More Recipes

At this point, I am getting the hang of cooking this way. I have posted new recipes I've modified or made up at the other blog, Sharing Recipes, with the tag "Elimination Diet." You may look for them there. Links to them appear here:

Main Dishes
Crock Pot Mexican Burrito Bowls
Mustard Chicken with Nut Cream
Orange Pork Chops

Side Dishes
Spicy Beans

Miscellaneous
Nut Cream

Meals for the Week of 7/12-7/18

Sunday's Meals (7/12/15)
Breakfast on your own (I skipped breakfast today!)
Lunch:
* Leftover rice from last night, reheated and spiced Mexican (APB, paprika, chili powder, cayenne)
* Black beans, garbanzo beans, and cooked hamburger spiced Mexican and made saucy (olive oil)
* Leftover brussel sprout salad
Dinner:
* Goat-Cheese Burgers w/caramelized onions
* Grilled asparagus
* Salad of leftover brussel sprout salad, baby kale, baby arugula, lime juice, olive oil, macadamias

Meal Highlights this Week
At this point, things are falling into a pattern...we're making a few things that work, cyclically...I'm getting more comfortable "winging it' within the ingredient list we can have, to make leftovers taste a little different the second time around...

Lunch: One day EV was with us and we made some more of that Mexican meat/bean mixture from 7/12, but this time the "spiced Mexican" involved some tomato paste, since the three of us eating it can have it. I served it over baked crispy fries, and it was delicious... tasted almost like "chili cheese fries"--without the cheese, of course!

"Entertaining": We hosted some of our dearest friends and their five children for the day. They are visiting from Africa, where he is serving as a doctor to the destitute. Unfortunately, our friend has a severe allergy to nuts and seeds, which pulled out two major ingredients we've been able to make work while on the elimination diet. We pulled off the first meal by serving pasta (two boxes of rice penne (do not cook the pasta ahead and let it sit there during prep of other stuff!!) with two different sauces--the walnut sauce for us, and a jar of Classico tomato and basil for him and whoever else wanted it--with sautéed onions in both. We cooked up a bunch of other veggie toppings (broccoli, mushrooms, zucchini, peppers) and served them in individual bowls so people could take what they could have. I also served sliced apricots on the side--lots of them, as I had bought a bunch at Costco and they were getting ready to be too soft to keep around--as dessert.

For dinner, we ordered a couple of pizzas from Sam's for their kids, and we had Farm Fresh steam some shrimp (plain--we added APB and lime at home) and we cooked some burger patties. I ate my burger on a rice cake, topped with a makeshift ketchup blend (tomato paste, rice vinegar, paprika, dry mustard, salt, sugar). It wasn't half bad.

Dinner: In order to use the leftover burgers, I served the patties with waffle hash browns and cooked cabbage. (I'm not sure why I haven't been doing more of that. It was delicious, and we need the roughage! I cooked it with a good bit of onion and seasoned it with olive oil, salt, APB, and the potato dregs from my first attempt to cook the hash browns regularly, in the skillet, which stuck badly. Once the hash browns were safely in the waffle iron, I added a bit of hot water to the pan and cooked off the seasony, stuck potato mash and added it to the cabbage. Yum!)

Meals for Saturday, 7/11/15

Breakfast
Everything-Free Waffles again! (and, again, YUM!)

Lunch
Pecan-Sesame-Encrusted Chicken Strips
Oven-Baked Crispy Fries

Dinner
Smoked salmon
Brussel Sprout Salad, modified for our elimination diet
Some sort of rice dish

Meals on Friday, 7/10/15

Breakfast
Everything-Free Waffles (YUM!)

Lunch
Leftovers from last night

Dinner
Leftovers/clean out the fridge

Meals on Thursday, 7/9/15

Breakfast
On your own. (I had half a grapefruit and a "stacker" rice cake with almond butter and jelly.)

Lunch
EL and I are alone today at lunch, so I think I'll try some sort of tomato pasta sauce, since we can both have tomatoes and the others can't.

