'Slaw

Coleslaw:

• One small head of cabbage, shredded.
• Two apples, shredded.
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup soy milk
• 1/2 tsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp sugar

Combine olive oil, soy milk, lemon juice and sugar in a blender and combine until set. It will have the consistency of mayonnaise.

Mix shredded cabbage, apples and dressing until fully combined. Allow to set in the refrigerator.

A traditional coleslaw recipe has mayonnaise, which contains milk and eggs and vinegar, which are all off the list.

Coleslaw is not something I normally eat; I'm not a real huge fan of it. But I had a craving and this recipe turned out pretty good.

A love/hate relationship with this diet.

Things I like about this diet:

I feel better. Never underestimate that. Eliminating the foods from my diet that may be affecting how I feel and how I think has done wonders on my ability to function, especially with my day job as a software developer. Much of my job revolves (ironically enough) around interacting with other people--and I feel like a gentle fog of old age has been lifted. (At 45, I know I'm middle-aged--but for God's sake, my brain shouldn't be on a downward spiral this early...)

I'm able to lose weight more easily. So far, since starting trying to lose weight, I've managed to drop 10 pounds over two months at a nice, even pace. But since starting the elimination diet, it's been easier to reduce my calorie intake to my target without feeling like I'm going to climb the wall.

I've got a good recipe for chocolate chip banana bread.

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The things I hate.

I miss wheat bread, wheat tortillas, wheat pasta.

And I'm going to be pretty damned cranky if, after trying to reintroduce wheat, it turns out I'm allergic to it and have to avoid wheat for the rest of my life.

I hate having to cook a week's worth of food for myself for the upcoming week. It turns out my lifestyle is one where it's easiest to come home after work, pop something into the microwave, and settle down in front of the TV to unwind. And there is not a single frozen TV dinner out there that I can eat.

So ideally I spend half my day on Sunday cooking all sorts of stuff, vacuum seal it, drop it in the freezer--and I have my food for the next week.

I hate not being able to just run out to lunch at work, but instead having to think ahead and figure out what to make for lunch.

Thank goodness for a pressure cooker; I'm able to run two pounds of beef and a pound of chicken through in about an hour.

The nutritional value of the Soda Bread Recipe, and some thoughts.

First, I think I'm going to eliminate the salt the next go round. The bread is just a little too salty for my taste, and the baking soda provides enough sodium.

Second, I think the flour substitute will work much better for baking dense things, like cookies. The bread that this recipe produced is dense, good for soup, but not good for sandwiches.

Third, the resulting bread, for a 58g serving (1/12th the loaf), is 130 calories, 360mg (15% RDA) sodium, 29g (10% RDA) of carbs, of which 3g (13% RDA) is dietary fiber. And the rest is pretty negligible.

Fourth, the banana bread recipe from yesterday, for a 59.2g serving (1/15th of the loaf), it's 210 calories, 9g (14%) fat, and 34g (11%) carbs, with 3g (12%) dietary fiber.

One more go-round with the Soda Bread Recipe, and last week's Banana Bread.

I'm now trying the Soda Bread Recipe again, but with two modifications:

(1) I'm adding 2 tsp sugar rather than 1 tsp salt. The bread wound up being a bit dry and bland; my hope is by upping the sugar a touch I'll get something more of a white fluffy consistency. Sugar acts like a liquid in bread recipes.

(2) I'm adding 1 tsp baking powder to the 1 tsp baking soda. My hope is to have the bread rise more than the denser consistency I got the first time.

We'll see how this goes.

As an aside, the banana bread recipe last week worked wonderfully. That recipe was:

• 1 cup millet flour
• 1/3 cup potato starch
• 3 (scant) tablespoons tapioca flour
• 1 tsp xantham gum
• 2 (full) teaspoons of baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup shortening
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 egg substitute
• 2 bananas
• 1 cup vegan chocolate chips

This recipe is, thankfully, rather insensitive to my man-handling. After making the egg substitute, I mix the shortening, sugar, egg substitute together in a mixer until well creamed. Then the other ingredients (flour, potato starch, flour, xantham gum, baking powder, salt) go in and mixed. We then toss in the bananas and beat until a relatively creamy consistency. Then toss in the chocolate chips and mix.

Put into bread pan, and cook at 350°F for about an hour.

That recipe worked perfectly. Which tells me the flour substitute recipe works very well for heavily flavored foods (heavy breads, baked goods), but for last week's Soda Bread? ... Hmmmm ...

