Food Intolerance

Creamy Cauliflower Soup DF/GF

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This is a reblog inspired by the fact that I made this soup again today after a blustery fall walk. It’s not only windy here today, but there are also intermittent downpours and epic thunder which is a rare occurrence here. I managed to take my dog out during a break in the rain and was rewarded with the pretty trio below. After our windy walk, this soup tasted especially warm and lovely.

The only things I’ve changed since posting this five years ago is that I use even more garlic now, closer to 6 cloves (yum), and I use an immersion blender instead of the stand up one in the video below. It is so much easier with the immersion blender! Use one if you have one. Also, this soup definitely needs bread to accompany it and really anything works. I’ve liked Rudi’s gluten free loaves lately and just toasted up two of their sourdough slices today to make it a full meal. Here’s the reblog from October 31, 2018:

I originally wrote this recipe for Basmati.com which has a wealth of Ayurvedic inspired wellness information, but I wanted to share it here too because it is one of my favorite soups. It has several steps but it is all very easy to do and it’s worth it, trust me. I’m not one of those people who embraced using cauliflower as rice or as any kind of grain substitute as was all the rage for a while there, so I’m not a huge lover of all things cauliflower, but this soup is delicious. The garlic and leeks are what really make it special so I add in a lot of those, but you can definitely tone it down if you don’t care for the allium family that much. Garlic is so healthy for the cardiovascular system and also for keeping germs and viruses away though that I recommend large doses if you can handle it.

In a family with gluten, dairy, soy, egg, and nut intolerances, indulging in creamy anything is quite rare. My oldest son and I are big soup lovers, though, and he especially loves creamy soups, so I’ve tried my hand at several vegan recipes using coconut milk, but we just aren’t always in the mood for the subtle taste of coconut. I’ve discovered that with enough olive oil in the cooking process, and by roasting the veggies first, we can end up with a creamy soup without any dairy or dairy alternatives whatsoever – and the taste is truly superb. It is one of those meals that you have to remind yourself is actually incredibly healthy –  just veggies, olive oil, herbs, and spices –  because it really does taste like a decadent treat. Here’s the recipe:

Creamy Roasted Cauliflower Soup

  • 1 medium to large head of cauliflower
  • 1 large leek
  • 2-4 cloves of garlic, depending on taste (I use 4 because I like it good and garlicky)
  • 1 small-medium yellow onion
  • 4 cups of vegetable stock
  • About 2-3 Tbs olive oil
  • ½-1 tsp sea salt
  •  Several turns of fresh ground pepper to taste (you can always add more, so start on the smaller side)
  • 1 tsp or more Herbs d’Provence or thyme

Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit and pour olive oil onto a cookie sheet (or some other roasting pan) and rub it around until the bottom is covered, or cover the bottom with parchment paper. Chop the cauliflower and leek up into bite size pieces and put them on the pan to roast with the garlic cloves. Pour olive oil on top of the vegetables, trying to make sure each piece has been touched. I do this by pouring the oil in a crisscross fashion over the pan, and then I roast the vegetables for about 30 minutes, turning them over once or twice during that time. They will be done when there are brown bits on top in places.

Meanwhile, chop the onion and sauté it in about 1 Tbs olive oil in a large pot on medium-high heat until translucent (about 3 minutes).This is also when I like to put the salt, pepper, and herbs d’Provence (or thyme) in the pot, but remember: you can also add more salt and pepper later, so start with small amounts. The soup is so flavorful with the garlic that you might be surprised at how little salt in particular that you need.

Add the four cups of vegetable stock to the pot and bring to a quick boil before turning it down. When the vegetables are finished roasting in the oven, put them in the pot of soup and let it all simmer together for about 5 minutes before turning off the burner and letting it cool a bit prior to blending. Pour the soup into a blender and watch it turn into creamy deliciousness in less than a minute, and then taste to make sure it has enough salt and pepper to your liking.

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Summer Foods and Thoughts

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Summery path through greenery

It’s been a while since I’ve written and I’ve missed this space. In January I started a new job as an adjunct professor which has been challenging due to the learning curve of the new place and the fact that every time I got my footing, another challenge would arrive and I’d feel the need to put all my efforts into staying on top of the job. I like it, but the challenge has been real. Now that it’s summer I’ve had a couple of weeks to decompress although I’ll start back up teaching next week for summer quarter.

