Gooey Caramel Upside Down Cake (Link)

I have recipes to post but seem to find it easier to post links at this stage of life. I hope to be more attendant to the recipes individually. I am making this one right now, using coconut milk in place of soy milk, and apricots in place of peaches (I have home canned ones, so it seemed a yummy alternative):

Gooey Caramel Upside Down Cake

Another great one for the books, it looks like. :)

Cheers!

~Miriam

Snickerdoodles (Link/replacements)

Oh my, I have so many recipes I need to post and there never seem to be enough hours in the day for all the things I need to do. In any case, this cookie is beyond. No. It's beyond beyond. The only things I did different to it was replaced their oil with 1/2 cup butter and 1/2 cup coconut oil, and then used 2 cups unbleached white and 1 cup whole what white. This recipe is the kind that disappears almost before you can finish it. SO good!

Food Allergy Mama's Snickerdoodle cookies

Cheers and happy cookie!

~Miriam

Pesto! (Link w/replacements)

This recipe is lifted from AllRecipes Vegan Pesto, with just a few small changes here. The garlic is excluded and in its place red pepper flakes are added to give it a little bite. This recipe may be modified after further experimentation, but my husband couldn't get enough of it. And he's not the one on the low sulfur diet. :)

2/3 Cup pine nuts

1/4 Cup walnuts

2/3 Cup olive oil

1/3 - 1/2 Cup nutritional yeast*

2 bunches of fresh basil leaves

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes or more to taste

salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Place the pine nuts and walnuts in a skillet over medium heat, and cook, stirring constantly, until lightly toasted.
2. Gradually mix the pine nuts, walnuts, olive oil, red pepper flakes, nutritional yeast, and basil in a food processor, and process until smooth. Season with salt and pepper.

* For those who are sensitive to glutamates, nutritional yeast breaks down into glutamates in the body. I found that once I lowered my sulfur/thiol intake, my other food sensitivities disappeared. But, please follow your own body and its preferences.

This is really good!

Mange,

~Mim

A Cream Replacement (Product Post)

Waha, thanks to a good friend of mine who found this and pointed it out to me, I think we low sulfurites now have a pretty effective and healthy full cream replacement. I'm dying to check out some of the recipes and modify and post them here. I can also think of a whole bunch of ways to use this kind of cream to make something truly delicious.

Coconut Cream Concentrate


Already got my first two bottles and am excited about cracking them open. Recipes to follow.

Cheers!
~~Miriam

Sunflower Seed Butter Cookies (Link/Replacements)

Taken from Food.com's Egg-Free Peanut Butter cookie recipe, the only replacement is sunflower seed butter for the peanut butter. This recipe is easy, fast and delicious. My 9 year old helped me bake and test this batch and it's been met with great approval. Note, this would be a great dough for a coconut milk homemade cookie dough ice cream recipe. Will try this when time allows and post it.

For ease, I'll copy it with the replacement here, too, and any small adjustments I made during our trial:

Sunflower Seed Butter Cookies

• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup sunflower seed butter
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 1/4 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Directions:

Prep Time: 5 mins

Total Time: 15 mins

1. Mix together sunflower seed butter, sugars, vanilla and butter until well blended.
2. Add all the rest of the ingredients, and beat well until totally combined.
3. Form dough into balls about 1/4-1/2 inch in size, and place on ungreased cookie sheet, mark top of balls with fork.
4. Bake in 375 degree oven for 7-9 min.
5. Remove from oven and let stand on sheet for 1-2 minutes, then transfer to wire rack, cool completely.
6. Store in air tight container.

Mange!
~Miriam

Foods and Products

Since soy is not an option for those of us on low sulfur diets, we are sometimes even more limited than a vegan diet in terms of making dishes with loads of dairy products and eggs. Finding suitable replacements for those has been a huge asset.

For dairy products, we largely use unsweetened coconut milk from Turtle Mountain. They also have yogurt and cultured coconut milk. Ice cream requires full fat coconut milk in cans. Make sure there are no thickeners or preservatives. You can use other nut milks, like almond milk, or rice milk. All varieties of milk should sour with about a Tablespoon of apple cider vinegar to 1-1/2 cups milk, which gives you "buttermilk," and some nice variations thereof.

Recommend for oils a mix of butter and coconut oil for flavor. Occasionally we still use canola oil, I would much prefer safflower, but alas, safflower isn't a GM crop and is less readily available. With oils there's really no limit, since oils never contain sulfur.

Egg replacers are varied and depend on what recipe you are using. For most baking, I have found using a lot of EnerG egg replacer is good (usually twice what is called for). For binders, ground flax seed soaked in warm water is excellent. Sometimes all that is needed is some extra starch, in which case, tapioca, potato, arrowroot or even corn starch will work fine. For moisture, applesauce or pearsauce is lovely in some cases. And combinations can be interesting. Tofu is out, alas.

Cheese is tough, but I have found vegan recipes that use ground nuts, pimentos or red bell peppers with nutritional yeast, a bit of water and a whole lot of grinding for cheesey sauce. For hard cheese, you use a similar mixture, but can add Agar Agar to it to harden it. No, it isn't cheese, for those of us who love cheese so dearly, the very thought activates our salivary glands, but it's a reminder of what cheese can mean, which is important, I think.

Which brings me to the question of whether or not nutritional yeast contains sulfur as yeast extract does. If it does, since I am sulfur sensitive, especially around chelation rounds, I have no trouble at all with it. Perhaps because I'm not using a lot of it. 1/4 cup can flavor 4-6 pounds of potatoes, so overall, the intake isn't that high. If it makes you uncomfortable, exclude it, and perhaps use a different overall seasoning. It does not seem to be responsible for raising my thiol level, which is pretty noticeable to me now after nearly two years of being on this diet.

And alas, it's hard to be without dark leafy greens and many of the vegetables that contain sulfur, but I have been exploring different ways of using varieties of lettuces, and it's surprising how versatile it can be. We also juice a lot of carrots and apples around here. And celery sticks with sunflower seed butter in them rock for a snack. Squash and sweet potatoes are enormously healthy and can be used in a diverse set of ways; eggplant is a girl's best friend when it's cooked properly; and cucumber is a great refreshing addition to all kinds of things and french artichoke is lovely with melted butter.

Suggest that you make your own chicken or beef or turkey stocks with carrots, celery and salt then strain and freeze them in pint size containers so you always have a sulfur-free variety of soup stock available to you. Obviously, contrary to common practice (even in the store bought brands) never use any onion or garlic of any sort in your stock.

Fruits are great, and most, with the exception of pineapple, are free of sulfur. There is nothing like a fruit crisp with warmed coconut milk poured over it on a cold day. Fruit offers so many options and so few limits.

Chocolate? Yes, sad. No chocolate. No coffee, either. This does not mean you must be deprived of amazing desserts, though. Some of the desserts here might be too sweet for stomachs having trouble with candida. Apologize to those out there for whom some might be too sweet. I will try to present a diversity of choices as this progresses.

For those with a hankering for some fudge, though, this might be your place. :)

Cheers!
~Miriam