Notice: Function _load_textdomain_just_in_time was called incorrectly. Translation loading for the wp-ultimate-recipe domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home/maryzahc/public_html/adultfoodallergies.com/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6121
Peanut-Free – Page 28 – surviving the food allergy apocalypse (archive)

surviving the food allergy apocalypse (archive)

Tag: Peanut-Free

Quick-ish Marinara Sauce
Quick-ish Marinara with Meatballs and Gluten Free Penne

One of the things I really miss is a great meatball sub with gobs of cheese. Since I’m allergic to dairy, wheat, and eggs (in addition to what feels like 50 million other things) that’s a little hard. I haven’t totally figured it out yet, because there isn’t a vegan cheese that works for me because of my coconut, almond, and corn allergies. I’m also missing a sub roll, as I’m still trying to figure out gluten-free, corn-free, dairy-free, and egg-free bread, but I’ve gotten two steps on the way. This week I’ll be posting a marinara sauce you can use for meatball subs, pasta, or for anything else that you need tomato sauce. In two weeks, I’ll be posting a recipe for meatballs. For those of you that have a safe bread and a safe cheese you can use, you’ll have everything you need for a meatball sub. I’m totally jealous of all of you, and while I’m working on it, I’m just going to eat the meatballs and sauce over pasta, which isn’t bad either.

The reason that this is a quick-ish marinara sauce is that I’m using crushed canned tomatoes and canned tomato paste (Cento brand – no citric acid in crushed, tomato puree or paste, but watch out as other Cento canned tomato varieties do have citric acid, which can be corn derived), rather than starting from tomatoes. It still takes some time to simmer, making it a weekend dish, but you can freeze the leftovers and use it for a meal or two during the week with little to no prep.

Quick-ish Marinara Sauce
- 1 large onion, diced very finely
- 3 stalks of celery, diced finely
- 4 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 carrot (use a vegetable peeler or a micro planer to peel or zest until the carrot’s just a pile of peels or zest)
- 1 Tablespoon of olive oil
- 1 – 8 ounce can of tomato paste
- 2 – 28 cans of crushed tomatoes or tomato puree
- 1 cup of vegetable stock or water
- 1/2 cup of white or red wine (your preference, I used white becuse my tomatoes needed brightening) or use additional vegetable stock or water
- 1/4 teaspoon of oregano
- 1/4 teaspoon of marjoram
- 1/4 teaspoon of thyme
- 1/4 teaspoon of dried basil (if not using fresh basil below, double the amount)
- 1/4 teaspoon of rosemary
- 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper
- 10 fresh leaves of basil, chopped
- salt to taste (I used about a teaspoon this time to get it where I like it)
Dice your onions and celery, mince your garlic, and zest or peel your carrot.

Diced Onions

Diced Celery

In a large stock pot, heat the olive oil over medium heat and add your onions, celery, garlic and carrots. Saute them until the onions and celery are somewhat translucent.

Onions, celery, garlic, and carrots being sauted

Add the contents of the can of tomato paste and stir it into the vegetables so it is equally distributed throughout. Then add your cans of crushed tomatoes, the vegetable stock, and the white wine. Stir thoroughly. Reduce the heat to medium low (about 3-4 on my burner dial).

Add your oregano, marjoram, thyme, dried basil, rosemary and black pepper to the sauce and stir to incorporate the spices into the sauce. Chop your basil if you have not already, and add it to the sauce, again stirring thoroughly.

Marinara simmering

Continue to simmer your sauce on medium low until the carrot has dissolved completely into the sauce and the sauce is the consistency you prefer (for me, this is about an hour or so). Once you have reached that point, taste your sauce to see if it needs any salt and add it at that time. I found that I needed about 1/2 of a teaspoon. If you find that your sauce is too acidic, sometimes I will add about a teaspoon of brown sugar and that helps.

Stay tuned for the meatball recipe to be posted in two weeks!

