Another Kind of Survival Pantry

The walls are unpainted.

One of the nerve racking problems with having a lot of allergies, mostly with a corn allergy, is that buying packaged foods is a crapshoot. You cannot trust something as simple as a bottle of water, cooking oil that claims to be just the oil listed on the bottle, or frozen strawberries that claim to be just strawberries.

Food is neatly stored.

How can bottled water be a problem? In the bottling process it is not unusual for manufactures to use corn starch as a lubricant in the machinery. Since it is not an actual ingredient of the product it is not listed as an ingredient on the label. For someone with a body as sensitive as mine this means finding out too late that another packaged food item is not safe. It creates not only a situation where I often waste money, but it means pain for as much as three days.

The broken ceiling allowed mice in.

When do I find a packaged food item that works, I, then, find the store is frequently out of that item. To resolve this I took an old coal room, I had been using for a dysfunctional pantry, and made my husband turn it into a decent pantry. I can, now, buy food by the case. 

Wood panel sealed the holes.

 I'd like to conclude this post with a recipe that uses many of the type of items stored in a pantry.

Sweet Potato Soup

Optional and alternatives ingredients are in parentheses.

2 c diced sweet potatoes (butternut squash, pumpkin)

1 large diced apple

(1 Tbs minced onions)

1 stalk mince celery

Water to cover (apple juice can be used in place of an apple and water)

Cook until tender. Turn off and cool for handling. Place a cup or two at a time in the blender and blend until smooth. Return to the pot and cook on medium low heat. Add:

½ tsp Italian seasoning

½ tsp ground rosemary

1 tsp salt (or to taste)

(¼ tsp pepper)

1 c almond milk (any milk or cream, or milk or cream alternative)

Simmer 30 minutes or until thick and creamy. Top with roasted and salted sunflower seed. I like to roast the sunflower seeds myself and add Italian seasoning and salt at the end of the roasting.

Alternative roasted toppings:

pumpkin seeds

almond slices

chopped pecans

sesame seeds

croutons

Serve with Millet Bread.

A sweet alternative, instead of Italian seasoning and salt try cinnamon or pumpkin pie spices and 2 Tbs of your choice of sweetener. Then top with one of these choices:

raisins

sauteed apples

shredded apples

applesauce

shredded carrots

candied nuts

candied seeds

dried cranberries

Serve with:

sweet crackers

in bowels made from pie crust

a couple of sugar cookie
s

Gluten-free Cooking 'Scratch' That

When first told to take gluten out of their diet, most people feel like something you see in the cartoons. The ground beneath them is suddenly gone. They're hanging in mid-air waiting to fall. The struggle to cook gluten-free wasn't like that for me. I had already learned about dealing with a dairy-free diet and I had fell head-over-heels in love with heath food, herbs, and the vegan diet.

During the ninety's I worked in a health food store where I learned about the vegan diet. It felt so good. Veganism naturally reduces gluten, corn, and bake goods from the diet, and incorporates a larger variety of foods into the diet. Unable to stay on the diet I continued to have health issues.

So, for me, the bottom didn't fall out. It more at slowly crumbled. It started with starch. Starch, with its high pectin content, is the quickest, easiest, and seemingly best substitute for gluten. Gluten provides quite a bit of the nutrition and the strength to hold a rise in breads and cakes. Starch's lack of nutrition lead me to develop a number of my recipes free of it. Although, cakes, breads, and cookies can be made without starch, pie crusts, crackers, tortillas, and biscuits don't hold together,crisp up or roll out with it's absence.

It was after embracing starch I hit that emptiness. Potato and corn starches have larger starch molecules. The larger the molecules the better it works as a replacement for gluten. They also tend to be cheapest. Well, what do you do if you're allergic to potatoes and corn. First there is tapioca starch. It's too close to the potato family. Crossover allergy problems happen there. So, scratch that. Arrowroot starch is an excellent corn starch substitute. Turns out, it's not unusual for manufactures to cut potato starch into a batch of arrowroot, if they are a little short during bagging. Well, scratch that. Kuzu starch made from the kudzu plant costs 7USD for 3.5 ounces. Are you going to stick a cup of it in your baking? I think not! Scratch that.

With so many foods scratched from my diet, it has been an ability to cook from 'scratch' that has been the biggest help in my struggle to live with, not only a large number of allergies, but to also put together a family meal which considers other family member's allergy concerns. It helps with remembering the ingredient combinations needed to make a cake rise, or to take out out one nutritious food and replace it with another. It makes me brave enough to can my own food, so I can avoid the starch not listed on a food label, but used to make factory canning machines work smoothly without oil.

What has helped you the most in your struggle with gluten/allergy-free cooking?

This weeks highly recommended website for understanding gluten sensitivity.

The World's Ultimate Resource On: Gluten Free Diets, Gluten Free Research, Gluten Free Help, Celiac Disease, and Gluten Free Recipes. Gluten Free Society

Cream Soup

In 1968 feminist burned their bras as an anti-sexist act of female liberation. In the mid 1970s my father said I was to wear a bra. No halter tops or tube tops like my friends were wearing. I don't recall putting up a fight about it. My father meant what he said, I learned to live with it.

The hardest time I had living with this standard was on cold winter mornings. We lived in a tar paper shack with wood heat. It meant my father waking up during the night to add a log on the fire. Sometimes, he was tired and slept through the night. In the morning we could see our breath and the kitchen sink pipes would be froze.

On these cold mornings my mother would wake me before my brothers allowing me to get dressed by the fire. She understood just how hard it was to put on a bra with ice cold fingers. I stood by the heat, my bra tucked into the back pocket of my jeans, holding my hands to the heat. From time to time turning around so I could warm up my bra.

Once, my father came in from heating the pipes, stopped, and stared at me. I had, 'What?' On the tip of my tongue when he finally spoke. “Well, I always said you had to wear a bra. I guess I should have said where.”

I still hate the cold and I find snow only good for looking at- through the window. And chilly, dark, wet days make me want to curl up under a lamp with a good book. Those days call for the warmth of something hot in a cup. I think rich and creamy soup has a way of hitting the spot.

This Cream soup is a universal recipe. 2 cups of a single vegetable or mixed vegetables (potatoes, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower..)cooked in enough water to cover. Add 1 tablespoons of minced onions. When the vegetable(s) are tender pour in 2 cups of milk and a thin paste of flour to make the creamy sauce. Top it all off with parsley, pepper, a touch of Tamari is optional, and garlic powder. In the spring substitute the onions with a fistful of chives or leeks, tossed in with the other herbs and spices.

Here it is all together.

Cream of Soup

2 cup vegetables

1 tablespoon minced onions

water to cover

¼ teaspoon garlic powder

1 tablespoon dried parsley (2 tablespoon if fresh)

3 tablespoons Tamari (gluten-free soy sauce)

Pepper to taste

2 cups milk (take your pick: cow, goat, soy, nut, coconut, hemp..)

3 tablespoons flour (some good gluten-free choices are rice, garbanzo bean, or potato flour) in enough water to make a paste.

Place chopped vegetables and water in a large pot and simmer until tender. Add spices, herbs, and milk. Bring to a simmer and add flour paste. If you use garbanzo bean flour you will need to simmer the soup for at least 20 minutes or your soup will have a bitter after taste and cause you a bit of gas, otherwise simmer until desired thickness.