Update on allergens

As I sit here, I just finished the latest in a series of unappetizing meals and I really need to work on that. But while picking at my breakfast, I was reading Julie and Julia and she was holding forth on blogging and secret thrill it is (it's pages 83-85 in the digital edition for anyone who cares) and I have to say I don't really think it's a secret thrill when you post things out on the Internet. Either way, I at least hope that I am more entertaining than Julie Powell because this book is a serious struggle to get through.

This is a little more of a personal update on the allergy front than any fun new recipes that I've found. I had my appointment with the allergist a few weeks ago from which has stemmed a few changes in my life. It was finally explained to me that the key to almost all of my allergies in linked to mold. It was like that one puzzle piece that finally fell into place and you see the whole picture. I have always discarded my environmental allergies as quite secondary to my food allergies. Sneezing and watery eyes are annoying, but a lot less important than the crippling abdominal pain and unbearable fatigue. I take my Allegra and carry on, carefully eating only certain things. But it centers on the mold! I had very strong reactions to the mold in my environmental scratch testing, and the foods that I am most allergic to are molds.

I am posting (and potentially reposting) this picture as a reminder. The foods are on the left and the environmentals on the right. You can't really see my left shoulder where beef, chicken, and egg are and the bottom left is the positive control to make sure I have a normal immune system. Along the right, in rows 3, 4, and some of 5, are the molds. Those aren't as positive as the shots I had in my arm after that, but some of them are. I don't have pictures of my arm after the molds though. By that point, I was out of it.

So the theory goes: really strong reaction to mold ergo I'm allergic to foods that can be contaminated by mold. Point in fact, yeast IS a mold. Yeast is one of my worst food allergies. Grains are a close second (rice is particularly bad, but this also includes malt and oats, and I would classify navy beans in here too) because they are easily contaminated by mold. Some of the fruits I'm allergic to grow mold on their skins (grapes, strawberries, apples, and oranges). The meats are because the animals are fattened on grains contaminated by mold. Voila!

Of course, some of them don't fit in. Cinnamon? Maybe there's something to do with the tree... and what about sesame? Eggs--though I can tolerate egg whites well, what about the yolk? I'll of course look up and see what I can find about it, but I found all this very interesting. Like I said, the missing puzzle piece.

In other news, with that in mind and with another thought from my allergist's PA, I am testing out what reactions I have to some of the foods. There is a way to avoid the abdominal side effects potentially (H2 blocker...prevent acid's full digestion of the food, thus exposure of the proteins and thus no IgE binding; I figured this mechanism on my own so it might not be true but it sounds good) if I can't avoid eating them. The interesting thing is that I didn't have any reaction to a fresh apple and orange. So we'll see. I ate some rice last week and that was bad enough to have me back off for a bit on the whole inducing pain on myself thing. :)

do you read your food labels?

So here's what I've been wondering...I've been discussing my allergies with Amy and Adam, and they started reading their food labels. I can predict what's in certain foods by this point because I've read so many labels and it makes me wonder if what I'm going through has made any of you start reading food labels...

Has anyone seen how many products have yeast in it? or 'autolyzed yeast extract'--which I had to google at some point early in the process. It's a partially broken down yeast product, as far as I can tell. either way, no good for me. but have y'all noticed that almost every frozen food item has yeast in it? Even frozen vegetables (that's the one that drives me nuts)! I can't really think of any processed food that I can eat, which is good for my health but plays havoc with my purse, time, and ingenuity.

Have any of you noticed that pastries almost always have rice flour in them? I have yet to figure this one out, but it must have something to do with texture. Some pastry doughs don't, but I think I've only been able to find one brand.

MSG isn't something I'm allergic to and I'd say I'm too young to really understand the furor over MSG from when I was a kid, but I've always had the vague idea that it's not in food anymore. Maybe in Chinese food, but that's an ethnic thing and it's not in food made in America. That's definitely a wrong though, wherever I picked it up! MSG is in about half the food labels I read. I talked to my grandfather, who was a chemist, and he remembers when they were coming up with new recipes and adding MSG was sure to have that je ne sais quoi which made the recipes better.