Yummy Quick-ish Marinara
September 16, 2013
Pasta e Fagioli
pasta e fagioli, photo by j.andrews

Growing up, we didn’t eat a lot of pasta. Every few months, there was spaghetti and meatballs, but mostly, we had potatoes. It turns out, the rest of my cohort were eating a lot more pasta than I was, and it seems to be something of a comfort food for many people. Personally, I like it because it’s easy.

We served a pasta e fagioli soup at a sandwich restaurant I worked at, but years ago, someone gave me a recipe for a pasta dish, not soup, that was mostly a can each of beans and tomatoes. It was easy, but kind of boring, and it seemed like something that could take on a ton more vegetables, both for health and nutrition and for color. So I started tinkering. I’ve put off putting this up on the blog since last fall, primarily because I’m still tinkering. Because of that, I’m going to give you some options and ranges on amounts of ingredients. But as we move into cooler weather (well, in New England — I guess it was 90-something in Bismarck on Friday), I am thinking of heartier meals that are still quick and make enough for leftovers.

So here you go. If you have dried pasta, a can of beans, and a can of tomatoes, and garlic, you can make a version of this happen in about 40 minutes. The longer cooking time is because the beans begin to break down and make the sauce creamy. If you make the sauce a day or so ahead, you have an even quicker meal with a creamier sauce. If you come up with a variation you like, please share it in the comments!

simmering bean sauce, photo by j.andrews

Pasta e fagioli
- 2 Tablespoons of olive oil, cooking grade (generally not extra virgin)
- 1 teaspoon (2 cloves) minced garlic
- 2 Tablespoons chopped sweet onion (optional)
- 2-4 stalks celery, chopped
- 1/4-1/2 of a bell pepper chopped finely (optional)
- 1 8 oz. package of white button mushrooms, washed and broken (optional, I guess)
- 1 8 oz can of cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 1/2 cups of canned tomatoes, diced or roughly chopped, and their juice
- 5-8 oz. baby spinach, roughly chopped (optional, but really good in this)
- 1-3 Tablespoons good quality olive oil (the fancier kind you’d use for salad dressing, if you have it)
- salt and pepper to taste
- Pasta of your choice (I used Ancient Harvest quinoa and corn shells)
In a large skillet, heat up your first 2 T of olive oil over medium heat. When it is shimmering hot, add the garlic and the onion (if using). Stir frequently.

As those aromatics become translucent, add the celery and bell pepper. Stir to completely coat with oil, then add the mushrooms. You’ve broken instead of chopping the mushrooms because they hold their shape and shrink less, and this gives them more texture. Yes, I suppose these are optional, too, if you really hate mushrooms. I just find that hard to imagine (sorry, Denise).

When the mushrooms are thoroughly wilted (that’s what they will look like), add the beans and the tomatoes, but reserve most of the tomato juice. I just scoop the tomatoes out with a slotted spoon. Stir these in will, and lower the heat to a simmer. Cook this for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally, then add the tomato juice, and cook another 15-20 minutes. The beans will start to break down, and this gives the “sauce” a great texture — it is very thick and chunky at this stage.

Assuming your pasta takes about 10 minutes, start it now. Cook according to package directions, making sure to reserve some of the water when you drain it for the step below.

At this point, add the spinach to the bean mixture, and cook until all the spinach is wilted. Decide if you want your sauce a bit thinner at this stage. If so, add from 1T to 1/4 cup of your pasta water, adding slowly and stirring until you get the desired consistency. If not, go directly to adding another 1-3 Tablespoons of good quality olive oil (the more you add, the richer it gets, just like hummus), stirring it in thoroughly. Taste your sauce and add salt (if needed) and a bit of fresh ground pepper.

