pumpkin cream cheese

Voila! Quick and easy, though I recommend using honey instead of maple syrup. We didn't even try the maple syrup--it's not a staple in this house and considering that the whole concept of maple means it's from a tree and has its own subset of allergens....we stick with honey. nice and creamy on a piece of toast!

Also, I'm not sure what my mom ended up using instead of the pumpkin pie spice, but probably just some nutmeg and allspice. Balance to taste.

Happy fall y'all!

mini pumpkin rolls

hey y'all--it's almost fall! which means that one of my favorite food items is back in play--pumpkin! So far this almost-fall week I've had these delicious mini pumpkin rolls and also a pumpkin cream cheese spread. My mom made the latter for me so I have yet to finagle that recipe from her, but I made the mini pumpkin rolls so here goes:

MINI FALL PUMPKIN PIE CROISSANTS—makes 32

2 Tubes Pillsbury crescent rolls

4 oz. (1/2 block) of softened cream cheese 
1 cup of canned pumpkin
1 – 2 T pumpkin pie spice (adjust to taste)
3 – 4 T sugar (granulated or powdered; adjust to taste if you want the filling sweeter)

Start with 2 tubes of Pillsbury refrigerated crescent rolls. Roll each crescent roll out and cut lengthwise in 2.
Beat the cream cheese, pumpkin, and 1T of spice together until fluffy and spread about one teaspoon of filling over each triangle of dough. Roll into croissant shape.
Mix together 4 T sugar and 1 T pumpkin pie spice and roll each pumpkin pie croissant in it.

Bake at 375* for about 13-15 minutes (this time is for on a baking stone) – you want them to be lightly browned and the dough baked through.

I used allspice instead of cinnamon which gave it a little different flavor. Also, I thought that the pumpkin spread inside could have been a little sweeter--it may have been because we didn't use the cinnamon, but somewhere between a teaspoon to tablespoon of sugar could have been a real benefit to this recipe. 

I enjoyed using the crescent roll dough, but I know that pillsbury also makes a roll of pastry dough (as does Pepperidge farm) that is safe for me to eat and I almost wonder if this would be better in a jelly roll format. These are great and bite sized, so a nice hors d'oeuvre shape, but a jelly roll/pastry dough version of this recipe could be better for say Thanksgiving dessert.

As a side note (side dish), check out this interesting article I saw on CNN about Food Allergies cost. I obviously don't have the issues of my family losing productivity time to be protective about my allergies, but I can tell you that my food budget is unbelievably more in the post-food allergy age.

And now I'm off to return the "cherry tarts" my mom bought for me yesterday which are most definitely strawberry...it'll be interesting to see the reaction at the store.

here's to you

here's to you, who let me read every food label and patiently wait while I reread it more slowly.

here's to you, who welcome me into your house, and understand when I have to read every food label of every item in the meal you're preparing.

here's to you, who invite me to stay and email/text to see what you can buy for me...and for understanding when I bring my own food.

here's to you, who don't add a single spice to a food without checking with me.

here's to you, who invite me into your house while i'm travelling and offer me safe harbor from foods.

here's to you, who cook me food that seems bland and boring and IS bland and boring, but don't comment on it.

here's to you, who go out to eat with me and understand while I question the server. who understand why i peruse the menu before we even go out to eat. who doesn't comment when i proceed to scarf down every morsel on my plate because I so rarely get to eat such deliciously prepared food I didn't have to make myself.

here's to the server who thinks to tell me the pasta is made fresh with eggs in it and that the bread is made in an environment with eggs in it. who brings the dessert menu already knowing which item has eggs in it. (i tip well to prove my gratitude to you!)

here's to you who scout out places for me--be it to check if there's a kitchen or to tell me there's a grocery store here or a good, safe restaurant here.

here's to my mom, who cooks me shrimp even though it makes her anaphylactic and thus generates twice as many dishes when she goes to cook her own beef/chicken entree.

here's to my brother, who can't remember the list of foods and offers me bread, to have his wife reprimand him, to his comment of "just say no."

