Taco Pie - Dairy, Egg, Soy Free with gluten free option

  Now that we've got our new computer up and running, I will be updating more often again! I had some yummy recipes from Thanksgiving that I want to share, but first I had to share this taco pie because it is soooo good. It is similar to the cheeseburger pie recipe I posted in October, but easier and more flavorful. This is our new family favorite!

Turkey Taco Pie with Cashew Sour Cream

1 lb lean ground turkey
1/2 tsp olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
1 Tbl chili powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp paprika
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/4 cup vegetable broth
1/2 cup gluten free or original Bisquick
1 cup vegetable broth
EnerG egg replacer for 1 egg
1/2 cup Diaya cheddar and/or pepper jack shreds
Earth Balance Soy Free buttery spread to grease pie plate
 Sour cream: 
1 cup raw cashews
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup water
1 Tbl lemon juice

Preheat oven to 425.
Take a small pat of Earth Balance and spread it using your fingers over entire inner surface of a 9 inch pie plate.
In a medium skillet, heat olive oil until hot. Saute onions until transparent. Add turkey and brown over medium high, breaking up into small pieces. Once turkey is just browned, add in seasonings and 1/4 cup vegetable broth. Stir and simmer until liquid is completely evaporated. Remove from heat and set aside.
In a small bowl, mix Bisquick, 1 cup vegetable broth, and EnerG egg replacer until smooth. Set aside.
Scoop turkey into pie plate, trying to get mixture mostly level but not hard packed. Pour Bisquick mixture over turkey, shaking the pie plate slightly to evenly distribute among turkey. Bake for 30 minutes, then remove from oven and sprinkle with cheese shreds. Return to oven and cook for 5-10 minutes, until cheese is hot and bubbly. Allow to cool for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, place 1 cup raw cashews in high powered blender. Add approximately 1/4 cup water, just enough to cover the cashews. Add salt and lemon juice and blend 3-5 minutes, until smooth.

Store left over sour cream in refrigerator in an air tight container for up to a week. It will thicken when refrigerated until almost the texture of cream cheese. It makes a fabulous base for dips!

We love our taco pie served with salsa and cashew sour cream. You can also add shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, olives, whatever your family enjoys on tacos. Enjoy!

Dairy and Soy Free Nacho Cheese and Sour Cream

  So these two things are obviously great for making nachos, like the ones we had tonight with taco-seasoned ground turkey, black beans, salsa, and corn tortilla chips. But they also have other applications; the cheese sauce goes great over broccoli and other vegetables and the sour cream makes a fabulous base for dressings, especially ranch (use in place of Vegenaise Mayo). Also if you follow the same sour cream recipe but use less water, it makes a great substitute for ricotta in lasagnas!

I know, I know. It needs olives.

Dairy Free Nacho Cheese 

2 Tbl Earth Balance Soy Free Buttery Spread
1 cup Daiya pepperjack shreds
1/4 cup unsweetened plain almond or other non-dairy milk (more if necessary)
pinch each of ground mustard, turmeric, and onion powder
1/2 tsp lemon juice
salt to taste
dash of cayenne (optional)

In a medium saucepan, heat Earth Balance until completely melted. Add Daiya cheese shreds and 1/4 cup almond milk. Stir occasionally until cheese is melted and smooth. Stir in the rest of the ingredients. If cheese sauce is too thick, add milk 1 Tbl at a time.

Dairy Free Sour Cream

1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds
1/2 cup raw cashews (can use all sunflower seeds if avoiding nuts, or all cashews for a more traditional flavor)
about 1 cup of water *see directions
2 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp sea salt

*Place sunflower seeds and cashews into a measuring cup. Add water to just cover the seeds/nuts by about 1/4 of an inch.
Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth and thick. (If using a Blendtec, use the sauces/dips button).

Eat Like Jack For a Day!

National Eosinophilic Awareness Week is May 13th-19th this year! I have challenged my friends and family to try to eat like Jack for just one day (May 14th), to get a glimpse into what will likely be a life long struggle for Jack, and to help raise awareness, compassion, and understanding for all those individuals affected by Eosinophilic Gastrointestinal Disorders (EGIDs). Scroll to the bottom of this page to learn more about EGIDs.

 Now it's not enough to just avoid milk, eggs, wheat, soy, rice, oats, apples, coconut, beef, pork, and chicken. Nope, You also have to read labels. That favorite pasta sauce of yours? I can almost guarantee it has soy in it. Mmmm, turkey bratwurst! But wait... it's wrapped in pork casing. Alright then, well I'll just have Corn Pops in Almond Milk....ah, but Corn Pops are manufactured on equipment with items containing wheat, milk, and soy and some almond and hemp milks contains rice syrup. By the way, anything containing 'vegetable' oil almost surely contains soy. What the heck, WHAT CAN YOU EAT?!
Well without having everyone go out  to specialty stores and buy ingredients they probably will never use again (like Daiya Cheese, Nutritional Yeast Flakes, or Wheat Free bread), here's a list of things to get you started. Every time you think "There's nothing to eat!" remember that for you, it's just today. For people with EGIDs, this feeling never really goes away.

Again, make sure to read labels!

