Ahh The Sweet Cravings Have Begun..

I started of with a lot of excitement to try out alternatives to gluten and dairy but right now I AM CRAVING CHOCOLATE. Really bad.. and I can't have any. Sad face. Not until you cut out gluten and dairy completely do you realize how often you snack on sweet things -- well, in my case that is. Most candy contains artificial flavoring or preservatives and these both contain gluten. That is pretty much immediate elimination. And cakes, cookies, pastries are for sure out of the question. And chocolate. Oh chocolate... Well, I can have dark chocolate which I guess is something I should try. Fruit has been a great sweet satisfy-er though!

Currently my mouth is watering for peanut butter and chocolate. Aka: I want peanut butter chocolate brownies at this point. Meh. Or any cake for that matter. Just want to have a gluten fest.

I thought it would be a genius idea to look up baked goods to help with the cravings. Let me tell you: bad idea. It only made the cravings worse. All the food looked so good! If you are curious what I was looking at and made me feel that way -- go to this link. http://foodgawker.com/post/category/dessert/   It is pretty much dessert paradise.

I should really stop whining. Don't want to be that Debby downer -- especially when it is about food. Trying to avoid being one of those peeps. I guess I am not doing a good job at that right now.

I am anxious to try out some gluten and dairy free cake recipes! I have some chickpea recipes coming up that I want to try. Currently in the process of boiling dried chickpeas. Yes, that's right, I am making cake out of chickpeas. Lets see how this turns out!

Finding a Substitute for Soya Sauce

I am currently going four days without gluten and dairy. I have had some struggles. Especially when it comes to seeing your family snack on chocolate and cookies. It was also not fun when somebody brought cake to work. Yeah, definitely wanted to cheat and eat a piece.

Random side note -- who knew that lipstick contained gluten?! Big surprise. And apparently so does play dough? Cool.

One item that contains gluten that was most surprising to me is soya sauce. I read that a lot of soya sauce contains wheat that is mixed in with the soy. Therefore, I cannot have any stir fry with soya sauce, which is hard at home because all we eat every day for dinner is basically stir fry with soya sauce and rice. That also eliminates going to restaurants and hawker centers in Singapore since soya sauce is one of the main ingredients. Challenge time!

Yeah, I love my stir fry. And I love my soya sauce.

I am going to make it my goal to find a substitute for soya sauce that will add flavor to the stir fry dish. Today marked my first experiment.

Bell Pepper Stir Fry with Brown Rice

I am a big fan of Indian spices and lately have been experimenting with Indian cooking a bit -- back in the gluten days. Indian spices have a lot of flavor to them and currently my two favorite ones are ground cumin and coriander. These spices were the soya sauce alternatives of the day.

Capsicum / Bell Pepper Stir Fry [Soya Sauce -less]

Ingredients:

• 2 Capsicums / Bell Peppers (One Green and One Yellow) -- (Chopped)
• 1 medium onion (chopped)
• 2 tsp chopped garlic
• 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• salt to taste

The Raw Ingredients

1. Heat the oil in a pan on medium heat. Add garlic and onions and cook until onions begin to get soft (this will only take a few minutes).
2. Add the bell peppers to the pan and stir fry. Lower the heat and add in spices. Add in salt to taste. (The salt will bring out the flavour of the cumin and coriander so make sure that you add in enough salt to taste)
3. Turn of heat when the bell peppers are soft -- or still a little bit crunchy. It depends how you like them cooked! Serve with rice.

Stir Frying the Goodies!

The Finished Product

It turned out to look and taste very nice! I always love having a lot of colourful vegetables on my plate!

The Indian Spices ended up adding a lot of flavor to the dish and went really well the bell peppers. This is definitely a mix of spices I will try again.

I mark experiment one of finding the soya sauce substitute a SUCCES!!

Lunch Time!

I added some brown rice to it, put it in a lunch box and it will be ready to be taken to work!

