New Year's Eve: Safe Swedish meatballs over noodles

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

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

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

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!

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

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!

Pumpkin pie is possible!

Thank you Flying Apron.

Safe Pumpkin nut bread

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

Who knew shepherds ate bison?

I just needed a break

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)