In other news, this worked out okay for me when I was without power for about 24 hours here...I didn't think the storm was that bad, but that could also be because of where I'm living. Either way, I didn't have to worry about the food in my refrigerator. My freezer had some stuff in it that I had to eat yesterday because it defrosted, but the rest of it was salvageable. Same for my refrigerator, my milk went bad but that was it and it wasn't a big loss since it ended up only being a few ounces (though i have been cooking up a storm today so that some of the cheeses won't turn). The good thing about being a vegetarian is most fruits and vegetables can go unrefrigeratored and it's okay!

Although on the vegetarian front, I've been reading cookbooks and who knew there were so many different names for the different variations on vegetarians!

As a complete sidenote, I would like to comment that I know I'm terribly erratic about capitalization of first letters in sentences, but it stems from the fact that I type so fast that I often get the second letter so that's why I don't do it. It's more erratic here because I often go back or restart sentences, allowing for proper capitalization but sometimes not. It's my quirk, and that's why (and i'm sticking with it!).

pasta salad

Pasta salad, my new standby. Makes great lunches and dinners, as well as an excellent side dish. I can eat it straight while it's still warm from cooking the pasta, or really relish it when it's cold. While I don't stick to a recipe anymore, I'll share with y'all the one that gave me the idea/outline, from Mollie Katzen's Get Cooking.

best pasta salad
salt for the pasta water
3/4 pound fusilli, small penne, or orecchiette pasta
5 T olive oil
3/4 t minced garlic, about 1 medium clove
3/4 c very finely minced red onion
1/3 c grated Parmesan cheese
3 T red wine vinegar
3/4 t salt
1/8 t freshly ground black pepper
1 medium bell pepper, any color, diced
half a medium cucumber, peeled, seeded, and diced

1. Put a large pot of cold water to boil over high heat, and add a tablespoon of salt. Have your colander ready. Once the water boils, add the pasta and keep the heat high. Cook for the time recommended on the package, tasting to make sure it's not overcooked. When it is just tender enough to bite into comfortable but not ye mushy, dump the water plus pasta into the colander and shake to drain.
2. While the pasta is cooking, combine the olive oil, garlic, onion, Parmesan, vinegar, salt, and black pepper in a large bowl and whisk to blend. Add the pasta to this bowl after it's drained, stirring to coat all the pasta. Set aside to cool to room temperature.
3. Add the bell pepper and cucumber, and mix gently but thoroughly. Serve at room temperature, or chill and serve cold.

Okay, so I tried it this way. and it works. but that leaves me room to manipulate.

I take whatever pasta I have, but usually corkscrew or bowtie, and cook it. I then drain it, coat it with enough cheese so it looks like every piece has got some stuck to it (which is why you do it while everything is still hot, the cheese sticks to the pasta), and then dress it with some Italian dressing or marinade. I used ranch one time even, and it worked just fine (though I did wait until it was cool to add the ranch dressing just before eating). And add whatever vegetables you want--I usually use carrots and broccoli because those are standards in my refrigerator, but bell peppers and cucumbers would be delightful. I've added corn to add a little more substance, which turned out just fine. I've thought about chickpeas, but haven't. I've also used the grated Parmesan my mom has for spaghetti because it was the only cheese she had in the refrigerator, which meant I used a heck of a lot more cheese, but it still worked fine.

