Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Turkey Cheeseburger Pie - Dairy, Soy, and Egg Free with Gluten/Wheat Free option

  A lot of things have happened in the past month, but one of them is that we decided to try to reintroduce wheat into Jack's diet for two reasons: 1) he is officially in remission of eosinophilic esophagitis, having scoped clean even off of steroids. This does NOT mean that he can start eating any of the foods he was found to be allergic to and the disease will not come back. In fact, it almost certainly WILL come back if we added them back in. Which brings me to my next point 2) he hasn't actually tested positive to wheat in the last two skin prick allergy tests. So we started out with these teeny tiny graham cracker bunnies (the only graham product I could find that was still vegan and soy free), 3 on the first day, 5 the next, and 7 the next. When he had no reaction, drop in appetite, or unexplained crying episodes, we made him a quesadilla with wheat tortillas (omg, SO hard to find soy free tortillas!!), Diaya cheese and Earth Balance Soy Free spread. He loved it! So after a three week trial, we've decided he may be ok, but we aren't completely letting our guard down.
  Anyway, we bought a box of Bisquick and have been going wild making biscuits, pancakes, and waffles using non dairy milk and egg replacer. Such a normal thing had brought so much joy to our lives, who knew!

  For those of you who are gluten or wheat free, Bisquick makes a gluten free mix that you can substitute in here 1:1. We could not use it though since it's main ingredient is rice flour.

Anyway, all of that to tell you that this recipe is super tasty! We will definitely be making this again, it was so easy!

Turkey Cheeseburger Pie

1 lb lean ground turkey
1 medium onion, chopped
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
optional: 1 Tbl Worcestershire sauce, 1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp olive oil
1/2+ cup Diaya cheddar shreds
1/2 cup Bisquick or Gluten Free Bisquick mix
1 cup unsweetened plain dairy free milk
Ener-G egg replacer for 3 eggs
optional: 3 slices turkey bacon, cut into small pieces

Preheat oven to 400. Pour olive oil into a 9 inch pie pan and spread it around with a paper towel.
In a medium skillet over medium high heat, add ground turkey and onion. Cook, breaking up turkey, until completely browned and onions are transparent. Add salt and pepper (and optional Worcestershire sauce and garlic powder, if using,) and stir until incorporated. If there is any liquid in the pan, drain it off or raise heat to high for 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly to cook it off.
Place turkey mixture into pie pan. Sprinkle with cheese shreds and set aside.
In a small bowl, mix bisquick, egg replacer, and non dairy milk until lump free. Pour over turkey and cheese.
At first it may look like you don't have enough bisquick batter but just gently shake your pie pan or even pat the top of the mixture with a spoon and it will soon incorporate the entire mixture. If using, sprinkle the top with turkey bacon pieces.
Bake for 25-35 minutes, until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean and top just lightly starts to brown. Allow to cool and set 10 minutes before cutting and serving.

Serve with ketchup or barbeque sauce as you would a cheeses burger, or enjoy on it's own!


Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Chocolate Pudding - Dairy/Soy Free, Vegan, Raw

  My very first post on this blog was for vegan chocolate pudding. Now, you must understand that I was just starting to cook Jack friendly and though I had a lot of heart, I didn't have many tricks up my sleeve. I thought that that pudding was good because I had set the standard for allergy friendly food very low, assuming as most do that it all was going to taste a little off, be unsatisfying, or require me to stop shaving my armpits and start growing my own veggies to enjoy it.
  It's been nearly a year since that first post, and boy have things changed! My standards for allergy free foods now are just as high if not higher than they are for foods with the 'right' ingredients. I love to see the shock and surprise on people's faces when they realize that Jack's food is actually... food!
  So here is my new chocolate pudding recipe. I will add the picture later, I just don't want to forget this recipe!

Chocolate Pudding

1 cup raw cashews
1 cup coconut milk
1 heaping Tbl unsweetened cocoa powder
1 Tbl chocolate syrup, such as Hershey's Genuine Syrup (optional!)
1 heaping Tbl sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth, about 3 minutes in a regular blender or 45+ seconds in a high power blender like Blendtec or Vitamix. Place into an air tight container and refrigerate for 30 minutes to set. Enjoy!