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.

Green Bean and Portobello Saute

The green bean and portobello saute is a Rachel Ray recipe that I did not have to adjust, a rare occurrence! I adjusted it anyways, but I didn't HAVE to, lol. This is a good vegan side dish and a great way to use up the rest of the green beans we got from the Farmer's Market the other day and the portobellos that were just calling my name at the grocery store this morning.

Green Bean and Portobello Saute

1 1/4 lbs green beans, trimmed and cut in half 
coarse salt to taste
2 cups water
2 Tbl olive oil
1 Tbl Earth Balance soy free butter
1 yellow onion, chopped
2 portobello caps, sliced and halved
1/2 cup vegetable stock
1 clove minced garlic
several cracks of freshly ground black pepper

In a deep skillet, bring salted water to a boil. Carefully add green beans and boil about 6-8 minutes. Drain and remove green beans, set aside. Completely dry pan with paper towels, then return to medium high head, add oil and butter. Once heated, add onion and garlic and saute 2-3 minutes. Add mushrooms, salt and pepper and cook another 3-5 minutes. Stir in green beans and vegetable stock. Cook 2 more minutes to heat everything through and cook down some of the vegetable stock, serve.

Cookie Dough Hummus - Vegan, Wheat Free, and Deeelicious!

Close your eyes and imagine chocolate chip cookie dough, will you? The perfect balance of sweet and salty, crunchy and soft, awesome and delicious. But then there's the wheat, butter, eggs, milk chocolate part... yeah, super bummer.

We recently found a Bob's Red Mill chocolate chip cookie mix that, once baked is pretty darn good, but the dough is icky icky icky. Can't a girl just get some cookie dough?!

Enter: Cookie Dough Hummus! Whoa, who the heck woulda thought? It's raw, it's vegan, it's no bake, and it only takes (drum roll please....) 5 minutes to make!

Cookie Dough Hummus

1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed thoroughly
1/4 cup cashew butter (or almond or peanut butter if you don't have cashew and need to try this recipe tonight and can't wait to run to the store... not that anyone would do that or anything)
1/4 cup vanilla almond milk
1/4 cup agave nectar (more if desired)
1 Tbl organic cane sugar
3 Tbs flax meal (finely ground flax seed)
1 Tbs vanilla extract
dash of sea salt
1/8 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup vegan chocolate chips (such as Enjoy Life brand)

Place all ingredients except chocolate chips in a food processor and blend until as smooth as possible. Scoop it into a large bowl, fold in chocolate chips, and serve!! This might be yummy on slices of apple, we just ate it with a spoon, but it's very rich. A little goes a long way!

Quick Minestrone Soup - Vegan and Wheat Free

 It's Meatless Monday! Today I actually got a call from a project director of Meatless Monday. She wanted to interview me about how going meatless has changed and enriched our lives. I know, as the mom of a child with multiple food allergies, it seems almost stupid to commit to restricting our diets even more one night a week. But for us, realizing that not every meal had to follow the meat/veggies/carb model really opened my eyes. I started looking at and adapting vegan and vegetarian recipes and a whole new world was suddenly made visible to me. I discovered polenta, all the ways chickpeas can be used, and that you can create whole meals that satisfy everyone for half the price of a recipe including meat. Allergies suck, but even though we've removed whole food groups from our diet, we eat more varied and nutritionally complete foods than the typical american diet, and for that I am (almost) thankful for multiple food allergies.

  Anyway, I would like to make minestrone from scratch soon, the kind you simmer on the stove for 5-6 hours. But in the meantime, here is a super fast and tasty version to make on busy nights :)

Quick and Easy Minestrone Soup

28oz vegetable stock 
1 can italian seasoned stewed tomatoes, drained
1 can black beans (or kidney beans), drained and rinsed
1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 cup frozen mixed vegetables, such as italian style or country mix
2 tsp italian seasoning, crushed
1 1/2 tsp onion powder
2 cloves minced garlic
1 tsp sea salt
a few cracks of fresh ground black pepper
3 Tbl marinara sauce (optional)
14 oz corn-quinoa pasta elbows or other shapes

In a medium/large stock pot over high high heat, add vegetable stock, tomatoes, beans and chickpeas, and bring to a boil, about 4 minutes. Reduce heat to medium and add the rest of the ingredients except pasta. Return to a boil, stirring often, about 5 minutes. Add pasta and cover, simmering for 6-9 minutes, or until pasta is tender. Remove from heat, adjust seasonings to taste, and serve with nutritional yeast flakes sprinkled on top and yummy garlic toast to dip in it!

Vegan Wheat/Gluten Free Cornbread and Milk

This is not so much a recipe as it is another breakfast idea. Cornbread and milk is yet another popular southern thang, as a dessert or breakfast and it's way yummy. On nights my mom made cornbread with dinner my brother Randy and I would eat as little as possible so that later we could crumble the cold cornbread up in a bowl, throw on a heaping scoop of sugar, and drown the whole thing in milk. Mmm! And the leftover cornbread for breakfast the next day is even tastier because it doesn't turn to mush quite as fast. Yum!

