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
Soy-free – Page 17 – surviving the food allergy apocalypse (archive)

surviving the food allergy apocalypse (archive)

Tag: Soy-free

Contains no soy.

Carrot Chickpea Curry
Carrot Chickpea Curry

So I went away for a week and came back to New Hampshire summer. To be honest, as much as we complained about the cold, I wasn’t ready for full-on summer temperatures. If it stays this way, I’ll need to dig out the AC sooner, not later, just to get some sleep. It’s hot! It doesn’t help that my apartment holds the heat like an oven.

Why, if it’s hot, would I give you hot food — hot in temperature as well as full of spices? Well, first off, it’s not hot everywhere — I hear that if you live in either of the Dakotas or Wyoming, you got snow this weekend. Secondly, hot food is a great way to make it feel cooler. It’s all about contrasts. Actually, this curry tastes great hot or cold, so make it for dinner and eat the leftovers for lunches. Oh! And whether this is “spicy” or “full of spices” is entirely up to you — if you like spicy foods, buy a spicy curry powder. Otherwise, buy a regular or “sweet” curry powder and you get all the flavor without the heat. I always buy sweet curry powder because I can add some cayenne if I want things spicy. There IS coconut in here — Denise and I have both made curry with cashew milk, but never successfully without a nut milk. Let us know if you have a nut-free way to make an Indian-style curry.

This curry passes all my tests for a weeknight dinner — it takes less than 10 minutes to prep, and while cooking takes about 45 minutes total, only a few of those are active. You will need a skillet with a lid or a cover of foil. I have one skillet with a lid (finally), but I’ve found that because my cast iron skillet holds the heat better and is a slightly different shape, it works better than my lidded skillet. A sheet of heavy duty foil stands in for a lid here and lets the carrots steam to perfection.

Carrot Chickpea Curry

Carrot Chickpea Curry
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil
- 1/2 sweet onion (about 1/2 cup), chopped
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon chopped garlic (about 2 cloves)
- 5 carrots, peeled and sliced in rounds
- 1 can (15 oz.) chickpeas/garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 Tablespoon curry powder
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 4 teaspoons cilantro
- 3 Tablespoons coconut milk
- 1 teaspoon ginger
- rice to serve curry over, if desired
Heat your pan over medium heat. When the pan is hot, add the olive oil. When the oil is hot, add the onions. Stir well to coat with oil, then sprinkle with salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions start to lightly brown.

Add the garlic and stir until fragrant. Then add the carrots and beans, and the curry and cinnamon. Stir everything well until the spices are fully spread over everything.

Now cover and cook for 15 minutes. There are two ways to do this — if you like browned bits, just let it go for the full 15 minutes. And I do mean browned, not burned. If you prefer no browned carrots or onions, stir it once or twice during the cooking time.

Then add the cilantro, coconut milk, and ginger. Stir well, and cook another 5-10 minutes, stirring every few minutes.

Serve over rice, or if you’re feeling less like rice, over greens for a salad.
May 11, 2015
Beef Satay – Gluten-free with Soy-free option
Beef Satay – Gluten-free with Soy-free option

I used to order chicken satay all the time, before the chicken and corn allergies reared their ugly heads. Since I can’t have chicken, and I’ve been craving satay, I decided to try the beef version to see if that would get rid of the craving, which it did. It was so yummy. If you can have chicken, try it with chicken too and let me know how it was, so I can live through you vicariously. If you have a soy allergy (I don’t), try this with Mary Kate’s Soy-Free, gluten-free “Tamari Sauce” and let us know how it worked out for you.

Beef Satay – Gluten-free with Soy-free option
- 1 to 2 pound flank steak
Beef Satay Marinade:
- 4 cloves of garlic, peeled
- 1 small onion, peeled and diced roughly (it’s going in the blender or food processor, so don’t stress over it)
- 1 Tablespoon of Sriracha (use a safe version for you, I ferment my own at home, since I don’t have a safe version)
- 3 Tablespoons of Soy Sauce (I do well with San-J Tamari Gluten Free Soy Sauce, the alcohol is from cane sugar not corn, but if you can’t use soy, try Mary Kate’s recipe for a Soy-Free, gluten-free “Tamari Sauce” )
- 4 Tablespoons of a safe oil for you (I used grape seed and olive oil because I ran out of grape seed in the middle)
- 3 Tablespoons of brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon of dried lemongrass (if you’ve got fresh, use it, but it’s often hard to get here)
- 1 1/2 Tablespoons of ground coriander
- 2 Tablespoons of ground turmeric
Equipment:
- food processor or blender
- a baking rack
- a sheet pan safe for the broiler
- bamboo skewers (optional)
- food safe and safe for you food prep gloves – you’ll need them to put the beef on skewers or you’ll have really yellow fingers as turmeric stains, which is a vast understatement.
Place all the marinade ingredients in a food processor or blender, and puree them into oblivion. They should be the consistency of a smoothie when you’re finished.

