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!]

vegetarian lifestyle through the ages

although with all honesty, i have decided to eat fish when the opportunity presents. mostly when i can't avoid it without being rude...as in somebody ordered a shrimp appetizer the other day at lunch and it would have been worse to refuse to eat it than to push the vegetarian issue. plus i like shrimp. GOOD shrimp. frozen shrimp is disgusting.

but so here's the thing: at the shrimp-appetizer lunch, we were celebrating. i was in the office now for four weeks and we had something worth celebrating, so we all went out to lunch to celebrate (was that vague enough for you?). but before we left, my preceptor took me aside and asked if i had eaten at that restaurant and could i eat salads? I reassured her yes (while thinking to myself that most salad dressing have eggs in them). so off we went. and thus the shrimp appetizer...she asked me at the restaurant if i ate fish, so i gave in. it was delicious shrimp. so i'm contemplating just saying i'm a pescatarian (which does not come up in the spell checker with a better spelling!) but that's an interesting proposition.

i know my generation knows the differences in vegetarians and vegans and i could probably even get away with some of the jokier sounding ones--fruitatarian etc. there's whole lists of them, including the specific ovo-lacto vegetarians and onwards. there's even something called a flexitarian--someone who is flexible about eating meat. I am not kidding, i borrow the better homes and garden's 365 Vegetarian Meals from a friend and there is a whole page describing these differences.

but i digress. to most people i can say "I'm a vegetarian" and nobody pushes the issue. especially in younger people. to my mother's generation, which is also my preceptor's generation, it's more of a thing. it's hard to quantify but i really have the feeling that neither one of these women really think i eat anything of great nutritional value. no one is denying the health benefits of not eating meat and eating lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, but that they feel that that isn't enough. My grandfather also would fit into this category. It's an interesting little point i've noticed. i wonder if it is truly generational, coming from people who are used to cooking and planning meals for their families. the vegetables are the side dish. not the center of the dish because there's no substance.

either way, i eat plenty. i'm not always full, but that's when i snack. it's easier to count calories when you consider a salad for lunch versus a sandwich. so i can snack. :)

in other news, I'm off on vacation at the end of the week...to the shore (beach for those of you who don't know any better)! thus the likelihood of being pescatarian...there's nothing like fresh seafood. It prompted me thinking this because i was having a conversation with my mother about whether or not I had to go off the island to buy groceries or if i would be okay on the island's small grocery store. we will see.

and for breakfast, i finally perfected the perfect banana milkshake. break up a banana, add to the blender. add a proportionate amount of ice. at this point I add ensure/instant breakfast powder so i get my nutrients, but you can skip that. add some heavy cream/half-and-half to give it a little richness--i almost cover the bananas, and then I add milk to the top of the ice. blend until smooth. delicious. i have a mini-blender which is the perfect size to make this in and then drink it straight from the blender cup (my blender top has a slot so I really can drink straight from the cup!).

to be eaten with blueberry scones. and in another bit of news, i may have to add blueberries to the list of allergens. i haven't really been a big blueberry eater ever, but when you cut out other fruits that i do it, i try some things. and that's a whole 'nother ball game, not wanting to try foods because i might be allergic. but we'll see, there's many more scones to be eaten to try out this theory.

don't ask a woman how much she weighs

I’ve been toying with the idea of this post for a long while and I hope that I express it well. The question that I’ve gotten most frequently in the past few months is whether or not I’ve lost weight on my completely new diet. It’s a complex topic which is why I’m hoping I get it right.

The short answer is no. Or really, not a significant amount—what people might be thinking. I think I can safely say about 7-10 pounds, yes. This all started around the holidays, so I had been maybe 2-3 pounds more than usual, which is why it’s a not really, not significant amount.

There’s also the fact that I was on steroids for awhile to try to control my mold environmental allergy. I (and my sister also) am strongly affected by steroids with fluid retention. I had pitting edema in my legs, not something you should see in a twentysomething (pitting edema is where you can put your finger up against your shin and when you pull it away, there’s a ‘pit’ in the swelling—it’s common in older adults with heart failure). My weight fluctuated by a few pounds here and there throughout the spring when I would go off the steroids in February but have to go back on in March when my seasonal allergies got bad.

Where this gets complex is the fact that my clothes fit a lot better. I usually have two sizes of jeans to wear on a regular basis, and I’ve already ditched the bigger size and have recently started buying jeans/pants in a size smaller than what I’ve been buying forever. I’ve always had trouble with buying pants because I have a curvaceous body and my waist size doesn’t fit with my hip size. I said I’m buying a smaller jean size anyway—and it’ll be the smallest size I could buy anyway. When I button them, they pull tight across my hipbones, but are loose about the waist.

I can clearly say I’ve lost a dress size. But…the number on the scale has hardly changed.

I’ve had a number of people say to me that I ‘look’ different. It’s not quantifiable, but that I look slimmer. I’ve even been called skinny, which made me smile and nod at the person but my mind was boggled.

The fact of the matter is that while it’s nice to buy new clothes in a smaller size and that fits well with my feminine vanity, I feel better. I like the way I look most days, and that has absolutely nothing to do with the number on the scale OR the number on a tag on my clothes. I feel good, I have energy to do the things I love, and I haven’t had to give up eating sweets completely. I wear clothes that flatter the figure that I do have and I have come to grips with the fact that I have hips and thighs (it only took about twenty years to get to this point!).

