Food Allergies Pinned to the Mat

New Year's Eve: Safe Swedish meatballs over noodles

2010-01-30T14:45:00.000-08:00

This turned out amazingly delicious and stroganoffy. Thanks, mom, for making the recipe up!

1 lb ground beef

1lb ground pork (I went with veal because Muslims were partying with us)

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1 tbsp parsley flakes

1 small grated onion

2 eggs' worth of eggbeaters

3 rice cakes

water to dampen rice cakes

Gravy:

1 cup beef broth
1 cup veal broth

1 tsp Worcestershire

salt and pepper

splash red wine for flavor (alcohol cooks off)

Into bowl crumble rice cakes and dampen with water and smash up. (use just enough water to soak rice)- let sit until mushy.

When rice is soft add meats and spices w/onion and egg product-combine well. Roll into balls and bake @ 350 for approx 30-45 minutes or until cooked through (depends on size of balls rolled). Remove meatballs and make gravy with drippings. Into hot drippings add 3-4 tbsp rice flour and stir into a roux- brown for a few seconds to remove flour taste. Slowly add 2 cups stock whisking constantly. Season with salt and pepper and heat until thickened and smooth (if lumps form you can strain). Add wine if using and additional seasoning as needed. Put meatballs back into sauce and heat through.

Served over rice fusilli and thrilled a party full of non-safe eaters.

Safe Nut Bread

2010-01-30T13:44:00.000-08:00

I've been bragging all week about being a postapocalyptic homesteader's dream wife - I can make bread from anything! - so today I'll bake a killer loaf and redeem my internal doubts about said bragging.

1 c teff
1/2 c amaranth flour
1/4 c sorghum flour

1/2 c ground hazelnuts
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
2 egg's worth EnergE egg replacer
1 1/2 c plain goat yogurt
1/4 c canola oil
1/4 c walnut oil

Preheat oven to 375F. Grease medium bread pan with oil. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl and then make a well in the center. Add eggs, yogurt, and oil to the center and combine them before folding into the rest of the dry ingredients. Pour or spoon batter into your bread pan. Bake for half an hour or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for a few minutes before removing from pan, and then cool on a wire rack.

Results? A bit too crumbly, but utterly delicious. Light. Crunchy edges. Rich flavor. Next time? Perhaps I'll add some agave for moisture, and another fake egg for assemblage.

It's Been Months

2010-01-30T13:20:00.000-08:00

There was Christmas. Cheating. Bronchitis. Varied bowel disasters (Magnesium!) and pleasant surprises (no consequences after a Chick Fil-A breakfast biscuit). Disheartening trial and error baking errors. Marvelously beautiful life distractions. And now I'm going to make myself some bread.

New tack:
Fuck the wacky specifics from Wangen's blood work. I'm eating pineapple and garlic and asparagus and tomatoes.
Gluten, sugar, processed foods, yeast, dairy that isn't from goats - all still clearly not the best idea, and therefore out with exception of celebratory cheating.

Black Friday breakfast feast

2009-11-28T17:01:00.000-08:00

My turn to cook, so pancakes were up for breakfast. Using my favorite mix (with seltzer for the water, of course) and adding in sliced bananas and chopped toasted walnuts. I also made some unsafe french toast from yesterday's baguette, much appreciated by my bread-eating visitors (classic french toast recipe, with maple sugar granules embedded in the bread).

Thanksgiving!

2009-11-28T16:27:00.000-08:00

The Balls (the Itinerant Eater and her charming younger sister) came to indulge me with a lovingly prepared safe Thanksgiving feast.

The chef is a vegetarian, so rather than feasting on a turkey of our own, I swooped some spare bird from my loving Minnesotan coworker, who overestimated her turkey poundage and scheduled her meal earlier in the day. Looks a little worse for the roadtrip, but it was moist and delicious (Samantha brined it like a good girl, and took Elton Brown's carving tips).

In lieu of turkey as the main course, we had stuffed squash. The containers were lovingly harvested by our Colombian farmer friend Juan Jacobo and traveled cross-country in the chef's backpack. She created a marvelous rice and nut filling, with goat cheddar and wild rice and who knows what else to culminate in this heavy and satisfying main course:

Sage and Nut-Stuffed Delicata Squash (modified from The Garden of Eating's recipe)
Serves 4 as a side dish or 2 as a main dish

Ingredients

* 2 delicata squashes, halved length-wise and seeded
* 2 Tbsps fresh sage,chopped
* 1/3 cup lightly toasted pinenuts, chopped
* 1/3 cup lightly toasted almonds,chopped
* 1/2 cup cooked short-grain brown rice (I usually cook the rice in some vegetable broth for added flavor)
* 2 eggs, beaten (use organic, pasture-raised if you can get 'em) - replaced with EnerG fake egg
* 1/4 cup goat cheddar cheese
* 2 medium onions, finely chopped
* 4 cloves of garlic, minced
* 2 Tbsps olive oil
* Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add onions, garlic, and salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are soft, about 3 minutes. Stir in sage and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Stir in nuts. Set aside.

2. In a large bowl, combine the rice, eggs, parmesan and half of the cheddar cheese. Stir in the nut and onion mixture. Divide the stuffing among the squash halves, sprinkle with the rest of the cheddar cheese, and bake until tender when pierced with a fork and tops are browning, about 45 minutes.
The only recipe I brought to the table was a white trash finger food that required some convincing and modification to be acceptable to the chef. We used beets instead of cranberries in this festive favorite (goat cheese, walnuts, chopped beets all nested in fresh endive leaves). I loved it, and gladly wound up with a spare bowl o' filling I'll be reusing for days.