here's to my sister, who tells me to order anything on the menu that i want, knowing the options are limited.

here's to you, who listen when I complain about my diet and my theoretical anemia or vitamin deficiency.

here's to you, who understand that it's not gluten and I'm not a vegan.

here's to you, who don't say, "hey, I didn't know you were a vegetarian!" like there's some expectation that everyone knows I'm a vegetarian.

here's to you, who don't judge when I do eat something I shouldn't just because it looks so good.

here's to you, who walk with me as I peruse the fair looking for something safe to eat.

here's to you, who modify your holiday plans and feasts to incorporate something that I can eat.

here's to you, who text me from your wedding caterer visit to make sure that there's something i can eat.

here's to you, who understand why I don't tell everyone that i'm allergic to everything on the list and who understand why sometimes I eat allergens when people offer it to me.

here's to you, who say "we don't have to go out if it's too hard." who understand me skipping meals. who understand the lunchbox I carry with me almost everywhere and the snacks in my purse. and the pills.

here's to you, who send me new recipes. and to those who teach me the recipes of their culture.

here's to you, who understand my shyness and discretion.

here's to you, my fabulous support system.

Cauliflower Casserole

I remember my parents always being so proud of my siblings and I as kids for always raiding the veggie plates at events; we were, and still are, big broccoli and cauliflower eaters. So when I saw this recipe for cauliflower casserole on my sister's pinterest, I pinned it myself as a possibility. And I will outright say I didn't like it. I'm not a huge fan of sour cream and this had a tendency to collect in the crevices between the cauliflower. However, my mom liked it AND she took it in to work (since I obviously wasn't going to eat it) and they all liked it too. It's apparently quite good on certain dishes, like a baked potato.

It was a bit of work, since I had to shred the monterey jack myself. I also will caution y'all to make sure your steamed cauliflower is well drained--between the water that cooks off that and the cheese, I ended up draining a bit of water out of my finished dish.

• 2 lbs cauliflower florets
• 8 oz shredded sharp cheddar cheese, divided
• 8 oz shredded Monterey Jack cheese, divided
• 8 oz block cream cheese, softened
• 4 tablespoons heavy cream 
• 2 bunches green onions, sliced (1 1/2 cups)
• 6 sliced bacon, cooked and crumbled
• 1 clove garlic, grated
• Salt & pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Steam cauliflower florets until tender.

3. While cauliflower steams, cream together 6 oz of the shredded cheddar, 6 oz of the Monterey Jack,

cream cheese, and heavy cream.

4. Stir in sliced green onions, chopped bacon, and garlic.

5. Set aside.

6. Drain any liquid from steamed cauliflower and add hot cauliflower to cheese mixture.

7. Stir cauliflower and cheese mixture together.

8. Taste for seasoning, and add as necessary.

(If you want a finer texture, give a few mashes with the potato masher.)

9. Pour into a 2-3 quart casserole and sprinkle on remaining cheddar and Monterey Jack cheese.

10. Cover dish with foil and bake for 25 minutes; remove foil and continue to bake until cheese is brown and bubbly.

I would also add that you could probably add a lot of variety to this--broccoli and cauliflower mix, more/less bacon (bits or otherwise), garlic or onions in greater quantity, etc etc. I probably won't have anything further to say on this subject because of the whole clumps of sour cream antipathy that I have going on towards this dish, but for anyone who likes cheese/cream, the world's your oyster. :) (but not mine, I'm allergic!)

So I went out to dinner...

...and it was pretty epic.

First off, I obviously don't go out to eat very frequently. It's simply too difficult from start to finish--picking the right company, figuring out what allergies I can legitimately claim to quiz the waiter/waitress on, the menu itself, and then of course, what if something goes wrong and i'm out on the town, trying to enjoy myself? I will say, since this is an FAQ, if pressed, I'll go with Mexican because a cheese quesadilla is pretty safe, or Italian because I can usually get a spaghetti/marinara dish without too much trouble.

