Salad Grease

For me, the sole purpose of salad dressing is lubrication. It's a bit odd, since salad vegetables are mostly cellulose and water, but dressing-less salads seem dry to me. Maybe I don't like to feel like a cow chewing her cud. Whatever the reason, I have to to have something to grease up a salad.

Every salad dressing I've encountered thus far has soy in it. Except for the tried and true olive oil and balsamic vinegar,  I'm out of luck. But olive oil and vinegar get old, fast. So I have a new solution:

Fruit.

Mandarin oranges, to be exact. I only buy those packed in water or 100% juice (check the ingredients, because even if it says juice, they sometimes add sugar). I throw a half cup of those babies on my salad, and mix. The orange segments break down very easily, which releases plenty of grease juice. Here's my favorite salad of the moment:

Iceberg lettuce, cucumber, carrots, broccoli, one hard-boiled egg, and about half a cup of shredded chicken breast. Plus the oranges, obviously.

I'll probably try pineapple next. It's higher in sugar than I prefer, but it's pretty juicy as far as fruits go...

Another one bites the dust

So remember how cream cheese was the only product that I haven't been able to find sans soy, and I can't make it myself?

Well I found another casualty of my soy war: creamy soups.

As in, cream of chicken, cream of mushroom, cream of celery, cream of fill in the blank.

This is quite unfortunate due to the sheer number of favorite recipes that use these ingredients: chicken spaghetti, southern dressing (and no, it's not anything like stuffing!), my personally invented low-fat alfredo, chicken pot pie, chicken enchiladas....

I'm sure I'll find some alternative recipes for some of the items I listed above. I'm actually trying to find a way to make my own cream of chicken soup, but haven't found any good recipes yet. I already make my own chicken broth (you can't buy any that doesn't have natural flavors added), so I don't mind doing the work.

I'm just sad about the chicken pot pie, and dressing. I think I'll probably still make dressing this year for Thanksgiving, but I'll only have a little.

Such is life. Oh, and I'm still pain free. So there's that...

Happiness in a Bowl

After Brint and I started dating, it didn't take long for me to be introduced to one of his Mom's signature dishes - baked potato soup. It was absolutely the best potato soup I'd ever tasted. I asked for the recipe so she gave me a copy of the local cookbook from where it came.

This recipe is easy. It is also free of any trace soy. It is NOT low-fat, or low-calorie. If you want to make it low fat (skim milk, fat free sour cream, and fat free cheese) - feel free. We tried that once and vowed to never do this recipe injustice again. It was still good, but having had the deliciousness of the full-fat version, there was just no comparison.

Here's the skinny (or fat?):

Ingredients
6 Cups Whole Milk
4 large baking potatoes (or as many as you want)
Green Onions
Bacon, cooked and chopped
cheddar cheese
8 oz sour cream
2/3 cup butter
2/3 cup flour


Directions
Bake the potatoes until fork tender, and cool.

Scoop out the pulp and set aside. Note: If you don't want chunky potato soup, pulse the potato pulp in a food processor until creamy. Melt the butter on LOW heat, and add flour, stirring until smooth. Add the milk and stir consistently until smooth.

Add the potato pulp, 2 tablespoons chopped green onions, 1/2 cup bacon pieces, and 1 cup cheese. Cook on low heat until warm throughout, stirring occasionally. Add sour cream, stirring until well constituted. Enjoy!

** I didn't provide amounts of bacon, onions, and cheese because you can use extra for garnish

Matrices and Carnivores

I don't eat enough protein. I never have. I don't do it on purpose, it just happens. So for the last many many months, I've been supplementing my diet with protein shakes. It took me a long, long while to find a protein powder that I liked: Syntrax Matrix. I liked it because it isn't full of sugar (which can be problem with protein powders) and it tastes good.

But alas, it has soy, in the form of soy lecithin. The bane of my existence.

I almost gave up on finding a replacement protein powder, until this week:

Carnivor. It's beef protein; not whey, soy, or egg like most other protein powders. The taste is.... different. If you like dark chocolate (Brint loves it) this is great. But it has a.. dark, almost burned, hint.

I tried to like it, I really did. But based on my recent discovery that I can handle a little soy a few times per week - I'm back on the Matrix. Brint is happily consuming the Carnivor.

But if you have no tolerance for soy and don't want to buy expensive beef collagen gelatin (heavy on protein, used in confections), this could be a pretty good alternative.

The hiatus is over

I'm back, finally. I've ignored the blog for the last two weeks (as if you don't know that already) due to Midterms. Plus a project meeting with my graduate committee.  It's been a rough last couple of weeks, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I'll go ahead and schedule another two-week hiatus at the beginning of December. Finals and all, you know. Consider yourself warned.

Summarizing the last two weeks in a sentence is pretty easy. I am still pain free, even without the birth control pills. It's wonderful. I've learned that I can eat a little soy (trace amounts, think barbecue sauce or a hotdog bun) without pain. As long it's only one meal and I am careful to avoid soy the next few days, I'm just fine.

That's good to know, because as I've said before - there will be times in the future when I cannot avoid it. There are plenty of conference and trade show boxed lunches in my future, I'm afraid. But at least I know how to eat and not hurt. It's pretty amazing.

Winter is Coming!

I detest winter. I'm not even that far North, but it's as far as I want to go. But I love fall. I love all the bright colors, the cool breezes, the lack of humidity, and the crunch of leaves under foot. It's just wonderful.

And I love pumpkin. Pie, bread, cheesecake (although that is but a far and distant memory). So today I've been baking sugar pumpkins, and washing and baking seeds for snacks. I'm scouring the internet for soy-free pumpkin recipes. I'll try to post more on those later this week. 

