Nancy

Travel with Food Allergies

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Traveling with food allergies is fun! Just Kidding, it’s not fun at all.  What do I eat when we stop at restaurants? Do I take my own food? What do I do?
I do eat out on road trips but it is a hassle sometimes. The first thing I do is call ahead or the restaurant, provided I know where we are going, and find out what type of oil they use in frying and marinade in. The only good answers are olive oil, corn or canola oil. Few restaurants use a different oils for marinading and frying. The oils of choice for restaurants are soybean, vegetable or clear frying oil.  Yes, clear frying oil is an oil. It is soybean oil. The restaurants I have eaten at and had no problems are few.  Here are a few restaurants that accommodate me:
1.Longhorns – use soybean oil
2. Zoe’s Kitchen – vegetable oil & Olive oil
3. Miller’s Ale House- soybean oil
4. Red Lobster & Olive Garden canola oil but it varies by restaurant, so ask.
5. Ali’s Bistro – Fort Walton Beach, Fl
6. Yes, McDonalds – canola oil but can vary. As last choice.
Always ask for managers assistance. They will often have suggestions that aren’t on the menu. Be creative we the items on the menu. Items on the menu can often be used to create your own dish.  At Longhorn, I created a grilled shrimp salad with romaine, peppers, bacon, tomatoes and shredded parmisan cheese. The waitress really liked my creation.
Resturants where I was told by  management, “NOT TO EAT HERE”:

  1. Ruby Tuesday
  2. Cracker Barrel
  3. Lamberts Cafe, only because they won’t respond to any emails.
  4. Texas Roadhouse
  5. Applebees, management wasn’t helpful at all but waitress was.

the restaurants above were mainly in Florida and Alabama and is not true for all of them but if I had a rough time getting something to eat, sorry I won’t come back. I mean how hard could it be to make a salad that should be made fresh anyway?
Sometimes I do bring my own food but I have to be careful so I don’t bring food that can spoil in the car.  My mayo has to be homemade; therefore contains raw eggs. I can eat fruit but I have to limit it to 2 – 3 pieces a day. This fruit total includes juices. I bring with pistachios, fruit and cooffeeeee. If I don’t bring fruit it is easy to buy fruit at most gas station markets.
 
 
 

Amazing Cheesecake

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Ingredients:
5 (8 oz) cream cheese packages softened
1 3/4 cup sugar
3 TBSP all-purpose flour
5 large eggs
2 egg yokes
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 tsps lemon juice
Directions:
In large bowl combine cream cheese, sugar and flour until, blended.
Add eggs one at a time for a total of 7 eggs.
Stir and combine after each egg.
Add vanilla and lemon juice.
Mix until all ingredients are combined and batter is smooth.
Pour batter into your spring form pan.
Your batter should be on top of a crust of your choice.
Bake in oven heated to 550* for 10-12 minutes.
Springform pan should sit on a cookies sheet with water coating the bottom of sheet. This is a water bath and will prevent your cheesecake from cracking.
Wrap foil around your springform pan to prevent water from leaking into the cracks and in your cake.
Lower temperature to 200 and bake for 60 minutes.
Cheesecake should be mostly firm and may jiggle slightly in middle. Remove from oven and let cool for 2 hours then refrigerate over night.
Enjoy!
Here’s a video we made:

Shopping

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What is on my grocery list? My list usually has some kind of spices, cheese, eggs, dried beans, chicken Breast, other meats, and baking ingredients.  I shop at grocery stores that have fresh products.  I like to be able to talk with the produce people and the butcher. They are the ones who can tell me where they get their food from and how they prepare it. If the employees tell me their products come in already packaged then I don’t buy it.  Some meats have “broth” injected into it. For me this means carrots. I can’t eat carrots.  The meats for me have to be packaged in the store not elsewhere.  

