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Apple Pie Lasagna
This weekend has been pretty awesome. I have actually had a full weekend break from homework. Tomorrow, though, it’s back to the grind. But, till then I’m going to keep on enjoying the warmer weather, sunshine and free time to just be creative. So, I baked. 
Sometime last week my little sister came to me excited because she had had a vegan lasagna a neighbor made and thought it was really good. “And it didn’t have any cheese!” She told me. “Did it have tofu?” I asked. “Uh, yes.” See, I’m allergic to soy. She tried to say that it didn’t have much tofu, but I’ve seen vegan recipes before for this and they don’t have a tiny amount. As we debated the other ways I could make it I remembered another problem. Even if I used Daiya cheese, there was still tomato sauce. For years my body does not do well nor like tomato sauce. I can have tomatoes, but tomato sauce is different for some reason. Maybe it has to do with the quantity that’s in lasagna and other dishes. But it’s really hard to make lasagna without tomato sauce.
“You could use apple sauce!!” My sister said, laughing as she was referencing how she used to always get tomato and apple sauce mixed up and always said she wanted apple sauce on her pizza when she meant tomato sauce. We both laughed. “Uh…… no.” I said. Somehow in the conversation though I somehow came up with the thought of putting fruit in it. Which led to my idea of mixing an apple pie with lasagna, turning it into a desert.
Part of why I got rather excited about this idea is that I’ve really really struggled to make pie crusts that are gluten, dairy and soy free. It’s possible. But I just haven’t gotten something that I like quite down yet. But using lasagna instead, even though it would be different, I wouldn’t have to worry about making a pie crust in order to make pie. So, that also simplified things. After brainstorming a bit more with my sister and then with one of my friends, I came up with how I wanted to make it. And it turned out pretty well. This recipe is pretty simple and easy to make. So, here’s the recipe:
1. Peel, core and slice 9 large apples (more if they’re small)
2. Mix together:
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup rice flour
Cinnamon to desired taste (I like quite a bit)
3. Add the above mixture to the apples and mix well.
4. Preheat your oven to 375* F
5. Cook 9 pieces of rice lasagna according to package instructions
You can either snap the pieces to size before cooking or after cooking. While it is a bit harder to get a smooth edge when the pasta is dry, I find it easier than trying to cut it when it’s hot.
6. Butter your dish (I use Earth Balance buttery “spread”), then lay the first layer of cinnamon/sugar coated apples in the bottom.
7. Add three rows of the lasagna pasta, trimming as necessary.
8. Coat the pasta with some butter spread on it.
9. Cover the pasta with more apples. The inside layers I like to put 2 layers of apple slices.
10. Repeat with more pasta, then butter, and repeat till you get to the final pieces of pasta. Add a layer of apples on top, or two if you want.
11. Pour the cinnamon/sugar juice left at the bottom of the bowl the apples were in over the top of the completed dish.
Bake at 375* F for 45-55 minutes.
The apple pie lasagna is good both hot and cold, so you can serve it fresh out of the oven (don’t burn your tongue when eating!) or refrigerate it before serving.
Chocolate cookies
Oh. My.
These cookies are ahhhhhmazing! I just had to share. Especially after leaving off on a kinda scary note of the story from the last anaphylactic reaction a few weeks ago. I’ve had it on my mind to bake over the last 3 weeks. But well. I’ve just been in survival mode. Being a full-time student doesn’t make it easy and I’ve been working on catching up. But this weekend I decided to take a break from the assignments and reading and give my brain some time to let the creative juices flow. I started out by sewing a froggie hoodie for the dog. Then today I made pumpkin, sunbutter, chocolate muffins. And then cookies. Oh my. They’re all sooo good! Why did I wait so long to make them?? Ok, probably because I’ve been too tired to try to play with recipes and adjust my favorites to being egg free over the last month and half. But I finally got around to getting egg replacer a few weeks back so things have been turning out a bit more normal when I bake now.
I kind of took the recipe from Jules, but made my own adjustments to it based on things I’ve done in the past and also kind of forgot an ingredient.
8 TBS coconut spread (this has more of a consistency of shortening, not butter, so it works better with cookies than any margarine does)
1 TBS egg replacer
2 TBS coconut milk (So Delicious, not plain coconut milk from a can)
Beat together with electric mixer. Then add:
1 cup sugar
dash/squirt of vanilla
Beat well together. Add:
1/2 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup sweet white rice flour
1/2 cup sorghum flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
Mix well and then stick in the fridge for a bit. Preheat oven to 375 F.
