jebbypal

As most of you, especially those that have met me, know, I have a rather odd set of food restrictions. I am allergic to corn and all its derivatives -- no that doesn't mean that all the gluten free food is safe for me, but rather the opposite. It does mean that if it's processed food, has more than 5 ingredients, or labeled "all natural" there is a high likelihood I can't eat it.

As a result, I had to learn to cook 5 years ago or go on a raw food diet. (And as I'm also allergic to all legumes, including beans and peanuts, vegan/vegetarian diet is also out).

That being said, obviously there was a hierarchy of things for me to learn to cook -- aka, all the necessities to just make a meal. Baking from scratch. And with time, and attempts to making certain favorite dishes (aka, pecan pie), I slowly started to realize what was my favorite because it was awesome (roast beef), and what was my favorite because of allergy high (pecan pie).

Still, I'm a procrastinator, and somewhat lazy. I still prefer making 1 pot meals because easier cleanup and there's no sense in having all that mess just for one person. But it does get repetitive so I do occasionally start learning other things to break up the monotony. Or have a friend do it for me (chocolate syrup, aka the time my exbf proved all the reasons for why I fell in love with him and helped me gain 5 lbs through rediscovery of chocolate milk and ice cream with chocolate sauce after not having any for 5 years!)

Chocolate chip muffins earlier this year did that, though they did not aid my resolution to drop a bit of girth. (and I have succumbed and bought pants in yet another size up. Sigh. I'm currently trying to do couch to 2k of my own devising, but a week of rain sort of threw that out of whack).

Home made lara bars for my conference trip are amazing and having me realizing that with the new job and need to start making some freezer meals, i should really buy a stand alone freezer.

But last weekend I did that which I had been planning to do for several summers -- strawberry jam! Yes, I know there are a lot of brands on the market that should be safe -- but invariably, citric acid (which is actually derived from a mold culture fed corn syrup and not citrus fruit by and large) will break my skin out like whoah and give me stomach, or pectin, which will do the same, will sneak there ways in and I finally gave up on them.

So the past few summers I'd buy boxes of strawberries and plan to make jam. And invariably the strawberries would get eaten, or moldy, and it would not happen.

But last weekend, in a burst of ....okay, I admit it, in a burst of procrastinating from the grant I was writing for work *hangs head*, I found a crockpot recipe for strawberry jam. And it cooked for 8 hours and was rather more the consistency of applesauce after that instead of preserves/jam (mind you, I'm doing these recipes pectinless and trying to use natural fruit pectin). But I figured it still should be good for something and put in fridge in case it gelled up under cold and drizzled some on the end of a hot loaf of bread.

And yay it was good. :) Granted, it's only been 3 or so years since I officially gave up on the last commercial brand that the ingredients said should be safe but the rash around my mouth said was not safe. But it was good and it was different, and I've had toast with almond butter and strawberry sauce for breakfast all week.

But, I changed it up this weekend.

See, growing up, we always had margarine. I was never a fan though I never knew the difference. With my allergy discovery, obviously margarine = poison. So I switched to butter. Which, well, I'm still not a fan unless using it to bake or cook with and it actually took me a while to get used to the taste of mashed potatoes with real butter. (pro tip hint: read your butter ingredients and buy versions that do not have natural flavor in it. They really taste different without that). However, during the discovery of my allergy, I also underwent some natural gas poisoning for 2 months such that I was nauseous all the time and the only thing I wanted to eat was toast with butter and jelly on it (again, i was learning my allergy and my body kept going into recovery periods the more I cut things out so for a while I could have convenience store bought food). But after that, butter was never that good and I generally ate toast with just jam on it, or made and almond butter/jelly sandwich.

So yesterday, as I was spending a day reading fanfic and not wanting to cook or go grocery shopping, I decided my lunch was to be bread and jam and I'd switch it up with buttered toast instead of almond butter.

*foodgasm* wow, I forgot how that taste went together. I really really really did. It's actually better than the homemade ice cream I made late last week (which was handicapped by the local store only having safe half and half and not having safe cream [really, look at the cream ingredients of normal cream --- modified corn starch, carrageean, and other chemical crap]).

So yeah. I know when you go out to eat with me, the response is invariably "oh you poor thing, you can't have X, Y, or Z. You can't eat at McD's etc". Which, for convenience sake, yes, I miss. But not for taste sake. (the smell of most processed/fast food actually makes me nauseous now).

But there is a silver lining every time I branch out of my comfort zone and learn to make something new. And occasionally this results in me reclaiming an old favorite, discovering a new convenience food, or learning that a comfort food of old tastes 1000x better when it's home made. And honestly, that's pretty much all i need. (though i do admit, i need to buy a wild foraging book in case of the zombie apocalypse since canned food = poison to me).

I may be having a baking catastrophe...

a 9x13 pan is apparently not equivalent to long baking sheet....doh..hopefully it's risen as much as it will.....Or will be very very sturdy....

Whoo, it didn't rise over the sides of the baking sheet..though that may have been due to my continuous poking.

In case you are curious, I was making this recipe of oatmeal fruit bars. The baker was right when they advised me to not cut down on any of the liquids even if I was using whole milk and whole yogurt. It did end up quite dry when mixing the final step. Overall, very easy recipe to follow, though I attempted to line my baking sheet with silicone paper and that didn't quite work since the mix was a gooey and stickey and moved the paper more than it spread. Should be fun to clean the pan.