Dinner
Marinated Tuna, cooked according to instructions at Pan-Seared Steak in the Oven
Black Beans with Cilantro-Lime Rice
Cucumber slices, chilled with APB and dill
Sliced avocado, drizzled with lime juice and topped with pine nuts

Meals on Wednesday, 7/8/15

Breakfast
EL is still at her sister's house, so I'm not sure what she ate.
OG fried herself some egg whites with cooked hamburger in them.
I made a pot of oatmeal for me and iivo.

NOTE on "psychological shift": Iivo bought some "duck eggs boiled in salt water" at the Asian market last night when he went for mung bean sprouts for the Asian Salad. Interestingly, I notice he didn't "dive in" to those this morning. It is definitely a psychological shift to go to duck or turkey eggs (permissible) from chicken eggs. We're finding that it is relatively easy to switch gears into non-traditional alternatives in all areas except animal products. Trying new vegetables, fruits, nut milks and such is no problem, but thinking of trying to prepare and eat buffalo or bison or goat or rabbit (though all are permissible on our elimination diet) is daunting at best and disgusting at worst. Interesting! Hopefully we'll come along in those. I guess the duck eggs in my fridge right now are a first step. (Gag. I don't even like chicken eggs!)

Lunch
EL and I had leftover Asian Pasta from last night and an ear each of fresh sweet corn, since we're the only ones who can have it right now. We also had a half grapefruits and a cup of "Freshca" each.

Desperation Snack

I have been starving for something sweet, and my sister-in-law had posted a "cupcake in a mug" thing on her Facebook wall. I was desperate enough to try to make it work gluten-free. If you're desperate, it wasn't half bad! I present Desperation Cake.

Dinner
EV and RE are coming over for dinner before our prayer meeting tonight. OG has requested:
Pan-Seared Steak in the Oven
Mashed Pocaulies
Arugula and Baby Kale Salad with Apricots

Meals on Tuesday, 7/7/15

Breakfast
On your own. (I had a "stacker" thin rice cake with almond butter.)

Lunch
Everyone is out today with leftovers. I had leftover stir-fry from the other night.

Dinner
Asian Pasta (just me and iivo, so I used toasted almonds and added carrots)

Meals on Monday, 7/6/15

Breakfast on your own (I had a handful of berries and a quinoa-rice thin with almond butter.)

Lunch
Vegan Veggie Wraps

Dinner
Pan-Seared Steak in the Oven
Cripsy Potato Waffles
Roasted broccoli

Meals on Sunday, 7/5/15

Breakfast 
Before church, on your own, according to allowances. (I had oatmeal.)

Lunch
Scrounge-Around (This is our word for "find whatever you can find that sounds good to you." I had a rice cake with almond butter, jelly, and almond meal, and some potato chips.)

Dinner
Vegan Veggie Wraps
Sliced apricots

Meals on Saturday, 7/4/15

Today we are going to my parents' house for a 4th of July cookout. They are making hamburgers that are made of nothing but ground beef, seasoned with salt and grilled.

Mom will provide the usual toppings, most of which most of us can't have: lettuce (we'll use arugula), tomato (only a couple of us can have it), onion, pickles (nope-not for any of us), ketchup/mayo/mustard (which none of us can have).

I mashed up some avocado (for those of us who can have it) to take the place of mayonnaise. I also chilled some cucumber slices, which I "marinated" in celery salt and dill. These are a very lame substitute for a pickle, I tell you! And no amount of anything can make up for a lack of ketchup/mayo/mustard on a burger! (And don't even get me started about cheese!)

I will make Sizzling Napa Salad and some sort of something to try to serve as a gluten-free, wheat-free, egg-free, yeast-free hamburger bun. (Yeah, right!) Here's the recipe I came up with: Everything-Free Bread.

My daughter EV is making Oven-Baked Crispy Fries.

Reflection:
Well, there really is no substitute for condiments on a burger! The buns were actually quite good--kind of a biscuit-like texture, but they held up to a burger without crumbling--but the burgers themselves were very dull and boring. Mashed avocado, meat, arugula, dilly cucumbers, sweet onion, and tomato tastes pretty bland when you're used to something more. I think the goat cheese mixed into the meat is important to help with the flavor. And maybe add some fresh jalapeño as a topping just so there's something exciting going on!

