I'm super excited....I received a nice pleasant surprise in the mail, Allergy-Free Desserts by Elizabeth Gordon, ordered for me by, Buddy Y (Yvonne). Isn't that cool.....so thoughtful! Time to pull down the kitchen aid and experiment baking all kinds of sweet treats for "mah babey". It's been fun figuring out ways to broaden my daughter's options in foods that she can, not only eat but really enjoy. A lot of my recipes for her specifically come from pure trial and error, my absolute favorite way of doing things.
Just the other day I bit into a plum forgetting I was allergic to them, I have selective memory ;) as I too suffer from some food allergies i.e. shellfish, raw nuts and FRESH fruit...bummer!! I'd give anything to bite into an apple or pear, I didn't develop the fresh fruit allergy until I was about 21 so I do know what I'm missing. Anyway, I took a couple of bites of the plum, Oh My Gee, (as Cymae says it), that plum was absolutely delish! I started an allergic reaction to it shortly there after. I don't like wasting anything, so instead of throwing it away, I made plum apple sauce. There was about 3/4 of an apple left from my girls' snack so I decided, hey, why not. I simmered the apple and plum, unpeeled, added a little water, a little sugar, covered, about 30 minutes or so, it was a pretty vibrant wine color and looked like jam. I then strained it through a sieve to separate the peel and viola, plum apple sauce. I spread it on some toast because I didn't feel like making anything else, it was like 12 or 1am...I'm a night owl. So I ate it on whole wheat toast. It had a tart note to it with a bit of sweetness, tasted like a freshly baked cherry or some sort of warm berry pie filling. THAT was definitely serendipity! I gave some to my sister and now whenever I visit, she asks me to make it. Once I figure out how to make a batch with the precise measurements, I'll post the recipe. You could probably look around on the Internet and find a recipe for it if as well.
Now back to what I was writing about, I go off on tangents quite often, actually so do the rest of the buddies, we understand one another though so it's OK. So, in thumbing through this book, I see some things that I've made before, my version of how I thought it should be prepared plus some desserts I've never thought of. I've had a lot of help via the Internet and vegan sites finding substitutes to take recipes I had and turning them into a dairy free, egg free, and *soy free delicious treat or meals. So what I'm going to do is sort of like a count down on recipes in this book that I'll share with you. Did you ever see Julie & Julia, well something like that except my rules are different (BTW, I absolutely adore Meryl Streep, I think she's brilliant). I'm going to follow
some recipes exactly as it is written, which as explained before is very difficult for me, I just like trying things my way. With the chosen few, I'm going to try it using my alternative or my little tweaks to fit our needs. Since this book also incorporates gluten-free ingredients to accomodate those who suffer from wheat/gluten, it uses things that I do not but am willing to try. These particular ingredients can be quite expensive, however I do understand that there are people that suffer from way more allergies than we do, so I'm going to give you the recipe in the book as it is written, as well as mine if I do have a different version. I want you to go ahead and make these recipes and tell me what you think, I'll take the good, the bad, and the ugly, I won't get sensitive if you don't like my recipe, promise, well I'll try not to, I'm pretty sensitive and wear my heart on my sleeve (batting my eyes with a smile). I have yet to determine whether I'm going to try a different recipe weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. I think I'll try it randomly for now since I'm kind of random, my ways are pretty arbitrary. Plus I have lots of other things on my mind to blog about!
Consequently, allergy free cooking is a bit healthier than "regular" cooking so even if you don't suffer from food allergies, give some of these recipes a try, it might be a nice healthy alternative to what you are used to.
Happy baking! ♥Chyna
*(Just to clarify OUR Soy allergy, it is not pertaining to all soy, just mainly soy milk, cheese, soy ice cream, but we can have soy products like tofu, vegan butters made from soybean oil etc., don't know why, it just is. However, if you do have a soy allergy you're probably better off staying away from soy completely unless of course you know exactly what soy products you can't and can have if any. Through experience, I'm fully aware of most soy products we can and cannot have)
The most important point is to cook these pancakes slowly. Too fast and you'll burn them, or worse yet, you'll have pancakes with gooey liquid centers. A good rule of thumb is 90-120 seconds per side. If they burn before that, your pan is still too hot. If things are at the right temperature, you'll know it is time to flip, without timing, by the small bubbles forming at the top of the pancake. When it is covered in small holes, the edge of pancake will start to look dry. This is the time to flip.
