A New Twist

I've never been much of a cook. Certainly this stems largly from my dislike of spending time in the kitchen, but it could also be that I just don't have the knack. No one has ever accused me of being domestic. But with the new dietary restrictions, it seemed like more time in the kitchen would be my fate. So I decided to approach this new challenge by attempting to make only foods I really craved, thereby rewarding myself for the effort of cooking.

The internet is invaluable to me. I sifted through dozens of vegan chocolate chip recipes, bread recipes, and cake recipes in cyberspace. I could ease into cooking by making comfort foods. Later I would work on more creative ways to use lentils or what spices to pair with garbanzo beans. Once I'd decided I wanted to make a loaf of bread and a batch of cookies, I chose the recipes based on the smallest ingredient lists and shortest preparation times. Aside from a slight error with the yeast, resulting in a somewhat denser loaf than planned, the bread was great. The texture and taste were excellent, and I even had some egg-free, dairy-free butter substitute to spread on it while it was still warm.

My second endeavor didn't go quite as smoothly. The first hiccup occurred as I gathered the ingredients from the cupboards and assembled them on the counter. Upon closer examination, the recipe called for baking powder in the ingredient list, but then called for baking SODA in the instructions themselves, and according to the comments, it was soda that I needed, not powder. Not having an especially diverse pantry or the know-how to mess with substitutions, I searched for another recipe.

I found one that originally called for cocoa powder, to make chocolate cookies, but decided to leave it out and have regular chocolate chip cookies instead of double chocolate. I also saw that flax seed was included in the ingredient list, but as I had seen flax seed in a multitude of recipes ranging from soups to smoothies, I assumed it was there just for the nutrition, which is flax seed's usual purpose in these other recipes. After I had mixed all the ingredients into a gluey consistency, I read some of the comments posted after the recipe and discovered that in baking, flax seed is used in place of egg. So...I needed that. Oops.

Plowing forward regardless, I put in the first batch of dough and hoped for the best. I had tasted the dough and found it to be pretty similar to every other cookie dough I'd sampled. At worst, if the cookies were inedible, I could refrigerate the rest of the dough and eat it raw. I had even found dairy-free chocolate chips to put in, and those would be good no matter what (especially to someone with an unsatisfied sweet tooth!) After a few minutes, the cookies still looked like puddles of plasma, but they were starting to smell like cookies. They never rose though, and I ended up with very flat, strangely textured baked goods. But they tasted an awful lot like cookies, so that was good enough for me.

Originally I planned to write this entry about the foods that I've discovered I CAN eat. Not only is there a pretty good spread of dairy-free, egg-free items between Trader Joe's, Top Foods, Nature's Market, and Whole Foods, but the regular grocery stores had a few surprises as well. For instance, Teddy Grahams happen to be dairy and egg free, as do wheat thins, tortillas, some flat breads, and some frozen teriyaki bowls etc. But there's been a new development that makes me less excited about these things.

With three and a half weeks eating an egg-free, dairy-free diet behind me, I checked in with my doctor to report on my progress. I told her exactly how I was feeling and she seemed...nonplussed. Apparently, she'd expected a more drastic change, considering the drastic change in consumption. We aren't aborting the three month experiment though, since sometimes it takes longer for a body to get back on track. What she did suggest was that I use the rotation diet for gluten and wheat products. All of the items on my "hey, there are plenty of things you CAN eat!" list above contain wheat. So did the cookies and bread I baked earlier in the week.

While these items aren't completely off the table (off the table? Get it?!), I do have to eat gluten-free three days out of every four to follow the rotation diet. Since wheat is a "moderate" allergen for me, I can have it some days, as long as I give my body time to recover before eating it again--at least that was how I understood the theory. I was already getting pretty good at discerning what was and wasn't acceptable with the previous restrictions, so this news wasn't as disheartening as it could have been. But still. I have to be gluten free 75% of the time now too? As the Germans would say, "mensch" (Aw, man!)

The experiment continues.