New Soda Bread Recipe Experiment.

So after some investigation I came across this web site: Flour substitutions and gluten-free flour mixes And I learned two things: (1) flour substitutions require some experimentation, and (2) someone has already done the experiments.

After finding an Irish Soda Bread Recipe, I'm now trying the following recipe:

• 2 cups millet flour
• 2/3 cup potato starch
• 1/3 cup tapioca flour
• 2 tsp xanthan gum
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup + some extra soy milk
• 1 tsp lemon juice

Mix the dry ingredients, then add the wet ingredients and mix until just combined. Cook at 450°F for 45 minutes.

We'll see how this works out...

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Flavor is perfect. The bread was not quite as fluffy as I had hoped, but I think it's a matter of just adding a touch more soda and perhaps baking powder. This recipe is the closest I've come to a functional wheat free, rice flour free, yeast free bread recipe.

I learned two things. (1) I now have a general purpose flour for other recipes. (Next: banana bread with vegan chocolate chips.) And (2) I learned that I should do the friggin' research first before jumping in...

Barbecue Sauce

This has no tomatoes or tomato products, no yeast (using distilled vinegar--if you're sensitivities are off the chart it could still be a problem), and uses corn starch to thicken, but could use other thickeners if you have a problem with corn.

Put the following into a sauce pan:

• 1/2 c Distilled Vinegar
• 1/4 c Molassis
• 1 1/2 tsp Salt
• 1 - 2 tsp Liquid Smoke
• 1 tsp Corn Starch or another thickener (or thicken more to taste)

I happen to be a fan of liquid smoke, but some people aren't. Heat all of the above on medium until everything dissolves. Add additional thickener if you like your sauces thick.

It makes quite a passable barbecue sauce for pork or beef.

Sweet and sour sauce

This has no tomatoes or tomato products, no yeast (using distilled vinegar--if you're sensitivities are off the chart it could still be a problem), and uses corn starch to thicken, but could use other thickeners if you have a problem with corn.

Put the following into a sauce pan:

• 1/4 c Brown sugar
• 1/4 c Distilled vinegar
• 1/8 tsp Ginger
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1/4 tsp Corn starch or other thickener

Whisk on low heat until all the ingredients have dissolved into the vinegar, allow to start to come to a boil. Remove from heat.

This makes a good sweet and sour sauce for chicken, which I intend to make later this afternoon and freeze for the week.

Second Irish Soda Bread Experiment

So today I'm trying a second experiment. To the following recipe I've substituted 1 1/2 cup potato flour and 1 1/2 cup oat flour for the three flours. I'm also adding 1 tablespoon baking soda instead of 1 teaspoon, which I'm convinced was a typo on the recipe I was reading.

Observations: the dough came out very very thick. Thick enough that I wound up adding another cup of soy milk and about another cup of water to turn it from a dry ball into a manageable consistency. Now it could be that I should have had a dry ball; I don't know. But I can always test this out later. The consistency was not what it was last week, however; it's clear you don't add potato flour one-to-one with other flours.

The concoction is now cooking; we'll see how it comes out.

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What an unmitigated disaster that was! The potato flour formed a gell, and even after an hour and a half in the oven, had the consistency of uncooked dough. The bread collapsed under it's own weight, and even the flavor was wrong...

Back to the drawing board.

Sauces.

Here's where this diet falls appart.

Sauces.

I made pulled pork, but really pulled pork requires barbecue sauce. Not a lot, mind you: I don't like pulled pork swimming in a syrupy tomato paste. But it does require barbecue sauce.

And here's 10 possible recipes: Top 10 Barbecue Sauce Recipes.

The first one contains mustard, which I'm allergic to. The second, tomatoes. Third, mustard. The fourth, vinegar, which being a distilled substance, contains brewer's yeast, which is on the list. (It also contains onion, garlic, butter, mustard and worcestershire sauce--brewed with yeast.) And on and on and on, skipping ingredients that are in my allergy list: ketchup (tomatoes), mustard, onion, garlic, vinegar, and in one case, eggs. (The Alabama White Barbecue Sauce, which contains mayonnaise and vinegar.)

Steak sauce: I love A-1 steak sauce, but it contains tomato puree and vinegar, garlic and onions. I love ketchup and mustard--but they're both on my list. Sweet and sour sauce starts with soy sauce--a fermented product--and vinegar--also fermented.

I know a number of variations on different sauces, but inevitably they contain milk or butter for the cream sauces, eggs or egg yokes, tomatoes and tomato paste, wheat flour or mushrooms.