Grab a lump of dough (about 1/4 cup) and roll into a ball with your hands, and place on the cookie sheet (I just line mine with aluminum foil, the cookies do not stick so NO need to grease it) and flatten slightly. Leave about an inch or 2 between each cookie.
Bake for about 15 minutes.
Remove from the oven, and do your best to wait a few minutes before removing them from the cookie sheet so that you don’t burn yourself!
Makes about 18 cookies. You can also only make 1/2 and freeze the rest for another time when you’re really wanting cookies but don’t have the time to throw together the ingredients. Just thaw the dough enough to shape, and bake. But, I’m going to recommend that you double the recipe and make extra to freeze. Oh, and btw, they freeze really well.
Gluten Free Bread Making Tips
A while back I posted that I had finally come up with a gluten free (and dairy and nut free) bread that I was happy with. I was going to share the recipe, but well… I’m still playing around with it trying to make it better. So, since I have no idea how long it’ll take me to get to the perfect recipe, I’ll just share with you guys some tips that I’ve learned along the way when it comes to baking bread… minus the gluten. Some of these tips I’ve heard from other bloggers, but the only page I can think of that I remember I learned tips from would be from Cook It Allergy Free. I know there’s one other blogger who I really benefited from their advice, but I really have no idea who it was. Sorry! I try to link to people when I’m citing something they said or did (like any good student), but I really have no idea who or where it was! I know other tips have come from some friends on twitter, including Gluten Free Gigi.
So, here are some of the things I’ve learned when baking gluten (and dairy) free bread:
1. The dough will never look the same as any glutenous dough you’ve ever baked. If it does, the result will be a hard-as-a-brick, dry, and really hard to bake through thing that you won’t want to call “a loaf of bread” and will try really hard to somehow eat just so you can finish it (or you might really want to throw it away).
2. Your dough needs to be moist and stir-able before you put it in the pan. You do not need to knead it. Kneading is done to develop the gluten, and when there’s no gluten to develop, it’s pointless to knead it.
3. You don’t need to make the dough rise, “punch down” then put it in the pan to rise yet again. As soon as I’ve mixed the dry and wet ingredients together thoroughly, I pour it straight into pans and let it rise in the pans(anywhere around 20-60 minutes of rising, however long it takes it to rise to the edge of the loaf-pan), then put it straight into the oven.
4. I’ve found that putting some sort of thicker moisture like applesauce or yogurt (soy yogurt works quite well) helps to keep the bread moist and have a good texture.
5. Raisins, sesame seeds, flax (ground), whatever you think of is really good. Raisins add moisture to the bread and taste too.
6. The flour combo: go with your gut. Use a base that you’re comfortable working with, and add some more whole-grains, but don’t add too much of them. I like teff (but in small quantities), and millet (in small quantities) and especially love sorghum (in larger quantities). Sorghum doesn’t make it taste really weird as it doesn’t have a really strong taste like teff and buckwheat do. But beware that each flour has a different level of how much liquid it absorbs. My favorite base flour is Grandma Whimsy’s Rice Flour Blend. This stuff is really seriously awesome and I can make most things without needing to add any gums. 
7. Gums: believe it or not, gums are NOT always necessary for baking gluten free breads! If you do use them, do not use too much. A small amount goes a long way. But, if you do decide to try baking without, you’ll need to play around with the flour ratio more. Sweet white rice flour seems to do a good job at helping to keep my baked goods from crumbling, but I still need to play around with it more. Also know that if you use rice milk and apple sauce as the main liquid ingredients as opposed to soy milk and soy yogurt, the bread will be more brittle. So, have fun and play around with what you have and can eat… I’m still working on perfecting my bread soy-free at the moment.
8. The pan: I tried glass pans, and I kept on having problems. Somewhere I read that metal loaf pans work better and I have to agree. So, I stick with metal loaf pans. They just work better for some reason.
9. The oven: make sure your oven is calibrated correctly. We used to have an oven that was off by like 25 degrees F at some points on the dial and more or less at other points. Know your oven and check it.
10. Baking: Baking your bread at a lower temp for longer helps to bake all the way through. I used to try baking my bread at 400 F, but that resulted in the outside getting burnt while leaving the inside uncooked. I’ve found baking it at 350 for longer does the trick.
