Our lovely cherry tomatoes

I have been enjoying the Tuesday Twister blog posts by Wardeh Harmon at Gnowfglins.com for the past few weeks or so ever since I found her website.   These blog posts have been a synopsis of her week in the kitchen and what has been twisting in her cooking.  I love reading them, mostly because she focuses on nourishing, whole foods!

Last week she announced her new Blog Carnival, the Tuesday Twister Carnival and her invitation to participate in the weekly postings.  I started thinking about doing this and then a couple days ago, inspiration struck I finally decided to give it a go.  I can’t promise I’ll do it every week, but we’ll see what happens.

My Meal Un-Plan

I started thinking about my week in the kitchen and what it is normally like during our busy days.  And what stood out to me the most was the fact that I hardly ever meal plan.

Okay, so I menu plan for my clients and I create different menu planners for different diets.  But I have to be honest with you.  Rarely do I plan my whole week in advance before I go to the store each week…which usually turns into 3 x a week visiting the store.

What usually happens is I look around in my refrigerator, freezer and pantry, think about what I’d like to make, then see what I can make with what I have.

Sometimes while I’m shopping I will get ingredients for something I have been wanting to make (like my tomatillo salsa) but oftentimes, dinner is a creative process of coming up with something new, yummy and healthy for the family.

Curried Chicken Salad with Coconut Milk

So this week’s menu which is gluten-free, dairy-free, legume free and I think soy-free…

Of course, the menu was created after the fact…

Tuesday: Garam Masala Lamb burgers and Sauteed Zucchini

Wednesday: Chicken Legs with Caramelized Onions, Basmati Rice and the Tomatillo Salsa I had made on monday.  My mom was having dinner with us and she loved it.

Thursday: We went to the Farmer’s Market and bought fresh produce.  But I didn’t much feel like cooking so I took some frozen dairy-free and gluten-free pizza out of the freezer that I had made.  We enjoyed it with fresh corn on the cob and watermelon.

Friday: I was craving Tortilla Lasagna, even though I knew the oven would heat up the house.  Made a special trip to the store for the ingredients, and made it with ground turkey, spinach, olives and tomato sauce.

Saturday: Made my first batch of Pot Pie muffins for Elijah.  We took them to Surreybrook Farms for an incredible outing.

For dinner:  Made Chicken Curried Salad and Baked Yukon Gold Potatoes.  I usually would add celery to this salad, as well as green onions, maybe even cherry tomatoes.  But I had none of these so I steamed some green beans, and cut them into 1-inch lengths and put them in the salad.  It was tasty.

Sunday: Made my second batch of Pot Pie Muffins.  I liked these much better.

Made the Chicken Salad again because my husband loved it so much and his parents came to visit.  Also finished off the last of the Tomatillo Salsa.

Monday: My husband made Wild Salmon and Sauteed Zucchini with Marjoram ( nice not to cook every now and then!)

Our first garden harvest (well besides the sugar snap peas):

Sunday was also a day of harvesting our first crop of potatoes.  My husband planted blue, yukon gold, and fingerling and he harvested some of the yukon and fingerling.

Yukon and Fingerling Potatoes from our garden

This week, our beautiful and big Kuri Squash plants became infected with a white mold.  We treated them with a garlic spray and some baking soda.  However, we don’t think they liked the baking soda because they started to wilt shortly after.  But at least we have received two beautiful Kuri Squash from the plants.  Here’s one with some wilty leaves:

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One of the two Kuri Squash

We ended up harvesting the squash on monday and getting rid of the dying plants.  We also discovered that our yellow (not red like we expected) cherry tomatoes were actually ripe and we enjoyed some of the first ones.  There was a few left for a picture with the squash.  (The zucchini is from my in-law’s garden.)

Kuri Squash with Yellow Tomatoes and Zucchini

I think that’s all I have to report for the week.  I’d love to hear about other people’s week in the kitchen!  And please do check out the Tuesday Twister Carnival.

