Foolproof Delicious

I have a huge sugar craving (ask my housemates, who've seen me eat sweetened cocoa powder and brown sugar by the spoonful). So when I come up with something that satisfies my sweet tooth, it's miraculous. This is stupidly simple to make, but the white (aerated) honey here is key. This type of honey doesn't dilute or compete with the texture of the peanut butter.

Here's my failsafe recipe:

- banana, peeled

- honey (again, this is a "fancy white pure honey", AKA aerated honey)

- peanut butter (not that I endorse any brand over another, but this is smooth Jif, which I inherited from someone moving)

Mix the peanut butter and honey (approx 2 tbsp each) together. Spread on banana. Enjoy!

--m

In Which I Defeat My Celery Fear

Okay, a lot has changed since my last post. I'm now living in Washington, on an island near Victoria, Canada. This means I finally have to grocery shopping for myself. And since I'm a procrastinator, I usually put this off for a while.

So I've started cooking like the Marines: no ingredient left behind. Which is sometimes a challenge, especially given my aversion to some things.

Today's aversion ingredient: celery. Almost all the vegetarian/g-f options I was finding for celery were related to pot-pie imitations. I can't eat a lot of the stuff in that, but decided to base my lunch off of this concept.

So here's the recipe:

3 red potatoes
2 celery stalks, thinly sliced
1 medium/largish carrot, thinly sliced
2 tbsp garlic, minced
1/3 cup frozen peas
2 tbsp mild olive oil
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried french thyme

1. Microwave potatoes (after stabbing) for ~5min, or until tender/cooked
2. At the same time, heat olive oil and garlic in a skillet for a minute or two
3. Add in carrot and celery, cook for 4-5 minutes
4. Take potatoes out of microwave and carefully (they're hot!) dice them in 1/2" cubes
5. Add potatoes to skillet and mix well to coat with oil and cook for 7-10 minutes
6. Add in frozen peas and cover pan and cook until peas are no longer frozen.
7. Serve on plate

It turned out well, and the celery is still crunchy but not overwhelmingly celery-y. I'm impressed, actually. Actually, after this meal, I think I may finally have found a way to cook celery I enjoy. This recipe was missing an onion (sign #1 you're over-due for a grocery-store trip: you've run out of onions), but I don't think it suffered for it.

Let me know if you try it!

--m

Most Loosey-Goosey Recipe Evers

Okay, I'm just posting this before I forget what I did.

I had a paper-lunch-bag sized sack of oyster mushrooms (1/2 lb.) from my local farmer's market this past Saturday. 

It was fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants time when I still had no soy-, dairy-, sugar-, citrus-free marinade to stew them up in at six o'clock. 

Tonight I marinated them (in the pot, mind you) in olive oil, a dash of white vinegar, two swoops of agave nectar (from the squeeze bottle, two passes over the pot), about nine cloves of garlic minced with salt and a leeeetle bit of water. They sat there for two hours (from six to eight) which was longer than I'd planned to let them marinate in their delishus juices, but Mamsy didn't get home until eight, so that's what time I set to cook them.

After they'd kind of wilted down a bit (if you've cooked mushrooms, you'll know what I'm talking about) I pulled them out with a slotted spoon and put them in a bowl with a plate on top to keep them warm.  Then I opened a can of cannelini beans, drained and washed them (to help get rid of some of the canned taste) and put those suckers to stew in the mushroom-marinade juice with a little bit of water.

I cooked some 'sparagrass and fingerling potatoes to go with all of the above.  The asparagus came out really well. The fingerling potatoes were WAAAAY too dry. Most of them got pushed to the side of the plate for my parents and I, although I'm saving them for tomorrow's potato-leek soup. 

I am totally pleased with the way the mushrooms came out, which is saying something because I usually don't like hunks o' cooked mushroom by themselves. These were not full of mushroom grease and still plenty tasty. I actually purposefully did not eat all my beans (Mamsy and Dudsy were having some of my mother's chicken roll-up leftovers for protein) so that I would have more to eat tomorrow at lunch. OMG! Me? Planning to TOTALLY ENJOY LEFTOVERS?! What on earth?

