Tag: fruits and vegetables

Zucchini and Tomato Side Dish

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Okay, there’s some onion in there too, but I like alliums, sue me! One of the best things about summer is the vegetables, and one of the hardest things about eating vegetables when you’re allergic to certain foods is picking safe ones to eat. I can’t answer that for anyone but myself, really, I’m not a doctor of any sort, but I do know that right now we all have to be as mindful and careful with ourselves as possible.

So look on this meal as a starting point. The vegetables I can eat are inside it: zucchini, tomatoes, garlic, and onions all from sources I can trust. If you have a garden, I suggest getting out your favorite squash and onions, slap on a tomato or two, and get to chopping. If you don’t have safe access to fresh foods, then frozen works just as well. The key here, as with all allergic cooking, is to do your research. Stick with brands you haven’t had a reaction to before, or email their information departments. I have had good luck with organic in my area (though corn-based farming aids can be just as rife in that area!) and this is always a good time to inquire about local CSAs, or places like that.

In any case, this is a quick, light dish meant for a satisfying side to chicken or pork, or as a mixer in your favorite pasta. It feels very summery to me, actually, hot and peppery, but also light and not overwhelming. I like this sometimes just on garlic toast!

You’ll Need (Serves 2 -4):

2 medium zucchini, chopped

1/2 onion, chopped

1 – 2 tomatoes, chopped, or a handful of grape tomatoes

1 garlic clove, sliced

1 heavy pinch of thyme

Salt and black pepper

Olive oil

Heat the oven to 350F, and line a baking dish with aluminum foil. Wash and chopped all your ingredients and add them to the baking dish. Give it a stir to make sure the oil is evenly distributed, and that you add just a little more salt than you think you’ll need. These vegetables are watery, so they’ll make their own sauce, but it’s water…it needs a kick! Cook for about 20-30 minutes, or the tomatoes pop, and then serve.

Oh! And if you want a bit more flavor, add some red pepper flakes as well.

Quick Time Tomato Sauce

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Got thirty minutes and some tomatoes burning a hole in your fridge? I have a sauce for that!

Now, I will be honest, this isn’t a fancy sauce. It’s straight up tomato sauce meant to clear space in the fridge and create a quick, hearty meal with maybe three or four ingredients total (not counting the herbs). Which is to say, I think of this sauce as a base for any kind of vegetables or meat that I have leftover, or that maybe wouldn’t be great served on its own, but lets face it: Almost everything is better slapped onto pasta.

This sauce is great for a quick dinner solution. I have a weirdly hard time eating up raw tomatoes, but stick them in a salsa or a sauce and I can slurp it up like nobodies business. The way I make it is very simple, gluten-free, and vegan, but you could add anything you’d like to it to personalize this tomato sauce into your own special treat!

You’ll Need (serves 2 – 4):

1 lb grape tomatoes, or 4-5 medium tomatoes

Around 3 cups of water (or stock)

2 tsps salt (and then more to taste)

2 tsps pepper (and then more to taste)

2-4 cloves of garlic, or 2 tsps. garlic powder

1/4 cup chopped onions, or 2 tsps onion powder

1 carrot, finely shredded

2 tsps parsley

2 tsps oregano

2 tsps basil

Make sure all your vegetables are thoroughly rinsed! This is no time to be cavalier with hygiene, especially if you’ve got food allergies. I have been doing okay with store bought veggies, but stick with a brand you know you can eat safely, either from the store or a farm.

Get out a large saucepan and add your vegetables all in with the water, salt, and pepper. Be liberal with the salt at this stage, because you’ll want to be stingy afterward, and the salt in the water here will flavor your sauce. The water should be about level with the tops of the tomatoes. Turn the burner to medium or medium-low, and bring it up to a soft boil for about fifteen minutes, or whenever the tomatoes start to burst their skins. Take the saucepan off the heat, and let it cool down for a minute.

Toss the entire thing, veggies, water and all, into a blender, and blend it until smooth. If you have a small blender, like I do, just blend it in shifts until everything looks…well, until it looks like a sauce. I like it smooth, but if you want it a bit chunky, then I’m not gonna fault you!