I'll also be posting on using fresh pumpkins instead of the nasty canned pumpkin that's full of chemicals (and probably soy, though I haven't verified it. Just a guess.) and artificial colorings. The real thing tastes so much better, and it's so easy I'll never use another can of pumpkin again.

Plus, a fresh sugar pumpkin (the small kind, maxing out at 5lbs) will last up to 6 months in a cool, dark location. That means pumpkin goodies at Easter! Or you can do as I do, and freeze the fresh pumpkin puree to use whenever you have a hankering.

Just a thought.

Sorry for the lack of pictures, but I promise I'll have plenty of pumpkin pictures soon....

The Life Sentence Is Over

Well it's been a month since I gave up soy in an attempt to overcome endometriosis-related pain. There have been a couple of instances where I know I've had trace soy, but for the most part I'm sans soy. The results? Glad you asked.

• The obvious one: I'm pain free. Even after dropping the birth control last week, I'm back to pain free. I don't think I can put coherent sentences together to describe just how happy and elated I am. But I finally have my quality of life back. It's pretty amazing.
• I've lost 4 pounds in a month. I know I'm not breaking any weight loss records with that one, but coming from someone who has lost and gained the same 2 pounds since January, it's exciting. 
• An aside: soy is known to inhibit thyroid activity. I've had my thyroid checked 4 different times in recent years because I always had so many symptoms of hypothyroidism, but the bloodwork always came back clean. Perhaps the soy was interfering with enzyme receptors.... this would explain the symptoms and lack of of affected bloodwork. Just thinking out loud here...
• I've also lost 2.75 inches this month, from all over, lending to the idea that the weight loss was mostly attributed to de-bloating. Know how when you get your period you bloat? Well that is attributed to elevated estrogen. So now that all of the soy-related estrogen is out of my body, the bloat has gone away. Thank goodness. Maybe more will follow.
• My skin looks great. I haven't changed my moisturizers or grooming habits, but my skin looks brighter. Before it was dry and drab. Now it's much smoother, and my skin tone has really evened out. I've never really worn make up, but now I feel like I can legitimately get away with it.
• I sleep better. For the last several months, sleep was an effort for me. I would either lay in bed for hours unable to fall asleep, or toss and turn in a barely asleep state of restlessness. Now I sleep through the night. And I'm asleep within an hour of going to bed.
• I have more energy. Clearly, this is likely correlated to the better quality of sleep. But it's still an improvement in my life. I don't get run down at 3 in the afternoon anymore.
• There are other improvements, but since my Mom reads this I think I'll keep them to myself. Just know that Brint is very supportive of my new lifestyle, and for good reason.

Originally I said I'd give this thing a month, and re-evaluate. Having done so, I can confidently say that I'll be making this a permanent lifestyle change. And I can't wait to tell my doctor, so hopefully she will pass the word on to her other endo patients.

The life sentence of endometriosis has not won.

Cream cheese, anyone?

I think I may have found the first item that I will have to give up absolutely.

Cream cheese. This includes cheese cake, cream cheese cake icings, and spinach artichoke dip (a stab in the heart). Why? Because I have yet to find a cream cheese that is soy free. Every one I've looked at has xanthan gum (which is yet another code name for soy).

I'm not exactly sure what xanthan gum does, or is... but it's there.

I've been able to substitute or make my own replacement for soy filled staples, and I've been trying to find ways to make my own cream cheese, but no dice. I don't think it's going to be as easy as making my own bread if I do find a recipe.

And I just realized that my grandmother's famous pound cake has cream cheese in it as well. Rats.

Well here's to you, cream cheese pound cake, cheese cake, cream cheese icing, and spinach dips: we had a good run, but I'm afraid the fun is over...

C'est la vie...

Marinade Escapade

Most ready to use marinades are full of soy, usually in the form of natural flavors and/or xanthan gum. Not a huge issue since Brint prefers to make his own marinades and rubs, except when it comes to pork. And I was very happy to learn that our go-to pork marinade is sans soy.

Here's the ingredients list:

Very nice. We've never tried it on poultry but I'm sure it would be good. We threw in some golf ball peas (I've called them this since childhood, and probably always will) along with mac and cheese:

Very yummy.

And a pain update: since I've dropped the pill (3 nights ago), I've had some definite discomfort, usually in the evenings. I've been running to the ibuprofen at the first sign of trouble, so I'm not sure if it's better or worse than before. The discomfort is in conjunction with spotting, so I'm thinking this is just my body's pitiful excuse for a period. We'll see!

I totally expected this, though. I know my body is going to have to re-adjust to the new level of hormones, so I'm going to be patient. And I'll continue to run to the ibuprofen. As long as 2 pills are continuing my normality in lieu of 6, I'm pretty darn happy.

Sweet Nothings

Did you know most ice creams, frozen yogurts, and other frozen sweet treats all contain soy? Yep. Soy lecithin is an emulsifying agent used in the production of ice cream, not to mention the added ingredients like chocolate and caramel.

That's pretty disappointing, considering ice cream is my usual go-to when I have a sweet tooth. No longer.

But not to worry. I've got a replacement, courtesy of Hershey and their delectable fudge. You'll find the recipe here. Notice the warnings not to double the recipe or alter it in any way because it's an advanced recipe and is therefore easy to muddle? Well, I've made this recipe 3 times, following it to a T, with 3 different outcomes.

First time? It was perfect. If not I probably wouldn't have tried again.
Second time? It tasted great but stayed the consistency of chocolate sauce.
Third time? Perfect again. A richer chocolate taste, perhaps, but still very good.

I consider those to be pretty good odds, so I wanted to share the recipe here. Here's the progression:

This was just starting out...