However, it is very yummy. And I don't have to feel bad about the chocolate for breakfast given the amount of fiber (plus some fruit) in them. This plus a glass of milk will make a nice change from plain oats in the morning. Oooh, I should see about figuring out the taking a picture of these with the iphone and posting it...

Ooh, and as a bonus, the chocolate glaze mixture can serve as my lazy-man's version of icing when I make doughnuts (or cake if I get adventurous) next. *claps hands*

Well, I attempted to make homemade granola bars last night and the result is very tasty, but not very conducive to bar formation (crumbly like whoah). I don't know if it would have been different if I hadn't substituted maple syrup for honey, but shrugs. Guess King Arthur may be right about the necessity of sticky bun sugar, but wow, the thought of adding that much butter and sugar to the granola bars seems to defeat any "health" purpose.

So to recap, difficult to eat, but a very very very nice change to Lara bars, which I'm so sick of it's not even funny.

( Read more... )

Anyone got advice on cooking the acorn squash that B bought by accident? Preferably in low grease/butter way since B can't handle too much of that.

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As for a tuna recipe, B had some tuna steaks that he'd bought but wasn't excited about because "it always ends up tasting like canned tuna". So I got creative.

( really simple, but no measurements made )

Okay, normally, this turns out well for me about 1 out of every three times depending on how good the chicken itself is, but I think I've finally cracked the code. Of course, now you'll have to put up with my complete lack of measurements as well (then again, you may already be used to that)

( Pineapple chicken with other spices )

I'm really surprised at how well the cinnamon and the ginger went with this. I wanted something different and I got it, but I didn't expect it to be anywhere near this good!

Let's see - strained ankle, almost strained back from deceptively heavy box (not to mention lopsided weight), and a sliced open finger. Who knew shopping was so dangerous? Also, whoever's karma I'm suffering, better be appreciative.

That being said, onto the experiment. Needless to say, I would have liked to discovered the sliced open finger before I opened the red pepper. C'est la vie.

( Salsa Chicken )

I'll come back later with results. And plan on serving w/ white rice since I have yet to find a spanish rice mix that doesn't give me a migraine (and can't figure out how I'd make myself...).

ETA - not bad. But not what I wanted. Not spicy enough. i think hot would have been called for. Also, probably better w/ mexican styled cheeses added in to make lazy man enchilada.

So, I'm a tad tired of my lazy man beef stew. And I had chicken breasts in the fridge, but I don't have pineapple, so I wasn't willing to do stirfry. So I decided to experiment. It worked out, mostly.

chicken breast
poultry seasoning
parsley
salt
pepper
1 apple
2 zuchinni squash.

Preheat oven to 350 (F). Line a pan with foil. Put your chicken breasts in (puncture with fork to get good flavor). sprinkle on spices and add a bit of olive oil over them (about 1/4 cup or less if you want to measure). Cut up apple (with skin). I used a gala and it was a tad flavorless -- might be better with a granny smith or other cooking apple. Peel zuchinni squasha dn cut up. Spread these on top of chicken. Add a dash of oil (about a tablespoon) on top of them. Cover w/ pan lid or foil. Cook until chicken is done (about an hour depending on your breast size). Remove lid/foil covering if you want the chicken to brown and dry up a bit. But turn off oven when you put them back in. Cook whatever side you want (I did cous cous, but a pasta with just olive oil and basil would work too).

The taste wasn't outstanding and I think that was due to using the gala apple. But the baked apple did add a bit of taste to the chicken and I'm still loving/craving squash for some reason.

Anyway, pretty quick and easy.

ETA -- and now with a cooking icon.

I have a new favorite pasta recipe, which isn't that hard since all I mostly eat is olive oil w/ spaghetti and some basil. Still, since I've given up on affordable marinara sauce, this qualifies as more flavorful

All you need is pasta (I've been buying some organic pasta since I've been doing this -- I don't know if it really adds that much, but it's only 20 cents more expensive), a tomato, half a bell pepper (I've been using gree), olive oil, and basil.

( and the rest is very very simple. )

Okay, Okay, Chili and Spaghetti served together seems to be a very regional thing. It's pretty much one of my Father's favorite dishes and he'd much rather have it than a traditional marinara meat sauce. Give it a try, or just make the chili to go w/ your favorite chili con carne or what have you. This is a quick meal with minimal cleanup and if you do it with a pound of meat, you have about four-five meals for one person ready for the next week.

disclaimer: I guess I should let you guys know that very few of the dishes I'll be talking about will be vegetarian. If any. I grew up in a meat household and with the combinations of my food allergies, vegetarian is pretty much not an option for me. I also don't mention too many options w/ cheeses because I never aquired much of a taste for cheese since I grew up lactose intolerant in the ten years before lactaid became available. Experiment with cheese as you wish. It goes very well with this dish though.

( Chili and Spaghetti )

If you need clarification, just comment.

So I realized tonight that I have several of you on my flist that are novice cookers, away from home for first times, etc.

As someone who pretty much avoided learning how to cook until high school, and even then ignored much of the knowledge that the women in my family tried to give me because I didn't want to do "girly" things like cooking and sewing (Ha, I still can't sew!), I know a lot of the newbie tricks. Plus, having been teaching myself to cook from scratch for the past three years (especially since, much to the contrary of my mother's belief, few of her recipes or cookbooks are really "from scratch"), I know a lot of quick and easy and healthy main dishes that don't require a lot of prep.

Soo, my question is, anyone on the flist interested in me posting that sort of knowledge?

[Poll #1006283]