The unsafe eaters of the group desserted on a classic pumpkin pie, while I enjoyed another fresh espresso and some rest to digest a delicious meal.

Safe Comfort roots

2009-11-05T19:27:00.000-08:00

Goat milk is bomb - enabled me to make perfect mashed potatoes (a little expensive olive oil, salt, white pepper, goat's milk) to go along with my purple carrots (with their orange cousins, sauteed in walnut oil with a bit of turmeric). Cozy.

Cauliflower!

2009-11-03T20:08:00.000-08:00

Pumpkin pie is possible!

2009-11-02T20:47:00.000-08:00

Thank you Flying Apron.

Safe Pumpkin nut bread

2009-10-27T21:37:00.000-07:00

Happy autumn. This bread is seriously delicious. Especially warm and smothered in goat butter. (I've been nuking slices at work and making folks jealous with the wonderful smell.)

Ingredients:
3/4 cup bean flour
3/4 cup rice flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoons baking soda
1-1/2 teaspoons xanthan gum
1 cups pureed cooked or canned pumpkin
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup corn oil (or other vegetable oil)
1/4 cup water
2 eggs' worth of Ener-G egg replacer

Directions:
Grease and flour loaf pan. Stir together flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and spices.

Stir together pumpkin, corn oil and water, add egg substitute (mixed with warm water per the instructions on the box) .

Make a well in center of flour mixture, add pumpkin mixture and stir.

Pour into prepared pan and bake for 1 hour at 325 degrees.

Modified from recipe found here.

Safe Bison shepherd's pie

2009-10-27T21:22:00.001-07:00

Who knew shepherds ate bison?

I just needed a break

2009-10-27T21:16:00.000-07:00

Turns out my post of despair was the 50th post on this blog. Perfectly reasonable to think a girl would require a break and a change of focus after 50 diet-dedicated meditations.

Nine days of diet without conviction (and a reinvigorated job, and the creation of a band - The Stickers - and some serious good times rolling) later, I'm cooking and excited about it, so it's back to the Lactator.

Almost 2 months, and I've had enough

2009-10-18T21:44:00.000-07:00

I cheated on Saturday and ate eggs and french toast. And somehow had the best gut day I've had in months! No nasty symptoms, all party fun times at the garage rock fest in Portland. And more energy from food than I've felt since starting this thing. Thursday's the official 8-week ending, and I'll be damned if the fucking fasting will suddenly start feeling beneficial between now and then.

Perhaps the prescription for wellness is just PARTY.

Safe Ginger cookies

2009-10-08T21:55:00.000-07:00

Recipe found on The Vegan Chef, but improved by my fuckup of thinking all Ts, ts, and tees were made equal. Imagine, that much baking powder, that much ginger! Well, it worked out beautifully, so I'm feeding you all the Ts as tablespoons. These fuckers are delicious.

2 cups brown rice flour
1/2 cups arrowroot, plus extra for rolling out cookies
2 cups teff flour
2 T. baking powder
2 T. baking soda
2 T. cinnamon
1 T. ground ginger
1 t. salt
1/2 T. ground nutmeg
1/2 T. ground cloves
1 1/2 cups maple sugar granules
1/2 cup applesauce
1/3 cup safflower oil
1/3 cup honey
2 T. vanilla
safflower oil, for oiling cookie sheets

In a small bowl, stir together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, salt, nutmeg, and cloves, and set aside. In a medium bowl, place the remaining ingredients, and stir to combine. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir well to combine. Cover the bowl, place it in the refrigerator, and chill the dough for 1 hour or more. Using a little safflower oil, lightly oil (or mist with oil) two non-stick cookie sheets and set aside. Sprinkle a little arrowroot over a work surface. Divide the chilled dough into quarters, work with only one quarter of the dough at a time, and keep the remaining dough covered and chilled until needed. Working in batches, roll out the quarter of dough to 1/4-inch thickness, and cut into desired shapes with cookie cutters. Carefully transfer the cut cookies to the prepared cookie sheet. Bake them at 350 degrees for 6 minutes (the cookies will feel slightly soft to the touch). Allow them to cool on the cookie sheets for 3 minutes before transferring them to a rack to cool completely. Repeat the rolling and cutting-out procedure for the remaining cookie dough. Store the cookies in an airtight container.

Safe Stew

2009-10-08T21:42:00.000-07:00

I stocked up on root vegetables at the cheap Beacon Hill produce stand today - $11 for all the root vegetables a stew could ask for, the bushiest celery stalks I've ever seen, bananas, grapefruits, and a cantaloupe. Impressive.

I haven't made a stew since cutting V8 and all tomato out of my diet, so this should be an interesting challenge. Hard to go wrong, though, with slow-cooked meat and root veggies.

The plan includes:
1 rutabaga
1 parsnip
1 beet (giant)
2 baker's potatoes
celery
carrots (yellow and orange)
white onion
1lb cubed stew meat

To season:
turmeric
lemon
cloves
bouillon
arrowroot for thickening

Feel free to give some advice. I'm planning to make this Saturday, so I'll be stewing over the possibilities until then...

Safe Chocolate banana walnut cookies

2009-10-08T21:36:00.000-07:00

These turned out a bit cakier than I might have liked, but they were delicious and sweet and perfect crumbled in rice cream for a succulent dessert. Inspired by some weird health cookie recipe a friend saw on Real Housewives of New Jersey.