I recently checked out the book, The Kid-Friendly ADHD and Autism Cookbook at my library to see what new recipes I might find for the GF and CF diet.  I haven’t completely finished perusing the book but for the most part I would highly recommend it.  One great thing about it is that it has many soy, nut, egg and corn-free recipes as well.

One recipe that caught my eye was the “Sensory Sensible Pot Pie Muffins.” This recipe is a muffin for kids who can’t eat gluten and dairy and who may not like to eat regular chicken or vegetables.   To solve this problem, they put the pureed chicken and veggies right into the muffin.

This, I gotta try, I said.  My son used to eat literally anything I put in front of him.  But with the toddler stage, he has become a bit more picky.  He still loves cooked veggies, especially green beans but isn’t too fond of chicken these days.

Also, since we’re on the go a lot, I was looking for a snack that was travel-friendly, healthy, gluten and dairy-free and high in protein.  These muffins seemed like the answer!

Pot Pie Muffins made with Namaste muffin mix

I really tried to follow the recipe for the first attempt.  But I have to say that although it looked easy, it turned out to be confusing.

Here’s the recipe:

• 1 box (14.8 oz) store-bought GFCF muffin or quick bread mix

• 1 cup pureed vegetables (one or more of the following:  carrots, squash, peas or green beans)

• 1/2 cup applesauce

• 1/2 cup pureed chicken*

Steps:

1. In a large bowl, prepare cake mix batter according to package directions.  Add pureed vegetables, applesauce and chicken and mix to combine.
2. Lightly grease muffin tin or line with paper liners.  Spoon the batter into the muffin cups, filling each about 2/3rds full.  Bake at 375 F for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.*To puree chicken, combine cooked, chopped chicken with a bit of water or stock in a blender and blend until desired consistency is reached.

Easy right?

Okay, so first of all I have to tell you that it’s a production to make these muffins.  If you want to make them, make the chicken the night before and make extra veggies when you make dinner for the muffins.  That way you are already half way done.

The other thing that was a bit of a challenge was finding a muffin mix free of sugar.  I personally don’t like using cane sugar in baking and every mix I picked up had this in it.  Also, I couldn’t find one that was exactly 14.8 oz and I didn’t have time to figure out mathematical calculations in my head with my toddler yelling at me, “down, down!”

So, I ended up grabbing the Namaste mix because I wanted to make it simple and follow the recipe as best I could.  It is also made of brown rice verses white rice flour and is free of most allergens.

When it came to baking, I measured out just under 2 cups which is about 14.8 oz.  So I have a bit of mix left because it was a full pound.

So when I went to prepare the muffin mix, I felt I should modify the muffin mix directions because 1) I wasn’t using the whole bag and 2)  I felt like these muffins were going to be way to wet when I added the chicken, veggies and applesauce.  So I decided to use one less egg than was called for in the mix (called for 2).

They seemed like a good consistency so I went ahead and baked them.  They were actually good, but still a bit wet.  They taste more like heavy cake than a muffin.  They also deflated a bit due to the heaviness.  I personally like my muffins a bit more muffiny than these turned out to me.  It may have been that the extra egg would have helped, I am not sure.

No matter what I think of the muffins, Elijah loved them.  So there you go!

I decided to take a new approach and sack the prepared mixes.  I started again with one of Elana’s recipes with coconut flour because I was interested in making them grain-free as well.  They already called for carrots since they were her carrot muffins so this was a good start.

Pot Pie Muffins adapted from Elana's Carrot Muffin Recipe

Here is her recipe and what I did to change the recipe is next to her’s:

Gluten Free Carrot Mini Muffins
¼ cup coconut flour (I used 1/2 cup)
¼ teaspoon celtic sea salt (I used 1/2 tsp)
¼ teaspoon baking soda (I used 1/2 tsp)
1 teaspoon cinnamon, ground (I used 1.5 tsp)
3 eggs (I used 5 eggs)
¼ grapeseed oil (I used 1/2 cup)
¼ yacon syrup (I used 1/3 cup agave nectar)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract (to tell you the truth I forgot to add this, but would do 1.5 Tbsp)
1 cup carrots, grated (I used just over a cup and I grated them instead of cooking and blending)
¼ cup currants (I used 1/3 cup)
I added:
1/2 cup chicken puree
1/2 cup applesauce