Serve sauce over pasta.

pasta e fagioli, photo by j.andrews
September 9, 2013
DIY Spice Mix Day – Montreal Steak, Creamy Peppercorn, Singapore, and Full of Flavor Herb Mix
Full of Flavor Herb Mix

DIY Singapore Seasoning

DIY Creamy Peppercorn Dressing Mix

DIY Montreal Steak Seasoning

So one of the more recent traumatic events (okay, not really traumatic, but annoying certainly) was the purging of my spice cabinet of things I can’t use any more as a result of the corn and wheat allergies. If you know me in real life, I’m a tad obsessive about my spices. I have a four-shelf stand-alone cabinet in the kitchen that contains nothing but spices, spice mixes, and vinegar and oils. There may or may not be an inventory spreadsheet on my Google drive with 157 items on it so that I can get to it on my phone while I am grocery shopping. I’m also frankly surprised and disappointed that I haven’t made it on some platinum frequent order program with Penzey’s spices, given my order volume (tongue firmly in cheek, I love them). But in any case, I had to get rid of a few of my favorite mixes, Penzey’s or otherwise, mostly because they contained citric acid or other problematic ingredients for me. So I played around, did some Google-fu, and experimented and came up with the following mixes that make me happy.

DIY Montreal Steak Seasoning
- 4 Tablespoons of Kosher Salt
- 1 Tablespoon of black peppercorns
- 1 Tablespoon of dried minced onion
- 1 Tablespoon of dried thyme
- 1 Tablespoon of dried rosemary
- ½ Tablespoon of dried minced garlic
- ½ Tablespoon of crushed red pepper flakes
- 2 teaspoons of fennel seed
- 1 teaspoon of dill seed
- 1 teaspoon of paprika
Put this in a blender or spice/coffee grinder, or use my trick where you take a pint mason canning jar, put all the spices in the jar and screw the blender blade assembly to the jar and put it on blender. Using any and all methods, blend until fairly well ground as shown below and put in a spice jar and store. I use this as a rub for beef, pork and chicken.

DIY Montreal Steak Seasoning

DIY Creamy Peppercorn Dressing Mix
- ¼ cup of black peppercorns ground coarsely (in a blender or spice/coffee grinder, or use my trick where you take a pint mason canning jar, put the spices in the jar and screw the blender blade assembly to the jar and put it on blender)
- ⅛ cup of sugar
- ⅛ cup of dried minced garlic
- ⅛ cup of dried thyme
- ⅛ cup of dried parsley.
- 2 ½ Tablespoons of salt
DIY Creamy Peppercorn Dressing Mix

Put all ingredients in a bowl spices in a bowl and whisk together thoroughly. Put in a spice jar to store. To use, mix 1 Tablespoon of Creamy Peppercorn Dressing Mix in 2 Tablespoons of water and let stand five minutes. Mix in ½ cup Earth Balance Mindful Mayo and enjoy. If you can have dairy and eggs, use 1/4 cup of mayo and 1/4 cup of sour cream 🙂

Creamy Peppercorn Dressing using Earth Balance Mindful Mayo

DIY Singapore Seasoning
- 2 Tablespoons of lemon peel powder (you can get this from Penzey’s or grind up dried lemon peel in your spice/coffee grinder)
- ½ Tablespoon of black pepper
- 1 teaspoon of garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon of onion powder
- 1 teaspoon of tumeric
- ½ teaspoon of ground coriander
- ½ teaspoon of ground cumin
- ½ teaspoon of ground ginger
- ¼ teaspoon of ground nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon of ground fennel
- ¼ teaspoon of ground cinnamon
- ⅛ teaspoon of ground fenugreek
- ⅛ teaspoon of ground white pepper
- ⅛ teaspoon of ground cardamom
- ⅛ teaspoon of ground cloves
- ⅛ teaspoon of ground cayenne red pepper
Put all ingredients in a bowl spices in a bowl and whisk together thoroughly. Put in a spice jar to store. You can use this as a spice rub for chicken or pork or to flavor rice noodles.