Someone commented on one of my youtube videos from six or seven years ago the other day and it made me realize how much I miss the communities and conversations that have arisen over the years here and a few other places centered around herbs, essential oils, natural foods and products, slow foods and slow living, etc. It’s funny how normal all those topics seemed for so long, and now it seems like all I hear about is AI (which disturbs me), work related topics, parenting necessities, and adulting chores such as bills and taxes. There is no balance unless balance is created~ it doesn’t just happen naturally. Putting effort into the important things, priorities, long term goals, being the person you want to be and living the life you want to live have all been on my mind lately. One thing I’ve been talking to my oldest son about is that when I think about my future self, say five to ten years in the future, would I be proud of that person if that future self had spent most of my free time on my phone, on social media, watching shows? Or would I be a more confident, competent, and successful version of myself if I spent more time reading, listening to quality podcasts and audiobooks, limiting what I watch to inspiring and/or motivating things. The answer is obvious but I’m a work in progress when it comes to implementing these notions daily. Sometimes all I can do is veg out to instagram for 20 minutes and that’s OK too. I just don’t want that to grow and it takes effort, mindfulness, and self-discipline.

I haven’t done anything herbal lately, but I did buy some vegan pesto that I have to share b/c oh my goodness, it is the best pesto I’ve ever had. Basil and pesto are such summery foods to me, just like berries and peaches they just hit differently in summer, resonating with the longer light, heat, sun, and fun. Basil is one of my favorite culinary herbs and I love adding the whole, fresh leaves to salads and sandwiches, but there is something about pesto that just brings dishes to whole new level. I’m a pesto purist and not overly impressed with the kale pestos or nettle pestos out there, but I know a lot of people like those. I currently have a vegan kale one from Trader Joe’s and it’s OK but nothing compared to a true basil pesto. I get the vegan ones, which are hard to find because most pestos have parm in them, because my son and I do best without dairy so we only eat it sparingly. This pesto from Seggiano is my son’s and my favorite one ever, other than making it fresh ourselves.

Seggiano Vegan Pesto

I found it at Whole Foods but not sure if they are going to continue to stock it or not because lately the shelf has been empty where I first found it. It’s on amazon but it’s more expensive there than at Whole Foods so I haven’t bought it there yet, but I will if need be in the future. Hopefully I’ll get back to making my own soon, once my job doesn’t take up so much of my mental space.

Thank you for being here. I’d love to hear your summer (or winter if you are in the southern hemisphere) thoughts and foods in the comments section. 🌻💜🌿☀

I’ve been searching for this all my life

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OK, maybe not ALL my life, but as long as I’ve been cooking gluten-free foods, I’ve looked for gluten-free tortellini and have never found any (other than mail order frozen stuff which never looked appealing.) This is fresh pasta, found in the refrigerator section (although could potentially be found in the freezer section) AND there is a dairy free version as well. Cue the heavenly choir!

Manini’s is a local company here in the greater Seattle area (I’m not affiliated), but they have a wide presence and you can find their products through Amazon Fresh. Their 4 cheese tortelloni (not sure where they are getting their spelling from but I guess I’ll adopt it here) is a favorite with my youngest son and I enjoy it too, although the real reason I have searched high and low for this sort of pasta is to make tortellini soup. My oldest requires the dairy-free version so I plan on making the soup using the dairy free version when he’s home from college over the holidays.

Have a festive Thanksgiving to all those in the U.S. this week. I am grateful for you!!

Healing Food Sensitivities

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Just a quick note to recommend this episode of Sarah Otto’s healthy gut documentary (no affiliation): https://gutimmunesolution.com/episode2-live/. If you have food intolerances, this explains how leaky gut is at the root cause and how to heal your digestive system and reintroduce those foods. I believe it’s only live for the rest of the day (2/23/2022), although these types of documentaries usually follow a format of replaying all the episodes for 24 hours after the last one airs so if you are interested and you miss it, check back in a few days.

