1,2,3.... same as a,b,c... First 3 Tries at gluten, cassien & dairy free food

PS... Once I Figure Out How To Upload Pictures I Will Be Adding Pictures To Each One Of These Recipes! :) Recipes Are So Much Better When You Have A Picture To Reference. 

Recipe #1 - Meatloaf
So day one was interesting. I have been using a a menu planner and today's dinner was supposed to be meatloaf. I, with the help of my surrogate mom and little sister, figure out to make it gluten, soy & cassien free. We had to make a homemade bbq/ketchup sauce for the top because the bbq sauce and ketchup I had both included soybean oil and soy lecithin. We used rice cakes (ground up) and carrot pulp as the binding. Here's the recipe. 
Ingredients - 
1 lb Ground Turkey
2 cups carrot pulp (see instructions below)
6 rice cakes finely ground
2 1/2 cups bbq sauce (see instructions below)
2 eggs
Carrot Pulp - 
8 carrots juiced. After juicing set aside juice for later and collect all pulp. 
BBQ Sauce - 
All seasonings to taste. :)
Honey 
Tomato Paste
Liquid Smoke 
Paprika
Garlic Powder
Onion Powder
Celery Salt
Brown Sugar
Mustard Powder (teensy bit)
Chili Powder
Distilled White Vinegar
Directions - 
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine ground turkey, ground rice cakes, carrot pulp, eggs and 1 1/2 cups bbq sauce in a bowl. Mix together well and put in meatloaf pan. Bake in oven at 350 for 30 minutes covered in foil. Remove from oven, remove foil and cover meatloaf with remaining sauce. Bake for about 10 minutes more. Remove and serve. So Yummy!
*After eating this the only thing I would do is add more of the rice cake flour to it to make it a little more solid. :)
Recipe #2 - Lettuce Wraps & Jasmine Rice
This one was a huge stretch for me because 1) I HATE THAI FOOD & 2) I HATE PEANUT SAUCE. So other than that I was really excited (ha) about eating Thai Chicken Lettuce Wraps with Peanut Sauce and Jasmine Rice. It was really a "No Thank-You Bite" kind of meal for all of us but it ended up actually being super yummy. This makes me excited about our new lifestyle. 
Ingredients - 
Chicken Stir Fry - 
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons sesame oil
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cubed to 1/2?
1 – 8oz can sliced water chestnuts, minced to the size of corn kernals
1/2 onion, chopped fine
3 cloves garlic, minced fine
6 large leaves of green leaf lettuce
Soy Sauce - 
3 cups water
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup honey
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp minced ginger
1/4 tsp minced garlic
Pouring Sauce - 
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup warm water
2 tablespoons gluten free tamari (or regular soy sauce if you’re not concerned about gluten)
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons ketchup
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/8 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon hot water
1 tablespoon dijon mustard
2 cloves garlic, minced
Peanut Sauce - 

1 1/2 cups creamy natural Peanut Butter

1/2 cup Coconut Milk
3 tb Water
3 tb fresh Lime Juice
3 tb Kosher salt
1 tsp Sirachi Sauce (also called Rooster Sauce)

1 tb fresh Ginger Root, minced fine
3 cloves Garlic, pulverized, then minced
1/4 cup Fresh Cilantro, chopped

Directions - 

Begin by making the pouring sauce. In a large bowl, dissolve sugar in 1/2 cup warm water, add soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, ketchup, lemon juice and sesame oil. Mix well and throw in the fridge until you’re ready to eat.
Combine 1 teaspoons hot water with dijon mustard and garlic and set this aside in small bowl.
Combine oils and add to wok or large frying pan. Heat oil over high heat until it glistens, about one minute. Add chicken and saute until cooked through, then remove from the pan and cool. Keep oil in the pan, keeping it hot over a low flame.
Prep the stir fry sauce by mixing soy sauce, brown sugar, and rice vinegar in a small bowl.
Take pan that you cooked the chicken in (with the still warming oil, riiiight?) and turn it up to medium-high heat. Add another tablespoon of olive oil to the pan, wait one minute, and then add chicken, garlic, onions, water chestnuts, and the stir-fry sauce you prepared earlier. Stir-fry everything until the mushrooms have cooked, about four minutes, and remove to a serving dish.
Add mustard/garlic mixture to the pouring sauce, 1/2 a teaspoon at time to taste.
Serve stir-fry with green leaf lettuce for leaf wraps and top with pouring sauce.
*This was actually amazing. I wouldn't change anything about it. :) 
Recipe # 3 - Potato Tortilla & Steamed Broccoli
Ingredients - 
6 medium sized potatoes
1/2 medium sized onion (finely chopped)
4 garlic cloves (minced)
6 eggs
olive oil
freshly chopped parsley
salt
pepper
1 head of broccoli
Directions - 
Slice potatoes in 1/4 inch slices (with peel on). Place in deep skillet with water and boil for 5 minutes. Drain potatoes and set aside. Saute onion and garlic in olive oil until lightly browned. Combine potatoes, onions, garlic and parsley in skillet and cook on medium for 5 minutes while mashing lightly into bottom of pan. Beat eggs together and pour evenly over potatoes. Cover and cook over medium-low for 20 minutes until eggs are fluffy.Steam broccoli & serve with salt/pepper. 
*This was a really yummy recipe but next time I will tweak it a little. I think next time I will add in the broccoli instead of serving it on the side and i think i will make it more like a quiche and add some spinach, zucchini, tomatoes and bell peppers.  This is definitely a comfort food in my book. :)