Here it is boiling, but it hadn't reached 234 Fahrenheit yet....

Letting the butter and vanilla hang out until it cooled...

Make sure it's soy free butter! (i.e. unsalted...)

In a parchment paper-lined baking dish...

It only took about an hour to fully set, but it tastes better the next day (if you can wait that long!)

Mirena

I've had several questions about the Mirena, so I'm just going to create a post. Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional, have never been trained as a medical professional, and do not endorse any course of treatment. Also, insertions are different for everyone, as are each person's personal threshold for pain. Take this with a grain of salt.

This will be another one of those TMI posts, so consider yourself warned.

In December 2010 I found myself in my new doctor's office at Johns Hopkins, hoping she wasn't going to prescribe yet another oral contraceptive (since clearly that wasn't working). It took about 3 minutes of me describing my worsening endo symptoms before she stopped me and asked if I would consider an IUD.

I thought she'd never ask.

She told me that in Europe Mirena has widely been accepted as a treatment option for endo, but because the FDA hasn't approved it here it is only considered birth control. She explained that the progesterone from the IUD would be released directly into the uterus, closer to the endo growths, so that it should help control my symptoms. It also keeps the hormones more localized, instead of coursing through my bloodstream as per oral birth control pills.

The plan was to use Mirena in conjunction with oral contraceptives for 3-4 months (it can take this long for the body to adjust to Mirena), and then quit the pills.

She petitioned my health insurance, who approved the insertion, and I completed my pre-insertion bloodwork. By this time it was February so I scheduled my insertion appointment for early Spring.

I've heard that many doctors are unwilling to insert Mirena if a woman hasn't had a child. If you have a similar doctor, find a new one. This is an old-fashioned approach and the numbers prove that there is no greater risk of complications, as long as you're willing to deal with the pain!

She told me she was going to give me a prescription to 'loosen my cervix' to take the night before the insertion since I'd never given birth. She didn't tell me the prescription is used to induce labor, but that's exactly what happened.

I took the medicine about 10PM and went to bed. At 2AM the contractions woke me up. It was terrible. Nothing helped - curling up into a ball, walking, laying still. It hurt no matter what. The magic of television had led me to believe that contractions come in waves, with periods of relief in between.

That's not what happens.

The contractions don't go away, they just ebb and flow in severity.

So by 8AM, my uterus was still contracting but sore at the same time. Interesting.

Brint stayed in the waiting room while I went back. I was expecting a quick in and out appointment, but later I wished I'd asked him to come with me.

She started out by giving me a shot in my cervix - I don't know if it was lidocaine or what, but it was for numbing purposes. Then it got pretty rough. She used a metal device to open the cervix, and then inserted the Mirena. It was kind of like inserting a tampon - there was a clear plastic straw that held the IUD, all folded up. The straw was inserted into the uterus, the IUD was pushed through the end, and the straw pulled out.

Easy enough, right? It was terrible. I was so certain that the contractions were going to be the worst part, but I was wrong. I got sick to my stomach due to the pain. I asked her how bad it would have been if my cervix hadn't been dilated a bit, and she just put her hand on my forehead and said, "much worse than this, dear". The doctor and nurse left me curled up in a little ball on the table until I felt better. She said I would be in intense pain until my uterus de-contracted, but that it was going to be knotted up for a while due to the IUD. I took some prescription strength ibuprofen and waited.

I wanted Brint, and he wasn't there, and I just wanted to go home, so I crawled over and put my clothes on and walked out even though the medicine hadn't kicked in yet. I was as white as a sheet from the pain, but I made it to the waiting room.

I laid in the back of the car on the way home and immediately went to bed when we got there. It took about 12 hours for the pain to subside. I bled some that day, but by the next night it stopped. After that, I would hurt erratically, usually when I tried to pick up anything heavier than about 8 or 10 pounds.

Mirena pain came and went after that. I learned that pain = spotting, and the doctor assured me this was normal. She said my uterus just had to get used to that 'thing living inside of it'.

And after about 3 months it did. It was wonderful, for about 6 weeks. Then the endo pain came back (I can tell the difference between IUD pain and endo pain - it's very different), so I never stopped taking the birth control pills. I was afraid the pain would just get even worse. Except that I took my last one last night.

Since I've been soy (and pain) free, I've gotten the confidence to finally follow the doctor's orders and see if the Mirena really will manage the pain. I'm tired of double-dosing on hormones, and I don't like what it could be doing to my body. So fingers crossed that Mirena can hold up its end of the bargain the way it did in the beginning!

Soy Free Bread

Remember how I said I don't miss bread? I lied. Over the weekend I realized a piece of bread would be amazing, but since store-bought bread has soy in it (!), I was out of luck. Until today. Ta da:

Baking goes well with study days, and today is a study day. I study in spurts of about 20 minutes (scientific studies have actually proven this is a more efficient way to learn and retain material!), so I had to have something else to do when I wasn't memorizing learning biometrics.

There were a couple of user-related complications, but here's the skinny:

That's all you need! A far cry from the 20+ ingredients list on our whole wheat bread from the store.
Ingredients
2 cups warm water (110-120 Fahrenheit, so as not to kill the yeast)
1/3 cup white sugar (I'm sure sugar in the raw works, but you use what you have, right?)
1.5 tablespoons active dry yeast
1.5 teaspoons salt
1/4 cup canola oil (I use canola because I know it's soy free. If you use vegetable oil, just check the label!)
6 cups bread flour

**An aside: I am not paid for or representing any flour brand. BUT, White Lily is the bomb.You can't buy it here (or anywhere north of Virginia), but we stock up when we go home for visits. And yes, there is a difference.
White Lily is the only flour (that I'm aware of) that uses only Soft Red Winter Wheat. That's a wheat plant variety, and usually flour companies mix different types of wheat together to make their flour. White Lily doesn't. It makes the flour thirstier (i.e. it takes more wet ingredients) but the texture of the finished product is fluffier than with other flours. I know this because we've had to use other flours since moving here when we run out of White Lily (which happened this weekend).
SO - after that long rant - if you are blessed enough to have White Lily flour in a store near you, give a try.