DIY Singapore Seasoning

Full of Flavor Herb Mix

Penzey’s has a Mural of Flavor spice mix that I love, but it has citric acid (corn) in it, so it’s out for me now. I came up with the following mix to replace it.
- 1 ½ Tablespoons of dried minced shallots
- 1 teaspoon of thyme
- 1 teaspoon of rosemary
- 1 teaspoon of basil
- 1 teaspoon of chives
- ½ teaspoon of onion powder
- ½ teaspoon of garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon of lemon peel
- ¼ teaspoon of ground coriander
- ½ teaspoon of green peppercorns
- ½ teaspoon of dill weed
- ¼ teaspoon of lemon peel powder (you can get this from Penzey’s or grind up dried lemon peel in your spice/coffee grinder)
- ¼ teaspoon of black pepper
- ¼ teaspoon of orange peel
Put this in a blender or spice/coffee grinder, or use my trick where you take a pint mason canning jar, put all the spices in the jar and screw the blender blade assembly to the jar and put it on blender. Using any and all method, blend until it is ground to a coarse consistency (not powder) as shown below and put in a spice jar and store. I use this on vegetables, in soups, on beef, pork, chicken and fish. It’s a great all-purpose spice blend.

Full of Flavor Herb Mix

Hope you guys enjoy these spice mixes. If you’ve got some of your own, please share!
September 2, 2013
Moveable Feast — the week-long salad
Salad, weekend iteration

This summer hasn’t been brilliant for me and cooking. Let’s be honest — it was brutally hot and often humid, and I’ve been busy. But hey, since when is that just a summer thing? Here’s a second “idea” recipe of the summer — the “idea” part being that you can change up almost all of the ingredients and the concept will still work. Actually, that’s also the whole point of this recipe.

You know those weeks where you have a lot of random leftovers around? Or ingredients you didn’t use quite all of? Last week, that was me — a fridge full of random, and a planned long weekend vacation at the end of the week. So I shopped strategically and left my empty fridge alone over the weekend.

With half a bag of shredded carrots, most of a cucumber, some broccoli, leftover brown rice pasta, half an avocado, and a packet of tuna, I managed four meals by adding one key ingredient — ranch dressing (check out our cashew-based recipe, but you can also try the Earth Balance mayo version). I know that you likely come here for new and fresh recipes, and this isn’t exactly a recipe. But occasionally, I need a reminder that good, healthy, tasty food is not hard and does not need to take forever to make.

This kind of salad is one of my favorite things to eat for lunches, but I make a few, get a bit tired of them, and then seem to forget that they exist. Does anyone else do that?

Meal The First

4 stalks celery, chopped

1 cucumber, sliced in half and thinly sliced

1/2 bag of shredded carrots

2 cups of broccoli florets, broken into smaller florets

1/4 cup slivered almonds

Cashew ranch, to your level of dressing needs
- Feeds two or makes two meals, with leftovers, so plate and then put the dressing on your servings
Salad, version 2

Meal the Second

To the leftover vegetables, and with the leftover ranch, add:

1 packet of tuna, drained

1/2 avocado, cubed

1 small tomato, sliced

1 cup of leftover pasta
- Again, feeds two or makes two meals
Other Possible Additions

Leftover chicken/canned chicken

Canned beans

Any other vegetables you may have around

Leftover rice or other grains

Do you make salads like this? If so, what would you add? Any good ideas for exciting or unexpected ingredients?
August 26, 2013
Not Quite Mom’s Coleslaw
Not Quite Mom’s Coleslaw

It’s summer still, although there’s been a fall-like chill in the air lately. So there’s still opportunities for cookouts and potlucks and all sorts of communal eating, and sometimes you need coleslaw. And with a dairy and egg allergy that can be challenging. Especially if one is anti-coleslaw with vinegar and oil dressing. As far as I’m concerned, coleslaw with vinegar and oil dressing is a salad with cabbage, it’s not coleslaw. Am I the only one with deeply held beliefs on coleslaw? (Yeah, probably.) In any case, my mom used to make this coleslaw dressing with Miracle Whip with a bit of milk, orange juice, and sugar that was the right sort of tangy, creamy and sweet all at the same time. And my mom doesn’t really cook, but seriously this dressing was perfect. I could eat buckets of this coleslaw back in the day before food allergies reared their ugly heads.

Now that Earth Balance has a vegan mayo that’s really good, I’ve been able to recreate my mom’s coleslaw dressing (see our review here). And it’s good and pretty close to the original.

