Hi there! My husband is Paul, I am Cori. We have a cat, Inara. We are geeks. We love Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who, Farscape and Firefly, to name a few. Paul recently returned to school to take math (hence the subtitle) and his dream is to be board game designer. See, geeks. And I wouldn't want it any other way! I am a photographer, photo editor and crafty crocheter, so my blog will be three-fold. 1. food 2. photography 3. crochet!
Now to the food allergies: I am always saying I'm so glad Paul's not allergic to wheat, I love bread! Most people say, "man, I could never live without cheese!" I used to love cheese, but I don't miss it at all.
We almost never go out to eat, as the hassle is not worth the quality. Often we feel unsatisfied at the end of the meal, like we could have done a much better job (to suit our tastes) cooking at home. We love cooking together so everything works out! Paul has a bit of a problem with high blood pressure (his job is quite the stresser, and now he's adding a return to university on top) so we keep our salt intake low as well as keeping nuts and dairy away. This means 'quick and easy dinners' that come in a box or frozen are not an option, so virtually everything we make comes from scratch. I also enjoy cooking by myself and baking, which will save us through Paul's recent sky-high increase in busy-ness.
The hardest part is keeping in mind that companies change the ingredients of products all the time, so reading every label is very important. Even if you've been buying 'that thing' for years.
We are not at all vegan, nor have we explored the art of dairy/nut free cooking to the fullest by any means, but here are some standard things we do when cooking:
Know that a recipe doesn't have to be labeled as allergen free for it to work, adaptation can be your best friend.
Always use ground turkey for any ground meat.
Replace butter with
fleischmann's unsalted margarine The unsalted part is critical, the original kind has whey (a milk protein) in it. Or another brand of margarine that actually is truly non dairy, which is a rarity for margarine.
Replace cream with
coffee rich
Replace milk with
rice milk
Ignore cheese, or replace with tofu. Pureed silken tofu works great for recipes in which sour cream is cooked, such as stroganoff.
Usually we half the amount of salt, especially if it is a quantity over 1/2teaspoon per meal (2 servings) for us. (You most certainly don't want to cut salt out of your diet altogether).
We also usually double the amount of pepper (we love pepper) and often increase the amount of many/all of the other spices as well, unless, of course, they have salt in them.
Our favorite dairy free website has LOTS of recipes (all clearly marked as dairy and/or nut and/or gluten and/or egg free, as well as vegan) It's not just for dairy free. It also has many articles, info and advice on allergy living.
