Renaming Achieved!

I think that Simply Sensitive Cooking is a bit more appropriate than Kitchen Adventures: Food Sensitive Foodie, since it reflects my cooking style a little more accurately. Yes, I am a foodie. I absolutely love trying new foods and exotic flavors. I am spoiled by good quality ingredients to the point that there are some things I won't buy from the grocery store because they just don't taste right after being exposed to the amazing flavors from our favorite local farmers. (We are positively blessed to be living in an area with such an amazing variety of really high quality, naturally grown/organic local meat & produce.) But when I cook, and I absolutely love to cook, I tend to stick with classic, down-home flavors, aka 'American Food'.

The problem with classic American food, and the Americanized versions of ethnic food, is that it generally contains at least one of the items on our eliminate/avoid list. Meatloaf? It has wheat, gluten, eggs and parsley, among other things. Mashed Potatoes? Milk and, when I make them, cheese. Hot dogs? Well, I won't get into the ingredient list, but it's not good! Even cornbread usually has wheat flour and eggs.

Sandwiches? They're a paragraph unto themselves! The bread is the first issue. Then what spread to use? Mayo has eggs, mustard is on the list, and well, I'm just not that big a fan of ketchup/catsup on cold sandwiches. Cheese is out, too, even the soy cheese should be restricted. Then we have to be careful with the lunchmeat. Chicken is out for me, but since the hubby loves it so much I won't hold it against him if he has it, as long as there aren't any of his problem ingredients. Have you ever tried to find a lunchmeat that doesn't contain a wheat or gluten-containing filler, black pepper, cayenne pepper, malt, or whey?

Grilled cheese and tomato soup: out. Chicken noodle soup: out. Beef barley soup: out. Shepherd's pie or cottage pie: out. Ranch salad dressing: out. Green Goddess salad dressing: out. Pot pie? out. Enchiladas and burritos? out. Tuna noodle casserole? out. Lasagna and baked ziti? out. The list goes on and on...

So it is in response to this that I have started writing here. I will play with my recipes and their ingredients, and record my successes and failures here in the hope that maybe I can save someone else a little bit of trouble. I will also occasionally recommend a product that I find, since it can be hard to find foodstuffs that don't contain any of the things to which we're sensitive. I'll also be including some of my techniques for food preservation and storage, as well as things that I do so that I'm prepared for those nights when dinner prep needs to be as fast and fuss-free as possible.

Please feel free to let me know what you think, but keep in mind that I'm a human being. I welcome feedback- even negative- as long as it's constructive. If you try a recipe and you don't like it, please let me know why. If I list an ingredient that you think contains a hidden allergen, PLEASE say something. If I say something you like, find funny or helpful, or anything of that nature, please feel free to speak up. It's always good to have someone say something nice, and well, I want to know if people are actually reading this.

Anyway, thanks for reading!

thinking of renaming...

I'm thinking that I've misnamed this blog. I may, at some point in the near future, rename it to something that describes it a little more accurately. Yes, I am a foodie, and yes, I have bunches of sensitivities/allergies to cook around. But the thing is, most of the cookie that I do involves basic, comfort food. It's really not 'foodie' calibur (or however the heck you spell that word!). So yeah, I'm thinking a renaming is in order. Now, what to name it?

Mission: Vegetable Broth

Well, last night's stir fry included beef broth from a box. Now, I'm a big fan of broth. I use it in my cooking almost every day. I love gravies and soups, and it adds a little extra flavor to things like rice or mashed potatoes. It didn't really occur to me to check the ingredient label when I was at the grocery store. BIG mistake.

I grabbed the box from the cupboard last night and glanced at the ingredients. "Autolyzed Yeast Extract" was the second to the last ingredient. Now, I know that the ingredients are listed on the label according to quantity- the first item listed is the one that there's the most of, and the last one is the least. So I figured, "Well, there isn't much in it, so this is a good way to check the reaction."

The stir fry was really tasty, but a few hours after dinner I noticed my mental acuity was impaired. I was losing my train of thought and having trouble coming up with words to explain myself for the first time since we started the new diet. It was very distressing and disconcerting!