The fries were amazing, and the saltiness was a welcome complement to the relatively dull burgers.

Meals for Friday, 7/3/15

We are all headed to Busch Gardens today, so I have to make food that we can take with us, and eat cold, for two separate meals. Ack!

Breakfast (on your own)
Oatmeal
Poached Eggs

Lunch
Pecan-Sesame-Encrusted Chicken Strips
Quionoa Salad with Red Beans and Beets
Crudites (carrot sticks, celery sticks, and sliced peppers, according to eliminations)

Dinner
Cilantro-Lime Chicken Strips
Plain chicken strips, pan-fried in ghee with APB
Apple slices and blackberries (according to who can have what)

Meals on Thursday, 7/2/15

Breakfast

Again, for breakfast, everyone has gotten pretty adept at grabbing something from among the choices of what they know they can have if they don't see a big meal I've made for all of us. This morning will not be one of those mornings, so they'll fend for themselves. As for me, I grabbed a handful of berries and a fingerful of pistachios before I taught a piano lesson.

Lunch

Leftovers again. I'm getting kind of tired of Creamy Walnut Pasta with broccoli, even though it's yummy. Plus, they say you shouldn't eat the same things over and over, so we need to let that lie for a little while.

Dinner

Tonight I will use the leftover pork chops to make some sort of stir-fry using very limited ingredients. I'll post what I come up with.

I chopped the leftover pork chops into small, bite-size pieces. For the sauce I put half a can of pineapple (left from the pineapple marinade I used to cook the port in the first place) into the VitaMix and pulverized it, adding a bit of sesame oil, APB, fresh ginger, onion, water, and tofu.

I served the meat with stir-fried veggies (cabbage, celery, onion, and broccoli in the community pot; carrots and peppers each in their own separate bowls for those who could have them). I served it with Soy/Dairy-Free Fried Rice.

Meals on Wednesday, 7/1/15

Breakfast

The girls are getting the hang of their restrictions, so each of them made herself an egg/omelette thing for breakfast according to allowances. (OG can only have whites. EL will take one extra yolk but not both!) Iivo grabbed something, but I'm not sure what. I ate leftover oatmeal from the fridge.

Lunch

Again, Iivo and OG packed leftovers.
I ate two corn tortillas with avocado and bacon again. They are yummy and easy.
EL made herself a corn tortilla roll with almond butter and ate it with some leftover meatballs.

Dinner

Tonight was the first Wednesday of the month, so our weekly prayer meeting—which meets at our house—was scheduled to have a potluck! Oh, the torture! EV made some Creamy Walnut Pasta and I stir-fried some broccoli and onions to go in it. I put out some grapes (which only two of us can have) and sliced up a cucumber, and that was it. We watched in (semi-)agony (I am being dramatic!) as our friends ate things like fried chicken, baked salmon, grilled chicken, key lime pie, and fresh fruit tart. We survived, but it wasn't easy! It is easier to resist foods that aren't right under your nose! I've made my mouth water again just typing about it here. Man, how I wanted some of that fruit tart!

Meals on Tuesday, 6/30/15

Today, everyone will be gone from home all day long except me. That means leftovers, leftovers, leftovers! (I'm finally figuring out that I should make larger batches of these things when I make them so that we can have some left for another meal!)

Iivo packed leftovers for lunch.

OG packed leftovers for lunch and had the snack bar prepare her dinner according to her eliminations.

EL ate lunch and dinner at her sister EV's house, where she was helping clean and organize all day. EV prepared both meals according to her eliminations. (Yay for these kinds of friends in your life!)

Iivo and I ate leftovers for dinner. I'm getting more experimental with things, so I modified the leftover Creamy Walnut Pasta with an additional sauce. I threw a single serving of leftover Pumpkin Quinoa Porridge and the leftover pumpkin from the can into the Vitamix with some Homemade Almond Milk and spices to make a different-tasting sauce.

Hooray for leftovers!

