Fun Freedom From All Our Allergens

Defrosting Meat

2010-08-15T18:50:00.000-07:00

We missed a cooking demo by the Grill-A-Chef in Union Square at the market, but I got to ask him one question.

I asked him what I needed to do to get meat crispy, and after some insightful talk, I asked him what I should do to defrost meat. He said that might be the key to improving the way I cook meat.

So I asked another cooking authority, my mother, and she said that she never freezes meat. So that's one way to do it.

The way I'm going to do it is different -- I'm going to make sure I defrost the meat even if it has to be in the refrigerator for 24 hours after it's been in the freezer for some time.

The freezer exists to enable us to go shopping less frequently. Use it!

Maine Root Potato Mustard Chicken, Marinated

2010-05-08T19:11:00.001-07:00

Marinade

A lot of Vinegar-free mustard

a lot of Ancho chile powder

a lot of Maine Root Ginger Brew

1 tsp Salt

a lot of Pepper

a lot of Basil

a lot of Oregano

Water

Small amounts of cardomum, coriander, and tumeric, and a reasonable amount of cumin.

a tsp of Smoked Paprika

Combine. It should taste sweet and tangy. You can add stronger chile to get a spicier marinade.

We marinated the chicken for an hour in about half the marinade.

Cooking the chicken

We put some olive oil, rice, and some of the retained marinade on the bottom of the Creuset. The rice was partially cooked.

We added some dairy-free and garlic-free instant potato powder. We added the chicken and placed some more potato powder, several tbsp of Earth Balance vegan butter, salt, and pepper. We used almost 1.5 lbs of chicken breasts.

It took about 80 minutes to cook in the oven at 400 degrees F. We took the chicken out of the oven after 40 minutes and added some more of the marinade and some more potato powder, and turned down the oven to 350. Melissa removed the top shortly before the end to get a crust on top.

We obtained a surprisingly mellow barbecue-flavored chicken. Delicious! Served it with rice.

Chicken Sauce With Mustard

2010-04-29T19:11:00.002-07:00

I based the sauce on my vinegar-free mustard (recipe here) with some extra rice syrup.

I added a lot of water and one whole tomato. I added salt, pepper, and a great deal of basil. I added some fresh parsley. I added a small amount of New Mexico chile pepper, which is hot, but not excruciatingly hot. I was tempted to add smoked paprika but did not -- add it if you wish. I added very small amounts of cardomum and cumin.

Once the tomato had cooked down a bit, I added mushrooms and carrots. Melissa did not want asparagus in there. I also added 2 tablespoons of rice flour and a spoonful of Earth Balance vegan butter.

Unfortunately, the rice flour clumped in the then-boiling sauce.

When I tasted it, the sauce was surprisingly sweet, with the basil and parsley notes stronger than the chili and mustard -- until the aftertaste, when the spices kicked in.

The sauce went well with marinated chicken (recipe here).

Marinated Chicken

2010-04-29T19:11:00.000-07:00

I based the marinade on my vinegar-free mustard (recipe here). I put olive oil on the porcelain vessel in which I was marinating the chicken. I then placed the chicken down (chicken breast, butterflied by the store). I poured the mustard on the chicken and added a significant amount of ancho chile powder. I added salt and pepper (a lot of pepper and a little salt). I added very small amounts of cardomum and cumin.

I poured in some water and then placed the whole thing in the fridge for 30 minutes.

I fried the chicken over a very low flame for an hour. I added fresh ginger at the 20 minute mark and mixed vegetables (asparagus, carrots, and white mushrooms) at the 40 minute mark.

After 1 hour, the sauce had become a thick paste, but there was not much of it. We added some extra mustard at the 30 minute mark.

Vinegar-Free Mustard

2010-04-29T18:43:00.000-07:00

I'm allergic to dairy, citrus, and vinegar. But I recently purchased some mustard power (and ancho chile powder).

Here's the recipe for my mustard:

1 Tbsp mustard powder
1 Tbsp water
1 Tbsp Ancho chile powder
1/4 Tsp salt
1 dollop of rice syrup.

Store in a glass jar in the fridge.

Accidental Mole Sauce

2010-01-05T20:22:00.001-08:00

Start with Powerful Ginger Soup. Just three spoonfuls make a good base. This will be very powerful. Add a massive amount of mushrooms, about half a store-box full of them. Also add fresh rosemary, and some pepper.

To soften the ginger, add one or more tablespoons of rice flour, a small square (about 1 cm) of 100 % chocolate, unsweetened, at least a teaspoon of cinnamon, and a teaspoon of vanilla paste. The vanilla is very important. The result is a thick and musky sauce that is excellent with chicken -- and Melissa says it's also great with Kasha.