I shall post pictures of the meal post-haste (after I come out of this amazing food coma) along with some other stuff I've made recently (none of that as tasty, though).

Pretty Delishus

Okay, so plans went awry when my mom didn't pick up basmati rice for me.  So I tossed out my original plan (I'm still dying to make some delicious saffron rice, though) and I ended up thinking it was time to use up the french green lentils I'd gotten on a whim about two weeks ago.

I chose this recipe and set out.

The whole adventure is documented here at mah Flickr account should you want to see more than just the meal before I chowed down (I did sneak in for some pepper as I was waiting for everyone else to sit down for dinner, though). 

Tonight!

It shall be an extravaganza!

I have been dying to make this Kesar Chaval recipe.  This dish is one of my favorite things about the Indian restaurant I used to go to all the time (note: currently, I'm waiting until I've added back in citrus to resume more of the dining...lime/lemon is in everything). 

So, to get my fix, I've decided to finally try making it at home.

I also need to monitor my spending better.  Partially I've been inspired by the $30/week challenge (blogged by these fine folks here) and also that I have many hobbies that are all expensive--knitting, marine nano-reef, kayaking--so I'd like to spend less on food.

So, if this recipe goes well, I'll have some rice in the fridge waiting for some lentils.  How to cook the lentils though...

I do have to say though, I'm tired of all the vegan blogs being GLUTEN GLUTEN WE MUST HAVE MORE GLUTEN.  Very disappointing.

Feeling like a Gluten Zombie

Tonight I nearly cried watching my mother cook a huge pot of spinach linguini and then dump a bunch of mozzarella and parmesan on top...

Meanwhile, I stood at the stove cooking quinoa and corn pasta curls, ready to mix in a package of prepared Kashmir-style lentil dish.

The dish ended up tasting pretty good, but it was still mightily depressing.

Trying to figure out if I am, in fact, sensitive to sugar.  In the meantime, I'm thinking about all the foods I can still add back in.  Cocoa is planned to be next for now, but if I can't have sugar, I'm skipping this one (cooking chocolate, anyone?) and going straight to citrus.

Welcome, I Think

Now I'm posting about food. Oh geez.

I'll start with the introduction, I guess. Over the past several years, I have consistently complained about my fatigue and various other symptoms to my physician. Over the last year I've had major blood tests run three times--all inconclusive (thyroid levels all normal, no anemia, etc.) and finally it was my therapist who suggested that I might have a food allergy.

Now, I eat some foods but I LE PICKY. I am currently an un-committed vegetarian (Oh bacon, our love affair might never end) but there are a lot of foods I refuse to eat. Salad and tofu being among them. I can do it (at least for salad, most tofu-y soy products have me gagging...hard) but they are really unenjoyable. I do however, love most other vegetables and fruits, so in that way it could be worse.

As part of this 'Determine Your Allergies' diet, I went to a nutritionist who helped me set up a plan and figure out what order I would be adding foods back in...

That's right, "back in" as "take them all out."

Pretty much, I'm impossible to feed right now.

I cannot have:

- wheat gluten
- corn
- milk proteins (oddly enough I can still have butter because it has very low levels of milk protein/lactose--it's all fat)
- soy
- eggs
- food colorings
- food preservatives
- citrus

It's really, really hard.

I've just started adding in foods again (yay!) and the first one up was cheese (milk proteins, really, but I ate cheese because I love cheese) and it's already likely that this is one of the foods I am sensitive to. I'm not sure if there will be any else, but I thought that over the course of this experiment, as I added back foods, it would help to blog and share my "airitarian" experiences.

I hope to post recipes I make with my allowed foods and pictures of finished meals.

On the plus side, since I am essentially persona non grata at any restaurant, I have saved a ton of money.