Return the frothy sauce mix to the sauce pan and stir in the herbs. Remember that this is going to boil down by half, so when you taste it, don’t be alarmed if it’s not as flavorful as you might expect. Turn the burner on to about medium-low, and reduce by half, or when it reaches the kind of consistency you like in a tomato sauce, stirring occasionally. Taste it before serving to see if it needs any salt or pepper. It shouldn’t take more than thirty minutes or so, from start to finish!

I chose to pair this with pasta for a quick and filling dinner, but you could easily add this to bulk up a soup, or as a dip for garlic bread. I hope you like it!

Additional Comments:

  • If you are having difficulty sourcing safe food, and need to find a CSA in your area, the USDA has a directory here.
  • If you’re using stock, please make sure to decrease the amount of salt you use, or risk the entire sauce tasting like the ocean!
  • You’ll notice I don’t have any sugar in here. That’s because I’m hesitant to add sugar to savory foods. My workaround for cutting the acid in the tomatoes is the finely grated carrot, which adds a nice layer of sweetness and texture to the sauce. I grate it using my microplane, but you can also just use a regular grater, or chop it up and then blend it with the tomatoes. The choice is yours!
  • A note about sieving: This recipe leaves the tomato skins in, rather than taking them out. If that texture bothers you, and you have a little time, when the sauce is still in the blender, ladle the sauce back into the pan through a sieve. That will get rid of the skins, and will also smooth out the sauce even further.

Strawberry and Banana (and Mango!) Smoothie

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Got any fruit that needs a home, fast? Do what I do, and make a smoothie! It’s a good way to wake your stomach up if you need something light to start your day, or to have as a good snack. I’ve found it’s also a wonderful way to make certain fruit doesn’t waste away completely, which always makes me feel horrible to be honest.

I’m the sort of person who doesn’t like to bite into cold fruit, but I’m perfectly willing to chug it down in a smoothie or shake. I have no idea why, but that’s the way it is! So if you’re looking for something sweet, cold, and creamy to drink, I think I’ve got the smoothie for you! And if you don’t like it, I’ve got another smoothie recipe right here!

You’ll Need (Serves 1 large, or 2 small cups):

1 banana, kind of brown

1/4 cup mango, chopped and frozen

4 – 5 large or 6 – 9 small strawberries, sadly wilting

2 heaping tsps non-dairy yogurt

1 tsp maple syrup

1/3 cup cashew milk

1 tsp flax seed, ground

1/4 tsp ginger (optional)

Put the frozen items in the blender either first or last, depending on what kind of blender you own. I have a magic bullet, which means I put the frozen items in the cup first, so they’ll be blended last. It helps the consistency of the smoothie to have the frozen bits be blended at the end. Then add the flax seed and any spice you’re thinking of adding. It’s not necessary and the strawberry/banana combo by itself is delicious, but I like to add things spices like ginger because it makes it feel healthy to me. It’s entirely apocryphal, of course, but there you are!

Anyway, blend the whole shebang together in the blender (either using the mango to make it chilly and sweet, and with a few ice cubes instead). In the Magic Bullet I press down the cup three times to get it all…well, smooth, and then I pour it out and enjoy! I hope you do as well.

Cucumber Tomato Salad

elizabeth3 Comments

Sometimes what you need is a quick, bright splash of acid with a decent crunch, a salad to complement something fatty like lamb, or heavy like a red Thai curry. Also, sometimes you realize you have the end of one sad English cucumber and a box of cherry tomatoes you forgot about and it’s time to either fish or cut bait. And lo! A salad is born!

Winter is not my prime season for salads. If you live somewhere without the darkest days of the year (Say…California where it gets down to fifty and people reach for their woolens) you might not have the same urge to eschew all cold foods and sink into soups, stews, and baked sweet potatoes until you’re as fluffy as the mashed potatoes you just ate. I know they’re good for me, but they’re cold, and I’m cold; my core temperature is going to win out every time.