Beet and Mushroom Soup

2010-01-05T20:21:00.001-08:00

I was inspired to make this soup by the mushroom stock recipe and notes concerning soup in the Mark Bittman cookbook How To Cook Everything Vegetarian.

Start with a large soup pot.

Add with the mushrooms. You can fry them in rice flour or just put them in water immediately -- enough to cover the bottom of the pot, about a pint.

You can put in spices now. Basil and oregano work (use both or neither). Salt and pepper are necessary. A little fresh ginger works nicely.

Add leaves. Put in the leaves from the beet(s) and red cabbage.

Let simmer.

Cut up the beets. They need to be fried to become sweet. I like to fry them in brown rice syrup, but frying them in sugar works too. If you fried the mushrooms, fry them in the same frying pan.

Add the fried beets to the soup.

Add a little cardamom and tumeric, and add other spices if you like. Cinnamon works nicely. Fresh herbs are great.

Alternate recipe: Powerful Ginger Soup

Cook the same, but a large amount of ginger root, about four inches long and almost an inch thick. This soup is difficult to eat by itself, but becomes a magnificent sauce base.

Thanks Monica: Barbecue Sauce without mustard, garlic, vinegar, onions, dairy

2009-06-20T18:12:00.001-07:00

After consulting with Monica on how to do this, I did the following:

Start with brown rice syrup, olive oil, water, and a chunk of brown sugar in a sauce pot without heat. Stir thoroughly. The brown sugar chunk should start to fall apart.

Turn on the flame but keep it as low as possible. The goal is to cook the sauce as slowly as possible, bubbling occasionally, but not too often. If it starts to sizzle, turn it off. Turn on the oven low, to 300 or 325.

Add spices:

A lot of smoked paprika and basil and cinnamon, plus a small amount of New Mexico chile. Add pepper and a small amount of salt.

Add fresh herbs: basil and rosemary.

Add a lot of ginger and several more kinds of pepper.

Take one tomato and cut it up. Put the gelatin in first, and cut up the flesh into small pieces.

Add tomato.

Take red, orange, and yellow peppers and cut them fine or diced and add them.

I added one blackberry.

It was still too sweet so I added a great deal of pepper and some sweet paprika.

For the chicken, I used mom's recipe, modified.

Mom's recipe is oil on the bottom of the oven pot, then the chicken, covered with a piece of buttered parchment paper.

I placed pumpkin on the bottom of the pot, on top of the olive oil. I opened a can of organic pumpkin, spooning a tablespoon or two of pumpkin into the sauce, and putting the rest in the pot. It's a lot of pumpkin but don't worry. I put a lot of soy butter in the pumpkin, plus some pepper.

Then I put in the chicken. The chicken breasts were a little too large so I tore them apart, but I'm sure a knife would work too. I put a lot of pepper on top of the chicken, and a lot of sweet paprika as well.

Then I put the buttered parchment paper on top. By the time I put the chicken in the oven, it was at 300. I let it cook for about 40 minutes, took it out of the oven and removed the parchment. The pumpkin and butter had filled up the pot.

I cranked up the oven to 350 for 10 minutes, and cranked up the flame a bit too. After a few minutes, the sauce had cooked down and was the correct cue texture.
When done, I found that I had a sauce that was sweet, sour, and spicy. The pumpkin and chicken worked nicely to cut both the spice and the sourness and merged with and changed the sweet as well. A great food evening!

Vanilla Pseudo-Curry Rice Milk Sauce

2009-06-09T16:31:00.000-07:00

Pretty simple: 1 carton of vanilla ricemilk

Add a lot of tamari soy sauce.

Add cardomum, coriander, black pepper, and a lot of cumin.

Add some cinnamon-and-sugar.

Add some fresh tomatoes and mushrooms.

Cook!

Still needs something but is pretty good.

Cinnamon Chicken

2009-05-18T17:43:00.000-07:00

I started by cutting the chicken into small pieces. I had enough for two pans so I fried the first batch in olive oil, flipping once, with a little salt, pepper, basil, and tamari soy sauce until the chicken was brown on one side and the oil had gone away.

While the first batch was cooking, I doused the next batch, still on the cutting board, with salt, pepper, and lots of cinnamon. I added an uneven amount of ginger, oregano, and cinnamon and sugar.

Then for the next batch I put some vanilla rice milk and a small amount of chocolate (Dagoba, non-dairy) in with the oil, added sweet peppers, a few olives, and a few mushrooms. There was a lot of liquid in there at this point and I smothered the whole thing in cinnamon and shook some tamari soy sauce in there.

The whole thing cooked for about fifteen minutes, flipping once, and maintaining a boil for about eight or ten minutes. It came out smoky and not too sweet. Very nice.

