I'll be leaving it up for a few years, at least.  

Everybody, take care, be safe, and I hope that you and yours are able to get and give support so we can all make it through this as best we can.

Chia Pudding

My son, big world traveller that he is, requested chia pudding the other day.  This recipe from Minimalist Baker looks like it will hopefully work for him, but I think it could be tweaked to maybe work for folks like myself too, so.

I'm trying something new right now, which is to put in the original recipe, and then show how it can be altered.  This is honestly some really basic stuff that most cooks are going to know like the back of their hand. However, this is for those of us who are NOT cooks, or at least, cooks who are used to having recipes to use rather than having to come up with our own from scratch and trying to figure it all out.  So this may be too basic for some, but just remember, it's probably aimed at someone who is not as good at cooking as you are (yet, anyway). ^_^

Chia Pudding

DIY Hummus

I absolutely love hummus, even though I can only have a little bit before I react. However, I know that many folks may not be able to enjoy store-bought hummus due to issues with sesame or garlic, and so I wanted to put here a couple quick recipe 'bases' that you can use to enjoy some hummus for yourself!

Hummus (most basic recipe)

ingredients:

Dried chickpeas
olive oil
salt
lemon juice (or another sour liquid or semi-liquid)
(optional) any spices or seasonings of choice (chili powders and cumin are popular)
(optional) any aromatics (roasted peppers, roasted chiles, and/or garlic are popular and tasty)
(optional) tahini or other seed/nut based 'butter'

Directions:

1. Soak the chickpeas in water, overnight at minimum.  If you want a kind of different flavor, you can soak the chickpeas for a day or two and change out the water a couple times; they will start to ferment and develop a kind of pseudo-cheesy scent that can be pleasant with certain seasonings.
2. Decide if you want 'cooked' hummus or 'raw' hummus.  Either one will be fine, but the taste and texture of cooked is a bit less strong in taste and smoother in texture.  If you choose 'raw' hummus, a 12 hour soaking time total, at minimum, is helpful. 
3. For cooked hummus - drain and rinse the chickpeas, and cook in boiling water (not salt) for a few hours, until very soft.
4. For raw hummus - drain and rinse the chickpeas.
5. Put the chickpeas, salt, and any potential spices or aromatics (or tahini/seed butters) into a food processor (or large mortar and pestle, if you only have that) and blend/mash until chunky-smooth.  Then add in lemon juice and blend a little more. Then, while blending/mashing, slowly add in olive oil in a steady stream until the hummus is the desired texture.  Done!

Notes:

1. Why does this have no ingredient quantities?  Mostly because it's quite varied, how much you need, depending on what is added, if chickpeas are cooked, etc...  And how much or little is added in terms of spices and aromatics is highly dependent on taste.

2. Isn't it weird without tahini?  Nope.  Making hummus without tahini was actually a technique I got from an acquaintance from the Middle East. He mentioned that where he lived, tahini was really cheap, but olive oil less so, so using ONLY olive oil and no tahini became a bit of a status symbol.  I don't know how common this practice is, but it works quite well, even if tahini does make the hummus a bit smoother.

3. Is it safe to eat raw chickpeas?  Yeah, no problem for most folks. If you have any digestive issues, though, especially with any kind of raw foods or beans, however, you probably want to go for the cooked chickpeas rather than raw.

4. I can't use lemon juice; what can I use for a sour taste? This one is a bit tricky.  I have tried vinegar when I couldn't tolerate lemon and while it is 'okay,' it does have a distinct taste that is not necessarily a good match for chickpeas.  I have considered taking plain yogurt and draining it for a few hours, and using the liquid as a good souring agent. Haven't tried this yet, but I've used that as a lemon replacement before and it sometimes works.

Faux, dairy-free, beef stroganoff-ish sauce

It has been quite some time since I've posted anything. I have a loooong list of pinterest recipes I've explored, but it's been a tough year all around and I've not had the energy to put a lot up.

However, I've so enjoyed this little sauce that I wanted to share. It's pretty tasty, a pale white to gray-white color, and I have used it like I'd use stroganoff sauce.

