Buy one get one free...in a bad way

It has been an exciting time in our house with food allergies. My issues with milk have not been horrendous, that is, it could just be lactose intolerance or a mild allergy.

My girlfriend, however, has either developed a new allergy, or is finally showing signs that something new in our diet is an allergen. One of the ingredients in the Apple Buckwheat Muffins appears to be the culprit. If we look at only new additions to our diet, the most likely candidates for the reaction are buckwheat or agave syrup. I'm hoping it's the agave syrup, since we purchased the buckwheat flour to lower the wheat content in some of my baking projects to keep her from inducing a wheat allergy.

Add another one to the list

It started with a headache when I ate soft cheeses and cheese spread.

Then it was migraines.

Then it was migraines also with hard cheeses, but only if I ate too much.

On Saturday I got a migraine after eating a can of spaghettios, which apparently contains milk. Then I ate a granola bar with a milk-containing frosting drizzle (which was the only snack I had packed) and my face was flushed.

We already deal with a mild milk allergy by using rice milk and occasionally using rice cheese, but in general we use real milk products all the time...in granola bars, spice packets for boxed food, butter, chocolate chips, frozen pizza.

Looks like the shopping list just got more complicated.

Carrot Muffins

Sorry these took so long to post! So, through a random series of events, I ended up splitting a 50 lb bag of carrots with a friend. I still have carrots left after lots of chopping and freezing, but I thankfully have a ton of ideas for fun recipes to try out (or ruin as the case has been).

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 c sugar
• 1 1/4 c apple sauce
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 4 1/2 tsp egg replacer in 6 Tbsp rice milk or "3 eggs"
• 2 c flour
• 2 tsp cinnamon1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 c grated carrots (After grating, I wrapped mine in cheese cloth and squeezed out a lot of the juice.)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. In a large bowl combine all of the wet ingredients. Add the grated carrots and mix well. In a medium bowl combine dry ingredients and mix until combined. Transfer the dry ingredients to the large bowl and mix completely. Scoop into greased or papered muffin tins. I wanted smaller muffins, so I filled the muffin cups half full and made a total of 24. Bake 25 minutes.

For larger muffins, just fill the cups 2/3 to completely full. The baking time may need to be extended up to 5 minutes.

Carrot muffins and some upcoming experiments

I have a wonderful recipe for carrot cake muffins and some great pictures, which I will definitely post soon. I have also been checking out a new fun blog ( http://www.pure2raw.com/ ). A large portion of the food is not safe (lots of nuts), but the recipes have given me some fun ideas for nut-free, gluten-fee pie crusts and such :)

I'm still alive

I'm a bad blogger....I just don't have any recipes right now. I either haven't been baking, or I've been baking things that already have recipes posted. I will be back...

Pumpkin Bread :)

As soon as fall hit, I developed an obsession for baking with pumpkin. This is my adventure...

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 c flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 tsp egg replacer in 1/4 c rice milk (equiv of 2 eggs)
• 1/2 c sugar
• 1 1/4 c pumpkin puree (I used the canned pumpkin. NOT canned pie mix)
• 1/4 c olive oil
• 1/4 c rice milk
• 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp cloves
• 1/2 tsp ginger

Heat oven to 350 degrees. In a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt and mix well. In a medium bowl combine remaining ingredients and mix well. Stir dry ingredients into wet ingredients and transfer to a bread pan. Bake 50 to 60 minutes.

it still makes me cringe

How do you respond to someone who works in food service when their opinion is that, "People over the age of 21 are adults and should be able to manage their allergies."

Re: serving peanuts and tree nuts in open bowls at a bar.