1c buckwheat flour
1/4c cocoa powder

2 rotten bananas
1/3c vegetable oil
1/3c agave nectar
1tsp vanilla extract

1/2c crushed walnuts

Whisk dry ingredients in one bowl. Whisk wet ingredients well in another, breaking up the banana. Add wet to dry. Mix in crushed walnuts. Bake 20 minutes at 350.

Safe Sick Kid Dinner

2009-10-08T21:12:00.000-07:00

Mashed potatoes and spinach.

Mashed Potatoes
7 leftover cherry potatoes (from Trader Joe's)
parsley
1/4c goat's milk

Boil potatoes in goat's milk with parsley pulled from stems. When warm, mash with a fork.

Sautee spinach. Drain water, drizzle with expensive olive oil, salt, pepper.

Safe Butternut Squash Penne

2009-10-07T21:26:00.000-07:00

It's neither mac n' cheese nor squash ravioli in a brown butter sauce, but it's delicious and perfect paired with peas.

Rice penne
2 jars butternut squash baby food
1/2 shallot, minced
olive oil, cheap + expensive
salt + pepper
chopped walnuts

Sautee onions in cheap olive oil until translucent. Add baby food, walnuts. Cook down to a paste. Cook and drain rice pasta. Coat penne in sauce, drizzle expensive olive oil over top, salt, white pepper.

Safe Pork chops

2009-10-05T17:10:00.001-07:00

Delicious, simple pork chop dinner. Made and left in the oven while fetching a loved one from the airport, this made for a perfect and genuinely safe latenight dinner.

Pork chops patted dry and coated in salt, pepper, and a dash of turmeric. Browned on the stovetop, then baked at 350 for 20 minutes until cooked through (but not dry).

Potatotes boiled, drizzled in expensive olive oil, salt, pepper. Broccoli rabe sautéed then given the same treatment. I dipped my pork in apple sauce.

Midpoint check-in

2009-10-05T15:49:00.000-07:00

It's been just over a month (okay, so after my long break from blogging it's actually been over 6 weeks) - time to check in and see just how this diet is working out so far. I'm committed to following my bloodwork strictly for two months before starting to experiment. The doctor insists it takes two months of detox before any real results are expected.

So far, the results don't look great.

Weight
I lost 10 pounds since my last visit to the GI - 6 months ago, so not necessarily all diet-related. But there's no question the thighs and ass of my jeans are looser today than they were in July.

Appearance
I've got the Somali child gut going - distension ain't pretty. And the waistbands of the same pants are feeling tight and uncomfortable, particularly after eating.

Guts
I've never been so gassy in my life. Significant bloating after each meal and also upon an empty stomach. Rollercoaster diarrhea-to-constipation excitement (0-12 BMs/day). Achy left side pretty constantly, with occasional cramping. Inspired by my Excel artistry for work, I'm going to start collecting some BM data and see if I can trace any patterns.

Nausea
Overall not too bad. Worst on an empty stomach (nothing new there) and while in transit. Generally consistent with pre-diet recent history.

Joints
My neck and shoulders have required all the special attention (stretching, self-massage, heat, chiropractor visits, yoga) they've ever required before, with no notable improvements. Hips and wrists still require the same 20 minutes or so to loosen up in the morning if I expect range of motion. In other words, no notable difference from pre-diet.

Blood
Waiting on some general lab results from my recent GI visit. I feel just as nourished/malnourished as I did before - in other words, my intuition seems entirely unrelated to any cause and effect scenarios. A number of previously illegal foods have taken center stage on this new diet (beans, raw fruit, vegetables, nuts), and all of my safe go-tos from prior diets are out (bread, eggs, noodles, chicken soup). I've moved through the LOST diet and can now claim to have a balanced diet, but there's no question I've thrown some wrenches into the works with the extreme changes. More when Dr. Lee gets back to me with details...and more still IF I decide to spend more $$$ to check back in with Dr. Wangen on the food allergy front.

Safe Rosemary Rwanda Lo Bro, or Safe Broiled Rosemary London Broil

2009-09-24T20:11:00.000-07:00

Chanterelle, got a pretty smell. (musk + rosemary + blood)

Love hands tenderize raw meat. (salt, pepper, walnut oil)

If a girl can't eat food, she eats STEAK. ($7 london broil, broiled, with shallots)

Safe Bread, nutty

2009-09-19T10:10:00.000-07:00

Trying my first modification of this bread recipe today to have nourishment to bring to the Gnome Dome in Doe Bay. Folding in seeds and nuts.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups potato starch
1 cup brown rice flour
1 cup besan (chickpea flour) OR maize flour (corn flour, not corn starch!)
1/2 cup tapioca starch (arrowroot)
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons baking powder
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons xantham gum (optional, but it really does help reduce crumbling in the final product)

2 cups water
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoons blackstrap molasses
2 tablespoons apple cidar vinegar
water, extra, as needed

Optional:
pepitas/pumpkin seeds
poppy seeds
sunflower seeds
sesame seeds
LSA meal

Method
1. Preheat oven to 210degC (400degF).
2. Sift together the flours, starch, salt, gum, baking soda, and baking powder. Stir with a whisk until well combined. (Most important step – make sure everything is sifted and well combined!).
3. Whisk together oil, 2 cups water, molasses, and apple cidar vinegar in a small bowl.
4. Quickly add wet ingredients to dry (so the oil stays evenly dispersed), stirring together with a big spoon. Add more water as required, until you get a very thick, evenly mixed batter. Do not overmix. (If you use maize flour instead of besan, you will require more water, and it will take a bit longer to combine).
5. Fold in some seeds/extras. I usually toss in about 2-5 tablespoons of pepitas, LSA, and sesame seeds. (Flax meal seems to impede rising, so avoid adding that. For rye-style bread, try adding caraway seeds.)
6. Pour mix into oiled bread pan. Sprinkle top of loaf with seeds (optional), and lightly spray with oil.
7. Cover bread pan with foil, and bake in a preheated oven for 60 minutes. Remove foil, and bake another 10 minutes, or until top is brown. Test loaf with a skewer or knife to make sure it’s done.
8. Cool in pan briefly, before turning out onto a wire rack to cool. For best results, store in the refrigerator and slice off pieces as you need it.