Beef Satay marinade pureed into oblivion

Cut your flank steak across the grain into long strips about an inch and a half wide, as these will end up going onto skewers. Place the flank steak and the marinade into a zip top bag, making sure that the marinade covers all pieces of the flank, and squeezing out any air.

Beef Satay marinating in a zip top bag

Marinate overnight, or at least 4-5 hours. When I made them, I marinated them in the morning for that evening’s dinner. I’d say that they marinated for about 10 to 11 hours and that worked fine.

If you’re using the bamboo skewers, it’d be a really good idea to soak them in water for an hour or two before cooking them. I soaked them for about 15 minutes and it was clearly not enough time, as some of the sticks charred and burned a bit (okay, a lot).

Once your flank steak is finished marinating, turn on your oven’s broiler and let it heat up. I put the oven rack in the top-most position, but you may need to move it down one depending on the height of your baking rack and baking sheet. Place the baking rack on the baking sheet, and put on your food safe prep gloves. Over a surface that won’t stain, or you don’t care if it stains (I used a cutting board), slide the strips of beef on to the skewers and put them on the rack.

Flank steak skewered but before cooking

When you have skewered all the beef strips, place the baking sheet in the oven and broil for 5 minutes, or until you see some crispy bits and then flip the skewers over, and broil on the other side for 5 minutes. It make take more or less time depending on how hot your oven is, or how thick your flank steak is, but you’re looking for an internal temperature of 135°F for medium rare if you’ve got a thermometer.

Beef Satay after broiling

It make take more or less time depending on how hot your oven is, or how thick your flank steak is, but you’re looking for an internal temperature of 135°F for medium rare if you’ve got a thermometer.

Beef Satay – Gluten-free with Soy-free option

Enjoy!
May 4, 2015
Summer Mango Salsa
Summer Mango Salsa

Apparently it’s mango season. In browsing the grocery store flyers looking for inspiration, I noticed that two of our three chains had mangoes on sale. I’ve never eaten a mango before, but I’ve had mango juice and liked it. So I thought I’d give it a try. Why not, right?

According to the Mango Board, mangoes are ripe when they give a little under a gentle squeeze — like avocados. As I said on Friday, it’s really worth your time to watch the video before deciding you know how to cut a mango. You can make it a lot harder than it needs to be (I sure did), but mangoes are sweet and tropical and taste like summer. If your “spring” as been like ours in New England, you need a reminder that warmer weather is coming. Tropical mango flavor helps.

“Salsa” generally conjures up tomatoes, but fruit salsas are pretty amazing and seem to have a better, brighter balance of flavors for certain main dish meals. (And yes, I know that biologically tomatoes are a fruit, but US law says they are vegetables). Salsa isn’t the quickest thing ever, but the work that goes in pays amazing dividends in flavor.

This salsa is fine with chips, but if you want to really highlight it, serve it over a meal. Things I think would work well with the summer mango salsa:
- Shrimp and rice, if you can do shellfish (this was my choice)
- Chicken, pork, or fish, if any of those work for you
- Black beans and rice
Let us know what you try so that, if it’s good, we can copy you. I have a feeling I’ll be making this a few more times, and I’d love some new ideas for what to serve it over.

Summer Mango Salsa

Summer Mango Salsa
- 1/2 of a sweet onion, finely diced (this should be between 1/3 and 1/2 cup — adjust according to your love for onion)
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 2 Tablespoons lime juice (I wanted to give you a measurement, but I’ve had to use everything from 2 whole limes to 1/2 a lime to get 2T. It varies widely. I always buy limes in pairs, for whatever reason.)
- 1 serrano pepper (buy a size commensurate with your love of spice), stem, seeds, and inner membranes removed, diced very finely
- 1 mango, cut into small cubes
- 1 avocado, cut into small cubes
- 3 Tablespoons chopped cilantro
The order of the ingredients above is deliberate. I love onion in my salsa, but I don’t like it too strong. If you chop it first and then let it marinate in the lime juice while you fight with the mango, it mellows out a bit. I’m assuming that the acid “cooks” the onions a bit, as it does for fish in ceviche. If you’re a better food scientist than I am, I’d love to know if this is true; it could just be the power of suggestion.