1. In a medium bowl, combine coconut flour, salt, baking soda and cinnamon
2. In a large bowl, blend together eggs, oil, sweetener, (applesauce, chicken) and vanilla
3. Blend dry ingredients into wet, then fold in carrots and currants
4. Grease a mini muffin tin with grapeseed oil and then dust with coconut flour
5. Spoon approximately 1 teaspoon of batter into each greased mini muffin cup (I used regular sized muffins and it made about 15 and took 25 minutes in the oven)
6. Bake at 350° for 10 minutes
7. Cool and serve

I had a good feeling about these muffins as I was mixing them and as they were baking.  They smelled yummy with the added cinnamon and I felt like they were going to be better than my first attempt.

Besides them sticking to the pans a bit, they were much better than the first recipe – much more springy and muffin-texture-like than the first batch.

The only thing that my be a problem for people is they definately need eggs – I used 5.  With this amount of eggs in them, it would be hard to convert this particular recipe to be egg-free.  They also have coconut flour in them but if one is allergic to coconut, you could use a GF baking blend with rice, tapioca and arrowroot.

As far as making these little babies last, I wrapped each one in plastic wrap and then put them all (except a few to munch on) into a freezer bag and froze them.  That way I can just take out one or two when we need them and they will last a lot longer.

And what did Elijah think of the second batch?  He gobbled them up too!

Anyone else have some great travel-free healthy snacks for kids?  I’d love to hear about them!  Thanks so much!

I receive a lot of emails from people who have found my site and are looking for ideas for their very limited diet.  Some of these people are at a complete loss as to what to eat because their diet is so limited.  I received one of these emails from someone last week inquiring about a diet for her daughter.

Here was her list of foods that her daughter was told to avoid:

gluten (wheat, barley, oats, spelt, kamut, tricale, and all products containing gluten such as soy sauce, etc)
grain (includes rice, millet, teff, and other gluten-free grains)
dairy
egg
soy
corn
banana
kiwi

This is a similar list to many of the people who come to me.  There are definite variations and more limited diets like those without any meat or fish, legumes, nuts, all fruit, etc.  But I thought I’d start with this diet to give you some ideas on where to start.

So what do you do when you get a list like this?  My hope is that in this post, I can give you my process for starting to come up with some foods and recipes you can eat when you receive a long list of foods you should be avoiding, even temporarily.

I am also working on compiling my recipes into menu plans for different diets such as this one so that people can have a menu planner for their specific limited diet.  I am also going to start writing some blogs about how you can start to do this for yourself!

1.  Focus on what you can eat, not what you can’t! Make a long list of all the foods available in your grocery store, farmer’s market and local health foods store.  Make categories for the main food groups and list all the foods under them that you can find.

Categories would include: meat, seafood, dairy products, fruits, vegetables, herbs, spices, glutenous grains, gluten-free grains, grain-free “grains,” condiments, nuts, seeds, legumes, and sweeteners.

The most difficult part of receiving a list such as the one from this woman for her daughter, is that you have to be very creative when it comes to having foods that resemble grains, baked goods and pastas.

As a little help in the grain and grain-free department, here is a list that you can start with.  There may be others on the list I haven’t thought of or forgot to include:

Wheat-free grains:
spelt, oats, kamut, rye, barley plus all gluten-free and grain-free “grains”

Gluten-free grains and flours:
rice, all varieties
brown rice
corn
gluten-free oats
teff
millet
sorghum

Grain-free “grains,” flours and seeds
buckwheat

quinoa

amaranth

chia seeds

potato starch

sweet potato flour

yam noodles

pumpkin seed flour

coconut flour

almond meal

pecan meal and other nut meals (made from grinding any nut very finely)

blanched almond flour

flax seed meal

hemp seeds (great as protein powder)

tapioca – this is made from the cassava root

arrowroot

besan or chickpea flour

sunflower seeds (can be ground)

sesame seeds (can be ground up as well)

As you can see the grain-free list is pretty long!  I could probably keep going but I’ll stop there.  It’s really just a matter of knowing what to do with these ingredients once you figure out that there is quite a bit of variety out there!

