My Recipe Book

Baked Sweet Potato Fries

2011-01-21T15:20:00.000-08:00

These are so easy and the only way that I will eat sweet potatoes. I believe I got this recipe from the Whole Food Allergy Cookbook, but I can't remember for sure.

Peel and slice 2 large sweet potatoes
Toss the SP in 2 Tbsp. olive oil
Salt and Pepper to taste

Place on a metal baking sheet and bake at 475 degrees for 30 minutes. they are done when they start to turn brown.

Chicken Wings

2011-01-21T15:09:00.000-08:00

This is a family favorite. I got it from Food Allergy Network. It is free of lots of those pesky food that cause food allergies. Right off top of my head, it is free of wheat, milk, peanut, tree nut, egg, soy, fish, and shell fish. So, go ahead and eat up! They are really good served with baked sweet potato fries.

5 Lbs chicken wings
1 large onion, minced
3 T. oil
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 cups tomato sauce
1 cup molasses
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 tps salt

Preheat over 350 degrees. Place wings in single layer on lined baking
sheet. Bake 25-35 minutes, until juices run clear. Set aside. In frying
pan, saute onion in oil until translucent, but not brown. Add garlic and
saute 2-3 minutes. Stir in remaining ingredients and bring to boil.
Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes. Place sauce in medium bowl toss
chicken in sauce to coat. Set oven to broil. Place chicken wither on
broiler rack or back on baking sheet and broil for 10 minutes. Flip
chicken over, pour remaining sauce over chicken, and broil for 10 more
minutes.

Note: Leftovers may be frozen. Like there are ever any leftovers!

Chicken Tortilla Soup-Super easy!!!

2011-01-21T15:03:00.000-08:00

I got this recipe from a friend of mine. It is super spicy, so if you don't like A LOT of heat, then play around with using less of the green chilies (I use 1/2 of a small can) and less of Cayenne Pepper (I use 2 tsp). This has quickly become my family's favorite cold weather soup. Our son refers to it as "That Spicy Soup". It is so yummy! Enjoy!

Olive Oil
2 whole Medium Onion, Diced
4 T Minced Garlic
1 can Chopped Green Chilies (8 Ounce Can)
1 can (12oz) Ro-Tel tomatoes
6 cups Chicken Broth
1 can (28 Oz) Tomato Sauce
1 small can (7 oz)Tomato Paste
2 T Ground Cumin
1 T Cayenne Pepper
6 Chicken Thighs, Shredded Or Diced
Salt to taste
1 cup UNCOOKED white rice
1 bag frozen corn

In a 10 qt stock pot, pour 3 T olive oil. Add onions. Saute until they are tender and transparent. Add Garlic, green chilies, Ro-tel, Chicken broth and tomato paste. MIX well and bring to a boil. Add all spices and chicken. Now still in uncooked rice and lower heat to medium heat for 30 minutes. Add frozen corn and cook another 5 minutes.

Serve with:
Avocados
Sour Cream
Monterrey Jack Cheese
Corn Chips

Pumpkin Apple Muffins

2011-01-21T14:55:00.000-08:00

When they were forecasting all that snow for last week, I went into major prep mode. Most people when they start hearing ice and snow is on the wait they have that list of standby foods for in case the power goes out. The problem for us is that most of those contain milk and/or peanuts and so I have to do a little bit of cooking ahead of time so that we are ready in case of a power outage. My favorite thing for breakfast, power out or not, is different types of muffins. One of my favorites this time of year is Pumpkin Apple Muffins. I got the original recipe from Food Allergy Network and it was milk, tree nut, peanut, and egg free. I modified it to re-incorporate eggs back into the recipe. It increases the cooking time, but so worth it.

Pumpkin Apple Muffins

1 2/3 cup flour
1 cup+3 Tbsp Sugar, divided
1 Tbsp + 1 tsp Pumpkin pie spice, divided
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp baking powder
1 cup (or 16 oz) pumpkin puree
½ cup margarine (I use Earth Balance)
3 Tbsp water, 3 Tbsp oil, 2 tsp baking powder mixed together (or 2 eggs)
1 apple, peeled and finely chopped

Preheat over to 350 and prepare muffin tin.
Combine flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 Tbsp pumpkin pie spice, baking soda, salt, and baking powder. Mix well and make a well in the center.
Pour in pumpkin, margarine, and water/oil/baking powder mixture (or eggs if using them). Stir until well moistened.
Fold in apple.
Spoon into muffin tins filling 2/3 of the way.
Combine remaining sugar and pumpkin pie spice. Sprinkle on top of muffins.
Bake for 20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. If using eggs, it will need extra cook time.
Cool and enjoy!