Stroganoff-ish sauce

yellow onion
white button mushrooms
salt, rosemary, or other seasonings
water


Directions-
1. Blend up onion and mushrooms, with enough water to help it blend, in a blender until smooth-ish. I usually do 1 onion and maybe 1/2-1 small package of mushrooms, but this is honestly to taste.
2. Add seasonings - I do fresh herbs like rosemary, mostly.
3. Add this sauce to any beef dish you are cooking in a frying pan, to cook on a low simmer for at least 10-15 minutes. I have used this with both ground beef and beef cubes.  It will stay relatively thick, and is relatively nice if the beef-sauce mixture is poured over rice, mashed root veggies, cauliflower rice, etc...


This is, obviously, not as nice as a real stroganoff sauce. But if you're in need and have very few ingredients, this works well in a pinch for something nice. ^_^

The must-have for all elimination diets: herbs

At this point in my life, I've had to do a LOT of elimination diets. In the beginning, it was to figure out what the heck I could eat. These days, it's to figure out what I have started reacting to, or what previously safe food has become unsafe. Or, when I'm really feeling gutsy, it's to see if I can have something new.

So through out this, one thing has save my sanity and my tastebuds:

Herbs

Every, single elimination diet I have been on allows at least SOME herbs. And even if you have to eat only three foods for weeks straight, you can usually add a few herbs in to at least make them taste a little different!

I highly, HIGHLY recommend starting your own herb garden. They can be grown outdoors in crap soil (slightly stressed herbs mean better TASTING herbs), or even in crappy pots inside. And you can grow as much as you want, for just a few bucks, as opposed to spending quite a lot of money buying fresh herbs from the store.

Dried herbs - they aren't allowed on a few elimination diets, usually due to cross-contamination worries, or due to what preservatives or other substances have been used on them.

So here is a link to a list of herbs and other additions that you can check out and potentially grow, if you are looking for something to add to your diet!

List of herbs and spices


I should note that this list includes things you might not otherwise think of. Like beetroot powder - if you can have beets, it might be worth a little work to make the powder and add it in to various foods for flavor or color. Dry celery leaves and use those.

You can grow cilantro and let it go to seed to get coriander (or do the same for cumin, fennel, and others).

And so on. Seriously, though, it has made a huge difference in my eating life to be able to add herbs to it!

Throwing Things Together 2

I am literally SO happy right now with how this dish is turning out! 

Spicy Potato-Chicken stew (photo coming...when my camera stops acting like a jerk)

Yeah, a lot of my thrown together stuff is soups or stews, because it's easy. I don't even care. 

First in, cubed, unpeeled, potatoes in a skillet. Because I was going to make fried potatoes and realized the one oil I can use, I'm out of. So I put in a little water with the cubed potatoes. Which looked lonely and sad, so I added two tiny chopped radishes from my garden.

Then one small chicken thigh, chopped.

And then two slices of chopped leftover onion, because it was there. And then I remembered I had about 1/4 cup of left over 'green soup'* and added that, too. 

Then the color was kind of 'meh' - an odd grayish green sort of thing - so I grabbed a couple tomatoes and grated them into the pan, too. They looked really pale until they started cooking and then reddened right up.  

I added some fresh grated ginger and turmeric as well, at that point, and a small handful of chopped cilantro stems, and a couple slices of chopped jalapeño, too. 

Then put in some dried oregano and tiny bit of dried thyme from the garden, as well.

This stuff is finishing cooking as we speak, just the potatoes need to finish, and I can hardly wait. So far, the sampling I've done tastes amazing.  Much more flavor than I thought I'd get, honestly.  I will have to try this again with the green soup added to it and see if that is what makes the difference, because I don't often get this level of flavor to similar recipes. 

The color is not quite that lovely red-orange you see so often in various Indian dishes, but still a nice color. The smell is great, the texture looks like it's going to be awesome.

In the future, I'd likely start things off with the onions and some herbs first, maybe the tomatoes, so the flavor is a little heightened, even, but so far...this one is a winner!

I could totally see this being served over rice (if you can have that) or even cooked down to lower the liquid content and maybe used in a sandwich or on a bun, Sloppy Joe style.

Not how I'm gonna eat it, but it could work that way!

*Green soup is a recipe from one of the Low Histamine Chef's cookbooks. My own version this time around had included water, salt, one white onion, the chopped stems and a few leaves from a bunch of parsley, 1 1/2 zucchini, 1 fennel bulb, one head broccoli, 1-2 jalapeños, a good amount of fresh thyme and savory, and salt - all blended up after cooking until soft.