Lemon Sole with Spicy Coconut/Rice Milk Sauce and Rice

2009-05-10T21:27:00.000-07:00

Finally, my (Melissa) first blog entry.
Saturday night, Alex created a spicy coconut sauce for Lemon Sole, vegetables and rice. We both love Thai food but find it problematic and we’ve been craving it lately. There’s no way to ensure that a restaurant uses a sulfite-free coconut milk (that product is usually harder to find and a bit more expensive). And, many Thai sauces use shell-fish of some sort – not good for me. On top of that, I also have to worry about any possible alliums in the dish (scallions, garlic, etc) that I have to avoid.

Other than some very hot spices, we haven’t pin-pointed specific source(s) of some of the problems Alex has with Thai food. We know he should refrain from hot dishes – precipitates an IBS episode. As for me, I just never cared for heat overpowering taste and always ordered mild dishes.

If we wanted to take a chance on a new restaurant or dish, we’d have to eat it on a Friday. Then we’d have the weekend to recover if the food caused problems. But who wants to spend their weekend’s sick? So, we try to mimic as best as we can some of recipes on TV, books and in restaurants.
Anyways…

Alex created Lemon Sole with Spicy Coconut/Rice Milk Sauce and Rice. I think this was a fairly successful Thai influenced dish. Initially, it was a bit too spicy for me, even without garlic and onions. But in the attempt to temper the heat of the spices, I think we made it better.

Fish:
2 Lemon Sole fillets
5 Crimini Mushrooms - sliced
1 Tomato - slice
2T Black Sesame Seeds
Olive Oil
Salt (we used Himalayan Salt in a grinder)
Black Pepper
Fresh Ginger Root – about a ½” chunk, sliced

Sauté crimini mushrooms, sliced tomatoes and black sesame seeds in olive oil. After about 2 minutes, place filets on top of the vegetables. Sprinkle additional sesame seeds. Salt and pepper the fish. Add half of the ginger slices and a little water. Cook on low for about 7 minutes. Flip over and cook for another 7 minutes. Cover, turn off heat and let it sit and simmer for another 5 minutes.

Rice: Basmati Rice for two

Sauce:
8oz. Rice Dream Vanilla Milk (small container)
5oz. can of unsulfited coconut milk (we used Thai Kitchen)
1 twist of the Salt grinder
1 or 2 tsp Cinnamon
To start, 1 Tablespoon each of the following spices:
Black Pepper, Red Pepper, Sweet Paprika, Cumin, Cinnamon Sugar (bottled),
Lemon Grass (put in muslin or a fine mesh tea ball strainer so you won’t have to worry about choking on the lemon grass)
Dried Basil – a lot, enough to cover the surface of the sauce in the pot
Remaining half of Ginger Spices

(later additions: handful of dried peppermint; Tofutti Cream Cheese)

In a pot, combine the milks. Stir well. Add the spices, stir. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 5 minutes. While simmering, taste the sauce and add whatever spice(s) you like. Alex didn’t measure the amounts of spices he added while the sauce was simmering. Alex thinks he used at least 2 Tablespoons Black Pepper.

The Vanilla Rice Milk is naturally sweet and light. Using rice milk cut down on the heavier fatty coconut milk calories (higher cholesterol count). We think the flavors blend nicely.

Plating:
Rice was at the bottom of a bowl. The Lemon Sole and vegetables was laid on top. Spicy Sauce was poured over everything.

Taste Results and Modifications:
While Alex liked the heat of the spices, I found it a bit overwhelming, yet tasty. Since we had plenty of sauce leftover, we wanted to try using it slightly differently today.

Before storing the remaining sauce in the fridge, Alex added a handful of crushed dried peppermint. He felt that the mint cooled the spices. With the idea of toning down the sauce’s heat some more, I suggested adding a dollop of the Tofutti Cream Cheese on top of the sauce. If we had Tofutti Sour Cream, we would have used that instead. Alex decided to take it a step further by stirring in several tablespoons of the Tofutti Cream Cheese into the sauce.

These modifications resulted in a creamier, less hot, yet flavorful sauce.

Wheat-Free Egg-Free Baking, With Brands

2009-01-25T14:42:00.000-08:00

Recently, we made corn muffins with the Whole Foods house brand -- excellent taste, though a little chewy. All wheat-free baking seems to end up a little chewy. Cannot find a link for the house brand.

We're also enjoying Maple Grove Farms All Nautural Gluten Free Pancake & Waffle Mix (added egg replacer instead of eggs). Nice vanilla / tapioca aroma and real pancake feel. Slightly dusty taste if made with rice milk, but otherwise ideal. Better taste with soy milk.