11. Do not cut the bread while it’s warm. I know it tastes great, but don’t slice up the whole loaf while it’s warm. It’ll be a lot harder to slice nice slices. Wait till it’s cooled off, and then slice.
12. The freezer: I like to slice the bread and freeze most of it this way. Then I just have to pull out as many slices as I need when I need them, and either nuke them or microwave them and they taste great and are nice and moist.
13. If your bread has a base of rice flour in it, and it’s kinda dry and not so fresh tasting after several days, pop a slice of it in the microwave for 10 seconds.
14. Never give up. Try someone’s recipe and then if it gives you ideas, get to experimenting. I started using Jules Gluten Free‘s bread recipe, and then made changes bit by bit to it and ended up with my own recipe. But only through trial and error and never giving up.
15. I turn the oven on for a minute, then turn it off before it really gets hot and put the loaves in the warm oven to rise. Having a warm environment helps the bread rise better.
16. I heat all the liquid ingredients. Starting with the milk/water, and then in the warm liquid I put the yeast in it to proof it. HOWEVER, I only put the yeast in about 5 minutes before my dry ingredients are entirely ready and all together. Otherwise the yeast um, well… gets a little out of hand. (no, I’m not using too much yeast) Oh, and that brings me to…
17. Don’t use too much yeast. Using more yeast just because the last time you made bread that much yeast didn’t make it rise enough, does NOT mean that you need more yeast. If you have too much yeast, your bread will taste distinctly too yeasty and you won’t want to eat it.
18. Yes, I actually use baking soda and baking powder (or as my family sometimes calls it “baking power”) in my bread in addition to yeast. It just seems to work. But I’m not sure I’d use them in every single kind of bread I ever bake.
19. If you mix the yeast in warm liquid before mixing it into your dough/batter make sure the liquid isn’t too warm or it will kill the yeast and your bread won’t rise at all.
So those are my main tips for gluten free bread baking I’ve learned over the last 1 1/2 years. As I think of others, I’ll add to the list. Now go have some fun in the kitchen. I think I’m going to need to bake some more bread soon…
Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies
Before I went gluten-free, I never had trouble making cookies that turned out. They were quite simple. But once you take gluten out… making cookies is far from easy! I’ve tried time and time again to make them, thinking this might work, or maybe that might work, but I still couldn’t get cookies to turn out… especially chocolate chip cookies. I asked around for help, and several people gave me a few pointers on what might be wrong with my cookies. I tried again, and things were better, but still not quite right.
But my other problem, is that, well, I’m a university student, so I don’t exactly have time to bake cookies all the time. Then a few weeks ago a friend happened to ask me if I had a recipe I could give her that was gluten free for the cook book she was working on for a school project. I figured that it would be great motivation for me to keep working on cookies and said “sure!”
Then, I forgot about it.
That is till this week and found out she needed it the next day! Whoops! So, I pondered all sorts of different ideas in my head and tried to come up with a way I could make some kind of gluten and dairy free cookie that was easy to make, didn’t have a ton of crazy sounding ingredient, worked and tasted good. The following morning I set to work right after breakfast. I had no idea how the cookies would turn out, but I sure hoped they did.
And, they did.
So, if you want to make them too, here’s the recipe:
Makes 2-3 dozen cookies
Ingredients:
4 TBS Dairy-Free margarine/”butter” alternative
4 TBS Dairy-Free shortening (this MUST be shortening, not margarine. It’s what helps the cookies to hold together and not melt all over the place when baking)
3/4 C sugar
1 TSP vanilla
1 Large egg (make sure it’s a large egg)
1/2 C coconut flour
1/2 C sweet white rice flour
1/8 C garbanzo (chickpea) and fava bean flour
1/2 C sorghum flour
1/2 TSP baking soda
1/4 C Dairy-Free mini chocolate chips
1. Pre-heat oven to 350* F.
2. With electric mixer, cream “butter” and shortening. Beat in sugar, vanilla and egg beating throughly with electric mixer.
3. In separate bowl: mix all dry ingredients (coconut flour, sweet white rice flour, garbanzo and fava bean flour, sorghum flour and baking soda).
4. Using a spatula, slowly incorporate dry ingredients into wet ingredients, stirring well to incorporate everything. Stir in chocolate chips. The batter will be stiff.
5. On cookie sheets lined with aluminum foil, either
a) drop tablespoonfuls of batter onto cookie sheet, 1 inch apart; or
b) roll dough out to 1/4 inch thick and cut with cookie cutters into desired shapes, placing 1 inch apart on cookie sheet. Bake 12-13 minutes, or until cookies are just turning golden.
