Dairy Free in the Kitchen ~ Roasted Green Beans & Slow Cooked Herb Pork Loin

This is a great side dish for any meal that isn't pasta based I would say. I made this with a slow cooked herb pork loin. The little guy now 16 months was not a huge fan but then again he is limited on his teeth so it may have been not the easiest for him but the 2.5 year old and the picky eater husband loved them. I also had my parents over for dinner they loved them as well. 

ROASTED GREEN BEANS

Ingredients

1 lb green beans or more if you want you'll eat them trust me

1 tbs. olive oil

garlic powder

onion powder

Ziploc gallon bag or large bowl

1. preheat oven to 425 degrees
2. wash and prep green beans by removing the tips and put either into a bag or bowl
3. put olive oil, garlic powder and onion powder on top of green beans and mix
4. pour onto a cookie sheet lined with tin foil or parchment paper
5. bake 20 min, flip and bake another 15 min. 
6. put into a serving dish and enjoy

SLOW COOKED HERB PORK LOIN

Ingredients

Plain unflavored pork loin I used 2lbs but I was making food for 6 and had a good amount of left overs

garlic powder

onion powder

basil

salt

black pepper

2 tbs. minced garlic

Chicken broth ( for 2 lbs. 8oz, for 1lb 4oz)

1. Put chicken broth into slow cooker and place pork loin on top
2. season the pork loin not the broth, then put the minced garlic everywhere
3. cook on low 6-7 hours

Sorry no pictures for his one. Sadly when it comes out of the slow cooker it shreds and shredded pork did not photograph well, but it tastes AMAZING!

Dairy Free in the Kitchen~ Veggie Rotini with Skinless Beef Kielbasa

This meal here is by far the most successful meal I have made, it is also by far the easiest, which is pretty great to me. All you need is 5 ingredients and for my family of 4 it cost roughly 1.50 a person. I don't include the spices since I would have no idea how to calculate that cost.  

VEGGIE ROTINI with SKINLESS BEEF KIELBASA

Ingredients

1 package of skinless beef kielbasa 

1 box of your favorite veggie medley rotini pasta (or any pasta that your kid likes just get the veggie version hidden veggies while eating pasta)

garlic powder

onion powder 

paprika

1. put water in a pot and boil it. While waiting for water to boil cut kielbasa into circles no more then an inch thick.
2. put pasta in boiling water and cook based on the packages directions
3. sprinkle the garlic powder, onion powder, and paprika into a skillet and put on medium high heat, place the kielbasa circles flat in the pan on top of the seasonings and cook about 3 min.
4. flip the kielbasa circles over and cook till meat reaches color you like. (if you like crisper edges cook longer)
5. drain pasta and put into a large bowl.
6. Without draining pour the kielbasa and its juices on top of the pasta. Toss and serve.

Dinner impossible?

It has been 11 days since I have last posted, from the kids being sick to me going back to work it has been really crazy here. Today I am just going to talk about what happened yesterday and if the kids allow me to later today I will post past recipes that were a success and some that were more misses with the kids but me and the husband enjoyed.

Yesterday was Sunday. I had plans to actually go out with some other moms for lunch, the kids were staying with my husband since it was leaving during nap/quiet time I thought everything would be alright. My mom said she was going to make dinner since after my "play date" I was taking the kids to lil 500 which is a local go kart track that has a set up for little kids to ride with their parents and they wont crowd the track when they are young.

My mom has made this dish since I was a little kid and everyone in my family including my husband loves it. It is called Turkey Loaf found at Walmart in the freezer isle. Well my daughter hates turkey but my mom was like why not try it, plus I didn't have to cook so i was happy. When my mom brought it over I did a quick glance at the ingredients, something that seems like 2nd nature now that I have been doing it for almost 4 months. Right there in BOLD letters were the 2 words I dread seeing Contains Milk. So now everyone is sitting down to dinner and I have no food for my boy. Luckily, my mom also made DF mashed potatoes and had cranberry sauce which my kids love. So, while my little guy was eating cranberry sauce I quickly heated up some DF waffles that were previously made and frozen in my freezer. Crisis diverted, I was just so happy I looked at the ingredients.

ALWAYS CHECK WHAT IS IN YOUR FOOD EVERY TIME!

Dairy Free In the Kitchen ~ Roasted Brussels Sprouts

Last night for dinner we have had so far our most successful dairy free meal. Dinner was Rotini veggie pasta with skinless all beef kielbasi and roasted Brussels sprouts. Everyone ate up all the pasta, my son was not interested in the meat but he did try the sprouts, I just think they were to thick for him to chew, but he kept trying. I gave him and his sister some watermelon for trying something new.

Today I am going to share with you the Brussels sprout recipe that i tried last night that was a major success with my picky eater husband and my I won't try anything green daughter that they both loved. And Completely dairy free. Brussels sprouts are a semi time consuming side to make and it takes 20-25 min to bake so plan accordingly so that other things will finish around the same time.


