The Other Side

Pumpkin pancakes

2009-06-10T13:37:00.000-07:00

This recipe is a work in progress, but so far, so good. I will also be working on a gluten-free version, so stay tuned.

1 1/2C flour
2tsp baking powder
1/2tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt (optional)
2tbsp honey
2tbsp oil
1/2C pumpkin puree
1tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
1/2C water
1C coconut milk

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. In another bowl, combine wet ingredients and whisk lightly. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir well. And it's pancakes, you know how to cook those.

I only have the full-fat coconut milk in my cupboard, so I needed to add water to thin it. I'm not sure how the lesser fat stuff would work.

The kid loves these, she'll eat easily twice as many as she will normal pancakes.

If looks could kill.

2009-05-12T13:32:00.000-07:00

You wouldn't be reading this post. He wanted out so badly, and then 2 minutes later wanted in again. And 10 minutes after that, he forgot why he wanted to come in.

Until 5 minutes after that, when he realized that it really is snowing hard.

I'm told that it always snows on Victoria Day weekend, thus ruining everyone's camping plans. Victoria Day weekend is this coming weekend. So maybe we're a bit early, but wow.

My grandparents keep asking if I've planted my garden yet. The answer to that is still no. Because, it's snowing outside. For what it's worth, I have planted asparagus rhizomes. And there are chives, strawberries, and rhubarb up already that survived from last year.

Yum

2009-05-12T12:35:00.000-07:00

These are from the other night when I used my mixer for the first time. Kind of a small batch to be using a big mixer for, and I had to modify the recipe a bit, but it all worked out.

Pizza dough!

Which became yummy barbecue chicken pizza.
- Barbecue sauce brushed onto the dough (Bulls Eye sweet & sticky)
- Shredded chicken with enough barbecue sauce to moisten it
- Crumbled goat's milk feta
- Sliced black olives
- Chopped sweet red pepper

I got a new toy.

2009-05-09T09:46:00.000-07:00

For a really great deal at Costco. I'm so excited.

Homemade ketchup

2009-05-04T14:07:00.000-07:00

We ran out of ketchup the other day and I didn't want to go to the store for just one thing. So I decided to try making some myself. I started from this recipe. And tweaked it a bit.

1 (28-oz) can whole tomatoes in purée - became 1 15oz can diced tomatoes and 1 15 oz can tomato sauce
1 medium onion, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon tomato paste - used the whole can
2/3 cup packed dark brown sugar - used 1/2C because the reviews said it was too sweet, but I probably should've used more.
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt

Also added some garlic powder and paprika. Followed the rest of the directions.

It's not bad. I think I'll keep trying, if only because it's got to be healthier than buying it at the store. Next time though, I'll definitely use more sugar, and probably more spices as well, it's a bit bland. But, the kid doesn't notice the difference, and the husband only noticed that it's a different color than usual, so it can't be all bad. I'm just not that much of a ketchup person anyway.

Sesame Beef - my way

2009-05-04T13:53:00.000-07:00

I have no idea what's actually in sesame beef, beyond beef and sesame seeds. This is what I made a couple of nights ago.

2 chuck steaks, sliced thin
1C hoisin sauce
1/2C soy sauce

1/4 red cabbage, shredded
1 (or 2 if you want) red peppers, seeded, membrane removed, and sliced thinly
1 zucchini, sliced in half lengthwise, then crosswise about 1/4" slices
2tsp olive oil
1/2tsp sesame oil
toasted sesame seeds

Coconut Rice
- prepare rice as usual, except leave out 1/2C water and add 1 can coconut milk

Combine hoisin sauce and soy sauce. use to marinate beef overnight.
Saute red peppers in olive oil over medium heat in a dutch oven until they just start turning brown, then add cabbage and beef. Cover, reduce heat to med-low and cook about 6 minutes, until beef is no longer pink, but take care not to overcook the meat. Add zucchini about 3 minutes after beef. Sprinkle with sesame seeds, drizzle with sesame oil and stir. Serve over coconut rice.

The problem with this is

2009-03-27T09:17:00.000-07:00

Everything I cook now is dairy-free. And most of the time I don't even think about it, so obviously I don't post. For instance, the soup I made the other day. Delicious, creamy, no milk, and I haven't said a word. The other people in my house did, mostly "yum!", but you know.