6. Let cool for several minutes on cookie sheet before transferring to cooling rack to cool completely. Enjoy.
Learning to bake gluten free bread… with SUCCESS!
It’s taken me 15 months. Yes. A long long time. I can’t even remember the last time I had my dad’s bread. His bread is just amazing. It’s got flax, sesame, raisins, whole grains and more. It’s not like store bought bread that you can squish into a little ball, yet it’s not hard as a brick, nor does it tear when you try to spread stuff on it. We have friends who ask for his bread for desert instead of ice cream…. yeah…. I’ve missed that bread since I went gluten free.
But I’ve been determined to recreate my dad’s bread, but gluten free (it’s already dairy free). I’ve tried. And tried. And tried. And tried. And tried……. sometimes getting something that tasted decent, other times I managed to eat it somehow so all the ingredients used wouldn’t go to waste.
I’ve had bread turn out hard as a brick. Super dense because it wouldn’t rise. Or it would rise but would fall and cave in and just not work. It would look nice on the outside, but was uncooked in the middle… or if it was cooked in the middle, it was super dry and hard on the outside. Or if it looked right, it tasted weird, or sometimes just plain nasty. I tried extra yeast (yuck!) more rising time (forever??), and one thing after another. Different oven temperature, different baking time, and pans, and I just couldn’t get it to turn out like I wanted it to.
As time went on though, I started to get closer. I learned about baking using ratios between starch and whole grains, I learned about different flours, learned which ones I like the taste of and which ones I just don’t. Which work well, and which I’m perfectly happy with never ever buying again. I’ve researched and spent hours staring at recipes, and thinking about it at random moments during the day how I can make it work.
Then I went to North Dakota. I brought flour and stuff with me to bake random things to relax when I needed a break from studying linguistics. But I only ended up making a bunch of muffins and some grape pie.
Now I’ve been home for 3 weeks. 2 weeks ago Jules talked on twitter about baking gluten free bread. But I had just burned my hand, and was working on regaining strength and getting my hand used to doing things and not hurting every time I washed my hands in lukewarm water. Thankfully, a week after that, my hand was back to normal!
Then, came hurricane Irene. And the uncertainty of whether we’d lose power. I sewed a new pouch for my EpiPens in the morning (still not finished with it though) then got around to baking in the afternoon. Once I started, I didn’t stop till it was after 9pm and I needed to get to bed. I started off with baking bread, merging a recipe I had from Jules and my dad’s recipe. Changing the ratio of liquid to dry ingredients as I felt like it should be…. believe it or not, BEFORE I ever mixed the ingredients together. I think I’m starting to get better at this gluten free baking thing, one day at a time! I baked and baked and baked that afternoon, making the bread, muffins (which actually turned more into an apple muffin pie instead of Jules’ blueberry muffins… I had no blueberries on hand, and I’m allergic to bananas, so I totally tweaked the recipe and ended up with something quite different!), graham crackers (Chef Flower and I made 2 GIANT graham crackers to make a huge s’more in the next days!), tapiocia pudding, and pie dough (to be baked the next day, provided we had power).
As I pulled the bread out of the pan, I sliced it open to check to make sure it was totally baked and it was. At dinner I tried it, and my first reaction was, “hey, this is really good! Not quite like Papa’s bread, but it tastes really good!” Chef Flower agreed with me and so did my mom. My dad tried it and his first reaction was, “wow, this actually tastes…. like bread!”
I spread some earth balance on it and sunbutter, and as I bit into that “sammich” I was blown away by how great it tasted, the texture and how it tasted just like a real peanut butter and butter sandwich I used to eat as a kid! Wowie!!!! The next day at lunch, it was still as good, and did I say it slices well too! No crumbling, and you can even slice it thinly and balance it on a knife without the bread breaking in 2 or crumbling to pieces! And it still tasted as good!
So, while I have 1 little thing I need to tweak (not quite liking the after taste of the rice bran in there), I wanted to share with you guys that I have successfully made gluten and dairy free bread that tastes great, is moist, has that marvelous homemade taste, isn’t hard as a brick, yet isn’t like store bought bread, and is healthy for you too! I’ll post the recipe hopefully sometime soon, but being a college student, it may be a week or two, maybe 3 or 4 before I have the official recipe to post. In the mean time, I’ll leave you with a picture of it.