Bread-making afterthoughts

2009-09-13T12:46:00.000-07:00

So the bread was delicious. It smelled up Samantha's house, and we took it out and it had risen! - but alas, it soon fell...

Sliced with peach jam (homemade - sauteed peaches, pectin, ground pecans), sandwiched around sliced turkey and mustard, sliced with goat butter (which gave me gas - still no goat dairy for me, sadly). Versatile, delicious, savory bread. Now I just need to get dedicated and make myself a loaf each weekend to carry through the week.

Safe Baking 101, with Samantha from Minnesota

2009-09-11T19:38:00.000-07:00

My lovely coworker and friend bakes well, and is calm in the kitchen, and curious about chemistry, and so we're baking together tomorrow. The recipes:

Gluten-Free, Egg-Free, Soy-Free (Vegan, Even!) Thumbprint Cookies

To buy: pecans, maple sugar granules, teff flour
Results: delicious, unbearably sweet (less maple syrup next time...), kept well, and were even well loved by those unafflicted by food allergies

Recipe (from Aprovechar):

Gluten-Free, Egg-Free, Soy-Free Thumbprint Cookies

1/2 cup pecan butter
2 T. oil
2 cups of ground hazlenuts (thanks, Samantha, for owning a food processor)
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. teff flour
1/3 c. maple syrup
1 Tbsp. pure maple sugar granules (may omit if you can’t find them)
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
jam and/or fruit preserves and/or marmalade (we whipped up some homemade jam out of fresh peaches and pectin)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Mix together all the ingredients except for the last one. Taste dough to check salt level, adding more if desired.

Roll dough into balls, and put the balls on a cookie sheet ~2 in. apart from one another.

Press a dent into the center of each cookie. Fill each dent with preserves.

Bake 18-20 minutes. (Let the cookies cool at least five minutes before trying to remove them from the pan. The jelly will probably burn your mouth for the first 10 minutes or so after they come out of the oven.)

Yeast-free gluten-free bread, v.1.0.

To buy: potato starch, chickpea flour/besan, xanthan gum
Results: surprisingly delicious, light, crispy crusted, multifunctional - overall inspiring

Follow link above for the recipe. I'm beginning to think the garbanzo flour used here is causing me gas, so look forward to a trial and error baking using this recipe with a different alt flour.

Thank You, Bakeman's

2009-09-08T20:25:00.000-07:00

Bakeman's serves the best turkey sandwich in Seattle. My regular, pre-Food Allergies, was 1/2 white on wheat with cran, mayo, lettuce and a cup of split pea soup. I've avoided the spot since starting my diet for fear of an emotional breakdown. Today, I was ready to waltz in and find some way to eat their fresh sliced turkey.

I asked if there was some sort of salad option with just turkey, and learned of what they call "the low-cal." Lettuce with shredded cabbage and carrots with sliced turkey on top. Exactly. I chose honey mustard dressing, which tasted safely of cheap mustard and cheap honey and not much else. And I decided the split pea can't possibly harm me - worst case scenario there's a flour roux involved at some point to get it to its perfect thickness, but doubtful.

And, naturally, it was perfect. I ate in the sunshine and strolled through the market on my way back to my desk for some $5 flowers to brighten my office week.

Safe Coconut Macaroons

2009-09-07T19:35:00.001-07:00

I modified a recipe found on the Celiac website to substitute agave nectar for sugar. Trial and error baking:

First batch burned on the bottom, so I made the second batch smaller (1/2-inch instead of 1-inch balls) and moved the tray higher in the oven.

First batch wasn't quite sweet enough - they'll be split and smeared with unsweetened berry jam procured at Pike Place yesterday and creamed honey - so I pressed in the tops of the second batch and put a drop of honey in the middle of each little ball. Much better.

Safe Moroccan Chicken Tagine

2009-09-06T22:51:00.000-07:00

I bought a marvelous tagine in Marrakesh, from Mohammed Fish n' Chips, a toothless fiery pusher-of-all-things, 3+ years ago. It's served as all kinds of things since then (holder of earrings, kitchen secrets, and most recently a 45 Sculpture), but not once per its dedicated purpose. It was a chilly wet day here in Seattle, so I decided it was time to test its abilities. Proof positive: it's not a decorative souvenir - it's an efficient and elegant cooking vessel.

I based my ingredients solely on what was around, so it became another purple meal. I imagine I'll try hundreds of variations on this theme now that I know how quick and satisfying tagines can be.

1 chicken breast
turmeric
cumin
cinammon
salt
pepper
yellow carrots
carrots
1 baked purple potato
1/2 shallot, sliced
dates
olive oil
honey

Heat oven to 375. Cut chicken into cubes and roll in spices - I just sprinkled each liberally straight into a bowl, shook it around, and coated the chicken. Brown on one side, uncovered in the oven. Turn over, cover in water, add vegetables (save for the potato), cover, and bake for about 30 minutes. Remove lid, add sliced baked potato and some honey, and cook uncovered for another 10 minutes. Stir and serve.