Allergen Free Specialty Breads

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A couple of weeks ago I stumbled upon My Bread Gluten Free Bakery and since they have styles of gluten-free bread that are rather hard to find, I decided to give them a try although I personally dislike buying groceries online. I figured that they would be a fun treat and that I could then go on with life as before. The good news is that the boys and I love the bread, all the styles we tried are amazing, and the bad news is that I’ve slipped further into the online grocery shopping hole.

You can find this brand in some stores, but the only one near me is in a close by city which I rarely go to. If you look for it at a store, it might be in the freezer section but don’t let that bother you because the bread perks up really nicely. I’m not affiliated with them but I have a referrer code that gets you $3 off your order (and I think they will send me $3 off my next order too~ win-win!) so if you buy online, use this code: http://mybreadglutenfree.refr.cc/kristenschuhmann and this month (May 2021) if you order $50 worth of products (trust me, it’s easy to do) then add Soft Breadsticks to your order, the breadsticks are free! The soft breadsticks are one of the things that we always buy and love so that is a great bonus.

The breads are not only gluten-free, but also dairy free, soy free, nut free, and egg free. We love the baguettes for making sub sandwiches and “cheesy bread”, the soft breadsticks are perfect with salads and soups, and the flatbreads are delicious warmed up like pitas or made into personal pizzas. We make regular pizzas on these with red sauce and cheese (vegan cheese for some of us~ we like Daiya shredded mozzarella and cheddar), but we like even more rubbing olive oil on these and adding grilled chicken, garlic, red onions, artichoke hearts, basil, and oregano, preferably with a side salad.

Flatbread Pizza

In other food allergy news, my sister sent me this article stating that milk allergies are now causing more severe reactions that tree nuts and peanuts. Usually we think of milk allergies as simply causing discomfort, but this article shows that kids are ending up in the hospital and having severe anaphylaxis reactions. Most people do eventually outgrow milk allergies, but they are learning now that the age is generally later than formerly thought. Keep in touch with your doctor about the latest thinking over when to retry milk if you or someone you love has been diagnosed with a milk allergy.

Let me know if you give My Bread Gluten Free Bakery a try! They have other goodies than the ones I mentioned, but those are the ones that are hard for me to find in my usual grocery haunts!

Natural Health Coaching

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My blogging friend in France is offering her natural health coaching services online now! She is English so speaks both French and English fluently, and her philosophy is very balanced with there is a time for modern medicine (vaccines, antibiotics, etc), and a time for self-advocacy and getting to the root (naturally!) of problems instead of accepting the pharmaceutical band aids that are generally offered in doctors’ offices. I can tell you she’s brilliant and also has a great sense of humor with a sound perspective on all things health related. Check out her site and let me know if you end up working with her! Her blog post is below and you can find more info on contacting her and what to expect here: https://thehealthyepicurean.eu/natural-health-coaching/.

Natural health coaching

Just under 20 years ago, I visited an endocrinologist because I was suffering terrible palpitations. He did some blood tests and, seeing that my thyroid, iron levels, etc were normal, prescribed beta blockers. He seemed extremely taken aback when I wanted to know the cause of the palpitations, instead of just accepting his ‘bandaid’. The beta blockers worked well, but I was concerned that it seemed as though I might be beta blockered for life; there had to be a reason – my heart hadn’t just made a unilateral decision to ‘rave’ 24/7.

After some research, and a visit to a naturopathic doctor, it turned out I was very deficient in magnesium. This also explained the terrible muscle and joint pain I had been having. It sometimes really is that simple. I happily replaced my beta blockers, muscle relaxants and ibuprofen with magnesium-rich food, and a good magnesium supplement and haven’t looked back.

From birth to eight months, my son, Léo, slept in stretches of about an hour, when he would wake up screaming. The local doctor said he was ‘capricious’, and was doing his best ironing board impression at hourly intervals throughout the night for fun. After numerous pitiful attempts, I eventually found a wonderfully understanding pediatrician, with a forensic attention to detail and a sympathetic ear, who immediately diagnosed silent reflux. She prescribed the necessary medication, as well as changes to his eating and sleeping arrangements. That night my ‘capricious’ baby slept for 12 hours straight.