Oscar Mayer turkey bacon
Nathan's turkey hot dogs
Turkey Spam
Hormel Turkey Pepperoni
Butterball turkey cutlets and ground turkey
Jenni-O ground turkey and ground turkey breakfast sausage (which is good in pasta sauce)
non-breaded fish fillets
Zatarain's Southern Fish-Fri (I recommend this on fish, or on turkey cutlets cut into nugget sized pieces!)
Slap Yo Mama! spicy fish-fry
Almond Breeze almond yogurt
Almond Breeze or Silk almond milk
quinoa
barley
lentils and beans of all kinds
fruits other than apples
all veggies (try roasting fresh green beans with a little olive oil and garlic salt for 20 mins at 400 degrees, yummy!)
Ghirardelli Twilight Delight dark chocolate
cocoa powder
Corn chips such as Fritos or corn tortilla chips (read labels!)
some corn tortillas
some hummus, or make your own!
non battered french fries (no seasoned curlies, sorry!)
some brands of hashbrowns
grits/polenta
Kirkland, Bertolli, Classico pasta sauces (other than those containing cheese)
corn or corn/quinoa pasta
vegetable broth (read labels)
Bush's Grillin' Beans in Southern Pit BBQ, Bourbon and Brown Sugar, and Steakhouse Recipe
Idaho instant mashed potato flakes (prepared with just water and salt, or vegetable broth)
Corn Chex, regular Kix, Honey Kix and Berry Blast Kix, some corn flakes maybe

Condiments, Seasonings, Etc: French's (and some other) mustards, Heinz ketchup, pickle relish, some syrups (butter flavored ones can contain milk), Stubb's bbq sauce, honey, McCormick Cocktail sauce, Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce, A1 Steak Sauce, some Italian or vinaigrette salad dressing, sugar and spices, herbs, and extracts (no taco seasonings or chili starters, but you can make your own)

I will add more as I think of things that are available at a typical grocery store, and you can always browse around this blog to find ideas. You can also search for vegan, wheat, rice, oat and soy free recipes online if you are feeling adventurous! (You don't have to eat vegan, you can eat turkey or fish, but if it's vegan you can be sure it also doesn't contain egg or milk or hidden meat by products). Thank you SO MUCH for participating!!!


Eosinophilic Gastrointestinal Disorders are rare allergic diseases in which an individuals immune system attacks specific parts of the digestive tract in reaction to food proteins. A difficult part about EGIDs is that those affected can literally be allergic to anything, and generally children affected by EGIDs have multiple allergies. Eosinophils are white blood cells that usually help your body fight infection. In typical food allergies, the body mistakes certain food proteins for harmful intruders and attacks them. This causes runny noses, itchy eyes, swelling of tongue and lips, and even breathing trouble. But with EGIDs, the attacks occur, not systemically throughout the body, but in one specific place. Each of the diseases are named after the area affected:

Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EoE)- the esophagus
Eosinophilic Gastritis (EG)- the stomach
Eosinophilic Enteritis (EE)- the small intestine
Eosinophilic Colitis (EC)- the large intestine

The effect of having large numbers of eosinophils present is chronic inflammation, pain, and eventual scarring and atrophy of healthy tissue. When not aggressively treated, EGIDs can lead to malnutrition, growth restriction, and in some cases eventual loss of ability to eat by mouth.

Treatment for EGIDs includes swallowed topical steroids, allergy and reflux medications, avoidance diet (avoiding the specific things you are allergic to. It is not rare for kids to have only 1 or 2 'safe' foods), elemental diet (removing all foods and relying soley on a special formula for nutrition), NG and G tubes (tubes that put liquid foods directly into your stomach or intestines), as well as routine eondoscopies and biopsies done under general anesthesia which are invasive and generally no fun.

To find out more about EGIDs and what you can do to help, please visit Apfed.org and CUREDfoundation.org.

Turkey Taco Salad

  I'm ashamed to say I totally forgot it was Monday, so this recipe contains meat. :/ Lol but it was so good it really doesn't matter!
  The taco seasoning is something I have been meaning to post on here for a long time since most prepared taco seasonings contain milk and this one does not taste like it's missing anything. Let me list it here real quick:
dairy free taco seasoning
1 Tbl chili powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder*
1/4 tsp onion powder*
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp oregeno
1/2 tsp paprika
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
Mix all ingredients well. You can keep this premade in a jar or ziploc baggy, however I make mine as I need it.
*In this recipe, I used actual onions and minced garlic in the skillet so I omitted these two.

Turkey Taco Salad

1 lb ground turkey
taco seasoning mix (it comes to about 2 Tbls)
1 can black beans, drained
1/2 cup vegetable broth
1/2 red onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbl coconut oil
3 cups shredded romaine lettuce
1/2 cup vegan ranch dressing
1/2 cup Daiya cheddar shreds
1 avocado, chopped
1 medium tomato, chopped
1 cup World Table brand Blue Corn and Sesame Tortilla chips
All your other favorite taco salad toppings; olives, jalepenos, salsa, etc)

In a medium skillet, heat coconut oil over medium until it is fully liquified. Add onions and garlic and sautee until slightly soft. Add turkey and break up with a spoon. Stir occasionally until browned. Add taco seasoning and vegetable broth and stir well. Reduce heat and let simmer until liquid has mostly evaporated. Stir in black beans, heat through.
Serve meat mixture on a bed of lettuce with avocado, tomato, ranch, and cheese. Add chips for garnish, or if you are like me, crumble them on top. Yum!