I checked all the boxed broths in the cupboard and they all contain it, even the organic stuff. Next step: internet search. Search results informed me that:

1) there's no broth reasily available that does not contain it and

2) It's a sneaky way to say MSG

Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) causes some people problems because of the 'free glutamic acid' it turns into once inside the body. Food manufacturers have been using it to imitate the meaty flavor and mouth feel of real meat since the 1950's. These same food manufacturers are smart enough to know that when there's a lot of negative attention given to one of their ingredients, consumers may stop buying their products, so they've taken to "sanitizing" their ingredient lists. All that means is that they call it something else and hope that the consumers won't realize it's actually the same thing. Kind of like calling the color blue 'sapphire', or calling a sweater a 'knit top'.

So what my information search told me is:

MSG=free glutamic acid=autolyzed yeast extract=hydrolyzed soy protein= (something)-olyzed (insert protein source of your choice here) protein

And all pre-made broths have one of them.

And that, in turn, brings us to today's mission. I don't have the bones thawed for beef broth, but I do have the makings for a nice veggie broth. My large stock pot currently contains a couple of gallons of water, a couple of carrots, a few stalks of celery, a couple of potatoes, one tomato, a zucchini, some string beans and a couple of onions, each cut into a few chunks. I also added some frozen spinach, frozen mixed veggies that have been in the freezer a bit too long, and for flavor a couple of cloves of garlic, some crumbled home-dried basil leaves, a bit of thyme and a bit of sage. All of that is now sitting on the stove where it will be brought to a boil, then simmered for about 2 hours. It will then be brought down to room temperature, strained and about half will go into the freezer, while the other half will live in the fridge, to be used in the coming week.

When we manage to dig ourselves out of the snow, I will be purchasing a bunch of ice cube trays so I can freeze the broth in them. One ice cube equals about 1 tablespoon, so that will make it easier for me to make the occasional, random quick meal.

Next week I will tackle the beef broth.

dinner...

I was poking around in the freezer today and saw some leftover cottage pie (it's shepherd's pie, but with beef instead of lamb) that I thought would make a lovely dinner. Then I remembered- the gravy was wheat flour thickened and the mashed potatoes had a lot of milk. Dang & drat!

So now I guess that's off the menu. Unless I can come up with a way to make decent mashed potatoes without milk. Which I'm thinking is not very likely. It's a shame, really. I absolutely love shepherd's/cottage pie.

Since the shepherd's pie was out, I decided to do a simple stir fry using leftover roast beef, some veggies picked up from Trader Joe's (I went there for the first time earlier this week). There were carrots, celery, onion, green beans, and zucchini, and it was all seasoned with garlic, ginger and a dash of tamari sauce. I had a little tin of bamboo shoots, but I totally forgot to add them. The sauce was made with orange juice and box o' broth, which I realized only too late contains 'hydrolyzed yeast extract', and thickened with corn starch. It was served over simple white rice.

All in all, pretty tasty.

health update

I'm definitely feeling better with the revised diet. So far I'm doing pretty well with it, too. I mean, there are a few things that I really miss (mainly bread, cheese & cookies), but it's not too terrible. And the trade-off of being alert and not being in pain 24-7 is pretty much worth it. I'm not saying that I'll never, ever eat those things again, but I'm hoping that once I have my system cleared of most of the stuff I'm sensitive to it won't be a big deal to occasionally have a grilled cheese sandwich or a slice of pizza.

I'm strongly considering tracking down an NAET practitioner once the hubby goes back to work and seeing if that helps reduce the impact the level of sensitivity.

Anyway, I just wanted to do a little post to mention the improvements I'm feeling. Considering we've only been doing this for about a week, I think it's pretty impressive.