So tinker with it and make it yours, but you'll have to share it with me. This is going to be a lunchtime staple for me now that I'm starting to take my lunch to work regularly.

interesting article!

i was checking out the news today on CNN and I saw this article about meat allergies! it's not the meat allergy that I have (i'm really allergic to the mold that the animals eat which apparently persist into their meat), but it's kinda interesting! watch out for tick bites!

http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/20/health/meat-tick-bite-allergy/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

embarrassment and thus comfort food

so you know how much students love free food? and if you say "lunch provided" it's guaranteed an audience? do you know how much I dread seeing "lunch provided"?? I just got an email for something next week where lunch is provided, so I have to proceed to send an email saying just exactly what kind of lunch are you providing, i have food allergies... And I inevitably get one back that says something along the lines of we haven't ordered anything yet so let us know what you're allergic to. Thus my dread...it's terrible to list out everything, mostly because it's usually sandwiches and pizza, both of which I can't eat for the dreaded yeast. It works out okay with pasta salad and usually regular salads, but it's so frustrating/embarrassing/annoying to have to email these people I don't usually know well and weight them down with something they don't need to deal with.

sigh.

i'm baking today. happily, a favorite dessert recipe with no eggs. and a crowd favorite. comfort food + gift for a friend combined in the absolute best way. (also, these freeze really well so make a pan and freeze them in ziplocs to take out later!)

Chocolate Raspberry Crumb Bars

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

2 cups all purpose flour

½ cup packed light brown sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

2 cups (12 oz package) Semi-Sweet Chocolate chips, divided

1 ¼ (14 oz can) Sweetened condensed milk

½ cup chopped nuts (optional)

1/3 cup seedless raspberry jam

Preheat oven to 350° F. Beat butter in large mixer bowl until creamy. Beat in flour, sugar, and salt until well mixed. With floured fingers, press 1 ¾ cups crumb mixture onto bottom of greased 13x9 inch baking pan; reserve remaining mixture. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes until edges are golden brown.

Combine 1 cup morsels and sweetened condensed milk in small, heavy duty saucepan. Melt over low heat, stirring until mooth. Spread over hot crust.

Stir nuts into reserved crumb mixture, sprinkle over chocolate filling. Drop teaspoonfuls of raspberry jam over crumb mixture. Sprinkle with remaining morsels. Continue baking for 25 to 30 minutes or until center is set. Cool completely on wire rack.

traveling

i'm baaaaaaaaaack! really, i am. I'm sorry to the faithful who might have expected recipes and my philosophical ponderings over the last few weeks, but i had a lot going on with school and then i decided to travel across the country and then move. a lot going on, which precluded blogging about the wonderful world of food allergies. but i did give me plenty of fodder for topics, so maybe i'll make it all up to you.

first off, i love traveling! i haven't done a lot of it in awhile, but this time i did the whole cross-country flight, hotel room, touristy things included. I knew from the get-go that the food would be a challenging issue for me. Let's consider it, what do most people do when confront with these kinds of things? Run into a fast food restaurant and pick something up. I can only survive so long on McDonald's fries (coated with beef flavoring, which is probably why they taste so nice, but apparently wasn't enough to bother me) and milkshakes.

It actually got me thinking about how hard it is to even travel and health fairly healthfully. Yes, there's a McDonald's on every corner that can cover you in an emergency, but their salads aren't particularly healthy. We went in a Panera one morning, but while I had ruled out their lunch menu, I had hoped for a pastry or muffin that I could eat (everything has eggs in it, but I managed okay). If you look at Panera's nutritional information, their Caesar salad packs about 500 calories, which is fine for a meal, but a salad that's 500 calories?!

Luckily, the wedding I went to had a delightful, vegetarian buffet dinner. While the only thing I technically could have eaten was the green beans, I was able to enjoy salad, pasta, and the green beans with no ill effects. That raises another interesting question--one I've seen in the news recently--both the bride and the groom are vegetarians, so it was not unexpected to have a vegetarian dinner, and as a fellow vegetarian, I was pleased. But what if they'd been vegan? Should we all eat vegan?