I reacted to what?

I'm posting this one as a sort of 'pay it forward' post, because a post like this started me down the path to figuring out some of my own issues. So this is for all the people who are still struggling and searching, and who would swear that they are reacting to water, or to salt. Or that it feels like they are allergic to water or salt, sometimes.

I'm here to tell you that you are not losing your mind. It is entirely possible to react to water or salt. Or rather, it's possible to react to water, or to contaminants present in water and salt due to our current processing.

My son's favorite Pizza crust

This pizza crust is from Primallyinspired.com, and it's their Grain Free Pizza Crust.

My son loves this one.  He thought it had the best texture and taste out of the GF pizza crusts we have tried, and he has grain options available, but likes this one.

Day 13 and 14 - Gluten Free Hoisin Sauce with GF General Tso's Tofu

Pinterest Day 13 and 14 

The Pinterest recipes I looked at these two days were Gluten Free Hoisin Sauce at the Gluten Free Lifesaver, and then a Gluten free version of General Tso's Tofu from Grumpy's Honey Bunch, which required a GF hoisin sauce to make it work.

It turned out pretty-pretty!

Mid-meal, as my son ate so fast I couldn't get another picture!

Throwing Things Together I

I just wanted to jot down what I come up with periodically, when I'm trying to use up ingredients in the fridge. Sometimes, there's something good that comes out of it. Sometimes, there's things I want to remember to avoid!

Wish I was a better cook by this point in my life, but I'm trying to cut myself a break.  I have had to start my recipe making over from scratch, due to added allergies, at least six times now in the last 14 years, with the last one losing nearly all the main ingredients I used to cook with, and all the pre-made condiments and sauces.  I figure I need to just view this as though I am back in my teens, learning to cook again!!

And, well, I just focus on stuff other than cooking, often. If I really want to get better, I should really see if I can get some time to focus on this more, too!


Beef, chile, potato soup

Today, had about 1/4 cup leftover cubed and fried potatoes, about 1/5 of a tiny can of chopped green chile, about 5 slices of zucchini, two big slices of white onion with all the rings, and a few leaves of lettuce that were still good after the head had frozen in the fridge (grrr).

So, I chopped them up, threw them all together in a pot, added some dried tepin chiles from my bushes and some ground beef about half the size of my fist, then added salt, water to cover, and wild tarragon, and cooked it on a low simmer for maybe 30 minutes - until meat was cooked and onions soft.

How it turned out
It turned out surprisingly well in taste - quite nice.  Color is brown and almost coffee and cream brown. Just looks pretty boring and bleh, so wouldn't serve it without something to jazz up the color - maybe red bell peppers, at least. It went well with corn chips - which I shouldn't eating as they aren't so great with me, but after caring for two sick kids, and getting little sleep and no chance to go to the store, it's been hard to make sure I eat as frequently as I need to (I start having difficulties if my blood sugar goes too low).

So, I would totally make this again, but presentation changes would be nice. Might cook onions ahead of time to bring out the flavor more, too. This is a good base, though!

Day 12 - Gluten Free Tortillas

Pinterest Day 12 

The Pinterest recipe I looked at today was Gluten free Flour tortillas at the Art of gluten free baking. No photos because seriously, these things went SO fast I made three batches just trying to keep up with the kids eating 'em!

The Reasons:

Trying to make more things at home for my daughter, who is going to be starting another restriction on her diet which eliminates most processed bread-like goods.

Day 11 - Sweet Potato Black Bean Chili

Pinterest Day 11

The Pinterest recipe I looked at today was Sweet Potato Black Bean Chili at Alida's Kitchen. 

Day 10 - Vietnamese Spring Rolls

Pinterest Day 10

The Pinterest recipe I looked at today was Tofu Vietnamese Spring Rolls by Minimalist Baker. I have no pictures - the food was all eaten so fast, there was nothing left.  I made this three times, and the immediate disappearance of the food did not change, LOL.

Edible squash leaves

At one point I thought I had put up this information, but if so, I can no longer find it, so here it goes again!