Roasted Brussels Sprouts

Ingredients
about 1lbs fresh Brussels Sprouts
garlic powder
olive oil
Tin foil

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. line cookie sheet with tin foil
3. wash, trim the bottoms of, remove any wilted leaves, and cut in half the Brussels sprouts
4. place sprouts and any leaves that separated but are still good in a bowl and sprinkle with garlic powder, and olive oil, mix with a spoon or hands
5. place sprouts flat side down on cookie sheet and bake for 20-25 min. depending on how browned you like it.
6. Enjoy!

I only wish I made more since it was used as a bargaining chip with my 2 year old daughter to get her to eat her pasta. CRAZY!

Dairy free in the kitchen

My husband has been back to work now for a week. With the company he works for he can be home anywhere from 5 to 8pm and sometimes though not many even later. I remember one time before he deployed he came home after 10pm. Anyway, due to his work eating out is not as easy as it was before he went back to work. It has made me cook a lot more at home then ever before. It is more then that though, I now spend a minimum of an hour at the grocery store most of the time I am reading labels, of some of our old staples then standing their in the store trying to figure out how to make my husband's favorite foods into something our son can eat. This is not easy. I wish that there was an app that you could just scan the barcode of and it would flash green for its dairy free, yellow if it is used on shared lines or in a place that has dairy and red for it has dairy in it. To bad i am not in anyway techie enough to do this.

This past week I have made a number of dairy free meals some keepers some tweaks and some never again. So far my greatest success has been the chocolate pudding.

Using nothing but 1/4c sugar, 1/2c dark chocolate Hersey's cocoa powder and 1 box of silken tofu. All you have to do is put it in a blender and then let it sit in the fridge. Everyone loved this, my daughter a picky 2 year old, my son the dairy allergy child, myself, my mom and my dad. The only one who did not like it was my even pickier husband. After a quick consult with my vegetarian best friend, I figured out that the "sour" taste he was having was due to his not liking of dark chocolate. He is willing to try it again but with a "milk" chocolate substituted for the dark. I like dark chocolate, so if you do to then you should really try this delicious dairy free dessert.

I know think I am going to post some of my more fun meals once a week. Maybe tasty Tuesdays or something like that.

My Son's Medical Id

Like many other parents out there at some point the discussion of medical alert jewelery will come into effect with a severe food allergy not just dairy. It is an important piece of your child's wardrobe even if your child is with you all the time it is good to get them used to wearing it, that way when you child starts daycare, play dates, birthday parties, school, sleepovers they know to have it on them at all times.

For my son we decided to go the route of the medical dog tag, that way he would feel like his daddy cause he wears dog tags. We were worried about the normal toddler things (eating it, chocking on the necklace part) but we have been really surprised by how well he took to it. From the first time we put it on him he has been 100% fine with it. Sure he nibbles on it from time to time, but hey he isn't even 2 yet.

Now, I know their are tons of sites and catalogues to purchase tags from. You can even go to CVS and get these cute little rubbery food allergy bracelets .They have different foods and I have been told that at the store you might even be lucky enough to get the dairy one which has a kind of tired looking milk carton on it. My son has incredibly sensitive skin so we knew that these would not work well for him.

We got his medical dog tag here. The name of the site is American Medical ID. From what we found it was pretty comparable in price and had quicker and cheaper shipping and letter pricing.

On our sons tag we went  the $39.99 Stainless Steel,http://www.americanmedical-id.com/product/stainless-steel-dog-tag-red-51

We went with the red since it is the most common color for medical alerts. On the front we put his first and last name. On the back we put
Severe Food Allergy
NO DAIRY
Carries Epi Pen
Call 911 after use
ICE (my name)-Mother
and my phone number

There is even more room left on the back so I can always add more if he ends up getting more food allergies in the future which is another reason why i liked this companies.

Well I hope that helped. If you have any questions or comments please list them below. Your child is never to young to start wearing a medical alert. There are always family members, friends, baby sitters, strangers who just won't know or understand food allergies. Better safe then sorry.

buffets for older kids?

When  we go out to eat I am always worried about my son, and what he can and can not eat at any location. My biggest fears is that something will get lost in translation and he will get sick or worse. No place to eat is as nerve wracking as a buffet. We as a family love to eat at buffets. My daughter eats her weight in rice, Mandarin oranges, watermelon, cucumbers, black beans, and some meat, and my son enjoys eating hard boiled eggs, soy beans from the salad area and jello for dessert. The kids are free till the age of 3 so it doesn't bother us to go out and eat, but as my son gets older I wonder if eating at these types of places will even work for us. The language barrier is one thing but the foods being cross contaminated is another concern. I wonder if other people eat at buffets and if so what they let their kids eat from them.