So here's the list of things that seem to be getting better:

-bowel function is noticeably better- regularity, consistency, gas/bloating- though still not what one might call "normal"

-cognitive- alertness & mental acuity are better than they've been in a long time

-headaches- reduced in frequency and intensity

-skin- less itchy and breakouts/blemishes seem to be clearing up

-energy level has increased dramatically

-weight- I lost 3 pounds!

bbq shredded pork

Tonight's dinner was nice and easy. While cleaning out all of the stuff we're trying to avoid the other day, I came across a package of BBQ shredded pork that I'd made and stuck in there a few months back. A quick mental review of the BBQ sauce ingredients, and I decided we can still have it. There are a couple of things in there that we need to be careful to not go overboard on, but a single sandwich is fine. I served that on the same rolls as we used for sloppy joes last night, and we had a nice micro-green salad, with a homemade orange juice & oil based dressing. If I think of it and we have an internet connection, I'll post the recipes for the BBQ sauce and salad dressing tomorrow. For now, though, it's off to dreamland for me.

If anyone out there in the web-ether is actually reading this, I hope you have a wonderful night and a blessed, restful sleep.

sloppy joes, from scratch (sort of)

So yesterday I told you that I was doing homemade sloppy joes for dinner, using allergy friendly rolls recommended by the clerk at the local health food store. I made them and they were quite tasty, rolls included.

Here's what I do to make sloppy joes. As always, all quantities are estimated. Oh, and the batch I made last night was pretty large so that I could freeze half of it.

Brown 3 lbs ground beef in a large frying pan

While beef browns, dice 1 medium sweet onion, 2-3 cloves of garlic and 1/2 bell pepper (Okay, honestly, I have trouble digesting peppers, so I slice them into strips- sausage & peppers style & store them in the freezer. For my sloppy joes, I just add as many strips as I think will do the job. This gets the flavor into the meat and allows me to be able to pick the pepper bits out.)

When meat is pretty much browned, drain it, but not quite completely. You don't want the meat or pan to be dry, but you do want most of the fat to be gone.

put the pan, with the meat in it over medium heat. Make a space in the center of the pan, pushing the meat to the side, and add the onions and garlic.

grab 2 cans of tomato paste and a jar of your favorite spaghetti sauce from the cupboard. Add both cans and half the jar to the pan, plus about 3 cups of water. Stir until the paste is dissolved into the water. Increase heat to high.

Add a teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes and about 1 tablespoon of your favorite mexican or chili seasoning blend, plus garlic powder, if desired. Stir to distribute the seasonings.

Once it comes to a boil, reduce heat to medium low and cook until the sauce is the desired consistency.

Serve over bread.

You can freeze leftovers in a container, or for convenience, line a muffin pan with cupcake liners and add a serving's worth of joe to each liner. Once frozen (about 2-3 hours), remove the joes from the muffin pan and put them in a freezer bag- don't forget to label the bag with when the joes were made and what they are! This makes life easy for a quick, hot lunch or dinner. Just pop a single joe into a bowl, cover it with wax paper or paper towel to minimize tomato splatter, then into the microwave for about 2-4 minutes.

dinner

last night was beef roast seasoned with dried celery, carrots, parsnips and onions, plus a light sprinkle of Auntie Arwen's Blatantly Gahaaarlic Salt with boiled buttered potatoes. No greens at all. Bad Zoe! But it was really tasty...

Today we're going to our favorite salad farm (they do greenhouse growing in the winter) for some nice, fresh micro-greens. Yay! So tonight's dinner will be Sloppy Joes served on non-allergenic rolls we got from a health food store and a side salad. I'm a little leery of the rolls, taste-wise, since they are made with weird non-wheat grains and use baking soda/powder as leavening instead of yeast, but we'll see. They may taste great, and if not, well, my sloppy joes are pretty strongly flavored, so it should camouflage any but the strongest of yuckiness.

I'll let you know how the rolls are, and I'll post how I make the joes either after dinner tonight or tomorrow.

Hope you have a great day!

Feeling good!

We'll, we've been pretty successful in completely cutting out the stuff where we scored a 1, 2, or 3 in the sensitivities and are both feeling pretty good because of it. I don't feel foggy-brained, I didn't hit my usual 2-3 pm energy slump, and my GI tract is not being grumpy. The hubby is feeling good and has noticed some skin issues he's had since he was a teen ager are beginning to ease up. It's definitely a good and happy thing!