Now I actually look forward to sammiches because I at last have gluten and dairy free bread that I can eat that tastes good and has the texture similar to my dad’s bread! Yayayay!!!!!
#bakinginacollegedorm: Muffins!
If you’ve read my last several posts, you probably know I spent 9 weeks this summer ON-campus studying sign language linguistics. And yes, I ate in a cafeteria! It was a really great experience, despite a few glitches, overall the experience was great.
And, if you follow me on twitter, then you may have heard about some of my #bakinginacollegedorm adventures… I learned how to bake a gluten, dairy, egg, soy, and nut free grape ‘pie’, and I also discovered the art of making muffins…. withOUT eggs (I didn’t have any with me), without oil (again, didn’t have any with me) AND in the microwave! So, I’m going to share a bit about how that all works, as you’re probably curious by now.
My first attempt was at making gluten, dairy, egg, corn, soy, nut and peanut free (and naturally fish and shellfish free): pumpkin sunbutter chocolate chip muffins! I didn’t pack any muffin tins with me, but had a glass bowl, quite a few reusable plastic containers, and a completely metal pot and frying pan. This time I made most of it in the oven in the frying pan, but I also made some in the microwave in 2 of the smaller glass bowls. Here’s what it looked like:
I gave several pieces to a fellow food allergic friend, and one to my non-food allergic RA and they both LOVED it. The first came to me after she had tried it and said, “wow! That was realllly good! I usually don’t eat bread stuff, but if you have more that you don’t know what to do with, or if you make some again, you can give me some if you want.” In other words, “they were AMAZING!!!”
My RA was surprised at how good it tasted and even more so that it was free of the Top 8 most common food allergens and more, and that I had used somewhere around 10 ingredients!
Later, I decided to try making blueberry muffins without oil, not too sure what to expect. But, surprise surprise! It worked! No oil, AND I made it in the microwave! I had planned to bake it in the oven in the frying pan, but when I started preheating the oven it smelled like there might be something burnt in it and I didn’t want to have to worry about that, so I scooped it out of the pan into a glass dish and baked it in the microwave a bit at a time. But it worked!
My next and last project (I was sick for 2 weeks so I spent those 2 out of the 9 weeks in ND in survival mode and didn’t have time to think about any kind of baking) was to make muffins for my trip home. I had collected kiwi fruit (4 of them!) from the extra fruit the cafeteria set aside for me each day to eat and snack on. I also had 2 apples from the week before. And I had somewhere around a 1/3 cup of Sunbutter left in my room. Some friends thought I was crazy to think of making kiwi muffins, but when I asked Jules of Jules Gluten Free she thought it would taste good, but to be careful with how juicy the fruit is. Yay!! They turned out really good, but I think I may have overbaked them a tad as they tasted great when they were fresh but were a bit dry when I ate them the following day.
The other half of the batch I was making I decided to make into apple Sunbutter muffins, and those turned out really great too! These were really great, and I didn’t even peel the apples!!
So, here’s a rough kind-of-recipe (more like a basic idea to follow) for making muffins in the microwave without oil, nor eggs, nor any of the top-8 most common food allergens:
Flour mix:
Usually I make about 2 1/2 – 3 cups of flour mix for a “batch” of muffins, using the following assortment of flours:
starch:
-potato starch
-sweet white rice flour/white rice flour
(You can also use other starches like arrowroot, tapioca, corn starch, etc… I use arrowroot at home but didn’t bring any with me to ND)
“whole grains”
-sorghum flour (one of my favorites!)
-millet flour
-garbanzo (chickpea) & fava bean flours
(you can also use things like brown rice flour, buckwheat flour, corn flour, etc.)
I put about somewhere around 1 1/2 – 2 cups total of starch, and around 1 or 1 1/2 cups of whole grain… though I never really measure very well. It just gives me an idea to get about the right ratio between starch and whole grains.
Other ingredients:
-sugar (you could use honey if you wanted probably… I only put like somewhere between aprox 1/4-1/2 cup, depending on the other ingredients… and often I don’t even measure so I don’t really know)
-baking powder (sprinkle some on top till you think you probably have enough)
BEFORE moving on: make sure to stir your flour blend + sugar and baking powder!
The “glue”:
In a separate container of some sort, put some flax seed meal (basically just ground flax seed), somewhere around 1/4-1/3 cup, and add over 2x as much water as flax seed. Stir, and let sit a few minutes. This is the glue that helps to hold these muffins together.