Not Quite Mom’s Coleslaw
- 6 cups of chopped cabbage
- 2 grated carrots
- 1/2 cup of Earth Balance Mindful Mayo Original
- 3 Tablespoons of orange juice (or lemon or lime if you like your dressing more tart)
- 1 teaspoon of sugar
Chop your cabbage however you like cabbage to be in coleslaw, but I like mine to be diced, about a half inch by a half inch.

Chopped cabbage

Once you have six cups of chopped cabbage, peel your carrots and use a large grater to grate them.

Grated Carrot and Chopped Cabbage

Then place your Earth Balance Mindful Mayo Original, the orange juice and the sugar into a small bowl and whisk the ingredients together until smooth.

Dressing after whisking

Combine cabbage, carrots and dressing in a large bowl and mix together well. The orange color to the dressing doesn’t actually come from the orange juice, it comes from the grated carrots.

Dressing, Carrots, and Cabbage combined.

Serve and enjoy!

Not Quite Mom’s Coleslaw
August 19, 2013
Brown Rice “Couscous” Veggie Bowl
Generally those of us with multiple food allergies can rely on very little in the way of packaged or convenience foods. Given that both Denise and I also work full-time, sometimes feeding oneself on a serious time budget becomes, well, problematic. When I still ate wheat, couscous was something I always had on hand because it cooked quickly and was a good neutral base for an easy saute of whatever was in the fridge at the time. I operated on the easy model of “beans, greens, and grain.”

This is a version of that — using a Lundberg brown rice couscous with roasted garlic flavor as the “grain” base for a nice stir fry of Swiss chard from my friend Mary’s garden. Add in a leftover sweet potato and a caramelized Vidalia onion and I had a good dinner with three lunch portions leftover. Add a can of white beans or some leftover meat for a protein boost, serve this as a side dish, or think up your own variation — this is more of a formula than a recipe, really, and one I honestly repeat over and over throughout the year for easy weeknight meals.

Gluten-free Veggie Couscous Bowl

Makes 4 servings
- 1 large Vidalia onion, halved and sliced thin
- 1 Tablespoon some form of fat
- I box Lundberg brown rice couscous
- 1 bunch of Swiss chard, washed, rolled, sliced, and then chopped
- 1-2 teaspoons olive oil
- 1-3 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1 sweet potato, cooked
- salt and pepper to taste
Melt shortening/butter/margarine/bacon fat/olive oil in large skillet over medium low heat. When sizzling hot, add onions. Stir thoroughly to coat with oils, and cook low and slow until well-browned, about 45 minutes or so. Stir occasionally.

If you need to cook the sweet potato, throw it in the oven at 375F after washing it and poking vent holes in the skin. I’d personally suggest making more than one and use the leftovers in another dish later in the week.

In a separate stockpot, bring water to a boil as directed on the box of the couscous. When the water is boiling, add the seasonings (if you can have them) and the couscous. Cover, reduce heat, and set the timer — again, basically follow the directions on the box, omitting the seasoning if you cannot have them.

While these things cook, wash and drain the chard leaves. Chop off the stems. Slice these thinly like celery and set aside. Stack the leaves, and then roll them up tightly to slice thinly to create small ribbons of chard. Cut lengthwise along the leaves next, to make the ribbons shorter.

When the onions are finished cooking, remove them from the skillet. Add a tiny amount of olive oil to the fat left in the pan, if needed, and then add the garlic and chard in quick succession. Stir thoroughly, and cook until the chard is fully wilted (4-8 minutes).

In a large serving bowl, mix all ingredients — couscous, chard, sweet potato, and onion. Taste, and then season appropriately with salt and pepper.
August 12, 2013
Pan-fried Haddock
Pan-fried Haddock with Tartar Sauce

My apologies in advance to those of you with fish and shellfish allergies, but I’m from Maine originally, and I love, love seafood. Although I have three confirmed shellfish allergies (crab, scallops, and clams), and one additional positive scratch test in the elimination/challenge confirmation process (lobster, I better not be allergic), I only appear to be anaphylactic with respect to soft-shell crab. I still avoid the other confirmed seafood allergies, because you never know (past reactions don’t predict future reactions) and because the symptoms I do get are bad enough, but I’m stubborn enough to continue eating fish or shellfish that aren’t on my confirmed or positive scratch test list. However, if a medical professional or your symptoms have made it clear that you can’t eat any shellfish or fish, don’t follow my lead because I can be an idiot when it comes to doing what I’m supposed to do for my own personal health, as we’ve previously established on this blog.