This is so simple to make. I made it in the evening just before going to bed and it took me less than half an hour. Somehow, I feel very relaxed cooking in the evening, especially when trying out new foods and experimenting with things. This makes me look forward to not being able to eat food at work or at the canteen.

Good night! I have a lovely lunch to look forward to tomorrow :)

Taking on the Challenge of Making Red Lentil Hummus

Ah, this is kind of exciting. It is basically my first ever blog post with meaningful content. I guess that is up to you to decide whether it is meaningful or not..

The Finished Red Lentil Hummus

Usually hummus is made out of chickpeas but they often come from cans and those contain preservatives and preservatives often have gluten in them so I am not allowed to eat them. I really am a big fan of hummus so I started looking for alternative ways of making it. Apparently, making hummus from red lentils tastes very similar to chickpea hummus and there are no preservatives in a bag of lentils! I just realized that I could have also bought dried chickpeas (the natural form). Oh well, this brings excitement to the unknown of how it will taste. This recipe was inspired by a blogger called "Oh She Glows." It turned out to be very easy to make and not many ingredients are needed at all!

Soo.. here we go.

Red Lentil Hummus

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup uncooked red lentils
• 1 teaspoon minced fresh garlic
• 5 tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon tahini
• 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• Paprika powder for seasoning (optional)

The Ingredients

1. Wash the lentils until the water runs clear. Also check for pebbles because they are often found in between the lentils. In a medium sized pot, at the lentils to 1 1/4 cup of water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and continue to cook lentils for 10-15 minutes (until lentils are soft and water is absorbed). Stir the lentils often because they may stick to the pot. 

Cooking the Lentils

2. Put the minced garlic, cooked lentils, tahini, olive oil and lemon juice into a food processor and let it run until all the ingredients are smoothly blended.

Blending it all

3. Add in salt and paprika to season

The Veggies to Go With It!

The Finished Product

I am extremely happy how it turned out! It tastes great -- almost the same as chickpea hummus except for the texture varies a little. I was a bit concerned while cooking the lentils (because of the color and moisture) that I was doing something horribly wrong but you just need to cook the lentils long enough that most of the water content is gone and it will turn out great!

This will be my snack at work tomorrow! First recipe was a success. I am happy. The cooking and trying out new things really makes the gluten / dairy free diet a lot easier!

P.S. Taking pictures of food is way harder than I thought.

The Adventure Begins -- Day 2

Well, this officially marks the second day of having a gluten and dairy free diet. Surprisingly, it is kind of exciting to eat 'different' things. I never thought that gluten free pasta would actually taste nice -- thank you corn for your ability to be made into flour! But, it still does suck a lot not to be able to open the fridge and eat some cheese. Or the ability to munch on bread. Bye bye to my two favorite foods. I predict that cheese is going to be the more difficult one to replace. Vegan cheese just sounds ODD. Plus that would make me a betrayer towards cheese. I could never hurt its feelings. I am a cheese enthusiast after all -- maybe to a level of concern. I once read that Philadelphia had a rehab center for cheese addiction and always thought I would go there one day but having your body not allow you to eat it works too I guess. This is making me sound a little strange.

Anyways, the experience of no gluten and dairy is going pretty great so far. Consuming a lot of raw vegetables and rice crackers. Rice crackers are pretty much my new best friend. I had no idea how great of a snack they were. Yumm. Gluten free bread just tastes strange but in a weird way I kind of like it. It taste like salt with a bread texture. I am making it my first goal is to make some bomb gluten free bread. My second goal would be to find an effective source of calcium that I like. I am terrified of drinking milk. I don't think I have drunk milk since I was about 4 years old. I can't even get myself to eat cereal with milk because I just think it is THAT gross. It is kind of ironic because I love cheese that much. I have never tried any other milks -- soya, rice, almond -- so I am going to make it my goal to get myself to try these and like them. Yeah, definitely not ready yet to take on that challenge.

Well, this is enough rambling for one day. I will continue my adventures on this blog shortly and try to put up some recipes that I have tried out whether they taste good or bad.

Hasta la Vista!