Elimination Diet for dealing with and discovering allergies

My allergist has placed me on an elimination diet in which we have eliminated all known allergens, and actually since I seem to be reacting to so many different things, even things I'm not allergic to, we have eliminated all but the things I react to. At first that left me with rice and pork. Currently I'm eating Rice, Pork, Beef, (once or twice a month max and only from places the cows were treated humanely up till becoming steaks)  salt, sugar, olive oil, and water. We're trying a new food in there every once in a while. This week I'm trying peaches. I'm not so sure how that's going. My body isn't very happy in general right now, even if I don't eat peaches. There was a fire nearby and the smoke brought allergens with it, plus it's a time of year where there are a lot of plants which I'm allergic to drying out and blowing around in the heat. It's not a good time to be in this body.

My allergist called it Oral Allergy Syndrome if memory serves. I'm on 3 types of antihystamine drugs. I've jokingly called it foodie hell because basically anything in the air cross reacts to a bunch of different foods. We have eliminated all those foods from my diet.

On the up note, I have been getting creative with those few ingredients left to me. And the rare occasions when we add other flavors are even more delicious and notable than they would have seemed previously. A peach is a wonderful thing even if I have to cook the heck out of it to safely try it. This week I am trying peaches but haven't been sure if they're causing my allergies to get worse or not. So there will be some days when I'll just do rice and pork, and other days where I'll include peaches this week, and I'll compare the reactions and decide if it's worth it. The allergist is also doing blood tests. You can follow  my health progress on baresimplicity.blogspot.com where I occasionally post a health update. BACK to the food!

Here are some recipes we have concocted that I have really enjoyed. Hopefully you will too:

Sweetened Louisiana Pork Ribs:
SO YUMMY

Ingrediants:
1 rack Louisiana Style Pork Ribs
2 teaspoons Salt (separated)
1/4 cup Water
2 Tablespoons Brown Sugar

Remove membrane from back of ribs if it hasn't already been done at the store
Rub 1 teaspoon salt over ribs
Place pork ribs and 1/4 cup water in the crock pot on low for 8-10 hours (while you're at work perhaps)
Remove ribs and rub with 1 teaspoon salt and 2 Tablespoons brown sugar
Place in broiler for 10-20 minutes allowing brown sugar and salt to create a nice coating

Allow to rest so sugar can cool and because meat is always best after it rests a bit.

I enjoyed this with a nice long grain rice medley (various types of rice cooked together, nice light nutty flavor)

And for desert see the recipe I posted over on Bare Simplicity
Brown Sugar and Olive Oil Cookies.
I wanted a slightly chewy cookie, and this is what I came up with
http://baresimplicity.blogspot.com/2013/06/brown-sugar-and-olive-oil-cookies.html

Thanksgiving Brunch and Pumpkin Dinner Rolls

Pumpkin Dinner Rolls

Thanksgiving Brunch in my house has always been a quick and easy, light meal so that we have room for the big meal later, but energy for a walk before "linner" (late lunch, early dinner) which also means less cooking for the chef/s. So last night I made the Pumpkin Dinner Rolls. Based off of this recipe: http://www.beyondkimchee.com/pumpkin-dinner-rolls/ which I altered to be whole wheat by substituting 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour, 3.5 cups whole wheat flour for the 5 cups of all purpose flour called for. The whole wheat flour tends to soak up liquids more easily, so I used less flour, and I also split my loaf into halves which I then split in half and then thirds so it made a total of 24 rolls instead of the halves and 15ths the original recipe called for, which made 30 smaller rolls. You could go either way, but this worked for me.

 Next time I would add some sweet potato (the orange/yam colored kind) in there as well, because it would add some natural sweetness, and it's bright orange color would make them more pumpkin like, as the originals look very cute with their orange pumpkin color. Normally I do not cook with yeast or egg, but I did with this recipe, because it was my first time changing it, and I've learned the hard way that it's best to only change ONE thing in a recipe at a time when your'e playing around with new recipes.

Thanksgiving Brunch,

Sliced in half so they're still cute pumpkin looking things, temporarily remove the nut/stem, spread each half with cream cheese (I used 1.5 tablespoons 1/3 fat cream cheese on each side) then add 1/2 a tablespoon (1.5 teaspoons) cherry preserves on each side, no nitrate happily raised turkey slices in the middle. I like to shop locally so the cherry preserves are from a local farmer, and are basically cherry and sugar. SO GOOD. Put the sliced turkey in the middle, close it like a sandwhich and for extra OCD bakers, line up the pumpkin's creases so they still match. Tastes (and looks) like Martha Stewart visited our kitchen.

Now back to the kitchen to make some butternut squash soup and orange cranberry sweet potatoes.

Comfort Foods the Healthier Way - Savory Recipes

What do you think of when you think of comfort food? What do you tend to reach for? I lean towards carbs and creamy things. It's been a hard couple of days, and I've been doing really good about not over indulging in foods that will make me sick and keeping to delicious healthy yumness. I'm pretty proud of me in fact. And the last couple of days have been really challenging. But here's some of the comfort foods I made, so that I could have guilt free yumness:

Carlie's Turkey Chili

Walnut Deep Dark Chocolate Fudge 

Coconut Milk Chocolate Bars (no bake)

Peanut Butter Caramel Dip (really good with the fudge on top of the last of last week's mango sorbet)

Almond Cookie Dough Truffles (covered in chocolate and frozen, not baked)

Chocolate Cookie Dough Dip & Dark Chocolate Chunks (no baking required)

And this morning I made Pumpkin Coconut Curry Soup with Coconut Macadamia Crunchies. SO GOOD! 

So I know, you must be thinking none of that sounds healthy Sean-Michael! And you're right it doesn't SOUND healthy. But trust me, they are all much healthier than they sound. Actually you don't have to trust me, just check out the recipes. I'm working on variations, and a group of my brave friends will be trying them all out, so the recipes I'm about to post are tentative and probably not exactly what they'll be in the end. But we enjoyed them as they are. I'm just a perfectionist and I like to tinker and tweek my recipes until they're just right.  Plus, I'm seriously considering writing a cook book some day for people who want recipes that are delicious while being healthy. For now, I've decided to perfect a few recipes I can give to friends and family for the holidays, and maybe even trade barter and sell locally. Stay tuned for more on that. Today I'm going to focus on the savory recipes out of the bunch. Please feel free to make them yourself and see how they turn out, and if you have any suggestions, please let me know!

Carlie's Turkey Chili is a long time favorite of ours. She likes to make extra because we all love it so much. It has a decent amount of protein, low carbs, and turkey is a low fat meat. It's a nice mild chili which is great with melted cheese on top. I like to use a Monterey Jack and Chedder mix. I don't have any photos of this, will try to remember to take one next time we eat it. In the mean time, here's the recipe: http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=1345488 ENJOY! 

Sent some to a friend for taste testing

Pumpkin Coconut Curry Soup which happens to be vegan. I just created this recipe this morning because I had seen a recipe for a curry soup but didn't have the ingredients. If I were going to change any one thing about the recipe it would be that I'd add a bit of lemon or lime, but I'm allergic to those, so I may try adding a bit of citric acid and see if that gives it some acidity. But if you're wanting a warm, comforting, creamy soup, give this one a shot and let me know what you think. Although Patch is not a pumpkin fan, and hates Curry (she says it smells like stinky feet) she ate this and said "Wow, that's actually pretty good!!" and then polished off her bowl. Here you go, give it a try and please let me know what you think.  http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=2238145 oh and I made these crunchies to sprinkle over the top with some chopped mint: http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=2238095

More on the rest of these recipes soon.