Fruit:
Whatever you want… you can use grapes, blueberries, blackberries, you can even use kiwi, probably even watermelon or anything that comes to mind! Apple and Sunbutter tastes great, and you don’t even have to peel the apple! Just slice and core it, and cut it up into small chunks.
Canned pumpkin works well too. It makes it very rich and tasty! (and it’s also really great with sunbutter and chocolate chips 
)
I usually add around 1/4-1/2 cup of Sunbutter when I add it, but it totally depends. You can also add a nice sprinkling of Enjoy Life Chocolate chips (or chunks). Basically, it’s up to your imagination!
A word of caution here though: If the fruit you’ve picked is juicer, then make sure that you stir it into your muffin batter BEFORE adding the water.
The last ingredient:
-water
Add this a bit at a time, mixing till you’re happy with your batter. It should be thick, but also thinner than cookie dough, yet thicker than gravy…. you get the idea.
And the last part:
Spoon/pour into microwave safe dishes, making sure the batter isn’t deeper than 1 or 1 1/2 inches. Now, microwave it on high for 2 minutes at a time, checking every 2 minutes to see how it’s getting cooked. It will rise, and it’s cooked when the top is looking cooked and you can stick a knife down in it without it coming out all gooey.
BUT, make sure to NOT overcook it, because that will make it dry. It usually cooks in about 3-5 minutes, sometimes less, sometimes more, so keep an eye on it.
Let cool before you slice and enjoy…. please don’t burn your tongue (or fingers)! Store in a container or in plastic bags and eat. They’re best in the first day, but are still good for several days without being refrigerated. Because there are no eggs in this recipe if it’s a bit under cooked it’s not a problem because it’s still safe to eat!
So, if you find yourself going off to college, take some gluten free flour, baking powder, and flax seed meal (and it does keep un-refrigerated), and some microwave-safe dishes! You never know when you’ll end up with fruit and the urge to bake and relieve some stress!
Eating in a college cafeteria
I’m back home, and have 2 weeks to catch up on posts that I had meant to write while I was in North Dakota. Oh well. They’ll get written and posted over the next 2 weeks. Here’s the one on special meal requests that I had mentioned I was going to try waaaayyy back almost 2 months ago.
I mustered the courage to try out the online special gluten free meal request form for dinner one night, and then I just kept on using it. The cooks learned how to cook safely for me (there was certainly some fear and trembling at times as I am the first severely food allergic student they have ever fed), and it was realllllly nice to have a cooked meal that resembled a “normal” meal instead of random other things and sandwiches. So, here are a few pictures of my dinners over the first few weeks.
I did have some reaction to one meal, which we have no idea what it was, but other than that, everything went well. Though this worked well for me, depending on your sensitivity and specific allergens it may or may not work for you, so make sure to discuss it with your doctor(s) and consider all the options before deciding. However, my experience is that it IS possible to eat safely in a college cafeteria, IF they are aware of how to keep food allergic students safe and really do take extreme caution.
#Pieparty …. in a college dorm!
I’ve been on-campus for a month now, and still hadn’t managed to find time to bake anything. Then last week on twitter someone mentioned that they had baked a GF pie. “Can I come over??” I asked. Her reply was “sure” but that it was Gluten Free Girl who was heading up the #pieparty on twitter and FB and she suggested making my own pie for the #pieparty! Hmm…. I thought, how can I make a pie here? I’m in a college dorm, don’t have a fridge in my room, and have limited free time… and not to mention limited resources.
The next morning when I opened my eyes, right across the room sat my pot and frying pan. “Ah ha!” Bit by bit, the plan came together, and I figured out how I could bake a pie in my dorm. However, there was still a dilemma: fruit. I talked it over with my grandma, and we came to the conclusion of what fruit would be best for a pie, that I also had access to. Later, another friend on twitter sent me some links on making that kind of pie, and it got me inspired, and I was ready to make gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free while also being soy-free and egg-free (so a friend could also have the pie) grape pie!
While the cafeteria is good at supplying me with fruit they prepare for me so I don’t have to worry about cross-contamination, sometimes I think there’s a little lack of communication…. some days they put way more fruit in “my fridge” than I can eat in a day (unless all I was eating was fruit)! Last week, they gave me a lot of grapes, and obviously making grape pie would work better than watermelon, cantelope, or honey-dew melon pie. So, I put 2 TBS of the soy-free earth balance from the fridge in the cafeteria and stuck it in one of the small things of extra grapes and put them in my RA’s fridge.