Onwards...to set the scene. My friends, who are fully aware of the full list of allergens and do their absolute best to accommodate at all times, and I were in Pittsburgh for a concert. In the district, there are a ton of restaurants. I perused menus beforehand and was totally overwhelmed so we ended up conferring over a few menus before we even went (That's the other thing. I will ALWAYS peruse the menu before I go to a restaurant). Adam had picked one restaurant in particular that he thought would be a good one--called Meat and Potatoes. We joked about how the 'meat' wouldn't work for me but maybe the 'potato' part would. So I got online and checked out their menu. I scanned it, then went down and read it very closely. And then I called my mom. She did the same thing. The conclusion? Nothing, absolutely NOTHING was possible. I was in a good mood that night, so that was pretty funny. That has never happened before and I'm not knocking the restaurant at all, but it's pretty intriguing how that happened. Basically it's cause they added meat to just about every dish, but still.

See how this is shaping up to be pretty epic even before we got to Pittsburgh?

We did okay with the menu on the next restaurant. I'm not going to name this one because I'm going to make snarky comments and it's probably not truly reflective so I'll let them languish in anonymity for now. So Adam sent me the name of choice number two and I look at it. It's limited, but there's a few options we can work with. So we head over to Pittsburgh and begin our evening.

My options quickly dwindled. I had the foresight to ask about the tempura for the tempura shrimp. I do truly love to eat good seafood and this was a classy enough place to have good seafood (the further you get from the coast, the more I doubt the quality of the seafood--I'm a snob about my seafood, but I can be--I grew up near the coast). I mentioned the egg allergy and the waitress asked about other allergies.

"Anything else? Dairy allergy?"
"No, no other allergies."

Let's reference back to the fact that I am allergic to SEVENTEEN things. 17! (In all actuality, it's probably more like 18--I've added two potentials and subtracted one that doesn't seem to do anything, but anyway!)

NB: I've never counted my allergens before. that's a little eye opening statistic there.

I must have been in a good mood looking forward to this concert because I just kinda laughed all that off with an eye roll. It's a blatant lie, but should I confront anyone with my list of allergens? Considering the bafflement I got from a nutritionist once...i'm thinking it's not the best course of action. Plus we'll always go back to the fact that I don't get anaphylactic so I don't want anyone totally freaking over the list.

So anyway, the tempura had egg in it. We had another waiter by this point, and he confirmed that with the chef. So that eliminated a number of my options, so I just went to my old standby, the salad.

You know how the waiter always swings by and checks if everyone's ready to order? In recent months, everyone always eyes me when this statement is made. I am the deciding factor (I also always get to choose restaurants). So I say yes and I ordered my salad. Without the dijon vinaigrette because it simply didn't sound safe. And hey, I don't like mustard and I feel entitled to not like foods even when you eliminate all 17 things I can't eat (but I have tried things I have previously dismissed in order to have, you know, options for food). I ask if there's another vinaigrette I can substitute. Short answer, there's not. So I got oil and vinegar instead (and btw, it's not like vinegar is completely safe--rice vinegar? Apple cider vinegar? It ended up being balsamic, hooray!). I forgot to make sure they took off the bleu cheese, but I ended up managing.

The real gem of the evening came next.

"And what would you like for dinner?"

I can't imagine the look on my face, but what kind of a world doesn't consider a salad a dinner? I get that there's a side salad and it's usually part of the pre-entree fare, but seriously, dude? And he didn't even pick up on my snark: "Well, I was going to order the shrimp..."

So Adam and Amy order and the waiter scurries away to do what waiters do. We have entertaining conversation--partially surrounding food. They're getting married and we talked about reception food, which is interesting to consider (see previous blog posts!). I brought up the consideration of what to serve at my wedding and this proceeded to have Adam declaring there we should establish a restaurant named "Pam's" and all they serve is food I can eat. An interesting proposition, but you wouldn't notice it at one meal or even two; it's living the life that makes the point of what I can and can't eat.

