'Tis the season for digging goop out of gourds... and baking up some pumpkin seeds in the process! I had never tried pumpkin seeds until about three years ago. I finally decided to see what all the hubbub was about, and let me tell you... they are delicious! They remind me of popcorn: they taste like it, and even better, they leave you with that I-need-to-floss-my-teeth feeling.
PUMPKIN SEEDS
De-goop a pumpkin, carefully removing the seeds and putting them all in a bowl. Fill the bowl with water - this will allow any excess goop (this is so scientific-sounding) to come off of the seeds. Lay the seeds out and dry them.
On a foil-covered baking sheet, spread out the pumpkin seeds and coat with oil (I use canola or olive oil). Mix the seeds and oil so that all of them are evenly coated; make sure that the oil also coats the foil, so they come up after you bake 'em!
I like to season my pumpkin seeds with season salt. Feel free to just use salt or any other seasoning you'd like. Bake them at 325 degrees for 25 minutes. Delish!
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, here is my second attempt at a dairy-free, soy-free, must-have side dish. My first attempt was stuffing, as shown here. Green bean casserole is one of those dishes that I like to eat two or three times a year (plus leftovers). I don't honestly think I'd enjoy making and eating this as a regular dinner side. Anyhow, I found this recipe for dairy-free, soy-free green bean casserole and thought I'd give it a whirl.
First of all, let me just start by saying this: I hate mushrooms. Yuck. I usually pick the little mushroom turds out of this casserole, but I thought I'd try to make it sans mushrooms. This recipe may have turned out better if I wouldn't have chosen to omit them. That being said, I am not going to make it again. If you decide to make it with the mushrooms, let me know how it turns out!
Why I am not going to make it again:
1. It is ridiculously onion-y. As in, you're going to wake up at 2am and wish you wouldn't have eaten all of those onions at dinner. Then you're going to wake up at 5am and think, "seriously? still with the onions?" Trust me on this...
2. It is ridiculously peppery. Perhaps 1 teaspoon of pepper is a 1/2 teaspoon too much. Just my thoughts.
If I do decide to make it again, I'll probably cut down on the onion a little bit, cut the pepper to a 1/2 teaspoon, and add in those darn mushrooms. It wasn't a bad recipe... just not exactly what I was looking for.
Until then, I'm going to try a different recipe that I found (thanks, Pinterest!) on how to make soy-free, dairy-free cream of mushroom soup and then go the regular route on this silly holiday casserole.
Here's a picture of my finished product:
Thanksgiving just isn't Thanksgiving without stuffing. I grew up eating the Pepperidge Farm stuff - you know... buy the bread in the bag, add onions, celery, broth, and bake. My mom always adds sausage to it, and it tastes fantastic. I still think Stove Top is my favorite, though. Thinking back, I'm pretty sure that I never had completely homemade stuffing... until last weekend.
My first attempt at making soy-free dairy-free stuffing turned out great! I used this recipe and didn't really modify it at all. My only critique would be that it turned out less "stuck together" than what I'm used to. Think: yumtastic semi-gooey croutons. For Thanksgiving, I will probably add just a little more broth than 1 cup to get all of the bread to stick, and I'll probably decrease the "butter" a tiny bit.
STUFFING (soy-free dairy-free)
1 lb loaf of bread, cut into small cubes
3/4 cup "butter" (I use soy-free Earth Balance)
1 onion, chopped (I used a sweet onion)
4 stalks celery, chopped
2 tsp poultry seasoning (I used Nature's Seasons)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 cup chicken broth
I used a loaf of french bread that I bought from the Publix bakery. Make sure you double-check whatever bread you choose. This particular bread only used soy oil, but it was safe otherwise. (Side note: I eat soy oil and soy lecithin, since my daughter is not super allergic to these. It's just the soy protein that I watch out for. Make sure you choose accordingly to what you need!)
*The recipe called for a pound of bread. The loaf I used was only 3/4 of a pound, and it was fine. (Also, I dropped many, many cubes on the floor - my dog enjoyed this step - and still had enough for the stuffing.)
You will need to dry out the bread for
several hours. The recipe I used says at least two hours; mine sat out
for close to 5 hours and turned out perfectly.
I cut mine into slices and then used scissors to cut it further down into cubes. Scissors made it much easier! I started off with a knife and found that I was smushing the bread like crazy. It would have been stuffing made from all crusts. :)
After your bread is dried out, cut up your veggies and add them to your pan of melty "butter." Make sure they get nice and soft, and then add in the salt, pepper, and seasoning.
I put all of my bread chunks in a big bowl and then dumped the veggies/butter down on top.
Stir 'em up, and then add the chicken broth (or veggie broth, should you so desire). Then put your stuffing into a greased 13x9 pan, and pop it in the oven!
