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Monday, August 29, 2016

Eating Out/Ordering In

By MoBerries at 4:08 PM  , , , ,  No comments
Choosing meals has always been difficult. Is it that way for everyone? While we could decide on movies, games and other activities, deciding on a singular food destination has always been practically impossible. 

Now, we seldom even try to do anything other than eat at home. 

Still, we have already found a few places that are gluten-free friendly. And, while this diet is not strictly gluten free, it is the easiest thing to look for, when searching for a place to eat.



https://www.facebook.com/freakinwings/


The wings at Freakin' Wings are gluten-free and dairy free. Some of the fries are dairy-free, like the regular fries and the sweet potato fries, which are my favorite. The garlic fries and chili cheese fries, not so much. I am not even going to try and guess on the soy in the different sauces for the chicken. Personally, I am going with the fact I can eat without getting sick as my litmus test, for now.





https://www.dominos.com/en/pages/content/customer-service/glutenfreecrust.jsp



Gluten free pizza, without cheese, from Dominos Pizza.  I never would have even considered this before, but it is actually really good. Definitely, a win on any pizza scale!


https://www.facebook.com/zaitbistro/



I have always loved the plain humus from Zait Bistro. I was very sad I wouldn't be able to eat it anymore since I couldn't have their wonderful fresh pita bread to go with it. But, honestly, their humus is just as good straight off of a fork. Tasty! Rice and beef kabobs. Or lamb or chicken, too. Zait Bistro is absolutely a winner for gluten free eating.

Sunflower Butter Cookies

By MoBerries at 12:39 PM  , , , , , , ,  No comments
Working on our first recipe, we thought we would start with something easy. Easy, like one of those three ingredient peanut butter cookie recipes. How hard could those possibly be to alter into a allergy friendly recipe?

Since these recipes are being created around my personal allergy issues, we chose to create Sunflower Butter Cookies using sunflower butter, egg yolks (as my allergy, thankfully, is only egg whites) and brown sugar. 

Natalie separating egg yolks from whites just like the food network taught her!

We started with:
 
     1 cup sunflower butter (We used Trader Joe's Sunflower Seed Butter)
     1 cup brown sugar
     2 egg yolks

Then, we beat all three ingredient together for a few minutes. This was our first mistake. And should have been the beginning of our realizing that 'easy' was probably not the word to use for our first attempt at creating a stack of recipes.


By the time Natalie had two cookies on the tray, we realized that the dough was too stiff to work. The two already rolled cookies went back into the bowl, and we tried again. 


This time, we added a tablespoon of coconut oil to make the batter smoother and not so tight. The coconut oil, also from Trader Joe's is currently is in complete liquid state in my August California kitchen. I also keep a jar in my refrigerator. The coconut oil in that jar is solid and white.


After adding the oil, we again, roll out the sunflower butter cookies, 12 to a pan. These are placed onto parchment paper. There is enough oil that an un-greased pan should work fine. Then, pressing them down with a fork, like peanut butter cookies, we place them into a 350 degree oven. Before doing so, we have sprinkled half of the cookies with sea salt and left half plain.



 We cook them for 8, then 10, then 12 minutes. The cookies look dark, but that is just a combination of the brown sugar and sunflower butter. The taste of these cookies is good, but the texture is like sawdust. Not pleasant, at all!


Adjusted recipe:

Sunflower Butter Cookies
     1         cup sunflower seed butter (We used Trader Joe's Sunflower Seed Butter)
     1         cup white sugar
     2         egg yolks
     1 t       vanilla
     3T       coconut oil
     1/2 t    baking soda
                sea salt to taste

 Mix sugar, coconut oil, egg yolks and vanilla together in bowl. Beat together for several minutes until smooth and glossy. Add in baking soda. Mix until blended. Blend in sunflower seed butter. Mix until smooth. Roll into 1 inch balls. smash with fork into criss cross pattern. Sprinkle with sea salt, if desired. Bake in 350 degree oven for 8-10 minutes or bottoms lightly brown. Let cool on tray. Very fragile while hot. Makes 24 cookies.



These are pretty sweet cookies. I think that will vary depending on the type of sunflower butter that is used. But, not bad for a few hours worth of work. Definitely not a three ingredient recipe, though. And, way more work to tweak it than we thought it would be, but for a peanut butter cookie lover, this will work!