We have, however, decided to make one small concession. For the items where we scored a zero, we will avoid but not completely eliminate them. This opens our eating options up substantially, as well as making it a little easier if we go out to eat.

So tonight's dinner will be my standard beef pot roast. One roast, some of Auntie Arwen's Blatantly Gahaaarlic Salt, a sprinkle of dried onions and a small handful of dried celery, dried carrots, dried parsnips and dried onions. On the side we'll be having baked potatoes. Or mashed, if I feel like futzing around with making cornstarch thickened gravy. Oh wait, mashed potatoes require milk, so scratch that. Guess the potatoes will be baked or roasted.

I don't really know what I'll do for a green veggie, since we're out of lettuce for salad, and besides that, I haven't come up with an acceptable non-dairy salad dressing. (We like ranch, and ranch variations, and parmesan peppercorn.) Maybe some spinach. I dunno.

Pickled beans

Toward the end of summer last year I went bean crazy. The farmers market had a wonderful array of green/string beans, wax beans and something they call 'dragon beans'. The dragon beans look like a regular green bean, but they're a variegated purple and green- very pretty!

I decided that I would try my hand at pickling. Now, I've done canning- I make jams, jellies and fruit butters and often give them as holiday gifts. I've also done food drying. It's great to have some celery in the cupboard for when I decide to make a pot roast, but the fresh celery from the fridge is either past its prime or I don't have any, and I love using sun-dried tomatoes, but they can be really expensive. I've found that dehydrator dried tomatoes are just as tasty (if not more so!) and darn near free if the tomatoes are from the garden out back.

But I digress. I learned canning and drying from other people, in person. I supplemented the experiential knowledge with reading, but the basics I learned from another human being. My knowledge of pickling is purely from books. So I was a little nervous taking on such a task.

But I did it. I found a recipe and instructions that looked good, and I got to work. I sterilized the giant jar, prepped and packed the beans, then prepped the brine and poured it on. I then let the jar cool and stuck it in the back of the fridge. Where it stayed because I was afraid to try the beans, for fear of having done something wrong which might lead to food poisoning or something.

Well, it stayed there until this afternoon, anyway. A friend was here when I first made them, and she's asked me several times how they are. Each time I responded, "I don't know. We haven't tried them yet because I keep forgetting they're in there."

She's here visiting again and asked me about them. I finally admitted that I was afraid to try them. She volunteered to be the guinea pig and taste the first one.

They came out pretty well! They're extremely vinegar-y, though. I think I may have added extra vinegar out of paranoia of microbial growth. (Having taken classes on food safety and microbiology, I can get a little weird about these things!) They are not appropriate for a straight snack, but as part of a salad they would be quite tasty.

So now I need to dig out the recipe I used and make them exactly according to the recipe next season. Because I think they'd be excellent as a pickly snack if done without the extra vinegar.

Polenta breakfast

Well, breakfast this morning was pretty good. I warmed up some more of the left over polenta and added 10 diced dried apricots, about 2 tbsp of candied lemon peel and about 1/4 c of honey (I think it was bamboo honey) to about a 2 cup block of polenta, plus enough water to thin it out to the appropriate consistency.

I really liked it, but the hubby said the honey had too strong of a flavor. I think that tomorrow I'll make it without the honey so we can each add however much we want. Oh, and I need to remember to not add the fruit until later so that I can use my immersion blender to break up some of the lumps.

Now I need to find another breakfast option that does not involve corn or almond, so that we don't overload on either of them and create another sensitivity in the process.

Success! Breakfast Bars...

I have met with success in the adaptation of a breakfast bar recipe! I'm very excited that we now have a total of 3 breakfast options: polenta, grits & these fantastic breakfast bars!