Later that evening, I took the “butter” and mixed it with Jule’s AP GF flour in my dorm room “kitchen”,
This is my "kitchen". Most people use it as a desk
and then added water to it. The pie crust then went into a bag and in my RA’s fridge till I had time to bake it 2 days later.
GF Dairy-free pie crust in the making
2 days later, before bed, I braved the sauna-like laundry room/kitchen in my dorm, though thankfully I could prepare everything in my room, and just cook and bake in the kitchen.
I took the grapes and cut them all in half in my pot, added some sugar, and then cooked it into a jam.
Meanwhile, I took the pie crust, and put it in my frying pan, and put the pan in the oven (don’t worry, it’s entirely metal) for 20 minutes while I cooked the grapes.
Yes, I made pie in a frying pan. Desperate times call for desperate measures!
After both the crust and filling were done, I poured the filling (which was more like jam/preserves) into the crust and let it cool.
Then, obviously I had to taste it. But by the time I took a picture of the finished product, my RA (who is not GF) and I tried it and we both thought it tasted pretty good! So, the picture was taken after we tasted it… 
Not quite like a “normal” pie, but hey! I baked a pie that was not only gluten, dairy, egg, nut, soy free, but also in a college dorm with limited resources! And, to top it all off, it was quite fun and had that homemade taste to it too! And no rolling pin either!
Review: Universtiy of North Dakota’s Cafeteria
I have had bad experiences with eating out before, to the point where I dread eating out nearly anywhere, as it’s really hard to really know what’s going on in the kitchen or anywhere that “my food” would be. I’ve dealt with a university cafeteria before (2 years ago, before I was really sensitive to dairy, and before I found out I had celiac disease and other allergies and sensitivities), and they did not know how to really provide safe food. They had good intentions and wanted to try to make sure I had food to eat, but they knew nothing about and when I explained what cross-contamination (CC) is only a few of the workers really understood. Unfortunately, the cafeteria head manager did not understand what CC was, and even less what “dairy” was.
So, this summer, I was nervous about going back to be an on-campus student for the summer, even though it was at a different university. I was told by someone who has been here before that the cafeteria has dealt with gluten-free students before, and that helped some, though I was still nervous. At church on Wednesday night a few days before I left for ND, the last verses on the notes handout was from Matthew 6:25-27 (NIV)
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
Ok, God, I think I get it. So I relaxed some, had some backup food in my luggage for the first days and was ready to start trying to work with the cafeteria when I got here.
Well, I got here almost a week ago, and I didn’t eat the first 2 meals in the cafeteria because I hadn’t yet talked with the dietician, but every meal since (14 meals), I have eaten there, and I’m still alive and haven’t gotten sick, yet. Hopefully it will stay that way. EpiPen stays with me every time I’m in the cafeteria and with me around campus, and we’re all hoping that EpiPen stays in my pocket and/or backpack for the whole summer. The last week has been really busy, with classes and homework pretty much all day every day so far, yet I’ve had many conversations with kitchen staff, and we still are working on solutions to things as they come.
Monday afternoon the other food allergic student (whom I’ve become good friends with) and I met with the dietician…. for 1 1/2 hours discussing food, food, and more food. We talked about different concerns, especially CC. We also talked about different brands that we were used to and what we had found worked at home. He gave us a tour of the different areas of the cafeteria, especially the “special diet needs” fridge. He introduced us to some of the head cooks (and I’ve met more since).
When we started talking about brands and he knew what brands we were talking about, that was a good sign for me. He knew what gluten free meant, he knew the difference between “lactose-free” and “dairy-free” (they do NOT always mean the same thing) and he was very very familiar with food labeling terms. But the most surprising thing? He has spent time to develop a complete listing of all the foods and the ingredient labels and different foods! ALL ONLINE!!!! AND!!!! he also showed us the special online GF food request form(on the right)!! I haven’t yet used the special request form, but I intend to look at it more closely this weekend and start using it next week. I just haven’t had time yet. However, I’m looking forward to using it. I’ll let you know how that goes.
For this last week I’ve eaten plenty of veggies/salad and fruit.
I’ve also had sammiches (gluten free sandwiches) and they even got a new toaster so that the gluten free bread could be toasted(I totally wasn’t expecting that)!!
The GF toaster in the "Gluten Free Zone"
They have looked for foods we can eat, and I’ve also been introduced to French Meadow Bakery‘s GF breads and treats (their brownies are reallly good), and also So Delicious’s Coconut milk (it’s actually pretty good, though a bit different from what I was expecting), and more.