Directions
Dissolve the sugar into the warm water, and then add the yeast. Here's where I went wrong - I only added 1.5 teaspoons of yeast, instead of 1.5 tablespoons. Oh well. Anyway, I whisked it just enough for the yeast to be mixed in, and let it sit for about 20 minutes, until the yeast resembled a creamy foam:

See the foam in the middle of the bowl? I'm sure if I'd added the right amount, there would have been abundant foam. Anyway, add the oil next, while stirring, and then salt. After that I switched to the dough hook:

A KitchenAid mixer is not necessary, but wow is it helpful. Add the flour one cup at a time, and the mixer does the rest. It even forms a little dough ball for you:

Transfer the dough ball into a greased bowl (I used a little more canola oil), coating the entire dough ball with oil, and let it sit for one hour, covered with a damp cloth. I forgot to take a picture after it rose. It did rise, too! Punch it down, and divide the dough ball in half, and put each half into a greased 9X5 loaf pan.

Here's where I knew I went wrong - the dough didn't seem like enough split in half, so I re-combined and made one giant loaf. At this point I thought it was because I'd cut the sugar down (original recipe calls for 2/3 cup sugar, I thought I had taken away the yeast's 'food'). Anyway, let the dough sit in the pan(s) uncovered for 30 minutes, or until the dough has risen 1" above the pan. Mine didn't rise 1" above the pan, but it's clearly because less than half of the necessary amount of yeast was present. Bake 30 minutes at 350 Fahrenheit. Enjoy!

And even with the user error, it is amazing. I know now what real bread is supposed to taste and feel like. I think we're going to start baking bread instead of buying it. Brint did the cost analysis (he's a nerd that way) and it's much more economical to bake vs. buy.

Stuff I Miss

I still contend that giving up soy is the best decision I've made regarding my health. I took control, and I'm going on 3 weeks pain free. I think people who feel good most of the time take it for granted. It's amazing to feel 'normal' again, after so many months of pain. But I digress.

Despite all of the rainbows and unicorns that come with a pain-free life, there are still some things I miss:


Being able to eat on the fly. This is the biggie. I have to meticulously plan my meals ahead of time. I've always carried my lunch to work, but now I have to make certain that I carry enough food for the entire day. If I underestimate or end up working longer than planned, I end up starving because running over to the student union is no longer a viable option. I actually have a bag of dried fruit that lives in my car now for this reason.

Spinach artichoke dip. I haven't found a way to make it homemade yet, because sour cream and cream cheese both contain soy. Bummer.

Eating out. We don't eat out often anyway, but we've only eaten out once since I started this and it was a failure. See my falling off the wagon post. It was good, and there was just a tiny bit of pain, but still. I realized then that restaurant food is probably mostly soy with different flavorings and color added. Of course, I can always eat a vegetable-only salad with oil and vinegar dressing when we eat out, but I think Brint feels guilty at this point for suggesting this as a meal option.

Not having to read the ingredients list. I'm not going to stop doing this anytime soon, if ever. But it makes grocery shopping take 10X longer than it used to, because there will inevitably be some amount of soy in the item on my original shopping list, so I then have to A. find a suitable replacement, B. figure out how to make it myself or C. do without. It's just a time consuming process.

I'm sure these things I miss are familiar for anyone with a food intolerance or allergy, especially parents of a child with a food intolerance or allergy. In the end, it's worth the extra effort. But it doesn't make me not miss glimpses of my former life.

Leftovers Pizza

If you haven't caught on yet, my diet isn't super restricted, except that we don't buy prepackaged or processed foods. Instead, we make our own.

We had leftover London Broil and decided to make pizza. Completely soy free pizza, with no preservatives or chemicals that probably  hide soy without my knowledge. Here are the necessary recipes:

Pizza Dough (the best you'll ever taste)
Ingredients
2 cups bread flour (not all-purpose or self-rising. bread flour.)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons molasses
2.5 teaspoons yeast
1 cup warm water (no warmer than 110 Fahrenheit, or you'll kill the yeast)

Directions
Dissolve yeast in warm water for 10 minutes. Combine all other ingredients in a large bowl. Pour and stir in yeast, working dough into ball. Flour the top of the dough, cover with a damp cloth and let set for one hour.

After one hour, punch down the dough. At this point you can wrap it air-tight and freeze it for future use, or use immediately. When baking, preheat oven to 350 Fahrenheit and bake for 20 minutes.

Tip: When rolling out the pizza dough, it actually helps to toss it from hand to hand; the dough rolls out much easier afterward.

Everyone say hello to Brint...

Pizza Sauce
Ingredients
1 6 ounce can tomato paste (ingredients = tomatoes. That's all.)
1 cup warm water
3 tablespoons parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon minced garlic OR 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
3/4 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon oregano
1/4 teaspoon marjoram
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
salt to taste

Directions
Combine all ingredients except water into a bowl. Heat water until warm and stir in. Let sit 20-30 minutes before using.

So after we had the dough rolled out, we decorated it:

That's leftover London Broil with sauteed mushrooms, peppers, and onions plus mozzarella cheese. Very tasty and soy free.

The finished product:

We won't be winning any style points, but it was super tasty.