The original recipe can be found here:

http://www.elanaspantry.com/breakfast-bars/

That recipe calls for vanilla extract & shredded coconut, though, and we are supposed to be avoiding coconut, vanilla and alcohol (which is the base for most extracts). So I decided that candied lemon and orange peel would work in place of both of them. Coconut is kind of sticky, and the citrus peel would add that little extra depth of flavor intended by the vanilla.

And then I realized that I had whole almonds, but no almond flour. I did have white rice flour, though. So I decided that grinding the almonds as finely as my food processor would allow and replacing a small amount with rice flour should probably do the trick.

I had no grapeseed oil, but vegetable oil is fairly flavorless, so that should work.

I also discovered that there were no sunflower seeds in the house. Oh well, I could just increase the pumpkin seeds to cover it.

I'm not a big fan of raisins. If there are any in my cabinets somewhere, they really need to go out to compost, because I don't remember buying them, which means they must have made the move with us. That means they are seriously old! But a mix of dried cherries and blueberries could cover that.

I finally started making the breakfast bars. I ground up all of the almonds, mixed the dry ingredients, and gathered the mix-ins... only to discover that I had not saved any of the almonds for the 'slivered almonds' portion of the recipe. Well, I decided to replace the slivered almonds with coarsely ground hazelnuts.

So out of the original 10 ingredients, I at least tweaked 6 of them.

This is what I finally ended up doing:

Dry ingredients:

1 c ground almonds

1/4 c white rice flour

1/4 tsp baking soda

Wet ingredients:

1/4 c vegetable oil

1/4 c agave nectar

Mix-ins (amounts are seriously estimated):

1/4 c candied orange peel, diced

1/4 c candied lemon peel

1/4 c dried blueberries

1/4 c dried tart cherries

3/4 c raw pumpkin seeds

1/4 c coarsely ground raw hazelnuts

Mix dry ingredients together. In another bowl, mix wet ingredients together.

Grease an 8x8 inch baking pan.

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Gather mix-ins.

Working fairly quickly, add wet ingredients to dry and mix well. Add the mix-ins.

Scrape dough into pan and, using damp hands, press the dough to cover the bottom of the pan.

Bake for 17 minutes. Cool, slice and serve.

The results were quite tasty but a bit well done around the edges, and the pieces were kind of flat. I'm thinking that next time I will make a double batch in the same size pan and bake it a little longer. But yeah, all in all, a resounding success!

Breakfast...

If you've looked at the post that lists all of the foods we're supposed to avoid, you might have noticed that a lot of the standard breakfast fare is now off the menu. Bread (wheat, gluten & yeast), eggs, cereal (milk, many grains), oatmeal, yogurt... can't have any of 'em. Now, considering that my 2 primary go-to breakfasts- oatmeal with dried cranberries and a splash of milk, or a fried egg on an english muffin- are completely out of the question, I have been facing a bit of a quandary. What the heck are we going to eat for breakfast????

Yesterday I decided to make polenta for breakfast. I know, I know, polenta is usually a savory, non-breakfasty food. But it fit 2 important criteria: 1) it's corn, so we're allowed to have it, and 2) I actually had some in the cupboard.

So I made it for breakfast. After all, if you add extra water and make it thin, it's similar to cream of wheat, right? So the hubby skeptically came into the kitchen and asked what polenta is and sniffed at the pot. I explained it to him, and he seemed appeased. He's really cooperative with trying new foods (as long as there are no fungus, filters or fish involved, anyway).

It was a hit. Today I reheated some and added diced apricot pieces. Not bad, but it was missing something. Not sure what, but something. Maybe I'll try it with a drizzle of honey tomorrow morning. That might be it.

Oh, and as soon as I sign off of here, I'm going to attempt a breakfast bar recipe that looks fairly friendly, with some minor modifications. I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow. Wish me luck!

the allergy/sensitivity master list...

So, here's the list of everything that the test said we're sensitive to. The numbers in parentheses indicate the strength of the allergy. A (0) is a very mild or potential sensitivity, whereas a (3) is a the strongest. If an item has two numbers in parentheses, separated by a (/), as with buckwheat (0/0), my husband and I are both sensitive to it.