For the best flavor profile, you want the onions and the chile diced very finely, as finely as you can manage, and the mango and avocado a good bit chunkier (but still, not too big). The onion and chile go into the lime juice first. The mango next, and last the avocado — the avocado will break down the more you stir it, and I like it pretty well intact.

Basically, chop everything up and mix it together in a bowl. This is a very fresh salsa, and it doesn’t need much time to meld — half an hour at room temperature seems to be enough, although it is great the next day. I doubt it would last all that much longer, but I’ve made it a few times now and I’ve yet to test that.

Enjoy your plate of summer.
April 27, 2015
Hoisin Sauce – Gluten-free with Soy-free option
Hoisin Sauce – Gluten-free with Soy-free option

Hoisin sauce was just another well-loved condiment no longer within my grasp until I found a recipe and modified it to be safe for me. If you have a soy allergy (I don’t) try this with Mary Kate’s Soy-Free, gluten-free “Tamari Sauce” and let us know how it worked out for you.

Hoisin Sauce – Gluten-free with Soy-free option

Makes 1 cup.
- 1/2 of a 15 ounce can of Black Beans, rinsed and drained (I use my home canned, but use what’s safe for you.)
- 1 Tablespoon of either Sesame Oil, Chili Oil or other safe for you oil (I can’t use Sesame, so I made a homemade Chili oil with my safe oil.)
- 1/2 Tablespoon of minced Garlic
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 Tablespoon of Molasses
- 2 Tablespoons of Apple Cider Vinegar (Bragg’s is generally safest for those with corn allergies)
- 2 Tablespoons of Rice Vinegar
- 2 1/2 Tablespoons of Soy Sauce (I do well with San-J Tamari Gluten Free Soy Sauce, the alcohol is from cane sugar not corn, but if you can’t use soy, try Mary Kate’s recipe for a Soy-Free, gluten-free “Tamari Sauce” )
- 1 Tablespoon of water
- 1/8 teaspoon of crushed red pepper
In a food processor, purée the black beans into a fine paste. If it is too thick and doesn’t process well, add a little bit of water (1 teaspoon at a time) until you can continue to pulse the black beans. They should be puréed into mush.

In a non-reactive pan (I used an enameled cast iron pan), heat the oil until it is hot, but not yet smoking. Add the garlic and cook for about 2 minutes (don’t let it turn brown).

Once the garlic is cooked, add all ingredients to your pan and stir together really well. Bring to a boil, and then reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes. The sauce should coat and stick to the back of a wooden spoon when it is ready.

Remove from heat immediately and let it cool before placing it a container in the refrigerator. I put mine in a squeeze bottle so I can use it easily whenever I want.

Enjoy with all your favorite Asian and Asian-inspired dishes!
April 20, 2015
Kitchen Sink Soup, vegan, gluten-free, allergy-friendly
Kitchen Sink Soup

One of the ways that food allergies have taken over my brain is that I’m always planning ahead — you have to. A lack of planning can mean not eating, which in my case leads to extreme crankiness or just a complete lack of functioning. I’m also completely incapable of deciding what to eat if I’m too hungry. So I usually know what’s for dinner — tonight and tomorrow night, maybe for the whole week, but certainly for any important dates or busy nights coming up.

On the other hand, life with food allergies also makes you pretty flexible — again, by necessity. So when I had plans to make Winter is Coming Chicken and Kale, I had chicken, polenta, and kale on hand. Or, rather, I thought I did. Turns out, hey, winter is ending and the chicken I’d defrosted (properly — in the fridge, though for two days instead of one) was not good.I don’t really know if it was bad when I bought and froze it or what, but that left me with kale and polenta, which is a really sad meal.

So I ended up making this soup. I’m just going to call it “kitchen sink soup” because that’s pretty much what went into it — everything but the kitchen sink. It turned out so well, though, that I thought I’d go ahead and share it. I wish that it were too late to post soup recipes, but it really isn’t. We’ve moved into cool and rainy, so soup is still all over my menu. If you live somewhere where it’s not soup weather? Yeah, don’t tell me about it, please. I love soup because it’s a one-pot, one-bowl meal that can be entirely balanced.

The key to this soup, I think, is the *right* amount of really good hot sauce for you. Even if you “don’t like spicy things,” you need the hot sauce — you will just add less. GOOD hot sauce will give you tons of flavor and it doesn’t need to have a kick. I’ve written the version for the light end — taste and add more as you see fit.