Dairy Free Snow Cream

2011-01-21T14:35:00.000-08:00

My son had never had snow cream due to his milk allergy. Well, last week that all changed. We had a record snow fall here and it just seemed like such a waste to not make snow cream. A friend of mine made some snow cream using almond milk, so we did the same in this house and it was delicious! Here is how I did it.

Dairy Free Snow Cream

1 big bowl of clean snow
1 cup sugar (I use Florida Crystals brand)
1 cup Almond Milk
Vanilla Extract

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and stir until well blended. Spoon into a bowl and enjoy!

Boiled Custard

2010-12-20T17:01:00.000-08:00

Most people when they think holiday drink, they think egg nog. Well, I am an old fashioned southern girl and my mind goes to my Aunt Vera's house and boiled custard. My son's milk allergy put the kibosh on me having the real thing, made with whole cow's milk. So, this Christmas I have been doing a lot of experimenting with coconut milk and finding ways to make my Christmas favorites dairy free so my son can enjoy them. Tonight I pulled out my mad scientist hat and made the following recipe.

Boiled Custard

3 cans coconut milk
6 eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

In a double boiler, warm the coconut milk. In a separate bowl, beat eggs well. Add sugar to eggs and mix well. Temper the eggs by stirring in some of the warm coconut milk to the egg mixture. Then combine everything in the double boiler. Stir constantly until mixture coats the back of the spoon. Pour into a pitcher and place in the fridge till it is chilled. Then enjoy!

"re-inventing" this blog

2010-12-16T15:05:00.000-08:00

In the past I used this blog as a place to share my weight loss, food allergy, struggles to be more "real" food with our diet choices, etc. A while back I thought about deleting it because I don't think to update this one very often. I have since decided to un-delete it and just making it a place for my recipes. If anyone else looks at it and likes what I post, then great. If not, then oh well, at least I have all my recipes in one place. I have gone back through past entries and unless it contained a recipe, I have deleted them. There may have been a couple of exceptions, but I want this to be a place for recipes for the most part.
If I have significant weight loss information to share I will, but mostly this blog is for the purpose of sharing my family's food allergy story. My son, has milk and peanut allergies, so most of my recipes are free of both of those foods. For butter, I use either Earth Balance margarine or coconut oil, depending on the dish. For cheese I used Daiya shredded cheese. For milk, I use coconut milk or almond milk, once again it depends on the dish which I use. Coconut milk makes an excellent substitute for evaporated milk. For sweetened condensed milk, you can make a substitute using coconut milk or use cream of coconut. For yogurt, I use coconut milk yogurt. Plain coconut yogurt makes a great replacement for sour cream too. Coconut milk ice cream is the best! I could see us continuing to eat it even if our son outgrows his milk allergy. Coconut milk kefir is pretty good too. In place of peanut butter, we eat Sunbutter. I think that pretty much covers the major substitutions that I make.
If you have stuck around for this so far, I will give you a little something for your time. It is Christmas time and when I was growing up, my mom made the most amazing Christmas candies. She is known for her fudge, divinity, and dream creams among others. I had been so disappointed that my son was not going to get to experience these yummy treats. This year I got brave and experimented with my mom's tried and true recipes and came up with some safe Christmas treats for my little guy. I made spiced pecans, dream creams, chocolate haystacks, buckeyes, chocolate covered cherries, and fudge. So, here you go, my dairy and peanut free versions of fudge and dream creams, enjoy!

Fudge
3 cups sugar
2/3 cup cocoa powder
1 ½ cup coconut milk
dash of salt
4 Tbsp margarine
1 tsp vanilla
-------------------------------
Mix sugar, cocoa, milk, and salt.
Bring to a boil over medium-low heat.
Cook slow stir frequently, about 30-45 minutes.
Test for doneness by dropping small amount into cold water (soft ball stage).

When done add margarine and vanilla.
Let margarine melt.
Beat on medium or high speed until it thickens.
Quickly pour into “buttered” dish to set.
Cut into 1 inch squares and cool.

Dream Creams
½ Lb Margarine
32 oz confectioners sugar
1 can cream of coconut
2 cups flaked coconut
1 cup chopped pecans
½ cup chopped cherries
16 oz semi sweet chocolate (I use Divvies chocolate chips)
--------------------------------------
Mix all ingredients, except chocolate, and place in fridge overnight.
Make into balls and place on wax paper lined baking sheet.
Put in fridge over night.
Melt chocolate in double boiler.
Dip each ball in the chocolate and return to wax paper.
Let sit on wax paper until the chocolate sets.