  • Cheeses that are shredded may contain other foods other then cheese. Some brands of shredded cheese contain potato starch and that would be no good for me. Always buy the block cheese and shred it yourself. It really is easy and quick. You will need to grate your cheese when needed otherwise it will clump together. You can save time by cleaning the grater immediately after you use it. Once you start doing this you will not buy shredded again. 
  • Dried beans are easy to prepare. The hardest part is sorting the beans. You WILL HAVE TO DO THIS: open beans and check for small stones or anything that looks foreign. Remove and discard those items. You will probally only find 1 or 2. You do not want to be the one to bite into a pebble. They hurt. Put one bag of dried beans into a large pot of water. Add taco seasoning, if you plan to use it for taco night or just beef or chicken stock for a more versatile flavor. Bring the water to a boil and continue boiling for 2.5 hours. Shut the heat off and cover the pot for 1 hour. Walk away and leave it alone. Once the beans are done you can freeze then or refrigerate them. Prepare them further when needed. 
  • Shop the outer perimeter of the store. This is where your fresh ingredients are going to be. Most everything you will need will be located there. The items located here are vegetables, fruits, diary, eggs, meats, cheese, nuts, and butter.  You will need oils, pasta, rice, flour, spices, sugar and other baking items but they are located down one of the inside isles. 
  • Tuna fish in water.   Hahaha, this is not always true so read your labels. I learned it is very hard to find  tuna that is packed is water and ONLY water. Soy and/or vegetable broth may be contained in your tuna. 

Soy, broths, and nuts are in quite a few items so read your labels unless you don’t want to know.  I guess you want to know because you are reading my stuff. I have learned a lot about things in store-bought products by reading labels and I think it’s an important starting point to get control over what I eat.

I can eat tomatoes!

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On August 4, 2014, I was told I was not allergic to tomatoes. I could eat them after 12 years of not eating them. My food list changed. I could not eat potatoes but tomatoes was a YES! After my Dr. appointment I called my sister and told her to make some spaghetti and meat sauce for dinner that night and I was a very happy person.
My new challenge began in May of 2014, when I was told about my new allergies.  How was I going to cook and figure out what to eat? I could not have soy, peanut, potatoes, sunflower and all the others. Food, my challenge, was going to have to be made at home. This should not be real difficult for me beacuse I used to do it when my boys were youngsters and living at home. We ate homemade products all the time.  Well, foods you buy in stores has changed, most of it is processed and prepared with too many preservatives. Let’s compare a store brought loaf of bread, Wonder or Natures Own, to a freshly baked one. How long will it take for each one to mold (turn green)? When I was a kid it used to take about 4-5 days but now, well I don’t think I have seen that happen with the store bought loaf. Yes, store bought bread has a lot of preservatives in it.
Here are typical things that I see for common products on store shelves:

  • Chicken- some are injected with chicken broth-( for me means carrots)
  • Canned tuna – in water- contains vegetable broth or soybean.
  • Packaged Sausage – soybean products
  • Canned beans- soybean oil
  • Cashews or pistachio nuts- roasted in peanut oil or soybean oil.
  • Bagged shredded cheeses- cheeses have potato starch in the bag to prevent cheese from sticking.

They are just a few of the items I found that I can’t eat. Please keep in mind the above information is not true of every brand. I have to read labels for everything I purchase and I get frustrated by what I see a lot.
I have learned how to make my own mayo, beans, cashews and more; none of these things are hard to make.  When you have allergies or are buying and cooking for someone with allergies, you should read labels at every visit and purchased you make. I have purchased chips that were made with sunflower oil and then the following month it is made with corn oil. The food manufacturer, yes, manufacturer, will use whatever they have on hand. You will notice sunflower and/or canola oil on the ingredient list. This means it may contain both or just one of the oils and would be a no go for me. All of this is time consuming but you will make something yummy and you or your guest will be able to eat it AND you’ll know what’s in it!

My allergies…

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My allergies changed and were starting to get worse in Jan/Feb 2014. I would suddenly get an instant cold after eating or going outside around certain things. Then I had a pretty bad reaction at Applebee’s with the following foods: potato soup and a Green Wedge Goddess salad. There were no tomatoes, carrots or peanuts.  The staff at Applebee’s tried to help to find an ingredient list but couldn’t find anything. After dinner I went online and emailed the cooperate office. They told me that they could not tell me the ingredients because they were afraid it would fall into the competitions hands.  I showed this letter to my doctor and he got the ingredient list.  (Funny how that works) my doctors office is Allergery Partners on the Panhandle. Dr. Rick did a food allergy test of the foods I ate that night plus a carrots and tomatoes. Well, this is my new and improved food allergy list:
Carrots, peanuts, almonds, pecans, cucumber, red/white potatoes, melons, soy, and sunflower.  
Think about all the foods we buy to cook dinner. Could you do it and not use these ingredients or ingredients that contain none of them? Soy is in almost everything.