The other doctors had missed this diagnosis because it was ‘silent’ (he wasn’t vomiting or even regurgitating). I returned to see the local doctor because I thought she might be interested to hear the conclusion, perhaps for other patients. She flat-out refused to believe he had silent reflux on the basis that if you can’t see it, touch it, or test it, it doesn’t exist. She had made her helpful diagnosis of ‘capricious’ and she was sticking to it.

We still visit the doctor from time-to-time and, as you will read here, I am eternally grateful for many aspects of modern medicine. We are mostly vaccinated, and take things like antibiotics or cortisone when necessary. But there is a time and place for everything, and these two experiences turned out to be salutary: I learnt that in order to stay healthy, I had to advocate, sometimes forcefully, for my family’s health.

I started to study naturopathy 15 years ago, and I am a certified Natural Health Consultant and Educator. A number of people have contacted me to ask whether I provide online consultations. Over the years I have been consulting on an informal basis, but I would now like to offer this to everyone that might be interested. Please see this page for further information.

Chai for Bloating

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There are many reasons to drink chai, the spiced up tea from India. It’s delicious, warming, and if you don’t like one cup, you can change up the spices next time around. Often chai bought in cafes is a highly sweetened concentrate with nothing medicinal about it, though it can still be a tasty treat. When it’s made correctly though, it acts as a carminative, which is another way of saying it eases bloating and gas. The traditional spices are also prebiotics and immune modulators/boosters (depending on which ones used), and you can add herbs that are specific to what you want to address. You don’t have to add the black tea if you want a caffeine free version, but tea itself has anti-oxidants and l-theanine in it which is an anti-anxiety amino acid.

Chai is usually served with half water and half milk, but again, those proportions are completely up to individual preference. To make sure it is truly a medicinal beverage, the milk needs to be one that is not agitating in any way, so if you can drink dairy without issues, go for it, but everyone else (and there’s a lot of us!) go ahead and experiment with oat milk (my favorite!), coconut milk, or whatever is your go to milk alternative. I like to add just a bit of vanilla nutpod creamer to my chai and if you can tolerate things made with nuts, I highly recommend you give it a try.

I have not put my own chai blend together (yet) because I’ve found one that I absolutely love. Before I introduce it and a few others though, I want to warn you to read the ingredients of any packaged chai you buy. It’s common to get it in concentrate form which indeed is easier (and not as messy) to use, but many if not most are highly sweetened. Even if you want sweetened chai which is indeed the traditional way to drink it, it’s best to sweeten it yourself, to your taste, and to use whatever sweetener works best for you. Of course, if you love a chai concentrate that is sweetened, it’s better to drink that and get the herbal benefits than to not drink those spices at all!

My favorite lately has been Morning Glory’s Spiced Home Brew Kit. I love it for several reasons. First of all, the ingredients are amazing. It has 16 ingredients, all herbs(!), as long as you count black tea as an herb that is, and those herbs are phenomenal ones. There are the traditional ones such as cardamom, ginger, black pepper, etc, and there are added herbs such as gotu kola and gingko biloba which are excellent herbs for the brain, and fo-ti which is known as the longevity herb. It tastes amazing too, nice and spicy, though if you can’t handle too much spice you can use less of the blend in water as you simmer the spices, and simmer for a shorter amount of time. Or this might not be the blend for you if you really don’t like spiciness, but I will say that my son loves this chai too and he can’t handle much spice. For the two of us, I like to put at least two heaping tablespoons into a little over 2 cups of water and simmer for 15-25 minutes. (It’s a great way to make the house smell delicious too!) Which takes me to the next thing I love about this particular product is that they package the black tea separately so you can add it after simmering the herbs for a longer time. I have tried to use blends with the herbs and tea already together, but they are never quite right because you have to simmer the spices for best results but simmering black tea is not a good thing to do because it causes bitterness. Being able to simmer the herbs and then add the tea once the burner is turned down is perfect. I usually turn the burner down when the water has reduced about half an inch and the chai smell is fragrant throughout the house, add 1T tea and let it sit for about 5 minutes, then I add the (oat) milk with a bit of vanilla nut pod and let it all sit together for another five minutes while either turning the burner off or leaving it on low. Then I pour the pot through a mesh strainer straight into our two waiting mugs.