And a sidenote - I highly recommend a pizza stone. Ours came from Bed, Bath, and Beyond. It's wonderful to bake with and we never have a problem with food sticking. It looks dirty because it can't be washed with soap, just hot water. Apparently the stone will soak up the suds and make food taste like soap. Yuck. So it collects little shadows of former food projects over time.

What kind of pizza will you make?

Soy Free Away From Home

Last night we had dinner with our awesome friends, Taylor and Mr. H. I warned her not to attempt soy-free cooking because it can be a bit of a hassle just starting out, due to the lack of soy free basic ingredients (like butter). She said she'd like to give it a whirl and we had a wonderful dinner!

Grilled chicken breast with Lipton seasoning packs (ranch and I can't remember the other flavor, I had ranch!) The seasoning packs were reported to be soy free!

Spinach salad with crumbled feta cheese. The cheese is in the clear. Cream cheese is the only cheese I've found so far with soy (in the form of xanthan gum).

I had balsamic vinaigrette salad dressing. It had soy, but I think that's okay. I'm going to ingest soy every now and again, even if I'm unaware. And guess what? No pain!

Pasta salad. It was great. I have no idea what she put in it but it was yummy.

For dessert: a lemon chocolate pie. I'll embarrass Tay a bit here - she said she accidentally added lemon flavoring instead of vanilla. It was good! Orange and chocolate go well together, and so did the lemon! It was tangy and chocolatey and sweet all at once.

Plus blackberry wine after dinner.

Sorry for the lack of pictures, I'm a baby blogger and haven't learned to document every single thing yet. But I'm learning.

Moral of the story? It's no big deal. Yeah, I had a little soy last night. I actually had some at lunch yesterday (at a work function that lasted 6 hours in the middle of a corn field - I ate a hamburger and am positive the bun had soy. NBD. Still pain free). I was relieved that I could deviate a bit from the plan and not face overwhelming pain.

My mindset has become one of tolerated control. I will continue to remove every source of soy from my diet possible, but when I can't I'm not going to worry about it. I think it's much better to ingest a bit of soy than to go hungry for several hours.

Oh and in case I forgot - I'm still pain free. It's wonderful.

Cheesy Rice Bake

We had this for supper last night with grilled chicken breast, and again tonight with grilled London Broil, thanks to the cheddar leftovers from macaroni and cheese. Here's the skinny:

Ingredients
1/2 cup chopped onion
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard (this seems to go in lots of cheese-based recipes?)
2 cups milk
3 cups of cooked rice (I prefer brown, but we had long-grain white. It was still amazing)
1 cup cheddar cheese

Directions
Start cooking rice according to the package instructions.

Saute the onion in the butter until tender. Add flour, salt, pepper, and mustard (this will make a roux-like mixture). Gradually add the milk while stirring constantly until the mixture thickens. Add half of the cheese and stir until the cheese is melted.

In a casserole dish, layer in this order: rice, cheese sauce, grated cheese, rice, cheese sauce, grated cheese.

Bake at 375 for 25 minutes. Enjoy!

Sorry about the lack of finished product pictures. You can image a nice golden-browned cheese crust. It was tasty. And soy-free.

Stuff I don't miss

When I started this journey I was so desperate for pain relief that I didn't think about the ramifications of giving up soy, until the next day when I was trying to scrounge together a brown bag lunch. For a moment I thought, "what on earth do I think I'm doing?", but I persevered. In a bit of reflection this morning, I realized there are some surprising things I don't miss.

Bread. We bake our own bread fairly regularly but haven't had time these last two weeks. Since all of the store-bought varieties contain soy, I've been sans bread. Add crackers and croutons to that list as well.  I'm a self aware carboholic, so this is probably the most shocking to me.

Sweets. This is a little deceptive because I cooked fudge over the weekend (and it was SO good - recipe coming later). But after I ate it, I could actually feel what the sugar did to my body. I quite literally felt it hit my blood. I ended up with a headache and a feeling of 'bleh'. So while I'm happy to have a go-to soy-free alternative for those sweet cravings, I don't really miss it. It isn't worth how it made me feel.

Mayonnaise. I am a mayo girl. Rather, I'm a can't-stand-dry-sandwiches girl. And given the number one item on this list, I haven't been eating mayo lately. Brint has even taken mayo out of his go-to recipes like potato salad and cole slaw. And I don't miss it one bit.

Regular peanut butter. I'll admit that when I first tasted the natural peanut butter I was less than enthused. It was grainy, and very peanut-y. I had become so brainwashed by what companies offer as peanut butter that I wasn't sure I liked the real thing. But now I love it. It's so dense in flavor that a very little bit goes a long way, and I like the texture now. It reminds me that I really am eating just peanuts and salt.

Those are the biggies that come to mind. In a few days I'll do a stuff I do miss post, because there are a few things in that category as well. But I have to say, it has been so much easier to make this a lifestyle change than I expected. It's become second nature to flip a food product over to check the ingredients list.

Happy almost Friday day!

Soy Free Protein Bars

Thursdays are my killer days this semester - 5 straight hours of class, from 11-4. Early this semester I discovered Clif Bars and fell in love. They were fast, and kept me full for hours. Except that I always ended up hurting halfway through my second class, and was barely able to drive home by the end of the day. It's no wonder:

In case you can't read my low-quality picture, it contains soy rice crisps, soy protein isolate, roasted soybeans, soybean oil, and soy lecithin. It's basically a soy bar. No wonder I was hurting so badly halfway through class.

I've had 2 soy-free Thursdays so far, and crunching on carrot sticks in the middle of a lecture just isn't going to work. So I hit the internet to find a soy free protein bar. And I did:

Their ingredients list is heaven. It's all fruit, nuts, and a little organic chocolate (depending on the flavor). No chemical names that can't be pronounced, and best of all - no soy. These were the answer to my Clif bar quandry. Except that they cost about $2/bar. More than double the cost of a Clif.  I shuddered a bit when I saw the price.