My Nut Free Granola

2009-06-29T16:11:00.000-07:00

I thought I was due to share a new recipe. This one is out of necessity. I like granola and most store bought ones have nuts in them. Since my son is allergic to peanuts and the allergist advised us to avoid all tree nuts as well, I have had to avoid most all granolas. I came across a recipe that sounded pretty good and I modified it to meet our needs. Here is the resulting granola recipe.

6 cups old-fashioned oats
2 tsp cinnamon
4 cups flaked coconut
1 cup coconut oil
1 cup honey
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
1 cup raisins or other dried fruit (I tend to go for cran-raisins or dried cherries just because that is what my family likes)

Mix oats, cinnamon, coconut in a bowl. Eat oil and honey in a small sauce pan over medium heat until just melted. Remove from heat and add vanilla. Stir honey mixture into oats mixture. Pour onto large baking sheet. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until oats are golden brown. Stir occasionally while cooking for even browning. Remove from oven and cool. Add dried fruit. Store in air tight container.

Some really cool blogs...

2009-06-24T17:27:00.001-07:00

I found a couple of great blogs that I wanted to share. The first one is called Naturally Knocked Up. I am in the process of trying to get pregnant for a third time. I have one child from my first pregnancy but my second one was a miscarriage. We are seeing a fertility specialist trying to fix what ever it is that is broken. This blog is great for tips on ways to naturally boost fertility.
The second blog is one of a lady that I discovered by accident a few weeks ago. After emailing back and forth we found that she doesn't live very far from me. This blog is one that has to deal more with food allergies. It is called Must Follow Recipe. Becky has to avoid milk, eggs, and peanuts due to her son's food allergies. She is trying to do so in a similar manner as we are for our son. I love seeing her food reviews and she has some great recipes as well.

Update on the ice creams...

2009-06-05T10:30:00.001-07:00

The chocolate is super yummy! The vanilla I didn't like as well. However, the whole reason that I made the vanilla was for a banana split dessert I did while we had company. For the toppings I used Hershey syrup, canned crushed pineapple (drained), and strawberry fruit topping. They were really yummy and DAIRY FREE!

Ice Cream Review

2009-05-27T12:54:00.001-07:00

Okay, so the Chocolate Coconut Milk Ice Cream was a huge success!
Now, let me throw out there another yummy Coconut Milk Ice Cream recipe. This is just a plain old simple vanilla ice cream recipe. Enjoy!

Chocolate Coconut Milk Ice Cream!

2009-05-17T10:52:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I know I haven't updated this one in a long time, but I haven't really had anything to share here. That is until today. With my son's milk allergy, we have to avoid all dairy, including ice cream. I know some folks with milk allergy are successful with goat's milk products, but we haven't been able to use them. So, coconut milk has been a great substitute for me from time to time. We do use a lot of soy products, but when I can substitute something else, I try to do so. Anyways, ice cream has been a rough one. Soy ice cream is okay, but no where near good enough in my opinion. So I came across this at our local Krogers and oh my it is yummy! But expensive. I found this recipe and oh boy I can't wait to try it. It is churning in the ice cream maker right now. I'll be sure to come back and give my verdict, but I think it is going to be a "winner, winner, chicken dinner!"

I hope to start updating here more often, but no promises.

Necessity is the Mother of Invention...

2008-10-15T10:48:00.000-07:00

...or so they say. Well, yesterday our son woke up with a runny nose. Since we live about a mile or so from a cotton gin I figured it was just that the gin had irritated his sinuses and allergies. Well, fast forward to this morning, and his nose was still running and he had a low grade fever. So, I figured that this was a good time to start him on chicken noodle soup. So, I made a big pot of it and he and I both ate it for lunch. I just have one word to describe it, YUMMY! I figured I would come over here and share this very easy recipe. I found a soup recipe in the Whole Foods Allergy Cookbook for chicken soup with cornmeal dumplings. Sounded yummy! I had to make some modifications to use what I had on hand, but it worked out well. Here is my recipe based on the WFAC recipe.

I started 2 chicken breasts (boneless, skinless) baking in the oven. Then in a large pot I put 6 cups of chicken broth and added 4 cups of water. I added 1 tsp kosher salt, a few grinds of black pepper, 1 tsp dried parsley, 1/2 tsp celery seeds, and a couple of handfuls of baby carrots. I brought this to a boil and let it cook for 15 minutes. Then I turned it down to a simmer. When the chicken was done I cut it into cubes and added that to the simmering pot. About 15 minutes before we were ready to eat I boiled a small bag of egg noodles. Then I added the noodles to the pot and let it simmer for 5 more minutes. Then it was time to eat.