Soup pre- and post- kale awesomeness

Kitchen Sink Soup
- 2 teaspoons oil of your choice
- 1/2 an onion, chopped
- pinch of salt
- 8 oz mushrooms, de-stemmed and broken (I prefer crimini)
- 3 carrots, chopped
- 3 celery stalks, sliced thin
- 15 oz of canned or cooked garbanzo beans
- 1 teaspoon good hot sauce (or as much as you want)
- 4 cups of vegetable broth
- 1 potato, peeled and chopped small
- about 4 cups of kale, de-stemmed and shredded
Heat soup pot over medium heat. When the pot is hot, add the oil. When the oil is hot, add the onion and the pinch of salt. Cook, stirring regularly, until onion starts to brown.

Add the broken mushrooms. Breaking mushrooms rather than chopping them gives you bigger mushroom chunks and reduces the shrinkage. Cook until the mushrooms have sweated and darkened.

Add the carrots, celery, garbanzo, hot sauce, and vegetable broth. Stir well, and stir in the potato. Cover and bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook for 20 – 30 minutes — when the carrots and potatoes are cooked, you’re good.

Add the kale, stir, and let cook another 2-3 minutes until the kale is brighter green. Do NOT overcook the kale! Taste and adjust the hot sauce and salt if you need to.

Enjoy the warm veggies and dream of summer.
March 30, 2015
Chinese-Irish Baked Latkes
Chinese-Irish Baked Latkes

Hey, here’s an ethnic mash-up for you. My Irish family always celebrated St. Patrick’s Day rather traditionally, in part because my grandfather’s birthday was the 16th and he loved the traditional corned beef and cabbage. Personally, though, I would survive just fine without ever seeing that again (there was an incident involving snow, Georgia, a cancelled party, and corned beef and cabbage for about 30 consumed by the six of us for, oh, about eternity. BLECH.)

However.

Potatoes in all their forms are one of my favorite things on earth. And I’m not actually all that Irish by blood. So I’ve been thinking of ways to mash my Chinese heritage and my Irish heritage into a dish, via midwest America, and I found it via Hanukkah’s latkes. Latkes are the best holiday food anyone has ever invented in the history of all things. Now the symbolism of latkes is focused on the oil not the potatoes, but for St. Patrick’s Day, it seems right to minimize the oil and focus on the potato, no? To hold everything together, instead of egg and flour, I’ve made a homemade sweet and sour sauce, with an added (optional) bonus of hot, and added broccoli for flavor and color (it’s green, right?).

So I bring you the Chinese-Irish St. Patrick’s Day Latke. It’s possible that the story here makes sense to exactly one person in the world (me), but the flavors will make sense to a lot more of you. These are vegan, gluten-free, ethnically diverse, and baked, because frying is just messy. I hope you enjoy them.

Raw latke materials

Chinese-Irish Baked Latkes
- 3/4 cup water
- 1/4 cup vinegar (cider or white, your choice)
- 1/4 cup ketchup
- 1/4 cup + 1 Tablespoon sugar
- 2 Tablespoons tomato paste
- 2 Tablespoons tapioca starch
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional or adjust to your taste)
- about 1 inch of a chunk of fresh ginger, peeled and smashed (I just use the pot lid to smash)
- 2 large baking potatoes, washed and peeled (1.5 to 2 lbs.)
- 1 large head of broccoli, trimmed (1/2 lb.)
- oil to grease pans
First, make the sauce. Whisk all ingredients, water through ginger, together in a saucepan. Heat over medium-high heat until boiling, and cook, whisking regularly, to reduce to about 1/2 cup, total (a little less than half its original volume, and pretty thick). This takes 10-15 minutes. Strain out ginger and red pepper flakes (the taste of both stays in the sauce, I promise). Set aside while you prep the vegetables.

Preheat the oven to 425ºF. Prepare two pans by spraying or brushing with oil.

Wash the broccoli and potatoes. Peel the potatoes. Chop both into sizes that will fit in your food processor.

Put the broccoli through the shredder blade and then empty into a large mixing bowl. Peel the potatoes and then shred them. Wrap the shreds in a clean kitchen towel and squeeze as much liquid out as you possibly can. Twist and wring — you will be surprised how much liquid is in them, and this makes your patties soggy. Squeeze a little longer than you think you should. Empty them into the bowl as well (and rinse the towel).