Bah.

Now that I have a pressure cooker, quickly cooking a bunch of stews and chicken dishes has become rather easy. A vacuum sealer helps me put together pre-measured foods (because I'm also trying to limit my calories) and freeze them. But I'm missing my sauces.

That's this weekend's assignment, on top of making a decent functional bread that doesn't contain yeast, wheat flour, rice flour, milk or eggs: come up with a decent sweet and sour substitue, a decent sweet sauce, and a decent gravy-like or salty sauce for meats.

Pulled Pork.

Every recipe I've encountered for pulled pork involve garlic and perhaps onions, along with barbecue sauce, which itself is often made from tomatoes, vinegar and garlic, all of which I can't have.

So here's what I did:

• 2 pounds pork tenderloin
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon salt + salt to taste
• 1/2 tablespoon pepper + pepper to taste
• 1 teaspoon cloves

Pressure cook for 75 minutes. Pull apart and shred.

We'll see how this turns out. My hope is to then put this on my attempt at Irish soda bread for lunch tomorrow.

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Update: The pork just fell apart, and is perfect! However, I think I may have added too much water; most of the flavor in the sugar, salt and pepper wound up going down the drain. But that's okay; I can always sprinkle on a little bit of salt as needed.

Next time I think I'm going to add quite a bit more sugar--or quite a bit less water.

Cooking Under Pressure

One problem I need to dispense with real quick is the whole "lunch" problem. Turns out there is perhaps three restaurants in a 2 mile radius in downtown Glendale that has something that I can eat.

Three.

So I'm going to be cooking a lot in the evening for my lunch in the afternoon.

To that end, I bought myself one of these: Cuisinart Pressure Cooker. Tonight I did the following:

• 1 pound stewing meat, cubed in 1 inch cubes
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp cumin
• 1/2 tbsp turmeric
• 1 tsp salt plus additional to taste
• 1/2 cup green lentils (dry)
• 1 carrot, chopped
• 2 small red potatoes, chopped

So I first added the olive oil, meat, cumin, tumeric, and salt, and set the contraption to "sauté", allowing the meat to brown in the spices and oil. As soon as all sides are browed, I added a cup of water, then set the wizmo to 10 minutes of pressure cooking on high.

Once the 10 minutes elapses, quick release the pressure, then add the vegetables, lentils, and additional water, and salt to taste, then again set to pressure cook for another 10 minutes on high.

Quick release and done.

The meat was absolutely amazing! I've made slow-cooked stews on the stove before; they always take several hours just to get things to soften up a little bit. But here--25 minutes or so of elapsed cooking, and the stew is perfect, done, and the meat just falls apart in the mouth!

I am so converted to using a pressure cooker! I now have lunch ready for tomorrow (a container of stew), and I'm at the moment pressure cooking some raw chicken I picked up with a crust of rosemary and salt, with a touch of thyme.

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Update on the chicken: meh. I think if I would have rolled it in crumbs with some sort of flour (like oat or potato), rosemary, salt and other spices, the chicken would have been absolutely amazing. But instead, I just dropped the chicken in, dumped the spices in, and called it a day. More than good enough to be pulled apart and tossed into a wrap, however.

A tapenade (of sorts) and a good salad dressing.

Wikipedia defines a Tapenade as a provincial dish containing finely chopped olives, capers, anchovies and olive oil.

I'm not a fan of anchovies. And I don't have any capers, but that's not the point of my experiment. Instead I wanted to make a nice dish along the same idea, except using roast peppers. (I saw something like this in the Whole Foods, but it contained a couple of things that are on my 'no eat' list.)

So here's what I did.

• 3 bell peppers
• Olive Oil
• 6 oz (dry weight) green olives, pitted
• 1/4 tsp rosemary
• 1/2 tsp course salt

First, slice and roast the peppers covered in olive oil until just starting to brown, then allow to cool.

Next, put into a food processor with the olives, rosemary and salt, and pulse in the food processor until finely chopped.

The result is a nice crumbly paste which can be used as a dip for breads or a spread.

Next, I took half the recipe and stored it away for my "tapenade", and took the other half and mixed into half of the vegan mayo recipe posted earlier. This resulted in a very nice creamy dressing that should taste pretty good on salads or as a dip for french fries.

Mayo Recipe.