Thanks to the Itinerant Eater for reminding me to eat by my wanderlust.

Celebratory cheating, take 1

2009-09-06T22:41:00.000-07:00

It was a birthday party. At a magnificent Italian restaurant (Via Tribunali, in Capitol Hill). And I made it through the meal itself without a single unsafe bite. I ate lovely olives, a green salad with sliced olives and shaved ham, lightly dressed, and prosciutto e melone (a personal favorite; and yes, there HAD to be garlic in the olives' past...and maybe balsamic vinegar, derived from illegal grapes, in the light dressing). And treated myself to a weak scotch and soda to salute the birthday boy (man - 30). All was well and joyful.

His mother made a cake.

Could you imagine a more appropriate first mistress? A layer of chocolate cake with buttercream chocolate frosting. A layer, formed using a Dora the Explorer cake tin, of fluffy yellow cake. Wall-eyes and an excellent air of death. The waitress brought out an enormous kitchen machete.

When it was my turn to slice into the skull, an evil laugh rose up from my belly (MWAh-ha-ha-ha-haaaa) and I knew I'd be choosing not only to touch that cake to my tongue, but to dig in, eat a slice, enjoy both layers, and do so knowing cheating with those particular intentions (joy, friendship, death-awareness, guttural comic desire) couldn't possibly be of harm.

Spiritual Soda

2009-09-06T12:47:00.001-07:00

Cutting sugar means cutting soda. All soda. Even the elegant brands (Dry, Fentimans, etc.) have cane sugar, so it's time for me to invent a substitute.

Blending this need with the witchcraft that's been making so much sense of late, I came up with the following initial foray into spiritual soda bottling. I've now passed some off as a perfect 30th birthday gift and watched them achieve their intended effects. (I also had a lovely day tweaking the combinations - taste tests over the relative grace of one glass over another with perfect Seattle rain accompaniment.)

Grace
lavender
chamomile
rose congou
fresh seltzer

Power
dragon weed
mutah white
honey
fresh seltzer

Peace
scullcap
chamomile
honey
fresh seltzer

Dragon Killer
yerba mate
dragon weed
rose congou
agave nectar
fresh seltzer

I make distilled teas of each herb, adding honey/agave to the earthiest while hot, then chill the jars and mix and match the potions, using about 1 part potion to 4 parts seltzer from my amazing seltzer machine. Mason jars hold the carbonation surprisingly well.

For the birthday gift incarnation, I also threw in a little jar of my perfect chocolate pudding as a potion for pleasure.

Safe Purple pork and potatoes

2009-09-06T12:35:00.001-07:00

A lovely square meal made for 1 to close a long hard week.

1 pork chop
1/2 shallot
splash of olive oil
1 purple potato (set to baking as soon as I got home, allowing it a good hour plus of hot oven time)
1 broccoli stalk

I always feel best when my plate has sections for the elements - meat, vegetable, starch - and this diet has really enhanced that love. Had a lovely chat at work with a couple men who cook about sauce, and shallots came up. What a perfect garlic replacement! Sautee the shallots in oil until they're translucent. Sear the pork chop in their pan. Remove pork once seared and transfer to the hot oven for 10 minutes or so to cook through. The potato will be well baked by the time you throw the pork in the oven. Take this opportunity to remove its tin foil and get its elegant purple skin crisped. Steam the broccoli. Drizzle on some expensive extra virgin olive oil (I bought Merula, from Spain, primarily for the elegant raven on its tin can), salt, pepper. Burst open the potato and give it the same treatment. Stir your oil-shallot "sauce" and pour over pork. Revel in the purple of it all.

Recommended context: cook with Grizzly Bear's Friend EP spinning on the turntable, a fat joint at the ready, a Peace spiritual soda on the counter (see soda recipe), and plans for a fire on the beach to honor a full and glorious moon.

PERFECT Safe Chocolate Pudding

2009-09-05T19:15:00.000-07:00

1 can coconut milk
1/3 cup tapioca (I bought organic gluten-free)
1/2 cup agave nectar
1/8 cup cocoa powder (E. Guittard unsweetened rare red dutch processed cocoa powder for baking nad hot chocolate - thanks, Guittardo)

Stir coconut milk and tapioca in a saucepan. Simmer and whisk consistently for 12 minutes. Take off heat and whisk in the agave and cocoa powder. Refrigerator to room temperature. Stir and serve. Utterly delicious. Sugar-free, gluten-free, dairy-free. Impressive.

So good I made a second batch before washing the supplies...

Early September Lost Diet blues

2009-09-04T16:12:00.000-07:00

It's been a tough week. Grumpy from gut aches, frequent bathroom visits, and constant work stress, I've had a very hard time rising up to the positive place I need to be in to survive this diet. A few hours of yoga (Ki, my magnificent teacher, is back from her summer hiatus), a couple sunsets, a fantastic rock show (The Woods), and some power mustering later, I'm floating through the end of a long work week into a long workless weekend. And so the blogging continues, and the righteousness returns.

Today's simple realizations:

1. Calbee Snapea Crisps are my new favorite "junk" food. (Baked. Salted. Puffed pea pods. $1 on sale at my Emerald Smoothie joint.)

2. The ladies at Tenoche, my favorite Mexican spot near work, are beautiful. (Grilled fish with white rice, black beans, and sliced avocado for lunch.)

3. The diet I've been doing so far is officially the Lost Diet: all fruit and coconut. No frigging wonder I've got traveler's diahrrea. At least I don't have fellow humans out to get me...or wait, isn't that what coworkers are for? Time for savory and highly civilized additions.