I communicate with at least 1 of the head chefs every day, several times a day, and I’ve gotten to know 2 of them, and they are awesome! I trust them with my food as they really understand what I can’t have and are careful with my food and do everything they can to avoid CC. A few things have come up that I’ve been uncomfortable about, so they’ve found a safe solution for me
Fruit: I love fruit. However, I’m allergic to strawberries… and I’ve come close to needing to use the EpiPen at home a week and half ago because of strawberries. So, needless to say, I’m really uncomfortable getting fruit when it’s next to strawberries… especially after I saw a strawberry in the melon. The solution? They cut up fruit that is not strawberries nor bananas and put it in the special diet needs fridge for me before meals.
Sliced meat: I’ve watched people serving themselves, and there’s rampant CC between bread/buns, cheese and deli meat. The solution? They slice up turkey for me and put it on a plate in the special diet needs fridge each day.
There are a few other things that we’re still working out and trying to come up with a safe way to do them, but that should come in the next week as I keep working with the cafeteria.
Though I’m getting more comfortable eating in the cafeteria with accommodations and adjustments and such, I must still remain vigilant, because I’ve learned that every time that I am not careful is when I get sick, and I can’t afford dealing with that here with my crazy packed schedule of classes and homework.
So, in the end, I really have to say that the UND cafeteria has been doing an AMAZING job of feeding me safely so far, and their goal is to do whatever they can to keep me well-fed and safely-fed. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I first got here, but they have gone way above what I had ever thought they might do. So, way to go UND!!! And a HUGE thanks for all you do. I can’t thank you guys enough for all you’ve done so far in the first week of the summer and all you guys are working with me to do and feed me safely!!!! There is more I could say about how good a job they’ve done already so far, but that would take too long and I have homework to do still.
Note: I was not paid to do this review of the University of North Dakota’s Cafeteria, and all opinions in this review are entirely mine. My goal is providing this review is to help others with food allergies/intolerance to find safe places they too can eat.
Watermelon popsicles
When my dad brought home a watermelon yesterday Chef Flower and I got really excited. You see, in this house, we do something simple that makes the most wonderful (while still being healthy) snacks with watermelon: watermelon popsicles. You don’t need a blender, you don’t need a popsicle maker. You just need 4 things (other than the freezer).
Watermelon
Knife
Popsicle sticks (craft sticks)
Plastic wrap
That’s it. And they’re very good, especially on those really hot summer days. It all started by accident a few years ago, and now its become family tradition. However, we enjoy watermelon in other ways here too… sliced… jam (yes, I like making watermelon jam). Watermelon is one of my favorite fruits, asside from peaches, kiwi and pears, watermelon is a personal favorite. It was also the very first fruit I ever had when I was a baby. When I was younger I ate quite a bit of watermelon every summer.
One day we froze a few pieces (kind of like frozen grapes) and we all thought it was great, and someone suggested the idea of making watermelon popsicles, and so we did. And we’ve never stopped making them every summer since. When I was at camp the summer before my Senior year of HS, I brought some woth me to keep in the snack shop since there was hardly anything in the snack shop that I 1. Could have and 2. Liked. Every afternoon when I would go get one, everyone who saw me asked “how much does that cost?” I had to tell them all that they didn’t sell it in the snack shop, but that I had brought it from home. The same thing happened the following year. And now, Chef Flower wants me to tell the camp staff that they should make them and sell them in the snack shop.
So, you probably aren’t at that camp, but I’m still going to tell you how you can make them yourself.
Start by slicing the watermelon. how many slices you cut is up to you. I usually do 3 slices at a time so we have a few more popsicles. Don’t cut the slices too thin though. Somewhere around 1″ or 1 1/4″. I usually do somewhere around 2 fingers width.
Then, slice the slices. Somewhere between 6-8 wedges per slice, or you can make them thinner if you have really little kids.
Stick a popsicle/craft stick in each wedge, far enough in that it holds well, but far enough out that it leaves a handle.
Take a piece of plastic wrap for each wedge and wrap the wedge with it, leaving the stick uncovered.
When all of your popsicles are wrapped, you might want to put them in a bag before putting them in the freezer to keep the popsicles from getting lost.
Freeze.
When they’re frozen solid, you can take one or however many you need/want out and enjoy them. Lick, bite, suck, chew, however you like to eat them best. Enjoy.