Back to the traveling though. I changed terminals in the Chicago airport and I had a really long layover, so I was anticipating being able to find some good food to stand me over until I could get home and my mom could feed me something guaranteed to have no allergens in it. Nada. Deep dish pizza may be a Chicago standard and it is indeed delicious, but I knew I wouldn't be able to eat it and not suffer the consequences, not something I'd want to have to deal with on an airplane/while flying through turbulence anyway. Same goes with the fast food restaurants and some of the more diner-like restaurants scattered through the airport (though I did enjoy seeing the wine bar complete with player piano!). I ended up in a Hudson's paying exorbitant (though expected) prices for a bag of frito's and reese's peanut butter cups. Sounds delightfully healthy, right?

So imagine a week spent chowing down on that and playing the tourist. I can't imagine how I really made it through some days...stocking up on chocolate frosted banana cupcakes that apparently didn't have eggs in them must have gotten me through. Plus lots and lots of Sprite for the sugar.

Anyone else travel with a special diet and have stories? Or just tried to eat healthy and managed it? I knew when I had gone on vacation in the past, my usual careful consideration of what I'm eating goes out the window but it was interesting this year when I really really couldn't.

A quick tale of success

Hey all--I know I promised this awhile back but I've been busy! (And getting busier, this'll be the last one again until about mid-June but there's been plenty of recipes to try out!)

Okay, so success. Major success:

Tortilla Lasagna

·         6 8-inch fat-free flour tortillas

·         1 Tbs. olive oil

·         1 small onion, chopped (1 cup)

·         2 Tbs. chili powder

·         2 tsp. ancho chile powder

·         2 cloves garlic, minced (2 tsp.)

·         2 cups strained tomatoes, such as Pomì, divided

·         1 1/2 cups cooked black beans, or 1 15-oz. can black beans, rinsed and drained

·         1 medium chayote, peeled and diced, or 2 medium zucchini, diced (1 1/2 cups)

·         1/2 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels

·         1 1/2 cups grated Monterey Jack or pepper Jack cheese

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Toast tortillas on 2 baking sheets in oven 5 minutes, or until light brown, turning once.

2. Heat oil in saucepan over medium heat. Add onion, and sauté 5 minutes, or until soft. Stir in chili powder, ancho chile powder, and garlic, and cook 30 seconds. Add 11/2 cups strained tomatoes, beans, chayote, corn, and 1/2 cup water, and season with salt and pepper, if desired. Cover, and cook 10 minutes, or until chayote is tender.

3. Coat 2-inch-deep x 8-inch round baking dish with cooking spray. Spread 1/4 cup strained tomatoes in bottom of pan. Set 1 toasted tortilla in pan; top with 3/4 cup bean mixture and 1/4 cup cheese. Repeat layering 4 more times. Top with last tortilla, and spread remaining 1/4 cup strained tomatoes over top. Sprinkle with remaining 1/4 cup cheese. Bake 30 to 45 minutes, or until casserole is bubbly and cheese has melted. Let stand 10 minutes before cutting into 8 wedges.

Okay, so I don't have much to say on that because Amanda actually made it for a Monday Night Dinner (an event worth capitalizing!) but it was delicious. I wanted to make it myself, but I didn't have all the spices. Being the creative genius (ha!) that I am, I looked in the cabinet and totally improvised. 

I toasted the tortillas I had, took some diced petite tomatoes, refried black beans, and salsa and made the different layers. I probably should have added some corn or something else because the tomatoes totally overwhelmed it--too many between the petite diced and the salsa. Plus I'm not the biggest fan of tomatoes so I really felt overwhelmed. I layered plenty of cheese with the bean/tomato mixture and then just repeated for the number of tortillas I had--I think three, maybe four. Lots of cheese on top. 

Voila! (I grabbed my iPhone and took a picture because i knew it was going to be delicious. obviously, I was in a great mood this day...)

So it isn't all a disaster in the kitchen, though sometimes they do turn out that way. It's been kinda fun to find new recipes and try them out and work with them, but I will fully admit to complete frustration some days. Like this got a little too tomato-y for me, but next time, I'll try something else.

While I'm "gone," feel free to send me any recipes you've tried out or let me know if you've tried these. I'm sure I'll have lots of stories to tell y'all when I get back. :)