Hash Browns with Coconut Oil

2008-07-05T10:50:00.000-07:00

Here is another recipe from the Coconut Oil Miracle. It is how to make hashbrowns using coconut oil.

1 medium potato, grated
2 Tbsp coconut oil
salt and pepper to taste

Heat oil in skillet to about 300 degrees. Put in potato and mash down with a spatula till it is fairly flat. Put lid on skillet and let cook for 10-12 minutes. Salt and Pepper to taste and serve brown side up.

Easy, quick, and yummy! Next time I will add some grated onion in with the potatoes when I cook them for some extra flavor.

Pina Colada Smoothie

2008-07-04T10:32:00.001-07:00

Here is a new recipe that I tried and it turned out quite yummy!

1 can coconut millk
1 can orange juice (used the coconut milk can for this measurement)
Fresh pineapple (I used about 3/4-1 cup)

Chill all ingredients. Blend all ingredients in blender until smooth and place in freezer for 45 minutes to thicken.
Yummy! For those curious, 1 serving of this you consume approimately 2 Tbsp of coconut oil.

This recipe is in the book "The Coconut Oil Miracle" by Bruce Fife. This makes a great breakfast or snack.

Homemade Italian Salad Dressing

2008-04-11T13:40:00.000-07:00

Last night we had salad with left over chicken breast tossed in. We needed a salad dressing so I threw together this easy italian dressing. It was really quite yummy. It is a combination of several different recipes that I found on the internet.

3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 tablespoon white sugar
2 tablespoons dried oregano
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 tablespoon dried parsley
1/4 teaspoon celery seed
2 tablespoons salt
3/4 cup water
3/4 cup vinegar, cider or red wine
3/4 cup olive oil

Combine everything except olive oil. Slowly whisk in olive oil. Refridgerate for at least 1 hour before serving.

Potatoes and Onions

2008-04-07T20:10:00.000-07:00

I have 2 different ways that I love to fix potatoes and onions. One is to slice the potatoes like I am making oven fries and slice the onions the same way. Spray a piece of aluminum foil and wrap the potatoes and onions, along with some salt and pepper, in the aluminum foil into individual servings and bake till done. The other way is what I fixed for dinner tonight along with baked pork chops. I diced 4-6 potatoes into about 1 inch pieces. Cut two onions into wedges (usually I 8th the onions). Toss with olive oil and parsley and place in baking dish. I usually cook it at 450 degrees till potatoes are tender. Both of these are great "go to" quick potato dishes that will go with just about any meat.

Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies and Cravings

2008-04-04T09:36:00.001-07:00

A friend left a comment the other day asking if I was having cravings of any kind. Yes, pizza. A week ago today I was in the urgent care getting stitches for my thumb. Well, the next day I felt I deserved comfort food. So we ordered pizza from a new place. It was so yummy! Well, still wanting comfort we had hot wings for dinner. I gained 5 pounds last weekend with all of my "comfort food". I don't want the hot wings, but I still want the pizza. I can't stop thinking about it. When I want something sweet I have been grabbing a handful of Bare Naked Granola. I have the Vanilla Almond and the Heavenly Chocolate. I haven't been digging into as much as I thought I would. So, I guess the sweet tooth is being curbed. Now if I could just say the same about my desire for pizza. I think we are going to try to make a whole food version of pizza this weekend. I'll let everyone know how that turns out.

Now for the cookies...
This is not a whole foods recipe, but it is healthier than most cookie recipes out there. It is a rainy yucky day, so it is a cook cookie day. This is a family recipe of my husband's family. I had to modify it to make it egg and milk free. They tasted just as good as the original. Here is my version with the original in parenthesis.

1 1/2 sticks of margarine (butter)
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 tsp salt
6 Tbsp Cocoa
3 tsp egg replacer mixed with 4 Tbsp of warm water (3 Egg Whites)
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups spelt flour (any flour will work)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup soy milk (cow milk in the original, but goat milk should work here too)
3 3/4 cup rolled oats
Dash of nutmeg (optional)

mix well after adding each ingredient. Bake 12-15 minutes at 375 degrees on greased cookie sheet.

Dinner Tonight

2008-04-01T16:10:00.000-07:00

A good friend sent me this recipe for Baked Spaghetti Squash with Beef and Veggies. That was what we had for dinner tonight. I had to omit the cheese since Roger can't have it. When I served up mine and Matthieu's I added some cheese to ours and let it melt. It was very yummy! Thanks CAC for sharing!