Well last night we had a version of Hoppin' John with kale greens and cornbread. We used Bob's Red Mill gluten free cornbread mix with Ener-G egg replacer, 1 1/2 cups of water, and 1/3 cup melted Soy Free Earth Balance buttery spread. Also I prefer to make mine into muffins rather than a big sheet the mix calls for, but that's just me.The cornbread was absolutely delicious while hot with dinner, and it made enough that we had leftovers which worked perfectly for breakfast this morning!

I used vanilla almond milk and a (less than heaping) spoonful of organic non GMO sugar over the crumbled cornbread. The boys loved it and I loved being able to share the familiar treat from my childhood with them in a safe way. :)

Dairy Free/ Wheat Free Pizza Toast!

I know, I know, another pizza themed recipe. Since finding out Jack's newest allergies, we've been craving pizza and dying to find a good substitute. Also, I've been battling a virus this last week and just haven't felt up to anything complicated for dinner. I remember making 10 minute pizza toast as a little kid, so I thought I'd give it a go tonight. It came out well! I also made myself a tortilla BBQ pizza that was very good. This was really quick and could easily be made vegan (since this bread is free of animal products) or to suit most dietary needs. Use gluten free bread if avoiding gluten.

Dairy Free/ Wheat Free Pizza Toast

8 slices Food For Life White Rye Bread (or any bread that fits your needs)
4 Tbl Bertolli Classic Pizza sauce
6 Tbl Daiya Mozzarella Cheese Shreds
2 Tbl (or so) Hormel Turkey Pepperoni
1 cup fresh spinach, chopped
Whatever other toppings you want!

Preheat oven to 350.
Place all pieces of bread on a cookie sheet. Bake for 5 minutes. Remove from the oven. Flip the pieces of bread over and spoon pizza sauce onto each. Top with Daiya Cheese, spinach, pepperoni, and anything else that sounds good (maybe onion!). Bake for another 5 minutes and check to see if cheese has melted. If they need more time, bake another five minutes or even broil them for 1-2 minutes. Be careful, Daiya can burn quickly!

My tortilla pizza involved:
1 medium yellow corn tortilla
1 Tbl Stubbs BBQ sauce
1 Tbl Daiya Mozzarella shreds
1 Tbl chopped grilled turkey breast
a handful of mandarin oranges
a pinch of italian seasoning

I baked it the exact same way, on the same cookie sheet as the toasts. It was AWESOME. The tortilla got stiff enough that I could hold the whole thing and eat it, but not so hard that it crunched or broke when I bit it. And near the end I folded it in half and had a pizza taco!!!

Mini Polenta Pizzas

I know people say the polenta in the little tube from the grocery store is not very good, but I've never had polenta before and I didn't want to go through all the trouble to make it from scratch just to find out I don't like it. So I bought a tube of sun dried tomato and basil flavor and tried to find something to do with it. I found a recipe for polenta lasagna and I just sort of worked off of that, making these little tasty treats that are almost like pizza bagel bites without the whole in the middle. Very yummy and not hard to make and a giant plus: this did not create a lot of dishes for me to do! I think these would make a great lunch for the boys!

I just used the Food Merchants Organic Polenta in Sun Dried Tomato and Basil, cut into 1/2 inch rounds. I oiled a small cookie sheet and lined these up and sprinkled a little more olive oil on top. I baked them at 425 for 15 minutes then broiled them for 5 minutes. Then I sprinkled on chopped fresh spinach, a spoonful of marinara sauce, and a little bit of Daiya Mozzarella and popped em back in the oven at 425 for 10 minutes. These are sprinkled with nutritional yeast flakes also. Yum!

Super Easy Turkey Hash Breakfast (For Dinner!)

  Yesterday was my birthday! Chris and I were planning on leaving the boys with my dad and going out to dinner and a movie, so I thought I'd make something really simple for the boys' dinner. Well I scanned the pantry shelves for awhile and came up with something I thought they would eat and could pick up with their fingers. It turned out to be SO yummy, I had to mentall scold myself to stop 'sampling' it so I'd still be hungry for dinner! This was good for dinner but it would make an excellent breakfast for sure! This recipe is sort of cheating, since I used canned new potatoes. You could make it with fresh potatoes, it would just take a little longer.