The story behind this soup, for me, starts back in Oregon at McMenamin's Pub and their African Peanut Soup. It's very good, and I've been playing around with making it for a long time, but never have gotten around to it. The other day I decided it was time, so I found a recipe. Not the same recipe, I know, because theirs has chunks in it and this doesn't, but still good. And, since we all know that I am incapable of actually following a recipe, it doesn't really matter.

Here's what that recipe calls for:
1 tablespoon extra virgin peanut oil
2 cups chopped onions
1 teaspoon chopped red chili
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
1 cup chopped carrots
2 cups chopped sweet potato
1 qt. chicken stock
2 cups tomato juice
1 cup smooth peanut butter
1 tablespoon sugar

Simple enough, right? Except that I spent 2 weeks looking for red chilies or red chili paste and came up empty. Also, used the last of my carrots for chicken and dumplings, don't have peanut oil, and only have tomato paste. No worries though! My sweet potato gave me 4 cups once I chopped it, so that covered the carrot, but did make it a bit sweeter, so I probably should've lessened the sugar. I added enough water to the tomato paste to make 2C of liquid and it was perfect. Grapeseed oil instead of the peanut, because my standard olive has too much flavor that wouldn't mesh with the soup. And I used tabasco sauce for the spice.

I did follow the directions in the recipe mostly, but I also diced and cooked a couple of chicken breasts to toss in there after blending, and that was a good addition for me, but not necessary as it's quite a hearty soup.

And, of course, last night I found some red chili paste at the store. And some curry paste, which I think is what I'll use next time. I'll probably also double the recipe (this one is a large recipe, but I like leftovers) and add a can of coconut milk as well, because I love the flavor that adds, especially combined with the curry.

Imagine my excitement.

2009-03-05T10:39:00.000-08:00

When I finally discovered whipped "cream" that I can eat.

I have one of these delightful creations. (FYI, the non-stainless version is less expensive, but this is the picture I found) My Mom & Dad gave it to me for Christmas a year ago. Then, 5 months later, I discovered my milk allergy. Doh. Well, I had an epiphany a few days ago, and I decided to try the closest thing to cream that I could find. Coconut milk. The full-fat version (the low-fat is just nasty in anything!), and chilled seems to work best, but it is fantastic! It does have a mild coconut flavor to it, but it's not anywhere close to being overpowering, and you don't need to add anything, just the coconut milk.

6 years.

2009-02-26T10:39:00.000-08:00

We celebrated our 6th anniversary on Sunday.
In standard fashion (which we only ever realize after supper), we ate chinese food. And then, because they offer a dinner and a movie deal with the theater across the parking lot, we went to see Push. We were expecting it to be an X-Men type knock off or something along that line, but the others we wanted to see weren't showing until later and we wanted to get home before midnight to relieve the babysitter. We were pleasantly suprised. It was grittier and more convoluted, and not so superhero-ish as we were expecting. We enjoyed it.

Tenderloin

2009-02-03T11:40:00.000-08:00

This was supper last night. Recipe courtesy of The Pioneer Woman, the beef is part of the half-steer we just bought from some friends who raise hormone and antibiotic-free grass-fed angus. It is fantastic, and the roast tenderloin turned out so good. Also had little baguette pieces with bruschetta and goat feta, and salad with romaine lettuce, roma tomatoes, red grapes and bits of bacon. Yum!

Crazy

2009-02-01T22:58:00.001-08:00

I've been thinking about reading the book Twilight for a while. But I wondered how much of it was hype and how much was actually a good story.

I got it on Wednesday. I've read it 4 times. Might be a good story. Should've bought the others while I was in a town that carried them.

Revamping.

2009-01-17T10:22:00.001-08:00

Since most of my cooking does not, in fact require recipes... I'm going to switch this over to a "what I'm doing" sort of blog. Without pictures of the kid, since that can be found elsewhere.

Chicken

2008-12-01T13:15:00.000-08:00

This is more & more becoming just a cooking blog. Mostly because it's not overly difficult to cook without dairy once you know what to look for. It is helping tons with buying and using only basic ingredients though, since most pre-packaged items contain at least some quantity of dairy. Except Oreos. Lovely, lovely Oreos are, in fact, vegan. Or so I hear. Oh, that just makes them even worse, doesn't it? There is absolutely nothing good in Oreos. Except the yummy creamy filling.