I cooked mine for 40 minutes at 350 degrees. DELICIOUS!
I offered to host Thanksgiving this year, because there is no way I'm going to ask one of my in-laws to think twice before they toss all that butter and milk into the mashed potatoes. Thankfully (pun intended), a lot of things on the dinner table are already soy and dairy-free. On my quest to figure out how to make stuffing and green bean casserole, I found this fantastic resource:
http://www.godairyfree.org/news/nutrition-headlines/dairy-free-thanksgiving-recipes
It lists tons of Thanksgiving-appropriate recipes that are all dairy-free. I'm planning on doing a few trial runs before the big day and will share any keepers with you. Many of these recipes still have soy in them, so I'll have to do a little modifying here and there.
Here we go!
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Updates! So far, I have made the following. Go check 'em out!
It's Saturday, and you know what that means? Tailgate food. I love love love eating snack food while watching football, but it seems like everything is dip this or cheese that. Apparently dairy goes hand-in-hand with football. That's why I make THIS every weekend:
EASY SALSA! Yep, it's so ridiculously easy and so ridiculously tasty. It will take you longer to stand in line at the grocery store...
EASY SALSA
1 14oz can of diced tomatoes, drained
1 10oz can original Rotel
1/2 small onion, roughly chopped
1 clove of garlic, peeled and smashed
1/2 jalepeno (I seed mine... otherwise, this salsa will be HOT HOT HOT!)
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cumin
handful of cilantro
juice from 1 lime
Put all of the ingredients into your blender. Blend until everything is well combined. Eat with a side of tortilla chips and football!
You'd think that all I eat was dessert. Well, I'd like to! Since it is harder to buy cookies, etc. at the grocery store that don't have soy and dairy in them, I usually keep some sort of baked good lying around. I have actually made these particular cupcakes twice, once for a dinner get-together and another time for my sister's birthday. Both times, we were left without extras! I guess that's both good and bad. :)
I have modified a vegan recipe for these cupcakes and added a little mint to my fake buttercream recipe. The great thing is that there's a 99% chance that I can walk into my kitchen at any time, and the ingredients will already be there. How fantastic is that?!
To make these mint chocolate chip cupcakes, I sprinkle on chocolate chips at the very end. DELICIOUS!
CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES
1 cup flour
1/4 cup + 3 T cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup coconut milk
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp vanilla extract
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 12-muffin tin with cupcake liners.
Mix the first 5 ingredients (flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt) together in a bowl. In another bowl, combine the milk, oil, maple syrup, sugar, vinegar, and vanilla. Beat for 2 minutes at medium speed. Then add the dry ingredients, and beat for another minute to combine.
Fill each cupcake liner about 2/3 full. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of a cupcake comes out clean. Allow to fully cool before frosting.
MINT BUTTERCREAM FROSTING
3 cups confectioners sugar
1 cup dairy-free soy-free butter (I use Earth Balance)
1 to 2 T coconut milk
1 1/2 tsp mint extract
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Using a mixer,
beat sugar and butter together on low speed until blended; then increase
speed to medium and beat for an additional 3 minutes. Add vanilla
extract, mint extract, and milk, then continue to beat on medium for 1 more minute.
(Add more or less milk to achieve desired consistency.)
Spread it on the cupcakes and sprinkle chocolate chips on top. I use Ghirardelli, but if you're eliminating soy lecithin as well, you can use Enjoy Life chips. Keep the cupcakes in the fridge!
The first thing you'll say after eating one of these cupcakes is: "I think I'll have another." And that's a promise. ;)
"Why does everything have soy in it?" I think I utter these seven little words every time I go grocery shopping. Coming up with dinner ideas is hard. Figuring out what to eat as a snack is absolutely ridiculous. Once you move my husband's soy-filled foods out of the way, here's what you can find in my pantry (or refrigerator, depending on what the case may be!):
Stacy's pita chips. These are fantastic and come in several different flavors that I love. For a salty fix, I get the Simply Naked or Garden Vegetable Medley ones. The Cinnamon Sugar pita chips are unbelievably delicious if you need something sweet.
Cheerios. In multiple flavors. Hard to believe, but this is one of the only soy-free dairy-free cereals out there.
Pretzels. Yep, pretzels are one of those few snacks that actually only contain three or four ingredients. Flour, yeast, salt, done.
Sorbet. I am a big ice cream/sherbet person and am heartbroken whenever I look into the freezer and see a big hole where the ice cream used to live. Whole Fruit makes sorbet in sad little bitty pints that are pricey, but it's a nice treat every once in a while. I usually go all out and put Ghirardelli chocolate chips (contain soy lecithin) on mine. Sometimes, I'll make my own:
RASPBERRY SORBET
- Half bag of frozen raspberries
- 1 cup water
- 1/2 cup sugar
- Squeeze of lemon or lime juice
Place the water and sugar in a small saucepan over low heat until sugar has dissolved. Simmer until a thin syrup forms. Let cool.