4. The most civilized addition of all? Sauces! This weekend will be focused on mastering sauces I can prepare, digest, use to spice up meat and rice, and store for easy meal prep on worn-out weeknights.

Thanks to all the beautiful people who love me enough to see that my grumpiness is all about physiology.

Safe Summer Root Mash

2009-08-31T21:39:00.000-07:00

Delicious, light summer root mash. Apparently, the colors of this diet are white, yellow, and orange.
1 bag grape potatoes (found at Trader Joe's in a little yellow bag)
handful of organic yellow peeled carrots
handful of orange peeled carrots
sliced ginger
olive oil
salt
white pepper

Boil your roots. Add oil, salt, pepper. Mash with a fork. Enjoy alone, or as a side dish, or (now this is exciting!) spread over some ground beef and onions and bake into a Shepherd's Pie. Perhaps that's the destiny of these leftovers...

The Great Yeast Famine of 2009

2009-08-31T21:08:00.001-07:00

So my acupuncturist thinks my bile nausea, bloating, fatigue, and neck-eye spasms might mean the candida are dying off. I've been depriving them of the yeast and sugars they thrive on. Interestingly, Wikipedia chooses to belittle my dear Angie. A quote:

Candida is accorded responsibility for symptoms as specific as hay fever, as vague as "brain fog" and as common as weight gain or flatulence. These symptoms are attributed by alternative medicine practitioners to the "overgrowth" of intestinal candida albicans, which they claim leads to the spread of the yeast to other parts of the body via the bloodstream.

Well, if my candida die off and with them go the brain fogs and eye spasms and blind spots and bilial nausea, perhaps I'll muster the nerd power to counter this judgmental crowdsourcing with a voice from the alt med choir.

Safe Dirt Carrot Date Muffins

2009-08-29T21:04:00.000-07:00

Gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free carrot, date, buckwheat groat muffins (modified from http://stanford.wellsphere.com/celiac-disease-article/cinnamon-carrot-muffins-gluten-free/304885 to suit my needs). Not entirely successful - middles are still pretty wet, overall taste is kind of dirty, edges are burnt. And by "not entirely successful" I mean "taste so much like dirt that they're now gracefully topping off my compost bin."

Recipe

1 cup sweet rice flour
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
1/4 cup buckwheat groats
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp baking soda (someone tell me if this is dangerous? there's some cornstarch in there...)
1 cup grated carrot
2/3 cup coconut milk
2 tsp tapioca granules
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup agave syrup
1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit (next time I'll try a cooler oven, perhaps 375) and place 12 silicone muffin cups on a cookie sheet.

2. Simmer the coconut milk and tapioca for 12 minutes, stirring. Allow to sit while you put together the other ingredients.

3. In a large bowl, dump in the dry ingredients + carrots and stir together.

4. In a medium sized bowl, whisk together wet ingredients.

5. Pour the liquid mixture into the carrot flour mixture and stir. Take care not to over mix the ingredients. Then spoon the muffin batter into the 12 muffin cups.

6. Bake at 425 degrees for 12 minutes or until golden brown.

Safe Summer Squash Curry Noodles

2009-08-29T20:59:00.000-07:00

Threw together a very satisfying dinner tonight - colorful, seasonal, simple.

Rice spaghetti

1 can coconut milk
1/2 tsp green curry paste
julienned yellow squash
julienned white onions
shredded carrots
salt
white pepper

Sautee everything together for about 10 minutes. Stir in cooked rice noodles and serve.

Next time: add basil, chicken

Buying pancake mix was an excellent decision

2009-08-29T12:19:00.000-07:00

Today I used hemp milk in place of water and sliced in fresh bananas and chopped walnuts. Rich, nourishing, delicious.

Spot on after a late-night sushi feast prepared by a friend with awareness of my diet and my first brave foray into fearless raw fish eating, sleeping in too late to hit the DMV for my Washington state driver's license (which will not only cost money but also require a test!), reading a horoscope that says though my day may be an 8 I better avoid what's outside and watch my back, and finally allowing myself to read for pleasure, in bed, after over a month of headache-induced avoidance. Banana walnut pancakes, cedar incense, Djuna Barnes, Bill Callahan on the turntable - sounds like a prescription for Seattle's first rainy Saturday in months.

Safe Hydroponic Steak Salad

2009-08-27T21:07:00.000-07:00

Delicious.

George Foremaned steak
avocado
radishes
hydroponic butter lettuce (seriously)

Dressed to the 9s:
fresh lemon
apple cider vinegar
$14 olive oil
white pepper
salt
pinch of cumin

One for today, one for tomorrow. Leftover elegance.

So long as I keep finding lettuce this alive and meat this perfectly Foremaned and avocados so intensely ripe and so long as my dressing shaking in jam jars continues to naturally flow sans recipe this whole foodless diet will be just fine. And with some natty dub on the turntable and a salty swim in my hair and a balance beam beach walk driving me forwards.

Thank You, Trader Joes

2009-08-27T20:01:00.000-07:00

For the junk food!

Work has been a challenge this week - no Bakeman's turkey-cran sandwich to look forward to, no Twix at 2:30, no saltines for my queasy belly. So I went to Trader Joe's before yoga last night and blew $60 on safe junk food. My scores:

Larabar (cashew and cherry pie)
dried apricots
cashews
salted green bean chips
perfect bananas
sweet potato chips
dark chocolate almond bar ("low carb" by Simply Lite)

I also picked up some proper food that will come in handy, like steaks and sliced roast beast and herbed goat cheese and mini white potatos. Unfortunately, the fake butter mom recommended has soy in it and I only thought to buy one chocoloate bar - I sense frequent trips to Trader Joe's in my future.