and so it starts...

so with a recent discovery that has basically derailed our entire dining cart, I have decided to start a new blog that openly and honestly discusses the challenges and rewards we are going to be facing. The name of the blog kind of sums up how i feel... unexpectedly I am having to completely change how we eat, drink & all around live with regards to food. Its not so much a diet but more like a lifestyle. I have literally gone from cooking just about nothing to cooking everything... from scratch. I'm getting a bit ahead of myslef so let me start from the beginning.

Almost 6 years ago, my bub and I gave birth to our first (of three) little men. Cohen Jack was a beautiful & perfectly healthy baby boy for about 48 hours. Then the spitting up began. And like every other first time mom in the world I began to worry. However just like every other first time mom I was reassure that babies spit up and it was completely normal. Well days turned into weeks and weeks into months and with every passing minute it seemed the spitting up got worse. We called him the exorcist jokingly but in reality that's what he resembled after every feeding. I was nursing in the beginning and ended up eliminating anything and everything from my diet that might be making him worse. We tried everything it seemed with regards to breastfeeding and eventually his pediatrician decided that he just wasn't gaining enough weight and he needed to be on a special formula called Nutramagin... aka powdered nastyness. The formula stunk so bad, his throw up stunk so bad and his poop was hurrindous. The formula didnt seem to help anything so his pediatrician diagnosed him with GERD, gastroesphageal refulx disease. He started him on Zantac then a month later switched him to prevacid. The exorcist vomiting did eventually go away but was replaced with the constant smell of omit on his breath and intermittant vomiting throughout the day. As Cohen got older, the bub and I realized that dairy products made the vomiting and now diarrhea worse so we took him completely of dairy and replaced it with soy products. For about a year he began to get better and we thought that we had eliminated the problem and were going to begin living a normal life not filled with vomit and poop. The time where the symptoms were better was very short lived and came back with a vengence. Cohen would complain of stomachaches and headaches all the time. His breath constantly smelled of vomit and would have bouts of diarrhea and vomiting on a daily basis. Mind you this whole time we have been told its just severe GERD and the prevacid dose had been increased to help. I finally asked his new pediatrician if we could have a referal to a pediatric gastroenteroligist and she was more than happy to... she actually told me that she had been consuloting with one for a while trying to figure out the next step for a while. She was out of ideas at this point. We met with the pediatric gastroenterologist for about 2 hours and went through a very extensive medical history. The doctor was so awesome and really listened to everything I said. He suggested a few different things beginning with a swallow study and an esophogram. He did so good during these and the results showed that he had no stinosis (or structural deformity) that would cause him to vomit. So the next step would be a scope from the top and the bottom so that the doctor could get a really good look at the entire G.I. tract. After the scope was over the doctor came and spoke with me finally giving me the answers we have been desperately wanting since he was an infant. Cohen is allergic to gluten, soy & cassien. The continual exposure to these foods has cause him to be inflamed through his G.I. tract and covers in lesions. The doctor took some biopsies but said that he didn't think there was any extensive damage or cancer cells that wouldn't heal on their own. Here's the kicker.... to begin the healing process we must stop the exposure to these allergic foods. Which is where we are now. I am finding out very quickly that just about EVERYTHING has one of the three things he's allergic to in it. So I am basically having to go through everything with a fine tooth comb and cook from scratch. Luckily I live in an age where medical advances have been made and I have access to so many resources available online. Plus I have the MOST AMAZING family and friends that have helped me start finding recipes and resources and are all completely on board with supporting us in this whole family lifestyle change.

This blog will basically be a blog about food but I am sure I will add in other fun things too. I was very hesitant and overwhelmed at first with the feeling of "what the heck are we going to eat" but as I become a little bit more informed I am actually a little bit excited about all the new foods we will be experiencing and I am super excited to expose my children early on to foods that typically they would never be exposed to. I am hoping that this will help them to develop a very well rounded appetites.

and so it starts...