Blend raspberries and lemon/lime juice in blender or food processor until it turns into a puree. Add the cooled sugar syrup and blend.
Pour mixture through a strainer to remove all of the seeds, and place in a shallow tray (I usually use an 8x8 pyrex dish).
Place in freezer. Stir mixture every 30 minutes for the first two hours. Then cover and let it set overnight.
Baked Lays. Three cheers for Lays, who doesn't use soybean oil! If you have a very strict diet, be aware that the original potato chips do have soy lecithin in them. All of the other ones contain milk ingredients, so no barbecue chips for you...
Fruit. This was easier to do in the summer, when there was all kinds of fruit that was in season. Still, you can't go wrong with fruit!
Fruit snacks. Make sure you check the label on this one. I know that Welch's are dairy and soy-free.
Hummus. Most of the store-bought hummus that I've seen contains soybean oil. I make my own, and it's very easy (and tasty):
EASY HUMMUS
- 1 can garbanzo beans/chickpeas, drained
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1 T lemon juice
- 1 tsp cumin
Blend all ingredients together until smooth. Enjoy!
This is just a short list for now. I'll try to add on to it as I remember more! Until then, try not to get discouraged in the snack aisle. :)
I'm starting to get the swing of making desserts that are soy and dairy-free. The fantastic part is that no one can tell that they're missing milk or butter until you tell them. In an attempt to be able to indulge in birthday cake this weekend with the in-laws, I asked to make the cake to my specifications. Seeing as the birthday boy's favorite cake is carrot, that's what I've set out to make!
Be careful with all of the soy-free dairy-free recipes for carrot cake. I've made it in the past, and it was an absolute failure. The recipe said that it made a one-layer cake, when in fact, I should have split the batter and used two pans. While the cake cooled, it started to sink in and was a soggy, battery mess. The hubs LOVED it (I've always known that he likes things gooey, but this may suggest that he will eat anything dessert-related). This time, I used a tried-and-true recipe, changed up the oil, and I ended up with a cake that was cooked perfectly.
CARROT CAKE
2 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1 (8 oz) can crushed pineapple in juice, drained
1/4 cup canola oil
2 large eggs
2 egg whites
1 T vanilla extract
3 cups grated carrots
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 2 8-inch round cake pans.
In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. In a different bowl, whisk together pineapple, oil, eggs, egg whites, and vanilla. Add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, and stir until moistened. Then fold in the grated carrots. Pour the batter evenly into the 2 cake pans, and bake for 22-25 minutes. The cake is done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Let cake cool 10 minutes, and then remove cake from pans to continue cooling. *If your cake cools completely, it may not come out of the pan. If this happens to you like it did to me, pop those cakes back into the oven and warm them up for a couple of minutes. The cake should [hopefully] come right out!
Make sure that they're completely cooled before you frost them. Soy-free dairy-free frosting is not the most stable thing to work with, and it will melt if you give it the chance!
The frosting that I used was a fake vanilla buttercream. It may not be cream cheese frosting, but it compliments this cake perfectly.
VANILLA BUTTERCREAM FROSTING
3 cups confectioners sugar
1 cup soy-free dairy-free "butter" (I used Earth Balance)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 T coconut milk
Using a mixer, beat sugar and butter together on low speed until blended; then increase speed to medium and beat for an additional 3 minutes. Add vanilla extract and milk, then continue to beat on medium for 1 more minute. (Add more or less milk to achieve desired consistency.) Spread it on your cake! Keep the cake in the fridge, as this frosting needs to set for one hour and then stay refrigerated.
Enjoy!
It has gotten increasingly harder to walk through Publix, Target, etc. these days, as the Halloween candy is out in full force! All that delicious dairy-filled chocolate just waiting to be passed out (or eaten while there is a pause between trick-or-treaters, which is usually the case with me). How am I going to survive Halloween without eating a bag of Snickers, half a bag of Kit Kats, and many little single bags of M&Ms?
In an attempt to make it through what will now be known as Lame Halloween 2012, I did some research on candy that is soy- and dairy-free. There is obviously no chocolate in the list, but there are some yummy things that won't leave me depressed when I check out the leftovers on November 1st.
Here goes...
- Nerds
- Twizzlers
- Skittles
- Starburst
- Welch's fruit snacks
I'm pretty sure we're going to go the Twizzler/Nerd/fruit snack route. The fruit snacks may make this the lame house to avoid in coming years, but at least I'm not handing out small boxes of Raisin Bran like the next door neighbor!