Anyway, this post isn't about Oreos, it's about chicken. And the ridiculous amounts of it that we eat. Or not. The chicken that I brined for our supper on American Thanksgiving was delicious. Our George Foreman chicken roaster, leaves chicken deliciously juicy even when you do nothing but stick some garlic inside and brush on some olive oil. Brine the chicken and it melts in your mouth. Andrew says, "this is probably the best chicken I've ever had!" Which means, that the recipe is a keeper. The man has eaten a lot of roasted chicken. Today, I'm turning the rest of the carcass into stock. Plunk the bones/skin/whatever into a big stockpot with a chopped onion (big chops are okay!), garlic, celery, and whateve spices you feel like using today and simmer it away for like 8 hours. The longer the better. Then you strain it and pour it into a small container that fits in the fridge. Once it's cold, you can scrape the extra fat off of it. It's not really a one day deal, but if you want to skip the refrigeration that's up to you. Then you can make yummy chicken soup. Or whatever else you want to do with it. I toss in a bunch more chopped vegetables, the leftover bits of chicken meat (if you can hide it from your husband that long!) and some noodles.

**On a side note, my chicken roaster, supposedly does other things. It comes with a whole recipe booklet, even claims to make cakes! But the only thing I ever cook in it is chicken. Why mess with a good thing?

Pseudo-Thanksgiving

2008-11-27T17:11:00.000-08:00

Since our Thanksgiving was over a month ago, but my family is all celebrating in the States today (except my sister, who is enjoying a holiday in Morocco), I decided to make a mini-Thanksgiving dinner.

I brined a chicken. I tried making some croissants (we have a bunch frozen in the freezer), but only took out enough for supper and not for the 2.5 year old all day munchies. I'm making Crash Hot Potatoes (mine are not that pretty), roasted brussels sprouts (probably the same as my roasted asparagus, only with brussels sprouts instead), and for dessert, we'll have grilled pears with So Good Butterscotch Swirl Ice Cream. I'd post a link, but can't get the website to load. It's one of the better alternative ice creams.

2008-11-27T16:54:00.000-08:00

The hard thing about maintaining a recipe blog is that I don't generally use recipes. A typical supper at our house is just stuff that I throw into a pan (or several) and call it supper. Generally, this works great. For instance, last night's supper:

Into a rice cooker dump the following:
1 lg. coffee mug of rice
1 half the same mug of water
1 can coconut milk (the full fat stuff. it's good fat.)
*you can cook this quite easily in a pan on the stove, just use 1.5 mugfulls of water.

Pour about a tablespoon of olive oil into a wok, large skillet, or dutch oven (something that will tolerate high heat). Cook 3 or 4 chicken breasts (boneless, skinless). I like the frozen ones from costco. Pre-marinated, ready to go. Our favorite flavor currently is sweet apple curry. Once the chicken is cooked on the outside (about halfway to the center) take it out of the pan and chop it into bite size pieces. Return to pan and cook through, stirring as necessary. Temperature: if your chicken is unfrozen, start off at med-high. I start at very low to thaw the chicken a bit so I can cut it up easier. Once you have the chicken cut up, crank the heat to high and toss in whatever veggies you have on hand. For us, this generally means red, orange or yellow peppers, mini corn, regular corn, asparagus, celery, green beans, you really can't go wrong here, just toss in whatever you like. Cook & stir until veggies are done to your preference, then you can add in some grated ginger or maybe some minced garlic. Then I put on some sauce and call it done. Start to finish is generally 20 minutes or so. I also like to dice a firm apple and put that in for some variety. The trick with that is to not add it too soon or they'll get mushy.

Sauces we like are:
Sweet Thai Chili from Thai Kitchen (we get it at Costco)
Teriyaki (i can not spell this word!)
Maple Apple Beer barbecue sauce from Sobeys
Hoisin Sauce (Asian market)

Yammy.

2008-11-13T08:58:00.000-08:00

I've discovered that I don't seem to react to goat milk like I do to cow milk. Which opens a lot of options for me as far as cheese and yogurt go. But I can't handle the taste of plain milk.