Mix the broccoli and potatoes, then add the sauce. Mix. It seems as though it will not come together — but it will. I found a rubber spatula worked best for this, and I had already dirtied one scraping the sauce into the mix; so perfect.

latkes ready for oven

Scoop scant 1/4 cups of the mix onto the greased trays. Flatten these out and neaten up the edges. Don’t skip the neatening! Those bits will burn (as you can see in the photos). Bake on a center rack (not the bottom rack! Ask me how I know.) for 10 minutes, then flip all patties and bake for another 5-10 minutes (this seems to depend on the weight of the pan you are using).

Enjoy hot.
March 16, 2015
Crispy Duck
Crispy Duck

Crispy Duck
- 1 whole fresh duck (or some duck legs or breasts if you don’t want to deal with a whole duck)
- 1 Tablespoon of sea salt
- 2 teaspoons of Chinese Five Spice
- a pair of good kitchen shears
- roasting pan that can fit a rack in the bottom
- oven safe cookie rack that fits in the roasting pan
Preheat your oven to 350°F.

Remove the giblets from the duck, and using your kitchen shears cut out the duck’s backbone, and then cut the breast down the center so you have two half pieces of the duck. I also trimmed the first two sections of wing off, as I didn’t want them to burn during the cooking process. (Save the giblets, backbone, and wing sections to make stock later, or discard if you don’t want to use them.) Trim any extra fat away from the duck, and remove any remaining quills. Using a sharp knife, score the skin of the duck, but do not cut so deep that you cut the meat.

In a large shallow bowl, mix the sea salt and Chinese Five Spice so that it is mixed thoroughly. Placing each half of the duck in the bowl one at a time and use your hands to coat both sides of the duck half with the mixture.

Place the seasoned duck halves on the rack in the roasting pan. The rack allows the duck fat to drip to the bottom, otherwise you’ll be spooning fact out as the duck cooks. (You’re also going to want to save this fat to use later, it’s a great cooking fat, especially for those of us with no safe butter, margarine, or shortening.)

Seasoned duck halves before cooking

Place the duck in the pre-heated oven and roast for about two hours, turning the duck halves every half hour. Once the duck reaches an internal temperature of 165°F, turn the oven up to 425°F for 15 minutes to really crisp up the skin.

Cooked duck halves

Remove the pan from the oven and let the duck cool enough that you can remove the meat from the bones without burning your fingers to bits. Then remove the meat from the bones. (Save the bones to make stock later, or discard if you don’t want to use them.)

Duck meat removed from the bones

You can eat this with Chinese pancakes, sliced cucumbers, scallions, and Hoisin sauce, like you would eat Peking Duck. Since I didn’t want to try to deal with coming up with a recipe for gluten-free Chinese pancakes, I used rice paper and ate the duck with lettuce, rice vermicelli noodles, sliced cucumber, sliced onion (I forgot to buy scallions), Carrot and Daikon pickle, homemade plum sauce, homemade Hoisin Sauce, and homemade Sriracha.

Enjoy!

Crispy Duck in rice paper with rice vermicelli and veggies
March 9, 2015
Making Vegan Gluten-free Thin Mints

Vegan Gluten-free Thin Mints

My friend Corinne, of sparecake, decided to move out to Wyoming for a job. So I went down to spend a day hanging out with her before she left. We’ve cooked together a few times — Corinne isn’t gluten-free, but her mom is, so we’ve tried out some recipes. For this final attempt, we did a Frankensteined faux Thin Mint, using the cookie from one cookbook and the chocolate “frosting” or glaze from another because that’s what we had all the ingredients to do.

The cookies were not exactly like the originals, but were still crisp and chocolatey and minty, so overall, I’ll call this a success. We did reduce the amount of mint extract in the chocolate coating by a lot, as it was almost dental cleaning strong the first time around. Interestingly, there is no mint in the cookie part of a thin mint. Who knew? It’s just in the chocolate glaze.

The dough for these cookies was super dry, and we had doubts it would hold together for rolling or cutting, but it did both admirably.

This dough is pretty dry. But it ends up tasting good.

Cut out cookies.

So this dough involves cutting in the shortening, “kneading” the very dry dough until it sort of holds together, and then rolling and cutting. After the cookies are baked and cooled, add chocolate mint coating. It is a few more steps than “regular” cookies, but, hey, this is re-creation. Miss Girl Scout cookies? This is the recipe for you.

For the full recipe, I’m going to shoot you over to Corinne’s site, sparecake. For the allergic, you will need a non-dairy milk, a safe-for-you shortening, and a meltable safe chocolate.

March 4, 2015