Dinner proceeds and we get to the offering of the dessert menu, complete with the original waitress and her commentary on it. She also misses on the snark when we pass on dinner with the comment that everything has eggs in it.

We headed onwards to our concert, which was fabulous, and I will admit to only being plagued with mild abdominal cramps throughout the first song or two. So I'll knock that up to a success, though calling a salad a success is pretty blase.

I am still entertained by this experience, but I'll let y'all know it's not always this entertaining. The company and overall experience made it worthwhile. I recently went to lunch with my mom to try a new organic cafe in town and also ordered a salad; that lunch was much less memorable because of the uncontrolled children and the soccer moms. Although it can be entertaining, because my mom does have anaphylactic food allergies.

Never a boring day and never a morsel of food passes through my lips without consideration. I have "good food days" and "bad food days." But can you see why I may decline to go out to dinner and instead invite you over?

cake pops

I ventured into a new recipe world recently and it was so bizarre. seriously cake pops? they're the strangest thing!

so here's the deal: my sister gave me some of the teflon ice cube trays for my birthday; one shaped as butterflies and one as music notes.

I can eat cake mix, I just have to make sure to add egg whites or egg substitute instead of straight eggs. And luckily, this recipe called for one egg, instead of three (which is a complete no-no even with the egg substitute). but i know these are very popular right now and thought i would try them.

first off, they're TONS of work! and take TONS of time! I don't know if anyone else around here has made them, but let's recap. you bake it like a cake, then crumble it (but you have to let it cool first), press it in the shapes, add the stick, and freeze/refrigerate it. if you're lucky, they look like they're supposed to:

I won't get into the difficulty in pressing them into the shapes. I got the butterflies down, obviously, but the stems of the music notes? forget it! and even the butterfly's wings look a little rough around the edges.

so after you refrigerate them, you take them out and melt some chocolate down and dip them in that. so then the butterfly shape would be obscured, so what's really the point? And since this is funfetti, you cover them in sprinkles too. but you have to have a styrofoam board to stick the pop in so it can set.

I will say, they're handy. it's cute. but holy cow. can you imagine that these are probably the new thing to take to your kid's classroom for their birthday? cupcakes were bad enough (my mom complained doubly because she has twins!) but these things are even more extravagant.

i probably should have just settled and eaten regular cake for celebration, instead of trying the cake pops. but this is one of things we can all blame pinterest for...pinterest is great, but cake pops are hard.

that was my adventure into new recipes this last month and it was obviously not a success! (and on the allergy front, either the egg whites weren't separated well enough or something because i still ended up getting sick from them) I'm going to have to stick to using my ice cube trays for ice cubes from now on, not cake pops.

mmmm...mold

I was flipping through Eat This, Not That 2013 yesterday and while most of it does not apply to me, i found a few charming tidbits worth sharing.

Did you know the average American eats 79 pounds of corn annually? Their point was that we only eat 1lb fresh yearly, but this made me giggle regardless because corn is one of my two major food groups (potato is the other). I can only imagine how much corn I eat. Plus there's all kinds of sources of corn in food people don't even think/know about--maltodextrin, for one, can be made from corn, and is in almost everything.

Here's the kicker:

"The FDA legally allows up to a 60 percent mold count in canned or frozen blackberries and raspberries. Canned fruit and vegetable juices are allowed to contain up to 20 percent mold."

MMMM hooray. no wonder I can't drink fruit juice without feeling weird! It explains why that raspberry tea I was drinking the other day gave me terrible abdominal pain (while driving home from a day trip which made it all even more charming) despite the fact that i'm not allergic to raspberries. (Was I checked for raspberries? I don't think so. I'm contemplating the fact that it seems that any fruit that you eat the skin with gives me problems while any fruit that you skin doesn't...that's where the mold is, on the surface).

I tried to get on the FDA's website to figure this out but it was rather baffling to find anything on their site. I did find a study showing this: Certain foodborne molds and yeasts may also elicit allergic reactions or may cause infections.

No duh! :)