Meals on Monday, 6/29/15

Breakfast
Oatmeal
Fruit

Lunch
Leftover pasta

Dinner
Grilled marinated pork chops (Soy-Free Pineapple Pork Marinade, #2)
Cherry, Wild Rice, and Quinoa Salad
Roasted brussel sprouts

Meals on Sunday, 6/28/15

Breakfast
Everyone had to head out the door to do music for church, so I made little to-go bowls for them. iivo and EL had almond butter with apple slices and a meatball. OG had peanut butter banana bites and a meatball.

Lunch
For lunch, we had a repeat of the Creamy Walnut Pasta Sauce, this time made with lentil pasta (which I got at Costco). The lentil noodles are good, though they are a bit "heartier" than the rice noodles are. They seem more like whole wheat pasta, whereas the rice noodles seem more like regular semolina pasta. We added broccoli and onion to the pasta and sauce and served asparagus on the side.

Dinner
Tonight we had grilled sirloin steaks (rubbed with olive oil and APB
Leftovers of Barry's Potatoes
Leftover grilled asparagus

Meals on Saturday, 6/27/15

Breakfast
This morning, the girls and I went yard-saling with my mom, and I left iivo to make our breakfast. We had a repeat of the Quionoa Pumpkin Porridge, this time made with rice milk since OG can't have almond milk. It was yummy.

Lunch

Pizza on the elimination diet! Hooray!!

Today we are eating flatbread pizzas, consisting of Gluten-Free Crispy Pizza Crust (also free of wheat, dairy, and yeast) topped with Creamy Macadamia-Pine Nut Cheese and various other toppings:

A layer of baby kale/arugula
Tasty Pan-Fried Chicken, stirred into
Leftover pasta sauce from the other night
Stir-fried broccoli
Leftover caramelized onions
Goat cheese, just a sprinkling
Pine nuts, a few for garnish and texture
Fresh apricot, for color and a tad of sweet
Avocado and tomato on the side

This is VERY filling. I made two but would have only needed one for the five of us.

Dinner

We ended up eating the pizza late in the afternoon, so for dinner iivo smoked a chicken and we had Barry's Roasted Salt-and-Vinegar Potatoes.

Dinner on 6/26/15

Tonight's plan is to modify my sister's yummy Blue Cheese Burgers by using crumbled goat cheese instead. I have no idea if they'll be good or even work right, but we're giving it a shot. Goat cheese is the only form of dairy we can have on this Elimination Diet.

On the menu:

Goat Cheese Burgers
Caramelized onions
Ken's Kale Chips, minus the parmesan
Grilled asparagus (green beans for OG)
Colorful veggie sticks, according to allowances (carrot, celery, orange pepper)

NOTE: The goat cheese burgers are not the blue cheese burgers (which I love!), but they were still quite good. In fact, my son PT said he'd like to keep this around as an alternative even when we're no longer restricted in our diet, as he likes the change of flavors enough to want it sometimes.

Lunch on Friday, 6/26/15

On the menu:

IMS is the one having the interesting Elimination Diet lunch today. He had a lunch appointment scheduled with a friend, so he redirected that meeting to a local place that cooks food fresh at the time of order and uses very natural, whole, healthy ingredients. 

Hooray, The Cutting Edge Café, for being willing to prepare this bowl to order, according to what my hubby can have on this Elimination Diet!

Again, I'm missing the splash of color that a colored pepper or a tomato or a strawberry would provide. The only-tan-and-tree meals are getting to me!

(Given what I know of the foods he's eliminating, my guess is that this is a bowl of baby kale and arugula, topped with chicken cooked with only olive oil and salt, pepper, and garlic. I also see what looks like goat cheese and maybe onion. I'm sure it's topped off with olive oil and lime, since that's all he can have like that. I'm surprised he didn't add avocado, which he can also have, and which I'm sure they have.)

Thank you, Cutting Edge! To know that I will be able to eat out sometime during the next four months is super nice! We're so thankful for you!

EL and I will be having a repeat of Wednesday's lunch (corn tortillas with avocado)
OG packed leftovers from last night to take with her to work.

Actually, I received the following photo and text from her: "Snack bar is making me a filet of fish cooked in olive oil. ☺️ Awww."