The answer? Make them myself. I browsed a couple of blogs with homemade Larabar recipes. I really liked Julia's recipes. It was pretty clear that dates should be the primary ingredient, so I went to work this evening.

I have to say, my ego is pretty inflated right about now...

Ingredients
20 Dates (pitted, of course)
1/4 cup roasted sunflower seeds
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon natural peanut butter

Chop the dates in a food processor (my #2 favorite kitchen appliance, behind my KA stand mixer), then add in the nuts, honey, and peanut butter and pulse some more. It should look like this:

Form four balls by hand with the mixture, and wrap each ball tightly with plastic wrap. Chill, and enjoy! The finished product:

Clearly, approximating serving sizes is not my strong suit. But, had I managed to evenly divide the four servings, here's the nutritional info:

Calories:203
Fat:6g
Carbs:38g
Protein:4g

Not really a 'protein' bar, but filling nonetheless. And the mix tasted pretty good! I think if I had bought the fresh dates I wouldn't have needed the honey, but the prepackaged dates were a third of the price. Honey it is.

So I challenge you - create a protein bar flavor of your own! Just don't forget the dates.

Endometriosis Treatment

Disclaimer: I am no way affiliated with, supported by, or under the duress of the Center for Endometriosis Care.

I'm an over-dramatic person in all aspects of my life, except when it comes to my health. When I was diagnosed with a heart condition at 15, I thought, "cool". My parents were petrified, and 5 years later my Mom still didn't want me to ride a roller coaster at Universal Studios.

When my doctor found the cyst on my ovary I thought, "crap, I'm gonna have to take that final exam early!". And when he explained the severity of my endometriosis I thought, "I feel justification for complaining about the pain all this time".

I am a professional worrier. I hear it comes with the extra-X chromosome territory. I worry about Brint getting into a car accident while commuting to and from work, or him getting run over by a piece of equipment on the job, and more recently about earthquakes, hurricanes, and floods. The exception to my worrying? My own health.

All last year when I was in terrible pain, I never worried about what it meant. I think the pain became the norm, so I mentally discarded it. In fact, I never would have sought out a new doctor in this region if the symptoms had not begun affecting my marriage. When sex became painful, I knew I had to do something. I could handle the pain, but it wasn't fair for my husband and my marriage to suffer.

But now I'm beginning to worry about all of that pain that I ignored. Doctors don't know if pain = active endometrial growth. Maybe it does. If so, then I have reason to be concerned. When left unchecked, endometriosis can bind internal organs together so tightly that doctors can do nothing about it. The uterus can fold over onto itself permanently. The fallopian tubes can become fused to the ovaries.

In an attempt to find answers about the meaning of the pain, I found the Center of Endometriosis Care website. It's located in Atlanta, but it doesn't matter if you're local or not. They offer a FREE service to women to review medical records (even women who haven't received a formal endo diagnosis) and provide recommendations for how to move forward based on those records. You just send them your information, they request your information from your doctor(s), and then the doctor calls you after reviewing the information. Ladies- take advantage of this! I plan on doing so this week. I'm not comfortable asking my doctor point-blank for another surgery. But I really want to know to know the extent of my disease after nearly 2 years of hormone therapy.

If you have endometiosis, or think you might - give them a call! It doesn't cost a thing, and being proactive with this disease is imperative to living a well-balanced life.

The Dark Side of Soy

I've been doing lots of soy research over the last week and a half, and I finally found a review article worth sharing. It is co-authored by a PhD in nutrition science. Even though it is available on a dot-com site, every single statement is backed up by a numbered citation, and most of those citations are peer-reviewed articles. Check it out here. When I tested the link, it took me to page 3 of the article. Just make sure you start at the beginning! And I forgot to add - you'll need to provide an email address to be able to read the article. I keep an old, never checked email address for occasions such as these....

If you don't want to read the entire article, here are the high points:

• Soy was held as a sacred grain by ancient Chinese dynasties, but not nutritionally- it was used in crop rotation because soy fixes nitrogen in the soil (all legumes do this).
• Asian cultures only eat fermented soy, because non-fermented soy contains toxins called anti-nutrients. These anti-nutrients block enzyme receptors that usually absorb protein and other nutrients from the digestive tract. Soy has been shown to cause deficiencies in calcium, Vitamin K, Vitamin B, magnesium, iron and zinc, which backs up the theory of enzyme inhibiting chemicals.
• In addition to anti-nutrients, soy contains isoflavones that mimic estrogen called genistein and diadzen, which have been linked to infertility, increased cancer risk, and thyroid malfunctions. This was even proven by the FDA's National Center for Toxicological Research in 1997 (why is the FDA Center for Toxicology researching a food product that is rampant in our food supply and not making more Americans aware?).
• In 1998, researchers found that infants being fed soy-based formula were ingesting the estrogenic equivalent (based on body weight) of five birth control pills per day.

I think that's enough for now. Seriously, read the article. I shouldn't be surprised, but I admit that I'm aghast that the FDA has been aware of the toxicity of soy for nearly 15 years now and yet doesn't seem to be doing anything about it. 

And by the way - I'm still pain free! I've been feeling better too, not as run-down as usual. And I've been sleeping better at night. Placebo effect, perhaps, but I'm thinking it's got at least a little to do with my new and improved way of life...