With that said, let’s move on to the dish of the day. I’m a shellfish girl primarily, meaning I like(d) crabs, scallops, clams, shrimp, and lobster. For me seafood really doesn’t mean fish, but I don’t mind a good piece of haddock. Haddock has to be cooked right or you get this dried out, tasteless piece of mushy cardboard. Since most of my shellfish favs are off limits these days, and the only way I can have haddock cooked at a restaurant is broiled with some lemon (since I’m allergic to dairy, wheat, and eggs) which tends to result in cardboard, I started buying some and cooking it at home. Haddock is also a standard offering in most fish departments in New England grocery stores.

Haddock can be a tricky thing to cook because it’s really easy to overcook, and over-cooked haddock is, as stated above, a dried-out piece of mushy cardboard. I’ll do my best to explain, but it’s sort of a continuing learning process/practice makes perfect kind of thing.

Pan-Fried Haddock

Serves 4 adults
- 2 pounds of fresh haddock (you can get previously frozen, but it won’t stay together as well and may fall apart as you’re frying it)
- 1 cup of whole grain gluten-free flour mix (see recipe below or use what you like that you have already, or if you can have wheat this works with all-purpose flour as well, as I used to make this before the wheat thing)
- spice mixture for flour (see below)
- 2 Tablespoons of canola oil (or other oil safe for you and suitable for frying)
- Canola oil (or other oil safe for you and suitable for frying), enough to fill the bottom of your skillet to the depth of a quarter of an inch
Whole Grain Gluten-Free Flour Mix

This makes several cups of a whole grain gluten-free flour mix, but you only need a cup for this recipe. If you want, save it for another use, or cut back the amounts proportionately so that you make less. Place the following ingredients in a large bowl and whisk them together thoroughly. Take out one cup for the recipe, and put the rest into an airtight container to store to use for anything that calls for gluten-free flour.
- 100 grams of millet flour
- 125 grams of white sorghum flour
- 125 grams of oat flour
- 75 grams of sweet or glutinous rice flour
- 75 grams of tapioca starch
Spice Mixture for flour

Mix the following ingredients in a little bowl:
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt
- 1/8 teaspoon of paprika
- 1/8 teaspoon of ground chipotle pepper
- 1/8 teaspoon of ground black pepper
- 1/8 teaspoon of rosemary (you might want to crunch it up into smaller pieces)
- 1/8 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
- 1/8 teaspoon of garlic
- 1/8 teaspoon of thyme
Spice Mixture for Flour

Take a large gallon ziploc bag, or a large bowl and mix the cup of whole grain gluten free flour and the spice mixture together. I use a ziploc bag because I can just seal and shake after putting the fish in it without having to handle the fish (I use tongs) or get my hands all covered in flour. Put the bag or the bowl aside for now.

Put your skillet on the burned and pour enough oil in it so that there is about a quarter of an inch of oil in the bottom. If you use a thick pan like my cast iron skillet and it’ll take a while to heat up, turn the heat on now to medium (about 5 or 6 on the dial).

Take your haddock fillets, and cut them into pieces about 3-4 inches long. I find that pan-frying a whole fillet is messy, somewhat dangerous (think splashing oil), and doesn’t work well because of the variable thicknesses of the fillet, resulting in either under-cooked fish in some parts or overcooked fish in others. I choose where to cut based on the thickness trying to get pieces that are a consistent thickness. Then I can fry the thinner pieces for less time and the thicker pieces longer so that hopefully nothing gets overcooked.

Place your haddock pieces in a large bowl with the 2 Tablespoons of oil and toss them carefully to coat the haddock pieces with oil.