Of course, I take one look at that picture and my brain screams, "You can't have tomatoes!" (I hope she remembered that little fact.) and, "What kind of fish? All of us are having to eliminate different kinds!" Thankfully, a quick after-the-fact look at the list reveals she's only eliminating salmon. I think she's pretty safe that that isn't salmon.

So, all in all, today is a very good day for outside places being cooperative and accommodating. Yay!

On a side note, it is also day three, and we are all starting to experience some physical symptoms... headaches, grumpiness, exhaustion, foggy thinking. Not sure what that's all about—toxin release, candida die-off, the flesh rearing its ugly head? At any rate, it took until now, the third day, to manifest itself. Interesting.

Breakfast on Friday, 6/26/15

On the menu:
Smoothies
"Messy Eggs" (for those who can have them)

OG can have egg whites but not yolks. She cooked two egg whites, having passed one yolk to her sister EL's pan. EL can have whole eggs, but wasn't excited about more that one yolk added to her omelette. She used one whole egg and one extra yolk. Both seasoned with APB and added kale to their omelettes. Both said it was rather boring and that the kale was too hard. ("Messy eggs" normally contains spinach and cheese, but not this time!)

Smoothies are going to be tricky since we can't all have the same things. In the future I think I'll have to make them individually, because this "all-purpose" one—made of stuff everyone can have (and nothing that any one of us is eliminating)—was awful... as in, "I will gag if I have to drink this entire thing!" awful. 

The (awful!!) smoothie I made this morning had the following:
2 C. homemade rice milk
A couple of fistfuls of kale
1/4 cucumber
A few pineapple chunks (IMS and EL are supposed to severely limit fruit)
A few mango slices
A couple of frozen strawberries
Ice

The girls had banana added to this basic base, so theirs was passable, but I had to put mine back in the blender and add some berries to make it palatable. I included the recipe only to save you the trouble! This needs something else or it's not very potable.

NOTE: Just this smoothie didn't hold me very well, either. I had to make a snack of carrot and celery sticks and a fingerful of pistachios with sea salt just to tide me over.

Dinner on Thursday, 6/25/15

Tonight, EL is babysitting and iivo has a men's "meatfest" at church. I'm marinating some tuna so he can take his meat and enjoy the whole grilling experience without blowing the Elimination Diet.

On the menu:

Fresh tuna steaks, grilled (Ginger-Lime Tuna Marinade)
Basmati Rice with Cilantro and Lime
Black beans
Chopped Vidalia onion, for garnish
Arugula and Baby Kale with Roasted Chickpeas

NOTE: iivo and I cannot have any lettuces or spinach, so the only salad options are baby kale and arugula. Hopefully this salad is good! It is a modified version of one I found online.

For the rice, I cooked basmati in the rice cooker, then stirred in the juice of 1 lime and 1 Tbsp. chopped cilantro. It was a little dry. I would cook it softer next time.

For the black bean topping, I gently heated black beans with SSB, adding a drizzle of olive oil and a splash of water to make a bit of a sauce. If we could all have tomatoes, I would have added some of those.

Lunch on Thursday, 6/25/15

On the menu:

Leftover Creamy Walnut Penne from last night
Cucumbers, sliced
Apricot, sliced

Hooray for leftovers! We're all eating the leftover pasta from last night. 
NOTE: It kept well. It isn't quite as delicious as when it is first stirred together and the sauce is fresh, but it certainly does better than leftover Alfredo sauce does. 

I've never eaten a fresh apricot in my life, only dried. They're tasty... a little like a peach with a firmer texture. EL figures it probably counts as one of the "sweet fruits" she's supposed to avoid due to yeast, so we only ate a half each.

Breakfast on Thursday, June 25, 2015

On the menu:

Gluten-free oatmeal 
(with homemade almond milk and hemp hearts)

Apple and cinnamon for EL
Frozen strawberry and maple syrup for LHS

NOTE: I have never eaten a "hemp heart" in my life. Hemp is on our list of what we can have, so I bought a bag at Whole Foods yesterday. They're yummy. They taste a little like nuts. It was a very nice "crunchy substitute" for the wheat germ I'm used to having on my oatmeal. 

(Yes, I missed the butter, and no, I didn't have a nice slide of whole-grain toast on the side, but all in all, this was a satisfying breakfast.)