Breakfast Sausage

Do you need to guess how soy exists in most breakfast sausages? Natural flavors. I'll repeat earlier sentiments - why must flavorful foods be filled with natural flavors? It is naturally flavorful on its own! Anyway, here's a super easy recipe for breakfast sausage that you can make with any ground meat of your choice. We use 93% lean ground turkey, but you can use beef, pork, chicken, turkey, or a combination of meats.

Ingredients
1 pound ground meat of choice
2 Tablespoons sage
2 Teaspoons salt
1 Teaspoon black pepper
1/4 Teaspoon marjoram
1 Tablespoon brown sugar
1/8 Tablespoon crushed red pepper

Mix all of the ingredients together and enjoy! I use the paddle attachment on my Kitchen Aid mixer (my #1 favorite kitchen appliance) and it's done in a snap. If you like it spicier, you can use more crushed red pepper, or even add white pepper for a different taste. It's very versatile, and I love that I know what's going into my body. Also, it freezes well (obviously, since the meat is still raw....)

To make breakfasts faster, I cook up a pound of this on Sundays and put it in a zippy bag in the fridge. When I cook my eggs in the morning, I just crumble some in towards the end with a little cheese. It makes a great protein-packed meal that's super fast. And it's soy free. Take that, Glycine max!

Soy-Free Macaroni and Cheese

I am a self-proclaimed cheese hater. I've always hated 'real' cheese, except for the Italian and soft cheeses. I've never liked gouda, or cheddar, or pepper jack. Until today. Check out the awesomeness:

Ingredients
1 box whole pasta of choice
4 cups shredded cheddar cheese
12 oz. can evaporated milk
1 cup water
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard (the spice not the condiment)
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons corn starch

Directions
Combine can of milk, water, dry mustard, salt, pepper, and corn starch in a saute pan. Whisk very well until mixed together, then place over medium heat. STIR CONTINUOUSLY! If you walk away, the mixture will burn. Also, using a spatula to stir works best (it likes to try to stick, even if you stir). Stir until it begins to boil, and allow it to boil for 1 minute while continuing to stir. Remove from heat and add in 3 cups of cheese. It should look like this:

While you were doing all of this, your pasta should have been cooking. Pour the cheese mixture over the cooked pasta in a casserole dish. We didn't use the entire box of pasta with the cheese mixture because we like it very saucy, but it's personal preference. Sprinkle the remaining cup of cheese on top, and bake uncovered at 350 Fahrenheit for about 20 minutes or until browned on top. Enjoy!

I didn't get a picture before Brint had some. I don't blame him -  this completely changed my opinion of 'real cheese'. I'll never go back to boxed mac and cheese again. And next time we're going to use cheddar, asiago, and provolone, because it sounds earth-shattering...

Barbecue Sauce

As promised, Brint's homemade barbecue sauce recipe, in its (almost) entirety:

Ingredients
1 cup ketchup (Heinz is soy-free)
3 Tablespoons mustard
1 Tablespoon cajun seasoning (Brint mixes his own and refuses to share the recipe, sorry!)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup water

Mix everything together in a sauce pan and simmer on low for 5-10 minutes!d If you like it sweeter, add more brown sugar. If you like it tangier, add more cider vinegar. It's very versatile. You can refrigerate the leftovers for future use.

Saturday Traditions, and More Food Stuffs

I'm from the Deep South, and that means Saturdays = College Football. Around here, nobody understands because  we now live in the land of professional sports teams, so everyone gears up for Sunday afternoons and Monday nights. But not us.

Saturday afternoons usually involve a well-planned meal, which more often than not centers around the grill. Except that it's been raining cats and dogs (back home we call it a gully washer), aside from a 15 minute break in the clouds yesterday, when I witnessed a beautiful rainbow while walking Mulligan:

My smartphone didn't pick it up, but it morphed into this quadruple rainbow type thing, and it was huge. Instant smile maker. Mulligan was less enthused, but he did his business so we all went away happy.

Anyway, our menu for the day: Pork spare ribs, butter beans, and homemade macaroni and cheese. Brint is experimenting with the ribs in the oven due to the inclement weather. He's also making barbecue sauce from scratch for me, since everything in the store contained natural flavors. Luckily, Heinz ketchup doesn't have soy in it, so we can use that as the BBQ sauce base. I'll provide his recipe later. Here are the spare ribs before they went into the oven (he basted them with olive oil and liquid smoke, and rubbed with his own proprietary blend of cajun seasoning):

The butter beans come via my lovely parents. As long as I can remember, we grew our own vegetables and froze them for winter use in a huge chest freezer. Corn, okra, squash, tomatoes (we cooked those down as a base for soups and things), green beans, black eyed peas, butter beans, bell peppers.... on and on. Well last year Brint mentioned that he LOVES butter beans, so Daddy planted like 11 rows of them. Which is ridiculous. So when they visited at the end of the summer, they stocked our freezer for us like they always do. Except we have a disproportionate amount of butter beans.

Yep, that's butter floating in the pot. Just 2 tablespoons. We found out from some Boston friends that it isn't normal to put butter in everything, and yet we keep extra butter in the freezer so we don't run out. Except we've always used Country Crock. Ever looked at the ingredients list on Country Crock butter? Don't. It's long. And it shouldn't be, because butter is just cream that's been churned, right? Well CC has soy in it, of course. So today we went searching for soy-free butter.

I was not expecting what I found. I always assumed that unsalted butter was best, because it's got less sodium in it. Wrong. They replace that salt with 'natural flavors'. The salted butter contained 2 ingredients: Cream and salt. Simple. Here's the label:

The brand is Wellsley Farms, which is the BJ's store brand. I love BJ's. Warehouse shopping is wonderful. Anyway, I had another awesome find at BJ's: soy-free salsa. In a jar! And it's way more affordable than Mrs. Renfro's (sorry, Mrs. Renfro):

Welcome to Moe's! Well, I certainly feel welcome now! No soy, no natural flavors, no xanthan gum. Mmmmm.