You can test your oil to see if it’s hot enough by taking a tiny piece of the fish and putting it in the oil to see if it bubbles and sizzles (see the picture below for bubbling and sizzling around the edges of the fish). If your oil is hot and ready to fry, take 3 pieces of the haddock, and put them in the ziploc, and shake it to coat the pieces. (Or put them in the bowl if that’s what you’re using and cover them with flour.) Take the pieces and shake off the excess flour (I use tongs) and place the pieces of fish in the skillet.

Haddock pieces frying in skillet

You should fry them, turning them once, until they are golden brown on each side, and so that the fish is just barely opaque, like this:

Haddock after frying

It should no longer be translucent, but it should not be a bright solid white either, and the haddock should just flake away in layers at a touch as shown above. If it’s overcooked, it won’t do that, it’ll be stiff at the touch and you’ll have to put effort into breaking off pieces with a fork. I’d tell you how many minutes per side, but that’s dependent on how thick your haddock piece is, so I can’t really do that. So again, it’s a practice makes perfect thing. Once the pieces are cooked, put them on a plate or cookie sheet lined with paper towels (this works best, I used paper lunch bags in the photo because I was out of paper towels), and let the oil drain off. (Also, you can take a tip from Alton Brown, as offered by Mary Kate, and put a cookie rack upside down on the paper towels, because it keeps the food off of the oil-soaked paper towels but it still drains the oil. I’ll definitely try this next time.)

Once all your haddock is fried, you can serve it with a little tartar sauce, which I make by mixing some Earth Balance Mindful Mayo, some relish, and a couple of drops of hot sauce. Enjoy!

Pan-fried Haddock with Tartar Sauce
August 5, 2013
15 Minute Salsa
15 Minute Salsa on a Beanito Chip

Since I also cannot buy salsa during this whole elimination torture thing (most have celery and onion, which are two no-no’s at the moment), I whipped this up so I’d have something to eat at my book group, since I’d gotten “regular” allergen-filled food for everyone else. I wasn’t going for culinary genius, but just something incredibly quick that wouldn’t be awful, based on what I had in the fridge and cupboards. And when it was done, I was surprised that it came out so well, and Mary Kate suggested I write it up on the blog. If you are not avoiding onion, you can add an small onion to this and I’m sure it would be lovely. You need a food processor to do this one. I tried it in a blender, but I just didn’t get the result I wanted. This is also a fast one, the fifteen minutes includes washing the food processor (if you have the jar of taco seasoning made up ahead of time).

15 Minute Salsa
- 1 red bell pepper, de-stemmed and de-seeded, and cut into large chunks.
- 1 jalapeno pepper, de-stemmed and de-seeded, and cut into large chunks.
- 4-5 cloves of garlic, peeled with the stem end trimmed
- 5 tomatoes, stem end trimmed, and cut into eighths (I don’t seed my tomatoes because I don’t mind seeds, but if you do, feel free to take them out, but you might want to add another tomato)
- 2 Tablespoons of Taco Seasoning (see recipe from our Taco Beef for Tacos, Salads and Nachos post)
- 1/3 cup of red wine vinegar
- 1 Tablespoon of olive oil
De-stem, de-seed and cut red bell pepper and the jalapeno pepper into chunks. Trim stem ends of garlic.

Red bell pepper, jalapeno pepper and garlic

Core tomatoes and cut them into eighths.

Tomatoes, showing cored and cut into eighths

Put peppers, garlic and tomatoes into your food processor. You may need to do this in batches, I have to because my food processor is on the small size. Have a large bowl read to dump your batches in. Pulse until you get the consistency you like. I prefer it a little more processed.

Salsa in food processor

Once you have all your processing batches in the large bowl, stir it well so that all the peppers, garlic and tomatoes are well mixed through out the salsa. Your veggies may look a little frothy, but that’ll sort out once you add the remaining ingredients. Add the taco seasoning, red wine vinegar, and olive oil.

Salsa before seasoning, vinegar and oil are mixed in.

Mix all the ingredients together with a spatula making sure that all the spice mixture gets evenly distributed. This makes about 5-6 cups of salsa so it’s a great recipe for a party. Enjoy!

Salsa, ready to eat!!
July 22, 2013