Cracker Crusted Turkey Breast - Dairy, Soy, Egg Free

  I've read every magazine in the waiting room of my son's speech and occupational therapy office. Recently I found myself waiting without my book, Jack's iPad, and without my phone; essentially without anything to do but re-read a Ladies Home Journal from last September. This time around I read this recipe called Mrs. Potter's Chicken that I had previously skipped right over and it seemed so simple but sounded so good, I decided to try it that night. Of course we had to make adjustments; I used Daiya Mozzarella instead of Parmesan, turkey breast rather than chicken, and Earth Balance soy free buttery spread rather than butter. But this, like the original recipe, still only calls for 5 ingredients, was really easy, and very tasty.

  Cracker Crusted Turkey Breast 

1 lbs turkey breast cutlets
1 sleeve Ritz Crackers (we used the whole wheat ones), crushed
1/2 cup Daiya Mozzarella cheese shreds, crumbled*
2 Tbs Earth Balance Soy Free Buttery Spread, melted
1/8 tsp black pepper
optional: 1/8 tsp salt

Pre heat oven to 425 degrees.
Line a large baking sheet with foil and set aside.
In a pie pan or shallow bowl, combine crushed crackers, pepper (and salt if using) and cheese shreds.
Pound turkey cutlets between plastic wrap until about 1/4 inch thick. Coat the turkey with melted butter, then dredge through the crumb mixture, pressing crumbs firmly onto turkey. Place turkey on prepared baking sheet, continue with remaining pieces.
Bake for 12-15 minutes, turning halfway through, until golden brown and cooked through.

* Take a handful of cheese shreds and rub them between your hands to crumble.

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.

Dairy and Wheat Free Orange "Chicken", Revisited

  When I first posted my recipe for orange...uh, turkey, it was before Jack's new allergies to chicken, rice, soy, and oats were discovered. So a few things needed to be tweaked to make this recipe again, but another thing that changed (and made everything 100% better!) was the use of my fancy new deep fryer rather than frying in batches on the stove top. Also, to save time, I left out the marinating part. This was fantastic prepared this way.

Allergy Friendly Orange Turkey

Orange sauce:
1 1/4 cup orange juice
1/4 cup sesame oil
1/3 cup white wine vinegar
1/3 cup Triple S
2/3 cup sugar
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp cayenne
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp celery seeds
1/3 cup water
2 Tbl cornstarch + 1/4 cup water, mixed well until lump free

Everything else:
1 1/2 lbs turkey breast cutlets, cut into 1 inch cubes
egg replacer for 2 eggs
2 cups cornstarch
1/2 tsp cayenne
1/2 tsp salt

Heat deep fryer to 375, or heat one inch of oil in a large skillet to 375. In a small bowl, whisk egg replacer until foamy. In a medium bowl, mix 2 cups cornstarch, salt, and cayenne. Dredge turkey in egg replacer and then in cornstarch mixture. Fry half of the turkey at a time until crispy and golden, about 3 mins per side on stove or 5-6 minutes total in deep fryer. Drain turkey on a brown paper bag or paper towel.
Meanwhile, add all sauce ingredients except cornstarch to a medium sauce pan and mix well. Stirring often, bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Once boiling, reduce heat to medium-low and slowly stir in 2 Tbl cornstarch/water mixture. Stir constantly until sauce thickens, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat.
Serve turkey with sauce drizzled over the top, or mix half of the sauce in a bowl with the turkey peices, tossed to coat.

New restrictions: Soy, rice, oat and chicken free recipes to follow!

  My son went to a new (and wonderful) allergist today. He's still been having lots of problems eating and his esophagus was continuing to deteriorate despite removing wheat, beef, pork, milk and eggs and putting him on steroids, so something he ingests regularly is still causing him issues. So we decide to test him again and now he tested positive for soy, rice, oat, and chicken (chicken!!!) as well as beef, pork, milk, and eggs. We are now going to be excluding those as well. Wheat did not show up positive (and it didn't on the last one either, just the very first) so we may try to add that back in a few weeks but probably not. I'm not too upset about the new restrictions as most recipes can be adjusted pretty easily, but we will need to find a new pizza crust recipe which is a bummer because we love the heck out of Bob's Red Mill pizza crust around here!