Squash leaves and stems are among those foods that are not commonly eaten here in the USA in my area, but are quite common in other areas of the world. Below is a great link to a variety of recipes for preparing and cooking them: http://poorandglutenfree.blogspot.com/2013/08/what-to-do-with-squash-leaves-and-stems.html

Batter for Frying plus GF cream cheese wontons

This batter is based off of this recipe (almost exactly it): http://www.food.com/recipe/batter-for-deep-frying-161589 . This is for my kids, so has a lot of stuff not so good for me, but might be fun for someone trying to figure out something similar.

Whole30 Chicken and Zucchini with Green Chile Sauce

For foods that are, likely, whole30 compliant, I'm pretty much just throwing things together, for the most part. Every once in a while I might have a 365 days of pinterest recipe, though.

For right now, though, so I can remember what works, here is the first one.

Whole30 diet

If you haven't heard of this diet, it's kind of like a modified Paleo, with the theory - as I understand it - to take 30 days to get into a different headspace about food, while eating a bit healthier.

Basically, no grains, no dairy, no sweeteners, no sulfites/msg stuff, and almost no legumes. Meals are based around a meat or egg protein with the rest made up of lots of veggies, a little fruit/nuts/seeds/coconut/avocado.

But without the subs like paleo pancakes and breads, because again, this is supposed to be a mindset thing.

I don't really know how this works for other people, but this is pretty much what I have to eat all the time anyway, when I don't want to react, so I'm trying it for this month to get back to my good diet, and also have some folks who are, for once, eating kind of like I do. :-) Although I suspect I'll have more fats than some. :-)

It's actually helped already, because when I'm tempted to eat things I know I react to, I've been able to tell myself, 'just for the next 30 days, at least.'

I'm looking forward to the company, for now.

Olive Leaf Tea

Olive Leaf Tea is a beverage that has been around in Greece for over 5,000 years. I was introduced to Olive Leaf Tea through the Low Histamine Chef (now at a new website, HealingHistamine). This gal has so much information about mast cell disorders and histamine intolerance - and foods and supplements that can affect them, with references - that it's a gold mine of information.

Olive leaf tea (made from leaves from the variety Olea europaea L.) contains certain flavonoids - these are organic compounds that occur in plants, and which can have many beneficial properties we can enjoy. They're often known for the anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties that some of them possess. Olive Leaf Extract: the Mediterranean Healing Herb mentions daily average flavonoid consumption in the USA is typically 250-275 mg.  If you eat the amount of daily recommended fruits and veggies, though, it should be closer to 1000 mg flavonoids.

Olive leaf tea is one way I'm trying to increase my own flavonoid consumption as many fruits and veggies are off limits to me.

Looks like tea, eh?

Thanksgiving food Ideas when you can't eat anything

The very first Thanksgiving I had after my allergies decided to go insane was pretty awful. I was down to less than ten foods, trying to figure out what to eat, and really came up with nothing all that palatable.

Although admittedly, the next Thanksgiving was more emotionally upsetting, what with being exposed to one of my allergens by my ex (just a whiff), to help prove to me that it was all psychosomatic. Yeah, that one didn't work too well, just made me sick the entire holiday, sigh.

But, anyway, back to foods. There are some AMAZING recipes for Thanksgiving foods you can make with substitutions. Awesome ones. If they help you, awesome. And I mean that - I'm all about the food porn here. I love seeing other people enjoy food, even if it's not something I'm likely to try myself (see the similarity here? Food porn - it truly is).

But if you are like I was, you may have so few foods that you just don't even know where to start. It's overwhelming. So, for those like me, here's some things that might help a little bit for Thanksgiving foods when you have very little you can have. I don't know if these will help anyone, but I hope that they may be of use for some.

Pacific Island Foods

As someone with a limited diet, I'm always interested in finding new foods I can eat, or finding new parts of foods or plants that I can eat.

This is a link to a series of leaflets on South Pacific foods and it's simply wonderful. Lots of recipes, but also lots of practical advice on how to prepare these foods from scratch, or use them in recipes. There is information on more common foods like pineapple, or foods that folks in the west may not be as familiar with, like rarer nuts or tubers.  Also some great information on food we don't eat here at all typically, but could - things like how to make and prepare fresh fig leaves, or the leaves from a chile plant or pumpkin, that sort of thing.

I totally recommend you check it out!