So yes, I have lost weight. But it’s also a no, not really. I can say that I have no worries about my cholesterol or my blood pressure because I can’t eat processed foods. I have cut back my risk factors for a number of bad diseases by eliminating meat from my diet and adding in much more fiber. This is what matters more to me than any quick weight loss…isn’t it always harder to keep it off anyway? I’m making better choices that will serve me better in the long run.

It’s been about six (closer to seven, holy moly time flies!) months since this all started…so maybe we’ll see at Christmas. Or next summer. Or just keep on with the feeling good, looking good attitude. 

donuts!

There's nothing quite like a donut, right? :) I don't know why I even attempted to read a Krispy Kreme box however because there's like five things in them that I'm allergic to, unforunately. It's like Entemann's...I love Entemann's cheese filled coffee cake but that's the same story. However, I have found a replacement for Krispy Kreme! Make them myself!

My love affair with donuts has had a twisty (no pun intended!) history the last few months. In the beginning, I was just trying to cope with no meat in my diet which is a big enough to change. Then I started missing some of the more luxury items in my diet. Namely desserts. I have a major sweet tooth and almost everything in the dessert section has eggs in it, or rice flour (most pastries), or the lovely yeast mold.

My birthday came around in March and Maggie sent me this fabulous Babycakes Covers the Classics cookbook. It's from the Babycakes bakery based in New York City and it's a gluten-free vegan cookbook. Which is fabulous because that eliminates a lot of the things that I'm allergic to but at the same time, she replaces regular flour with rice flour, oil with applesauce, etc so while I'm loving the idea and concepts, it's been an interesting balancing act (can I just replace the applesauce with oil, or is there a legitimate reason to have applesauce in this recipe? She does have a section in the front of the cookbook regarding gluten vs gluten-free cooking so I can replace the rice flour with regular flour if you were wondering). How does this connect to donuts, you might ask? Well...see for yourself.

It really got me going! Just salivating looking at the cover of this cookbook! It has some really fabulous recipes in here (thin mints, Chips Ahoy gluten free, cinnamon buns, all kinds of pancakes). There were a few impediments to trying this recipes however.

First, no donut pan. In case you weren't aware, donuts are healthier now because we can bake them instead of frying them but you have to have the appropriately donut shaped pan to do so. I bought one after I moved as a treat for myself.

Second, this recipe is damn hard to convert to non-gluten free. I have yet to attempt it. It's the applesauce conundrum, as well as the rice flour AND other ingredients. In my eagerness to try my donut pan, I found other recipes (I will eventually try the Babycakes recipe, but in the meantime...).

(taken off the Internet and appropriately modified for my needs...has anyone else done that? taken two or three recipes off the Internet, melded them, baked them, and had their fingers crossed while it was baking?)

4 T butter, softened

½ c milk

½ t vinegar (rice vinegar or white)

½ t vanilla extract

1 egg

1c all purpose flour

½ c sugar

1 ½ t baking powder

¼ t salt

¼ t cinnamon

¼ t nutmeg

Melt the butter in a large bowl. Add the vinegar, milk, and vanilla and stir. Whisk in egg. Add dry ingredients until well blended.

Lightly spray donut pans.

Taking a sturdy Ziploc bag, fill it with the batter and snip an edge to pipe the batter into the pans (~2/3 full). Bake for 8 at 425 minutes or until tops spring back lightly. Cool on parchment paper.

I use white vinegar instead of rice vinegar (derived from rice...can't use it--also, you can use buttermilk instead of doing the milk/vinegar bit but I don't have buttermilk), and I have egg replacer that I used for the egg. I left out the cinnamon and trust me, the nutmeg gives these suckers a delicious flavor and it made my apartment smell fabulous. I did not cool on parchment paper. It's also a learning experience to fill in just the donut shaped bit on the pan and not fill in the center hole because I also did not use a ziploc bag but instead used my 1/4 c measuring cup to go around the mold.

They are fabulous. Amazing. I've been talking about my donuts for weeks to people and I think that they think I'm going crazy. These things are so great though. They're light and delicious and even taste mildly healthy, but that's probably just because I've extolled the virtues of them being baked and not fried. Also, in my first recipe excitement I didn't glaze them or anything, but that's next. And I do know some of the calorie counts and they're not anything like the Krispy Kreme variety, so here's to making your own donuts!

Bonus points (from the health.com version of the recipe):

Lemon Glazed: 

Combine 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice and 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, stirring well with a whisk. Dip 1 side of the cooled doughnuts into glaze; let cool on a rack, glazed side up.

Chocolate-Hazelnut: 

Melt 6 ounces bittersweet chocolate in a bowl in microwave until smooth. Dip tops of doughnuts into chocolate and place chocolate side up on a rack to cool. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup chopped hazelnuts; let sit about 10 minutes.

Chocolate Swirl: 

Melt 4 ounces (1 cup) bittersweet chocolate in microwave until smooth. Fill a small squeeze bottle or zip-top plastic bag (snip a tiny hole in 1 corner of bag) with melted chocolate; pipe chocolate onto tops of doughnuts. Chill doughnuts until chocolate sets (about 10 minutes).

Or you can make a general glaze with confectioner's sugar and water and use that to attach to your donut cinnamon and sugar, or coconut, or sprinkles, or anything else you can think of.

Anyone rushing out to buy a donut pan? :)