Depressing, less

2009-08-25T21:07:00.001-07:00

Depressing

2009-08-25T21:02:00.001-07:00

Safe Buttered Noodles

2009-08-24T19:39:00.001-07:00

Also known as rice fusilli with olive oil and a frozen basil cube (thanks, Trader Joe's), salt & pepper.

I'm feeling super sick today, perhaps because of too few calories and too much activity yesterday (hiked to Scenic Hot Springs on nothing but the morning's pancakes), or perhaps it's the diet fade-in, or the period fade-in. Poor body, that's plenty to deal with.

So I needed some simple comfort food. Easy to make, easy to digest. And the result? Nearly as delicious as semolina fusilli with rich fresh butter and garlic.

Safe Buckwheat Strawberry Pancakes

2009-08-23T13:36:00.000-07:00

Thank you, Cravings Place. Your pancake mix was delicious - added seltzer instead of flat water to lighten things up, griddled in vegetable oil, and pressed sliced strawberries in while they were cooking, then served with delicious maple syrup. Perfect Sunday breakfast.

Majical powers

2009-08-22T23:40:00.000-07:00

You know you're wondering
Wherever will she find the power?

MAJIC

Amulet for the power of transcendental transformation of self and spirit.

Six days of majic, one day of rest:

1 - Green sea glass, CLARITY
2 - Gold light bulb, $$INGENUITY$$
3 - Sage from smudge, EARTHWEIGHT
4 - Jade and twine knot, WISE ENTANGLEMENT
5 - Match tip, SPIRIT FIRE
6 - Ultram, PHARMALEVITY

I've just started a mixed media book for this year entitled THE INTERNAL ECOLOGY OF G—. Look for it at a majic shop near you in fall 2010.

Keygraphics

2009-08-22T22:34:00.000-07:00

MAT pins FOOD ALLERGIES to the FRIDGE

Safe Curried Apple Chicken with Art School Rice

2009-08-22T21:16:00.000-07:00

Found this recipe at http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/2009/08/curried-apple-chicken-stir-fry-recipe.html and it looked delicious, so I tried it. Minor changes: dates for raisins (allergic to grapes means allergic to raisins!), no garlic, added a splash of coconut milk to try and make it richer. Not bad, but definitely not as delicious as the arty title and enticing photo led me to believe...I'll definitely try more of Karina's recipes though. They're simpler than many of the other gluten-free options I can find online.

Karina's version:

My version:

Safe Coconut Rice Pudding

2009-08-22T12:42:00.001-07:00

2 cans of rice milk
2 cups of water
half a bear of honey (extracted with a butter knife)
1/2 c jasmine rice, rinsed
cinnamon and vanilla to taste

Simmering this up right now...way more practical than pancakes given the contents of my pantry. I'm so buying pancake mix. But pudding is a natural breakfast selection, and can be adorned with strawberries, which I have. (Based on a recipe found a recipezaar.com, with substitutions.)

Results: watery, not so much pudding as a loose rice cereal. Will still be my primary source of breakfast for the week.

Next time: stir more? less coconut milk?

. . .

Note to self: Do NOT write blog while cooking. Pudding boiled over and made a glorious sound. Caught it before it made an inglorious mess.

It's On

2009-08-22T11:55:00.000-07:00

Day after my birthday, and I'm soggy with the birthday love hangover, gut sick from an extravagantly unsafe dinner (Italian, fancy, including 3 courses). Making coffee and poking around the internet to find an easier buckwheat pancake recipe...

START STRONG

Safe American

2009-08-20T20:19:00.000-07:00

Steak, marinated in oil, vinegar, ginger, lime, pepper
Yellow sweet potatos, sort of peeled and mashed with olive oil, salt, pepper
String beans sauteed in garlic with salt and pepper

Hint for life: salt and pepper and olive oil. They make dinner.

The residue of the feast:

Countdown to official foodlessness

2009-08-20T20:12:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is my birthday, and the official fade in. Come Saturday, the start of Ramadan, I'll be fasting in the whitest possible way. Though I'm allergic to the body of Christ, so this is no Catholic Ramadan.

Unsafe Coke

***Breaking News***
"Do you know Jesus" says a 14-year-old black boy in the pop-up ad that just caught me. What's the product?

Zooey Deschanel is allergic to food too!

2009-08-19T18:53:00.000-07:00

And she's hot!

I'm more gangster, though, cause I eat MEAT.

www.bravotv.com/top-chef-masters/season-1/dietary-restrictions

Trial and Error: Safe blackened filet of sole with avocado salad and Spanish rice

2009-08-17T21:38:00.000-07:00

Error.
Looks delicious, right?

Not. Mouth-burningly salty. And still somehow boring. Blech. A nice palate cleansing cup of rose congou tea should help, and perhaps a dessert of creamed honey on a rice cake?

Lessons:

never follow a recipe for seasoning (2 tsps salt! too much!)
don't use broth as the only liquid for rice (too much salt!)
most broth has sugar in it, and corn solids, and yeast - read labels carefully...
it's hard to blacken without garlic (or a Cajun uncle)
radishes alone are not a proper palate cleanser

Safe Summer Pancakes

2009-08-17T13:56:00.001-07:00

The ideas are flooding in. Thanks to JMB for this possible gem (look forward to trying these Saturday morning to usher in the official diet days).