But when the weather starts warming up, my fickle eye turns towards fresh vegetables once more. This can be a bit tricky (when isn’t it when eating with food allergies?) because a lot of fertilizers or sprays that extend the life of fruits and vegetables can be derived from corn or soy. If you have a sensitive allergy, the produce section is always a minefield.

I don’t have a dedicated vegetable garden, so I rely on my local supermarkets. So far, it’s been without any incident. I’m always careful to go for foods that have some dirt on them, a sign that they probably haven’t been washed or sprayed with something to make them more attractive, and if there’s a rind I generally don’t eat it, even if it’s edible. Thus, I can still have apples and citrus fruits.

In regards to tomatoes and cucumbers, I’ve had good luck. I generally get tomatoes on the vine, though in this case we had a punnet of cherry tomatoes, and the cucumber came from Trader Joe’s so I felt a little better about my chances. As always, approach food from new places with caution until you’re sure you won’t be affected.

Back to the food, this salad has good sharp flavors that wake my tongue up from its winter slumber, and the acid from the rice wine vinegar makes a fantastic complement to the more subtle flavor of the cucumber. I like it with rice and curry, but you could also have it alongside a sweet potato and garlic spinach, or Lemon Paprika Chicken and rice stuffing. It punches up a heavy dinner or makes a great addition to a light lunch. I hope you like it!

You’ll Need (serves 2 -4):

1 English cucumber, diced

2-3 medium tomatoes or a good handful of cherry tomatoes, diced or sliced in half

2 – 3 Tbsp. olive oil

2 Tbsp. Rice Wine Vinegar

1 clove garlic, minced, or a good shake of garlic powder

1 green onion, diced (optional)

A good shake of sesame seeds (optional)

Salt and Pepper

Cut up your vegetables, and place them in a bowl or container with a tight lid. Add the oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Close the lid on the bowl and give them a good shake so that everything mixes easily. Can be served immediately, or placed in the fridge to marinate. Lasts about a week, but I would recommend taking it out of the fridge a few minutes before serving, to allow the olive oil to become liquid again.

Orange Mango Ginger Smoothie

elizabeth3 Comments

I like smoothies. They tide me over as a snack when I’m not feeling hungry enough for lunch, but my blood sugar is tanking, and they’re a nice way to get a bunch of fruit in my diet. Unfortunately, when you have as many allergies as I do, the actual making of said treat can be a little work.

For instance, I can’t have a lot of commercially made juices, whether it’s because of their added vitamins and minerals, or however they process the juice to begin with. So, I’m often stuck making my own, which…arm exercises aside, can be a pain. So, if you’re wondering, the answer is yes, to make one smoothie, I juiced 7 tiny oranges in order to use them up before they went bad. It came out to be about 1 1/3 cup of orange juice and while it was, admittedly, delicious, if you can drink orange juice from a jar? Absolutely go for it! There is no shame in allergy eating, there’s only what you can eat, and what you can’t.

You’ll need (make 1 smoothie):

7 tiny mandarin oranges slowly gaining sentience on your counter

1 handful of mango

1 tsp ground flax seed

1 tsp leftover coconut pulp (optional)

2 Tbsp. cashew yogurt

Ground or minced ginger, to taste

1/2 tsp. honey

1 handful of ice

First off, juice your oranges. I used an ancient tupperware attachment that formerlu belonged to a pitcher (now lost to time) and a bowl, cut the oranges in half, and then just wrung them dry in the cereal bowl. I also then counted it as my exercise for the day, but remember there’s no judging! Anyway, I poured that into a liquid measuring cup every time the bowl got unwieldy. I had some chopped up mango leftover, and tossed that in the blender, before adding in the flax seed, ginger, yogurt, honey, coconut, and ice.

Then, using the orange juice instead of my usual water, I blitzed the entire thing in a blender, and poured it out into a cup. It tasted like summer in a glass, tart and not too heavy, with an underlying sweetness that I didn’t find too cloying. I always like to include ice in my drinks because…well, it may be raining like the dickens for three weeks straight here, but I still love cold drinks. I’m very basic, I know.

This made my grey day a little more bright, and I hope it does for your grey days as well!