BellyHealthy

A dairy free pancake recipe to keep up with the tradition of Shrove Tuesday (without suffering for the duration of Lent) Shrove Tuesday, or “Fat Tuesday” seems particularly relevant to me today after finding out that I did in fact gain almost ten pounds through my unusually heinous gastro issues. For the last six months, not only have I had to cut out all acid and acid-inducing foods (onions, garlic, tomatoes, citrus), but I seem also to have developed a nice addiction to carbs. I told my gastroenterologist this morning, “I’ve been eating so many crackers I feel like I’ve... 

My favorite birthday cake of all time has got to be yellow cake with chocolate frosting. I’m not much of a cake person in general, but I’ll make an exception every year for my brithday with this one: the good, old fashioned, my-mother-started-making-it-for-my-birthday-when-I-was-four-and-never-stopped-because-I-wouldn’t-let her, Betty Crocker mix. But how to survive with all the dairy in the mix? It’s a box of absolute doom for my body, and without fail, I suffer for my weak willpower after. So this year, I chose this Valentine’s Day/Lunar New Year weekend to test... 

Tortelli di Zucca is traditionally served on Christmas Eve in Mantova (or “Mantua” – a translation I’ve never understood…like the painter “Titian” when his name is Tiziano… Mantova is where my grandmother was born, and famous for harboring Romeo after killing Tybalt in Romeo & Juliet). The finest version of this dish ever served around our family dinner was by my aunt, and she served it with a deliciously simple tomato sauce on top. You should know that my aunt, Zia Lella, makes the most amazing dishes known to man. Ask her for the recipe though,... 

This one is a bit of a mystery. Clearman’s Restaurants are responsible for the delightful North Woods Inn in the San Gabriel Valley. Now this is not the most dairy-free-friendly restaurant in the world, but it can still be done…Famous for their salads and cheese bread that come with any order of an entree (or on it’s own for a nominal fee), their Cabbage Salad is so more-ish you can happily much away on that alone for an hour. Tangy and sweet, the cabbage in this recipe is sliced thinly or grated and left to sit until the flavours of the dressing seep in and loosen the fibers... 

I’m sorry, I just have no idea what the origins of a name like Toad In The Hole could be. I googled a few possibilites, but the most interested or reputable information I found was a reference to it in Mrs. Beeton’s as a “homely but savoury dish”. But I was a bit worried about some of the meat she called for. So, historically, Toad In The Hole was a basic dish for leftovers: throw in surplus meat (ground up and made into sausages), root veggies, pour in the Yorkshire pudding and Bob’s your uncle. (Actually, Bob really is my uncle.) Today, a pub menu featuring Toad... 

Recipe below! So I had to wait a while to post this one so I wouldn’t spoil the gift-giving surprise, but this homemade vanilla extract was super easy (and super economical) to make. You could probably still make it now and have it looking decent by Christmas, too. My sister in law liked this idea so much, she took it a step further and made three times as many as I did. Plus, it keeps for about a year and just gets better and better the more you let it steep. I got the idea from the Dalai Mama, Catherine Newman, so I can’t claim that this was all me. But her original article and links... 

Hooray!!! After only a couple dozen dairy free cookies coming out of the oven and sliding directly into the rubbish, I’m getting the hang of baking, and these turned out much easier than the last big batch (which is why they weren’t included in the Dairy Free Thanksgiving Cookies post). I guess the trick was really to watch them brown and take them out immediately to finish ‘cooking’ on the racks. You’re going to need a cookie gun to make them look like this, and given the negative reviews on most cookie guns online, I’m going to vouch for a cheapo Wilton one,...