Egg replacer is Ener-G Egg Replacer. Nice and reliable.

Chocolate Chili Sauce

2009-01-23T17:03:00.000-08:00

I made this for chicken, but we'll be trying it with salmon tonight.

Olive oil
canteloupe
diced tomato
cinnamon + 2 cinnamon sticks
2 sticks of rosemary
basil
pepper
salt
white sugar
half a bar of chocolate
water
red pepper (ground)
paprika
new mexico red pepper
potato starch

Ended up with a smoky, chocolate-y sauce that nevertheless lacked the herb-y punch I was looking for.

I cooked it slowly over a very low heat. The ingredients keep separating. Just took it out of the refrigerator and it was semi-solid.

Needs work on texture too.

Update: Do not use with fish. Melissa liked it on chicken with her coconut curry sauce (not posted here yet).

Fresh Tomatoes

2009-01-11T16:03:00.000-08:00

This is a very quick five minute thing. I use it to get ready to cook. Sometimes when you arrive in the kitchen, you're so hungry that it's tough to think. You can eat a slice of bread, drink some soymilk, or do this:

Cut up a few grape tomatoes in half and put them in a small bowl.

Add spices to taste: basil, pepper, salt, sugar (something hot if you wish).

Drizzle good olive oil

Eat! Now you're ready to cook.

Julia Child has a sauteed tomato recipe that's similar, except that you use fresh green herbs and sautee everything in a pan. I will soon experiment with adding rice bread crumbs to the mixture.

Mulligatawnyish Soup (Thanks Monica)

2008-11-08T17:52:00.000-08:00

Start with defrosted peas. Put them in a pot. Add some water.

Add spices: a little cinnamon and sugar, a lot of pepper, some cumin. Also fresh spices (dried): spearmint, basil, parsley. Other spices: more basil, some ginger, a little paprika, oregano.

A lot of Tamari Soy Sauce.

A container of Coconut Soy Yogurt.

One or two tablespoons of Earth Balance vegan butter.

Fresh vegetables: carrots, loncato kale (shredded), and a few chunks of chicken.

Heat over low flame for over an hour until the pepper and the other spices start emitting their fragrance.

Goes well will chicken fried in olive oil and potato starch.

Sesame Soy Pear Chicken

2008-10-22T16:04:00.000-07:00

A simple recipe:

start with lots of soy sauce and a sprinkle of sesame oil

add water

add a pear, carrots, lots of brown sugar (2 big spoons and 2 small spoons)

start heating low

add a shaved mushroom (I used shiitake), 2 basil leaves, and a lot of pepper

cut up chicken into small pieces. you can put skin in if you wish.

>>>Update: You can cook the chicken separately if you wish and just prepare the sauce on your stovetop.<<<

take parchment and use it to line a casserole dish.

cut up chicken

add sauce

bake at 375 for 45 minutes.

optional: cumin and cinnamon

photos soon

2008-08-07T16:24:00.000-07:00

Melissa's been taking photos. More photos soon. We have some concern about sharing the pear recipe with my mother, who's near-diabetic. We certainly don't trust sugar substitutes, either.

Our Allergy Challenge; Our Cuisine Solution

2008-05-26T18:36:00.000-07:00

We have a food problem. Eating out can be a problem due to our combined food allergies and sensitivities.

Melissa's food allergies that cause the most problems (Asthma Attacks, nausea, IBS and potential anaphylaxis):
Sulfites, i.e., potassium metabisulfite, sodium bisulfite (preservatives used in bottled lemon juice, sauces, soup mixes, Basalmic Vinegar, dried and preserved fruit, etc. )
Nitrates (some smoked fish, lunch meats, i.e. pastrami, salami, etc.)
all Aliums, such as onions, garlic, leeks, etc.
Shell Fish
Eggs

And since Melissa suffered liver failure due to Singulair (Merck Asthma drug), no figs, bananas and celery

Also, Melissa is now allergic to Wheat. To ensure better health, she has a Gluten-Free diet.
And then there are the “iffy” foods – can eat a little but not frequently due to IBS – won’t go into at this time.

I (Alex) have what WebMD calls type 2 (diarrhea) IBS.

I absolutely have to avoid: dairy, citrus, and very hot spices and mustards. I also have to avoid vinegar.

So here's an odd consequence. The only fruit I can eat are pears and bananas. Melissa can eat almost everything but bananas.

This is our food blog. It's about the food we're cooking that we can both eat. Our cuisine is an impressive allergy challenge.

We like:

chocolate

mushrooms

chicken and turkey

potatoes

tomatoes

basil, salt, pepper

cumin

coconut milk

Melissa loves rosemary

sesame oil