You can use that home brew kit to make your own concentrate which would be easier and less messy (the messy part is pouring it out into mugs) but I like to make our fresh each time and as I mentioned before, it always makes the house smell amazing so that’s a big bonus. They also sell a liquid concentrate of this blend themselves but the second ingredient is honey so it’s not unsweetened like the home brew kit.

I bought Bhakti, a liquid concentrate version, that is not sweetened for quick emergency chai making, but I haven’t tried it yet. I don’t like that it doesn’t detail which spices are used, but I’m willing to give it a try. Let me know if you have had this one.

Another option is chai powders. This one is a golden chai which means it has turmeric in it as well, a fantastic anti-inflammatory herb with adaptogenic qualities. This is an easy option because you just add it straight to your warm water/milk and stir, but it’s not as spicy as I like. This might be a better choice for those that can’t handle spiciness or are specifically working on inflammatory issues.

I’ve noticed when I just replace one cup of coffee with chai per day, it makes a real difference in my digestive system. I have coffee when I wake up, but then chai in the late morning or early afternoon, and it is a nice balance. As Hippocrates famously said, “Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food.” I think drinks can be included in that sentiment!

Thank you for reading and please share with anyone who complains about bloating!

Einkorn Bread

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My blogging friend, The Healthy Epicurean, inspired this post when she asked if I had the yeast einkorn bread recipe I’ve been using here or not. I have shared the sourdough version here, but up until today, I hadn’t shared the yeast version. This is a really easy recipe (easy is even in the title) and I throw it together two or three times a week. I use Jovial’s recipe, just as I used Jovial’s sourdough recipes as well, and I highly recommend perusing their site for more recipes and to shop their delicious goods. Jovial Foods is the one einkorn brand I can find so I am very lucky that Whole Foods and PCC both carry it now. I actually couldn’t find it for a while which is why I let my sourdough go (whaa!), and now that it’s back on the shelves I’m too worried it’ll disappear again to put in the effort of remaking a starter again. I know I can always order the flour, but being able to pick a bag up at the store just makes it seem so much simpler and I’m not willing to add more items to my “must be ordered online’ list at the moment. I think einkorn is easier to find in Europe, (is that right Fiona?) And speaking of Fiona, if you don’t already read her blog, The Healthy Epicurean, it’s full of tasty, healthy recipes and enough humor to get you through at least one dark pandemic winter day. Check it out when you need a new recipe along with a side of chuckles.

Why use einkorn? Einkorn is the oldest iteration of wheat that we still use, and it fell out of favor because of its weak gluten content. This of course means that for some who are sensitive to gluten this form is digestible and does not cause the usual wheat-induced symptoms. This is not for celiacs though and there is no guarantee that you can handle einkorn if you can’t handle other wheats (like spelt) so please be mindful if you try it out. My son and I can handle it but only after we took measures to heal our digestive systems and I am SO happy we can because it’s so good. If you are just someone looking for a healthier wheat, this is it! It has more protein and less gluten and tastes like real food which, let’s face it, gluten-free bread has a hard time doing. Gluten-free baked goods (besides bread) are awesome, but for some reason bread is just a hard one to replace.

Mix ingredients right on a kitchen scale for best results

Here’s the recipe copied straight from Jovial’s website with some of my own tips below:

Easy Einkorn Sandwich Bread Recipe from Jovial Foods
INGREDIENTS

  • 1¼ (295 g) cups warm water
  • 1½ teaspoons dry active yeast
  • 2 tablespoons oil or butter, melted and cooled
  • 1 tablespoon sugar or honey
  • 3¾ cups (450 g) jovial All-Purpose Einkorn Flour
  • 1¼ teaspoons sea salt