Oh, yeah, the macaroni and cheese. So we're using whole wheat organic noodles, which are soy-free. Plus evaporated milk and sharp cheddar cheese. I'll post the entire recipe later. I was excited to see that all of the cheeses were soy-free. I just have to learn to like real cheese, instead of the fake vegetable oil spread stuff that starts with a 'V'. Small sacrifices.

So I'll be back later, to post the barbecue sauce and macaroni and cheese recipes! Enjoy the day!

Week One, and Falling Off the Wagon

So a week ago today I began striving to remove all known sources of soy from my diet. And it's been pretty amazing. I haven't been in pain. I don't even know where the pain pills are right now, which is crazy.

I suppose I should have left it at that - continuing on my journey without soy, happily enjoying life the way it used to be. But I couldn't. One day I'll learn, but today wasn't that day.

Have you ever been plodding along at something, and it's going so well you feel invincible? Well that was me, today. I felt so great, so normal that I forgot. I forgot about the breathtaking pain that doubles me over mid-step.

I remember now.

Brint suggested we go out for dinner, because another night of roast didn't sound appealing. I looked at some online menus and picked out a cobb salad from one of our favorite local places, and planned to do oil and vinegar dressing.

And then I promptly ordered pretzels and crab dip as an entree when we arrived. I convinced myself that since the soy was successfully out of my body, that a little bit wouldn't hurt. Until now I've been an "everything in moderation" person. I never thought that any food or food group should be off-limits, as long as moderation is practiced.

I have to remember that those days are over.

Trust me - supper was amazing. Maryland is known for crabs for a reason, and this was quite possibly the best crab dip I've ever had.

Now it's about 3 hours later, and I can feel the tiniest tinges of pain creeping into my abdomen. I found that bottle of pain medication and preemptively took a couple.

I'm not ashamed. I'm sure I'll eat more soy in future, purposefully and accidentally. I just have to remember that everything has a cost, and I need to be willing to pay the price. Seeing as how I want to go back to that super human high I was riding earlier, it's going to be a long while before knowingly ingest soy again.

In a nutshell, I'm not giving this thing up just yet. If anything, my meal out proved to me even more just how important it is to stick to the plan....

Cooking Spray

I eat eggs for breakfast almost every morning. On my first soy-free day, I used cooking spray with reckless abandon, not knowing that the cooking spray contained soy lecithin. It didn't even occur to me to check the label because it seemed so ridiculous. But, here it is:

Soy lecithin, our favorite emulsifying agent. I think I detest SL more than the bean itself, because it excludes so many of my favorite foods: mayonnaise, salad dressing, ice cream, the list goes on.

So after that I just started cooking my eggs without cooking spray, but that grew old, fast. And here's the solution:

The misto is an awesome oil sprayer that I picked up at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. It's pretty cool, and environmentally friendly because it doesn't use aerosol. So here's the misto, dissected:

You pour about 3 ounces of oil into the canister. It's important not to fill it too full, because the extra air space is what creates the pressure for the spraying mechanism. The clear plastic piece with the attached spray button goes in, then the white cap screws on top to hold it in place. The clear plastic piece that's attached the lid of the canister is the important part: it pushes down into the clear plastic part of the spray button, creating a vacuum and increased pressure. After the pressure is built up, you can push the spray button, releasing the pressure and sending oil out through top! It's kind-of like a garden sprayer from a home improvement store, only better.

And now I can enjoy soy-free cooking spray!

Almost Taco Salad

Supper was a yummy crock pot roast. Eye roast, to be exact, with baby red potatoes and baby carrots. Plus organic polenta from Trader Joe's. Mmmmm.

As promised, I stopped by the store on the way home to check out soy-free salsa. I forgot about the popsicles, sorry. I have to admit, I'm pretty frustrated with the food industry right now. Every single brand of salsa but one had natural flavors in it. Now tell me - why do companies have to add natural flavors to a product that is already flavorful on its own? I just don't understand. Anyway, thanks to Mrs. Renfro from Fort Worth, Texas I didn't have to ask Brint to make salsa for me after he worked a long day. He would have made the salsa, of course, but he didn't have to cook supper and I didn't want to send him right back into the kitchen. Thanks, Mrs. Renfro!

I forgot to take a pic of the ingredients list, but it went something like this: tomatoes, onions, jalapenos, garlic, salt. No suspicious names that might hide soy. Pretty cool. 

And because it was on my mind, I took some peanut butter pics of what's acceptable. Basically, if it doesn't say 'natural peanut butter', it has soy in it. Trust me, I checked every jar. So here's what I'm using:

Check out the ingredients: peanuts and salt. Wonderful. It isn't what I'm used to, but it's more....pure. It tastes like peanuts, which I think is what peanut butter is supposed to taste like anyhow. And it's not full of sugar like traditional peanut butter, which is a super cool bonus!

And now for my new lunch idea, Kind-of Taco Salad. Here are my ingredients:

The green things are bell peppers. Our department does research on food crops, and at the end of the research they give away the produce. So this summer I ended up with a ton of free green bell peppers, and I froze them for future use. Oh and I also used salt, pepper, olive oil, garlic salt, and onion powder. Here's the progression of the meal:

I used about a pound of ground turkey (93% lean), a can each of black beans, red beans, and chickpeas, an onion, and a cup of green bell pepper. The yellow things are chickpeas, not whole kernel corn. I drained and washed all of the beans before adding them in, to get rid as much of the preservatives and added sodium as possible. I'll take about a cup and a half of this in for lunch tomorrow and see how it goes, but it smells yummy!