2.  Highlight all the foods you can eat on the list. Focus on these foods and what you can create from them.  This first step will help you immensely if you can get through it.

3.   Going  back to the example diet that I listed before, here are the things that her daughter can eat based on doing this process.

All meat and seafood - this is a huge plus if you’re in this boat.  The challenge with this is some kids just don’t like meat or won’t eat it.  But if you aren’t a vegetarian but have a limited diet, this helps a lot with meal planning.  Also, you can bread fish and chicken with almond or pecan meal and it makes it more appealing to children.

You can also make chicken puree and slip this into things like potato pancakes.  More on this in a future post.

All veggies and all fruit except for corn, banana and kiwi.  It’s also helpful that her daughter can still eat potato as this is in a lot of foods and can also be used as a starch in baking.  Vegetables and fruits are so versatile – a great opportunity for creativity.

All beans except for soy. Beans are hard to digest in general so this may be something that she would eat every now and then but it also depends on her health issues.  Chickpeas can be ground into a flour as well as others such as fava beans.  I personally don’t like the taste and find them hard to digest as flours but they are an option.

All nuts and seeds. This is extremely helpful that she can still eat nuts and seeds.  Peanut butter isn’t even on her list (though this is a legume).  Nuts can be used as nut butters, flours, nut milk ( which would be a good option for her for a milk alternative since she can’t have soy or rice), cheese (though commercial brands have casien in them), as breading on chicken or fish, dairy-free cheese sauces (cashews) or just eaten whole as a great snack.  They are most digestible however if they are soaked and then dehydrated.

Most condiments: mustard, ketchup, vinegars, lemons and limes, oils.  As far as mayo goes, you can find an egg-free version but it’s made with soy.  I have a recipe for mayo made from cashews but I haven’t tried it yet.

All herbs, spices, chocolate and carob: You can make a meal with a piece of fish or chicken, some garlic and onions, vegetables and some fresh herbs and spices.  Very simple but very good.  There are infinite ideas and recipes out there in terms of just using meat or fish, vegetables and fresh herbs and spices.

She can also still eat chocolate and carob as long as it’s dairy-free and grain-free.  You could make grain-free chocolate or carob muffins, cookies, cakes, etc (search for grain-free and egg-free dessert recipes).  Even make your own hot chocolate with some cocoa powder, nut milk and a sweetener.

All sweeteners: also another plus.  Try to stick to raw honey, agave, molasses and real maple syrup.

Some alternatives for what she can’t eat:

Eggs: This can be a tough one if you’re used to baking with eggs or having them for breakfast.  However, there are several egg substitutes you can use when you’re baking, as long as you’re not making a quiche.  There are egg-free quiches but they are made with tofu, and she can’t have soy, so that is out.

As far as some other breakfast items, this is going to be more challenging without the eggs, grains and dairy-products.  But here are some ideas:

turkey or chicken sausages
grain-free pancakes
amaranth bread
turkey bacon
quinoa or buckwheat muffins, made grain-free, egg-free and dairy-free
nut butter on grain-free crackers
fresh fruit – smoothies, fruit salad

Dairy-free alternatives: This is really a topic in and of itself, so I won’t go into this completely.  But as I mentioned earlier, her choice milk would be almond or another nut milk or hemp milk.  You can make your own nut milk very easily.  Coconut milk would also be a good option.

As far as cheese goes, here is a good dairy-free cheese that is also grain-free.

Some people can eat ghee in place of butter, which is clarified butter.  Also, coconut butter is a great alternative to butter.  It is delicious!

She can also eat coconut yogurt and coconut ice cream, great alternatives (and yummy too) since she can’t have dairy, soy or rice.

Cornstarch alternative: Arrowroot powder can be used part for part in baking recipes that call for cornstarch.  You will also need to find a corn-free baking powder for baking.