I am probably going to have to stay away from stores several days after Halloween to avoid the bulk bags of discount chocolate lurking around every corner. Yikes! Wish me luck...
It's Sunday, and you know what that means? I don't have any desire to cook. It always seems backwards to me - don't you think it'd be easier to cook on the weekends when I have an extra set of hands to help out with the baby? Not the case here. Looks like it's time to get out the ol' crock pot. The hubs calls this, "dinner in a bucket."
This may be one of my greatest internet recipe finds. When I was put in charge of feeding relatives after my brother-in-law's wedding, I was desperately searching for something that could a)satisfy a whole bunch of people, and b)require very little prep time. It's hard to cook for 15 people when you're at a wedding, especially when they all show up to your house at the same time as you! All I can say is, thank goodness for pulled pork.
That was two years ago, and this recipe is still in the rotation. If you're completely soy-free, watch out if you're going to use hamburger buns. I'm currently eating soy lecithin and soy oil (one or both is usually found in buns), so I'll definitely be eating my pulled pork sandwich-style! Here it is, folks. Smallest list of ingredients ever seen on a recipe:
PULLED PORK
1 pork roast (I usually use shoulder, but you can use any cut)
1 can of root beer
1 bottle of barbecue sauce
Put the pork roast in your crock pot, and pour in the entire can of root beer. I usually buy a two liter bottle of root beer and just pour some in. Cook on high for at least 5 hours.
About 30 minutes before you're ready to eat, take the pork out of your crock pot and shred it with a fork. (The longer you let it cook, the easier it will be to shred later.) Dump the root beer out of the crock pot, put in the shredded pork, and add the barbecue sauce. I usually won't use the entire bottle, but add as much or as little as your little heart desires! Let it cook 30ish more minutes in the sauce, and voila! You've got "dinner in a bucket."
For a complete dairy-free soy-free meal, I usually serve it up with broccoli salad or pasta salad and top off my glass with some sweet tea. Now that's what I call Sunday dinner!
Happy National Taco Day!
Before I cut out dairy and soy, I used to eat tacos several times a week. We'd either make 'em at home or go out for Mexican... or sometimes both! Tacos just aren't the same when you cut cheese out of the mix. I had to come up with a way to jazz it up a bit, so that I could still keep them in the rotation. Here's what I did!
Instead of using store-bought salsa, I make my own pico de gallo. It's really easy, although all of the chopping can be a little time-consuming. I always wait until naptime to make this pico... that way, I don't have cilantro-covered hands and a crying baby!
PICO DE GALLO
3 tomatoes, chopped
1/2 large onion, finely chopped
Handful of cilantro, chopped
Garlic salt
Cumin
Lime juice
Make sure to get all of the goopy seeds out of the tomatoes before you chop them up. Then, finely chop the onion, and add it to the tomatoes. Chop up a handful of cilantro, and mix it in. Just eyeball it until it looks right!
Add a splash or two of lime juice, a little bit of cumin (about a teaspoon?), and several shakes of garlic salt until desired taste. I don't measure any of these ingredients. Just wing it, and I'm sure it'll turn out beautifully! Be sure to refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before serving.
TACOS
1 can Rotel original
2-3 chicken breasts
1 can refried beans (black or pinto)
shredded lettuce
pico de gallo (see above recipe)
guacamole
small flour tortillas
I like to cook the chicken in my crockpot. It makes things quick and easy! Put the can of Rotel in the crockpot and then add the chicken. Cook on high for 3-4 hours (or low for 5-6 hours). Drain. Shred up the chicken!
If I'm lucky and the baby takes another nap, I'll make guacamole. I usually will use one avocado, as I'm the only one who uses guacamole on my tacos. Smash up the avocado, let the doggie bystander have a taste, and then add the following ingredients:
- 1/6 of an onion, finely chopped (chop a little extra when you're making the pico de gallo. Voila!)
- handful of cilantro, chopped
- 1/3 of a jalepeno, seeded and finely chopped
- Garlic salt to taste
- Sometimes I'll add in a little chopped tomato, too. Jazz it up!
Mix it up and then cover the guacamole with cling wrap to keep it from oxidizing and turning brown so quickly. *Make sure you press it on so that no air lies between the cling wrap and the guac!
Now you're ready for tacos! Take your tortillas, add some beans, chicken, lettuce, pico, and guac... and believe me, you won't even miss the cheese! (Well, maybe just a little bit. How could you not miss cheese?) I serve mine with a side of Knorr Fiesta Sides Spanish Rice (make sure to get the Spanish rather than the taco rice - the taco rice has dairy in it!). Ole!