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. In a large bowl, combine water, yeast, oil or butter, sugar or honey. Stir until creamy.
  2. Measure the flour with a baking scale or spoon into a measuring cup, then add it on top of yeast mixture. Sprinkle the salt on top.
  3. Mix with a spatula or jovial’s einkorn knead tool until the flour is absorbed and you have a wet, sticky dough.
  4. Cover tightly with plastic wrap. Let rise for 45 minutes.
  5. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Butter an 8½ x 4½-inch loaf pan.
  6. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured work surface. The dough will feel very sticky and wet, but try not to add more additional flour than what you have dusted the work surface with or you may find dry flour baked in the bread. Shape the dough into a loaf. A bowl scraper is a great tool to help with shaping the sticky dough.
  7. Place in the loaf pan, cover with oiled or buttered plastic wrap to inhibit the plastic from sticking the dough. Let rise for 30 minutes. Remove the plastic wrap.
  8. Bake for 40 minutes. Let cool completely before slicing.

Click the link for more tips from Jovial about this recipe, but I’ll give you a couple of mine here. For one thing, make sure the water is lukewarm and not edging towards ‘hot’. The bread will rise much more fully if the water is the right temperature. The next tip is that when I leave the bread to rise longer than the two times given above, the bread is much better and fuller. I usually like to give the first rise a good hour or more, and the second one even longer, so close to two hours if I have the time. You don’t have to elongate the times, but that’s what works best for me. For the work surface, I put down a piece of wax paper and then dust it with flour and also dust my hands with flour. When the dough is in the loaf pan, I throw the left over flour into the compost and save the wax paper for another time or two of bread making. (It just saves some clean-up time.)

Incidentally, I don’t mind baking bread several times a week but cooking on a daily basis is still a thorn in my side. The delivery service I tried ended up being a good thing for my youngest, but my oldest and I really didn’t care for the food. Back to the drawing board on how to make this constant cooking situation more manageable. Any tips would be appreciated!

Enjoy the last couple of weeks of this crazy year. If you are looking for homemade gifts to make, check out this old post or type DIY into the search box on here, and be sure to let me know if you make something.✨

Vegan, GF, Vanilla Pound Cake

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If you’ve visited here for a year or more, you certainly know by now that I’m not a fan of traditional Thanksgiving foods. Although, I must say that as far as those foods go, the desserts aren’t bad, but if you are looking for something else to add to holiday get togethers (wait, are we going to be able to get together at all this season?) scratch that. If you are looking for an easy dessert to have around the house this holiday season, or to gift your gluten-free and/or vegan friends, this is an easy, yummy recipe and it can be customized according to your tastes. Plus, pound cake in an appropriate breakfast food, right? Add some Greek (DF) yogurt and a satsuma, or an apple with peanut butter, and you have a full meal. Really, a pound cake is basically a muffin in a different shape when you think about it.

I looked for a simple recipe online that I could easily change to gluten-free, dairy-free, and egg-free, and this one from Dinner then Dessert worked well. It lured me in with an advertised ten minute prep time and hour bake time, and it didn’t let me down. This was the easiest thing I’ve baked lately and my sons and I have enjoyed every bite.

Here’s the recipe, but keep in mind it’s completely customizable to your own dietary needs and tastes. You can add chocolate chips or cinnamon for example, which I considered, but then decided to keep it purely vanilla. If you don’t do dairy but eggs work for you, I recommend using the eggs instead of the flax if you want that pretty golden color that pound cakes wear so well. Mine turned out more of a dull brown than golden but it still shined in taste. Here’s the recipe:

GF, Vegan Pound Cake (Modified from Dinner then Dessert by Sabrina Snyder)

Ingredients:

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and prep a 8×4 inch loaf pan with a coating of vegan butter or spray with coconut oil. Sprinkle a small bit of flour on top of the oil/butter. Also, my loaf pans are 9×5 so the pound cake came out a bit shorter and wider, but it works.
  2. Mix the flax seed meal with the warm water and set aside. I always do this in a mig for easing pouring.
  3. Mix the vegan butter and sugar with a handheld mixer, or in a standing mixer. on high speed and beat until light and fluffy. It takes a couple of minutes for the mixture to get fluffy and really this is the most labor intensive part of the recipe. Trust me, it’s worth the three minutes.
  4. Turn down the speed of the mixer and add the vanilla and the flax mixture (these can be in the same mug), mix a bit and then add the milk alternative.
  5. Add in the flour, baking powder, salt, and anything else you want in your cake and mix until just combined. It’s ready to pour into the loaf pan and bake for an hour. Cool on a wire rack before digging in.