Caipirinha Pancakes

Pancake mix [substitute buckwheat for bisquick crap?]**
Limes [I assume these are OK since lemons are]
Regular old sugar [replace with preferred sweetener. If you use honey, mix with lime juice before applying to pancakes]

Pancakes with maple syrup is a breakfast fit for the winter, before you go out lumberjacking and whatnot. This version of pancakes is better fit for the summer…for weekend days you might spend at the beach. Very light and delicious and full of vitamin C.

How to do it:
1. Make some pancakes!
2. Put the pancakes on your plate!
3. Sprinkle granulated sugar on top of the pancakes you just put on the plate. Some people like more sugar than others.
4. Squeeze about half a lime’s worth of juice over a plate full of sugary pancakes. This will dissolve some of the sugar.
5. Eat it up, go to the beach.

I'll have to make a mashup here, using, perhaps, this recipe found on Group Recipes:

Ingredients

1 cup buckwheat flour

1 tsp gluten and corn free baking powder

2 Tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

2 Tbsp potato starch

1 cup + a little more coconut milk

2 Tbsp olive oil

Directions

Heat the skillet to medium heat while you are preparing the batter. (You don't want the skillet too hot; due to the thickness of the batter, they take a little while longer to cook than regular pancakes, so too hot will result in burning the edges and a raw middle.)

Combine the dry ingredients.

Mix in the coconut milk and oil until the batter is smooth.

Make sure that the skillet is hot, water will sizzle and jump if you put just a drop on.

Pour pancakes to the size that you prefer. I use a serving spoon or a ladle to do this. Because this batter is thick, you may have to even out the cake with the back of your spoon, this also makes it difficult to get perfectly round cakes. .

When bubbles start forming around the edges, cover the cakes with a lid for thirty seconds to a minute; this will stiffen up the top of the batter just enough so it doesn't drizzle off when you flip it.

When the pancake has bubbles throughout, flip it. Depending on how thick your cake is, you might not get a lot of bubbles.

Cover with the lid again for at least part of the time, so that you ensure cooking throughout.

When cut, the cakes will be dense, but should not be sticky in the middle.

Serve and enjoy!

If you are making a larger batch to serve, you can put the cakes on a cookie sheet and cover with tin foil and keep them in an oven set to warm.

Safe Guacamole

2009-08-16T15:12:00.000-07:00

Avocado, schmeared on a rice cake, with salt.

Next time: Go to the store. Buy cilantro, and lemon. Mash (but don't pulverize) with a fork.

Before

2009-08-16T15:06:00.000-07:00

The sexy bodybuilder girl at work teases me that I'm going to get skinny.

This calls for before and after pictures.

Before:

Iced Americano with hazlenut milk

2009-08-16T13:45:00.000-07:00

Good texture, awfully nutty though. Tastes too much like flavored coffee. Time to seek out hemp milk. Rope is more coffeelike than any nut I've ever met...

Thank You, Fred Meyer

2009-08-16T13:08:00.001-07:00

Hit the jackpot yesterday at Fred Meyer. I went in for a gold Indiglo watch ( original lost on a redeye, and thankfully now replaced) and stumbled upon a goldmine of gluten free glory.

Their "Healthful Living" section offered cheap rice pasta (to keep favorite dishes like spaghetti with chicken and broccoli alive, albeit sans garlic), buckwheat flour (need a recipe for buckwheat pancakes/crepes without milk or eggs - suggestions?), rice cakes, and fresh almond butter (at a 3rd the cost I was expected from my Manhattan grocery experience). I also picked up some muffin and loaf tins for future experiments in safe baking.

Now I just need to clear out the inflamers and get some nice fresh fruits and vegetables to get my kitchen ready for the adventure.

And the real jackpot came from Goodwill:

An early 90s water resistant clock radio!

Friends Are Awesome

2009-08-16T13:02:00.000-07:00

The search for the best alternative milk is on.

Based on those I've polled (primarily Seattle coffeeslingers, who should know), the best milks that are derived from neither cow nor soy bean and that are available sugar-free are:

Human milk (unfortunately my lactation isn't sufficient to make a latte - any wet nurses in West Seattle up to the task?)
Hemp
Almond/Hazlenut
Rice

Foods I CAN Eat

2009-08-15T14:47:00.001-07:00

Meat
Fish
Rice
Potatoes
Olive oil
Vegetables (with the exception of garlic, tomatoes, asparagus, and corn and light on lettuce, onions, and peppers)
Almonds, filberts, walnuts
Buckwheat
Beans (except soy)
Coconut
Fruit (with the exception of pineapple, cranberries, grapes - light on peaches)
Goat's milk (maybe)
Honey, agave nectar, beet sugar (NO cane sugar or corn syrup)
Cocoa beans
Coffee (thank Christ)

The Bloodz

2009-08-15T13:07:00.000-07:00

I'm sick. I've been sick for years, and drugs and acupuncture and yoga and meditation and all the other glorious things I've tried haven't fixed me.

So I had food allergy testing done.

In color, these pages start turning danger orange around II, and are properly red by IV. In other words, all those bars you see below? Foods that cause me inflammation; foods the doctor calls "evil," but which I choose to instead just call "inflammatory."

The plan? Eliminate the inflamers from my diet, entirely, for two months. Beginning the day after my birthday. Which means I have exactly 7 days to prepare. And this will be no wussed-out weak approach to "elimination" dieting. Fuck that. This needs to be gangster. Food needs to be delicious and exciting - if I didn't care about taste I'd take in my calories through a tube.

Read the bloodz, post your suggestions - recipes, favorite products I can still eat, supportive feedback - and of course, anti-food allergist anger is welcome. Asshole thinks he can tell me eggs are evil...