All-Purpose Blend Seasoning Mix (APB)

This is a spice blend of things we can have, since all the pre-fab mixes (including my beloved, simple  SPG blend) are off the menu during our Elimination Diet.

1 tsp. crushed dried coriander
1 tsp. crushed dried dill weed
1 tsp. crushed dried rosemary
1 tsp. mustard powder
1 tsp. celery seed
1 tsp. celery salt
1 tsp. savory
2 tsp. dried marjoram
2 tsp. crushed dried thyme
1 Tbsp. paprika
1 Tbsp. onion powder
1 Tbsp. cayenne pepper
2 Tbsp. sea salt
4 Tbsp. crushed dried parsley flakes

We had to eliminate:
basil
bay leaf
black pepper
garlic
oregano
white pepper

Dinner on Wednesday, 6/24/15

Tonight we are having the most delicious dinner! You would never know from just the taste that it was "free" of anything... the pasta sauce seems creamy, savory, and smooth!

On the menu:

Creamy Walnut Pasta Sauce
Penne rice noodles (Trader Joe's)
Sautéed onion and asparagus (OG can't have asparagus!)
Leftover broccoli

NOTES:
*The noodles at Trader Joe's tasted just like regular, wheat-based pasta. Yummy!
*Grilled chicken would be good with this next time.
*Tomato would add a nice splash of color—too bad some of us can't have them on this Elimination Diet!

Lunch on Wednesday, 6/24/15

EL and I can have corn (IMS and OG cannot), so we took advantage of that fact today at lunch since it was just the two of us.

On the menu:

Corn tortillas with avocado filling & bacon (no bacon for EL)
Crisped corn tortilla chips
Blanched broccoli
Sliced cucumbers
Carrot sticks

The avocado filling consisted of mashed  avocado with fresh lemon juice.

We heated a corn tortilla on the cast iron griddle, then spread it with the avocado filling. I added a little bacon.

For the tortilla "chips," I put the corn tortilla into a bit of hot avocado oil in my cast iron skillet. I let it pan fry a bit in there, then turned it over for the same on the other side. I then blotted it free of oil, cut each tortilla into 8 wedges, and let them sit to harden a bit. Once they were cooled and as crispy as they were going to get, I put them in the toaster oven to "toast" a little bit more. They were yummy with the guacamole on them.

I threw the broccoli into a pot with a small amount of boiling water, then covered it and let it steam cook for just a couple of minutes.  After just a couple of minutes, while it was still crisp-tender, I drained it and plunged it into ice cold water to retain the color and stop the cooking.

EL can have lettuce, so she also had a bed of greens with avocado as her "dressing."

IIVO: We weren't quite ready yet with stuff to "grab 'n go" so iivo ate leftover Pumpkin Quinoa Porridge, a half a cucumber, and a bowl full of nuts he's allowed to have (walnuts and almonds).

NOTE: We'll need to be careful, since breakfast also had almonds, and dinner will have walnuts. We are supposed to leave time (2-3 days, ideally) between eating the same things.

Breakfast on Wednesday, 6/24/15

This morning we started the Elimination Diet. Since our daughter OG--the only one eliminating almonds--stayed over at her sister's house last night, the rest of us had a breakfast containing homemade almond milk.

On the menu:
Grapefruit
Pumpkin Quinoa Porridge
Homemade Almond Milk
Chopped walnuts

Mashed banana (EL only)
Maple syrup (LS only)
Organic stevia (IMS only)

NOTE: Both iivo and EL are having to eliminate all sweeteners, both natural and artificial, because they tested for yeast sensitivities.

(Well, iivo did--both brewer's and baker's yeast. EL did not, but she has eczema, which is often associated with a yeast problem, so she is having to eliminate sweeteners, too.)

Iivo chose to add a little sprinkle of stevia to his porridge. EL chose to mash up a banana and sweeten hers with that. I used just a smidgen of pure maple syrup.

This is quite tasty, even without any sweetener of any sort! The blend of the almonds, pumpkin, and pumpkin pie spices creates a delicate sweetness all on its own.

This is definitely a keeper!