Have a great Thanksgiving if you are in the U.S. and I hope everyone, everywhere, has a lovely start to the holiday season.

Peace and Gratitude to all ☮🙏✨

Gluten-Free and Vegan Not a Recipe

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I have never been so tired of cooking in my life. I know some people have become inspired by this lock down and groups of friends are exchanging recipes in chain letter fashion, but not me. I was asked to join one of those recipe exchanges and I declined, not because I didn’t want to share a recipe but because the thought of 36 emails coming at me with recipes I had no intention of making was more than I could stomach. (Pun intended.) There are three of us here, two of us eat relatively the same with avoiding gluten and dairy, and the other one is extremely picky, lives on gluten and dairy, and refuses to eat leftovers. Adding to the meal plan disruptions, the boys have taken full advantage of the online schooling and are sleeping until late morning or early afternoon, while I’m still waking up at dawn-ish so our timing is all off. That actually isn’t quite as bad as it sounds because the boys are teenagers and can eat pretty much anytime, all the time. In other words they can have breakfast at 11:AM and lunch at noon no problem. If I let it, this all means I can be in the kitchen making one meal after another all day long and by dinner time I’m not happy about it. In regular times the boys take care of their own breakfasts and lunches on school days, so I’ve tried to keep that going in this strange time, but for some reason it just hasn’t worked like that more days than not. Probably because if I’m making myself food, it’s just not possible to not end up making them food as well. So, the default dinner has turned into either gluten free pizzas, one with dairy and the other not, or gluten free and vegan mac n’ cheese, or its more posh cousin, pasta with Alfredo sauce, also gluten and dairy free. I thought I’d provide an overview of these with reviews in case you too are looking for the easiest way to get dinner on the table with as little effort as possible.

For pizzas, I use Trader Joe’s gluten free flat breads that can be found in packs of two in the refrigerated session. For one son I add Trader Joe’s vegan pesto, shredded vegan cheese, red onions, and turkey pepperoni slices. For the other son I add regular red sauce and shredded mozzarella or an Italian cheese mix. For myself I add 1/2 teaspoon of olive oil to each flat bread (I make each of us two flat breads at a time), sea salts mixed with herbs, extra basil, oregano, and rosemary. I cook these on 425 for about 10 minutes and make up a salad at that time for one of my sons and myself, and cut an apple up for the other.

Makes great bread sticks
Ingredients are gluten, dairy, and egg free
Easy gluten-free focaccia

Whole Foods has a vegan Alfredo sauce that the boys love. I’ve never tried it but they are happy to eat it any time with either Trader Joe’s gluten free penne or fusili. We sometimes get Jovial’s gluten free pastas which are a treat but usually eat the Trader Joe’s versions more often. My gluten and dairy eating son likes all these too by the way. That is saying a lot.

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Daiya’s mac n’ cheese and Alfredo boxes have been my sons’ go to meals of late. Again, both my sons love these which makes my life so much easier. To be honest, I’ve tried these and I don’t really love either one, but my sons think they are awesome so it doesn’t really matter what I think. I can eat them if I really don’t feel like making myself something different, but usually what I do is saute garlic, broccoli, onions, and smoked salmon to eat on top of the Daiya boxed food. (One son eats it all together, one needs them on separate plates.) I put the sauteed food on top of a salad or eat it on some other carb such as leftover rice which we almost always have. Easy enough. (The pics below are off their respective websites because I need to go to the grocery and get more.)

The last gluten free and vegan mac n cheese we have tried lately is Annie’s. This is the kind that needs to be mixed with non-dairy butter and milk, but I personally think this one is better than the Daiya. My sons disagree and since I’m making it for them, I’ll stick with the Daiya, but if you try the Daiya and are not thrilled, give Annie’s a try. I liked it.

Organic Gluten Free Vegan Cheddar Mac

What are your quick dinner ideas when you don’t feel like cooking? Or are you cooking up a storm and loving it? Whether you are relying on boxed foods or letting your inner Julia Child come out to play, do whatever it takes to stay sane during this strange time.