just imagine...

I went to the grocery store today. One of my least favorite tasks these days; I have to go with a very specific lists for these new recipes and I will inevitably forget something so I even write down "butter" and "milk" so I don't leave without these essentials. Here's the scoop: I spend about $15 more now on groceries (for just me) than I did pre-food allergies. Granted, food prices are going up, but a lot of people ask me about that and I realized that today. I used to always think meat was one of the most expensive things I bought before too, and I don't buy that anymore.

Anyway, here's the point of what I wanted to get at today: put yourself in my shoes. I know many people my age cook on the weekends and then have food to eat during the weekdays. I do this too. But so imagine...it's Wednesday, you just got home after a long day at work, and you open the refrigerator. No leftovers. You open the freezer and the cabinets: nothing to eat. Nothing quick. Everything takes at least twenty minutes if not more. Can you put something in to cook while showering? An option, but that'll just yield you some biscuits or something. How quickly can you shower if you want to set water on to boil for pasta...etc etc.

There are a few demons I fight daily with these allergies: I can't eat anything out of a box and a daily battle with nutrition. A bit back I wrote about poptarts and threw in a few references to FiberOne browies; they're one of the few pre-prepared foods I can eat (AND both have egg whites in them). I have cans of fruits and vegetables I can eat, but that's not a filling meal (nor is a package of poptarts). I love the baked potato soup recipe I just posted because I eat it and I feel full, a foreign feeling for me in the last few months.

Food occupies so much of my time. I will be finishing up dinner and seriously consider if I even ate ANY protein yet that day. Did I get some milk with my cereal? What about fats? Most people would never consider that they haven't eaten enough fat in their diet; the American diet has lots of fat and cholesterol in eat. Some cholesterol is essential, as are some fats. I often don't get them in my diet. I already add Ensure powder to smoothies to balance out other micronutrient deficiencies, but sometimes there are other gaping holes.

I've switched to eating Greek yogurt because it has more protein in it, though I don't particularly like it. I've stopped buying reduced fat items because I need that fat in my diet. I don't even concern myself with sodium like I used to; I don't eat anything that's from a box, just add water and thus has mega-grams of sodium in it.

I reassure myself that my diet is super-healthy, and it is if I do it right and take my vitamins. But the amount of time I spend thinking about food is really ridiculous.

And here's one last thought to occupy you, a question I frequently ask: have you read your food labels? It's not the apples and strawberries that I find myself avidly avoiding--it's the yeast, malt, rice flour. Even sesame oil pops up in weird places. Consider what is in your food and whether or not you really want to be consuming it.

But next time you come home from a long day at work and pop that lean cuisine in the microwave, remember your blessings. :)

baked potato soup

so recently went on vacation. enjoyable. i had a lovely time. my aunt was there for a bit and she was cooking. one of the first things discussed once I had established that I had a safe trip, driving through philly wasn't bad, how many times I'd stopped (a topic of discussion much belabored by family...I can drive for hours only stopping for gas and they all worry that I'm going to get a DVT. somehow, I think i'll be okay.), the conversation turned towards food. my mom and aunt are great cooks and in the last few months have spent many conversations discussing my cooking alternatives.

either way, my aunt was ready to cook this baked potato soup for my cousin and wanted to see if i could eat it. and i can. the vegetarian says no bacon, but i can indeed eat pork. i would say substititue with soy bacon or bacon crumbles or whatever if you can't do the bacon, but i used some microwavable bacon my mom had bought me in another attempt to get me to eat meat. i have to wonder if actually frying up some bacon would impart the soup with more flavor, but i'm not going to go buy some bacon to try it out so somebody can let me know.

whether or not you put bacon in this soup or not, it's lovely. don't stint and buy margarine instead of butter, or skim milk instead of whole milk. go all out. with the weather starting to turn around here, it'll be a nice recipe to have for the winter.

I will say that on my recipe it says prep is 15 minutes which is totally wrong. first off, you have to "bake, cool, peel, and cube" the potatoes. WHICH TAKES MORE THAN 15 MINUTES. i did an hour at 450 and they came out nicely. and then they cooled. and i didn't spend a lot of time peeling and cubing, i just basically sliced them in quarters and squeezed the potatoes out of the jackets and voila. 

I was also taught early in life about making a white sauce, which is essentially what the early steps of the soup are, so I took it slow and thus is definitely took me longer than 15 minutes. also, i really did add the milk in slow steps. but i enjoyed it. i listen to audiobooks while i cook, so it didn't seem to take very long though i know it did.

·         2/3 cup butter

·         2/3 cup flour

·         7 cups milk

·         4 large baking potatoes, baked, cooled, peeled and cubed, about 4 cups

·         4 green onions, thinly sliced

·         10 to 12 strips bacon, cooked, drained, and crumbled

·         1 1/4 cups shredded mild cheddar cheese

·         1 cup (8 ounces) sour cream

·         3/4 teaspoon salt

·         1/2 teaspoon pepper

Preparation:

In a large Dutch oven or stockpot over low heat, melt butter. Stir in flour; stir until smooth and bubbly. Gradually add milk, stirring constantly, until sauce has thickened. Add potatoes and onions. Continue to cook, stirring constantly, until soup begins to bubble. Reduce heat; simmer gently for 10 minutes. Add remaining ingredients; stir until cheese is melted. Serve baked potato soup immediately. 
This baked potato soup recipe serves 6 to 8.