Soy-free soy sauce: One last tidbit I’ll leave you with.  Here is a recipe I recently came across for soy-free soy sauce.  It looks very good to me but I haven’t tried it yet.  A good alternative for someone who loves asian food but can’t have soy.

4.  Get organized: Once you have compiled a list of recipes you’d like to try that fit your new diet, the next step is to organize them for them week.  Print them out or make copies from cookbooks.  Then look through the ingredients to see what you need to add to your shopping list for the week.  Then, yes, go shopping, or order unusual ingredients online.

5.  Be brave and take baby steps: Take the last step and be brave to try something new.  It can seem daunting at first to use unusual ingredients you’re not used to using in cooking and baking.  But start with something most familiar to you and go from there.  Take baby steps.  Try one or two new ingredients a week so you don’t get overwhelmed by too many choices.

6.  Don’t get too discouraged: Expect to have some flops.  You’re learning something new and it may take some time to learn some new tricks of the trade.  But be patient and keep trying.  Pretend you’re on an adventure and your next meal is your next mission.  This may sound corny but if you can get excited about creating new and delicious foods, you will most likely have better results than if you think you’re making another disaster.

Good luck!  I’d love to hear from you so leave a comment about your own adventures in allergen-free cooking and baking!

All the best,
Sarah

I usually prefer the “bake” method because it is the easiest; you don’t have to go through the process of peeling the squash.  However, it actually takes the longest because of the bake time in the oven.  One way around this is to bake the squash the night before you plan to use it while you are fixing your dinner.  It doesn’t take that much more time and then it is cooked for you when you want to use it the next day.

If you are looking for quicker ways to cook your squash for your soup, you may want to consider the following ideas:

Steam the squash: First, peel the squash with a good vegetable peeler and cut off the ends.  Cut the squash lengthwise and scoop out the seeds.  Then cut the squash into fourths, and each piece in half again.  Then begin slicing the squash into thin slices.  Steam the pieces in a pot with a couple of inches of water and a steamer basket.  This method will take about 20 min. start to finish (about 10-15 minutes of steam time.)

Find prepared raw butternut squash in your produce section: If you area stretched for time, you can try to find a package of already peeled, seeded and cut squash in the produce section of your grocery store.  You can then cut the pieces down smaller to make steaming time shorter or just steam the pieces as is.  Although this makes things faster, I don’t prefer this method because it causes unnecessary waste.

Find frozen squash in the freezer section: Cascadian Farms makes a package of frozen butternut squash that tastes very good.  It will be in the natural or organic section of the grocery store or at a health food store.  You can defrost it over night in the fridge or in some warm water before you want to use it.  The package may say to cook the squash in the plastic bag but I prefer to take it out and just add it to the other soup ingredients.  You can even cook it from frozen.  The great thing about this is that it is already blended.

This is definitely the easiest and fastest way to cook your soup.  Also, although there is packaging, it is a recyclable cardboard box and a small plastic bag verses the Styrofoam plate that comes with the raw prepared squash.

Eat it Raw: Yes, you can even eat this vegetable raw.  You can shred it and put it in salads or you can even made a raw soup simliar to a cooked version.  There is a raw butternut squash soup recipe in a raw cookbook that I’ve made.  I remember it being good but a heck of a lot of work to blend up the butternut squash raw.  But it does bypass the cooking step!

If you end up having a little extra time in the evening before you go off to bed, this is a prime time to plan ahead for tomorrow’s recipe.  It not only gives you a head start on the recipe so that there is less to do the next day, it makes the meal that much more flavorful.

For some marinades, you can turn them into sauces, like the one in Mahi Mahi in Citrus Coconut Sauce. (This recipe is featured in the free sample Nourishing Foods Menu Planner – get it here).  The marinade is first used to infuse the fish with the flavors of citrus and ginger, but then is later made into a sauce by adding arrowroot powder to it.

As with everything in cooking, if you find yourself running out of time, you can always cut corners and marinade for less time.  It won’t be the end of the world and I’m sure you’ll still have a yummy meal!