Barley (1)

Beans, red (0)

Beef (0)

Brazil nut (1)

Broccoli (0)

Brussels sprouts (1)

Buckwheat (0/0)

Buffalo (0/1)

Cabbage (1)

Cauliflower (1)

Cheese, cottage (0)

Chestnut (0)

Chicken (1)

Clam (0)

Coconut (0)

Cranberry (1/1)

Egg (1)

Flaxseed (1)

Gluten (1/2)

Halibut (0)

Lamb (0/1)

Lentil (0/1)

Litchi (0/1)

Lobster (1)

Malt (1)

Milk, cow's (1/2)

Milk, goat's (1/1)

Mustard (1)

Nutmeg (1)

Oats (1)

Papaya (0)

Parsley (0)

Peanut (0)

Pecan (1)

Pepper, black (1/1)

Pepper, cayenne (0)

Pistachio (0)

Radish (1/1)

Rosemary (1)

Rye (0)

Sesame (0)

Soybean (0)

Quinoa (0)

Teff (0)

Turkey (1/0)

Trout (0)

Turnip (1)

Vanilla bean (1/1)

Walnut (1)

Wheat (1/2)

Whey (1/0)

Whitefish (1)

Yeast, bakers (1/3)

Yeast, brewer's (0/1)

Yogurt (1/1)

The test we had done was an ELISA IgG, performed by Alletess Medical Laboratory. It was the Comprehensive 184 Food Panel. There was a time when this type of testing was not particularly reliable, but that was mainly due to poor lab protocol and human error. With the technological advances of the past few decades, it has become much more reliable.

Being armed with the knowledge that this provided, I am paying close attention to how I feel after eating trigger foods. I have already noticed that dairy is a big problem for my digestion. We had some chips and dip this afternoon. The potato chips were fine- no allergens there- but the dip was sour cream with one of those packets of onion soup mixed in.

About an hour later, I noticed I was feeling fatigued, sluggish and slightly nauseous. We decided a nap was in order. When we got up I was bloated and gassy, and shortly thereafter... well, let's just say I spent an excessive amount of time in the bathroom. So yeah, dairy is definitely to be avoided!

Intro...

Well, I've decided to start this blog to spare my Facebook friends the incessant posts about what I can or can't eat, as well as to have a place to document my recipe triumphs and failures. So I guess the best place to start is with a little bit about myself.

I am a thirty-something married college student. I am majoring in nutrition, and not sure if I will pursue the path to becoming a full-fledged Registered Dietician, or just counsel people after graduation. Oh, and I'm fat. (Nope, I'm not sugar-coating it or denying it.)

I love food. I love to cook & bake, and I consider feeding people to be a hobby. Cooking is that one thing I can go to for refuge when everything else is falling apart. My kitchenaid, frying pan and stock pot are always there for me. (My husband is, too, but there are times when he can't help- much to his chagrin.)

So, anyway, we've suspected that we both have food sensitivities and/or allergies for a while. I don't remember the last time I felt totally healthy. It's been years, I'm guessing. After overhearing a friend in the medical field recommend a certain test & lab for food sensitivities/allergies last summer, we decided we'd go and get the testing done. And we put it off, for one reason or another, through the end of the year. Procrastination in its purest form!

Finally, last month, I couldn't take it anymore. I made some phone calls and got all of the arrangements made. We went in for the blood draw about 2 weeks ago and got the results this past Thursday.

I was floored by the sheer quantity of things on the list. Thankfully, most of them are minor sensitivities, and our lists have a lot of overlap, but there are about 55 items we should avoid, if not completely cut out of our diet. Some of them are no big loss. To be honest, I'm thrilled to be able to say, "Cauliflower? Oh, no, thank you. I'm allergic." But some of the others will be a bit more difficult to live without.

I will post the full list at a later date, but for now, here's a list of the more difficult items:

milk (cow & goat)

cheese

whey

eggs

oats

flax

gluten

wheat

yeast (brewer's & baker's)

buffalo

chicken

cranberry

lentils

black pepper

vanilla

So yeah, it's going to be an interesting journey...