My Birthday Cake

Sadly, my birthday falls during my diet, so I can't follow my usual practice of having desserts I usually wouldn't.  However, my sweetie has promised to make me a fabulous cake I found on the National Watermelon Board website.  It sure looks good!  I can't wait!

Recipe Here

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Week 2 Summary

The best thing about week 2 is that I lost 4 pounds.  (Keep in mind that I didn't lose weight in the first week.)  I figure that if I'm mostly eating fruits and veggies and whole grains and not eating sugar or wheat, I should be losing weight, so it was really frustrating that I hadn't.  That said, I don't feel any better.  Although, I have to admit that I am eating better than I really do - it would be hard to eat badly on this diet.  Maybe I'm impatient, but I'm supposed to be feeling better in the two to three week range (if I have food allergies.)

I discovered that Trader Joe's is a wonderful place to shop if you are on this diet.  For instance, they sell non-organic unsulfered raisins, for less than half the price of organic (which is normally the only way to be sure you are getting unsulfered raisins - one of the requirements of this diet.)  They also sell whole grain rice pasta for half the price of everywhere else in town and they actually sell muffins that are on this diet!  Unfortunately, the muffins, Zen Bakery Blueberry Raspberry Oat Bran Muffins, are really not that good - they are very dry.  I was actually surprised because I've had other Zen Bakery products and really liked them.  Then again, I might like them better if I could have them with a cup of coffee! I haven't tried it yet, but Trader Joe's also has inexpensive rice milk.

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Pancakes and Popovers

The other night I decided I wanted something a little different and decided to try to make pancakes.  Despite the fact that I had to substitute for every ingredient in the recipe except salt, they turned out great!

Here's my new recipe -

Hypo-Allergenic Pancakes

Beat together:

1 cup rice milk
2 T canola oil (or other safe oil)
1 T Hanna Kroeger's Flaxseed Egg Replacer

Mix the following dry ingredients together:

1 cup oat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cream of tarter
2 T honey
scant 1/2 tsp salt

Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and cook on a hot greased griddle or fry pan.  Keep a close eye on them as they seem to cook slightly faster than standard pancakes.

Inspired by my success, I tried to make popovers today.  I don't know what I ended up with, but they weren't popovers.  They did taste pretty good though.

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Hanna Kroeger's Allergy Baking Recipes

Hanna Kroeger's Allergy Baking Recipes is an irreplaceable resource if you want to bake for someone sensitive to common baking ingredients like wheat, milk, eggs, and yeast. Many of the recipes are also suitable for people on gluten-free diets, although they are not marked as such. Although there are a number of very good recipes in this booklet, it is worth buying for the two egg-replacer recipes alone!  In some recipes, the apricot-based replacer is superior to eggs.  The other egg replacer recipe uses ground flaxseed, which can be a nice way to take advantage of the health benefits of flaxseed.  Also of note is a recipe for corn and aluminum-free baking powder. 

Here's the recipe for the flaxseed egg replacer:

Mix together in a pan:
3 cups water
1 cup ground flaxseed

Boil for 3 minutes, stirring constantly. 
Store in the refrigerator. 
1 tablespoon replaces 1 beaten egg.

Allergy Baking Recipes by Hanna Kroeger.  Hanna Kroeger Publications.  ISBN: 1-883713-02-1



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One Week Round Up

So, it's been a week. Other than being able to stand being in the same room with dill weed, I have seen no benefits from this diet. I haven't even lost any weight - I figure that if I'm not eating cookies, pastries, cakes, bread, or anything with flour or sugar, I should at least be losing weight. It's also been a week since I've had any coffee. I haven't had any withdrawal symptoms, but I have noticed that coffee smells better and better every day.

I've started to get into an eating routine of sorts. Most days for breakfast I make myself a bowl of homemade muslei - rolled oats and barley, ground flax, various nuts, sometimes raisins and chopped fresh fruit with apple juice. For lunch, I usually have some mix of fruit or vegetables and possibly some nuts or dinner leftovers. For dinner, I make some combination of rice (or rice noodles) and beans with veggies. I'm often hungry in the evening and sometimes will make another bowl of muslei. For quick snacks I usually have peanut butter and celery or rice cakes, sometimes I'll have fruit or a handful of nuts.

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Benefits Already!

One of my migraine triggers is the smell of dill.  I'm also supersensitive to the scent.  I spend a lot of time holding my breath in the produce section during the summer when they have fresh dill for making pickles.  It can be pretty miserable - luckily I can handle a wiff or two.  At any rate, I was at the produce market today and they had the usual bucket of dill.  Not only could I barely smell it, being around it didn't bother me at all!  I knew that scent supersensitivity can be an allergy symptom , but I didn't think that removing other allergans from my diet could remove the hypersensitivity to scents of foods I'm already avoiding.  Years ago a gas company tech told me that people with onion allergies are hypersensitive to the nasty smelling additive they use to make natural gas smell bad, which is derived from onions.  Years ago I tested as allergic to garlic (a relative of onions),  but the only things that avoiding garlic (or garlic and onions, as was suggested to me) ever did for me was leave me with a blander diet and remove the irritating hypersensitivity to the smell of natural gas (it wasn't a worth while trade off in my mind!)

Of course, the benefit I'd really like to see is feeling more completely well and healthy, not extra tired and that hasn't happened (yet?)

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Cooking Without Soy Sauce

I have a number of recipes that use some combination of soy sauce and rice vinegar.  My first thought was that I could get a reasonable result by using rice vinegar for the full quantity of the liquid required.  In fact, I've found that I have to reduce the amount of rice vinegar when I remove the soy sauce in order to get an acceptable result.

I haven't tried it yet, but I did find a Non-Soy Soy Sauce Replacement on Recipezaar.

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