Sunday, August 28, 2016

Searching for food

By MoBerries at 5:33 PM  , , , ,  No comments



The Beginning

By MoBerries at 1:23 PM    No comments
Mary Gibbons Opatz feeling heartbroken.
August 19 at 3:32pm
Apparently, I am allergic to wheat, eggs, milk, soy, peanuts, corn, shrimp and other things. Sigh. Goodbye food, it's been a good run. Please feel free to send me any recipes made with rice, broccoli, and cardboard.


Comments
Diane Vasquez You can do it ! Internet is a great help.
Your family might not like the change in the daily menu though.
Get them "on board" with you. Hugs ❤️
LikeReply1August 19 at 3:46pm
Margaret Weisbrod I have a good recipe for ice cubes.
LikeReply3August 19 at 4:09pm
Lily Vasquez Look at Indian and Asian recipes
LikeReply2August 19 at 4:12pm
Tammy Opatz So sorry, Mary! On the bright side you have your own partial aisle at the grocery store!
LikeReply1August 19 at 4:56pm
Katrina Anderson They have veggie based noodles and such. There'd have to be a list to cross reference with what you can have since that seems the shorter list. Also I'd look into seeing a nutritionist for help.
LikeReply1August 19 at 5:43pm
Cindy Blesener Maybe you just need to move back to Minnesota! Miss you!
LikeReplyAugust 19 at 6:38pm
Preston Torre What else is there to eat???????
LikeReplyAugust 19 at 6:39pm
Katy Cecilia Opatz Gluten free labeling is your new best friend. Most of it is rice based alternitves.
LikeReply2August 19 at 7:05pm
Katy Cecilia Opatz Bananas can replace eggs in almost all baked goods
LikeReply1August 19 at 7:06pm
Mary Vasquez I'm told ground flax seeds (flax meal) works for egg replacement, too.
LikeReplyAugust 19 at 9:35pm
Colleen Hecklinger I'd go for a second opinion!
LikeReply1August 20 at 6:08am
Jack Gibbons Spaghetti squash... lots of great meals with that..
LikeReply1August 20 at 9:06am
Jim Elliott Yep! Some great recipes there!
LikeReplyAugust 20 at 9:29pm
Mary Gibbons Opatz
Write a reply...
Amy DeLuca Thought I was the only one in the family that had food allergies to everything
LikeReply1August 20 at 9:23am
Pam Gauger Schweisthal How does that happen
LikeReplyAugust 20 at 10:38am
Veronica Irivne Shell fish I cant have at all it miss up my chest, lungs, hives cover all though my body please be careful face wash, face lotion carry stuff to, if you have pets you need to read everything you give them. I dont go out to eat ,if they deep fired anyth...See More
LikeReplyAugust 20 at 11:13am
Jim Elliott I'll have Maggie send you some good vegan recipes. I never thought I could possibly go vegan .... But after watching cook all her fabulously delicious foods, I've reconsidered. Don't despair! It is not the end of the world. I even made her vegan bacon last year from mushrooms... Believe it or not, you'd be hard pressed to tell it from real bacon.
LikeReplyAugust 20 at 9:28pm
Jim Elliott I retread your post... Are you good with chicken and meat? The labels on foods has gotten way better for dealing with allergens..... Going can be a challenge with going out for dinner but my experience with non gluten vegans has been that it isn't impossible. Good luck! (Also.. I agree with the previous post about getting ak second opinion...)
LikeReplyAugust 20 at 9:35pm
Susan Wile Jackson Sounds very "paleo diet" Check it out. Went on it for 30 days. I felt great. Only missed the wine.
LikeReplyAugust 21 at 4:46am
Mary Gibbons Opatz Thanks for all of the comments and advice, everyone. I will be scheduled to see an allergy specialist soon. The past few days have already been filled with some hits and misses, but, just so you know, rice krispie bars made with sunflower butter instead of peanut butter is very tasty!
LikeReply5August 21 at 5:36pm
Margaret Weisbrod How did you figure it out?
LikeReplyAugust 21 at 7:03pm
Mary Gibbons Opatz Well, for the rice krispie bars, we used sunflower butter.  For the allergies, I have been tested multiple times in the past few years for both environmental and chemical allergies, but treatments haven't worked, so this is the first time I was tested for food allergies, as well.
LikeReply1August 21 at 7:23pm
Margaret Weisbrod Were you feeling crappy? Hope it goes well.
LikeReplyAugust 21 at 7:25pm
Mary Gibbons Opatz Margaret Weisbrod Yes, I have had a full body rash for over four years, along with not feeling well. Hopefully this works. I will pretty much give up eating anything at this point.
LikeReply1August 21 at 7:28pm