Easy Turkey Hash

2 Tbl olive oil
1/2 onion, diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 can diced new potatoes, drained
1 can turkey SPAM, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1/4 cup thawed frozen corn
1 tsp Emeril's Southwest Seasoning (or any seasoning you choose)
S & P to taste

In a learge skillet, heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Once hot, add Southwest Seasoning, onions and bell peppers and saute until soft and onion is transparent. Add diced potatoes and corn and mix well, then spread the potatoes in the pan so they are mostly in a single layer. Turn heat down to medium and allow them to sit without stirring for 5 minutes, then stir and spread them flat again, cooking for another 5 minutes. Meanwhile, in a small skillet over medium heat, fry SPAM cubes, stirring occasionally, until edges are crispy. Mix them into the potato mixture, season with salt and pepper, and enjoy :)

Hearty Turkey Veg-A-Bowls

  Haha, kudos to my husband Chris for coming up with the name of this dish! We had a lot of stuff in our fridge to use up including some bell peppers, leftover quinoa, and a corn/black bean mixture I made the other day when I had an amazing Southwest Salad. Anyway, so here is what we came up with and this was pretty darn tasty and made in under 30 minutes total. Sweet!

Hearty Turkey & Vegetable Bowls

1 Tbl olive oil
1 lb ground turkey
1/2 yellow onion, chopped
2 cups diced green bell peppers
1 10oz can Rotel tomatoes, drained
1 cup corn, canned or frozen (thaw if frozen)
1 cup canned black beans, drained and rinsed
3 Tbl vegetable broth
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 cup cooked quinoa
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
Optional: "Sour Cream" substitute (4 Tbl soy free Vegenaise and 4 tsp lemon juice, mixed well until no lumps)
Daiya Cheddar Shreds for sprinkling on top

In a medium saucepan over medium-high, heat oil. Add turkey and brown, about 4 minutes, making sure to break it apart with a spoon. Add bell peppers, onion, tomatoes, corn, beans, vegetable broth, and Worcestershire sauce and stir well to combine. Cook about 3 minutes, then cover and reduce heat to low, simmering for 15 minutes until bell peppers are tender. Remove from heat and stir in cumin, vinegar, quinoa, salt, and pepper. Serve with sour cream substitute and cheese, if desired.

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!

Dairy, Egg, and Wheat Free Italian Turkey Bake

  I love cooking from scratch! I love taking whole ingredients and turning them into something yummy. But I'm also a busy mom and often have to find something that can be made without much thought, time, or prep work. I thought I was on to something with chili until my darling dearest husband revealed that he actually doesn't care for chili all that much, so now he's sleeping on the couch (just kidding!) and I'm onto the next thing!
  As a side note, since finding out Jack is also allergic to rice, bread-type products (including cookies) have become even harder to find. We did find one great bread, Food For Life's White Rye. It's all of our allergies-free and while it's tougher than wheat breads, it had that 'gluteny' quality that gluten free rice based breads simply lack. Pasta wasn't quite so difficult, we found lots of corn based pastas and even some made from a quinoa/corn mix by Ancient Harvest that is very good. The only pasta that we haven't found is a non-wheat, non-rice lasagna noodle. We're still on a search for a good, non-crumbly cookie that travels well.

  Anyway, tonight was one of those nights where I was very uninspired and wanted to find something quick and comforting, and this meal definately fit the bill! There's nothing really 'from scratch' about this recipe, except the bread crumbs, but that was fine by me tonight. Everyone loved it, even Jack had seconds!

Italian Turkey Bake

1 lb ground turkey
2 cups dried corn/quinoa pasta (whatever shape you like except spaghetti)
1 can italian seasoned stewed tomatoes, drained
1 cup soy/dairy free pasta sauce (We used Bertolli garlic and mushroom)
1/2 cup baby spinach leaves
1/2 cup Daiya mozzarella shreds
1 clove minced garlic
1 Tbl italian seasonings
6 cups water
Salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup wheat/dairy/egg free bread crumbs*

Preheat oven to 350.
Add 6 cups water and a shake or two of salt to medium saucepan and heat over medium high heat. Once boiling, add pasta, reduce heat and cook 6-8 minutes or until pasta is al dente. Drain and set aside. Meanwhile, in a large skillet, heat garlic for 30 seconds and then add turkey meat, stirring frequently to break it up while it browns. Once brown, add stewed tomatoes, pasta sauce, and spinach. Stir well and cook over low heat until spinach is wilted. Add pasta to sauce/meat mixture and stir well. Place pasta in medium casserole dish, sprinkle with bread crumbs and mozzarella shreds. Bake 15-20 minutes, until cheese is melted and slightly browned. Let sit 5 minutes before serving.

  Some sauteed onions and/or bell peppers would be nice thrown in here. I also sprinkled mine with red pepper flakes for some extra kick. I can't get enough of spicy food lately.

* I made bread crumbs by placing 2 slices of Food For Life brand White Rye bread into the food processor with 1 tsp salt, 2 tsp parsely, and 1 tsp onion powder, that I then processed until it was all evenly broken up, and then spread the crumbs onto a cookie sheet and put them in the oven while it preheated (10 mins or so).