Yesterday I made this yummy for supper with the leftover yam that I didn't want to put in the stew that is for tonight's supper.

Fresh yam, sliced as thin as you can. Lay it on a baking pan (I love my stoneware) and drizzle it with olive oil. Coconut oil would probably work great too, but mine is solid and I didn't want to hassle with melting it. Bake until tender and starting to brown at the edges (this was 30 mins at 350 for me), remove from oven. Sprinkle with brown sugar and let stand 5 minutes. Stir. Eat.

Yummy potatoes

2008-11-02T10:20:00.000-08:00

I roasted a chicken last night in my George Foreman chicken roaster. I LOVE that thing.
Stuffed the chicken with salt & pepper and half an onion sliced up. Rubbed some coarse sea salt and freshly ground pepper into the skin as well. Roast 80 minutes, and it comes out perfect.

But I had to figure out something to go with it.
We have a bag of potatoes, so I figured I'd do something with those, but I'm getting tired of mashed potatoes, and with only 15 minutes until the bird was done, I didn't have time for baked. So I made this up instead.

3 medium potatoes, sliced
olive oil
salt & pepper
chicken stock
margarine
parsley
dill

Heat dutch oven over med-high heat, add olive oil and potatoes. Saute potatoes for a couple minutes, then add the chicken stock, only about 1/3 cup. Add salt & pepper. Cover and let cook about 5 minutes. Potatoes should be just tender. Add a bit of margarine or olive oil if you prefer, add parsley and dill to taste.

I topped mine with fake sour cream, the man of the house topped his with real sour cream and grated cheddar cheese.

Important note: These don't smell very good when they're cooking. But they taste fabulous.

Things that work for me.

2008-10-29T20:35:00.000-07:00

Silk brand soymilk. Lots of controversy around soy, but I'm okay with it in moderation.
Silk coffee creamer. Better than regular creamer.
Tofutti sour cream. Milder flavor than traditional sour cream, and the same texture.

Well dang.

2008-10-28T21:36:00.000-07:00

Today I was diagnosed with Esophagitis. Is minor, but aggravating. And slightly inconvenient. Reasonably certain that it was from taking a pill with too little water, and has just progressed from there. Course of treatment at this point is acid reducing medication and a low-acid diet for 3 months.

So far, the low-acid diet is not working out so well. I just like my fresh fruits. I like coffee too. Dr. says no coffee. Blah.

simple breakfast this morning

2008-10-28T09:48:00.000-07:00

Not too hard to make breakfast dairy-free, really. You just think so, because it rules out things like yogurt and cottage cheese and milk on your cereal (unless you like an "alternative" milk like soy or almond).

Whole grain toast with homemade raspberry jam
1 egg, over easy, cooked with olive oil, salt & pepper
fresh tomato slices with salt & pepper
beverage of choice

today's beverage is chai tea. Most mornings I have coffee with a splash of soy creamer, or apple juice.

2008-10-28T09:17:00.000-07:00

One of the harder things about living with an allergy now is that I haven't had to deal with it before. My Mom is allergic to a lot of common grains, so I'm used to looking at labels to help her find things she can eat, but I'm not used to adjusting how I cook and asking other people what ingredients they've used. And dairy is sneaky sometimes. An innocuous looking dinner roll is off limits because it's probably made with milk. Steaks are best cooked in butter. People say to me "oh, I just used margarine" but a lot of that has milk in it too. "Have you seen this lactose-free thing?" Yeah, I have, but I'm not lactose-intolerant, I am dairy-allergic. There's more to it than the lactose. There's definitely a learning curve, and I very much appreciate the wonderful people in my life who have tried to learn to compensate for my allergy. But it is really up to me. I am the one who has to deal with the reaction, so I am the one who has to be vigilant. One thing I've found really helpful is that Veganism and Vegetarianism are so prevalent now. Vegan foods are safe for me to eat. Vegan margarine (earth balance has fantastic flavor), vegan cake, cookies, etc. So delicious, and I don't have to read the label beyond the vegan part.

Anyway, that said...
A good quality olive oil, and good unrefined coconut oil are fantastic for cooking with. And a tiny bit of bacon grease when you truly want something else.

Another new blog.

2008-10-27T21:55:00.000-07:00

This one is for recipes and whatnot, tedium mostly. We'll see how it works out.