(I would say more than 6-8, but it's very filling so I probably eat it sparingly...either way, delicious!)

back to bread

i have a very large number of bread recipes. despite my exuberance over finding biscuits and, more recently, pizza crust that i can eat, I still make most of my bread myself (that is a terrible sentence and i apologize but i'm not changing it). it's easy to do on the weekend usually one loaf will last me through the week. it even makes things more palatable...

i made a cheddar and broccoli soup a few weeks back from what was supposed to be the TGIFriday's recipe. i've never had the restaurant's version, but this version definitely fell flat. i'm not sure what happened, but i couldn't palate it and i froze about half of it and managed to eat the other half. but so i was confronted with these tupperware containers of soup i needed to get rid of. and brilliance struck. i made this delicious honey wheat bread that was an excellent compatriot to this soup. i defrosted it and drained the excess water off occasionally and voila, a decent way to eat the soup and not become completely disgusted by it.

it's from an egg free cookbook my mom found. there are variations at the end of the recipe.

Quick Whole Wheat and Molasses Bread

"this basic, quintessential, not-too-sweet quick bread--quick, simple, hearty, and rich despite the fact that it contains no eggs or butter. Although you can use it for sandwiches, this is best served warm, as part of a meal."

Oil/butter for greasing the pan
1 2/3 c buttermilk or yogurt (or 1 1/2 c milk plus 2 T white vinegar)
2 1/2 c whole wheat flour
1/2 c cornmeal
1 t salt
1 t baking soda
1/2 c molasses

1. Preheat the oven to 325. Grease an 8x4 or 9x5 inch loaf pan.
2. If you're using buttermilk or yogurt, ignore this step. If not make the soured milk: Warm the milk gently--1 minute in the microwave is sufficient, just enough to take the chill off--and add the vinegar. Let it rest while you prepare the other ingredients.
3. Mix together the dry ingredients. Stir the molasses into the buttermilk. Stir the liquid into the dry (just enough to combine), then pour into the loaf pan. Bake until firm and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about an hour. cool on a rack for about 5 minutes before removing from the pan.

Lighter whole wheat quick bread: a little cakier: use 1 1/2 c whole wheat and 1 1/2 c all purpose flour; omit the cornmeal. Substitute honey for the molasses for lighter flavor and color. Beat 1 egg into the wet ingredient in step 3.

So that's that. My mom has made it with the molasses and we've decided that honey is the better way to go. I don't remember eating the molasses version, but she says that it's bitter. I have made it both with the cornmeal and alternately with the all purpose flour. It stays a little denser and damper (it's weird but if you do it you'll understand) with the cornmeal, but both recipes work. The cornmeal version reminds me of what i read about Boston brown bread, though I've never tried that or done anything but read about it.

Either way, it's delicious. and whole wheat! good for the heart. :)

ps do check it with a toothpick or the cake sticker thingy...i undercooked this majorly the first time thinking it was done and it wasn't. it looked a little burned on the outside this time when i finished with it, but it was perfectly done inside and was definitely not burned!

guilty pleasures

So basically I can't eat processed foods. Almost everything has something in it....usually yeast. I think it must be a preservative of sorts to be used in it. My mom jokes that I can't eat anything that comes in a box and it's pretty true. Somebody commented at lunch that my lunch (salad, pineapple, fiber brownie--they have a new flavor! I was so excited the other day when i found them!) would not be enough for her and I replied that it wasn't enough for me, but that was all i could bring with me today. I wasn't prepared and didn't think about it last night that I didn't have anything for lunch and thus, salad and canned pineapple and pre-wrapped FiberOne brownie.

So no processed foods. like I said, it makes lunch hard. but you know what I can eat? Pop-tarts. And not the fruit kinds because I'm usually allergic to the fruit--even the cherry ones have dried apples in them! No. I eat the dessert ones--ice cream sundae, sugar cookie, chocolate chip cookie dough, rainbow cookie sandwich...see a theme?

I even buy them in the double pack box!

My friends don't believe that these things exist but as I live and breathe, they do! I even discovered chocolate fudge ones this weekend. There is also a new flavor of confetti cake, but that has rice flour in it.

The rainbow cookie sandwich one has the icing as the middle part of the 'tart.' I haven't tried my chocolate chip cookie dough ones yet, but I'm looking forward to breaking into that box.

My favorite so far are the sugar cookie ones--they also had fun snowy printed characters on them. They were a mom-discovery.

So that's my guilty pleasure...some people accuse me of the whole "my body is a temple" attitude because they don't know and so they always see me eating salads and fruit, but this would definitely prove them wrong!

[Disclaimer...there are egg whites in all of them. Same with the FiberOne brownie bites. I can tolerate egg whites though so bring on the poptarts!]