No eggs, no milk, means no mayonnaise. Suck. But I found a vegan mayonnaise recipe, which while it contains some things on my "no eat" list (vinegar, which contains brewer's yeast, and mustard), the basic recipe I used seemed to create a nice creamy base to which I intend to add various spices.

• 1 1/8 cup oil (I used canola oil)
• 1/2 cup soy milk
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp salt

Combine in blender until set.

The result is rather bland, and has strong overtones of the canola oil base, so I'd imagine doing this in the future with olive oil instead, to give it a much better flavor. The overall result, however, has the same color and consistency as commercial mayo, so I'm quite pleased at the result.

My plan for now is to put roasted bell peppers and chopped olives in it to make a spread for sandwiches and a dip for french fries, since I can't have ketchup. (No tomatoes.)

An Irish Soda Bread Experiment

This recipe is vegan, gluten free, rice flour free, lactose free, and yeast free.

So I can't have yeast, wheat flour, or milk in a typical Irish Soda Bread Recipe. (Well, wheat, rice and yeast pretty much eliminates most store-bought breads.) So I had to improvise. It's currently in the oven; I'll note the results when it comes out and cools.

For flour I substituted oat flour, amaranth and buckwheat flour, all which I showed to be negative for an IgG or IgE reaction. I don't know how this will affect the quality of the bread; different flours behave differently during cooking. But I'm hopeful.

Try this experiment with any types of flour. I did this with the flours I had on hand; you can try this with any other flours, so long as it's about 3 cups. (I think.)

• 2 cups oat flour
• 1/2 cup amaranth flour
• 1/2 cup buckwheat flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 egg substitute (1 tbsp flax seed, 3 tbsp water, soaked until gelled)
• 2 cups soy milk
• 1/4 cup butter substitute. (I used Earth Balance brand.)

Combine, bake for 65-70 minutes at 325°F.

We'll see how this works.

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Two hours later: The verdict? Meh.

Pros: It has a good flavor and will work very well once I tweak the recipe as a sandwich bread. I plan to use the results this week for lunch.

Cons: I think I need to increase the baking soda to 1 tbsp; the recipe resulted in a very dense bread that, even after letting it cook for an additional 15 minutes, was still underdone. I think I also will need to increase the cooking time to 350°F, and perhaps use a lighter flour, such as potato flour, in a 50/50 ratio with the other flours above.

Next time I'm going to try increasing the cooking temperature up to 350°F, use a 50/50 mix of potato flour and oat flour, and increase the amount of soda to 1 tbsp. (I wonder if the 1 tbsp was a typo?)

Egg Substitute for Cooking

Eggs are on my list of foods to avoid. So here is a substitute I found for baking recipes that involve eggs from here: Flax Vegan Egg Substitute Recipe.

• 1 tbsp ground flax seeds
• 3 tablespoons water

I nuked the above for about 20 seconds, and stirred, then allowed to sit. When it gelled, I tossed it into an Irish Soda Bread recipe.

The purpose of this blog.

So last Friday I got the results back from an IgG and IgE allergy test, and for the next few months I need to eat foods that eliminate those food items. If the list was a short one, of course, I could just buy the right foods and call it a day.

But, unfortunately, the list I got includes wheat, milk, rice, barley, almond, eggs, sesame, and yeast--a list which forecloses on every single bread I could find at Whole Foods.

*sigh*

The past few months I have been baking my own breads. Who'd think that all that work would prepare me for the next few months of cooking for myself?

So the point of this blog is to record my progress, and to record recipes that I encounter or create.

Let's be clear: I'm not a health nut. And I have no intent to become one. I don't appreciate a lot of web sites with a lot of the various gluten free or yeast free cooking, since they all seem to revolve around what I call "politically correct eating." I'm not an organic freak; I've been around enough farms to know that most "organic" is bullshit. And I'm not a "foodie" nor am I a "local-vore" or one of a thousand other inane ways people feel artificially elite about their eating choices.

Instead, I'm just some guy who likes to cook, who just got a list of 23 food types I need to eliminate--and who found that I need to make a bunch of stuff that avoids the items in that list.

Which, for the record, is:

• Almonds
• Kidney Beans
• Pinto Beans
• Barley
• Cashew Nuts
• Celery
• Cranberries
• Eggs
• Garlic (damn!)
• Cow's Milk
• Goat's Milk
• Mushrooms
• Mustard
• Onions
• Peaches
• Peanuts
• Rice
• Rye
• Sesame
• Tomatoes
• Wheat
• Baker's Yeast
• Brewer's Yeast

So here are some recipes and the results I got from cooking them.